Profitable, and a first inbound lead that found him.

Carla: Hi, this is Carla Cherry, sitting here with James Shockley, founder of Marketing Mate, a business automation tool. You just finished the program. We're coming to the end of the first run. Can you share with everybody your biggest win?

James: There's a lot, actually. I'd say my biggest win is I've become profitable since joining, which goes into the name. I've got my first organic lead that came to me through my LinkedIn posting. I didn't even reach out to them. They reached out to me just because they saw the content I was posting. And it could be a massive partnership with thousands of potential accounts with it.

And then I guess another win is it's pushed me to really go out there and network. I've built a great network, and it's led to opportunities where now I'm going to be on the panel at a marketing convention. I'm getting interviewed by Kevin Harrington, who's an original shark from Shark Tank. It's opened my mind and a lot of opportunities for me for my business to grow.

Carla: Let's talk about this. The gentleman that reached out to you. We won't mention a company name, because you're in the middle of making a proposal on a deal. But he has, I think, 300,000?

James: It's over 200,000 real estate agents, where he does their digital business card. And now he wants to white label my service into his company where we do a revenue split, and he already has the distribution to over 200,000 potential buyers. It could be a really amazing opportunity there, even if we sell something that's a very small package, but very plug and play.

Carla: And he came to your page, saw your content, saw all of the comments. I looked on that day, you had tons of comments.

James: Yeah, he came to me. I didn't even reach out to him. I didn't even message him. And the views on my videos get over 1,200 views now on my LinkedIn videos, which is great. I know people that have 5 times the amount of followers or connections that I do, and I've seen their views, and they get barely a thousand. I'm breaking a thousand pretty much 50, 60% of the time on a lot of my LinkedIn posts now too.

Carla: So if this deal goes through, that's life changing.

James: Life changing. And I think being on the panel at the marketing convention will be life changing. That's the big opportunity I've dreamt of for the last 8 years. Since I started marketing, it was to be that guy on the panel, or up there giving the speech. So it's an amazing potential opportunity as well.

Carla: What specifically helped you on this boost?

James: Definitely just the group. It definitely feels like a family in a sense. I feel like I've made great connections with a lot of the people. I've been able to refer business to people. I've been able to get business from people. And really, the LinkedIn thing is just so valuable, honestly. Having the views and the growth on your LinkedIn. Plus you're forced to go out there and reach out to people and grow your connections. I've got almost 4,000 connections now. I think I started off with like 3,100. Granted, I've got a VA that's helping me grow my followers and everything, but that's something anyone could do. I just have someone constantly growing my account manually, and then I'm messaging people and doing all of that. So it's a little hack that we can do.

Carla: But you are out there reaching out to 5 people a day. And your account, with everybody commenting, it got more eyeballs in the algorithm. So this gentleman with the realtors may not have potentially even seen you before.

James: Yeah, he even said, I don't usually do this, but I was intrigued by what you were posting, and I figured this could really help benefit my business.

Carla: And you're posting every day and people were showing up commenting. The comments come through in droves, like every day. And we're not just posting little great job or interesting. It's thought provoking, like paragraphs. So it leads to other people commenting.

James: Because you don't want to be the only person to comment. It feels awkward, I guess. But when there's 12 other people that have already commented, someone else may comment, and that leads somewhere else.

Carla: Your company is growing, you're profitable, you're getting an interview by Kevin Harrington, and you're now growing into a whole AI leg of your company, which I can't wait to hear more about. Congratulations for all your success.

James: Thank you. You just got to hustle. You just got to work hard. And that's what I really liked about you, Carla. I felt very connected with you in that sense. You're just a hustler and you don't make up excuses. That's kind of how I've always been. So it was good just to be a part of that.

Carla: A whole group of people saying you've got to get your stuff done every day, because this is the consistency game. Winning the day. When you put your head on the pillow, I did these things, check, check, check, done. And then you can start the next day.

James: Exactly.