236: Jules Kun on Crafting Your Personal Brand

Hey everybody, so this one is a podcast with my brand manager. So Jules Kuhn, she came on board with us about a year ago and she's been working with us to really build our social and our brand and specifically mine too. And I'm on this journey right now trying to figure out what my brand, what I wanted to represent moving forward here because a lot of what I've gotten done to get here is not what's going to get me there in a lot of ways and I'm trying to figure it out. So you'll hear me talk through a little bit of how brand can impact and how she looks at things from an individual level. But then I got a little selfish towards the end here and talked about my personal brand and my journey. So hopefully you enjoy it.

Thank you. What's popping y'all? It's your man, James. Say What Sales Buckley and this is your weekly Make It Happen Monday's episode with your host, John Barrows. Huge shout out to our partners, Sales Loft, Proposify, Chili Piper, Gong, Zoom Info, Vidyard and Salesforce Sales Cloud. These companies are great people to work with that truly care about elevating the sales profession. So be sure you check them out when you're building your sales stack. Let's give it to John to intro someone I just know you guys are going to love. Good afternoon, everybody. It's John Barrows. Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. I did, but it was a little bit of travel, but I had come home from a trip from Costa Rica, which was fantastic.

And so now I got to get back into the real world and I'm excited to get back into the real world with Jules Kuhn, who is actually our and my social media strategist here. So Jules, say hello to everybody. Give them a little background of where you're coming from. Hello. Hello. Yes, I am a JV sales social media strategist and let's see, have been working in social media for almost a decade now. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. We have been working with many different brands and let's see how I got started. Do we want to know? I want to know, like, so, and let's bring up Damon because your journey is really interesting one, but I am curious that, you know, social, I forget when I was really introduced to, or when social selling first really came out and personal branding came out.

I think it was more of an evolution, but what got you into it? Like what, what, what got you interested in this and what was your first move to get into this space? Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So I actually was working as a receptionist at a investment bank and they were not giving me anything to do. And I was sitting there and there was a thing that started called Twitter and I was just tweeting away and I was like, this is, I love food. And there are restaurants out there that I want free food from. And people were like, Oh, Twitter sucks. Like who, you know, it's just words, like whatever. And, and I saw this cool thing that if I tweeted to chefs and said that I was going there, I could then have meet them and they would send out free appetizers.

And I was like stopped in my like tracks. And I was like, this is powerful. There is something here that I want to be a part of. And I was like, I'm, I have to do this. And so I started making relationships with chefs and I was like, Hey, can I do your social media? Because I'm getting, there was a transaction, right? There was something there that all of a sudden it wasn't just this vague Twitter, social media. Oh, that's so weird. I don't get it. But I was benefiting from it. I was making relationships in real life. I was having friends and I've said, I want to be a part of this because this is going to get even bigger. Cause this was, you know, 10, 12 years ago from then. And from then I started working with chefs for their social media and then went to a PR hospitality firm.

And I reached out to them and they were like, what, what's happening here? How do you have, how have you been working with all of these people? You know? And I was like, because I began branding myself as, you know, a mini food influencer. And that's how it all began seeing the power of social media on my own. You said something interesting there, which was that you, you started building relationships, not just online, but in person. Do you think we've gotten away from that on social? Cause I, I, I think there's a social is one of those things where it is about a relationship, right? And sometimes, unfortunately it's a one way relationship, which I don't think is really what it should be. But with, with as noisy as it's gotten over the past 10 years, is it still about building relationships?

I think the good people, the people who rock on social media know that it's all about building a relationship. And that's where the success comes from because it's social media, not just media. And so when the virality comes from, you know, reaching out, you know, that's how Gary Vaynerchuk, how he crushed it, right? He, he, he always says how he thanked people for buying every, every bottle of wine. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You know, come back again soon. It was all about that authenticity. So have we lost it generally a hundred percent, right? It's all about like, you know, we were talking the other day, post, post, post, just get it out there. Noise inundation. Like that's BS. We're over it.

But the people who do win, it's about the connection and being like, Hey, I hope you had a good day. I saw someone the other day who she said her post, she couldn't believe it. She gained over, you know, like a 500 followers because she wrote like, I love you all and brought it all about the impact of being like, I love you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you for just caring about us and how are people actually doing rather than, you know, all on and on, you know, all about that, all the shitty stuff on social. So, so I want to come back to that, but talk to me about how you got introduced to Damon because, uh, you, you worked with Damon, um, for those of you know, you know, on shark tank, um, with his brand.

So I want to, I'm going to put this in context. How did you get engaged with him? And then where was he on his journey from a brand standpoint when you met up with him? Yeah, absolutely. So Damon shark tank was in season three, I believe. So it was still at the beginning. It had not reached the height of shark tank. And so they were looking for someone to come in hungry, ready to take his social media by storm. So it was completely, it was at the beginning. His, the head who's now the president, Ted Kingsbury was doing his social. And they literally were just like, Hey, someone, you're like, we need to hand this off. We can't do this. Damon was doing it. Ted was doing it. And so they, he, I saw Ted tweeted about it on a job.

He tweeted about it and said, Hey, I need someone to come work for an entrepreneur. And so it was a tweet. I didn't know. And I didn't know who it was. They said their headquarters, the food booth headquarters were at empire state building. And so I was like, okay, I don't know what this is. This sounds cool. And the rest is history. And so I applied, went to empire. I remember going the address and I was like, it's the empire state building. This is so cool. Um, and then going and meeting him and then they were, and then they loved how I had worked with so many personal, um, brands like the chefs, um, and working with the different restaurants. And I had been, had so much already in such a short amount of time had built so many, um, brands in that.

So they were like, yes, we want to work with you. And so then right away it was okay. The speed at which we had to move was so fast because shark tank was blowing up and we had to do Instagram. I remember Instagram at that time for Damon was moving, was the hardest. And I remember, and Damon was like, everyone else is moving faster. We, it was, why aren't we, why aren't we growing the numbers for everyone else? Gary, Grant Cardone, everyone else they're flying and we're not. And so it was literally every day was get on it, get on it, move faster. And so, and that all came down to branding. And, and so he had effectively enough, I mean, obviously FUBU and he was wildly popular with that, but his, what was his, what would you say his brand was when you met him and what is it now?

Yeah. So his brand then was FUBU. It was, and then his brand now is an entrepreneur in with small business owners. He is all about building other people up, right? That's what he is. That's what he does best. He like, my number one lesson that I learned from Damon was you fail fast and you pivot. And so, and that's what was fun working with him is because we got to constantly try new things that we were always, we would constantly be having new endeavors of like a t-shirt. We'd be selling t-shirt, we'd be selling t-shirts for three months. And then when we couldn't sell t-shirts, we're done with t-shirts, move on. Like what is, what are we selling next? We were always selling something. And, but rather than other people saying, okay, we're going to keep going and keep going.

He's like, no, fail fast, move. And then another thing is also, rather than being threatened by people, like threatened by other entrepreneurs in the space, leverage them and work together, right? That's the competition, like Grant Cardone, use them in his books. That's what another thing, like he, in power of broke, we had to, we were using, we had power of broke and rise and grind. So rising grind was his first New York times bestseller and no shark had been on the New York times bestseller. So that was our immediate goal was we need to get in the New York times bestseller. And so for a year, we worked on that project. It was a huge campaign launch. And to do that, we had our strategy of a slow rollout working with influencers and also our own community.

So just coming back to, um, about that authentic experience, talking about talking to people and making people involved in the process. We did a whole, the thing that made rise and grind so special is right at the beginning, we asked people, what should the title be? We gave them options. What should the cover photo be? We gave them options, pick, be a part of the process, take them on the journey with you rather than saying, here it is by the book. Bye. Peace out. Best of luck. Well, and I think that's the, I think that's what people, a lot of people miss is that they care, people care way more about the journey than they do about the outcome, right? Uh, too many people post about the outcome.

Like, Oh, look at this big thing that I got, you know, this big house, this big, right? I, people are way more curious about the journey to that, right? And the failures and the fail fasts and those examples. So, so for let's, let's, let's step back to those, cause I, we work with a lot of kids who, you know, are, can see the value. They hear about social selling, they hear about brand and they know it's important, but yet they're getting, you know, yelled at every day to make their 50 dials. They hit their numbers and all this other stuff. And, and because social and brand, um, for the most part is more of a long-term play than a short-term play. I mean, yes, you can find somebody online and tweet them and retweet them.

And all of a sudden something happens. But for the most part, personal brand building is a much longer journey. And, and there's no short-term satisfaction from it. Actually, it's, it's a lot of short-term dissatisfaction because you get stressed out about, oh, I only got two likes. I only got, you know, one comment or something like that. So it's, it's almost a negative when you start. How do you suggest, I'm going to, I'm going to go from people who don't have brands to people who do, but how do you suggest kids right now with as noisy as it is out there, starting their journey on, on building their personal brand? What are some hacks or some things? And I don't want to say hacks, but what are some things that they can do or how they should be thinking about it before they jump into this world?

Or should they just jump in? Yeah, no, I love that. One, utilize your own strengths. If you are, if you're a video person, use video. If you're a writer, use, start writing some newsletters, right? It's all about being your authentic self in the space. And then two, like if we're talking right direct on social media, use what's hot and what is actually going to give you organic reach. And so it is like, we're not being like futuristic and being like, oh, what's down the pipeline? But like the, I'm an analytics data person. And so like looking at that. So right now I would say, go on TikTok because TikTok yesterday was just released. TikTok outperformed for average views for time spent on the platform.

It outperformed YouTube for the first time. That is massive. And people, 35% said they spent less time on TV and they said they were happier because of it. Like that fact that that, that they went to that and they were a happier person from it is massive. So, and because prices are only going to on TikTok advertising in three years are going to be huge, just like on Instagram, just like from Facebook, you know, but this is the time to jump in and say, let me start creating video content and having fun with it. And because the, you're going to have a great reach for that. And so that's what, that would be the first step I would do. So, so how do you balance that though with like, and I think we got to get to your why, like, why are you doing this?

And what, you know, what about you and your core values? But, you know, then there's the balance of the personal and the professional, right? Which is, I think TikTok is, you know, like I struggle with TikTok for instance, because, you know, I think about it and, and, you know, we'll, we talk about this or we'll talk about this more is, you know, I have a perception of TikTok of doing some dumb little fucking dance and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I got my daughter with me and we're putting on things, right? You know, so, but I'm a, but I'm a business professional. I don't want to make myself, you know, yeah, I have fun. Don't get me wrong. But there's two sides of a brand, right? There's your personal and your professional.

And the more you can meld those, the better off you're going to be, because you don't want to be two different people, obviously. But how do you balance that, like the, the, the mentality of like LinkedIn, for instance, it, that's, that's very clear. I mean, yes, some people are getting creative and doing some fun stuff on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is a very business to business. I'm going to, you know, thought leadership stuff, right? You get into Instagram, you get into Facebook, you get into TikTok and you start really blend. That's more personal that people are moving towards the business. So now I'm a kid, I want my journey. I like TikTok. I'm on these things, but you know, what do I do? Like, what do I, do I pick a lane?

Do I, and you said, do what you're passionate about, right? But, but what if that has nothing to do with my business? So I just focus on my brand or should I focus on my brand as it relates to what I do? Absolutely. So, so, I mean, so many questions there. So, so much to unpack. So one thing I'm all about having at least having one third be your content that is, it doesn't have to be sales related. So say if you love kayaking, have that one third be, make TikTok kayaking videos or make kayaking reels, right? And so you can be the kayaking sales guy because there are, I mean, John, like there's so many salespeople out there. Okay. And so like, what differentiates you in the space? Okay. And so when a client is saying, oh, I really want to work with John, he's cool, you know, searches him what comes up, but all these kayaking videos that showcase his personality.

And it's like, wow, he, that is so interesting and really pulls me in and makes it something different than everything else that they've seen, that they see, you know, with Joe and Bill and blah, you know, et cetera. And so all of a sudden now they're like, I want to work with John. It gives a different viewpoint. So that's something to think about, right? It's also like your audience, like, you know, I used to, when I started on the social, I would use a tool like Buffer, right? And I would write one thing and I would send it out on all the platforms, they could act same way. And then I was paying attention to Gary and Gary was like, you know, you don't do that. People go to different platforms for different reasons, right?

They go to, they go to, you know, effectively Instagram for like window shopping stuff. They go to Twitter for getting an arguments, they go for, you know, they, they, right. And so, so you can't, you can say have a similar message, but you have to repurpose it in a way that fits that platform. And so when you're thinking about, you know, all the platforms that are out there and, and the audiences and stuff, should you think about the audience you are going, you want to attract or should you think about it more yourself of what you want to do? See what I'm saying there? Because, because I think if you look at the, if you look at the audience, I want to attract, like let's go B2B selling, right?

We have our ideal customer profile. I know where they live, you know, all this other stuff. So that's why LinkedIn is where I do the majority of my stuff. Cause that's my audience. But, but I, that was like organic for me. I kind of just, I was super early adopter on LinkedIn. I'm like, shit, there's business here. So I kind of grew up with LinkedIn. Right. But now with all these platforms here and yes, there's new ones coming out. It's, it's like, where do I start? You know, do I start with where I want to, where I want to build an audience? Because I think I'll get the biggest benefit from that or the biggest reach, or do I start with what's my why and why do I want to do this? Therefore, what platform is going to support my why the most?

And therefore the people will come. I think both, honestly, because it doesn't have to be, we always think of everything. It has to be this or that. And I think it's an, and I think for LinkedIn, I think we definitely 100%, we need to start off with why, why am I here? And what do I have to say? That's number one, because we have to be your authentic self. That's a hundred percent. If you are, you, you, and you are the supreme person of this. If we are trying to be someone else in this space, if we're going to put, you know, all the, you know, look at me rocking it out and showcasing some BS and all of that stuff, you are not going to win because it is not who you are. And just like if any sales rep is because it'll last, it'll last for about, you know, a couple months here and there, but it has, the person has to be authentic to them.

If they are funny, be funny. And if they're not funny, don't try because nothing is worse than when they're like, I'm so funny. Look, I'm doing a meme. And it's like, no, you're really not. Stop. Like, please, please stop. I tell that to kids all the time in sales. Cause a lot of kids ask like, Hey, should I incorporate humor into my sales pitch or my presentation? I go, are you funny? I don't know. Like if you're not funny, don't try because nothing is worse than a, you know, throwing a joke out there and it not landing. So focus more on what you're good at. Don't try to be, you know, don't try to get the laugh because it could actually backfire on you in more ways than one. Yeah. One hundred percent.

It's, and it's so sad because you're like, Oh God, that is not, that is not good. Just stop. Focus on if you are, if you are a data person, give us sale, give us data and sales, right? Nerd that up and own it because that's cool because other people aren't doing that. And then it gives us a unique thing, like giving us videos on LinkedIn about like the power of numbers. That's cool because you're saying, you know, every other day or once a week or three times a week, all of these numbers. I mean, like, do you see how Coca-Cola and Pepsi and like all of soda sales or did it like that's unique, right? Because I wasn't thinking of numbers and how they're connected like that. All of a sudden we have something.

So I'd say approaching it like that of what you are best at and then finding, you know, right now the best, the two best platforms for organic reach right now are TikTok and LinkedIn. Following that, if you are say like, oh, I love Instagram, diving deep into Reels. Reels right now are because since Instagram, as we know, Instagram wants to be TikTok, they give a fuller reach to if you utilize their Reel format. So it's just smarter to incorporate like between say, use a photo and then use a Reel. Use a photo and go every other to use their, you know, machine in that way. And how do you keep, I mean, you're, this is your world, right? How, how do you, I mean, so many people don't know the algorithms or what works and what doesn't.

So how, you know, one of the things that I wish Instagram did, and Gary talked about this a couple of years back, which they did the experiment of taking away the likes, right? So that people would actually create authentic content because the challenge was, you know, and he used this example of, you know, if you're a woman, you know, you could be doing some really cool, very thought provoking stuff and you, you know, put something out there that you're an expert at, but it gets you, you know, a hundred likes and whatever it is. And then you show your boobs and all of a sudden 8 billion people. So it's just like, oh fuck, I might as well just show my boobs. Cause that's the easiest way for me to get to the next level.

Right? So he, what his point is, and I agree with this, is that, you know, we reward a lot of bad behavior, we reward a lot of, so it's, so it's like very enticing to go the cheap route, if you will, then the authentic, let me build this the right way route. So I guess, you know, on that end too, you know, how do you, how do you balance that? How do you balance popularity with, with content? Uh, and should you be, should you be paying attention to the algorithms and trying to work the system and, and, and knowing which, you know, what each platform wants from you and, or should you just put out content that you love and believe in and see what happens? One, putting out content that you love to consistency, consistency, because people, you know, it is the game of, oh, I, I did a video once a week and I'm not getting anything.

And it's like, yeah, you're not, yeah, you're not, you're not, you're not going to get anything. I mean, because the thing is, there are, it's content creators out there who are posting, you know, once every day or up to right now, Instagram algorithm is seven to 10 times optimized a week. And so their content is going to be fed more to the, to their followers. Um, and so you need to start doing that. And so being creative, um, just like we said, there is so much content out there. And so you can't keep hitting the wall. If you keep hitting the wall, you're going, you're going to keep hitting the wall. You have to be trying different things to say like, what looking at the data, what does my audience like, what are they engaging with?

Is it all baseball stuff? Is it all sales stuff? Like what kind of sales stuff can I get? How can I change this format for them to, um, enjoy? And also I'm, I'm like a huge fan of trying series, you know, giving same format, different content to see how they digest because we are people, natures of habit. And so we don't want to, so many people like to read, like reinvent the wheel every time. And then by scrolling, people are competing with like, you're competing with cute dogs, cute babies, people on vacation. And so why should I, when I'm scrolling, why should I stop on your video or on your picture? Why we always think, you know, we get a little entitled of, well, how do I not have a thousand likes?

How do I not have a thousand views? And it's like, yeah, but why should I give you my 10 seconds of time or 30 seconds or one minute? What are you either educating me, inspiring me, motivating me? What am I benefiting? And when you think of it like that, it's like, oh gosh, I'm actually stopping someone's time. You know, there, I was seeing a, you know, an Instagram poll the other day and it said, what's more valuable time or money? And everyone's like time, you know, time's massive. So it's like, I just gave a whole minute of my time to watch your video. That was literally, who knows? I don't even know what happened. I didn't even understand it. And you're complaining that you didn't get the views.

So it comes back to format. If I know the format and I'm like, oh, John's at his desk or John's walking on the sidewalk. This is when he's getting his sales tips. I get that. Oh, I'm looking for the latest sales tips, or this is his ask me anything right now because he's walking. I'm going to clue in now and I'm going to listen because I want that content. So that makes sense to me. All right, y'all. I can speak firsthand about Jules's value in brand building. Her story about getting into Twitter and getting in contact with chefs was legit. That's how you get on the radar, yo. Social is 100% about brand building, but it's also about relationships. And Jules truly understands what's happening on the human side of social.

All right, y'all. The bomb went off and JBSales is a better membership than ever. We have now added weekly AMA, ask me anything sessions to the mix. So become a member today at joinjbsales.com. Investing in yourself is the best step that you can take to becoming the skilled sales professional that you deserve to be. We are positive that when you bring your A game, you can't be stopped. Let's send it back to JB and Jules to keep talking social and brand. Now I'm going to be selfish. How do you look at my brand and what do you see? Where do you think I can take it? And I mean that John Barrow's brand as it's associated with JB Sales, right? Because that's the challenge that I've gone on this journey of.

I never wanted to be... Like when I went off on my own, the last thing I wanted to be was JB Sales, right? Because I always thought, hey, it's about the customer. It's not about me. You know, people don't believe this, but I'm not an extrovert. I'm more of an introvert. I put myself in extroverted situations because I know that I need to do that in order to do what I want to do and make the impact that I... And have the impact that I want to have. So I went kicking and screaming into this. And Chris, our chief growth officer, he's the one who said, dude, if you're getting in this space, you got to do it. You got to brand yourself, right? It's 50% you. It's a 50% of the content go. So I like kicking and screaming went with jbarrows.com, right?

And then put my big ugly mug on the website and all that shit. And then we got the business to a good spot. And then we shifted to JB Sales because I started bringing on other brands like Morgan and James and all these others. So I purposely took a step back, right? To see if we could put... To get me not to be the product in a lot of ways, right? But now that we've done that and we've made that transition to JB Sales, and it's not just about John Barrows coming and doing his thing. I'm in this weird spot, right? Because I'm trying to figure out what my brand is. Chris and I talk about this a lot where I kind of grew up in this space being known for super tactical shit. You know what I mean?

Like everybody else is talking sales about these big picture, like big long processes. I'm like, fuck that. Here's how to send an email. Here's what to say on a phone. And people are like, oh my God, I love those tactics, right? And so that's kind of what's gotten me to a certain point. But I don't want to be known as the tactic guy anymore, right? I'm a 45-year-old man. I'm a CEO of a company here. And I'm trying to figure out where I can take this to have the biggest impact that I want to have an impact, if you will, and use the voice that I have, use the reach that I have. So how do you look at somebody like me and assess what the potential is, I guess, and what the plan is? Well, my question, because you just said, I don't want to be known as the tactical guy.

What do you want to be known for? So, you know, I've been thinking about this and my friend Doug Landis, we were actually out to dinner the other night and I'm talking about, you know, instead of like, here's an example, like training. I've trained for 10 years, okay? And I still love training, but I can do training in my sleep. It's not challenging for me anymore. And I've always had this limiting mindset or this kind of, you know, imposter syndrome of shit, you know, is it like, do I really deserve a seat at that table? And every time I get at that table, I'm like, yeah, I deserve a seat at this fucking table. All these people are a fucking joke. You know what I mean? Like, Jesus, why do I have this?

So I guess one of the things is he, Doug and I were talking about this, which is I wrote this blog post a long time ago called Stop Doing What You're Supposed to Do. Right. And it was my whole thing of, of we, most of us in life do what we're supposed to do. And there was two points in my life that I was woken up. One was when my fiance, my first fiance broke up with me. Right. But I was, I had, I had met her in college, freshman year, seven years later, moved her to Boston with me. She had no money. I was her everything. Right. And I knew the relationship wasn't good. I knew it wasn't good, but what do you do after you're with somebody for seven years? Right. You get married and then you buy a house and then you have a kid.

And because you're supposed to do all those things. I was literally going to go through with the wedding because I felt guilty of not doing it, even though I knew it was wrong. Now she broke it off with me and thank God she did. Okay. Fast forward, uh, Staples buys my little company. Um, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a worker, right? I, I'm going like, and, and, and I knew it was wrong. I knew I wasn't the right fit to do this transition, but I fought it anyways. They fired me. Right. And I woke up and, and, and it was this thing of like, shit, like I was doing what I was supposed to do. I was, I was supposed to get a job. I'm supposed to get promoted. I'm supposed to do this. You're checking off. Exactly.

And I think so many people in this world are doing what they're supposed to do. And I, and my hope is, is, is being able to get people to realize that maybe we should rethink what you're supposed to do. And, and, and instead do what you want to do. Right. And, and so representing question, maybe questioning the status quos, questioning why you do things the way that you're like, that's what I want to, to get people to think about. I don't have the answers. I know I don't. I'm on the journey to find mine. Um, and I want other people to, I don't want, I, I think I can add a good amount of value for people who are trying to figure it out for themselves. And so that's, you know, long story short, that would, that's where I'm thinking my why is these days, as opposed to the tactical, the training, it's more of the, how should we really be thinking about things moving forward?

How should you think about your real career? How should you think about your, your growth trajectory as a business and those types of things and stop doing what everybody else is telling you should, you should do and realizing what maybe you should do based on what you want to do and your why. So that's kind of long-winded answer to the question of where I think, uh, I can have a bigger impact, but I just, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Yeah. So then I, I mean, then creating those videos, breaking all of that, that, that incredible insights for that information to your Instagram, right? Reels 30 seconds of thoughts of the day of, have you asked yourself, have you asked yourself this, you know, um, are you doing this in your career?

Are you happy about this? And you give three questions, you know, being there as a leader for all sales. And it's not tactical, but it's exactly of everything you just mentioned about, are you actually, are you just checking life's life's list off and making us actually think about, you know, or, you know, even if when you're not, do you think yourself as a failure, right? Like, are you not married by now? Have you not reached the, the, you know, are you still stuck in the SDR role? Like, where are you? And so playing that too, like how to also stay motivated. I think that motivation is key and adding and through that it's video in short, short format in the 30 seconds and being consistent by doing it, you know, I would say having in a simple way of having four videos a week.

And then on Mondays, having a regular, like right now you do ask me any things, but it needs to be every Monday you do and ask me, we know John's going to do an ask me anything on Monday. So I have to get my questions. It has to be a regular once a week. So I get ready. And I know rather than, Oh, when is it? And then also having the community for them to connect. So like, say once a month or every other week, let them, let others socialize within your community. Hey, do you, are you guys, here's a meetup together. That's something to them, you know, to think about. Yeah. Cause I, you know, it's always been frustrating to me that, you know, the people who are the loudest obviously get the, get the most exposure, but it's not that they're the highest quality by any stretch of the imagination.

So usually they're the most shallow in a lot of ways, but they play to the masses, right? They, they, they, they are, they're controversial just to be controversial because they know controversy lights it up. You know what I mean? And, and I just, I've always struggled with, and we had talked about this on the prep. I've always struggled with, um, you know, asking myself the question, like, do you need to be a fucking raging asshole to be uber popular? Right. I mean, I think I'm, I won't name names, but there are plenty of people out there that are like, I mean, a billion times more popular in every way, shape and form, but they're, but they're just, uh, you know, and, and you look at them and you're like, why, why is that person so popular?

Um, because their content isn't strong. Their opinions are a joke there, you know, and they're, they're, they're just doing things to do them, but they're way more popular than the people that I look at and are like, wow, that person is, is quality shit over there. Right. That person is putting out stuff, but they have a 1000th of a following than this person does. So what's the difference? What's the difference between that person who has really quality shit, right? And even digestible quality shit. I'm not talking to you have to read a novel here to learn this quality shit. I mean, like puts out really good stuff, but just doesn't have the traction that some guy who fucking, you know, farts on a fucking phone and laughs in front of somebody's face.

Like what's the difference? I mean, there can be so many differences via, you know, his, he's related to someone super famous and, you know, I mean, they can come down to that. Another is leveraging your community. That's another huge thing, you know, with you, I would say who, who are other entrepreneurs who have, you have not connected with yet in Instagram that you can start doing a live Q and a, like right now, live streaming is massive and only going to get bigger because like TikTok is doing live streaming. Instagram does live and that because you, they're doing it via like, kind of like, um, live HSN, live HSN Q, you know, and doing me like, you can buy this shirt here now. That's what in the trajectory of social media is where it's all headed.

And so taking advantage of, because you go live and then someone else goes live, they all see your followers and it's using that reach to grow your fan base. So growing saying, you know, you want, um, John Smith's followers doing a talk on Instagram live because they're already there. And so they're like, Oh, John, that's what, I mean, that's another way to leverage your followers and to say, okay, now let's go from here. And because that's what I always noticed about your saying, you know, like the assholes, the people who are huge is they leverage other people who are other assholes, right? They do because they're always, and they're doing a video with each other, like two lifestyle bloggers who have 5 million followers.

They're doing it together because you, as a team, you're stronger. If you just do it by yourself, you are only going to keep hitting the wall. You have to do your 5 million, 5 million together or 5,000, 5,000 together, because that's how content gets seen. Otherwise, again, it's just you and it's like bumper cars. You just keep showing the same content to your same 5,000 followers. And it's like, you have to otherwise go into another group of 5,000 followers to increase it, right? That's what it's about. So it's like, how do I increase that bubble? And that's, that's how you do it. So, I mean, cause I had tried to do that, you know, getting, it's funny, uh, you know, as I was building mine, yeah, there were people that I was trying to tie to that were more popular than me.

And now that I'm kind of where I am, a lot of people try to, you know, for, you know, simple examples, like bring me on their podcast because then they want my audience to, to listen to their podcast, um, and, and increase their viewership. Um, but I think that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's challenging. I mean, I, I always come back to like, there's only so much time in a day, right? To do your job, to do this, to have these AMAs. I mean, there was a point where our team, I mean, the funny thing is, is our podcast that you're, that we're on right now, this was a by-product of me being annoyed. This was literally a by-product of me being annoyed because I was doing, I was doing Facebook live when Facebook live first came out.

And that was my AMA. Cause I was, everybody was asking me questions. Hey John, can I, you know, tip, I'm like, I can't answer every one of them here. So fuck it. I'm going to do an AMA. It's going to be Mondays, make it happen Mondays. And it was live on Facebook, but it was, it was before Facebook could, you know, it was, you only could do it on your phone. And it was like, and I remember I was doing that. I was doing Instagram, I was doing Snapchat and you know, this kid, Lucas, who was working with us for a while, he goes, he goes, oh, we got to do a podcast. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? I'm like, this is just such a nightmare. I'm like, just whatever. Take the recording that I'm doing here on Facebook and just rip the audio and throw it on.

And all of a sudden that exploded because there was no real sales podcast going on at that time. It was like, there was business podcasts. It was entrepreneur podcasts, but it was like, but it came out of my just disdain for doing all of this shit. And yet I still have a fucking job. You know what I mean? I got to generate revenue and I know that that exposure helps with generating revenue, but there is also something, and this is where I'm putting my hat on as far as a SDR right now is being asked to do $50 a day and a hundred cadences and all that other stuff. It's like, when the fuck time do I have to do this strategy as far as all these different platforms and come up with my thought process and schedule things on a weekly basis?

Like, it just seems like a lot. How do you boil it down into like a starter pack? Yeah, I know. Absolutely. So starter pack, pick a platform. Like what you just said, that's a lot. That's, it's impossible. You have your full-time job. You can't do that. So starter pack, pick a platform and say, pick a day. You know, every Sunday I'm going to spend an hour and a half for social media or what feeds if I want to do a newsletter, do a newsletter. And then I'm going to do, I'm going to start with three to four posts a week, three to four reels a week, three to four TikTok videos a week. And then focus on that. You have to start small and then go from there. And that's, that to me is how I would begin.

Um, and then what kind of content, and then you can schedule it out, pick something like later for Instagram, something like sprout social for LinkedIn, schedule it. And so it's taken care of for the week and you're done rather than, Oh God, I have to post or God, I have to send that newsletter out. And then for like a newsletter, if you have a, you can start off, it doesn't have to be weekly. You could start off just as a touch point, a monthly newsletter and you're fine. That would be, you know, amazing. So that, that would be the go-to. Got it. And, and, you know, obviously the engagement with the audience and stuff, you said you're a data nerd, right? Um, I'm not, uh, I, I, I, and that's a, that's a negative for me, right?

Because I, I, I could have made a lot better decisions along the path if I, if, if I could look at the data and make decisions based on that data. Um, what's the balance on that? Like how much, what, what should you be looking at? Should you be looking at likes, follows? Should you be looking at engagement, um, reach? Like where, where, what metrics do you pay the most attention to as it relates to, um, what you're trying, well, I guess it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, right? But what are the metrics that you, you think are most important to pay attention to, to make the adjustments based on what your audience is saying? Absolutely. So we want to definitely do like the smart goals rather than, oh, I just want, I want to grow a hundred followers.

No, set your KPIs of, I want to, you know, the good goal. I want to grow by 10% of followers, um, in 90 days, you know, that actually sets the something. Um, and, but the number one thing would be engagement because that is telling us what your audience is presently actually caring about because you're not going to actually grow any followers. If your present audience doesn't care about your posts. So it doesn't even matter. So, but don't ever, number one thing, don't ever buy followers ever because that will only screw you in the longterm because they're all from, you know, India and they're all going to just, you know, hurt you. And every month you're just going to lose five more, 50 more, a hundred more and so on.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the, you know, when I first got into this game, you know, I remember so many companies came out and say, or, you know, these consultants says, Hey, John, give us your Twitter handle and Twitter handle. I'll get you 3000, you know, 30,000 followers in a month. And I'm like, why the fuck do I want 30,000 random ass people follow me on Twitter? I'm like, I don't, I have no interest in that, but it also goes to the, you know, when you're looking at the engagement piece, you know, I, two things come up, uh, Howard Stern, right. I remember the movie where they said, you know, the average listener listens, you know, the average listener who likes Howard Stern listens this long.

The average listener who hates Howard Stern actually listens longer. And, and then there's the, you know, Henry Ford quote of, if I listened to my audience, I would have built a faster horse, right. As opposed to building the car. So there's that balance of listening to your audience about what they're looking for. But sometimes what they're looking for points you in the direction of, I got to show my boobs again because they're, that's what they want. So, so I guess the listening versus leading versus what you're passionate about is where so many people get lost. I think, cause I want an authentic voice, but my authentic voice isn't getting the exposure that is. If I do this dumb shit that my audience is, is reacting to one way or the other positive or negative, I'm getting fucking blown up over here.

And it's, I think it's just a, it's a frustrating, you know, process to go through here to figure out what is working for the right reasons that supports your why. 100%. So your top posts, that is a great point. Your top posts, what I always see, what's funny. It's making me think I visually see the top posts. So your two top posts are always going to be something that are absolutely, are not totally relevant to, are going to be the boobs are going to be number one. Any client, what I always work with is it's always a, I always, instead of boobs, I always think of the burger, the burger. If you post a picture of a burger, I have had the best content in the entire world. And then when someone posts a burger, the burger always wins.

People love it. It always wins. And so it'll literally be of being like, okay, we did a campaign with blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it's like, nope, the burger won. And so, yes, you nailed it, John. It's so true. So you look at that. And so you have those, I call them, it's the candy shareable content. And so it's always going to be there and it gives people, and it's fun still, right? You have that good stuff. And then the third, fourth, and fifth, that content tells you more of the deep dive of what is winning. What are people actually sticking around for, for your content? It's not the first and second, it's the third, fourth, and fifth. And going from there to actually say, what are my audience, what are they engaging with?

And what am I actually enjoying to post? That gives you more of a, of a good surround 360 post, you know, strategy rather than those first two, for sure. It's almost, it's almost like you could think of like something creative, not, you know, not that's not you, but something creative that, that would almost be a lead magnet for people to come in and get your real content. 100%. And because it also helps, it helps your, I mean, we were talking about like, we don't want to feed the machine, but it also helps in a way to, you know, virality is cool. Right. And I mean, the thing is like with social media, it's the good thing, but also the thing I love about social media and I hate about social media because you get a post that kicks ass and gets, you know, a hundred thousand views, gets a million.

And it's always, it's the next day. Okay. What's next. Right. That's literally like, Oh crap. Like it doesn't stop. And so you keep going and it's for the people, it's for the people who are, Oh, have a growth mindset and always want to learn and always want to better themselves. And that's personally why, I mean, I get emotional about it because I think that's why I connect with people who I love, who enjoy social media and that aspect, because it's for people who always don't want to stop growing. And I think that's amazing because when I had, was working with a lot of interns in it shark group at Damon John's company, and they would do a post and I would say, what else? How can we make that better?

And they'd be like, but we did a post like that last week and it performed fine. And I was like, yeah, we did that last week. What can we do now? And that to me is what's amazing about social media is the bar every day. It grows and how, what can we do next? And I think the challenge is how do you stay slightly ahead of that bar as opposed to being, because once it's adopted by the masses, it's adopted by the masses. It's not, it's not unique anymore. Right. So the, the, the cutting through the noise is, is really hard. But I think the, the one thing is, is the probably leave everybody here with is, is that consistency. Right. I mean, it's taken me a long time. You know, I got, I don't know, whatever, 350,000 followers on LinkedIn.

That was a slugfest. That's taken me 10 years. Right. I, and, and Instagram right now is a straight up slugfest for me. You know what I mean? I've been stuck, you know, 5,000, 5,500, you know, just, but there's, then there is a viral point, right. That I'm looking for, but it, but it comes down to a strategy and consistency. And right now I don't really have a strategy or any consistency. You know, I've smoked some weed on fucking Instagram and, you know, I'll post a couple of things here and there and whatever, but there's no like structure to it. There's no, all right, for Mondays, it's going to be AMAs. There's no, all right, I'm going to do four of these reels based on this topic. All right.

I'm going to structure it this way. So the audience knows what to expect. Right. And I think that's a big part of it. So awesome. Well, Jules, I'm looking forward to, uh, keeping, uh, keeping on this journey with you and, and helping and having you help educate me on, on trying to, trying to do this without losing, um, without losing what got me here and what, what, without losing the authenticity. Cause I don't give a, I'd rather get off of social media altogether, uh, than get a bunch of, you know, um, exposure for the wrong reasons. Let's put it that way. Uh, so no, thank you so much for having me. This is awesome. I loved it. Yeah, of course. So Jules, um, I mean, I know you're working with us for the most part.

Any, any, anything you want the audience to know about you or where to go or how to follow or anything like that on your side? Uh, I'm just at Instagram. You can just look me up Jules, um, J U L E S S S S S S S S. Nice. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for Jules for coming on. And like I said, I'm looking forward to our next meeting. I want to sit down and really, you know, talk through that strategy and kind of where my head's at here by the end of the year. Um, cause my, my whole goal is to really give myself some time back between now and the end of the year. Um, so that next year my training, uh, is very, very small, but I have, so I have a lot more time to be more thoughtful with getting a, having a bigger voice, if you will, and, and hopefully having a bigger, bigger impact with that.

So I love that. Awesome. Everybody. Well, hopefully, uh, hopefully you're documenting your journey out there. Um, if you're not, uh, I'll give you one piece of advice, which is if you just had one person follow you and, and change their perspective on things or, or appreciate what you did, then it's worth it. Right. And just like I say, at the end of all my podcasts to, you know, no matter how bad of a day you had, go home and make somebody smile. Right. Cause if you make somebody smile, you had a good day period. And the world needs a lot more of that. So thank you all for listening. And I will see you on the other side. Cheers. All right, y'all. That's a wrap. As always, we encourage you to become a JV sales member and gain access to the JV sales team.

Our training, our courses, tips, webinars, and replays are all available for you at on demand.jbarrows.com. Follow us on Instagram for daily sales techniques and tactics at JV sales training, all one word. And we'll catch up with you on the gram. Have a great week. Everybody get out there and serve those clients, catch up with those prospects. Be sure that you are asking the right questions, doing the right things and serving people to the best of your ability. Get out there and make somebody smile today. It'll make your day and theirs. We'll see you next week when we bring you another stellar guest to help you sell better. Make it happen, everybody.