Learn how to grow by following the growth of a MAC Reseller

WBSP011: Grow Your Business by Learning From the Growth of a 3x Inc 5000 Company w/ BrianTheMacMan

In this episode, we have our guest Brian Burke from SellYourMac.com, who takes us through each inflection points in his company’s journey and how the need for people, process, and technology changed at each step of his growth.

Since they have accomplished significant growth in a highly competitive business, we touched on their differentiators. And what has fueled their growth. Finally, he shares his thoughts on how personal branding and social media has been the main driver of their growth.

Chapter Markers

  • [0:00] Intro
  • [3:33] Personal journey and current focus
  • [6:17] Perspective on growth
  • [8:06] SYM’s growth journey and its challenges
  • [9:35] Growth inflection points for SYM
  • [15:29] SYM’s journey with technology
  • [19:47] SYM’s business model and Apple ecosystem
  • [24:31] How SYM is able to differentiate on customer experience
  • [27:25] Brian’s personal branding secrets and how that is helping them
  • [32:55] Closing thoughts
  • [35:44] Outro

Key Takeaways

  • Stay ahead of your spatial needs, so you’re not feeling constrained, and you have room to grow.
  • Every year on average, I’d say we probably add, about one person. Some people leave for various reasons, which has typically nothing to do with our company, usually, people are going off to get another school degree or, you know, simply moving or something like that.
  • The new Apple Macs that launched this past month, the M1, are going to be so different that you’re going to have to have different fields in there to account for these things. So, we’re kind of constantly retooling it to make it better.
  • software is expensive and very time-consuming. And we were not a software company at the time. So it was a headache, I guess, for us, you know, kind of learning through that process.


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About Brian

Brian is Chief Mac Man of SellYourMac.com (SYM), the world’s most trusted and highest rated Apple trade-in company. SYM has paid out $38M+ and has helped over 100,000 customers. Brian loves helping individuals and organizations stay up to date on their Apple products.

As a lifelong learner, Brian has become a Sommelier, an Apple Certified Mac Technician, a Notary Public, an Ordained Minister, and a Certified Scuba Diver. Brian is passionate about empowering underprivileged students through gifting Apple technology. He believes gifting them a Mac can truly change their lives, their outlook on the world, and their future job prospects.

Resources

Full Transcript

Brian Burke 0:00

Something that’s really hard sometimes for entrepreneurs like myself, you know, all these awards are only focused on the top line there’s no award, the fastest-growing bottom-line kind of gears your head in the wrong direction.

Intro 0:14

Growing a business requires a holistic approach that extends beyond sales and marketing. This approach needs alignment among people, processes, and technologies. So if you’re a business owner, operations, or finance leader looking to learn growth strategies from your peers and competitors, you’re tuned into the right podcast. Welcome to the WBS podcast where scalable growth using business systems is our number one priority. Now, here is your host, Sam Gupta.

Sam Gupta 0:50

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The WBS podcast. I’m Gupta your host and principal consultant at digital transformation consulting firm ElevatIQ.

If you ask anyone how to grow a business, their opinions will vary on what differentiates a fastest growing company from the rest. Some would argue that the strategies vary at each phase of growth. Others would say that the need for people, processes, and technologies changes as you grow. While you will get tons of advice, there is no clear consensus on the formula for success. There is no better way of learning from growth than digging into the growth of a company that has been featured in the fastest-growing, Inc 5000 list three times.

Sam Gupta 1:40

In today’s episode, we have a guest Brian Burke from SellYourMac.com, who takes us through each inflection points in his company’s journey, and how the need for people, process, and technology changed at each step of his growth. Since they have accomplished significant growth in a highly competitive business, we touched on their differentiators and what has fueled their growth. Finally, he shares his thoughts on how personal branding and social media has been the main driver of their growth.

Let me introduce Brian to you.

Brian is the Chief Mac Man of SellYourMac.com (SYM), the world’s most trusted and highest-rated Apple trading company. SYM has paid out more than $38 million and has helped over 100,000 customers. Brian loves helping individuals and organizations stay up to date on their Apple products. As a lifelong learner, Brian has become a Sommelier, an Apple-certified Mac technician, a notary public, an ordained minister, and a certified scuba diver. Brian is passionate about empowering underprivileged students through gifting Apple technology. He believes gifting them a man can truly change their lives, their outlook on the world, and their future job prospects.

With that, let’s get to the conversation.

Hey, Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Burke 3:11

Thanks for having me, Sam. I’m excited to talk to you and all your fun listeners.

Sam Gupta 3:15

And I’m super excited to have you as well because the kind of LinkedIn following you have and the buzz that you are creating based on your personal branding, and the growth of your company, is very exciting.

Brian Burke 3:28

I appreciate that. It’s definitely a fun time, but we need to make sure the growth hits the bottom line. Right.

Sam Gupta 3:33

Amazing. So to start off, do you wanna do you want to introduce yourself with your intro?

Brian Burke 3:38

Sure. I’m known as BrianTheMacMan, because I am incredibly passionate about everything Apple, I’ve been dealing in Apple products now. You know, basically back since college, when I started buying selling phones was kind of the segue into my apple business. And I launched a company called SellYourMac.com in 2009.

I’ve been growing that organically basically every year now. And it’s incredible. We’ve had over 100,000 customers and been able to pay out over $38 million to our customers. So buying and selling a lot of Apple products there. And we’re very fortunate to have focused so much on our customer service, that we are now the number one independently rated Apple trading company in the world. And really just built that through having amazing customer service and trust at every step of the way.

So it’s been fun, and I got a great team around me. You know right now our team is 18 people strong working out of Cincinnati, Ohio. And you know, we’re operating worldwide with most of our focus on the United States. But we will work with anyone anywhere. And really like making people’s Apple trading experience as easy and fast as possible because people want their money and no hassle.

Brian Burke 5:00

And, you know, certainly, we’ve earned some a lot of recognition along the way, you know, you’re talking about growth, you know, we were able to hit the Inc 5000 3 years, you know, our first year was 2015. And then we earned the title again in 2019 and 2020.

So that’s been pretty exciting. And last year, I also was recognized as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. So that was an amazing accomplishment. That’s something I had focused on, to try to get that recognition that I was doing right in the business and leadership world.

So that was certainly one recognition there, that meant a lot to me. And this most recent year, one of my goals was doing a TEDx talk, to try to spread the word about my gifting of computers, I’m very passionate about gifting Apple products, to underserved students, to really kind of give them the tools to help excel in their lives. You know, I was so fortunate growing up that I had access to technology, and I really want to pass it on to people that don’t have that access. So it’s been a fun part of my journey and look forward to sharing, sharing more about it with you and your listeners.

Sam Gupta 6:17

So what does growth mean to you, and I know you already touched on this a bit, but would you like to expand further in terms of what is growth for you.

Brian Burke 6:26

So growth, for us, it’s been mainly organic over the years, and I don’t have any outside investors or anything like that. So there’s certainly been some opportunities I’ve seen where we could grow faster. But trying to keep it more of a bootstrapped business did keep us to keep our growth down, frankly, many years, and you just certainly the amount of money it takes to buy these Apple products, for instance, and keep that inventory in stock. That’s one of the biggest things kind of holding back the growth.

But I’ve been able to, you know, keep it growing, you know, almost every year. And, you know, this year, in particular, you know, we went into it thinking we’re going to have a lot of growth.

Brian Burke 7:08

And then of course COVID happened, and why there’s a huge demand in our industry for our products, there’s a really a supply shortage, and people aren’t upgrading their computers and devices the same way they were in previous years.

So this year, our growth has been down a lot. And it’s made me kind of rethink what’s important to the company and focusing more on the bottom line. You know, back when the pandemic hit, we kind of really tightened down and got rid of any extra expense that we could.

We’re able to be profitable even while having a much lower top line. So I think that the dynamics of growth, not having the super focus on the top line, actually, you know, can be helpful and try and put more emphasis on the bottom line, which is something that’s really hard sometimes for entrepreneurs like myself, you know, all these awards are only focused on the top line, there’s no award for the fastest growing bottom line. So it kind of gears your head kind of in the wrong direction on some of that stuff.

Sam Gupta 8:06

In a way, I agree with you there. But obviously, the community wants to celebrate the revenue. And it’s hard, right? I mean, getting business is hard. So if you are getting business, the goal is that you can find people like Jim Gitney, and Jim Gitney is the guy, with whom we did a podcast. And if you have not listened to it, I recommend every listener and obviously you Brian, you know, listen to him. He’s a real guy. he has done it.

And he talks about companies at different inflection points when they grow from $10M to $20M to $50M, and how their need for the people process and technology changes. There’s another interview that I would like to mention here is going to be from Wayne Sadin, and he works with a lot of different boards. These guys refer to businesses like you as lifestyle brands. So until you are $25 million dollars, you are actually going to be called a lifestyle brand. Okay, so we are super pumped, super excited to see your growth.

But you know, once you grow that point of a lifestyle brand, that’s when you are going to get the attention of people like Jim Gitney when you are ready to sell your business.

Brian Burke 9:13

I definitely am seeing that the need for process and systems is a lot different, just that our, you know, $10 million levels compared to where we’re at, you know, a few years ago.

So it’s hard, hard to catch up. And, you know, looking at our growth chart, it kind of showcases that it takes like a year for us to kind of catch up with our processes and systems to then allow us to grow again.

Sam Gupta 9:35

So this is what we are going to do growing as part of this interview. Obviously, people, process, and technology are the three pillars that these guys like to touch in the ERP world, in the operations world, in the finance world. We are going to talk about people, processes, and technology in each of the years that you have done business.

So let’s start from 2009 how you were in 2009 with respect to people, process, and technology, then all that is in 2010. And we are going to be talking about, you know, just some take rough brackets there, maybe four or five, maybe from 2009 to 2013, if they were similar, so give me some inflection point in your company.

Brian Burke 10:15

So back in 2009, it was the first year we got an actual building. And before that, we’re operating out of our basement, my basement. So I think a from a pure process standpoint, it was a huge issue that we were trying to carve stuff up and downstairs and what not and didn’t have any great storage facility, didn’t have any high ceilings to put, you know, skids or prod and stuff like that.

So the biggest change for us was simply having the space to allow us to grow. And that’s something I’ve noticed multiple different times, as we get to the other inflection points, you literally are just slowed down on growth by you can’t store enough products. So you’re either trying to sell it too quickly at a lower margin, or you’re not buying it because you can’t fit it in your warehouse. So back in 2009, I think we had about five or six employees at that point. And we were operating at about 2000 square feet.

Brian Burke 11:11

And we were able to operate there for about two years until we moved to our current building. And at the time, you know, we were not using all this space when we moved in, you know, 2011, I guess it would be, but we needed that space to allow us to think about how we could you know, fill up with more product.

So I guess my advice for people in that regard is, you know, to stay ahead of your spatial needs, so you’re not feeling constrained, and you have the room to grow. And every year on average, I’d say we probably add, you know, about one person. And you know, obviously, people were some people, you know, leave for various reasons, which are typically nothing to do with our company, usually, people are going off to get another school degree or, you know, simply moving or something like that.

But we’ve been fortunate to hold on to almost all of our employees because we take care of everyone, and we treat everyone, you know, kind of like family in our business.

So you know, 2012, we moved to the new warehouse right now. And the way it’s set up is we have a front office, and we had a retail store in front. So that was our first time launching this retail store component. And you know, before that people were just walking into our warehouse, so it was much nicer to have a kind of a true retail store, which, unfortunately, it’s just been closed a couple of months ago due to COVID. But that was a big, a big change for us and an inflection point getting the word out there more in the community.

Sam Gupta 12:39

Okay, so we covered until 2012. So I don’t think we covered until 2020.

Brian Burke 12:44

So we’ll keep going. I mean, one of the biggest inflection points probably was 2014-15, I knew I needed to hire some more Apple expertise. So we were able to poach away a couple of the top Apple geniuses from the Apple Store. And we’re basically just offering a better work-life balance. And that kind of small business environment is what these people were interested in at the time.

So bringing them on the team allowed us to, you know, I get a little bit deeper understanding about the Apple products and some of the repairs that we maybe weren’t as familiar with, and just kind of growing our bench there. And those two, those two individuals are still at the company, and, you know, being a tremendous help, frankly, and then, you know, we’ve been hiring more tech every year, you know, maybe about once a year to try to grow the tech team, you know, we have a big focus on repairing things when they come in, that are damaged, you know, we much prefer to sell a working unit than just to sell the parts kind of for the, for the face value.

And you know, even if the parts might have, you know, more money individually, we feel like there’s just such a benefit to getting that working computer to the end user. So that’s been a big focus of ours.

Brian Burke 14:05

And it takes quite a big tech team to get all these things repaired. So while we’re not offering repair service to that many people right now, we’re just trying to repair everything that we get in the house, and we get you to know, I’d say about 70% of our product comes in it can be wiped and reloaded and can be, you know, sold fairly quickly.

But the other 30% you know, might need a new hard drive or a new battery, or something like that to help get it back to the kind of a fully working unit. And we’re calling these units now renewed Mac, which is the name of our ecommerce website, renewedmacs.com, that’s where people can go now to buy directly from us. Make it kind of super easy to you know, find us on the internet and I kind of avoid the eBay and Amazon other channels out there. figured we’d like to go direct to the customer and then the renewed Macs was something that just happened at the beginning of this year.

So that was a big inflection point that’d be launching an ecommerce store. Before that, we were kind of tied down to eBay and Amazon, and just other, you know, bulk sales that we were making. So we really wanted to have our own customer channel there. So it was very important to us.

Sam Gupta 15:12

Okay, did we miss any other inflection points?

Brian Burke 15:16

I’m sure I could talk for a long time about the different changes we’ve made. But those are probably the biggest ones, you know, getting the different warehouses to allow us to scale and just kind of continually adding new team members to help us. Help us keep the growth up.

Sam Gupta 15:29

Yeah, we are going to do the diagnosis of your growth today, Brian. So yeah, we are going to talk about every single detail. Okay, so we started with people, processes, and technology. Right. So you definitely spoke about some the people need there. You spoke a little bit about the process. You also spoke about, you know, the business model, but I don’t think you touched on the technology architecture.

I mean, we are talking about the overall technology need how it evolved. So walk me through from 2009. Maybe you did your invoicing on QuickBooks, maybe you captured your orders on I think you guys have Drupal, right? I don’t know if you are comfortable sharing that with the audience. Can you talk about technology?

Brian Burke 16:17

Back then it was so manual, I mean, we did most of our sales on eBay. So that all came through PayPal, and we use PayPal for our invoicing software. My accountant used QuickBooks, but you know, we didn’t use it. So we were keeping, you know, notes on Excel documents and stuff like that, and just, you know, hitting that stuff over. So there really was no internal system that was running our entire business. But if you fast forward to about 2015, we decided that we needed an internal system.

And we kind of looked in the ERP market. We couldn’t find anything that was quite what we wanted. There were certainly options out there and allow us to inventory and catalog products. And there were some that allowed you to you know, list on certain channels like eBay or lightspeed, and some stuff like that, but nothing that was as customized, that we could connect control straight from the website, our quoting process all the way through to the sale. So after doing a bunch of research, and you know, realizing we could have started with a, you know, an SAP type ERP system, and then had to spend all this money customizing it, we decided, we just go full custom.

Brian Burke 17:28

And we worked with our, you know, current website programmer, and we scoped out the project, and we thought was willing to take about a year, and that taking about four years. So that was huge learning is that software is expensive and very time-consuming. And we were not a software company at the time.

So it was a headache, I guess, for us, you know, kind of learning through that process. But in the end, about a year and a half ago, we launched an amazing new ERP system that is still customized just for our need, and allows us to, you know, really dial in every single aspect of the business, you know, when someone’s getting a quote in the website, our systems pulling all that information in and sending custom messages to them, you know, virtually every step of the way from when they get the quote when they get their shipping label to their shipping information. When it arrives, it tells them and we’ve checked it in, they get another email telling them that we’ve wiped it clean, and then our payment goes out, they get that information.

Brian Burke 18:32

And then in the system, we’re able to move everything through a process that, you know, we’ve really tweaked for exact needs, that it flows the item depending on what it is, and what any kind of issues that might have, you know, either straight to one of our sales channels, or straight to one of our techs to repair it.

And it really allows us to record this information in a way that I hadn’t seen in some of these ERP systems and adding all these new custom fields, you know, kind of as needed has been, you know, really helpful for us. I see some of these issues from other companies or industries when they’re sending over reports. And, you know, they’re kind of hampered by whatever the, you know, fields have dropped out and they have first you know, we’re kind of constantly dynamically changing that.

And as the products themselves change, I see having the customized system, or at least the ability to customize it as a huge win-win for us. You’re just looking at the new Apple Macs that launched this past month, the M1, you know, they’re going to be so different that you’re going to have to have different fields in there to account for these things. So that so I guess at this point, we’re kind of happy we have a customized even though we’re you know, kind of constantly retooling it to make it better.

Sam Gupta 19:47

Okay, interesting in how does the Apple ecosystem works. So are you an authorized reseller and I’m sort of confused with respect to your business model, to be honest.

So my understanding of your business model as you are buying these users Computers and you are, you know, refurbishing them? And again, you know, I don’t understand so I don’t know if I’m describing it well.

Brian Burke 20:10

Well, that is spot on. That is what we do.

Sam Gupta 20:12

Yeah, so you are doing that, I mean, that’s just the refurbishing of your Apple computers. So, 1) is Apple excited about it? 2) how you are different from any other Apple refurbishment shops?

Brian Burke 20:26

Sure. So Apple actually is excited about it. And you might not guess that, but they do like having, excuse me, they do like having these companies in the ecosystem because it helps people buy the new products. And they realize that even though they have a trading platform that they can do it all and certain customers might have different needs.

So having these companies out there, you know, like mine, we’re able to kind of fill people’s pockets with more cash that they can use then go and buy more products. And we’re not Apple authorized. And if we were, we technically wouldn’t be able to sell the new stuff. They only want you to sell the new stuff. We do have Apple-authorized technicians, they call them CMTS, which I am also one of those. And you know, that’s our only true Apple certification. But Apple had a conversation with us. And it’s been friendly. And you know, they said they respect what we do. So that was a nice thumbs up from them.

Brian Burke 21:25

And you know, I kind of see this as a crowded space, because there are so many companies now getting into this, that the way we’re able to differentiate is really through trust and reviews. Like I mentioned kind of the beginning is that we’re the number one most trusted independent trading company. And it’s just taking care of the customers basically how we’ve gotten there. If there’s ever an issue, or just fixing it very quickly, for some of these other companies, you know, aren’t offering as customized communication, and as much help along the process.

So I think just by being always being there, and being super responsive, we’ve been able to kind of get our head above and there are other businesses in the same space. And we also try to offer a great value, there might be some out there that could offer more, but they also maybe they might change their pricing after they get it. So you know our price is set, we’re going to pay that price. As long as you send it in, that’s what you say it was you are good to go. And you’ll get the full amount. And that’s also allowed us to kind of keep that positive review up is that we’ve never scammed anyone.

Sam Gupta 22:34

Okay, so I don’t know what I’m missing here. So let’s say if I’m a consumer, and if I’m trying to sell my Mac, I have two choices. Either I can come to you. And obviously, since you are a growing company, you are probably going to be expensive, because obviously, your fee is going to be there.

Now the other choice is going to be and I’m actually going to bring an example. So let’s say if I’m trying to sell my car, I have two ways of selling my car. Either I can go to a dealer, or I can sell let’s say on Craigslist or, or Kijiji. So why is somebody coming to you and why trust matters so much in this business? Because the only thing I’m trying to do is I’m trying to sell my computer, and I’m trying to get the cashout. So why do you need trust here?

Brian Burke 23:16

It’s mostly about the hassle of you trying to sell it and try to go to these other sales channels. If you don’t know how to properly wipe the computer, for instance, you know, your data security would be a huge issue. And obviously, you’re you know, you’re an enterprise tech guy by background. So I mean for you that’s no problem.

But I’m most of the general consumers, I think are very worried about their security and would much prefer to sell to a trusted party, then sell to someone that they don’t know that they’re going to wipe the data properly and stuff like that. And then from a time standpoint, if you were to list your computer on eBay, for instance, you know, you might spend an hour taking the photos and making the listing another couple hours was fine the questions over the week as the bidding goes on.

Then, you know another hour packing it up and taking it to the post office verse, if you were trading at SellYourMac.com, you would get a label in your email instantaneously. All you have to do is just pack in a box and we’re going to guarantee we wipe it, it’s really hassle-free from that standpoint and you’re going to get great value. It might not be as much as if you sold it yourself. But I think when people consider the time and the hassle that goes into it. I think that’s where it makes the most sense.

Sam Gupta 24:31

Yeah. So basically, you’re making it easy for the consumers and obviously, Apple buyers are going to be you know, slightly affluent category if you will. They make a lot more money than average consumers. So obviously they can afford this, I guess, and the experience that you are providing obviously experiences the big deal here, right. So tell us some of the aspects of the experience that are really differentiated for you at this point in time and why consumers come to you

Brian Burke 25:00

I want to touch on that. But I see one thing first because you mentioned that it’s that very affluent customer that uses apple. And that’s one of the gaps I’m trying to bridge, you know, when we’re selling these products that are, you know, 30 to 80% less, that is allowing consumers to get their hands on, you know, maybe their first or second Apple device, at a price that they can afford the technology and in most cases, you know, get the same use out of it that they would have gotten anyways.

Most people don’t need the brand new, you know, Mac that just came out to get their work done and you know, do their email and photos, whatever they might be doing. So I see what we’re doing as offering to help bridge that gap between potentially the affluent customer and someone that just really wants access to technology.

Sam Gupta 25:44

Yep. Love it. And there is a market for certified cars. I mean, this is the same business model, I guess, in the case of the car industry. So there are going to be consumers who will love it. I mean, definitely, you are serving the need. And obviously, you know, there is no question that Apple hardware is going to be superior to any other hardware out there. I don’t know if anybody is going to argue with that. No, I mean, I argue the experience.

Okay. So we like spreadsheets, Apple does not provide me the spreadsheet. That’s why we are not sold on Apple, I would love to use Apple every day if I could use spreadsheets on Apple. But in our case, for finance people for operations people, there is no way they can use Apple, it doesn’t work. And that is the problem. And the same goes for Google as well. I mean, Gmail is amazing. There’s no question about that. Okay. But it doesn’t work for us. We are in a different ecosystem. So fit is very important. This is what we talk about when it comes to utilizing a system, or utilizing anything, I guess I mean, fit is very important, right?

Brian Burke 26:50

I agree. And I think also keeping that all under one ecosystem, like if you have to use PC because that’s how your business operates. It might not make as much sense to have, you know, an iPhone, because maybe it doesn’t sound quite as well. So trying to keep it all in the same ecosystem is something that I recommend too.

Sam Gupta 27:08

Exactly, so I would guess your customers are going to be primarily in the school community, software firms, marketing firms. They are big MAC users and MAC would make no sense for them to be honest.

Brian Burke 27:21

Yes, exactly. Going after all the people that are using the Apple ecosystem.

Sam Gupta 27:25

Yep, yep, exactly. Exactly. So we were talking about growth, Brian. I don’t know if we have touched on every single point. But I am actually looking to grab the secret sauce that you have, right. So far, you know, the secret sauce seems to be in my experience is number one, your customer experience. And obviously, the branding charisma that you have over LinkedIn passion. So tell me how was BrianTheMacMan born? What was the genesis of that? How did it start? Tell me the story behind that.

Brian Burke 28:02

So it kind of started with the blue suit. And I learned about the blue suit from the orange suit guy who runs an IT business in Cincinnati called Interest. He did a really good job kind of branding himself with the orange suit. And it caught my eye one day and he recommended I go to this website to buy a blue suit. I went ahead and did that. And I took it to my first trade show a couple of weeks later. Everyone was coming up to me to engage in a conversation with me and I wasn’t doing anything.

And the only thing I could point to was the blue suit and people would walk up and just tell me how you stood out because you had the blue suit on. So I kind of knew I was onto something. And I started using it more and more online and you know, pictures and videos and stuff like that, and kind of grown that into a little bit of a personal brand that when I show up online, I’m in the blue suit. And right now if you looked at me, I’m wearing all blue. I have my blue shirt on. I’m not in a blue suit.

Brian Burke 29:03

If we were recording it live, I would have a video I would 100% do my blue suit. So I think it’s being consistent. You know, if I was wearing a different suit color every day, I wouldn’t be that memorable. But you know, picking a color and kind of standing by it has definitely worked for me. And of course, it’s also my company colors so it wasn’t just picked out of thin air. You know, SellYourMac is blue and white.

So those are my you know, kind of two, two colors, you know where the blue suit with a white shirt. It’s very fitting, and I’ve loved blue my whole life so that that easy tie in for me there. So I think he’s just being that being memorable and showing passion. Why having something that’s eye-catching, I think is key. So I think you have to have the combination if I just had a blue suit on but I was super boring and I didn’t engage with people then I wouldn’t work either. So find your memorable outfit and let the passion work is my recommendation.

Sam Gupta 30:01

Yeah. And it’s kind of interesting. I don’t know if you know this guy called OliverTheJewelryGuy. He is good. He’s going to be on every single bus out there. This guy is phenomenal with respect to his charisma, okay? The way he likes to portray himself is he’s a very rich guy, okay, very greedy guy, the kind of, you know, the picture you get by looking at him is, you know, he’s a very greedy guy.

But obviously, you know, when you’re really when you’re rich, everybody wants to come after you because everybody wants to be like you. I don’t know. I mean, if that works or not, but I mean, you know, that does have some sort of magnet there with respect to branding and marketing. So I used to wonder, I don’t know, I mean, if I would ever do that because that is, that is sort of interesting. I don’t know if this guy looks funny, you know, he’s holding this jewelry in both hands. And he is a super, super, super, super magnetic personality. I mean, once you see him, you can never forget him. Okay, so this is a big sales tactic that, that you have.

Brian Burke 31:03

A lot of I know people that go with the flashy look. And it definitely attracts a certain type of audience. I think it depends on what you’re selling. Like, if you’re, if you’re selling a course, that’s gonna make you rich, then if you look rich, I think it helps.

Sam Gupta 31:16

You have to do the right thing. So in this case, I mean, see, if you look at him, you will picture jewelry, I’m telling you, man, you are going to picture. So in your case, let’s say if I look at Blue.

Brian Burke 31:28

I mean, you should be humbled. Because if you appear that you are already, you know, wealthy, then why would someone even care to do business with you? I guess they’re like, Oh, well, he’s already made it, it’s not gonna help him if I work with him. But, you know, for us, it’s like, we have a small business, and we’re trying to support our team members and our families. So it’s like, you know, we haven’t made it yet. And we still do need to keep growing and be profitable in order to help our team out.

Sam Gupta 31:55

So I have a perspective on that. So you know, whether you want to come across as humble versus you want to come across as greedy. Okay, both work equally in sales and marketing. So if you look at, you know, the old, plain old real estate people, they used to be there, I don’t think you would call them humble at all. Right. And, you know, they had to show their richness, the affluence, and if they don’t show, then they were communicating that they were not doing well. And if you’re not doing well, probably you are not smart, that consultant type of position. You know, being a realtor.

Brian Burke 32:30

I think that does make sense. I think it maybe is, you know, industry or, you know, company-specific.

Sam Gupta 32:55

You got to do what you got to do. I mean, see, if you were Microsoft, then I don’t know how many people are going to be buying Apple. So you are doing good, man. All right, brother. So that’s it for today. I think we have the recording for roughly 30 minutes that should be good for 20-25 minutes is what we like to record. Do you have any last-minute closing thoughts?

Brian Burke 33:19

Well, I would love to offer a bonus to all your listeners. And if they want to sell our Mac at SellYourMac.com or any Apple device they have, they can use the code MacMan, one word, MacMan and that’ll give them a $20 bonus when they go to sell.

And also if they went to RenewedMacs.com, they could use the same word MacMan to get a $20 discount. So I want to make sure I can help everyone out there get a little bonus or discount.

Sam Gupta 33:49

Okay, anything else Brian before we close?

Brian Burke 33:53

It’s been a pleasure talking to you. And hopefully, we can help out some of your ERP customers trade in their Apple, and they can upgrade their ERP even more.

Sam Gupta 34:00

Amazing. love it. BrianTheMacMan. It’s very hard to forget MacMan I guess. Thank you.

Brian Burke 34:07

Once they follow me on LinkedIn, they won’t be able to forget I’m in a blue suit every day.

Sam Gupta 34:14

I cannot thank our guests enough for coming on the show for sharing their knowledge and journey. I always pick up stuff from our guests, and hopefully, you learn something new today. If you want to learn more about Brian, please visit, SellYourMac.com. SYM would love to sell your old Apple devices so you can get the cash and someone else can benefit from your used device. use promo code MacMan, it’s MacMan for a bonus on your trading. Links and more information will also be available in the show notes.

If anything in this podcast resonated with you and your business, you might want to check other related episodes including the Interview with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey from Shipz, who discusses why LinkedIn is essential for personal branding and community development. Also the interview with Joe Sullivan from Gorilla76, who touched on different aspects of social media, in marketing, and why marketing organizations need to be reinvented with COVID-19.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe and spread the word among folks with similar backgrounds. If you have any questions or comments about the show, please review and rate us on your favorite podcasting platform or DM me on any social channels. I’ll try my best to respond personally and make sure you get home.

Thank you, and I hope to get you on the next episode.

Outro 35:44

Thank you for listening to another episode of The WBS podcast. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode. For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, check out our community at wbs.rocks. We’ll see you next time.

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