00:00:23- Chris: Welcome to the Freedom FastTrack Podcast! My name is Christopher Duncan and I am super excited. We had Brian Evans on the show earlier and now, we got his partners in crime in Influencive; Clinton Senkow. Dude, I am excited to learn more about you! Thanks for jumping on the show.
00:00:37- Clinton: Thank you so much for having me. I’m pumped to be here and yeah it’s always fun just connecting with other entrepreneurs and people doing cool things like yourself.
00:00:46- Chris: Thanks man and likewise. I don’t really know we’re going to go. I think we’re joking on something about marketing. I think it’s going to be fun. You guys have done amazing with Influencive and it looks really cool. So I’d love to start up by you sharing a little bit about Influencive and how that’s going. I saw your Youtubes, it’s got 400 thousands’ subscribers. You guys only started it less than two years ago, right?
00:01:14- Clinton: Oh yeah. We started; with the website, Brian started it in January. It’s kind of the best way to say it. And you know we just kind of use a lot of different techniques and just start experimenting for the past few years just to keep growing all of our different channels. It’s been really, it’s been mind blowing. Honestly when I started contributing for the platform back in June, I saw few pieces, few posts that I wrote; just kind of went completely viral. Some of them were like post that we wrote, other ones were just like post that we have on facebook. They reach 5 million people, 8 million people. We kind of saw that happen and when we saw that, that’s why we knew we have something good. We were doing; we’re in the right area, we’re in a good niche. We’re just trying to keep modelling through. We know that we’re just getting started and we still have a lot more to do.
00:02:15- Chris: Nice man and it is exciting. I’ve kind of learnt about it and saw what you guys are doing. I think what’s great about the platforms that’s happening is there’s so much opportunity. I’ve been in business 12 years and you know travelled and done most of the same figures and so many people but here’s what’s interesting right now. The right at which we can get something moving is incredible.
00:02:41- Chris: I would love a little bit of your story. You’re entrepreneur, your journey and what it is that you’ve been up to that time.
00:02:53- Clinton: Yeah! My kind of entrepreneur, whole journey is a little bit different. It’s kind of all over the place you’ll see but I; my first adventure business experience whatever you want to call it when I was seventeen. I joined this after school program called junior achievement. Basically junior achievement; it teaches kids from 15- 17 years old after school- once a week for three hours, “how to grow business”. You create a business plan, you create a product. You sell shares, you sell products. You create, you do everything.
00:03:31- Clinton: I have friend of mine that brought me into that and we ended up creating a Lip balm and Lip Gloss Company. We created that, actually sold to our friends and family type of thing; making a little bit of money. That was kind of my first school. Little thing into business and I’d been an athlete my whole life. Went to college on scholarship, got my business degree and graduated in 2013; three or four years ago now. Ever since then, I’ve just been involved in mostly sales and marketing type roles. I’ve been involved in sales with one of Venture start ups; that was the 1.5 Million C Brown. Another one was a crow funded back start up as well. So I was in sales, marketing kind of top marketing partnerships often. I’ve started to write for a bunch of different platforms; few wellness and health magazines up in Canada where I am. That’s where I really found a passion and hobby in writing.
00:05:03- Clinton: We’re starting to see a lot about “come about now”, when people start to send messages and say “We love what you guys are doing. Your posts help us get from here to here”. That’s what really drives me every day, just getting those positive encouragements from other people in all over the world.
00:05:22- Chris: A lot of people thought that blogging was going to die and I heard it just like you hear “It’s going to die” every single year. Why blogging? Why do you think people listening take up blogging and do that?
00:04:59 – Clinton: The reason why I think people should take up blogging is; it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, whether you’re entrepreneur or not you need to have those good communication skills. When you become a good writer, it forces you to perform better in multiple areas of communication whether it’s writing an email to a colleague or for potential customer or client. Once you become better at writing, you start writing, you start seeing that little things that you could be doing better. How you can work something better, how this sound compared to this. And I feel that time, the benefits that I’ve really had through the years of becoming a better writer; I can communicate whether it’s face to face or in person. In front of a crowd, I can talk to someone in an email; we can have a phone call. Whatever it is in multiple areas of communication, it really made my skills so much better.
00:07:07- Clinton: If you’re starting a company, you’re starting a start up. It’s always important to have your own personal brand. When you’re able to write and you’re able to blog, or whoever contributing on your sites; it really helps build up your profile, build up your image and I think overall it’s just a huge benefit to you and your business or whatever you’re doing at the time.
00:07:40- Chris: I think a lot of times, people get scared or worried they’re not going to be good enough or they’re not going to know what to say so did you take a writing course before you started or you just start? How do people get started?
00:07:55- Clinton: [Laughing] I love it! That’s so funny. Another unconventional way of how I became a writer but I honestly had a 52 in English 30. Never going to have a strong writer, you could have never paid me money to write anything. I had that sense of structure. Always been a god speller, and it came to me in probably about my third year in college where I started; I always started getting better and I started getting better grades from some of my teachers. I was like “Oh wow!” and I’m like “This is cool”. I’ve got a little bit of confidence. There were two contests. They were both in twitter, believe it or not and they were for post secondary/collegiate students. You submit an essay for this and you can win a trip to this conference. I submitted to one and I was one of ten students from across the province in Canada to go. I was like “Wow! I won!” Few months later, came up another contest and I submitted and I won again! That one was light-year, crazier than the other one. Everything is paid for; meeting these mayors and these business leaders, everything from all over my area in Canada. So that was just really opened up my eyes like “Wow! Maybe I should start writing. Maybe I should do this a little bit more”. I kind of getting started; involve online and do some writing in four different websites.
00:10:51-Chris: Why do you think people are so scared to start man? What is that all about?
00:10:56- Clinton: People are scared because number one, they don’t like failing and number two; they love comfort. That’s why not everyone’s business owner, not everyone’s entrepreneur because probably they have a job right now that maybe they’re not hundred percent happy at but it’s paying the bills. I guess this is where entrepreneurs’ success stories came from “When you do get down into that really dark place on your journey of entrepreneur and you’re struggling to pay the bills, or you’re just struggling to make things work, you become crafty. You find ways to make things work because in the end if you’re passionate about it and you really want to do whatever it is you’re doing and build it to a success, you’ll find ways to make it work. You really become resourceful. That’s the sign of a really good entrepreneur.
00:13:14- Chris: Freedom is huge and is really all about starting. I think people want some crazy secrets but honestly, you start and then you get better. So you do a lot in sales and marketing with Influencive, so what do you think is the key to really get Influencive off the ground? You mentioned that, that’s kind of took you by surprise. What do you think made the difference of why that blog is taking off the most and some are not?
00:13:59- Clinton: Honestly number one, I think Brian and I make a really good team. In any product or any business, if you don’t have the right people around you; it’s going to be hard to get something going. Brian and I have a really good relationship. We have very good networks of people and connections that we stay in contact with that we provide value to. Definitely having the right team is one. I’m always trying to connect with other media people, other writers, and other entrepreneur; finding ways that we can kind of leverage each other and our networks. I know what we have is a valuable asset to other people as well.
00:17:14- I like to dive into that a little bit. So what would you give some of your advice or things when you build relationships? Which platforms do you use the most? Do you get them on a call? How do you build business?
00:17:28- Clinton: Honestly, I feel this is another thing that people are sometimes scared of. They’re like “Hey, you’re on for podcast”. One of the best things you’re creating a podcast is connect to other who’s really successful and know what they’re doing and connect with them in their community. One of the best ways to get people to take it noticed is; Yeah! It’s to light their stuff; it’s to communicate with them. You’re building that rapport and relationships to people over time.
00:19:21- Facebook is definitely something that’s very important to me in growing myself and growing Influencive and it’s definitely helpful. Just the last check that I’ll say is that, I think that’s super important for people to have consistency within your platforms, consistency within your social networks and your organity. If you’re on facebook, and it’s different name than what you have on your instagram then it’s hard to find you. It’s hard to figure out what you’re doing, what your value, what your experience is and I think the easier it is to find information on someone, the more trustworthy, the more professional that person is.
00:20:58- Chris: If people really want to build a relation, here’s my tip: Find or build something that add value to somebody else. If you can come and say, “Hey, I’ve got a podcast and this podcast that you’re on right now; this is going to reach hundred thousand people. This is value, I can get Clinton on a podcast, I can get Russel Brunson. We had Garry, we can get people on the show because we’re coming with value. I think relation is so important. I want to hear your tips on this. We create a personal brand but we also need to create that other thing that other people can be part of. They want to go on something that’s community. So last question, when people building a community in getting others, what are your tips on naming that community because you don’t want to name it yourself and how could they think about that?
00:22:04- Clinton: I think one of the things that kind of important to start is obviously, you have that personal brand. If you’re starting from nothing, you’re behind that eight ball right? You have Chriduncan.com, you have whatever built up already, you have some followers or you have that people following you on linkedin, whatever it is; you have someone that you can start from. Lastly, you have access to those platforms and be professional.
00:22:33- Clinton: Moving on from that, this is how I come up with names. I’m always buzzing with ideas; things are always going to my head, as an entrepreneur we’re full of ideas. Whenever i come up with a name, I ask some people like “hey, what do you think of this name?” and “Oh yeah, that’s a cool name!” Then I go and buy the domain for $15.00.
00:23:17- Chris: I tell you something funny. I’m so sorry to interrupt but every single Tuesday when we go through our book keeping, my VA says to me, “Chris here’s the list of all the domains that are expiring, do you want any of them, no? And I said “put them to expire”. It means i bought them a year ago.[Laughing]
00:23:57- Chris: Let me ask you this question. What does freedom mean to you?
00:24: 03- Clinton: Freedom means to me that basically, I can pick up and go anywhere that I want. Do whatever I want. For me success-freedom is not about having all the money in the world. If freedom is being able to go to maxicle tomorrow and not worried about it and just pick up, go to the airport, go book your holidays, don’t worry about anything, everything is taken care of. Freedom is just being able to do what you want, when you want on your schedule and that’s what Freedom is to me.
00:24:49- Chris: I want to finish off by asking you this, Is there anything that you’d like to give us your parting advice or wisdom to people out there starting to create a business to get some freedom? What would you say that they need to know?
00:24:59- Clinton: The biggest thing that they need to know is; they just need to act and when they act, they need to realize that when you take action, you’re going to fail and you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to fail, you’re going to make mistakes but you can’t get sidetrack from that.
00:25:51- Chris: Obviously, you’ve got the system that’s working. What’s next for you? What’s your vision? Where are you taking things?
00:26:12- Clinton: With Influencive? Definitely, Influencive is my, it’s the baby. We’re working on it. That’s what taking my time. I love what we’re doing. I love the mission that we have. I love impacting people, creating a platform that other are inspired by. It’s just really taking Influencive to the next level. Being a publication, being an online business that people are like, they know Influencive. It’s everywhere, they know it and that’s ultimately what the dream is just to keep inspiring it and make Influencive as biggest we can get it.
00:26:53- Chris: What a great dream and what a great vision. Everyone can go check out Influencive.com. All the social media handles, you can go and stalk this amazing man. The most important thing that I got today is make sure that you start. Get there and get started. Start writing and start straight away even if you’re terrible writer but know that it’s not what’s happening on the screen. A lot of it is behind the screen where you’re networking and connecting and adding value to other people. I think this really came out today; everyone should have something like the Freedom FastTrack Podcast as a minimum where they can add value to another person they really want to connect with. It’s huge! For me, I’m just looking forward connecting with you and more people. Listeners, thank you for tuning in today. Make sure you subscribe, like and share this podcast. Please leave us a review if you found this valuable. Track this man down and live with Total Freedom, Free Your Mind, Free Your Time Free Your Life, so you can do more of what matters most. Have an amazing day! Go right there, smash it!
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