Mastering Brand Growth with Travis Chappell

0:00Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And if you've ever listened to my show, you know that I started a podcast by actually not wanting to start a podcast. And one of the folks that I listened to that I understood the game from is our guest today. He went from knocking doors to building empires, turning real relationships into real revenue. As the voice behind Travis makes friends and Travis makes money, he sat with billionaires, celebs, and power players, all by mastering one skill, connection. So get ready to meet the relentless, the magnetic, the trailblazing, the guy that I said I can do this with, my guy, Mr.

0:46Travis Chappell. Travis, how you doing today, brother? Doing really well, man. I appreciate the intro. Feeling the love, bro. So I appreciate you having me on. Absolutely, man. You know, I said I didn't want to start a podcast. Most everybody that knows that follows knows the story. I didn't want to do it. But Les Brown, Robert Irvine, Damon John were all like, go do it. And I said, great. What's podcasting about? So I started following you. So I understood the ropes a little bit. And that has continued to you just being someone that I consider kind of like my mentor in this podcasting game. So I owe you more than you'll ever know, bro.

1:24I appreciate that, man. Thanks, Abe. It's all you for actually putting in the work, you know? You can only do so much for people, and it's always awesome to see when people actually go do the thing and see a lot of success with it. So congrats. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. So, Trav, on the show, I talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, that real purpose that drives you. So if I were to say, Travis, bro, like today, what's your because? Why do you continue to do the things that you do with the relentless energy that you do it with? Probably would have been a different answer had you asked me pre kids.

2:00But I think everybody that has kids, man, it just flips your world upside down, teaches you how nothing is about you anymore. And you get to focus on, you know, other little human beings that you get to help shape and things. So, you know, now for me, it's way more about them than it is about me. And that is definitely a script that has been flipped since I started this thing back seven, eight years ago, however long it's been now. The kids have given me renewed purpose, renewed sense of why, a renewed reason to keep doing this thing. I love it brother I love it man and I'm kind of the same way when I had kids like I've always had this connection with my mom brother and sister and they're they are and will always be my because and then when you have kids you start thinking about legacy right you go from like doing doing doing to like holy crap not not what are they gonna do for me but what am I gonna do for them and what's going to be said, how are, how am I going to be viewed in their lens?

3:04So talk a little bit about that flip that you're talking about, man. Like just that moment when it's like, it's no longer me. I do have a legacy now. Yeah, exactly, man. And here's the thing. Every, every kid goes through a transition where they eventually realize who their parents actually are. Meaning like when they're kids, you know, your, your parents are, are heroes. They, they, they're, they exist in this kind of untouchable ether, you know, that you, you, you look at them as having all the answers. They're the ones who know everything and that you can go to and with whatever you got. And then one day you become an adult.

3:43And at some point along the way, you start, you start actually seeing your parents for who they are, the people who they actually are, their, their mistakes, their flaws, the decisions that they made in the past, where it's brought them to this time. And what, what you're talking about when it comes to legacy is not necessarily to me like a dollar amount or a lifestyle. It's more that when that day comes for my kids, I just really want the difference between those two people in their minds to be really, really small. Meaning like the person that they view me as like the, you know, superhero dad type of a person.

4:23I want that to be as close as possible to what reality is the day they realize who I actually am. And so that one piece drives me forward in a lot of ways. And it just flipped a few years ago. It's like when you're young and hungry and ambitious, you're doing everything almost with a chip on your shoulder to prove to the world what you can offer. And you're just going, going, going constantly. You have these massive dreams and goals. And then when, when I had kids, man, like it was almost like, why, why am I shooting for this thing? What, what is the purpose of doing this? Now I have a decision to make because whatever time I take away from spending time with my kids, it better be used for doing something important.

5:09It better be used for the correct thing. Not just, not just the, for the sake of working. You know what I'm saying? Like now it's like whenever I say yes to an opportunity or say yes to a business or say yes to something in this world, I'm saying no to time with my kids. So it it better it better be a hell yes. It better be like this is this is what I need to be doing or else it does not make sense for me to take that time away from spending with them. I'd rather just hang out with them. So it just, it made me, it made me just second guess and, and ask deeper, better questions about how I was spending my time, what I was spending my time doing.

5:46And, and if my, and, and then, and then really interrogate the goals that I had set up for myself and ask, are these goals still in line with the person who I am today? And sometimes they're not. Amen to that brother. Amen to that. But Travis, one of the things I've learned through you is the power of connection, right? You've said it a lot. It's been a saying that we all have probably heard a million times, but your net worth, your network is your net worth, right? Like we've all heard that saying, but you actually put it into action. Talk to the listeners and viewers about how important connection really is, because to me, that's what drives you and propels you through the success that you've had.

6:32Yeah. So for me, man, it was almost, again, kind of chip on my shoulder moment because I kind of grew up in this bubble, tight knit kind of community through my church. And when I left that world behind, I also was sort of starting my network from scratch. Nobody in that world really followed me. We had now completely different goals. We had completely different lifestyles, made different decisions. And even the people who I'm still cool with, weren't going to be a part of the new world I was creating for myself, if that makes sense. It's like, they were like, Hey, you know, you do you Travis, but also we're not, we're not aligned with the same mission anymore.

7:12So good luck. And I'll text you on your birthday and we're good, you know? But then when I was getting into business, it was like, it just made sense to me at the time that if you want to do something that you've never done with a skill set, you've never acquired or knowledge that you've never known, then the fastest way to acquire all those things is to go get around people who have already done the thing that you're trying to do at the highest level possible. So it was more of like a personal mission for me when I started just to like, I don't even know, like I wanted to be successful in business.

7:46I wanted to have a successful podcast, whatever. But I didn't know a single, like I never even met a millionaire at that point in my life at 23, you know? And so let alone had the ability to text one as a friend and get a text back and ask a question, you know, I'd never even met, like shook hands with one. So what do I know about that? So it was more of like a personal mission to say, if I want to, if I want this result, I need to go get around people who are actively pursuing that same result and or have already accomplished the result that I'm trying to get to. And so that it became like a relentless pursuit to me to continue to level up those connections and figure out how to connect with those people.

8:28And that was kind of one of the big surprises to me is that the things that I was learning or hearing at the time about connecting with people was definitely not how I was seeing all the most successful people do it. You know, it's like, go to the chamber meetings and join the BNI chapter and do this thing and that thing. And you start going to those things, you start realizing like, oh, none of these people are where I want to be. Yet the people who are where I want to be, they all know each other. So they're doing it somehow. Like they're not neglecting the activity. They're just doing it differently.

8:57So how do I start doing that? Which is what the show became at the time. at the time it was called build your network. And it was really just the pursuit of trying to figure out the skillset and then implement it also while getting those people on my show to download that information and also be able to connect with them afterwards. So the show kind of became this almost self-fulfilling prophecy where I was learning how to do it. And I was able to implement what I was learning in real time to connect with those people, to get them on the show and get more information and better information over time.

9:26So yeah, it was like a deep kind of personal mission to me, which is why I think I took it so seriously. No, I love it. And it shows. And one of the things that I learned from you, because believe it or not, aside from LinkedIn, until I started my podcast, I didn't have a social media account. I didn't have anything other than LinkedIn. I didn't have Facebook. I didn't have Instagram. I didn't have TikTok, none of that. So when I saw you and forget the podcast and the clips, what I saw was authenticity. What I saw was the real Travis. And you had this clip that I'll never forget that says, as long as you are you and you commit to being you and you know who you are, good things will happen.

10:15Don't try to force it. And I think that's where people go wrong with connection and network is they try to force it. Talk to the listeners and viewers about how important it is to be authentic over everything. To use the cliche here, real recognizes real. So what I noticed, man, is like you get into some of these rooms, you get into some of these groups of people, and everybody's trying to connect, you know, level up and talk to the people who are, whose time is the most coveted at that particular event, whether it's backstage at a conference or in a meetup line somewhere, or, you know, name the type of event.

10:51They're trying to all connect with the same people. And what I would notice is that people who were on a similar level to the one that I was on, which was at the time, like nothing, like complete beginner, not really much to offer to the room, only could learn from the people that were there. I didn't, again, didn't have much to go off of. I didn't have a ton of value to give to everybody. I noticed they were always trying to posture. And it confused the hell out of me, man. because I'd be, you know, I had the opportunity at the time where I had gotten to know a couple people really, really well in that space, paid them some money for some coaching, got around them, offered value in exchange.

11:30Like at the time, it was a lot of work for me to be able to provide value. But I knew one thing, I knew how to sell. I came from door-to-door sales. I was like, I know how to sell. So there's one guy in particular who was selling journals at events. Like, so he wouldn't get paid a speaking fee, but he would say like, I'll come speak for you for free if you let me sell my journals, like, you know, in an expo booth or whatever. And he didn't have anybody who worked the booth. So I was like, I'll just volunteer and work, work it for free for you for three full days, which at the time, like three full days of my time working a booth at an event like that, I knew how much money I could make generating sales for like the products I used to sell.

12:02So it was, it was significant effort from a skill that I had, that I had built up to that time that I was giving away for free. But what allowed me to do is get around that person and then listen to the conversations of people that would come up to the booth to like shake his hand, get them to sign something, take a picture with them. And it amazed me, man, how many people would come up to that conversation. They would talk 98 % of the time trying to impress the person that they're talking to. What they don't realize is that that person has unlimited access to a multitude of people who are wildly, exactly wildly more successful than you are.

12:37Like you're not going to, you're not going to say anything that's that he hasn't heard in that three minutes that you're, that you're taking time to do. So all you're doing is posturing yourself to be, to be better than you actually are, which those people, again, real, real, real recognizes real. So that person's going to see through all of that anyway. And then now you're just, now you're just a number. Now you're just another person that they connected with at a conference who took a picture. You made zero impact. You learned nothing. You asked zero questions and you walked away with no relationship.

13:08And I saw people do this like time and time and time and time again. And so when I would get in those rooms, man, I just, I just was me. And I would be honest with people, like I'm starting out. I'm at, I'm at this, you know, even, even for different rooms that I paid to be in like masterminds or small groups or anything where I would, I would, I would put an investment down to get in the room. It was always a stretch. And I knew going into it that I was like, Hey, look, I would tell people, I was like, look, I'm probably the brokest person in this room immediately sheds all form of ego. When you start off with a line like that, where people are like, oh, okay, we'll see how we can help you.

13:43But they want to help. That's the thing, man, is like people want to be helpful. They want to be useful. It's just if you're putting on this position or posturing yourself as somebody who doesn't need the help, then they can't help you. And then again, you leave the situation thinking that talking to people is a waste of time because you didn't get anything out of it. It's like, well, you weren't even open to receiving anything because you were trying to make yourself sound awesome when you're objectively not awesome yet. you know, like at least at that thing that you're trying to be awesome at.

14:13Right. So not to say that you're not worth anything or you're not awesome as a person. I'm sure that's probably all true. But if you come into the situation with this high ego and you're constantly posturing and positioning yourself to be this person that you are not yet, it's first of all, not going to, not going to allow you to learn anything. And then second of all, that person's going to see right through it because they're, they were just backstage with all the other people who are actually awesome at what they do. And that's not the type of communication that they have with each other. They're all eager and willing and open to learn from each other.

14:46That's why they're in the position that they're in. So I saw that early on, man. It was a big blessing in disguise because it just taught me that authenticity was going to be rewarded. I'm not here to make myself sound better than I am. I'm just here to learn as much as I possibly can and see if there's any potential way that I could bring some sort of value to this relationship. Man, that is amazing. And I want to go deeper into something you just said, because, and this is for the viewers and listeners, Travis and I are going to have a real conversation because success doesn't happen overnight, but I'm a whole heart believer that success does leave clues.

15:23And those clues start by investing in yourself. So you heard Travis talking about going to masterminds and going to these events and sometimes even paying the extra for whatever the VIP or high ticket offer is so you can get some type of access. I think where most people, Travis, fail when they try to get the overnight success is they really don't invest in themselves. They look at paying money to go to an event, joining a mastermind, doing a one-on-one collab with Travis. They think that that money goes to the event holder or to the, the influencer's pocket, but what you are actually gaining are clues.

16:06And, and, and I tell people all the time, Trav, if you really want to understand how success works, you've got to be willing to invest in yourself because if you're not, I can promise you, it's not going to happen. I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but it's going to take much longer and you're going to give up before it actually even gets there. Exactly. Yeah. It's definitely going to take more time. That's the thing is that once you adopt the identity of somebody who values time over anything else, you start realizing that a lot of these things are a bargain. You know, it's like, it's okay.

16:36Name the number 25 grand, 50 grand, a hundred grand, 10 grand, whatever sounds like a lot to you. All I would do is ask people what their goals are. You know, like they would look at investing in something. It's like, yeah, but it's 10 grand. Okay. But, and I'm just like, okay, but you just told me that you want this thing that you're doing to make you $1 million next year. What is 10 grand compared to a million bucks? How long is it going to take you to fail and fall on your face and figure it out on your own when you could just pay 10 grand and learn all of the things that that person learned over 20 years of doing the thing that you're trying to do?

17:15And you're, you're, you're, you're holding the money. Like the money is the most valuable piece. It's not your time is the most valuable piece. And like you said, it's not even just a matter of like, oh, I can figure it out because you probably can figure it out. Will it take you way longer? Sure. But then you also are throwing in that other variable of like, if it does take you that much longer and you're putting in this work in the meantime and failing this much and falling on your face this much, how likely are you going to, how likely is it going to be that you're actually going to stick with the thing that you're trying to see success at for the duration of time that's required in order for you to see the success anyway?

17:50Can you do it? Sure. Should you do it? Probably not. And if your risk tolerance is extremely low, like you're in a position where you got three kids, you're 48 years old, you're switching careers, there is absolutely extreme value in paying to cut the line and learn from somebody who's been there, done that, bought 10 t-shirts and can help you avoid the mistakes that they made. It doesn't even make sense from a financial standpoint sometimes. And yeah, is it a risk? Sure. But you are in the risk business. You know what I mean? Like if you're doing anything entrepreneurial, you're by definition, you're taking more risk than somebody who's an employee.

18:31And if that's not what you want to do, then maybe just stick to be an employee. And by the way, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I encourage people away from entrepreneurship as often as I can, because it's not for everybody. And it is much more difficult to see a path to success in that area, if you have a high value skill like sales or marketing or something like that, you could probably make more money in a shorter period of time by just being an employee somewhere and being the best employee that that person has. So I'm not knocking that path. I'm just saying that if you have this goal and you want this thing, then you have to be willing to take the action of somebody who has achieved that thing, or you will not get to that point.

19:12You have to take the action of the future self now or you can't create that future self. Amen to that, bro. Amen to that. You know, I was literally having this conversation with someone two days ago and I said, aside from a family heir, I don't know a single entrepreneur that didn't go through the dirt, the grind, the mud, right? I really don't. Now, sometimes that dirt, grind, mud was six months, sometimes it's six years, but we all go through it. And to your point, sometimes if your skill set isn't true visionary in execution, it's okay to be a CMO. It's okay to be the chief sales officer of a company, right?

19:56Like there's nothing wrong with that. And I think sometimes in society and what we see on social media is we assume that everyone has it figured out. And that's far from the case. I mean, I would say, Travis, I'm still trying to figure some things out, right? Like I'm always going to be learning something and getting frustrated about, oh my gosh, I can't believe this or how do I overcome this? But I also am prepared for it. Absolutely, dude. Yeah. And I just had this conversation with a buddy recently who had a tough time in business. Crazy bunch of stuff outside of his control happened. Bunch of lawsuits.

20:29Had to file bankruptcy. And he's right now working like two or three different sales gigs. But he's making his business at, even when his business was doing well, it was doing, you know, seven figures. 1.5, 1.6 million a year by all objective standards. That's the dream that most people are looking for. I want a million dollar business. He makes more in take home personal income now as a sales guy for a couple of different companies than he ever did running his business, even though it was generating 1.5, 1.6 million dollars in top line revenue. The numbers that you see online that glorify entrepreneurship, typically they're from people who are trying to sell you some sort of entrepreneurship course.

21:07And they're not being honest about what they actually make on the money that they say they make. You're seeing top line revenue and top line revenue only. You don't know exactly what that person's taking home. And odds are, as an employee, you could probably make more money, personal take-home income. So that's why I say you have to examine the goals. You have to examine the dream and ask yourself, is this something that I truly want? Because if it is something that you truly want, then you're not ever going to be able to be an employee. You're not going to be happy doing that path and you're going to have to take the entrepreneurship path.

21:37But if you're going to take that path, just understand it comes with a different risk profile. And if you want to be successful doing that thing, you got to be willing to do the things that employee mindset people are not going to be willing to do. So it's, it's take your pick. You know what I mean? You don't, you don't have to do one path or the other path. And one of them's not better than the other one. It's different for everybody, but choose wisely because it's, It's, you know, if you take that mindset into the entrepreneurial path, it's just probably not going to work out super well for you.

22:06Amen, brother.

22:07Travis Chappell:Amen. So, Travis, I hate saying the word expert, but I get to say it with you. You are the podcast expert because you figured it out. You figured it out on multiple levels, too. And again, I want to talk to current podcasters, future podcasters right now, because you are the expert of leveraging podcasting for your brand growth. Right. Let's talk to the viewers and listeners about how important understanding the brand is first and foremost when it comes to podcasting, because that's what again, when I learned from you, that's what I took. Right. Like you're creating this brand. Your messaging has to be the same.

22:52Right. You have to know who your audience is and don't try to be the podcast for everyone. Right. Like if you know who you are, you'll grow much faster than trying to say, I just want this generic. We'll talk about whatever. People don't listen to those, unfortunately. So talk about the brand of podcasting a little bit. Yeah. If you're going to talk to everybody, you're going to talk to nobody and you better be really sure that you just enjoy it and it's, and you can label it as a hobby and that's totally fine. Do that, you know, totally fine. But if you're wanting something that has impact on your business or on your branding or on your ability to generate revenue, then it's got to be something that goes in line with the things that you're doing inside of your business.

23:33So the highest leverage impact point that I ever recognized was bringing on high value guests to the show because I realized that it was the same idea of the thing that Nike invests tens of billions of dollars a year in every single year for the last 40 freaking years, which is endorsements. There's a reason that they invest that much money in endorsements. It's because they want you to have the association of their brand in your mind with greatness when it comes to athletic performance. Nike wasn't always a golf brand. They're huge in golf now, but when they started, they got one really key endorsement from a guy named Tiger Woods.

24:17There's one clip that's solidified in golf history that really exploded Nike onto the golf scene, which was Tiger Woods at the masters. There's a chip in off of the, off of the green. And it was almost like, it was almost like the Nike gods, like Greek gods of Nike were just, were just engineering this moment to last in people's minds. But the ball literally hung on the edge of the cup for like a half a second, like way too long. And everybody on the edge of their seats, looking at the ball, like trying to see if it's going to go in and what's the picture. Everybody's minds it like Like that Nike swoosh was just staring at the camera right in the face as it hung on the edge of the cup and the world was watching.