When I got the mortgage on my home, the underwriter asked me why my business wasn’t in the yellow pages. I had to explain that no one is using the yellow pages to find a business. They go online and use Google, or Social media. I literally had to write a letter of explanation as to why we didn’t show up in the yellow pages. You can’t build a brand in the yellow pages, hell the yellow page brand itself is now synonymous with outdated technology.
In the last 5 years, I’ve built a brand online that has the trust and influence over millions of people. Between the visitors to my blog, people who see my ads, people who are connected to my pages on social media and people in the seats at the conferences I speak at, there’s been millions of people see my brand.
When I show up pretty much anywhere these days, people know who I am. Just the other day I was in California and the FedEx driver walking by stopped and said “Hey, aren’t you the Hardcore Closer guy?” I once got in an Uber in Vegas and the driver said “Dude, I saw it was you and raced over here to pick you up” The FedEx driver had read my book, the Uber guy uses our Closer Cards. Products I created in order to strengthen my brand.
When we launched PhoneSites, we did so strictly from the influence from a brand I created. We’ve had over 8,000 people use a product because the Hardcore Closer guy said it’s awesome. That’s the power of a brand. We’ve also sold over 100,000 books, 5,000 closer cards, 10,000 t-shirts and 1000s of info products from building a trusted brand.
How did I do all of this?
I’m glad you asked and I’ll gladly break it down for you.
First, you gotta recognize talent. Not only in others, but your own talent as well. Me, I have 2 talents. I can spot a winner and I can simplify complicated things. Anything else I do stems from those 2 talents. Once I knew my talents, I had to find someone or something to sell that complied with them. I aligned with other talented people first.
When the show Million Dollar Listing hit TV, and the first episode came out, my company reached out to Madison Hildebrand and got him to one of our mixers. From there we invited Josh Flagg and Fredrik Eklund. These guys were just getting started on TV and we got them for like $2,000 each. After we met, I pitched them on doing a program together. We did those programs and made some good money in the process.
This aligned me and my brand with luxury realtors who were on TV. From there, realtors all over came to me to see how we did what we did. This in turn attracted loan officers, who were my target audience all along. From there, I leveraged my relationships with all the agents, to get clients from the LOs I worked with. I made a shit load of LOs a lot of money and my brand was synonymous with top producers with 9 and 10 figure sales per year.
As more of my clients became successful and got attention online, more followers came my way who automatically trusted me because someone they trusted recommended me to them. I always create killer content and keep my followers wanting to read what I post and watch the videos I make. I never post or record just for the fuck of it. I only do things that further my brand.
I also only recommend products and services that I actually use. People trust me when I offer advice on what to use, because I only talk about the things I use. I don’t promote shit just to get paid, I promote shit I love and want others to use as well.
In the last 10 years I’ve written 1000s of blogs, recorded 1000s of videos, made 1000s of posts online and tons of memes. I’ve given out so much content it’s unreal. Not to mention the 1000+ podcasts I’ve done. All of this helps people find and trust my brands. When I made an offer on a product across any platform, people trust my judgement enough to buy what I suggest. And they should, I’m always right lol.
If you want to follow in my footsteps and build a brand that can monetize pretty much anything, follow the simple steps. Give content, serve your audience, align with influencers and only promote products you use yourself. Repeat this process over and over, over time and it will create a strong brand with a big following, no matter what you sell.
