Below is the transcription for this episode:
Dave: What is going on my friends, this is Dave Sharpe. Welcome to Wake Up Legendary, another show just keeps on going. It's like it never gets canceled. You know why it never gets canceled? Because we don't answer to anyone. That's why it never gets canceled. So even if the content did suck, we couldn't get canceled because we're entrepreneurs and we would find another way but the content doesn't suck. It's awesome and it's awesome because of our guests. And our guests this morning. are a husband and wife team who started to have an amazing story and seem like fantastic people. We're gonna get to know him right along with you this morning. Brandon and Dijunae. And I heard that you are expecting another bundle of joy as Brandon put it here in the coming months?
Dijunae: Next month.
Dave: Wow that that baked potato is ready to come out of the oven now how many have you had so far?
Di: Two other daughters and this will be your third
Dave: The world needs girl dads. Nothing wrong with it. So you know I loved your little right and you wrote a little story when we asked you to be on the show. What? You are currently working for a cement company Brandon. Di, are you a stay at home mom or what? Remind me what you're also doing besides running your online business anything.
Dave: And I'm not trying to minimize that. stay at home mom because especially if you got two little ones and you got one in the oven. I'm gonna tell you something. I know Brandon comes home every day and complains about how his feet hurt but he's preaching to the wrong choir isn't because Job ain't a joke. I'm with my kids for like, two hours and I'm overwhelmed. I'm like where's the nanny? You know what I mean? So what stuck out to me about your little write in that you gave us which was really helpful for me to get to know you is you know you both work 60 hours a week. You want to quit your job, although you're grateful for it, it seems Brandon, you said that you came online during the events that have happened over the past year and there was one specific thing that stuck out to me is that you said I researched and looked into other ways but Legendary stuck out to us and honestly seemed like the most legit and achievable. Especially with us being beginner's and not knowing much. We were willing to learn so that we could build the life that we really wanted and felt we deserved. So talk to us a little bit about that beginning of wanting and looking for something and then what ultimately attracted you to us.
Brandon: So we're lucky that I work. I have worked seven days a week ever since the pandemic started. We got just thrown into the whirlwind of seven days, 10 hours or 12. Whatever it takes. So being at work every day and then having our second daughter which she's only a year old. And just being at work all day and missing out and watching her learn how to walk and do all this stuff with the baby. It really hit home with me and just seeing it over video chat and stuff. So I started getting online, started first off, started just reading and getting my mind right and I said so I bought a couple of different kinds of books and started reading and then I started following different pages on Instagram and stuff like that, just to kind of prolong that and other stuff started coming on. Well kept seeing stuff about e-commerce drop shipping. We even got her involved with doing epoxy art because we’ve seen a lot of that as well. So we built up a whole little epoxy art business and everything like that. Didn't really do all that great. We didn't know what we're doing with it first of all, but yeah, I just kept seeing stuff pop up with affiliate marketing. Andre was one of the main ones that I followed and was following his stuff. And with affiliate marketing, we didn't do a whole lot of research on what it was when we first started. Kind of just look at a couple of different ones. Seen Legendary seeing the reviews from people who were just Googling it. Yeah, and then kind of just jumped right in with this looks like the best option for us. We can afford it because the main thing is very affordable. And man it just took off after that. Once we repaired we procrastinated a little bit. At first when we got the program we didn't really do much with it at first and then finally we buckled down and started hitting it and it's been working great for us ever since.
Dave: Awesome. Di, Can you give us your perspective on that same question.
Di: Kinda like when he said at first I was like, I got to get back to work you know, finances were getting tight and then I found out I was expecting again. So something has to give whether I can work at home or just something. But he was like, No, I want you to focus on kids. Which is completely fine with me that I just wanted us to, you know be okay like we were making it but we were sacrificing a lot and I just didn't want us to be in that spot anymore. Yeah. So when he showed me affiliate marketing you know, I'm the Research nerd. So I did all my research. Before I do anything. I was like, okay, you know, I like where this is going like I can do it on my own time. I don't have to worry about being on someone else's spot. Especially with a toddler running everywhere and screaming in the background. I don't have to worry about it either . It seems like something that you know, it's a lifelong process, something that we can build and then share with our kids and then they can do it if they want to. And that's what I really really liked about it, the flexibility I really want to travel. So the fact that I can travel and work was like a big thing for me.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. So I love where both of your heads are at because you understand there's some immediate results that can happen and have happened for you. And you also know that it's a long term game and you're looking ahead versus just looking at what's why, you know, am I going to be a winner in 30 days, you know, which we all know is an unrealistic expectation. I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm just saying it's very unrealistic. When exactly did you sign up for the challenge? When was that kind of day that you pulled the trigger on that? One, I think she's right at the end of July ish. And you procrastinated a little bit, so you kind of signed up and then didn't really start going through the training. What brought you back? I mean, do you remember having a moment of clarity or something that you talked about or what ultimately brought you back to focus?
Brandon: For me it was dealing with the stuff I deal with that work with people, the management team there, it's kind of everywhere. So they're kind of scattered and don't know what they're doing a lot of times, so it's just I got tired of that. It's like, I got we got to do something about this. We got to dig in and get this going so we can do something better and I don't have to deal with the stuff I deal with there anymore.
Dave: So pain motivated you? Isn't that interesting to everybody who's listening. If you're wondering where you're going to get your motivation from? Stop looking for your stop looking at your goals. Now that might sound odd at first. But when you're looking at your goals, it's not even something that you relate to because you've never achieved it. You don't even know what it's like, what it's going to be like to have those things. So it's hard for that to pull you in action. Eventually it will write eventually, when you get to a certain phase, you can begin to be more specific about your goals. But at the beginning, the most powerful way to get into action is dial into your pain. What hurts? What do you want to stop? You know, nobody ever goes to the doctor when they're feeling good, and says Hey, Doc, I wonder how I can just be more healthy?
You know, but I'm telling you what, when you get a canker sore in your mouth like I do right now, that's painful to eat. That thing is top of mind every day, I was just in the dentist's chair already this morning. Okay, and I said, Hey, look, what's up with my mouth? Right? So I think that's an important thing for us to kind of just bring to everybody's attention what you just said because sometimes we're looking for motivation in the wrong place. And if we can just ask ourselves, what's hurting? What do I want to stop and focus on? That might seem like well, why shouldn't we just sweep that under the rug and pretend that's not happening? No focus on that. Talk about it. Feel the pain. And Brandon, you said that you use that as a way to get back in action. And now that was July-ish. What has happened in How has life changed? If you could describe that briefly, since you made that decision to take it seriously and focus?
Brandon: Well, I mean, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. Like we haven't made a ton of money but we have been making increases. You know, we've been building it up and it shows you that this can be done and I can supplement my income. And she can be doing the income is low and we can work together and I won't have to be in that situation. I don't have to work till seven eight o'clock at night and miss all day with my kids seeing them for an hour. That goes with the pain thing again missing out on the time when you get there too. But you can see light at the end of the tunnel and it's a great feeling knowing that you can have a means to an end with that kind of life. Dijunaecan you answer the same question to you what has changed since you both began to focus on getting more serious? How would you describe how things have changed? Whether it be you know knowing that this is real and can happen because of initial Commission's rolling in whether it's a mindset shift, what has changed within you and you think within your maybe your marriage or whatever, since you guys got focused
Di: I definitely would say our mindset changed. Because at first you know skeptical, kind of worried, jumping into something totally new that I had not really a lot of information on until he did the challenge. But it's helped us stay focused. It helped us stay motivated. And, you know, just look forward to your likes. I'm actually excited about where we're heading and it's because of what we're doing. At first I was always nervous and had anxiety about the future. And where we were going and how we got there. But I think this was a great first stepping stone to get us on the right path to where we want it to be for us and our kids and then us being on the same page has made us better marriage partners. Because now we're like two peas in the pod. You know, if I ever get discouraged he's there to lift me up.
Dave: What sort of advice would you give to other partners out there and Dijunaewhat ultimately did Brandon do? To pull you in to get your support initially because a lot of times there can be a lot of conflict there, husbands who are trying to provide and we want to go and find solutions. You know, we bring these things to our wives or our spouses the way that we present it and also creates conflict or mistrust, and then we end up feeling unsupported. So can you talk us through a little bit about how Brandon was able to bring you in or what that looked like for you now ultimately, to be on the same page?
Di: Communication and trust, you know, you're a team, you got to work together and like, you're gonna take some risks in life. You know, that's part of it. I mean, if you make it you know, that's great. If you don't, you don't at the end of the day, you still have each other and, you know, that's what makes it even better. It is having each other to support, you know, he'll support me through anything. I'll support him through anything. I’m very stubborn, I've always been independent. And that actually helped me become more reliable.
Dave: It makes sense to me, Brandon, let me shift that question to you. What do you think your strategy is when you're presenting something to your wife to get her on board to get her support? How do you present that? Do you talk to her before you buy? What is your strategy as a husband to get your wife to support you in a new venture where there's going to be risks, there's going to be more time there's going to be more investment upfront. How do you go about getting her on board and getting her to be supportive and eventually be a part of?
Brandon: I definitely talk to her first with her and like she said, She's more of the research one, me I jumped headfirst in.
Dave: I think a lot of guys are like that. So that's why I'm asking you guys who like to shoot first, and then bring it home and tell our wives Hey, I just spent a couple of $1,000 or Hey, I just signed up and I'm starting a new business and our wives feel thrown off. Right like Wait, hold on a second. Now I don't trust you because I feel like you’re dropping this on me even though this is a positive thing. So continue with your kind of strategy.
Brandon: When I had a feeling about it, you know I wanted to jump right in but I talked to her first I kind of brought to her attention some research points to where she could look at it and feel more comfortable but I also tried to paint a picture for her of what it could do for us and how it could change our lives and me being at home more will help out and I tried all day and it seemed to work out pretty good.
Dave: You sold right? Okay, this is another thing that I think y'all need to just keep in mind what you know, again, when we are if we can't sell our husbands or our wives, why do we think that we are going to go out there and market and convert anybody else? out there? So we really need to learn how to have empathy and compassion and build trust in our homes first. One of the biggest power moves that I ever learned was to say first and foremost, honey isn't a good time to talk because I want to talk to you about some I'd come running in the house. She's got kids on both hips, you know, and I'm like, hey, I got an idea. It's like, another thing is I used to always bring my stuff to her, not taking into consideration where she was meant at mentally and emotionally. You know, when I learned to ask her, Hey, is it a good time to talk to you about something that's on my head that's in my heart, you know, I want to make sure it's a time that you can focus on. Right away. Wi Fi feels respected like time is respected and she's not just there to be my, you know, a sounding board at my disposal. I started to focus on making her feel supported, instead of always complaining that she wasn't supporting me. So I started using a specific language like babe it seems like you're having a tough day today. How can I make you feel more loved and supported? Now this is completely separate from business stuff. But what it does is it begins to create an equal dynamic in the relationship where whether she wants to participate in my business or not. She knows that I'm willing to ask her how I can love and support her no matter what she's doing. What I did at first was I just did all of what I just said, and I would complain. Well, I feel like you don't support me and I feel like you don't believe in my dreams. And I realized that was being selfish. I needed to grow up emotionally. And I needed personally my own self to learn how to be you know, to treat her as an equal. And one of the things that I wanted to show you I think this will make sense because I sort of grew up in this business. This was me, when I first started out, you know, like you can see me now. I'm 38 and I look like I'm 50 you know, just I don't know, you know, but this was me when I started out. I was 24, 25 so I mean I was also young. But I also believe that no matter how old we are, we can always improve within our relationships. But again, back to my point that it starts at home. Us being successful has a lot to do with you know, us not having additional stress at home. If we have additional stress we have conflict with our spouses at home. Brandon, does that not add an immense amount of pressure to you, no matter what work you're doing, whether it's cement, whether it's online if you are not on the same page. If you guys are arguing or fighting that you don't it feels like you are almost unproductive and not able to focus.
Brandon: Oh definitely because you're focused on what's going on now. You're not focused on the business itself. You focus on what happened outside of the business. It was one of my sole points here is she kept saying she wanted to help out financially though she wasn't doing enough and I kept telling her that she was but this was that was another selling point was hey, we can both do this. We can both do it. We can both have income coming in from this. So that was another selling point right there was or why not help out me listening to that. And maybe putting that in the conversation as well.
Dave: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about you've been doing some TikTok and Instagram. She's been doing some Pinterest. Tell us a little bit about how that's going like give us one or two things that you've learned that you could share with the audience. Maybe some advice you would have given yourself when you first started out.
Brandon: With TikTok, I would say the hashtag is a very important thing. And keeping the light and fun heart trying to have a little bit of fun with it. Don't be serious on that because that doesn't work very far with it. We're trying to keep your hashtags consistent. Because if you keep switching your hashtags, it seems like you don't get a lot out of it.
Dave: Yeah. I really, I really resonate with that. There's an old saying that comes to mind if you take yourself too seriously, nobody else will. And you know a lot of times we get online and we want to be you know, we want to spread positivity. So we come out here with these motivational messages and then we're like, why is dude over here who's pessimistic, negative and just sharing memes? Why is his stuff blowing up in why over here am I spreading positivity and motivation and motivational quotes and so forth? And why is my stuff not why is my stuff dying? I wanted to touch on that point, though, about if you're out there trying to be too positive and too serious. I know this sounds weird and odd. But it's like people almost don't want that people don't want that. It's almost like toxic positivity. You know what I mean? Like it just for some reason. You have to find a balance in humor and also self deprecating humor making fun of yourself, not taking yourself too seriously. And just again, I don't know how to make this more simple, but be careful of being too positive. Because people that's not real life. People are not happy, joyous, happy and lucky every day. They're going through shit and I'm honestly pulling up their phone to feel validated that other people are also struggling. That's how they feel supported, saying positive messages here and there. But just be careful not to be too positive. If your positivity and your motivational messages are taking off and doing well, great, but I had a guy in our blueprints and coaching recently who was doing a lot of positive motivational content going nowhere. And he just toned that down, added more humor, added more sarcasm added a little bit more self deprecating humor making fun of himself. And he is just being more real, you know, balancing his struggles with his wins. And his content just started to blow up. Dijunaegive us some advice on Pinterest, which is something that we don't hear like tons about but give us a little bit of advice about how you've been making that work and what would you tell yourself when you first got started with that platform that you know now that you didn't know then?
Di: Just stay genuine and you know, just be 100% honest, because that's what a lot of people are looking for. Especially with, you know, a lot of scamming and stuff going around. You know, it's not a problem to share your story or to share some of your struggles, you know, there's a new be surprised how many people you actually relate to on a day to day basis. So they completely understand where you're coming from. And Pinterest threw me off completely because Pinterest is the last place I would have thought to put any type of content on besides my DIY projects. So, I’m actually doing a lot better on Pinterest and I am on any other social media platform. So that is something that everybody should look into.
Dave: Now are you just creating graphics, are you posting pictures, are you using a tool like Canva to create like, what sort of content? What sort of images I guess, or are you also doing videos? Are you posting on Pinterest?
Di: I'm repurposing my own videos from TikTok and then putting them on Pinterest as well.
Dave: Wow. That is it. Really? That is really so if all you're doing is repurposing your videos from Instagram and TikTok. I assume you're posting Are you taking off the watermark through one of the apps that takes off the watermark from Tik Tok, right and then you just keep seeing that same video on Instagram. And then you're saying you're posting that same video on Pinterest. Is that right? No. Pinterest is where you're getting the most traction?
Di: Yes.
Dave: Y'all. It's so funny because we do the same thing here with a show. Like I do the show live which I love because it's just consistent. It's at the same time like it's just such a system and I try to model that but also want to point that out to everybody is that like for me, this is such a system I do it live. Then we take this content and transcribe it we posted on our blog, so it becomes blog content. We also post the video on YouTube and we also post the video on the blog post so on our legendary marketer comm if you go there, there's a blog with all of these episodes where the YouTube video and the transcriptions are getting all that good SEO content in that traffic from there. We then also leave them on Facebook so they're here. We then also take these interviews and put them on a podcast. So if all we're doing is repurposing and is all you're doing different that is such an awesome hack that I don't hear people doing enough is simply repurposing yours. Everybody's doing TikTok and Instagram, but then taking it one step further and just repurposing the same piece on Pinterest.
Brandon: We're also doing it with the YouTube shorts. Now. we're repurposing them there as well too. So we got four different things: she does Facebook and mobile. We got four or five different platforms we just went around repurposing.
Dave: Doesn't that save time, like isn't that the bottom line is is that you don't need to make multiple pieces of content per day and sitting there you know, just endlessly creating content, make good content, awesome content put more work into the content, so it's better quality, and then put it everywhere. So you're omnipresent because all you're trying to do is get that prospect to see your face, or have an opportunity to see your face every day. As long as you stay in front of them. That's how you build relationships. That's how you build knowledge and trust. That's how eventually you get those multiple exposures to where they're like, you know what, eff it. I'm going to see what this person's talking about. Hit the link to go buy from you.
I’m gonna let you get back to your beautiful family. You guys are incredible. I love love, love, the relationship synergy that you have going on. Here. I love how you brought her into the fold and then how she did her own research and thinking and then she made a choice to come together with you versus this anything being forceful or there's just a beautiful synergy that I think we all can take a lot away from this morning from your story. And congrats on taking action. If I look over here at my crystal ball which I have. I foresee a lot of prosperity in 2022 for both of you. So please, please please no matter what you do, no matter how bad of a day you have, don't quit. Because people need to hear from you. And in return of you delivering that value, you're going to be rewarded highly. And you know, this is just the beginning. So thank you for your time. Thank you for making time, even today, which I would assume you have off and this is valued family time.
Di: Thank you. We appreciate it. And thank you for the opportunity and for your wonderful 15 Day Challenge Without you none of this would have been possible for it. So we really want to thank you for that.
Dave: You're so welcome. Stay awesome. Stay Beautiful. Stay Legendary both of you. And I'll talk to you soon. All right. Take care. All right, my friends, you can follow Brandon on TikTok. @makemoneywithbeardguy And you can follow Dijunaeon I guess all the platforms @Deethemarketer. Go check it out,especially when she's getting tons of results with Pinterest. You know what, how she's doing that. It's just a simple little add on. It's just a simple little tweak. Right and that may be a breakthrough for those of you who took the time to tune into the show or listen to the replay on a podcast or whatever, man, like, I know that sometimes we don't pay attention when we don't pay for something. But I'm telling you, there's gold in these shows every day and that's why I'm so grateful and motivated to continue to do these because not only do they give people like Brandon and Dijunaeand opportunity to, you know, do something maybe outside of their comfort zone or get recognition, but also they give back to us and show us and talk to us about what they're doing. And I know there's always only going to be a small percentage of people who actually take action on the stuff. That's why it's not a big deal, right? Not a big deal. You know, most people are just listening and that's okay. We welcome you to listen in. You know, just continue to have those mental shifts until you feel prepared. To take action. But man, what a simple little tweak that one can make by just adding that additional platform repurposing content in so much gold there in the relationship. Just story. I hope you all have a fantastic Thursday. We're also going to be back here tomorrow for Christmas Eve. It is Friday. And remember I told you rain, shine, Christmas, New Year's, whatever the holiday is. If it's Monday through Friday, we're going to be here delivering consistency leading the way in doing what we teach and preach. So we'll see you back here tomorrow for another episode. Happy holidays. You're not here. Have a great day. Peace.