Transcription
I'm usually not one to push the narrative of personal brands, but I think I finally get it, right? And I'll explain why I'm finally now getting it.
For my training around how to build a business, it never came from this idea of, "Hey, become a content creator and then get people paying you." It was always from this perspective of, "How do you understand a market's pain point and then learn to build a solution, learn to find positioning, learn to get their attention, learn to sell, and then fulfill?" It was more so from a first principles perspective around how to build a business, right?
I started doing content because I was learning how to do these things, so I started talking about it on YouTube. In 2020, I was in the basement of my family's home. Maybe my team can put in this clip, or you can go back to like four, five, six years ago and see it. I was drinking wine while trying to record this one video for like 50 minutes. By the time I finished recording that video, I think I was a little drunk, right? But, like, that's how we started. It didn't start because I wanted to sell coaching. It didn't start because I wanted to sell info. I didn't know anything about that. I was trying to sell to real estate niches. I was trying to sell to, you know, just the boring market. And I just kept doing it, and that's when I essentially started running an appointment setting agency.
So, the fact that I already knew how to do content, well, when I was trying to sell appointment setting services, instead of doing the typical outbound and just wait for someone to get on a sales call to buy my services, I would just make a quick personalized video and I would send it to them, and they would just be like, "Yeah, this is actually a solution to a problem that I have. Let's get on a call." And they would get on a call and then they would pay. And since then, I've made, you know, millions, right?
But, I'll start with the benefits of a personal brand, and then I'll share the negatives of it, 'cause I do think that as much as it is valuable, I think it can also lead you to delusion, and I'll explain. So, what is the benefits of a personal brand? The benefits of a personal brand is that you can sell anything. People do not care about what you are going to sell them. They just care that you are the one who's selling to them.
And the reason why it's now that it's making sense to me is because I just went back into taking some calls on my company 'cause I wanted to just speak with the market and see what the market is actually wanting. And this whole entire time, I've been selling implementation, building done-for-you teams, you know, having a payroll of like $3 million a year, right? I've been spending $3 million a year, maybe since 2022, actually, because I made my first multiple seven-figure year in 2022, and I was probably already spending back then. My expenses were pretty, you know, small. I was probably spending like 50k, uh, 70k per month, and I was doing like 300k to 500k a month with like 50k a month, 70k a month in expenses. So, I was literally taking home like 400 grand. I'm going to be honest, it was disgusting, right?
Also, the reason why I'm not making a video in the Porsche, I would love to make the video in the Porsche, is because it's getting fixed. I had a flat the other night after a little dinner. And, uh, anyway. But, yeah, so my payroll has been bloated because I've been, you know, building a company around implementing systems for people. And my, the reason my thought process behind building a company where we implement and I have an infrastructure on the back end, I have team members that implement systems for our clients, is because I want to make it unreasonable for them not to see success. The way that you make it unreasonable for someone not to see success is you implement an infrastructure in their business that forces them to elevate. Does that make sense?
I could give you information. I could give you coaching, but the best way for me to help you change your behavior is by installing a system. It could be a paid acquisition system. It could be an outbound team. That's what I started with. I would place VAs in people's companies to help them get clients. And the reason why that was also super successful was because we literally, our offer, our messaging was, "We make it unreasonable for you not to get to 50 grand a month or 100 grand a month," because we looked at the infrastructure that every $50,000 a month company has. And this is the amount of outreach they do. This is the amount of calls they get. This is the amount of attention they get every day. The system that we're building into your business replicates the same infrastructure. Scale that, you know, we did over eight figures with this offer.
But on the calls that I took today, I was speaking with people. I'm like, "Do you care that we do it for you, or do you just want info and access our AI operating system so you can essentially cook with us, right?" And everybody was like, "Bro, I don't care. Just give me the info. Give me the playbook." And they're like, "Almost like, please, you know?" And then I never, in five years, I haven't taken any calls, any sales calls in like, in years, right? And even if I've taken calls, they were probably with, you know, companies, uh, founders already making multiple six-figure a year to help them, you know, do webinars. But I haven't taken calls with anyone who's actually been wanting to go through our incubator, our, you know, launch kind of like program. And I always thought that people only wanted to work with us because we had implementation, but that's not actually the case. People want to work with us even if it's to learn from us.
You know, I know a lot of people are like, "Hey Serge, you know, they categorize me as a course seller." Do we have a course? Yes. We have a lot of content. We have a lot of courses around paid ads, around AI systems, around engineering. Uh, we're now starting to do content about Claude code because our, a lot of our clients are having to also engineer their own systems for their clients. Let's say you're working with a contractor, a business, or a kitchen remodeling business. They need a way to have an intake process that then quotes the business and not have them send an invoice and then have to follow up and, you know, not have any contract actually turn into work, right? So, we don't necessarily want to build that on Cook, but we show our clients how they can build it for themselves and go to the market and offer that almost like as even as a lead magnet because then all these contractors and these construction companies, they're like, "Oh my god, this is so good. My biggest issue is that I spend 16 hours a week on quoting or sending like a, like the invoices and, you know, which takes a lot of time to do, but then none of the deals end up closing." So, we're building a lot of training. We're wanting to build a lot of training around that. Sales, right? We have a lot of companies that sell a lot of offers, so we get to see the sales process, the sales script, uh, the positioning, the framing that's working, but I've never really sold of that. I've never really said, "Hey, come learn how to build, how to cook." It was always like, "Hey, we'll put together the system."
But now that I, you know, I'm going to go back to the personal branding 'cause it's important. But now I'm like, "My god, people just want to get more value from me." And I've just never given them the opportunity to just, "Hey, if you can't afford to spend 10 grand, 15 grand to get us to implement something for you, you know, what do you want to pay to just learn and get access to Cook AI for at least a quarter for 90 days?" And, you know, I gave the guy a price, and he paid it. Then I got on another call. I, I like, you know, the guy was just starting out. I was like, "Hey, we can help you, you know, maybe you don't have much capital. I'd rather you have you keep more money in your pocket and then use that for acquisition and not necessarily feel too much pressure around signing up. Would you be interested in like, we give you the playbook and give you access to our operating system to help you fulfill?" And he was like, "My god, I would love that." I was like, "What the fuck?"
So, this whole time, we have like 5,000 leads a month that we don't sell to because we don't want to give people info in our AI software. I'm like, "My god, it's so dumb, right?" Anyway, so, if you're someone who wants to learn and want to cook with us, just you can always DM me or speak with my team with the link below.
But, why was this possible, right? In a world where everyone is like, "Hey, info doesn't work. Nobody buys information. Nobody buys anything." Right? I think it's because of my personal brand. And it's just shocking to see even to me the leverage that it provides you because I've been selling like a service provider. I've been selling ads launch. I've been selling systems implementation. We build GHL. So, we, we build people's funnels. We build. But I'm like, "Bro, you want to just learn from us? Okay, let's do it." Right?
And then another guy, you know, I saw someone in my DMs and I was like, "Hey, what do you do?" And he didn't necessarily answer my, think my message. He just said, "Hey, do you do one-on-one consulting?" I was like, "Yeah." And I threw a price at him. He's like, "Done. Send the invoice." I'm like, "Huh? What?" I just realized that I maybe don't take advantage of my personal brand enough, to be honest. I just, I didn't realize that many people just want would pay to just have access. I've always just tried to sell solutions, offers that are aligned with implementation, but that's going to change.
Now, let me tell you guys about the issues with this year. The fact that then people do business with us because they like me, they trust me, then ends up creating an issue, which is, if I build a team, an organization that is backed by my brand, then is our success truly about our operational efficiency, expertise, and excellence, or could the fact that my brand is powerful enough that it almost hides some of the team's lacks, right? Like, could it be that that my brand literally makes up for, you know, maybe certain level of incompetence at places? And this isn't honestly about even the incompetence level. It's like, then if people just want to throw money at us for the sake of it, then what if we're not that good at sales for our own company, right? What if we're not good at managing certain things? What if some people are not actually doing the right things and they're just, you know, just average, mediocre? And that is the second thing that came to mind. It was also that, holy, could we be also falling in a like failing in a certain category and not really being excellent because of my brand, because of the leverage that it brings?
So, I think my advice to anyone with a personal brand is, start treating your business as if it wasn't a business. Start treating it as like, you, your character, your insights, that you are the product, in my opinion. And forget about anything else in your organization. Do not try to make it about your systems. Do not try to make it about anything else other than you, your excellence. And what does that mean? That means that you can never coast when it comes time to being excellent. Every single day you wake up, you have to be at the forefront of your market. If I am the product, then I have to be excellent at all times. I have to be understanding everything to a degree that is unbelievable, right? That is the mindset that I'm on right now. And I realized if I am the product, if I am truly the product, if people want to get Surge's thinking. If people want to get Surge's insights. Okay, perfect. Guys, I'll share insights all day, every day. I'll become the most valuable person that you have in your environment, in your life. But unfortunately, I haven't really been treating my business and my brand like that. I've been just focusing too heavily on service, but now things are about to change, guys.
And also, the thing that makes this annoying is because I've capped what I share and the things that we offer to the market because I didn't necessarily want to do too many things at once, but I've realized that I shouldn't. I should just offer myself to the world and just let people, you know, borrow some of my judgment and, you know, give people what the people want. So, you guys can expect this summer, you know, it's going to be a Surge summer. >> [laughter] >> If you've been, you know, wanting help on anything from me, directly from me, or anything like that, my DMs are open. The link in below is open, and yeah, just tell me what your problem is. Tell me what your bottleneck is.
If you're looking to launch something, a business, I recommend you launch something related to AI. Right now, it's cooking for specifically AI lead gen, to be honest. AI lead gen is probably the thing that's the most in demand 'cause it has AI and client acquisition mixed together. So, every business is, you know, you literally put ads out there. You do outreach, you call any person and you tell them that you can generate more traffic, more leads, more appointments, they'll want to get on a call with you. The cool thing about lead gen is that you can fulfill through AI. Within Cook, you can find what their competitors are doing. You can replicate all the assets and then you can deliver through agents. You want to find an opportunity where you can find the thing that worked for your client with agents. And you also want to find a way to fulfill and replicate what's working, what I call the truth in that market, also with agents. And it have full leverage end to end in how you fulfill because otherwise you're going to be stuck and it's going to be really tough to make money, right?
Now, if you're already established doing 50 grand, 100 grand a month, right now the number one thing that we're doing for our clients who are doing, you know, half a million dollars a year to millions of dollars a year is one-to-many sales systems. So, we're building your entire kind of like webby infrastructure. That's if you want us to do it for you, or if you want us to consult you on building it, I'm happy to also get on calls one-on-one and help you build it and help you add an extra quarter of a million dollars per month. That is the bare minimum of what we're looking to add to every single partner that we work with. If your goal is not to make a quarter of a million dollars a month, then it doesn't really make sense for us because we work on a percentage of what we bring to the table, and it needs to be high enough that we can at least make 25 to 50 grand and beyond per client for it to be worth our time because the time we allocate to these partners has to be more than what we would make from our own business. But, yeah.
So, yeah, personal brand is great, but it's also a risky because it confuses you. You can make it might lead you to confuse your success and treat your business and just create a complex operation when all you needed was just a lean business that prints cash and that, you know, you don't really have to deal with much chaos, okay? But that's it. My aunt is calling me, so I have to get on the phone. She's a priority. Anyway, take care, guys. Love you all. See you guys in the next video. Bye-bye.