Leonard Kim Went From No Promotion To The King of Promotion
Jun 14, 2017
Humanize and be yourself to maximize your promotions
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Sales Tips you'll learn in The Sales Podcast...
- Branding, marketing, and startup strategist
- But he struggled at first
- He's "stuck in his ways since I'm Korean!"
- He was running away from his fears but he didn't know what he was afraid of
- Took shortcuts in everything...
- Had to keep starting over
- Had his electricity cut off and had to move back into his grandma's house
- Had to recognize his faults and grow
- Moved to his friend's sofa for $100/mo
- Broke his ankle so he was stuck on a couch for three months so he reflected
- You're where you are where you're supposed to be
- He went back through his life and analyzed cause and effect
- His business partner has a process for doing this quickly
- Two sets of sticky notes
- He writes on one set
- Has his friends write on the other set...and people are honest and direct
- Now you know what you have to work on
- He had issues he didn't realize...he was scared of being hurt by people he helped
- He had to accept and forgive
- He accepted responsibility
- His mom is a "great victim of everything" and she doesn't have joy in her life
- 2011 he got an entry-level job
- For two years his goal was to get promoted
- He worked hard
- He wore a suit
- But didn't get promoted or a raise ($16.24/hr)
- He could only eat one meal per day (Obamacare cost him his lunch money, literally)
- People told him he was arrogant
- He applied to 100 jobs, got three interviews and nobody hired him
- Went back to school and it helped a little
- He went out and shared his feelings and experiences and within six months he had two million reads on his posts
- He wrote posts on his Blackberry on the bus
- Within 18 months he had about 10 million reads and figured he should monetize it
- He started on Quora and didn't have a website
- Posted the same stuff on his site
- About me page
- Subscribe button (RSS feed)
- How to hire him (for free...which was a bad idea that he quickly recognized)
- Raised his prices
- Doubled his rates and doubled his rates and doubled rates
- Did sales in 2005-2006 he was in sales and understood it
- Did some marketing from 2007 to 2011 so he understood it
- All of the companies went out of business so his resume was "full of broken hopes and dreams"
- So he started marketing himself
- May 2013 and by Dec 2014 had 10 million reads
- It's hard to master social media all at once so dive into one and master one
- Doesn't trust tools, he trusts people to do his social media
- First, it was the 17-year-old sister of a friend
- Then it was a friend who broke an ankle
- Then it was an intern who got 2,000 retweets to be hired
- #BruisedBananaEaters
- He had Deborah create a PowerPoint based on his articles
- One was like a college assignment and it wasn't "right" or "shareable"
- Then she made it 10 times better
- From there she got better and they tightened it up
- Now she re-purposes his content
- When one VA left he had her write up a list of tasks
- Maybe 80% of his posts are branding
- He does his own CTAs
- Most of his content is evergreen
- When you use current events you get a huge spike in traffic from people who don't care about you
- Use BuzzSumo to create better titles, avoid controversy, replace the image, update links
- His assistant works maybe 30 min/day after a month of getting up to speed
- His Vegas assistant creates new content but this is her part-time job so it may take a month for her to get it done
- Humanize yourself and be yourself
- For example, a doctor
- Maybe unapproachable...educated...aloof
- Make them be seen as "just like me"
- Tell their story
- Hungry, Humble, Honest is how 17-year-olds should brand
Catch Up on Previous Episodes of The Sales Podcast
Links Mentioned In The Sales Podcast
- Follow Leonard Kim on Twitter
- Visit Leonard Kim's home on the web
- Get Leonard's Course on how to build your brand
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.