Ep99 Joe Blackburn - The Art Of Being Valuable: Why Most 'Successful' Professionals Are About To Get Left Behind

Joe Blackburn  0:00  
There's gonna come a day and it's gonna be faster than any of us want that the only value you're gonna have is your ability to connect and monetize. And I don't wanna be Chicken Little run around saying the sky's falling, I can just tell you your value is gonna be determined on your ability

Jason Croft  0:11  
to connect. I mean, you talk about playing the odds, the amount of people who go through a fraction of the effort to learn what you're teaching. If you start implementing any of this stuff tomorrow, you'll see those tangible results really, really fast. Welcome to strategy in action, where we reveal how industry leaders build real market gravity, the force that naturally attracts opportunities, partnerships and profits. You get raw insights, proven frameworks and strategies that actually move the needle in your business. Let's get started. Welcome to strategy in action. It is great to be getting these episodes out here, once again, I'm bringing an episode today with my good friend Joe Blackburn. This is the second time he had appeared on strategy in action, and this is actually before we jumped in and created 18 plus episodes of sales assassins together, which was an absolute blast. And now we've actually launched a new show called The Lion's edge, where we're jumping in each week and digging into these really high level concepts that he walks his members of the lion through. And we wanted to share that with a wider audience so they can certainly implement a lot of that in their businesses right now, just by listening to these episodes each week, but also see what it's like and see the importance of joining and being a part of something like the lion Joe's mastermind, if you haven't checked out Sales assassins, or even Joe's previous episode here on strategy and action, you're going to understand very quickly why I jumped in and did these other shows with him. He's just a blast to dig into these concepts with. And I mean to say that he knows his stuff when it comes to business and coaching and the human aspects of all this stuff as well is, is quite an understatement. So let's jump in with Joe Blackburn. Mr. Joe Blackburn, welcome to the show. Hey, man. How are you good to see you again? Absolutely. Yeah, I should say, welcome back to the show. So so glad to have you on again. This is, this is awesome.

Joe Blackburn  2:44  
Yeah, I'm excited to be back. We reach back out knowing that you know you great audience, great interviewer. So I feel like I'm right at home. Just came just like I just came home.

Jason Croft  2:54  
Perfect. I love it. You've got so much going on it. It as we do. It's one of those, like, conversations we've been having the last 15 minutes. There's like, why were Weren't we recording all of that? Because it's golden. So I'm excited if you see our energy up already, it's because of that. Like, we know this is going to be a great one. And I want to give folks, you know, some geography now. You know, since the last time you were on and everything, you've just done a phenomenal job. You said you're at five years from Merrill Lynch and corporate and all of that. You went out on your own. Everyone thought you were nuts. But describe these last five years and kind of a scope of where you are now, sure?

Joe Blackburn  3:37  
Well, when I resigned, it was five years ago in May, so it was the 29th of May. My boss at the time, and his heart was in the right place. He said, You've thrown your career away and you've ruined your life. Then he hung up on me. We actually talked after that. He called me back, but he was not happy. And, you know, I wasn't sure he was wrong. I mean, I did leave all my income, all my benefits, I mean, everything that would be the norm of a functioning adult in America to, you know, chase a dream, but it's been five years. It's gone really fast, and I've been down a couple roads that maybe didn't pan out, but I'm not sure if I've totally made it, but I've made, you know what I've wanted so far, and it's been a blast. And I think the last time we talked, we were launching our inner circle mastermind called the lion. And since then, we've had five in persons. We just had our last one this past weekend in St Louis. We had everybody fly in to watch the Cardinals at the top of the Hilton at the ballpark split with the Rockies. I'm assuming you're a Rockies fan. Maybe not, I don't know, but the Rockies are terrible, in the Cardinals split with them, but yeah, we had a great time, locked everybody in the basement, got some deep work done, working on some levers that really, you know, that group who's really, they're trying to really maximize the business they have by recruiting, training, going out and acquiring other businesses and really growing asymmetrically. Above, you know, kind of the one off, and they're working on multiplying wealth, meaning whether they're buying a business, real estate and so forth, but very family centered. So that's our that's kind of our core that that we work with. And then, you know, we had a great time there. But from them, actually what, you know, two kind of offshoots in our business, one where we found a gap in the sales teams of some of these businesses. So we've started a school called assassins becoming deadly at sales for not really the very beginner, but I guess we help a couple of those, but kind of that person that really wants to go from, let's say, 10 to $15,000 a month to high six figures and with aspiration across seven and then we also have an immersion program where we'll just take your entire team and train them, your secondary leadership, your sales, your service. We put them all in their own school and kind of give them their own playground and work with them in a lot of capacities as a group, some one on one and so forth. But that's really for those founders, owners of a business that want it done for them, and they may be tracking to sell the business at some point, or just have other interests, or they're building something out that takes their time away from that. So we do it for them. It's a great service, but it was kind of the two gaps around our core, and we've had great success on both sides and really maintain the integrity of the inner circle. I've always told them that we're not going to turn this into a cattle call and have a bunch of speakers and make it a concert. It's really about getting together, putting each other in the hot seat, sharing best ideas. I coach them a little bit, one on one outside of it, but it's more about that mastermind, you know, super conscious, and it's been super fun, super successful. We're headed to Phoenix, Arizona in November, so we try to go where it's warm, but not horribly hot. And I rolled the dice on St Louis, because it can be the hottest city on the planet, and it was 81 and not humid. It was amazing.

Jason Croft  6:56  
So we got lucky, nice. Oh yeah, that's, that's, that's half of it on those destination things. Because, yeah, you know that could take that can take everybody out, if you if it's just a miserable, yeah. So we got super lucky there. I like this order of where you started with folks with that. You know that the one on one that getting that dialed in, really delivering results for those, for folks first, and then out of that, seeing this, this need and and I think that that the call out is really jump it. You have an idea, you have this, you know how you can help some folks jump in, start helping those folks, maybe before you have this whole huge ecosystem that you should have before, after and all of that, because that's how you're going to really find those things. Because even if you did build it out or put it on paper, it's going to change once, always

Joe Blackburn  7:54  
you start interacting. I mean, I came over and St Louis and I have four changes I'm going to make. So I you know, we're not trying to change for change sake and how we deliver, because you got to be careful. You don't want to confuse people or keep them discombobulated. But, you know, when I when I had left Merrill, I was focused on one on one. I had actually purchased a franchise that has a great platform. I mean, I was used to sitting at a multi billion dollar platform for investments and financial planning, so I bought something similar in the coaching world, and it was great, and I still use parts of it, and still great organization and everything. It's just you kind I mean, like anything else, you evolve and grow and need have less dependency on things like that, less regiment. But, you know, one on one, it's, I think it doesn't matter what industry you're in, you don't start at the top or at the you know, the pinnacle you've you've got to prove that you can do it at all levels. And, you know, I think there's two. I mean, maybe I'm being cynical, but there seems to be an awful lot of experts online that have never done anything and never coached anyone, gotten results. I have witnessed that. I'm just saying, people that have never done anything that are great at marketing. So kudos to them for taking advantage of the marketplace. However, you know, I just felt like, I mean, I could do it, but can you coach someone to do it? So we, you know, we had a great one on one business and and I still do some one on one coaching and so forth, because I think it's valuable, and I think clients want that. However, what happened there was like, you know, you I had 22 one on ones. At one time, we were having 22 conversations that are essentially in all framework references the same, and people can learn from it. So we, we got an idea of the mastermind, and then I, you know, I, I wanted to make it where it was enjoyable, it was fun and it was effective. So people really liked coming to the events. They still were getting results, and they liked the group, because the group has as much to do with it, meaning their synergy and how collaborative they are, and how much they get along, and all those different things. And you know, you get handful of people together, that's not always easy, but we really got into that, the mastermind mentality. And at first I totally took one on one away, by the way, I just went cold. A turkey and took it away for five months, and what I noticed was there was a performance drift. I mean, there's no, you know, everyone's so enamored with scaling, they forget about this other person called the client. So I know it's novel, but sometimes the clients need to get results. So we just, we found a way to still keep intact parts of the one on one. We pushed more of our, you know, interaction in our bi weekly calls, and then the in person, and it was like this whole, I call it an ecosystem, and then we have a community that they can access and share wins. And so we created a great synergy. The business did really well. We went from September Labor Day at 22 to Labor Day at 23 we crossed over seven figures, which was my goal, and that was huge. No social media, no, you know, anything other than what I teach and word of mouth. So, you know, I kind of like doing what I say versus just teaching someone, you know what I mean. Like, it's kind of like if you haven't walked the talk. So I, you know, I feel like I can look anybody in the eye and say, All right, I can show you how to do this. And I just did it. So not only am I teaching it, I'm doing it and still doing it, but what we found in, you know, as we got into that kind of, that second year, what I was starting to sense, because I got to know people so well, was there was just a couple areas where they, I don't know if you call it a gap, but it was kind of like this was missing in their business. And you know, when you're running a business with five to 20 people, or what I call it a boutique, but when you're running that size operation, you're wearing all the hats and doing everything so and you may not be great at teaching other people your talent, like you may be able to teach them your skill, your your professional skill, but your talent and your connectivity, it's kind of has to be fostered. So what we did is we took a handful of their sales people in their organizations and started another school. We called it assassins. I baited it for nine months because I wanted to make sure I vetted out what worked, what didn't work, how to get results of people, you know, in that forum. And just, you know, I don't like to just, you know, say this works and not it didn't. So we got great results there. We opened it up. We're growing it fast. We're running ads to it now. We expect to grow that at a rapid pace and cohort and keep the integrity there. And so that's one of our main focuses right now. We also realized within that group, there were a handful of them and people they knew that just kind of wanted it done for them. I mean, sometimes people just like stuff done for them, and that's great for us. So we started an immersion where you can just take your whole business and plug it in to our different school platforms, and then we work with the founder and do accountability and metrics and all that, but we really take on the training and development of their we call it, you know, second tier management, their sales force. And then there's, you know, the the most neglected person in any business is the one that handles all the incoming phone calls, or what I call the service team. They're the ones that no one pays attention to. You know, it's kind of like, just do it make your hourly wage. So, like, we, we knew that I from, where I came from, at Merrill, we had what were called Client associates. They were doing all the work. So I started a school for them. It's called the whirlwind warriors. And they, they get together and collaborate and commiserate, because it's an outlet to talk about that, you know, they deal with a lot of stuff. So we built that out. It's, it's been really good. And we, we again, took some of the people's, you know, staff and so forth from the inner circle the middle, and put them there. So right now, you know, there's an ascension with us, where, if you come in as an introduction or through traffic or whatever it is, you need to really master the art of word of mouth and try to get to close to seven figures. Then once you get there, if you want to come into our inner circle, there's that's not an automatic by the way. There's a process and there's a fit process, because I don't want to mess up the synergy of that group. It's very good right now not to say we don't have any problems. We always have a couple things going on when there's humans. And then if you want to take your business to that next level, or you want it done for you, or have the need to really grow it, you know, north of the eight figures, searching a nine or to exit, then you can go to immersion. So that's how we're that's how we're operating. We're always reiterating it, trying to keep the core of it consistent. And the most important thing you know that, and I tell our people this, you know, processes and systems aren't your Savior. They're not going to save you. They're going to break and they're necessary. You're in the people business we all are, and you can't commoditize chemistry, so you better get really good at connecting with other humans. And like we were talking before this, there's going to come a day, and it's going to be faster than any of us want that the only value you're going to have is your ability to connect and monetize. That's it. And there's all kinds of ways to do it, but everything else is going to get go AI, robot, whatever it is. And I don't want to be Chicken Little run around saying the sky is falling, I can just tell you your value is going to be determined on your ability to connect. That's so we're trying to teach it at all levels. Yeah,

Jason Croft  14:50  
and it's and it's great news if you're someone like me, like you who enjoys the heck out of stuff anyway. That. Yeah, but I will, but, but we also understand that it's, it's not everyone's joy in life to connect and yet, too bad it's one of those things. You better figure it out in some way, what version of it for you that works? But you got to figure it out right period, that's awesome. And I want to really dig into this assassins. What's being covered in there, why that's so critical right now, before we do, I want to make sure we don't gloss over what you've got in that inner circle. Because I think it's a it's a common misnomer in the in this whole coaching, helping people space that well, yeah, one on one is that's where all the value. And then if I want to scale this at all, I can charge less, and we can bring in it can be a group coaching thing, and done right, that group that you assemble, that program that you have, is way more valuable to the people going through it because of what you you touched on a little bit. I wanna make sure we hammer home is that that interaction between the members of that mastermind, that's huge. That's what it'll get people to stay and to stay

Joe Blackburn  16:12  
longer 100% we added another in person because of that. So we were only doing two, and then we took a, you know, I do polls or whatever, and everybody said three. So we now do three. And, you know, it's you gotta know, like a mastermind isn't what a mastermind is. It's a collective consciousness. It's a super conscience. So if you don't put anything into it, you won't get anything out of it. You know, you might as well just buy a course and do it by yourself, or hire a one on one coach, that's fine, but some people really like that interaction. You know, the a lot of the value comes from, it's all different industries. So there's not the big group think. And you know, all the you know, you I always encourage people, you should have some form of education, or whatever it is, within your skill set, what I would call your hygiene, meaning, if you're an advisor, get better being an advisor, if you're you know, a jeweler, get better at custom jewelry, whatever that is. Yeah, you should refine that and sharpen that saw. But you need a group of people that don't hear and see and talk like you do, because they're going to ask the questions that you gloss over and take for granted because they don't understand it. So they needed explained to them at a much more elementary level and simplistic than you're willing to slow down and do. It's super helpful. We we'll do hot seats. We have something called the mustard principle by by the way, which would mean, if you and I went to lunch and you had mustard on your chin, it is my moral obligation to say, Hey, man, you've got mustard on your chin, because you would go out and embarrass yourself at your next meeting if you jumped, you know, you had a big glob mustard in your beard, right? You'd want me to tell you, Well, it's the same principle in the mastermind, if I see something that I think would benefit you. And I don't say it because it makes me uncomfortable, which is selfish, because I'm thinking about me, not you. There's pretty much with, I mean, you can't be a jerk, but with directness, you can say, hey, this is the mustard on your chin right now, and that's what people really like. So we'll do even, even in our bi weekly call, we either do a hot seat or a spotlight. So somebody needs that mustard conversation, they'll bring it, and then we'll all facilitate it. Or we may have someone that's doing something extremely well at high level, and it would benefit everyone to know how to do it quickly. So I, you know, we make that determination every other week on which route we go there, and then when we get together, it's a combination of some deeper learning, more collaboration, and then we have a lot of fun, like we went to Utah before St Louis, and rode razors, you know, out in the in St George, Utah, in the desert. Now, I personally, once is enough, but some people loved it, and that's all they do. I mean, you know, we we've gone out on the ocean, we've done all kinds of different little you know, we went when we were in Colorado. We were supposed to go hiking, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we went to the, you know, Cheyenne Mountain bar, and spent after there. But we were supposed to go hiking. We just never made it because it stormed. But anyway, I mean, it's all there's always an element of real fun. And what's interesting is they all connect on their own outside of it, through texts and so forth, and they all kind of do some business together and promote each other. So it's, I'm really proud of it. I mean, I was in a mastermind because I, by the way, I'm a huge believer, and if you're going to talk about something, you better be doing it. So if you're a coach, you better be getting coached. If you're running masterminds, you better be in a mastermind. Like nothing is probably more embarrassing, I wouldn't know, but I can't imagine someone being like, what who coaches you? What mastermind Are you? And you're like, I don't do that, you know? I mean, like, that would be crazy, but I'm in one, and there was 270 people. This is a kind of a bigger one. And of those 270 only three of us successfully did what I'm doing, because it's not, I mean, I'm not too much, or it's just, it's it takes creativity, it takes consistency. You've got to get close to these people. I mean, I pretty much from four. Four o'clock to eight o'clock at night, while I'm running my kids around, I've got mastermind members texting me with something that happened during the day. Sometimes it's just fun. Sometimes it's a pro, I mean, but I and, you know, I hear all this. I need boundaries. I need balance. It's the other bullshit I hear. Sorry, but I, you know, all these people talking about how they want to operate this business that runs on its own. I'm like, why would you? Why wouldn't you want people to want to get your counsel and help and friendship like that's, I mean, you know, we're renewing everyone we don't have what this that's what this business

Jason Croft  20:27  
is. That's the DNA of this kind of business. Yeah, the

Speaker 1  20:31  
internet, the internet, has hypnotized a

Joe Blackburn  20:35  
lot of people into thinking that your business should run on autopilot and you should be in Fiji or something I can't maybe it's because I'm an old Boomer or something, I'm not sure. But like, you know, when I get excess time, I don't take breaks, I work more like I don't, I don't know, maybe that's just me, but it's just a crazy like, there's this mentality of like, I'm going to overwork myself, and I have great news. You would have to be Elon Musk esque to overwork yourself. You got a lot more. I tell our people, you're using this much of your capacity, like this much like you're not even human. I mean, a genius uses 10% of their brain. You know, the average human uses, like, what, three, five, something. I mean, so any anyway, I'm picking on that, I shouldn't go down that rabbit hole. But it's just like, I kind of see that as a competitive advantage, too. That's why our, you know, we have very, what I would consider high ticket, high value offers that sell because my main interest is not not working, which would make, that's a double negative. That'd be like, my main interest, I like work. I like what I do, I let I left a, you know, a stressful, horrible, you know, corporate, bureaucratic shit show in all practical purposes to come do this. This is not work. It's fun, and I make a ton of money, and I get to hang out with awesome people that I love, and they love me. And now we're just gonna keep building that, and we'll have our share of issues. We being my Chief of Staff, Warren, shout out to her. She's amazing. I would be dead without her. And, you know, we just have a blast. So that's kind of how we operate, and keep going that way. And I'm sure there'll be an obstacle somewhere that, you know, we'll have to deal with, but right now, it's just going really well. Oh yeah, and that, and again,

Jason Croft  22:17  
that's part of business, like you just know those things are going to happen. And we have that mindset that, oh, oh, this is one of those things. Instead of, you know, the world's coming apart because this issue happened, yeah, then you you have as many things in place as possible to tackle that problem, move on to the next. And, yeah, I think that's great. I want to dig into this assassins program that you've got, because it sounds just phenomenal, and it's, it's such a great, I mean, such a needed thing out there and and I think you are in this challenging spot. I mean, you kind of touched on a little bit in our conversation, because it is this, this kind of in between. It's not this beginner stage that I don't know. I think a lot of you know, that's where so much of the content out there is, you know, make 10 grand a month, you know. So you've got somebody who's never done anything, and that's their first they want to get to that point. But this is, this is that they're a little beyond that, describe that person who, who is that and who this is for? Because this, this digs into, well, I'll get into that next. Describe this. Describe this person for us.

Joe Blackburn  23:38  
Well, I mean, I'll give you just some context of where I came from, because I don't want to, I don't want to insult or disregard people that are selling something. All of us had to start there. I mean, I went farm to farm, and then moved in and went door to door. So like that is courage work, and it's commendable, and you flex your courage muscle and you learn some sales skills. And if you are nowhere, you got to start there. You got to go out to the cold. But what I'm looking for, and where we really help someone is now that they may have a profession, what we would consider a profession or a skill. So they could be in the beginning stages of advisory, insurance, mortgage, Realty, you know where they're I we call them a professional in sales. There's a difference between a sales professional and a professional in sales. A professional in sales has a professional deliverable of service and has to say, do marketing and sales to make their living, whereas a professional sales person, they can just sell a product. So you may start out as a professional sales person. There's all kinds of opportunities out there. You can do it on the internet. You can go door to door, and I tell our assassins, hey, you need to flex your courage muscle. You don't store it. It's like vitamin C. Just because you had it yesterday doesn't mean you don't take your pill today. You have to do it. But they've really gotten beyond what I would call the basics, or the one on one. They have a general idea of you. A, what their profession is, and B, that, you know, they can run a meeting. They've had a little field work. I mean, not all of them that are there are seasoned veterans, but it's I, you know, we kind of called it in between that really high level, high skilled, high six figure, seven figure, and not the, you know, I am, I'm as green as they can be. So where the gap was? What we saw was our, our people in inner circle were getting some people that had some sales background. They'd hire them. However, they weren't very good at going out and making connections and bringing business in. So they were really trying to, you know, figure out, how do I get them to generate their own marketing, so to speak, and and what we found was, you know, and I had done this and learned it and done it as an advisor, and all the different things I'd done, there's an actual process, a progression, on how to get people to know I can trust you and do business with you, and you have to do it in a way that's not pushy or cheesy or real super salesy. Because in the professional world, if you, if you do that, if you become that person that is a direct sales person in that arena, you become a repellent, I mean, and high affluent people, you know, people that use realtors and advisors and insurance. I mean, they, they don't respond to direct marketing very well. You know, they don't. They just they, they do everything you know, like, if you think about the last five services you got, I guarantee you is from someone you know, like someone you know said, Oh, talk to this person. So there's, there's some randomness to that, where you can just play it by chance. But I've developed a whole process where you essentially progress through your day, your week, your month, your year, through something we call pillars, and you learn some invaluable skills in the meantime on how to connect with people and how to make you the product like you are the product, the way you dress, the way you act, the way you look. You're judged in a nanosecond. I'm sorry, that's America and probably the world. You're instantly assigned status. I mean, every you need to put everything in your favor, especially the younger you are. And the world's gone really casual, like, you see me today. I'm in beach cowboy outfit, but I've been responsible for $17 billion so, like, there's kind of this rite of passage. If you're brand new in the beginning, you better be as professional as humanly possible, because you're instantly assigned Young. That's your status. You're young. You don't know anything. And I think they see these older, you know, professionals in No, you know, they don't have their tie on, or they're not dressed professionally, but they've been doing it for 30 years, like you're not them. So like, just these little nuances of the beginnings, even if you're, you know, if you're making two, $300,000 there's all these little things you can do to put odds on your site. So we talk about, how are you the product that your hygiene, of what you deliver has to be great, meaning, whatever, if you're my accountant, my tax returns better be right. Like, that's a given. Like you're not separating yourself by by delivering your hygiene to me, that's a well, I should really hope that that was great, because that's what I paid for. What people stay and pay for is the experience like, even in my mastermind, yeah, they get tangible results, and some of them have breakthroughs and do things they've never even dreamed of doing. But I would bet the most important thing is how they feel about being in the in the lion, the interaction with the people, people pay you for how they feel, it's and I you know, that's a double edged sword. Sometimes things out of your control make them feel bad and you just be you have to be able to pivot and quickly resolve it and still give them great service and let them know you care. So there's some ways to handle that, but in the assassins world, we're really trying to get them, first of all, to, like, mindset wise, to really think bigger, to set and achieve goals, which, by the way, 2% of the universe writes their goals down. So that's not like everyone thinks that's a, you know, a gimme. It's not very few people can set and achieve a goal in the time frame that they say it and then they ratify their their call, reluctance and their insecurity. We call it the self ideal. You have to do things to you know, you got that litigator sitting on your shoulder saying, Don't do that. You're not gonna like this. It's not gonna you know that you're battling yourself. So we help them really with mindset first, then we go to them, like, where are you actually great? Like, what are you really good at everybody does have something, but it's hard to always identify that. And then we take them through pillars, which would be getting people to pay, introduce, listen, like and refer you. And notice there's no A, because I didn't say the a part of that. There's p, i, L, L, R, no A, because I don't deal with the assholes, and they shouldn't either, and sorry if I'm saying bad words, oh, teach them how to do that and and to really create a a momentum or a flywheel around the people you're connected to, your ideal and best clients and pillars, and then the big hitters in your community, the influencers you know, in real life or online. And then we're trying to get them to really work with connections. But it's it's an ecosystem there that if you do it well and you provide great client service, and you have something that makes people feel good, in addition to your hygiene, you'll grow exponentially. You'll start getting those unsolicited referrals. Because, again, you can train someone to have the psychic real estate in their mind of what it is you do that they instantly when that problem arises with someone they love or know, they say it's you. So there's a whole process around this. I mean, I take me, I just spent three days doing three parts of it, so I think we got, like an hour, but it's, you know, this is, this is something that I think, I guess my belief is this. And it I noticed I didn't say my faith, because my faith is I'm doing something I don't see happening. That was when I left corporate America and I didn't know what was going to happen. My belief is this, because I've done it. If you do this long consistently and well, these people will turn into the army that brings you the business you need, and you'll like them, and they like you, and it'll be enjoyable. But that skill sets not being taught. It's not being taught in school. It's not, it's it's somewhat intuitive. Their law reciprocity is kind of intuitive, but most people don't really understand how to listen, act, you know, actively listen, listen for an impact point and then pivot to a business conversation without coming off as being, you know, pushy or salesy or obnoxious, because they don't. They never practice it. They've never been taught it. And there's a real I mean, I call it the art. It's not the, you know, scientific hypothesis, it's the art. Like, it takes creativity. I mean, artists are creative. So you can be creative with your connectivity and really enjoy your life. Like, I've got a client in Utah. He's in Logan, Utah. He I call him the storm and Mormon. Hope he watches this, Sean, if you're out there, he's bear hunting right now with clients. By the way, he didn't come to St Louis because he and he usually comes everything. He's bear hunting. And Sean went from like kind of that, I'm going to come right at you and sell you what I have to like now. He does razors side by sides, like when we were saying, George, he drove one. He golfs, he does snowmobiling and he hunts, that's what he does. That's and he makes $6 million so you know what I mean like? So I know it becomes like, Well, how do I do those things I enjoy and still be productive and run a great business? And the beginnings of that is learning how to do the word of mouth first, which he had to learn first. Does that make sense? Now, I know I rambled on there forever, so I'll pause. Oh, yeah.

Jason Croft  32:28  
No, it's all it's beautiful, because what it is to me is this evolution of, or maybe even though, the real life, tangible version of what, what we hear about in terms of personal branding, and people kind of dismiss that, and they think, oh, yeah, somebody wants to be a YouTuber, you know, in this and that. But this goes right back to you better figure out a way, even if you're at a nine to five, you better figure out a way to brand yourself, to make people think of you, and especially if it's up to you to generate all of this stuff, because it is no matter what. Again, if you're at a nine to five, there's a version of this that you better embrace, but especially if you're out on your own, you're starting a business from scratch, or you're in one of these professions where it's up to you to generate your own business. This is everything. And I love that there is a process. Because I think people make a mistake on at two extremes. One, they're like, oh, yeah, I know how to talk to people. I've talked to people my whole life, you know, yeah, because I can flap my my gums, that means it's, you know, I got it, and then the other or the other side is they're, oh, I'm not that kind of person, but that's just a natural they're a natural salesperson. They're a natural talk to everybody. And both are bullshit because it takes skill practice, doing the reps, learning this process, understanding human psychology, letting in, being that active listener, letting in that information. Pivot to that's the beautiful dance, the art, as you talked about and, and I love that you're taking people into this and, and you didn't use the term personal branding, you know, because it's got its own weight and all of that stuff. But to me, this is the meteor version of what we hear about right now, so much around personal branding?

Joe Blackburn  34:24  
Well, I everyone has a brand, whether you've tried or not you have one. So it's you might as well, like, I call it odds, like you should put the odds on your side, meaning do all the right things that you can control to have a great brand. And you know, it's personal brand, but what I call it is psychic real estate. Everybody's got a card in someone else's mind that they know or that they've met or seen. It's in your brain. It's there. So what is your say? You know, is that a great person I want to spend a lot of time with? Is that a person who solves all my problems when I need them immediately? Do I have great service? Do I enjoy being like the card says something? You. Yeah, if it's they're slow to get back to me, they're not very much fun, and they irritate me. That doesn't go well. So I, I really, you know, we do a lot of things around commands and different ways to talk to people and how to get them crystal clear, just like in personal branding, like your avatar has to be clear. I call it, you know, it's a think of me when statement you you need to be able to tell someone a command of their mind. Think, I mean, when you find someone XYZ, which is the problem you solve specifically with that human that creates that quickly. So that's a good way to go about it. But most, most of it is this, from what I've seen. It's all like even the people that are good at connecting. It's random. You know, everybody wants that system. Well, this is a system around keeping in touch with people and making it meaningful. Meaning. I'm not just calling you once a month and saying, are you okay? I'm checking in on you. That's annoying. Like, I don't want someone wasting my time on that. It's can you create a rhythm of connectivity that's meaningful to them? That's where the art comes in, and it's hard. I mean, it's like, if, if you, no one's really ever asked me this, but here's the challenge. Year one's pretty easy. Year two gets a little harder. Year three, four and beyond. Like, kind of, like, being in any type of long term relationship, you got to keep it fresh. It's got to be impactful, and the results have to be there at the same time. Like, you can't neglect hygiene at the expense of entertainment, but you need to marry the two. Like, that's how you do it, over a sustained period of time. Like, I've got clients, I mean, a good handful of them that have been with me almost the entire time, you know, they've gone through all the transitions and, you know, that's a long time to pay in coaching, yeah, quite frankly. I mean, it's the LTV on them is great, but they have a good time, and it's valuable. And, you know, when I was an advisor, it was the same thing with like you want, you want to see it through for your client. Like you, you want to see him retire and leave a legacy and all those things. So the art, what I what has caught my attention in this attentionless world, is the art form of that long time of connectivity is going away. It's being, you know, eroded, because people want it so instantly. And they want right instant feeling and instant result and instant and I, you know, I don't, I think there's a whole gener. And I don't mean to be that old guy that talks about young people. I think there's a generation out there that's kind of seen the ones in front of them are like, I don't want that. I want to, I want to be valuable. And this is a way to learn value. So we're, we've actually talked about how to deliver to them, and that's a whole nother topic for another day, you know. But I just with everything going on that that being that being able to really connect with other people is is invaluable in my mind. And we teach 15 invaluables, like sequences and get them down, and you can go anywhere and do anything. I'm loving proof. I know I'm funny and great looking, but I Ain't that funny and great looking, so you actually have to be able to do it.

Jason Croft  37:54  
Yeah, and the key here too. I mean, you talk about playing the odds, like, if you have this skill set, the amount of people who go through a fraction of the effort to learn what you're teaching inside assassins is just minuscule.

Joe Blackburn  38:16  
No, it's no competition,

Jason Croft  38:19  
yeah, and that's, you know, I mean, that should give everyone hope and wow. And, okay, let me, let me take this on, because it they don't have to look at the whole, oh, I have to become this and in five years and all that stuff. Like, if you start implementing any of this stuff tomorrow, you're going to start seeing little movement and little increment like, Oh, wow. You're going to have that better conversation. You're gonna get that extra, you know, phone call coming to you because of something you put out, and all of these things like it. You'll see those tangible results really, really fast, and then you grow and build them and again, keep that going over time.

Joe Blackburn  38:59  
Yeah, it's, we call it the flywheel of people, like, just, it'll like, the exponential reach around other humans is pretty vast. And everybody, I mean, they prove that in that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever, everyone's connected. Somehow, there's some connectivity. LinkedIn is a good product of that. There's some form of connectivity across all geographies. Now, you just gotta make it real. Like, I'm not connected to 8900 connected to 8900 people on LinkedIn. I'm just not. They may know who I am, but you know what? I mean, it's just, it's pretty, it's very it's been pretty interesting. We've loved it. We're getting great results. I think it blows the minds of some of the people that are in it that, you know, they're getting in front of people they never thought they could or would. So that's been really exciting to see them, you know, like we post wins on Wednesdays, Wednesday for Wednesdays. And just, you know, you're seeing people that are doing multi million dollar deals or getting in front of clients that they couldn't by using what we're teaching. And I, that's what I the part I love is seeing them do it that, you know, that's what I thrive on, is when they do it and it. Like their win becomes my win. That's why I go there this business, by the way, too, because I can go out and get my own wins all day long, and they're kind of,

Jason Croft  40:11  
but, oh yeah, but yeah, when you when it, when it layers, when it, you know, oh yeah. Like, that's, that's the juice, right? Is seeing that in somebody

Joe Blackburn  40:20  
consult or coach or whatever it is we do. I don't know. I call myself a non equity partner. I don't know. But yeah, that's why you do it, because someone else is winning based on that your influence and your input, which is awesome.

Jason Croft  40:32  
But yeah, I think we've painted this picture of of who, who needs this. But if someone's, you know, figuring this out, like, oh, man, I I can tell I need that. I need what Joe's laying down right now. How do they get in touch with you and and even if you have a more refined like, Hey, if you're going through this, you know, back to your that networking question, when does someone need to pull that trigger? Reach out, hey, I need to this could be for me. When is that for them? And then how do they do so?

Joe Blackburn  41:05  
Well, the best way to get a hold of me, and it's the easiest, is real Joe blackburn.com and I have a, you know, a click or blink, you know, come in here and have conversation, and that's great. And I teach a lot of inadvertent sales. So you know, you're not going to get on and get into some closing situation. If what I do something you like, and it's a fit, we'll talk more. And if you're wondering, like, well, is this something I should do? Or, like, you know, where am I? Kind of, where am I in all this? I think about it this way. If you are comfortable in any shape or form, you probably need to get a hold of me quickly, because that's an indicator of a problem, like if you know it's a pandemic of just complacency. So if you're feeling comfortable in your in your sales life, and you're making a couple $100,000 let's talk, because I'll wake you up to what the next 1015, 20 years is going to look like, and whatever you think you're gonna need. And I don't care what that number is, you might as well add a zero to that. So I think there's a pro like, people are like, Oh, I'm making 200 grand. I'm making 300 grand. Great. No, you're not. You're gonna starve to death and eat bugs. So just mark my words. And I know that's scaremongering, but just, just look around. Look, if I'm wrong, prove me wrong. So that's, you know, if you're kind of in that complacency trap, you've done okay, but you know, you've got more. You got, like, gap to potential, we should talk. And then if you're really hungry, and you you know you're coming out of that 567, $1,000 a month, and you want to go to a big number, this is the time to do that, because this can be built with sweat equity, if this isn't one of those things where you got to dump a bunch of cash in or something like that. You just have to know how to get out and get into your community and do the right things and give in the right way and network the right way. You know, networking is one letter away from not working. I've seen a lot of professional not workers. They never get around a business, or they repel everyone. So there's an art to that. So if you're in that, like, I Okay, I'm serious. Now I've gotten past the I'm going to get fired stage. I've I've got some stability, but I really want to take this to the next level. That's who this works for. And you've got to want to work hard, because there are no easy routes in this game, none. It can be fun, though. It doesn't have to be miserable. It can be fun. So I'm really looking for, it's kind of like that twofold. I've kind of got two people in Assassins, the restarter that went through a little complacency skid, and then that person that's like, I want to, I want to be a big time, you know, professional in my game. I love being around people, and I want to make a lot of money and do a lot of give back. Because, you know, you can't take it all with you. But it's kind of those two camps, like, you know, restarting or coming out of a, I don't know. I found this when I was 42 I left corporate America, because the questions in my mind were like, Why in the hell am I doing this? Like, what am I doing? Like, why am I spending my time here? This is misery. I'm not even making that much money, and I'm working my ass off, and I'm responsible for billions of dollars, and so I kind of have that moment. You start having that moment, like questioning what it is you're doing, if you have any of that, but you're complacent, let's talk, because I'll help you. And if you're someone that's very aspirational or has to make some, you know, big adjustments. Talk there as well. Does that make sense there?

Jason Croft  44:23  
Big time. That's great. And I, I imagine you attract this type of person, as you've kind of described, but you very much are, which is this thing is fun. I've got to work my ass off day in and day out. But that's part of my fun. Like I enjoy that aspect, whether it's the thing I'm doing, coaching, helping with accounting, or they, they just, they love the game of it all too, and they. Have that little I know I could be better at this. I know I could be. And there's this, this beautiful blending, I think of fun and work your ass off. And it doesn't have to be this. Oh, well, that's this. You know, you're working too much, or you're this, or that you gotta find out like but it's this. No, I, I'm not. It's not detrimental to my health, because it's fun and that you're enjoying it and the you know, you but you're doing it in a way so that, hey, if tomorrow it's not fun anymore, you know, not, not to treat it like, just like, oh, I don't want to do that. But if, if you need to pivot, if you need to move, you're actually building something. So you have those choices, you have that freedom in life, that you actually can

Joe Blackburn  45:47  
Yeah. I mean, I've taken it across different jobs in the same organization and built different companies with it. If you get the invaluables down, like I said, you go anywhere and do anything. You know, it's hard to believe, but at one point, I was like, I looked at my partner at the time, I'm like, Dude, I cannot eat another steak tonight. Like, I can't stomach another steak. Like, that's how much what we were doing. Like, I was that was a real statement, meaning, like, I just, I've had so many, you know, and that's a that's not a real problem, correct? I don't think that's an actual problem, but I made it. But to your point, if it's something you're passionate about, it won't feel like work. You won't need vacations like and if you do take them, you'll be doing what we teach and meeting other people that probably need what you have, and you can pivot to those business conversations and not feel like it's taken away from what you're doing. So I just had a kid in our assassins go on a cruise, and he got three life insurance apps. He posted it so, you know, he was on a cruise and never met any of those people. It was amazing. So anyway, yeah, it's, it should be, it should be a lot of fun. That's awesome, or don't do it.

Jason Croft  46:53  
Joe, thank you so much for being on here. This has been an absolute blast. I am so excited for you, for I mean, just the evolution and for everybody going through these programs with you, I imagine it's nothing short of life changing to be able to tackle these things.

Joe Blackburn  47:13  
Well, it's changed my life. So I love it. I appreciate the time. And hey, man, anytime I'll talk, great. Thank you,

Jason Croft  47:20  
fantastic. We'll see you all next time, thanks for joining us on strategy and action. Remember true industry leaders don't chase opportunities. They attract them. Want to build your own market gravity, visit media leads co.com See you next time you