Travis (Host) (3:02)

Yeah, it's pretty wild, almost scary even that the. It's not always the best ideas that win, you know what I mean? It's, it's just the people who say them the loudest, you know what I mean?

Kerry James (Guest) (3:15)

Yeah, well, it's the ones that like, so it's the ones that are the loudest, but oftentimes it's the ones that are the best at articulating their ideas. Yeah, I bring up like examples, like if you look at Simon Sinek, for example, does not have a PhD. He, you know, he has a decent resume in terms of what he was doing before he became a thought leader, but at the end of the day, he just, he distilled down a lot of research, he distilled down a lot of, you know, ideas, a lot of stories, et cetera. And then he became the start with Y guy. Yeah, there's plenty of people that are more credible in that field of research than him, but he was the guy that took all the ideas, put them together, and then told the world his opinion and his thoughts about those ideas.

Travis (Host) (3:51)

Yeah, so branding is basically the process by which you stop becoming, by which you stop being the best kept secret in what you do. Right. Like you don't want to be the best kept secret. It's like there's so many people out there that are sitting there just envious maybe of people who they see, who they're like that. I mean, that person's been doing this for two years. I've been doing this for 15 years and I'm way better at it and I know way more. But for some reason, that person just got interviewed on this podcast and just got put in, was, you know, did a spot on Good Morning America and they got this press thing and I'm still sitting over here scraping pennies together. You know what I mean? It's like, well, probably maybe spend a little bit more time going out and being more like that guy. I mean, like, if it's not working for you now, you know, you got to do something a little bit different. And now we have democratized access to be able to do it on our own instead of having to bow down to the gatekeepers of Hollywood and the publications that were allowing those things to actually go out. You can do. You can do it yourself now, right?

Kerry James (Guest) (4:56)

Yeah. And it's. It's a curse and a blessing, really. I mean, you know, especially in the age of AI where, where anybody can be a creator and anybody can get their ideas out there. If you're not doing it, you're getting overshadowed at a compounding rate because the other people that are doing it are, you know, doing it so much faster and better. So it's in, in my, in my view, it's. It's like personal branding, brand equity development. It's not. It's no longer a luxury. It's no longer a nice to have. It's a necessity if you want to stay relevant.

Travis (Host) (5:24)

How do you view the differ marketing and branding?

Kerry James (Guest) (5:28)

Yeah, so. So I brand specifically people, which is a lot different than, you know, say, branding a. A Disney or a, you know, corporate.

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Kerry James (Guest) (9:05)

Kind of thing. And a lot of the time, like marketing is, is the noise you put out there. It's like getting the actual idea out there, whereas branding is often the idea. It's what is the. Like if you go to a store and you see on, on the shelf, you see a brown paper bag, you don't know what's in the bag, you don't know what it does. You don't know if it's for you. But then next to it, you see a box of toothpaste that has all the. The bells and whistles. And it does this thing and it does that thing, and it's like, okay, obviously that's the right choice. So I see branding as that information that's on the product that tells you that this is the right thing for you. With a person, it's, oh, this is a person that's a part of my tribe. This is my tribal leader. I want to be a part of what they're putting out. I vibe with them, their values, their energy, all of that. And just by interacting with that person's brand, I feel and know that I'm in the right place.

Travis (Host) (9:51)

The coolest thing about that to me is that, is that it sort of by definition means that if you step into the fullest expression of who you are, there's always blue ocean left, you know, like, like people will tell themselves all the time, say they're, they're in whatever. They, they're. They're a sales leader or something like that. And it's like, well, but there's no shortage of sales training out there. You know, Zig Ziglar's got books from the 80s, and now it's whoever Grant Cardone or Jeremy Miner or Shelby Sapp or whoever else they follow for sales advice. And it's like, there can't be room for another person. It's like, well, it's not about necessarily information that you're giving out. It's about the person that you are. And somebody out there is probably going to connect more with the person that you are than they're going to connect more with the person over there. Shelby SAP's a great example that, you know, she, she basically does the Same thing as like closures, IO, as Grant Cardone, as Dean Grazios. All these other people have been teaching sales for decades. She just basically was like, you know, sales training for hot girls is literally like her brand now. It's like hot girls should sell. You know what I mean? Like, that's the whole, that's the whole thing is like if which is, which is a segment of the market that was not being preached to from sort of these like alpha male personality types who then these, this segment was being completely left over. She stepped into this space and now has, you know, an eight figure brand to show for it because people resonated more with her. Some people resonate more with her message than they're going to resonate with somebody else's message, you know. And then you go, yeah, there's tribal alignment. Yeah, tribal alignment. Yeah, that's what we say. Yeah.

Kerry James (Guest) (11:17)

So you look at and there was a really interesting interview with, with Alex Hermosi. For those that know who he is. He was on the Diary of CEO podcast and he was basically breaking it down. He's like, you know, there's always going to be fitness influencers out there. There's always going to be personal trainers talking about doing push ups this and squats that, you know, that kind of thing. And you're never, you're never going to be the smartest or the most jacked one out.

Travis (Host) (11:39)

That's right.

Kerry James (Guest) (11:39)

There's always going to be one that's more jacked or smarter than you. But you are still you. Once you know who you are, figure out the, you know, the secret sauce that makes you vibe with the people around you and then you actually, you know, push that further and bring that out more. Then you're going to get people attracted to you. For example, you could be the nerdy gu guy with his dog that does fitness, fitness work, that does personal training, all that. You could be the guy that's bringing his dog everywhere and they're like, oh, I'm a dog owner, I want to be fit like that guy and go do workouts with my dog. That kind of thing. Yeah, it's doubling down on who you are. And that's what I find is, is the most fascinating thing to me in the world. I'm actually in the process of writing a book about this, is that often people are blind to what that actually is. Like they don't know that they're the nerdy dog guy or they don't know that they're this hot girl that could be doing hot girl sales yeah, yeah. Characteristics about them are often they're actually most blind to the things that are most unique about them. The concept I call label in the bottle syndrome. And it's when you're inside the bottle, you can't see the label from the outside. I've worked with literal Nobel laureates that could not sit there and tell you what makes them unique, what you know, their ideas, their, their, you know, all the work that they've done, how they sit in the marketplace. And yeah, that's what I find is sometimes the smarter you are, the more difficult it is to know what makes you different.

Travis (Host) (12:55)

That's facts. Yeah. The, the, the more intellectual you are, the sometimes the more bridge those gaps because you're so hyper aware of your shortcomings that you downplay all the things that you do really well or you downplay the things that you're most ami. Yeah, and the cool thing now too is that like platforms reward this type of behavior. Like it's, it's no longer, it's no longer just a concept or a thing that you should do more of. It's like individual social media platforms actually reward this type of, of behavior because it's not necessarily about the, the volume of followers that you have.

Kerry James (Guest) (13:26)

It's.

Travis (Host) (13:26)

Each individual piece of content stands on its own as it. With its own merit and allows to potentially get that message out to a lot more people that might not have seen it. I had this conversation with a real estate trainer on the show a couple days ago and we're talking. I was talking to her about like, I was like, man, because my dad's an agent, I, I just have lived and breathed the real estate world for a long time, even though I've never been an agent myself. And I was like, the thing that drives me crazy the most is how you can go to a real estate per real estate agents feed. And the vast majority of their posts are like just listeds and just solds. And it's basically just like you're using this. Like it's a, like it's a online marketplace for people to buy and sell houses. It's not, it's social media. Like, no, nobody's, nobody's scrolling social media to, to see what house they can buy today. You know what I mean? They go to Zillow if they want to do that. So they're on social media for the media piece of it, the entertainment piece of it. So if you're, if you're an agent, stop posting all the just. And if you have to post it because you want its credibility and whatever, fine, post it. That's, that's okay. Just don't have it. Be the 90% of all the posts that you have. So just so you can check the box and say that you posted something today and then, and then demonize it and say, well, it doesn't work because it's never brought me a client. You know, just like start doing the like. Especially in these fields where it's hyper competitive like we were talking about earlier, it's a highly saturated market, then people are more likely to just do business with you because they feel some sort of a commonality between the two of you. So if you're an agent and you like to golf, just go golf and film that and post videos of you golfing or you like cars, we'll film videos of you at car show or you like scuba diving. I don't care what it is. Like, take more stuff that you're doing, film it and put it out there. Because it no longer matters that your 4,000 followers don't care about golf because that video is going to get shown to a bunch of people who do like golf. And probably in that category there's going to be somebody who's interested in buying or selling a house sometime in the next two years and it'll eventually lead to more business because the branding allows you to stay top of mind. But these platforms will reward this type of behavior. Behavior. Now it's not, it's not like, well, this page is about fitness. So I can't post about my dog on my fitness page because that doesn't belong there. I have to start a dog account. You know what I mean? It's like, no, just post everything that is you and you're gonna get some people who like that you're into horror films and some people that hate that you're into horror films. Perfect. You know, repel the people who hate that you're into horror films. Attract the people that love that you're into horror films, and you'll probably sell more life insurance or whatever it is that you have to sell.

Kerry James (Guest) (16:01)

Yeah, it's, it's all in, in my opinion, all, all, all sales are human to human. Doesn't matter what it is. It's all human to human. So the more they know about you as a human and it doesn't mean that you need to be posting baby pictures every day, you know, your personal information. It's just like the more they understand what kind of person you are showing your values, you know, integrity, all of that, then they're going to follow you. Even if they don't like golf, they still might be like, oh, well, okay, this guy.

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Jane Wakefield (Podcast Host - Human in the Loop) (17:36)

Hi, I'm Jane Wakefield and I host the Human in the Loop in partnership with Gravity. That's Gravity with two es, helping organizations innovate with AI securely. We explore the rise of AI agents, their history, their potential, and the risks organizations must navigate as they scale. Search for Human in the Loop wherever you get your podcasts.

Kerry James (Guest) (17:59)

He's a human. He's doing things. I can see that he's, you know, not like that. He's actually showing up and he's, he's putting his content out there and he's putting himself on the line. But to expand upon that in the real estate world, interestingly enough, because real estate, you look at like, you know, doctors, things like that, that's like the, you know, some of the oldest personal branding heavy kind of kind of jobs. What we're seeing the last few years is that personal branding is exploding in multiple arenas, not just in these traditional places like salespeople and real estate. It's getting to the point now where there's, and there's plenty of research to back this up, look on Harvard Business Review, et cetera, that Fortune 500 companies are now investing significant amounts of their overall marketing budget into their executive brand. I Saw that actually. Yeah. And it's wild because they're, they're suddenly realizing that even if it's a huge brand or even it's a corporate entity or a medium sized business, whatever it happens to be, people will buy your stuff if they just know that you're the founder, they know that you are this guy that they can access, maybe on social, on LinkedIn, whatever it is, and they'll buy your stuff just because they trust you. If you think about, you know, when you work with your friends, if it's like, oh, my friend is a plumber, obviously I'm going to work with him, I don't need to look at the reviews. He's a, he's my friend, he's a plumber, I'm going to hire him. So when people have that kind of connection to you, you're an easy choice. And then when you expand that into these corporate spheres, et cetera, it's, it's real money you're talking about. So there's, you know, significant budgets being put towards that. Looking at, I mean, when that guy, I forget which company it was, but the guy went to the Coldplay concert and he got caught, you know, caught with his secretary, whatever it was. It's like maybe if they had talked to him a bit more about personal branding, that kind of thing wouldn't happen.

Travis (Host) (19:36)

Yeah.

Kerry James (Guest) (19:37)

You know, maybe if he had understood that his brand was representing the company brand, then a lot of bad things

Travis (Host) (19:44)

would not have found himself in a precarious position that he found himself in.

Kerry James (Guest) (19:48)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's, it's, there's all kinds of examples of this, like in the extreme cases, but like you look at Tesla, it's like people buy a Tesla because of Elon, or they don't buy a Tesla because of Elon, because they know what kind of person he is and they align to his tribe or they don't, that counts even more. So on smaller scales where it's like a founder, maybe they have 20, 30, 40 employees, it counts even more in those cases because they don't have brand, you know, legacy brand equity to back them up. They aren't well known. It's like the founder's face is the only thing you've got to trust at the end of the day.

Travis (Host) (20:21)

So what are, do, do you have sort of like, hey, these are the pillars of building a personal brand here. Obviously content is one of them. But is it, does it stop there? Is it all about content? What else could people be doing or thinking about?

Kerry James (Guest) (20:33)

Yeah, so it Depends. It's different things for different people in different industries. So I'd love to say I have a specific formula, but content helps if it's good content. If it's like, you know, not them just talking to their office, you know, talking to the wall for three hours a week, getting on stages, getting on podcasts like we're on now, that's one of the best ways to be in flow state, where you're engaging, you're talking about, you know, your area of genius. So being in dialogue and content is what I try to do the most work. You're either speaking to an audience or you're speaking to another person. On a show like this, where the audience gets to see who you are, they get to, they get to actually engage and be a part of your thought process, that kind of thing.

Travis (Host) (21:11)

Yeah.

Kerry James (Guest) (21:11)

And then obviously like day to day content, what you're doing, coming up with cool ideas to make what your, your subject matter interesting. So content's one and then the next one is, is really just understanding like your brand, the DNA behind what makes you you. Oftentimes people, they, like I was telling you, the label in the bottle, they struggle with that, but you could figure that out really fast just talking to the people around you. Talk to the people you work with, talk to your spouse, talk to your friends. What makes me unique, guys? What is the thing that I always do that you're always surprised by? You know, what is my genius? Getting feedback from the people around you. And in the corporate world, they call this 360 reviews. Getting that kind of feedback is so invaluable. And most people, they don't have a clue what that feedback will be. They're so surprised. Every time, like we do this with some of my clients, I'm like, here's an interview. Go interview the people around you so we can understand your brand. And they're blown away by the responses that people give. So knowing your, what I call your DNA, that's your values, that's your talking points, that's your niche of one, which is the thing you do better than anybody else in the world, without a doubt, figuring those out and then building your, your content ecosystem, your brand around that, once you know it, then you could scale. It's. You're building trust. It's the trust factor. It's like, okay, all these pieces are what make me trustable. And then scaling that, that it gets a lot easier. Suddenly you know that this content you're putting out is on brand. You have a reference point to, to revert back to that kind of thing. And then, yeah, outside of that is a lot of people, they just underestimate the, the simple effort of just putting yourself out there. Like going go to an event, talk about what you do. They often think their work speaks for itself. Especially when I work with scientists and authors and things like that. It's like, oh no, my work speaks for itself. It's going to do all the, all the lifting for me. But it's like, like just go meet people and tell them what you do. You know, go meet people, engage with them in person. That kind of.

Travis (Host) (23:00)

Yeah, best known beats best 100% of the time. You know, you could be the best.

Kerry James (Guest) (23:05)

And one more. And I think you, you do this really well, Travis. Like a lot of people, they, they don't realize that there's, there's two brands at any given time. Two personal brands they have. One is their in person brand. It's their reputation. It's the people they've known for years that keep giving them referral clients etc, which is great. Referrals aren't scalable at the end of the day. So it's, it's, you run into some roadblocks there. And then there's their online brand. So if you are a world class, you know, whatever it happens to be in your space. But nobody knows that on the Internet. And I mean not just your content. I'm talking about like, do you have a website? Do you have, is your LinkedIn profile set up in the way you want? Do you have media features out there, that kind of thing where people can just google you 10 seconds or less. They're like, oh, this guy's legit versus googling you. And they get nothing. They get like a high school picture on Facebook, something like that. It's a big difference. I've booked people on stages before for, you know, a hundred thousand dollar keynotes and those decisions typically don't take too long to make. They're just like, okay, Google, this guy's legit. Obviously. You know, we could see things that prove that he's legit. Yeah, let's put him on the stick.

Travis (Host) (24:08)

Yeah. It's always gave this talk on branding a while back and the question I was asked was, where do you, where do you hide a dead body? Page two of Google. You know, it's like you, if somebody's, if somebody finds out about you and then they go to Google or ChatGPT or whatever and they ask further questions and the Internet does not immediately give them an overwhelming abundance of evidence that you're good at what you do, then they're much less likely to do business with you. So it's not necessarily, like, people tend to underrate the volume of opportunities, you know, like, so we dealt with this all the time when we were doing, like, guest booking for people, like, getting people booked on podcasts and stuff, because they were like, well, I'm really good at what I do, so I expect that I'm going to be on Mel Robbins and Diary CEO and Joe Rogan and all these other shows. And it's like, yeah, you and about a million other people are all trying to get on those shows. So stop undervaluing all of these other shows that we can absolutely get you booked on, because it's not necessarily just about the traffic from this one potential thing that you're doing. It's also about the long tail that comes from just showing up all the time and consistently putting out really valuable stuff that showcases that you actually know what you're talking about. Because when somebody actually does find you and they do finally get exposed that you are an option for the solution to their problem, then there's going to be, again, an overwhelming bank of evidence that suggests that you actually are somebody that's worth. Trust.

Kerry James (Guest) (25:30)

Consistency is. Is. Yeah, that's. That's so key. And that's why, like. So when you understand those. Those minute details, you know your DNA behind what makes you you, and then you're consistent with that. That's just like. So if in real life, if I. If I met you for coffee one day and I showed up in a doctor outfit, and then the next day I showed up in a firefighter outfit to be like, this guy's pretty weird. Yeah. You know, different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a stripper one day. It's like, that's the same way that a lot of people show up on the Internet. They're like this here, like, this random job they did there, you know, this Facebook picture here. And it's like, it's inconsistent. So then people can't trust you. Even if they wanted to, they can't trust you.

Travis (Host) (26:08)

It's.

Kerry James (Guest) (26:08)

It's not in our psychology to be able to do that consistency. Like, I always go back. I don't want to geek out too hard here, but I always go back to evolutionary psychology. In our tribal environments hundreds of thousands of years ago, usually it was like about 100 to 200 people that we lived with our entire lives. We had our entire life to engage with these people. You know, our. There was the. The. The guy that the hunter that was the best hunter in the tribe. There was the. The woman that was the medicine woman. There was the guy that built huts. They would show up the same way every day. They had a lifetime of experience with these people, and you knew that this guy's huts were the best huts. You would trust those huts, you know, like, build. Building skills with your life. Life. And because you trusted him there, he showed up consistently being that guy in that way, then you would trust him with other things. You would invite him to the meeting, you would invite him to go on a hunting party, all these different things. And a lot of people, they don't. They don't realize. They have this blindness to how they're actually coming across online. They're just not showing consistency. So if you just like every profile, put similar information, have similar photos, etc, because when you do that, it builds this. This subconscious trust in the market where they're like, okay, I can. I can give this person my business. I can give them my mom.

Travis (Host) (27:16)

Yeah, I love it, dude. Love this conversation. Obviously, something that both of, both of us have kind of geeked out about over the past few years, but I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and share a little bit more. Where can people go to get more from you?

Kerry James (Guest) (27:26)

Yeah, I mean, if you want to learn more, want to. Want to find out more about who you are and your brand and how it could be developed. Brand Alchemy I.O. is my company. That's. That's where I hang out. My team does. We do audits for everybody we work with, essentially, and then on social. Kerry James on Instagram at Carrie James Official LinkedIn, Erry James Official as well.

Travis (Host) (27:45)

HarryJames Official and Brand Alchemy IO. Go check out some of the stuff that Carrie's up to. Car, I appreciate you taking the time, man. I know your time's valuable. I don't take that for granted. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's a little bit easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.