Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Alexa D'Agostino: Founder and CEO of THYNK Consulting Group

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of The Radcast! This weeks guest is founder and CEO of THYNK Consulting Group Dr. Alexa D'Agostino. Alexa is an award-winning serial 8-figure entrepreneur, marketer, business coach, consultant, and investor. She helps entrepreneurs and small businesses skyrocket their business through strategy, marketing, sales, media, and leadership. She is the owner of 15 businesses 6, 7, and 8-figure brands, and she has been part of 5 successful exits. Over 300+ case studies and businesses scaled to 6, 7, 8, and 9 figures. . .  Demonstrated achievements in strategy, digital marketing, communications, social media, data analytics, and website/app development. Has grown brands in almost every single industry from ed-tech, fin-tech, finance, crypto, marketing/PR, banking, hospitality, healthcare, education, massage, beauty, gaming, fitness, pet, communication, real estate, and more. (https://profiles.forbes.com/members/comm/profile/Alexa-Dagostino-CEO-Thynktank-Coaching-Thynkfuel-Media-Thynktank-Coaching/c34b82bf-57e2-4ef9-a67f-da84ddd6bc49) To connect with Alexa you can follow her on Instagram @dralexadagostino, on Twitter @alexadagostino and checkout her website https://www.alexadagostino.com/ Thanks for checking out this weeks episode of the Radcast! Be sure to keep up with all that’s Radical @ryanalford @radicalresults @the.rad.cast @nick_weaver and like and subscribe to our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc8gmekIb1SS1s216ASNT_w If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So I always say if you want to be an entrepreneur, you're scaling, you're trying to get to multi-six figures, seven figures. First is you have to get out of the I'm going to do everything myself mentality. If you're a business owner, you have to have some sort of skill. It doesn't mean you have to do it yourself, but you have to understand it. You can't manage a marketing company or social media company or a lead gen company. If you don't at least have the basics and the basic understanding of what needs to be done, and that's where people fail. I was thinking small because I didn't have the confidence.

I had confidence to build seven, eight, nine-figure brands. I never had the confidence or even the clarity to build a ten-figure brand. And now I do. And now I'm charting towards that path. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up?

Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Offord, your host. You know, we say if it's radical, we cover it. We're talking radical marketing today. We're talking marketing by modification with Alexa D.I. Estino. What's up, Alexa? What's going on, Ryan? Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here. I know. I'm excited. Glad we got to meet and working on a joint venture. And it's like, you're like, let's talk on the pockets. Like, hell yeah. Like, let's do it. And then when you told me marketing by modification, I'm like, all right, you had me a modification.

I don't know we'll get into that. But founder and CEO of Think Consulting Group. I know you work with a lot of that. I'm going to let you go down a lot of different avenues with Think. I know you have a lot of things your touch and excited to be working with you on the Think Billions event coming up soon here. Yeah, absolutely. So Think Consulting Group. We have Think Tank, which is our coaching.

So we help entrepreneurs scale, scaling mostly to six, seven figures. That's our sweet spot. And then we have Think Fuel, which is our full service marketing and PR department. And I cannot wait for the Think Bill. event either. It's going to be incredible. And you can see in every single company I have, the word think is in there. Because for me, you have to really think through everything. And when we first started thinking, what do we want to name our company? We said, well, think because that's, in order to do anything in life, you've got to think. You've got to allow yourself the time to

actually stop and think to be creative. Think to be innovative. Think about what connections you need. Think about everything that you need to succeed. So that's where the name thing came in and we've carried it through everything. Yeah. Hey, it's a brandy guy. Yeah. I love it. You carried it through.

I know your host of the Think Millions podcast as well. We'll talk about that in a bit. It's funny you talk, you know, hearing you say that, I'm like, it should be like, oh, no shit. Like, you got to think about stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it's funny. We think, we think, I'm not sure there's enough thinking now. It's a lot of fire aim ready. And I think, but at the end of the day, it's become a lost art for what it truly takes to get from point A to point B.

Absolutely. You know, and that's where the marketing by modification came in. So, you know, I started my first business at age 18. I grew up with a household of entrepreneurs. My family's from Cuba. They couldn't speak the language. Came to America. I had no choice but to be entrepreneurs because they couldn't speak the language.

So growing up, our dinner table conversations was always around problem solving and always, around thinking and how to solve problems. So we did not have a normal childhood. I mean, everyone in my family from my mom, my dad, my cousins, my aunts, everyone's an entrepreneur. So I started my first official business at 18. Actually, a funny YouTube and TikTok videos about my first businesses in second grade that almost got me expelled. But, you know, I always thought through what is success. And I started my career as a program developer. So I'm actually five degrees three technical. And I always thought, I'm going to be a developer.

I'm going to be a developer. But I ended up falling in love with marketing and the creative aspect of it. So while I have a very logical mind of thinking, I was like, I absolutely love the creative aspect in that part. But then I started realizing like really creative is data. Like content's not king. It's really data because you don't know what content works without data. So I started to infuse a lot of data and the logic side into the marketing side.

And that's really how. we became successful very early on. And when I sold my agency, which was my fourth exit, I went to go get my Ph.D. And took about a five-year hiatus from entrepreneurship. When I came back, my wife and I were walking. And I said, what should I name my next company? And my wife goes, well, why do you think you've been successful?

And I said, because I love data and I've infused at my marketing. She goes, so kind of like marketing by modification. And I go, bingo. I'm like, I love that. And that's how marketing by modification was born. And now we teach that philosophy because everybody thinks, and I'm sure you can see this yourself, owning an agency, everybody thinks you have to have something perfect out of the gate. And in fact, you don't.

And in fact, spending months and months and months to create something perfect half the time doesn't actually give you the results that you want. So we believe in speed of implementation, get it up, get it out, and then modify it until it works the way that you want and get the results that you want. Bingo. The key to marketing now is iteration. And that's what you just described. Modification, iteration. Everything can be improved, but you don't, there's never a perfect piece of content, a perfect website, a perfect whatever.

But you can get real-time feedback and the data can lead you to what that improvement should be. I love that. And I mean, that's just the key. And I think so many people get so caught up in perfection in their own's mind, mind's eye, right? And it just doesn't exist. And a lot of times what we see at this point, we've coached hundreds of people. And what we see is people get stuck in that last 10%. It's easy to get to 90%, but then it's that last 10% that people get stuck on, especially in the creative world.

So I always say, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you're scaling, you're trying to get to multi six figures, seven figures. First is you have to get out of the I'm going to do everything myself mentality. That's the first thing. The second is you just got to get it done. Just get it out. Who cares what people think? Who cares if it's perfect? Half the time, I don't even care if there's spelling errors. Just get it up and get it out and test it and fix it later. But we get so stuck in that it has to be done perfect. It has to be done this way. And I always say build it before they even come. Put a landing page up. See people even want it. So many people, how many people have you seen where they spend millions of dollars or thousands of dollars creating something

and then nobody wants it? And it flop. No, it's key. Mark Randolph, the co-founder of Net Netflix talked about this exact topic and how people get so stuck on their idea and their idea and their idea. And sometimes the idea is shit, but you've got to find out faster. And the best entrepreneurs have this proclivity to action and doing things and getting it done. And that's where a lot of people get stuck. It's brilliant. It's exactly the kind of coaching and mentoring, I think a lot of people need.

It's support, right? So to us, there's a lot of different angles of success. And obviously, the first is mindset. You've got to have the right mindset. You have to have the right attitude. Tell me who you hang out with. And I'll tell you who you are. And it's so true.

And we had a perfect example of a student who has really been knocked off their game the last couple of weeks. And we finally boiled down to it's just the people that she's surrounding herself with. And so for us, mindset's the number one. If you don't have that, you don't have anything. But then the next part is confidence. You have to have the confidence. And then the third is skills.

You've got to have skills. And so that's where marketing comes in. If you're a business owner, you have to have some sort of skill. It doesn't mean you have to do it yourself, but you have to understand it. You can't manage a marketing company or a social media company or a lead gen company. If you don't at least have the basics and the basic understanding of what needs to be done, and that's where people fail. You have to have the basic skills to be able to understand sales and leadership and marketing.

and these are important skills that you have to have. And these are all the things that we like to cover because a lot of people will go to school. But the reality is school doesn't teach this stuff. They're teaching philosophy and things that for the most part, I don't know what in my degrees I actually use in my business. But for me, it's really about learning the skills that you need, gaining the confidence and you have to have the clarity. You have to have clarity in the direction that you're heading.

Yes. It's funny, listen to you talk. I and you the the art and the science of marketing you blend this perfect amount of both I can tell like getting to know you better hearing you talk like you having that that developer's background makes sense now especially with the data and like the scientific but then there's an artistic quality to you and I think there that's the secret sauce with marketing these days is that combination of those two things but I so talk to me Alexa about like your perfect customer or like the the people that you're helping the most. I know you're, you know, doing the coaching and things like that. So, let's frame that kind of like customer journey, like who that customer or who that person is and where you take them from, you know, A to Z or whatever that process looks like. Yeah, it's actually interesting. So if I take you back to the beginning of my career before I sold my fourth business, I would have had a very different answer. So when I started my business, I was really seeking money,

money, money, and I was taking on bigger and bigger clients, right? You know, you're in this marketing world. I was taking on Fortune 500 clients, a lot of red tape, not, you know, sometimes the best clients as much, but they're the best paying clients. And so what I learned was, is as my company started to grow, grow seven figures, multi-seven figures, eight figures, and it started getting bigger and bigger, the less happy I became. And I was so results-driven that I was driving my team, driving my team, driving my team. So if you would have asked me in my 20s, it would have been anybody that's going to pay a lot of money, right? And so, when I sold my business, my, my fourth business, which was the first agency that I sold,

I sold another one this spring, which was my six exit. We, I went on that five year hiatus where I went to go get a PhD and teach. And I really spent five years trying to figure out who do I want to be. And it was one Christmas where I sat down with my father who recently passed away. And I said, I'm like, what is wrong with me? Like I was making so much money. I was like netting millions to my pocket and I was miserable. What like what am I missing here?

And he said because you're passionate. Shocker, I'm Cuban, right? He goes, you're passionate and you weren't passionate about the clients you were working with. He's like you've got to find people that you want to work with and that give you money. Even if it's a little less money, but you're passionate, you're going to be that much happier. So it completely shifted my entire perspective on what kind of clients I wanted to work with. And what I realized at that that. moment was it is important to be passionate about the people you work with and the people that you work

for. So now I only take on projects and clients on the coaching side and the agency side that I want to work with. And that's it. And if I don't like a client, we just fired a client. I actually just did a whole podcast on this exact topic. We literally fired a client that was a six figure a year client because they just were not nice people. And we just didn't, we didn't want to work with them. And I said, see ya. And I fired them. So to answer your question, it's people that are good people that have a mission that understand the value of having support and people around them that are easy to work with and who have a drive. And so those are the best clients for us.

I mean, we've helped people scale in every single industry you can imagine. The largest client we've ever scaled was $350 million. We've scaled at this point for companies past nine figures. We're well above 25 at this point in the 80s. figure range and I mean we're well above 75 in the seven figure range and a lot in the six figure range in the hundreds. And so for us, it's there's a there is a formula to scale and it's just you have to have the drive and the passion. And so that's why the name of our program is actually called Passion to CEO, which is funny, which is our coaching program because I think you've got to

have the passion to really scale. Yeah. I love all that is I started to ask you, you know, you've had six six exits like you know yeah I was I think you answered it but I want to I want for the audience maybe if they didn't catch it I think I caught it which was you've been gradually maybe moving to things you were more passionate about but maybe put what were all the exits about was it really that that movement of okay I built this I mean was it always the plan to have this many exits no it all kind of just unfolded that way so being part of a marketing agency I was always brought on as equity partners at some point of the project. The first two projects were apps. I owned 50%, 149, 150. But that gradually happened after we built the app and they needed my marketing

then to push it to the next level. But what's interesting is this Think Billions event that you and I, you and I are very successful, right? But one of the things that I never realized, I never thought billions. I really never did. I never thought until I met Howie, I didn't even know that word really existed. I always was like, oh, I'm so successful. I've made multiple nine-figure businesses. I'm like a powerhouse. And then I meet this guy. I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is even a possibility.

And now I'm partners with him on a project that it's actually a very probable reality. We're going to build a billion dollar company. And my mind is blown. And why I share this is because for me, in my exits, I was always building million-dollar companies. I was never building a billion-dollar brand. And I never really realized that until, like, met Howie. And so the whole concept that one person can change your life, one connection can change the trajectory of where you're heading, look at me now. Like it's completely changed my life in so

many different ways. I was thinking small because I didn't have the confidence. I had confidence to build seven, eight, nine figure brands. I never had the confidence or even the clarity to build a 10 figure brand. And now I do. And now I'm charting towards that path. And I mean, so you're, you know, I say this, I say this out loud. It's like one of my catchphrases, even though it's kind of a weird statement eating your own dog food but like you're but you do and you are like like literally because you know you're coaching everyone and doing all these things and you've been uber successful but you could be billion successful like and even you have recognized that and you've sicked out and met people and you know you're involved in this think billions thing and

you've recognized and you're doing the same things you're coaching others to do and I think that's where the authenticity comes from and I think that's where the authenticity comes from and I think that's what people can really like get their head around because I think sometimes there's people that coach and do these things and you're like you don't really you're not really buying what you're selling you know but like what you just said is you're embracing everything that you're kind of coaching others to do self-awareness is so important and I'm the first half my master classes I come on sharing what I'm doing wrong or the things I've realized in the moment it's we're building businesses now we're not coaches that had a successful business 10 years ago we're

literally building businesses now. So we're coming live to our students, teaching them, what's working now, what's not working now, what mistakes have I made, what am I learning, where am I growing? I literally had a whole master class a couple of weeks ago where I shared how I was disappointed in my leadership the last 60 days. And why? And I'm packed everything. I'm never ashamed to make mistakes. I'm never ashamed to be self-aware of what I could be better at. it to me you should be ashamed if you're not looking at yourself and growing as a person. So to me, I want everybody. I don't care.

Even on our podcast, the Think Millions podcast, like I'm very open and vulnerable on what I need to be better at and what I'm learning. And that's part of growth is growing yourself. So I spend a lot of money on coaching myself, a lot of money on, you know, improving me as a leader, improving me as a human being because that's what life's, it's what it's about. Yep. And, you know, you don't ever know what you're going to unlock when you do that. And I think even for me, personally, like, you know, getting that connection through you with Howie and, you know, I feel like I know Howie already and have ever really been in the room with him, but we'll be shortly. And but that notion of thinking bigger, which again is one of those things, well, that just sounds like not that big a deal or yeah.

No, it is a big deal because even successful people, can unlock something further, greater. Like, we're all so self-limiting creatures on something, you know, like, we don't even realize it, you know? Absolutely. And it's like that self-awareness you talk about is so key. And I think, you know, unlocking that for people in both the good and the bad, you know, it's not always about, you know, being self-aware if you're just a total dick or something.

But like, though that's important. Yeah. But it's also unlocking like, okay, I'm not thinking. as wide or as deep about this as I could be. Yeah, and it's actually interesting. My coach, last week on my coaching call, said to me that I have a broke mindset. And I'm like, no, I don't. I'm like, I do not have a broke mindset.

I spend money. I invest. And he's like, yeah, but there's different levels of broke mindset. Your version of broke is different than somebody else that's just getting started. And his point was you're at the point now where you're trying to create wealth. You know how to make money, but now it's time to create wealth. And you have a broke mentality because you're not thinking wealth. You're thinking making money.

So you don't have a wealth mentality. And I thought it was really interesting. So I was kind of taken back. And at first I was kind of defensive. And I listened and I just let him talk, but I was quiet. I was literally like, and I had to unpack it. And I was like, so days went by and I'm like talking to my wife about it. And I'm like, this MF told me I had a broke mindset, you know, like talking crap behind him.

And then my wife one day goes, she goes, you know, I kind of see his point a little bit. You know, we are, we are scared sometimes to invest. But the thing is, is our investments are bigger now. Yeah. And while you're just starting out, people have a broke mindset that they don't want to spend money to make money, invest in themselves, invest in their business. And what they do is they take all the money out, out, out, oh, great, I'm taking a six-figure paycheck. Well, what if you took a seven-figure paycheck, right? But you can't do that unless you invest in your business.

business, invest in people and get out of that. I'm going to do it myself mentality. So he is right. It's just a different level, right? I'm at a different level of a broke mindset, right? But I thought it was interesting. No, it's super interesting. I had not. It's funny. I like, you feel like you heard every term before. I don't know that I've actually heard that phrase that way, like broke, but it's not. And at first you hear broke and you're like, okay, but it kind of has a double entendre a little bit of how you can take it. And for you, you know, scaling and things like that at a different level. But, you know, I'm thinking like clients I deal with that that kind of have that a little bit like investing in marketing and branding and things that, you know, pay over

time and not overnight. And I think that's a hard thing for business owners to kind of get over as well. We all are conditioned to want it yesterday. And, you know, for, you know, people like us that had been in business for a while. We haven't figured it all out, but we've both learned that you build brand over time and not overnight. Yeah, it's actually funny. I had a client. It was partly my fault, again, is self-awareness, right? So we got this client and we thought we set expectations up front. And so we're about four weeks into it. Now, granted, you understand what this means. We had to create a whole brand from scratch. There was no social media, no brand, no logo, no colors, no messaging, nothing.

So within like literally less than four weeks, we create the whole brand. And within four weeks, we literally got ads up and we started to serve them. So we get about nine days into serving ads. And I get this email and it's like, this isn't working. We're five weeks in. And I have no clients. I go, you had no brand. You had no messaging.

You had no website. You had no social. And we are literally on day nine of ads. And we had gotten it that. point 11 leads. And there's a very competitive market. I said you have no brand recognition at all in this area because this person moved from a different area.

And from that experience, I really realized that not everybody understands what building a brand means and what success means. People want that silver bullet tactic. And at the end of the day, that works for quick money, but not a sustainable growth of a company. And for all the new entrepreneurs, people trying to get to six, trying to get to seven, you have to do a little bit of both. Yes, you need quick money, but you also have to build a brand. Look at Ryan's brand.

He's built this massive brand and people follow him because he's trustworthy. People want to do business with people they know like and trust. They trust Ryan because he's not only good at what he does, but he's built that trust through content and building a brand. And that takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. That's 100% right. Bingo. And I appreciate the kind of words. But I think it's like literally the hardest thing for people to understand. They get it once you say it. And it's the challenge with working with individuals,

which I give you a lot of credit for. I mean, we work. What's funny is like in my career, you know, I have a weird trajectory. Like I came up to the ad agency business and was the hot shot ad guy, worked on to the largest brands, largest campaigns, most advertisers, most recognizable. most recognizable campaigns, you know, early middle career. I think I'm still in middle career, hopefully, aren't we? But the, yeah. And I hope so.

And then now owning my own agency, we work with medium-sized companies. And so it's a little different dynamic. And they do expect things quickly. It's refreshing to hear that I'm not the only one that gets those phone call sometimes. All the time. But it's about setting expectation of what it really takes. We've gotten better at that as an agency. That's what was so funny.

You know, in my, you know, like starting the agency, we're five years in. And it's like, okay, we've got some battle scars from, you know, probably not doing that as good as we should have. Even though we knew it intrinsically, but going, okay, here's what's realistic here. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, do you want to build a six-figure brand or do you want to build an eight, nine, ten-figure brand? Yeah, I know. And the answer to that is, I don't know, probably yes and yes.

what uh you know Alexa where what's molded you I mean what's been your influences like obviously sounds like big family and things like that like on a personal level like what's kind of been some of your biggest influences over the years I would say being an athlete has really molded me at a really young career I mean I mentioned my my family were entrepreneurs and what I didn't mention is we we spent a lot of time going through building businesses and innovation and problem solving, but what I didn't mention was all the hard times too. And seeing my parents go bankrupt once, seeing 29 people walk out on my mom, right, because of bad leadership or situations. And seeing hard times and building businesses, as much

as they were successful, they had hard times too. And I think that really molded me as a person to have this resiliency because I never saw them give up, ever. And, that to me was something that molded me as a human to just never give up because things might get hard and things might get difficult. But as long as you have the right head and the right intentions and the right people around you, you will be successful. You will make it through it. And it might seem hard in the moment. But those hard moments are what make you who you are. And those hard moments are what make you even more successful. So for me, when I have hard times, I use that to springboard myself into a better situation. And I've made bad decisions. I've made the wrong

decisions. And instead of sitting there regretting it, I look, how can I be better moving forward? And what have I learned from this situation? And that's propelled me to be better and better. And so for me, it's, it's, it's been a lifelong journey of, of looking at improvement and growth and not ever looking back, but always looking forwards. I love that. There's only one thing you get looking back, and that's a hurt neck. What my favorite saying. That is true. Nothing in that rearview mirror other than bad memories.

sometimes. Alexa, so let's talk marketing a little bit. You know, you guys have the PR arm, marketing arm, you know, full service, things like that. What's your, in this world of social media and the news cycle, which is strange, but and splintered. What's your perspective on the marketing mix these days with PR versus paid versus all of those things? Yeah. I mean, I mean, as you know, we do paid media as well. We're actually one of the largest private advertising companies in the U.S. So we do a couple hundred million of paid ads every year. And so we're still very bullish on paid ads, but obviously organic has grown,

which is why we've grown Think Fuel, which is the creative arm, and really pumping out the PR and the organic content creation and the social media side. I think it all depends on what part of your business you're in. If you haven't hit six figures, my advice always is, especially if this is your first business, do organic. Start by making sure people want your offer. The worst thing that you could do is put paid ads on an offer. When you don't know people want it, all paid ads does is amplify what is and isn't working.

So I always say get traction first organically. Make sure that it's working. And then once it works, then you pour the gasoline on. Then you do the paid ads. So again, it really depends. Now, if I have a company that comes to me that's already making revenue, I will pour the gasoline on pretty immediately, but we still do it in a phased approach. Even when I have a client that just started with us a couple months ago, in the first two weeks,

we literally just did impression-based display to get the data. Then once we got the data, we figured out what messaging is working and then changed to a more CPA model, cost per acquisition model, to then use that data to really infuse the right messaging to the right people, and it exploded. But we took the time to learn first, even at a big company, this is a multi-seven figure, almost eight-figure company. So even at a bigger level, we're still doing a very similar model. We're just using paid advertising to get there quicker.

So the approach is the same. But if you're starting off, don't just dump money into ads. There's so many ways that you can build a six-figure income. We actually made in our coaching program multi-six figures without a six-figure. a sales funnel without paid ads, without anything. Literally all we did was use Instagram. That's it. And we built a multi-six-figure account within 90 days, too.

A two-coma-click funnel award, which means you do a million dollars in a single funnel within four and a half months. And probably the, I would say, the last like two and a half months, we actually had a funnel. So, you know, don't feel the pressure to, you know, dump money into paid ads. And I've seen people dump their life savings into this stuff. and then it doesn't work because they don't have the right offer. A lot of truce there is I love the, you say so many things that I relate to, but it's like dubbing, you know, paid ads like it amplifies both the good and the bad.

You know, like it's like nothing worse than amplifying what is it going to work. And there's a lot of that going on, unfortunately. You know, people go straight to the ads and we got to make sure you got the right offer or the right message. right creative first and too much learning from that it's like bringing back horror stories of some clients we worked with the uh Alexa how many of these companies you work with we haven't really talked about this but and I imagine it's something but like personal branding for the CEOs how much in your playbook is that and do you see that as a necessity these days I mean obviously there's tons of companies that don't you know the CEO's not known or whatever

What's kind of your perspective on, you know, CEO or, you know, high executive personal branding? 100% is very, very big. So we've gotten more into personal brand. I would say the last few years when I sold my business in 2014, personal branding wasn't even really a thing. People were doing it, but it wasn't, I don't even think personal branding was in the dictionary. Like, it wasn't something people were knowingly doing. And when I came back in 2019, also on personal branding was a new thing. I've never been in front of a camera.

I've never done a personal brand. I was the nerd in a dark room, like, coding on a computer, you know? And then I come back five years later. I'm like, I got to go in front of a camera. What? But it helped me build a multi-seven figure company within six months because I kind of leaned into it. And I'm a big believer. And I've got to do it myself and learn how to do it myself before I start doing it for

others. And I learned that from my father because he worked at IBM. He actually managed all the manufacturing plants worldwide. And I was 12 and he brought me into one of the plants. And I mean, he reported directly to the president. And so we're walking through. And he's like, Charlie, how's your kids? Susan, how's your husband doing?

And then he's walking me through the entire plant, machine by machine, explaining every little thing about the machinery. And I said, Dad, you're a high level executive. You report to the president. Why do you know all these people and why do you know this? And what he said changed my world in my life. And he said, Alex, if you want to be a CEO one day of your own company or a big company like this, you better know every part of your business.

So I took that to heart with the personal branding. And I figured it out myself first. I wanted to be able to create a seven-figure brand myself before I went and developed it for other people. And that's exactly what I did. And it is 100% a big thing that we offer. And pretty much almost every single client, we're building. out the personal brands of all our clients too. I was kind of like leading the witness.

I knew what the answer was for the audience, got to hear it. But like, it's, I say this, like, it pays to be known. And the days of hiding behind the desk or,

I mean, it's not that you can't do it. Of course you can. There's plenty of examples of successful companies that, you know, don't have founders or whatever that are out there. But I guarantee you if we lined up 20, 20 companies right now.

And the ones that have a strong personal brand behind the company, no matter how good the products are, I guarantee you the success rate is just higher because of it's an, and what people understand is it's not just being famous. It's being known and being, you know, authentic and having some relationship, you know, to your audience and to people that may buy from you or that research. And people are researching you no matter if you know it or not. And I think that's the thing that you have to unlock with people is like, they're looking you up. So do you want to control the narrative or do you want what someone else may have just written about

you at some point controlling the narrative? Yeah. And there's different levels, right? So there's being an authority, which now everyone's an expert. So I always say you've got to skip the expert stage now because now there's so many experts out there. So, you know, authority to me is what other people are saying. That's where PR does become important because now you become an expert by. your own social media, by what you share. That's a bottom line base. You have to do that.

But then in order to become authority, you need others to be talking about you. Then the next level, celebrity authority, which is where you and I are, right? Where I'm heading more that way. You're already there. But now what celebrities and people that are at a different level. And it doesn't necessarily mean like Kim Kardashian. What it means is celebrities within that industry, right? And what are they saying about you? And so you have to go up this ladder because now there's, especially since the pandemic, so many people have entered the marketing space. They have entered the coaching space, a service-based space. So many more businesses have gone online. And we're in the culture and the world where everybody wants to be their own boss. And what it's done is it's created a

much more competitive and an environment where people don't trust as much. And so now we have to almost do 10 times the work to gain the trust. And unless people trust you, they're not going to do business with you. Back in like 2007, think about the world of Black Hat SEO, how easy it was to get clients. If I knew what I know now back then, I would have built probably a 10-finger company, right? Because it was so easy to get clients. And you would just like talk to them for 30 minutes and they would sign up with you. Now it's like, what is it?

Like 22 times you have to basically get in front of somebody to get them to even book a call with you. It's a lot, a lot of work. Yes. It's funny. You bring up SEO. That's my newest venture. SEO is dead.

And I own. It is. And so it's, but they're true, but there's a different version of it, a company I'm launching in a month. We talk to you about next week, but it's a new intent optimization is what we're calling it.

There's some other sexy stuff behind it. I can't talk about just yet. But we're going to be doing a huge campaign. There might be a funeral or burial for SEO coming up. I would love that. I would love that. I love when I see marketing companies promoting SEO.

And people will ask me like, oh, well, you do SEO? I go, yeah, well, optimize your site, but I'm not wasting your money. I'd rather put that $2,500 to $5,000 other people charge you to pay into paid media. Yeah. It's just the reality is there's a lot of wasted money in SEO. And it still matters to be on it, but Google's changed the game so much with what you see. and you can spend it's really about getting known and being those terms that drive intent and not there's a lot of stuff that can get searched that you can get optimized for but it's not driving a sale or a behavior or or truly an outcome that you want and so I think that's one of the things we're going to kind of be pulling the curtain behind but excited about that Alexa what if people want to get involved learn more about you Let's talk about some of those channels where people can find you, things about think, think millions, all those things.

Yeah. So you can go to think millions.com and check out our coaching program there. Our podcast is there. You can also get our podcast on Spotify, Apple, all the great podcasts. Whatever you're listening to right now, you can Google it. It's the Think Millions podcast. And if you want to reach out on Instagram, it's Dr. D.R. Alexa Dekistino. Perfect.

Got to love it. Well, I am super pumped that you came on the show. I'm excited to further our relationship and can't wait to see you next week at Think Billions. Me too. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Great. Hey, guys, you know where to find us, the Radcast.com. You can search for Think Millions.

You'll find all of the highlight clips from today's episode with Alexa. Also links to all her channels. You know where to find me? I'm at Ryan Offer on all the platforms. TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. You'll find me there. We'll see you next time. On the Radcast.

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