Graham Cochrane (00:06.734)
If you want to be rich, don't try and start a business. What do I mean? You see, the way most people try to make money is completely backwards and it's actually keeping them broke. And so if you really want to create long-term wealth, you need to flip the script. And in this episode, I'm sharing three game-changing secrets that make people want to actually give you their money. No convincing, no chasing. Let's go.
Graham Cochrane (00:52.91)
So what am I talking about? Don't start a business. Clearly, I have started businesses. I've owned a couple of businesses. I run a business right now. I help entrepreneurs start, scale, and explode their businesses. So yes, business is important, but the key is the emphasis on starting a business. I own a business. I run a business. But focusing on the business is the big mistake. Because here's the problem.
When you focus on starting a business, you're already focused on the wrong things. You're focusing on what you're going to sell to people, how much money you're going to make or hope to make. You're asking questions like, what should I charge? How can I get people to buy this thing? Am I good enough to even sell this thing? How will people find me? You're just focused on the mechanics of it. And those are important questions, questions I help my clients answer all the time, but they're just bad first questions.
These days, the key to creating wealth for the long term is to not try and sell something to people. Lean in. It's to become someone people want to buy from. I'm say that again. The key these days to creating wealth long term is not to try and sell something to people. It's to become someone who people want to buy from. In other words, don't start a business, become a brand.
There's a big difference. Anyone can start a business, but the people that focus on becoming a brand, a brand that is powerful, a brand that attracts their ideal client, a brand that can stand the test of time even in a crowded, commoditized industry, that's where the money is. If you wanna be rich, that's what you wanna do. Think about the brands that you love. Maybe you're an apple freak, you love apple.
Apple was the first trillion dollar company. Did you know that? The first company to be valued at a trillion dollars on the US stock market. How do they do that? By having better computers, better phones? No, I mean, some people like them better, but it's not really about which one's better. People who love Apple products might justify them logically and say, well, I think the iPhone is a better product or the MacBook is a better product than X, Y, and Z.
Graham Cochrane (03:21.198)
But that's not why they buy them. They buy them because they are a fan of the brand. Apple's not trying hard to sell stuff to people. People are banging down the door to buy stuff from Apple because of the brand. Does this make sense?
Fill in the blank whatever brand you care about. Think about the restaurants in town that everybody wants to go to, everybody wants to be seen at. Are they beating down your door advertising, we got the best food, we got a deal on our food, we're running a special? No. The high-end restaurants that everybody wants to go to, they're not beating down your door trying to sell you something. People are beating down their door trying to get in because the atmosphere, the aesthetic, the
The energy, the vibe, the draw of that restaurant. It's a brand they've created. They don't have to try hard to sell anything. Heck, you can't even get into these restaurants without a reservation months in advance sometimes. The brand is strong. This is how you get really, really rich. And you can do this as a solopreneur or a coach or a consultant or an author or speaker, the people I help. Maybe that's who you are. You can do the exact same thing. So what I'm gonna do today is share with you three secrets
to becoming an irresistible brand, it'll make it easy for people to want to give you their hard-earned money. Because at end of the day, that's what we're doing, is we are competing with a bunch of other businesses or things they could spend their money on. People are working hard, they value their money. Why should they give some to you? Why should they give some to me? How can you make it easier for them to want to give some to you? These three secrets are going to help. So number one.
Choose one person to serve. It's amazing to me how many people want to start by coming up with an offer and pricing it and they're asking, how do I sell this? Do I run ads? Do I do a webinar? I'm like, bro, we haven't even discussed the most important thing in becoming a brand, which is who are you going to serve?
Graham Cochrane (05:27.276)
And when I say who, I mean one person, one specific type of person. Most people try to sell what they have, what they want to sell to whoever will want to buy it. I got my thing I want to sell and I want to it to everyone. Whoever's got money is who I want to sell to. That's how most people operate. And it just doesn't work, right? What they end up doing by pursuing that path is actually selling nothing.
to anybody and make no money. If your product or service is for everyone, it's for no one. Even if everyone could benefit from it, you can't sell it to everyone. You have to focus on one person to serve. So when I started my first business, The Recording Revolution, which existed to help home studio owners make professional sounding music on a budget, I can give you bit of a clue of who I serving, I had to make a decision early on. I was an audio engineer by trade.
I was trying to get clients for my freelance business, so I started creating content on YouTube and a blog trying to attract potential clients. I wasn't trying to become a content creator or an influencer, none of that stuff existed in 2009 when I started. But I knew I needed to attract someone that I could work with, and so the people I knew I could serve powerfully were the guys and gals that were recording their music at home. They had some equipment they had bought, they were self-recording.
and then it didn't sound good and so they were gonna hire me to mix it and make it sound professional. The way I attracted them was creating content to help them get to that next step, help them do the first part, buy the equipment, set up the equipment, use the equipment to record their songs and then the hope was that then they would hire me for the final step which is mixing, mastering, the post-production kind of stuff which is very complex for people in...
figured that's where I could jump in. So that's why I started creating content for them. And when I was sitting down to make my first pieces of content, was like, how am I gonna make this effective? And I decided, well, who have I helped in real life? And one of my friends, Chad, came in my mind. And Chad, I don't know if you're listening to this or watching this, but bro, Chad, you know who you are back in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Chad was a killer musician and guitar player. Musician first.
Graham Cochrane (07:46.526)
Regular dude had a job played in bands super talented but he was buying some equipment because he wanted to record some songs and He he always would ask me questions like hey, how do I use this software? How do I use this tool? How does this how do I make my drum sound like this? How do I make and so I would answer his questions and do I really need to buy this expensive thing? I've got a bunch of gear in my cart on Sweetwater or you know musicians friend or wherever he's buying stuff Do I need all this stuff to sound professional? I would say no, you don't need this this or this just this is cheaper
It sounds just as good, it's all in how you use it. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna make every single video for Chad because there are a lot of Chads out there. And so every video from day one, I would say, hey friend, and I was speaking to Chad in my mind. This is how I framed my content. Hey friend, I'm speaking to one person and I would teach everything as if I was teaching it to my friend Chad.
What's amazing is that focusing on serving one person helped me reach millions of people. I think I've got over 63 million views on YouTube over the years. That channel in particular has over like 650,000 subscribers or whatever it is. Turns out there are a lot of chats. And so the beautiful thing about this is, and one of the most powerful things you can do as you're becoming a brand is to
Get absolutely clear on your ideal client, the person you want to serve. I put it this way, when you simply serve one type of person,
Graham Cochrane (09:30.604)
I put it this way, when you simply serve one type of person, serving them becomes simple. Sales copy, content ideas, product and offer ideas, all of it becomes incredibly simple when you just simply focus on serving one type of person. The white hot center, the bullseye of your target of who you want to reach. Then you're have people that are...
Similar to that person a little bit on the outside that'll still be attracted to your brand and the people a little bit on the outside that will still be attracted to your brand but they will know who you are for who you help what you help them do and it makes your language and your messaging and the stories you tell the examples you give and the problems you choose to solve and the way you choose to solve the problems it makes them that much more powerful because there's empathy there's relatability there's humanity there because you're speaking to a real person versus people out there in the ether
So big takeaway here is you can make money just selling stuff to people, but to become incredibly wealthy, to become incredibly in demand and attractive, you have to become known for one thing. You have to become known for one thing. My friend Rory Vaiden at Brand Builders Group, he teaches this concept called She Hands Wall, and I don't have it visually here on this.
YouTube but the idea is pretty simple is that there's this wall and on one side you're unknown on the other side You're very well known so on one side might be where you are right now and on the other side might be Tony Robbins or Oprah Winfrey or whoever You look up to or whoever's doing big things in your industry and the question people want to know is how do I break through that wall and they focus on blasting that wall with a bunch of different offers and a bunch of different platforms that they're on and they've got books and they're
I'm talking about business, then I'm talking about relationships, because I'm married and I can talk about that. I'm talking about money and I'm talking about all these different topics and I'm bouncing off the wall because all of my energy, all of my ideas are being diluted. When he says if you focus on one thing, being known for one thing, which comes down to what we're talking about, serving one person powerfully, all that energy gets concentrated on one part of the wall and the pressure.
Graham Cochrane (11:50.914)
breaks through the wall. Once you're on the other side of the wall and you become known for that thing, then you can talk about whatever you want. You can get into movies and books and real estate and, you know, pivot your idea. Like you can be whatever because you're already known for a thing, but you can't do whatever until you're known for a thing. And the way to true wealth is to do one thing really, really well for a long period of time. You get compounding interest and returns on your effort and then you can diversify that money and your interest later.
I've gotta focus on serving one person super well for a long period of time. That's how I became a millionaire in my 30s. I focused on serving home studio musicians, not professional musicians, not professional audio engineers, not people with lots of money that could buy the best thing, whether they're professional or unprofessional. I focused on home studio people who are on a budget, who are in their spare bedroom or their mom's basement with their unique problems and challenges, and I served them powerfully. It took me seven years.
of doing that, and then I became a net worth millionaire and I got my business to making a million dollars a year all in the same year, which is very cool. I've generated over $15 million online over the last few years by doing this concept. Does make sense? So, that's the secret number one, choose one person to serve. Secret number two, obsess about their problems. Once you know who to serve, you obsess about their problems. Not what you want, not your problems.
their problems. You solve their problems, they'll solve your problem by giving you plenty of money and then you can solve any problem. I've heard the statement, if money can solve your problem, it's not a real problem. So to solve most of your problems, some problems money can't solve, but most problems money can't solve. So if you want plenty of money to solve all your problems, the way to do it is to serve and solve their problems first. So number one, read everything you can, everything you can about solving their problems.
If you're in an industry, let's say you're helping people with their love life, their relationships, their marriage, go read every single freaking book on the planet about relationships. Don't just start from your experience. Like, become a master craftsman or craftswoman in your space. Go read the popular books right now. Go read the popular books from 100 years ago. Read ancient wisdom. Like, read the book of Proverbs, right? In the Bible, like, read stuff that's
Graham Cochrane (14:17.554)
stood the test of time from the experts. Like you're not the expert. So just stand on the shoulders of giants and become incredibly educated by reading everything. If you just read 10 books in your field, you're already gonna know more than most quote unquote gurus spouting out stuff on the internet because they don't read. They just talk off the hip. If you wanna be able to riff and just talk off, know, nonchalantly off the hip, off the cuff, however you say it, make sure you got some good stuff in you.
Right? The scripture says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So whatever's coming out of your mouth is reflection of the heart, of what's inside. And so if you have a very shallow, uneducated heart, no offense, what's going to come out is going to be shallow, uneducated. It's going to sound like everybody else. If you just get sound bites and sound clips off a TikTok and regurgitate those, you're literally
As Myron Goldin says, you're a copy of a cliche of a copy who's a cliche of a copy of a cliche. Like it's so diluted. Go read some actual books. Let those books transform you. Transform your thinking. You don't have to agree with everything you read. I certainly don't agree with everything you read. I've read hundreds, if not thousands of books. I don't agree with everything in any book I read. Even my favorite books, they don't agree with 100 % of it.
I become a different person because of the expertise and the experience and the wisdom and the stories and the trials and the tribulations and the deep thought work that's gone into some of these works. I become a different person so then I can talk off the cuff and what comes out is rich, it's full of wisdom, and it's powerful and potent. Not because I'm those things by default, but I've become those things by design and what comes out
is useful to people. Does this make sense? So read everything you can about solving their problems, that person's problem, then improve upon what's in the marketplace. Look at all the current solutions. There's some good solutions out there, but there's probably a gap. There's probably a tweak, not just to be different for a different sake. You might really love the way so-and-so solves that problem and the way they solve that problem, the way they solve that problem, but you would do something a little bit different between these top three dogs that are solving that problem. Create your own solution. Even if it's just a degree off, it doesn't matter.
Graham Cochrane (16:35.222)
If you agree with 99 % of the best practices out there, but your 1 % is a little different, that's your special sauce, right? And to help you with this, talk to real people. Like what a concept, go find your ideal person, talk to them and figure out where they're still stuck and ask them the actual questions. Hey, what if you tried? Like what solutions have you tried to solve your problems? Like what have you been working? Have you gone to counseling for your marriage? You've read books about your marriage? If we're in the marriage space, let's say.
Find out what they've already tried, that'll give you an idea of what to go check out, and then find out where they're still stuck. Okay, so they've read this book, or they've done this course, or they've been to this seminar, or they've tried this idea, and they're still stuck. That tells me there's a gap there around this area, around these areas that they're stuck. When you talk to them, figure out what is their big overarching problem, the hell that they are in, for lack of a better term. Like, they probably have a lot of problems if you're in the, again, let's go to the marriage space or the relationship space. They're like,
My love life's a mess, my marriage is a mess. Okay, but what's the real problem? How would you use describe the problem? The pain, let them describe it and get some consensus among a bunch of your ideal clients, right? Then figure out what is their big dream that they want or the heaven that they want to be in. When they picture it like you, if you could wave a magic wand for them and they're in the future and everything is exactly the way they want it to be related to this issue, in this case, their marriage or their relationship, have them describe that.
get some consensus among the people. Now you've got real language like, hey, you might struggle with this and be feeling X, Y, and Z pain. This might be the problem you're struggling with. Are you trying to get here and have this X, Y, and Z payoff, this dream, this heaven state? People are gonna be nodding their head. This comes from just talking to people. If you can identify those two things by obsessing over these people and their problems,
and then simply create your own map or method or process to get them from hell to heaven, to get them from where they are, problem to where they want to be, dream state, right? And it doesn't have to be this original thing like, hey, how would you help that person solve that problem and go from pain to payoff? What would you do? Three to five steps. Think of three to five core big picture steps. Well, first, this is what I'd help them do. Second, this is what we would do. Third, fourth, et cetera.
Graham Cochrane (18:56.106)
only way you come up with this is by obsessing over their problem. Is this making sense?
Graham Cochrane (19:04.856)
So you are choosing one person to serve.
Graham Cochrane (19:11.042)
You're obsessing about their problems.
which these two secrets by the way, happen in secret. Like, I know you want to go sell something, and if you've already done some of this work, I mean you could do this relatively quickly. Reading the books, and you could crush some books in a week.
Graham Cochrane (19:35.726)
But this is the kind of work under the surface, if you use the iceberg analogy, people, all people see of me, of anyone, of you, is what's above the surface. They have no idea what's below the surface. They have no idea the amount of hours I've spent reading, researching, studying, doing, that leads to what comes out. But I'm not saying you have to wait 15 years before you sell something.
You could sell something in the next 30 days.
But you can't just start selling something. You got to pick a person to serve. You got to obsess over their problems. And the sooner you do these things, the sooner you can get something to sell to people, right? This is up to you and how fast you want to go. You dictate the speed. But those two steps happen in secret. The third and final secret to becoming an irresistible brand, the person that people want to buy from, is probably one of the most paradoxical ones that exists. When I talk to coaches, consultants, authors and speakers,
Here's the number one piece of advice I give them to become a brand after they've done these two things. If they know who they're serving, they've obsessed over their problems, which many of them have.
You give everything you know away for free.
Graham Cochrane (20:52.334)
You share everything. You teach everything. You become prolific.
on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, wherever you like to play, whatever playground you like and your audience is living in.
Graham Cochrane (21:11.83)
I know people say, just run ads to a funnel.
and have an offer, sure, you could make money today by making up an offer, creating an ad, running a few dollars to it and getting someone to click and someone to buy. That's, again, that's such small short-term thinking. We're not trying to focus on how do we get money, we're trying to focus on how do I become a brand? Because when I become a brand, an irresistible brand like the Apple, like the Rolex, like the
whatever, Ferrari, whatever Aston Martin. I just drove by a beautiful Aston Martin SUV on Tuesday coming back from Clearwater Beach. It was gorgeous. Those brands are in a league of their own. They're not trying hard to sell. They're not even really running a lot of ads, if any. People just want what they have. And it may not even be better than what's out there.
It's just that they have become an in-demand brand. If you want to become that kind of brand where there is no competition, it doesn't matter what the economy is doing, it doesn't matter who's showing up on the internet, like you are in an industry or a niche of one, then you have to become prolific and you have to be generous on the internet. You have to give it all away. You have to show people that you know how to solve their problem. You have to build trust with people.
Because that's the only way to build an audience of loyal potential buyers. I've been saying this for years when people would ask me like, hey, you built this business up to whatever it is and what's your best advice on building a business? This is even before I started coaching and teaching business content, just when the recording revolution was blowing up. I would say friend, it's all about the audience. I would say without an audience, nothing is possible. But with an audience, anything is possible.
Graham Cochrane (23:15.214)
It doesn't matter what you want to sell. If you don't have an audience to sell it to, it doesn't matter. You're gonna be broke. But if you have an audience of raving fans who love you, who know you, who like you, who trust what you have to say because you've given so much away and they've test driven your brain and your knowledge and your expertise and your ideas and it's worked for them. If you have that, you can sell them anything you want. You can sell them a course. You can sell them a
Private community you can sell them a coaching program. You can sell them a book. You can sell them merch You can sell them tickets to a live event You can sell them other people's products as an affiliate you can do brand deals and sponsorships because people pay attention to you and So now brands want to give you money because they see all the people paying attention to you anything is possible when you have an audience and the way to get an audience is to Leverage these these platforms
really love YouTube because it's such a discoverability engine. More people will see your stuff on YouTube than any other platform. But Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, pick your poison. Leverage these platforms to what? Get discovered, right? Build trust. And then create free marketing momentum. What do I mean? When you become prolific on the internet and your stuff starts to grow, people start to share because it's free. Have you heard about this guy, Graham? Have you heard about this girl?
Have you heard about him? you heard about her? People share. People share. People share.
Graham Cochrane (24:50.922)
It's absolutely amazing what happens when you serve people powerfully for free for months and years and decades. There builds up so much reciprocity that people want to do business with you. And even if they can't do business with you, they want to share your stuff to the world because it's changed their lives. And so they become your marketing team and you don't have to pay them anything.
It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Opportunities will come, doors will open because people will start to discover you. And you don't have have millions of followers for this to happen.
just show up consistently serving one type of person, obsessed over their problems and solving their problems and answer every question that comes in your mind, solve every problem you can see. I'm promising you, you can never give too much away because people won't want the learning to stop. People will see you as the authority. People will want to join your program. They'll want to buy your book. Even if you're teaching the same things, like they'll want the different formats to be able to work with you.
to be in your world, to be in your community, be in your ecosystem, and you can teach it over and over again. I have paid clients, I teach them the same stuff over and over again, they still don't get it.
Graham Cochrane (26:07.192)
People need to hear these messages over and over again. But they're not gonna buy anything from you if they don't know you and know that you can deliver. And the only way to do that is to actually, guess what, deliver for them for free first. So you gotta go first. You gotta give generously to them before they ever even think about giving you their hard earned money. When you do this, you can sell anything you want. Anything that feels exciting to you. Because you will have built up so much trust and reciprocity and social proof that you can help them.
and that you're trustworthy. So.
Don't start a business. Don't try to sell something to people. Try to become someone that people want to buy from. And you do that by choosing one person to serve.
obsessing over their problems and the dreams that they have. Reading everything you possibly can, studying everything, talking to all of them you possibly can, and then sharing everything you're learning and you know for free online, publicly. And you will become a brand that people talk about, people trust, people want to do business with. So the moment you get into selling or offers or a webinar or an email funnel or all the sales copy, the stuff that we think
is what makes a difference. All of that becomes so much easier because they already know, I wanna buy from her. I wanna buy from him. I wanna be in their world. I wanna go deeper. This is powerful, my friend. This is how you become incredibly wealthy by serving people. Isn't that insane? Become a brand, not a business. If you're watching on YouTube, leave me a comment.
Graham Cochrane (27:52.95)
And let me know that you've watched this whole thing by commenting the word or the phrase, I am becoming a brand. And then tell me which one of those three secrets you really need to focus on or lean into more. it choosing the one person to serve, obsessing over their problems, or is it sharing everything you know for free? And if you're listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify, message me on Instagram at the Graham Cochran and let me know that you listen to this episode. Tell me your biggest takeaway. I love engaging over there as well. Hope this helps you.
I'm excited for your journey of becoming a brand, not just a business, not focusing on selling to people, but becoming someone that people want to buy from. Have a great rest of your week and I'll see you on another episode real soon.
