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Leonard Kim Went From No Promotion To The King of Promotion
Wes Schaeffer
June 14, 2017
Humanize and be yourself to maximize your promotions
Stream below or right-click here to download the episode.
Sales Tips you’ll learn in The Sales Podcast…
Branding, marketing, and startup strategist
But he struggled at first
He’s “stuck in his ways since I’m Korean!”
He was running away from his fears but he didn’t know what he was afraid of
Took shortcuts in everything…
Had to keep starting over
Had his electricity cut off and had to move back into his grandma’s house
Had to recognize his faults and grow
Moved to his friend’s sofa for $100/mo
Broke his ankle so he was stuck on a couch for three months so he reflected
You’re where you are where you’re supposed to be
He went back through his life and analyzed cause and effect
His business partner has a process for doing this quickly
Two sets of sticky notes
He writes on one set
Has his friends write on the other set…and people are honest and direct
Now you know what you have to work on
He had issues he didn’t realize…he was scared of being hurt by people he helped
He had to accept and forgive
He accepted responsibility
His mom is a “great victim of everything” and she doesn’t have joy in her life
2011 he got an entry-level job
For two years his goal was to get promoted
He worked hard
He wore a suit
But didn’t get promoted or a raise ($16.24/hr)
He could only eat one meal per day (Obamacare cost him his lunch money, literally)
People told him he was arrogant
He applied to 100 jobs, got three interviews and nobody hired him
Went back to school and it helped a little
He went out and shared his feelings and experiences and within six months he had two million reads on his posts
He wrote posts on his Blackberry on the bus
Within 18 months he had about 10 million reads and figured he should monetize it
He started on Quora and didn’t have a website
Posted the same stuff on his site
About me page
Subscribe button (RSS feed)
How to hire him (for free…which was a bad idea that he quickly recognized)
Raised his prices
Doubled his rates and doubled his rates and doubled rates
Did sales in 2005-2006 he was in sales and understood it
Did some marketing from 2007 to 2011 so he understood it
All of the companies went out of business so his resume was “full of broken hopes and dreams”
So he started marketing himself
May 2013 and by Dec 2014 had 10 million reads
It’s hard to master social media all at once so dive into one and master one
Doesn’t trust tools, he trusts people to do his social media
First, it was the 17-year-old sister of a friend
Then it was a friend who broke an ankle
Then it was an intern who got 2,000 retweets to be hired
#BruisedBananaEaters
He had Deborah create a PowerPoint based on his articles
One was like a college assignment and it wasn’t “right” or “shareable”
Then she made it 10 times better
From there she got better and they tightened it up
Now she re-purposes his content
Maybe 80% of his posts are branding
He does his own CTAs
Most of his content is evergreen
When you use current events you get a huge spike in traffic from people who don’t care about you
Use BuzzSumo to create better titles, avoid controversy, replace the image, update links
His assistant works maybe 30 min/day after a month of getting up to speed
His Vegas assistant creates new content but this is her part-time job so it may take a month for her to get it done
Humanize yourself and be yourself
For example, a doctor
Maybe unapproachable…educated…aloof
Make them be seen as “just like me”
Tell their story
Hungry, Humble, Honest is how 17-year-olds should brand
Links Mentioned In The Sales Podcast
Market like you mean it. Now go sell something.