Transcript of Mastering Brand Growth with Travis Chappell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Mic Unplugged. And if you've ever listened to my show, you know that I started a podcast by actually not wanting to start a podcast. And one of the folks that I listened to that I understood the game from is our guest today. He went from knocking doors to building empires, turning real relationships into real revenue. As the voice behind Travis makes friends and Travis makes money, he We sat with billionaires, celebs, and power players, all by mastering one skill, connection. So get ready to meet the relentless, the magnetic, the trailblazing, the guy that I said, I can do this with my guy, Mr. Travis Chappell. Travis, how are you doing today, brother?

Doing really well, man. I appreciate the intro. Feeling the love, bro. So I appreciate you having me on.

Absolutely, man.

I said I didn't want to start a podcast.

Most of everybody that knows that follows knows the story, I didn't want to do it, but Les Brown, Robert Irvine, Dame and John were all like, Mick, go do it. I said, great. What's podcasting about? I started following you, so I understood the ropes a little bit. That has continued to you just being someone that I consider my mentor in this podcast and game. I owe you more than you'll ever know, bro.

I appreciate that, man. I owe you more than you'll ever know, bro. I appreciate that, man. Thanks, Dave. It's all you for actually putting in the work. You can only do so much for people. And it's always awesome to see when people actually go do the thing and see a lot of success with it. So congrats.

Yeah, man. So, Travis, on the show, I talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, that real purpose that drives you. So if I were to say Travis, bro, today, what's your because? Why do you continue to do the things that you do with the relentless energy that you do it with?

Probably would have been a different answer had you asked me pre kids. But I think everybody that has kids, man, it just flips your world upside down, teaches you how nothing is about you anymore. And you get to focus on other little human beings that you get to help shape and things. So now for me, it's way more about them than it is about me. And that is definitely a script that has been flipped since I started this thing back seven, eight years ago, however long it's been now. The kids have given me renewed purpose, renewed sense of why, a renewed a reason to keep doing this thing.

I love it, brother. I love it, man. I'm the same way when I had kids. I've always had this connection with my mom, brother, and sister, and They are and will always be my because. Then when you have kids, you start thinking about legacy. You go from doing, doing, doing to like, holy crap. Not what are they going to do for me, but what am I going to do for them and what's going to be said? How am I going to be viewed in their lens? So talk a little bit about that flip that you're talking about, man. Just that moment when it's like, It's no longer me. I do have a legacy now.

Yeah, exactly, man. And here's the thing. Every kid goes through a transition where they eventually realize who their parents actually are. Meaning when they're kids, your parents are heroes. They exist in this untouchable ether that you look at them as having all the answers. They're the ones who know everything and that you can go to with whatever you got. And then one day you become an adult and at some point along the way, you start actually seeing your parents for who they are, the people who they actually are, their mistakes, their flaws, the decisions that they made in the past, where it's brought them to this time. And what you're talking about when it comes to legacy is not necessarily to me like a dollar amount or a lifestyle. It's more that when that day comes for my kids, I just really want the difference between those two people in their minds to be really, really small. Meaning like the person that they view me as, like the, superhero dad type of a person. I want that to be as close as possible to what reality is the day they realize who I actually am.

And So that one piece drives me forward in a lot of ways. And it just flipped a few years ago. It's like when you're young and hungry and ambitious, you're doing everything almost with a chip on your shoulder to prove to the world what you can offer. And you're just going, going, going, constantly. You have these massive dreams and goals. And then when I had kids, it was almost like, why am I shooting for this thing? What is the purpose of doing this? Now I have a decision to make because whatever time I take away from spending time with my kids, it better be used for doing something important. It better be used for the correct thing, not just for the sake of working. You know what I'm saying? Now it's like whenever I say yes to an opportunity or say yes to a business or say yes to something in this world, I'm saying no to time with my kids. So it better be a, Hell, yes. It better be like, This is what I need to be doing, or else it does not make sense for me to take that time away from spending with them.

I'd rather just hang out with them. It made me just second guess and ask deeper, better questions about how I was spending my time, what I was spending my time doing, and then really interrogate the goals that I had set up for myself and ask, are these goals still in line with the person who I am today? And sometimes they're not.

Amen to that brother. Amen to that. Travis, one of the things I've learned through you is the power of connection. You've said it a lot. It's been a saying that we all have probably heard a million times, but your net worth, Your network is your networth. We've all heard that saying. But you actually put it into action. Talk to the listeners and viewers about how important connection really is, because to me, that's what drives you and propels through the success that you've had?

For me, man, it was almost, again, a chip on my shoulder moment because I grew up in this bubble, tight-knit community through my church. When I left that world behind, I also was starting my network from scratch. Nobody in that world really followed me. We had now completely different goals. We had completely different lifestyles, made different decisions. Even the people who I'm still cool with weren't going to be a part of the new world I was creating for myself, if that makes sense. It's like they were like, Hey, you do you, Travis, but also we're not aligned with the same mission anymore. So good luck, and I'll text you on your birthday, and we're good. But then when I was getting into business, it was like, it just made sense to me at the time that if you want to do something that you've never done with a skill set you've never acquired or knowledge that you've never then the fastest way to acquire all those things is to go get around people who have already done the thing that you're trying to do at the highest level possible. So it was more of a personal mission for me when I started, just to like, I don't even know I wanted to be successful in business.

I wanted to have a successful podcast, whatever. But I didn't know a single... I can never even met a millionaire at that point in my life at 23. And so let alone had the ability to text one as a friend and get a text back and ask a question. I'd never even met, like shook hands with one. So what do I know about that? So it was more of a personal mission to say, if I want this result, I need to go get around people who are actively pursuing that same result and/or have already accomplished the result that I'm trying to get to. And so it became a relentless pursuit to me to continue to level up those connections and figure out how to connect to those people. And that was one of the big surprises to me is that the things that I was learning or hearing at the time about connecting with people was definitely not how I was seeing all the most successful people do it. It was like, go to the chamber meetings and join the BNI chapter and do this thing and that thing. And you start going to those things, you start realizing, oh, none of these people are where I want to be.

Yet the people who are where I want to be, they all know each other, so they're doing it somehow. They're not neglecting the activity. They're just doing it differently. So how do I start doing that? Which is what the the show became at the time. At the time, it was called Build Your Network, and it was really just the pursuit of trying to figure out the skillset and then implement it also while getting those people on my show to download that information and also be able to connect with them afterwards. So the show became this almost self-fulfilling prophecy where I was learning how to do it, and I was able to implement what I was learning in real-time to connect with those people to get them on the show and get more information and better information over time. It was a deep personal mission to me, which is why I think I took it so seriously.

No, I love it, and it shows. One of the things that I learned from you, because believe it or not, aside from LinkedIn, until I started my podcast, I didn't have a social media account. I didn't have anything other than LinkedIn. I didn't have Facebook, I didn't have Instagram, I didn't have TikTok X, none of that. So when I saw you, and forget the podcast and the clips, what I saw was often authenticity. What I saw was the real Travis. And you had this clip that I'll never forget that says, As long as you are you, and you commit to being you, and you know who you are, good things will happen. Don't try to force it. And I think that's where people go wrong with connection and network, is they try to force it. Talk to the listeners and viewers about how important it is to be authentic over everything.

To use the cliché here, real recognizes real. So what I notice, man, is you get into some of these rooms, you get into some of these groups of people, and everybody's trying to connect, level up and talk to the people who's time is the most COVIDed at that particular event, whether it's backstage at a conference or in a meet-up line somewhere or name the type of event. They're trying to all connect with the same people. And what I would notice is that people who were on a similar level to the one that I was on, which was at the time like nothing, like a complete beginner, not really much to offer to the room, only could learn from the people that were there. Again, didn't have much to go off of. I didn't have a ton of value to give to everybody. I noticed they were always trying to posture, and it confused the hell out of me because I had the opportunity at the time where I had gotten to know a couple of people really, really well in that space, paid them some money for some coaching, got around them, offered value in exchange At the time, it was a lot of work for me to be able to provide value, but I knew one thing.

I knew how to sell. I came from Dora Dore sales. I was like, I know how to sell. So there's one guy in particular who was selling journals at events. So he wouldn't get paid a speaking fee, but he would say, I'll come speak for you for free if you let me sell my journals in an expo booth or whatever. He didn't have anybody to work the booth. I was like, I'll just volunteer and work it for free for you for three full days, which at the time, three full days of my time working a booth at an event like that, I knew how much money I could make generating sales for the products I used to sell. It was a significant effort from a skill that I had built up to that time that I was giving away for free. But what allowed me to do is get around that person and then listen to the conversations of people that would come up to the booth to shake his hand, get him to sign something, take a picture with them. And it amazed me, man, how many people would come up to that conversation.

They would talk 98% of the time trying to impress the person that they're talking to. What they don't realize is that that person has unlimited access to a multitude of people who are wildly more successful than you are. You're not going to say anything that he hasn't heard in that three minutes that you're taking time to do. So all you're doing is posturing yourself to be better than you actually are, which those people, again, recognize as real. So that person is going to see through all of that anyway. And then now you're just a number. Now you're just another person that they connected with at a conference who took a picture. You made zero impact. You learned nothing. You asked zero questions, and you walked away with no relationship. I saw people do this time and time and time and time again. And so when I would get in those rooms, man, I just was me. I would be honest with people. I'm starting out. I'm at this... Even for different rooms that I paid to be in, like masterminds or small groups or anything where I would put an investment down to get in the room.

It was always a stretch. I knew going into it that I was like, Hey, look, I would tell people, I was like, Look, I'm probably the brokest person in this room. Immediately sheds all form of ego when you start off with a line like that where people are like, Oh, okay, we'll see how we can help you. But they want to help. That's the thing, man, is people want to be helpful. They want to be useful. It's just if you're putting on this position or posturing yourself as somebody who doesn't need the help, then they can't help you. And then again, you leave the situation thinking that talking to people is a waste of time because you didn't get anything out of it. It's like, well, you weren't even open to receiving anything because you were trying to make yourself sound awesome when you're objectively not awesome yet, at least at that thing that you're trying to be awesome at. Not to say that you're not worth anything or you're not awesome as a person. I'm sure that's probably all true. But if you come into the situation with this high ego and you're constantly posturing and positioning yourself to be this person that you are not yet, it's, first of all, not going to to allow you to learn anything.

And then second of all, that person is going to see right through it because they were just backstage with all the other people who are actually awesome at what they do. And that's not the type of communication that they have with each other. They're all eager and willing and open to learn from each other. That's why they're in the position that they're in. So I saw that early on, man. It was a big blessing in disguise because it just taught me that authenticity was going to be rewarded. I'm not here to make myself sound better than I am. I'm just here to learn as much as I possibly can and see there's any potential way that I could bring some value to this relationship.

Man, that is amazing. I want to go deeper into something you just said, because, and this is for the viewers and listeners, Travis and I are going to have a real conversation. Because success doesn't happen overnight. But I'm a wholeheart believer that success does leave clues. And those clues start by investing in yourself. So you heard Travis talking about going to masterminds, and and going to these events, and sometimes even paying the extra for whatever the VIP or high-ticket offer is so you can get some type of access. I think where most people, Travis, fail when they try to get the overnight success is they really don't invest in themselves. They look at paying money to go to an event, joining a mastermind, doing a one-on-one collab with Travis. They think that that money goes to to the event holder or to the influencer's pocket. But what you are actually gaining are clues. I tell people all the time, Travis, if you really want to understand how success works, you've got to be willing to invest in yourself. Because if you're not, I can promise you it's not going to happen. I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but it's going to take much longer and you're going to give up before it actually even gets there.

Exactly. Yeah, it's definitely going to take more time. That's the thing is that once you adopt the identity of somebody who values time over anything else, you start realizing that a lot of these things are a bargain. It's like, okay, name the number. 25 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, 10 grand. Whatever sounds like a lot to you. All I would do is ask people what their goals are. They would look at investing in something. It's like, yeah, but it's 10 grand. Okay, but you just told me that you want this thing that you're doing to make you $1 million next year. What is 10 grand compared to a million bucks? How long is it going to take you to fail and fall in your face and figure it out on your own when you could just pay 10 grand and learn all of the things that that person learned over 20 years of doing the thing that you're trying to do? And you're holding the money like the money is the most valuable piece. It's not. Your time is the most valuable piece. And like you said, it's not even just a matter of like, oh, I can figure it out because you probably can figure it out.

Will it take you way longer? Sure. But then you also are throwing in that other variable of if it does take you that much longer and you're putting in this work in the meantime and failing this much and falling on your face this much, how likely is it going to be that you're actually going to stick with the thing that you're trying to see success at for the duration of time that's required in order for you to see the success anyway. Can you do it? Sure. Should you do it? Probably not. And if your risk tolerance is extremely low, you're in a position where you got three kids, you're 48 years old, you're switching careers. There is absolutely extreme value in paying to cut the line and learn from somebody who's been there, done that, bought 10 T-shirts and can help you avoid the mistakes that they made. It doesn't even make sense from a financial standpoint sometimes. And yeah, is it a risk? Sure. But you are in the risk business. You know what I mean? If you're doing anything entrepreneurial, you're by definition, you're taking more risk than somebody who's an employee. And if that's not what you want to do, then maybe just stick to be an employee.

And by the way, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I encourage people away from entrepreneurship as often as I can because it's not for everybody, and it is much more difficult to see a path to success in that area. If you have a high value skill like sales or marketing or something like that, you could probably make more money in a shorter period of time by just being an employee somewhere and being the best employee that that person has. I'm not knocking walking that path. I'm just saying that if you have this goal and you want this thing, then you have to be willing to take the action of somebody who has achieved that thing or you will not get to that point. You have to take the action of the future self now, or you can't create that future self.

Amen to that, bro. Amen to that. I was literally having this conversation with someone two days ago, and I said, Aside from a family heir, I don't know a single entrepreneur that didn't go through the dirt, the grind, the mud. I really don't. Now, sometimes that dirt, grind, mud was six months, sometimes it's six years. But we all go through it. And to your point, sometimes if you're skillset isn't true visionary in execution, it's okay to be a CMO. It's okay to be the chief sales officer of a company. There's nothing wrong with that. I think sometimes in society and what we see on social media is we assume that everyone has it figured out, and that's far from the case. I mean, I would say, Travis, I'm still trying to figure some things out. I'm always going to be learning something and getting frustrated about, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe this, or how do I overcome this? But I also am prepared for it.

Absolutely, dude. I just had this conversation with a buddy recently who had a tough time in business, crazy bunch of stuff outside of his control happened, a bunch of lawsuits, had to file bankruptcy. And he's right now working two or three different sales gigs. But he's making his business, even when his business was doing well, it was doing seven figures, 1. 5, 1. 6 million a year. By all objective standards, that That's the dream that most people are looking for. I want a million dollar business. He makes more in take home personal income now as a sales guy for a couple of different companies than he ever did running his business, even though it was generating 1. 5, $1. 6 million dollars in top-line revenue. The numbers The orders that you see online that glorify entrepreneurship, typically they're from people who are trying to sell you some entrepreneurship course, and they're not being honest about what they actually make on the money that they say they make. You're seeing the top-line revenue and top-line revenue only. You don't know exactly what that person is taking home. And odds are, as an employee, you could probably make more money, personal take home income.

So that's why I say you have to examine the goals. You have to examine the dream and ask yourself, is this something that I truly want? Because if it something that you truly want, then you're not ever going to be able to be an employee. You're not going to be happy doing that path, and you're going to have to take the entrepreneurship path. But if you're going to take that path, just understand it comes with a different risk profile. And if you want to be successful doing that thing, you got to be willing to do the things that employee mindset people are not going to be willing to do. So it's take your pick. You know what I mean? You don't have to do one path or the other path, and one of them is not better than the other one. It's different for everybody. But choose wisely because if you take that mindset into the entrepreneurial path, it's just probably not going to work out super well for you.

Amen, brother. Amen. Travis, I hate saying the word expert, but I get to say it with you. You are the podcast expert because you figured it out. You figured it out on multiple levels, too. And again, I want to talk to current podcasters, future podcasters right now because you are the expert of leveraging podcasting for your brand growth? Let's talk to the viewers and listeners about how important understanding the brand is, first and foremost, when it comes to podcasting, because that's what Again, when I learn from you, that's what I took. You're creating this brand, your messaging has to be the same. You have to know who your audience is, and don't try to be the podcast for everyone. If you know who you are, you'll grow much faster than trying to say, I just want this generic, we'll talk about whatever. People don't listen to those, unfortunately. So talk about the brand of podcasting a little bit.

Yeah. If you're going to talk to everybody, you're going to talk to nobody. And you better be really sure that you just enjoy it and you can label it as a hobby. And that's totally fine. Do that. Totally fine. But if you're wanting something that has impact on your business or on your branding or on your ability to generate revenue, then it's got to be something goes in line with the things that you're doing inside of your business. So the highest leverage impact point that I ever recognized was bringing on high value guests to the show because I realized that it was the same idea of the thing that Nike invests tens of billions of dollars a year in every single year for the last 40 freaking years, which is endorsements. There's a reason that they invest that much money in endorsements. It's because they want you to have the association of their brand in your mind with greatness when it comes to athletic performance. Nike wasn't always a golf brand. They're huge in golf now. But when they started, they got one really key endorsement from a guy named Tiger Woods. And there's one clip that's solidified in golf history that really exploded Nike onto the golf scene, which was Tiger Woods at the Masters.

There's a chip in off of the green. And it It was almost like the Nike gods, like Greek gods of Nike, were just engineering this moment to last in people's minds. But the ball literally hung on the edge of the cup for a half a second, way too long. Everybody on the edge of their seats, looking at the ball, trying to see if it's going to go in. And what's the picture? Everybody's mind's it. That Nike swoosh was just staring at the camera right in the face as it hung on the edge of the cup and the world was watching it fell in the cup. That solidified in everybody's minds forever that Nike is a golf brand. So when I'm looking at brands online, it used to be PR. It used to be featured in Forbes, entrepreneur, ink, and TechCrunch, and business insider, and all these other things. And those things are still helpful. However, PR has become a little bit of a cluster in the last decade, decade and a half, where there's just a lot of ways to be able to get the logo on website that don't actually really mean anything. So that became bottom of the barrel barrier to entry.

So if you're looking at two landing pages or two websites, and one of them has zero of those endorsements, and another one has 15 publications they've been featured in, you're probably going to trust the one that has more publications, obviously. However, like I said, that's become more the barrier to entry. So what I started to realize is that when I would put those there, I didn't get as much impact as when people saw that I was sharing the stage, quote unquote, on my podcast with names that they knew, liked, trust, recognized. They've already read seven of their books. It's like, I don't know who this Travis guy is, but if this person feels that it's a good use of their time to be spending time with Travis, then it's probably a good use of my time. And so you start winning out over those other things where people are looking at my services and comparing it to a competitor. It's like we might both have all the PR pieces there. But if you come to my side or landing page and you see 17 people whose content you've been following online for the past decade, and you didn't know who I was before that, you're instantly just going to be like, this guy must know what he's doing, or these people wouldn't be spending some of their coveted time with him.

So I started noticing early on that when it came to brand perception and the highest leverage impact in my business, it was sharing the stage with those types of people. And if you're waiting for the magic moment where you just get invited to speak on stage and actually share the stage with them, it's probably not going to happen. So what I did is I just created my own stage and invited those people on, and then I was able to create my own perception arc in the minds of the people that I was trying to talk to the most.

Bro, we have so much in common, man. So much, again, that's very similar blueprint to me and what I've done with my brand and the book and everything I have going on. But I want to give you the floor, man, because one of the most powerful tools and resources One of the resources that I've ever seen, specific to the podcast space, is your product, Guestio. Talk to us a little bit about that, your mindset of creating it, the problem you were solving by creating it, and just what the solution does for a podcast.

So funny enough, man, I actually just sold Guestio two months ago. So it is no longer my creation. It's under a brand called Speaker Hub. They do the same thing for speakers. So they acquired Guestio to take care of the podcasting space. But yeah, it's essentially- So Ron? Yeah. Ron. Ron. Ron. Ron. The question I always got was, how do you go get these guests? The answer is a lot of hard work and persistence over a long period of time, which is not the answer that most people like to hear. I just created the shortcut, which is essentially, instead of paying a speaking fee to have this person come speak at your stage, which might be 150 grand, you can pay them a thousand bucks to be on your podcast, and you can share the stage with them on the podcast. It just became a shortcut to the booking process for guests, and then also the show side as well, getting on top-rank podcast as well.

That's awesome, dude. I didn't know that. I don't know why I didn't know that. I know Ron, he didn't even tell me about it. He talked to Ron three weeks ago.

You got to ask him about it.

So, Travis, man, let's Let's talk about what you have going on now. You always have things going on. So let's talk about Travis Chapel a little bit and the things that you're doing.

Yeah, man. So taking a breather after selling the company, just trying to figure out what I want to do next. In the meantime, we've just been really hitting the gas on the podcast. We're increasing Travis Makes Money to two releases a day now. We're doing 60 episodes a month on that show and just really trying to increase sponsorship revenue, amontization on that show. So we've gotten to a point now where it's doing... This year we'll do probably north of half a million on sponsorship revenue alone, which was always the goal for me. I always wanted to be a podcaster and not have to do a bunch of other things. But also I still like podcasting a lot. So we're also doing podcast and content, coaching and consulting a little bit on the side as well. So anybody that wants us to take a peek at their brand or work with us in a way to help them set up their business for success, you go to traveshavel. Com/coaching. There's an application there to apply to work with us on that end. Typically working with established businesses, seven, eight-figure founders who are really just missing the content piece because that's where we have the highest leverage impact there.

Obviously, we'll be doing this for a long time, so we're not super cheap on that, but we also can drive impact. We do some work over there as well. Now just trying to think about what's next, man? What do I really want to sink my teeth into?

I love it. I'm going to say what Travis didn't say. He tried to be polite there, but Travis, I do coaching as well, too. What he's saying is he's going to make sure your investment is also worth his time.

That's exactly right.

I was picking up what you were putting down, brother, because I literally have to do the same thing. But again, if you want Travis's commitment, you also have to be committed. But I will personally tell you in Vouch that Travis is not only the guy, but he's just a great human. Travis genuinely cares about his clients. He cares his network. He cares about his communities. Travis, man, I just want to applaud you for being real, because real does recognize real, brother.

I appreciate it, dude. Thanks so much for having me on the show and asking some really good questions, man. It's always a good time.

You got it. Where can people find and follow you.

Travischapel. Com is like the hub. But if I'm going to send you to one place in particular, we just launched a brand new long-form YouTube channel that is more of the hobby on my end, where Travis makes money. The podcast is the one It's been around for a long time. That one does well and is totally fine. But Travis Makes Friends is the new hobby podcast of mine, and so we're trying to just get more attention over there. That's @TravischapelPodcast on YouTube. We just started that a month or two ago, but starting from scratch, man. It's an interesting feeling to be doing this for as long as we've been doing it and starting from scratch. If you want to go somewhere for 60 to 90 minute conversations about comedy, health, fitness, some business and entrepreneurship as well, then @Travischapelpodcast on YouTube.

I love it, man. I'll make sure we have links to all of that. Again, thank you for being a great friend. Thank you for being the person that you are. I owe you more than you'll ever know, bro.

Appreciate you, man. Thanks a lot. It means a lot to me.

You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mic Unplug. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it. And most of all, make a plan and take action, because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello@micunplug.

Com.

Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.