Lighting for Profits - Episode 158

This week on the show we welcome Adam McChesney, a St. Louis-based entrepreneur, who transitioned from medical sales to entrepreneurship in July 2020. He founded Builders of Authority and co-owns Auto Glass Repair of STL. Formerly VP of Growth at Hite Digital, Adam now offers personal branding coaching and hosts the Builders of Authority Podcast. He lives with his wife Delaney, their son Murphy, and their dog Georgie.

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We discuss everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business

Welcome to Lighting for profits.

All light, all light, all light.

Powered by Emery Allen.

Get rid of your excuses.

Your number one source for all things landscape lighting. That's where the magic can happen.

You can really scale a business. We really had to show up for each other.

From lighting design, install, sales and marketing.

You're a scaredy cat salesman, Kurt.

We discuss everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business.

What do you think a hippo has.

To do with your business, Ryan? Usually it's some weird childhood thing, some bullshit kicked your butt. I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

Oh, light. A lot of light. What is up? What is up? Welcome, you guys. Welcome to lighting for profits, powered by Emery Allen. I'm Ryan Lee, the host of the number one, the number one landscape lighting show in St. Louis, Missouri. That's right. Number one landscape lighting show in St. Louis. We are going viral. We are going worldwide. Guys, we got an epic show lined up for you today. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. We're here to motivate where to dominate. Wait, I can't even remember what we're here to do, but we're here to help educate and motivate, to help you dominate. And we, by the way, are dominating at the same time. Today we've got Mister Adam McChesney. He is the founder of builders of authority. He also owns another business as well. We're going to talk about. But, I'm super excited for this show, you guys. And I know I say that every week, of course, you know, but if you could just understand, like, how truthful I am when I say that I look forward to it every single day. Right before, literally, I was like, I go in and my kids are all hanging out. I'm like, guys, it's podcast time. Let's go. And Kate's like, the Internet's out. What? When were you going to tell me? And, so had a mild panic, but I'm excited because we're actually here.

Today we're talking about the power of personal branding

But today, guys, we're going to be talking about the power of personal branding. And, this is, this is like, I know I say I'm excited about every episode, but I'm just telling you right now, this topic is important to me because it's changed my life the last four or five years, and it will change your life over the next four or five years as well. really, really good stuff. The power of personal branding is amazing. And, yes, this is something that you should be taking notes on. So really excited. And I, want to thank all of you guys who have given me, a five star review. But if you haven't, I want to guilt you. I want you to feel really bad. shame even, you know, anything. Whatever it takes to motivate you, to give me a five star review, I'd really appreciate it on apple because I'm trying to beat my friend Chris Applestot. we're doing a race to 100, and I think I'm, like, 62 now. So thank you to whoever. I can't remember the username. I didn't recognize the name. But thank you guys for that latest five star review. And, remind. Remember, in, like, six weeks, secret summit is coming up, which is our members only event for landscape lighting. Secret members. Going to be amazing. We just finalized, something else. A new speaker. We have a new activity we're going to do. Like, it's going to be epic. And, we'd love to have you there, but you do have to be a member. So if you're like, I don't know, should I do this? Should I not just book a call with me. Go to landscape lightingsecrets. com dot. We'll get on the phone. We'll figure out if it makes sense to work together. If it does, then you want to join before the summit. I'm just telling you because we only do that once a year. So super excited, about that event coming up. It's always a good one. And, you know, like, online communities are great, but when you can meet in person, like, the relationships go next level, everything goes next level. So, it's going to be a really, really good one.

Don't sell yourself short with your customer by using budget level products

All right, Emery Allen, thank you guys so much for your partnership. You guys know this performance matters. That's a true statement for a lot of things, including the light or, the kind of lighting you use. Right? So don't sell yourself short with your customer by using budget level products. A lot of people are always like, well, I can't sell for that, so I'll just, you know, use cheap stuff, like, don't do that. And, Emery Allen is at the top of their game when it comes to performance. Take their va rating, for example. It's the lowest in the industry. What that means is efficiency. So now you're gonna be able to put more lamps, more fixtures on a project and save you money on transformer. Ah. Space wiring and everything else. So, all you got to do is make the switch to Emery Allen and guess what? We got you hooked up with contractor pricing. You're not going to get anywhere else. Just email tom g@emeryallen. com and he will get you connected with his company. he'll get your contractor pricing set up. Just mentioned that you heard about him here on lighting for profits. Again, just email tom g@emoryallen. com dot I'm telling you, you're missing out. That single source led that they have is super clear and just looks really, really good at night and they're just awesome people. So, you know, I like working with people that I like. So make sure you check out Emery Allen. Alright guys, again, we got just a couple minutes. We got Adam Mcchesney coming on builders of authority. And I've gotten to know Adam a little bit over the last year, but I'm in love with his mission and what he's teaching and everything else. I'm like, dude, we got to get him on here. We got to get him m on because, telling you the power of personal branding is going to transform your life and your business.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the HBL event

before we have him on, I wanted to share something real quick. Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the HBL event. HBL is holiday bright lights. So they're a Christmas light company. They manufacture and sell and distribute and train and do all this other stuff for holiday lighting. And you know, it was pretty, it was pretty cool. I was the keynote speaker, which I was so grateful and humbled by the experience. and it was kind of interesting because it was a 90 minutes keynote. And then I did two more breakouts as well during the day. And I prepared, even though it was like a 90 minutes keynote, I prepared at least ten, probably 1214 hours into that one presentation. And so my hourly rate, I'm like, wait a minute, $5 an hour. but it reminded me of that quote, by Abraham Lincoln, I think it was him. And it says, give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and, and I will spend the first four sharp sharpening the axe. And you can learn a lot from that, right? You know, we're often spending so much time, time trying to do the thing the hard way, whatever it was we're working on, and we just take a step back and sharpen our axe. Practice. You know, people say work on your business. Well, what does that mean? Well, practice, practice sales, practice talking to people, practice marketing. try different angles, right? Build sops. spend time training, follow up with your customers. All these different things are sharpening our axe. We'll find that there's an easier way. It does. It doesn't have to take 6 hours to chop down the tree. Right.

Your plan b might be the thing holding you back, right?

so anyway, I'm preparing for my, keynote, and I wrote down this question that I came across the other day, and, the question is, what is your plan b? And, thing is, I used to be a plan b guy. Even when I started my lighting company, when I started landscape lighting secrets, it was always like I had to have a plan b to talk myself into plan a. Like, okay, well, I'm just gonna do this, and then if it doesn't work, or when it doesn't work, I'll do plan b. So, in one sense, I really appreciate the plan beers out there, because sometimes you need it to convince yourself to start the new plan a. But here's the thing. Your plan b might be the thing holding you back, right? Because perhaps it's the largest enemy. It literally is the largest enemy to plan a is plan b, because you know that you have an exit plan. Like, you can pull the parachute, right? And it distracts you from the focus of plan a and the focus that's required to get plan a off the ground or to execute it, right? We all want, like, success. We all want money. We all want time, freedom. We want all the same stuff. We're entrepreneurs. We're crazy, right? but are we really, are we really willing to go all in to make sure that plan a succeeds? And if you think about it, with only the success of plan a as a possibility, you're forced to survive, right? You're forced to find new angles because there is no option of plan b. And a lot of people have plan b, C, D, and e, and they're not working on plan a. And they're wondering why they're not getting results. They. They're not getting traction. They're getting stuck. It's because you have too many backup plans, right, that when you have that option of plan b on your mind, it requires less fortit. Fortitude to iterate. So, like, you try something, maybe you learn about it here on the podcast. One of our guests comes on, maybe Adam shares something. You're like, oh, yeah, I tried that. Well, did you really try it the way it's supposed to work for you? Maybe you tried it, but it's like saying, well, I tried Facebook ads. Like, there's a hundred thousand ways to try to do Facebook ads. So, you need to iterate, right? And honestly, like, the easy way out is to have a plan b. And it's not the way that the successful people do it, then the most successful people that I know that I try to, like, try to infiltrate those. Their circles, I'm like, come on, invite me to dinner. When can I come over? Like, let me buy you lunch. Right. they use iteration. They use iteration pretty much every single day in their life. They don't have a plan b. Like, their plan a is their plan b. But if they did have a plan b, their plan b is to try plan a another way. Right. They literally are just going to keep trying it and try different angles. And you know what? I see this happening right now in the landscape lighting industry because things are starting to tighten up a bit, right? You know, the COVID days are gone, and now we're back to, like, I don't think we're back to anything crazy. we're just back to kind of normal. This is how business works. Like, you got to be really, really good at marketing. You got to be really, really good at sales, customer service, follow up. Like, all these things, right? These are just normal business things. But we haven't had to do all these things. It was easy. So you have people saying, well, I'm struggling getting leads for landscape lighting. So, you know, I'll just do permanent lighting. Or you know what? I'll just wait a couple months because holiday lighting is about to hit, and I make a fortune with holiday lighting. So these next two months. Yeah, it's slow, you know, back to school vacations, they make excuses, right? So you want the cheat code to success. Get rid of your plan b. Get rid of it like, it's not even an option. And you'll be surprised when you put all your energy, all your efforts into ensuring that plan a works, how well you'll do. And it's not easy. It's, easy to talk about it right?

You can't give up on plan a and just pivot to another plan

Now. Executing is difficult, right? But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Like, everyone would already be doing landscape lighting, and it wouldn't be like this. Right? So we have an opportunity. We're blessed to be in this industry that not everybody is doing. Now, you. Some of you are like, well, yeah, but look, it's growing. It's like, that's good thing. So stop. Stop complaining, right? And so get rid of all your excuses and go all in on yourself. Okay? There's just too much on the line. You've. You've risked too much. You've. You've worked too hard. Like, you can't give up on plan a and just pivot to another plan. Right? and I can't. I did not write down who, who said this quote. He said, you can either be wealthy or comfortable, but not both. I love that because that's truth. Like, I want to be comfortable and wealthy, but that just doesn't go hand in hand. Okay? It's not how the game works. And every successful person I know, they've had to do hard things. They've just had to do hard things that others aren't willing to do. Now, sometimes, like, maybe now after they've had this success, maybe it does look like they're comfortable, but most of these guys are still going and going, right, and they don't stop. Right? And sometimes it might look easy on the outside, but I can assure you it's not. all paths to success are filled with doubt. I. Obstacles, setbacks and failures. And here's the cool thing. You are in control, right? You get to decide which path you are on. So you get to decide today. Okay, well, am I going to retreat? Am I going to go back to path B, C, D, e? Some of you guys have like, 26 paths that you're thinking about trying. I want to get into real estate. I want to get into this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. Right? But instead of changing lanes, try and, you know, and trying whatever the latest thing is, there's always going to be like, the shiny object, right? It's going to make you rich. You could try that. You could retreat and try that, right? Or you could stay the course and you're. When you're presented with a setback, you iterate. You don't change plans. You don't change the lanes. You change directions. Okay? You change trajectory, you change the angle at which you were trying something before. But that doesn't mean. So it doesn't mean you keep trying the same thing over and over. Okay, that's, that's not smart. But you try the same thing over and over with an iteration. So change one thing. Try, try adding a word, taking a word away, showing up early, showing up late, trying something different, right? And do those iterations and see how that affects it. Because I'm telling you right now, like, too many people are going to give up on their dreams right now and chase something else, and they're, they're going to have major regret 510, 20 years from now. I should have done this. I should have done that because doesn't matter. What you're doing is going to be hard. So suck it up. Do the hard that you're good at. You're already good at this hard, so just do it and iterate and find a better way to do it. good news for you is we got Adam coming on, and he's got some awesome stuff to help you keep doing what you're doing and iterate and help you build that personal brand. So I'm excited about today's show. I think it's time I'm done with my. My thing. It's kind of like my weekly therapy. I got to get something off my chest. So, let's, let's get the music going and get our friend Adam on. You guys ready? Hopefully. So let's go.

Adam McChesney: Business is changing rapidly. How fast it's changing

Welcome to the show, mister Adam mcchesney.

Thanks for having me, man. I'm fired up just listening to you talk.

I hope so.

Man. No plan b? No plan b. I love it. I love it.

Yeah. And that's coming. I'm, like a recovering plan b guy, you know? Like, I get it. I get, a lot of people tell you, like, what's your plan b? You know? But, man, I just. I just know, like, anytime I've just abandoned that plan b and focus on a, it's like, dude, there's. I have to make it work. You're going to make it work, Jeff?

Well, I think, to that point, I think you mentioned kind of, like, Covid opening up a lot of doors, I think, for people of, like, there was business literally everywhere, and we're back now to probably what things were like just before COVID It's not really anything different. You could do your plan b and, like, fall back on something and kind of get by over the last couple years. But, like, I think done are the days where you can have all these different plates you're trying to juggle and still be successful. So I think, like, the last couple of years have. Have skewed the ability to be successful while trying to do all the other stuff you're trying to do as well.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's just a different world. It's crazy how much. How fast it's changing very, very quickly. so today we're going to talk about, you know, all about building authority and stuff like that.

Adam McChesney has been an entrepreneur and a father since 2020

Before we get started, though, if you would just. Just do a quick introduction of yourself, how. How did you get started as an entrepreneur?

Yeah, absolutely. So, Adam McChesney here in St. Louis, Missouri, married to my wife, Delaney. we have our, ten month old Murphy as well, which has been, an incredible journey as an entrepreneur and a father. I've spent five years in medical device sales up until 2020. So most of that time was spent at a company called Resmed. So if you're familiar with CPAP, equipment, devices, masks, all that stuff, that's what I sold. Managed, about a $25 million a year territory here in the state of Missouri. But back in 2018, I kind of foresaw getting married, building a family, all of that stuff that was going to come after, my opinion of working in corporate America. And so I bought my first digital marketing course in 2018, did it on the side for about two years, built 200 websites, ranked them, rented them, so a little bit of a different digital marketing model, basically digital real estate, and then decided in the midst of the pandemic that I was going to go full time with it. So I went full time with it. And, July 2020 was when I did that. Switched to more of a traditional agency, doing website design, SEO, paid ads, all of that stuff. Built up, an agency in a business with hundreds of clients, Inc 5000 awards the last three years. And then, in March of this year, stepped away to be able to go full into builders of authority, which I soft launched back in November of 2023. Really around the foundation that I've built multiple companies, service based businesses, digital marketing agencies, consulting companies, things like that. But it was all backing of personal branding and digital marketing. And so I believe everybody has a story to tell and I believe a lot of people aren't telling their story and or know where to start. And so builders of authority helps you become the authority in your industry to your ideal client by posting content on social media, doing free and easy digital marketing strategies. So then that way, marketing agencies are always going to be needed, but a lot of people are looking for free and easy ways to get started and to know and be educated on what they're doing.

So I love that show.

That's Adam McChesney.

I sold my lighting business in 2019 and that's when I started exploring branding

Well, you know, there's so many fascinating things. So I sold my lighting business in 2019 and that's when I started exploring really, kind of what this storytelling is and brand and branding. And I've got a marketing degree from early two thousands, but that was before social media and everything else. So I'm, you know, taking courses and buying courses and stuff like that. And, and what's interesting is when you got in, when you got into the, in 2020, that's when I got out of digital marketing. I was like, dude, I can't handle this. And the pandemic caused. I had a bunch of clients like firing me, like, we don't know what we're going to do. And I was like, sweet because I don't want to do this. And that's when I launched landscape lighting secrets. I was like, this is cool because now I have enough. Like, I've been exploring this and I've, been learning about personal branding and stuff. And I started just, I didn't even have a product. I was just doing like Facebook lives and stuff like that. I was just trying to, to find my own voice, find my own story, and I started resonating with certain people and I did that for about six months. But that was like July 2020 when we launched landscape lighting secrets, when I finally had the courage to be like, okay, I'm going all in. So right around that similar time.

Yeah, it's it's funny how like the industry has just changed. But I mean, I went to college with sports management and marketing degree and like nothing, and even some like entrepreneurial type classes, like nothing that I learned there is anywhere close to relevant for the most part to what I'm currently doing on a daily basis. But I got super, super fascinated with the idea of helping local business owners and then seeing how that was able to be impacted. I went from corporate America where I'm selling a bunch of products, making a bunch of money. I, could have continued to do that for the rest of my life, but I was always traveling, but not traveling. Hey, I'm going to go speak at this event or I'm going to go visit, visit some clients or go to this conference. It was like, hey, no, you need to go do that in order to make the money that you of course, are wanting to make. So when I saw back in 2018, I bought this course, I paid $7,000 and I never invested in myself before. And so I started building simple, weebly websites and I'll never forget it. That was like right after Thanksgiving and then like, I filed the course and I'm like, there's no way this is that easy. Like, there's hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands marketing agencies that are out there. But I built a simple appliance repair website here in St. Louis that's still on the first page of Google. And at the time I was doing rank and rent, which basically means I build the asset, I build the website and then I go find the tenant or the business to be able to do the actual work. And I'm sitting at my mom's wedding and I literally get a phone call like three weeks later, like, hey, we need our, you know, our kit or whatever it was, the refrigerator, microwave or something repaired. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this works. And it just opened up my eyes to, like, how much opportunity is out there. Regardless of the competitiveness of the market, or your city or anything like that, doesn't matter to the industry. There's always going to be a need for people to operate at a high level and serve with integrity and do what they say they're going to do. and so I just got hooked then, and then did it on the side for a couple of years and then, went full time in 2020.

Cool.

Why should someone stop posting about their business on social media and focus on personal branding

Well, let's talk about maybe introduce, like, what is personal branding? Because I think historically most businesses, I mean, I look at, I look at me and my lighting business, and then, and then what I know now, me, five, you know, 510 years ago, I'm like, promoting my, my, my lighting business online. Here's a cool picture of landscape lighting, okay. And then the next night, here's a really cool one where we did this and it was nothing about, it was all about the business. If actually it was just about what we did, it wasn't even about the business. Why should someone stop posting about exactly what they do and start focusing more on their personal brand and it kind of introduce what personal branding is?

Yeah, it's a great question. So I'll start with my definition of a personal brand. And that's simply what other people think about you when you're not in the room. And so it doesn't matter if you have a business or not. Maybe you're a sales rep or an employer, just a retired individual. Doesn't really matter. But that is tied to you, not your job, not your business, not anything else. And so that could be a good thing, that could be a bad thing, and it could be everywhere, obviously in between as well. And so what so often happens is people do want to go do the business, social media posting. They want to do digital marketing, they want to run ads, they want to do all of the other stuff, but they're not taking advantage of their current Rolodex, which is their organic social media, to be able to grow their business. And so the main reason behind you wouldn't necessarily, I never tell people, hey, stop posting on your business pages, especially if you've already had them out there. But try to build a habit and routine around posting, you know, once a day at the beginning or every other day or once a week on your personal page, because the algorithms are so different. And the mindset of your ideal clients usually is as well. And what I mean by that is people buy from people, right? And so when you have Adam or Ryan's landscape lighting company, they see that brand, and they don't necessarily always see the person behind it, but if they see you and I posting from our personal page, and they're like, wow, Adam and Ryan, and they're both husbands and fathers, and they. They have this mission and impact, and, oh, they just so happen to do what they do. People are a lot more likely to have their walls broken down and be willing to do business with you. But the best part about it is the algorithms are so different, as I mentioned before, is that you can accomplish in 90 days with your personal brand what would probably take you 15 to 18 to 24 months, because all these platforms, they make money from businesses and business pages running ads and boosting posts and doing all those things. So you can accomplish a lot more with a lot less. But you're also connecting eye to eye with your ideal client, person to person, human to human, father to father. Right, for, as an example, versus client or potential client to business owner.

Yeah, exactly.

How does someone start to infiltrate the local community and get more personal followers

So how does someone, like, start building their, you know, like, I'm just thinking, like, in the landscape lighting industry, a lot of their friends are just other landscape lighting business owners. How does someone start to infiltrate the local community and. And get more personal followers?

Yeah. So I think the easiest place is to just go in and make sure that, like, you're friends with all the people that you already know. Right. So, like, a lot of people are like, I never get on Facebook, or I never get on social media, Instagram, whatever platform. Like, just go into your contacts. All the platforms will literally link up, and you can start adding people that you probably have known for years. Right. The second thing is to go and get connected with and make sure that your past clients, current clients, are also friends with you, because you can tag them when you finish a project, and then you now are in the feed of all of the people that they're connected to as well. but probably one of my favorite areas and kind of where I got started and really, really growing this is in local Facebook groups. So, like, even if you're like, I don't want to be friends with my family or people that know my personal life, like, I want to keep this more business focused. Go connect with all of your referral partners. Go connect with all the people that you do networking with because they are likely going to start sharing your stuff as well. And so take advantage of the low hanging fruit that's right there. And you can go build relationships in those groups on Facebook, like your local contracting Facebook groups, the I know a guy, know a gal type groups, like all of those groups that are out there in pretty much any city are like huge, huge opportunities for you to be able to grow your business and you don't even know it's right there.

Very cool. You know, it's interesting because I don't know what percentage I'm totally making this up, but it's got to be like 99% of people on, let's just say Facebook are consumers versus creators, right?

Yeah.

And so I've talked to people about this and they struggle with this because they've had this personal page for so long, and they use it to update their grandparents and their spouse and whatever, their local network of friends. I'm m like, but what if, what if you could change that profile and you're not abandoning your family? You're doing this for your family? Talk about that. Like, what should be on your social media profile? Is it a picture of the family? Is it a picture of, of the people you serve and how you serve them? Like, how strategic are you getting on this? Personal. Personal.

It's another great question. So I have a headshot on all my platforms and then on like, Facebook as an example, that's the primary platform that, that we teach on and that, that we've used to grow our businesses. Cover photo is my family. And then, like, on my profile, about us section, it's like husband, father, serial entrepreneur, speaker, what podcast, or probably whatever else is on there, right? And so the difference with that, right? And I would say contractors don't go down this rabbit hole, but like, a lot of marketers and business coaches and fitness coaches and forex traders all go down the, I'm going to have the COVID photo with like some insane case studies and results and like some special offer. And then my about us, section is going to be like, hey, dme this word for 30 days free or whatever, right? Regardless of what industry you're in, you just don't want to turn it into a big sales pitch. So when someone sees your profile, right, you send them the friend request, because that's an activity that we teach is try to add five new people a day for the first couple of months as you're getting into this new personal branding activity. You don't want people to get that friend request and be like, ah, that's Adam, that's Ryan. He's literally going to try to pitch me in the direct messages, which you and I obviously know happens quite a bit. So you want people to connect with you and be like, ah, ah, he's just another human being. He's just x, y and z, but, oh, okay, so he does so happen to own his own business or multiple businesses. And he's got a podcast and a YouTube channel. Like, I'll accept his friend request, probably no harm, no file.

Nice. I like that.

Are you posting on personal and sharing it on your business vice versa

And then what's the relationship, like, between the personal and the business page? Like you said, like, okay, you can post business stuff, of course, but you want to get personal and show people that you're just a real human, you have a life. Are you, are you posting on your personal and sharing it on your business vice versa? Is there, is there a method for that?

Yeah, so I'm usually not trying to, like, cross promote with a lot of stuff unless it's like some big massive announcement. Because the reason being is, again, these, these platforms and these algorithms are going to be a little bit different. Personal versus business. So what I always recommend people on your personal pages if you're going to post once a day or twice a day, like, I do, do the 80 20 rule. So 80% of your content should not have anything to do in like, like high level about like, what it is that you sell the product, the widget, the service, x, y and z, with 20% of it being that way. And so like 80% of the content, even probably closer to 90% of the content for me is like motivational. Just like, get up and like, go do your thing, right? it talks about like, the life of the entrepreneur, just like stuff that I go through and how I navigate my journey in life, because my ideal client is that entrepreneur, right? It's an entrepreneur that maybe has one businesses or multiple businesses, and they're looking to invest in themselves, whether that they need coaching or they need marketing and advertising or personal, personal branding or any of those types of things. But I want to connect to that individual. So when I do talk about my widget, my project, my services, in that 20%, I usually always try to tell a story, right? So that's where it's going to be different than your business page. So, like, you could tell a really, really good story about a landscape lighting project of hot, like the, the end of the project, you take a bunch of awesome pictures, or maybe it's a video or whatever, and like, you upload that to Facebook, you tag the client because ideally you're friends with them at this point. You tag the client and you're like, hey, I started working with Ryan on this project X, Y and Z time ago. He found us from referral, word of mouth, Google, Facebook, doesn't really matter. He came to us looking for this. This is what we ended up doing. For the scope of work, like, trying to tell the story of your clients and of the situation goes a lot further than just being like, hey, here's some pictures. A finished project. Like, people can go and get that stuff anywhere, but that's what you're usually going to post on your business page because not a whole lot of new and additional people are going to find that you're just more so doing the business page for, like, brand awareness. And people go there to do their additional homework. But when you're at your personal page, you can cross promote your stuff with the clients, with other people, maybe that you're sending business to and from, as it relates to that project, but you can do it by telling a story, not just like showing up and being like, oh, hey, here's another project we did. But taking it one step further, I like that.

And this is, that's just one of those things. It's like, not natural. Like, most people don't know that. That's like, common sense to you now, but it probably wasn't at some point. And it's hard. Like, it's easier to just post a picture of the job I did last night. It's harder to be like, what is the story here? Like, what happened here? And, you're just throwing down, like, fire right now. I'm telling if someone does this there, they are going to send you a personal phone call, letter or something to thank you for this because this, this is the life changing stuff that they need to be doing. If they can get into that story, they've got, they've got a customer for life.

So, so it really is. And so, like, I've taught, like, I like where builders of authority originally came was like, so two and a half years ago, I spoke on my first stage ever. And for a year and a half, I only would speak to marketing agencies. So, like, people that were throwing marketing conferences would reach out to me like, hey, Adam, can you come speak at my event? And can you come, like, show the blueprint of how you grew your marketing agency? And growing a marketing agency. And we scaled our first agency from zero to seven figures in 15 months and then to multiple seven figures. That's really, really hard to do with $0 in paid ads. So I would teach that blueprint over and over and over again and people would just be like, wow, by how simple it was. And, but, but they would never get the results that they were looking for as quick, right? Because it's like, hey, you need to do this for 90 days. Everybody that is a landscape lighting person watching this live or listening to this podcast has been pitched probably already, it's Tuesday. Probably already been pitched by five people this week on marketing, right? So it's hard to get in there. But when I teach this, the contractors, right, there's very few of the competitors of the people that are actually doing this, that are actually posting consistently on social media. So it can open up the floodgates. If it gets you one commercial job, one new referral partner, if it gets you five new jobs a m month, because you're doing an activity that you were never doing before, it's very unlikely that you're going to start posting and then all of a sudden your top three competitors, that entrepreneur, that business owner, is also going to go start doing it. It's just not going to happen. So the opportunity, especially in today's climate of the marketplace and the economy and things like that, I mean, it's almost m essential to at least be doing this somewhat consistently just to see how it can impact your business.

I love it. I can't believe that, I didn't, I mean, I didn't know, right? It's not like I turned it down, but like, I just, I kind of want to start a lighting business now so that I can go do this thing and implement it to show like, how powerful it is. It's crazy.

What is, what is consistency? That's the biggest thing. So, so consistency is like,

What, what is, what is consistency?

That's the biggest thing. So, so consistency is like, I tell everybody, like the first thing when somebody comes into our community, they ask me like, hey, where should I get started? I say, hey, where are you at? Right? So, like, if you think about like 75 hard or any diet or any of those things, like, very few people are just going to turn it on and go zero to 100. And so I tell people it's like, take an audit, do a baseline analysis of where you're at right now. So if you're posting once a week or once a month or once a day, just take that audit and then do more for the first 60 or 90 days. So if you're posting once a week, go to every other day, try to get to every day, right? And just be consistent with it. Because one of the things these platforms, whether it's Google, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, they like consistency on, based on what you're feeding their system, right? So even if it's, you know, once a week, if you go up to every other day or once a week, they're going to start rewarding you for posting more content and spending more time on that platform. So in the beginning, it's about building the habit and the routine of just doing a little bit more. Ed Milad talks about in his book, the power of one more. It's like, how can I do one more to incrementally move me in the right direction? Now, at some point, right when you're talking about, hey, I do want to hit that, like, 75 heart of personal branding or social media. Like, we're talking two posts a day, every single day, trying to get them at the same time every single day. So that way your audience starts to get trained. Then we talk about doing, you know, a real a day, a, podcast a week, one YouTube video a week, maybe two YouTube videos a week. So there's so many different rabbit holes that you can go down. But, like, if everybody just focused on Facebook, Facebook, and just focused on doing more on Facebook that they're doing today, they'll have likely more business within three to six months than they could have ever imagined by just building this habit routine.

Such good advice. I love it. Otherwise, it's like, well, I got to be on 15 different platforms and I'm not even on Twitter. How do I create a Twitter account and it's not even called Twitter anymore? I just called it Twitter. It's x.

Like, yeah, it can be a lot. Everybody thinks, and I've heard, like, so often over the past couple of years, like, Facebook is dead. There's no money on Facebook. Like, I would actually argue completely against that. Like, that is your target market. I hear a lot of people, and I see a, like, so many people came to me, Adam, I want to blow up on TikTok. I want to, you know, be famous on Instagram. It's like, great. You're going to get all the vanity metrics, but you're going to have no dollars associated unless you strike some affiliate deal, which is very unlikely to happen. The low hanging fruit. The people that actually do have money are spending time on Facebook.

How do you do? And I agree, by the way, but my whole business is Facebook. Like, I have, like, my YouTube channel. It's funny, I get. I get leads from YouTube now, but it is the weakest YouTube channel in the history of YouTube. I even know how it's. It's working, but it's working, because.

You'Re super niche down. YouTube loves that.

They do. They do, right? And I'm. And I've got a plan to work on it, but it's like the same thing. I'm like, it's too overwhelming. Let me just focus on this one right now, and. Because that's working. So, yeah.

How do you deal with the fact that you go to store

How do you deal with the fact that you go to store? I remember doing this, and I was like, hey, here we go. I was at a click. funnels. They're the funnel hacking live. Russell Brunson's, like, challenges everyone to do a go, live and stuff like that. And I'm, like, shaking, like, going live, talking about my origin story, all this stuff. And then I started to get a little bit more comfortable. But I looked down and I'm like, man, there's, like, two people on there. And coincidentally, it was my mother and my wife. You know, I'm like, when do I give up? Like, is any. Does anybody care? Like, why the hell am I doing this? Because, you know, you don't have an audience at first. You don't know your voice. You're not good at telling stories. You're not an expert. You're starting out. How do you work through that?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different answers to that question. There. There's two different times where you're going to feel like that is right when you get started. And if you can get over that hump, like, you're after the races. But also, like, I've even had this over the last couple of months where we're building something new. I'm kind of restarting in not all reality, but, like, building a new business. So my content, from a production standpoint and also a quantity standpoint, has taken a backseat for the most part, from what I used to be doing. And so you start to see, once you've had a little bit of success, you start to see some of those vanity metrics, like, our business hasn't dropped off, but the vanity metrics, which is what a lot of people say. And I told myself from the beginning, I'm not going to care about those things. You're lying if you say that, because you end up do. Looking at that, you look at the analytics, you look at all of those things. And it's the same thought process and mindset that happens in the very, very beginning. So for me is my why was always bigger than, And thankfully, it has continued to be that way, but always bigger than okay. Like, am I going to grow from this one video? No, absolutely not. But I need one client, one life impacted, one referral, one whatever, from the consistency of content over that week, if you will, or two weeks or a month or whatever it is for your business. So just trying to put it in perspective of the bigger picture, because I know I'm willing to and able to, and I've proven it time and time again to out not just outwork people, but outlast people. Because I know that whether it's competition or potential competition or whatever, you want to look at it, like, when they see those things, 99% of people are giving up. When I see that, I'm, pissed off. I wish I could be doing better. I would love to see the viral stuff go, but, like, I know I have something bigger at play and it's just a matter of time until something hits right, until I see the direct impact from it. but no different than you probably do. Like, when you go to a conference, as we were kind of talking about before, when people were like, oh, my gosh, I've been consuming your content for so ever, for so long, and you're like, I've never seen you like a video. I've never seen you comment, you've never done business with me. But then they end up becoming a customer at some point. So I guess the short answer to the long winded question is just, like, a long winded answer is just like, play the long game, right? Like, if you needed this to pay off immediately, like, you probably have a whole other set of issues in your business, in your life, but if you don't need it, which I would encourage you to think about the long game with this. Like, this has all of the potential to be able to do anything that you want with it.

That is so good, dude. I remember doing, I'm not kidding. I would do these videos and some of them, dude, like, especially when I found my voice, and then I, and I was like, oh, wait, I'm, like, really good at pricing. I'm really good at sales. Like, I didn't know what I was really good at before until I met a lot of other people that were really bad at a lot of things, right? And so I was like, oh, wait, like, I thought that was common sense. That's not common sense to you. So I realized I'm really good at this stuff. And I would share these videos, and I was like, guys, I just had this light bulb moment. I forgot about this. This is going to change your life forever. And I get, like, super vulnerable, and I'm, like, trying to fight back to tears, and I'm, like, talking about. And then I look and I'm like, two likes. Like, what? Like, I could have given up so many times. Those first six to nine months, it, like, every day. Like, twice a day. And, like you said, dude, just out, out, last. Like, and I look back, I'm m like, dang, dude, what if I would have quit? Like, this is. I would have given up on all this awesomeness that I've experienced over the last few years. And what was cool was when I. When I started. When I launched my product and I started reaching out to people, I was doing the DM's, you know, I thought no one was watching these videos. And they're. And I would get on these calls and they're like. And I'm like, they don't know who I am because I didn't have a podcast. I did not have a following and have anything. And I'm like, hey, yeah, my name's Ryan, and I used to own, like, this, lighting business and stuff. And. And, like. And they're like, oh, dude. Yeah, man, I saw that video of you and your family, man. Like, you guys, oh, you go camping and you got four kids, and they tell me everything about my life, and I'm, like, this little creepy. And they, like, know me so well that whatever I ask them to do, there's already instant trust, instant authority. It's crazy. It blew my mind. And so I just want people to know that, like, you put your, you know, recommendations to. To to action, you take action on this stuff, you can build authority. You will build authority. You build trust. And it's not overnight. You know, it might take you a year. It might take you tears. Who know? It, doesn't really matter how long you just get into that motion of like, hey, I'm just gonna do this one thing every day. And how hard is it to, like, really think about a client experience and share a story once a day?

It's actually not that hard if you're intentional about it

It's like, it's actually not that hard if you're intentional about it.

Yeah, I think the intention behind it is everything. And what you had mentioned earlier about something being, like, so second nature to you, most people don't know that. And so, like, even if it is second nature to you. What's second nature to you is usually a golden nugget of information or a burning question that other people might have. And if you can answer that question, then you automatically become that authority. And what you said about it not being, you know, an overnight thing. Like, I end every single podcast that I do on my podcast and a lot of the posts and the tagline is, authority isn't built overnight, it's built over time. And the whole aspect behind that is like, if it were so easy, regardless if it was sops in your business or hiring or anything marketing and advertising related, like, if it were so easy, then everyone else would be doing it and having the success that you think you're going to have by seeing this through, the fact that it's not easy, the fact that it's not overnight, actually gives you the upward advantage as long as you're willing to, you know, put your time in, do the work and figure out how to get to that next level.

So good. That's so good.

For some reason, the landscape lighting industry has this barrier to entry

You look at and like evaluate different industries. For some reason, the landscape lighting industry has this barrier to entry and it's kind of a perceived barrier to entry because they're like, oh, well, yeah, anyone can do holiday lighting, but the landscape lighting, you got to be an electrician. It's like, wait, did you hear what you said? Like, landscape lighting is low voltage. It's 12 volts. Like, I've tried to like hurt myself and I can't. Holiday lighting, like, all you have to do is go on a steep roof, plug those lights in and cut it in half and see what happens. Like, it's, it's going to hurt. And so it's, it truly is like this, this personal branding is a, barrier to entry. It's like, this is one of the barriers to success. And I love seeing those barriers to entry because if you figure out a way in, it keeps everybody else out. And, you've shared already some amazing stuff. So this is good, man. I could literally, I know we got a hard stop in a few minutes, but I could talk about this stuff for the rest of the day.

Oh, yeah, me as well. Well, I think it's, you know, funny that you had mentioned earlier, like, you're like, yeah, I just want to go out and start a lighting, business right now. Like using all these different strategies and things like that. I give a lot of different types of presentations at contracting and home service, types of events, whether it's on digital marketing, personal branding, everything in between. What I, what I often times start with and show different examples is like, the best companies, maybe not the past couple of years, but moving forward in this new environment with AI and technology and, the competition in the economy is the best companies, the ones that were going to probably grow the biggest, probably be the most profitable exit stay in business, are marketing and sales companies that just so happen to do landscape life. Lighting, not the best landscape lighting technician, not the company that's been around the longest, because eyeballs and attention are literally everything. And a great example is like we've had. We had a landscape design business here in St. Louis for like a year and a half. Buddy of mine and I, those 1st 200 websites that I built in 2018, 2019, we turned those into companies. Once they started getting enough volume of phone calls where we couldn't sell the leads anymore, we became the competitors of the people that we were selling the leads to. I own an auto glass repair company here in St. Louis that we started in, February or, sorry, January of 2021. We'll do over a million dollars this year. We have five vans, nine employees, and that was a stupid, weebly website that I built back in 2019. That looks ridiculous, but there's the marketing and advertising behind it. And I don't know the first thing still to this day, which is embarrassing to a certain degree, how to even repair a windshield, much less replace one. But we get over a thousand leads a month like it's a well oiled freaking machine. But I say all of that to being like, when I was having conversations with competitors back in 20 18 20, 19, 20 20, I was one trying to sell them the leads. Like, hey, you're paying a bunch of money on Google, whatever. Like, just take these phone calls, we'll pay a flat rate. They were like, no. And then they basically told me to kick rock. Like, I was trying to sell just the URL and the phone number and all the data with it. I was like, guys, I want to walk away from this because those calls are all coming to my phone every single day. 50 plus calls a day. They were like, no. So I became their competitor, and now we have almost 405 star review, 4.9 star reviews.

Awesome.

And they all follow me on social media, and they're like, Adam, like, I should have just taken you up on that, like three or four of them consistently. Like, every couple of months, when they see it, because they see more trucks, they see our employees. We're getting people coming over from safe light. And so I share that story because that's only going to happen more and more with things like private equity, with these, this new wave of entrepreneurship where people are like, I'm not obsessed with the thing. Like, I'm not. I mean, I'm obsessed with digital marketing and personal branding now, as you can tell. But, like, when I first got started, it was a vehicle for me to leave corporate America. I would have pretty much taken anything, right? And so you're starting to see more and more people. Look for industries, look for that low hanging fruit. Look for some things that maybe have a little bit barrier of entry, but like landscape lighting being one of those things that if somebody can throw up a website and do really, really good SEO, a personal branding, like, they may become one of your biggest competitors over the next couple of years and take a bunch of business away from you.

The thing that I love about personal branding is right now, specifically in time, where we're at today, whatever it is, July 2024, a lot of people are struggling. They're like, oh, man, Google. Google Ads aren't what they used to be. Or, man, my, every time I do this, direct mail, like, my competitor copies me, or, you know, I say that my sales presentation, like, they're people, they're always concerned about their competitor copying them. You cannot copy a personal brand. Even my wife is like, are you worried that people are going to rip off your stuff? I'm like, they already do. I don't care. Like, you can't rip me off. How are you going to, how are you going to copy and paste me? You can't. Like, I am me, you will love me, you will hate me. Doesn't really matter. Like, I am me and you are you. Like, you just can't rip off a personal brand. So, people, this is why I'm so passionate about it too, is because over the next 510 years, at least the next ten years, this is where it's going to be at. Like I'm always talking about, differentiate yourself. Charge a premium price. You can charge whatever you want. When you have a high developed personal brand, if you have a weak brand, a weak personal brand, then they're going to group you in with everyone else, say, oh, those guys were, you know, half of your prize. If they like you, they will find a way to work with you. They will, they will overcome their own objections. They will say, man, Adam, we really want to go with you, but literally you're twice as high. Like, that's where we're at. I mean, how cool is that? Like, I would love it if everyone always just said, that then you know what you're working with and you find a way to work with them. So, gosh, it just, it fires me up too, because this is the way, I mean, you got to do traditional stuff, but this is going to be the differentiator. This is going to be the thing that, that helps you secure more clients than anything else.

If you don't have that personal brand, it's really tough to go next

Yeah, well, it's also the thing that, not to say like, oh my gosh, think about like always think about the exeter. I mean, that people say, you know, get the business and think about the exit plan, right? But let's just say you do decide to exit one day or something does happen to your industry or something happens, right? Wherever I, you just decide you don't want to do it anymore. If you don't have that personal brand, it's really tough to go do that next thing. But like I always tell people, like if I needed to go sell homes and be a realtor, I wouldn't have anything listed, probably by Friday. But I guarantee if you give me a month or two, I'll do it more effectively than anybody else that's out there. Because I've already built the personal brand. It's why we were able to scale builders of authority to a six figure company in less than I was like five, four or five months. It wasnt because builders of authority was that so much greater than anything I was doing in the digital marketing agency per se. It was that I had four years worth of people following me that saw me build a multi million dollar digital marketing agency through now what I was teaching and consulting on. But ive obviously gotten so many opportunities from speaking, podcasting opportunities. I have affiliate plays where people are literally paying me to just promote their stuff and paying me once I send an affiliate their way. And I've gotten equity in other companies too. From a consulting standpoint, just because people are like, Adam, you've built the personal brand here in St. Louis and you also know marketing and advertising. That's valuable. And if people don't know who you are, you could be the greatest. X, Y and Z have all the funds, have all the money, all the stuff, all the expertise and years of experience. But if people don't know who you are, you're kind of hidden. And if you want to be hidden, that's a completely different story. But most people, I would venture to say, wish m more people knew who they were, but more importantly knew who their company was. Right? And so by doing the personal brand, by building the authority, it opens up more doors than just your what am I focused on right now? It opens up a whole other set of doors that if you would have told me this stuff two years ago, I would have told you. Crazy.

Very cool. I know one of the concerns people have is like and they had concerns for me, like when they saw what I was launching, they're like, you're doing a podcast on landscape lighting, what are you going to talk about? And I'm like, well we're going to talk about this and this and this and like, yeah, but then what? And I'm like, dude, you can't shut me up. Like I got stuff for days. But a lot of people do struggle. Like how does someone come up with content, for their business and for their brand?

So when you're talking about just like the easy, simple, simple stuff, like I always tell people to like start out with like themes or ideas, right? So like from the business side of things, you're frequently asked questions from prospects.

Perfect.

So easy stuff that you can write down. I have a freaking slew of notes in my phone of questions I get asked on a daily basis. I'd also have your team. So if you have team members, ask them what questions they get asked or what questions they have. That's an easy place to chat. GPT is absolutely phenomenal. Like an easy place to be able to go. And hey, give me 50 ideas about X, Y and Z, about landscape, lighting, installation, sales, all the different stuff. But even from there is going and seeing what is working in other industries and then taking that to your industry is probably one of the best things I've ever done.

Nice.

So I've been in marketing agency masterminds and they have been super helpful. Like I always tell people, go to an industry specific group, right, but also make sure you're not just so tunnel visioned on what is everybody else doing in my industry. Take what's working from other industries to whether it's listening to a general business or marketing podcast or anything else, because usually you're able to innovate and scale quicker than your competition because everybody's looking at what's going on in the industry, taking other things and ideas and figuring out how to make it unique to your industry that nobody else is doing so far. And that's what I did in the marketing agency space as well with launching my own companies and things like that. And the way in which I was telling the story and branding and personal branding behind it was, was pretty different. Unique and unique.

Very cool.

Short form content is the way to go on social media, right

Last question and then I want you to tell us a little bit about builders of authority. Video pictures, how long the videos, like, you know, kind of, kind of leave us with that.

Yeah. So pictures are always going to get, like, if you're going to make a Facebook post, pictures are always going to get more attention. Pictures are always going to get more attention. One, because someone literally sees it, right? So versus just a long post. Right. Pictures are going to grab attention. Algorithms also love pictures, too. When it comes to videos, you can obviously do those way less often. Now, there's different types of videos, so there's the short form, real type stuff that kind of TikTok made famous. There's a live video. Live videos are great because everyone gets notified that you're doing them and the algorithms love them because they see that you're actually spending time on the platform. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend especially getting started doing them like every single day. But if you did them once a week as you were finishing a project, could be very, very effective. Long form content is really only good anymore when you're uploading it to a platform on like a YouTube, to be completely honest. So short form is literally the way to go, in my opinion, on social media. But really keeping them anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds, one, you can't go any longer than 90 seconds on a lot of the social media platforms, but like 30 to 60 seconds is kind of the sweet spot on a lot of that stuff.

Very cool. Great advice. I guess, yeah.

Adam McChesney: I'm more than happy to help anyone with personal branding

As we wrap up, tell us a little bit about builders of authority. You've got, some coaching, you got some online stuff, you got some in person events. Tell us about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So with builders of authority, our main thing right now is we have a group mastermind. So we do two weekly calls Monday and Wednesday. It's a group of about 55 entrepreneurs from all different industries, all over the country. A lot of people obviously here in St. Louis as well, which is where I'm from, you get access to our personal branding course. There's two accountability calls that you get with my executive assistant every single month as well. Private, Facebook group and then recordings of all the calls. I just tell people if you are anywhere in your personal branding journey but you actually want to commit to doing better, there's likely something that we can do to help or give you some free information, access, et cetera. If anybody's watching this video and is interested in that personal branding course, I'm more than happy. Just shoot me a message, leave a comment, whatever. I can give you that course for free to at least get you started. We, call it our seven steps. Doing a million dollar business with personal branding was, a PDF that we turned into a course and more than happy to give that to your audience completely free.

That's awesome, man. Thank you for doing that. I guess if they are interested in that, interested reach out. Whats the best way to get in touch with you?

Yeah. So Facebook is going to be the easiest platform. Adam Mcchesney, youll see my red logo am m logo. You can also connect me with me on Instagram. Thats Adam L. McChesney. and then you can also just go to buildauthority co. And, head over there and see, everything we have from our mastermind and all the other options that we have available level.

Man, this was cool. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming on here selfishly. Okay. Some of the stuff I've already, like, implemented, right, I've learned, but then I'm like, oh, I gotta ask him this. I gotta ask him this. I'm like, I love having guests like you on because I'm, like, taking notes, learning, like, writing all this stuff down. So I really appreciate you, man. It's so cool. I admire what you're doing. You're gonna help thousands of people build, their businesses, live a better life, do all the stuff that we're trying to accomplish here on our podcast. So you added a ton of value. I just. Thank you, man. Appreciate it, man.

I appreciate the opportunity. Always great chatting with you.

Okay, sounds good.

Adam: Now you just got to implement. So get out there, take action

All right, guys, now the hard part. Now you just got to implement. So get out there, take action. Don't get overwhelmed. Don't go to try to post 16 times on all the different platforms. Just do one thing different today that you didn't yesterday, and you'll be on the right track. That was awesome, Adam. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Go work on your personal brand this week

All right, guys, have an awesome week. Go work on your personal brand. It's. It's scary. It is scary because we're not used to getting out in front of people, but this will be the thing that differentiates you guys. Have an awesome week. Keep moving forward.