Special Guest Expert - Alex Branning: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Alex Branning: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Announcer:
Welcome to The MIND BODY BUSINESS Show. The three keys to your success is just moments away. Here's your host Brian Kelly.

Brian Kelly:
Hey there! Welcome welcome welcome to the next edition of The MIND BODY BUSINESS SHOW! My my my, you picked a wonderful night to tune in because of our guest expert. This young man is going to rock your socks off. It's a good day to be alive. Everyday is a good day to be alive, but I'm especially excited because this man brings so much experience and talent to the table. He has a thriving business and a full employee base. You find very few entrepreneurs, these days, at least in the circles I walk, that have that kind of established business. A successful business. One that can run literally when the boss man isn't there and we'll actually touch on that a little bit on this show, but before I bring on this amazing amazing gentleman... The MIND BODY BUSINESS Show. What is that all about? Well, in my walk of life, through entrepreneurship, through many events, networking events, reading books, meeting experts, multimillionaires face to face. I started noticing certain patterns develop for those who had actually achieved that level of success that I aspired to achieve. And those were those three things; the Mind, which is mindset. You'll hear this time and time again. In fact, if you go look at our past shows, all are available. If you go look at our past shows and listen to those you will notice the same thing, there's a pattern with every guest I've brought on. They're all successful and every single one of them always, without fail, ultimately talks about mindset and the importance of it and working on it and making a powerful mindset. Reprogramming your mind. Another component is Body. Now, this one is not that often discussed. I noticed that it is growing a bit, but one of the keys to ultimate success, is to take care of your body and that is by exercise, nutrition and your mind and body are a team. Your mind and body are your team and if any team member is not pulling its weight - if you think of a baseball team, football team, any kind of team - then the entire team suffers, doesn't it? And it's no different with your mind and your body. So, it's all about becoming an optimum human being. And then there's Business, of course. For business, this is what the show is about as entrepreneurs. It's a show by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs and if you've mastered sales, marketing, and systems, building systems in your business, then you're doing very very good. If you haven't mastered all three then, there's room for improvement. And I'm of the opinion there's always room for improvement, in all three areas and the key for this show is to help you to operate at that peak level of performance, every single day, every single night, all the time. That's why I named the company reach your peak. And another amazing tip I was given. It was a gift, many years ago, from a mentor. A multimillionaire. I was literally in his office. It's a long story, it's on a website you'll see in a moment. He flew me out to his office. I stayed there a couple of days. We had some talks in his big massive corner office. It was amazing. And he said, "Brian, if only people did this one thing, if they only knew. They just did this one thing, they would all be incredibly rich and successful. Just this one thing." I like,. "I'm in. Come on, tell me what it is." And he turned around and he walked back to the wall behind him and there stood a cabinet with a couple of doors and went floor to ceiling, very large cabinet. He looked back as the swings the door's open and all I could see was shelf after shelf of books on both sides, all the way up, just like you see behind me. All on business and personal development. And he said, "if people would just read, and read the right books, then they wouldn't have the issues they're having today." And you can't see him, but I can - the Guest Expert, he's nodding in agreement, right now. And with that, what I want to do a segue into something I call a Bookmarks section of the show and what that is, is I love to listen to Audible. That is my way of reading books and one great way to read books is when I'm in the car. I have nothing else to do except pay attention to the road, of course, which I do that very well. But what a great time to add productivity to your day when normally you could not do that. And so, while I'm driving along and listening to these amazing, incredible books, I have the ability because of the application the app on the phone has this little icon that looks like a bookmark. If I hear something I like and I know I want to go back to it, I just tap it and instantly (snaps) it sets a bookmark and I can go back to it and play it back. And so, I said, "hey, why not just do this on the show? Play a little snippet of a very, very high intensity, great value snippet of a book. It's about a minute in length. So, we're going to switch on over to a session I call Bookmarks.

Announcer:
Bookmarks. Born to Read. Bookmarks. Ready, Steady, Read. Bookmarks. Brought to you by reachyourpeaklibrary.com.

Brian Kelly:
Yes, reachyourpeaklibrary.com. (pointing to side screen) You see that, over here, and now please stay with us on this show, if you're watching live, even if you're watching the recording, don't head over there yet. Just take notes. I would highly recommend you take notes, especially when I bring on our Guest Expert - especially then! reachyourpeaklibrary.com. What I did was over the course of time I began reading a lot of books, voraciously. I have over 40 books that I decided to put on this Web site. They're not every book I've read. They're just the ones that had a profound impact, in one way or another. It could have been one chapter, it could have been one paragraph, one bookmark that was a game changer. If that was the case, it's in here and they're for you. They're here for you. You click those links, they go straight to Audible, Amazon for you to purchase. It's just a service for you, by an entrepreneur, so that you can filter, This is a filter for you so, you can look at these books and start here and then as you go beyond these, then you can start asking other entrepreneur friends what books they recommend. So, it's just a way to save you time in picking up books that may not be all that. And so, what I want to do is jump into the actual Bookmark I've chosen for tonight. And that's from a book called Go for No. By Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. And in this section, this bookmark, it talks about the importance of... when we were talking about sales, most of the people I run into, their importance that they set on sales or how many yeses did you get? Well, in this book, it's amazing. He talks about the exact opposite and what you want to do is go for No's when you're going to sales. And so, let's expand on that just a little bit by having the author, himself, talking about the concept of failure. So, listen in. It'll take about a minute and then we'll bring on our Guest Expert right afterward. Here we go.

Richard Fenton:
Failure was the halfway mark on the road to success. Not a destination to be avoided, but rather a stepping stone to get what I really wanted. Most people get to the sign marked failure and they figure they're going in the wrong direction. They turn around and head back home. They think that success must be back in the other way, but it's not. It's straight ahead. I read somewhere, he continued on, that great leaders never used the word "failure." Instead, they use words like "mistake" or "glitch" or "setback." This is silly. It's counterproductive. The word fail may have four letters in it, but it's not a four letter word. But when people use cute substitutes, they treat it as if it were. We tried, but we hit a glitch. Give me a break. Just say you failed. What's the big deal. Is that so hard? No wonder everybody on the planet thinks failing is something to be avoided at all costs because we sugarcoat it and dance around it and talk about it as if it were death.

Brian Kelly:
Isn't that true? So often, we as human beings, we try to sugarcoat so many things in our lives to make it feel better when in fact, the very exact opposite thing is what we need to do to give us that virtual kick in the butt. To right the ship. We've gotten very soft as a community, in my humble opinion, and we're trying to cover everything with "oh, it's okay. You'll do better next time." The best advice I've ever gotten is when it's direct and right between the eyeballs and they're telling me, "you messed up. Let's correct that." And they do it with love. If you do is love, then you're going to serve somebody much better. And speaking of love, that's what my next Guest Expert is all about. He's smiling ear to ear, you can't see him right now. I can. He's an amazing guy. And on that note, without further ado, let's bring him on up. Here we go with the Guest Expert Spotlight.

Announcer:
It's time for the Guest Expert spotlight. Savvy. Skillful. Professional. Adept. Trained. Big League. Qualified.

Brian Kelly:
There he is. (pointing to the side of screen) There he is, the man himself. This is Mr. Alex Branning. My man. Real quick. Alex is a happily married - happily married to his wife. He's also a happily married man and his wife's name is Cathy and they have one daughter named, Ali. They are foster parents. They are amazing people. These two are amazing and have had 5 little girls in their home. It's just awesome. He and his family moved to Redding, California last summer and have loved it, so far. Alex owns a marketing agency called The Branning Group that serves over 300 clients. Now, this doesn't do it any justice. We're going to get deeper into this because it goes way, far deeper than this. You're going to be pretty impressed, as I am, with what Alex has put together. Before we go to deep, real quick. Watch this show all the way to the end. If you're watching live, watch it all the way to the end for a chance to win a complimentary stay at a five star luxury resort in Mexico compliments of powertexting.com and just be sure to stay on the air and we'll tell you how you can enter to win that. Now, without further ado, my man, Alex. This is him, right here, right next to me. (pointing to the side screen) Hey, how are you doing Alex? How are things going? Maybe, if you don't mind tell people a little bit about yourself. Expand on what I just said and then let us know, what are you up to these days?

Alex Branning:
Yeah, thank you so much, Brian. I'm stoked to be here. You know, it's... to describe me is always hard. So, you have to step out of yourself to describe yourself. But I...My passion in life is to help family first entrepreneurs, make the most of their time and talent by helping them implement technology and marketing that automates the business, gets the message out into the world, and helps them impact as many people as possible. We do that by helping entrepreneurs build new Web sites, set up marketing systems, implement technology to automate a lot of their business, like what we've done here at The Branning Group, and identify revenue streams that they have not yet tapped into.

Brian Kelly:
And he's built a thriving business around it and has been doing it for quite some time. How long have you been in business, again, with The Branning Group?

Alex Branning:
17 years! I started when I was 17. It'll be my 18th anniversary. I will officially have been doing The Branning Group for longer than I have not been doing The Branning Group, come December. That'll be 18 years.

Brian Kelly:
Wow, that sounds like a celebration time for me.

Alex Branning:
Yeah! (raises hands). I'm super stoked. I'm very blessed to do what I do. I have a great team of guys around me. Guys and gals and we just love what we do, man. As you said we helped hundreds of businesses all over the Nation - grive...grive? grow and thrive (laughing)

Brian Kelly:
New word. I love it!

Alex Branning:
That's what I was going to say, that's a new marketing buzzword. We help you grive -grow and thrive!

Brian Kelly:
And maybe, a new book title, right?

Alex Branning:
Right. (laughing)

Brian Kelly:
Speaking of books, I think I know the answer to this, but would you consider yourself to be an avid reader?

Alex Branning:
Absolutely, yes.

Brian Kelly:
If so, so you are. What book are you reading now or what was the last book you read?

Alex Branning:
Yeah. So, one of the things that I think too many people don't do is re-read books that had a big impact on them in the past. And so, right now, I am re-reading two different books. I'm in the middle of Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson, which is awesome. I'm actually...I love the book so much, Brian, I'm actually doing an online book club, for free. Entrepreneurs all over the world are jumping in and starting next Tuesday or this upcoming Tuesday, we'll be going over one chapter at a time about what we're learning and actually implement it together, as a group. So, that's going to be fun. And then I'm also re-reading a book by a gentleman named Dana Derricks called Dream 100, which was a concept that Chad Holmes mentioned in his book, The Ultimate Sales Machine, which is in The Reach Your Peak Library. And Dana dives really deep in creating a system about building your business around 3 100 and growing your business through power partner relationships which is really exciting. And I'm tapping into that, so that's a new thing that we'll be doing, focusing on this year is really tapping into our power partners and figuring out ways that, as a team, we can grow together.

Brian Kelly:
Fantastic. You're one of the first - You are the first Guest Expert I've had on that actually brought up the topic of re-reading books and that is - Isn't that amazing? It's so true because I've read books more than once before. And you just said it, you pick up things differently. It's like, well, wait a minute. I learn more of the second time I read it. How is that possible? Did the pages change? Were there words that were modified? What the heck changed? Well, the reality is it was you, me, each person. And so, it's amazing how your eyes and ears open up to new things that aren't new, that were there all along, but because you had experienced it once, probably implemented some of the advice through the book and now, because of that, your eyes and ears are open to the next. It's amazing how that works. I appreciate you bringing that up because it's very important that if you find a book that you really love, that really had impact on you. For me, that would be like 10x rule. It would be the first one that comes to my head. And what a game changer, it's a challenging book. It challenges me because then I think, OK I need to step up my game, this guy's rocking it. So, I love that. Love it. And then your book club, real quick. Do you have a way, or a name, or is it on Facebook? How can people find that?

Alex Branning:
Great question. Right now, I don't know that it was going to be so popular and so, I just made a post on my Facebook page. If you go to my Alex Branning Facebook page I listed like, "Hey, I'm doing this book club. If you guys want to take part in it, then here's the link. You can join my group." I thought I'd maybe get like 10 people and we got dozens of people, I think it's up to 40 maybe 50 now. So, if you go to my Alex Branning page, there's a post there with a link, that is as much marketing as I've done on it. It just kind of blew up. It took on a life of it's own. (laughing) So, that's where you can find that. But I do want to make a note, Brian, real quick, before we move on to the next point. You hit it on the head. I think... this is what I tell my clients, when we push ourselves to read a new book every week, every month, etc... what we're doing is we are training our minds to look for that next thing, to learn and do, where a lot of times, Brian, we need to focus on what we already know is the right thing to do and just implement and execute that. Like for example, with the Expert Secrets, I read that the first time about 15 months ago when he first released it and it had a huge impact on me and I realized that there was... it just opened my eyes, as a lot of the good books do like 10x. It opens your eyes and goes, "Wow! There's a different way I could be doing this." Well, now, as I'm re-reading the book, 15 months later, I implemented it to the best of my ability from where I was at when I first read it. Now, that I'm implementing it from this new place where I'm at in my business, I'm able to unlock a lot more of what he had in the book. One of the biggest things that my mentor said was, " re-read a good book, at least, three or four times. Warren Buffett, in one of the interviews that he did, I believe it was with Fortune magazine, said that there's a book - I don't know the name of it - that he reads every single year. It's an investment book that he reads every single year. But why? He's Warren Buffett, man, he's a genius. It's because the book helps him stay grounded to what he know is working and it keeps him on a path to success. In the same way a lot of us entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to marketing, in the marketing world... I know this for a fact, we always want to try that new thing, but honestly, one of the most effective strategies can be just keep doing the same thing that you know is working. Keep reading the book that you know has you on the right path. Keep executing the strategies that you know is going to work. To belabor the point, I want to share a story about a football team that won a championship and I believe it was Missouri. They had the most boring playbook in the world, Brian. They would just keep running the same play that worked the last time. So , if they were able to run the ball and get five or seven yards, they would continue to run the ball down the field every single time until the other team was able to stop them. In the same way in business, we have what we call Business Skyhooks. Right? It's like that Kareem Abdul Jabar shot that was like unlockable. We have things in our business that our business guys just keep working time and time and time again. Don't jump to the next shiny object to try to figure out this new thing that's going to unlock a bigger level for you. Keep doing the same thing and build on that foundation. Don't throw out what you know is working and go try to find a new thing. Don't throw out the old books that impacted you, just because you want to get a new book that you heard about, Reread that old one and go back to it because you're a different person now. You're different businessman. You have more skills, more knowledge, more experience. That same book that you read that impacted you a lot last year, it's going to have a whole different effect on you. I will get off my soapbox now. (laughing).

Brian Kelly:
Hey, stay up there as long as you want, my brother. That's gold because there is one phrase that I've used over and over from a stage. I got it from my mentor. You just encapsulated that phrase perfectly. And that is repetition is the key to mastery. If you want to master anything, it's like practice, right? Michael Jordan, the man practiced. Kobe Bryant. These guys practice like nobody's business. They would get up at odd hours of the morning. They would do what others wouldn't. And guess what happened? They became two of the greatest players that ever lived in their field. So, what are we, as entrepreneurs, doing the practice. And you just described some fantastic ways to do that is by reading a book when it really has an impact on you. Go read it again. And then while you're doing that, jump into another new book because that might be the next one that you repeat. Repetition is the key to mastery and that is how you master, like business, for instance. How you master your mindset, is continue to read those books that are on that topic or continue to go to those seminars and workshops that are on those topics, by people that you trust and know that are great in their field. So, great, great points. I hope you're all writing notes. We have a lot of people join in. Thank you all for coming on. Please Like and Share if you're on Facebook. Comment. Denis Nurmela said "Hi" to Alex.

Alex Branning:
What's up, Denis? (waving) Good to see you, my man.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah, he said, "What's the topic of your next book you will write?" (laughing)

Alex Branning:
Unstoppable Business. How to Create an Unstoppable Business Using Marketing and Automation.

Brian Kelly:
Whoo, I love it! I can't wait. Sign me up. Where is the pre-sale link? I want it. (laughing) and so, that's the thing, for all you watching, listening this gentleman sitting over here to my - what would that be? (pointing to side screen) My left. He is a pro - He walks the walk. He doesn't just talk the talk. He is 17 years of a successful entrepreneur who now has a staff of is it around 30 or so? Is that what you said it was?

Alex Branning:
No. No. My staff is 7.

Brian Kelly:
7, that's still a lot. That's a lot. I mean it's something just to manage one. When you first do it, but 7...7 staff members...This guy...well, we'll get into that because one of things I want to ask you about, Alex, is you have that mindset that so many would seek to have. A very positive one. Every time I see you, talk to you, even before the show, off the show, it doesn't matter when and you have stuff going on in your life, like everyone else. Recently, you were vacated from your home due to a fire in your area and that wasn't that long ago and it upset your life, turned it upside down. You had to do things and be flexible and stay places that you never expected. You weren't 100% ready because who's ready for any kind of catastrophe? Really? And, in through all that, I asked you, "how are things going." And you were just so positive about it. You said really nothing negative, just told the truth about what happened. So, what is it that you do to maintain that positive, productive, and successful mindset? Do you do something on a regular basis to sustain that? What's your...I mean do you have a routine? What is it that makes you, who you are, such a positive guy?

Alex Branning:
Thank you, Brian. I appreciate that. You know, for me, every single morning I start off with a routine. I have a...I read the Bible every single morning. I start off with coffee. You know, it's funny when I...rewind about 4 1/2 years ago, I was a lot more stressed out. I was in a really...I was in a place of deep angst and I was just...I wasn't...my life was not what I wanted to be, Brian. Even though I was successful, we were building websites for Chrysler and Billabong. Doing really cool stuff. I wasn't happy, I was not enjoying my life and I felt trapped and I was talking to my business coach and he said, "Alex, I want to write down your ideal day and map out exactly what you want that to look like. Fast forward, you know use a magic wand, if you have to." And I wrote out that I wanted to start my day by waking up at 5[am] and being able to actually get into the office between 8 and 9 [am] and then, in the morning, that's my time of genius, that's when I'm at my best. So, I wanted to do the creative things, the things that really bring out that...it's a fun things, the exciting things that I like to do and then have lunch hopefully with my wife, with a friend and then in the afternoon, my mind is slowing down a little bit. I'm more of a morning person, so then I would do coaching calls and appointments and things that don't require me about my max mental capacity. Now, at the time when I wrote that down, I was working from the time that I woke up until the time I went to bed. I was stressed out, not making enough money, not doing the things that I needed to grow my business. And he started to get me on a routine. Starting tomorrow, I want you to stop work at 5:00 p.m. which, to me, seemed impossible, because I was working until 8 or 9 [pm] every single day. And he said, "then, next week, I want you to start your morning routine and I want you to not even think about work, which, again, was very difficult. I don't want you to not even think about work until 7:30 or 8 in the morning. And then don't start until 8. Even if you have to just sit at your desk and read, don't start until 8. Even if you need to be at the office. And so, what he was doing was he was helping me retrain my mind and my habit, so that I became a happier, more fulfilled, healthier human. And that has stuck with me, and now today, my life is that I wake up at 5. I don't start my work day until 8 or 9:00. I get to take my daughter to school. I get to have breakfast with my wife and I'm able to create a life that I wanted. But it started with a really solid morning routine of devotionals. I like having coffee in the morning. I like doing...I believe in affirmations, so I'll say affirmations. And then, just hanging out with my family puts me in a good mood so, that's what I do every single day to keep my mind right. Stay centered and just be ready to take on the day. Because, like you said, that we all challenges and difficulties with a team, with clients. I'm dealing with people and people, as much as I love them and as much as we get along, there are times of difficulty and there's mistakes that we make. I make mistakes and my team and so, we handle it and I have to put on a happy face and sometimes get reminded by the clients that we've made a mistake, but we get through it and like with the evacuation, there are some things that are outside of our control, Brian. And so, I have to look at the situation and go. "OK, Is this something that I could have fixed?" When it came to the fire and us having to evacuate, you go down to Southern California, and be displaced, have to house surf and it was just a really difficult time. I couldn't control it, so I had to kind of go with the flow. It was really hard to be positive during some of those moments, but knowing the important things that my family was safe. No matter what happened to all our possessions, we still had each other and we still had our friends and family around us. It helped so...yeah...So, that's how I keep a positive mindset.

Brian Kelly:
I hope everyone else was taking notes. I'm the host of the show, doing a lot of things, all at once, and I'm taking notes. (showing pen and paper on screen) You better believe it. (laughing) That's why I love taking the camera off myself because then, I can start writing like a mad man. So, Wow! One of the things, there's several things I like to really highlight on that. And that is, first of all, the reason you began a routine was because you had a business coach. And that is a very, very important point because the most successful people on the planet did not get there by themselves. Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers of all time. He has coaches; more than one! Alex Branning, one of the greatest businessmen of all time, he has a coach, at least one, and mentors. There's a common theme, again, and that's what I love to point out on the show, when we do this show. Are these different artifacts. The fact that your coach told you to start a routine. Wow! I have heard that so many times, read it so many times. And those things that's like, "Well, that includes that requires discipline on my part." Like, man. I wanted to become an entrepreneur so, I didn't have to schedule anything. And now I'm learning, You know, this is back in the day. Now, I'm learning I MUST have a schedule if I want to be successful. Like, wait a minute...this is opposite. The cool thing, though, let's reframe this. Who gets to plan that schedule? You do.

Alex Branning:
Exactly.

Brian Kelly:
So, the freedom is still there. You just did it. You just said how you defined your life and you are now happier because you had the ability to do so. It's very scheduled. Regimented to some, but necessary for you to live a happy life. To balance the family and the business and the clients and even your employees. You've got to have time for Alex. To unwind, to do some... to get into the world. Get your coffee going. Affirmations start off, on a positive note. Yes, I wrote notes, I did a good job. I love the part about don't even think about your business until you start. (laughing)

Alex Branning:
That's still something I struggle with.

Brian Kelly:
That had to be hard.

Alex Branning:
Yeah, even to this day, it's something that I struggle with because in the morning after I drink my coffee, I'll hop on Facebook, I'll have messages from people who are reaching out to me and so, it's hard to get out of that. So, what I did was, and I'm glad you brought that up, one of the things that I had to learn was that I am 100% a father. I am 100% a husband. These are not compartments of my life. And I am 100% a business owner. And so, during different moments, I have to be fully present with what my responsibility is in that moment. And so, there are times in the morning, when I'm by myself. My family is not downstairs. When, even though it's not technically 8, I haven't started yet. I am a business owner. I have people approaching me with advice, opportunities, etc. And so, I have allowed myself to kind of wear that hat, but for a long time, I would not let myself even try to think...I would be like "no! No! I can't think about business. It's not 8 yet!" But it did help me. The really extreme plan that was given to me, it helped me recalibrate my mind and also, take note of how often I was thinking about my business. I mean it completely enveloped my entire life. I was obsessed, every moment of every day, with my business and that is just not healthy. If I want to also have a healthy family life, healthy relationships outside of my family. It wasn't healthy for me to be always thinking about business. I was completely putting everything else to the side so, it was really good that he called me out on that and gave me the tools to figure out how to stop letting that control my life and his tool was a regimen where I had to put the business to the side. So, lesson learned.

Brian Kelly:
Excellent. I've been through almost identical lesson. The same thing. I get up from the second I got out of bed and my feet hit the ground, I'm on. It's game time and it's business time and 'til way too late at night, often, was at the detriment of spending time with my family, to the point where it did put a strain on my marriage. I mean being transparent. That was years ago and, thankfully, my wife confronted me about it and I was, "Okay, you're right. I mean I got really stupid about it, to be honest. Stupid because it was. The thing is though, now, even though I'm more disciplined in doing that, just like you're doing it, is I still want to. (laughing) I just want to because I love it. I just want to. It's when I get up. The first thing I think of is business-related because I like. It's not work. It's fun. You know, not every day is perfect and every day is glorious and every second of every day is fun, but overall, I love it! And it's hard to turn that off. I was wondering, how you did that? That's like even in the beginning, that would be very, very difficult for most entrepreneurs. (laughing)

Alex Branning:
You know, there's some points. I mean there's those guys that are out there like Grant Cardone and Gary Vee. I absolutely love them. I think they're brilliant, but they teach be obsessed or be average. In that book, he talks about the exact mentality that I had to walk away from. Be obsessed about your business. Morning, noon, night. When you're sleeping. When you're eating. Like constantly thinking about it, being about it, taking action about it. That doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for me. I'm not saying it's wrong because we all are wired differently. That does not work for me. It created very unhealthy habits.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah, I think it's...You can tailor to meet your life. So, when eight o'clock hits, be obsessed with it until 5 o'clock and 5 o'clock over, now you're obsessed on your family. I think you can stay obsessed, it's just you switch gears on what your focus has been obsessed on. But good point. I agree with you 100%. There's got to be a balance.

Alex Branning:
And the more I regimented and the smaller amount of time I get myself to get work done, the more I was actually able to get done because I needed to put in some productivity hacks into my life to increase my productivity since my hours were dwindled and now, I get done more in my 8 hour day than I ever was getting done before my 14 hour days.

Brian Kelly:
Wow. Write that down. Everyone listening and watching because it is so true. If you schedule a window and you stick to it and say, "I'm done at this time" and you look at your to do list, you will get it done. You may even exceed that to do list on occasion because it changes your programming, your wiring in your brain and it adds that be obsessed type mentality to say, "I've got to get this done. I'm going is going after it. I'm going do everything in my power and I'm going to finish this bad boy by quitting time."

Alex Branning:
I set a timer on my phone for different tasks that I have to do. I only give myself, like for example, 10 minutes to write a sales letter or, you know whatever is on my plate, I time myself.

Brian Kelly:
Wow. Wow! That would be a fantastic thing, if you're open to doing that, is to share that as like an e-book or a resource because I think that so many people could use something like that to help them be more disciplined in how they go about business. Because if you do that, then you're not being distracted by a new Facebook post or message that came in on your phone. Right?

Alex Branning:
Right. You're clearly 100% focused on that test. You have to get it done the next five minutes.

Brian Kelly:
Yeah. So, it's I think it's Itzler. What's his first name? Doggone it. Living with the Seal. Living with the Seal and Now Living with the Monks. Itzler is his last name. He was talking about that very thing and he says it's all about uni-tasking. (laughing) So, and that's what he learned. His take away from living with monks for, it was a couple of weeks, was that they were incredibly focused on the task at hand and they loved doing every task and it was some of them are menial like washing, scrubbing the floors, hands and knees. He said they went at it with passion and fervor and they finished quickly. And it was spotless when they were done because they had no outside things coming in. Just like you're describing. So, interesting. You could resemble a monk, right now. (laughing)

Alex Branning:
Yeah I know. I got the hair for it.

Brian Kelly:
The funny thing is, he actually shaved his head thinking that's what they would look like and he went there and they had full hair, beards, it was a different community. It's a great book, I recommend that. I don't think I've put them in the library. It will be up there soon. I've got two more to add to it. And there was one other point that you mention about when a client might say, "hey man, you messed up" and your reaction just now, when you said, that just a little moment ago was "Yeah, you know I messed up let's go fix that.".

Alex Branning:
Yeah.

Brian Kelly:
I mean so many people would just argue with that and say, "well no, we did everything we could. It's you that messed up." But that's called being a cause and that's a huge trait to have to be successful, as well. Cause the more cause you can be, instead of being at the excuse or the effect where you're always pointing fingers and saying well but so-and-so did this, well how could you have made it better? If there's some way somehow possibly that you could have been responsible in any tiny way for that situation, then own it. It doesn't mean you're at fault. It's not your fault, but could you be responsible in some way? And you just epitomized that with the way you just ran through that scenario. So, I knew I was going to be gold, man. It's every sentence you're speaking, I hope people are writing notes feverishly. So, it takes many skills to be successful as an entrepreneur and I know there's more than just a few, but if you were to quantify it and if you were to rank it down to just three. If you were just to think of three, what are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Alex Branning:
Discipline, grit, and communication. Discipline to stay on the path like the gentleman said in Bookmarks earlier. Acknowledging when you fail, you've got to have the grit to push through that. Go towards the goal. And then communication. Communication is so key I don't care what business you're in. It is so important to not only communicate with your clients, but also your team and communicate with yourself. One of the things that I had to learn to do was take notes and give myself reminders and write things down so, that I would remember to do them later. And when I first started doing that,my note taking and my own organization was terrible and it was all about me communicating to myself exactly what I needed to do or what I needed to hit up later. So, discipline, gript, and communication.

Brian Kelly:
I love it. So, you're actually giving yourself feedback by communicating with yourself?

Alex Branning:
Yeah, I mean one of the things...you mentioned it earlier about practice. One of the things that I do is, I'm not an athlete, but I do look at myself as a Professional Entrepreneur. And so to stay a Professional entrepreneur and not have to sink back down to amateur status; I practice. You know I practice my webinars. I practice my sales pitches. I practice practice practice and then I go back through it and I listened so, if it's a video, I go back through it. If I have a podcast, if want to listen to, search for Alex Branning on any of your podcast platforms. When I do a podcast, sometimes I'll record it and go, "mmm, no that wasn't good" I'll delete it. Redo it. So, it's really important to me that everything I put out there is up to the same level of excellence that I would want if I was paying for it. Even the free stuff that I so, I practice. I practice my webinars, I practice my podcasts episodes and it it's not good enough, then I delete it and start over again. I think a lot of problems to be avoided if we just stopped winging it as entrepreneurs. And really looked at each task as is this effort going to put me in a positive light? Is this deliverable going to be the first impression that people see me? And if that is the first impression that people see, well, would I change anything about it? Whether it's a blog post, a social media post, a Facebook cover photo. I mean when people land on your brand, you have no control over what they have seen prior to that, whether it's a webinar or a Facebook page etc...so, you need to make sure that it matches the level of excellence that you're putting out there and the other things that you consider your core deliverables.

Brian Kelly:
Very refreshing to hear you say how much you practice. How much you prepare. And it seems to be a common thread of entrepreneurs I have coming on this show. The unfortunate thing is not all entrepreneurs practice practicing. (chuckles) And I remember even speaking from stage, I spoke from stage for several years. For a couple of years, on my mentor's stage, Mel Cutler, and then I've done a few of my own events and I had my living room set up as a stage. I had box lights out there. I had my product set up on a table exactly where it would be if I was in the room. I had microphone, I had the speakers ,just the same speakers I use at the events, and then I filmed that same thing and it took a long time to set it all up, but it puts you in that zone, so that when you go do it another time, there's very little difference. And when there's very little different, there's nothing to mess you up or trip you up, which not much does anymore, to me, but I still like to make it as high quality as possible, like you are saying, and then say, "not only did I record it for myself and watch it again, but I also sent it to my mentor and said, "hey, let me know what I can fix and we can take it one step farther." Awesome stuff. My goodness 6:12 now. All right we have a few minutes left. So, we have lots of ideas as we go through our entrepreneurial life. Entrepreneurs, that's what we do. We come up with ideas. Very creative. It's the shiny object syndrome or it's squirrel; taking our attention somewhere else. And when we find an idea that we have a pretty good idea ourselves is going to go somewhere, then you know we might stick with it a little bit longer. And for you, Alex, I know you're always out there testing new ideas, testing new ways about even posting on Instagram, for instance. How long...let's say it's something you're sure that's going to be good, but there's this fine line. How long do you normally stick with an idea before you actually give up? Because I think oftentimes, too many entrepreneurs give up too soon and don't give it enough time to gestate and figure out if it's going to work before it has that chance. How long do you do that?

Alex Branning:
That's a great question and it really depends on what I think the gold pot could be at the end of the rainbow. So, for example, about probably four years ago I came up with an idea for what we called The AV Advertising a lot of where we had businesses that offered a product on one side, businesses that offered a service on another, and then we combine marketing efforts so they would both split the leads. I didn't describe it very well, but long story short, it was a complete flop. But I committed to those business owners that we would keep doing it for 90 days. It was a flop for The Branning Group because we were losing money, but it was great for the businesses. But that led me to my best idea, which was the give away funnel system, which has been a six figure product for us almost every single year since we launched it three years. So, you just have to see the idea through. At other times, you can see pretty darn right away that it's not going to work out. I mean we're able to identify within about 30 days whether or not we have something that's going to work. It's not about the revenue numbers. Sometimes you can make revenue, but it's going to cost you a lot to deliver the product. Sometimes it's about the potential. And so, there's little golden streams that we find in the data that tell us whether or not we're on the right track. It really depends on the idea and the market, but it's, for me, I would say a minimum amount of time to pursue, at least the marketing campaign 30 days and that's a world that live in so, different products have different shelf lives depending on the industry you're in. So, it's hard to give a blanket answer to that, but for marketing campaigns, if you have not given it a month, you don't know whether or not it's going to work.

Brian Kelly:
I would venture to guess that most entrepreneurs don't give anything a month.

Alex Branning:
No. (shaking head)

Brian Kelly:
And that's part of the problem is they'll post something, "oh, that didn't work." (laughing) Right?

Alex Branning:
When I hear that, for example, when I hear, "Facebook doesn't work for me." I can tell you right away that they have not let a post go for more than a week.

Brian Kelly:
(chuckles) Yes. Yeah, it's the one and done, right? It's like they send out an e-mail blast to their list of how many they have. 500,000. "I didn't get any responses so, that didn't work." "Well, did you try texting? Did you try messaging them on Facebook, personally?" It does mean the idea isn't good. It's just that the way your message... "And did you try recrafting your message?" So many things. Subject line. There's so many tweaks that can be made to it, if the idea is a good one. I like that. I think that's a great rule of thumb to follow. Alex says, at least, 30 days. No matter what your niche is or genre, at least 30 days, and that doesn't mean send it out today, wait 30 days, and it go nothing happened. It means work it for 30 days. Work at each and every day. Find tweaks. Test different angles. Call Alex and say, "How do I do this better? I want to join up with you and take your services on because this is too hard. I want a market. I want to be successful at it and I know you can do that. So, Alex, you help me out, please." That would be the best way to do it. Why? Don't reinvent the wheel, if you don't have to. If you have a resource (pointing to side) then just pick up the phone or tap on the keyboard and connect with them and when you said earlier, your Facebook page, was at your profile or your business page that you're doing the book club?

Alex Branning:
Good question, it was on my business page.

Brian Kelly:
And what's the name of that so, people know how to find.

Alex Branning:
Just Alex Branning. That's where I have my podcast and I do my other fun contests and promotions.

Brian Kelly:
OK.

Alex Branning:
So, just go to Facebook, look up Alex Branning and you'll see my business page. I am sitting like this (chin resting on hands gesture) on a table.

Brian Kelly:
I remember that picture. I like that picture. That is a cool picture. It's really captivating. We got time for two more, baby. Two more. This will be a good one, from a marketing guy. You're successful at marketing that's your business. That's what you do. You do it for other clients. How do you go about marketing your business, The Branning Group, and what would you say is just your most successful form of marketing? You don't need to go into every aspect, but what would be the, what you call, "lately" because I know that could change, your most successful form of marketing today?

Alex Branning:
Well, there is no marketing like serving your audience without any expectations of a return. So, our best marketing is educational marketing where we teach people what's going on. How to avoid pitfalls and how to use the latest technology or strategies for their business. So, we continue to serve, provide free training, we give insight, we offer free strategy sessions to help businesses overcome obstacles in their business. And that is, by far, our best marketing ideas that we've come up with. For us, how do we come up with new ideas? We look at holes in the market. We look at common questions we're getting from prospects and clients and we go, "OK, we see a need where people have a common question. We need to go out answer it, provide a solution, let people know what's going on or what to avoid." And then let the audience reach out to us and say, "we'd love to work with you on the item." So, we always give a call to action at the end of our trainings and webinars, if they want to learn more or work with us. But it's all about we give a 95% - 98% of the time, we do an "ask" at the end, but we let our education, our knowledge, and our results speak for themselves. When the time is right for someone to reach out to us start working, then awesome, until then we'll serve, serve, serve. As an example, one of the people that just reached out and hired The Branning Group has been following me, emailing me with questions, and set up, I think, probably a strategy call a year, for the past three years and just now hired us and we're just completely renovating his business and we've seen some incredible results after just a couple months. So, but we got that relationship by serving, serving, serving.

Brian Kelly:
So, you're telling me you don't like go out and say, "Add Friend." And as soon as they friend you say, "hey, go buy my stuff. Here's my link." (laughing).

Alex Branning:
Or "add me to the group." (laughing)

Brian Kelly:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My goodness. Thank you. You're a breath of fresh air. You and your entire business, your company because serving, that's where it's at. What kind of platforms do you utilize for that? I know there's Facebook, email. Do you have others that you utilize that helped get the word out?

Alex Branning:
That's a great question. So, we're getting really really excited right now, Brian, about all the different things we're seeing with messenger marketing. Specifically in relation to bots. And so, that's something that we'll be doing a lot more of. We're...yeah, so, that's really exciting. I could talk all day about because I'm super stoked about it, but we use Facebook, Instagram, Google Ad Words. Those are primarily how we get our clients, but we also have... one of the things that we do and we're so proud of it, is we have a really strong referral network. And my podcasts, I talk about having three legs of referrals in your business. You have your allies, which are your power partners, where you send clients back and forth. You have your ambassadors. Those are the people that just love you, want you to succeed and know you're going to help their friends so, they connect you. And you have your affiliates, and the affiliates are the ones that go and connect you with clients because they know you're going to give them a reward or an incentive, like we pay our affiliates really well. And so, for us, a ton of our business comes from our affiliates and our power partners. And the reason why we get so many referrals, we get almost the referral a day. The reason why we get so many of them is because we serve our affiliates to the highest level. We empower them with exactly how we can help people with the different industries and we are continually putting out our best stuff and we use it first for our affiliates and to serve them.

Brian Kelly:
I wish there were more of you, but there aren't so everyone watching, you have to connect with him directly. More than one referral a day is coming to him, now, Alex. Good, good, amazing stuff. OK. There's going to be one more question that I need to ask and this is a question I ask every guest expert that's been on and it's a big one. And if you need to take time to think about it, that's absolutely OK. Dead air time is fine with me, if you just need time to ponder it. I know it's getting built up pretty good here.

Alex Branning:
What's going on?

Brian Kelly:
I want to let you off the hook, though, and let you know, Alex, that there is no such thing as a wrong answer to this question that's coming up because that answer is only your answer. It can only be or answer. It can be no one else's. It has to come from you and it's just amazing to me that, thus far, I lost count how many shows we've done thus far. We're right around 10 or so. There have not been two people say the same thing, which is really cool. I love that and that's why I love bringing this question up for every show that we do. Before we get there, though, this is that time for all of you people who have been waiting and wondering when is he going to tell us how to win that trip. That trip to Mexico. The five star luxury resort in Mexico, compliments of my buddy, Jason Nast's company called PowerTexting.com. Well, that time is now. So, I'm going to put up on the screen, for those of you watching, the exact way to enter to see if you win that trip. (showing information on screen) One way is go to ReachYourPeakLLC.com/vacation and just be sure "vacation" is all lowercase when you type that in. The rest doesn't matter or, if it's easier for you, you can do this right now while you have your phone in your hand, is text the word PEAK. That's P-E-A-K to 661-535-1624. Again, ReachYourPeakLLC.com/vacation or text the word PEAK to 661-535-1624. And thank you for the likes and loves as we were talking about that one. Appreciate that. And so, I will monitor as those come in. And I want to give Alex a moment here to ponder this most important question he's ever been asked in his life. I'm having a little fun with him, now. But in all seriousness, let's just pull this back, comedy aside. I'm truly, truly curious and I know our listeners and watchers are, as well. So, for you, Alex Branning, and you only: How do you find...had you...(laughing) built it up and then I fumbled it. So, we'll go to another topic for a moment, No, I'm kidding. People are going, "come on, ask it already!" Alex, how do you define success?

Alex Branning:
Being able to live the kind of life that, for me, success is living the kind of life that I feel God has called me to. It's not a money thing. There's really no business way to "rate" that. I think for me to live a successful life is to do what I feel like God's calling me. Right now, I feel like God's calling me to be the best husband and father that I can be, as well as certain as many people as I can with the skills that he's given me. The skills are specifically marketing and leadership and coaching and so a successful life, for me, is doing what I feel has called me to do and doing it with excellence. I look at the parable of the servants that were given talents; one was given 5, one was given 10 and the other was given one. The one with one held onto it, buried it deep, dug it into a hole. The one was 5 invested it, was able to double the investment. The one with 10 invested it, as well, and was able to double the return. And I look at all the gifts that God's given me and I go, "Am I investing this? Am I spreading it out so, that I will be able to double the return on what I've been given?"

Brian Kelly:
I can say nothing to that other than beautiful. One thing that is common among everyone that I've asked that question, and it was common with you, as well, is it wasn't about money. It's interesting that entrepreneurs who are at that level of success, that is not the first thing on their radar. Those that haven't achieved success, oftentimes, will go to that first and say, "well, when I made my first million..." But those that have achieved success, that are there...you got there by serving others. Not by saying, "I want more money, I need more money." Is money important? Yes. Yes. So, please don't take this wrong. It's very important because the more money, people like Alex, can make, than the more people he can serve. Now, he can scale his business, bring on even more employees, and spread his business farther and serve more and actually answer the calling that he's been given to serve more. In addition to being a phenomenal husband and father, as I know he is. And he carves out moments in his days, particularly specifically, for them. Because it's that important to them. And, again, that was your answer and yours alone and it was an amazing one, as they all are. This one, yeah, to serve others and doing it doing... this is the other part, not just serve others, but doing it with excellence. I love that additional caveat to it because, yeah, it is one thing to serve others, but what about just putting everything you got into it to give them the best you can give them and that's what Alex Branning does. And this is the leader of the company The Branning Group. So, can you imagine the culture of those employees and people that work with them? Maybe he has some VA's coming in and out and the clients that come on, they get to be exposed to this kind of mission, this kind of culture, this kind of purpose. Oftentimes... well, all the times, people buy from people. They don't buy products or services. They're buying you, Alex Branning. They're buying you, what you stand for, your concepts. Yes, your talent, of course, and everything you bring to the table. But when it comes down to it, they're buying you. And there's a good you, right now, for them to buy. And so, for everyone watching, if you need any help in marketing, website creation, this guy, call him. Talk to him. He will tell you if he can help you. Odds are if it's anywhere in the marketing realm, the answer will be yes. You may have to get in line now, (laughing) because his phone is going to ring off the hook. But amazing, amazing answer and I can't rate him and say one is better than another. I'll tell you after the show's over, OK? (laughing) because that was up there and so many nuggets throughout. Discipline, Grit, and Communication; the three... I mean you said it without hesitation. That's the thing. Ladies and gentlemen, you know he's practiced. It's obvious. It's so obvious this man has practiced. Practiced every part of his craft, Practice his personal life to the point where he didn't know that question was coming. He didn't know that I was going to ask him the three keys to being a successful entrepreneur. And did you notice? (snaps) just like that. "Oh, discipline, grit, communication." And then he expanded each three and so, that is also the culture he's built within his company and that's the culture you get when you bring him on to help you. And you now see, he's there to serve you. He will over deliver. And if something messes up he will be at cause and say, "let's fix it." We're all human. We make mistakes and that's OK. But the beautiful thing is the way you react to it the way you did personally, Alex, so I appreciate you. Let's go. What is the absolute best way to connect with you?

Alex Branning:
So, there's two ways that you can do it. I actually have some cool bonuses for people that are on that call, right now. They go to AlexBranning.com/reach I believe where we put it. AlexBranning.com/reach. We got some cool bonuses talking about some of the things that we mentioned here on this show. The best way to get a hold of me is to go to AlexBranning.com. My Name, Alex and last name Branning - B-R-A-N-N-I-N-G, there you can subscribe to my podcast, check out my YouTube channel, text me on Facebook. (Showing website on screen) There it is. We're in the middle of redoing it. You can actually see the whiteboard. I moved that out of the way right before we talked. It's right behind where I'm sitting. A new AlexBranning.com is being created ,it's not ready yet, though, so site's still beautiful, I'm so proud of it, but we are in the middle of a significant upgrade. But that is the best way to get ahold is to AlexBranning.com.

Brian Kelly:
And then reach would that be "connect with me" the link on the far right?

Alex Branning:
Yeah. Connect with me.

Brian Kelly:
OK. So, it's /contact cool. So, it's AlexBranning.com/contact and look at that, you've got it all right there. Phone number, call or text him, get on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. You might be able to get a hold of him. He gives you just a couple way (laughing)

Alex Branning:
I try to make myself very available. I found that people only want to hire people that they feel like they can rely on and that they can get a hold of. And so, a lot of marketing agencies, not naming names, they're very difficult to get a hold of or get a callback and I've been determined since I started The Branning Group to make it easy to get.

Brian Kelly:
So, that's another lesson learned. See how others do it the way you don't want to and don't model that and make it the opposite and better. Oh my goodness. Alex, I knew this would be an awesome show. It's exceeded my expectations, honestly, even though my expectations were already very high. (laughing) I kid you not. This has been amazing. I thank you for coming on and spending this hour with us and for our listeners and viewers. I want to thank you, as well, for coming on and watching the live stream and everyone watching the recording afterward. I'm looking forward to doing this again. And on that note, we do have another show. We do this every week and we'll have to have Alex back at a future date, but we'll be back again Thursday 5:30 p.m. Pacific, just like we were today. At 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Right here, Thursday on Facebook, on Periscope. We're on six different platforms, so I'm not going to name them all here. (laughing) Here you'll be able to find us. And if you want to get a notification, just be given a reminder, you can text us the word NOTIFY to that same number that I had up earlier, which I'll bring that up (Showing information on screen) is just text NOTIFY to 661-535-1624 and you will just get a reminder, a single reminder, 10 minutes prior to the show, with a link to the show. And you can get off of that list at anytime and we only use that solely for announcing the show. Nothing else. We're not going to be marketing to you and selling you things so, thank you once again, Alex. Fantastic show.

Alex Branning:
Thank you for having me, man. It was fun. I got some sun coming in, right now.

Brian Kelly:
I see that.

Alex Branning:
I was going to go up and close the blinds. But, yeah, it was awesome, man. Thank you so much for having me on the show, Brian. I really appreciate it.

Brian Kelly:
You got it. And that's just a spotlight showing you. The one that should be showing, man. (laughing) You are the spotlight of the show. All right, thanks all. We'll see you again next time. Be blessed for now, we'll see you next week.

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Special Guest Expert - Alex Branning

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