Brandon Fong is the creator of the Magic Connection Method and host of the 7-Figure Millennials Podcast that is all about helping heart-centered, impact-driven entrepreneurs to prioritize their happiness, health, and relationships while making their big entrepreneurial dreams a reality.
Every week he interviews people like NYT Bestselling authors, main stage TED speakers, 7, 8, and 9+ figure entrepreneurs, and even an occasional Hollywood legend, decorated air force pilot, olympian, drug dealer and convict turned Harvard fellow, or Shark from Shark Tank.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Brandon Fong about how to become an impact driven entrepreneur.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
- Why losing to stiffer competition is better than winning against weaker opponents.
- How it’s important to go above and beyond to create experiences for people.
- Why getting aligned with your past and creates velocity that will propel you forward.
- How writing a book can get you into the room where business happens.
- How people can find success in three steps: the hook, the irresistible offer, and the no-oriented question.
Connect with Brandon:
Links Mentioned:
7figuremillenials.com/start
Guest Contact Info:
Twitter
@BrandonSFong
Facebook.com/brandonfong
Linkedin.com/in/brandonfong
Rob Kosberg:
Welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here with another episode of our Publish Promote Profit Podcast. As usual, I have a great guest for you today. Brandon Fong is the bestselling author of the book, Leverage. We’re going to talk quite a bit of that, even though that book was written a few years ago. He’s the host of, The 7-Figure Millennials Podcast, which he actually had me on, which, I’m not sure about that, seeing as I’m not a millennial, but it was awesome being on the show and really grateful about that. The podcast is all about helping heart-centered impact driven entrepreneurs to prioritize their happiness, health, and relationships while making their big dreams a reality. Every week he interviews New York times best-selling authors, Ted Speakers, seven, eight, and even nine figure entrepreneurs, an occasional Hollywood legend, air force pilot, Olympian, drug dealer, convict, Harvard fellow, or even a shark. Brandon, great to have you on. Really excited to chat with you today.
Brandon Fong:
Rob, super excited to be here and hanging out with everybody that’s listening with us today.
Rob Kosberg:
Awesome. There’s a lot to chat about and I’m really grateful that you came on the podcast today, because you’ve really done some cool things with your book. You really are a believer in creating great relationships, building your network and building your platform at the same time with both your book and of course, your podcast now. Give us a little background. You wrote the book some time ago, but some amazing things have happened with the book. Talk a little bit about the book. Give us some background.
Brandon Fong:
I’d love to start actually a little bit before that and I’ll introduce the book, but I would love to start by how I actually got into the whole entrepreneurial world to begin with. I want to start by taking everyone back 13 years ago. We’re at Wisconsin Hills Middle School and we’re all sitting in Mrs. Denteesie’s classroom. I think we were working on a project about Egyptian mummification, but I remember very specifically, everybody’s kind of staring at the clock, waiting for it to hit 11:35, I think it was, because that was the time everybody got to go to lunch. So, the bell rings and all my classmates jump to their feet and they sprint to the door but there’s one kid that is hanging behind everybody, kind of dragging his feet, not too happy about going to lunch. If you haven’t guessed, that kid was me. You may be wondering why any sixth grader would not be excited to go to lunch. So, the reason why is because I would go through the lunch checkout line. I’d have my plastic tray with the chicken nuggets, the curly fries, whatever healthy nutritious meal was on sale for the day. I’d go through and then I’d be waiting. My friend Matt would go through and he would type in his meal and it would show $5 and then Kate would go through with her salad and it would show $7, or whatever. My heart’s beating faster and faster, and I’d put in my student ID and then it would show up on the screen, Brandon Fong, free lunch, $0 and 0 cents. I avoided that at all costs. Some days I would hide out in the bathroom because the school was a wealthier school district and I felt like an outsider. I didn’t want any of my friends to know that I was on that free lunch program and that we were struggling. That was a really painful experience for me. That was 13 years ago. If I look back at it now, that is something that I’m insanely grateful for, because it was that experience that really inspired me to start looking at things in non-traditional ways on how I can start an entrepreneurial journey, even if I was really little. So, there’s a longer version of that story, but I want to cut to what is relevant to everybody that’s hanging out with us today because I know every single person that is listening to our voices right now, they heard you in the intro where you say tune in weekly so that you can learn how to use your bestselling book to go from hunting for clients and opportunities to instead being the hunted. So, one of the things that I did is I published a book when I was 20 years old. There’s a kind of a cutting of that story, the free lunch to there, but I want to jump to this part because that’s where it’s relevant. When I wrote that book, Leverage: Escape the College Rat Race. Design the Life You Want and Take the Real World by Storm. I wrote that when I was 20. If I were to pinpoint one decision that I made, that really helped me to kind of network and build some of the connections that I’ve had in getting to rooms with 7, 8, 9 figure entrepreneurs when I was 22 years old. It was this book right here. I would love to dive into what you talk about because I know when we interview, once the book is published, it’s not about the book anymore. It’s about how you leverage that book to open the doors to opportunities. My goal is to really share a little bit more of the nitty gritty about how I was able to kind of leverage that and help people out with how to use their best-selling book today.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. I love your focus on serving the audience. I really appreciate that. Look, right out of the gate, you telling that story, which I don’t recall us talking about that when we talked previously, and I was on your podcast. Of course, that was you more interviewing me, so I didn’t hear that, but that touches me. I’d like to spend a little bit more time on that. I feel like we live in a world that is ever focused on removing any kind of pain or difficulty from people and in whatever way, whether changing our language or canceling people because of things that were said or done years, in some cases, decades ago. Yet, you point to one really painful, maybe not individual experience, but kind of ongoing set of experiences because of one thing as a catalyst to you making incredible change in your life. First of all, there are people listening to this podcast that are 50 years old, and they’ve been wanting to write a book for 20 years and haven’t done it. You did it at 20 years old. Talk a little bit more about your motivation. Talk a little bit more about how times like that, created this catalyst moment in you, to do what you’ve done at 25.
Brandon Fong:
I really appreciate the really kind words. I would say it was a combination of not having the financial resources growing up, but I also have the best parents on the planet. They were super into self-improvement, super into playing at higher levels. I’ll share a few things that my dad shared with me at a very early age that I think set the stage for some of the stuff I’ve been able to do. The first thing is that I’m a billiards player. So, I was playing pool since I was four. One of the things that my dad taught me from a very early age is that you never want to play with people that are at your level or below. You always want to play with people that are at higher levels than you. It’s a good thing to learn from people that are further ahead from you and to lose and leverage those learning opportunities to really move forward. I think it’s something that people hear a lot. You’ve probably heard some variation of that, but to hear that and have it programmed in me at such an early age was massive. Another thing that my dad taught me, is that the worst thing that people can say to you is no. You’ve absolutely heard this. You can hear it as an adult, but when that is your understanding of the world from when you’re little, it makes a huge difference. It was a combination of me not liking what was going on, but also a combination of having my dad that was doing things like that. My mom, that taught me how to win all the time. I was always the kid that had the best Valentine’s Day things. When you were in first grade, all the little kids just got the store-bought candy stuff. My mom made a Teddy bear balloon for every single kid. Can you imagine how much time that took? My dad thought she was crazy, but really, I look back at it now, it’s because she taught me about going above and beyond and creating experiences for people. I give a lot of credit to my parents.
Rob Kosberg:
The most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life is being a dad. It’s also been the most rewarding. I’ve been married for a long time. I hear the things you’re sharing, and it encourages me. It motivates me. Some of these things are things that I’ve tried to instill in my own kids. To not be afraid of failing, for example, which may be as similar to what you shared about your dad saying, “Look, what’s the worst thing that can happen, they say, no? What’s the big deal there?” Removing that fear of rejection, if you can find a way to remove that, then the sky is the limit. Let me just pivot for a second because you shared about the pain being the catalyst and then now you’ve added to that, the element of having a very loving, encouraging, and wonderful environment growing up. There are people experiencing pain all the time and yet they don’t respond the way you responded. I’ve been through terrible, painful times in my life and of course, responded in certain ways that others don’t. This is part of what life is. How much would you, maybe as a percentage, or just in your own heart and mind, how much would you say, it was really the positive environment that led to making the choices and the decisions that you did or is it 50/50?
Brandon Fong:
I’ll answer that in an interesting way because the free lunch thing was something that was never talked about. We never really talked about this as a family. I had a conversation with my younger brother and I just decided to ask him, “Hey, how did you interpret this experience?” He was like, “I thought it was awesome. Free lunch. I gave some of my free lunch to my friends and I traded it.” I was like, “That is so interesting.” So, to be honest, I don’t really know what it was. I don’t know if you can ever really pinpoint it. You can have two people that are in the same exact family, but they behave and react to things completely differently. I guess there’s obviously a component that’s the environment, but there is something that you can’t attribute, that comes from each person, that we’re born with.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s really good. Jim Roan always told the story about the moment that he decided to change his life. A Girl Scout came to his door to sell him Girl Scout cookies, and he didn’t have any money. He lied to the Girl Scout and said, “Oh, I just bought a bunch of thin mints,” and then he closed the door and cried and felt so ashamed of himself because he was so broke that here he was lying to a girl scout and he basically vowed to himself that he’d never be in that position again. It’s just interesting to me, what are the catalysts in people’s lives to either send them in one direction or potentially in a maybe a negative direction that I think at any time, I think we need to pay attention to what’s going on in our lives and the pain and the feelings that we’re experiencing, because if we recognize them as an opportunity, rather than just a feeling or just an experience, but an opportunity to maybe do something different with our life who knows what we could do and what we could become and how many people we could help and all of that. It doesn’t have a whole bunch to do with Publish Promote Profit, but I think it’s interesting.
Brandon Fong:
This is such an important conversation. I’m more than happy to go there. If I were to pick out a theme in all the people that I’ve interviewed on my podcast, if I were to isolate a few of the common things that have come up over and over and over again, it is I will say, alignment equals velocity. Lots of successful people have been able to look back at their past and understand what always made them who they were and build a business or be in more alignment with what they were always naturally doing. That’s thing number one, but thing number two, is being able to rewrite and reinterpret what those stories really mean. I never used to tell the free lunch story. LI would never tell it to my wife. Now, sharing it on a podcast was a completely crazy thing. I have rewritten that story to mean something entirely different than what it meant prior to a year ago. If you’re listening to this right now and you haven’t explored some of those things, there are seeds of genius laying and just sitting in your past that if you can really take the time to understand what drives you, because there so much subconscious, I think in our brains that is really at the forefront of our decisions while we may not realize it. I would highly encourage anybody to see if you can get more in alignment with what was in your past and even the ugly stuff that you don’t want to touch. That is a great goldmine to turn into something that can serve you instead of hurting you.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. There’s something cathartic for people about writing a book. I think we’re even touching on it because like you, I’ve met and befriended many, very, very successful people. I don’t know a single one that didn’t have some really difficult experience in their life that they came through. Now, they look back on them as the most positive and powerful experience of their life because of how they responded to it. That’s really how you share the story of the free lunch. You shared it in the sense that this was a really positive and powerful moment. To a lot of people though, maybe that don’t as purposefully think through those elements, those times in their life, it doesn’t become anything. It simply is another scar, instead of being this pivotal moment that can actually transform somebody’s life. So many people write a book because they want to tell their story. When you start digging into your story and you’re going to be confronting these painful moments in your life, it’s good.
Brandon Fong:
It’s great. For those that haven’t published your book yet, you’re going to have to dig through some stuff because obviously, storytelling is what you’re doing inside of the book. The premise of the whole thing is leveraging your experiences to really make it more real for your audiences. Sit in that and recognize it as a really beautiful opportunity. I think you’re right, it’s very therapeutic to write a book because you do have to kind of dig through those things.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s a good segue. Let’s move over to the book now. Talk to me about the book. Twenty is still really young. My youngest son is 20 and he works with me and I love being with him. I love spending time with him, and I love seeing him grow. That’s really young to write a book and yet you had the focus and the passion and the determination to do it and even better, to use it. Talk to me about how you used it. Talk to me about some of the results from it.
Brandon Fong:
I published the book and lots of things have started to come full circle. One of the things that was really powerful was I actually ended up getting an endorsement from Kevin Harrington on this book. I know Kevin’s been on your show and I recently interviewed Kevin as well, which was kind of cool to see that come full circle. The story behind that, is I was in an audience. Kevin gave a keynote and he talked about the importance of publishing a book. Here I was in the middle of writing mine. I’m like, “Oh my gosh. What an opportunity.” One of the things I did is, instead of having Kevin get mobbed by everyone, I wrote something on a piece of paper, and I handed it to him. I shook his hand and then I followed up with his assistant. I think that led to that. I also got an endorsement from Aaron Kennedy, the founder of Noodles and Company on the book, which was a great thing. I was able to say, “Here I am, a 20-year-old kid. I wrote a book. I got endorsements from Kevin Harrington and Aaron Kennedy.” This is the thing that absolutely changed my life. I had really respected an entrepreneur. His name was Jonathan Levy. He has a Ted Talk podcast with 4 million downloads, 250,000 students now in his online courses. I was a college senior and I saw all the stuff that he was doing. I reached out to him and I leveraged the fact that I published a book, got the endorsements to really kind of get noticed. I told him, “Hey, I really love the work that you’re doing. Here are two specific ideas that I have that could really help grow your brand. I want to do them for you. I don’t want to be paid for it at all.” It separates me from any of the other college graduates, but that kind of opened the door to me being in his world. That one project turned into me running his marketing for three years. I helped add over 150,000 students to his online courses, 1.5 million downloads of the podcast and all that kind of stuff. That is when Jonathan got into this high-end mastermind called Genius Network. It costs $25,000 a year to be a part of. You need to make at least seven figures. 7, 8, 9 entrepreneurs in there. I got to go to Genius Network representing Jonathan’s company. That’s how I got into the room as the youngest person at Genius Network at age 22, around 7, 8, and 9 figure entrepreneurs. I look back at some of the credibility points, but the book was a main component of me mentioning and building my authority. Since then, since understanding how it’s worked with Jonathan, since networking with people at a high level and Genius Network, since getting these incredible people on my podcast, I’ve developed these strategies to really leverage and take what you’ve already built and leverage that to open the doors, to incredible conversations with people. I have a three-part framework we could even go into about how people can leverage the book to get on podcasts, how they can open the doors to great conversations. You have to figure out the different doors that it’s going to unlock if you really want to use it to its best ability.
Rob Kosberg:
I want the three-part framework, so give it to me. I want to hear it.
Brandon Fong:
This has grown and evolved for years. I’ve tested all this kind of stuff. I was the guy that was running Jonathan’s email list with over a hundred thousand people. I had this laboratory to kind of experiment with copywriting and develop how to really make people take action and inspire them to take action. Let me back up and say though, that the most important thing before this whole thing is, really having a way to add value to people. I will say in a no strings attached kind of way. Like it, shouldn’t be kind of a tit for tat. I’m going to reach out to you when I want something out of you, kind of a thing. Podcasting isn’t right for everyone, I’ll say that. For me, having a way of featuring someone on a top 2.5% podcast and sharing all the cool people that have been on the show as well, is a great way to open the door to an incredible conversation with someone. If you could think about your podcast or your book as a way to share people, there’s ways that you can add value to them and get them into your world and not really expect anything in return. I’d say that’s the underlying feeling here, is we’re really just trying to deliver massive value to the people that we respect. I’ll say that first and foremost. The second foundational thing, before we get to the three things, that the entire goal of this message is to get them to respond. That’s it. I call this the Magic Connection Method Process. You get people reaching out on LinkedIn all the time and it’s like, “Hey,” it’s like they’re shoving things down your throat. Like, “I don’t even know who you are. Why should I even care? The whole goal is just to get them to respond, to open the door to an incredible relationship. That’s the foundation. Now, let’s move into the three parts. There’s the hook, the irresistible offer and the no-oriented question. So, we’ll dive into the very first part of the message is the hook. So, the number one mistake that people make when they reach out to someone as they make it about them. It makes sense. You would think that I need to show how important, how cool I am and maybe even mention your book right away. That’s really not what we want to do yet. We want to make it about the person that we are reaching out to. It’s about them. They don’t care about you yet. If I’m listening to the Publish Promote Profit Podcast, I might say, “Hey, Rob, listen to episode 27 with Kevin Harrington. I loved it when you specifically shared this thing and I was able to apply it and got this result. Thank you so much.” That separates you from 99% of the people that already sent an email because it’s like, you clearly took the time to research them. It wasn’t a, “Hey, I like your podcast.” Which could easily be a copy and paste thing like, “Hey, I listened to this episode. I loved it.” So, “Have you gotten results from their advice?” “Do you have a mutual connection with them,” is huge. Even if you’re appearing on other podcasts, you can look at the mutual guests that you’ve had and all that kind of stuff, but really, it’s, “Have you gotten results from their advice? Do you have mutual connection? How’d you hear about them? What did you find impressive about them?” Something that shows that you did the research on them. I’ll also say this is one to three sentences max. That’s it. There’s something I call the stalker line. Don’t cross the stalker line. One to three sentences showing that they care.
Rob Kosberg:
This sounds to me like something that you could use on virtually any social media platform.
Brandon Fong:
It’s any place you’re trying to open the door to a conversation with someone. So, now they read the hook. They know that you care about them, which is the most important thing. The second part is the irresistible offer. I’ll share a quote by Dean Jackson. Dean talks about how a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. I think that that’s such a powerful line. You’ve probably seen those commercials for selling mattresses. They basically use an irresistible offer to kind of grow that entire business. If you look at the old model, it was like, If you’re going to buy a mattress, you go into a store, you have your shoes on, and there’s a salesman and you have to kind of awkwardly lay on top of a mattress. You’re like, “Am I going to spend a few grand on this and sleep in this for the next 10 years?” That’s the old model. The irresistible offer that these new internet companies created was, “Let’s take this quiz and we will ship the mattress to you. You can sleep in it for a hundred nights. You get all cozy in your PJ’s with your dog and if you don’t like it, you can return it. That’s an irresistible offer. That’s kind of what we’re trying to get here. Can you minimize risk for them? Can you position it so they have a lot to gain and make it easy for them to say yes? Those are three really good things. What is that for you that you can do to add value to someone inside of this irresistible offer? So now the hook, and irresistible offer, and the last part is the no-oriented question. This comes from another person I respect. His name is Chris Boss. If you haven’t read or heard about his book, Never Split the Difference, he was an ex FBI hostage negotiator. One of the things that stuck out for me in his book is he talks about how every single day we have a finite amount of yes’s that we can give. Every single time you say, yes, you’re giving away your time, your energy, your effort, money. You’re giving something away whenever you say yes. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to say no to something because you feel more in control. You feel like you’re not being pushed into something. I’ve experimented with this. What are the emails inside of your email inbox that you haven’t responded to? They’re the complex ones. They’re the ones that you have to think about it. Those are the ones that you’ve been ignoring for forever. They never get responded to. That’s it in a nutshell. The hook, irresistible offer, no-oriented question.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. If you’re an author and you want to book yourself speaking engagements, this is a very simple framework to send and connect with people that are event planners. People that are in charge of conferences or associations. If you want to get yourself on media, this would work with perhaps a guest article or blog contributor, or even something like television or radio. You’re letting them know that you’re not trying to sell them on anything. You’re in essence closing with a very kind of non-in-your-face, here’s an opportunity and great, if you’re interested great, and if not, fine.
Brandon Fong:
This isn’t any news for anyone but following up is so important. I think the majority of those responses come from multiple follow-ups. There’s a right and a wrong way to do it, but many people are like, “Wow, I’m so grateful that you followed up.” Normally you don’t hear that. Sometimes it takes quite a bit, but if you’re in it for the right reasons, you have your heart in the right spot, and you are really just trying to help the person in front of you, there’s not much that can really go wrong. It goes back to what my dad said before, “The worst thing they can do is say no.”
Rob Kosberg:
You’ve given a masterclass here in connecting with people. You’re a really impressive individual. I love what you’ve accomplished even at just 25. I think the sky is the limit for you. Let’s give our folks some ways to connect with you. Let’s talk about your podcast or any links that you want to give so that people can learn more about you, connect with you.
Brandon Fong:
If you want to jump into wherever you’re listening to this right now, if you just type in 7figure Millennials, you can find the podcast. Go to 7figure millennials.com/start. You can opt in there and you’ll get a recap of what we talked about today with the Magic Connection Method, plus how to even take it to the next level, if you want those kinds of referrals and developing opportunities where you just have so many people that are coming into your world. It’s just a product of you coming from the right spot and helping people.
Rob Kosberg:
I really enjoyed spending time with you, and I loved diving into some unusual topics for me, I’d say, and I’ve been on hundreds of podcasts and I’ve never talked about the things that you and I talk about. So, great job.
Brandon Fong:
Love that. Thanks so much, Rob. Yeah, it’s been a blast. I’m looking forward to everyone to check it out.
