Unlock the secrets of LinkedIn success as I share the mic with Jordan Mendoza, a wizard of online brand growth who's turned the platform into a ladder for climbing to social media strategy stardom. We dissect Jordan's transformation from a LinkedIn learner to a veritable maestro, delving into the pivotal roles of content engagement and consistency in building a following. You'll walk away with actionable advice on amping up your profile from the aesthetics to leveraging features like Creator Mode and LinkedIn Live—tools that could be your ticket to standing out in a crowded digital space.
Networking isn't just about collecting contacts; it's an art form that, when paired with smart monetization strategies, can lead to astonishing financial outcomes. Our conversation takes a turn into the realm of meaningful connections as we discuss why engagement trumps follower count every time. I'll share my personal blueprint for the year, focusing on one-to-one calls rather than sales pitches. You'll get to explore real-life case studies, including a Christian influencer's journey to soaring earnings through strategic networking — a testament to the power of authentic storytelling and value delivery in today's digital ecosystem.
Finally, we deep-dive into the critical role of self-awareness and personal development in balancing professional and private life. I open up about leveraging personality assessments and spiritual gifts evaluations to navigate the complexities of managing businesses while keeping family life flourishing. The conversation with Jordan reveals how understanding oneself can be the key to seizing the right opportunities and how mentorship and learning from success stories pave the way for growth. Join us as we explore these insights, drawing on experiences that span from running multiple businesses to nurturing a family, all threaded with the theme that knowing yourself is the cornerstone of true success.
Unlock the secrets of LinkedIn success as I share the mic with Jordan Mendoza, a wizard of online brand growth who's turned the platform into a ladder for climbing to social media strategy stardom. We dissect Jordan's transformation from a LinkedIn learner to a veritable maestro, delving into the pivotal roles of content engagement and consistency in building a following. You'll walk away with actionable advice on amping up your profile from the aesthetics to leveraging features like Creator Mode and LinkedIn Live—tools that could be your ticket to standing out in a crowded digital space.
Networking isn't just about collecting contacts; it's an art form that, when paired with smart monetization strategies, can lead to astonishing financial outcomes. Our conversation takes a turn into the realm of meaningful connections as we discuss why engagement trumps follower count every time. I'll share my personal blueprint for the year, focusing on one-to-one calls rather than sales pitches. You'll get to explore real-life case studies, including a Christian influencer's journey to soaring earnings through strategic networking — a testament to the power of authentic storytelling and value delivery in today's digital ecosystem.
Finally, we deep-dive into the critical role of self-awareness and personal development in balancing professional and private life. I open up about leveraging personality assessments and spiritual gifts evaluations to navigate the complexities of managing businesses while keeping family life flourishing. The conversation with Jordan reveals how understanding oneself can be the key to seizing the right opportunities and how mentorship and learning from success stories pave the way for growth. Join us as we explore these insights, drawing on experiences that span from running multiple businesses to nurturing a family, all threaded with the theme that knowing yourself is the cornerstone of true success.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Voice Like a Lion podcast. I'm your host, stephen Pemberton, and today we have someone that's very interesting and I think that you guys are going to be just blown away not only by a story, but what he's already accomplished, and this is Jordan Mendoza. He grew his LinkedIn brand from zero to over 64,000 followers not 6,400, 64,000. And now he teaches coaches and consultants how to leverage LinkedIn to build authority and attract their ideal clients. He's also a speaker, podcasts, host of Blazor on Trail and has a newsletter with over 17,000 subscribers. Jordan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, man. You make me sound way cooler than I am, so I appreciate that you are definitely that cool.
Speaker 1:I've only had a few conversations with you, but I mean there's so much. I've seen that you're posting more and more on LinkedIn recently and you've been on other podcasts and just the way that you guest on those shows has been incredible. I've listened to a couple of them and you have an amazing story and more than story that I'm really interested in, and more than even the zero to 64,000, which I'm sure the audience is interested in. You have this amazing heart for people and that's really how you got into it. It was just adding value day in and day out. Was that kind of your strategy with LinkedIn when you went from zero to 64,000 and just posting consistently adding value? Was that kind of the strategy behind it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, when I first started, I had no strategy at all.
Speaker 2:I had no clue, just like everybody else when you start something new. I actually got introduced to this platform that you're on not too long ago and I remember looking at it like it was foreign and that's kind of what LinkedIn was to me in 2019. I was in my corporate world. I had been in property management about 12 years. At that time, I was a training and development manager and I got a goal, just like we all get goals in our world, whether it's your business or someone else's business. My goal was to find a social media platform that we could get our associates engaged on Something outside of our internal platform or outside of our LMS or something like that, and so I had tried out Snapchat. I went to Facebook. I literally was testing all the platforms and I had been versed in them. I had built audiences on MySpace and Facebook and I had built 7,000 connections on LinkedIn. So I kind of had some sense of what I was doing.
Speaker 2:But my literal first video this is the funny part was asking people if they knew about social media and how to get people engaged. So that's funny, because my whole business is literally teaching people what, how to do that. So I was asking the question because I didn't know what I was doing, and I think that should be encouraging to people. I mean, you can take somebody in 2019 that had really no clue how to build a social audience, how to build relationships online, how to get content that was gonna get reached by people, how to engage with the audience and how to essentially take the online offline. And so what I was doing while I was searching for this goal, as I became my very first case study, I became somebody that started at 7,000, which really was built over colleagues and coworkers and people I've known in the industry and from that to 20,000 people just six months later. So I had found some things that were working and I started to really build the initial roadmap for what my future programs would look like.
Speaker 1:That's amazing because I've been I wouldn't say dabbling I post every single day now, but that's kind of the strategy Cause there for a long time it was very much dabbling where I was like okay, I'm gonna make this one post and then I'll be back in four months, but I love that you had no strategy, because that's exactly where I was. Now I have like a tiny strategy, but not much of one, so it kind of is yielding those same fruits. So what is for someone like me cause I know that there's many people listening that are in a similar position where they're saying okay, jordan, that's great for you, I've post consistently, but it just doesn't feel like I'm really growing anything. What advice would you give to someone like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we can. We can get super tactical. I'd love to just give people like, hey, if I were restarting over, like if I was, if I deleted my account today, what are the things that I would do to set this system in place? Right, because again, without process, it's kind of chaotic. Right, if we don't?
Speaker 2:have a process that we're going through. We're literally just it's like we're throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what slides down, what slides down quicker, what sticks. So here's what I would do. The first thing I would do is dial in my profile. And what do I mean by dial then? I mean you have to take a top to bottom approach. Is your profile and you have to try to look at it with fresh eyes, and so the eyes that I would look at it for is, I would A say, does the billboard that I have tell people exactly who I am and what I do?
Speaker 2:Right? The billboard is your banner image, okay. Does my headline text tell people what I do? Does it have keywords I want to be found for? And is there a clear call to action on what I want each visitor to do? Next, okay, do I have all the features turned on? Creator mode is a must have. Again, if you're starting out, if you have a fresh profile, you got to be at a certain amount of followers to be able to turn it on, but once you have that ability and most people that are probably going to watch or listen to this should have enough connections to turn it on, but that's going to give you access to tools that can help you generate awareness for your brand, potential leads, partnerships, and those tools are LinkedIn Live, linkedin Audio and your newsletters. Okay, so that's why Creator mode's important.
Speaker 2:The next thing I would do is look at my about summary. I would read it and if it sounds any semblance of like a resume, I would delete all that copy and I would start to rewrite it. Okay, because this is where a lot of the people I work with. They really get blown away on the way that I structure and teach LinkedIn, because the about summary and this might just be my own opinion, but it should be about you. It should give people context into the human that they're going to potentially interact with. So I teach my clients to write their about summary from a storytelling approach versus a copy and paste your resume, which is 98% of the people on the platform.
Speaker 2:Okay, so get that dialed in. Have a good call to action at the end of that, of course, at the end of your story. Right, you got to have a hook. You got to get people to want to read it. Then you can talk about your areas of expertise. I even spell out what I'm looking for partnerships, podcast sponsors, because people don't know unless you tell them right. So having that dialed in would be next. The next thing is think about the one thing that you want to feature on your profile which could be a lead magnet. For me, it's my newsletter, that's my featured section item, because one little pro tip when you start a newsletter on LinkedIn, if you add that as to your featured section, it actually has a passive subscription button that anybody that takes that top to bottom look, because you do have a optimized profile can actually subscribe passively. Okay. So those are really the things that I would tackle. If you do that, if your listeners do the things that I just mentioned, you're going to be about 70% better than most people out there.
Speaker 1:I believe that because I follow generally. You actually added a lot of value even to me on that, just for the about section. There was one thing you said in the about sections people, unless you tell them what you need, they're not going to know what you need, and I went okay, my about section is everything you said, except for that. But there's one thing that you said that you mentioned. You mentioned the newsletter For me. I don't have a big following on LinkedIn. I've got about 1,100 followers or so, but what's interesting with the newsletter is when we launched it, I have over 200, and I have well over 200 subscribers now just because, like you said, it's right there it's got this passive subscribe button.
Speaker 1:One question that comes to mind I actually read this on threads and I have my own personal take, which we'll get into, but I want to hear your take because of I've seen it in your own life. We've had these conversations about how growing your following has impacted you. Offline. There's Neil Patel. Neil Patel has a big following over 3 million followers just on Instagram, I believe and he said that that having 3 million followers doesn't mean anything anymore, that the platforms have changed, that it doesn't matter if you have a following that if you have no following but your videos are engaging, that that means more than having a following. Do you believe that or do you believe that there's some kind of truth in it? What's your take on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it all comes down to strategy.
Speaker 2:You could have very little followers but have a really, really good system and process and strategy and you can still make a heck of a lot of money. You can connect with a heck of a lot of people, right? Because, again, it doesn't. You will see people because I know some of these people. They've got 400K, they've got close to a million followers, but they don't know how to monetize that audience. So if you don't have the context on how to actually network, how to build relationships, how to take the online offline, the numbers don't really mean anything.
Speaker 1:Interesting. That's actually a similar take to me. I do think now my take is just a little bit different, where if you have 3 million I feel as if you have 3 million people who are actively engaged if you're adding a lot of value, the way that you add value to your people, then they're much more apt to do whatever next action, whatever your call to action is. Because if you've got 500 people that are following you, and even if they are actively engaged, if 10% of them take action, that's 50 people, but if you've got 5 million and 10% of them take action, that's a significantly bigger amount of people that are taking action on whatever that thing is. But I do I say this quite often too is just having that some kind of call to action, having a way to monetize your audience, is really, really important.
Speaker 1:There's a pretty good case study that came out from some of my good friends from the firm collective and they have a buddy that he's a big Christian influencer. He puts on these impromptu concerts on Hollywood Boulevard, has a big following, over a half a million people or something around that number and they came to him. We're talking to him. He said guys, I'm barely making $5,000 a month. It's like I can barely afford my rent. It's like how you have that big of an audience and he was just saying I don't know what to do or how to do it and they came in and helped him, put some systems in place and within two months he was at 20k monthly reoccurring because it's just about having those mechanisms. So what are some of the best mechanisms that you've seen to bring people from the online space and bring them offline? So I heard you say networking is some things, but what are some of the best ones that you've seen work for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean networking is definitely key. You don't want to just be selling all the time, and I think the first time, the first time we connected, was just on a virtual coffee or a conducting call, and so that could be a system in process. Especially if you want to do business globally and you want to potentially meet with people all around the world, why not leverage technology like Be Connected has meeting the ability to add different things and enhance that environment, and so the more that you can do that and the more that you can get yourself in front of the people that you want to learn from or connect with, the better you're going to have chances at getting your message out to two more people. It's a numbers game, no matter how you slice it. Sales is the number game, connections is the numbers game, but you're only really one connection away from significantly changing your life. You get around the right people, you stay consistent at what you're doing.
Speaker 2:My whole deal we were kind of talking offline, but I'm involved in part owner of a company in Europe and that came from a DM, from somebody over a year ago, a year and a half ago now. That led to building a relationship over the last year and a half, which led to me doing business in a few different countries in Europe. So you never know what can happen, and a lot of that just came from showing up consistently putting the same message if you will out there, showing people what your values are, showing people through stories. I've heard it said a million times in my life that facts tell but stories sell and when you can story tell, when you can bring people along on a journey, there's a lot more that can be taken away from that.
Speaker 1:That man I love that, because that was basically my entire strategy for 2023 was I was just doing one-to-one calls. I mean I had 70,. By the time, by the time the second week of January came around, I had 70 calls booked for January and February and they were not sales calls For everyone listening everyone. Nowadays you see the ads where it's like, hey, let me fill your calendar, you have no days off, you're just going to be taking so many calls. It's like that's great, but what kind of calls are they For me?
Speaker 1:I got to choose my calls because I was going and interacting with amazing people like you and amazing people like my friend Steve, who's an angel investor, and people that I've had on this podcast, because have I sold anything to any of them? No, I haven't sold. We are not working together at this moment. But the amazing thing is is that we are working together in the sense where I'm getting to get real value from you. I'm getting to understand real things about you. For me, I'm getting to see how can I support him. Is there someone in my network that I can connect to him? And that's the power of networking In 2023, it changed my life just from that one aspect of actually going out and networking.
Speaker 1:I've created such a powerful network of business owners and investors that now they're asking me questions about different deals and I go, this is wild, you're asking me about a deal.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen all the fruits of it yet because it's a strategy that I've just now began to implement, but just having I mean I've been on hundreds and hundreds of networking calls and being able to grow that network and understand people because, like you said, it's not, it's about the story. So for me, as I just get on, I tell my story and I get them to buy into who I am and that way I can just ask questions, because there's a lot of people that for people listening especially if you are a startup founder and you're trying to figure out where am I going from here, I just feel alone. Just do that. Do exactly what Jordan was saying go out there and network, because you can find those people who are steps ahead of you in the journey, maybe way ahead of you, and they're not big and scary. They're going to be willing to sit down and talk to you and help you on that path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say also, just get plugged in locally. Digitally is great, but there's nothing like face-to-face interaction. So, like when I was still at Gables residential in my corporate role, there was a business men's connect group that was part of my church, one of the connect groups, and I said, you know what, if I want to start a business, I might as well rub shoulders with actual business owners, like people that have auto body shops and people that have lawn care companies and people that are investors. And let me actually go see what I can learn from these people. And man, when I tell you, it was the best decision of my life, because now not only do I have lifelong friends, you know, one of them has become a partner in one of my businesses.
Speaker 2:Other people have given me amazing advice and, just like you said, now a lot of them are taking advice from me and they're looking up to me because I understand the digital landscape and all these folks are, you know, were started their businesses way prior to that, and now they're like, hey, how can I get my phone to ring?
Speaker 2:You know, all the referrals and word of mouth is kind of worn off and I'm like, okay, perfect, well, let's set up a strategy, let's figure out exactly what your customers are looking for and how we can really shift their businesses to get up to the times of 2024 and beyond, and so there's so many amazing things that can happen when you really start to surround yourself with people that are doing the things you want to do, that have been to the places that you want to been, that have failed in the areas that you're probably going to fail in, and you can just, you know, having those iron sharpening irons moments, and and especially mine, was in the context of church. So we're praying for each other. You know, we're battling each other, and when there's a seasons are up, when seasons are down, and then that time is invaluable.
Speaker 1:I'm now officially convicted because that I mean we have a small group, but I think that there's a lot more I could do locally. There's a lot more things I could get plugged into locally, especially even through the church. And what? Because as soon as you said that is, my thought was well, there's not one in my church. That's a small group around business. And then I've just heard the Holy Spirit's like why don't you make one, bro? I mean, we, I'm at a big church. I mean we have Thousands of people who attend on a Sunday. So I know a lot of them are business owners and a lot of them are very creative.
Speaker 1:So I know that if I started one, that it would fill up and that we would have an amazing time, like you said, being able to just network and talk to one another and pray for one another. That's been the biggest thing about us having a small group. It went from six people to over 40 people in less than a year and Just having that community through some of our hardest times was Invaluable. Like you cannot put a price tag on what they gave us and just sitting there praying for us and being there for us as we're sitting there crying our eyes out, or if we're able to sit there and pray over them or be there for them or whatever advice came in that helped shift our life or really just shift our destiny Because of the prayers coming in. There's no amount of money that you can put on that impact.
Speaker 1:So if you were listening to this, what he just said, that is gold. Look, do, even if you don't want to. Yes, we live in a digital age. Even if you're my age or younger, go out there and meet people face to face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've got, I've gotten some advice that is Severely impacted my life in so many different ways. You know, you get to learn from People that you're like wow, I didn't realize you're a multi-millionaire, had no, had no clue. You know, had no clue because they're so humble. And again, you know, some things are taught and some things are caught. You know and, and so these are things that you can catch and you can go apply to your life. And, and my advice is go test the stuff. Anytime someone gives you advice, go actually do it, go apply it, because you never know if it works until you do it for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I tell people all the time is it's great. I'll probably was gonna end up saying it towards the end of our episode, but I always say it's amazing. Thank you so much for joining us all the way to this point. But if you're not gonna implement it, then you just spend an hour or you spend 30 minutes with us for no reason. Because I want, I don't want people to listen to this and say, oh wow, what Jordan said, that's so good. He gave me the, the literal roadmap to go start setting up my LinkedIn. That was so good. And then they just don't do anything with it. Because what? What's the point of that? It's it's as if you just have a stack of books sitting next to you and you don't read any of them. You're not getting anything from it.
Speaker 1:My mom she told me, she used to tell me this all the time. She said you can get wisdom one of two ways. She said you can either learn it from someone else or you can go through the trials that give you the wisdom and Unfortunately, it took a lot of the trials that gave me the wisdom to give wisdom. But I've learned over there, especially over the last year and a half, almost two years is just sitting with people and Hearing their story, being able to understand that. This is where, like you said, was where they failed. This is how they they fell down. This is what they lost. This is what they gained being able to take years and years and years of time and just compress it into a moment, 15 minutes, that you're able to learn from them. Being able to talk face to face.
Speaker 1:There's a guy that was in our church, super ridiculously successful, and he was in a different car every single time. I saw him, but I didn't realize it, because he just was always in Jeans and a plain black shirt, and eventually somebody said hey, you know that he's actually really rich, right? And I said I don't think so. And I when I started talking to him. He owns four businesses. He's invested in multiple business around here in Tulsa, oklahoma, and I went really do you out of all people, and it and what was funny, though, is it inspired me, because I go, if this guy can Be so under the radar Me not. He doesn't have any kind of physical attributes that make him any more special than anyone else. There's nothing that makes him uniquely anointed outside of him being a child of God, I go. If he can do that, then I can do that, and I think that that's a big piece of mindset. Shift is even more than just the how to is just realizing hey, it's possible for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you know, success leaves clues. Right, you start seeing people doing the things or in Having the things that you want and you're like okay, well, let me, let me go ahead and follow this person. Right, it might not be a digital where you hit the follow button, but you've got them locked in where. Let me see what they're doing, let me see what their process is like, let me see what their habits are like, because, typically, that's gonna show you exactly what you need or what you're missing.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that's what it was with that guy, because he was. He was really integral in our church. He was so interesting. The reason why I didn't think he was that successful is because he had taken a role Over the outreach department of our church. So I thought, oh, he can't be that successful if he has a job.
Speaker 1:But then when we're flying around the country putting on these pop-up events through our church, he's sitting there and he'll be on his phone. It's like, oh yeah, this company just grew this much. Or it's like, oh, this restaurant over here is doing this and I'm it's. I wait, you're running those things. You're not even there and they're breaking mortars. All of them are not online. I'm used to running online businesses so I can understand that. But he's running full brick and mortar businesses, as all these employees been around for 20, 30 years, and I'm just blown away. I go okay.
Speaker 1:So what is he doing? How does he? How does he do this? How does he structure his day? What does this day look like that he can be putting on? He can work a full-time job, be putting on these massive events through a church and he can be running multiple companies at one time because there's something there. Like you said, success leaves clue is success leaves clues. So there has to be some kind of system in his life that makes it Accessible to him, that makes it something he can really achieve, because if it wasn't, if a lot of times one business can get Overwhelming. So for him to have multiple and to be doing a job too, it was very, it was amazing, honestly, to watch how he did it, how he was able to integrate his family into it. So that's even for you, now that you're like. Now you've blown up on LinkedIn 64,000 followers. It's a lot now, but with you, with everything that's come in, how have you been able to balance the growth that you've seen coming from online to offline and your family and your faith?
Speaker 2:Oh man, just one step at a time. It's not an easy process, of course. We've got three boys, two girls, from three to 19,. And we're being blessed in August with our six, so we're about to have six children Most people, they just get tired hearing that.
Speaker 2:But I've got the six children and I've got my main business. I've got the podcast. I've got business in Europe. I just launched 3D printing business at the end of last year. For me, you have to understand yourself. You have to be self-aware. That's the advice I would give anyone, and I'm going to put my corporate training hat on. I got certified at Myers-Briggs and taking an assessment that helped me understand me helped me understand how I'm wired so important to be able to do that, so that you can take an introspective look at yourself. Platforms or assessments like emotional intelligence, diving in to see, okay, how do I react and how can I manage my emotions, how do I react in social settings, how can I handle in relationships, things like strengths finder. One thing I would tell and give everybody advice is you got to get to know you better than anybody else knows you, because there's only one person that knows us better than we know ourselves, and that's God right. But we have to start understanding ourselves.
Speaker 2:And so even outside of the context of personality assessments. One thing that was highly impactful was taking a spiritual gifts assessment and seeing how are we with the gifts that God's been given us and then how do we activate those gifts? Because what you'll start to find is a lot of it translates into the regular world. Right. A lot of those gifts that we have can really translate, and the more that we can do things that are more like us and that give us energy versus take it away, that's when you start to have those epiphanies and those big unlocks and that's how you can have five coming on, six and few different businesses and have a lot of chaos, but still be able to manage things in the chaos, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:And again that would not happen if I didn't know. It would be me, because it would be very hard if I was not knowing how to react in this situation or that situation. But five kids definitely that teaches you some lessons. When you have five other humans other than yourself and your spouse, with five different personalities and five different needs and five different wants, yeah, that can teach you a little bit about patience and flexibility and things like that. So I think God never gives us too much. He always gives us what he knows that we can handle.
Speaker 2:And for us it's hey, guess we're having getting ready to look at farms, I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1:No, I think that that well, two things is one if it's in August, try to hold out to August 12th. That's my birthday. So August 12th, shoot for that date, or shoot for the 24th. That's 24th is my anniversary. So both of those are really great dates In August. If it does, it's my two cents. The I actually had. It's really interesting.
Speaker 1:You brought up self-awareness, because I just had this conversation with my wife earlier today. I said then I think the number one greatest skill you can learn over everything else over sales, over marketing, over client acquisition, client fulfillment, over leadership is self-awareness. If you can learn self-awareness and fully understand you, like you said, better than anyone else understands you, there's so much power in that as you can understand when there may be great opportunities that come along and you go, wow, that looks so great on paper, but I know that that's not congruent with who I am. I'm not actually going to be able to take advantage of that opportunity or they're not going to get the best of me if I was to say yes to this. Or it could be the exact opposite, where you could be going through a really difficult time and you could say, well, this is hard, but I know who I am and I know that I'll come out on the other side of it because of X, y and Z. I understand that this is my mindset. This is what I typically try to run to. That's either good or bad. Let me just pay attention to that. Make sure I'm not trying to self-destruct myself, but just being aware. The power of self-awareness, because most people are not. Most people, if we're honest. Most people are not very aware, especially none of themself, and they will miss that there's key indicators that are leading them down the wrong path.
Speaker 1:I love what you were saying. I mean, I only have one kid, so I'm not sure how you're functioning with five. I've got one. I feel like he's seven. He's seven kids all at once. It's insane having five. That just blows my mind when I think about having a family. For me, there's still a lot of work that I'm doing in that regard to basically push my own to be more self-aware. Why am I frustrated at this? Why am I short with them Instead of just being more gracious, especially coming from the church and being you and I, both being in the Bible, is just saying okay, is this how the Lord would want me to react? Why not? Why am I reacting this way? There's been questions that have come up and I'm working on that, but that's where I'm at. I just think that it's really amazing that you brought up self-awareness. I do think that that is by far the greatest skill that somebody could learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, if anyone watches, if you're an employee, leverage your company to invest in you guys, because they're honestly, your first investor, your employer. They're investing time, money, training, resources. Take that all on and take advantage of it in a good way, not just take advantage of it. Don't get the three-letter certification just so you can put it on LinkedIn. Actually, dive in.
Speaker 2:Shame on me, because I was the guy that didn't read a book till I was in my early 30s because I didn't really see the value in it. Until I started reading books from Dale Carnegie and reading books from Zig Ziglar and, diving into professional development, I started realizing that, hey, you know what knucklehead, you can learn some stuff too. What if you actually took this stuff and you went and tested it and applied it? Once I started doing that, everything just really started to shift and change for me. My perspective shifted that hey, you know what, you don't need to do it the hard way, you don't need to figure all this stuff out on your own. People have already paved the way. I think. As humans, we sometimes think we need to put that whole burden on our own shoulders and we have to basically self-inflicted misery just because our ego and our pride is so far up our butt?
Speaker 1:We don't want to ask for help.
Speaker 2:Again, take it from me. I did a lot of that and went through a lot of hard lessons. But if I would have just said, hey, I don't know this or hey, I need help, there probably would have been people that would have raised their hand. Don't be like me back then and actually reach out to people. Don't be afraid, the worst question that you can ask is the one that you didn't actually ask.
Speaker 1:in my opinion, yes, that's so good because that's what I've realized. The same thing that we talked about a little bit earlier was don't be afraid to ask people questions. Don't be afraid to reach out to somebody and just say hey, I see that you're doing this and honestly, reaching out in a way that adds value to the other person is the best way for you to get value added to you. So if you see somebody that's struggling on LinkedIn, but they are an owner of a massive real estate portfolio saying, hey, I see that you're struggling on LinkedIn, there's just some things I saw in your profile and you just take a little screenshot, if you just change this picture, if you add this and you're about to you, you'll grow your following significantly and then that's it. Just leave it at that and they go oh wow, this person just added value for no reason Then you can try to get on a call.
Speaker 1:I had to learn that over a series of misfires because I would just be like, hey, I want to learn more about you. And it's like, hey, you have nothing off of me, so I would prefer not to waste my time on you. But if you just add value and that's been generally the underlying concept of this entire episode is adding value to people like that. If you add value, if you just treat people how you want to be treated, if you are aware of how you're treating people, and that gives you the ability to just understanding yourself. It gives you that ability to understand where you're going, how you're getting there, what you're walking through and how you're treating people and why you're treating them that way. But, jordan, I really do appreciate you being here. How can people find you?
Speaker 2:Well, you make it pretty easy, so you can either go to LinkedIn, look me up, send me a message, send me a connection request, and I'd love to connect with you guys. Also, don't be a stranger. I'll just give you my email. You can just send me an email. It's Jordan at blazeyourowntrailconsultingcom. If you're someone that needs help with LinkedIn, I'd love to be able to help you. I give anybody a free profile audit, so if that's something, if you're like man, I don't even have a banner. I haven't updated this thing since the last time I got promoted or I really do. I need a company page, like all these things. I'm happy to add value, like you said, answer questions for people, and then we do do also weekly, monthly group coaching. We do one-on-one, so we really help people in all different areas. No matter if you're brand new or even if you're a seasoned veteran. There's probably some things that we can help you with.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's awesome. So everyone listening. Those will all be in the show notes down below or in the video. It'll be in the description down below. But, jordan, before I let you go, tell me a funny story about you growing your following from zero to 64,000.
Speaker 2:The funny story was when I did my first 30 days video challenge. It was like 30 videos in 30 days and I'm one of those people that if I'm going to do a challenge, I do make it really hard on myself. So I didn't think of the topic until each morning when I woke up and, man, you want to talk about, you want to go back to my content and try to rewind a few years. You're going to see some really funny. I mean, I did impressions of like Simpson's character.
Speaker 2:I was doing breakdancing video. Man, I couldn't. I was like wake up, I couldn't think of something. I'm like all right, what's something stupid you did when you were a kid and I was just posting a video about that. So if you want to get good on video, guys go make a funny a full of yourself and then you're never going to care what anybody thinks. So that's my advice Go have some fun. Do a 30 videos in 30 day challenge. You will definitely grow from it. You'll grow a bunch and you'll stop really caring about what other people think, and I think that's important.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I ask that question every time, but that was probably the funniest answer I've gotten and the fact that you just came up with it. They have said I'm going to do a breakdancing video, I'm going to impersonate the Simpsons today. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, listen guys. Personal brand. The keyword is personal, so it's got to be you. It can't be stuffy. It's got to be the same Jordan that you'd see here. You'd see me at Kroger, at the store. Does that make sense? And so, the more you can do that authenticity is something that's been tossed around the last handful of years. But just be yourself. And the more you can do that, you're going to attract the people that you need to and you're going to repel the people that you need to also. So just be you and you're going to have a lot more success than if you were trying to be somebody else.
Speaker 1:So good. What a nugget. That's an amazing nugget, and we're going to end it right there. Thank you, guys again for joining us here, and we'll see you in the next episode.