Blaze Your Own Trail - How to Leverage Your Smartphone to Win Business with Shawn Walchef

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

About the guest: Shawn P. Walchef (@shawnpwalchef) is the founder of Cali BBQ Media, podcast host, business coach, and proud dad. Since opening Cali BBQ in 2008, his family-run restaurant and media company in San Diego has generated more than $30 million in sales. As a restaurateur who opened during the Great Recession of 2008, Shawn Walchef learned to use digital tools and big ideas to stay in business. During the Pandemic, Shawn and his Cali BBQ Media team developed a scalable plan that is three times more profitable than the traditional full-service restaurant model. He also hosts two weekly video podcast series: Digital Hospitality and Restaurant Influencers. Podcasts are just one part of his burgeoning media empire, which also includes content creation, consulting, and more digital services to help others with their smartphone storytelling. Shawn’s smartphone storytelling strategies have led to Cali BBQ Media being featured on Amazon Prime TV, Bloomberg TV, Entrepreneur, Inc, Eater, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News and many other local and national media outlets. The business owner wants to guide others to the right digital tools and social media strategies that will unlock endless opportunities for them and their brands. STAY CURIOUS | GET INVOLVED | ASK FOR HELP • Subscribe to Digital Hospitality: ⁠https://calibbq.media/podcast-episode⁠ • Subscribe to Restaurant Influencers: ⁠https://www.entrepreneur.com/listen/restaurant-influencers⁠ Email [e-mail] to get in touch or DM on social media @shawnpwalchef Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠⁠ Clapper: ⁠⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com⁠ Thanks for listening to the show! Don't forget to give us a follow on Apple & Spotify! Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I had a total 11 jobs between the age of 11 and 17, just trying to help and support my mom. When I gave away my ATS resume template, I used to church $3,000 for it. If I were someone that wanted to work with you, I think the thing that would resonate with me the most is the fact that you have been as far as they will fall. I gave her all my videos, and today she's sent me a message saying I got my first client, and it could not be happier for her. On my show, one thing I love to do is really get context into people's journey. I saw eggs and I sold vegetables door to door. I saw newspapers. I do it because they truly care to help.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail Podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host. And I've got a very special guest today. His name is Sean Walshiff. And I'm going to give him just a second to tell you who he is and what he does today.

What is up, Jordan? My name is Sean Walshuff. I am a husband. I'm a father. I'm also the owner of Cali Barbecue Media. So we are a barbecue brand and a media brand in San Diego, California. We've been in the restaurant business for the last 14 years. And because we picked such a difficult location to open up that business, we had to rely on any type of marketing and branding necessary to keep those doors open. And around that same time as when Web 2.0 came out in that thing that we all have in our pockets, that smart, on the underutilized tool that business owners take for granted every single day. We kind of leaned all in. We had nobody was telling our story. So we started sharing our own story, using video, audio, written word, and images on the internet. Now we have two weekly podcasts.

So two weekly video podcasts. We just launched our second podcast with Entrepreneur Magazine and Yelp called Restaurant Influencers. Very excited about that show. I'm pretty sure we're the only restaurant on Earth that has not just one weekly consistent podcast, but two. So it's super exciting. So I do a lot of consulting and a lot of one-on-one coaching with business owners, entrepreneurs, medium-sized businesses, basically simplifying social media. I mean, I know what you do. I've seen what you do. You're incredible at your craft. And that's kind of how we connected was through digital connections. What we call on our show digital hospitality, our first podcast is building in real life connections online. But you can only do that if you're not a fake person. So you have to be real. You have to be real. You have to. be authentic. I know that's an overused word, but you actually have to engage in what we call hospitality is make memorable moments. So whether that's in a DM, whether that's in a comment,

whether that's during a live call, you know, there are connections that can be made with people that are moving the earth. And it's just a really exciting time to be in business. I'm excited to be on this podcast. Love it, man. Well, I appreciate you giving that context. And I love everything that you're up to because it's really kind of how I got started in the digital marketing game, right? It was really trying to like figure things out, figure out how I was going to show up, like what I was going to talk about, but then also figure out the landscape. Like you said, you've got to engage with people. You've got to, you got to actually make sure that if somebody engages in anything that you're doing, that you reciprocate that, you know, because it's going to come back. You know,

I think you said something really awesome. Like there's movers and shakers out there that you can get in touch with if you want to. And I'm telling this to clients all the time. I'm like, you know, if you've got a notable figure that, you know, maybe you've reacted to their story. If they've, if you see an engagement point, that's when you need to strike. Like, you need to get in their DMs after that and say, hey, thanks for engaging. Like, I would love to connect. And because they're busy, right? But if they have made that touch point with you, that's an opportunity for you to reach out to them.

So I love the fact that that's what you guys are up to, what you're talking about. And definitely a lot of synergies between us. So favorite part of my show, man, is really taking a rewind, you know, getting a sense of Sean as a kid. So I love to really rewind. Let's go back to adolescent years, you know, elementary, middle, and high school. You know, where'd you grow up? And then what were you into? What were some of the hobbies that you got into?

And we'll see if they're still sticking with you today. So love to get some context. Absolutely. I'm very fortunate, very blessed. I was, I never met my father. Still haven't met him. I reached out to him. actually when I had my first son. So I have a son that's four years old, Colleen. I've got a daughter,

Mila. But I remember when I was, he was about six months old and I was reading, you know, nighttime stories to him. And I was just looking at him and going, how can there be somebody that I love more than anything on earth on this planet? And how can it be possible for a father to not want to know his son? You know, for me, I grew up very blessed. I was fortunate that my grandfather raised me. So my Bulgarian grandfather and my Japanese grandmother, I'm not Japanese, but she raised me since I was a kid. I'm 25% Bulgarian, but I grew up in a very affluent part of San Diego called La Jolla. And because of that, my grandfather was very persistent in education. So he paid for private school for me to have the best of the best. And there were times where I struggled. I didn't get into the private

school that he wanted me to get into, but he made me reapply. And, you know, getting into the bishop's school in La Jolla was one of the greatest things that happened to me because it really helped me future understand the persistency, the consistency and the persistency of hard work, of staying curious and of getting involved. So much of what you can accomplish and what he accomplished as a Bulgarian farm boy that was literally born to be a farmer. If it wasn't for his grandfather and if it wasn't for an American missionary that came to his village that taught the entire village how to read, how to farm. He wouldn't have the opportunity to leave that village

and to become a medical doctor in World War II. He had to go to Germany. He got rejected by every single medical school in Bulgaria because he didn't have money and he didn't have power. So he had to apply to Germany during World War II, learn how to study German just to learn how to study medicine. So it's that persistency. And I call him the Bulgarian mamba in my life.

So the mamba mentality from Kobe Bryant. Kobe made a huge impact on my life, but the most important impact came from my grandfather. And that grandfather gave me this structure. He gave me a life of privilege. He really allowed me to, like I said, go to the bishop's school and learn the value of work. I mean, I was 13 years old when I first started working in the restaurant business. He made me wash tables and, I mean, washed dishes and bus tables on the weekends when all my friends from La Jolla were playing sports or going to the beach. I was driving about 20 minutes, 25 minutes east, East San Diego to work as a bus boy, to work as a dishwasher, to make money, to learn. It wasn't just learning actually work.

It was learning the hospitality. I never thought I'd be in the restaurant business, to be honest with you. I thought I was going to be in real estate. I thought it was going to be a lawyer. I failed law school three times. But what I learned when I was 13 was my love of hosting, of taking care of people, of making memorable moments. And, you know, I'm just fortunate now that today we've built a barbecue media company where we get to do that in real life and online. That's awesome. And what a great, you know, example in your grandfather, you know,

to go through the things that he had to go through and ultimately want to give back to you, but also show you the value of hard work, you know, because there's a lot of people that might get the private school thing. You know, it might get that, but they don't actually have the other example. and you probably know in your mind that if it would have been a little different and you would have gotten the stuff, but not the example of hard work and actually showing you how to grind and how to be nice to people and how to run an actual operation. You know, I'm sure that has added a ton of value to everything that you're doing today. I know it sounds like it has for sure.

So in school, was there other things you focused on? You know, I know your goal was to get a really good education. and make Grandpa proud, I'm sure. But was there any extracurriculars, any hobbies, any sports that you did in high school? Yeah, I mean, I played football. I played basketball. I played tennis. I was very active in sports.

Sports entertainment is something that we absolutely love. We have ingrained it into our business. It's what we do as a barbecue brand. I mean, partnering with all the professional sports teams here in San Diego, Los Angeles, the college of San Diego State. We're opening up a barbecue spot in the Aztex New Stadium here in San Diego. We're selling barbecue for March Madness. So sports has always been a through line for me. But, you know, when I was in school, especially after just getting out of high school,

I thought I was going to study business. And I remember going to University of Colorado and Boulder and taking business classes and just not being inspired. You know, I was just so frustrated to be sitting in class and going, I thought business was cool. I thought, you know, opening up a company or building a company was cool. And the things that the professors were teaching were just not cool. There were no real, real world examples, nothing that connected with me. And what did connect with me was sociology. And it's funny to think that now so much of what I do is digital sociology. It's understanding digital playgrounds and where are people and why are they there.

So it's less of asking, it doesn't make sense. Why are people on Facebook or why are people on TikTok or why are people on LinkedIn? It's like, no, there's people there. Let's go see why they're there. let's go have conversations about why they're there. Let's learn why they're there. And let's learn what's the benefit of being here. And that's really been, you know, for me, this bridge of business and sociology is understanding that we've never been so connected. I mean, I get on Clubhouse twice a week and I've talked to restaurant owners, digital marketers, people in media all over the globe.

And I make general, like genuine connections. I'm talking like people that I've met, literally have come to our restaurant. And that's not the ROI. It's not the ROI of OBE. be on Clubhouse because you can sell a rack of ribs. That's not what it is. I mean, I've made genuine friendships with movers and shakers. I mean, you're not on Clubhouse. If you don't understand deep digital, you're not on Clubhouse. You're not spending any time on Clubhouse. But if you are on clubhouse, you can find genuine connections and you can actually really move the needle for your business. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think, you know, it's important to kind of reflect on what you said. You know, it's important to be there because that's where the people are. And then you have to understand

how to use the platform contextually to what your goals are. You've got to understand the algorithm. You've got to understand the search capabilities. You've got to understand the hashtags, the features, right? You've got to really dive in and immerse yourself into all of it. And I remember being the guy that was like, I think I had a TikTok account when it was musically, probably similar to you. This is back when my now 17 year old was like nine, you know, and he was like super into like

these dances and stuff. And I remember back then I was like, you know, I don't know if this thing will. ever become anything. But then of course, as stuff happens and things change, now it's just become a place where if you're not showing up there and you're not testing and trying to figure it out, you're going to be left behind. You know, it's very similar to like 2019 when Gary Vee was talking about like get on LinkedIn. Like I took that for whatever reason to heart. I started creating and a couple of years later I've got almost 70,000. It's unbelievable. People on the platform. that follow me.

And so it's like you've got to take action. It may not hit every time. Like this is why I tell clients, I'm like, you may test something. It may not work the first time, but you just got to keep showing up. Like you've talked about persistence and consistency. You've got to put in the dang reps with everything. And it can't change from platform to platform. You have to be consistent with each and every one.

Yeah. And you know, that's so much of what we do when we talk to business owners, restaurant owners, even big publicly traded technology companies talking to their marketing departments. It's just people need to simplify social media. When you simplify social media, you actually want to show up and you're excited about showing up. Will it be uncomfortable? 100%. No one likes public speaking. Going in selfie mode and talking to a smartphone is not a natural thing to do, but it's an easy thing to do. Like you don't need a video team to do it. You don't need a graphics team to do it. You don't need a social media agency to do it. Literally, you have,

everything you need. The problem is everyone's looking at everyone else. Everyone wants someone else to do social media. The answer is you. You listening to this podcast, the answer is you. You know, you can have a social media team, but once you start sharing your story, the social media team, their job gets easier because now they have more content to post. They have the content that they've always wanted to post. So it starts with you. 100%. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, you went to business school at Colorado and didn't enjoy it. And you mentioned, you mentioned, law school a few different times. So is that kind of the route you went after business school?

Did you say, hey, let me try the law thing out. Let me see if I get energized by this or was there a different place you went before. So I, yeah. So my junior year, I went to go study abroad in Spain. It's one of the best decisions I ever made was studying Alacante, me and one of my best friends, Corey Robinson, the guy that actually opened up the restaurant with studied in Spain. And while I was over there, my grandfather wrote me. And he had been trying to write his life story. He has an incredible life story. He wanted to write self-publish his own book and write his memoir. He also had some commercial property and residential property here in San Diego that he was taking care of.

But he was getting up in his years and his health wasn't as good as it used to be. And I remember being on a public telephone by the center of the city, so by the Plaza de Toros and him saying, you know, Sean, I need your help. And that was at the time where I said, well, I can't go back to Colorado. I've got to go transfer to University of San Diego. And, you know, thankfully I applied while I was over in Spain and got in and decided that, you know, I was going to move back to San Diego. But before I did, my grandfather traveled to Alacante to come pick me up. And we spent six weeks traveling from, we went up to Paris to watch the French Open, but from Paris, I drove from Paris all the way to Bulgaria where he's from. And we researched all the places that he had been to.

So in Germany, where he went to medical school, gathered material. for his book. Then we went to Bulgaria, did a bunch of research and, you know, literally spent six weeks with my grandfather working on, you know, his memoir and his autobiography and spending time with him that I'll treasure forever. That was just the real catalyst for me coming back home to San Diego and then starting to work with him, telling him, yeah, I'm going to go to law school, studying for the law school, failing to get into all three law schools in San Diego. So I framed those law school rejection letters because that's how I roll. But, Nonetheless, I think, you know, so much of my life's past and my life's trajectory has always been

consistency and persistency and understanding that through the rejection comes the reward if you're willing to keep on working for it. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's exactly when it comes, right? When you've failed and tried and done things over and over and over again. And maybe that thing that you were doing, like you said, law school wasn't the thing, but you probably needed that. You needed that, those applications to come back and say, nope, this isn't it, so that it can reroute you to what, you know, what you were called to do, you know.

And I think a lot about adversity and knows and, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day. And I was like, man, like how many times that I hear no before I turned 22 years old? And it was like over 200,000. You know, like I did door to door sales. I did, you know, go door to door. I did business to business. hunter knows a day did it for about four years i was like holy cow like no wonder hearing the word no doesn't bother me right because i've heard it over and over and over again and it helps you build

tough skin but it also helps you rethink about the effort that you put in correct right it makes you rethink like okay well why did i get that and and it really starts the journey to that next yes you know so if you can kind of reframe nose a little bit and change your mindset about it it actually is a great learning opportunity and i'm sure you've seen that time and time again in your journey yeah absolutely i think you know so much of what we try to do it's funny i my my media mentor's uh david melzer and he's helped me with a lot of the lessons and stories that my grandfather taught me a long time ago and it's this story the the story of of the rabbit and the turtle you know the tortoise and the hair that I come back to because when I first started working with him, I was, I would go on

my sunrise gratitude walks in the morning and every single morning. I'm out on the trails by myself, listening to my music, spending my time giving gratitude, but thinking about no matter what I want to do in life, I've always wanted to be the rabbit. I've always wanted to be, you know, the business that scaled quickly, the business that took off, you know, the person that was the best at whatever they were doing, you know, the Kobe Bryant. But what I started to realize was, every single day, I have to be the tortoise. Every single day I've got to show up and put in the work. And it's those micro daily habits, those positive daily habits,

that over the long term actually equals success. You know, when people ask us, how did you build a media company with a restaurant? I say we built our media the same way we build our barbecue. We built it low and slow. Long period of time. Consistent, persistent pursuit of making the craft of barbecue better, the craft of podcasting better,

the craft of creating content better, putting in the reps to understand that it's through that quantity of reps that eventually through speed, through consistency, will equal quality. The problem is we all want quality right off the bat. I want quality. I want something perfect. I want the perfect Instagram post. I want the perfect TikTok. I want the perfect LinkedIn post. And you know you can't build 70,000 followers on LinkedIn by putting out the perfect thing the first time you put it out. No, you got to put out the crappy stuff. You got to get it. You got to embrace the suck, right? Like I tell people all the time, especially new clients, I'm like, listen, you know, you see my stuff on the platform.

You know, my content gets a lot of engagement, but don't let it fool you because it hasn't always been that way. Yep. I remember posting that first video. There was like five views and all of them were me because I kept going back and, you know, you kept going rewatching it again. And, you know, and so I tell clients all the time, like, listen, you can't compare today to, you know, somebody else because you don't know when they started. You don't know how long they've been at it. You don't know all the failed posts that they did. And you don't know the trolls that impacted them.

Like, because I had that where like I had a post go viral and it was something deep and personal, something I shared about my mom. And I think, you know, some adversity I went through. And man, the trolls came out, bro. Like they came out. And when I say they came out of the dang woodworks. They came out of the jungle. They came out of helicopters almost into the comments and we're just blowing things.

things up. And I remember like I was pissed, right? Because it was the first time that people like attacked me for a post. And I remember like texting a buddy and he's like, it's like, brother, I know this hurts, but like just let it go. Like don't take it personal. And it was probably the best advice that I could have ever gotten because I had to get out of my own way. And I made me realize that maybe I'm doing something right. Maybe I'm sharing something that people needed to hear and it hit them in a place that they didn't want it to feel it. And so the only way that they could come back was something negative. And so when I kind of took myself out of the equation and realized that, then, you know, it just kind of helped me out, you know, because no one likes to be, you know,

trolled or roasted for something that you share, especially when it's, you know, about somebody that's near and dear to you, you know, but it's going to happen. So if you're watching or you're going to listen to this, just know that the best thing you can do is just kind of walk away. They don't know you. They don't know what you've been through. They're just really seeing a very surface level. Have you ever heard the Denzel Washington quote about spirits and demons? I don't think I've heard that one. Let's hear it. Yeah. So the reason why people are angry or they attack you is because your spirit upsets their demons. Love that. Yeah. I love it. That's powerful. Truth vibrates the fastest. So once you share your truth, sometimes it's going to upset people,

but you have to keep sharing your truth. That's it. Yeah, you just, you just, you just, got to keep going. It would have been very easy to stop, you know, and be like, you know, I'm not going to share anything else again. But yeah, that would be probably the worst thing you can do. You know, worse, worse thing you can do. So you have those rejecting letters frame. So you're, you're very similar to me. I'm finding out like I'm very negatively motivated. I still remember when Miss Green caught me and my buddy Tyler at the vending machines in high school and brought the whole freshman mass class and said, Jordan, you will never amount to anything. Like, that's framed on my proverbial wall in my head, you know, because like that's something that

where it's like, all right, Mrs. Green, like, I will, I will show you one day, you know, what I can do and that maybe I just wanted some dang gummy bears, you know, I was a freshman, I got 14. Of course, I'm skipping class, you know, but I like to use situations like that to motivate me. So if you can share, like, when you look at those, does it almost give you goosebumps? Does it kind of give you a feeling of like, man, I could have been this, this. this guy in this, the guy in that essentially frame. And that is what my life could have been like. Is that kind of how you look at that?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's funny. When we first started a podcast in 2017, I found an audio clip. It was a voicemail left from a former business partner. The first business partner I had when we opened up the restaurant. We had some disagreements on what we were trying to build. And we wanted to add a sports entertainment destination at dinner. He didn't want that.

And we essentially got to the place where we needed. needed to get out of the deal. So I sent him a demand letter saying that we needed to pull our liquor license. And he was so upset that he called, he left me this voicemail, basically telling me that I was a 21-year-old kid that's never worked a day in his life that was fed a silver spoon by my grandfather and a bunch of other things that really were very hurtful, not true, but very hurtful. But I saved that voicemail. And then when we started the podcast, that became the intro to our behind the smoke. So literally we created the podcast. of like the class that I wanted in college of what really happens in business,

that was the inspiration for the first podcast. It was called Behind the Smoke, Barbecue War Stories. And the idea was we're going to share all the shit that happens in business, all the stuff that happens between partnerships, all the stuff that they don't teach you in the textbooks. But that became our truth. And the more that you lean into that truth, the more that you lean into the rejection and you learn from the rejection,

the better off you become in the long run. 100%. Absolutely true. Yeah, you definitely have to lean into it. You've got to figure out a way, of course, after the pain settles, right? You got to take a minute to let that pain hit. But then you've got to look back and see, like, how can I extract the lessons from there? And man, so you mentioned a guy earlier, David Meltzer, you know, a guy that is a mentor to you. He's been a mentor to me from afar. So I was at a conference a couple weeks ago. And I got to hang with Dave in person for the first time. Craig Siegel. Yep, yeah, with Craig. Yep, Jesse was there. Jesse's fire. Joslin and Anthony Trucks, John Maxwell.

It was such a great, such a great event. So how important is it to you? It sounds like, you know, I already know the answer to this, but I just want to be curious for the audience's sake, how important is it to you to find people that are in your corner, you know, people that are either in a place that you want to be or that maybe have some knowledge that you feel like you can benefit from surrounding yourself with those types people, how important is that to you? Yeah, I mean, I think when you go back to what we talked about

in the beginning, you know, with my grandfather and then now with technology and how easy it is to reach out to people that inspire you on any platform. You know, there's so many less gatekeepers. You know, anybody that's strong on social, chances are they understand what's happening in DMs and they understand what's happening in the comments. You don't get strong on social unless you know that or you have a good team that knows that. So if you want access to some of the top thinkers in the world, people that inspire you and you want a relationship with them. You can build a relationship with them. And, you know, I was listening to Sports Radio in San Diego, Scott Kaplan's show on Mighty 1090, just driving back from the restaurant. And I heard David Meltzer, you know, he wasn't talking about

sports. Obviously he has a background in sports, but he was talking about, you know, media and content creation and what he was building. And I started looking at his Instagram account, watching his YouTube videos, you know, doing a digital deep dive to find out who he was and what he was all about. and so much of what he was building was on a much bigger scale from what we were building. So he was already sitting in the position that I want to be. And I said, well, how can I start to develop a relationship with him? And, you know, he has coaching programs. He has free courses.

He has all kinds of stuff. But for me, formalizing that coaching relationship, you know, it's one thing to have a mentor. You can have somebody that checks in on you. But having a coach where you're actually paying somebody to actually sit down with you and hold you accountable, now I have. to do my due diligence to prepare for my meetings. Now I have to make sure to hold him accountable for what I'm investing in him because I'm investing in myself and I'm investing in my business. And I think that's really important because as a young entrepreneur, I mean, I spent 14 years

running a restaurant and I didn't do that. I did it all by myself. You know, the greatest gift of having the internet at our fingertips is also the greatest curse if you're not willing to develop relationships with people who have been there and done that. So now as we scale our restaurant and start to build out ghost kitchens and work on logistics and try to build the Amazon prime of barbecue and create, you know, streaming shows for content in the hospitality space, I'm going to reach out to people that have done it. Like, why do I need to go and spend all that time and money and effort when there's people that have already done it when I can ask them the questions, when I can learn from the best

of the best? Yeah, I love it. And it's so important to always surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. I've got a team that has the information that you need, you know, It's, we truly have always been, I think, in a pay to play world, but I think people have always looked at it like, oh, I can do this on my own. You know, like our ego and our pride get in our way. When if we really think about it, we probably lost more, you know, blood, sweat and tears and effort than if we would have just said, you know what, let me invest in me because that's truly what we're doing. When we pay a coach and we pay a consultant, we're not just paying them for that service.

we're paying them for the time and the energy and effort. It took for them to develop the skills to be able to provide that service. And that's what so many people discount. You know, like I think about this all the time. You probably have gotten this where I'll have like a lower ticket, $500 offer. And then I'll have like a 6K offer. Well, the 6K sells a lot easier. You know, because people that are looking at the 5K, they've got a million questions or the 500.

They've got a million questions. And I'm like, it's just 500 bucks. Like, yeah, I know personally, and you can probably attest of this too, I don't want to speak for you, but I've spent 500 bucks on crap I've never looked at. Correct. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've spent 500 bucks on stuff that have added this much value to me, which is zero. Yep. And so when people think about that in a business context, it's like, you're not ready.

You know, if you can't make that decision that quickly, you're not really ready for the growth that you need to get in order to get to the place you need to be. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's very true. I see that all the time with, you know, online coaching programs. It's, it's what are you willing to invest in yourself? What are you willing to invest in your business? Because you will spend the money. It's just a matter of how you're going to allocate that expense.

Yeah. Yeah. People have no problem dropping $1,400, $1,400 on the new iPhone. But if it comes to $1,500 and to actually having to go put in the work, I don't know. That's up to you, right? So that's something to really think about. So let's hear about like your,

The beginning, the beginning of the media phase, right? So, and I know you mentioned the first show came out in 2017. So I'm trying to think the social landscape in 2017. So Facebook was kind of still, still popping Instagram was there. LinkedIn was really not a lot happened. Video wasn't even on LinkedIn until mid-2019 or early 2019. So what did that look like for you? And what I want to call really the bootstrap days, just kind of figuring out your flow, right?

Because like when I think of social media, I think of each platform, there's a barrier of entry and then there's like an exit point. And I just kind of look at that like the sales cycle. Right. The entry point is kind of like your profile where you've got your bio. You've got your call to actions. You've got that. And then in the DMs is kind of that next level of the sales cycle where I'm getting people offline onto a call. So like is that kind of how you looked at the platforms back then or has it changed over the years?

I just love some context in the early days. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's funny when I look at my social media path, especially in business and personally and the stuff that I talk about now when I go to conferences and speak and when I do virtual events and when I go to companies to consult is understanding all of my prejudices that I had, other people have the same prejudice. When you say a platform, people think a certain thing.

If I say Facebook, whoever's listening to this, you're going to have ideas of your own Facebook experience, your own personal Facebook experience, your business, your experience in a Facebook group, your experience as a Facebook business page. And so much of Facebook has evolved. So much of Twitter has evolved. Some people use Twitter very well. Some people don't use it at all. I don't have a lot of followers on Twitter, but I wouldn't be who I am today.

I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for Twitter. Some of the closest friends I have in my life were because of Twitter. When I think about Instagram, when I think about TikTok, when I think about LinkedIn, the same thing that I tell anybody is, you know, I look at it the same way my daughter when she begins to walk, when she goes to a playground. It's all a digital playground. So when my daughter goes to walk and I take her to the playground, she goes to the slides, she can barely get up the stairs to get to the slide. And she's very, you know, hesitant. She doesn't know what to do. But then she sees her brother go down the slide.

and then eventually she learns how to go down the slide. That's one piece of equipment on this digital playground. Then she sees the merry go round. She sees her brother going on it. If she decides to go and use a different piece of equipment, it's all one big playground, this digital playground, all these different platforms, it's audio, it's video, it's written word, and it's images.

And the more courage that she has to go and try and test all these different things, the more fun that she has. And the more she realizes, hey, all of these things, they're a little bit different, but they're all kind of the same. You know, they're all kind of the same. We're all out here. And the cool thing is there's other kids on this playground.

So now she's interacting with other kids. She's making friends. But the bigger thing is that now she can go to a different playground and she has that skill set. So, you know, really understanding, simplify social media and figure out what are you good at? Are you good at audio? Can you speak? So speak.

You know, start a podcast. Are you good at written word? Right. There's so many places that you can write. You can write on media. You can write on your website. There's so many ways to communicate. And then you can supplement what you're doing because of all this technology.

You know, when my grandfather and I were writing his book, he was spending as much money as possible on trying to find software that would allow him to speak into a recorder and then we type it out for him. Literally a transcription service. Now for our podcast, we use Trent. Every single podcast that we do, we have Trent. It transcribes the exact conversation that we're having. I send it to a writer.

He makes a professional blog for each of our podcasts. But like my grandfather wanted to have that back when we were writing his book in 2003, 2004. But now we have all these tools at our fingertips. So, you know, whoever is listening to this, like, you are a media company. You know, Gary Vee is like, that's 100% true. Once we went all in and said, we're Cali Barbecue Media, like we are a media company. People laugh at me. They still laugh at me to this day.

You know, it doesn't matter. We have a podcast. We have a restaurant with a podcast with Entrepreneur Magazine that we have been featured in magazines all over TV. shows. I've been on Amazon Prime TV. I've been on Bloomberg. They still laugh and they go, well, you don't know what you're doing. And I don't know what I'm doing. That's the beautiful thing. I have no idea. I'm figuring it out every single day. But the beautiful thing is that we're willing to share our story and we're willing to put in the reps. So because we're willing to put in the reps, it doesn't matter what the platform's called. Once the next platform comes,

all we're doing is the same thing. We're already playing on the digital playground. Yeah, I love that. And I love the analogy. You know, we've got five kids. So we, we, wow. Five kids. A lot of playgrounds, man. That's a lot of playgrounds. Yeah, a lot of playgrounds. So we've got one that's just over one, five, ten, thirteen, and seventeen. So we've got that's amazing.

You have the entire spectrum. We've got a starting five, bro. That is a starting five. So here's the thing, though, like to your point, you got to show up on the playground first. Yes. Start playing, start testing. And then you got to build the dang playground. Like, you know what I'm saying?

You got to build your own playground. And then you can invite other people to your playground, like two podcasts, media opportunities, TV. You've essentially taken the playground and you've built now an amusement park. Yes. Right? Because of your, you've kind of taken all these basic principles. You're like, all right, we can do this. Now let's go do this.

And let's go help other people build their playgrounds. And so we play in very similar spaces. You know, my whole brand is blazing your own trail. The Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, Blaze Your Own Trail Consulting. I help people blaze their own trail. How does that work? Well, I teach them how to show up. Like, teach them how to show up online, teach them that there's a different way that they can

market their business. I actually last summer I became part owner of a fishing company. Nice. Crazy because I don't fish. You know, I tell people this all time. But I do fish for people. Like, that's my role in marketing. So they brought me on from my marketing abilities.

And so I saw Jesse Itzler speak at this event. And he told me, I heard the story about Zico Water and how he and a buddy. bought costumes of the bottle of like the box and ran the New York City Marathon. Yes. And so I told my buddy the co-founder was like, bro, like we need a worm costume. Yes. We need a fish costume. And we need that fish to chase the worm and eat it. And we need to have like QR codes on the back of those costumes. And we can literally show up anywhere. Yeah. We're in Georgia. You know any football fan? There's 90,000 people that go to UGA games. If we send my 17 year old in a worm costume, you know how much expensive?

exposure we're going to get for free. Correct. So like I love like innovative things, thinking outside the box, grassroots marketing. That's what I love because that's what I, that's where I started. I started selling newspaper subscriptions door to door at 14. And when you can when you can learn how to communicate, you know, eye contact, excitement, you know, how to build relationships and read people, man, those are the skills that really do pay the bills.

And that's literally what you guys are doing. You know, you're helping people tell their story. And then people are resonating with that and wanting to follow them or do business with them. Because what most people see is they're like, well, I don't want to be personal. I'm like, well, that's who you are. Like, you can't take the person out of the business. And like just like, you know, like sometimes my kid, I'll be on a podcast and a kid will walk in and I've got to guess. And they're kind of looking like, and I'm like, listen, like these kids are part of my life.

You know, like one might pop in. We can edit that stuff out. But you can't edit them out of my life. know what I'm saying like if you get if you want to hire me you're hiring them too you know so like so it's better to share who you are and to show up as who you are because that's who people are going to get at the end of the day yeah not going to get the logo you know they're not getting the cali barbecue they're getting you correct a regular guy that's showing them how to be themselves that's correct yeah and i mean you know it's what hopefully somebody that's listening to this podcast

which you get away is that marketing is one thing you know if you're marketing and your advertising, that's one thing. But creating media is a completely different thing. And media is playing the game within the game. There's people out there, there's digital marketers out there. But what you do, Jordan, like the way that you show up and the way that you teach people to truly share their story, like by sharing your story on all these platforms and by getting better by doing the reps, by being more concise, by talking hook points, understanding that attention spans are quick and the quicker you get to what you're talking about. By doing that, now you've moved from marketing to media. And once you move to media, now you start to create brand ambassadors, people that know who you are.

They go, that's the barbecue media guy. You know, I have people that they're out there pimping me. They're out there doing the work for me. They're my sales reps because of me giving back to them. Me spending time on Zoom, me spending time with their teams, me spending time teaching them, all the stuff that we learned, you know, at our small town, small village restaurant that Now, if we can do it in Spring Valley, I guarantee you anybody that's listening to this podcast, you can do it anywhere. I mean, I truly believe this. I know you believe this.

This is like there's never been a greater time to have this gift that we have of the internet. This, you know, we're only, it's so young. It's so young and there's so much opportunity and nothing's been more exciting. So, you know, hopefully you hear this and you reach out to Jordan. You reach out to me. We're weirdly available. I know you are. I know I am.

That's how we run our business. That's how we build connections with people all over the globe. Yeah. Accessibility, you know, I tell people this all time. Like, it doesn't matter what someone's follower account is. Like, everybody started with zero. We all started at the same place. And it's funny because, like, out of all the platforms that I'm actually verified on, Sean, it's TikTok.

Right? And if you've seen my TikTok account, I don't really have a large audience. Yeah. And so what do you think people ask me all the time? How do you get verified? How do you get? How it's like, how, it's like, how. How TF did you get verified, bro?

And like, you know what I'm? Like, that's literally a comment I see consistently. And like inside me, I want to be like, bro, like, that's not the right way you should talk to some. You know what I'm like? You should probably figure this. But I'm like, hey, so I, but I politely reply and I say, well, I've got a business and I've got a podcast and I've been shown up in the media. And it's not about the followers. Like people always translate verification with followers.

But I have friends that have 200 that are verified and some with a million. million that aren't. You know, so it's not about that. It's about are you a human? Can you prove who you are, and have you, are you notable in the public? You know, but it's funny when people see that and they associate it with you having to have this massive audience, but it's just kind of where our society is gone these days. Yeah. I mean, it's like having the best barbecue restaurant named by, you know, whatever magazine or whatever, you know, publication. It's, it is what it is. You know, You get it. You think it's going to be game changing. You think that all of a sudden you're going to have all this business or something's going to happen. And all that matters is that you need to show up the next day. Yep. You know, every day is day one. You know, Philip Rivers, who played quarterback for the San Diego Chargers, he had a noon cacopi, which is a Latin phrase, meaning now I begin. And literally, it was to remind him that every single day, it doesn't matter if he threw four touchdown passes or he threw four interceptions. Like, next day is day one. You know, it's the same thing as Jeff Bezos and Amazon. day one you start again.

All you have is today. So what can you build today? And guess what? You're going to have to build it tomorrow. But if you think that you're going to build something today that's going to last forever, that you're not going to have to change or improve, like you're in the wrong race. 100%. Well, well, you're definitely a trailblazer, my friend.

I love everything that you guys are up to. I'd love to just give you a minute to plug anything you've got going on. If it's a group, you want people to check out. If it's your website, you know, the floor is yours, brother. I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, we're really excited about our restaurant influencers podcast, so you don't have to be in the restaurant space or hospitality space. We're bringing the best of the best from any platform. They just happen to be in the hospitality space, but if they're dominating on TikTok or creating great content on LinkedIn, this podcast, you know, has given us a stage. So you can find restaurant influencers anywhere you search for podcasts.

And most importantly is to reach out to me. I mean, you know, I listen to podcasts all the time. Sometimes I reach out to guests and sometimes I don't. But if you heard anything from this episode that resonates, follow me. You know, at Sean P. Walshuff, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F. That's TikTok. That's LinkedIn. That's Clubhouse. But yeah, let's form a connection because you never know where these connections go. And we truly believe in the digital playground. We believe in what Jordan's building, blazing your own trail. All it takes is one piece of content to inspire you to change your life, to turn your business into a media company. And if you're listening to this podcast,

I know you're a curious person. The next step of being curious is getting involved. And then the third step is asking for help. So don't be afraid to ask for help. Love it, my friend. Love that advice. You know, keep blazing your own trail. We'll definitely, we will be staying connected.

Make sure that we get all your info in the show notes for our listeners because I know they're going to want to reach out and connect with you. So appreciate you, brother. Thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate you.