Growing Your Personal Brand and Keeping Up With the Trend
How to build your personal brand and monetize? Sean shares Andy how he was able to put up a multi-million company at a young age.
In this video, Sean, the owner of Jersey Champs, narrates how he was able to come up with a business idea at a young age. He shared the steps he took to make that idea come to life which led him to earn revenue. Sean emphasized the importance of having a personal brand and using it to come up with a business and monetize your ideas. He identified the importance of staying updated with trends to be on top of the latest in his industry. Social Media Marketing is also one of the lifelines of their businesses which they utilize to reach out to customers.
Sean gives importance to learning as much as he can about his business and industry. From an idea conceptualized at a dorm room, Sean now is one of the most phenomenal millennials turned business owners at a young age.
You will learn:
- About Personal Brand
- How to build your personal brand
- About marketing
- Importance of Social Media Marketing and Ads
Follow Andy Audate on:
Website: https://andyaudate.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andyaudate/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andyaudate/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyAudate
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyaudate/
Transcriptions:
Andy Audate
I want to change lives. I want to show people how to progress and their money. I want to show people how to progress their mindset. I want to show people how to progress in their brand so that way they can take care of their family, take care of their finances and experience freedom.
Today. I have a special guest, the founder of Jersey champs. He has over a million followers on Instagram, suing up the world by storm and little dude. Do you know? This dude is a young buck. That's like myself today. I have my main man. Sean Michael Kelly. Sean, how are you feeling today, man?
Sean Michael Kelly
I'm great.Thankful to be here. And I'm excited to talk to you and get everyone pumped to learn some new stuff today.
Andy Audate
Yeah, dude, you know, I'm excited to have you be a part of the, be a part of the progression family and part of the progression community and for it to have you, I'm excited to have you on the progression conference, national tour, super excited.Now let's, let's bring it back to what is Shawn Michael Kelly really known for nowadays?
Sean Michael Kelly
Yes. So I'm known as the guy that makes custom sports jerseys. And I was able to start a Jersey company about four years ago and now I was able to get a personal brand out of that basically two or three years in, I started really tackling my personal brand by speaking at conferences and podcasts like this.All thanks to Gary V. He really taught me the power of a personal brand and it's come back tenfold because the personal brand has opened some doors for me.
Andy Audate
And in your, in your perspective, what is a personal brand?
Sean Michael Kelly
Personal is a brand where you have some sort of platform to provide value to people.
So you're an expert in some certain field and you can help other people out and find ways to monetize just your personal brand through speaking through other means. And yeah he used that to leverage and work your way up.
Andy Audate
Okay. Amazing. Amazing. And how has the personal brand supported you in your business?
Sean Michael Kelly
Oh it's been amazing because now I am speaking out to so many conferences in any, every time I always need someone there that can help my business in some aspect that I'm struggling in whether it's email marketing or some sort of new social media platform coming up like tik tok and there's always people on top of stuff at these events.And I just focus on what I'm good at and then outsource everything else. Nationals.
Andy Audate
So talk to us about Joseph champs and how that started.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So that started four years ago, I was a student at Rutgers university, which is a university in New Jersey where I'm from. And I'm just really wanting to combine the Jersey world and the hip hop world, because there's so much alignment there with the fan and the audience base for both of those.And figured out a way to do that through providing rapper album artwork and wrapped jerseys on sports, like mainly basketball jerseys.
Andy Audate
And so what was the experience like? What was the actual day? What are you doing the actual day where you were like, Oh shit, let me, let me create this man.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So I was just in my dorm room and I paid this kid 250 bucks which was like a lot of money for me back then.And I said, yo, can you make a design like for drake for like a sick Toronto Jersey basically for his album views from the six. And that's what we did. And then we hit up some Instagram big Instagram pages to post it for us. We paid him, gave him jerseys and stuff and then just went from there.
Andy Audate
So it originally started by you creating a Jersey for drink.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So it was a view. It had Toronto on the fraud and the name was views and the number of six, and that was our first design ever.
Andy Audate
And then how did it turn into now? It's running, you're running a multimillion dollar company now. Well, or valued at that. How did you go from creating this one Jersey to now running a multimillion dollar company?
Sean Michael Kelly
Yes. We realized the power of trends and we got to stay on top of them. And we've been fortunate enough to release a lot of jerseys that have produced six figures in gross sales. And usually every couple months we'll have like a really big Jersey that can do like a million dollars. So we just stay on top of trends and you never know it's hard to plan this market because you never know what's going to trend.So we just gotta be on top of it and then release a Jersey as soon as that trend hits. And it's partially locked, partially really good marketing. There's a lot of variables, but social media marketing has been probably the main source of revenue for us.
Andy Audate
Gotcha. And then when you look at the trends, so let's talk about the trends.Are you seeing a trend prior to it happening or are you catching the trend as it's happening and how do you discover the trends?
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So sometimes we'll plan it out. So like rappers will release their album release dates sometimes on hip hop DX or other sites.sometimes we'll know the Superbowl who's playing and we'll have a design ready for both teams in case similar with the world series NBA finals.
sometimes who's gonna win whoever wins. We'll do a CIC design for.if we see an athlete or a rapper coming up hard, like Rodney rich came up this year. We'll DM them as early as possible. We're always in the loop in the hip hop and sports world.
Andy Audate
Gotcha. So you're seeing who's, who's getting more popular, who's gaining popularity and you reach out to the slot into the BMS and say, Hey, we have, we created this for you and want to support your brand.And your, and your goal is to get them to wear the Jersey and really for you.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So I'll literally make them a cost. I'll ask them if I can make them a custom Jersey, I'll send it to them. And then if they like it, I'll try to go further from there and work out a deal where they sell it on their site.We still had on ours or something like that.
Andy Audate
Okay, great. And then now what is the overall experience from starting that business? Let's share it. Let's get some tips to young entrepreneurs who are at a place where they're saying hey I want to grow my business and I wanna take my business to the next level.What strategies or techniques do you have for them?
Sean Michael Kelly
Highly recommend either learning Facebook ads or finding someone that's really good at Facebook ads, because that will cover Facebook and Instagram for you. And then I would hire a Google ads agency because. Our Google ads are consistent. Three to five return on ad spend every month.And we don't even do much work there. So if you're not running Google, Facebook, Instagram, I would definitely tackle that first. And then I would focus on micro nano influencers. So sending your product out to people with small followings people under 10,000 followers will usually post it for free.Cause they're just starting out. Are super cheap. So I would start there if you're on a low budget and then just learn as much as you can early on, the more you learn the better. So I would go on YouTube, get some courses, get a mentor, do what you gotta do.
Andy Audate
So you just say, you're saying number one, get someone who's good at Facebook ads.
And now it's Facebook ads a skillset or is it more than just going on Facebook and going to the asset manager and pressing, pressing the buttons to deploy an ad? Or is it more than that?
Sean Michael Kelly
So it depends, it's definitely hard to learn on your own because you're going to have to use money to learn.so I would watch as many videos as you can before you just randomly start messing around with it. But definitely at least know the basics. If you're going to hire someone so you can review their work, you don't want to completely not know anything about it but I would start off on your own if you have the money and just learn from there.but definitely if you're an e-commerce like, it is pretty tricky. So you got to stay up to date.
Andy Audate
Okay. Gotcha. And then number two is, essentially get a media buyer for Google ads and work with working by media for Google ads because you're experiencing a three to five return on every dollar, every dollar that you're spending on aspirin.Correct?
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah, almost everyone I know has consistent results with Google because Facebook is so volatile. I'm sure. You know, some months you're profiting crazy some months you're not even profiting at all. So. Google is just steady. Cause it's really targeted. People are searching for what you're selling.So it's always really targeted.
Andy Audate
Okay, great. And then you said what? Going new to get a mentor and really go out and learn before you start spending the money. Okay, great. So, so now we got that. Now let's talk about the progression conference man. I was so excited to have you be a part of this man. You are probably going to be.You know, for a while, man, I was saying that, Hey, I'm the youngest person to add my own events. Right? I'm hosting events. I'm 24, I'm 23. I'm hosting, I'm hosting these events and I'm bringing some pretty wealthy people on stage but I'm gonna be typically the youngest person. Now you're going to come through the progression conference and you're going to break that trend from me.Where are you? Youngest? 23 or 22.
Sean Michael Kelly
I just turned 23. Yeah.
Andy Audate
Hey man. So congratulations on all the success at a young age. I know it's phenomenal. So share with me what you're going to be bringing to us at the progression conference.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah, man, I'm excited. Cause I'm really starting to get my speaking career going.I think I've come a long way. I remember my first speech. I was freaking out extremely nervous, but now I'm getting comfortable. So I try to keep my talks really applicable, like where you can implement the stuff right away there's people that discuss mindset and stuff and do a way better job than me.
So I like to keep my talks tactical. So I'll be providing websites. You could immediately use some applications and yeah, just people you could follow that I follow and everything that I'm doing, you know what I mean?
Andy Audate
Oh, sweet. Sweet. And then when are you going to be sharing the Jersey cham story?
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah, I can run through that briefly.Pretty much go through what I went through. It was a crazy ride. So every entrepreneur I feel has a crazy come up. You know what I mean?
Andy Audate
Yeah. What shall we expect from you this year? I mean, 2020 is a big EMF. What should we expect from you this year?
Sean Michael Kelly
Oh, man. Finally getting out of Jersey, hopefully going to LA or maybe somewhere else.
Andy Audate
I've been waiting for you men to pull up, pull up in LA. First of all, I will do something, man.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. We gotta make that happen next time I'm out there.but yeah, just growing my personal brand has been a big focus and growing.I'm trying to start like a big entrepreneurial community. Like you have, I really feel passionate about helping others out.So. That was my goal this year.
Andy Audate
And why is that important for you to help other people?
Sean Michael Kelly
I just feel so fulfilled. Like, it's like my first six events. I don't know if I told you, but I actually lost money, but I didn't really care cause I was putting on events. So I have a monthly event. Yeah. Like a free networking event they're always free but I ended up losing money on all six of them. Cause I was just so passionate about helping other people. But two days ago we finally had our first profitable one and yeah, I don't know. I just feel a good sense of fulfillment. I really like connecting people together and Dan has with those elevator nights I really want to do on the East coast.
Andy Audate
What did you do different from a bet? Number one and a one through five. What'd you do one, two, six. What'd you do differently on this one that you had two days ago on seven, four.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. So the biggest thing was the venues that I was paying earlier were too expensive, not too expensive, but they were like a thousand bucks and my tickets were free.So it was just hard to make money because. The tickets are free, but we got the venue as a buffer like 300 bucks. So that's the biggest cost for us. And we saved a ton of money. So we ended up being profitable. Cause the VIP tickets are a hundred bucks and we had like 12.
Andy Audate
That's powerful.That's powerful. My youth continually progresses on a regular basis man. What does it mean to you for progression? Let's talk about the business aspect and let's talk about getting in deep personal information about your progression this year and your business and then your progression this year in your personal life.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah, so for business as long as our profits keep going up, the revenue is important too, but I want to profit more than the year before.hopefully the revenue goes up to hopefully we could get some more big names, big name, collabs, like a big rapper this year, and a big coffee would be great. And we want to get licensing for nba hopefully soon.And we want to get into eSports pretty heavily. So we're going to be partnering with some Twitch streamers for Georgie deals and esports clans. And then in my personal life I just want to find that balance I've been doing well this year. I usually don't work weekends. and I'm really happy about that.
Cause I used to work like 15 hours a day, seven days a week, but yeah, it's been crazy.
Andy Audate
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, in your personal life, do you want to add the boundary of not having to work on the weekends or not working on the weekends and keep keeping up, keeping that boundary? True.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah. It's just more family time, more time with my dog people I care about.I love eating out. So I like to eat out on the weekends.
Andy Audate
Any dogs, a celebrity too, and it,
Sean Michael Kelly
He's coming up. He's coming up.
Andy Audate
Milo, Milo. Okay. Sweet. Sweet. I had a dog. Her name was lado out of Germany, German shepherd. When I was 2021.I thought I was a little bossman because I would put it in I would put the German shepherd in a bag.And this is when I was just. I was 19 2021. So around this time I was just, I had all, I owned all the cell phone stores. So I would go pick up money from the safe and my dog with me and in the bag. And we would just pick up money from the safe I'd be in the basement like Gucci man without my money. and good old days with that with my dog Alito.
So, so great. And then let's talk about one more thing. One more thing, man. Let's talk about the challenges that come up. You know, hearing, hearing your story. It kind of sounds like it's one of those, you know, lucky, lucky. Lucky wish kids stories but I know based on the conversations that we've had, I know that's not true.Let's talk about the challenges that you've experienced in concert and becoming a success.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yeah, it's been, it's been a different challenge like every month, but when I was first starting out the main challenge was just doubt and everyone like really not supporting me.because I was a college student no one to drop out to pursue this full time.So that's like very risky of course. Cause you're giving up your, your college degree to go do something that might not work out. so for me mentally back then, it was really tough financially. I didn't have much money either, but that ended up being a blessing in disguise because I wasn't making all these big mistakes.and yeah, just getting that first celebrity was a massive challenge. Because that's very hard to do to get the first one that is the first celebrity to collaborate with your brand. A lot of people really struggle with that but I always tell them once you get that one guy like you can leverage that name to get any other names.
So just getting that one guy, which for us was logic, the rapper logic. And then once we got him, we were able to get to change. Why at the end, the mere young, a man, a bunch of other rappers. Cause we got him. So just get that first one grind really hard until you get that first big name and go from there.
Andy Audate
I love that. I love that. So you went through that challenge of, Hey, who's the influencer I'm going to get through and your mindset was just get the first one, get the first one, get the first one. It'd be like a domino effect trickling on after.
Sean Michael Kelly
Yep. Cause if your product's truly unique, once you get that first one, they're going to love it.
You're going to make them money. They're going to make you money and you can leverage that to get everyone else.
Andy Audate
Man. Shawn, thank you so much for your time and you for being on the progression show on this podcast as you and I both are progressing. We're giving our notice to the world. Thank you so much.
Sean Michael Kelly
Thank you, Andy. I'll see you man.
