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All right, guys, going back, E y L yeah, yeah, we're back with another fire episode. But before we start, Atlanta, you got two days left by the time you hear this, maybe three to get your tickets year. It's crazy, crazy event that we got planned for this coming Saturday and Sunday, the twenty fifth and the twenty six. We have a live podcast on the twenty fifth with PTG Boy shout out to Brandon Metford and his whole crew. We have mister and Missus two weeks.
Out first Family of Fitness.
Yeah Atlanta, they running Atlanta with Fitness game right now. We have Keanu Watson Celebrity Relta and then after the podcast we have it is catered open bar situation in private networking event, all of our alumni and all of the guests. A lot of time people like want to know, like how do I meet these people? How do I network with them?
This is how Yeah, a lot of people have been asking like are they going to be there after the pocket, Yeah, they're gonna be hanging out with.
Well, everybody's gonna be there. And then Alex Good Energy's gonna be Everybody's gonna be there. Our guest today will be there as well.
Yeah.
And then the next day we have of our workshop with Alex good Energy truck and Google Andy from WAT two K Credit Solutions, Max Maxwell talking about wholesaling and MG the mortgage guy Mortgages. So and then like I said, We're gonna have Greg Barnett, NFL agent will be there and his business will be there. Uh, Mandy, it's gonna be a bunch of people there. Man, it's gonna be a lot. It's gonna be a whole vibe party. So earn your Lesion dot com events tab, snatch up your tickets. Uh and yeah.
We'll see you. Then we see you.
So all right, we're gonna jump right into this episode. This is something that we're extremely excited about, and I personally think that this might be the most important episode that we've done so far.
It's something we've been talking about since.
Like we started, it was like, yo, we need to do something that's major for majority of people.
Now, this is something that's gonna be extremely Like I said, this might be the most important episode. So no pressure, you got you gotta right now. But you know, it's crazy because it's a business podcast, so you know, we teach about entrepreneurship, investing things of that nature. But like Ash Cash once famously said, your job is your first investor, right, So what we love for everybody to be an entrepren entrepreneur. Sure, why not, But we know that ninety percent of Americans
are not entrepreneurs. Ninety percent of Americans work in the work force. So this this is going to be an interesting conversation because we cover a few different topics. So our guest today Brandon Mitchell. He's he is an entrepreneur, right, but he's his business's resume writing along with other things.
So career advancement, career, career advancement.
So that the interesting part is that he left his corporate job to become an entrepreneur. So that's one story, right, as far as like, how do you start a business? And he's young, twenty twenty three, right, twenty three years old. He left us a six he was getting paid six figures, six figure corporate job, and.
So who signing up for that? Any twenty year old you make six figures, They're like no way.
Yeah. So that's that's one story, right, That's one story. And then the next story is to say, okay, his what he does now for a living is to help people make more money as far as improve their their career. Right, So that's another story as far as you know, to make more money, because the whole point of it to have multiple streams of income. So nobody says that you cannot work a job, but you should optimize your situation if you are working a job.
Right nine to five?
I think, uh what Shanna Scott posts that, right like, you're nine to five is your first investor, you're six six to ten is when you build your empire?
Yeah. Fact.
And then the other side of the story is that for self employed people and business owners, they have to hire people. They have to know the inner working So that's something that employment is not something that's really talked about a lot, but it's very important not only from the employee but from the employer.
Who to hire, how to hire, what to be looking for when you hire.
Two sides of the coin. So all right, So Brandon is twenty three years old. He had a very quote unquote good job in corporate America and he quit his six figure job to start his own business five months ago.
You started. So we started the business on May ninth, twenty nineteen. It's about six seven months in so.
Far, six sixty six seven months in. What's your revenue now?
So as of today, we're about one hundred and forty thousand dollars in revenue one hundred about seven months or.
So, so one hundred and forty thousand, forty or four one hundred and one hundred and forty thousand dollars and seven months. It's just a phenomenal story.
And it's just about the month of May. That's when he DM's us.
He dm us in May and reached out and I didn't even know who he was, and then he hit us, hit us up on Patreon.
He's a patron too, Yeah, shout out the patreo. So we had our phone call and we're like, Yo, this guy's solid. We gotta we gotta really sit down.
And see what happens when you become a As a fact, he was a patrons heer five Patren. We had a FaceTime conversation and we liked his story so much, and now he's actually on the podcast.
That's dope man, that you're the first patre to be on the podcast for sure.
So thank you man, Thank you for your support. First home, if you're joining us, all right, we're gonna jump right into it. So can you tell us the story about you were working at Price Waterhouse Cooper. Yes, that's a Big five accounting firm, Big four before Big.
Four firms, So the big four acounting firms. You have Price Warehouse Coopers say number one, so shout out to PwC, Deloitte, Ey, and KPMG. So at PwC, I was a technology consultant. And it's pretty interesting because PwC it's a global counting and advisory firm, so they do everything from audit, tax, and advisory, so advisories where you get a lot of the consultants. So if you ever heard of you know, people going in and tress up in suits traveled around the US, that's kind of what I did. So I
primarily focus on the technology consulting side. So we would go in do something called operating model assessments, so you go in and look at a business and say, okay, hey, like how is your technology, how is your marketing, your operations, and essentially give recommendations for the technology teams to do better. So typically we would manage projects and I was really involved in making sure that the companies like their end products were and technolo just being delivered on time and
on budget. So essentially a project manager, you're doing this at like nineteen twenty years old. Yeah, So I kind of started as an intern, which is pretty good, and I think a lot of times people say how do you get into these big corporations and the best way is through the internship program. So I was blessed that when I was in college, I was able to go to a conference called NABA, so shout out to NABA
stands for the National Association of Black Accountants. And through NABA, they had like a whole bunch of networking events and I was able to get my first touch point. So fast forward, you know, I did the internship. It was great experience, but really rudimentary. So back as an intern, kind of don't do too much. You kind of get a little bit of exposure to just like what it means to just see the corporate world. So after that, you know, I was able to land a full time job and then then I.
Started So all right, so you're working at PwC and start off, the rip you're making are over one hundred thousand dollars.
No, so first year was seventy five thousand dollars right out of college and for any college student, and it's crazy.
So you're like twenty one, yeah, so twenty one, yeah, twenty one seventy five thousand, which was a blessing, you know, because I didn't grow upsolute, you you know, too many people make twenty, you know, seventy five thousand dollars around me, So it was it was great, you know, and just just knowing that, you know, I'm making this much, it had a little bit of a weight on my shoulders. But yeah, So started first year seventy five thousand, and then they bump you up like eighty and then straight
to like ninety one. And so when you incorporate like the bonuses and the conversation, you're looking at way over one hundred.
So all right, so you're working there for like two years.
Two and a half. So I was there for about two years. About too much yourself, all.
Right, So you're there for two and a half years, you're twenty two twenty three at that time, right, you left you with.
Twenty three twenty three back in October October twenty fifth. I'll never forget the day.
You're making like one hundred how much you made hundred and ten, one hundred and that one one hundred and one thousand, six figure at twenty three. So you know, that's something that a lot of people over fifty and forty, lot of parents, yeah, a lot of yeah, exactly, So what makes you want to start your own company when you're already making one hundred thousand dollars at twenty three years old.
Yeah, no, absolutely, And that's a really great question. So for me, my entrepreneurship journey really started back when I was in college. So I was in college back in I graduated from high school twenty fourteen, started in college and so for me, when I was in college, I really wanted to do the most right. So I went in there as a finance major, so all people don't know that that started in finance and quickly went to double and triple major, so people know how Yeah three
things you had triple major? Yeah, got that much?
Wuss are three majors.
So I did finance, which was great because I gave me a lot of exposure to like investing, so some of those fundamental concepts. Then I did economics, which is huge because you get a look at the world from a macroeconomic perspective, right, like how does the world work? Inflations,
interest rate, all that great stuff. And then you know, my mom at one point she was like, you know what if you really check out this thing called Mis And at that time, it was really when MIS was starting to blow up in the stands for management information systems. So essentially you learn about databases, database manage and how to you know, look at technology from like a business perspective, per se.
So you have finance economics and man was it.
Through management information systems? Yeah? What school did you go to? So I'm a proud of them. From Plattsburg State University.
South of Platsburg. We drove fast twenty Platsburg, Platsburg. So all right, so social life at all? Yeah, So it's funny enough on campus. I mean a lot of people knew me as like the guy who was definitely like at most of the parties.
But at the same time, I took school and my education really seriously. So you know, it's funny enough. Even with graduating in three years, I was taken about like twenty seven credits a semester while still managing a social life of fraternity club. That's a full year for most people.
Yeah yeah, okay, twenty seven creditor semester.
Do they even love?
Well, the thing is, so I graduated in three and a half years and I took the most I ever took was twenty credits a semester. It's probably, But the story, my story is different from your story because.
A lot of Yeah.
So I was, I played basketball, and I was a communication major. First I was American Studies major, then I was communication. I just wanted to do the easiest thing possible, to be honest, full transparency, and so I learned shout out to my mansion. Well, I learned to hack the system. So I always taken the easiest classes. So my twenty credits was like six credits because I was taking like community involvement, like all kinds of nonsense, like, so.
Good education.
Well you was actually taking real classes.
Yeah, So I kind of flipped the script a little bit. And it's interesting because when I started, I jumped right into my major classes, so full transparency. When I got to college, already had twelve credits. So high school from high school. OK. So back in Union they also shouts Union the high school, they were able to offer these things called superclasses, and essentially, if you took them your senior year and you obviously passed like a B or A, you were able to get three credits. So I took
a few of those. When I went to college, I was already a semester ahead per se.
Yeah, twelve, so you needed to tel to be a full time student, so you always do the house prodigy.
We might not even know who dogee house it is, bro you know do there? I do? Not? Right, generational. There's a lot about the time generational.
So all right, so so so yeah, obviously extremely intelligent. Right, so you have three degrees. You have three degrees, three degrees in three years.
In three years.
Okay, So then you start your first business while you're in college or.
While I was in college. Right, So my first business I launched my second semester freshman year, so back in twenty sixteen, and it didn't really work out too well. But it was called idea yet dot com. So Idea dot com was a social media platform for buying and sharing ideas with equity crowdfunding components. So I mentioned that I was a finance major. So in my studies I started learning about like, you know, equity crowdfunding, just like
all types of finance concepts. And at that time, I said, you know what, it'll be really great to you know, a platform. So around that time, I was doing a lot of research and I was looking at things like go fund me, what's huge back then Kickstarter? So I was look in a lot of ways in which people
were getting ideas out there. You know, you kind of bring a product to market, and let's say you don't have all the money yourself, you can literally crowdfund and that's a great way of getting exposure, brand awareness and things like that for your product. So I said, you know what, like just looking looking at the traction that like Facebook has, I said, well, everybody loves social media. You get on there and you can you can do all that interactions, you know. So so I said, you
know what, let's combine it too. So the real premise was that people can go on there and literally comment on your idea, to ideate it and to help you develop it out, and then they would get some equity in exchange.
So I put up an idea, somebody says, you know, I like it, let me help you develop it.
Exactly.
That's dope. So that's like, all right, I want to I want to do.
I got a podcast?
Yeah, yeah, you got to a podcast, and now you put it out there, and then somebody said, I want to help with the podcast, and then you sell an equity for five percent exactly, get five dollars, and now they have equity for really helping you build, but they're really helping you build it step by step, right, Yeah, so you can get on there and just learn about people's ideas. Idea yet dot com exist? It doesn't exist, and the slogan was the idea yet. And you know, during.
That life, it's pretty interesting because I realized the power of just ideas in general. You know, everybody has ideas. They're in an abundance. But the thing is that a lot of people are really scared to share their ideas. That's fact. They're like, oh, I tell someone you know, like I don't really know what's going to happen, to take it round my idea. And you know, at that time it was donning hummy is like, everybody has ideas,
why not just share them? Because what I have in my head doesn't mean what you have in your head. My vision, my marketing strategy is how I want to execute will be a lot different than let's say you you know or someone else. And so I said, you know, you shouldn't you shouldn't hold it to yourself. Put it out there and see what like what like what you could build it.
My brother told me something very important, like in my summer staff He was like, listen, man, only hire people with ideas, right, You can't be the only one with ideas, because what you become is the guy at the club who has the bottles and everybody's drinking of them. At some point, people got to get their own bottles or start sharing drinks. And I was like, damn, you're right. So I was like, you know what if you don't have any ideas, so was what we're doing.
You can't come back.
Straight up that bottles situation. That bottle situation is serious. You gotta here. Okay, Well, so that didn't work out, So work out what happened? Why didn't it work out? Because that's actually a really good idea.
No, absolutely, And I feel like it didn't work out because of the team. So at that time, you know, I was really young, so I didn't really know how to really execute on it yet and my team around how were you? I was about twenty at that time. Yeah, yeah, so it was like nineteen twenty and I had the great idea, but I just didn't have the good team around me. So I was looking on campus for like support.
So I was like I was literally on LinkedIn back then saying hey, like who can I find on campus helped me develop to develop this thing, But yeah, I just didn't have a good team and so, you know, it didn't really work out. But what was cool is that I did get to pitch it, and back then I was really heavily involved on campus, so I was in some of like the business plan competition. So we pitched it, raised a little bit of money, but again it just didn't take, would you. So we pitched it
to on campus. We have like business plan competitions, so they would get like local angel investors from the Plastward community, from Plastward in Clinton community. You know, I got a lot of people around there who's just sitting up there. They were retired and they're like, hey, like why not no support? So if you won these competitions, you would get about like a thousand dollars, two thousand dollars to kind of work on your idea twenty four hours in
a day. This guy's triple major and pitching business plans, no.
Excuse, Like this is crazy, triple major. Triple mame, we don't call you triple major. What what's your what's your background? West Indian?
So yeah, yeah, yeah, accident but yeah, yeah, So I'm Jamaican and Western and Italian for sure. Yeah. Another Jamaican on the on the podcast.
Leave it up to the Jamaican.
You know, yes, that has three jobs. Yeah, it is, it is. Yeah.
Oh man, I know it. I know it all right, So okay, so that doesn't work out, but you don't get discovered, so then you start another business.
Right absolutely, with all the business. So after well, it's kind it's kind of interesting because because with the idea dot com, right, I realized back then that's when I kind of started resume writing that you know, I can take this experience and put on my resume and with that, that's actually how I got my first internship at Grand Thornton, which was before PwC, which is Grand Thorton is a number five accounting from the world, so you got the
big four and then you kind of got like everything else. So Grand Thorne was number five. So to answer your question, after the experience with Idea, you know, I was pitching it. It was making money with you know, raising money, so I was said, you know what, I have more ideas. So my junior year, which is also my senior orar since A graduated in three years, I decided to launch resumes dot co and resumes dot co was the first
iteration of brand resumes. So back then again, I said, you know, I'm not going to just give up on this first idea that that didn't really work out. Let me just try something new. I was on campus writing resumes for myself and for others, and it was working out. Like I said, I was able to get that internship back grand Thorin and so on and so forth. So you're doing it for your friends and they're getting jobs all of it. Oh yeah, So yeah, so I was.
I was literally writing resumes and everybody on campus was coming to me for this. I was like anybody thought about careers, they would just go like, head up, Brandon, Brandon knows what's up. And it was interesting because again, like even before I graduated, I was a junior and sophomore, literally seniors are coming to me and saying, hey, like I need help, can you help with my my LinkedIn profile and things like that?
So all right, So I all right, So but that didn't work out either.
No, So resumes dot Co didn't work out, but the process of building that company I think is the foundation for a Matt today.
So all right, so now you have experience, and you have the resume experience tonight will fast forward at PwC. And what makes you want to rekindle and start that over again.
I heard there was a faithful trip to the West Coast. Yeah, West coast. So for my birthdays my birthday is March thirty, first of last year, I decided to go out to California, right and you know me coming from the East coast, so I don't really know a lot about California, but I wanted to experience it. And so I flew out to California for a weekend. It's actually for my birthday weekend, like I mentioned. And during that trip, I was really driving up the Malibu coast. So for anybody who's on
the West coast, definitely checked that out. If you have a chance to go to California, shot on you. Yeah beautiful. And so I was just driving and I saw so much beautiful houses on this coastline and I'm just looking like, man, like, it'll be nice to own one of these one day, and just that that aspiration. You know, making six figures is great, but at the same time, six figures want to afford you that type of luxury lifestyle.
Can't do that. I can't do it. I remember my favorite, one of my favorite movies was The Net. Was the Social Network. And when justin Timberlake, he told the character that was playing Mark Zuckerber, he was like, what do you say? He's like, a million dollars isn't cool? He's like, you know what, it's called a billion dollars. And the reality of it is that there's levels. There's really levels in life. And it's like you think a hundred thousand is money until you realize it's really not.
Reality.
You know, you know when you realize one hundred thousands not a lot. When you make a hundred thousand, like I ca, I can't, I can't eat one Hundred's the fact. That's the fact happened to me because it's like six six figures. You always think six figures, it's like so much. And I know I made six figures in six months and I ain't really have that much money. I'm like cost a living that this isn't this isn't going to do it?
Yeah, absolutely, And so at that time and I said, I was I was literally driving up down the coast and I said, you know what, I want to be able to put myself in a position to do this, and just working the actual nine to five or ninety seven in some cases wasn't gonnaow me to do that.
And obviously, if you stick around at some of the consulting firms, it's a very lucrative career path, and so you can go up, go from like associate to senior to senior manager, director, partner, and partners make a lot of money. Right at the same time, you're really bound to your time, and I wanted to have that freedom to be able to make the money to do what I want to do, but also have the freedom to travel and you know, just be on my own type
of time, earn your leisure factulally. Hence, so you started it while you're still working while also working. So after I came back from that trip, you know, it just dawned on me. I said, you know what, let me when I go home, let me just try and do this idea again. Because I'm big on ideas, right, and I said that business model. I know if I put the right you know, mix of services and just structure together, let's just I know it can be something.
So at the time before it crash. Were you offering too many things or was it like what happened?
Yeah, So with resumes dot Co, we actually were offering too many services because that was the first issue. And then the second is that we didn't really have the right price point. So you got to know how to presce your business. It's very important to understand like the structure that goes into setting your price. So back then it was really cheap and inexpensive, and I think that the reason behind that is that we were serving the wrong market. So when I was on campus, I was
looking at servicing the college market. I thought that that was like the end all be all. Let's just help college students Facebook, Let's help them get internships and jobs and opportunities. And so our price point wasn't wasn't large enough for the service and the time that would take
to do the business. In addition to that, all the services we wanted we were doing like website resumes, which is a really interesting concept where you can literally instead of having and giving out a paper, you say, hey, go to my website and it's actually a resume. We were doing social media scrubs. So let's say you were looking for you were actively applying, you know they're going to go to your LinkedIn and your Facebook and your Instagram, so you want to make sure that that's in check right.
And just the way that we were structuring out our services just didn't make any sense. And we didn't have packages at the time. So I think that, you know, it was just too much. People would go to website, they would they wouldn't see they couldn't identify with a package or service, which is what we fix with brandresimes dot com.
So you start, you started by yourself right when you first started, like how many hours are you So you're working nine to six in your regular job.
Yeah, ninety six and nine to seven in some cases with the consulting, you know, you're really traveling, so you're working up five point thirty on Mondays. You're traveling to in my case was Philadelphia for a while. You're getting there at like eight thirty am or so, you work until about five or six. You might go to the gym by the time you get back to the hotels about eight thirty nine, and then yeah, I would just take from there until about you know, two in the
morning or so. And I knew that I had to put in the time to get to the effort.
So you work from eight o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night at your regular job. After everything is done.
Monday through Thursday, and then Fridays sometimes you you'd be able to work from home.
And then from from nine to two in the morning, you worked on your side hustle, which was you side hustle absolutely every day, and you're building that up, and we got how quick? But how quick when you start making money you resume?
Yeah, so I think that the preparation. So it was about a month and a half of preparation that went into actually setting it up because what I realized is that I want to set it up the right the right way, right, so with the brand resume, with resumes dot co. You know, essentially I did everything myself. I code. I literally learned to code HTML, JavaScript all that, built website myself, set up on my own marketing. But I said, this time, let me outsource to you know, professionals who
do that. And you know, it's funny. It was like it was really a Gary Vee quote that stuck out to me, and he said that ninety nine percent of problems in business can be solved by you know, hiring someone, and it was powerful because I was like, wait, I try to do everything myself the first time. So the website development, I found the cheapest developer in Pakistan, which was great, and he actually went off to become he's actually a a senior website developer for US now he's
actually full time just through relationship building. But yeah, in terms of making money, as soon as we put it out, it was an instant hit. And I think it was a hit because it was always a great idea. We just didn't have the right execution, fit and execution.
So then like four months after in at that point you quit your job.
Right for three months, So we launched in May and then about five months I knew it was time.
How much were you making a month when you quit your job?
We was made So I was making about yeah, thee hundred thousand at PwC, so you know after taxes, like I mean with the resume, with the resumes, Yeah, we was hitting twenty to twenty five.
Once you had twenty thousand with resumes, is over?
Oh, it was over. Yeah. At that point I knew that I was onto something. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure that you know, the income was consistent. So the first month we did about maybe four thousand dollars in sales. Then we jumped up to fifteen twenty twenty five. Right, but it needs to be consistent. You don't want to just you know, quit your job before you know that your side hustle is taking off. Yeah, but at the same time, if you wait too long, you know, you can't you can't.
Exactly, you did something very important that one of our alumni said she did the kik Waz.
She was like, the best thing I did was fire myself.
I fired myself and hid everybody else to do the things that you know what I'm wasting, I'm taking too.
Much time to do. Absolutely, you need to focus on strategy as a business owner and also like where you see growth in partnerships and things like that.
All right, so we're going to talk about the business model of your actual business. But in the next segment, we're going to talk about how people can make more money at their jobs. Yeah, via a few different hacks. Since this is the line of work that you're men, we're going to enlighten people and give them some free game. Absolutely, drop some jabs all right, So, as I said, the vast majority of Earn Your Leisure's listeners, and the vast majority of people, not just an America and all over
the world are employees. And there's nothing wrong with that because everybody's not an employer. Everybody doesn't want to be a business owner. But even if you do have aspirations, you still need to know how to maximize your job income while you're pursuing your side hustle or before you actually leave and do a full time entrepreneur thing. Right, So we're gonna talk about a few different hacks. The
first thing is LinkedIn. We cover LinkedIn a little bit with christ and shot the Chris, but we didn't really go deep diving on LinkedIn. And I think that people don't fully understand LinkedIn. Unfortunately, true, they don't even they don't even know. Like LinkedIn is huge, huge, It's not something that is small. It's big time, but it's big time with the right people like So, just to give you some status, it's three hundred million users on LinkedIn
and two hundred countries monthly users. Bro Yes, seventy seven percent of recruiters use LinkedIn. And the cool thing about it is thirty three percent of millionaires on LinkedIn, So LinkedIn is really like the the higher exchellent social network site.
So like if you can compare it like Facebook is for like personal relationships and LinkedIn is more like for business relationships.
Yeah, it's that form of social media.
It's social media people that don't want to make money.
Business the business. Business, the business. Yeah, I'd say it's the largest B to B network.
And the thing the thing about LinkedIn to with everybody's on LinkedIn, like literally like LinkedIn it has to. I think it has the most powerful algorithm to show on Google. So like when you type somebody in like their name, the first thing that pops uple is that LinkedIn page. It's like a business card at this point, Like you have to have a LinkedIn page, and when you're Google that comes up first.
It's Google searches.
And everybody, all the high powered executives, people, people that's not on Facebook or Instagram, it's on LinkedIn. Like that's a fact. It happens all the time, and it's a way to actually grow your network, make money and not just get a job. It's a way to network with people do all kinds of stuff. So first off, all right, So LinkedIn is a big part of like your story.
Right, Oh, absolutely completely LinkedIn is. It's been huge for growth.
So why is LinkedIn so important?
I think LinkedIn is really important and that you hit it on the head what you said. It's about three hundred and three million active users a month, right, And so LinkedIn has a huge network of profess on there who are trying to do one of two things. Primarily, it's one to recruit for talent and to just to actually sell something. Right. So if you're a B to B professional, whether you're selling like software or digital services, like,
that's the place you need to be. And it's great because it's like your first touch point for some to know aboue. So let's say you go to like a career fair or your networking and say, hey, like, here's my business card. You know, the first thing that I do, I'm going to go in search you up on LinkedIn because I want to know who you are and I want to know your background. Do business cards still work?
Business cards do work? Okay? But LinkedIn is the extended version of i'd say business card and a resume, right, because when you go on LinkedIn, you can see someone's title, So that's the first thing that you're going to see, which is very important and it needs to be engaging. You can read their summary, so a little bit of a buy about them, and then you can see all of their experience, some of their volunteer work, whether they're available for pro bono work. So it's really like a
digital download, quick and easy on someone's professional background. Yeah.
Another LinkedIn hack that Chris Senegal actually said is that especially if you're self employed. If you're self employed, you can give yourself any title you want, but nobody really knows that you just gave yourself a title. So like, if you have a company, you can call yourself senior marketing director, you can call yourself vice president, president, all this stuff, and when they see it, it's like alhwa's the president of a company, CEO of a company.
And then when you reach out to other presidents exactly say okay, president's a president, I understand. And it gives you an instant credibility when you can, when you can effectively, you know, announce yourself right, because then people will kind of take you seriously. If you're an associate reaching out to a director, that that might not work right levels. Exactly the same thing in the corporate world, like I wouldn't as an associate just go emailing partners like Hi,
nice to meet you. I would take a formal approach in doing that. But with LinkedIn, it really empowers you to be able to connect with anybody and especially leverage
r alumni network as well. It's something that a lot of people don't really talk about but on LinkedIn, which you can also actually do is type in your university or any university, and what allows you to do is filter by by year that someone graduated and by job title and function, so you can find alumnis in any field, especially if you wanted to start, like if you wanted to reach out to someone to start to start a conversation on the business opportunity, or just to find people in general.
That's huge. I'm glad you said that because that's something that you hear a lot. It's like reach out to your alumni network, especially if you are local, like if you from New York and you went to school in New York, or you went to school in the Tristitate area, or you know, on the East Coast and it's a large school, like there's a lot of alumni in the Yeah, so for me, I went to Hawaii, so that didn't
really work out too much. But but even if you have a situation like that, and this is another hack for like recent college grads and just people in general that went to college a lot of times, like let's
say at university like Hawaii. Right, So obviously there's not a lot of Hawaii alumni in New York, but there are there are some, and it's a smaller group as opposed to NYU what it is a million, So now this might be like a couple hundred or a thousand, So now I can network with them easier because it's a smaller community as opposed to a million people, like you said, like Syracuse with it's so many alumnis, like everybody's an alumni, right.
Right, And then you also have a warm connection with that person. You already have like a commonality between yourself. Hey you went to Hawaii. I went to Hawaii too. Hey you're from New York, I'm from here as well.
And then with LinkedIn, you can even double down into see like if they have any like overlapping, like you might have went to the same high school someone and you just never know, right, So there's a lot of things on the on just looking at someone's profile that you can identify before you reach out and then that kind of will you know empower that conversation. You got three.
Hundred and three million monthly users, right, users, How do I make my LinkedIn more visible?
Like? What are some things I need to do? Yeah? So on the profile setting side, there's a lot of things that you can enable there. So a lot of people don't know that LinkedIn has one of the most robust profile settings that you can actually of a social
media network. So on LinkedIn, like you can literally go in, go to your profile, which lot of people don't play around with, and you can enable your profile visibility to set it to all right, because I think as soon as you create your profile, it's set to only your first connections. So first connection is like, let's say I'm connected to you. A second connection is say I'm connected to you, but I'm not connected to Rashad, right, So that would be a second connection, and a third connection
would be like a third degree away from that. So someone that Rashad is connected to but I'm not connected to, so that's a third connection. So what you can do on LinkedIn is set that to be visible to everybody, so anyone who sees your profile can actually look at your stuff because if not, they won't be able to see that. So on the setting side, and then also letting people know that you're open to opportunities.
So what is linked to all right? So LinkedIn for anybody that's not familiar is like it's like a resume. You go in there, you type your whole resume, like where you went to school, what your previous jobs were, your work experience, and you put a picture up and that's like what it is.
Right, So picture is important too, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, picture, So yeah, it's quality a lot of people.
You can use for a lot of different things, but a lot of people use it to find jobs or to improve their Like they might be at one job, but they want to network up and go to a higher level job.
Right.
So that's why a lot of recruiters are on LinkedIn because they're constantly recruiting people for different jobs. So there's a service called LinkedIn Premium.
Yeah, so there's LinkedIn Premium. So LinkedIn has a full suite of options, premium options, just for the actual job seeker. So there's LinkedIn Premium, which I kind of talk about, and then there's also LinkedIn solutions for business owners which you can do to kind of enable that sales growth or your brand awareness. So you can also advertise on LinkedIn as well. So a lot of people don't know
about that. It's a huge market outside of just your regular Instagram or YouTube because you really think about advertising on LinkedIn as well.
Right, So what is LinkedIn?
Like? All right?
So like profile, what's done?
So LinkedIn Profinder is a platform that LinkedIn created and it really monetizes, you know, its members, and so what LinkedIn Profiler will do is it will literally send you leads on a daily basis from a certain category. So all right, so let's say you want to be a pro on LinkedIn. What you need to do is to construct your profile in a way that's going to say hey, I'm a pro. So from your title, to your summary,
to your skill sets. And when you're also putting all that in and building out your profile, you want to make sure that you're putting that you're a full time freelancer or a full time business owner. Right. So LinkedIn profile is only for professionals in a certain category. Whether it's resume riding, or let's say you own a law firm, whether you own a marketing agency. You can get on
profinder and start ticket leads. Literally, LinkedIn will send you tons of leads for that leads like for people looking for jobs, for people on its platform looking for opportunities. So profinders more so on the business side. So let's say you're a business so I'm on linked profilder, I'm a pro. They will literally send me leads based off
of a certain criteria. So let's say you googled digital marketing services, right, LinkedIn profile will pop up and say, hey, we can connect you with professionals on our platform, and then they'll do like a small intake form. They'll put a little bit information and then LinkedIn will send you that.
It's like an application tracking system, like depending on the word I put in, it'll come back to you.
So it's more so for if you're a business owner and you're trying to grow your business. So this is more so on the on the business side. Right, So you're so you're a professional, so you have a regular profile and you're a professional and it shows a hey like I do this, and LinkedIn will then simulate, so similar to like fever or upwork, orthumbtack dot com. You know they will literally send you leads and then you can go ahead and continuous conversations. That's more so on the business side.
So like if somebody is a resume writer like yourself, erners what's up?
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And somebody is looking to revamp their resume, absolutely, LinkedIn will send you the resume writer that person's contact information. Yeah, so you already know that that person is in the market for your services because they already.
Expressed contact form. Right. And it's not just resume. There's about thirty or forty different service on there, from bookkeeping to real estate. I think there's real estate attorneys on their real estate agents. Everything's on LinkedIn. So it's a great way for you to also expand and to get more leads from what you might be doing.
Ready, how do they know? Like all right, how do they know somebody wants a resume written? Like they have keywords? So they have like questionnaire.
So it's pretty interesting on LinkedIn because on LinkedIn what's happened is a lot of people there for jobs. Right, So let's say you're looking for a job as a senior financial analyst in the actual jobs tab, it will pop up as you're sifting through jobs, Hey do you want a resume rider? Are you looking to revamp your resume? If they click on that, it will then take them to fill out all the swallow like intake form which
will then intend to the pros. So it's almost like a process where like if you need something, hey, I have somebody for you, so you.
Just sit back and wait all day. Wow, that's dope, genius. How much does that cost?
So? LinkedIn profinder is about sixty dollars for the premium members, which isn't expensive, right because they'll continuously send you leads depending on the service that you're on there for. But then it does scale up because again you can do premium or you can also have like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is also a great tool for a B to B What sales Navigator So LinkedIn's Sales Navigator is essentially a platform where you can go on LinkedIn and you
can save leads. So a lot of people only see LinkedIn like free version right, which is like the regular dashboard you get on there. You can edit your profile, you can apply to jobs. But LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which can go on there is a separate dashboard and you can save accounts. What will also do is recommend you lead. So let's say you're in the business of selling software, right, so you have a Sales Navigator account, and let's say you know your boss is like, hey, we want to
target XYZ companies. You can literally put those companies in and it will literally send you a curated feed of information on that company, on the people. So let's say those folks are posting content, It'll send that for you. You can save leads, share it with your other team members to really empower your like your B to B process of like you prospecting and reaching out. So it's a great way to say, Okay, hey, I'm looking to expand in this category. In twenty twenty, like you can
easily find and save the leads. So it's a great way to what is LinkedIn salary. LinkedIn salary is pretty interesting. It's like a tool where you can essentially go on there and run salary boards, so similar to so there's a few websites like payscale, dot Com, claus Store a lot of you guys might might know about, but LinkedIn
salary is a similar service. So you can go there and say, hey, I'm looking to be a product manager for example, right, it will say, okay, what location and what seniority level, and it will literally give you a full blown report on what you should expect to be compensated for that salary because where you're at in the country,
depending where you're at. And that's really important because a lot of times when you're applying to a job like these, these companies are starting to not put salaries on there, so you don't even know what they'll give your range, like, hey, this job pays anywhere from eighty five thousand to one hundred and thirty five thousand, so you see that a lot.
And so with the LinkedIn salary, it will give you a little bit more of an accurate representation based off of what people on they're saying, Hey, this is why I get paid.
So how does somebody make their profile more attractive for recruiters if they are looking to leave their job or find a new job with things that nature.
Yeah, so that's that's really important. So in terms of making your profile more tractive, and it's not just for people who are looking for jobs, but also have any business owner, your profile needs to talk about your accomplishments, and you need a really good summary. So a lot of people don't don't kind of skip over that or on your LinkedIn you may not even have a summary. So you really want to focus on your accomplishments, maybe putting some of like your core competencies or areas of
expertise out there. So let's say someone sees your profile, they'll quickly understand what you're about. It's almost like the first third, like before I go down and like actually eat and kind of see like everything else, Like I want to know like what's up, like as as soon as you get there.
So all right, what if somebody is looking for a job and they don't want to let their job know.
That they're looking for a job, how do you keep that proud.
How does that happen?
Yeah, So what you can do on the LinkedIn side is pretty cool. You can signal to LinkedIn that all of your profile updates will be in stealth. So in the profile settings kind of said that before, like then have some of the most robust settings. What you can do is turn all those those updates to your network off and so that way you can update your profile kind of in stealth mode. And that way it won't signal to your employer, right because you don't want them knowing, Hey,
I'm looking for thy Yeah, because you know we don't. Yes, it's not something.
That's what we're looking for new person to hire. Now, I know Facebook has groups LinkedIn do they have groups as well? And if so, like what's the importance in them and commenting and things like that.
Yes, So engagement on LinkedIn is huge, right, Like you for you to kind of grow your audience and your connections your networks, you're definitely going to be on their posting content, liking, commenting, things like that. But with the LinkedIn groups, I mean it's a great way for you to go ahead and build a tribe in an audience. So it's a great feature. It's been around for a while.
So I'm in a few groups in the resume riding space, so you can get like a whole bunch of people together who have a similar commonality or interest and kind of grow that. Similar to Facebook groups, I use them a lot, and it's a great way to if you're on LinkedIn all day every day, to kind of keep your your network you know, together and kind of keep
them updated. So I think that groups are are a great option, but it just depends on like what you're look for, what you're looking to do, because there needs to be value. You don't just want to join a group where they're just self promoting. So that kind of happens a lot nowadays, like they're just promoting, you know, themselves. But a group should really be something where everybody's getting value out of the content that's being created.
And how important is it or how frequent should you be creating consent or making posts for LinkedIn.
Oh every day? I mean, it depends on what you're looking for. But I've seen that people even posting their resume on LinkedIn saying hey, you know, I don't have a job, like can someone connect me? And that's get two hundred three hundred likes, which is huge because LinkedIn's reach is very organic though, so it's not like Instagram and Facebook where you got to really pay to get like organic views and things like that. And so yeah, I think that's really really good. I never thought of that.
So, like when somebody's putting like a memeo on Instagram, somebody on LinkedIn is actually putting up like I need a job, here's my resume.
Yeah, you can put up have a job. Or you can also just put like updates to like you can put like company events or photos, different things like that. So it's really a professional network. So there's a different level of content i'd say etiquette that you would take on LinkedIn. Then Facebook and the culture.
Another thing with LinkedIn a lot of times, well, something that I learned early on is that so like in my business as a financial advisor, the lifeline is referrals. That's how we get clients. That's how I get clients. So that's a difficult thing for a lot of people because they don't know, they don't have a system to
get referrals. LinkedIn is a way that you can get referrals where you can you know, if you're mutual friends with somebody on LinkedIn, you can do You can look at who they're connected with and say, okay, like this is a person that I definitely want to meet. So a lot of times you ask somebody for referrals. The worst thing you can do, and this is a sales tip anybody, the worst thing you can do in sales is to say who do you know to refer me to?
They don't know anybody. You gotta be specific, like, Okay, this is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for somebody that just had a baby, that just got married. Who do you know?
Now that helps.
But now if you have a list, like if you know I want to meet Wayne Johnson, who's the vice president at this company, I know you know them because you're connected. So don't say you don't know exactly. How can you introduce me to them? Put them on the spot. You gotta put them on and then you print the list out and you bring it with you and you have an uncomfortable conversation. This is the thing about referrals. It's going off a little topic, but it's it's it's
business related. You have to have uncomfortable conversations when it comes to referrals. Referrals are extremely we haven't talked about referrals yet. There's no business without referrals. It's the biggest thing in the world. And people are so scared to ask for referrals because nobody wants to be People are just scared, like they're just like, I don't want to I already I already made some money. I don't want to screw it up, right, But you make money once.
That's not enough. You got to have a system in place where you can make money on a continuous basis. The easy way to do it that as referrals. So you have to have a referral system in place. And LinkedIn is a powerful way to have a referral system because it has people that you can already reach out to and you can present them in the meeting, the closing meeting, and you can ask them, I need to be introduced to this person. Can you can you do it? Yeah?
And that's what LinkedIn was for its It's really a networking tool. And the best way to network is when someone knows I can trust you and say and if I know that you have a connection, it shouldn't be that hard for you to make the intro, and that's all you're really looking for. Another thing on LinkedIn to kind of speaking on that whole referral piece is recommendations, and on LinkedIn, it's a really robust way for you to show someone that you know your your craft is
by getting recommendations. You can actually send those out to people, which is even great. You know, even if it's like friends and family, you know, you can start to establish credibility. And then with the credibility when you are reaching out to referrals, people can then see, hey, like this person knows a lot about this subject.
They beat that in my head. LinkedIn, They beat that in my head. That's why I'm so adamant about LinkedIn. It's like when I became a financial advisor for three years, I had to go to training three days a week at the firm I was working with, and that's all they talked about with LinkedIn, like they were in love
with LinkedIn. I'm like, I never even heard of LinkedIn before, but apparently everybody was using it, and they just kept being ahead, like you got to use LinkedIn like LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, So don't sleep on LinkedIn people. It's something that like I said, especially in our community, a lot of times we don't understand the power of it. There's not as sexy, it's not as cool as Facebook, or well, not Facebook, but Instagram for sure. It's not exciting at all.
But guy's purpose, it has his purpose. Yeahs outa say.
The last thing about LinkedIn is that even on Instagram they have hashtags. How effective are hashtags and LinkedIn audio effective at all?
Yeah? Very very very effective. And you know, unlike Instagram and kind of Facebook, when you go on LinkedIn, you should really only use about four to five hashtags and keep them very specific to the content that you're going to post about. So for me, I post a lot of content about like employment or resumes or interviewing. But if I'm only going to post the content about let's say resumes, I'm not going to say hashtag interview. I'm
going to keep it really specific. Because what you can also do is have your post trending in a specific hashtag,
and then LinkedIn will actually let you know. So let's say you post a really great content, whether it's an article, a blog, or a short form long form, and you have some really good hashtags, people literally like they will literally like like constantly review hashtags and actually go in there and say, hey, like I'm going to follow hashtag and it's like it's like similar to Instagram, where like you might follow hashtag, but are you really liking this stuff?
On LinkedIn? The engagement is huge for hashtags. So you definitely want to post content that people will resonate with. And yeah, I think there was that that said like one percent of people on LinkedIn actually post content, So you being part of that one percent is great because you're getting it out there. There's a lot of lurkers on social media and the internet in general, right, so you want to be on that side.
So resumes, right, going off with LinkedIn, a couple questions just on resumes because you have a resume writing company, So how can somebody improve their resume? This is something that is not easy. I've never I've never had a resume before. I've had a bunch, so I've never had a resume before.
But for a resume, the resume thing.
Is big obviously if you're looking to have a job, right, what is some ways that people can I know you said.
Like keywords, keywords are huge?
What does that mean?
Keywords means that there are certain things in your resume that will resonate with the recruiters searches. Right, So any recruiter they're running certain researches on you know, these different job boards to kind of find your resume and for you to pop up as a candidate. And so if you have the right keywords in your resume, you will get picked up. So it's almost like SEO and search right, right, Yeah, so it's almost like the same concept.
So what are some keywords?
So the keywords will depend on your industry, So there's no one size fits all resume, and that's a really distinct education for example. Yeah, education for example, So you may want to put something like you know, uh forever, well what type of education rule because it does events, Oh, you know what administration administration, So you want to put like some of your executive assisting capabilities, might want to
put that you do whether it's like bookkeeping. But you got to keep it specific to like your actual skill sets and the roles, so you don't just want to stuff keywords in there that are just going that you see on the jobscriptions. A lot of people do that the read a job descriptions and say hey, like I saw this, let me just put in my resume. But you want to make sure that it's going to resonate with the skill sets that you do have. So it
really just depends. Like let's say you're in the technology field, you may want to put like software development on there, right, engineering. So it really does depend on the actual resume because it goes by the industry. You can't just say, hey, you know, I want to get a job as a as a teacher, but you have like you just put everything on there. Because people are multifaceted.
What about the standard length or a lesbie Because I've seen people hand in five page resumes, I've seen two page What is the standard list?
So I'm going to give you answer that they don't want to hear. What is it? It depends, It depends. But the rule of thumb for us is that we want to keep your resume to one page. And the reason that we want to do that is because we want to be more concise with like the formatting, the structure, and how we organize it. But let's say you're like an executive or you have fifteen twenty years or experience, we may offer the two pay dress may but we definitely don't want to do a three pay dress. Maye
like three page resumes. They don't work anything more than in two pages. You're kind of shooting yourself in the foot. All right, what are some things that should not be on it? What definitely should never be on your resume? Definitely not an objective statement. I don't know where these
things came from. Objective I had that so we know, definitely, any employer is going to know that you're looking for a job, so we can cut the objective statement right out right out the gate, right you even going through of applying like they know, hey, like you're qualified for the role. So you don't feel don't want an objective statement. That's number one. Number two is you don't want a photo on your resume because what it will do is
it will throw off the ATS systems. So ATS system stands for Applicant Tracking System, and it's the system that all the modern recruiters and hire managers are using to sift through the dozens, if not you know, hundreds of applications that they're getting for these actual roles. And so how it works is that the ATS system is kind of parsing your resume. So let's say you're you upload
it on zip recruiter or career buildler. It's literally parsing to see, Okay, does this resume have an edge cation section? Does the resume have a professional experience section? Skills section? And so a lot of them are pretty outdated and they're not, you know, really built to process photos, and so the photo can throw it off. And say, let's say where your education would be, like a will have your your skills there, and so you don't really want to have a photo on there because they would just
throw that off. Right. It's it's kind of.
When when you talk about the skills secsion. I was reading somewhere and like, there's no need to no longer put that I know how to use Microsoft Word or outlook, Like these are soft skills that.
Should not even be mentioned anymore. Is that true? Well, it depends because for certain for certain fields, Let's say you're on the creative side, like I would definitely put like Adobe Suite. But yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely. You know, it's a common known that everybody typically knows how to
use Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Yeah, it's like basic skill sets that you should have for any job, and if you don't have them, definitely, you know, go download you know, Microsoft Suite or Google Suite and kind of play around with those tools because it's really hind to man.
All right. So in the last segment, we're gonna go into what I'm really interested to know is your business. I want to know the one on one of the business and how you actually grew so fast because it's been a very fast trajectory for you. So we're gonna go with everything that you know, the blueprint. All right, So business, This is a business podcast, so we got to talk about how you're building your business. So, all right, you started with something called omni channel approach to get leads.
Yeah, what is that? So? Omni channel marketing is essentially an I'm the channe of business, is essentially going after multiple avenues to get business. Right. So everybody has and as you should have for any business, is a website. Your website is like, you know, your one stop shop for everything about your business. Right, So you would get a lot of leads from your website. If you're just getting organic traffic, you're sending it to a friend like, hey,
I started this business, check it out. That's number one. Number two is that you also want to be on other platforms, right, So for us, there's a lot of platforms that you can find resume riders. So I mentioned before upwork, which is huge. So upwork is one of the larger freelancing sites out there, so creating it, we have an account created on upwork. We also get leads from LinkedIn, so I mentioned that before. LinkedIn is a huge way because again with the profinder stuff, they're constantly
sending us leads. We also are on Google Ads, right, so we're getting revenue and kind of leads coming from Google and then essentially just finding out other touch points, whether it's referrals, blogs that were on other podcasts, there's different ways. So we kind of have an omni channel approach in terms of getting leads for the business and that and that's what really allowed us to grow, right because when we first started, we were literally we just
had a website. And that's great because if you tell someone or someone like find you through organic search, you know you can you can make a sale. But yeah, having that omni channel approach and just having more ways for customers to find you, I think I think was the key. So it's like, yeah, you can find it on the website. But also, hey, let's say someone want to LinkedIn first, they can also find us.
So when you had Brandon not branded, we had resumes dot co. It was just you writing the resumes brand resumes?
Now is it you? Who else is doing it? Yeah? So brand resumes. We have a team of about twenty two right now, so about sixteen seventeen resume riders on staff with the chief resume writers, so I kind of review all the resumes that come in and out. We have like a software engineer who works on the back end stuff, and then like some other virtual assistance.
So yeah, you have twenty two resume writers.
Seventeen resume riders a team of twenty two.
So are they like freelance?
Yeah, so everybody's a freelancers. So that's really the model is to. Is that I realized really early on, is that hey, you know, I would love to be able to hire as much full time resume writers as I could, right because that way you know that it's consistency, right, because you don't want to have to worry about Let's say you wake up tomorrow, you get a ton of new waters and the freelancers like, hey, like I can't work or I'm not available, or hey, I chose to
like quit freelancing. You know, you're kind of dead in the water. But at the same time, the more freelancers that you do have, like you kind of have a bigger pool of people to choose from. So a lot of our resume writers are freelancers, and it's a great model for them because we bring everything as brand resumes. We do the sales, we do the marketing, we handle the payment costs. You literally just have to do the actually do the resume, and then we'll manage the entire
process and we also give you the process. What's the turnaround ton so the so the turnaround time is about five to seven business days from the time that you purchase a service at Brand Resumes, which is faster than our competitors. So, believe it or not, some people take two weeks, three weeks to do a resume. I'm telling you. You know, you're looking for a job. You're like and you want a new resume, and someone's like, hey, i'll give it to you back in two three weeks. Na,
a lot can happen in two weeks. You can a lot of opportunities can get passed up in two weeks if you're not able to apply with a good resume. And what would happen is sometimes people say, hey, well, you know, like in the meantime, should I apply to the jobs with what I have? Quick answer no, right, like if you're if you're a document if you aren't confident in your document? Right, because your resume is really
like a marketing tool. It's a powerful marketing tool that's used to sell who you are to the hirements and what the analulgy that I like to use is look, the hiring manager and the recruiter, they're the buyer. You as a candidate, you're the You're the product. So you want to you know, apply with like that, with that best you know, professional look on there.
So all right, so walk me through this process. I'm trying to I'm trying to find a job, right, I want to be an account What do I like? How do you write my resume? Do I tell you? Is it like a pre written like a questionnaire thing online? Like and then from those questions somebody writes it, or do I have to come with something written already and you revise it? Like how is it done.
Yeah, So there's so there's a few different approaches in the resume writing world. Like sometimes so there's a questionnaire process that we use, and I'll kind of get into that. Sometimes resume writers like to do phone interviews, so you'll get on the phone and you will kind of talk about everything that's going on, and they'll record the conversation and go back to it afterwards. What I realized by doing that in the beginning is that that's not really
the most efficient process per se for resident writing. So we do so we do opt for the questionnaire. So all right, so let's say you came to us and say, hey, I want to become an accountant. I done some internships, or let's say I'm looking at transition from as a teacher.
You just know that's what you want to do. We would literally take whatever you have, right, so your resume, or if you don't have one, will create it from scratch, and we really want to focus on your accomplishments, your success stories, and your key achievements, right because it's really about what you've done. A company doesn't care about what you can do because they're assuming that you can do the job, but it's about how are you better than everybody else? How can we show your story? And how
can we and how can we connect with that? Right? So we'll go ahead, We'll take your resume, we will work with you closely to rewrite it. So we do we actually do the writing. You give us the information up front, and we'll literally craft your story for you.
Okay, And so all right, so okay, give the story, you craft it for me. I get to see it or that's like once it's done's done.
No. So there's a very a very collaborative process. So we would literally give you a draft resume, right, and you would be able to rate it say hey, you know this is excellent, ready to finalize? Hey this is good, Hey this is bad? And based off of your initial feedback, we would then continue to retweek it through some revisions to make sure that we're putting it in the best
light for you. Right, But you sign off on the resume. So, and it's pretty awesome because a lot of times the resume writers are like, hey, if you work with us, you have one or two revisions. We have unlimited revisions until you say, hey, I'm ready to sign off.
So I'll get the final draft and then what now, it's like, I got to go find a job.
We'll like, do y'all helping that process too? Yeah? Absolutely, So Brand Resumes. We are a resume writing and career advancement service. And I like the notion of end career advancement because the resume writing is not what we do. It's really the core of your job search. You want to have an amazing resume. You also want to have a really good LinkedIn, right. But what we also do is something called resume distribution. So we can literally take your resume and post it up to sixty of the
top job boards in an automated fashion. So what we're telling you depending on my industry, Yeah, depending on the industry. So I'm telling you, Hey, you're looking for education jobs, we know all ed catching job boards. Hey you're looking for a tech job, we know all the tech job boards. So instead of you sitting there and researching that we know what those are. We can post your resume. Right,
how do you guys know? So through the questionnaire. So through the questionnaire process, we know exactly what you're looking for. And when we also do something that I really like is something called target jobs at Booster, and we apply the jobs on your behalf. So let's say you're working nine to five or you're looking at get kind of get out of your current role, but you just don't have the time, you don't want to apply the jobs while you're at work. We take that burden off of you.
That's dope. So I really like the idea of it's like custom made suit, like you know, like you're going for if anybody's got a suit made, like you just don't get a suit like they do your measurements first, and then you go on for the first fitting and then it's like second fitting, sometimes even a third fitting, because the first fitting is like it might not fit properly, so then they got to bring the suit in they got to make some changes to it. So that's pretty
much what you're doing with the resume. Yeah, not just like pumping them out like you're like saying, Okay, how do you like this? We need to tweak this, we need to do this, and then when they get it, they are fully confident that it's to the best of them.
Right, They're confident, and typically when they see the draft, they're they're like they're literally in love. They're like, wow, like I wasn't. I didn't know what I was expecting, because you think about a new resume, like there's a lot of different ideas that we floating in your head about what that might look like. But clients are typically really happy when they see the actual draft resume we go through to finalize it, and then we take it
and say, hey, let's post it up. Let's try and get you some some tracks in your job search.
So for I'm a business standpoint, the writers do they get mad, like they're like, I got to rewrite this thing again, Like how does that work?
So we've built a pretty efficient process around revisions, right, so before you know it was all it was actually all all all email based. And a key thing that I want to talk about is just understanding your process. So when we first started with resumes dot Com, with brandsumes dot Com, it was all manual. So we literally had just like a regular Google Drive and that's where we handled all of our orders. But what we did is we built a platform to manage the entire order
process that the clients go through now. And so in that process when they do get the od draft resume, we have a box that says, hey, give us your revision request. So they're very target and specific with exactly what they want to do, like change this, change that, right, so we know exactly how we need to edit the
resume for the client. Due that cuts down on the time absolutely exactly because you can go back and forth like six seven times and now we know exactly what you want to fix, let's fix it.
It's an investment and resume. I mean, in this environment, it's a competitive environment for people coming out of college. People that's not only you know, the hardest people to find jobs is on people that's transitioning, Like they might be like forty to fifty and they've worked at a
company for like twenty and thirty years. Like I have clients that like get laid off and it's like you've been at one company for thirty years and you're fifty years old, and you know, employers are probably hire somebody that's twenty two cause they could pay them a lot or less. Absolutely, so now it's like, yeah, you're in a tough spot. And so any advantage that you can that you can give yourself in the job world if you're looking for a job is an.
Yeah, and there's even published statistics so on professional resume riding firms and how you know, with a new crafted resume you can sometimes get a twenty to thirty percent salary increase or bump by just having you know, a good resume that's going to get you to that to that next level, right, because sometimes like you're in a role and you may be qualified for a promotion, but you just don't know because they're not just going to come you say, hey, we're gonna we're gonna just pay
you more. But with the new resume, you can go out and apply to different roles and you should get some traction.
So so based on when you get the final revision and you put it on the job boards, is my resume shooting to the top of the job board?
Do you know? Is there any guarantee on that? So your resume, So it depends, right, because the recruiting is really driven by the recruiters and the hire managers. They're the ones who are actually going to the job boards
and pulling resumes. But the thing is, if if you're not showing up, then you can't be seen, right, So if you're not even on the job boards and you don't even have an opportunity to have your resume pulled, and the fact that you're applying for it helps in that process exactly because now you're up on multiple job boards. And so sometimes the way it works is that recruiters will have individual relationships with different job boards. So let's say a recruiter is posting a job to zip recruiter
and LinkedIn. But let's say they're not on Glass or for example, right, But the more job boards that you're on as an applicant, you have more visibility because let's say a recruiter is a partner with this job board and that job board, and then they can find you.
Gotcha, gotcha do a lot of services. Man, Yeah, it's good. How'd you grow so fast?
Like?
How did that? It just all just do with different avenues of advertising.
Well, I would say that we had a lot of organic growth, one through word of mouth. As soon as we started, people started talking about us a lot like hey, like I was able to We had a lot of early success stories, i'd say, which was huge. So we started creating videos on you know, client saying hey, I got a new resume, and then within two months I'm getting tons of hit ups on LinkedIn. Recruiters actually reach out to candidates too, so we got a lot of
word of mouth from just no recent referrals. And then when we started to pick up on Profinder, I said, hey, I need to duplicate myself. So I'm not just on Profinder, but my entire team is on Profinder as well. And so when you look at getting leads are higher, team is getting leads for the resume writing services as well, which is which is really impactful.
Your pricing option is something that separates you as well. Yeah, talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely, And so with the we have pretty strategic pricing because we do offer all of our services standalone, but there's this huge power in packages, and so what
we do is we literally bundle. We say, hey, you know, you can do a resume, you can do a LinkedIn and will also give you a free thinking note letter of template, which is huge because when you do start getting these interviews, you want to say thank you, right, that's a rule of thumb, Like any interview that you go on, you should definitely be saying thank you afterwards. And there's a really you know, interesting way that you should be doing that. Hey, this is the model that's free.
So with the packages people can kind of go in and I quickly identify. Another key thing that I would say why we grew so fast is that we clients can identify with our services. Right. So, back when we're doing resumes dot co, someone would come to us and say I need a resume, would say okay. But now it's like we specialize in a few different industries, so we really you know, do resumes in tech achnology all day every day, marketing, legal, sales, HR education, right, so
some of the faster growing industries. And so when people come to our website, they quickly identify and then they see a package that really works for them, and then they end up a purching it. But before they purchase the package, we have essentially like a consultation process. So with the consultation process, which I feel like is huge
for any services based business. You should have some type of consultation process, whether it's like fifteen minute intro calls or thirty minute calls, to really understand your customer and be able to tell them about what's going on. And I think that's what really differentiates ourselves. When clients get on the call to learn about our services, we tell them everything they have complete visibility into the process, the next steps, and what they should expect. So it's a
no brainer. So I'm telling you, look, if this is good for you, these are the prices, and then they connect within it and then they typically purchase. I just had a conversation with my colleague.
Son is home from college and he's trying to get a job, and she was like, his resume sucks. I was like, funny, I got an interview today with a guy. Maybe actually let you meet him.
Real thing. It's a real thing. And like I said, I mean, I'm blessed to never have a resume, but no, it's very blessed, but the vast majority of everybody at one point has to put to the other resume. And it's like, once again one of these things where you don't really learn about.
It in school, definitely, and you just.
Kind of wing it. You google or you try to you know, you got to hire somebody to help you, and it's like you don't want to play around with something that your career is riding on. True, it's like, if you think about it like that, it's like a couple hundred dollars could potentially, you know, save you hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially.
Imagine if you're being underpaid for a role and you don't even know about it. That's another thing that hurts. And I see that a lot some contests and say, hey, I'm only getting paid fifty thousand dollars and I know through LinkedIn salary, through those different tools, Yeah, you can be getting seventy seventy five for this role. This is a high demand role. What are you doing right, Let's do your resume, put it out there and if you
kind of get some attraction, so that's huge. So one is being underpaid, and he spoke, that's something that's really interesting about you know, having a job for you know, ten fifteen years. Ideally you should open up your resume every six months straight up, like you should really take an assessment of your skill sets, because we are constantly
developing ourselves our professional development. Right six months from now, you may learn some new skill sets, you may work on a strategic project, you might have a new accomplishment. Open your resume and then that's and then you know you should have that on there.
And also even for people that have a job, people by nature are creatures of habit and we're scared of change. So a lot of time people just stay in a job and then just to just stay because they don't want to leave it. But even if you don't get fired, even if you are quote unquote comfortable, you still might want to put your resume out there to see what the possibility about a big toties You might you might be undervalued. Yeah, it happens all the time.
I tell us all the time to my clients. You can be comfortable, but don't be complacent, right, because complacency like if you're sitting there and you know you just you don't you don't want to see what's out there. You just want to stick to what what feels good. You know, you can be passing tons of opportunities by and just by putting yourself out there and just getting an assessment of what you're worth. You should know you're worth right, That's a that's a really basic thing, like
what am I worth? Right? And just knowing that is really powerful because then you can set your price.
Now, it's powerful. Man, Brandon, We appreciate you, man, really really appreciate that. Definitely pride, you know, like I said, I mean, if the vast majority of people have to get resumes done, So why not go to somebody that you can identify with? Why not go to somebody that you know is obviously extremely bright. And this is really the whole platform of earning your leisures that we like to bring our entrepreneurs that not only can you learn from, but you can also support too. So how can they
find information on your website? Your social media handles all the way.
So we're on YouTube, so I have We're putting YouTube contents out every week, and you can find you on YouTube if you just google Brandon Mitchell brand resumes, follow me on LinkedIn. Just type into LinkedIn Brandon Mitchell. I'm gonna be the first results ceo Instagram. Brandon underscored the resume gurule. So I put out a lot of content on not just resumes and LinkedIn, but anything in the employment space, from careers to some of the top things
that you do, and anything related to just careers and deployment. Right, because there's a lot of education that I feel like our community is lacking and I kind of want to bridge that gap and just put it out there.
All right, dope, dope.
We got to give a huge shout out to Patreon, right, like, yeah, shout out to Patreon.
There's a Patreon member who has become an alumni.
Yeah, that's crazy, the first to do it, the first out. Yeah.
Shout out to everybody on Patreon, all our patrons. As you know, we have five tiers. We actually revamped the Patreon for a one year anniversary, so be on the lookout for that.
And shout out to Africa.
Literally before we started taping this, they sent the message and they were like, hey, I love you guys. I'm like, Africa, that's the person's name. Okay, yeah, I'm assuming it's a young lady. But she was asking about how to start a podcast, and I'm like, listen, I'm gonna put the episode out tonight and you'll be able to hear everything. So and we did an early Leisure University course on it, so she or he now has access to that because
they're Tier four members. So shout to everybody on pictreon dot com, everybody that supports it's our Proud to Pay program. You know, Tier four and five members, you have access to earn Leisure University. I ownline school. I am wearing the merch today. Shout out to everybody that's on Early Leasure University. That is our online school. Like I said again, we have courses every week, three times a week. Matt
does his real estate courses on Monday. We have our guest webinars on Wednesdays, and Shotting myself do one on Thursday's business related topics.
So shout everybody.
That's on it and everybody's supporting the merg shout he's wearing the number one shirt Assets of Reliabilities.
That's moving. Yeah, so appreciate y'all.
Yeah, for sure, Yo. University classes back in session. We took a week off for the holidays, but new semester, New semester.
A lot of content coming.
We're in full swing right now. Three days a week. We're up and running. And d I'm not d C. D C was crazy shot out the d C. But Atlanta, Atlanta once again cannot forget you guys. Two days, two to three days. By the time this comes out, you still have a couple couple of each left, probably, and it's gonna be dope, man, It's really gonna be dope experienced. So if you're in town, Brandon will be there. Brandon will be in the building for sure. So we're gonna
have so many alumni it's gonna be ridiculous. So hope to see everybody this weekend for sure. And the book tip of this week is the Trusted Advisor recommended by our guests, so make sure you check that out. We'll see you guys next week. Peace, Peace,