Amanda Bagley: The Journey from Teaching Abroad to Sales to Owning Your Brand

It's important sometimes that you really have to check in because before you know it, five years are gone of your life and you're like, I'm visible and I'm never going to get that time back. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And this was a fantastic conversation with my good friend, Amanda Bagley. Amanda, she is currently the founding AE of a company called Audience Plus that's doing some really cool stuff. But Amanda and I met back in 2018 and she tells some cool stories about how when she first met me and how she's just, you know, this is surreal for her to be on this podcast, but, you know, she's got so much value to add and she's had such an incredible journey.

You know, so we went back to all the way from where she started from and how she has such unique backgrounds and not doing what she's supposed to do. That was a bit of a theme here. You know, we all go through in life and a lot of us do what we're quote unquote supposed to do. Amanda didn't early age and she's been charting her own path ever since. And so we talked about, you know, just again, her background and a lot of the personal things that happened to her and me along the way. And then we ultimately got into, you know, brands and the importance of building your brand because that's what audience plus is all about right now. It's, it's about, you know, using own media, if you will, to really build your business and in a unique way with everything that's going on.

So, you know, the creator economy, she talked about finding her why. And I don't know. I think this is just, we went all over the place, but I really enjoyed this conversation. And if you're listening, this might be one of those, hopefully that reaches somebody that makes a difference. Cause we talked about the importance of telling your story and the impact they're going to have. And I hope there's somebody out there listening to this one that it makes an impact for. And, and you get to pick up your head and realize that you can do this. So hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Amanda Bagley, welcome to the make it happen Monday podcast. How are you? I'm good. How are you, John?

I'm doing fantastic. I am excited for this conversation. It was great to see you a couple of weeks ago at the, uh, the event. So I was glad we reconnected and thanks for inviting me by the way. That was nice. Of course. Of course. It was really awesome to have you at golden hour. Yeah. So for everybody who doesn't know, I was, if you were following me on social, you probably knew I was over at the golden hour. This was when I was in New York with Morgan. Uh, and then Amanda reached out and said, Hey, we're having this cool event golden hour. And, uh, I was wondering if you could show up. I was like, absolutely. So needless to say, but we've known each other for how long, Amanda? I mean, it depends.

Like I've been a fan. How long have I known of you eight years? You don't know this or no, I've told you this many times, but your YouTube videos taught me as a little baby BDR, how to cold call. But we didn't meet for the first time until flip my funnel in Boston. I won a ticket through Jay Barrow sales training. You literally just put on Facebook. I think it was like, whoever comments first on this post gets a free ticket to flip my funnel. So I was the only person that commented and I had to wait for Lucas to like, get back to me to send me the ticket. But it was cool because, um, the company that I worked for at the time call rail, they paid for my flight and everything to go out there, which was really cool.

And yeah, I met you and Trish and in the photo, it looks like I'm meeting Jay-Z and Beyonce. I was so excited. Uh, but, but yeah, so I guess that was 2018. So anyway, long time fan, long time listener, first time guest on Make It Happen Monday, which is so awesome. Yeah. And I love it because this is, you know, it's about the journey, right? I mean, I think that's, it's funny that you say that, you know, 2018, which wasn't really that long ago, you know, Facebook, nobody's commenting on my shit. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm personally, I, you know, and I had been in the game for a while or at that point. And, uh, and it's funny how platforms and we're going to talk about a lot of what we're going to talk about today is, is your audience, right?

Like owning your audience and, and those types of things. And I think, you know, a lot of learning lessons along the way for me, uh, where I didn't own my audience for quite a while, which is why I think, you know, engagement was tough. And now I'm quite frankly, trying to rebuild all that. But before we get into all that, Amanda, as I always ask all the guests here, talk to me about your origin story and not just your work origin story. Anybody can look at that on LinkedIn, but talk to me about where you were born, your kid, your parents, where you came from. Cause I always want to know where did that little sales bug come from and what scratched that itch for you. So talk to us where you came from and what you learned along the way.

Okay. So you want my life story because it's literally my favorite story. And I've managed to not condense it down, but I can bring you through it very quickly. I'm going to interrupt you along the way, by the way, just to edge up, I might interrupt you because I might be curious about something. So don't mind if I, if I interrupt. Okay, cool. So I was born in Salt Lake city, Utah. Um, we didn't stay out there for too long. My dad actually worked in tech. So getting into where my itch came, not just for working in technology, but also in sales specifically. I spent half my childhood in Long Island, New York, uh, was there until I was about eight years old. And then we moved down to Southwest Florida.

I grew up on the beautiful islands and beaches off the coast of Fort Myers, uh, was there until I guess high school. After I graduated, I went to FSU for a little while. And, uh, then I talked my parents into letting me do an exchange program in Germany where it was no pair. Yeah. Or it was no pair for a wealthy German family. And I ended up meeting someone, uh, uh, during that time, came back to Fort Myers. We were kind of like, you trained English in German, right? Like you. Okay. So that was later. This was when I first went out there. That's where you got back there. When I was first went out there, I was 19, did the exchange program, met my boyfriend at the time, and then ended up moving back there.

Well, it started as a visit, John. I was like, okay, I'm going to go visit my boyfriend in Germany. And then I decided to stay. So it was like, we were hitting the, the 90 day mark for just having a tourist visa. And it was like, I don't want to leave. We were like 22 and 23. It wasn't like our families are not going to like support us to get married for me to stay. But I was like, okay, well, what can I do? I could teach English, right? I called a couple of schools. And the second one I called was this company called Berlitz. And they're this huge language center. There's, they're all over the world. And the guy was like, oh, you live near Halbron, which is where I lived like the Southwest of Germany.

And I was like, yeah, how soon can you start? Literally. So I go in and I, I knock out the interview. Never. Yeah. Yeah. I knock out the interview because also as we'll get through this conversation and you know me and what makes somebody a strong salesperson is I can talk to people and I can get people to talk, which is really important when you're teaching a language. And yeah, before I knew it, I was applying for my visa and my workers permit and going through the Berlitz training. And then the programs were actually teaching business professionals. So I wasn't teaching kids how to speak English. It was, they were sending me to the largest companies all throughout Germany to teach English to their employees.

So that was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. And so I did that for about four years. We split, I kind of threw all probably good, uh, thoughts to the wind as they say, like, and was just like, you know what, I'm going to get rid of all my things and I'm going to move to Spain. And I had one friend in Madrid and I thought I could do the same thing there, right? Just show up, get a job, apply for a visa. It didn't work out like that, but I did end up getting connected with this amazing family. And she was just like, yo, if you want to pick up my kids from school, give them their snack, only speak German to them because that was a big thing. These Spanish families want their children to speak German because they have better, uh, job opportunities.

So you can come stay with us and travel with us. And I just basically blew through savings, but it was actually an incredible time. And again, getting, being a big thing about me is I love finding families everywhere I go. And I obviously have a great family myself, but, uh, they kind of brought me in and I'm still in touch with them today. Unfortunately, my dad got sick. So I dropped everything, moved back to the States. My family was living on this little Island off the coast of Georgia called Tybee Island. It's near Savannah. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's my favorite place in the world. And I've had the incredible opportunity to visit some really great places, but Tybee Island is where my compass always points.

And, um, unfortunately my dad passed away from cancer and I ended up moving to Atlanta, which is where I got into this whole SAS sales thing and started at a Martech scale up called CallRail. And then, uh, kind of got the itch to want to go into earlier stage startups. So after about a year and a half, there getting my feet wet, just learning about sales and software and everything, I ended up actually Piper, which is a bit more of my claim to fame in this early, early startup sales world. I was the first BDR actually Piper and ended up staying with them through four years going from bootstrap to series B I five X to a E team. And now I'm at audience plus and I'm doing it all over again. So I am the first sales rep here as we hand things over from founder led sales.

Um, actually moved to Phoenix from Nashville for the rule. And we're having a lot of fun building something meaningful. We've kind of turned the typical go-to-market strategy on its head and we're trying to inspire an entire industry to do the same thing. I love it. I love it. Let me back up for a second. Cause your degree was in mass media and communications, right? I mean, that's what I studied. So, so with, so you do have to a certain degree with what you're doing as far as communities and that, you know, that type of thing, there is a little bit of, but when, why did you choose that as your major? Cause this is, and the reason I'm asking is because I still think it's absurd that we ask 18 year old kids to determine what they want to be for the rest of their lives.

So did you go to school at Florida state and like, were you like, Oh yeah, this is definitely what I want to do. Or were you like, I have no fucking idea what I want to do. And I, I'm like, I don't know. This one seems good. Is that like, how did that decision happen? That's a great question, Dawn. Well, it was 2006, which I know people are going to be shocked. There's no way she was in college in 2006. Yes, it was 2006. And this is pre-social media. So I had a, I had a MySpace, Facebook had just kicked off. So there was no concept of even a social media marketing manager or anything like that. To be honest, I wanted to be a photojournalist. So that was what I wanted to do. And you can imagine what a photojournalist is like today.

Anyone's a photojournalist. If you have a phone and social media. Uh, so that, that's what I wanted to do when I chose that major. But then when you graduated, was it pretty evident that you did like from a job standpoint or was that just, you said, fuck it, I'm going to Germany. I just feel like going to Germany. Like, I'm curious, like a lot of kids do the traditional thing. They get their degree and then they get their school and they're like, fuck this sucks. And then they get into sales. Yeah. But what did you do? Like when you graduate or you said you went for a few years, right? Did you, did you go? Yeah, I, I, uh, I didn't, I decided, uh, sophomore year that it wasn't for me. I think part of it was also the, the place I was at FSU at the time.

It just, I mean, let's be honest, it's like 90% Greek life. I didn't, I didn't make the cut for the cool sorority. So I just didn't do it. And, uh, all my friends were, I mean, when you're 19 years old, you're also trying to figure out who you are. And I had the incredible privilege of being able to go to Europe a couple of summers and my French teacher in high school. So it's so inspired. I always knew I wanted to live out there. So when I proposed to my parents that I wanted to take a gap year from school, I was like, I could do this exchange program. And I just went out there and I didn't end up coming back. I love it. I think that's because it's for me now, my daughter at 13, right? Uh, you're going, we're putting her into a, uh, private school.

She's been in private school, but we're putting into private high school and which is ridiculous here in Massachusetts. The price is ridiculous. I mean, it's like college, right? But I keep justifying it about, I'd rather spend for high school and get her exposed to all sorts of cool shit in high school. Because quite frankly, I don't know what college is going to look like in four years and I don't want to go. I don't want to spend two, three, $400,000 for her to figure it out. I'd rather write her a check for a hundred G's coming out of high school and say, go start five companies and see what happens. And then maybe determine if you want to go back to college after that. Yeah. So that, that was really it.

By the time I'd came back to the States, excuse me, I was gone for like five years total. So most of my twenties, by the time I came back to the States, it was, it was, do I, do I go back to school? What do I want to do? I've, I've, I can speak two languages now. I've built up all these skills. I've learned so much about different industries because when you're teaching English too, one of the examples was, uh, I would go to this little German town outside of Stuttgart and teach English to a bunch of people who are making the aircraft seating for huge airlines. And there was a really specific parts of the seats and different expressions that they would need to know how to say in English. So I'm learning a bunch of things about all these different industries because I'm teaching professionals how to speak about it in English.

So it was like, by the time I got back and, and with entry-level sales, jobs, it's like, you're going to be an inbound STR and you're 28. We're not going to contact FSU to see you have a diploma. And it didn't matter. Right. Cause I got, and that's the thing with sales. And when I was hiring AEs, I was always, I didn't care if you had a degree. I literally didn't tell me your, your experience. I was always looking for people who had worked in the service industry. And that never really mattered whether or not you are maybe tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, student loan debt, whether or not you can, you can do the job. So yeah, I just kind of by coincidence, it just didn't make sense for me to go back.

Honestly, I've learned so much more on the job than I think any, any school would have taught me. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGVT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done.

And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, I think an MBA is where you might get an education because that's where you're choosing, you know, you've got, hopefully you've gone out into the real world. You're like, holy shit. But now I know what I don't know. I want to go learn that. Whereas college, you're just going through the motions. And that's why I'm so encouraged right now to see a lot of the huge organizations, you know, stop with the degrees and wherever you're from. I remember when I first trained, I vividly remember this.

I was trained in Dropbox. And, you know, you know me, like I, when I train live, right, I try to connect with the crowd. I usually get a few chuckles, laughs, whatever it is, based on experience and stories and self-deprecating shit. And I remember vividly, I'm training this group at Dropbox and there was, I mean, I was getting nothing back, like dead silence. Like they were all just looking at me and like taking notes. And I'm like, this is fucking weird. And I, and I remember during the break, I was like, I met with the VP and I was like, hey, he's like, how's things going? I'm like, I don't know, man. I'll be honest. For the first time in my career, I think I'm bombing up there. I'm like, I don't think I'm connecting with this crew at all.

He was like, really? He's like, I've gotten some really good feedback from, you know, from just some of the reps here. They're loving it so far. I was like, huh? And then I asked him, I go, hold on a second. I go, what's your profile for hiring? And he goes, oh, well, we hire from the best schools. We hire, we hire the smartest kids from the best schools. I'm like, ah, that's it. I'm like, I'm a stage school kid, a stage school kid who drank my way through four years of fucking college here. You've got a bunch of nerds in here and no, no disrespect to nerd, right? But you've got a bunch of nerds in here and you're trying to teach them sales. I'm like, that's not, I'm like, this isn't a sustainable model.

Like they're, they're actually too smart. They're thinking about it too much. You want the grinder. You want the service-based kid. You want the kid who went to a state school, graduated with like a two, five, three something, maybe if they did. Had some fun, right? Had some crazy stuff. Worked their way through college. Mommy and daddy didn't pay for it. That's the grinder. That's who you want. You don't want the smart kid to teach them how to sell because they think too hard about it. And sales is science and art. But if you think too hard about it, it'll never work. So I thought that's why I love the transition we're seeing now at least, but it's still too many companies I think still put too much weight on that shit.

Yeah. And, and for me, at least I was thinking about my experience. I mean, I spent four years and I had to get a room of German executives sometimes excited about learning English after a 12 hour work day. Like I was putting on a whole show, John, I had to make it super entertaining. And, um, I figured if I can do that, certainly I can get people excited about software and I've had a lot of success. So I think that also laid the foundation for why I'm so great at skit at, at sales. Well, the two kind of intro roles you had as far as building, right? So you were the first SDR chili Piper and now you're the first AE, um, with what you do now. And so, um, let's, let's start with the chili pepper, chili pepper one, as far as that first SDR role, right?

Cause that is, I think there's, there's some companies, you know, are mature and you can kind of plug into a system and there's training, there's enablement and there's all that stuff. And I, I usually recommend kids who don't know what the hell they're doing. Go to a bigger company that has some structure to it so that they can train you and you can go through a process. And then two years after learning the ropes, if you will, and having somebody else pay the bills, then you can maybe go off and do some startup shit if you don't know yet. But for you, first of all, what attracted you to, to that role in the first place is being the first of that role. And then how'd you approach it? Well, I will, to that end of, of the, the point you just made, that was, that was call rail for me starting out there inbound SDR, going into outbound SDR.

I learned the ropes, how to use Salesforce, which isn't that hard, but still it's something that you don't want to be the founding BDR somewhere trying to figure out how to use those systems. So what attracted me, I'll first start with the company. I had known a couple of guys already. They're, I think, hires four and five, Scott and Gaines, who I'd actually met at one of Morgan's first events in Atlanta at the Terminus headquarters. And so I was aware of the company. I was friends with them and also just aware of the brand and also how useful the tool is. It was kind of like, oh, this is just a calendaring tool. And that's not true at all. If you've ever been in inbound SDR and had to constantly follow up with people who have submitted a demo request, you know, the pain that Chili Piper solves.

So that was something that was really important to me is that I knew that there was value in this platform. And I thought the brand was really cool. I had followed Nicholas, the co-founder for a while. And now Alina has done an amazing job with building her own brand. And I just thought it would be a cool place to work. They'd also just come off of a team trip. One of the earlier team trips, they all went to Paris. I was like, that is so cool. You guys all went to Paris. Like, that's so exciting. And they reached out and I'm like, hey, we're building out the BDR org officially. Everything had just been pretty much full cycle. And what's going on with you at CallRail? Why haven't they bumped you up to AE?

And there was a bunch of different reasons there. The main one was, I was doing so well as an outbound SDR. They're kind of like, we're going to keep her in seat and build out the team over here. So I was like, all right. And also, Chili Piper was one of the first companies to have a remote work before COVID, right? It was always a completely remote team. And that also was interesting for me because I was like, well, I can move wherever I want. And so I applied. Gaines made it clear, don't come in as a referral for me. Just go in. And I'm really grateful that I got the role. Honestly, John, it was an incredible ride and everything. But to go in and be the first, there was a strong value proposition.

So I wasn't having to figure out whether or not we had product market fit. Already a super strong brand. And there were some systems in place, but opportunity for optimization. But I will say in my interview for that role, Nicholas was really honest. He was like, I see a closer in you. So why don't you get in, do the BDR role. And when you perform, we'll get you into the account executive role. And he kept his word. Three months later, I was in the AE role. And that's where I truly fell in love with the art of the clothes. So I think it's also... I mean, talk more about startup sales and what attracts me is I couldn't be a cog in a wheel. When you're at a more structured organization that it's grown and everything like that, you can expect things like a sales methodology that you have to use.

And for me, I would just feel so constricted. I want to be able to have influence on processes and feel like I can provide feedback and have an impact. And there's no better place to have that opportunity than at a startup. But it does come with a lot of risk and challenges as well. Yeah. And I think there's DNA. That's why I kind of like the origin story is the way that comes from. Cause I think certain people, and I've learned to realize this, you know, it's like I, you know, A, B and C players, right? As far as I was like, why isn't everybody a fucking A player? Like early in my career, I'm like, fucking A player. Come on, what's wrong with you? Right? You realize if the world was filled with A players, we would rip each other apart.

Like you need B and C players. You need people who are those cogs in those wheels because otherwise the wheels don't run and, and you need the, the, the pushers, but then you need the doers and the people that get shit done. And I think where, where I, you know, when I was at Xerox, I just, even though sales was like, yes, like finally, like, you know, produce and the harder I work, the more I get paid. It still didn't feel right for what you exactly said, which was like, I knew that no matter how good I was, no matter how much I sold, that Xerox's stock wasn't going to move a fucking penny. And so it was really just about me. I was just there to make as much money as I possibly could, which don't get me wrong.

Fine with that at the time, but I just, it just didn't feel right. And then when I got into startups, I was like, Oh, well, okay. Now like everything I do is directly impacting the success of this business. And that's where I got, I got hooked on this and I said, all right, I get, this is where I got to be. So, and again, not that there's anything wrong with being the cog in the wheel. No, there's nothing wrong with being a cog. I want to make sure everyone knows if that's where you're comfortable, do that. But if you want to be somewhere where you can, you can thrive in discomfort. And, and for me to be maybe a little bit more personal is I don't have any dependents. I don't have any children.

I, and that was one of the things when Anthony said, Hey, it's really important to me to build the early revenue team on site here in Phoenix. I was like, send it all my leases up in Nashville. I don't have any children. I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have a mortgage. I don't even have a car because I don't need one. And someone who I don't really, I don't really pay any mind to what their opinion is of me. But someone said, you said that on a job interview, like those aren't necessarily good things. Then I get all kind of insecure. Oh yeah, that's right. As a 35 year old woman, I haven't met these different life milestones that you're supposed to have met by the time you get to my age. But for me, it makes me the perfect fit to be able to, to jump onto a startup and be able to take those risks.

Yeah. I remember I wrote a blog post a long time ago called stop doing what you're supposed to do. Yeah. Everybody does with like, you know, you're supposed to go to college. You're supposed to get a job. You're supposed to get married. You're supposed to buy a house. You're supposed to have 2.5 children. And when you realize, when you wake up and you realize, wait a minute, I don't want to, I don't want to do what I'm supposed to. I want to do what the fuck I want to do. Yeah. And that's a liberating, like it sounds like you, you, sounds like you hit that way earlier in your life, in your career than I did, because it took me a little while. Like I, I went to college cause I was supposed to, and I'm an East coaster, right?

So like Boston, Northeast, like we're traditionalists. It's like, you know, get your job, earn it, get a promotion, do your thing, right? Startups back then, that was for those weirdos out in California. There there's literally like when I graduated college in 98 startup entrepreneurship was for straight up weirdos in California. Like that was crazy. And so when I got kind of hooked on it, I was like, Oh my God, like, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And all this other shit, what am I fucking like when I say supposed to be like, this is what I want to do. That's what you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about, uh, good. I will say one more thing to that. It it's taken me a couple times in, in my life to reevaluate and remind myself of, of what I want.

It's not just this kind of linear thing for people where they're like, but it's important sometimes that you really have to check in because before you know it, five years are gone of your life and you're like, I'm visible and I'm never going to get that time back. So I've had to do check-ins even more recently. I really feel like I've had like a total renaissance of, I don't know, renaissance, just a new, it's kind of like a new version of my life where I had gotten out of a relationship that was toxic. It really, I was not happy. And then once I was out, it was, it's almost like a universe unlock every time you, you get out of something and it was all the things I kind of, you would have wanted, but the universe was never going to put it in front of you, no matter how hard you worked towards that.

So it's always this universal unlock when you decide to make these decisions and choose yourself. And, and then you can start actually realizing or really ignoring what they say society expects of you. And as a 35 year old woman, all my friends have children. All of them are married. Well, not all of them. A lot of my friends have children and are married. And some of them even secretly are like, I'm really jealous of your life. Like I made this decision too early on and I see you running around doing all this cool stuff. So, but there's no feeling of validation in that at all. I've, I've attended a lot of weddings and been like, I don't think this is going to happen for me, but that that's okay.

Well, and sometimes you make the choice and sometimes the choice is made for you in some cases, right? Like for me, I'll give you an example. My first, so go back to what I was supposed to do. I got, so I'm definitely somebody who needs to be kind of, I don't say tied down, but like in a relationship because I'm an absolute train wreck by myself. Right. So, so my freshman year train wreck and I met this girl and, and seven years later, I'm still with her. And she was on the dance team at Maryland. She didn't have any money. I moved her to Boston. Everything. I was her everything. Right. And I knew to your point, it wasn't a good relationship. It was toxic and it wasn't toxic. Like we always are fighting.

It just wasn't right. And I knew it in my gut. And, but I was doing what I was supposed to do. Cause what do you do after you're with somebody for seven years? You're supposed to get married. You're supposed to have kids. You're supposed to buy a house. So even though I knew to my core that this was wrong, I, I, I asked her to marry me and I was going through it and thank fucking God she broke it up with me. Like she dumped me, not on the altar, but she basically dumped me close to the altar. And I was devastated for like two days, like two days. I was like, Oh my God, my world. Cause I was, you know, cause you're supposed to be devastated. Yeah. I used to buy it. I'm sure. Yeah. I get it. And I'm like, Oh my God.

But then and I vividly remember this, I just woke up one day and I, and it was like the weight of the world was off of my shoulders. And I felt like I could finally breathe for, for the first time in a long time. And I was like, Oh shit. Yeah. And then I got, I got, I was working and I was a little stressed out about that. And I remember sitting with my buddy and I was like, man, I got to get the fuck out of here. And he's like, what? It's like, I don't know. I just want to, I think I want to go travel Europe. Um, because I'd never been to Europe, but I've never even been across the United States here. Cause I was the typical American, you know, never left my whole town type of shit. And I'm like, but I feel like going across countries, like you want to do that with a partner, but I don't know anybody who could just quit their job for three or four weeks and travel cross country with me.

And he was sitting there next to me at the bar and he was, at the time he was like a musician and he was doing some side job stuff. And he was like, well, I can do it, but I don't have any money. And I did the quick calculation in my head. I was like, well, it's not going to actually cost me much more to have you with me. So I'm like, if you, um, if, if I paid for you, would you come with me? And he's like, fuck yeah. So I was like, grab your shit. And he's like, what? And I was like, grab your shit. And we drove to his house. We packed his shit, put it in the trunk, drove to my house, packed my shit, put it in the trunk and fucking drove out West. And it was like, and I came back from that a completely new person.

Like I really did. I mean, my values and everything were still the same, but my whole perspective on life was completely different. Yeah. That's awesome. So I was just got to send it. And when you find, when you have someone to do it with you also, even splitting when you're not married is you've been together with someone for a while and you've got shared assets, you've got a dog, all those things. Like, it's almost like that was the thing that was like holding me there for so long. And then I was once it was two days of, oh my gosh, I missed this dog. This was never your dog. This dog, you are a distant smell. This dog will live without you. You can't put 12 years of your life into something that you're unhappy in because there's this animal.

I don't know. I was getting a little too deep, but splitting assets. That was, yeah. One of the things where that's what was keeping me is we're fighting over IT furniture and who's going to take over the car loan on this car that I never wanted, right? So once I was just like, you know what, have everything. Just, you know, I'm done. I'm choosing myself. And that universe unlocked. Now I was doing more traveling. Things were just happening. Whereas for once I was feeling like I was getting something out of all the work I was putting into my life and my career. It's, you know, and it's very similar personally, professionally. I know so many people that stick with their companies for, for things like healthcare because the company's paying for their healthcare.

And I'm like, that's the reason you're stuck in this miserable job. I'm like, have you, have you Googled something, you know, about like, Hey, private healthcare? Like, have you looked, have you found what that number is? Because again, I remember when I got fired the first time, like when Basho slid us, you know, cut us all, all our throats and kicked, actually, no, my first time I got fired was, was Staples. And, and I, like my first instinct was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? I don't have healthcare. And I'm at the end of the day, I'm like, when was the last time I was with the fucking doctor? You know what I mean? I can pick up healthcare for like $400 a month. And I, you know what I mean?

We're at McDonald's for getting help. Like, I don't, what am I, why am I, why is that tying me down? And I think again, it's this traditionalist mindset of job, healthcare, family, everything else that I think we're watching fall apart right now for good and bad reasons in a lot of ways. Um, I do, I'm curious, like your standpoint on like structure, right? Cause a lot of the societal norms provide structure and you're, you're actually, you and I are 10 years apart, right? So we're more 13 years apart. Damn it. Um, but, um, but there's a, there was like millennials were, I saw this one time cause I was like, Hey, stop doing what you're supposed to do. It goes back to that. And it was like, you know, you do whatever the fuck you want to do.

But I saw a post from a, from a millennial who said, yeah, everybody says, do what you want to do. But you as a Gen Xer and as a boomers and those types of things, there was actually comfort in the fact that you knew what, yes, you didn't, could do, couldn't do whatever you wanted to do, but there was a path for you to follow. So there was comfort in going to college, getting a job, having healthcare, cause you didn't really have to think about it too much. It was like, okay, yeah, that's the next step. Whereas now you can do whatever the fuck you want to do. And what the kid's point was, was I don't know what to do. Like I don't have direction. So for you, how's that balance of like having a structure and a comfort level of knowing kind of what's to come and what you're supposed to do versus just being like, fuck it.

I don't know. And I'm going to figure this out. Sure. You know what you guys also didn't have. And even for myself, like I'm kind of, on the middle of the spectrum, middle of the spectrum as a millennial is you didn't have this window into the entire world in your pocket. You didn't, you didn't know how people were living in different places. You didn't even know what really like real wealth looked like, unless you had a friend whose, whose dad did really well. So I think that's also part of it. You, you can see it. And I think also it's same thing with relationships. I mean, it's terrifying to me to think you at any point in time, I could be having a conversation with someone and they could also be having conversations with 30 other people all over the world.

And so I think that's part of it. It's like, I, I don't know what to do because there's so many things to do, but you are not limited to your community, immediate, like your immediate community where you live or where you grew up. Now you can see all these different things you can do. You can see these entrepreneurs like flashing their money, telling you how to be like them and everything. So I think that's part of it. We all hear about the why, right? Like sign and cynic, like find your why, right? Right. I was, I was all in on that because, you know, when my dad passed, I was like, fuck, I got to reset on this stuff. I got to reset on my core values. And that really helps me. But I was a 45 year old man, right?

Talk to me about your, like, A, have you gone through the why exercise? And do you know yours? And B, when? And C, do you think you would have been able to do that in your twenties? All right. A, yes, I've gone through the why exercise. And the, when I did it for real was when unfortunately I was part of a reduction in force at Chili Piper. I just had to get back to, to my why, because for the longest time it was a startup that I really put my lifeblood into. And where I made the best friends in my life and had these incredible experience and learned some really, really great skills that I'm able to apply where I am today and wherever I'll be in the future. So there is that exercise of going through my values, right?

What am I here to do? But I also, I went to Costa Rica and did a yoga retreat, which is a little more woo woo for me, but it was still in Costa Rica, by the way. I just bought a house in Costa Rica. So woo woo anything, come on over and have it. Yeah, I'm there. But we did a Temezcal ceremony. So like a sweat lodge. And that was wild. Like that, that. So then I came away from that. What is my why? Almost like on a more spiritual level, or, you know, with the impact I want to have on the world. And it came back to my name. So my first name, Amanda means the girl that must be loved. And then Lucy means light. So I thought, okay, I was put on this planet to bring beloved light. And I try and I think about that every day.

Whenever I wonder whether or not I'm bringing value to a situation, or even if I'm just in an Uber, Uber, and I'm like, I want to try and make this Uber driver laugh, you know, and then by the end of the ride, if I am successful, hopefully I've brought beloved light to, to their, their day. So, so, so would I have gone through that exercise in my twenties? Absolutely not. I, I just had no, I did not have the experience. I haven't had, hadn't had the heartbreak, the tragedy. I mean, you know, losing your dad, I lost my dad when I was 27 and I, and he worked in, in tech and startups specifically at selling barcode reader technology. So really like pioneering shit. And he was a weekend dad. He was gone a lot.

So it was almost like when I, when I lost him, it's like, I wasn't around for most of my twenties. I didn't get to hang out with my dad as, as a young adult. And then I got into tech about a month after he passed. And it was almost like, did I have to lose him to feel this confidence or to have this opportunity to follow in his footsteps and carry on the legacy? So, so yeah, using my dad, losing my dad, if I hadn't had that experience, I don't think I would have really thought too much about my why, because at the end of the day, you can always look to your parents because they brought you into this world. So that's why you're here. You hear all this noise about the why and all this other stuff.

And I gotta be honest, like, I thank God I didn't start to like, that didn't become a real thing until I was mature enough to understand it. And you had experience, you had experienced life. I don't need some, someone who's young telling me about their why you haven't experienced anything. I almost feel like you earn, you have to earn the right. I agree. Well, and also I don't want to stress about that in my twenties. You know what I mean? Like, what's my purpose? Your purpose is to go out and fucking have fun and do a bunch of shit and try a bunch of stuff out and see what it works. And then you eventually kind of get into that. All right, I got, you know, now I know what I'm good at. You know what I mean?

And when I know what I'm good at, then I can, I can go find that passion. I can apply it. And then I can really understand what the why truly means. But I wish there was a caveat on Simon Sinek's book that said, look, don't read this sucker until you're 35 or something like that, whatever the number is. Right, right. Just don't read this book too early because you're not ready. You have to experience this much heartbreak and tragedy and failures before you can read this book. Yeah. I mean, I think it's all about, it's just like, you know, you know, I love, you know, every kid coming out who wants to be a, you know, a motivational speaker. It's like an 18 years old. It's like, what the fuck have you gone through that you can have experience to motivate me on something?

Or I, and I hate this because I, you know, kids are great, but you see these kids are like these five-year-old kids being like, you could do it, get it up and drive it. And I'm like, shut up, shut up. I'm sorry, kid. Like, just stop it. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. You're just reading something. You heard somebody online and you have zero perspective to motivate me because there's nothing to pull from. There's not like, there's no heartache there. Right. There's no, there's no struggle there that you can then, oh, well, because if you could tell me a story of how you motivated yourself to, to get to a certain level, I'm all in. I'll listen to that all day long, but don't tell me to get out of bed and do your thing at 10.

We're not inviting 10 year olds on the make it happen Monday podcast. Okay. Now let's talk about this. Cause I've been super into, um, what you're doing now, which is the, you know, media in general, right? The creator economy and, and this whole shift in brand and personal brands versus corporate brands and everything else. And what's your, I guess, what's your overview of where we sit right now with individuals, right? And, and their, their own brands and how they should think of them, because I want to parlay this into, you know, owning your audience and those type and all the social channels that we're doing and building brands and everything else. And I'm curious, your perspective on, on how important personal brand is right now with the advent of AI and everything else that's going on right now.

I think in, in terms of creators in general, and it it's become the most powerful form of demand generation for, I know we talk about in individuals, but also in this world of B2B SaaS, there's been influencers, B2C, D2C worlds. They've been doing it for years and typically B2B is for marketing is about five to seven years behind. So we're, we're catching up and it's here. The importance of having a personal brand right now, specifically for a salesperson is one when people buy from people. And I know we're always saying that, like there's that, that emotional connection when somebody feels like they know you. That's why I'm very grateful for having this sick studio where I can just get on LinkedIn and film whatever videos, be myself.

And then when people talk to me, they feel like they already know me. And, and there is that kind of emotional attachment there as well. Cause they're like, I want to buy from someone I like, and you have a very likable persona and brands. And, and that's part of it. I'm going to pause you there for a second. Do you believe that people buy from people they like or people they trust? Ooh, Oh man, you got me there. I mean, it's gotta be both, right? People they trust as well. No, that's not necessary. Right. I could buy from someone I don't like. So you got somebody who you really like or somebody that you really trust, but you don't like them. They're kind of a douche, but you trust them because they, they follow through and they're really good versus somebody you like that maybe falls through on a bunch of shit and whatever it is.

And you know, the friends I'm talking about. It depends on what they're selling. All right. See, I'm all in on trust. I think obviously there's gotta be like, you can't be a total douche. Right. But I would 10 times over buys from somebody I trust. And it gets to, do I trust them online? Do I trust? Are they authentic? Are they the person that I believe like? So you in this frame that we're looking at right now, when I meet you in real life, are you that same person or are you somebody different? Because if you're somebody different, I lose trust immediately. Or if you've got an AI version of you that dupes me, I lose trust immediately. But if I meet you and you're the same person and I, and I trust that I, I feel a much deeper connection to you than Amanda's really cool person that I think she's cool.

I think I am, I am, I am authentically myself, whether I'm here or in person to the point where it's something that I think about John, because we were back to golden hour. It was like you fell into your LinkedIn feed there. Right. So I had this kind of concern that, oh, are people going to think I'm the same person as I am when I'm here in the studio? I didn't have to worry about that because I am. But going back to, okay, we're talking about authenticity, trust, and liking or having an affinity for someone. I think you can, as now, if we go back as a salesperson, you can leverage all three of them, right? Now, being able to show that someone can trust you comes from being knowledgeable on the subject matter.

Or if you're selling a platform, being able to answer all of their questions, and then also being super honest when you don't know something. So I think as a salesperson, and I know what's made me successful is having a combination of all those things, being a likable person, people have described me as charismatic, being trustworthy, knowledgeable, and also authentic. And to the point where I've had to remind myself to be unapologetically authentic, because sometimes, and you know this, Sean, we're not going to be for everyone. And that, in my experience, has been something tough to accept because it goes back to my name. I'm the girl that must be loved. How can you not like me? So do you still get caught up on your...

So this is one of those things where I just still struggle with this to this day. Like you get all these likes and these comments and whatever it is on your post. And then there's that one fucking like, like super negative or whatever dig. And unfortunately, I don't know about you, but that's the one I focus on. I'm like, what the... And I try to convince that person. And I have to remind myself constantly, like, stop it, John. That's just one person's opinion. You got 99 other people saying that was awesome, great, you know, that sort of thing. So do you still get caught up in the negative stuff that you see out there? The negative stuff that I see out there happening to other people, I admit, I look at it.

It's always an engagement play. Like, let's be honest. We know there's people on the feed that I know, that you know, that their entire charter is to say something controversial, to call out someone who has a brilliant idea and tell them it's stupid in so many ways. So but that's just a ploy to get engagement, which in a way, if you think about it, is kind of kind of pathetic. And they have to live with themselves knowing that that is their ploy at trying to capture an audience. I've actually been... Oh, I say this. Like, I've been actually... I don't want to say lucky at all, but I haven't had any mean trolls or anything yet. Or at least I haven't seen them yet. But I do know that people have said things behind closed doors.

But then you go back to, okay, what people have to say about you has more to say about them than it does about you. But still, you're going to zero in on it and try and understand, is it... Well, should I change this? Or... But that goes back to just people are assholes. So... But yeah, you're going to... But everyone else who is watching, the audience is going to look at the person who is saying something negative or whatever, being an asshole. And that's all engagement. And that's why sometimes... Not sometimes. I've watched... I follow this girl on Instagram and she talks about leverage the trolls. If you want to grow your audience and you have trolls, whatever they're trolling you about, do it more.

That cringe factor, which I've talked about, I feel like the more and more I become comfortable creating content, the more cringe it might be. But that's just who I am. That's who my friends know. So I might as well, if I'm going to be super authentic, but you're inviting trolls. So it's still creating... It's building your audience and growing it. So it's almost like they're doing you a favor. Speaking of which, did you see... I got to give him more promo for this because I think this is hysterical and I don't care. You see... Is it Adam from our B2? Yeah, Adam Robinson. So like Sixth Sense did a cease and desist on him and he fucking... I think it's up to like a thousand comments. He put it in his newsletter.

He's like, fuck them, power to the people. Well, yeah. And I think I know somebody actually sent him a t-shirt with a picture of this season desist on it. So... Best marketing ever. Yeah, totally. Exactly. Like, thank you. Yeah. He was talking to Anish. He's like, literally, this is the best thing that could have ever happened to us. Like, it's automatically put us on the map. Like, we're automatic... And I always think, like, as soon as you get sued, like, that should be like, you know you're doing something right if you get sued. Because big companies don't sue people if they're not scared of them. And so... Mark Parker did a brilliant job of turning that around. He did a little bit at me as far as how far he took it, but I'm all in on it.

Yeah. It's fun to watch, right? Oh, it's the last to watch. So, let's finish up on this topic because we talk about brand, right? And how important it is. And then you talk about owning your audience. Owned media, right? So, that's a lot about what you're doing right now. And for the people listening, you know, owned media is like, if you're on social, you don't own your audience. You're a slave to the algorithm. So, newsletters and those type of things. And I understand that fundamentally from a business perspective. How do you look at it from a personal perspective as far as your audience is concerned, right? Because most reps are on LinkedIn. And they are, to a certain degree, a slave to LinkedIn as far as who engages, who knows them and that type of thing.

Can a rep own their audience? And if so, how? I think there's great examples of reps who are doing that where they're taking it not just from creating content on social media, but they are creating newsletters. They are spinning up podcasts. Will Padilla is a really good example. He's an AE at Grin who actually had me on his Sell That Sass podcast and going out there and making these own motions and creating your own content and becoming almost like your own media company and then starting your own newsletter. So, in that case, looking at yourself as your own marketing machine. And then also, you can bring that anywhere you go. I think one thing also is companies, when they're looking for reps, they should definitely be looking for the reps that are, that have created their, a strong personal brand that have captured an audience for your ICP.

And it's like, they're bringing that. I mean, what in the past would have been, um, you know, their network or what is that thing? People used to keep cards in whenever I'm on these things, I lose my words. Oh my gosh. Yeah. A Rolodex, a Rolodex. They bring the Rolodex with them. So it's the same way that we're trying to encourage companies to do it, but they're doing it as, as an individual. We had Amanda Goetz speak at, uh, at Golden Hour in person, as well as on the live broadcast. And that's her whole thing. She, she started her own personal brand. Now she owns her audience through a newsletter and everything like that. I'm also like obsessed with her and I got to meet her in real life. So that was really exciting for me.

Um, but she spoke on this specific topic on the creator economy and B2B on audience building and audience owning. And in this case, what we're doing right now, John, is this is audience sharing, right? We're gonna, we're going to amplify this to the people who follow audience plus, or even we're watching everything with Golden Hour, and then you'll also amplify it on your end. So it's a lot of just, it's not really that people think it's so confusing, but it's really not. You have, you have your paid media. So we're running ads. You have your earned media. So in this case, if you're on the news or you're invited onto a podcast, you're a mentioned in somebody else's newsletter, you have, you're rented.

This is where you're on a social media and yes, you have followers, but you're a slave to the algorithm. And then you have owned, and this is any space in the internet that you have full control over. So this could be a blog, a newsletter, your company's resource center, maybe a beautiful media property that you build with audience plus. I know that's the only time I'm going to plug the product. Sorry. And then ultimately where, yeah, where you can capture subscribers. Now you have all these people's first party data. And that is so valuable, especially in this world of data privacy. I mean, to be fair, what Adam and retention and Sixth Sense are doing is, is that even going to exist in a few years as they become more locked down on data privacy.

And, uh, that first party data is going to be super valuable. When you think about media companies that were acquired by, by huge companies like HubSpot acquired the hustle for $27 million. The hustle was a blog newsletter turned media company and HubSpot saw so much value in that audience, that subscriber base that they paid him $27, $27 million to have it, to take it, to buy it, whatever. So, so it's me. I was supposed to have, I, that's actually a fun story. I just posted on Instagram. Uh, you show Alex, uh, Lieberman, right from, right from the morning brew. So I spoke at the event before, right. He was there and I was like, Oh, let's do the podcast. Right. And that dude started a newsletter and sold it for 75 million.

Yeah. More and brew huge, like really good case study of voting your audience. Right. How valuable that is now he bailed on. So here's a small story about personalization. He actually bailed on me today. He was like, sorry, man, I'm all in on building my business. I was like, fuck. Cause I had just spent like hours, like listening to his podcast and coming up with interesting questions and stuff like that. But, and this is, I think you'll appreciate this from a sales standpoint last week. I, I, I heard when he was presenting that he loved Legos, right? So he was talking about his pillars of content and Legos. For some reason he loves Legos. Right. So I bought, I went on Amazon. I bought a, uh, a mug that looked like a Lego piece with a face on it.

Right. And I put a little package together with a make it happen shirt. And I wrote a handwritten note. Hey man, I really appreciate you coming home, whatever. And I sent it to him last week and he doesn't go into the office. So today I get this email in the morning. Sorry, man, I got to cancel. Let's, let's reconnect at the end of the summer. I was like, ah, fuck. And that means basically, sorry, I'm, I'm not coming on your podcast. Right. So I was like, damn it. I was like, ah, that's, Hey, look, I get it. Building business is no problem. I'm like, just out of curiosity. Like, did you get the package? He's like, well, I haven't been in the office yet. I'm going in this morning. I'll let you know if I got it.

No problem. I got an email back at around noontime. He's like, dude, are you fucking kidding me? He's like, this is such an awesome, like I've not like a handwritten note. I never get handwritten notes. He's like this mug. No, I, cause I was like, I don't know if you already have one of these mugs, but right. And he's like, this is going to be front and center in my kitchen. So, and he sees his assistant and he goes, let's reschedule this. He's like, I know I'm slammed, but let's reschedule this for next week. Yeah. We'll make it happen. And I was like, yeah, personalization. That's so cool. Yeah. That's, I love that. Yeah. I mean, I got a morning brew and, and Alex is actually a, um, an advisor for audience plus.

And we also had him at, at golden hour. So yeah, morning brew is an example of how valuable a newsletter can be. And you have to, you just have to keep going. You have to keep doing it. People think there's going to be this instant success with an own media strategy. It really is the long game. And it's specifically for people that might not necessarily be in market to buy your product. It's not this transactional demand gen type of process that people have been doing for years where John Miller himself said it just doesn't work anymore. So, um, I love that. I'm glad Alex rescheduled though. That's awesome. Yeah. He's back on. Um, I got, I got, uh, and I keep bragging about this. He did confirm.

So we'll see. I got Guy Kawasaki coming up tomorrow. That's going to be crazy. Nice. Yeah. That one's like, I almost shit myself when he agreed to come on. But, um, last question here. Let's, let's, so owns audience. I think that's going to be a new concept for a lot of people, especially even just like a lot of people aren't even started with the brand. How would you suggest a rep start? Because they don't like a lot of them don't like, I don't know what to say. Right. And what if I sell to CISOs in healthcare and then I take a job selling sales training to SAS? Like what's the, what's the, what would be a, a, a structure or a, an approach that you would use to start your own, own media component, building your brand and having a voice?

I think you have to, you have to make that decision is what is the goal of this? Is it, you sell it to CISOs, you want to get their attention where they see you as a subject matter expert? And then now you're, now you're able to promote your product in a way. Is that it? Because that's kind of like, then you've got to be committed to selling to CISOs, right? Or is it, and there's so many of them now and you were the OG, but do you want to be a thought leader as a sales professional and somebody that wants to be there to help people get better? Or do you want to just be yourself and create content that can be relatable for people, but then through that also be able to get the attention of people that you could potentially sell to or grow your audience where then you're maybe getting brand deals and things like that.

So I think that's the first thing you have to decide why you're doing it. And I think of myself as kind of like a, no, I am truly a marketer stuck in a salesperson's body. So selling to marketers for so many years, I can think like them. I know it's important to them, which is really important, right? Know your buyer. So I create content about creating content, you know, for content marketers in a way. It's like, I think they're kind of the unsung heroes of marketing departments. And we deeply believe that the future of B2B marketing will be led by content marketers, content leaders, content creators. So for myself, I'm creating content for those type of marketers because ultimately I also want to sell to them.

So like that's the goal there. So I think the first thing is you have to decide what's the goal of you creating content. Are you building out a personal brand? And then from there, do you want to get creative with it? Do you want to have some edutainment factors to it? Do you want it to be super informative? What is a CISO going to appreciate you talking about to the camera? I think also knowing your audience is super important, right? What's the goal of this? Who is my audience and what type of content would they appreciate? And I think as a default, it's, it's, and you've done a great job at this over the years is, is telling you, just sharing your journey. You know what I mean? I think it's, it's, it's almost like, you know, don't pretend to be the industry expert when you're not, even if you are, you know, I used to tell Morgan and James and that type of stuff like that when they, for, you know, early days when they were posting and shit, I was like, don't you dare tell people what to do.

Don't you dare come down and say, here's the, what you absolutely. Here's how to, you know, here's how exactly how to make a cold call. No, fuck you. Tell them what you did and, and explain to them what you learned about it. And then say, Hey, like, this is how it worked. But if you tell the journey, you have no idea who actually let's finish on that one. What is the, what is your favorite example of somebody coming to you without you knowing them, like at an event or something like that and saying the impact that you had on them based on what you've done. Do you have examples there? I do actually. Um, oh, someone who had also experienced a riff. And as you know, when that had happened, I decided I was like, this isn't, I woke up on a air mattress on my sister's.

No, I wasn't homeless. They just hadn't built, you know, they hadn't set up their guest room yet, but still there's something about sleeping on a mattress after you just got laid off from your job or like need that inspiration. And I decided I'm going to launch myself. I love bringing new products to market. So I'm going to view my entry into the job market as a go to market motion. So I put my LinkedIn on stealth. It said, Amanda will be right back or something. Yeah, that's exactly what it said. Not or something. I built out a website where it was a rocket going up and it was all my entire experience actually Piper with every milestone that the company hit with next to it, my experience growing and my career there.

And I generated some kind of noise around what was going to happen next through creating content. And also you, I don't know if you remember this, but you also shouted me out on the Wednesday and that was amazing. There's some, there's some earned media for me. And then I, and then I went public and launched myself and I just said, Hey, I, I started as employee number 14 at Chili Piper. And, uh, by the time I left, we were valued in the hundreds of millions and I want to do it all over again. So if you're a founder and investor, a group of people with a, with an idea or a category creator, I am open to work because I want to do it all over again. So somebody, uh, approached me and they're like, this just happened to me.

You've totally inspired me. And the way you went about it versus just being like, Oh, I have to put in a bunch of applications. Cause to be honest, John, I was like, I'm not applying anywhere, but I was like, you better get your resume, uh, ready. And I was like, I'm not applying anywhere. People are applying to me. And that was the attitude I went in with it. And I also knew that the job that I wanted, wasn't going to be listed as I wanted to go early. And the only way you get those early jobs is you have to catch the attention of, of those founders or whoever. So yeah, somebody who came up, they said that, that really inspired them and asked me for help for them to, to run the same place. So that was, that was awesome.

It was one of those things you don't really come out. You don't, when you don't go out to, to do, to inspire necessarily, because it was, I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, it was for me, right? I went up there and did it because I had this goal, but it's really, um, it's cool. And when you, you do something and it was an idea, I woke up on an air mattress and I said, I am going to launch myself. And it inspired somebody and also helped them through a difficult, what could have been a really difficult journey. And I'm really excited to say that person has landed their dream job and they would not have, if they hadn't run the place similar to how I did. Absolutely love that. And that's, that's, that's what I always tell people is like, that's exactly why you should share your journey because you have no idea who's listening.

And even if you just impact one person like that, it, you know what I mean? It's all worth it. Like you, you could have no follower, you could have like five followers, 10 followers, it doesn't fucking matter. But if you connect with that one person that looks at it and says, holy shit, I can do that. Or, or maybe that changed my perspective. I mean, I got the, the, I honestly, this podcast, right? If I never do another thing with this podcast, I will be thrilled because at a chili, but at the, at HubSpot inbounds, um, and I'm pretty sure it was the chili piper event. Um, kid came up to me and he was like, John, thank you. And I'm like, you know, he goes, Hey, can I, can I give you a hug? And I was like, yeah, sure.

I'm a hugger. So what's up? Right. So I gave him a hug. I was like, what's up? He's like, I just want to say thank you. I'm like, for what, man? And I'm not joking. He said, um, you saved my life. And I was like, what? I was like, come on, dude, I don't even know you. How do I save your life? He goes, no, you don't understand. He goes, and let's go back to dad passing away. I mean, you, you followed me, right? During that time, I was pretty open about it, about what was, I was going through and how I was dealing with it and everything else. And he goes, John, um, I was, uh, my mom died. Uh, my brother died the same day unexpected. My wife left me and my company fired me for taking too much bereavement.

And it all happened in 30 days in one month. All that shit happened to this kid. I mean, I could, I'm like, Oh, what? He's like, I was, I was literally in my car living in my car and I, I was contemplating suicide and I was listening to your podcast and you talking about you getting, I'm getting choked up. Just thinking about that. He's like, I was listening to it. And, um, he's like, just the way that you were talking it through made me realize that I can get through this. He's like, and now I got a job. I got a girlfriend. I'm psyched. I got a new apartment. He's like, and I just, when I was like, Holy shit. And, and that's, and that's why I say if nobody ever fucking listens to this podcast ever again in my life, I don't care because like to have that type of an impact on somebody and you have no idea, like the impact that you had on that, that person that you brought out of, like, you know, who probably would have had to go put a job and be demoralized by getting turned down or not even getting callbacks and, you know, and, and just looking at their self themselves in a different light.

Like you have, like, that's, that's, that's impact. Fuck about how you're hitting your target. Fuck about you, you know, you making money and, you know, hitting your commission check and all that issue. Like if you can do that. Yeah. Everything's all worth it. It sounds like you brought some light to that guy's life, John. Tried to, tried to. And to your point though, I think I was doing it pretty selfishly, quite frankly, because I was just, I was talking out loud. I'm not, I don't go to therapy. I actually use this as therapy in a lot of ways. Like I, I, I talk to people about my problems who know better than me and have gone through life experiences. And so I do it quite selfishly for, for my own benefit, but I know my hope is, is that there's somebody maybe like me, you know, a few years back who's going through some of this same shit and might just might learn from us, from all the mistakes I've made.

A minimum fine inspiration because you, I mean, we rise, right? Exactly. So I think that is a fantastic, uh, light to end on Amanda. Um, but before we do end, talk to us about what you're doing over at audience plus. Cause I do, I really, uh, I was really impressed with what you guys put on, uh, with golden hour and also really impressed with just the overall approach that you guys are taking. So talk to us about what you're doing, what you're looking for and who you want to reach out to you after this podcast. All right. What are we doing at audience plus? We are making it so every company can become a media company. Basically if we're talking about the platform, if we can, because very important as a salesperson, we need to make sure that people have product awareness.

We've done a really good job with brand awareness from throwing that insane conference in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago and just being a content machine. The product is a no code multimedia CMS where you can easily publish any type of content, whether it be videos, podcasts, written content, downloadable PDFs, all in one place on this super slick Netflix feeling like type of streaming surface. Then on the other part of it, it's being able to capture subscribers. So when we talk about owning your audience, think of like sub stack or beehive. And then on the other part of it is our advanced audience analytics. So you can actually understand what your subscriber base is doing on surface and be able to then, um, make different production strategy type of decisions based on what they, what they like.

So you're ultimately making it so people are coming to your own space on the internet, your owned media and be able to engage and consume the content that you're putting out. And then obviously pipeline is a huge part of this. How does this make money? Well, 95% of your total addressable market is not in any position to buy. Maybe they're stuck in a contract or something like that. They don't have decision maker making power, but you still have the ability to influence through thought leadership and, and brand building. So that's where with audience plus you can do that. And more importantly, content teams can operate independently of any designer developer resources, and finally be able to answer the question of how all these content programs are impacting pipeline growth.

Now, as far as what we're doing and how we're getting out there is we're, we're running the play on what we're trying to tell other people to do. So very heavy on audience building, whether you're watching any of the series that Todd Clousers put out with us, we're always, um, we're going to be having a higher cadence of, of live webinars, of course, written content, really taking this approach to, well, audience plus launched without a product a couple of years ago. Anthony came out and said, Hey, we want to bring awareness to this issue that the old way isn't working anymore. And then when they launched the product, it was like, okay, this is what it is. And it's empowering teams to be able to really innovate in what we believe is the new world of B2B marketing.

So I would love to talk to marketing teams, anyone who's out there and it feels really inspired by something like this. Have you ever wanted to start a podcast as part of your content marketing strategy? But when you did get executive buy-in, you ran two episodes, but you can improve what the return on investment was. I want to talk to you because the audience plus will be able to help with that. Well, and just to clarify, is this pretty much like from an ICP standpoint, is this SMB, mid-market enterprise, all the above, like, where's the sweet spot right here? And like, when you talk about a marketing team, is this one, one marketer, is this, you know, 10 marketers, like, is there a sweet spot there where really this just sings?

So the sweet spot that we found, and keep in mind, we're not still trying to figure it out, right? We came out with our charter, North Star, B2B SaaS, mid-market enterprise with teams that already have a content strategy in place, specifically multimedia. So you're writing blogs, maybe you're hosting webinars, you're doing events in person or online. And typically, that's a part of their demand generation strategy versus it only serving the algorithm for a blog or something like that. So as far as industry goes, yeah, B2B SaaS. But to be honest with you, we've had a lot of agencies come through. Agencies and studios who want to work with us. So I don't want to filter them out either. If you have clients, that would be a good fit for Audience Plus.

Come through. We're trying to develop a partnership program. And a lot of that right now is just fact-finding, trying to figure out what would be the best way to partner with these type of companies. Love it. And so it's audienceplus.com. And everybody for listening, it's Amanda Bagley. It's B-A-G-L-E-Y on LinkedIn. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on. And thank you, by the way, for reaching out and inviting me to that. Because there was a lot of other things that could have happened as far as who could have invited me there or what. And you were the one who did. And so I thank you very much for reconnecting here. And it's been a while and I'm glad we were able to catch up here. Yes, this is a dream come true for me, John.

And honestly, you are a marketer. You have nearly a half a million followers on LinkedIn. I think you're pretty OG with it. It only made sense to get you to come to a marketing conference put on by marketers. Most people actually don't know. My background is marketing and my actual degree is in marketing. Oh, really? That was really just a default because I just drank my way through college and I tried to find the easiest one. Thank you so much for having me, John. I know I'm not Alex Lieberman, but this means a lot to me. But this is a different, this is why I do this, right? Because I get to talk to everybody at different stages and everything else. And so I really enjoyed this conversation.

Amazing. Yeah. Do we end now? Yeah. So we're going to, I got to end and you're going to love my ending is because it's ring the light, which is thank you all very much for coming and listening. And I hope you got as much value out of this conversation and enjoyed it as much as I did. And like I always say at the end, all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile today and you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests.

We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough now to keep the momentum going. It would mean the world to me. If you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today. Let's all level up and make this happen together.