Sam Penny (00:00)
Welcome back to Built to Sell, Built to Buy. I'm your host Sam Penny. Today I'm speaking with someone who didn't just build a business, he built a movement. Dr. Ben Atkins started out as a chiropractor.
But when faced with an empty waiting room, he taught himself digital marketing. Within months, he grew his practice beyond capacity. And then he pivoted to helping other small business owners do the same. And then let's fast forward a decade. And Ben is now the founder of Fearless Social and One Hour Influencer, platforms that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs build six and seven figure online businesses. He's a product creator, podcast host, agency leader, and above all,
a serial progress seeker. If you're wondering how to transform your business, build a sellable brand or create a business model that doesn't depend on you showing up every single day, this one's for you. Ben, welcome to the show.
Ben Adkins (00:55)
I am so excited to be here. am a fan first. just to be sitting here talking ⁓ as a guest, that's awesome. So thank you so much for having me, Sam.
Sam Penny (01:06)
brilliant. Love that, Ben. Thank you very much. Now, Ben, you had a thriving chiropractic business and you walked away from it. Can you take us back to that moment when you realized that your real passion, it wasn't in adjusting spines, but in decoding the art of marketing?
Ben Adkins (01:22)
Yeah, I got into chiropractic just because I had a really good chiropractor in my tiny little town when I grew up. And so I saw this guy, he was helping a lot of people and he was doing it with his hands and I seemed like he had a pretty good life and I was like, I'm going to do that. And so you go through school and...
a lot of people are like, well, that was a weekend degree, right? I'm like, no, no, no, no. That was that was actually six years, six and a half, seven years of my life getting to that point. But you go through that and you open up your own clinic. And, you know, it was one of those things where right out of the gate, it wasn't busy at all. So I had to get into some of this digital stuff just because I didn't have any money to market. And we can get into that at any point. But, you know, the really interesting thing was, is I love being a chiropractor, you know,
Sam Penny (01:49)
Hahaha
Ben Adkins (02:13)
getting people to come in that could barely walk and then getting them to walk out feeling great. ⁓ Pretty powerful gig. I don't want to downplay that side, because I really enjoyed that gig. The really interesting thing, Sam, was I got to this point where one night, and I'm sure there's tons of people out there that have a similar story that's starting with the same spot. One night somebody had bought me a book.
And it was a good friend. so was like, yeah, I'll read this book, whatever. But it was the four hour work week, right? By Tim Ferriss. You you hear so many stories. Right. So good. I remember laying there that night. And you know, at this point, I had been through the wringer of school. had all my hair had fallen out from stress going to school and building, you know, starting to build a practice. And I'm reading this book and I get to this stage where...
Sam Penny (02:47)
I love that book. One of the best books ever written.
Ben Adkins (03:07)
It just sort of hits me that like, no matter how good I am as a chiropractor, I am building something that I can't leave or outsource. And I had, I had really gone to school like this whole time to create a job for myself, which was a great job. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the job, but you know, I had a kid that had just been born and I was thinking about all the things that were probably coming up in terms of sports and
You know trips and things like that and you know, I just was like if I continue to be really really good at this chiropractic thing and get really really busy because that's sort of the mark. ⁓ What does that actually mean and what does that actually turn into and so I had one of those ⁓ no moments. ⁓ Where I was like OK, what is the next five to 10 years of my life look like if this goes according to plan and. ⁓
And then I guess that's, know, nothing changed right away, but it was, I guess I started looking. I was like, okay, you know, is there something else that's out there? And, you know, along the way, as, as you stated, I started off with a practice that was pretty, you know, there was nobody coming through the door the first day. ⁓ my accountant walked in the first week. That was the only person that came in the first week. I don't think he counts. ⁓ but you know, I, I had to grow my practice and I didn't have a lot of money to start.
Sam Penny (04:21)
Ha
Ben Adkins (04:30)
And so I turned to this thing that was happening. know, Facebook was sort of kind of coming into its own and you know, I had learned a little bit about search engine optimization. You know, it's just the standard stuff that we learned about as business owners. And I started really digging deep into it I didn't, had some time on my hands because I wasn't adjusting patients right away. So I really got hardcore into it. And I mean, within six to 12 months, man, I was, I had a practice that
based off of that stuff was doing just as well as people that had been here in that same town. And there was plenty of other chiropractors. I think there was five or six chiropractors in this tiny little town. And I had a practice just as big as they did. And that's when it really hit me that this digital thing, if you really paid attention to it, you really could wrap your head around it, it could really give you some powerful things. And that was the start.
And I did right away. was like, I love the chiropractic, but I really am enjoying this digital marketing thing and, you know, understanding how to build a business from scratch, ⁓ no matter what business you're in. And that led to some other opportunities, but you know, as an answer to that question, that's, that's how it all kind of got started.
Sam Penny (05:47)
So what was really the first, I guess, impetus of that success? What did success taste like for you?
Ben Adkins (05:56)
I remember I had it on my board. know, had a long time. I had these little white boards that I have up, you know, you just dry erase marker. And in my clinic, I had this dry erase board and the dry erase board comes back several times. The story, by the way, but I had on there 100 patients a week. Like that was the thing I was like, that just seems so impossible when I started and I put 100 patients a week in there, 100 patient visits. And I remember the
like the day it happened and I just set for like, and it's so silly now, but I sat and looked at that board for like five minutes and I was like, we're here and that didn't take that long, you know? And I remember that that was the thing where I was like, okay, not only did we learn how to do some of this stuff, but that thing that we saw on that board that seemed completely impossible a few months ago, we got there and it was because of that. And that's one of those things, but you know, something breaks in your brain where you're like,
If we can do it here, you know, I bet we can do it, you know, for whatever we want to do. And so, you know, that, that's, was the, big first taste for me is while I was in the office, we hit that a hundred visits a week. And it really occurred to me that there was something powerful, you know, the engine that we had built into that chiropractic office to make it go. That was my product, right? The adjustments when I thought I was going to be, it was going to be my product with the products that I actually had, that was something that could go.
farther was that marketing engine. So that's where it started.
Sam Penny (07:28)
So the mind shift that you would have had to have had been from going from operator or mechanic to entrepreneur, how did that process come about?
Ben Adkins (07:42)
I fell into it so backwards, man. It's, you know, I wish I could tell you that like, I'm super smart and had a plan, but no, that's not what happened at all. So we're growing this chiropractic office and things are going well. And I start getting phone calls and people that like, we're also out in the business community. ⁓ And they started just saying, Hey, we see what you're doing over there. Do you think you can do it for a restaurant? And I was like, well, we're pretty busy, but I can.
Sam Penny (07:44)
Hahaha
Ben Adkins (08:12)
I can take a look, you know, and then I, you know, it like, can you do it for a law firm? Can you do it for a real estate agency? And so I just kept kind of getting these people asking me if I could do this stuff. And so I, I started being like, let's give it a shot. That seems like fun. You know, like, let's see if this engine that we built here can go here and here and here. And so we started doing that and these people started getting successful. And so was like, okay, like,
This is kind of neat. like I, you know, I had no idea what a digital agency was, but I had a digital agency, right? Like I'm a chiropractor with a digital agency on the side and that starts, you know, that starts going. And then one day, you know, my wife told me, ⁓ she was like, you really need, if you're going to, you know, if you're going to take on two jobs, you're going to have to start charging more for this stuff than what you were doing. So like my wife put me in proper pricing and
Sam Penny (08:46)
Yeah.
Ben Adkins (09:05)
That was kind of the first thing. And when that started really taking off, because people were paying, I said, you know what, I need some help in the chiropractic office because I can't do both of these things and I need a little, I need a few more hours a week. And so I went and hired another chiropractor, brought them in and that was a few months of, you know, sort of getting the practice built, you know, not where it wasn't just about me. It was about, you know, our product. And I looked up.
I looked up one day and I said, I've not walked into that chiropractic office in two months. And I've just been doing this. And that's when I was like, okay, I guess this is what I'm doing now. And that obviously eventually led to the sale of my chiropractic office, which is the first sale of a business that I had. But you know, to really put an exclamation mark on what that was is not only had we built a office that people trusted, you know,
but we had built an engine to get people to come through the door and to get them to come back when they needed it. I'm not one of the, was never one those chiropractors that's like, you got to keep coming back. But it was one of those things where like when people needed help, we were who they chose because of ⁓ the engine that we had created to sort of make people feel comfortable, but make people feel like this was not a scary place. And this was somewhere that, you know, they could trust and, we would tell them the truth. So that, that, that was the thing is like it, when people started kind of hiring me without me realizing I was getting hired,
Sam Penny (10:32)
Yeah.
Ben Adkins (10:32)
to do their marketing.
That's when I was like, okay, we're onto something here that's completely different than what I went to school all those years for.
Sam Penny (10:40)
So getting stuck in the weeds is a big problem for most entrepreneurs. They're in there, you know, working day in, day out. And you sold that chiropractic business without you in there ⁓ doing the day to day. You hadn't walked back into the clinic for two months. From a valuation perspective, that must have had a massive impact on the price that you're able to ask.
Ben Adkins (11:04)
Yeah, you know, it's funny. It was one of those things where it's like, I see a lot of businesses out there that have great practitioners in there. You know, they built a great software. They've built a great chiropractic business because they're so good with their hands and diagnosing problems. They're a great dentist. But the missing part of the engine a lot of the time, and I think this is what we solved that made it so powerful, is we built out a way to get people to try us out.
You know, like that was, built an engine to make people aware of us, what we could do for them. And we got information out in a certain way. And this was really the magic of it all. We got information out in a way that people felt like they trusted us before they ever came through our door or called us the first time. And the cool thing about that engine is like it, at first it was about me. Cause that's, that's the weeds that everybody gets into. It's like, it's built on the hustle of one person. It's built on the personality of one person.
But what we figured out is, is there was a certain mechanism that you could put into just about any business that made people feel comfortable with the product and the procedure of how the product was delivered. And once you understood how to put that out into the public and the internet was the thing to do that with, right? It still is. That's where you not only have the engine of, once they come through the door, we do great work. And so people come back, but you also have that ability to get people to come in the first time and try you.
And that's where I think most people sort of miss. that's, you're talking about increasing valuation. You have a buyer that's looking at a business and there's an engine to get people in the front door ⁓ that shoots it way up. So yeah, a hundred percent.
Sam Penny (12:45)
So what year are we talking when you solve the business?
Ben Adkins (12:50)
Uh, let's see. I believe that we sold that and I, you know, I'd have to go look at my records. I believe that was like 2012, 2013 was around the time that that, uh, that went in and we got that done. And, know, that led to a whole other thing, man, which was, uh, I was like, well, I guess I'm not a chiropractor anymore. Even though I'm licensed, I can go open a clinic and where I want, I have to actually look at this thing that's been a side project and be like,
Okay, is this a business that we can scale that we want to scale? And so that was the interesting part. Like the next thing is, okay, what's what's now? You know, so
Sam Penny (13:28)
So we're leading to Fearless Social, which is this agency that you've created. You've helped a generation of entrepreneurs to really help build their online businesses in particular. What was your core philosophy around that when you created it? And what was it that you really wanted to help them with?
Ben Adkins (13:46)
we called it fearless social because I was scared. And I said, if we make the name fearless, ⁓ you know, we were doing a lot of social media. And so those were the two combinations. There was nothing overly complicated about it, except for we did a lot of social media. And I was scared because I had gone to school to do this thing. I'd gotten really good at doing this thing. And, you know, when I was still half in that chiropractic business, I could still claim that I was a part of that. But when we sold it, it was this new thing. Like you were all in, right?
Sam Penny (13:49)
Ha!
Ben Adkins (14:15)
And so we called it Fearless Social. And the whole idea was, is along the way as I was helping these clients, you know, very one-on-one, let me build a system for your business that makes it go. I started to realize there was still a scale problem. anybody that's like been into digital marketing for quite some time, you like transport yourself back to 2012, 2013, you know exactly what I'm talking about technology wise.
But, you know, I got into this place to where I thought not only do we have customers that will pay us to do this stuff for them, we have a lot of people that will pay us just for the blueprint. so Fearless Social at its core starts out as this great thing where we're doing a lot of social media for people and as a service. But it also turns itself into something where there is absolutely a
information business where people are, you know, they're like, we're not ready to hire someone yet, but we will absolutely pay you to see what you're doing. What's the blueprint, which, know, anybody that's run an agency knows that a lot of when somebody buys that and they figure out the workload, they end up hiring you anyway. so it was one of those things where I got into an information business too, very quickly, just because we had people that were not ready to sign on with us for the service, because maybe they just, you know, they had didn't have it their budget yet.
Sam Penny (15:26)
Yeah
Ben Adkins (15:41)
But they would buy a PDF explaining a lot of it. And I was more than happy to do it because I knew the work we were doing and I knew a lot of that would lead to us being their service provider anyway. interesting. I think if you're noticing a pattern, it's me accidentally falling into things over and over and over again. So yeah.
Sam Penny (16:01)
I love that, but I also love how you spoke about the fear of starting this. And there must have been a huge amount of fear, of leaving your profession, of being a chiropractor and then becoming a digital agency owner. I want to talk a bit more about the fear part of it. How did that manifest itself?
Ben Adkins (16:21)
Well, you know, it's, that thing that we all sort of get into where it's sunk, it's the sunk cost fallacy, right? And when you've put in the amount of money into going to a chiropractic college and, know, prerequisites before that, we're not talking, you know, a small amount of debt, especially back then, ⁓ you sort of get in your head that, I've got to be this thing. Otherwise, what was all that for? Right. And so.
The concept of leaving that to do this thing that I had never had any sort of formal education for or any background. And I was like just hoping that I had some level of nerdiness that I would just do it. That was the fear. That was the fear. Even though like I felt like I was really good at this stuff. ⁓ That doesn't mean that I wasn't afraid of trying something new and going all in on it. And I think that's, you know, getting really deep with this stuff. A lot of us are good with something as long as we can kind of be halfway in it.
because then it's not like it's who we are. You know, it's not such a huge part of our identity and we could let it go if we need to, but like this was one of those moments where I had to say, no, this is what I'm doing now. And I am abandoning this thing that I invested all this time, all this money, all this stress to be, I'm abandoning it for something that I think is who I actually am.
And you know, have to admit that maybe when you pick this thing that you were going to do and you went all in on it, that maybe it's not where you're supposed to end up. And so that was the, that was the fear early on is I really had to look in the mirror and say like, is this who I really am? Is this, and then, you know, the more I thought about it, I was like, what am I the most excited about when I wake up in the morning? And it was, it was.
getting on Facebook and being nerdy about ads. was, know, SEO at the time, which anybody that's gotten into those things being like, man, you are a nerd, Ben. But that was it. I was really excited about learning. And as much as I loved all the anatomy and physiology and the stuff that I had learned how to do, ⁓ I was even more excited to learn this marketing stuff, especially as it came into a digital sense. So.
You know, that was it. It was one of those things where I was completely just, ⁓ when I really said, what does my perfect day look like? And I'm like, well, I'm working from home. I'm spending more time with my family and I am learning about this thing that I don't think I'm really good at yet, but it's worked out so far. And that's what led me down the path of kind of doing what I do today.
Sam Penny (19:02)
Fantastic. Now I see a crossover Ben and correct me if I'm wrong. Being a chiropractor, it's all about helping people. And then you've created another agency, Fearless Social, which is all about, again, helping people. Being a chiropractor, helping them walk out the door, live a better life. Creating Fearless Social where you're helping entrepreneurs build their business and build a life that they could only ever dream of.
Ben Adkins (19:06)
Yeah.
Sam Penny (19:29)
Have you ever reflected on that sense that part of your core values, I guess, is to help people?
Ben Adkins (19:38)
Yeah, you know, it's funny. ⁓ I look at my parents and it's sort of this weird combination of my mom and my dad, right? So my mom is a teacher by trade and my mom, specifically special ed, is where she started out and built a career, became a, over special ed programs for several schools.
And so she just had this real, like I always watch my mom interacting with both teachers, parents, and it was just this like really struggling to get people to a place that they weren't at. Like everybody had to work to get there. Then my dad was a sales guy. owned a radio station. He didn't start owning radio stations, by the way. He was a DJ, he worked his way up, but he got into sales and he was very, very big in sales. And so like the sort of the thing that was always in my house was
My mom was helping people in one way, but my dad was always helping people in a way to get exposure, you know, to get this thing that they were passionate about. know, people love cooking, but you got to get people in the door the first time to your restaurant. And so like, that's what he did. And so like, there was always sort of this weird underlying current of yes, this is what we do to make money, but this is what we're on the planet for. And so, you know, it's sort of one those things that just sort of felt expected of you where you're like, okay,
If you can find a way to make money, that's great. If you can find a way to make more money, that's great too. But if there's not something, some component of that money you have is a fraction of the value you gave them on the other end, if that's not present, then what are you doing? You're taking advantage of people. That was a concept that was always sort of brought up in my house and I really believed it.
And I still believe it. so, yeah, getting into something to where like, it's important to me that any money that is spent with us on anything, we're giving back five, 10 times that in value to other people. Otherwise, what are we doing, right?
Sam Penny (21:42)
So one of the terms that I love hearing from you is the backpack entrepreneur. How have you seen that manifest itself over the time in a lot of the people that you've worked with? And obviously it very much has Tim Ferriss kind of tones to it.
Ben Adkins (21:49)
Yeah.
It absolutely came from that I'm sure Like I said going back to the Tim Ferriss moment where I was laying there reading the book and I was like crap I've created a job for myself. I told myself when I sold that business. I said listen, I love that business I could love a lot of businesses but never put yourself in a place to where you are trapped somewhere in a business and when I say trapped I mean, I really love that business but like
the more successful I got, the more I was tied to that business. And so I said, if you are thinking about starting a business or investing in something, it has to always fit into something that's portable. And I thought, what does portable mean? You know, cause we all have our home office and things and that's sort of portable, but not really. And I got down to it and I really thought about this a long time and I said, it's got to be your whole office is in a backpack. So no matter what plane you get off of, wherever you are,
you can work from a backpack. As long as you've got an internet connection and you've got, you know, a laptop with you and you got clothes, you can throw in a backpack. That is a business that works. And, you know, I really say I was really, it was really important to me because I, like I said, there is nothing bigger to me than spending time with my son, spending time with my wife, spending time with my mom and like in my family. And so
I really, there's so many times across the last 10, 15 years where I've almost gotten into a business that would have gone against that. And there has never been a moment for me where I didn't look back after I'd made the decision not to get in that business where I didn't look back and said, well, that was a good move not to get into that, you know, because, you you, you get, you have a lifestyle that you're building towards and sometimes something looks good initially.
But it absolutely fights against the lifestyle you're trying to build for yourself and you know yourself. So backpack entrepreneur was a big thing. And then when I, when I really believed it at my core that this was something for me, said, there's gotta be a lot of other people out there that like, this is something that they want to do because they've been in the situation that I was in where like they loved their gig, but they felt trapped. And so I started really putting that out there I said, you know, does your business fit in a backpack? Is this something that you have built? And if it doesn't, and you want it to,
What are the things that you have to do to get yourself there? And what are the problems that are involved to go from where you are now to getting there? And so, you know, the really, really cool thing at that point, that little information business that I told you about ⁓ had ballooned up quite a bit. And I had a lot of people that were on an email list, a lot of people that would show up and hang out with me on webinars. And so I had very much the privilege to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs on a weekly basis.
And so I started getting all this really great feedback from people about like what their hangup was. And it was, you know, different things, but it, you know, it came down to a certain number of things over and over again. And so over the years, it was really helping people figure out, okay, what are the pieces of the puzzle that solve this? If you're in this situation or in this situation and you start developing sort of those workflows that help people get out of where they are to something to where they can have life and freedom, but still have a really good living. And so.
you know, that backpack thing, one of those things that was sort of mine. And then I started talking about it and realized it's not mine anymore. It's something that like, you know, people can really grab onto. And so it became kind of this movement. And it's a movement that like, I look back now and I see all these people that I still get to talk to that it were my customers, you know, 12 years ago ⁓ that are still hanging out with me, but they have very different lives.
because they embraced that and they did it. It's not me, they did the work. But it's just cool to see that people that wanted to transform and seeing so many of them transform to have that kind of life.
Sam Penny (25:57)
Man, that's very cool. Now you move from a service-based business to a product-based business. You've launched, from what I can see, dozens of really successful products through Fearless Social. So take me through the process of how do you create a product, validate it, and then roll that out.
Ben Adkins (26:08)
Yeah.
So this is that thing that like, you know, you've you've see other people do things and so that that's how you start the beginning for me was like I literally had Microsoft Word and I would type these things out it would be like a 20 page document of how to do one thing right and then ⁓ I'd learned how to you know In Photoshop create a comic bookie looking cover from something I bought on iStock
And then like, and you know, make it look a certain way, but it was just these goofy little 20 to 30 page PDFs to start. And then I look around and I said, who's, who's really successful with teaching people and getting their message out. And I looked around and I was like, everybody that was doing it was video. So the first year, and this is the silliest thing in the world, but the first year I was selling PDFs, like officially selling PDFs, I made like $50,000. and I'm in.
that was profit. that's not how much I made, but I looked into a bank account and I like, at the end of the year, I was like, I made $50,000 selling PDFs. That's the weirdest thing ever. So I said, I'm going to reinvest some of that money in some video equipment so that I can be on camera. And so I looked around at some people that were doing it well. They were on camera a lot. So I started doing video courses. The problem with that for me was that it started eating into what we call that freedom that I was talking about. And so
Somewhere along the way I had hired some staff to help me they're all remote too and they've been with me for almost the whole time ⁓ I'm very lucky on that ⁓ I started hiring some people on and There was a point where they were helping me to scale that a little bit, but then I kid you not Everybody had babies at the same time And so everybody got on maternity leave it like the same time It was like me and one other person in the business and I said, okay. Well, we got to figure something else out
And so what we started doing is we started pre-selling all of our programs. And so we would do, you know, a webinar, which I didn't know how to do at the time. I've gotten a little better at it. ⁓ but we do a webinar and we would say, this is, know, this is kind of the concept of what it is. And if you want to be a part of this, or we'd send an email out to a sales page, we're going to do this call on this thing next week on a Tuesday live. And this is what you get, what I'm going to cover on that call live.
And I didn't know if that would work, I didn't have anybody to help me at the time because everybody was on maternity leave. And people loved it. People absolutely loved it. And they started coming up and I started figuring out that the course that I had planned was way better when people showed up live and asked questions. And so to this day, probably for the last seven years, we have done, hey, this is what we're going to do next week. ⁓
when we do a course and we put it out there, people, you we send out to our email list, we post it on social, people want to be a part of it, they buy, that gets them a seat, they show up and we do it live and obviously we take questions during, we take questions after and then what's cool is when that's done, I can always go back and sell that course again because it's all recorded ⁓ but that has become our workflow and sort of something that, you know, freed up a lot of time for us and our audience seems to really enjoy that over the
Well, you're going to get into a course that you can't really ask questions live to. So, one of those weird things that happens that once again, I fell into something that worked.
Sam Penny (29:45)
you're creating this business in what I really think is a golden age of digital advertising because it was so much easier back then. obviously, yeah, and obviously this business is all about your marketing funnels. Is there a marketing funnel that you're using way back then that you're still coming back to today that is just rock solid?
Ben Adkins (29:55)
So much easier. ⁓
Yeah, and this is like the secret for anybody that's like, what do I do? You know, there's all these things to do. What do I do? This worked back in the chiropractic office. This works when we first started the digital business. This worked with every agency, every SaaS platform that we've been a part of. It always works. And it's this, it's the dumbest thing in the world because everybody that's been in business for at least a year has this. Go back and this is the strategy.
Go back and look at every single week, what are the 10 to 20 questions that people that are sort of interested in your business keep asking? That's it. Like, whether they came in one time and they're asking you questions or they're calling your phone or they're emailing you or you're seeing it on a forum, know, or like whatever it is, what are the 10 questions that over and over and over again you find yourself asking? Most people get really annoyed by those questions in their business because they have to answer them 40 times, right?
40 times a week. So the interesting thing though is if you pay attention to those questions and you write those questions down, those, that's your social media. That is your marketing to a T. That was what we did back then. That's what we've been doing ever since then. We write those questions down and we get on camera and we answer them. I mean, it's literally that easy. And every iteration of what has happened with
advertising, what has happened with social media, there's a way that you take those questions and you put them down into content and you turn it into what you're pushing out there. And it is amazing how comfortable people feel with your business before they've ever talked to you or anybody in your business when those are the things that live online. Because you're answering the questions that people had before they even really thought of them. ⁓
And I think that's the thing. You have a couple layers of problems, right? When you first have a problem, you're so uneducated on it, like you don't even ask, you ask like this one layer of questions. When you start getting educated on the problem, you ask this completely different layer of questions. And when you really get educated on a problem, you have a whole different layer. And so those, you know, those questions, those 20 to 40 questions, because it balloons out, you start answering those and you hit people at all those different layers of decision making. And when they see that you are the chiropractor that is
Answering these questions when nobody else is when you are the SaaS owner that's asked that's answering these questions They're like they get it they understand what I'm going through and they really feel me and that's when you have people that are like you Understand this problem so well. That's why I wanted to come see you and so that that's it like At every level it is figuring out. What are the questions you keep getting over and over again?
that is your content marketing. Whatever way you do it medium-wise is, you know, depending on what is the latest and greatest, but that's the secret behind it all. And that's worked in the beginning, it worked, you know, five years ago, it's worked now, I suspect in some form or another, I'm sure AI will be in middle of it too, but some form or another in the next 10 to 20 years, that's what's going to work and that's what we found.
Sam Penny (33:22)
and that's a piece of gold and for listeners, if you don't take anything else from this interview, that right there, what are the 20 questions that you keep getting asked every single week and creating content around it? Because you're right, people are often too afraid to ask the question, they'll go searching for the question elsewhere. If you become that center of knowledge, it becomes gold in terms of setting you up as that example.
Ben Adkins (33:27)
you
Sam Penny (33:46)
Now, I want to talk about your audience right now because you've worked with thousands of marketers, service providers, course creators. One of your real superpowers is really turning people's expertise into something sellable. what do most first time product creators, when they try to sell their knowledge online, what do they really struggle with?
Ben Adkins (34:10)
⁓ We talk about our solution too much. That's all. And this comes back to the tip that we just gave. One of the things that we spend so much time either building our software or building our business or building this that we get really into the procedures. We get really into the features ⁓ and we really stay away from what will it do for the person? What's the benefit? It's always this feature benefit question, right?
A lot of people that are starting out, myself included, with just about every new business I get into, by the way, you think I would learn this, but every new business I get into, I do it over and over again, then I have to catch myself. We focus on the features. It has this, this, and this, and we assume that people understand what that means for them because we understand, because we're so close to it. But I think the big thing is, like, always get into what is your ideal customer going through? Start there. What are they going through?
right now that makes you valuable. And it's amazing how you don't have to explain everything that your software does, everything that your business does. You don't have to explain those things. You just have to understand the situation that your ideal customer is in. And that's once again, that's why if I just stick to that model of what are the 10, 20 to 40 questions that people keep asking us, it's much easier to
crafted email that is about their story, not about, we just released this thing that's so good because of this, this, and this. No, what is their story? Well, if this is your story, come check this out. And that's, we all, even us very seasoned marketers that have been doing this a long time, we all get stuck on that. So people that are brand new, you're going to get stuck on it too, right? Because we all do. But I would say that's the number one thing is really put yourself in your ideal prospects place and be like, what, what?
You know that back pain that we have all this cool stuff that we can help with in the chiropractic office. What's that actually doing to them? They can't play with their kid. You know they can't go to work like that. That's what matters and once you once they understand that you understand that a lot of the features don't matter. ⁓ They'll try you out and as long as you're delivering a great product, they'll come back over and
Sam Penny (36:29)
And I guess that solution that you're talking about is and marketing. Marketing is all about creating a smile in the mind. You know, that's what a brand is. It's a smile in the mind. When people think about your chiropractic business or whatever it is that you do, when they think of that, it creates some kind of emotion. It's being able to play with my kids more. It's about being able to go on holidays and have the freedom. ⁓
Ben Adkins (36:38)
Yeah.
Sam Penny (36:58)
So then if we take that.
I'd like to talk about the owner or the founder story because I always say that that's something that most businesses forget to do. Why did you start this business? What are your core values? How do you see the founder story coming into the whole marketing mix?
Ben Adkins (37:21)
You know, that's the thing. We juggle so many things as founders that sometimes we forget that that's the most important thing. And I'm so glad you said this because the most important thing is your story. The reason I became a chiropractor is I, as I was in the sixth grade, I had headaches. Nobody, I went to so many different people, nobody could figure it out. I went to a chiropractor twice. They were gone. They never came back.
And that's the story that was the foundation of my chiropractic practice. That's why I did that. And that resonated with so many people. As founders, we juggle so much that sometimes we forget how powerful that is, right? And so I tell people, getting back to this silly little tip that I gave, but it is gold, those 10, 20 to 40 questions, answering them yourself is hard. Talking about your story is hard.
It's hard to prompt yourself to do those things. The best thing that you can do, write those questions down, write the thing about, okay, what got you into this business as the first question before those questions that the person asks, and literally sit across from somebody with the camera on you and a microphone on, and just, it could be your spouse, it could be your best friend, it could be your kid. Have them read those questions to you. The way that you will answer those questions when someone is asking you that is truly,
the story, it is truly what the brand is built from. When you're trying to do it yourself, it doesn't come out as well. But it's like when you're actually talking to somebody, they're asking, because that's how we're wired as humans, right? And so that's the trick for me is it's like, you're so right in that the best businesses came because somebody was struggling with something and they thought I'm going to add something to the world so that nobody else struggles the way that I did. I mean, it's a simple concept.
But so many times because we're founders and we're juggling with like paying bills and all these things, we forget that that is the most important story that we can tell. And so my trick has always been, and I do this a lot with my clients because I have to trick them into doing this. It's interview. If I can get them on an interview, they will be their most authentic self so quickly. And it comes off in a way that you just can't do when you're just talking to a camera by yourself.
Sam Penny (39:37)
often told as founders that we shouldn't be the face of the business. We can't grow it. We can't scale it if we look like we're centered. the story and the message that I'm hearing from you is that the importance of the founder is instrumental into creating what that brand is. We're told too often that we need to create a business that doesn't revolve around us. But that founder story, it's...
central to everything.
Ben Adkins (40:08)
I'm calling shenanigans on that. Yes, I have been told that so many times that you've got to build something that isn't built on your face. I agree with that. It cannot stay built on your face. Like if you don't build something that the product takes over along the way, you don't really have a business. That is absolutely the truth. And that's why people say that. everybody that says that is five years down the road.
Sam Penny (40:10)
Hahaha.
Ben Adkins (40:35)
to the, and they say it to people that are just starting. And that's the thing. I'm like, look at all these huge companies that are like the biggest companies in the world. Don't most of them have a central figure, at least at the start they did, you know? And that's the thing is like, as humans, we want to know that there's somebody accountable. Period. We want to know that somebody is in charge of quality control. Period. When you have done this for a long time,
And the product has consistently been good with that founder at the helm or that person that is the figure at the helm. Then the product sort of starts to take that over. And us as humans, we trust that, when even when, you know, something is being transferred, unless it's just absolutely gets botched that that product quality, there are core values that were instilled in a company. And so I think that's the thing when you're first starting out, I think you've got to be so focused on.
the founder part and that doesn't mean that you're like good on camera like that you don't have to be great on camera you just have to be really into the thing that you're putting out as a product and how it's going to help people I know some of the most camera shy people on the planet that still man I will spend money with them all day because I'm like they get it they are they are the person that spent so many hours learning this inside and out I am in
And so I don't want anybody to think that like as a founder or, you know, putting your face on camera, that has to be like, you're this overly polished person. You just have to be really, really comfortable with acting like a nerd that you are about your thing. And if you can do that, like it works out really, really well.
Sam Penny (42:16)
Man, I love that. ⁓ Another piece of gold. If I could fist pump you through the screen, I would. All right, now let's talk about influence. I want to dive into your newest venture. It's called One Hour Influencer. You created it to really solve a problem that I see so many owners have. Everybody knows how important content is, but let's face it, we don't have the time to make it. So what's the origin of this business?
Ben Adkins (42:21)
No, I love it.
Well, so I was out teaching exactly what we do in One Hour Influencer to people so that they could grow their business. mean, like, you know, this is something I really, there was a version of this in the chiropractic office. There was a version of this in the agency. There's been a version of this in just about every client that we've ever helped in our agency. And I was teaching some entrepreneurs that wanted to grow their business faster, exactly what they needed to do and how they could do it even if their schedule was tight. Like you have an hour a month, you can get all of your social media done.
That was always the thing. like when I say social media, I'm not talking about stagnant posts. I'm talking about let's take advantage of the short video stuff that's going on. Like short video is blowing up. We're about to see it blow up on some more professional social networks like LinkedIn. They're even starting to lean. It's not there yet, but they're leaning into it hard.
And so we're seeing this short video thing, but like the problem with most of us as entrepreneurs is we look at this short video thing and its infancy and it was people dancing and being silly and doing all these crazy things. And so we thought that's what it had to be. But what it actually is, is back to our core concept is I tell people, get those 20 to 40 questions that your customers are asking you have somebody interview you sit down and record this stuff on camera. And from there,
Sam Penny (43:45)
Ha ha ha.
Ben Adkins (44:05)
your social media is done. And every single month, you know, it's just a matter of asking the question with a little bit of a different flavor. So when it comes to this person that comes in your business, and we kind of asked, you know, lot of the same things over and over, but in different ways. So you can see it from different perspectives. And what happens is, ⁓ I taught this and I said, well, my job's done. I taught it. Now people know how to do it. Cool. I can move on. And I got done teaching it.
And people said, well, how much for you to do the interview and do it for us and to do all the processing for stuff? And I'm like, no, no, no, we don't know. I was just teaching you how to do it. We don't do that. And I kept getting people that asked me, they said this, and this was what was crazy. They knew exactly how to do what we showed them how to do. And they said, but I won't be accountable if it's on me. And I got that to my core because my workflow is my staff puts me on a calendar.
my staff interviews me and they make me show up and do it. Otherwise I could be like, I'm actually busy this week. I'm doing this. There's so many things I can come up with. And so when people started hitting me up, even after they knew exactly what we did in the agency and they said, we'll pay you every single month to do this for us. I was like, okay, well I guess this is kind of one of our core things. Now, once we started offering it and we started doing it for people and we were getting the same kinds of results we were getting when we were doing it. And it's funny and I'll walk you through exactly what happens.
somebody signs up with us, we do our first interview and when we're done with the interview, we chop it up into all the little pieces that go out to all the social networks. We, we do Tik Tok, we do Instagram, we do Facebook, we do YouTube shorts. And it's funny, YouTube shorts takes off almost immediately. Like traffic pours in almost immediately. Then you get into meta and so you kind of have Facebook and then you have Instagram that starts to take off. And the last one, the one that tails it for our entrepreneurs,
is, you know, TikTok, but when TikTok takes off, it takes off. And we've got LinkedIn that's, you know, that we're doing stuff to, and we're starting to see it push because they told us they were going to be pushing it and it's starting to, we're just not in that big area yet. But that's the thing is like, we get so busy with running our business, worrying about product, worrying about taking care of our customers, worrying about support, that sometimes we forget that thing that consistently brings in new leads and new customers, which is just, hey, I need to go shoot this content. like,
What my agency does and we do it very, well is we schedule you for an hour. We interview you. We schedule everything out. We process it. like within one hour, you know that your next month of social media is done. And I think this was the thing for me too, when we used to hire, because even though I do this, we hire people to make sure things get done. used to hire social media people and they had me have to come in and do content approvals. I'm like, I can't do, I'd have just done it if I needed to do content approvals.
with this because it's actually your answers. You don't have to approve anything. It's all good to go out of the gate. And so I tell people with one hour influencer, I didn't mean to start another agency. I didn't, but it was one of those things that we taught this to people. taught it to, we've taught it to lots of different people in lots of different industries. And I have never left a presentation where people didn't come up to me after and said, okay, that's cool. I know how to do it now, but can you do it for us? And so it was one of those natural things where like,
It's just the accountability. A lot of times we get so busy we don't have the accountability. And so that's what the agency does is we make sure you show up. We make sure your stuff gets out there. We make sure that you get leads from it.
Sam Penny (47:35)
So you do all the scheduling for them.
Ben Adkins (47:38)
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's one of those things that like, you know, for a long time, you know, when we had clients, we would send them all the stuff and sometimes they would still drop the ball because they get too busy in the office that day. Right. And so finally I just said, you know, we're going to do everything. You, you show up for your hour. You can literally walk away and you know, without a doubt that every day, you know, every day through the week, some of our clients have weekends too, but every day something is going up on all of these social networks that you want to be on.
where this is working and you're going to have something that goes up that captivates your ideal audience because it's you answering those questions that people are asking. And like I said, I didn't, this is my personal thing. When we built this thing for ourselves, I didn't want to have to do that and did have to go schedule too. So we built our staff out to understand how to do those things. And then so every client that comes on, is, if you can just give us an hour, you're good. And that's been pretty popular. So yeah.
Sam Penny (48:32)
Man, that's fantastic. So from that one hour,
from that one hour, you've got 20, 30 posts going out over the month.
Ben Adkins (48:42)
Yeah, yeah. And it's amazing because people think that they're going to have to answer 20 or 30 questions and that's not the case at all. Usually it's about 12 to 13 questions and we're able to turn that into, you know, 20 to 30 posts that go out. And like I said, it's not just posts, it's them getting to sit in that place of authority where a question is being asked of them. And so there is a fun little positioning thing there too.
Sam Penny (49:06)
real point, I guess, of authenticity, isn't it?
Ben Adkins (49:11)
Yeah, no, I think that's the thing is like, once again, we figured out a while ago when you interview somebody, they're a completely different sort of way they explain their story than if they're trying to just tell it themselves.
Sam Penny (49:24)
Yeah, exactly. Now, one hour a month, it's one of those kind of things that sounds too good to be true. But this model has really resonated, ⁓ especially for service professionals, lawyers and coaches. Why do you think it's resonated really so much?
Ben Adkins (49:32)
Yeah.
Well, and this is very lucky of me too. My brother was very successful attorney and ⁓ you know, he tells me the kinds of things that he does in the amount of money that they spend on marketing on like TV billboards, things like that. And that's like this stagnant thing that they don't get to switch for years. Right. And so I, you know, I went to him and I was like, can you give me an hour? And if I send you the questions that we can advance, can you tell me, you know, if there's a question you don't want or something like that?
and he can give me five minutes to go through the questions and make sure that they're all good. And then we get that hour scheduled, which sometimes is difficult because he's that busy, right? But he's got a machine that, you know, they want to keep going because he wants to help a lot of people too. And he can give me that hour. And when I say an hour, typically it's like the average is 27 minutes. I've done enough of these. Now I actually know that the average is 27 minutes, but you know, we get in and we get it done. And I think that's the thing. It's like when he gets done,
I swear, and this is all of our clients, it's like there's a little bit of the shoulders drop in relief because it's done. They know it's going out. And I feel like so many people have struggled with, how do I actually market myself? And the other thing I didn't tell you about this, and this is the side benefit, we figured out a really interesting secret if you want to know it. And I don't talk about this part much. so obviously we do this, but anybody that wants to do this,
Sam Penny (50:59)
I'd love to.
Ben Adkins (51:06)
do this and you will see insane results from this. YouTube, when you post to YouTube, obviously you get a lot of traffic from that, we're posting that daily, but you can do this really interesting thing on your website where you pull in the YouTube videos and it'll look for them once a day and it'll repost them on your website. So what happens is, is it's pulling the description, it's pulling the video, it shows up somewhere below the fold, you have that video, but what happens is is now Google sees every single day.
We have new keyword content that's going on and it's actual content. It's on their network because it's a YouTube video. So they love that. And now every single day we're doing keyword stuff. That's not, you know, stuffing. We're getting actual real content on our website. That's 10 times easier than putting up a blog, you know, but we're getting actual keyword content that's going to it. So every day Google is re-indexing and it's seeing these things. And so we start seeing their websites just from that one hour. We see their websites start to actually rank.
for different keywords too. And that's cool when I can go in and be like, okay, we're doing this for the social media part, but ⁓ you may have noticed that you're ranking number one for these keywords now and bonus, you know? And so it's this silly little machine that cost an hour and it works really, really well.
Sam Penny (52:20)
That's cool. ⁓ Authentic content, it has, and I know from my own experience, has such a great impact on your lead flow, on your sales. What examples have you seen with some of your clients?
Ben Adkins (52:35)
So I think that, you know, right now we're in this sort of battle for trust. The reason we're in a battle for trust is marketers is because of AI. We could get into that in a minute too, but like trust, people are really struggling to trust what they're seeing with their own eyes. People are struggling to trust what they read. And you know, there's a lot of factors that go into that. I have just never seen anything that's better.
than somebody sitting in their office where they work every day explaining what they do, looking at a camera. And, you know, I think that's the thing is like, we have a real vacuum for authenticity right now and people can still tell. And that's the most important thing. People can still smell it. And, you know, with most of my business owners, they're not good on camera. They never, they have no experience with this, but the second we get to just talk and an interviewing, it's like,
you can see the passion come out. And then when I can get the passion to come out of somebody about this thing that they've spent years of their life building, that's when the authenticity comes through. And right now, especially with everything that's out there and people trying to take those crazy shortcuts, ⁓ it matters and it sells. And it sells really, really well on both a local, national, international level.
Sam Penny (53:56)
You've mentioned a few times now AI and obviously we're moving into an era where AI is really dominating social media. It's dominating the way that we market. Yet you're bringing in authentic conversations with these business owners. So firstly, how do you use AI in what you do?
Ben Adkins (54:18)
I'll get right into it. Like I said, I'll give away as much as I can so people can understand how to do this for themselves. One of the things is I told you there's 10, 20, 40 to 40 questions that we have that just sort of coming up. And one of the things that I really like to do with AI right now is I like to feed those questions that we got from the business owner. I like to feed those questions to the AI and say, okay, if they are targeting a customer that's here,
What should the questions be? How should they be structured? And we get a little bit of a variation that's interesting that brings out a new answer for the next month's interview. And so we use AI to bring out those questions, but we also use AI to bring out questions that maybe sometimes customers are too afraid to ask. And so we use a lot of the deep research ⁓ in some of the AI models to go in and take our base of questions and find more. And so a lot of people are like, well, how many times can I answer the same questions? You really never answer the same question twice because we're
getting those nice variations. So AI is great on that. The other thing that's great is we have AI assist us in our editing. We never let AI have the final product. That's the number one thing. We always have humans that are in charge of the final product. ⁓ editing, from a perspective of finding really, really great moments, it's getting really interesting as to what some of our AI models can do to find.
what a good sound bite is just because of the way someone inflects. And so we're using those things to be able to get more content out for our clients.
Sam Penny (55:49)
So we're seeing an era of just really AI dominated generic, ⁓ everything in my feed at the moment just seems to be all AI generated. So how do you teach people to really stay personable, to differentiate from all that machine generated content that's out there?
Ben Adkins (55:56)
Yeah.
I think the thing is, is number one, you have to be at the end of everything. So anything that AI ever gives us, we make sure we curate it with a human voice. like nothing ever gets to our clients that a human didn't edit last. I guess if I could really explain that is the rule. Like we love the assist, but AI is really, really terrible at that final polish.
And that's the reason that all of us are sort of in this weird place right now, because we can see it. We understand that that final human touch isn't there when it's not there. And that's why we get untrusting of certain brands. If you're a brand right now that's leaning too much on AI, you have lost the trust of your customer base. You probably won't know it for another three to six months, but it's very important that you're using AI in the right spots of your workflow.
not as something that spits out the end workflow. If the AI is the last step in what you're doing, are probably, it's probably working for a second. You're probably getting an ooh from people because that looks crazier, that's weird, how'd you do that? But you're also eroding trust. And I think that's the thing is like, could we do a lot of things for clients with zero hours a month? Sure.
Would it ultimately destroy the trust that people have in their business? 100%. That would be a business that would wonder what happened and it was because of that. you know, actually getting that hour with somebody just, you know, looking back at you at the camera and talking about something that they love and, know, something that they're passionate about that is going to the, the power of that is going to go up in the next year because we're, we're about, and you know this because we've seen it before in marketing, there's always a bounce back, right? And what's going to happen in the next little bit is people are going to,
get to where, you know, the mom and pop shops are coming back, not in the same way as they did before, but, it's because of that level of trust. It's because of that level of, okay, I know a real human made this. And I think that that's, you know, even online with doing what we do, we're going to beat out a lot of competitors that are taking shortcuts, because at the end of the day, it's a real person on the other end. And the final product was polished and approved by a human before it went out.
And so I love AI. It has completely changed my life from the last year because it's safe. Like there's so many little things that it saved me time on. have, I mean, I probably saved myself a good 20, 30 hours a week and I'm not kidding when I say that. ⁓ so I've had a lot more free time to think and to build business, you know, but at the same time, if you don't put it in the right spot, it can really bite you. And so that's what we have to be careful of. Nobody's got it figured out yet, but I think that the fact that we're having this conversation is why we're going to be okay.
Sam Penny (59:07)
AI is absolutely fantastic as a productivity tool, but like you say, it removes that empathy that you're able to show. It removes that human touch, the human element, which I think for a lot of people are concerned that AI is going to remove a lot of that ⁓ from what society is today. Now, I want to talk about someone who's starting from scratch. They're in this world of a very much changing world.
How would you advise them to build that audience? Whether it's building an audience, building a product, building a service-based business, ⁓ do they start creating content first? What leverages are they going to pull in 2025?
Ben Adkins (59:54)
So right now, and I do believe that this is going to expand into more professional networks like LinkedIn too, but right now, you're still early on short video. But don't get into the trap of thinking every video has to go viral or every video has to be something. So I tell people, number one, sit down and write down why you got into the business you're into. Like what is your origin story? It's so important. Number two,
What are the 10, 20 questions that you're getting asked a lot? If you're starting brand new, what are the questions you think people are going to ask you? Ask some of your friends, hey, I've got this business. If you had to ask me some questions about this business, not knowing anything about it, what would it be? That's a great start. Get those written down, sit down in front of a camera, in front of a microphone, have somebody read you those questions and rock that out. Editing will suck the first time you do it, but you'll get better at it.
But that's your content. Schedule that content in a way that you can push it out to all the social networks and get there. Here's what will happen to you very quickly. You're going to have a social network that loves you. Like, the others will take time to take off, but you will have a social network that loves you, that gravitates towards your content because something about the algorithm picked up. Here's what's really, cool. If you do this a couple months in a row, remember it's an hour a month. If you do it a couple months in a row, you're going to start noticing.
that certain videos with certain titles took off. So the next time you do a round of question, go to chat GPT, be like, I got these three videos that took off. I want to do more content like this. What are some questions that I can answer? Spit it out that way and then record another video. If you can go an hour a month doing that kind of thing, you are going to learn more about your business, not just because of what you did and people liked it and watched it.
but because you'll start seeing what resonates with your audience in a way that none of your competitors will, and you can play off of that data. So you are collecting data in a very, very powerful way. And what you'll find is what you thought your product was, who you thought your audience is probably isn't what your actual audience is, but that's okay because that audience that you find will be so passionate about what you're doing that it will carry you forward.
And the money that's going to come in because of that too is not going to hurt, I promise. hopefully, very condensed plan, but that is the plan that we follow here. One of the biggest things that we look at with every client that comes in at One Hour Influencer is what's taking off? What's working so that we can continue to replicate that? And I think if I could give anybody any advice that's doing this stuff on their own is make sure you're paying attention to your stats early on. What network's working? What content's working?
And then if you can't think of what to do next, feed it into AI, have it tell you, and then get right back in front of the camera and go that way.
Sam Penny (1:02:47)
Have you got a favorite scheduling tool?
Ben Adkins (1:02:51)
A favorite scheduling tool. that's great. ⁓ you know, to me, I am really, really big on like some of the standards. ⁓ I I'm really into like, like old school Hootsuite. you know, you can complain about it all day, but it's, know, it, it has some really, really cool things that it does. ⁓ I like Opus clip. ⁓ and this is for my podcasters and my people that are doing what I, what I, you know, had, it has some negatives to it, but this is what's cool.
even if you don't like the part of Opus Clip that they advertise, which is the video editing part, that's okay. Like totally fine if you don't like that part. But the scheduler's pretty good. Like you could actually schedule your social media stuff, especially if you're doing video out on that. And so a lot of what we have people do is like they'll edit their own stuff on some, you know, old school, you know, editing program that they have, but they'll upload it into Opus Clip and use the scheduler. And so it's really what works for you. ⁓
My thing is go learn something and just learn it to where you're efficient with it. It's more about did you just get the content out there and that's the key.
Sam Penny (1:03:56)
right, Ben, we're coming towards the end of this amazing conversation. I want to bring it all together and give the listener some actionable takeaways. So for someone who's wanting to start creating, selling online or build an audience to really get known in their niche, what would you say are three simple steps that someone could take right now this week?
Ben Adkins (1:04:22)
Okay, the first step is you probably already have something that you know that you're an expert in or that you really love and so hug that, that's your thing. The next thing is you've probably got a couple friends who know you're an expert in it too and hit those friends up and be like, hey, if I could teach you something about this and you were into it, what would you want to learn and just write those things down and then sit down and answer all their questions. And what's cool is, yeah, is that social media? Sure.
But is it also kind of a course? Yeah. And what's funny is when you just sit down with the mindset of like, I'm going to do a video where I just explain something that people probably don't understand that I happen to be good at or that I worked really hard to get good at, if you just do a video and put it out on YouTube, you're great. One of my earliest videos was me as a chiropractor showing people how to see their patient notes on an iPad before that was a thing.
And I had people from all over the country that saw that video and it wasn't even like a popular video, but the people that like liked it, loved it. And that's the thing. If you just explain your thing, you're good. And from there, you get that out there and it's amazing how easy it is to build an email list or to get social media followers. And so just talk about what you're passionate about. Don't worry about the money right away. Put it out there. Be nerdy about it on video, even if you're not great on video and that
seems to get people there pretty quick. When we get into a bad place is when we try to be too smart for ourselves. And so I would say that take the thing you're passionate about, get on video, walk me through how to do something and I'm going to find you on YouTube. The right people will, right? And I'd say that's the thing is just go shoot the video, go shoot the video, put it out there, answer the questions and you'll, you'll find your way real quick. And if you don't know how to find your way after that,
There's plenty of people like me and Sam that would love to talk to me like this is what you do next after that. Like we've seen this. Yeah, do it.
Sam Penny (1:06:22)
So many people, think, overthink what they're trying to do. And like you said, one of the great things about social media, and if you're putting up 20, 30 clips a month, is that you get great data. You get a great understanding of what really resonates with people. But so many people, I think, are too focused on the hook. They're too focused on...
what their B-roll is going to be or trying to make it look really professional. And it takes so much of that authenticity away.
Ben Adkins (1:06:54)
Yeah. And I think that's the thing is like, we get good at things, not up here. We get good at things by doing, and you can only get so far up here. And then you're just overthinking it. Like the people that never get where they want to go. It's it lives up here too long. When you start putting yourself out there, it's not always fun. You know, sometimes you get some comments that aren't so fun, but you get that feedback that turns it into a polished product. And when it's a polished product, it
goes and likes, you know, I have people that I was just listening to, ⁓ that they started a soda brand that they started that they got it to, you know, they just sold it for a couple billion dollars. They put this thing together cause they loved it. They were doing it for themselves and they ended up at the farmer's market. And that's where people gave them the feedback that took it to the next step. And that's it. Just get yourself out there in front of people and be okay with people giving you real feedback. And it's amazing how quick you'll get to where you want to go versus the people that
live up here 100 % in your head.
Sam Penny (1:07:55)
Ben, I have to say that this has been absolutely packed with gold. From a chiropractic table to content systems, you've shown us how to turn expertise into scalable, sellable businesses, but also do it with clarity intention, but most importantly, with heart.
Before we wrap up, for listeners who want to go deeper, they want to learn from you, follow your work, or maybe even become a one hour influencer themselves, where should they go?
Ben Adkins (1:08:24)
Onehourinfluencer.io. ⁓ Come check us out there. You can get in touch with us. You can ask us questions. And like I said, I'm more than happy to answer anything you've got. If you're starting a business, if you've been in business in years, but you don't feel like you have that machine that powers it, go check out what we've got there. It of explains what we do. But also, like I said, you can get ahold of me. like, I love talking about business and startups and marketing and all that. And I would love to jam with you on whatever you're building.
Sam Penny (1:08:54)
Absolutely fantastic. And I'll make sure that I pop that link into the show notes. And I'll tell you what, you have to do yourself a favor. Check out One Hour Influencer. It looks amazing. And from this conversation, I've learned so much. And if today's conversation gave you ideas, if it sparked some clarity or just reminded you that it's possible to build a business on your own terms, please share it. Send it to someone building something meaningful. Because that
is how we grow this show and also this movement. I'm Sam Penny and this is Built To Sell, Built To Buy. Thanks for being here and we'll see you next time.
