Produced By - Reputation Before Reach: What Real Authority Looks Like in Action | #111: Sam G. Winsbury

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Sam G. Winsbury is the Founder & CEO of Kurogo, a leading personal branding agency that helps entrepreneurs and executives become thought leaders. He’s worked with over 250 clients around the world, from fast-growing startups to major firms like KPMG and Salesforce, turning content into consistent opportunity.In this episode, Sam shares the journey behind building one of the world’s top LinkedIn branding agencies. You’ll hear honest lessons from years of consistent posting, what it really takes to grow beyond 50,000 followers, and practical strategies to attract dream clients, grow your presence online, and build a brand that stands out.Connect with Sam:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-g-winsburyhttps://linktr.ee/samgwinsburyhttps://www.kurogo.co.uk/Timestamps:00:00 – Why positioning matters in personal branding01:16 – Sam’s background and agency intro02:09 – The meaning behind the name “Kroger”02:54 – Rebranding the agency03:23 – Starting up during university and COVID04:34 – How the pandemic helped growth05:49 – His first posts on LinkedIn07:22 – LinkedIn’s early creator scene08:24 – Losing and rebuilding his account09:36 – Why consistency compounds10:42 – Don’t compare across industries12:00 – Motivation, habits and “just post” myth13:45 – What makes Kroger stand out15:05 – Building systems to convert leads17:07 – Competitors and depth of service17:39 – Client stories: wins and lessons19:48 – Learning from campaign failures20:45 – Signing a dream client23:05 – His vision for Kroger24:25 – Entrepreneurial role models26:09 – Hitting 50k and going on Sky TV29:49 – Public speaking while introverted32:04 – Platform focus beyond LinkedIn34:32 – Advice for LinkedIn growth36:46 – Daily routine and team setup38:29 – Hobbies: sport, music, languages40:56 – Book recs: The Chimp Paradox, Psycho-Cybernetics42:05 – Long-term personal goals45:16 – Advice: offer free work to get started46:19 – Where to follow Sam and final wrap-up Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The big thing is the first month that we have in any client is purely focused on their positioning. So we don't actually just go straight to throwing out content on LinkedIn. We spend about a month getting really clear on why they're credible, why they're worth listening to, and packaging that in a way that is interesting and engaging for their audience. The number one difference I see between the personal brands that are very successful and actually make a lot of money and generate a lot of business off the back of their personal brand. And the ones that are just numbers, they're just lots of followers, but they don't actually generate any revenue, you is what we call positioning, right? And it's so important because who says something

matters just as much as what they say, right? No one's going to listen to you if they don't see you as someone worth listening to in the first place. And it's the thing that everyone misses because it's not the cool thing. It's not like sexy. You're not getting loads and loads of views. Like it's pretty boring to do, right? But it's so important. So we actually spend about a month getting really clear on our client's positioning and why they're credible. That then means that all the content we put out in the future performs better and actually converts. So the positioning really important. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello Sam,

thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. All right, thanks so much for having me, excited to be here. So Sam, for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, so I run a company called Kurogo and we're one of the leading personal branding agencies, So we work with founders, CEOs, leadership teams to build their authority in their audience online. So first thing we do with them is we position them as experts in the industry. We then create content and get them in the media to build their new influence and their reach. And then we help them convert that attention into revenue. We've been running for four or five years now.

We've worked with 250 founders and CEOs and leadership teams, everything from bootstrapped startups all the way through to, you know, global companies like KPMG, McKinsey, Salesforce. Actually, as you mentioned your company, I was about to ask you, what is the reason behind the name of the company? Then I read it on the website. But maybe for the people who don't know, can you say it? Because I think it's actually quite a good title. Yeah, so Kurogo comes from, it comes from Kuroko, which is a term from Japanese theater. And the Kuroko and Japanese theater are like stagehands. So they basically move all of the props around the set.

They do everything to make the main acts look good. but they wear like all black or whatever the color of the back of the set is so you can't see them. So they're essentially doing everything around the main act to make the main act look good and make their job easy and make them stand out without being seen. And that's kind of what we're like to our clients. So that's where that's where Kuroga comes from, which is quite a peculiar name, I know. And I think it's also a good idea because maybe it makes people wonder, what is there isn't behind it? Like, for example, me. There you go.

I also just out of course interested maybe in Japanese culture. or is it just a coincidence? Not massively. Not massively, to be honest. The company used to be called something else. It used to be called Brandly, but we went through a rebrand quite early on because Brandly there wasn't really a brand behind it.

There was no meaning to it whatsoever. And I just stumbled across this term completely accidentally. So, no, I don't have huge ties to Japanese culture. It was just the phrase that the name stood out. Yeah, but still a great idea. And as you mentioned Brandley, I read that you started straight after university. if I'm correct. That's right. Yeah. So I was, in fact, I was actually building whilst I was at university,

but I didn't launch the business officially until afterwards. Yeah, and I was going to say that you were impacted by the COVID, right? Because we were graduating just when the COVID happened. Exactly right. Yeah. So I was meant to, I was graduating in 2020. All my final exams were canceled. Uni came to a complete standstill. At that point, everyone was transitioning from online. People couldn't go to networking events anymore, so they're resorting to platforms like LinkedIn, to network more people, to post more to build their brand, build their audience. So the timing worked out very well for me, for sure. Because I was going to say that I'm actually, I had the same scenario because I was graduating

from university when the COVID happened as well. So it was like a perfect timing. So I'm glad that there is someone who relates or who knows what was it like back then. Yeah, it's weird because obviously an awful time, like worldwide, but there's always some positive things that you've got you're going to make the most of a negative situation right and i think probably certainly both of us managed to do that it's true and as you said you had already plans to launch your own company or agency during the studies yeah so when i was studying i was kind of i was freelancing like coaching consulting doing a little bit of freelance work for people nothing

too formal and i'd picked up a couple of clients doing it and then as soon as i graduated i was like right I've got the time now to make this into a real agency. And by the end of 2020, I had in my first few clients. I was looking at bringing on support part-time. So we grew quite quickly, actually. I grew pretty quickly in the back end of 2020. And looking back with the COVID, do you feel like that it kind of helped you?

Maybe like to grow and find clients since everyone went online? Absolutely. Absolutely. It sounds bad at the way, but 100% to help. People realized they needed an online presence, right? Mm-hmm. This is true. Because from my example, I was studying film. So for me, I think I was like exact opposite because, you know, I was excited to enter film industry, but suddenly the film sets shot down, so there was nothing to do. So I'm glad that for it was actually the positive side. Yeah, there you go. You got to make the best you can out of those situations. That is, sure. And when does the LinkedIn come in place? Did you already back then explore?

LinkedIn or did it come along the way or when did you start? Yeah, so I started posting on LinkedIn in 2019 again as a youth student, which was a pretty weird thing for a uni student to do. But I was looking for all sorts of basically any like freelance marketing projects I could get whilst I was studying. I was looking to land those and I would go to events. I'd email business owners in the local area. I'd send like short videos to them explaining how I could help them and everyone was kind of like who are you, right? Just this 19 year old kids. I'm fair enough right. I kind of get why they thought that. And as a last resort, I just thought of the most businessy place I know, which was LinkedIn. And I thought,

do you know what, I'll, I'll try it there. So I went and started posting on LinkedIn, literally just anything I was learning or reading about marketing, I would share. And I thought it was going to get me more freelance marketing gigs. But what started happening over time is people started reaching out to me for help with their own profiles. They were saying, like, I've seen posting, can you help me post some content myself, or can you help me build my profile? So that's how I got into the world of LinkedIn, ended a few bits of very casual coaching consulting, but instantly saw that, right, there's a demand for this,

people need this. Obviously, the pandemic then accelerated that, and I just took the opportunity because so many people were asking for it. Yeah, I think I started maybe just made my account back then there as well, but definitely haven't treated it in any serious way or anything like that. So back then, what was the LinkedIn like? actually, was there like any creators built in their brands or was it still more former platform? Yeah, when I got into it, there were a few creators starting to emerge on the platform.

It wasn't huge. Like it wasn't everywhere like it is today. There are a small group of people that had started kind of treating it more like social media rather than just a job search and networking platform. I kind of got in with that early community of people, which has evolved massively now and there's so many more people posting now. but it was a much like smaller, tight-knit community of people doing it. And at that time, like, if I was getting like 20 reactions on a post, I was like, it was the best thing in the world.

Like, I was going crazy. So it was quite different, but I wouldn't say I was the first one. There were quite a few people doing it already, which I didn't know at the time. I just kind of came across them and started to meet them through posting myself. Yeah, yeah. Just trying to think of myself with 20 likes that I was excited as well. back then.

And have you been consistent since then? Because 2019, it's been quite a while. So have you been showing up consistently, or did you have any breaks? I've posted probably every week since 2019, pretty much every day, I'd say. I actually lost my account. So I built my account 2019, 2020, and then I lost it in 2021. They just like... Was the reason?

I don't know. Like, still to this day, they haven't told me what the reason was. I wasn't using any, like... because often people get banned for like automations or whatever. I wasn't using any automation. I wasn't using any like statistics software, any like data software, literally nothing.

They must have just thought I was. I had no idea why they did it, but they banned my account. So I lost my account completely. I was at about 10,000 followers at the time. So I had to start again in 2021. But still, all the way through that,

I've just posted consistently. Maybe a month in between where my account was gone where I haven't posted. But outside of that, I'd say I've posted maybe two times, a week on average, two times a week at least since 2019. That's impressive. I'm sure that you get more than DMs like this,

but even I get often messages about, you know, growth and this type. So this is a perfect example. When people text true, you ask them for how long they've been showing up and they say a few weeks or months. So now they can hear it's literally years and consistency. There you go. And it compounds over time, right? The opportunities I get now are, you know, I've got 50 odd thousand followers now.

I get more than five times the opportunities that I got when I had 10,000 followers. Like that compounds over time, but you've got to stay in the game long enough. And like you will get people who grow quicker, right? There's some people that will go from zero to 100,000 followers in a year. But it's not that common. For me, I've never, I've never really gone viral. Going viral is not really my main aim. It's to grow the business.

and get leads to the business. So you've also got to consider what you're optimizing for. A lot of business owners I speak to. They're like, yeah, I want followers. I want followers. I want to get my engagement. I want more views. And then you dig a little bit deeper.

And what they really want is they want new business. They want clients. They want opportunities. So you just got to think about what you actually want out of it. And people also often see these viral profiles that gained so many followers in short time. But they don't see the number of those that don't achieve that. So it may be like one out of a home. thousand so one needs to stay realistic at the same time that's it and comparing people compare across

industries as well so I have people come to me saying you know you did this with this account why can't we do it and it's like because you're in a completely different industry with a completely different audience where the content is completely different you actually have a different goal so a lot of people compare themselves to others that are in drastically different situations to them which I think is really bad because then you start playing someone else's game and start running someone else's race, which you can never win. I agree. And I think, for example, if you are writing about AI these days, it, let's be honest, makes

it maybe a bit easier or faster than writing about something else. Yeah, exactly. There are certain topics that are always going to perform well, right? AI. If you talk about personal brand, like personal brand is obviously going to perform well on a platform that prioritizes personal brands, leadership, culture, like management, these things naturally, I'm naturally inclined to go viral, but they don't make sense for everyone to talk about. And what helps you to stay consistent? I know that, or I'm sure that based on your experience,

you know, it's important to keep showing up, keep improving, but still showing up for such a long time, I'm sure that you've experienced like maybe burnout or not being as passionate. Yeah. So one is making it a habit, right? When you do it for long enough, it just becomes a habit. it and it's not, for me, it doesn't require loads and loads of effort now to do it. It's just part of my routine. But also, I've seen the benefits it can create. When you get to a point where, you know, I know if I put out 30 pieces of content next month, I'm going to sign probably four or five quite high retainers.

If I gave you that trade off, you'd make the 30 posts happen, right? Like, you would post on them. So I've seen the benefits of it. I know what I'm going to get out of it. I know what it can create. So it's quite easy to, if I need the motivation, it's quite easy to motivate myself. because I know there is going to be business actually coming off the back of it. And that's an effect of doing it for a long time, right, and having a strategy.

Which is why I think people will say just post, it's like, it's terrible advice. If you just post, like, if you just think of something and just post it for the sake of posting, it's going to be bad content. It's not going to do very well. It's not going to get results. And then you're going to give up because you're not seeing results. It's like, just post is terrible advice. You actually want to be a bit more strategic about what you're putting out and

think about it before you you publish the content. Yeah, I like it. And I think that many of us can relate. Like, for example, when I started on the platform, I was, I don't know, probably just posting for the sake of posting or posting and didn't really have strategy or any purpose. So I think that earlier you get clear on what you want to achieve, what you post about. It's just better for you.

Yeah, 100%. And then coming back to your business, can we discuss more like what is it, that you focus on because, for example, there are so many people who help to build brands, and especially these days on LinkedIn. So what is it that makes you stand out or makes you different than the others? Yeah, so probably a big thing is the first month that we have in any client is purely focused on their positioning. So we don't actually just go straight to throwing out content on LinkedIn.

We spend about a month getting really clear on why they're credible, why they're worth listening to, and packaging that in a way that is interesting and engaging for their audience. the number one difference I see between the personal brands that are very successful and actually make a lot of money and generate a lot of business off the back of their personal brand and the ones that are just numbers, they're just lots of followers, but they don't actually generate any revenue, is what we call positioning, right? And it's so important because who says something matters just as much as what they say, right? No one's going to listen to you if they don't see you as someone worth listening to in the first place. And it's the thing that everyone misses because

it's not the cool thing. It's not like sexy. You're not getting a load. and loads of views. It's pretty boring to do, right, but it's so important. So we actually spend about a month getting really clear on our client's positioning and why they're credible. That then means that all the content we put out in the future performs better and actually converts better. So the positioning really, really important. Obviously producing content, publishing content on LinkedIn is a big part of it as well. That's how we get the positioning in front of lots of other people. But then we've also got to do something after that, which is build systems that will convert connections into clients. Because if you don't have any systems to do this, it's only actually about

3% of your audience that will convert from LinkedIn. And that 3%, they're what we call now buyers, right? They're ready. They know they've got the problem you solve. They see as an authority. They're ready to buy. And they're the ones that will, like, reach out to your DM, and they'll say, hey, I've seen you posting, would love to work with you. But of the 97% that are left, some of them are never going to buy, and that's fine. We want to turn those people into advocates. So they might put you, in front of someone that will buy, they might refer you. But there's a huge portion of that, maybe 30, 35% of people that will buy. They're just not quite ready yet.

So we need to build systems to convert those people from connections to clients and bridge something that we call the commitment gap so that they're more willing to make a bigger commitment to you, which would be like paying you three, four, five figures to work with you. So, yeah, LinkedIn is one really important part, but we need to sandwich LinkedIn in between high authority positioning and really high converting animals and ecosystems that turn connections into clients.

I like it. It's like setting the foundations first so that you've got something strong to work with and build on because if you don't have those foundations later on, you will probably regret or it will not work. That's exactly it. And that's when you get people with big accounts, but small bank accounts.

Yeah, those artificial accounts with lots of likes and that's it. That's all. don't get me wrong. I know I know people that have like huge accounts, huge followings and they make a hell of a lot of money from it. There are those people as well. It's not it's not a case of you choose between leads and followers.

You can absolutely have both. But I do know a lot of people that have big accounts and they don't make any money whatsoever. Yeah. And do you know now based on what you said and how you explain the way you work, would you say that there are many like let's say competitors that they don't do it the way that you do or is it like a, I don't know, standard or do you see that that's something that makes you unique? Yeah, obviously there's become so many competitors. I think when we did it, we probably

had like maybe two or three actual competitors. Now there's LinkedIn agencies, personal branding agencies everywhere, right? We're not sure of them. But I think no one goes into the depth on the positioning side of things that we do. No one's as strategic as we are on that side of things. There are people that do the conversion side of things, but in isolation, not tied to a personal brand as much. So, like, I'd say those two things. Probably the depth we go into on positioning is the number one thing that separates us from another agency. And if I remember correctly, you worked with the clients from all around the world, right? Because I saw that USA, New Zealand, UK, literally from everywhere.

Yeah, we've had a client in nearly every continent. I think we still need to box off Africa. I think we've done South America. I think Africa is the last one that we need to do. So we're working really, really hard at closer client in Africa. To take the boxes. Yeah, put it on the map. And I don't remember the number now, but I saw that it's been like hundreds of clients across big companies.

And there must be loads of success stories. But are there also any stories, for examples, that haven't worked out. Maybe it was challenging. and maybe it didn't work in the end and you would be willing to share. Yeah. I mean, yeah, so we've probably worked with over 250 odd clients. And we have, so we actually have a money back guarantee for the first 30 days. So if you do the positioning strategy and you're not happy with it, we actually refund the client.

And basically, within the first 30 days, we've only given that once to one person out of 200, more than 250 now. And that was a reason for that. We just, we just didn't get it right, I think. They, they didn't, we didn't see I to on it. They weren't too happy with the strategy. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where it went. I just don't think we, we spent enough time making sure that it was as high level and detailed as they needed it.

They were, yeah. So that's one and we say, look, like, yeah, we, you kind of have to hold your hands up when that happens and say, yeah, we got this one wrong. And we actually refunded that client, that's, that's one out of 250. There are some that, like, not every single client, like, absolutely flies. We have some clients. You see them on the website where it's like the results are amazing. obviously not all 250 are that amazing, like that standout.

Most of them are getting good results, make decent case studies. Of course, you get some that tick along gradually. Others will just completely fly. Yeah, but I'm glad that you keep it realistic, even though it's only one. It's not pretending that every client is a success, and ultimately it's a learning lesson for the next time, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

One thing we actually do is every time a client leaves or they stop their contract or we finish. or we get a situation like this where, example where we had to refund the client, we have what we call a post-mortem call, which is where we like diagnose and analyze. So everyone that worked on the account gets together and we analyze what went well,

what went wrong, what could we have done next time, even if it's like completely out of our control. So, for example, we worked with one client who was the founder and CEO of his own business and his investors fired him, which is just like, which is a crazy story,

not something completely out of our control. And that meant he had to stop working with us. But even in situations like that, we think about if we're being really hard on ourselves, what could we have done to do better? We really want to take responsibility for as much as we can. So, yes, those calls are really important for learning from the campaigns that don't go as well as you wanted them to. And have you got a dream client, someone that you want to work with or from the specific company? I actually signed my dream client two years ago. I won't say who they are, but I signed my dream client.

someone that I wanted to work with for a while because hugely admired what they'd done in the space. I modeled a lot of our business, modeled a lot of Kurogo off their business, and I really wanted to work with them. So what I did was I actually reached out to them on LinkedIn and I sent them a video, sent them a loom video. It was like two, three minutes long. It basically said, hey, like you've obviously got a great business, you're doing really

well, but your LinkedIn doesn't look very good and you're missing out on opportunities because of it. Here's what I would change. And I talked him through the strategy for about two minutes, just giving him some tips, free advice. And I said, if you want me to write a few posts so you can see what we can do and how they perform, I'll write the content for you. So he said, yeah, go on then write the posts. Let's see how they do.

So I wrote the post for him. And two weeks later, he became a client and brought on someone else from his business as well. I think between them, they paid us over $100,000 in the time that they are with us, all from that initial piece of just, like, just like free strategy that I gave him. I've been proactive. And I would also emphasize that I'm sure that you get loads of DMs as well and sales speeches unfortunate I get as well. And often it makes you cringe like what people text you.

Sometimes it's just copy and paste. Sometimes it's no effort. So I like what you said because it shows to actually put effort into that message because it shows that it can happen and don't be lazy because sometimes those messages are just terrible. That's it. You don't want to make the client work for it, right? And obviously, it's, you can't scale that. Like, you can't be sending thousands of those sorts of messages every week. But if you do 10 to 20 really, like high touch, personalized messages like that every single week where you give them value up front, you make it really easy for them to move

forward. You're going to sign clients from it. I can't see a world where, you do that for a month, sending pictures every day and you don't get a client from it. So. Yeah. Just continue, I'm sure it works out too. And now, based on what we discussed, it sounds like you achieved a lot with your company. So what are like any other goals that you've got, if there are like any milestones or anything else that you would like to achieve? Yeah, so the big goal for Kroger is we want to become

equivocally the leading personal branding agency in the world. So when people think personal branding, we want them to think of us. So in the world, right? In the world, yeah. We're not going to limit ourselves to UK. I'd say we're probably up there in the UK. UK, there's maybe two or three other agencies that are doing some really great work. So we're getting close to UK, but we're not going to stop there.

We want to be the best in the world. So I think we've only actually scratched the surface of personal branding. The things that we work on with clients is a very small part of personal branding. We've always had a vision to be a 360 personal brand agency. So still being exclusively for personal brands, but delivering, I guess, more services and providing more value within the realm of personal branding. We do some work in PR. We do some work in podcasting.

Again, we've not done lows and lows there. I haven't really touched the world of public speaking and booking people on stages. That's a big area for improvement. And my goal is to crack all of those and build, as I said, the leading person branding agency in the world. Yeah, because I had a look at the website and I can see that you provide already a lot of services. So I can imagine it's going to grow. It's going to be a really big one. and I like the ambitious goal.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Always got to be ambitious. It's just a natural trait of mine. That is true. And speaking of ambitions, have you got like a role model or someone that you look up to

who's your inspiration or motivation? I wouldn't say I have a specific person. There's no one specific person that I want to emulate. There's a few people where I like elements of personality and what they've done and how they structure their lives that I think I'd like to look at. fan of Dan Priesty's work in the world of personal branding just like his philosophy I think is great

and he's nailed he's nailed being a true entrepreneur in that he so he runs I think it's like eight now eight seven-figure companies he's gone zero to seven figures back to back like eight times in a row or something kind of runs all those companies which I think is a true proven entrepreneurship is clearly nailed down a process and a model and a system that works so he's he's pretty cool it's a good example I don't follow him like actively but I've seen him on so many podcasts and like entrepreneurship automatically comes to my mind when I hear his name. Yeah, he's lots of people into him now because I think he's been, he's very well known and well respected in the entrepreneurship community, but I think he's going broader than that now.

And not just as nail person branding. He's one of the first people that got me into personal branding, actually. Yeah, that's nice. And sorry, I interrupted you if you were about to mention anyone else or is he another. I don't know if there's anyone else, not like, as I said, there's like elements of people that I really like. I like the business model that Sean Hanif has built at Gemflow, like the way they structure the business, the way Gemflow structured. I think that's a great business model.

But yeah, I wouldn't say there's like one specific person. Yeah, I guess that now you are becoming one for others. Like with what you achieved, if you are... There's not for me to say, potentially that. And looking at your LinkedIn,

you hit 50K, which is amazing milestone. Have you celebrated? it somehow? Or was it just a number for you? Just a number for me. Just one of those. It wasn't a huge milestone. I kind of, you know, there was a small celebration in our, in our team Slack channel and that was it. It's back to work.

Maybe I'll do something when we get to 100K. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, 100K, it's a crazy number. And I also, when I was researching a bit about you, I saw that two years ago you had appearance on Sky TV, which I was very surprised. So tell us more about this experience because I wasn't really expecting it and it's quite a big thing. So what was it like or how did you get the opportunity? Yeah, so I got the opportunity. It was actually through a PR partner of ours.

So we have a few partner agencies that we work with and they managed to land me the feature. They had a few contacts there, which was super cool. And it was a crazy experience because it was literally a Skype call. So I'm tuning in to live TV through a Skype call just from my office in a blue paste now. bit my old place in the office. And you're just in like a Skype waiting room. And then they give you a very short brief, but they don't tell you what they're going to ask.

They don't tell you the question. So I had no idea what was going to be asked. And what I was asked was completely different from what I'd expected. And then they just go like five, four, three, two. And you're in. And you're just on live telly speaking to, speaking to the host, who's obviously in the studio. Some of the questions you threw at me, I was like,

wow, you're testing me here, like really niche questions. And then he asked me about Boris Johnson at the time, who was obviously a big figure in UK politics, was particularly relevant at the time as well. And I was kind of trying to give a non-political answer. So, yeah, I can imagine. It must be tricky, like, when it comes to discussing politics and you need to think about it on the spot where it's live. I mean, I can imagine, but at the same time, I cannot imagine. It was challenging. It was challenging.

And then off the back of it, I think I maybe had like five people reach out that saw it live, like watched it live on TV. But then it was when I shared it on LinkedIn, that's when it just went mental. Like it blew up my inbox. There were lots of people reaching out. I can imagine. And or even like, hey, Sam, like, if I were your friend, I can see you on TV. The video is super cool. Yeah, friends love it.

And what did you feel like actually before, where you was stressed or excited or bold? I was a little bit nervous. I wasn't stressed because I knew, well, I thought I could answer the questions pretty well. Obviously, the questions were completely different to what I thought. But, you know, based on my expectations, I was pretty chilled about the questions themselves. I was more worried about, like, technical difficulties, like my laptop crashing or something halfway. Oh, yeah, it was. Fortunately, we had none of that.

So, yeah, I was pretty relaxed before it. And looking back, are you happy with your performance based on, like, the conditions, the question that you were to expect? Yeah, I think so. Like, obviously, I was pretty young at a time. I think it was 2020. It happened. So I hadn't been in business for that long. Just a couple of years at that point.

But the feedback I got off the back of it was great. So I can't complain. Yeah. And I'm sure once you do something like this, it makes you like more ready for any big challenges or things like this. Yeah, that's the thing. You start doing this and you get used to it. You come on podcasts like this and you can, you're a bit more relaxed. it's quite casual so like it's i think it's good to put yourself in that position where you're

pushing your comfort zone a little bit because then the next time you do it it's so much easier i agree and speaking of this you also do some public speaking right that's right yeah so i've been asked to speak a few more times over the last couple of years i think just as the brands built as the business has become more established i've been asked to speak on a few stages which is very cool getting paid to travel around the world and speak is is pretty cool right so it's something i'm keen to do more of i haven't done loads and loads of it i need means, but I love doing it. And when it comes to public speaking, not going to fly that many of people or many of us are, you know, scared of it or it's not that simple. So what is it like for you?

Are you someone who's been always comfortable or is it like a challenge for you as well? Yeah, do you know, I'm actually very introverted. I can, in smaller scenarios, I'm very like in a small group, I won't really be the one making all the noise. I tend to be very quiet. But for some reason, public speaking, if there's a big audience, I'm absolutely fine. I don't know what it is, but like if I get on stage, I guess it's because you, like there's a reason you're there, right?

You've been asked to speak for a reason. People are there to listen to you for a reason. And naturally, because you're the one on stage, there's instantly framing around you as the authority. So you're the authority in the room. You're the one that people want to listen to. So it's quite easy to kind of command attention and build authority and get people to listen to you from it.

And so I'm actually much better in scenarios like that, like public speaking, than I would be in maybe a smaller group setting. Sounds like the larger audience, the better. I guess so. I've never spoken in front of like tens of thousands, though. So I think a few hundred is the most I've done. No, but it's impressive because, you know, for example, I may say that I would make it, but then if I stepped on the stage, it will be completely different story. So well, well done for them. I appreciate it.

Are you struggling to stay consistent on LinkedIn? Fanpost helps you create high quality posts in minutes, so you can write faster, show up more, and stress way less. Built by creators for creators is the easiest way to grow your presents without burning out. Try it free at fanpost.com. Because, you know, we've been discussing LinkedIn, do you also focus on other platforms? If so, to what extent?

Yeah, so we do a little bit of work on Instagram, sometimes TikTok, Twitter. We do bits there, not loads, because LinkedIn is just the number one platform for the types of clients that we have. All of them, I think, yeah, north of 90% of them, LinkedIn will be the number one channel. There are occasions where we'll look at other platforms as well,

where it might be relevant for people, but the majority of the time, LinkedIn is the number one place for them. And is that, like, other platforms, something that you plan to explore in the future as you grow your agency? Yeah, what will, I mean, what we currently do is we work with a few partner agencies on those. So rather than like building an

Instagram division, for example, inside Kurogo, we have Instagram agency that we know and we trust. They've already got the full setup. They work with some of the sorts of clients. So it's more, I think the smarter play is partnering with people like that rather than trying to build its own division. But we'll use it in so much as it's beneficial to clients, right? I think LinkedIn is still going to be the number one platform for the next five, 10 years. I'm glad to hear it because sometimes it feels like that. LinkedIn, like, you know, there's some changes. I don't know, like, for example, with the video feed or whatever,

now people often complain about their reach that sometimes you don't know what is happening, but I'm glad to hear your opinion that it's still going to be rather than finger or even more. Yeah, well, you look at like, you look at Instagram and people said that was dead five years ago. It's still huge. Same with Facebook, right? Apparently Facebook died in like 2015, but there's still an audience of people that use it. So I don't think LinkedIn will go anywhere. I think so too. And if anything, I think it's just temporary because there's like always some kind of waves. And then there will be a different time when

people start finding something different to complain about it. The other thing is right, it feels like there's lots of people posting right now because there's a lot of hype around it. But the vast majority of those people are not going to keep posting. They're going to be in the 90% that gives up after a couple of months. So actually a lot of the people posting now probably won't be posting this time next year. So even just by like sticking in the game long enough, you can outlast those people and be one of the few that survives. That is true. And before, when I mentioned that, you know, when we discussed like DMs on LinkedIn, I would ask you the question because I'm sure that you get it often. When someone texts you, oh, Sam, what's the secret for growth or your

advice? What is it like that you usually answer? If I don't know them, I probably won't answer. But like, if I know, again, I always say it comes down to positioning first. So like it's, it's not the answer people want. People want like the cool writing hack, but it will always come down to positioning ultimately. So that's essential. And then in terms of actually like the production of content, it's psychology. It's human psychology. Understand how humans think.

A lot of people, they want to stand out in a LinkedIn feed, but they haven't considered that there are also thousands of other people trying to do the same thing. there are notifications coming in, messages coming in, there's all sorts of stimuli in our environment offline as well. So your audience are constantly distracted. There are thousands of stimuli that they could pay attention to, and you have to give them a reason to look at your content, to pay attention to the stimulus you're providing. And that's the biggest mistake that people make.

They don't provide enough reason for people to actually engage and pay attention in the first place. And that comes down to obviously the hook of the content, but also the formatting of the content, the creative you use, even down to things like the profile pitch you have, the tagline, all things that matter for getting people to pay attention in the first place. Because if you don't get past that, nothing else really matters. I know it might sound like a trivial question,

but I still get asked this very often as well. And even though I discuss it like with the guests on the podcast regularly, because I kind of like to ask this question because every person shares different answer, and especially when someone experienced, like, for example, you are. I'm generally curious to hear what you say. But I hope that people find out that there is, like, really no one secret sauce that will help you grow overnight. So I think this is perfect answer.

And I hope that people will learn from it. Yeah, it's interesting. People think there's like a specific formula. If you just copy, you'll get results. There are thousands of different ways, thousands of different ways to get results. So yeah, don't think there's only one formula that some people are using that you need to find out. And we discussed so much stuff that you do, that you achieve and your plans. So I'm curious to know, like, what is your time management like?

How do you manage to do everything, stay on top of things and still produce and improve? Yeah. So obviously, got a great team around me. Like, I'm not a one-man band. I've got an amazing team around me that helped me run the agency. that's massive help. And to be honest, I'm not too involved in like the day-to-day running of the agency anymore. My main responsibility is commercial development, so marketing sales.

I have a business development manager that supports me on sales. The business is kind of running the background by our CEO. I had a client services. I have a strategy. And then we've got what we call Pod. So Pod is an account manager, a content writer, and a community manager who kind of manage the clients. So kind of all of that is staying care of. I'm really focused on marketing and sales side.

I'm someone that likes to get up early and get ahead of the day. So that's a big thing for me, right? I've got, there's what 15 people in the team now, 30 plus clients at any one time. So you can imagine there's a lot of messages and emails every single day. So I like to get up early. I start work at 6, 6.6.30 in the morning and have two, three hours of just deep, focus work before anyone else logs on. And that's where I complete all my essential stuff for the day. So I like to get ahead. I don't have this complicated morning routine.

I don't have any fancy or activity hacks. It's just like wake up and work. And that gets me head. It puts me in a good place come 8, 30, 9 a.m. whenever else logs on. I use a really simple task manager to track all my tasks. Obviously, I'm getting requests coming in from different sources, WhatsApp, email, Slack. So I just bring all of that together in one task manager, which gives me a list of things that I need to do every day, deadlines for them.

And I basically live by that block time in my calendar to complete them. and that's actually enough for me. And speaking of this, one of my favorite questions is, what do you like to do in your free time? And what are some of your hobbies? Yeah, I love to train, like, love to keep fit. I've always been very sporty.

Sports has been a huge part of my life, played sports since I was like, since I could walk, basically. So keeping fit, training, doing sport is massive for me. That's probably, if I'm not working, that's probably what I'm doing, to be honest. Have you got the favorite sport?

Is it just like going to a gym and lifting weight? So I normally just goes to gym and if weights, but football is probably my biggest sport. I played football all the way through my life. I used to play rugby, you play cricket. I play a little bit of, I'm starting to get back into tennis now. I'd with my mate. So pretty much anything.

If I had to choose one, I'd choose football. And any like other hobbies? Maybe something interesting. Not that sports wouldn't be interesting. I love sports as well, but maybe something unusual. I actually love music. People don't know this about me. Music is probably a big passion of mine.

Don't ask me what genre I listen to because I'll name every genre. But yeah, at least favorite, the singer or a band? Don't have a favorite either. So it's too tricky. But yeah, I love music, so I listen to a lot of music. Yeah, I'd say those two things. Music and sport outside of work are really the main habits. I want to start learning languages, though.

There's Spanish and Arabic. Those are two languages. I was expecting Japanese. Maybe one day. Let me crack Spanish and Arabic first. I mean, it's impressive, like, did you want to learn Arabic? But why such a hard language, or at least for English speakers? Firstly, because it's hard, and it's, like, I want the challenge of it.

Also, purely practically speaking, Arabic, I think, certainly in the business world, is going to become a really key lesson to learn, I think, spoken. There are many different forms of Arabic. There's not one Arabic language. There are many different dialects within it. but it's spoken by thousands and millions and millions of people worldwide, and I only see that number increasing in different regions as well, so it's not just spoken in one country, quite frankly.

I mean, those are valid points, I agree, and I understand. If it wasn't the challenge in, I guess I'd go for it as well. I won the challenge of it. I think it's cool. And also very culturally different to everything we know growing up and living in an English-speaking country, completely English family. It's very different culturally to everything I've learnt for.

So I think that side of things is interesting as well. Yeah, that is true. And do you read any books? Not a massive reader, you know. You've probably seen the stack of books behind me. I've read some of those for all of them. Just for the recording looks. It's for the aesthetics.

No, I've read some of these. There are some great books up there. The Chimp Paradox is a good one. You might be able to see it about there, I think. My mentor gave me actually a year, year and a half ago, which is a great book for managing your mind. But I'm not a massive reader, generally speaking. But still are there like any impactful books except the Chim Paragox?

And then Psycho Cybernetics, the one above it, the best book I've ever read. Oh really? I think I heard of it, but I'm not sure if I read it. Yeah, it's about like how your identity shapes your reality and how you can basically shift your perception of yourself, your own self identity, easily the best book I've ever read. Oh wow, I will put it on my list. we discussed before like what are your plans when it comes to your agency but have you got what are your ambitions or goals like when it comes to your personal life or brand or even outside what we haven't discussed yeah i think i'm a natural entrepreneur like i love building

businesses i can't see a world where i'm not building businesses i'll probably be building them until i'm like 80 so uh i think i'd always do them i don't think i'll be running corogo for the rest of my life there's there's obviously going to come a time where i'm not the best person to run it I don't think that will be for a while. But there will come a time where I'm not the best person to run it and I'll move on and I'll definitely start other businesses. That's going to be a mainstay of my life for the next 40, 50 years, I think. I'd like to obviously agency is one business model that I feel like I know pretty well now,

having done it for five years, I kind of know how agencies work and would feel pretty confident building another agency, which I imagine I will do at some point. But I'd like to explore other business models as well. I don't know exactly what yet. but like test myself, learn new skills, put myself back into startup modes. So yeah. And I guess also trying to grow in more as a creator

because as I've seen, you got YouTube channel. Of course you've got LinkedIn, which they start. This is all about building leverage long term, right? Because you think about this business that I've built, if you compare that to the next one, I'll be starting the next one with potentially

hundreds of thousands of followers of people, people that know me, like me and trust me, it's going to be far easier to do that. So really the building the audience online, building the person brand, is just a source of leverage for future businesses to make them more successful. I like it. It's like if I imagine that I started a podcast with thousands of followers or already having a LinkedIn brand, it would be completely different stories. There you go. That's exactly it.

So, yeah, that's my thinking with the person brand. Obviously, it directly benefits Kroga now, but it's also, it's a selfish exercise long term as well. Yeah. And I guess also step out of a comfort zone. For example, when it comes to filming videos on YouTube or putting yourself out there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, YouTube is an interesting one. I think a huge advocate for YouTube, great platform, hard to produce on.

Like, producing content on YouTube is completely different to LinkedIn, for example. But I'm enjoying it so far. Yeah, I agree. And so we will be slowly wrapping it up. Can you summarize where people can find you, follow you? I mean, we discussed it, but to sum it up and promote any of your services? Yeah, so I'm active across social media, pretty much every platform, Sam G. Winsbury, if you want to follow me for free daily content. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, it's probably the best place where I'm most active.

In the tagline under my name and tagline section, there's a link to a score card where you can measure your personal brand score. It takes like three, four minutes to complete. There's 30 quick five questions, and then it's going to give you a score for your personal brand off the back of it. and tailored advice based on what you answer. So that's a really cool resource if anyone wants to check that out. And there'll be an opportunity to work with us at the end of that if you think it would be useful. Yeah, it sounds very smart. I will add all the links to the show notes.

And then, Sam, before we finish, is there anything that I should have asked you and did not or any questions? Because as we discussed before, we've been to so many podcasts or maybe is there a question that you wish someone asked you and have a lot yet? Oh, my best advice for someone just getting started. That's a good one, which is kind of do what I did to sign my dream client. So I would find 10 to 20 people that are influential in the industry you're trying to get into. Pitch all of them that you'll work for free for them for a month. Work for free for a month, do amazing work and then get them to pay you.

And if you pitch 20 people, you'll have probably three to five people that will say yes. And you then have three to five amazing case studies from influential people in your industry that you can use to get other clients. that is it's not the most fun like you've got to do some ugly work but it is the most reliable way to start a new business that sounds great and imagine if you work with someone like that and that person can refer you or just have amazing tested winners and case studies to continue from here i think that's great and some we can finish it for today i want to say big thank you for joining it was very helpful insight for me and inspiring as well i think you achieved some amazing things I really appreciate you joining me and yeah thank you and keep smashing my pleasure

thank you mate appreciate you on thanks for listening to produce by with Tomen check the show notes for all the links and don't forget to subscribe like and share your feedback speak soon