Your Humility Needs to Exceed Your Ability with Kelvin Joseph

He is a sports marketing guru, American Advertising Federation trendsetter, LinkedIn marketing influencer. I'm sure many of you have seen this because he has amazing content. He's a motivational speaker, top relationship builder, and was the CEO COO and CMO at Signer Sports and is now the CEO of Cool Kell Marketing. This is Tales From the Pros, where business leaders and influencers share their stories of inspiration, struggles, and successes. And I'm your host, Michael Georgiou.

Please welcome Kelvin Joseph. Kelvin, I appreciate you being here with me today, man. I I I know you're very, very busy, and thanks for the time to, talk with me.

We didn't even make it to the hospital. A real humble beginnings. And the reality is is that when I went to to college, I couldn't just major in marketing or I had to major in, like, a major that could definitely get me a job. So I started off I majored in accounting. That was, the major I chose in college, and I met a lot of great people and made a lot of great connections.

There was a organization called Inroads that helps talented minorities, get prepared for community leadership and roles in corporate America. And they helped me get a job at one of the largest accounting firms in the world when I was 19 years old, and that's where I built my foundation. And the funny thing was is that I'm at one of the largest accounting firms in the world, I'm a a CPA at 21 years old, and I actually, was there for a few years and built my foundation, but people thought I was crazy. People thought I was crazy when I left, because I left that role to become a shoe salesman. You?

You took a role at the at one of the largest accounting firms in the world to become a shoe salesman? But the reality is is that my wife and I, we took $10,000, and we built Samantha Shoes, which is focused on helping women that love shoes but wear larger sizes. There's no shoes for women if their their shoe size is above a size 10. So so we took the $10,000 and built it into a multimillion dollar business. And that's when, I didn't look so silly at that time because I was on Inc Magazine 30 Under 30, the same year as Mark Zuckerberg.

He was number 4.

So I went from getting, like, a $100,000 purchase order every month to, like, 0. Then all the independent, retailers went out of business. You I mean, you can't find a shoe store anymore. Like, even department stores, you could, they're being bought and sold just for their real estate now. So Right.

The retail landscape has changed tremendously. So so I had to run back to corporate America. I didn't get a bailout, you know? So I ran back to corporate America and I I ran strategy at Saks Fifth Avenue and financial infrastructure for Gil Group and then last 9 years, as a CMO and COO at at the largest sports marketing company in the world, as well as, Steiner Sports is owned by Omnicom, which is the largest marketing and advertising conglomerate in the world. So the reality is now at Cool Kell Marketing, I'm not afraid anymore.

Like, when when when things got rough for my start up, I ran and hid in corporate America because I was afraid. Nobody is sending me any bailout money. It was I had to deal with all the issues that some bigger companies didn't have to deal with. So now at Cool Kell Marketing, I'm not afraid anymore. I'm helping CEOs, grow their sales and build their businesses, and using all my lessons learned from being an entrepreneur and being, in corporate America.

And I'm helping CEOs grow their sales without fear. I love it.

So the company went from, like, 0 to a 100,000,000 really, really quickly. And reality of it is I didn't like working 80 hours a week at a startup that wasn't my own startup. Right? If I'm gonna work 80, a 100 hours a week, I need to be doing that for myself. Mhmm.

So so An opportunity came up where Steiner Sports actually needed someone to do what I did at Saks Fifth Avenue, which is come in, take over their various departments, starting with the accounting finance department, then operations, then sales, and just, reorganize the entire company. So I came in initially in the accounting department, and then I rose through the ranks, 1st to CFO and and then I was the CMO and COO there. So it was a really great experience, and I think the reality of it is for those that are listening, it's important to be really good at what you do so you have more choices, more options because you could you could have a dream job, but the dream won't become a reality if if you're not sought after, if you're not wanted. I mean, you could want them, but they might not want you. Right.

Right.

You're a CMO for a large company. You're pretty much wearing a probably wearing a lot of hats now, at your own at your own company. So with your sales experience and marketing experience, how do you combine both of those to achieve your business goals? How do you combine your marketing and sales tactics to achieve goals? Because, you know, they're it's like sale people get confused with sales and marketing.

You know, I I I know they're obviously different. That's why they're one sales and one's marketing. Right? But they both tie in. They both work together. So how how do you leverage both of your skills to achieve goals for your company now?

So there's a lot of waste and efficiency when your top marketing person's getting fired or leaving because they see the writing on the wall, and then the agency's out. There's a lot of disruption in the world today. But my take on it is this, if decision makers CEOs are obsessed with business outcomes, I focus on delivering those outcomes. I mean, if they wanna grow their sales, then there are some marketing tactics that you have to put in play in order to increase sales. So you need to connect those dots.

That's the most important thing that I do because most of us are in a relationship. People need to know us, so that's awareness, they need to like us, and then they need to trust us, and then maybe they might buy something. And some people try to skip that process of awareness, ability, trust, and marketing can really help with that, but we need to connect those dots after we develop that brand awareness. I call it the cool. It's like, your company needs to be cool.

And people are like, what are you talking about cool? Like, listen, I think business is more like high school than it's like college. In college, it's like, listen, I I need to get some good grades, I need to get an internship so I can have a good resume, so I can get a job. Right? Business, it's more like high school, where it's like, listen, I wanna be cool, so I could, so I could have a shot at the pretty girls, and I could have a lot of friends, and have a lot of fun.

That's more like what high school's like. So I think the connection between that is in the business world, when you're trying to reach out to companies or you wanna be that hot brand that people love, you need to think back to high school, it wasn't based upon only just merit, the cool kids, so to speak, It was based upon something that's hard to put a finger on. It's not corny, but it's it's something that's authentic, that's real, but at at the same time, you have to have something about you that's unique. Your brand needs to be unique, that draws people, so you're not chasing after people. And I think that's the key thing where marketing and sales can connect, where you build that cool, you build that thing about you that draws people.

And some companies skip that part and try to go straight to sales, and they lose.

Right? Someone who's interested in potentially buying from you. So these people that are potential buyers, they're coming to you because they trust you. You're you, you're Kelvin. They they like your content. They like what you represent. They like your message. It's authentic. It's real. It's raw.

And they see, okay, you work at you're the CEO of Cool Kell Marketing. Perfect. Like, I like this guy. I'm gonna I'm I'm interested in doing marketing for my company. Let me reach out to him and see see what can happen here.

You know, and that's the thing I think a lot of people miss, is that when they're building and I've talked to a lot of different start ups as well, and and they're all about they're trying to reach out reach out reach out reach out, cold call, cold email. You know, they're always reaching out, and a lot of that stuff doesn't work. And it's because you're trying it's outbound. You're trying to get them to buy. You're trying to sell them.

You're trying to get them to buy on the wrong time, on the on the wrong dime, and and it's not authentic. Instead of building a brand, and you know, Gary Vaynerchuk talk Gary Vaynerchuk talk talks about this all the time as well is that you're it's you wanna create this inbound process. And it seems like that's what you're doing and that's what you're about. Is that right?

And you would never do that in high school. You wouldn't go up to the pretty girl and say, hi, my name's Kelvin. I really think you're you're pretty, will you go out to the the prom with me? I mean, it wouldn't work like that. You would you would work through all kind of back channels to get to get noticed and and you would you would build. You wouldn't just go for the kill right away.

I think on LinkedIn, a good, connection account has about 2,000, so 37,000 is pretty good.

It could be if it was a 1,000 people would be pretty good. You gotta start somewhere because I can't even handle a 1000 customers. So I definitely can't handle 37,000. So so it is an amazing, thing that I'm very proud of. But when you want to connect with people, sometimes it seems to be unauthentic if you say something like, hi. You know, my name is Kelvin. Can I pick your brain? Blah blah blah. I don't want my brain to be picked. I don't wanna start a relationship.

I I don't trust you. You're saying, I know you really want something, and you instead of asking for what you actually want, you're asking to pick my brain. Like, I don't want my brain picked. So the reality of it is this, you gotta come into the situation not from scarcity, but you need to come from a position of abundance and just say, listen. Hey.

Hey, Kelvin. You know, I have this podcast, and it's gonna be really cool for you to come on this podcast, and, you know, this is how it's gonna be cool for you. You know? At the end of the day, that is cool. I I want people to to to start giving at first, and maybe you won't get anything back in return, but the reality is this, is that there's a happiness that comes with giving, but on top of that, if you play the numbers game, and every day I'm giving to 50 people every day, and I only need one of those people to reciprocate, then I'm not so thirsty and transactional in my relationship, my relationships are deep and they are authentic.

Do you think it's it's what what are your thoughts on connect connecting with people, like on LinkedIn, for example? LinkedIn is a we both use probably daily. So with LinkedIn, for example, is it better to connect with them via LinkedIn first, or is it good to to find a way to sit down with them? What are your kind of your thoughts on that? Or you think there's a there's a process for that?

And then, like, immediately, everybody didn't do it, but I got, like, a 1000 people that did. So I got a 1000 new connections that day. I knew everybody in that room was a decision maker that, you know, that was in that room for a particular reason. So in that situation, I didn't necessarily meet all those people personally, but I spoke in front of them, but for people that are on LinkedIn and you might not know anyone, there's definitely, networking events across the country that people can attend to know people. The best thing for you to also understand is that usually decision makers don't go to networking events, because people that are at networking events are usually people that are in sales, that are trying to sell something or or build their brand up.

Big wigs, they don't go to networking events, they only go places where they're on the agenda when they're speaking. They don't leave their house unless there's a check attached to it. So that's the reality. If you wanna meet some of the big fish in the world, you almost have to be humble, and what I usually would do is you could just start liking their stuff and commenting on their stuff on LinkedIn, and then maybe they'll get to notice you after a while. So there's a lot of ways to do it, and sometimes we aim too high.

One of my biggest regrets, was that when I left college, I didn't build a lot of relationships with my peer group because I was always looking to build relationships with the VP of the company or the CEO of the company. But now now my peer group are in their forties, and they're the ones running things. So some people don't realize that if if you're leaving a university, you should make friends with the people that went to school with you or the people that went to school a year after you or a year before you, and that could be a way to build there.

But so here's the thing. You almost want to make it their idea that they wanna buy from you, doing a good job with the branding and the marketing naturally providing a tremendous value where it would be their honor to buy your goods and services. So think about it like this. So, like, soon as I landed here in LA, before I even checked into my hotel room, I went to In N Out Burger. I don't know why I went to In N Out Burger.

All I know is I heard about In N Out Burger from various places, and I couldn't stop thinking about it on the plane. And you must have done some really good branding and marketing. I mean, the the cheeseburger was unbelievable, But, I mean, I literally came from New York to LA, and the first thing I did was go to In N Out Burger. So that's just an example of you want people to come to you. If they would've waited for me to get to my hotel and send me a coupon, I probably wouldn'ta made me jump in a Uber to go pick up fast food.

So that's the reality of of business, especially if in in the b to b business. You want to have people drawn to you so that they are eager to buy from you instead of you chasing them to sell to them.

This there's always this happiness. Like, you have this smile, and it's really good because you see people so serious in their videos, and they're always, you know and and I know there's always an intention behind these videos that you see on LinkedIn. Right? I'm sure you see it all the time. Right?

There's always, like, they try to be real and authentic, but then you're like, alright. There's something behind this. I know it's like, why are they why are they talking about this? There's you know what I mean? That's why that's why sometimes having a good message is hard.

It's that you have to do it in a way that really comes from your heart. Like, you really mean it to help people. Right? But, you know, like, how do you leverage LinkedIn and some of the other digital platforms that you might use to brand yourself and your company properly to achieve results? Like, what's your method? What what do you what do you how do you leverage it the right way? Any any tips that you can that you can give to others?

You need to make sure you reply to their comment, and and and definitely, engage with the people engaging with you. Some people don't even respond to the messages they're getting. They just wanna get bigger numbers. What do you want bigger numbers for? You can't even handle the numbers you have.

So it's like, you need to cultivate and engage. I respond to the person that direct messages me. I reply to every comment that someone makes on my content, and it takes a while to do it. And I make sure, and I and I show the people the respect, and I actually care. And I don't care because I'm a good guy.

I care because it is good business to care. I mean, it feels better too because, I mean, I do all this stuff because it brings me happiness. You know, isn't that what everybody wants? The happiness that comes with giving for me. So I do it because it makes me happy. I don't do it because, I'm a great guy or even for the business purposes of it. All I know is that it feels really good, and I love doing it, and it feels more like, fun than work.

It's starting to get a little bit cluttered, but but, Instagram and and Twitter seem to be I don't know. I just have my my thoughts and opinions on that. But do do you ever use any other any other platforms to help you?

I'm probably gonna, open up a YouTube channel soon, and I'm relaunching my wife's business. So I'm probably gonna start doing some the reality for me has been that, I don't really how do I say it? There's so much junk on on Facebook and and things of that nature. Like, I'm I'm a businessman and a family man, spiritual man. I don't have time for all of that.

So I've been focusing on LinkedIn, and it does take an incredible amount of time. So I I wanna live my life in real life instead of in social media. So that's my personal choice. If you're trying to make money, insta Instagram is really low price attention right now. If you have a product type business, Instagram's amazing, for that.

Facebook is is is tricky. You almost have to pay to play a little bit, if you're trying to make money on Facebook, But it you know, people are making tons of money on there. So for me, I'm more authentic on LinkedIn, and the other social media channels, I would say I'm more of a I would I would if I participated, I would be more of a mercenary looking to who I am.

So for example, like, when you when you have a message about you traveling to LA for the Oscars, and you just really just just promoting yourself, branding yourself, getting your face on the Internet, getting getting, you know, and then talking a little bit about Cool Cal Marketing. But that's it. Not saying, hey, so guys, can you can you please, you know, my website's this. Like, not having a call to action at the end of it. Do you think there should be some call to action or some type of outcome in the video of, like, in the video and from the video?

Or do you think just provide the message and let people decide?

That that is an outcome that I want. I don't want them to say, that video was, silly or or a sales y or or things of that nature. I want them to feel like they got real value for the time that they put in. Because if people are gonna follow me, I wanna make sure that I'm providing value. So there's a lot of people that want me to put out more content, and I will.

I am gonna put out more content, but I gotta run a business too. So it's almost like, it's like I wanna put out content because people are following the content, and if you don't put out content for them, then they'll stop following. So I wanna make sure the content is valuable when I put it out there, and what I really want is for people to like me, to know about me, and to trust me, and I think I could build that over time by being consistent. You know? Consistency over time equals credibility.

Who are really the coolest ones or the most inspirational ones that you that you knew or that you met? Some of the the really, like, just amazing athletes that you're like, oh, this like, for example, like, Derek Jeter. What what was he just I mean, was he what people think? Is it are all these athletes, like, some of them, I'm sure, are very humble. Right?

He's he's a mentor to me. The way he approaches business, he's so much smarter than what people know, and he I mean, he he's done $1,000,000,000 deals and things of that nature, but, man, if you ever get in a room to talk to this guy, his intelligence is off the charge. His instincts are off the charge. His his, his intuition, I mean, the guy has it all, his his magnetism. So Magic, by far, my favorite.

I consider him a mentor, and I think he's gonna go down in history as a businessman versus one of the best basketball players in history.

I didn't really understand that 100 of people will be reaching out, because they wanna grow their sales. I I didn't realize how popular the company would be, so I didn't really plan for success. Right now, I'm I'm building a network of strategic partners, CEOs of other companies that are in the marketing, space so that I could build a network where all the work that's coming in, I could share it with some of my friends and grow their businesses as well and keep the Cool Cal stamp on the relationship, but also outsource some of, some of the nuts and bolts. For example, if someone, you know, if someone needs to rebrand their company and their website sucks, they might need a website guy. I'm not a website guy, so I need a you know, I need I can't necessarily move forward with, helping them grow their sales if every time someone goes to their website they're turned off, but then I have to bring in a specialist to help with that.

So I'm building my network, I'm building my friends, that's why I'm on this call as well, I'm trying to find friends like you that, that we could build together.

Leadership is inspirational. Okay? It's not sitional. So at the end of the day, if you wanna be an inspirational leader, you need to serve people instead of, dictate and manage them. So I think that that's critical.

I I I do believe that people lose the point of of life. If if you're if you wanna be happy, happiness should be your definition of success because the reality of it is is that there's millionaires and billionaires that I know that are not happy, and they actually are the ones that could tell you that every incremental dollar does not bring incremental happiness. Don't get me wrong. No one wants to be in a position where you can't pay your bills. But once you can pay your bills, the extra money does not bring you extra happiness, so guard your time wisely, and make sure you're doing things for the right reasons, and that you know who you are, and you know who you wanna be when you grow up.

Because if your motive is in the right place, it it you can overcome so many different obstacles and hurdles, and I think people can really resonate with that. So just to kinda close things out, Kelvin, you know, I always ask this. You you did touch on it a little bit, but I was asked on, something called the three hows. In your own words, how do you essentially define failure? How do you define business? And how do you define success?

Business is everywhere, and we're all in the relationship business, and businesses are based on relationship. You're selling a product. Yes. It's based on if I'm aware of you, if I like you, if I trust you, then maybe I'll buy. If you are, selling b to b marketing services or b to b services, again, it's a relationship.

I need to like you, I need to be aware of you, and I need to trust you. So business is about relationships. And again, happiness is success. And if your humility exceeds your ability, you know that happiness is success, and you can live your life in a way that you win. And I wish that for everyone that's listening to this podcast, and definitely reach out to me, on LinkedIn, I wanna give, give, give, because in that situation, I'll never need or want anything, and I wish that for you as well.