Building Brands That Thrive: Nat Berman’s Guide to LinkedIn Success

Building Brands That Thrive Nat Berman’s Guide to LinkedIn Success

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 192 of the business development podcast. And if you have questions regarding personal branding, building your brand in 2025, it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Nat Berman of Brand Built. Stick with us. You are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences.

And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 192 of the business development podcast.

And on today's expert guest interview, I bring you a coaching rock star, Nat Berman. Nat is a trailblazer in the digital media landscape, renowned for his entrepreneurial spirit and relentless drive to forge his own path. In 2007, dissatisfied with traditional employment and driven by a desire for independence, Nat discovered a blogging platform that revolutionized his career.

Within six months, he had left his corporate job to embark on a new journey that would see him build a digital empire. Over 17 years, Nat cultivated a portfolio of 25 websites across diverse verticals, attracting millions of visitors monthly and generating substantial profits, all without ever taking on investment capital.

His success is a testament to his strategic acumen, innovative mindset, and unwavering commitment to excellence. Today, Nat leverages his extensive experience to empower others through his proven I. S. E. Identify, Strategize, and Execute method. As the co founder of Brand Built and the CEO of Uncoached Corp, he helps individuals and businesses grow their brands, attract clients, and expand their networks.

Nat's method is not just a strategy. But a transformative approach to achieving holistic success, financial prosperity, improved health and stronger personal connections with his dynamic coaching and mentorship. Nat Berman is not just building businesses. He is igniting revolutions in personal and professional development.

The journey from quitting a job to creating a digital media empire encapsulates the essence of Nat's philosophy, seize control. Break boundaries and redefine success on your own terms. And Nat, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Nat Berman: That was the best introduction I've ever got. Bar none, not even close, not even close.

Kelly Kennedy: Dude, I've been excited about this interview since we chatted back in March. In March, we had our first meeting together and I was like, I can't wait to do this. And it is now July 28th. After this episode, I'm heading on Canada Day weekend vacation. So I appreciate you holding in there and coming to this today.

Nat Berman: Sure thing, man. It's June 28th, not July. Come on, man.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my goodness. June 28th. Holy cow. Yeah.

Oh, Nat, it's an honor to have you on, dude. You know, I've been following you for quite some time on LinkedIn and your personal branding strategy is on point, my friend. It is amazing. The engagement you get on there blows my mind. And, you know, I think in 2023, I said it was like the age of AI. And I feel like 2024, the trend is personal branding.

That's what I'm seeing coming up all over the place. And dude, you've been doing it. You've been killing it forever. And so, you know, we have some amazing people to come on and chat about this, but today I'm really excited because there's a lot of people who have big followings. There are not a lot of people who get the engagement on those followings that you do.

And so I look forward to chatting with you today, the man of 1000 t shirts and we're going to chat about that too. But yeah, man, how did you end up on this journey? Who is Nat Berman?

Nat Berman: I guess LinkedIn would be the appropriate sort of origin story, right? Basically when COVID hit, right, everybody was bored, sitting around, not really sure what to do.

I had a lot of experience with my sites in terms of growing a community, not like a literal one where you have, you know, some kind of a website. And this probably dates me a little bit, but a lot of people might remember a website by the name of dig. com D I G G dot com, which was basically a much more popular version at the time of Reddit and everybody now knows Reddit.

Right. And dig made a massive mistake in terms of redesigning its website, which kind of put it into the ground. But there was a time when dig would just, Like pummel people's homepages. If you made it to the front page of dig, you would get like a hundred thousand visits in a day. And the way to get good at dig and get your stories noticed was to become what they called a power user and a power user was someone who basically had a lot of clout on the platform.

And how did you get a lot of cloud? You would support other users, you would talk to them, build relationships and become just a really good networker. Now, granted, this was very many years ago. This is 2008 2009. But I found just incredible similarities between building that network. And building one on social media.

So years later, what I saw on LinkedIn was I was like, wow, these, you know, some people, they don't really have like a lot of followers, but what's up with all this engagement, what's up below comments and the likes and all that kind of stuff. And so it was like, it was late 2019. I decided, okay, well, I'm going to just.

Let's see how I'm going to do this. So, and I saw a lot of videos on LinkedIn at the time videos were big then. So LinkedIn was like, it was like tick tock in 2017. Like you could post anything and get like a hundred thousand views. It was very, very easy. 2019 it was still not incredibly difficult. At least compared to today.

So I just started posting videos now. I didn't really know the platform very well. So I hired a coach. Lacey Ibaki, wherever you are, thanks for helping me out a long time ago. I haven't seen it. She hasn't posted something in over a year, but anyway. So I learned, I learned how to build relationships.

I learned how to network. I learned how to engage and all that kind of stuff. And I built a following very quickly. It was somewhere between nine and 12 months. I got up to around 25, 000 followers, which was really good and not as good as some other people. Some people were getting insane numbers at that time.

And honestly, when I started, it was really. Just to see if I could do it at the time. Like I said, I didn't really have this ML on the platform other than just to see if I could grow it. And so what wound up happening, which was interesting was I started to get direct messages coming my way. Do you do coaching?

Do you do coaching? You know, can you help me? And that was basically because a lot of the content that I would put out was around being an entrepreneur, growing a business motivation, a lot of things like that. Which is still a central kind of core of, of what I talk about today. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

You know, I didn't really know how to get clients. I had never become a coach before. It's always been in my blood. Both of my parents are therapists. So like, that's a whole nother story. And he's a therapist. My sister has an MSW. Like it's a little crazy in my family and I nearly became one myself, but I just figured I knew how to help people.

But I had no idea if I was going to be a good coach or not. All of a sudden I was getting a lot of clients and probably maxed out. I probably had around 15 clients at one point. And I was still doing the websites, hadn't sold my biggest property, which would take place in 2022. And so it was a lot. And quite frankly, I burned out.

Like, I literally was like, I, I don't want to do this right now. I didn't, I didn't feel like coaching anymore. And so I really slowed down on LinkedIn for a good 2 years. You know, I, I was, you know, Early 2019 to early ish 2021 is when I was doing a lot on LinkedIn and then I literally was just coasting, right?

I would still post some stuff, but a lot of it was repurposed. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with repurposing, but I wasn't putting out much new content. I still had relationships on there, but I didn't really gain a following. It just kind of, kind of flatlined at that 25, 000 follower mark. 2023 rolls around.

I had, I had sold my largest website and I sort of was under basically zero pressure on the websites these days. They only take me like 20 minutes a day to update. So it's not a big deal. And so, frankly, I had some time on my hands and I was like, well, you know, maybe I'll give coaching another shot. And there were a number of reasons for that.

I just, I wanted to coach a different type of client wanted to charge higher rates and just give it a shot in a different way. And so I get back on LinkedIn and I started doing my normal routine, which was posting a video a day and a text post a day. And I was getting nowhere. It was a whole new world.

LinkedIn was very different and a lot harder and I was pissed and frustrated. And I was like, what the hell? I can't grow on here. Why are all these people with 5, 000 followers getting all these likes and comments and all this engagement and I'm not doing shit. And so I reached out to a lot of the, the old school people that I knew.

And frankly, a very large portion of them just, I think we're salty and pissed just like I was like, Hey, what the hell's going on? I'm not, I'm not, I don't, I don't deserve this. I have a hundred thousand followers. I'm getting no engagement. Well, frankly, the LinkedIn algorithm very much changed. And they started rewarding people who were on the platform, engaging, doing the work and actually, you know, spitting out really good content.

Cause back in the day you could post two sentence platitudes with an interesting gif and you'd be, you know, you get a hundred thousand views on your stuff. That just didn't work anymore. And so I talked to people who I knew had been putting in the time on the platform. And one of those people was Luke Matthews.

I always like to shout him out because he basically. Gave me the business. He's like, dude, you're not doing shit. You know, you're not, your profile's not good. You need a total revamp. Your messaging sucks. Like he was just very honest with me. I was like, damn, man, I needed to hear that. And he's like, he's like, and frankly, I can tell you're just not putting enough time to platform.

I had people telling me I needed to start over, delete my account, all that stuff. And from January of 2023 to July of 2023. I got my ass kicked on LinkedIn and I was still convinced I could do the same old stuff, even though I was engaging more and I was slowly picking up the pace, but I still was not doing that great.

And I have the analytics to prove it. When I came back in 2023, it was like 30, 40 likes a post, 30, 40 comments, a post and half of those comments coming from me as a response to other comments. And and, and in January. It was around a hundred ish and I was like, okay, I'm, I'm kind of cracking through here, even though it was like a slow build.

And then there were two big moments. One was an initial rebrand in July of 2023. And I finally acquiesced and decided to do some slideshows. So I had a designer come up with. A theme. And I started doing slide shows and they performed very, very well. And I was like, ah, screw it. I'm just going to do it.

You know, other people are doing to get, to get traffic here. And as that grew, I did another rebrand. And of all people, Yasmeen Alich was the one who redid my, my brand and my branding on my, you know, my profile banner and all that stuff. And I, and at the time I was like, I don't, I really don't want to do a slide shows anymore.

So I, I just went with the t shirts. Everybody used to always talk about the t shirts. They always liked the t shirts. I order two every month. It's been something I've been doing for a long time. I just, I just love, you know, pop culture and movies and TV shows and all that. And so what morphed was basically, it was initially me filming videos in the t shirts back in the 2020.

And one of my gimmicks was filming in the freezing cold. I used to, I used to film in the snow and people like, what are you insane? I'm like, dude, it's two minutes. Not a big deal. Even though it was probably not whatever, not advised. It just turned into that, into selfies, same deal, sitting in a chair, in a shirt, you know, whatever.

And I just felt those were a lot easier. The issue with doing video on LinkedIn, and that may, it may change, is that to really get views on video, you have to have, you have to accompany it with a lot of text. If you do like a one line of text into a video, I still don't think the algorithm really rewards it, and I still think impressions are somewhat limited.

But who knows that may change with the new, you know, TikTok feed and all that stuff. But as of right now, I've gotten, I've had a nice groove for a good year plus of just doing a picture of myself and and, and what I hope to be a really good post and it just started growing and growing and growing.

And what I attribute it to is that all along the entire time, it wasn't just Going off and commenting on a zillion posts. It was responding to every comment and it was building relationships. I built my own engagement list from scratch. Didn't care about influencers. I cared about people who were interested in my content and whose content I was interested in.

People who are just good people and when I look back and I see what I was doing and what we're doing now, I liken it very much to customer service, right? You're just, you're just being really good to the customer. It's a little more than that because you are building an actual relationship with somebody, but I tell everybody the same thing, what got things growing and cooking was I always had the mindset.

Can I get one new, really good follower every day? One person, just one. Even if my, you know, even if my post gets 30, 000 impressions, I just need one out of there to come back every day. And it's not a lot, but it is a lot. It's not easy, right? Like one sounds like nothing, but it's not easy. It's like getting a customer.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but if you can like. Let's say it's five days a week, right? If you can just get one a day, you're talking 250 or however many new followers a year, then all of a sudden you formed a line at the door. All right. And the line at my door starts a little bit before 7am.

Cause everybody knows I post at 7am. So people were like, how does that happen? It's a very Justin Welchian kind of effect where it's like, everybody's lining up to comment on your posts. They want to be the first one there. I mean, that's up to them. I don't give a shit. Thank you. Comment whenever the hell they want, but it tends to work out that way where people are like, Oh, Nat posted at 7 a. m. And, and, you know, I want to, I'm going to come in there and I want to comment and I want to support and all that kind of stuff. So it just sort of built upon itself and like any other business or anything like that, there are waves. I've had posts bomb. I've had posts do really well. I've never had a post go super viral, which is interesting.

I've had a post do over a hundred thousand impressions. I think like twice. Wow. That's it. And I know people that have done millions on some posts and like, so what I have seen is a very slow and steady build and it's been very, it's been intentional because I haven't gotten caught up in trends or formats or anything like that.

So it's really, if you can just build a dedicated group of people who like what you're doing and you like what they're doing. I know it sounds very, you know, simple or whatever it is simple. It's just not easy. And that's, that's kind of where I'm at right now with the whole LinkedIn journey. And, you know, as long as it still works out, well, I'm going to be on there.

It's my platform of choice.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, like you talk about, Essentially the power in the community that you build around it and like the podcast is the same way, right? Like, you know, just like you, I've had shows that have bombed and I've had shows that have done amazing and you, it's consistency over time that creates success, right?

It's not, it's not one post here or four posts here. I posted five times this week and I'm posting two times next week. It's being super consistent and you post every single day. You know, you're up there with your t shirt and dude, Your t shirts are amazing, by the way. I absolutely love that. That is like, and it's so funny.

I mean, I've been part of LinkedIn since, I don't know, like, and I'm late to the party. 2013, I joined LinkedIn. And I was late to the party and didn't know how to use it. I don't think I really started to really use it until like 2020, like effectively. But, but I've never seen anybody do what you do. And it's like, It's crazy.

It's like, it's a little bit hard to believe because it's, it's such an, it's just a really helpful, enticing post, you ask for a reshare, you always have something of value in your post and it's you, you know, doing something awesome in a really cool t shirt and I'm like, Man, Nat has it on point.

Nat Berman: Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Kelly Kennedy: You're you're coaching well paid off.

I think, you know, most people wouldn't have ever even thought to do that though. You know, like I think that's really forward thinking of you as somebody who is an expert coach to say, You know what? LinkedIn is something that there's a lot of experts in and I got a lot to learn here and it does make sense to hire a coach, you know, I don't think many people do that.

Nat Berman: I

 think there's some validity to that. Absolutely. And if they do, oftentimes I think they're not thinking about it enough. That's one thing I would, I would definitely say and the, the helping out on LinkedIn part. Wasn't even a part of my coaching that developed out of demand. So 2023 was all one to one.

That's all I did. And it was very much business life coaching type of stuff. You know, men in their forties, fifties, I don't know what to do with my life or I'm miserable in corporate or, you know, a lot, a lot of stories like that. And I would just be helping them navigate. But as I got more and more clients, they were all like, how are you doing this on LinkedIn?

What that, you know, what's growing on, how are you doing this in LinkedIn? And I had my own coach at the time trying to navigate. I was trying to navigate where I wanted to go with all of this, because frankly, I didn't, the one to one is what burned me out in 2020 and 2023. The same thing was starting to creep up, even though I had better clients, more money, and that was all cool.

I got all those things that I wanted. But frankly, it was, it was a little taxing. And so all of a sudden this kind of business and branding product was born where it was basically like, all right, I'm not going to just do typical coaching here. I'm going to help you grow and build your brand and build your business on LinkedIn as well.

And then through all of that coaching, then I was able to do a course. Then I was able to open a community. All that kind of stuff followed. And since that time, now my one to one is basically zero and the community is full time. So now instead of one to one, it's one to many with the option of. If somebody wants my personal attention a little bit more, yes, they can do that.

Spend a little more in the community, that kind of thing. But it was just a really interesting progression. And one thing for anybody listening, don't listen. And what I mean by that is everyone and their mother was coming up to me in 2023. Telling me I should do this. I should do that. I should do this.

You should have a course. You should have a newsletter. You should do all funnel, funnel, funnel, funnel, funnel, right? Now I'm not saying there's no place for a funnel. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a newsletter. What I am saying is If you know exactly what you are doing and what your goals are, then the right strategy needs to come from that.

For me personally, I always found that talking to people was always my biggest strength. Building relationships was always my biggest strength. So why not sell that way? Right. And it's been a hell of a learning experience growing a community. I went from a 45 minute conversation. To close 4, 000 a month to a 30 minute conversation to close 195 a month.

Right. And most people would say I'm out of my mind, right? Why would you do that? The ROI is so terrible, right? No, it's not. Not after a long enough period, it all starts to even out. And that's, and that's. That's on me because I started to let it get to me, right? I started listening to that and my partner and I, we got to a point where initially we were recruiting everyone ourselves, but then we started selling by chat, like in the DMS and people would join.

They weren't, they weren't as heavily invested in the community. And we hit this weird, rocky, like three week to one month period where we weren't recruiting one to one. And then all of a sudden things just really changed when we went back to what got us there and everything changed when we went from one meeting a week to four and all of a sudden we're like, this is the stuff that people like it's the personal attention.

It's the, it's the coaching. It's, it's all of that. And it's not the fact that I have a course. Sure. I got a course, you know, it's a nice little addition, but the main message I guess I'm trying to relay is that You know, whatever you do, whatever kind of business you're in, if you do something that works, just please continue doing it and just bleed it into the ground until it doesn't work and you have to pivot at some point.

But for now, you know, and, and I know that this is something that you wanted to talk about today in terms of branding, like the bet that I place on myself and my business and my livelihood in the next 10 years is the fact that. Branding is growing as a way of building a business and relationships. It's growing.

I don't suspect it's going anywhere. I think the means by which it's being disseminated and pushed, that's always going to evolve. So LinkedIn ain't what it used to be, and it's not going to be what it is now in five years, but I think people getting out there and putting out a message, which is, which is the heart of what branding really is.

I don't see that going away anytime soon. At all.

Kelly Kennedy: No, me neither. Me neither. I think I've seen it coming for a while, right? It's been a slow build, right? Like for me, when I started this podcast, I started it in February of 2023. And I knew by the end of 2022 that I wanted to do something more outward facing, right?

Like I was operating my business. I was like you making a lot of phone calls, getting into a lot of meetings face to face, but Was like, okay, something's changing. I either need to do a YouTube, I need to do a podcast, I need to do something that gets me out there. And I loved podcasts at the time. So for me, that was like the obvious thing.

But I'll tell you what, I bought all my podcast equipment. I sat it in the corner of my room for almost two months. And my fiance pulled me aside and was like, you're either going to do something with that stuff or you're going to sell it because we need that money. But I was nervous, dude. I was nervous to put myself out there.

And I think that that's where a lot of people are. You know, it's not for everybody, but I do think like, I do think it's the future of business. Like personal brand is going to be a big deal. And I still have days where I struggle with this. You know, episode three, I almost didn't release episode three.

There was nothing wrong with it. But I didn't like it. And I was, I was in this weird place of like, do I even want to do this? Like, what am I doing with my life? And here we are, right? It's episode 192. And thank God I did. But, and it was the consistency over time that made this show successful. I released two shows a week, Wednesday, Sunday.

Without fail, I have not, I've not missed a single episode and you know, like you said, not all of the posts, not all of the podcasts were hits, right? But over time, they balanced out and we had lots of wins and it worked out, but it isn't, it isn't the one time you do it. It's what are you going to commit to, right?

Nat Berman: I agree. I couldn't agree more. I mean look, we live in a, a very divided point of view type of culture at this point where it's like you have a sense of entitlement, right? On, on, on one side. And by the way, I'm not the, I'm not the, like, get off my lawn old man here. Like, I think that this generation is full of, Brilliant people who work their asses off.

So let's put that to bed. Every generation has lazy and entitled people, right? Like, but what I will say is there is a, there's always a contingent that wants to take a shortcut that wants to use tools or whatever means necessary to either inflate or speed up the process of any metric, you know, views, impressions, revenue, I mean, you name it.

But there's also people that really do understand and believe in the value of building something and doing what it takes to build that, you know, never would I recommend to someone to work 15 hours a day for five years, but I sure as hell wouldn't say no to do that for two years and you start optimizing and you start learning and you start using leverage and things like that.

So one thing I do see now is, is. There's opportunity every generation, every, every, you know, every decade, whatever you want to call it. I just think there, there is that opportunity now, but what I'm, what my narrative is and what I'm trying to push out there constantly is like, Put in the work, do the work, whether it's one to two hours a day or eight hours a day, I don't care, do it consistently.

The people that come to me that usually want help with LinkedIn, they can't put in the time that I do. I do it full time. This is what I do. I'm on the platform, answering DMS, coaching people through chat. It's not like I'm just responding to comments, although that's a shitload of what I have to do, but you know.

And I, and I'll also be the first to tell someone, look, if you have a half hour a day to put into this, you're not going to get a lot out of it. It's just not like what business works when you put in a half hour a day. What full time gig can really work on a half an hour a day? Very few. But if you have one to two hours a day and you can focus.

And put in strategic work and, and no shortcuts, no blunders. I personally think you can make a lot of progress in a six to 12 month period. That doesn't mean you're making 50 grand a month. Like a lot of people promise. It means you're making significant progress, progress where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, where you can see, holy shit, if I keep doing this.

A, I'm going to not have to work as hard and B, I'll continue to grow my revenue, grow my influence, grow my network, whatever you, you know, whatever your goals are. LinkedIn or any other social media platform, it's just a microcosm of the overall world out there of you get a contingent that tells you you can do everything and everything you want within five minutes.

Buy my course, right? And you also get a small, realistic pocket of people who know what it takes. And that's why my tagline is the business coach who actually runs a business, because that's in my way of saying like, come on guys, like, if you haven't really done it, don't call yourself one. And so, and the funny thing is about a lot of social media platforms, which I really like to get out there.

Because look, I don't, I didn't, I never had the luxury of being like majorly successful. Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy with what I did with the websites. And that was, I guess you could call that successful by conventional means. I'm not like a baller, right? Like I don't have a hundred million dollars in the bank.

And the funny thing that I'll always point out, those people aren't on social media, they're not LinkedIn. That's right. And you know what I'm using LinkedIn for to get to those people someday to get to that level, not because they're at a hundred million, but because the majority of those people know so much.

Because they're so educated and understand things and have access to stuff that just us folk don't. And so I chose that route. That's the route I've chosen. I've chosen LinkedIn. I've chosen social media to say, it's going to get me here. Not fame. Not because of fame and believe me, I can, I could go on and on about, about fame and metrics.

And I've talked to the biggest influencers in the world, all their social media teams, they'll all promise you the moon and stars. And you know what? They might get you the moon and stars as well. Hey, it's going to cost you a lot of money. You know, 85 grand for six months was my last quote, right? Wow. Just to grow an Instagram in the way that an influencer would grow or a big celebrity would grow what it came down to.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that either. Like if you want to be famous, that's your goal. Like do it. Sure. When I was approached by these people and I would, and I approached them as well to find out about their services. After every conversation, I would kind of take a step back because they all sounded so good.

Right? Like, like polished and here's what we'll do. And here's where your account's going to go. And this is what it does. I always had to step back and ask myself one question. I would say for what? Why? What? What is the point? What would a million followers give me? Right? And the reality is it's perfect for a newsletter.

It's perfect for a low ticket item, a low ticket product. It's perfect for getting someone in a funnel. It's also perfect for getting famous, but for building a connection, for building a community of like minded people who respect and support each other. I don't think a million followers cultivates that all that well.

It certainly doesn't do it as well as me talking to someone just like I'm talking to you right now. I And even though it takes time and labor and work, right, here we are five months in six months in 164 members, all of a sudden, word of mouth is spreading. All of a sudden, we're starting to get referrals instead of me having to push it.

And that to me is so much more valuable, long lasting, sticky, right? And meaningful. Again, I just want to point out to each their own, man, you want to go out and get 10 million followers and being a traditional influencer and get sponsored deals and all that kind of stuff. That is your right. You have every right to do that and more power to you.

But at this point in my life, I'm 45 years old. I've got a family. Yeah, it's nice to be recognized. Nice to be known for some things, but. I can give two shits about being, you know, famous for the sake of being famous. If famous comes as a result of what I'm doing and building, so be it cool, wonderful.

But you know, I don't mean to get all deep and shit here, but like, you know, it's, I feel very strongly about these things. And I think social media is a place that brings out the best and worst in you. And I think it usually brings out the worst in people first because it's so easy to get caught in that hamster wheel of like, likes and comments and impressions.

And I got to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. But if you know why and what those metrics are really for and how they serve you it takes a little bit of that pressure off. And then all of a sudden, like dopamine isn't that big a deal, right? So anyway, there's a right way to do it and there's a way to do it that works and you know, be a person and build relationships and have a real good product and serve your audience, serve your customers.

And so it's a lot of fundamental stuff, but some of the best in the world, you know, who've done this I'm starting to understand and realize why they've become so successful, like, like the Bezos's of the world, like an obsession with customer service, you know, you look at something like that, or I look up to guys like Warren Buffett.

I don't look up to him because he's a billionaire. I look up to him because. He loves money, has always loved money, has always loved growing businesses, buying businesses, and he just does that. And that's all he cares about. And he does it better than anybody else. And he's a bit of a higher example and probably not the greatest one.

Cause I know it's come at the detriment of some relationships in that guy's life. But in terms of a business acumen and laser focus on what you want to do that's the stuff that I'm so impressed by and enamored with. And hopefully, you know, we can do the same.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I think in a time of like, Like you said, like of of easy connection.

Let's call it easy connection, right? It's easy to follow somebody on LinkedIn. It's easy to follow somebody on Instagram, right? What we're lacking is real connection. And I feel like everybody's out there trying to find it. And it's like, as a species, just shot ourselves in the foot and we've. We've created fake connection, like you said, and you know, just like you, I respond to everybody who messages us, we respond back, everybody who comments, we comment back, we try to be real people, right?

Everything we talked about on the business development podcast is about being a real, authentic person. We're trying to push people back to, you know, make real connection, make real phone calls, book real face to face meetings and get to know people because that's what, that's what real relationship is built on.

And I think. As a community, we are suffering in a time of a whole bunch of fake connection, pretending to be connected, if that makes sense.

Nat Berman: Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more.

Kelly Kennedy: It's a, it's such a weird paradigm, right? Because it's like we seem to be really okay with that, but it's like what we're really doing is taking time where we need to be creating both.

So, you know, I guess the fact is, I was going to ask you like most of your posts are getting. A thousand likes in a lot of cases, a thousand comments. And I'm just like, dude, like how in the world are you able to keep up with that? And stay sane? Like that's a job all on a full time job on its own.

Nat Berman: I am a fast typer.

I do. I can think reasonably quick on my toes. I don't use AI. I don't use VA. Never have. I don't plan on it. I'll never say never, right, but I don't plan on AI anytime soon. I do not plan on a VA anytime soon. I can't see myself actually ever using the VA on my LinkedIn account ever. But like I said, never say never.

So what I see happening if the account continues to grow is, you know, at some point I'll probably just have to kind of leave some comment or straggling and, and shit happens, but it's usually that 6am to 10am block where it's like very, very busy. And then the rest of the day, it ain't so bad. It's not so bad.

It's, it's usually those first three to four hours is when you see a lot of comments and don't forget half of those comments are mine, right? Their responses. So it's really more like 500 or whatever. Not that that's small, but no, but it's, it's, but I tell everybody the same thing, like it's choice to choice.

I'm very Gary V old school back when he was growing on Twitter, that was his style, just mass. attention to people and responding. And I just want to touch on what you said about real connection, because it's, it's such a funny thing. I find that Like this is an example I always like to use because I just think it's so relevant.

Cold calling, right? Everybody hates cold calling. Nobody likes cold calling back in the eighties, nineties, whatever. Yeah. The best way of growing a business really was cold calling. I mean, it was introducing yourself to people and even though it was tough. I did cold calling and early in my career, and I absolutely loathed cold calling.

Because it's, it's tough. It's scary to talk to someone that, you know, is probably going to reject you. And I've had my fair share of horrible rejection. Funny. When you look back stories, guy told me to jump out of a window, you know, things like that. Oddly enough, I called him back. I said, this is the guy who jumped out the window.

And he was like, Don't ever call me. Cause I had to stay sane that day. I remember that. But the, the thing is, is that what you just said about fake connection, I find so interesting because you couldn't really fake it on the phone, right? You can, you can fake it on social media, but you also have an equal equally as effective, if not better opportunity To build that relationship through digital media and not a telephone.

That's what I love about a LinkedIn or any social media platform that you pick up on. And I'll explain what that means. Anyone who comments on my post. Anyone I'm a first connection with anyone who views my post, anyone who or views my profile or anybody who's following me, I feel very comfortable just saying hello.

I'm not necessarily having to pitch them like crazy. Right. And yes, I do pitch and I'll say, you know, I'm running this community. Would you like to learn more? But that doesn't scare me or intimidate me like a cold call would. And so to me, there's just this beautiful new world of relationship building that you can take advantage of.

Where knows don't bother me at all. Like I don't give two shits about it. No, who cares? Yeah. And you've got a billion people on a platform, clearly not a billion or a fit for what I'm doing, but. The point is that you have that opportunity. And so someone take like, this is how I look at someone commenting on my stuff.

They could have been doing anything in the entire world at that moment in time, anything or something else other than what they were doing. And they took that time out to either look at my posts or not even look at my posts. Who knows? Maybe some people are just commenting and they don't know what the hell, you know, I don't care, but we took that time to put that little thing in there.

In this world of zero attention, fake attention, fake relationships. That to me is as real as it gets, whether it's an AI generated comment or not. Someone chose my account. To, to engage with. And so I have, in my opinion, the right and not only the right, but the obligation to explore that a little bit further, if I see that that person's profile might be a potential fit with what I'm doing, whether that's my business or whether that's personal, it doesn't matter.

And so to me, there's just this ample opportunity. To siphon out folks that might not be a fit or whatever. It's almost like a, it's almost, you know what it's like? It's like internet dating, right? When you think about it, like if you've been on LinkedIn long enough, you can look at a profile and know in five seconds.

That guy's real or that girl's real. That one's fake. This is bullshit. This one's real. It's like a dating profile. When you used to see someone's picture and be like, that's not really them. I don't buy that. You know what I mean? And like, you can tell when they're embellishing or with like a job title where it's like, it's not really what they do.

Or, and so that there's, there's a comfort in that, in the sense that like. Instead of having to go to a bar and cold meet someone scared to be scared of, you know, scared, scared of your life and not knowing what you're going to say to that person, you can sort of do a little due diligence. And you can see a little bit about that person before.

And then finally, when the moment comes and you're talking to that person on a zoom, it's not in person, but it's close enough. It's pretty damn close. That person can look at that other person and think to themselves, you know what? You're just like, I thought you'd be. And that's a magical moment. And it's a great affirmation of, of everything that you thought about that person.

And sometimes it's even better. Sometimes it's worse. It happens. But what I've seen is that the more people I meet with you know, face to face, I find it to be very refreshing because we've had enough dialogue back and forth prior to know that, Hey, this will be pretty cool talk, or I won't be wasting my time here.

You know, and that to me is, I'll stress this word using social media properly. Instead of letting it use you, right, which is what most social media does to people. Hell, I get used every day by TikTok, right? And I'm scrolling up and down and looking for interesting things to see. And I, I, I crawl down all those holes and I get screwed with doom scrolling, but as, as best as I can help it I know that I'm using LinkedIn as much as it's using me.

And that's a, that's a good, that's a symbiotic relationship, right? It's a good relationship to have. Too many people aren't, but I feel pretty confident in what I'm doing.

Kelly Kennedy: It, man, I love that. I love that analogy. I've, I've talked to so many people and I've never had that particular one come up and you're absolutely right.

And it's like, what, how do you change that dynamic from social media using you to having a mutually beneficial relationship with it? Cause like you said, me. Millions of other people struggling immensely with that relationship, right? That's why it exists. It exists to take advantage of people like us who have struggled to figure out what to do with it.

And I think I'm getting better with it. I am by no means anywhere close to you. There's lots of people that I talk to you who wish they could do more with their socials. Talk to me about the choice that has to be made.

Nat Berman: Oh man. One choice that I made, and this was back in the, the June of 23 thing, I made a deliberate choice to not worry about any other social media platform at all, other than LinkedIn.

And it, that's still the case to this day. Yes. I have a Twitter account. Yes. I have an Instagram account. Yes. I have a Tik TOK account and I even have a fricking whatever threads account. I mean, you name it. I have those accounts, but they are all placeholders. And I put content up on those, those sites, but there's, there's a case where I use automation, automation.

I use Opus clip. So I chop up a lot of our meetings and I'll schedule it out to four different social media platforms. That's the extent I put into other social media platforms, LinkedIn five plus hours every single day. So that's one choice that I did make. Everything else I wish I could say it was a very deliberate, you know, but it's day by day.

Sometimes I'll scroll on TikTok for 20 minutes and sometimes it's an hour plus and that sucks. And I always feel like shit afterwards. Like, what did I just do? Why did I waste my time? I need to read a book, right? But the more, I guess one solution I would put into that is I'm a big believer in habit building.

You know, I, I'll, I'll take habits over motivation any day of the week, right? And, and I tend to think that motivation results from the right habits. I'm also big on routines, not scheduling routines, right? And, and knowing that, Hey, from six to 10, this is where my brain is. And from 10 to 11, I'm at the gym and when I come home, I'm gonna eat lunch.

And then from 12 to six, this is where my brain is. And yeah, it changes every day, but it's about being in a certain mode, I think. So I wish, I wish I had a specific answer in terms of how to like cure one's relationship to social media. I think that cure lies in the fact that if you, if you are getting your intended outcome from that relationship, then it's a beneficial relationship.

Unfortunately, most people's unintentional intentional outcomes are, I want to be entertained. Yeah. I want my dopamine fix. That's when you go wrong. My intended outcome is to build an incredible community of people that are learning and getting better and when that's more, when that's what's focused in my brain, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to use those platforms the way that I know that they should be used.

But again, there's a time and place for just chilling. And scrolling and relaxing, right? Like I always say, sometimes doing nothing is the best something you can do, right? Everybody needs a break. Everybody needs to detox and get the hell away. But yeah, man, when I'm in, when it's game time for me, like, you know, the brain is very focused on one thing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know about like, you know, I mean, I'm sure you're in kind of the similar boat, but. It feels like we're really busting our asses out here a lot of the time, you know, like I'm a hard worker. I know you're a hard worker. I get up at 5:30 every day. I'm doing the things I need to be doing.

I'm probably done my day if I'm lucky at six. Yeah, that's, that's kind of what I do. Very similar, right? I'm still, I'm stealing hours from the morning because I don't want to steal hours from my night because my boys and my, and my fiance deserve my time. So I'm always trying to rob time and usually that robbing of time is before everyone wakes up and there's something really magical about that 5 30 a.

1. moment. I absolutely love it. And I wasn't a morning person and I became one out of necessity. But now I love it. And I think, you know, it comes with that internal drive, right? We're both incredibly internally driven people. And I think on a certain level, there has to be something bigger that you're working towards, right?

Like with me, you're right. I want to build a huge community in the business development space. I want to help a whole lot of entrepreneurs, a whole lot of business development people do better than I did, because when I came into this space, there was nothing for us. There wasn't a book, there wasn't anything.

I was, I learned the whole thing on my own and now we teach it. And, you know, I see you doing the same thing saying like, here, you know, I had to learn this stuff the hard way. Let me save you years and I will teach you how to do this. We'll work through the challenges that I went through as an entrepreneur, as somebody growing social media, and we're going to build this amazing community together.

But we're driven by those passions, right? I think that's it. Like the secret is you need to figure out your why. What is your why? Why are you doing this? Why are you going to be on social media? And then work backwards from the why.

Nat Berman: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I also think what's another thing that's important is that why doesn't have to be something you were like born to do.

Right. You know how some people are, they're born to swing a baseball bat. Some people are born to sing, right? I wasn't born to do anything. I wanted to be a pro tennis player at one point in my life and I was a decent athlete, but I'll tell you one thing I was born for. It was to never have a boss, right?

And that, that much, I knew it was, I never wanted an authority. And not in a mean way, I had plenty of bosses that were nice. I just never liked being told what to do because I wanted, I wanted the freedom to choose for myself. And so when I quit my job, because I got to say my first six and a half years out in the real world, corporate world, whatever, I just, I, I didn't work nearly as hard as I was capable of working.

I didn't, sir. I was always pretty good at my job and excelled decently. And so I was always safe. I wouldn't get fired or anything like that. And I could make a living, but I never understood what it took to put everything I had into something. I just didn't, I understood, but I didn't, I wasn't doing it.

And when I left. My job, nothing, I just, it was like a switch went off and for the last 17 years, my brain's just been like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go in a good way. Not a bad way in a good way. And so whether that thing is not having a boss, financial freedom, more time with your kids. Whatever that thing is, obviously that's a why, right?

That usually can drive activity and action and passion for that matter. I believe that passion, just like motivation tends to be a result often. You know, some of us are born with this natural talent or passion for something. But you'd be surprised how many people become passionate about something once they become good at it.

Yes. While in the beginning hating it, right? So passion, I think, is definitely can, can be a byproduct of hard work, of, of energy, of action. And so yeah, and, and, What's nice is when you can revive that in a way every however many years, right? So like, I never thought I would be done with the websites.

Like I never, like, not that I'm done, but like, I never thought that they would not be primary. In my business life, but I have, I have rekindled that exact same fire I had when I left my job and was my own boss that very first day and worked endlessly. That energy is right back. Which is great. And I see that lasting this next decade and that'll be my hopefully final hurrah.

Right. But I, I don't ever see myself fully stopping or not being involved. And we can go off in the next 5 hours about I don't believe in retirement and all that kind of stuff, which I don't I consider myself retired by my own definition, which is. Doing what I want, when I want, with who I want, and having the means to do so, right?

You mentioned your family. I can guarantee you this. I can already tell this about you, and I know this about myself. You may work or be up from 5:30 and grind away till 6. But at a moment's notice, you'll stop what you're doing. If something's going on with your family or your kids or your, you know, your fiance and you'll take the time out of your day to do whatever, like I've been in my pool four times this week during the day, right?

Because I have that option. I have that ability to do that just because like, I don't care. All right, well, then I'll work till eight if I have to, you know, it doesn't, and that to me is the freedom of being an entrepreneur and the freedom of making your own hours. Obviously, it's a bunch of horseshit that like, Hey, you can get away with working one hour a day.

Like, yeah, technically I probably could, but I would be miserable. I really would be miserable if I, if I wasn't driven towards something and doing something. And many people would argue like, well, you just don't have enough interest in your life. Really? There's no fucking way. I would enjoy sitting on a beach all day, every day.

Like, there's just no way I go on vacation. I get antsy to come home within three days, every single time. Give me as many coladas and blue water as you can. It's, it's going to get old, man. I there's gotta be, and this is what, you know, purpose why that has to be there in my life. Otherwise it's just too freaking boring.

And now, now I feel very aligned with that and just want to keep pressing forward. It's, it's not, it's not about an end. It's not about a dollar amount, it's just about like living and it's like, if you're not living with some sort of desire to do something, be something, help someone, whatever, that to me is what makes life stagnant and boring.

I can't sit around and watch TV all day. I love watching movies, man. I do. I love watching TV. I love, you know, whipping out a bowl of popcorn. But. If I'm doing it for eight hours, yeah, I'm going to feel like shit and be angry at myself and not want to do it anymore.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I always encourage people who are on the fence to like take that leap, like if you're on the fence about starting your own business and you know, you've been working in a career for a long time.

It might be, you know, just like not saying it might be that kick in the ass that you need to really find your purpose. I think a lot of people are just lost. Because we're fed like we're fed a line that you can just work somewhere and get your paycheck every two weeks and not worry about anything.

But you're right. It's like there's a part of us that's lost in that.

Nat Berman: Big time. And for those thinking about like quitting a job or anything like that, like, I'm also, I'm also a big proponent and advocate of. Not being dumb and just quitting your job with no bank account, nothing saved. Like be practical, be smart.

When I quit, I had six months of savings and my then girlfriend was working and we had an apartment in New York city. And granted, you know, I was a little worried, but I had a little bit of runway. But what I think Kelly is talking about is at some point you got to, you got to step off the ledge and at some point you have to put yourself involved in that situation that will in some way, push you a little bit.

Granted, you have to push yourself first to get there, but you know, something I'll always say about, Hey, if you're working and you, and you, and you really dream of going off on your own, you can't treat a side hustle like a side hustle. You got to treat it like a business. It's just part time, but it ain't no side hustle.

I don't like the word side hustle. I never have because it's. It's an additional form of revenue that you need to take seriously, especially if you want it to turn into a full time source of revenue, right? So whether that's an hour a day or five hours a day, you got to commit. That's why I always tell people, I'm like, look, if you're putting an hour, two hours a day, you will get out of that nine to five.

If you really stick to it and dedicate yourself to it. I did, right. I'm no more special than anybody else. And other people can as well. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Well, and let's just lead right into it. You've built a community for people just like the ones we're talking to right now. Let's talk about Brandbuilt.

Nat Berman: Sure.

Sure. So Brandbilt Brandbilt was the inception of myself and my partner, Darren Mass. And I got to know Darren because I was on his podcast and his podcast was, is called, I took a hike and he would go on hikes with founders and entrepreneurs. So we went on this like three hour podcast. Bad ass hike, which scared the shit out of me at some points and I was not wearing hiking shoes.

I didn't know, but it was like a little much more than my level of hiking. I'm used to like flat ground and just like walking. The way up was fun. The way down was not cool. So we really hit it off and he had been doing coaching. Same as me, business coaching. But he was. Very successful prior to that.

He ran his own telecom company and sold it for quite a bit of money, 40 million bucks back in 2018. And so after 2000, he had, he had to stay for a year that he sold it to a public company. He stayed for, I think it was a year. I'm not sure. And then right after that, he went into coaching, went to business coaching, but funny enough, he went into this phase of knowing he didn't really have to work again.

He got depressed. So this is a great follow up to what you and I were just talking about. My own business partner was like fully depressed because he was doing nothing all day and hated it. So he picked up coaching, started coaching people on their businesses. So we went on this hike, got along really well, decided, yeah, maybe we'll do something.

Who knows? We had a couple of ideas, a couple, a couple of things we were throwing around and they, they involved tech that was really expensive. So we tried to find some developers for equity. None of them would bite. So we're, so we kind of shelved it and it was, it was in the realm of coaching. It was like kind of like an online network thing where you would connect people to coaches like around the in certain fields.

And so that didn't work out. And then I got on a conversation with someone on LinkedIn and we were talking about. You know, coaching and the guy says to me, have you ever done a community? I was like, no, I've heard too many people burn out. I've heard too many bad stories about communities. He's like, well, why don't you just do it with a partner?

I was like, maybe that could make sense. And so I approached Darren and he's like, hell yeah, let's do it. And I was like, okay, well, here's a, you know, we'll, we'll put up a course and we'll do weekly calls and let's give it a go. So we went on the school platform, which we found to fit the most in terms of.

User experience. And it had a very similar feel to LinkedIn, just in terms of like liking and commenting and chatting with people. You know, there wasn't, there's mighty networks and circle and we were looking at other ones, but we figured what the hell, 99 bucks a month, and you could start it in five minutes.

Like literally it was in five minutes. I had to scramble to put together the course cause that was from scratch. So that was a little bit of a pain, but it was all happening as we were growing. So what we did was we basically had, you know, an initial group of like eight to 10 people. They were all free members.

Our founding members. Right. And we grew it to 20, like really fast. It was like a day or two, you know, it was all like people we knew. And we just, we just off we went and this is no different than any entrepreneur, any other entrepreneur endeavor. I'm learning as I go, man, like I'm learning as I go. So we've gone from, you know, that, that initial, our first meeting was January 31st of 2024.

So since that time, we're now at 164 members. We've doubled our rates. Which is great. We're, we're pretty much picking up like a new member every day, but the way that the, the way that it's all run just changed so much because I initially thought this was going to be a very course driven community where like, Oh, everyone would sign up for the course.

Turns out everybody's signing up for the meetings and everybody's signing up for the support. And everybody's really signing up. Darren made a very good point to me the other day. He goes, he goes, the product is us. It's not our courses. Product is our expertise and what we bring to the table in terms of our coaching and our business acumen.

And so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, people get LinkedIn help. They get business help. They get support and I mean support in every way possible. I don't shy away from the word support group. We got people that are lonely, that are freaking out, that are scared of what they're doing and they need, they need to share that.

I think that's a critical component to the entrepreneurial journey, right? Is the fact that you are not alone and that you can talk about how scared you are. It's important. And it's really, it's really developed into that. And so, but typically when, if someone will reach out to me for the community, it's a very LinkedIn centric.

There's no question because every person on. In our community has a LinkedIn profile. Most of them are creators. And so there is that common thread. So there is a course, right, that I put together. It's a 12 week LinkedIn course, very similar to like a Justin Welch and Welch type of course, although I put mine up up against his any day of the week or anyone for that matter, it's very different in nature.

And then, you know, there's another course on there. It's like a productivity course, but the real draw, it's the discussion boards and it's the meetings. No, you miss like we joke around a ton when we introduce someone I have, I have a little, my little thing. Every time I, every time someone joins, I ask them before they join, what's your favorite movie?

Then I post a funny gif of a scene from the movie just to give them a warm welcome. And we'll razz somebody, we'll, we'll haze people. It's fun. And we just, we just have a blast in there. We have a really good time. Yeah. Yeah. And we've Darren and I have effectively shut down our one to one coaching practices.

And just recently, only in the last two weeks, have we started providing that to our community? So if somebody wants to do a group. We'll do groups of five and Darren and I will run those groups. If somebody wants individual coaching, they can choose two to one, Darren and I will coach them, or they could choose Darren or myself.

And that'll be a one to one arrangement. Obviously those prices are higher than the community communities, 195 bucks a month used to be a hundred. And we found that again, learning on the fly. I never knew, right? Like at a hundred bucks a month, we were getting like credit card cancellations and rebellious.

Community members who thought they could do it better. And they decided to leave and try to take people from our group and all kinds of stuff that we've been learning. And by the way, wherever you are out there, I know that your group is still sitting at a very low number and you haven't really grown, but you know, it's.

It's been a lot of fun and I can tell you right now, I mean, we're literally only like not even six months in and it's going to be real different in a year. And one of the things that we're, that I, that I have promised or I want to keep my promise as much as I can is, is right now I'm very available to people.

Right? So, like. I get people reaching out to me all the time and one of my biggest assets that people always say is like, dude, I don't know how you get back to me so quickly. That is one area that I want to stay very, very steadfast on that. We don't want to change, which is like, okay, well, as these numbers grow, how much attention can I really give people?

And so right now I, I feel like 300 is probably our max in terms of where our personal attention is going to be able to go. And at that point, I would do one of two things. We'd either stop, shut off the group, regroup, figure out how we'll grow or before that time. And my guess is we would, it'll be the latter somewhere around two 50.

We're going to look for someone else, right. As we continue to grow. So it's. It's a really fun group to have and you and I had talked about this a little bit like communities just aren't delivering in my opinion as much as they probably should. And so that that is 1 of the main reasons we even started 1.

It's like, wow, what if there was a place where people had 4 coaching calls a week? 200 bucks a month, an obscene amount of personal attention that doesn't really exist. It doesn't really exist out there. So we, we decided to do that and that's where I am. And hopefully it will be for a number of years.

Kelly Kennedy: Nat that sounds absolutely amazing. It like, honestly, the value there seems amazing. And I'm sure there's people listening who want to join. How can they join brand built?

Nat Berman: So every person who joins has to talk to me or Darren first. That's how we keep the quality of members really high. So yes, you can join directly on the website, but I can tell you right now, if you, we've had like two sneak by where they actually just found the site and join, not, not that it's hard to find.

But even on, so it's like school. com slash brand built, B R A N D B U I L T. And then you could slash again, and then about. And if you read the about section, you scroll down, it says, you know, schedule a free demo. And that's a call with me personally. And we have a one to one talk for a half hour. I give you a demo takes 10 minutes and then ask questions in the next 20.

And usually most people will sign up either, you know, on the line with me or, you know, in the next day or week or month or I don't even care, like whatever it is. So, or if you, if you look on my LinkedIn page, there's always links to setting appointments with me. It's very old school, man. We don't mess around.

Like it's not like, it's not like, Hey, check out my newsletter and sign up for my course. It's not like that. It's like, Hey, we really want to make sure that people want to do this, that we're interested in them, that they're interested in us. And like, I just, I think that's not. There's not enough of that in the world anymore.

As far as I'm concerned, there needs to be some exclusivity in the world. And when you look at the community model moving forward, and you said it yourself, people are looking for real personal connection. Well, my prediction, and this is what I'm literally betting my own livelihood in my on is the fact that while platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram or Pinterest or any, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter anything with a billion users.

Plus. Those are platforms, in my opinion, to build your own, and they need to be embraced as such. TikTok is a place for you to be seen, to grow whatever it is you want to grow. And I understand that LinkedIn, in terms of a profit model for Microsoft, right? Obviously, their goal is to get as many people as possible to be on the platform for as much as possible.

But at the same time, it behooves them to also Push and stress that, Hey, this is a place where you can build your business. This is a place where you can do all this kind of stuff. And so what I see happening over the next decade really is a rise of these micro communities where you have your trot, where you have found the people that you really want to be in contact with on a daily basis.

And so. We're just doing that manually. You know, that's how I see it. So yeah, while we have these platforms with billions of users, I think the point of these platforms is to grow your own platform and that as much as they need users to be on there 24 seven to make their revenue, they should also be pushing the fact that, Hey, this is a place for you to build your own, your own home.

And. That's why I think, and I'm betting on the next 10, 15 years, that things like micro communities are going to be significant. And you can essentially go to a place where you've got a thousand of your people, and that's effectively what we're building, but we're doing that manually one at a time, one conversation at a time, one member at a time.

It doesn't have to be through a newsletter or a course or any of that kind of stuff. It's just flat out talking to people that are like you, that have similar goals that want to be successful. And that's what our community is really about.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that is the future. And you know, it's kind of the first year into it.

Like I'm really seeing the growth of community right now. But yeah, I agree with you. I think, I think it is the future. And I think you guys are on point to make that choice. And I think it will be about how do you provide value at a cost that people can afford? Because like me and you both know, one on one coaching is amazing as it is.

There's no way to do it cost effectively.

Nat Berman: That's, that's one of the things that I think that like people can't really match in terms of what we're doing is the fact that, hey, we've got four group coaching calls a week and it's like under 200 bucks. A month, right? Yeah. Whereas most coaching is, you know, three grand plus a month.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. So how does like walk me through a group coaching session? Like what do these typically look like? Obviously you're working with quite a few people. You said you well over a hundred members. How do you even facilitate coaching in that type of scenario? What is the most effective way you've found to do it?

Nat Berman: Sure. So right now it's still, it's still Very easy to manage, right? So technically, you know, there's 164 members, not all those members on every single call, right? Obviously, not everybody can make it there. You know, we run them at 1 p. m. Eastern Monday through Monday through Thursday, one of the days it's at 12.

So on average, we get somewhere between 15 and 20 participants. And with a call that lasts an hour, that's ample time to answer questions. All of our meetings are pretty much collaborative QA oriented type meetings, but we do have a specific format and way of running each one. So on Mondays I run meetings by myself and those are a lot more LinkedIn intense meetings.

Any questions you got on LinkedIn, I don't like using the word expert, but I'm probably our resident guy who knows about LinkedIn pretty well. And so that'll be focused on that. Tuesdays, we typically pick like a topic. So this week, for example, we picked the word persistence. And so I started off going on like a 10 minute story about persistence.

And it winds up just getting into a lot of questions. People sharing their own stories, own anecdotes. Wednesdays are like. We call them community chat. So Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Darren and I host. And Wednesdays, our last Wednesday call was very deep. It wound up being very support group oriented, right?

But a lot of times they could be about philosophies in your own business. Or just questions, again, same thing. Questions on LinkedIn, all that. Thursdays, Darren runs those by himself. And those are highly business oriented. Questions and topics. So it could be scaling a business, acquiring a business, all the little, you know, ends that that go along with running business at a small business level as well as a corporate level.

Darren's done both. So yeah, that's kind of how we run the meetings. And as it gets, as it gets larger in scale. You know, we'll see. We might do a format where it's like the first 10 people get their questions answered and everybody else is watching. I don't really quite know what we'll do, but as of right now, we just use zoom and everyone does the hand raise function and we get to everybody's questions.

And so far we haven't missed any questions, which has been great. They, you know, an hour is usually enough.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. Dude, sounds like you've got it all figured out. And it sounds like you're going to be planning more content than than most people. That's for sure.

Nat Berman: One nice thing about four meetings is you've got four hours of like reels and shorts that get chopped up.

Now, I'm not going to go crazy. I literally only post one a day on the internet, even though I could schedule like 30. But I'm not going to do that. I don't want to like overload my accounts, but you know, maybe I should try it one day and see what would happen if I literally posted like 30 things.

Kelly Kennedy: It really is trial and error.

Let's figure out what works because I think all of us are playing in this playground trying to figure out, you know, not just with, you know, like not just with you, with LinkedIn, with us, with Spotify and all these others trying to figure out like, what do they want? How do we get, how do we get them to promote us?

Nat Berman: Yeah, I agree.

Kelly Kennedy: Nat, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you for spending some time with us and educating our listeners. And I do wish you the best of luck. And dude, I love your LinkedIn. Don't quit. You're, you're killing it. I love the shirts. They're so motivating. And if there's ever anything that we can do to support you, just let me know.

Nat Berman: Vice versa, man.

Really appreciate you having me on. Thanks a lot, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: You're very welcome. Until next time, this has been the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you. On the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.