Backend Numbers: Q&A Essentials

[00:00:00] Joshua: you have to be polarizing in this world. But the biggest problem is most people just leave it at that. They don't say you have to be polarizing in a good way, If you're polarizing in a negative fashion, you're just doing you're being mean that doesn't help or add value to anyone.

[00:00:28] Tom: So I'm excited about today. Excited to really be able to drill into your business because we went more about life and there was just so much to talk about, but here we get a chance to really focus on that. So I'm very excited about that. We won't go into too much detail about your tennis shoes behind you. And just for those people that don't know you, I know there are people out there that don't know Joshua B. Lee, but let me give a quick intro to you is, widely known as the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, more than, and basically you've been an entrepreneur and and you're just more than that is, storytelling is one of your, gifts, You're an accomplished author.

[00:01:06] Tom: you basically really love to build, and I've known this over the last few years, I've known you really authentic human connections, and especially in our digital landscape and agency world. and with, also with clients and brands, you created over 16 successful businesses. You authored, balance is bullshit, which I'm really interested to hear more about.

[00:01:26] Tom: And, it just has become a luminaire in the digital space. I know you're speaking on a number of stages. Talking about basically building your business and building your brand and they go together naturally.

[00:01:40] Joshua: A hundred percent.

[00:01:41] Tom: what we'll do is we'll jump in and hop in

[00:01:44] Joshua: I love it, man. I'm excited.

[00:01:46] Joshua: Excited to see where you're going to take this.

[00:01:48] Tom: So let's dig into it. First of us how you to what you're doing now. it's a crazy story. I know you and I have touched on a little bit, but for the audience, it wasn't like it just happened yesterday, right? I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years. One of my first companies I started was back in 2003. And one of my first big clients, which a lot of people forgot about is, a little company called MySpace.

[00:02:11] Joshua: as everyone always asked, like, Oh, do you know, Tom, where's he at these days? I'm like, you know, He's doing his thing. But yeah, I started in the online advertising space and it was crazy because I actually had a hand in creating one of the first social media ads to be able to monetize. Social media as a whole for my space, and then that kind of shifted into everyone used a lot of that basics to be able to build a lot of what we see today.

[00:02:35] Joshua: throughout that entire thing, I monetized a lot of traffic. monetized almost over a billion dollars in traffic. I've controlled over 36 trillion online impressions across my own service and building those multiple companies you were talking about earlier, Tom. It was great, but I lost myself, one in the businesses because I was building them based off of What we were, what I was taught growing up, which was a massive, much, much as money as possible, you know, and it was all about the money and then at the same point, I was in a, industry that was all about the traffic.

[00:03:04] Joshua: And that's the biggest thing. I finally learned, like, there's a huge difference in actually traffic and actually true engagement. And most of the industry didn't understand that. It kind of led me down a path that one, why I wrote the book, because it was all about the business side and being able to go through this.

[00:03:18] Joshua: And I was forgetting why I had started my companies. And then I went through a life reset, a divorce about 10 years ago, and I walked away from everything and restarted I was really blessed, to have the opportunity to be able to kind of look at what I had done, where I was going. First, I thought it was going to be a life coach, had my man bun, my mala beads, my pendulum and swung.

[00:03:37] Joshua: And then I realized I was forgetting my past to forge a new future, and I needed to take my past and create it with the new future. And that's kind of where Standard Authority was born. I needed to humanize the way we were doing online marketing, and that's kind of, and I saw the biggest opportunity was on LinkedIn because most people didn't know how to use it.

[00:03:52] Joshua: And now I get to work with men and women like yourself and other amazing humans in this world that are truly adding value to this world. People that. I read their books on how to start my own companies 20 years ago, and now I get to call them clients and help them educate, inspire and draw people in not to sell, create advocates first.

[00:04:08] Joshua: And that byproduct becomes clients.

[00:04:09] Tom: You know, what's really interesting, and let me just jump into this idea of humanizing. So there's this thing about let's be a professional brand. And what people don't are coming to the realization of is that you can develop a personal brand, link it to your Business brand and they scale proportionally together.

[00:04:28] Tom: And they're not, if you do it smartly, that doesn't prevent you from liquidity events. There are so many examples of it. I mean, even look at Alex Ramosi, right?

[00:04:37] Tom: Jim launch was his, he was the face. He was everything, but he created a context for a successful launch and what that transition, Jim launch is doing.

[00:04:45] Tom: Fantastic. And Alex is off in his new venture. you look at, even leaders that were. He didn't and their brands suffer from it. Mark Zuckerberg. And a year and a half ago, what did Mark do? What is, again, a new strategy is let's humanize Mark, see him playing, see him having fun, making him laugh.

[00:05:03] Tom: And even let's do the next launch of the iPhone, having him not on the stage in front of minions. Let's have him sit on the edge of the bed. Oh, yeah. Well, we saw this too with John Ledger, right? The ex CEO of T Mobile. I mean, like he put it on the line and he was like,

[00:05:19] Joshua: look, yeah. You're going to love me or hate me. That's fine. But I want you to know who I am. And it changed the face of T Mobile and allowed them to still be in this business as one of the bigger players.

[00:05:29] Joshua: So yeah, a hundred percent, like we're seeing this time and time again.

[00:05:32] Tom: Well, give me some more examples. Give me a few more.

[00:05:36] Joshua: More examples, man. Ah, kind of go into it. I mean, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, right? Like he's really kind of come out there. He's been very open about what he's doing with that company, why he's doing it. I mean, what they're doing with LinkedIn. you look at my wife we are a brand and it's very rare that you, we are an agency and we also have a brand. Most people that run agencies don't run their own brand at the same time. And when you look at my wife and I, Rachel B. Lee, we are the Belize, right. And we really stand out and people love us and want to work with us because how we represent what we stand for as human beings.

[00:06:10] Joshua: I mean, like one of our families, our group is called the family. I used my last name to create, you know, to be able to go in and. And this is that whole piece. Like you have to be polarizing in this world. But the biggest problem is most people just leave it at that. They don't say you have to be polarizing in a good way, If you're polarizing in a negative fashion, you're just doing you're being mean that doesn't help or add value to anyone. But you're polarizing going, Hey, here's the people I love. If you don't like me, that's cool. You're okay to be able to do that. You do your way that you're going to draw your tribe and you're going to push away the people that are just going to take your time, which is the one resource we don't get back.

[00:06:41] Joshua: And I think in a world of AI now more than ever, trust is more important than ever. People want to trust the person. Not the brand because I was just watching her recently read Hoffman, the founder, CEO of LinkedIn basically did an interview with himself. And I mean, this

[00:06:59] Tom: Oh my God. That was unbelievable.

[00:07:01] Joshua: Yeah,

[00:07:02] Tom: His interview is Avatar interviewing him.

[00:07:04] Joshua: right. And so this is the thing where we live in.

[00:07:06] Joshua: Like, I don't know about you, but like, I have safe words with my kids or and my parents and everyone because I'm so visible online. If I call you on video or audio, our phone, and I'm asking you for something, Hey, what's the safe word? Because don't just send me 10, 000 because that's what people can do.

[00:07:21] Joshua: So that's why these personal brands and what we stand for. People are losing trust and they want trust more than ever. And they, they don't, brands, you trust people. That's what we've taught, man. That's the human nature inside of us.

[00:07:32] Tom: Yeah. And I keep on going to more examples. That's just beautiful, but it's really crazy opportunity, even Nick Bear, what he did with, uh, Bear Nutritional. So we can go over and over again. and then of course the most famous one of polarizing is Elon Musk.

[00:07:46] Tom: But

[00:07:47] Joshua: him or hate him. And that's the whole thing. And it's one of the best brands out

[00:07:51] Joshua: there to be able to go through.

[00:07:52] Tom: You cannot ignore that. So let me just pay a little bit to, LinkedIn and why this is resonate so much is that, I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs scale their businesses, leveraging their band is one of the most powerful things they can do. But also, I also believe that you can solve almost any challenge through acquisitions.

[00:08:13] Tom: I also believe firmly that it is easier to scale your business by doubling or tripling your profit, your EBITDA through acquisition than figuring out how to do it organically. but your personal brand is everything people will want to sell you their business if they trust you, if they know you, the more social content you put out there, they get that connection.

[00:08:34] Tom: They feel like they have that relationship. And what's powerful is, that if you're producing the social content, where are they absorbing it? In the most intimate places, you're in their house. So you're actually part of their family and they feel connected to you when they see your social content.

[00:08:51] Tom: So even though they never met you, so when they meet you and you want to acquire their business, they feel they have their relationship and there's level of trust and you want to find out what someone's about. You can go online and find that out versus selling my business to someone who's has is socially invisible.

[00:09:05] Joshua: Oh yeah.

[00:09:06] Tom: Yeah, I'm worried. I'm concerned. They're just, they don't exist. So talk to me about, your journey with LinkedIn, how you see it being successfully used and the opportunities that are there with.

[00:09:16] Joshua: Tom, you know, you're a hundred percent correct. I mean, in this world, the first thing that people do before they make any decisions are going to look you up online. And one of the most trusted platforms out there is LinkedIn, right? People believe that there's not. fake news as much as they will see on the other social platforms were getting into a point now where I was just talking with a younger friend of ours.

[00:09:36] Joshua: And that generation is not even liking the quote unquote social influencers because they're finally realizing because you and I've been doing this for a long time. We know that there's a time before the public realizes what's happening once they realize And it kind of goes back down again.

[00:09:51] Joshua: mean, look, I worked with Google way back when. I mean, there's a time when people didn't know what sponsored ads were those first two results. And now that we know, I guarantee you 90 percent of people listening always skip past those first two results on Google and go in. And so that's that same thing with social media influencers that people are going, well, I think I know now they're paid to be able to say these things.

[00:10:12] Joshua: So they really actually don't have any care about that. And so that's what we're looking at. We're looking in a world like linked in where people are going to go to be able to look at your business, who you're associated with and what you stand for. And if you don't have that, you're going to be missing the boat, Because they want to be able to understand In my business, all the things that I've bet on a person rather than an idea every single time because ideas come and go the right person can make an idea. And so that's what I want people to be able to understand with a platform like LinkedIn, they're owned by Microsoft.

[00:10:41] Joshua: So one, Microsoft has been around for a long time and they're one of the biggest companies out there. So if you're betting against Microsoft, you're making a bad bet. mean, maybe one day they're going to be We see it go back and forth, but, and so because of that, they've also Microsoft.

[00:10:55] Joshua: Let's be honest, owns a. k. a. doesn't really own, you know, another little company called Open AI. And so the future of business, the future of search is going to be changing here very soon. It's not what we look at right now. We go to Google and get a whole bunch of list of results. We're going to be moving to what's called generative search and generative searches.

[00:11:13] Joshua: Tom, you're searching and it's going to give you bits and pieces of what you want to be able to find specifically designed for you. Well, how do we actually shift and change to get ready for the future of business? Because that's what people are looking at. It's LinkedIn, man. they're doing, and you already mentioned his name, Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it, because he wanted to own a social media platform.

[00:11:32] Joshua: He want to understand and own the human algorithm on that platform to create his next X AI. And that's what LinkedIn and OpenAI are doing because of Microsoft. They're using LinkedIn, a basis of generative search to be able to create the algorithm And so that's what we're seeing, right? Like the future of search, the future of business by you going in and creating your profile, being able to give content that's relevant to be able to go through that.

[00:11:57] Joshua: We're being able to actually see that results to be able to make sure I'm being found because people In this world, there's a lot of experts out there because they have a I and most people don't have any clue what they're talking about. There is regurgitating what I just told them. I want to be the authority.

[00:12:11] Joshua: And so that's what business owners need to understand if they want to be acquired or they're looking to acquire others to be able to grow their business. How are they seen? Or how are the people that are researching being seen? And where's it going? I know I said a lot there.

[00:12:25] Tom: Yeah, that's fine. And I'm going to unpack

[00:12:27] Tom: it in phases. And let me just start with impact because the challenge that we have as leaders, as CEO, as founders is the thing we cannot create is time we're trying to compress time. And therefore it's all about leverage input versus really significant output or results.

[00:12:45] Tom: So looking at what you've done with brands in the past, can you tell us some of the. Successes that you've done leveraging for people's brands, LinkedIn, and that, what that did for their business.

[00:12:56] Joshua: yeah, of course. So, I've worked with a lot of amazing humans. I can't always share everyone we work with. It's because the fact that we play them online, but you know, I've had the opportunity to work with someone amazing like Dan Sullivan, strategic coach.

[00:13:09] Joshua: You know, Dan's been around for a long time.

[00:13:11] Joshua: He's an O. G. In this space. you know, he always when we were at different events, he's like, Oh, this is Josh. He plays me online. And you know what? We were able to be able to do. , look, as we get older, Dan, I mean, I know he says he's gonna live till he's like 180. and if he's one person, he's gonna do it.

[00:13:27] Joshua: But strategic coach need to be able to live on. And so what we were able to do is create his first linked in profile. And be able to actually start that engagement to be able to start bringing those people in in a different fashion, but they felt seen and heard by Dan himself, not just strategic coach and be able to bring them into a different path, his visibility.

[00:13:45] Joshua: Because of not only what he was doing on LinkedIn right now, Tom, there are over 10 billion impressions weekly on LinkedIn, but only out of the billion people that are on that platform, only about 3 to 4 million people are posting. So those 3 or 4 million people have access to 10 billion impressions on a weekly basis.

[00:14:04] Joshua: So like you're not competing like the other social mass platform. So now you have visibility on LinkedIn with an audience. Average income is over 120, 000 a year. Other platforms range anywhere from 000. So it's double the average income. So you're dealing with highly profitable people. Four out of five people on that platform are our business decision makers.

[00:14:23] Joshua: So you have people that can actually make the decision and you have an educated audience because 50 percent or more of the people on that platform have a college degree or higher. So When you're going through there, what we're doing to coach was bringing the right people in to create opportunities for his company strategic coach and that was amazing.

[00:14:38] Joshua: We created lots of opportunities to be able to go in. He did a road show where we had people show up for events. People don't understand like you. It's not just about the social. There's event aspects. There's visible in that indexing I was talking about. This was pre where they're at right now with AI.

[00:14:54] Joshua: But with Dan, we're going through. And because there's a the s the ma score, the M O Z of how you actually index on Google was 100 out of 100 on LinkedIn. So every time I'm putting his profile, I'm updating his company. We're going through and putting content. I'm not only being found and searched on on LinkedIn.

[00:15:13] Joshua: I'm also getting on first page results. Another big platform called google where we all go currently right now and so these are those opportunities that we've created for him that skyrocketed and allowed strategic coach to be able to grow on a platform that they were doing really well everywhere else.

[00:15:29] Joshua: But now it wasn't, they weren't trading one for the other. They were adding what they were already doing. Like you said, not wasting time, but taking those same assets and just putting them on another platform that would get them more visibility.

[00:15:40] Tom: Now, what type of content is, gets the most engagement and views? Is it long form content, visual, short form video, long form video? What are you finding?

[00:15:54] Joshua: Good question. So it all depends on your audience, what they're looking for. LinkedIn is trying to get into video right now. And we'll see where it goes. They've tried it a couple of times, video aspect. we almost say roll things around, never just do a short, this. Text. I want to be able to have visual as human beings.

[00:16:09] Joshua: We are visual. Like I look at the human algorithm. I don't care about the linkedin algorithm, the facebook algorithm. Those change all the time and most people to be able to beat them are giving into the next hacker trick that you're going to continue to have to learn that next hacker trick. But when I'm on that human algorithm, it stands the test of time.

[00:16:25] Joshua: It's the one that doesn't change. So understanding how human beings work, we're visual. So we want to be able to have an image with some text. I want to be able to use a carousel. So on LinkedIn, what we see works really, really well is the fact that uploading format. So you don't do it like on Instagram.

[00:16:41] Joshua: You actually upload in a multi form page, and then that will actually upload in a carousel. And then that actually allows the biggest format linked in shows and allows you to be able to download it. So works a lot of different ways because now your audience can download that. And if you have branding on there when they go back, you can remember who they got it from.

[00:17:00] Joshua: And so video to like 30 to 60 seconds works really well. And we're seeing a big shift in those aspects. I think that it's not about the content because however you create content best for your audience. You're going to learn. I think the format of how you actually put it out there. We believe in the 10 20 70 method of content creation and so it kind of breaks down like this.

[00:17:20] Joshua: Tom, 10 percent of your content needs to be personal. Human beings connect with other human beings. It's not facebook. So I don't need to know when your kids are going to school, but I need to know you're a dad. I mean, you and I have connected on you being a dad and your girls and stuff like that. It's been amazing.

[00:17:34] Joshua: And so it's like, oh, Tom's got kids. Me too. It's that commonality that we look for as human beings. I always call it the door to the couch. It takes you from knocking on someone's door to sitting on the couch. Two people just hanging out. 20 percent of your content needs to be around your company, but not what you can do for someone.

[00:17:50] Joshua: Just like you and you just asked me what I've done for other companies needs to be storytelling, tell stories and draw people in on what you've done for someone else. No one cares. Hey, I can make you seven figures. Hey, let me tell you a story on how I did this for somebody else. And we only do it 20 percent of the time you want to be that guy in the room.

[00:18:07] Joshua: We've all seen them, been at the events. We're like, Oh, there's Josh. Like that dude never shuts up about LinkedIn. Avoid, avoid. And so that's most people on LinkedIn. They're just talking about themselves all the time. So 20 percent of your content should only be around your company. And then the last piece of it, because we're talking about indexing, we're talking about being found, we're talking about AI, right?

[00:18:27] Joshua: Being found in chat, GBT or find a Google. We want to be an aggregator of value. my wife always makes fun of me a little bit because, you know, I've been in this industry a while. So I go, it's kind of like Yahoo back in the day, which she's like, no one uses Yahoo anymore. I'm like, I get it. But some of us remember Yahoo was that one page we used to go to it.

[00:18:44] Joshua: I aggregated all the different content we wanted on one page. I could see it. And so that's what I want everyone to think about with your LinkedIn page. How can you aggregate the value, even if it's not yours? If you're the one place that people go like, I'm gonna go to Tom's every single day on LinkedIn because I know he's sharing the best tactics and what's going on the M& A industry.

[00:19:01] Joshua: I need to be able to go and see him. You become a destination website. So 70 percent of your content needs to be around that educating and inspiring your audience.

[00:19:09] Tom: When, best practices not to just repost, but to put a unique point of view as far as why and what's check this out for this reason. Correct.

[00:19:19] Joshua: Exactly. Yeah, you want to be that person. You want to be that authority of why they should read it, Don't just repost, take the content, summarize it for him, right? Because most people aren't going to take that time to be able to go through that and allows you to be that person to go to. Because even if it's not your content, if you're the one that provided to them and you educate them enough that they have a problem or they want that solution, they're going to come to you for the solution.

[00:19:41] Joshua: And that's what we continue to be able to see. Because LinkedIn is not a platform that you go to to lose your yourself and someone else's life. You go there to be able to get educated or to be able to make a decision. That's it. People aren't scrolling all day and going, man, I just want to hang out on LinkedIn all day.

[00:19:56] Joshua: We're seeing it change a little bit, but they really are going there for more resource aspects to be able to make you make those big decisions and create business opportunities.

[00:20:05] Tom: No, I'm trying to train my tick tock on. I just want great. Educational content. That's great for me and get me rid of the all day stuff, but unfortunately we're not there. So I wish LinkedIn had a version of that. So this is the deals and exit podcast, and we're talking about leverage. So what is the, and a deal can be an acquisition, could be a merger, could be an exit, could be a branding deal.

[00:20:30] Tom: It could be a licensing should be a strategic partnership. So looking back over the last 20 years, what is the one deal where you said is. That was it. Regardless of whatever that means for you, that you just smile when you think about it.

[00:20:44] Joshua: I've got a lot that I could tell you that that wasn't it. I've definitely made a lot of those, those calls. I remember one time a handshake deal that I was in Vegas at a club there with a buddy of mine that just sold his company and he's like, hey, I'll, I'll sell you, you know, the code for my platform right now, it'll jump you around 1.

[00:21:02] Joshua: 3 million. That ended up costing me 10 million over the next year because I didn't do my due diligence. So, you know, those stick

[00:21:08] Joshua: with you,

[00:21:09] Tom: wait, wait, wait a second. you

[00:21:10] Tom: did a bad deal in a bar, in Las Vegas, in a club, on a handshake? Okay, and you probably had some alcohol in your body, so there's some things that were

[00:21:22] Joshua: you know, and even more so, we were actually playing blackjack up there. So we were already sitting there trying to, you know, be like, Oh, I've got the better hand and things like that. So like, look, learned, these are the things I was cocky and But at the same time, I was raised to be able to, I was raised in Texas and I was raised on that handshake deal, right?

[00:21:41] Joshua: To be able to trust others. you know, I learned my lesson and it was a hard lesson because that happened right around 2007. So right before 2008. And I mean, like we all remember 2008 was pretty rough.

[00:21:52] Joshua: so what I've learned about trust is that I want to believe that I will not do a deal with someone that I don't trust. I don't care how good the deal is. I don't care how many attorneys I have to pay for it. You will get screwed.

[00:22:06] Tom: And again, you just go into that understanding that. So the foundations and the reason why things are papered, because there is. We hear things different. We remember things different until it's written down and clarify the detail. And then as time goes on, we forget things happen, shit happens. And it's our, Oh shit document.

[00:22:28] Tom: We go back and says, I have such a great memory. I know exactly what that agreement said a hundred percent till I opened up on it. Oh shit. We agreed to that. Didn't we? And so therefore I believe in having things clarified with, documents and then, doing your due diligence because, even with people with the best intent, they might've missed something so obvious of risk factor that was missing.

[00:22:50] Tom: Therefore it's, you're doing yourself both a service by really doing your due diligence and deal momentum is extremely powerful and what Keith's most feel like the momentum, however. you can't get commitment bias leads you. And it says our ability bias leads you blindly that you do things so quickly.

[00:23:11] Tom: You basically miss the key steps, which I've done. I mean, I can think back just two years ago. I did a deal for that reason and I moved too fast. And it costs us dearly because we, I basically is, desirability wanting to help out, thinking I was doing the right thing and not looking at all the warning sign and thinking that I thought clearly of all the downside.

[00:23:34] Tom: Guess what? There's a little downside. You don't think about it. So.

[00:23:37] Joshua: Yeah. You know, Tommy, you said that so well, because it got you and me. we really do care about other people. We want to always do do right by others. And we always assume, I did for a while that people will be the same way as us, You're coming to the deal with respect but we can't believe that.

[00:23:51] Joshua: And it hurts a lot of people because they assume, Oh, well, this person, if I respect them and I'm going to do this, they're coming to the table with the same thing. And it's not always. And that's why you said, you know, if you don't respect someone to really trust someone, it's really hard to be able to do.

[00:24:03] Joshua: And. Yeah. You talk about the document as well. Like I always tell her when anyone's like, Oh, I don't do contracts. It's okay, man. I'm trusting. I said, it's not about that. It's not that I don't trust you. It's that I respect you. And the reason why I'm doing this contract, I'm doing these documents is out of respect because I don't want to lose.

[00:24:19] Joshua: I want to make sure we've got it all down. You respect me respect. So if we ever go down, like you said, a couple years later, we can go back in and go, okay, We did say that, right? There's no, he said, she said kind of stuff that goes through. So I always look at those things as, as a respect saying, Hey man, I'm, getting an agreement with you because we respect each other.

[00:24:36] Tom: There's also a category of people, which is an interesting one, which I'm going to say, there are those people that will take advantage and that, and some people take advantage of they're not ethical. There are those people that basically is there, the, Warren Buffett, Charlie mongers of the world integrity.

[00:24:53] Tom: They do not take the last. There are people out there that fit another breed that is kind of in between their transactional and therefore is everything is a quid pro pro, everything is a transaction. And if it's not clearly documented, they'll take out all the money off the table. Not that they took anything or they did anything dishonest.

[00:25:19] Tom: It's just, everything is transactional and it's something that, I don't know. I've seen enough dishonest people in the world and I've come across them. And I have a sixth sense about that, about them and know how to handle them. And I'm going to say in general, because I'm lucky that I'm fortunate that I can sense them in many ways and find them out that I've been able to give the benefit of the doubt and trust, and I've almost, I've never Very seldom had been screwed from just really bad people.

[00:25:50] Tom: but transactional is one that I'm not used to that I've ended up in bad situations just because the person was doing it to dishonest is that if there was money on the table, they grabbed it because it was just. Transactional regardless that we create the value together. It doesn't matter.

[00:26:04] Tom: Basically it's, there wasn't anything in writing this that I couldn't have it. again, it's interesting and everything is quid pro quo. Now, have you experienced that also?

[00:26:11] Joshua: I've definitely seen that with different partnerships and it really. Because most of my companies, when we go back through, we go through these 16 different companies. My first company I built, which was started off as a company called leads and feeds. I rolled it up in LF media. And I mean, I did the whole thing, right?

[00:26:26] Joshua: I have my S corp. I have my LLCs underneath, you know, to be able to build and be able to, control to be able to make sure I can split things off. You know, I learned really well a lot of those different aspects, and a lot of the reasons those LLCs were started was because I found someone that was looking for information that did something really well, and so I would go back like if we were going to partner, be like, Oh, well, Tom, I built all these resources.

[00:26:46] Joshua: I have, you know, I have customer service. I have sales. I had the marketing aspect, but I'm not good at what you do. So how about we go in, I'm going to give you all my resources where that's going to be able to speed you up. you're still the CEO of the company. I'll have my CFO, CMO, CTO being in the, working with you, but you run the company and we go that way.

[00:27:07] Joshua: I'm going to take

[00:27:07] Joshua: 51 percent and you take 49. I probably should have shown right there that I, had a trust issue because I always made sure I had the 51 percent just in case, and no matter how much I, when someone said it always seemed like I was doing and putting in more, and this is what sucks, right?

[00:27:26] Joshua: When people go in, like if I saw the person trying, but as soon as they, Found that way to be able to kind of sit back and just be transactional. Like, look, I just need to do just this much. And I'm good. Josh will cover the rest because he's in it and it got exhausting and, not until you talk about one of the best deals I did was three years ago, the best deal I did was found the partner that I would have ever had, which was my wife going into partnership with my wife and people go, dude, That is crazy.

[00:27:54] Joshua: You don't, get in partnership with your wife. You don't get in business with your wife. I'm like, well, I'm already in partnership because we're married. And two, I now have someone in my business who does a lot of things that I don't do well. She's amazing. And it's, she doesn't just have the company's best interest at heart.

[00:28:08] Joshua: She has our best interest at heart. And like, I'm going to be honest, I've never had a partner that That cared about those things. They cared about the company, but they had their best interest at heart, right? It was rare that you have both those things. And we continue today. We've had the success that we do, and especially where we're going.

[00:28:25] Joshua: I've worked with amazing people in the entrepreneurial space, and I have that locked down. But my wife comes to the corporate world running branding for Microsoft running branding for Gartner. And now the next future where we're going is gonna be in that corporate space. And You know, we're able to be able to back each other up in that play, and it's, really been amazing, but it was a learned skill.

[00:28:44] Joshua: Let me tell you, it doesn't like, oh, yeah, Josh just rolled in Josh and Rachel were doing this, like We had to have a lot of communication, and I think that was with any partnership. If communication is lost, partnerships fail.

[00:28:56] Tom: So lemme ask you a different question. I'm gonna go back to LinkedIn for something for a second. I said that we dig in a little bit more and kind of the final area I wanna cover is, LinkedIn. And what you're seeing is how is AI right now changing link LinkedIn? What features, what functionality were impossible or difficult a year or two, the core of the platform and where you see that going a year from now?

[00:29:18] Joshua: Good question. Because I think this is the biggest thing that people need to pay attention to. Again, I said it already. I'll say it again. The future of business, the future of search is going to start with LinkedIn. If you are not on there creating content, making sure your profile is fully flushed, not just CEO of Standard Authority, I'm talking about going through and talking.

[00:29:38] Joshua: I was having a conversation with one of my friends recently. It's like, really, like you started business five years ago as well. No, like I worked at pay less shoe stores back in the day. I said that needs to be on your resume. People need to understand your journey this is being able to show this is my first job and I worked my way up.

[00:29:53] Joshua: Like you said, people, you want to be able to trust someone. You want to see where they've come from. these are the things that are going through linked in with AI. They're able to be able to help you be able to pull information. They're able to be able to help you With Sales Navigator, which is LinkedIn's built in CRM system, you can actually use that to be able to identify your audience in a better way and be able to see trends that we used to not.

[00:30:14] Joshua: You had to be a very high level expert like myself to be able to actually find these trends. I mean, I'll be honest, Tom, I told people years ago, I said, man, once AI gets in here, if you actually really paid attention to LinkedIn, You could actually probably play the stock market pretty well, because again, employees are on there making statements, hiring, getting fired, being through, and you'll be able to see trends within that business that they're not even realizing they're showing.

[00:30:39] Joshua: And now LinkedIn's using that to be able to gather information, be able to help you identify who you want to talk to and why. Now that's just part of it. they've always been against automation. That's why I like them. if you start using automation on LinkedIn, and you think that it's a numbers game, sorry.

[00:30:55] Joshua: This is why people hate LinkedIn because they get spammed all the time. And a numbers game is just another way of saying. You're willing to spam everyone in hopes to be able to get one sale and piss off a whole bunch. And that affects your brand overall. Because of AI, before this, if you were using automation, if you ever used one of those tools, they were having to, the tool was having to adjust every 24 hours their code to be able to stay ahead of LinkedIn.

[00:31:19] Joshua: LinkedIn's now actually being able to catch them within a couple hours. And you'll lose your entire account. This link has been around for 20 years. So there's people that have 18 19 year old accounts that they're losing because they're trying to hit that easy button. And all they're doing is really shifting back.

[00:31:34] Joshua: So those are some basics on linked in. But I think the real real piece of it is that the future is a future search. It's going to be what they're doing. The integration on the backside. one of the pieces that I want everyone to pay attention to, you've probably all seen it. If you're on linked in, They ask you to weigh in on these new articles, collaborative articles, Tom, it's genius what they're doing.

[00:31:54] Joshua: So Elon, as I mentioned, use Twitter to be able to index and he had to be able to kind of find all the information to hope people would do it. Well, now LinkedIn went in and said, well, how about I just do this? Like I'm going to have a I create articles. That we need in every vertical out there, and gamify it and go, Hey, Tom, if you add in to M and a article X, Y and Z 70 characters, not a lot, and people like to be able to go in and say, Wow, this is a great information.

[00:32:22] Joshua: We're going to give you a badge and say you're a top voice in M and A. So now they gamified it getting people excited because, you know, everyone likes shiny badges, and now they're getting that information specifically in every character in every kind of vertical they could ever imagine. to be able to make sure when that generative search launches with Microsoft and opening eye, it's gonna blow everyone away.

[00:32:41] Joshua: And that's where I want people to pay attention to now more than ever.

[00:32:45] Tom: Brilliant. So, what I'm really excited about and what I should have mentioned at the very beginning is, Josh will be joining us for our September event. We're having the next deal con live event is the agency and brand CEO M& A summit. We are going to spend two days teaching our M& A playbook. if you are advanced at doing acquisitions and have done serial acquisitions, we will teach you techniques and strategies.

[00:33:12] Tom: That would make you more effective and efficient and reduce your risk. If you've never done an acquisition before, as I shared that it is the most predictable way to solve almost every business problem. Acquisitions are the most predictable way to scale your EBIT and your revenue and to achieve your goals, whether it's saying your business long term or creating a liquidity event.

[00:33:34] Tom: The day 30 day three is going to be also an incredible, incredibly exciting event. I have some just epic speakers that we invited to the event. One after the other. And this is all information you use for scaling your own brand, scaling your own business, or as you do an acquisition, scaling that acquisitions and every, you know, I view I'm Molly Pittman, I've done a shoe.

[00:33:56] Tom: So reached out and said he wanted to join and speak. So I'm having Rudy now coming. So it's going to be a really, just a fun day. And that's been about tick tock. I might even have tick tock there itself. So again, so.

[00:34:07] Joshua: These are all

[00:34:08] Tom: I know, so it's, it should be, it should be a great third day.

[00:34:11] Tom: Excited to hear you talk about LinkedIn and really how we can leverage our current personal brand, how you can leverage your current, how you can grow your current business or the one you're acquiring through LinkedIn, anything else you want to share right now?

[00:34:27] Joshua: Oh, yeah. You know, Tom, everything you said, I'm excited about the event. I even talked to a mutual friend of ours and one of your past speakers, Adam Lyons. I hope everyone listens. Like there's, people that I trust in this world. And asked Adam, I said, Hey man, you know, I'm gonna be coming in from another event straight over to Tom's.

[00:34:41] Joshua: He's like, Don't miss a day. It is so amazing. So much information. Josh, like you're lucky to be a speaker, but like take in all the information that Tom's going to share those next two days. So I'll tell you, man, I'm excited to be able to not only add value, but get a ton at the event. And I hope everyone listening has the opportunity to be able to join us as well, too, because Thanks But we barely just scratched the surface.

[00:35:02] Joshua: Like we didn't even get into newsletters, like LinkedIn newsletters. Let me tell you, like, y'all we'll take some time out. Like it is massive because newsletters are getting big right now and. You're just saying a newsletter is going to your email. It's lost. But what if you actually did? That had spots had 100 percent open rate, and they got indexed on

[00:35:19] Joshua: Google and

[00:35:20] Tom: well, okay.

[00:35:21] Joshua: there's so many things we

[00:35:22] Tom: Okay. So really excited about that. And, Josh. I appreciate you. I value excited to hang out with you in Nashville and appreciate it, bro.

[00:35:32] Joshua: Thank you, my friend,

[00:35:33] Tom: