947: Build Your Online Empire: Unleash the Power of Personal Branding with Dylan Vanas

Robert Plank 0:04 Welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We're here with Dylan Vanasse. And he is from an agency box.com. Now DL is going to be talking to us today about personal branding and getting yourself out there, he shared the stage with people like Gary Vaynerchuk. And he has two eight figure businesses he's built. So he's gonna be talking about just kind of get these 1000s of followers and how to put up the content and have the content translate to sales. So Dylan, glad to be talking to you.

Speaker 2 0:31 Hey, yeah, good to have good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah,

Robert Plank 0:35 it is. But we show up the way that that we show up and we do our best. And that's one thing that I found about you, I was doing a little bit of research about you earlier today. And you I saw some podcasts, you were talking about how it's important because I just started wherever you at whatever you have to say, just start creating the content. And what's more important than anything else is to kind of develop that habit of consistency. So I will, I will always be keeping that in mind whenever I think, Oh, I messed up that word, or that could have been better. It's like, what matters more is just keeping the train rolling. Am I right?

Speaker 2 1:11 Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think a lot of times people get stuck up on this thought of like, I gotta gotta be perfect, or I have to know everything before we start. But the reality is, is knowledge isn't action. Like I have friends that have read three, four, or five times the amount of books I've read, but have not gotten any actual result in their life. So the secret to success is simple, is just move forward every day, take action and, and screw everything else.

Robert Plank 1:36 I love it. So take action and then the rest will work itself out as far as the mistakes as far as, you know, adjusting. And I mean, you think about you could be the most well read person about how to have a run a marathon or climb a mountain or drive a car, you can read all the manuals, but unless you actually drive a car, like you won't really get anywhere. And so like so why is that? Why is it that some people have all this knowledge and don't take action? Other people just are fearless and do the things that need to be done despite the low self esteem? Like, how do we tap into that energy?

Speaker 2 2:09 I think there's like some people have their perfectionist. Right. And one of the advantages I had, maybe it's a disadvantage, but is that for me? And when I was in high school, it was like, How can I What can I do to go ahead and, and shorten the shorten the gap between starting and getting a result? First. So for me in school, when I was in high school and college, I would literally towards the time of the exam, I would be running the math before the before taking the exam. It's like, okay, what's the lowest grade I need to get right now it's a pass. And then I can like reverse engineer. Okay, here's roughly how much work I have to do in order to study for this exam. And so for me, it was like, what's the efficient path forward, not the perfect path forward. And, and that's, you know, that's kind of been the thing, it's like, there's truth in there's no shortcut to success, like, anytime we try to cut a corner, eventually comes back around on you. But there is also at the flip side, which is like, you got to just you got to just just do it. And I think finding that happy medium between not being comfortable, like knowing enough information, and just like doing doing the work, it's important to find out what that is for you.

Robert Plank 3:20 Yeah, there's like the the level of being comfortable enough knowing the information enough, versus just getting some kind of result. And it seems like with that, that math class, specifically, you sort of Tim Ferriss there, right, you said like, well, here's the there's all this stuff I could focus on. But instead of giving it like an equal distribution, here's what requires my attention, just with the goal of not getting 100% perfect grade, but just with passing. And I mean, that kind of mentality. I wish I had that when I was younger as well, because I used to beat myself up right when there would be like B plus students a plus students, and they it seemed like once you get past like an 80% test score, 80% grade and a lot of cases there was there's like diminishing returns, right? It takes like five times 10 times the amount of work just to eke out a little bit more of a great percentage, versus just getting it done. And I mean, I think that a lot of times, if there's something new I know I need to be doing I'm just like, let me just get a little bit done. Let me get that social media posts done or figured out that new software just so that way, like I'm encouraged to continue because there's just so I can see like some kind of a light at the end of the tunnel. And so I read a little bit about you and your your bio and these companies that you build an agency box, and I know that you are you have kind of speaking of kind of the simple kind of mentality is you have an agency right where that means that you you get all this works you get these clients, but instead of you having to manage you know 100 Different companies you like manage your team, you build your employees, you kind of work smarter instead of harder. So can you tell us about that tell us about these companies. You've built in what it takes to run an agency.

Speaker 2 5:02 Yeah. So you think the work smarter, not harder system would allow me to have more free time? Dustin, I'm definitely in. I mean, dude, I, I used to look at people who were busy. I'm like, Oh God, like, Look at this guy. He's like working all the time. And for me, I would wake up with like zero text messages, right? It's like, you know, I have nothing to do today. And now it's the flip. It's like, I can't even I don't even get to my text messages. If I were to take a look right now, I have 104 unread text messages, and I cleared them out last night. So it's like, definitely, you know, definitely, I'm in a place where I've got 100 employees, I've got a, you know, I've got I've got a lot going on. But I've got two main company. So just to stop complaining there for a second. The reality is, I'm super grateful to get to do what I do. So I have two companies, one called mindful agency, we're known for building personal brands. So what we do is we take people typically there are people like like guys and gals who are successful IRL, meaning in real life, and, but they're not really known online. And we help them elevate their online presence. So establish the authority, get the content system going, and tap into other people's audiences to build your own audience and, and you kind of build it's kind of like a pyramid. It's like authority, content and branding. And then the top is like speaking podcasting and stuff like that. So we help people establish their pyramid of authority, and building a personal brand. And then agency box is another company, and agency box, what we do is we help other people who are interested in starting a marketing agency, or currently run a marketing agency, we help them automate and systemize their business. So rather than them having 100 employees like I do, and slaving away, they get to basically use my software, my system, my tools, my people as their support system. So when they close a client, so them doing it, they actually outsourced it to my team. Instead of their team communicating with the clients, it's my team doing it. So we've established really efficient processes where we got 4500 agencies that use the platform now. And, and that's kind of it. Now the question on like, establishing companies, it's like a lot of people like they're trying to discover like, what's the opportunity? How do I scale my business. And it's a simple it's a simple process. So in order to scale any any product, product or service, you got to number one be adding more value than you're taking one of my mentors, his name's Brian, Brian store ski, he lives up in Canada, he was one of my he was my first like, billionaire mentor guys weren't like 700 million. But what is round up, and he said, Dylan, the formula of making money simple, you want to make more money to add more value, find a lane in the world where you can just add insane amounts of value. And you'll be you'll have limitless earning potential. So that's when I chose like marketing. I'm like, you know, the pandemic showed everyone that, you know that that being online is no longer a luxury, but it's a necessity, you have to be doing it. And I do what I do, I wake up every day, so that the next time if anything like that ever happened again, or you know, the wave of online continues to happen, these mom and pop shops that got destroyed, I'm gonna get destroyed anymore. It's totally unfair that these guys who have been supporting local businesses and communities for decades, were the first ones to go into business. Why? Because they didn't know how to how to generate attention online. So what I do is simple, I go out, I help these businesses, I help teach other people how to get these businesses we get, the more attention we get the more eyeballs and we hopefully help them sustain their business, so they don't ever get crushed again.

Robert Plank 8:38 Well, I love that. So it seems like with these two companies you have there's kind of there's two, like, you know, sides of this, right? There's the side of just the marketing gasoline and the getting your authority out there, the speaking and then once you kind of use that to build your business and get the customers get the cash flow going bent to manage that. And I mean, sometimes Am I alone in that? It sort of hurts my head, when you think about like, if you have if you want to be known for things you want to get the speaking gigs. And it seems like that gap between wanting to be well known and wanting to be like invited on stages versus creating the content. It seems like there's a huge gap, right? It seems like there's a lot of like daily like content and planning and posting and getting traffic that needs to be done it I mean, am I right or wrong? And they're like, there's this seems like a lot to be done in kind of that space.

Speaker 2 9:29 Yeah, I mean, the reality is, is Hey, what's up? Y'all come help you in in like 15 minutes, monitoring the one off.

Robert Plank 9:39 You're being busy right there, right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 9:40 that's why we are busy, Chris. Hey, what's up? Hey, Chris. He's one of the closers on our team here. So but, but yeah, so the thing is, is like there's a ton of work to be done. There's a lot of stuff that has to be done like people. I've kind of stopped talking about content creation and the content system. Because it's quite frankly overwhelming, like, you know, to just tell someone, Hey, you gotta you have to be posted, Instagram just came out and they said they want to be posting three to five times per day. I'm like, in what reality is like the ordinary person can be able to make that happen. Like, I have content teams, and I, you know, will go through periods of time where I don't have enough content to make that happen. So I think it's really overwhelming for a lot of people. And and then there's this gap of like, there's people who are speaking on stages. And then there's people who are like wanting to build a brand. It's almost like the gap between the rich and the poor, right? It's like widening. And it's almost like this gap between the people who have a personal personal brand, and are like doing the whole thing. And the people who don't are like wanting to do it is so far it's becoming further and further apart. So I think for most people, there's a lot of fear and uncertainty around that, but they know in today's era, you have to be doing it. So for those people who are like, who want to take action want to start making happen. Really the thing is, is you just have to, rather than getting in your head, you just have to commit to some kind of action, something that that's real for you. So if for you it's hey, I can post twice a week. Cool. Like my mom, she owns a small, like skincare business. And she'll like she'll show me Hey, Dylan, I made this. I made this Instagram post. Oh, that's cool. Like, it looks like it looks not that good. But she's like, I'm like, How long did it take you? She's like, Oh, like all weekend, like I started like Friday night, and I posted it Sunday night. And I'm like, this is like not this is not the thing. So like, you know, but for her, okay, one post per week. That's your thing, like, cool, just do it. But if you can get to the point where you're posting multiple times a day like that's, you know, that's really the sweet spot.

Robert Plank 11:45 Yeah, so it seems like there's there's like the the gold that you want to shoot for. There's what you in a perfect world, what you would do to satisfy Instagrams wishes and their algorithm. And there also seems like there's a matter of like, you take that that imperfect action, and then you build the muscle, right? Like maybe your mom at first it took her a whole weekend to make that one Instagram posts, maybe when she gets used to Canva or Photoshop or whatever, maybe she can reduce that to like half a day or like an hour and then block out that one hour per week. And then from there, kind of get something sort of consistent on there. And, and it's always cool to kind of see it being done. Like, we mentioned that you like you work with guys like Gary Vee, and I love seeing light like Grant Cardone just post like a freaking machine. Or like, one a few months ago, I saw like Daymond John from Shark Tank, was writing like Facebook ads to an opt in page. And I first I was kind of posted on like, he's Daymond John, it's gotta have like, so many billions of dollars, why the heck is he going out of his way to like, have like a landing page and like email opt in form. And I'm thinking well, for the personal brand sort of concept, right? And like, even like, you know, you're here with me on a podcast and who knows where that will end up. And who knows someone will be searching you kind of like I searched you earlier, and kind of found different, like tidbits of what you were what you were talking about. And like one time I interviewed some like realtor she did. She was like a luxury realtor and like Atlanta, Georgia, and she was on these podcasts to kind of get the SEO boost and to kind of like be kind of higher profile and be able to charge more. So am I on the right track there? Like what's kind of the what's like the sales pitch if someone says okay, like, Why do I really need to like build this like authority content? What's like the tangible result for me? Will it be like easier to get clients higher prices? Like what do you tell someone to kind of get them excited about this whole idea?

Speaker 2 13:36 What do what's crazy is is Fun fact, Mark Cuban is the only billionaire on Shark Tank. It's kind of this illusion. It's almost like you think oh, like like Daymond John, like all these guys are billionaires, I think Daymond John's worth, like 150 to 200 million, which I mean, look, that's so phenomenal. But, um, but yeah, there's definitely, you know, everyone has their next goal. One of the things that these guys do is they, they actually license out their personality. So if you see Daymond John, actually, Tony Robbins did something with what's the guy's name? He's like, all right. All right. All right, like the actor. On Hey, yeah, Matthew McConaughey. He literally did an event like a virtual event with Matthew McConaughey. He like a month ago, and they had I think it was a 2 million people opted in for it. So it was it was like, absurd. It was a crazy, crazy campaign. And so point in saying this is like, is like personal brands, like the perception of, of Daymond John is that he's way more successful than he is. Why? Because Shark Tank has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the marketing of that brand. They have created these people to be like these icons, they're sharks. You see them sitting in these big chairs. Everything about that show is designed to create this perception illusion that these things these figures are are hidden, and look they're successful. Mark Cuban is again the only billionaire there but having a personal brand allows you to create whatever perception you want to create for the world. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, or whatever you want. It's like, you know, I like I personally like to meditate. And so I think like, hey, when I'm meditating, you know, here's the vision of the day I want to live, here's the world I want to step into. And then I just go ahead and live my life and step into that world. And then kind of create this self fulfilling prophecy.

Robert Plank 15:22 I love that. Like, there's like, kind of like the feedback loop, right?

Speaker 2 15:25 There is a feedback loop. I just want one other thing you mentioned, I wanted to touch on, which was this real estate realtor that came on and did the podcast. And, you know, she wanted to get SEO, funny story, like one of my first press articles ever did this, maybe five or six years ago, it was in some no name, PR site, that, you know, it was like $100 to get in like a you know, whatever it is. And the article was written, it was like influencer marketing, like how Dylan Dylan finance helps brands, whatever. I got a I got an Instagram DM, like the day it was published, saying, Hey, I saw an article and she like, use the acronym of like the site. And it was like, again, it's a no name site. Like it doesn't it's like nothing big at all. And she's like, but I want to talk about influence marketing. And in we do answer marketing, and by the way, as one of the services in the agency, and, you know, I she had no profile picture, she had like 100 followers private account, I was like, Who is this person, but I'll get on the call anyways. I don't know why I did it. But I did. Turns out she's the vice president of a $6 billion company on the New York Stock Exchange that wanted to do a massive influence marketing campaign, because I posted some, some no name press. So imagine this, obviously, not everyone's gonna get a $6 billion company reaching out to them, because of something they do. But if you get one deal more, that that could open up doors of opportunity, even if it doesn't even break even on your deal, or whatever you paid for it. But it helps you get the ball rolling and get more stuff in the future. Is it worth it? The answer to that is, of course, is always going to be yes.

Robert Plank 16:56 That's a good mentality that you're you're looking for that one deal. And I mean, kind of like, you know, we You and me both have been on podcasts where you're just like, well, like, why am I here? And what are the downloads going to be? But then you drive yourself crazy thinking like, oh, well, if only every single minute of my time equals all of a sudden for $1 or so sometimes, you know, you speak at a live event or something like that, you know, like, Well, why am I here? What's the crowd size, but it leads to that one deal? That seems like a healthier sort of mindset to be in? And so with all the things that we could be doing? Do you ever find any like difficulty like sorting through the noise like in that, in that scenario, right? You were submitting to some, some weird PR site, and you were talking to some weird person and who knows, you know, where she's coming from, or where she's legitimate, but it worked out. And then you know, there's always that there's always a whole list of like, Oh, I forgot that exists, all here's the things I could be doing, I could be making that guest blog post, I could be making that kind of PR pitch to the local news or Entrepreneur Magazine. So how do you avoid driving yourself crazy? And is there like a, like a set of like fundamental building blocks, like things you should do? Like, go back to your LinkedIn profile, or like just things to do before doing anything else?

Speaker 2 18:09 So the big, big, big thing here is like, is like I do I say yes to like most things. And that's probably why like, I'm, like, I live kind of a crazy life right now. But I'm in this phase of like, Dude, I gotta make sure I gotta make more happen. Like, my mission is my individual mission is to be my best self, as a living, breathing example that other people can elevate their lives to, I had a really interesting, teenage years. And it wasn't until I saw I had mentors that guided me and inspired me to become a better version of myself. And so I just want to be that for other people, especially like, especially like young men who are trying to figure themselves out like I did, I had a really hard time as a young, like, when I was kind of like becoming growing into like, adulthood. So I think there's a big opportunity to help people there. But beyond that, you got to have your priority, I got to have my priorities straight. And know like what you know, you know, what comes first. And in for me, for me, a lot of it's about service, obviously, I have to keep my lights on with the team, the company support my employees, but it's like, how can I serve and how can I add value? So I kind of just say yes to everything until like I I'm like at max capacity, and then I start to kind of filter through. But as far as people trying to establish authority online and build a brand, the absolute thing, if you were to do nothing else, is find a way to tap into other people's audiences. The even if you go on on someone's podcast, even if they have 10 listeners, like there's a chance that one of those 10 people will follow you and buy your stuff. They the same thing like for me, cost for me to acquire customer depending on the product could be $1,000 to be you know 25 $30,000 To acquire customer. The thing is, is is even on the lowest end the $1,000 is what I pay through other channels. So you know Would it be worth it if the potentially get one person so joint ventures are huge for me, one of the biggest things I did was partnering with people who have an audience, get them to blast their list and I give them a commission on sales that come through. Podcast is a great second speaking on stages is a great third. Really whatever you can do to get in front of someone else's audience. I love

Robert Plank 20:20 it. So always be be looking for those joint ventures because it's so easy to just be sitting in your office and making some grandiose world domination plans and clicking around on websites. But then how far is it going to get you versus tapping into these networks where they've been building them up for years, they have millions of people and if you just send the one email blasts, or the one social media posts, then that'll pay off for you. And so I can tell there's a lot of like, like, entrepreneurial like, like mindset in here, like you talk a lot here about, you know, goals and about meditation and things like that. Is there something that stands out to you as far as like, something that you think you do mindset wise, that a lot of us aren't doing and maybe need to be paying attention to?

Speaker 2 21:03 Yeah, biggest thing for me is accountability, personal accountability, every single thing in my life from from the time I stub my toe in the stairs, walking up the stairs, or to the time where I get to go on a car accident or speeding ticket, like, I have extreme accountability for everything in my life. And what that's allowed me to do is understand I'm not the victim of my circumstances, but the rather the Creator. And I think that as a society is this, there's a lot of conversation about, about making people feel like they're a victim, like they're at effect of it. Reality is we are creators, we have creator, we have the ability to create what we want in our life. And so for me, every day I wake up, and dude, I've had crazy things like things that you would never be able to write in a book happen, both good and bad. The bad ones, I'm always gonna say like, like, maybe I didn't, maybe it wasn't my fault. Maybe like, I didn't create it. But it's my responsibility to make the most of it and learn through it. And, and I think that's one thing, if if everyone took extreme accountability for their entire life, I think the world would be a much better place, because then people will realize they can change their life, and actually make it better.

Robert Plank 22:10 I love that. And because what comes to mind there is if you if you don't take that responsibility, if you're stuck in that victim mindset, then when things happen to you, you don't have to change, right, because you're just like, oh, and it's out of my control. It's something that came externally. But if you put yourself in that situation, or you let yourself hang around those friends, or if you have those people that you kept letting them do X to you, then after a while, it's like maybe you should get new friends being a different situation, try other things, and then realize that life, it doesn't just have the good you need to be looking at the bad and the good. And you can expect all good things to happen to you, because there's all the randomness and then the chaos. And so this has been a great conversation. We've been having an Astra winding down, I'd like to put my guests on the spot. And I'd like to ask them about like advice they wish they'd gotten 20 years ago, right? You're talking about those crazy teenagers. So there's crazy young adult years, and it's and many times we think well man like that one thing could have helped me along or shortcut so much. So Does anything come to mind as far as advice you wish you'd gotten 20 years ago from your future self?

Speaker 2 23:18 Yeah, so there's, there's there's one and a half. The first thing is like the all of social media is fake. Majority of people's followers are fake. Even Kim Kardashian, she created her social media following she paid paparazzi used to travel to follow her around, take photos and post it in the tabloids. Like, like, what you see is not reality. Reality is what you feel instinctually and and we know we know what truth is. So when some guys out here, some guy that you went to high school with that's driving a Lamborghini, and you're jealous of it. Maybe he really did get that but it could just be it perception isn't always reality. Now, to extrapolate that, what's the fastest way to get what you want in life is find someone who has what you want to convince them to show you the formula on how they did it. I'm a big believer in that you don't have to become the entrepreneur or the CEO, you can become the number two heck go find someone like me, go be the number two and like work work for that person for a decade and or five years because my biggest leaps have been when I I took I took back my ego and said okay, like, I don't need to be the guy. Let me just learn and build the systems and then like, eventually I can be the guy. And so I think just like people knowing that you'll learn you'll, you can learn what you earn, but more importantly, just build a skill set and, and find someone who you can model their life after. I love

Robert Plank 24:47 that mentors. Don't let the ego get in the way and so while we're digesting your advice and taking action and looking into what you have next Can you plug those two companies again, can you tell us after we listened to This interview with you, we want to take those next step take those actions so that we're not we're not just learning, but we're also implementing what's the call to action your what's the next step? What website should someone go to, to find out more about you?

Speaker 2 25:10 Yeah, so if you're trying to grow, grow a personal brand, mindful agency.com If you're trying to try to develop a business, or you have an agency, and you want to take it to the next level, agency, box.com and then my social media, Dylan Vanasse, it's pretty much the only communication channel that I see directly. So everything else kind of gets filtered. So if you want to touch base, that's kind of where to do it.

Robert Plank 25:33 Fantastic. Mindful agency.com and agency vox.com. And look up Dylan vantus, on social, that's d y l, a n, last name, V A N A S, Mo, we'll see you there if you got a little bit of a taste of what Dylan's all about, and you want to kind of soak up more of that and see what he has going on. And if your company is right fit to start that conversation with him and see if they can help you with the personal branding or the management of your agency. Then check him out Dylan Danis, and it's super great talking to you Dylan and connecting and practicing what you preach, right? Instead of just talking to the same old circle of people, you're getting yourself out there and I'm doing the same thing right with the podcasting so it's, it's great to connect with you.

Unknown Speaker 26:13 Yeah, likewise, good to be here.

Robert Plank 26:18 This is Robert plank from the marketer of the day podcast, which you can find at marketer of the day.com for more episodes, and d f y podcast.com. forward slash free if you want to know more about running your own podcast or running a better or more fun or easier or less time intensive podcast, go to d f y podcast.com/free. To find out more right this instant