Today I am joined by a TikTok legend, owner of the most impressive PC gaming chair, branding expert, expert in cryptocurrencies, crypto gaming, and your number one host and place to go to for virtual assistance. Today I interviewed my incredibly good friend, Jeff Hunter on how to build your personal brand.
Adam: So, for everyone listening here, what are some key things people need to know about branding or life?
How do you build your personal brand?
Jeff: Here’s something that is funny and it comes back to how you even introduced me as a master marketer. I’m kind of counterculture and marketing. You know that about me, I’m not like the Facebook ads guy. I don’t run ads for any of my businesses, which would probably shock people as a marketer. I’m wearing a hat right now that says “Savage Marketer”.
How do you get attention online?
Let’s go back to TikTok. So, first off marketing is the economy of attention. How do you get attention? There are two different, real variables and I say one of them is attention. The other one is having a good product. I think so many people are trying to sell crap, and if they just focus on putting a good product together, they would be able to keep and retain customers every time.
You see a digital marketing agency, what are they always looking for? New clients? I have a 97.14%, I know because I just did this for the quarter. So I have a 97.14% retention rate for my clients. So every time I get a new client, it’s just additional revenue for the company and that’s how I’ve been able to sustain 100% growth every year, since 2016.
I know that last year I did 1.7 for one of my businesses and I know that this year if I am on the same pace, I will do 3.4 because all I have to do is match the same numbers as I did last year and it will double my revenue.
I don’t have to worry about it, I have 3% of my people that fall off, and here’s the other cool part, it’s a downhill battle. It’s easier because most of the clients that I work with become a higher LTV, lifetime value.
So with the clients that I work with, I’m always trying to focus on how can I add more value to them instead of worrying about getting new clients. How can I add more to my existing client pool and increase my revenue, but more importantly, add more value to them?
Adam: The focus is on delivering a better product, a better service, and better results for your clients as opposed to finding new clients, which you don’t need to do. One of my biggest complaints about agencies, in general, is that the typical method for agencies is to find 20 clients so they can succeed with two of them that happen to be the unicorns, drop the other 18 and claim we have two winners, right?
That’s a very common model in the agency world. Whereas what you are talking about is the exact opposite and I resonate with that. We have our S.M.A.R.T Blueprint, which is all the standard operating procedures we use. When we acquire a company, we put these operating procedures in place to make the company grow.
It’s a sequence of steps and processes we add and we developed it initially for ourselves. Once we developed it, we were like, we should sell this because it was a no-brainer to sell something that worked so well for us.
When we first launched it, it was great. Made a lot of money in that first year and at the end of the year, I looked at everyone. There were no complaints, everyone was very happy, but probably only a third of the original wave of people had what I would call phenomenal results.
We had one guy that made a million in a year off the back of a $5,000 investment, which was phenomenal. There was somebody else who started to earn 50 grand a month. But I would say about two-thirds of the people made a little bit more than they invested, and I was really unhappy at the end of that first year.
No one complained. So imagine the joy on my team’s face when I informed them that we would be recreating the product from scratch. They were like, “Why? No one complained!” It did the bare minimum it needed to do, no one complained and we made a lot of money. I was like, “the problem is the standard operating procedures worked for us.
Reinventing your product so everyone gets results
But I think we are injecting our own skill sets into them, which is what’s making them pop, what is written on the paper. We are adding something to it. So when we hand it to somebody else, one-third of the clients are capable of doing it. The other two-thirds are not so much.”
So I’ve re-did the whole program for free and invited all the people that did it in year one to come and take part in year two. I worked closer with them to work out what was missing.
In return, I would say the new S.M.A.R.T Blueprint is probably the most detailed set of standard operating procedures I’ve ever seen. You can plug and play it in a company that goes from the conception of what will my business be, right through to how I handle my testimonials and get referral sales, with every piece in between from hiring and firing everything.
But it would never have been this robust or this whole if I wasn’t focused on the most important metric, which is making sure as you said, the people are freaking happy.
The most important metric, which is making sure as you said, the people are freaking happy .
Adam: At the end of the podcast, I always say to somebody, “What is it that smart businesses do?” So if you could start the sentence, smart businesses do this, and then tell us what it is, what do they do?
Jeff: I’d say smart businesses focus on the brand outside of the business because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about myself and even the most successful entrepreneurs. For example, Elon Musk, the dude started PayPal.
One of the biggest investors in x.com, which is what it used to be called. He started Tesla, where even though their production numbers are low compared to everyone else, their stock price is way higher than everyone else combined. The dude privatized space and he’s landed rockets back after they’re done.
That’s brilliant. The dude has the Boring company and think of all the things that he’s created because he’s leveraged his personal brand? You have multiple companies. You’ve got your business, you’ve got your dating, you’ve got your consulting.
Adam: 12 companies.
Jeff: You’ve got your Warhammer company. I just saw before this show, you showed me a cool commercial you just shot for one. For me, I’ve got my branding agency, I have the virtual assistant business, and I’ve got the crypto gaming team.
People need to know that when you are looking for funding, when you’re looking for investment, when you’re looking for people to trust you, they’re not looking at the vehicle. They can choose from a thousand different businesses in your same niche, but they want to see the person that they’re investing in is the jockey, right?
If you do not have your core values, if you don’t know who you stand for, or what you stand for, that’s what most people look for
It’s not the horse. It’s the jockey. You have to make sure that the person is obsessed and you know their core values. If you do not have your core values, if you don’t know who you stand for, or what you stand for, that’s what most people look for, and I’ve learned that. I’ve learned that the hard way because I’ve invested in people when they had a great idea but didn’t look into the person themselves and they were a sh*tty person.
I would definitely bet on a good person. Someone who has results, someone who has established authority, and someone who has something to lose. Bet on people that have something to lose. That means you need to become that person who has something to lose.
To listen to the full episode of the most comprehensive podcast about strategically building and growing your business, the S.M.A.R.T way, click on any one of these platforms and subscribe!
Links
- Jeff Hunter
- Warhammer
- Elon Musk
- PayPal
- The Boring Company
- Crypto Gaming Team
- Savage Marketer
- Steve Sims
- Bugatti
- Maserati
- Lamborghini
- TikTok
- CES Convention
- NFT
- Dan Bilzerian
- Real Doll
- PewDiePie
- Annoying Orange
- Donald Trump
- Web 3.0
- Mario Bros.
- Call of Duty
- Roblox
- VA staffer
- S.M.A.R.T Blueprint
- Fyre Festival
- Imposter syndrome
