136: Building And Growing Your Online Brand with Alex Lombard

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.20.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image src=”https://mitchrusso.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/136FTCbanner.jpg” _builder_version=”3.20.1″]

[/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ prev_background_color=”#000000″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”PLAYER GOES HERE” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”SHOW NOTES” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]

We all start somewhere before all the momentum kicked in and led us to where we are now. Much of this is true with Alex Lombard, business expert and Chief Marketing Officer of Invigor8. From making $1,500 a month to eventually founding a company, he had to work through trials and tribulations before finding success. Alex imparts what he has learned from those years of helping people grow an online brand and gives us a masterclass on starting with social media. You don’t have to be a millennial in order to grow an online brand. Alex simplifies the steps to building and growing a social media presence using Instagram, from the content you post and gaining followers to monetizing it.

Building And Growing Your Online Brand with Alex Lombard

My guest is a business expert who has amassed over one million followers on his Instagram accounts. He’s personally assisted hundreds of seven and eight-figure earners to attain influence by building and growing an online brand. He’s done all of this at the ripe old age of 26 and according to him, he’s just getting started. This episode is going to be more of a master class then an overview of his vast career because at his age, how much history can a 26-year-old have? Welcome, Alex Lombard, to the show.

Thanks for having me.

It’s awesome to have you here. As our audience knows, we don’t pull any punches here. We go straight for the jugular. This episode’s no different, Alex. Tell us a little bit about you. How did you get started doing this stuff?

A few years ago, I got into the game of entrepreneurship. Growing up my entire life, I was always the kid that was in school that was getting in trouble, was always super active, hyper. As I got older, I started to realize that I didn’t want to go down the path that my parents and family and everyone I knew in my life was going down which was going to school, get good grades, go out there, begging for a job and then you hopefully land one. You work the 9 to 5 for the next 40 years of your life and live for the whole weekend, that horror deal. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting a job. If you love what you do, that’s awesome. For me, I never saw myself in that setting. I was always looking for a way out. From early on up until about 21 years old, I was trying anything and everything you could possibly imagine having fun, be an adventure and make money. Anything from trying to go pro at snowboarding, paintballing, the craziest things to trying to make it big in some of the early on social media like Vine when that was a big thing. Anything from traveling and making videos and anything I could think of to go has fun and make money.

Long story short, I hit about 21 years old. I got introduced to my first opportunity in the entrepreneurship world. I ended up meeting a couple of people that were young, that was making good money, that were traveling, literally had the life that I wanted. They introduced me to overall sales. I got into direct sales early on. I started learning about mindset, business, entrepreneurship, what that meant and went through the journey from there. A few years into that are when I got into social media. I basically saw what it can do. I started meeting people that were younger than me that we’re making amounts of money that I didn’t even know was possible at that age through social media platforms, which was crazy to me. That ignited something. For the last few years, I’ve gone all in when it comes to branding and building an online presence through specifically Instagram. I launched my first official company with a couple of partners, which is called Invigor8. It’s a full-scale digital marketing agency. That’s the journey. That’s how it all came together.

As you probably realized, many people in our audience will have had their own experience of trying to start companies and trying to be successful. Maybe that journey has taken them decades to get to the point where they are now. You seem to have done it almost easy-breezy. You woke up one morning, “I’ll read about some mindset stuff and get started.” I’m sure it wasn’t quite that way. Did you have a mentor or a coach when you first got going or when you first realized that you wanted to be in the social media promotion business?

You don't need to be a young Millennial that does everything online to have an online brand. Click To Tweet

First and foremost, I definitely want to clear up the fact that it was easy because it definitely was not. I like to say that my story is like the ancient Chinese Bamboo Tree. It’s an incredible story of how you have to go out there. Essentially, the idea is that you’re putting in work every single solitary day and it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening. All of a sudden, you catch massive momentum. That’s literally what happened to me for the first few years. I never made more than $1,500 a month ever in the first few years. That’s me living on my own, my own car payment, my own household, everything. $1,500 a month, that didn’t even happen until about a few years.

You can imagine I went through some hefty stuff. I always had to strap and find ways to make money and to pay bills. I went through a lot of issues and a lot of big-time anxiety and stress and failure after failure. I definitely want to share that. It did take me until about year six when everything ignited for me. I caught in massive momentum over the last couple of years now. For all those in the audience, I want to share that I don’t believe in overnight success. I do think that every single solitary person has to go through the trials and tribulations before they truly deserve success. Even if you get it early on and you’re not going to be able to hold it, it’s going to go away.

I went through that for a very long time. Along the way though, mentorship was huge. I’m big on having multiple different mentors for different things. I don’t believe that one single human being has all the answers. What I do believe is that there are certain humans that have mastered certain things. For me, I look up to different people when it comes to different areas in my life. For example, when it comes to social media specifically, I’ll study big social media gurus. People like Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, people who have millions and millions of followers and massive companies and have done great things all through social media.

When it comes to growing your mindset or personal development or overall growth as a human being, I’ll go study someone like Jim Rohn or a Tony Robbins and those guys who are more like life coaches. That’s what I’ve done over the years. I’ve found different mentors for different things. You have your big names in the whole entrepreneur space like Tony Robbins. It’s important for whatever you’re doing, whatever industry you’re in. If you’re in real estate, go find a big real estate guru. That’s their thing. That’s what they know more than anything else and learn from them. That’s how I’ve always viewed mentorship. I’ve had a lot of them along the way and I’ve had a lot through audios and events and books and things like that.

FTC 136 | Online Brand
Online Brand: No one single human being has all the answers; rather, there are certain humans that have mastered certain things.

 

My journey certainly was not easy or quick or simple. It was as convoluted as yours. You talk about making $1,500 a month. We all have to start somewhere. I built a company and went a couple of years without a paycheck. When the momentum kicked in, when that flywheel started to spin faster and faster, we were generating millions at that point. It happens in a way that is nonlinear. If you think it’s linear or if you’re expecting that because you did X, Y will happen. It’s a harder journey because, for anyone who’s been through it, they know that there are many things that you try, invest in, courses that you purchased that don’t work for you. Until finally that one thing, whatever it is, even if it’s going to college and getting a degree and moving directly into a specific profession, it’s totally okay.

I have a pretty good idea of where you come from and what you’re about in terms of your professional life. What I’d like to do is I’d like to turn the rest of this show into a teaching experience, a master class for my audience. I want to start at the beginning. Let’s say that I am a doctor, lawyer, and engineer. I have a small agency, whatever that may be. Maybe I’m proofreading for a living. Maybe I’m selling stuff on Etsy, whatever it may be. Where do I start with social media? How do I take that and grow it? Give us some step-by-step things to do to start, build, and grow a social media presence. You could choose Instagram if you like or others if you think they’re worth mentioning.

I love that you said doctors, lawyers and things like that. A lot of those people think that they’ve either missed the boat or that their profession isn’t interesting enough to build a brand. It’s not true at all. You don’t need to be a young Millennial that does everything online to have an online brand. In fact, a lot of the clients that I work with, they don’t have that at all. They are a doctor, they are a lawyer, and they are a business owner of some sort in some different area that’s traditional. My point is that anybody in any field in any industry at any age can go out there and dominate when it comes to social media. The cool thing about social media is that it’s the ultimate equalizer as a completely equal platform. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what you’ve done, what your background says. Anybody can go and find results and acquire new clients, business, and build a brand through social media.

When it comes to getting started, the biggest thing that I coach on people is first off, you have to choose one. The goal eventually if you want to scale it is to be dominant on all different major platforms. To start off, they’re all their own monster. They’re all their own beast. There’s so much that goes into every single one of these platforms. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar company. There’s so much that goes into that platform alone. To think that you can start right away and do well on five different social media platforms, you’re not. It’s way too much work. It’s way too much effort right off the bat. What I recommend you do is you choose one and you master that one. I chose Instagram. That’s what I’d recommend everybody do because Instagram is the fastest growing social media on the planet. It’s hitting over a billion active monthly users in 2018. Those numbers are absurd. They’re growing by over 100 million new people logging in every single month.

There’s momentum there. If you can catch that momentum for your profession, it can do so much with your life. I could go on and on about different stats and numbers and things like that. Being that I’ve done a lot with Instagram and that’s what I personally do recommend, I’m going to talk about that specifically. All the rest of them you can build on your own or go and get a course or learn from somebody else that’s done it. With Instagram, number one is you’ve got to start out. You’ve got to choose that that’s what you want to do. You’ve got to decide on what your brand’s going to be. What are you going to share with people? What are you going to tell people? What’s your brand all about? The biggest question I ask people is when you’re starting out, you’ve got to ask yourself why would someone come over and follow me? Why would someone follow you? What value are you going to give them? That’s the beginning is you’ve got to start and you’ve got to choose what your brand is all about and what you want to do.

The second thing I’d recommend is being active on your account. A lot of people think that this is a situation like I’m going to be active, but I work with many clients that don’t do this. I look at their pages and they haven’t posted in months. The way that Instagram and any social media platform works for that matter is that they’re going to reward activity. When you post, when you’re engaging with your people, you’re using the different features that the platform allows you to do. In Instagram’s case like IGTV or your Instagram Stories, those features when you post on those things including your wall, videos, and images, you’re going to be rewarded. You’re not going to gain a following if you’re not active on the platform.

The third thing that I would say is to get clear on your content. Content is king on Instagram. Above all else, if you don’t have quality content that looks good, that’s sharp and that’s vibrant. Number two, that second part of that is the message is clear. Meaning that it represents who you are and it provides value to the individual that’s coming over. You’ve got to have those things. Your content needs to tell a story. You can do that through your captions. I’m throwing a lot out there, but these are some things to think about when it comes to building your brand.

If you're trying to build a personal brand, then you wouldn't be posting quotes every day. Click To Tweet

Make sure your pictures, your videos, the things that you’re putting out there including your captions that they’re clear. Their quality in terms of that they look good, they’re not just blurry pictures of your dog. That they are clear, meaning that the message is clear. I’ll give you an example if you go to one of my accounts that’s literally a motivational quote page. When you go to the account and you look at it, you know what you’re getting. You know right away, “This is a motivational, inspirational quote page. That’s what it is.” If you like that, you’re going to follow it. If that’s not for you, then you’re not going to follow it.

I want to unpack a little bit of what you said. The first thing you said is the quality of your posts, the contents, meaning the visual quality, the content quality. What would you say about the strategy behind posting witty phrases or quotes from famous people? What am I gaining when I constantly post quotes from Thomas Edison and Zig Ziglar other than a follower who is possibly following me for the purpose of hoping I follow them back? Why am I doing this? What am I gaining? If I’m the owner of the account and I’m posting all of these inspirational messages, what is the end-goal of doing that? How does that support my company?

That’s up to you. That’s a big thing that I preach on as well. This was at this mastermind and I talked all about Instagram to these people. One of the questions that I challenged them to ask themselves is what is your end game? What are you trying to accomplish with your account? For example, when I first got into Instagram, there were two reasons why I got involved. Number one, I wanted to make money. That was it. I literally wanted to make money. Number two, I wanted to recruit people into the business. I was in a direct selling company and I had to bring on new recruits. That was my goal. I wanted to find people that were likeminded, that were interested in my opportunity, which in turn made me more money. That was the only reason I got started. That’s what drove me for a long time. It’s turned into a lot more than that. If you’re on here and you have a business and you want to get on Instagram for your business, then your goal is to build a cult-like following. A culture of people that are following you in order to eventually provide enough value that they will purchase from you whatever it is you’re doing.

Posting the quotes or whatever, that’s an example. That’s one type of brand. There are endless amounts of brands that you can go out there and build. I got into that quote game early on because that’s what I saw. That was the first initial representation of Instagram that I had was if you went out there and posted awesome quotes, you could build a big brand and people would come and pay you. I got to that point. I have big companies and big entrepreneurs that pay me money because they look at my account as a giant digital billboard. That’s a cool lesson that I’ve learned.

I would throw this back to you and people in our audience is looking at your account like that. It’s a digital billboard that you get to control and you get to do whatever you want with it. The bigger you get that billboard, the more people it’s reaching. It’s almost like having a billboard in this little town where there are 500 people versus having a billboard in Times Square in New York. Traffic is huge. That’s what your account is. When it comes to the type of content you’re posting, it’s all relevant to the type of brand you’re building, which comes from what’s your goal? What do you want to do?

FTC 136 | Online Brand
Online Brand: The bigger you get that digital billboard, the more people it’s reaching.

 

That answer’s not good enough. It sounds to me like you’re wasting a lot of time posting quotes. Who’s going to be passionate about following me because I’m posting a quote every day from a famous person? I don’t buy that.

If you’re trying to build a personal brand, then you wouldn’t be posting quotes every day. It’s not going to do anything for you specifically. What I’m saying is that I have a personal brand that’s all about me and it’s my life, my journey and my businesses. I share value in the captions. I do put up quotes here and there, but most of it’s my journey and my life. The other brand is a quote page. That’s what it is. It’s not me, it’s not my business. It’s literally an Instagram page that’s a quote page.

Let’s say that somebody in our audience is a business coach or something along those lines. They want to use Instagram to boost their coaching business. Do you recommend that they go ahead and do what you said and post quotes from famous people? What should they do?

The thing is that you’re getting caught up in the example that I gave. The quotes are literally an example of an Instagram type of market you could be in. For someone like you said, they would be in what’s called a personal brand. They’re building a brand around themselves and their coaching business. They could throw quotes in. I always recommend throwing cool quotes along the way. That’s not your focus, but you throw them in there because they relate to people and build that connection with people. A lot of people like hearing quotes from famous people that they have a relationship with. You can throw them in there. It doesn’t hurt. It’s a great thing to do.

To answer your question specifically with a coach, what they would want to do is build that culture, that cult-like following. They want to acquire clients and the best way to acquire a client is by somebody who trusts in you. They believe in your services. They know that you’re going to provide value to them. They want to give you their hard-earned money in return for your services. It’s hard to do that if you don’t build a following of people that trust in you. What you can do with your Instagram account is through your content, through engaging, your videos, your stories, your captions, your bio, everything that comes with the full package and consistency. You can build up that following of people that are following you because they like your message. They like the value, the stories and the content that you’re giving them. Over time, they can work with you. You have to build the base. You have to build the foundation. You have to build the culture through your account before you’re ever going to acquire any clients.

I want to get even more granular. I want to know what I’m posting. It’s nice to post some quotes from famous people. What else am I posting? Give me an example if I want to attract clients, what pictures would I have of? How does that work?

You have to build the culture through your account before you're ever going to acquire any clients. Click To Tweet

Let’s use the example of a business coach. If I was in the profession of being a business coach and my goal was to acquire clients that I could work with that would pay me money to help them with their businesses, what I would with my Instagram account would be a mixture of a few things. If you look at any account on Instagram, there are three columns. Each one of those columns you can literally use as a different theme. One entire column could be motivational quotes that go right along with the business. It relates to a lot of people in that space. Another entire column could be all about your life. The things you’re doing. When you’re with a client, you’re posting about it and you’re talking about the success of that client that they’ve had.

It can be when you’re traveling. You take a photo of you on the plane talking about how you have the freedom to travel and you love it and it’s great and where you’re going and things like that. You’re talking about your passions, what you enjoy. This builds a connection with your people. To build a connection with somebody, they have to relate to you and like who you are and they want to have a life. Especially in the coaching business, you have to show them that, “I live this life. If you want to live life, we can work together and I can show you how to do it.” This is a suggestion, but that’s another piece. The last thing that I would do is the third column, you put up videos. In that third column, every single post is a video. It’s literally you just giving pure value. It’s you getting on for one minute and you’re sharing a concept. You’re talking about mindset. You’re talking about money. You’re giving value. People see that and they’re like, “I learned so much from this guy, I want to work with him. I love his lifestyle. I want to work with him.”

I’m in the car, I pick up my phone. I record 30-second video. I have an inspiration. I record another video. I have famous quotes in column one. I have personal stuff in column two. I have sharing video experiences in column three. How many times a day do I have to be posting like this? How long do I have to do it before I can make money with this?

In terms of the timeframe of posting, when it comes to a personal brand especially if you’re starting out, I usually recommend posting it if you can do once a day or even once every other day. Even if you’re starting out, once every other day would work as well. If you can get in the rhythm of doing that, you put up a solid post with a good caption once a day and you do the post once a day, but then you’re on your story because that’s a different feature. You’re on your story throughout the day because your story can be endless. Being on your story brings value. It allows you to connect with people in a completely different fashion and it gives people an inside look at your life as well. In terms of your posting, I would do once a day if you can. If you can’t, do every other day.

In terms of making money, that one is hard to give you a timeframe on because at the end of the day, you can make money day one. You don’t know when somebody is going to reach out to you. There are certain things you can do to enhance that, but what I would say specifically especially with something like a personal brand. Every market is going to be a little different but with a personal brand, you’re following equals influence. Perception is reality. We all understand that. People perceive following as you’re an expert in your space.

FTC 136 | Online Brand
Online Brand: Being on your story brings value. It allows you to connect with people in a completely different fashion.

 

I’ll give you an example. If you have two business coaches, both of them are highly successful but I don’t know that. I go to their accounts. One of their accounts on the left-hand side let’s say, they have 100 followers. They’re posting great content. Everything is the same. The two accounts are identical. Bio’s the same. Content’s the same. Everything’s the same. This account over here on the left has 100 followers and gets ten likes. I go to this account over here on the right, they have 10,000 followers and they’re getting 1,000 likes. Which one do you think the average person is going to want to work with and give their hard-earned money to? The bigger one.

There is definitely some validity in having the following and building the following before you start to see clients, money, whatever it is that you’re trying to acquire from it start to come in. Especially in the younger generation, my generation and the lower generation because perception is reality. That account with 10,000 followers, they may not even be as successful as the guy or the woman over here with 100 followers. It’s because they have 10,000, in my mind, they’re an expert. They’re an influencer. They know what they’re doing. I’m going to get my money’s worth because this person is successful. If you agree with that or not agree with that, it’s the way it works.

Once I start posting, how do I get to build my following? What has to happen? Is there anything I have to do or do I post every day and hope somebody follows me after that?

Building a following is the main question. That’s what most people ask. That’s what they want. A lot of our services provide that. To answer your question, no. By posting, you’ll gain a little bit of traction. You may gain a few hundred followers over time, maybe a few thousand but you’re not going to get into the tens of thousands by just posting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. On Instagram, there are only a few ways that you can do in order to go out there and build a following. The first way is through organic interaction. What that means is you’re going out there and you’re actively liking, commenting, following, and engaging overall with individuals that are also on Instagram particularly related to your market.

The way you could do this is let’s say you’re a business coach. You go in and type in #Coaching, #Business, #Money, #FinancialSuccess, #Travel, whatever. Something related to what you do. You go in there and you start finding other people that are using that hashtag that is active on Instagram and you start engaging with them. You start liking their stuff. You start commenting and leaving genuine comments on what they’re doing and maybe even giving them a follow. Following somebody is the most powerful action you can take on Instagram. Doing that consistently every day, that’s going to bring over followers. We’ve had people do this where they’ve gained 300, 400, 500 followers in a single day from being active for an hour straight on Instagram. That’s one way you can go and do it. On top of that, there are automated ways of doing that where you can scale that. It totally depends on what you’re looking for, but that is there as well.

The second option is what’s called influencer marketing. This requires capital. Basically, what it is you’re going to go to big-time influencers in your market. You’re going to find people that have 100,000 to one million followers on Instagram that have a following of entrepreneurial, motivated people. You’re going to pay them to promote you and your services. You can do it in two ways. You can do it in the form of trying to gain followers. I do this all the time for people. I’ll post a story or a wall post or a video. There are a lot of different options for promoting your page. I’m like, “Go follow this guy.” I’m promoting for you on my billboard to send followers your way. You can do that. The other side of the coin when it comes to influencer marketing is what’s called direct response. What it is instead of promoting your brand, you’re promoting your services. You’re asking about making money.

With a personal brand, you're following equals influence. Click To Tweet

It’s a little hack on Instagram. You don’t have to have necessarily a huge brand to still make money if you’re willing to invest. What you can do is you can approach big time influencers and you can pay them and you can promote your services. You can promote your website, your funnel, whatever on their accounts. Put it in their bio and in their story and have their followers go and swipe up or click on the link to come over and work with you or whatever it may be that you’re selling. That’s another option as well when it comes to growing accounts, influencer marketing. It does require capital and it’s dependent on how much you want to spend. That’ll determine how much you’re going to gain.

What’s the price range of something like that?

It is dependent on the individual you’re reaching out to and the size of their following. Generally speaking, you’re looking at anywhere from $50 to $100 that someone that has 100,000 to 250,000 followers. You start getting into the 500,000 to one million range, it’s going to start to scale from there and you’ll start hitting the $100 to $200 mark. You have your bigger guys that have two million to five million and they’ll definitely charge you a lot more, $400, $500 a post.

Even so, that seems like not much money. Maybe I’m being delusional, but it seems to me that’s quite a good deal. If you could spend $50 or $100 to reach 100,000 people with a personal type of endorsement, that seems like a good value, is it not?

It is. It’s a huge thing that a lot of my mentors and stuff talk about in this space. Many companies, many people out there, they’re caught in the old ways of thinking that marketing needs to be spent on billboards and expensive commercial ads and radio ads and things like that. The new era of marketing is online and it’s truly cheap. People in business are willing to spend $20,000 to $50,000 when they first start to go into debt to get their marketing going and they’re not willing to spend $1,000 on a platform like Instagram, which doesn’t make any sense. The companies that are doing this, they’re winning. They’re the ones that are crushing it on any industry. That’s why I still do it to this day, even though I have a big following.

FTC 136 | Online Brand
Online Brand: You treat Instagram like a digital billboard and you go and you promote it.

 

What other monetization methods are there other than buying, borrowing with money influence from someone with a big following? What else can you do to make money on Instagram?

When it comes to your own personal stuff if you want to make money, the two main ways are you’re acquiring a new client or a leader or whatever, a sale through your own brand. In the form of they follow you, they like you, they respond to your stuff through a call to action where you’re telling them, “If you want to work with me, go click the link,” things like that. As you scale and as you build out your brand over time, you’re going to acquire more and more people and sales. That’s option one. Option two is if you want to leverage other brands. You can go out there and pay them and pay for marketing and then they’ll go and promote for you. When it comes to your own stuff, those are the two main ways to do it. You can get creative and you can do the whole lot.

There are things like you built out a massive email list and you’re driving traffic to it and then you’re providing a bunch of value. Over time, you’re slowly putting them into a sales process and things like that. You can continue building that stuff out over time. When it comes to monetization overall if you’re open to other things, one of the biggest things I’ve honestly made a lot of money with. I would recommend people, especially if you don’t have your own product, is you look at affiliate offers. You find incredible affiliate offers that are a great offer, that comes with a funnel and everything’s done-for-you. You get your own unique link and you go out there and you apply the same strategies. You treat Instagram like a digital billboard and you go and you promote it. That’s another great way you can make some money on Instagram.

Another one that I’ve done and has also made me a lot of money and has gotten me to the point where I’ve been able to work with six, seven, and eight-figure earners is through networking on the platform itself. What I mean by that is on Instagram, what I would do and I still do this to this day. I’ll go and I’ll find the people that would be a perfect client. In my world, a perfect client is a six, seven, eight-figure earner that’s crushing it in whatever industry that they’re in. Whether it’s network marketing or it’s real estate or insurance or whatever it may be, but they don’t have a big brand on Instagram. They have ideally 1,000 to 3,000 followers.

What I’ll do is I’ll literally reach out to them. I’ll shoot them a direct message. I have a script that I’ll use. I’ll basically introduce myself and be super bold. I’m like, “This is what I do. This is what I can do for you. Here are the benefits of it. Here are a few examples of people I work with. Would you be interested in jumping on the phone?” After I shoot him a direct message, I’ll go and I’ll like their last three photos on there on their page. I’ll comment on their photos and I’ll let them know, “I sent you a direct message, go check it out.” I’ll even email them if they have that option. I’ll shoot them an email or even a text if they have that option.

Driving them back to the direct message, letting them know who I am and, “Go check out this message. You’ll enjoy it.” This takes a little bit more manual work, but it does work and it starts to work even better when you start to grow. When you start gaining that influence yourself and people see that, they’re going to respond a lot more. Even without the influence, it comes down to numbers. That right there, other than influencer marketing for companies, this networking piece is probably the biggest piece of value that I could give your audience in terms of monetization. It seriously has changed my life by doing those steps consistently over time.

Life is by design. Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. Click To Tweet

That’s a great tip and it’s valuable. I was thinking to myself, “I could start an Instagram account. I could go onto Amazon and I’m an Amazon affiliate like many of us are. I could start pulling products every day and posting them on Instagram. Start building affiliate revenue from Amazon directly without having to build a website, without having to do anything other than grabbing the link for the product, get a picture of it, and there it is on Instagram.” It’s true it’s not going to create a professional image of me, but then ultimately that’s not what the account is for. It’s to sell stuff from Amazon. That would probably work out if one was willing to take the time and go through the process of doing it. What do you think?

I couldn’t agree more. You should definitely do that.

We have covered a lot of good stuff and you’ve shared some ideas I haven’t heard before and I very much appreciate that. To our audience, I hope you feel the same way. If you do, then you’re going to like what I’m about to tell you next. Alex has offered to give away a free guide on monetizing Instagram. The other thing that Alex has offered is he’d be willing to talk to any one of my audience who’d like a little help in either getting their own Instagram account or their own social media account to the next level. All they’d have to do is go to your Instagram account and message you there.

Another thing that Alex has is he has a web page with those cheesy pictures of guys with Lamborghinis. Alex is standing in front of an awesome half-electric, half-gas BMW. Go check out his webpage as well. Before I let you go, I have a question for you. It’s a question we always ask. The reason we ask it because it gives us some insight as to who we’re talking to. Here’s the question. Who, in all of space and time, would you like to have one hour to enjoy a walk in the park, a quick lunch or intense conversation with?

For me, I personally would choose Jesus regardless of what you believe. I truly think that man is someone I would love to sit down with and study and learn from. I’m into my faith and what I believe, but regardless, he’s such a leader and such a powerful, impactful person in the world. I know you could learn so much. That’s what I would choose. That would be great to be able to walk around in ancient times with the Great Christ.

He’s about the most popular guy on the show when it comes to space and time question. This is the grand finale, the change the world question. What is it that you are doing now or would like to do that truly has the potential to literally change the world?

For me, it would be cool and I tried to do this as much as I possibly can and I’ll continue to, but essentially waking people up. What I mean by that is getting across to your average person that life is by design. That life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. Waking them up in the sense that allowing the average person to become aware that they’re in control of a lot more than they probably realized and that they truly can have, be, or do whatever it is that they want in this world. Keep it short. That’s truly what I would love to do and I try to do every single day is pouring into whoever I meet and inspiring them to wake up a little bit and become more aware of what’s going on. That they can do things they want to do and that they were put here for a purpose.

We had a guest who basically said something similar. What they said was that it’s one thing to be a shining example, but it’s another thing to spread the word and get active about spreading the word when it comes to helping people truly realize who they are. All of us, every single one of us has a story. Our origin story, if you like or as some people would basically call it the hero’s journey story, the story that inspires. If you could tell that story as often as you can in the biggest way possible to the largest group of people possible, you can change the world with your story. That’s part of what you’re saying as well.

Everybody’s got a story.

Alex, this has been a pleasure. It’s been a learning experience. For our audience, I hope you take advantage of what Alex has offered. You have made a lot of our audience a lot of money now by helping them understand how to finally use these social media platforms to make a buck. Get in touch with Alex and get him to help you. He offered to do it. You might as well take advantage of that. Alex, thank you again for your time and I can’t wait until we get a chance to talk again.

Thank you for having me on. It’s been a lot of fun.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.20.1″]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Results Breakthrough

www.ResultsBreakthrough.com

Use the Event Code: WINNER for free access.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Your First Thousand Clients Community today:

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_signup provider=”aweber” aweber_list=”mitchrusso|4590707″ title=”Download 37 Sure Fire Tips and Tools! Get Your First Thousand Clients NOW!” button_text=”Download NOW!” _builder_version=”3.16″ background_color=”#f9a920″ border_color_all_fields_focus=”#ffffff” border_style_all_fields_focus=”off” custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” button_bg_color=”#9e0000″ button_use_icon=”off” text_orientation=”center” background_layout=”light” border_style=”solid” focus_border_color=”#ffffff” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_bg_color_hover=”#044aa5″ button_text_size__hover_enabled=”off” button_text_size__hover=”null” button_one_text_size__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_text_size__hover=”null” button_two_text_size__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_text_size__hover=”null” button_text_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_text_color__hover=”null” button_one_text_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_text_color__hover=”null” button_two_text_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_text_color__hover=”null” button_border_width__hover_enabled=”off” button_border_width__hover=”null” button_one_border_width__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_width__hover=”null” button_two_border_width__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_width__hover=”null” button_border_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_border_color__hover=”null” button_one_border_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_color__hover=”null” button_two_border_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_color__hover=”null” button_border_radius__hover_enabled=”off” button_border_radius__hover=”null” button_one_border_radius__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_border_radius__hover=”null” button_two_border_radius__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_border_radius__hover=”null” button_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=”on” button_letter_spacing__hover=”0″ button_one_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_letter_spacing__hover=”null” button_two_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_letter_spacing__hover=”null” button_bg_color__hover_enabled=”on” button_bg_color__hover=”#044aa5″ button_one_bg_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_one_bg_color__hover=”null” button_two_bg_color__hover_enabled=”off” button_two_bg_color__hover=”null” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” transparent_background=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off” prev_background_color=”#ffffff” global_module=”29748″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” global_parent=”29748″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text global_parent=”29748″ background_layout=”light” use_border_color=”off” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.0.106″]

Our Sponsor: www.ResultsBreakthrough.com

Find your perfect accountability partner and start working together to achieve everything you can. Finish your courses and training programs, stick to your diet and exercise program, do life the way you always wanted!

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row global_parent=”29748″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image global_parent=”29748″ show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” animation_style=”none” animation_duration=”1000ms” animation_intensity_slide=”50%” show_bottom_space=”on” /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image global_parent=”29748″ show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” animation_style=”none” animation_duration=”1000ms” animation_intensity_slide=”50%” show_bottom_space=”on” /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image global_parent=”29748″ show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” animation_style=”none” animation_duration=”1000ms” animation_intensity_slide=”50%” show_bottom_space=”on” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Download 37 Sure Fire Tips and Tools! Get Your First Thousand Clients NOW!

DOWNLOAD NOW

Get a copy of Mitch Russo’s new book:

Power Tribes

Learn how to build your own tribe that automatically helps you grow your business.

GET $997 IN BONUSES WHEN YOU BUY THIS BOOK HERE

Get My Newest Book For Free.

Malcare WordPress Security