Stay Consistent and Double Your Money? The Story of Kalicube
Meet the dynamo behind the Kalicube sensation, Jason Barnard. He’s not just a CEO; he’s a serial entrepreneur with a trail of successful ventures to his name. Kalicube stands tall as the vanguard in the realm of digital marketing and Google specialization. But Jason’s journey is a tapestry of perseverance, with beginnings in 1991 when he established his record company. By 2007, Jason was making waves in the kids’ media space with Bluedog, a site that soared to the top 10,000 globally. Yet, success wasn’t without its trials. He faced a heart-wrenching moment when his business partner at Bluedog wrested control, but ever the phoenix, Jason rose, channeling his experiences and passion into Kalicube.
In this riveting episode, we delve into the essence of effective niching, emphasizing the wisdom behind Jason’s words, “When you try to serve everybody, you serve nobody.” We explore the virtue of long-term thinking in business, emphasizing the importance of steadfastness in strategy execution. Moreover, the synergy between personal values and those of a business partner is underscored, drawing from Jason’s poignant experience with Bluedog. And for those wondering about the catchphrase “Kalicube, it’s not just Jason,” tune in to discover its origin and the story behind it. Dive deep into Jason’s world; it promises to be an enlightening ride. Don’t miss out; hit play now!
Featured Guest:
Jason Barnard
Website: https://kalicube.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmbar…
[00:00:00] Narrator: On today’s episode of Gathering the Kings.
[00:00:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): My worst decision of all was the business partner I took for the cartoon up to ten website, which is why it all stopped. And what I didn’t realize is that I was working for children and trying to build something that meant something to children for the future, and I wanted to share it with the world. And it was all terribly lovely and very hippie, and he was a pure businessman. That’s not a good mix. And so I learned from that huge huge mistake that I cannot be a business partner with somebody who’s looking at purely a business. As you said, money is good, but it isn’t the most important thing for me. The most important thing. With Kalicube, as with up to Ten, Boowa and Kwala, the cartoon characters is helping, teaching, coaching, supporting the people that we’re working with.
[00:00:54] Chaz Wolfe: You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, featuring fellow seven, eight, and even nine figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business. Today, we dissect the good and bad decisions they’ve made along the way that give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you, too, can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today’s guests. Grab your pen and notebook because we’re about to dive in. What’s up, everybody? I’m Chaz Wolfe. I’m your host, Gathering the Kings podcast. Coming back to you today, another king here on the stage, my brother, Jason Barnard. How are we doing?
[00:01:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’m doing all right. Thank you very much, Chaz. Thanks for inviting me.
Introduction to Jason Barnard and His Company Kalicube
[00:01:57] Chaz Wolfe: I so appreciate that. And I love the etiquette that you carry. And also we get to experience a little different tonality here today with your accent. I love it. You’re in a completely different part of the world. Tell us where you’re beaming in from as well as what type of business that you have. Jason.
[00:02:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. I’m beaming in from France, even though my accent is incredibly English, British. Hello. And I have a company in France called Kalicube, and we deal in Digital Marketing and solving Digital Marketing for clients. And we have a SaaS platform that solves Digital Marketing and SEO search engine optimization. And it’s wonderful fun.
[00:02:40] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. I love it. We’re gonna able to get into some great value here, I think, for the listeners, not just in France, but all the different I think we’ve got 15 or maybe even 20 different countries that listen to the show. So you’re gonna be well known across the world here, Jason. All right.
[00:02:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Well, actually, I live in France, but I live in France for the food, the wine, the weather and the culture. But most of our clients are actually in the US. And the UK.
Kalicube Pro Understands and Solves Digital Marketing Challenges
[00:03:06] Chaz Wolfe: Well, there you go. There you go. I was just going to say, I was on your website earlier and noticed that it was in English. And so when you’re talking about being in France, I’m already calculating what’s going on here you know. So that’s great. You said that you solve Digital Marketing. That is such a big mountain, and some people don’t know what that is. They partially know, you know. Like maybe i mean is this, maybe it means that. What do you mean? That you solve Digital Marketing.
[00:03:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, obviously, Digital Marketing is marketing on the digital space, on the Internet. And I think marketing and the Internet are now so intertwined that there’s no real getting away from it. And the big problem about Digital Marketing when you’re a company online, is knowing where to focus, where to put your effort, and how to actually engage with your audience. When there’s the Internet interface, if you like, between yourself and your audience. And what we have managed to do is solve the problem of understanding where you need to place your efforts and the efforts you need to make and where you need to stand to be standing where your audience is looking. So that you can then show them you have the solution and tell them how to come down your acquisition funnel to your business and become clients. So solving Digital Marketing, it’s a huge climb. But I built the platform to do it, and that’s what the platform is designed to do. And it’s called Kalicube Pro, and it’s push a button and it spits out your Digital Marketing strategy.
Strategic Digital Marketing Holds Significance Importance for Business Owners
[00:04:37] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. I love it. What would you say? We’re gonna get into a little bit more of your story here in a second. But since we’re on this topic of your business and Digital Marketing, why is Digital Marketing or knowing the platform or the mountain to stand on or the social media angle to take the strategy behind it all? Why is that so important in today’s world? As a business owner who’s listening today.
[00:05:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right, when we all talk about touch points and how many touch points do we need? And there’s a huge debate. Is it seven? Is it nine, is it 21? Is it thousand? And it obviously depends on the industry. It depends on the person. It depends on the company. But one thing is clear is we see so many messages today that the number of touch points is getting bigger. And when you say stand on the right mountain, you can also stand on multiple correct hills. So as the person looks around their environment, they keep seeing you. And that’s the trick of Digital Marketing, because you need all of these touch points. You need a lot of small touch points in different places with the right people speaking, the right words, using the right words to engage them. And that’s what we do. We actually use Google to analyze where you should be standing, what you should be saying, and to whom.
Kalicube Pro Supports Agencies with Customized Solutions for Digital Marketing
[00:05:53] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. I love it. I love how you gave clear insight to not only you could stand on a mountain, but maybe there’s multiple. And also, too, even if you’re standing on multiple, the way that you stand on them might be a little bit different.
[00:06:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Yup, absolutely. And what we do, the Kalicube Pro platform is actually a SaaS platform for agencies. So it allows agencies to solve Digital Marketing for their clients. And we have SOPs for each of the different strategies that Kalicube Pro will spit out. So out of a total of 50 potential strategies, it will spit out the top twelve prioritized. And then you go ahead and you implement them for your client if you’re an agency, or we implement them with you if you’re one of our clients. When we’re using this as an agency ourselves. And what’s lovely about it is what it does is it queries Google. It asks Google what’s right, what’s wrong with the current digital strategy, what are the competition doing? So where should they be standing? How should they be speaking? What kind of voice, what topics? And gives you the ideal, most efficient, effective, and profitable digital strategy possible, given your current situation. And then we talk to the client or the agency using the platform talks to the client to talk about business goals and resources that they actually have and what they’re currently doing. And then we adapt the strategies, change them around, bring in strategies that maybe we hadn’t prioritized, because that wasn’t necessarily the most important, but they’re more important to the business today. So we need to talk with our clients, or the agencies need to talk with their clients to ensure that we’re implementing the most efficient, effective, and profitable Digital Marketing strategy, not just according to the market and to Google, but also to their business goals and their resources.
[00:07:43] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I love how specific and precise that is, because I think we can all relate to hiring an agency of sorts. There’s different, I guess, niches, but I’ve hired a few in my day, and they slap a traditional or a basic or generic strategy on it, and it’s like, wait a second, this doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand. You know what I’m saying?
[00:08:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, exactly. And that’s a really good point that I hadn’t emphasized enough and I hadn’t really thought about enough. But yes, agencies tend to come in and say, well, this is how we do what we do. 123456, we’ll start with your website, then we’ll move on to Twitter, Facebook, whatever it is. And that’s not gonna work for each and every business, because each and every business is unique. And so what we’ve done is looked to that and said, well, how can we use Google’s search results to better understand the company and its industry. And who other than Google, knows more about your company online and your industry online? What’s happening and where you need to stand? Google knows more than anybody no need to waste money on a hugely expensive market, research, strategy or agency. Ask Google. We just ask Google and then we have an algorithm that spits out the strategy.
Jason Barnard’s Digital Marketing Journey
[00:09:02] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Love it. Well, let’s talk about your story a little bit here. You obviously aren’t new to entrepreneurship, but tell us a little bit of your journey, how you got to being in Digital Marketing here today.
[00:09:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right, well, yeah, thanks. I’ve been in Digital Marketing for 25 years, so I’ve pretty much done it all. And that’s why we have 50 strategies, because I’ve implemented 50 strategies. So I started in 1998 with a blue dog and a yellow Kwala, and that’s a cartoon. It was a cartoon for children. And my ex wife and I were cartoon characters on a website for kids, and we were competing with Disney, PBS, the BBC, with 1 billion page views in 2007.
[00:09:49] Chaz Wolfe: Wow.
[00:09:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So we managed to do a marketing strategy for those cartoon characters that in seventh years, built up to become 5 million visits a month from children under the age of ten. A billion page views. And it was a huge, huge success.
[00:10:07] Chaz Wolfe: Wow. Yeah. That is, I mean to say that you’ve implemented something that’s worked.
[00:10:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. When we were talking about seven, eight, nine figure businesses, I was thinking, Well, Kalicube isn’t a seven figure business, but that business was. You can imagine with numbers like that. We were making very, very good money, and we were changing the lives of children who today, even today, 15 years later, after we stopped, who still come to me and say, oh, I grew up with that. That was my childhood. And I even had an agency who gave on a call to use the Kalicube Pro platform and they got out a fluffy yellow Kwala to show me the Kwala that they had made for their children ten years ago.
[00:10:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, that’s pretty special. Well, first off, I love your vulnerability about current business versus last business and kind of where all that’s at. But the story of an entrepreneur doesn’t lie with only our current like revenue. I mean, revenue is a vanity thing anyway. But I love how you can look back and go, I have a history of success. I’m in this lane. I know this lane. I’m providing value in the lane that I’ve already done so well myself in. If you keep doing that, it’s just only a matter of time, in my opinion. In my experience, it’s a matter of time for the current business to catch up to your experience.
[00:11:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Which is a lovely point, and I think kind of the optimism of saying, this is where I’m going. I can see exactly where I’m heading. And the last three years, we’ve increased revenues 20% 60%, and now we’re doubling this year. And that’s a lovely progression where we’re building a team out. I’m learning to be a better boss, I’m learning to be a better entrepreneur. And I can see it scaling and moving forwards, and I’m making good decisions today, whereas in the past, as you said, vulnerable. I made some terrible decisions.
[00:12:05] Chaz Wolfe: Well, we’re gonna get to both good and bad decisions. So hold on to that vulnerability tab, because we’re gonna pull that one back up here in a second. But the playbook that you’re running, it sounds like you’re taking some pieces that you’ve done in the past. Successful, wise, you’ve replaced them with maybe other new decisions or new plays in the playbook. Regardless, though, I think what I’m taking away from you so far, I want to just point this out to the listener because this is my history as well. Having multiple businesses in different industries is that although there are nuances to industry generally, it’s a same, it’s a playbook that we run zero to seven figures, zero to eight figures, whatever the goal is. And so some of those pieces that you just even mentioned that you’re working deeper on this time, as far as growth or maybe a little bit more strategic growth, a little bit more like stairstepped approach, not like just all of a sudden kaboom, building a team, like all of those things are really, really important. So I want to get into those in your story, but let’s just start with your good decision, something that maybe you’ve done recently, or maybe it was something that you made in the very beginning when you started your entrepreneurship journey. But we’ve got people listening here today that have tiny businesses and hundreds of millions. So what’s something that you’ve done that we can maybe take away and learn from?
[00:13:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, in fact, one of my good decisions is also one of my bad decisions. So my good decision in 1998 when we started the site for Kids was to focus on kids aged up to ten, and the company was called Up To Ten. So that was says it on the box. That’s what we do, just kids age up to ten. And the reason the company was so hugely successful and the characters were so hugely successful was because we focused on a very specific audience and we spoke to them in a way that they appreciated being spoken to, and we took care that the parents appreciated what we were doing for and with their children.
[00:13:59] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah.
[00:14:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So that was a hugely brilliant decision. The bad decision I’ve made with Kalicube and that I’m now rectifying is that I thought, Kalicube has solved digital marketing, therefore we can serve everybody in the world. And that simply isn’t possible. And it’s a huge mistake to try. When you try to serve everybody, you serve nobody.
Targeting Your Niche: Finding the Perfect Fit for Your Business
[00:14:22] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. And we’ve heard this. I think if anybody’s listened to this show long enough or really any podcast or read any sort of marketing book, we know that Niching is important. But in the moment, like what you’re saying, even for someone like you. And I’ve done the same thing myself, which is I know this to be true, but I still think I can help other people. And so how do you decide, or have you decided, or how does the listener go about going, okay, I know I can help all ten of these avatars, but really I should pick this one? But that’s scary, that’s nerve wracking. Am I going to cut the other ones off? There’s all these thoughts that happen. Right. So tell us your mindset here.
[00:15:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, my mindset today is very much I know who I can serve, which is businesses from 2 to $20 million revenue a year with a small marketing team of three, four, maybe five people, where we can coach the marketing team to implement the strategies that we have found for them. And up until maybe a year ago, I was thinking, well, we can do the big businesses and we can do the small businesses, and we can help everybody. But the bigger business is the paperwork is too complicated and the implementation is too slow. So the effects we have are not seen or measurable in a way that impresses the next level up and the next level up and the next level up. So there’s no point. And with a 2 to $20 million a year business, we can work. But if they’ve got a marketing team of 10 or 15 people, that’s too many. There’s too many people in the mix, and we can’t actually focus on what we’re doing. And if the company has none, or even just one, there’s too much work. So what I’ve started to now do is, as we talk through the potential project as an agency sorry, as an agency, yeah, is I ask them those questions about how many people on your marketing team, and the sweet spot is two to five, two really enthusiastic people, or five normal people, let’s say. And then for agencies, what we’ve realized is a PR agency can use the platform, but they actually want to have us do the work for them.
[00:16:36] Chaz Wolfe: Right.
[00:16:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Because PR agencies are very much traditional media, and we’re very much digital media.
[00:16:41] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah.
[00:16:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So put those to one side straight away. An SEO agency is focused on really, really detailed SEO geeky things. Unless they have some Digital Marketing aspect, it’s not a good fit either. And online reputation management agencies, if they’re looking for a quick, cheap, simple solution, this isn’t the one for them. Because we’re building brand to solve the ORM problem. If you have an ORM problem with your brand, and we need to fix your brand and then fix the representation of that brand through Google. So it doesn’t sound like I’ve niched down very much, but what I’m doing is saying this is the kind of person or the kind of agency we can deal with. And this is the kind of company we can deal with. Otherwise we’re not a good fit.
[00:17:27] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, actually I think you gave some really great examples of actually the way I took it was we don’t serve this person well. It doesn’t mean that our product has a problem or our service has a problem. It just it doesn’t land as good with this specific avatar. And so I think actually this is a call to all listeners because we do the same thing in each one of our businesses. It’s like there is somebody that when we serve this person, it’s actually probably easier for us. Like you said, it’s not very much work. It fits right into the go zone and they get the best experience possible and best results. But you take that same service, the same everything, and you apply it to a bigger or smaller business in your case, or a different type of agency. The examples that you’ve given this could be on a home service side. Like, I have a company that does high end remodels. We’re not gonna come in and do a bathroom for $5,000. We just don’t have the capability to do that. We’re gonna be really frustrated working with that individual. They’re gonna be frustrated with us. Probably not even gonna work with somebody on a bathroom less than 25,000, to be honest, because it’s just the end product is a higher scaled situation. And so, our curated experience is going to be more appreciated by the person that wants to pay for it also.
[00:18:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right? No. 100%. Yeah. And the point about budget as well is being very open and frank about the budget and saying, you’re gonna be investing $24 to $48,000 a year with us as an agency, and we will train your staff. But that’s just the training and the coaching. But we will put them on exactly the right track, and they will be the most effective and efficient possible for you. And that’s gonna fill your funnel from top to bottom and that’s what you’re looking for. And the other thing is, don’t expect us to turn around huge results in two or three months. This is a year long project and it’s gonna grow over that year. And as you’ve seen with Kalicube, we’ve gone 20% one year, 60 the next, and 100 the next. That’s what we’re looking for, sustainable growth based on standing on the right mountain, saying the right things to the right people.
[00:19:41] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I love that. Actually, Alex Hormozi said just the other day in a video I was watching of him, he said that when he signed up for the YouTube agency that he’s been working with, he told the folks, like, basically, look, I’m not gonna say anything for ten years. In my mind, this is a ten year engagement. I’ll pay whatever. I’m not looking for results I’m not looking for reports. He’s like, yeah, okay. Do I want to see our videos getting more views? Yes. Do I want to see progress? Yeah. Don’t hear me wrong here, but I am going into the situation, making a ten year decision, knowing that I’m competing with guys that have been on YouTube for ten years. And so it’s like, okay, well, I can’t even quantify how to compete with somebody who’s been on YouTube for ten years if I haven’t been on YouTube for ten years. It has nothing to do with necessarily the agency. Although there’s a piece there, I’m hearing you say the same thing make a decision based on a longer time horizon, specifically with marketing. But really, this is business. The longer we can make decisions, the more we have, I guess, the discipline or poise inside of those decisions to be able to make it happen, as opposed to always knee jerking, back and forth, back and forth, changing things.
[00:20:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A 100% and that’s an interesting point. The two points there that struck me as I was talking to a client today who’ve been with us for eight years. Paying us every single month for eight years. And today we’re building a new strategy, an additional strategy to push them forwards further. And they’re smart because they’ve stuck with a great strategy, and they stuck with the idea of growing little by little by little, and now they’re dominating completely their industry. And the second point is the idea of continuity, which is what they have. And what you’re also talking about is remaining consistent with the implementation. And as I said with Kalicube, it’s only the last year that I’ve become consistent, and it’s the growth of this year, doubling is mainly to do with the consistency and excluding the people in the companies who we can’t help or we won’t help enough for them to be hugely satisfied with our work.
The Importance of Value Alignment in Business Partnerships
[00:21:52] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, that’s good. Okay, well, let’s talk about a bad decision. I know you parlayed your good decision into the bad decision, but give us a scenario, a story, if you will, of just not the greatest hour or something that we can take away and go, okay, I’m never gonna do that. What is it?
[00:22:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, my worst decision of all was the business partner I took for the cartoon Up To Ten website, which is why it all stopped. And what I didn’t realize is that I was working for children and trying to build something that meant something to children for the future, and I wanted to share it with the world. And it was all terribly lovely and very hippie, and he was a pure businessman. That’s not a good mix. And so I learned from that huge huge mistake that I cannot be a business partner with somebody who’s looking at purely a business. As you said, money is good, but it isn’t the most important thing for me. The most important thing with Kalicube, as with Up To Ten Boowa and Kwala, the cartoon characters is helping, teaching, coaching, supporting the people that we’re working with. And it used to be children, tiny, tiny children. And now it’s businesses. But it’s effectively the same thing. We know what we’re talking about. We can help you. Let us guide you. Let us coach you. Let us help you. And from that perspective, if I took an investor into Kalicube who was interested in just making money, it simply wouldn’t work. And I’m not making that mistake again.
[00:23:23] Chaz Wolfe: Hey, kings and queens, Chaz Wolfe, I want to talk to you about something that’s super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort, we, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners, too. So we would love, if you would like, comment, share, leave a review post, share again all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs, so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let’s do this. Let’s help each other. Let’s help each other grow. Yeah, I mean, the baseline underneath what we’re talking about is the value comparison, right? And regardless of that person’s personal beliefs, their business beliefs were that it’s an equation and nothing more. And to you, it’s more than that. And both are okay. I think that we’ve probably got people listening here today that fall in both camps. The guy that absolutely has to love the Widget, and that’s what you’re saying, I got to fall in love with the Widget and that’s okay, right?
[00:24:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. No, exactly. Sorry. I would like to clarify. I’m not saying don’t go into business with somebody who’s looking at it as an equation that makes money. I’m saying don’t go into business with somebody with whom you are incompatible. And as you said, I have to love the Widget. And the business partner actually said to me, and I should have woken up the day he said that was I’m in cartoons for kids because it makes money. If it had been selling Zucchini, I would have sold Zucchini.
[00:25:10] Chaz Wolfe: Right?
[00:25:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I should have woken up that day, and I didn’t.
Kalicube Aligns Its Values and Goals
[00:25:15] Chaz Wolfe: This is a really interesting conversation because I have found myself in the same conversation with a few potential partners that I ended up not doing business with for this exact reason. We’re not saying one is better than the other, but what we’re saying is that they’re different and that the core goal is then different. And so it’s interesting as I’m just processing for the listener here. It’s like you love the widget. Well, what does that mean? It means that he’s altruistic about the process of helping, and it doesn’t mean that somebody on the other end isn’t. It’s just the end goal looks different for that person. And it can be about obviously, every business is about money. It can be an equation, all the things that you just said. But values have to align is what we’re really saying, right?
[00:26:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A 100%. Yeah. And right now with Kalicube, I’m on my own. It’s my business, I decide and I get that balance, and I get a really nice balance, and I get to choose that balance between the money, the widget, enjoying the work. And the other thing I love about Kalicube is building a team that I truly love. A group of people who work together incredibly well and who are kind and supporting and helpful. And it’s been very interesting because I was on my own in Kalicube for a long time. It was just me, and I built up that up now to a team of 23 as of next week.
[00:26:44] Chaz Wolfe: Wow.
[00:26:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the Kalicube voice and the Kalicube values are now shared. The whole team has identified them or defined them. And as a business leader, that’s a little bit strange at first, but it’s actually loads better.
[00:27:02] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. They’ve taken on the initial identity that you gave, and they’re now helping build it into whatever it’s gonna be in the next twelve months, 36 months, 60 months, whatever it’s going to be.
[00:27:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We had to put the catchphrase on the team page. Kalicube. It’s not just Jason.
[00:27:20] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, that’s good. I think that right there, we just staple that on every entrepreneur’s forehead so that way they see it every day in the mirror. Because that shift you kind of came to it naturally, of a slow progression of, this is how I’m building the business, which is fantastic. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs, many listening right now, that haven’t quite made that click in their mind of, it’s not about me. It’s never even about you. Even if you’re the only guy. It’s about the client first off.
[00:27:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right? Yes.
Balance Passion with Profit by Embracing Diverse Business Ventures Without Losing Integrity
[00:27:55] Chaz Wolfe: And so it’s just never about the owner. Although the owner gives the fuel, the vision, like, there’s a lot of sticky that comes from that, so you can’t get those things twisted. I want to give one last encouragement to the listener who is maybe a little bit more numbers oriented, maybe less widget loving, that you can still be like that and not be ruthless and take advantage of people. Because I find myself more in that camp, particularly where I have literally multiple businesses in different industries. We sell fruit baskets, I have different types of real estate companies. We remodeling podcast gathering. The Kings is a mastermind group for different styles and types of businesses. I can get in where. I fit in. And I don’t have to love the exact widget per se, but I’m gonna do whatever I’m doing with passion and winning, not necessarily trying to take advantage of somebody just because I care about the dollar. So there’s a huge distinction here that I think both you and I actually align on, that I wanted to encourage the listener. Would you say anything addition to that?
[00:28:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, I think you’ve got 100% right. I mean, some people are just there to make money at any cost, and that’s definitely something I would put to one side. Somebody is saying, I don’t really mind about the Widget, but I do care about what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and how we’re serving the client. And the fact that this isn’t just about you. Jason is somebody I can talk to and potentially do business with. But I know from my own past experience of the three companies I’ve actually had is I have to really, really love the Widget, and I have to focus on that one widget. And right now it’s the Kalicube Widget. The Kalicube Process. Kalicube Pro. Before it was the Blue Dog and Yellow Kwala Widget, and before that it was a music group, and I was the bass player in a band with a record company, and that was my widget. But widget is a great word, so I’m the widget guy now.
Embracing Entrepreneurial Mindsets by Balancing Business Building and Gamifying Growth
[00:29:52] Chaz Wolfe: Well. And I love that. I’m thinking of one particular instance where a friend of mine and I had traveled to go check out a franchise opportunity, actually, but the trade itself. We came back from that trip, and he was like because he was gonna be the hands in the actual job site every day. And although it was something that he could do, I could have done it. It was pretty basic, but he was like, I just don’t see myself doing that every day. Where my thought was, I thought we were building a business, not necessarily doing this particular trade. Again, different mindsets, different entrepreneurs, but you just got to know. So if you’re like Jason, love the Widget, and that’s okay. Love the Widget, and if you’re more like me, then that’s okay. What I love the Widget is business, and that may not be particular to marketing or podcast or whatever, but I just love growth. And so we can be addicted or obsessed with the different things. So I think we’ve given them a good piece here. Go ahead.
[00:30:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, no, I can add something to that as well. I’ve actually got a degree in economics and statistical analysis, so the business perspective was actually right back when I was quite young. And the way I’m growing Kalicube from a business perspective is to treat it, as you said, like a widget. It’s a game, and it’s a money and growth and team game and visibility game. And I’ve got a formula in my mind that I won’t share that isn’t actually particularly written down anywhere. But it’s saying, what’s my game? What’s my aim and how do I get there? So I’m treating the business, I’m gamifying what I’m actually doing in terms of the results.
[00:31:30] Chaz Wolfe: Love that. Love that. When you wake up every day, whether it’s Jason or whether it’s Chaz or whether it’s John listening, whatever, when you wake up every day and you play the game again, you get to play the game again. I just think that that’s a whole another level of understanding and really just freedom, I don’t know. Would you put any other adjectives with that? I mean, it just feels free.
[00:31:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, no, it does feel free. And what I realize as well is I’ve never had a real job. I’ve always had my own company. And from that perspective, I don’t know what it’s like to work for a boss. I had one experience working with a business partner and that was, I think, part of the problem. Having just blamed him for everything, part of the problem is I’m just not cut out to do that. So you know, I take my share of the blame of that as well. So it may well have been a bad decision for him as well. So from that perspective, the getting up in the morning and thinking, yeah, I really want to do this, for me is huge. That’s, for me, the meaning of life.
Jason Barnard’s Journey in Business and Life
[00:32:31] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, it is. I mean, I use the phrase to create or live the exceptional life. And to really, in my mind, have the exceptional life, I have to have all areas or all dimensions of my life really humming. And I got to be winning in all those areas. Of course, that’s the business, including the Widget. That can mean other things as well. And so my next question is use a transition here is around another dimension, which is family or marriage or kids or just the other pieces that are really important to us, however that’s defined for you. So how have you been able to obsess or win in that dimension at the same time as this huge trajectory and history of business winning that you’ve had?
[00:33:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, I was kind of lucky in the sense that it was my ex wife who worked with me on the Boowa and Kwala cartoon site. So we worked together, lived together, we had a daughter. We moved to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. So it’s a tropical island.
[00:33:31] Chaz Wolfe: Wow.
[00:33:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Bringing a child up 13 years on a tropical island is wonderful for the child. Easy as a parent because it’s sunny every day and everybody’s happy every day. So that was a really lovely transitional period when things could have been difficult. If we’d been living in Paris, in France, for example, then we came back to France. And when my daughter was old enough to go to university, at which point she flies with her own wings and I get to do Kalicube. And so it’s really worked out really well is that when we were working on the cartoons, it was in a family atmosphere and family environment that made sense to the business at the time. And now the family has separated and gone their separate different ways. I’m working on this geeky thing, which is how to master Google, how to master Digital Marketing, and I can get up every morning and I can spend my whole day mastering Digital Marketing. And then, because I live in the south of France, where we eat great food, drink great wine, at the end of the day, right after this interview, I will go and have a pain d’épi on the cafeterias.
Insights on the Key to Entrepreneurship
[00:34:38] Chaz Wolfe: There you go. I love it. I love the snippet that I want to pull out. There is a lot of what many other entrepreneurs have said here on the show or just people that I run with. And it’s I got to do business in life, children, all of it, it becomes one. And it’s not like a balance between the two. It’s like, no, how do I bring these all things together and how do I work them? Because I think that’s just how, as entrepreneurs, we’re just so uniquely different than anybody else, is that I can be like your example. I can be at home with my wife and my child working on the business, and we’re doing it all together. Or maybe we switch, like, in this moment. Now we’re doing something different, but it’s not related to business. Loved the tropical island example. So, side note to the listener, just moved to a tropical island, apparently, and all your worries go away. Sounds like a song, right?
[00:35:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, it does. And I could probably write it later on with the bass behind me. Mauritius. We moved in the year 2000. That was more or less the end of the first big Internet bubble. And everybody was saying, you can run an Internet site from anywhere in the world. And we basically spun the globe and said, let’s try it on this tropical island. It was a rude awakening because it isn’t as easy as it seems to run a website from anywhere in the world, especially a website that big when you’re competing with Disney and the BBC and you’re sitting on a tropical island on the beach with your computer, which was lovely, but from the perspective of once you’ve figured out how to adapt yourself and your business to the circumstances you find yourself in, life becomes very easy. And that’s, I think, the key to entrepreneurship, is realize that there are some things you can change, some things you can’t.
[00:36:21] Chaz Wolfe: That’s right.
[00:36:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You need to adapt to the ones that you can’t, and you need to change the ones that you can change or work as hard as you can to change them. And so if you have a 98K modem connection on a tropical island, you have to figure out how to live with that and work with that and make things work with that.
[00:36:39] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. That’s good. There are many things that we can’t control, and worrying about them does us no good, is what I’m hearing you say. So just tip back and have another whatever French word you said there and another glass of wine, and all would be well.
[00:36:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, a 100%.
Jason Barnard’s Message to His Younger Self
[00:36:57] Chaz Wolfe: Jason, I got one last question here for you. I want to know, especially with your long history here, curious of your answer, but if you had the opportunity to whisper in the younger Jason’s ear, what would you tell him?
[00:37:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I would tell him, do exactly what you ended up doing, which is building a business around widgets you love. Make sure that you’re focusing on one specific widget and not spreading your widgets or focusing on too many widgets, which would have saved me from a few heartaches. And make sure you work with people who enjoy the same widget that you do or can contribute to your widget in a way that isn’t gonna get in the way of your widgeting.
[00:37:47] Chaz Wolfe: I couldn’t have widgetedly put that together better than you did. Did I use that word properly?
[00:37:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, but you started it, not me.
[00:37:57] Chaz Wolfe: Well, Jason, that’s really powerful. And so as we’re laughing about it and making light of it, it actually is a really great point, because what you said is, be okay with who I am, line up with other people who share the same values and go for it, is what I heard.
[00:38:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep. That’s it exactly.
Connect with Jason Barnard and Master Your Digital Presence
[00:38:18] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. Jason, how can we find you, number one, if we need your help solving digital media for our business or Digital Marketing, how can we find you? Or if we’re just an entrepreneur, we want to reach out to you. We want to connect. We want to drum up a networking opportunity. How can we do that with you?
[00:38:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, I love to say that Google is your new business card. So if you search my name, Jason Barnard, you get to see my business card that I’ve designed incredibly carefully, because I control what Google shows about me, and I can help anybody do. That really isn’t very complicated once you figured it out. But the idea is that you get all of the information about the Blue Dogs, the Yellow Kwala, the Music Group, my website, my social media accounts, the articles I’ve written about Digital Marketing, my company. And you get to choose how you engage with me. And the perfect Google digital business card is exactly that. You, the audience searching my name, understand who I am, what I do, how I can serve you, and you get to choose how you engage with me.
[00:39:23] Chaz Wolfe: I love that. What a great masterful segue to how you are such an expert at what you do. I love that. So I just want to encourage the listener. We’re gonna put all that in the show notes as well. But of course, look up Jason. Experience the Google digital card that he’s talking about. Yeah. And engage how that makes sense for you. But, Jason, you’ve been incredible. You’re building something sustainable, like you said earlier, something that has an incredible team behind it. I’m excited for you and all that you have in front of you. Blessings to you, your team, your business, all that you have. Thank you for being here.
[00:39:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Thank you, Chaz. That was absolutely delightful. It was a lovely conversation. I think I learned quite a lot as well.
[00:40:00] Chaz Wolfe: Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you’re realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself, doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses in multiple different industries, and now interviewing over two or 300 other very successful seven, eight, and nine figure business owners, is that it’s tough to do it alone. And so Gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful but not done. We’re intentionally assembling Kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family and communities. And here’s what we believe, that in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So that relates and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified, other very successful business owners, I want you to go to Gatheringthekings.com. I want you to take a look at what we’re doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 Kings. Talk soon.
