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Guru Inc – a conversation withauthor AJ Kumar
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How to Build a Personality Driven Media Company
It was an old high school friend Neil Patel, the founder of Answer the Public, who introduced AJ Kumar to the world of blogging and online marketing. AJ took that introduction and created, by working with Kimberly Snyder, and others a blueprint for creating a personality driven media company.
AJ launched his own company, The Limitless Company, and published Guru Inc.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds AJ explains to host Michael Millward the connection between the reverence that his culture has for spiritual gurus and the celebrity status that business gurus achieve in western culture.
Aj describes the different stages in achieving guru status, from expert to guru’s guru.
Using his experience AJ explains the different aspects of the personality driven media company blue print. Michael and AJ also discuss two of the most successful personality driven media companies, those based around Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart.
This is the podcast for any business person who wants to maximise the impact of their on-line presence.
Discover more about AJ and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencaster and Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster. Because Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy. Use the link in the description to visit zencaster.com and take advantage of the built-in discount on subscription costs.
Introducing AJ Kumar and His Insights
00:00:25
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida. Today, AJ Kumar, the author of Guru Incoming, and I are going to be discussing how experts become go-to gurus.
00:00:59
Speaker
AJ is known as the digital maestro. He is the founder of The Limitless Company, a social media innovation studio for founders, experts and creators building purpose-driven personal brands.
AJ's Journey and Digital Marketing Strategies
00:01:13
Speaker
AJ is based in Los Angeles, California, a place I have visited. If I visit again, i will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I pay trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
00:01:31
Speaker
I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to and probably good enough to share with friends, family and work colleagues.
00:01:57
Speaker
As with every episode of The Independent Minds, We will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, AJ. Hello. So excited to be here.
00:02:09
Speaker
I'm excited as well because you are going to be talking about all of those things that everybody who becomes a ah knowledge worker, whether they're self-employed or employed, it's ah you're the go-to expert within your little group, but how do you become the guru that strangers want to know about as well? Big question.
00:02:29
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I grew up around spiritual gurus. As I became an adult, I naturally started attracting and working with business gurus. I realized there was a connection.
00:02:41
Speaker
The way people in my culture revere and respect these these spiritual gurus is very akin to how people respect and appreciate business gurus. It was a trend that i started to notice more and more.
00:02:54
Speaker
a little Like around 2008, 2009, I reconnected with a friend of mine named Neil Patel, who I used to know in in high school. And Neil introduced me to the world of blogging. That led me into this really newfound understanding of a world that sits right in front of us, but most people don't quite understand it, the digital world, which led to building ah an SEO agency in 2010. I gravitated towards a woman named Kimberly Snyder, who was in a field, in a niche of plant-based nutrition, which was very like small at that time.
00:03:31
Speaker
I basically applied with her, these corporate marketing strategies, that took her website from 30,000 visitors a month over 500,000 visitors a month.
00:03:43
Speaker
And all that traffic that was coming to her site, we then would convert into email subscribers. And then we would nurture those, those people as they became email subscribers with messaging, with stories that would then position Kimberly in the minds of them as this go-to person in the space of plant-based nutrition.
00:04:05
Speaker
And we also started incorporating other areas of our interest, like spirituality, like yoga. Over a couple years, that business started generating millions of dollars a year in revenue.
00:04:17
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I didn't really realize it at the time, but I had essentially built a blueprint for what is now referred to as a personality driven media company. From 2015 to 2020, I did that again with a guy ah that's on a reality TV show. And then 2020, I changed the way I was approaching my businesses. So rather than me doing joint ventures with these clients and helping them build their business from inside their business, I wanted to scale the effect that I was having and and do it with more people. in different ways, because I also noticed around 2015, 2016, that the world was drastically changing, because I had spent so much time in this new media landscape, the internet world. And it was, it seemed very obscure. Like ah most of the times, I always felt like I was speaking a different language. Some people got it, but a lot of people didn't.
Adapting to Digital Changes and Becoming a Guru
00:05:11
Speaker
And especially because whether it was Kimberly or it was with the TV store I was working with, I was essentially behind the scenes in the entertainment world, traditional media. And I would get this glimpse into how traditional media was working. And I noticed that there was this convergence that was happening.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's a lot like when two rivers are combining and we're at that crux when those two rivers are are finally getting together and there's all this turbulence that's happening. And I was anticipating that to occur. but I didn't realize that it was like a combination of the pandemic, new media, traditional media, everything just kind of combined in 2020. And it was such a fascinating experience for me because it felt like everybody started like at least mentally falling into the digital world.
00:06:03
Speaker
That was an exciting experience for me to see just because then it didn't feel like I was speaking this new language. People are catching up with you, I suppose. To be a guru, you've got to be a little bit ahead of the curve, but still not too far ahead of the curve that you appear unbelievable. And it's it's so true. it it definitely is a problem that if you're if you're too much of a visionary and you're too much into the future, it's hard for people to latch on.
00:06:29
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So you kind of have to meet them where they're at and then give them a a path forward to to go towards. Yes. So you'll use search engine optimization.
00:06:41
Speaker
And then you are overlaying top that that the sort the personality marketing. Once you've done the work to attract the people to the website, you are then getting the sign up for information, which then gives you the opportunity to start selling to them. But you've got quite a long pipeline of activities before you start making money out of them. Yeah, it's it's a journey. And that journey has changed drastically, especially today.
00:07:09
Speaker
Previously, it was very much like a straight line of a person goes here, a person goes there, they get information, they hear your story. And then at some point, you know they eventually purchase. And there was these different like conversion points where you would then optimize in order to increase the the various conversion rates and ultimately generate more revenue today it's a lot different due to the nature of how the digital world works and how it's integrated into into our physical world and how consumer behavior has drastically changed, especially with AI bots, it's different.
00:07:51
Speaker
It's more so today about creating all of these different touch points, meaningful touch points where people interact with you on different platforms, whether it's search engines, it's AI chatbots, it's social media platforms,
00:08:06
Speaker
it's a LinkedIn article. it it's in ah It's in a variety of different places. So today, it very much is this idea of creating an omnipresence and having this cohesive message across all these different channels so that you're capturing people at different points of their journeys and hitting them with all these different meaningful touch points so that when they are in that buying decision, that buying place, you become that that go-to person, that natural next step. When you are across all of these different platforms being omnipresent, part of your presence is where you are answering people's current questions. They're searching for an answer to a question. That's where the SEO type of and things come in. But also you've got to balance the answering of today's question with also proposing the answer for tomorrow as well. Sort of this is the issue we face today. This is how it's going to be different for tomorrow. This is what we need to do in order to make sure that we're handling tomorrow's problem proactively in the the most appropriate way for ah for us as an individuals or for our organisations.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Everyone is having these different conversations in their minds and everyone's on different journeys. So most people are on smartphones almost a third of their day.
00:09:33
Speaker
You could say that people are spending as much time in front of a screen as they are sleeping. You're pretty much living on the internet now. Like that's fairly true for most people.
00:09:43
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As somebody that has an online business that wants to create a presence, it is about having these different conversations with your prospects, with people, with your audiences, and meeting them with where they're at.
00:09:56
Speaker
And there's there's different intentions that people have. So it is the idea of reverse engineering how a person thinks or ah somebody leads up to a decision point.
00:10:06
Speaker
One of my clients and friends have ah of a tool called Answer the Public. And it's a product where you could literally enter in some keywords and it'll give you all these different questions that people would ask around those keywords.
00:10:20
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And that all help that helps you create content in a way where You're hitting it from all these different angles based on the various ways that people think and wonder. That's fascinating.
00:10:32
Speaker
i think the traditional attitude towards being a guru, it was very much about who the expert, the guru was, and the fact that they had launched a new book.
00:10:45
Speaker
What you're saying is that to establish yourself in that position, you can't just have the the big idea anymore. You've got to understand the questions that people are asking or about to ask. So it's having your idea, thinking about the keywords that could be used to describe your big idea,
00:11:07
Speaker
and then using answer the public, create the right type of content in whatever format that is going to reach more people. Yeah, it it gives you kind of it gives you a sense for how people think. yeah I see a guru is they're an expert driven brand. It's built around people that have real knowledge and experience in their field.
00:11:29
Speaker
Instead of like relying on the the hype of influencers or like a celebrity status, you earn more trust and deeper connections because you're sharing credible expertise, right? And like improving authority in your field.
00:11:42
Speaker
And that happens through you living it. In the book, I describe this as the guru ladder.
Building Authority and Enabling Client Transformations
00:11:49
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There's five different levels. The first level is the generalist.
00:11:53
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And that's when you're somebody that knows a lot about everything. yeah You're the jack of all trades, master of none. And then when you start to hone in on a certain field or specialty, you become the specialist.
00:12:06
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You start to know a lot about one thing. You become more of an expert. Yes. The next level beyond that then is somebody that becomes the authority, meaning that you've gone from this expert and being really great at what you do to then being an originator of ideas and concepts within your field. Right. Like people start to quote you.
00:12:27
Speaker
authority, you know, author is like you're starting to author your own work. This is like when when one has reviewed studies. So with any field, you have other peers in your in your field that start to appreciate and value and support ah these new ideas you're bringing into the into the space.
00:12:46
Speaker
The next level beyond that is when somebody that wants to go from an authority where where small groups of people quote you to then the next level being the guru. that's when people start to follow you. That's when you essentially become the cool kid at the at the seminars and the industry events that you go to and everybody wants to sit at your lunch table. That's when you become this person that a go to that people look for their opinions.
00:13:10
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The weight of your opinion increases. Gurus are the kind of people that are more likely to be ah quoted or asked to be interviewed when it comes to a journalist or or other people wanting insights into that industry.
00:13:27
Speaker
And then beyond just the guru is the guru's guru. And that's when you have other gurus that follow you and look up to you. And this is like when you become the the Oprah of your industry, the Tony Robbins of your industry.
00:13:41
Speaker
This is when you become the global authority in your space. right Right. that's essentially what one ascends through as theyre as they're looking to grow and develop to the the maximum level in their field.
00:13:59
Speaker
Not everybody wants it. it But a lot of people do. And these are the people that want to create books. They want to have an online presence. they They want to be magnetic to opportunities. And that's essentially what happens when you ascend up the ladder.
00:14:13
Speaker
You become more magnetic because you become more visible. And this happened before in traditional media where you have like the Oprah's, Ellen's, the Martha Stewart's and whatnot. And today you have it in the digital space, the Alex Hermoses, the Gary Vaynerchuks, the Neil Patels, like when you when you become such a a powerful person in your space because people are watching you, following you, subscribing to you, visiting your sites on all these different digital channels.
00:14:42
Speaker
And when you have that, it's really valuable because people bring opportunities to you. You have leverage. You have an easier time getting people to convert. You become the hook, right? Like you essentially become When somebody sees you on a social media feed, it's, it's less about what you're actually saying and more about the fact that it's you and that a person wants to know what you have to say.
00:15:06
Speaker
You start to become the infallible person because it's you. So therefore it must be right. Exactly. A serious position to be in. Yeah. Great power comes great responsibility.
00:15:17
Speaker
If you decide to go down this route with your career, and I don't think it's just limited to people who are self-employed knowledge workers, you could also be doing it within an organization as well.
00:15:28
Speaker
It may sound very easy. We'll just to create some content, but there's a huge level of responsibility that goes with it as well. And making sure that that content actually is the right type of content that you are giving people something that will genuinely work.
00:15:42
Speaker
Exactly. Because you You could become the leader of information in your space, but how I differentiate what a guru is, is that there are people that are focused on transformations.
00:15:53
Speaker
Transformations is what everyone ultimately wants. And we're in this economy where people are making these investments, different products and and whatnot, well even if it's Nike, like you don't just get Nike because they're cool shoes. It's because you believe that you'll transform into an athlete. When it comes to the people that are gurus,
00:16:13
Speaker
And when I'm working with clients, that's the outcome that I'm looking to accomplish. That's the metric I'm i'm looking at is, the number of transformations we could be creating. Alex Srimozy talks about this all the time, where that's these are the results. These are the the testimonials.
00:16:29
Speaker
For Neil Patel, it's like all the different companies that are succeeding as a result of them hiring his agency. Same for myself. It's when I help my clients elevate to a a position in their space to where they're growing their business, they're growing their life.
00:16:46
Speaker
That's why you always hear about the idea that you want testimonials, like On sales pages, the idea is like, okay, you want somebody to come to your website or watch your video or listen to your sales pitch, but does it actually work? has you Have you actually created these transformations for people?
00:17:03
Speaker
That gives you far more weight than anything else.
Effective Communication and Emotional Engagement
00:17:08
Speaker
Increasing the number of transformations that you have delivered for people is what powers the movement movement between the different levels on the ladder. Yeah, exactly. Gurus become these people that kind of tying it back to a spiritual kind of character, like a Jesus or whoever it is that can turn water into wine that could walk on water that could change somebody's life. yeah That's what people want.
00:17:30
Speaker
And with our digital environment today, you could essentially think of how it works being like interest spaces, because the content that you see and that it served to you is is essentially something that you're interested in.
00:17:48
Speaker
And there's interest spaces for basketball, for football, for sewing, for like, there's all these different niches. And then some people combine niches and then they have their own space. Right. So there's, there's really an opportunity for anyone that wants it.
00:18:03
Speaker
It does take time to go and be in that position where all these people are looking at you and watching you. And essentially, whether it's a Tony Robbins or the Oprah's and they have the rags to riches story.
00:18:15
Speaker
Some people have different stories that people uh, latch onto and, and become interested in. yes And then they start to pay attention to the message that you have and and what you're delivering. And then as you start to have more weight in your opinion, just like as a doctor would, or a lawyer would, then you become a lot more careful with what you're saying. And even,
00:18:36
Speaker
even sharpen in what it is that you're saying because you realize you do have this effect on people. Yes. And what you're saying people might take and run with. So you do have to be careful about what you say. Yes. That's why in traditional media there exists publicist and, and media training, which is now something anybody that's on social media or any kind of internet media needs to understand.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yes, I agree with you. Everyone needs to understand the whole sort of process of how the media is now working. And listening to you, was thinking, yeah, we can talk about big names in the influence space. But yeah, the worst thing that someone could do is try to be the next Oprah. You've got to create your own version of it. There's no, you won't work or it won't work if you try to be someone who already exists. You've got to be your version. Yeah, totally.
00:19:33
Speaker
The way we grow up, humans are naturally modeling people around them. Yes. And even when I was helping Kimberly Snyder grow her company from 2012 to 2015, was modeling Martha Stewart and Oprah. I didn't know it at the time exactly what I was doing more than they were just somebody in the traditional media space that I wanted to replicate in digital media.
00:19:59
Speaker
And it's not that I made Kimberly as big as Martha Stewart or Oprah. I made it, I made her, her own like mini version of that. Yes. So that in, in the plant-based nutritionist space, she had a very sizable following millions of people going to her website, hundreds of thousands of people on her email, email list. Yeah. But in doing that, that comparison between your client and Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, you, where you brought together two different types of influencers to create something, which is a different type of influence. So you, Oprah Winfrey is an influencer because of her story, her, her access to being on television, and the Oprah magazine and all that sort of thing and her access to guests who were inspirational in their own right and it's almost like you are the people that you hang out with yeah whereas Martha Stewart is someone who was more of that expert guru it's like you can trust Oprah because Oprah knows these people and has brought these people to you with these ideas and Oprah is trustworthy
00:21:07
Speaker
Martha is the expert. She explains things in a very down-to-earth, relaxed type of way, but she just delivers something which is almost or the kitchen of the American dream. Yeah. yeah And making it accessible through Kmart. you know Yes. Yeah.
00:21:24
Speaker
and And even Oprah, i I wouldn't say that she's not an expert because in her own right, she was a journalist. Yeah. She created a different format of daytime TV show, which had entertainment, real social issues as well. Things which changed the way in which Americans and people write around the world. thought about specific issues but my point was i suppose that that was her skill that was her that's where she got her credibility from i suppose from being able to talk about the things that no one else wanted to talk about and do it in a very accessible way and talk in a very empathetic way to people who's were not in a good place yeah And that's powerful because it's the ability for one to communicate across screens.
00:22:15
Speaker
And that's not an easy thing to do. no And that's why the people that that are successful on whether it's social media or ah they have a ah strong digital presence, that's what they're doing. They're communicating feelings.
00:22:27
Speaker
It's like, even when you only think about social media, it's dominant tool in today's society. A lot of people just view it as as marketing, but ultimately social media is a communication tool. And it's your ability to communicate your message in ways that, that connect with people.
00:22:43
Speaker
And the more effective you are at being able to do that, the more you will have people reciprocating that connection. And the more reciprocation you have, it starts to send more signals to the algorithms so that they start connecting you with even more people because your purpose is in alignment with their purpose.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yes, you become the yeah the older brother, the favorite uncle, the the person that can be trusted, the person who's got the answer to my problem. Yeah. You make it sound so simple, but that's because you're a guru. Most experts are in this in the deep realms of their expertise, and they just think everybody knows everything about what it is that they do. It's it's called a curse of knowledge.
00:23:31
Speaker
so And I work with work with these experts to help them craft their messages in a way that is more simple and accessible because that's how the business of social media works, organic social media.
00:23:42
Speaker
Like a lot of the the biggest problem that most business owners, most experts have is that they try to create content for their ideal customer, but social media and humans don't work like that. Humans don't work and watch content as an ideal customer. They watch content as part of groups, whether they're part of like a group parents, fitness junkies, marketers. So when you're hitting that like group nerve identity within oneself, they're more likely to share it with other people because now they have something that they could share with other people, other members in their group. Yes, it makes an awful lot of sense. When I started Abbasidam, my view was that we would try and help people and understand employment, whether they were an employer or an employee, we would try and be that source of information around how do I become a good employer, how to become a good employee, how do we come together and form a relationship that works for both of us, being all sorts of different formats. But
00:24:45
Speaker
It's really interesting to understand from from you that this isn't a complicated thing, but what it is is that it's an intense thing. i love that.
00:24:57
Speaker
You have to spend a lot of time understanding the people who need you and then provide them with what they need rather than what you want them to need and take them on a journey so that they're understanding what you do. Because no one woke up on a Monday morning as an expert. They've taken years to develop their knowledge, their skills, and to understand how to apply that within a particular type of environment and how to adapt it to meet the needs of other environments. So the big mistake, I suppose, that people make very often is assuming that other people know what they know, whereas they don't. If they know what you know, there's no point in them talking to you. Yeah, exactly. It's a wild thought, but it's true. it's something that most people experience.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yes. think we have just only sort like scraped to the surface a little bit of this topic.
Personal Reflections and Closing Remarks
00:25:54
Speaker
There's an awful lot of things that would be of great interest. So there is more information in your new book, The Guru Incoming. And of course, there's also your website, which is ajkumar.com. An awful lot of information on there.
00:26:11
Speaker
From a human perspective, The thing that I really enjoyed reading on your website was the story of your family and the arrival of your grandfather in the United States and what he did in order to fulfill his version of the American dream and enable it for your parents and for you to be in the position that you are now in. So he sounds like ah a very inspirational man to be around. Major. He was huge. He passed away a few years ago, but luckily he got to experience a really fun 90th birthday.
00:26:45
Speaker
<unk>s There's a funny video on YouTube on it. But yeah, he was he was an inspiration what he did. And yeah, you you kind of summed it up. Well, he gave us the opportunity to be able to do what we do today. Yeah. Which is essentially you're putting into practice all the things that you're talking about with other people as well. And do encourage people to take a look at AJKumar.com. And of course, the book is is a good read as well. But for today, AJ, I've really enjoyed it. You've helped me. Yeah, you've added some cohesion to my to-do list. I love that. so I'm grateful for that. Thank you very much.
00:27:19
Speaker
Really enjoyed it. Yeah, me too. This was really fun. enjoyed our talk. Good. Great stuff. Thank you. right. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abusida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, AJ Kumar, the founder of The Limitless Company and author of Guru Incoming.
00:27:41
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abusida.co.uk. There is a link in the description, along with links to AJ's company, The Limitless Company, and his personal website.
00:27:55
Speaker
There are lots of demands on gurus. You've got to be, like AJ says, available to everyone. They all want a piece of you. So it is important to make sure that you are up for it and that you're healthy enough to survive all of that attention. One of the best ways to stay healthy is to know the risks early.
00:28:13
Speaker
That is why we recommend the health tests provided by York Test, especially the annual health test. The annual health test from York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol, diabetes, various vitamins, organ functions, the list goes on. The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in a yeah UK-AS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory in the u in the yeah UK and similar facilities in the United States of America.
00:28:53
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime via your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and as you would expect a discount code in the description.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as AJ and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:29:26
Speaker
And hopefully you'll probably want to share the link with your family, friends and work colleagues. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abusida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.