September 9, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode, I sit down with branding and marketing strategist Jorge Olson, who’s raised over $100 million, launched 1,000+ products, and helped take companies public. We dig into his journey from growing up in Tijuana to becoming a global entrepreneur, why personal branding and storytelling are the backbone of podcasting, and how his concept of Marketing Karma can transform the way you attract the right clients. Jorge shares practical strategies for protecting your peace, building thought leadership, and aligning your business with your soul’s purpose.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Soul Podcasting podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I have an awesome guest today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
He has quite the story and he's going to be
helping us podcasters with everything from branding, marketing, and just
being able to tell our stories with more passion as podcasters.
And his name is Jorge Olsen. He's an expert on
branding and marketing strategy and he's written five books. I
believe he's raised over one hundred million dollars in funding,
(00:33):
launched over a thousand products. So we have an awesome guest,
and I am so happy to talk with you today, Orgy.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
All right, Okay, so I gave you this intro about
how you help so many people with their branding and
marketing strategy and all the products you've launched. You'lso written
a book called Marketing Karma, which we'll talk about really soon.
But first things first, I just want you to share
your story with our audience. We are podcasters that's always
wanting to be encouraged and inspired by others who are
(01:05):
in branding and marketing because that's a big part of podcasting.
So share with us how you became this entrepreneur of
so many different entities, and how how you got there?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What's your story?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Sure? I think personal branding is how I got there.
And I did it by positioning myself as an industry
expert across many industries. It wasn't just one industry. I
started with one, which was software, one type of software.
I moved to another type of software. Then it was
whostal distribution. Then it was beverages. Then it was more
(01:42):
consumer goods, vitamins, beauty products, things of that nature. Then
it was finance, stocks and sending companies public and now
I do a little bit. Oh, I do some AI
as well. I'm on the board of directors of a
couple of AI companies and we are getting funding for
(02:02):
them at the same time. So I did it with writing.
I did it with podcasts when they were just starting
first adopter, back when a lot of recordings were over
the phone. I'm talking way way back when you had
to record over the phone. People would call the number
and listen to whatever you recorded, like a modern podcast,
(02:26):
but you have to be glued to your phone. And
that was the way I started. That was the way
the path I took in entrepreneurship. First as an executive,
as an employee, and I started as an entrepreneur when
I was thirty years old.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So you go way back, you have quite the history
of how you began. Can you just share a little
bit about, like what sparked your interest in becoming an entrepreneur,
How did you get to that point, Like what is
your backstory of, like what inspired you to become an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes. Time, when I grew up growing up in Tijuana,
in Mexico, across the border from San Diego, where I
reside now, I didn't have any type of finance or
entrepreneurial or money or money management experience. It was art,
it was literature, it was music, all of the humanities, philosophy, writing.
(03:28):
I started writing at the age of twelve. But it
was not business. In Mexico, even today, business is not
a big thing. They don't teach you about business in school,
and unless you come from a business background in your family,
you will not learn business. It's starting to pick up
in Mexico. This generation is starting to figure it out.
(03:52):
By my generation, you just didn't go into business. The
barrier of entry in Mexico is is higher than the
barrier of entry in the US for a business as well.
You can't just start a business and figure it out
later and fix your tax at the end of the year. No,
(04:12):
you have to start in the beginning. You need some income.
So it's not that easy financially. It's not that easy
economically or politically because the country is not made for that.
So I thought I needed to be an executive. That
was my path out of poverty. Later on, as I
(04:34):
was being an executive, I was studying business and entrepreneurship
on my own. I did go the business track first
in college. When I figured out they were training me
to be an employee, not an entrepreneur, I switched to
art because what I really like is art. Business. I
(04:56):
was doing it because it was my job. And I said, wait,
they don't in business. They don't teach you business. They
teach you how to be how to work for an entrepreneur.
This is what they were teaching me down here in
San Diego State University. And I said, I'm switching to art.
That's what I like, that's my passion. It's easy for
(05:17):
me and it's natural. So I studied art, but went
working as an executive really fast up the ladder VP
at twenty seven ZO at twenty eight. A lot of
with a lot of theory and very little practice. But
my superpower was that I was able to apply the
theory really really quickly. So I was consuming a book
(05:39):
of day since I was eighteen years old, business book
self Help, not a novel because I can't read a
novel in a day, but nonfiction. It's their shorter books.
My trajectory to school, my commute was four hours each way,
and that's a book. That's a nonticching book. Rit eight hours,
(06:01):
you can go through a book. I had my Walkman
back in the day with my cassettes and books on
tape as well, so I was able to play basketball
and do different things while listening to my audio books. Also,
that's the path I took. And then when I was thirty,
I said, okay, I'm ready. Why am I working twelve
(06:23):
hours fourteen hours a day if I already have all
my goals? I met all of my financial social goals
at twenty eight, and I said, okay, I'm done. And
I really wanted to be a writer, or I was
a writer as a child, and I wanted to be
a missionary, and I was a missionary since I was fifteen.
(06:44):
So I said, Okay, I think it's time to recover
my time and spend it with whatever I want. So
that's what I did. I went to recover my time.
And the way I found you can recover your time
was with business.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's amazing. I am.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm still marinating on what you said about your passion
to your drive to get where you wanted to be.
And you didn't hold back, you didn't hesitate. You did
the things that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You felt you were supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Reading what like you said, four hours a day on
your commute eight eight hours, that's for each way, that
is an entire day. Yes, and you studied, you read,
you prepped yourself. You made sure to invest in those
things intellectually that we're going to get you where you
(07:41):
needed to be. That says a lot for your drive
and where you got. I mean, you got to where
you were at twenty eight for a reason because you
were very focused. And I think that is a lesson
that I think we can all learn that focus will
take you places. Because when we're scattered and we don't
(08:01):
have a passion and we don't have a drive, it's
just oh, let me dabble in this and try this
and try that, it's it doesn't have the same effect.
And for someone who has that drive because they have
a backstory, because you know what you want and you
know why you want it, that laser focusedness took you
a lot faster to where you wanted to be. And
(08:21):
I love how you said, Okay, there's there's some more.
I've gotten what I needed. I've accomplished everything that I
wanted to what's next? I really want to do what
I love my passion and that was writing for you.
I think you said art, art and writing, Yes, that
is that's beautiful. So in this process of getting where
you were, you helped take five companies public. I believe
(08:45):
when I read in your bio five companies you took
them public.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Companies to take public. Just taking one public is alive.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
It is Yeah, that that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So how about some of the products you created with
founders and celebrities. Is that secret sauce behind You're helping
them to build a brand that skills because that is
not easy for one person in one company, even like
as CEO of Soul Podcasting Collective today, it is difficult
(09:17):
it is very, very it's a grind and it's twenty
four to seven and I can't even imagine five companies.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How did you do that?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And what is that secret behind what you did to
help build those brands out?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Sure, I didn't plan. It wasn't my goal to take
companies public. Let's start with that. I didn't wake up
one day and say, you know what, I think my
dream now is to go IPO or there's different ways
besides an IPO. By the way, I've done one IPO
on that as that where you go ring the bell
(09:51):
and you're in every television show, et cetera. The other
ones I did through reverse mergers, which is a way
to go public where you buy a company that's already
public it's called a shell, and then you reverse into
that shell. In other words, you buy a company that
went out of business but they maintain their public state
(10:11):
status by filing every every year, and then you buy that.
It's expensive two hundred and fifty thousand and up, and
then so you have to raise capital for that, and
then that company that you kind of own buys your company,
so boom your public. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Wow, Okay, that's a.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Drastic over simplification because it takes so much sweat in
tears and panic attacks and everything that you can imagine.
Imagine the first one was an accident, and let me
explain the number one. You have fear is fine. We
(10:54):
all have fear. I have fear, and I want to
lead with that. I am afraid, however, I do it anyway,
just like a lot of people are going to be
afraid to start a podcast to put themselves out there.
They're afraid of speaking in public, they're afraid of doing
the clips because they don't want the videos of themselves
(11:16):
going around. All of that is fear, and I accept it.
It's okay to be afraid because it's built into our
DNA in order to survive. If you don't have fear,
you're going to go down the cliff, the tiger is
going to eat you right, different things that you're going
to explore where you're not supposed to, and you're going
to fall in a ditch. So fear is healthy. Bravery
(11:39):
is acquired, and I think you have to acquire it,
and everybody acquires it a different way. I acquired it
by competing in public speaking since since I was seven,
So my first time on stage, I was in front
of two thousand people. That gets your jitters up and
then running really fast. I remember coming down and asking
(12:01):
my mom, could you see my knees buckling and touching
each other? And she probably lied and said no, of
course not. I couldn't see anything. So I have fear.
And I wrote this book called Build Your Beverage Empire
fifteen years ago, and I felt a lot of people
(12:22):
launched their beverages. And this gentleman called me, which is
now one of my good friends and partner in three
of the public companies, and said I met him at
a trade show in Mexico and Guadalajara, but we lived
close by in San Diego, so we met in Mexico
and he invited me to his company and we were
(12:45):
buying a Miller beer franchise. Because Miller Beer, by Theweiser,
Coca Cola, the trucks that you see distributing are franchises.
They're not owned by Coca Cola, Pepsicola, Doctor Pepper, etc.
Miller otherwise, So that was the relationship. He was buying
a Miller beer distributor. He read my book and said, oh,
(13:07):
I need I need somebody who knows beverages. So we're
raising capital in the Hilton in La in Beverly Hills,
and there's a bunch of company racing racing capital to
go public. And they rented the entire floor with swedes
(13:28):
and then you set up. So we set up with
the beer and everything, and then people would come in. Right.
So people came in and the CEO started talking about
and by the way, it was an export company into
Mexico as well. So you started talking about the stock
and the stock market and this and that and the other.
(13:50):
And I'm not paying attention. In my head, I'm writing
a story, write a short story. And because I didn't
understand the words she was saying. It's like in class
that was a student, right, I would I would just
go uh fly and distracted. And then and then somebody asked,
(14:11):
but you're not a Mexican, and then oh, we have
a Mexican here with right, and then and then they
were asking something about public companies, and then he says, okay,
tell them about Mexico. And by the way, tell him
how we're going to do a reverse merger. And I
had my suit and I go, I go in front,
I fixed my tie and I'm thinking, what the hell
(14:32):
is a reverse merger? And that was my introduction into
public company. And you go, oh my god, hoping the
sweat is not consuming me and we can't see my
arm pits. And I was trembling, like these people. How
(14:53):
through I I I extrapoled the back of my mind
that was that listens to everything, whether we wanted or not,
took over. But then I led with Mexico because nobody
knows a word of Spanish there and nobody knows anything
about Mexico. So somebody asked something like, but do you
(15:14):
guys drink beer down there? Or write or do you
import things in Mexico? And you know, I'm joking, and
believe it or not, we don't have we don't write
donkeys anymore. It's a civilized country with one of the
top twenty economies in the world. So I go into
my economics, speel, social justice, feel constitution, the rights to education,
(15:39):
free college, educate, and of course they're blown away, like
what free college education? Save me up right? Send my kids,
send your kids. So then it went into that direction.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Wow, So that side of you took over and you
just instinctly knew how to answer those questions.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And just share. Basically, you shared your story.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, in mind you I've been speaking in public since
I was seven, so then this interaction is much easier.
There were maybe twenty people there, so easy to manage
from the stage exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I love this story and it's so encouraging for those
of us who have stage fright and raising my hand
on that one, to know that at some point, you
know what we do know. We have to be very
we have to be secure in what we know and
what we understand, and just speak from that place of confidence,
knowing that obviously we're being asked these questions because somebody
(16:42):
out there needs our information, our knowledge, and just roll
with that. And so I hate being put on the spot.
So I love hearing this story of how you overcame that.
But I'm just amazed at how you just you stood
your ground and you just answer those questions by.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Telling your stories.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Speaking of storytelling then, because it just to me it
looks like you're more even before a CEO or investor,
that's what you are. You tell your story. And so
I'm wondering how podcasters today who are listening to this,
and entrepreneurs, how can we use personal branding, not just
social media. We're all on socials, but how can we
(17:20):
use that personal branding to craft stories that resonate with
our audience, and how can we position ourselves in the industry,
maybe even be able to close some of those high
level deals like you have. And yeah, just kind of
like elaborate on that storytelling part of it.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Sure, I think with storytelling specifically, you need to study storytelling.
And you know, I'm big on studying and reading and
gaining knowledge from others so that you don't make those mistakes.
I think it's important to read stories. I think it's
important to read fiction, to go to the movies and
(18:00):
watch fiction movies, to go on science fiction, fantasy, and
maybe if you have a favorite fantasy show or science
fiction show or even mystery or whatever you like, watch
it for the entertainment entertainment value, and then watch it
again and focus on the story telling. Only if you
(18:22):
can do that the first time, that's fine also, but
most people require some practice. Then study storytelling, at least
the basics, at least the hero's journey for example, which
is a type of storytelling which is the most popular
since the Greeks, actually since the Babylonians, through the Greeks,
(18:45):
through Asia, and now into the movies. Most movies that
you watch, most books that you read, even on fiction,
are a hero's journey. And it is a very basic
three act structure that will allow you to tell your
story in the right way for the right audience. Every time.
(19:06):
It'll tell you how to go back, entertain your audience,
go into the middle, and then deliver whatever the question
or solution was, just like I am right now. If
people are catching on, I am using that. And when
you ask me a question, I might go back to Tijuana.
I might go back to this instance where I was
(19:29):
pitching for a public company. I didn't just answer in
the present. I went back to a historical moment so
that I can transport the audience there. And if you
want to go a little knuts, then you say something
like the room was bright, it was a sunny day
in la and then you start coloring. We don't have
(19:52):
a lot of time for coloring in a podcast, but
you do when you write a book, and books are
the way that I've done a lot lot of my branding. Now,
don't get me wrong, I'm an early adopter of technology.
As we talked. I was on tele seminars where people
would dial in. Then there was a podcast company, but
(20:13):
it wasn't like this type of modern podcast. It was
all you would record something on the computer and then
you would upload it to this site. And it was
the only site in the world that you could upload
your voice and then people would go and listen to
it online. So this is the precursor of podcasts. And
(20:36):
that was the only thing. And I recorded it live
maybe to ten people, but then five thousand, ten thousand
people would go over the years to listen to the information.
Then came webinars, and then I was doing a webinar
a week and videos. I do a lot of videos.
I like to do long videos like webinars, and then
(20:57):
I can enter them into AI or cut for short videos.
Now all of that right now is a red ocean.
In other words, everybody's doing it. Books, on the other hand,
require more work, more dedication, more organization in your brain,
(21:21):
and then you can give a book to your prospects,
either ebook or printed book. So now you just pulled
yourself away from probably ninety to ninety nine percent of
your competitors when you can do that, and that's what
I do. I started doing it with ebooks. Before you
could do print on demand, Before small independent authors could
(21:42):
get a voids, you had to go and get published.
Not anymore, it's almost free to get published now with
self publishing. Maybe Amazon with Amazon is completely free, not
a dollar. You don't spend a dollar print on demand,
maybe you set it up for fifty bucks and then
you're old set up. So I did it with the
(22:03):
books first, and then just sending you books. I did
it with recorded videos, and since print on demand, I've
done it with printed books.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay, this is so good because what we're talking about
here is thought leadership in its encapsulated form, however that
form happens to be. And for you, you started way
back when with Hella seminars, and even I know there
was one one that we used to use a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I believe I used audio Acrobat or something.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It was way back in the day, but we uploaded
our audios and sent people there. And so so you're
starting way back here where you're taking your thoughtnership and
using that for your audio and then later your videos.
For your webinars. You said you did a webinar per
week or per day.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yes, per week, week a week to two hours.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
That's amazing and I can only imagine how many webinars
you produce, and then from there you have your books
you have I'm sure you have so many places online
that people can find your content that you've accumulated over
the years. But I want to focus on the book
that you've written called Marketing Karma. I'm really intrigued about
(23:19):
what this is about and just how this can help
podcasters and content creators just sort of help us align
ourselves with attracting the right clients. So tell us a
little bit about Marketing Karma.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I wrote Marketing Karma, and this is my fifth business book,
or I would say health, half self help and half marketing.
I've written twenty books. I've published fifteen five hunder my name.
Ten is a collaboration helping entrepreneurs publish. I used to
(23:53):
have a mastermind for publishers or for authors, and then
I have five non things because I also write science
fiction and fantasy. Now with Marketing Karma, my other books
are very niche. They're extremely extremely niche. For example, Build
Your Beverage Empire, which is for beverage entrepreneurs, very very
(24:17):
little right, only a few months search for how to
start a beverage on Google. Then I wrote other books,
including whostole Mba, which is how to sell whostal distribution.
Very niche. However, a lot of people, including the people
that I help with beverages, vitamins, etc. Do not know
(24:38):
how to market themselves, and they think they need to
market their beverage, their vitamin, their clothing brand, or whatever
consumer good they're making. And I always, even though we're
working on designs for their clothing or for their beverage
or for their vitamin company, I'm always on them. But
you need videos, but we need you forget about the brand.
(25:01):
You are the brand until you sell a million dollars,
you're the brand, and maybe beyond you are the brand.
And they're like, I don't want to be the brand.
I don't know how to be the brand. And I say, hey,
don't set yourself up for failure. You are the brand.
More now than ever, where we see CEOs of fortune
companies branding themselves, not only technology companies but everybody now, politicians.
(25:28):
Red Lobster just came out the CEOs branding himself, and
Red Loster's coming up big because he took responsibility and
he's a video. So that's all the news. Right. Everybody
knows that they need to be the brandy. But how
is the problem? How do you go about it? The
(25:49):
book is the how you go about it, and the
premise is the following. If I write this book in
India or in China or in Japan, I would call
call it karma. Because I wrote it in the US,
I have to call it marketing karma because it is
(26:09):
karma for the West. In other words, it's still karma.
But people don't understand the meaning of karma in the West.
They do in the East, so I don't have to
explain it. I just have to tell them karma and
they know how it's applied to business, to marketing to
life marketing. Karma is how to do good, starting with yourself.
(26:32):
If you're not good to yourself, it is very difficult
to be good to others. So the self love sometimes
is difficult. The self criticism negative words, negative words means
negative actions, and positive words and positive thoughts translate to
(26:55):
positive actions. So you need to even if you stump
your toe and you want to do that bad word
about yourself and how dumb you are because you stuff,
you have to stop yourself made scream or sentence and
say that was funny.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Instead of whatever whatever else you wanted to say.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Gonna I do it, Especially if I drop something right
and I want to go like, then I stop myself
and I say I'm cool. I'm a cool person. I
just I'm just clumsy, right, I'm just clumsy. And it
starts with you. Then it starts with your immediate family.
If you want to brand yourself to the messes and
(27:38):
you're not a pillar of your family with your mom,
your dad, your cousins, your brothers, your sisters, your your
aunts and uncles where they can call you for help.
It doesn't have to be moving in a couch. It
can be I'm struggling. It can be hey, do you
have a time to have a cup of coffee? Yes? Right,
instead of I'm I'm playing video games or I'm into
(28:01):
my own stuff. I have my own problems. Right. Once
you start changing that and saying yes, I will help you,
I will have an ear for you. I will just
shut up and listen. Even if I have the answer
to your problems. For those men out there, I will
shut up and listen. It starts with that. That's karma.
And then when you start doing this and you and
(28:23):
then the ripple goes into your community, your neighborhood, and
then into business. With the way you speak, the way
we're speaking now, and how we're very professional to each
other and we're kind to each other. I think that's
what I mean, And that's the ripple that has to
go out. No, the funny thing about karma is even
(28:46):
if you don't want anything in return, and you're a
monk and you know you say I don't want anything,
Karma doesn't care, Karma doesn't ask. Karma will give it
to you whether you want it or not. Because that's
the definition of karma. And my uncle was a Franciscan
monk and he was in the hills with the indigenous
(29:08):
population of Mexico, the most remote places. So talk about karma, uh,
And of course everybody loved him. We would. I went
to visit for two weeks and we were we were
in a mountain who knows where, no cars, no reception, nothing.
Here comes one of these Native Americans in a donkey
(29:30):
with two like a movie, right, like like a movie
with firewood. Right. There's no electricity up there, there's no
running water. It's just a thousand years in the past,
and the lady sees my uncle Fried Gucci and goes fright, Gucci,
And I'm thinking, this is the middle of nowhere. We're
(29:51):
like six hours from his little shack, and everybody knew
him in every mountain, and that's karma and they want
the hut him. Do you want to hug him? And
I'm thinking, what did you cultivate here? Yeah, like you
have to tell me what is all this love that
you're getting? Of course, nothing material, because if if I
(30:12):
would give him a sweater, he would go like this
and give it to the first person he's walking by. Right,
So he doesn't care about that. We have to pay
the rent, right, so we will accept the karma that
comes our way in business. And I think that's the difference.
Our necessities are different and that and there, and then
(30:33):
karma will say, Okay, you're giving love to your family,
and then to your community, and then to your business community.
Here you go, here's the clients, here's the perfect clients,
not the crappy client.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Exactly right.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I love this. I have never heard this perspective on business.
Of course life. You know, people talk about karma, but
like you said, as Westerners, we don't often think about
what that truly means. We were not in a culture
where we're steeped in, you know, thinking of these types
of things, and so it's so eye opening as I'm thinking,
(31:11):
I'm marinating right now on everything you just said and
how it starts with yourself and then reaching outward to
your family, to the people you're close to, to your neighbors,
to your community, and then out into the world, and
that you kind of gave this explanation and you said
it's like a ripple effect, that it affects everything around
you and it comes back to you whether you want
(31:32):
it or not. And that's got me thinking, I'm going
to be thinking on this probably the rest of the
week or so. Is really seeing how what all of
our actions and what we do in business is tied
back to really the core of who we are, and
every choice we make in life, including business, really just
(31:52):
points right back to our soul. Soul podcasting is why
I like to call it that, because I think about
like your passions and who you are bringing that to
the surface. But I love how you're showing us something
that we can look at, how we're reflecting life and
how it comes back to the root of who we are.
(32:13):
That's why we see the results we see. And if
we sort of just follow what you did, which was
I'm thinking you were so.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
You were just I can't describe.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I'm at a loss for words right now, but I
love how you just pushed through. You did what you
needed to do, and you did more than enough, and
you were listening to all of the audios that helped
you to become who you are today and your self learner.
You continue to learn, you continue to grow, and I
think that openness to learning, it's a humbling thing. It's
(32:51):
humility that keeps you on that learning path and keeps
you growing into who you will be. And I just
think that's phenomenal, what a great a thank you for
showing us that and how to live that way. And
I just want to just ask you one more question
about as we're going through life as podcasters, as entrepreneurs,
(33:15):
we have to keep some level of boundaries, you know,
and protecting our piece, and you operate at a really
high level, and so I'm wondering, just for my own
personal benefit, I would love.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
To hear what your answer is.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
How do you protect your piece while you operate on
this level and what boundaries for you personally have become
non negotiable.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Oh man, I think this is a very important question,
especially because of cyber bullying for example. Again, I think
the preparation for this moment is important, and then going
through something is important. Sports I think are for me
(33:59):
at least when you perform sports, or maybe it doesn't
have to be sports, maybe it's performing arts or something
else where you're constantly in front of people and being criticized.
I think that's important. Old school sports coaching, well, no,
they still doing they still do it. It's in your
face everything that you do wrong right, instead of good job,
(34:22):
you're wonderful, right, and forget about that free free throws.
I can't believe you missed the free throw. So it's
very negative. And going through that helps you because you say,
it's part of life. They're telling me what to do,
or they didn't they don't like me, or maybe you
go play in the in a different city and everybody
(34:46):
starts hating on you and the other teams, and then
you have to just let it go because you do
that every week. Right. So kids that are in traveling teams,
for example, where the other team is screaming at them
with negatativity. That actually helps. Now, when I was working
in these publicly traded companies, one of them had fifty
(35:10):
thousand shareholders, which is a lot for a public company.
Then you have fifty thousand problems when you're managing investor relations.
And this was probably the worst time with criticism, death threats,
racial slurs that you can't believe because they're so hideous
(35:30):
that their hate crimes right, their hate crimes. You know,
I'm going to kill you, you know, like everything that
you can imagine the worst of people. And of course
they can hide, or they think they can hide because
some people are really dumb. They would send me emails
and their IP would appear under email, sometimes for work,
(35:52):
and I would just respond, hey, next time you're doing
racial slurs, make sure you don't use your IP, and
the questing never answered. How dumb? Can you be a
dumb crook? So I think that's important, and then going
through it and having a mechanism for deleting. And I'm
(36:15):
talking cyberbullying because I think most people that are doing
podcasts will experience it, and people can hide. This is
why I like LinkedIn versus the other the other platforms
because you know where they work. You have the picture,
and people behave because they're either afraid. Some people start something,
but as soon as you call them on it, they
(36:39):
stop because they know their bosses looking at it, their
clients are looking at it. Now in the other side,
when all of this was happening, what I did was
I started just in the beginning was very hurtful, and
then you go into this humanity. Why are humans like this?
And why is this happening? And then you think poor
(37:03):
people that are like this, poor people that are pretending
to be nice at home, they're pretending to be nice
at work. They're pretenders. Poor people. Maybe poor families, poor
husband and wife or kids or parents that get this.
Maybe they fight, maybe they're passive aggressive with their family.
(37:27):
Poor people. And then once I started having pity pity
for them, my whole perspective changed and I went, oh,
my god, they're suffering. Their life really sucks, and look
at my life, and I'm so happy all the time,
and I'm smiling no matter what happens in my life,
I'm smiling. And they have so much hate, poor people.
(37:50):
And then I would just but this is a funny story.
I would block them, of course, delete them and report them,
right one of them. Actually a few of them reached
out to other people that are not blocked, so that
they reach out to me to please unblock them, because
(38:13):
they're missing out on what I'm saying. And I'm going,
wait a minute, you're sending in private messages hurtful racial slurs,
and they want to be unblocked community. This is ridiculous.
But that that tells you that it's for them, it's
(38:34):
entertainment and maybe they're investors, maybe not. And they say,
I don't want to miss anything, Well, then I don't
need your energy. And maybe maybe their their life sucks
so much that that's normal for them, and they're wondering,
why did you block me? I don't know. I speak
(38:55):
like this to everybody.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Wow, right, eye opening them.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yes, you're not talking to me this way, just like
you would walk away from a conversation.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Somebody's suppressive like no, I don't need this, I'm having
a day bye, and they're like wait, wait, wait, don't
go right, And I think, and I think you do
have to go through it, yeah, and then get the jitters,
get the panic, the anger or whatever emotions you go through,
(39:27):
then please have pity on them and then just block. No.
I think thousands I was blocking because then they were
using bots for the stock to go down, they were
using bots, so it was massive. Thousand, you know, thousand,
two thousand bots were attacking me.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
That is wild, and I can't imagine the amount of
energy that went into having to just deal with that.
But I love that you put up your boundaries and
you said, I'm not dealing with your energy.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
We're going to block you.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
We're going to keep you in your so that I
can continue to live the life that I'm supposed to live,
because obviously, like you said, they're unhappy, but for you
to have empathy for that is still it's it's amazing,
you know, to be able to see from their perspective
that they are just really broken people that want to
take down other people and destroy them. And unfortunately, being
(40:21):
in the public the way we are is going to
call to that kind of energy. People are going to
see that and want a piece of it and want
to just you know, to take us down a not
or to whatever they can do. And so I love
that you're showing us how to put up those boundaries.
To protect ourselves. And there's all kinds of ways of
(40:43):
protecting ourselves legally, and there's a lot of things that
go into that. But I love that you protect your
peace by saying, you know, you stay at a distance
and you just get to watch, you don't get to
participate in what I'm doing here.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
That is so great.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
And so one last thing, you say that business should
bring peace. Basically, that's what I feel like. You're saying
that there should be some peace, not just how much
money we make or what our profit is. We want that,
but we also want to be at peace with the
work we're doing. So for you right now, what does
a soul aligned business look like? And just kind of
(41:21):
give us some ideas of how we as entrepreneurs and
podcasters can find ways to explore both freedom and personal
fulfillment in what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
All right. I think when you start a business, maybe
a podcast is a business, Maybe it's a lifestyle decision,
maybe it's part of your other business, and you want
to incorporate it or get leads or at least get
your voice out as much as possible. You have to
(41:55):
have a goal, and that's important even if you don't
write down thissiness plan, a fifty page business plan. Do
two sentences or maybe even a paragraph. Why are you
starting this podcast? Why are you starting this business? What
is it for? I think, and that's called business modeling,
(42:16):
And I think as small business entrepreneurs, nobody teaches us
business modeling. And if you're an entrepreneur that makes it
and you're growing exponentially, you will hit a barrier, or
you will get a mentor, or maybe it's your attorney
or your CPA or your investment banker. Somebody is going
(42:38):
to tell you, or an adventure capitalist. If you're asking
for capital, they're going to ask you what's your goal?
Sooner or later? What's the end game for this? Are
you doing this forever? Is this a lifestyle thing? Is
this a side hustle? Are you leaving your job? Or
are you already all in? This is your business? Are
(42:59):
you going into race capital? Why? What are you going
to do with the money? All of these questions you
need to write down the questions. By the way, if
you get us a young entrepreneur want to be that
comes to you and says I want to start a business,
these are the questions that you will ask them instead
of saying it's hard instead of saying, oh my god,
(43:21):
I tried it and I failed. All of these negative
things that we talked about, they need to be positive thoughts, right,
because that's positive actions. If you fail the business, which
I failed a lot, then you know more about business
than people who succeeded. Think about that, right, because most
people fail in business, not succeed, So then you learned more.
(43:44):
Teach that to this person, teach it to yourself, and
answer these questions. For example, the companies that I sent
public from the start, we wanted to send them public.
It wasn't a coincidence. We didn't say, I guess we're
big enough, now let's go public. No, should we open
(44:05):
this business and take it public like that right? Or
should we open this business and just meet a lot
of entrepreneurs like it can be a podcast because I
just love entrepreneurs. Or maybe you're you want to write
books with entrepreneurs, and you start a podcast to interview
entrepreneurs and then maybe some of them or the listeners
(44:26):
want to want to write a book with you. So
what's your main goal? To meet cool entrepreneurs network, maybe
do a mastermind and then write stories with them that's
a fantastic goal. No public company, no exit, no racing capital.
So I think it's very important to start with that.
What why am I starting this business. I have businesses
(44:49):
that are lifestyle businesses as well. I'm never going to
take them public. I don't want a thousand clients. I
want three four clients, and that's it. For example, I
have my beverage mentoring business still after twenty years, and
now I do vitamins and other things, not just beverages,
but fast moving consumer goods. I want to work with
(45:13):
a handful. I cannot have more than five that I
mentor personally because I don't want to write five. I
do one hour a day, so one hour a week
with each one.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Very hard.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
That's it, very manageable for me. I like to write,
and that takes a long time. I like to write edit,
I like to paint. I love to study, and that
takes a long time. But I can do one hour
a day for my clients. That's a lifestyle business. Nobody's
gonna buy it from me because they don't want that business.
(45:50):
But if that's your goal, and then you have all
of this time to pursue your other passions, that is fantastic.
So I would say one of the most important things
is to learn the definition of business modeling, because this
is big, big, high finance terminology for investment banking, right,
but now we're bringing it down to the everyday entrepreneur podcaster.
(46:15):
That you say, all right, and then that that plan,
that goal is going to dictate your daily activity. You
will know what to do when you wake up in
the morning instead of what should I do today? You
will know because you work backward backwards from your business
model to this morning when I woke up.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, that's good, like that reverse engineering, just because you
already have.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
The end result in mind. Yes, you're working towards that.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Oh. I love this and I love how you just
you broke it down for us and helped us to
see what that lifestyle could look like and that we
all have the potential to create the type.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Of lifestyle we want with our business.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
But we just have to be very clear what kind
of business we want and why we want to do this,
what is our why? And I just I think that's
so so helpful. You've given us so much support today.
Thank you so much, and I just want you to
share how we can find out more about marketing karma.
We want to get a hold of that book and
also anything that you services, you provide, coaching, anything that
(47:23):
you do to help entrepreneurs, please share that with us.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Sure. The book is available in bookstores, libraries, and Amazon
dot com. It's kindle paperback. To contact me, you can
go to LinkedIn and then email me. If you want
something urgent, if you want to learn more about what
I say and how I say it, my story, you
can go to Quorge Lson dot com, which is my
(47:46):
name j O R G E O L s O
N dot com and I have a free newsletter where
I send, for example, clips from this interview, this podcast.
I will send videos to to my subscribers. So if
I do two podcasts per week, you will get two
videos per week from those podcasts. Because I think people
(48:08):
learn in different ways. Some are visual, so I send
the videos because we are on video, we're looking at
each other, not just on microphones. I will send them
the video. I will send them the audio, but I
will also send them the text. For those readers, that
way you can you can consume the information the way
you like to consume it.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
That is awesome and that's that's the way to do it.
Ketch us where we learn best, and I love that.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Jorge, you have been a blessing to us.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Thank you so much for sharing your story, for being
so real and transparent and encouraging us, inspiring us to
do better and to just to be who we are
and find out what we're supposed to do and why
and just do it.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So thank you so much for your support.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
You're very, very welcome.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Soul Podcasting podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I have an awesome guest today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
He has quite the story and he's going to be
helping us podcasters with everything from branding, marketing, and just
being able to tell our stories with more passion as podcasters.
And his name is Jorge Olsen. He's an expert on
branding and marketing strategy and he's written five books. I
believe he's raised over one hundred million dollars in funding,
(00:33):
launched over a thousand products. So we have an awesome guest,
and I am so happy to talk with you today, Orgy.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
All right, Okay, so I gave you this intro about
how you help so many people with their branding and
marketing strategy and all the products you've launched. You'lso written
a book called Marketing Karma, which we'll talk about really soon.
But first things first, I just want you to share
your story with our audience. We are podcasters that's always
wanting to be encouraged and inspired by others who are
(01:05):
in branding and marketing because that's a big part of podcasting.
So share with us how you became this entrepreneur of
so many different entities, and how how you got there?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What's your story?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Sure? I think personal branding is how I got there.
And I did it by positioning myself as an industry
expert across many industries. It wasn't just one industry. I
started with one, which was software, one type of software.
I moved to another type of software. Then it was
whostal distribution. Then it was beverages. Then it was more
(01:42):
consumer goods, vitamins, beauty products, things of that nature. Then
it was finance, stocks and sending companies public and now
I do a little bit. Oh, I do some AI
as well. I'm on the board of directors of a
couple of AI companies and we are getting funding for
(02:02):
them at the same time. So I did it with writing.
I did it with podcasts when they were just starting
first adopter, back when a lot of recordings were over
the phone. I'm talking way way back when you had
to record over the phone. People would call the number
and listen to whatever you recorded, like a modern podcast,
(02:26):
but you have to be glued to your phone. And
that was the way I started. That was the way
the path I took in entrepreneurship. First as an executive,
as an employee, and I started as an entrepreneur when
I was thirty years old.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So you go way back, you have quite the history
of how you began. Can you just share a little
bit about, like what sparked your interest in becoming an entrepreneur,
How did you get to that point, Like what is
your backstory of, like what inspired you to become an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes. Time, when I grew up growing up in Tijuana,
in Mexico, across the border from San Diego, where I
reside now, I didn't have any type of finance or
entrepreneurial or money or money management experience. It was art,
it was literature, it was music, all of the humanities, philosophy, writing.
(03:28):
I started writing at the age of twelve. But it
was not business. In Mexico, even today, business is not
a big thing. They don't teach you about business in school,
and unless you come from a business background in your family,
you will not learn business. It's starting to pick up
in Mexico. This generation is starting to figure it out.
(03:52):
By my generation, you just didn't go into business. The
barrier of entry in Mexico is is higher than the
barrier of entry in the US for a business as well.
You can't just start a business and figure it out
later and fix your tax at the end of the year. No,
(04:12):
you have to start in the beginning. You need some income.
So it's not that easy financially. It's not that easy
economically or politically because the country is not made for that.
So I thought I needed to be an executive. That
was my path out of poverty. Later on, as I
(04:34):
was being an executive, I was studying business and entrepreneurship
on my own. I did go the business track first
in college. When I figured out they were training me
to be an employee, not an entrepreneur, I switched to
art because what I really like is art. Business. I
(04:56):
was doing it because it was my job. And I said, wait,
they don't in business. They don't teach you business. They
teach you how to be how to work for an entrepreneur.
This is what they were teaching me down here in
San Diego State University. And I said, I'm switching to art.
That's what I like, that's my passion. It's easy for
(05:17):
me and it's natural. So I studied art, but went
working as an executive really fast up the ladder VP
at twenty seven ZO at twenty eight. A lot of
with a lot of theory and very little practice. But
my superpower was that I was able to apply the
theory really really quickly. So I was consuming a book
(05:39):
of day since I was eighteen years old, business book
self Help, not a novel because I can't read a
novel in a day, but nonfiction. It's their shorter books.
My trajectory to school, my commute was four hours each way,
and that's a book. That's a nonticching book. Rit eight hours,
(06:01):
you can go through a book. I had my Walkman
back in the day with my cassettes and books on
tape as well, so I was able to play basketball
and do different things while listening to my audio books. Also,
that's the path I took. And then when I was thirty,
I said, okay, I'm ready. Why am I working twelve
(06:23):
hours fourteen hours a day if I already have all
my goals? I met all of my financial social goals
at twenty eight, and I said, okay, I'm done. And
I really wanted to be a writer, or I was
a writer as a child, and I wanted to be
a missionary, and I was a missionary since I was fifteen.
(06:44):
So I said, Okay, I think it's time to recover
my time and spend it with whatever I want. So
that's what I did. I went to recover my time.
And the way I found you can recover your time
was with business.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's amazing. I am.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm still marinating on what you said about your passion
to your drive to get where you wanted to be.
And you didn't hold back, you didn't hesitate. You did
the things that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You felt you were supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Reading what like you said, four hours a day on
your commute eight eight hours, that's for each way, that
is an entire day. Yes, and you studied, you read,
you prepped yourself. You made sure to invest in those
things intellectually that we're going to get you where you
(07:41):
needed to be. That says a lot for your drive
and where you got. I mean, you got to where
you were at twenty eight for a reason because you
were very focused. And I think that is a lesson
that I think we can all learn that focus will
take you places. Because when we're scattered and we don't
(08:01):
have a passion and we don't have a drive, it's
just oh, let me dabble in this and try this
and try that, it's it doesn't have the same effect.
And for someone who has that drive because they have
a backstory, because you know what you want and you
know why you want it, that laser focusedness took you
a lot faster to where you wanted to be. And
(08:21):
I love how you said, Okay, there's there's some more.
I've gotten what I needed. I've accomplished everything that I
wanted to what's next? I really want to do what
I love my passion and that was writing for you.
I think you said art, art and writing, Yes, that
is that's beautiful. So in this process of getting where
you were, you helped take five companies public. I believe
(08:45):
when I read in your bio five companies you took
them public.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Companies to take public. Just taking one public is alive.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
It is Yeah, that that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So how about some of the products you created with
founders and celebrities. Is that secret sauce behind You're helping
them to build a brand that skills because that is
not easy for one person in one company, even like
as CEO of Soul Podcasting Collective today, it is difficult
(09:17):
it is very, very it's a grind and it's twenty
four to seven and I can't even imagine five companies.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How did you do that?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And what is that secret behind what you did to
help build those brands out?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Sure, I didn't plan. It wasn't my goal to take
companies public. Let's start with that. I didn't wake up
one day and say, you know what, I think my
dream now is to go IPO or there's different ways
besides an IPO. By the way, I've done one IPO
on that as that where you go ring the bell
(09:51):
and you're in every television show, et cetera. The other
ones I did through reverse mergers, which is a way
to go public where you buy a company that's already
public it's called a shell, and then you reverse into
that shell. In other words, you buy a company that
went out of business but they maintain their public state
(10:11):
status by filing every every year, and then you buy that.
It's expensive two hundred and fifty thousand and up, and
then so you have to raise capital for that, and
then that company that you kind of own buys your company,
so boom your public. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Wow, Okay, that's a.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Drastic over simplification because it takes so much sweat in
tears and panic attacks and everything that you can imagine.
Imagine the first one was an accident, and let me
explain the number one. You have fear is fine. We
(10:54):
all have fear. I have fear, and I want to
lead with that. I am afraid, however, I do it anyway,
just like a lot of people are going to be
afraid to start a podcast to put themselves out there.
They're afraid of speaking in public, they're afraid of doing
the clips because they don't want the videos of themselves
(11:16):
going around. All of that is fear, and I accept it.
It's okay to be afraid because it's built into our
DNA in order to survive. If you don't have fear,
you're going to go down the cliff, the tiger is
going to eat you right, different things that you're going
to explore where you're not supposed to, and you're going
to fall in a ditch. So fear is healthy. Bravery
(11:39):
is acquired, and I think you have to acquire it,
and everybody acquires it a different way. I acquired it
by competing in public speaking since since I was seven,
So my first time on stage, I was in front
of two thousand people. That gets your jitters up and
then running really fast. I remember coming down and asking
(12:01):
my mom, could you see my knees buckling and touching
each other? And she probably lied and said no, of
course not. I couldn't see anything. So I have fear.
And I wrote this book called Build Your Beverage Empire
fifteen years ago, and I felt a lot of people
(12:22):
launched their beverages. And this gentleman called me, which is
now one of my good friends and partner in three
of the public companies, and said I met him at
a trade show in Mexico and Guadalajara, but we lived
close by in San Diego, so we met in Mexico
and he invited me to his company and we were
(12:45):
buying a Miller beer franchise. Because Miller Beer, by Theweiser,
Coca Cola, the trucks that you see distributing are franchises.
They're not owned by Coca Cola, Pepsicola, Doctor Pepper, etc.
Miller otherwise, So that was the relationship. He was buying
a Miller beer distributor. He read my book and said, oh,
(13:07):
I need I need somebody who knows beverages. So we're
raising capital in the Hilton in La in Beverly Hills,
and there's a bunch of company racing racing capital to
go public. And they rented the entire floor with swedes
(13:28):
and then you set up. So we set up with
the beer and everything, and then people would come in. Right.
So people came in and the CEO started talking about
and by the way, it was an export company into
Mexico as well. So you started talking about the stock
and the stock market and this and that and the other.
(13:50):
And I'm not paying attention. In my head, I'm writing
a story, write a short story. And because I didn't
understand the words she was saying. It's like in class
that was a student, right, I would I would just
go uh fly and distracted. And then and then somebody asked,
(14:11):
but you're not a Mexican, and then oh, we have
a Mexican here with right, and then and then they
were asking something about public companies, and then he says, okay,
tell them about Mexico. And by the way, tell him
how we're going to do a reverse merger. And I
had my suit and I go, I go in front,
I fixed my tie and I'm thinking, what the hell
(14:32):
is a reverse merger? And that was my introduction into
public company. And you go, oh my god, hoping the
sweat is not consuming me and we can't see my
arm pits. And I was trembling, like these people. How
(14:53):
through I I I extrapoled the back of my mind
that was that listens to everything, whether we wanted or not,
took over. But then I led with Mexico because nobody
knows a word of Spanish there and nobody knows anything
about Mexico. So somebody asked something like, but do you
(15:14):
guys drink beer down there? Or write or do you
import things in Mexico? And you know, I'm joking, and
believe it or not, we don't have we don't write
donkeys anymore. It's a civilized country with one of the
top twenty economies in the world. So I go into
my economics, speel, social justice, feel constitution, the rights to education,
(15:39):
free college, educate, and of course they're blown away, like
what free college education? Save me up right? Send my kids,
send your kids. So then it went into that direction.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Wow, So that side of you took over and you
just instinctly knew how to answer those questions.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And just share. Basically, you shared your story.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, in mind you I've been speaking in public since
I was seven, so then this interaction is much easier.
There were maybe twenty people there, so easy to manage
from the stage exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I love this story and it's so encouraging for those
of us who have stage fright and raising my hand
on that one, to know that at some point, you
know what we do know. We have to be very
we have to be secure in what we know and
what we understand, and just speak from that place of confidence,
knowing that obviously we're being asked these questions because somebody
(16:42):
out there needs our information, our knowledge, and just roll
with that. And so I hate being put on the spot.
So I love hearing this story of how you overcame that.
But I'm just amazed at how you just you stood
your ground and you just answer those questions by.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Telling your stories.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Speaking of storytelling then, because it just to me it
looks like you're more even before a CEO or investor,
that's what you are. You tell your story. And so
I'm wondering how podcasters today who are listening to this,
and entrepreneurs, how can we use personal branding, not just
social media. We're all on socials, but how can we
(17:20):
use that personal branding to craft stories that resonate with
our audience, and how can we position ourselves in the industry,
maybe even be able to close some of those high
level deals like you have. And yeah, just kind of
like elaborate on that storytelling part of it.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Sure, I think with storytelling specifically, you need to study storytelling.
And you know, I'm big on studying and reading and
gaining knowledge from others so that you don't make those mistakes.
I think it's important to read stories. I think it's
important to read fiction, to go to the movies and
(18:00):
watch fiction movies, to go on science fiction, fantasy, and
maybe if you have a favorite fantasy show or science
fiction show or even mystery or whatever you like, watch
it for the entertainment entertainment value, and then watch it
again and focus on the story telling. Only if you
(18:22):
can do that the first time, that's fine also, but
most people require some practice. Then study storytelling, at least
the basics, at least the hero's journey for example, which
is a type of storytelling which is the most popular
since the Greeks, actually since the Babylonians, through the Greeks,
(18:45):
through Asia, and now into the movies. Most movies that
you watch, most books that you read, even on fiction,
are a hero's journey. And it is a very basic
three act structure that will allow you to tell your
story in the right way for the right audience. Every time.
(19:06):
It'll tell you how to go back, entertain your audience,
go into the middle, and then deliver whatever the question
or solution was, just like I am right now. If
people are catching on, I am using that. And when
you ask me a question, I might go back to Tijuana.
I might go back to this instance where I was
(19:29):
pitching for a public company. I didn't just answer in
the present. I went back to a historical moment so
that I can transport the audience there. And if you
want to go a little knuts, then you say something
like the room was bright, it was a sunny day
in la and then you start coloring. We don't have
(19:52):
a lot of time for coloring in a podcast, but
you do when you write a book, and books are
the way that I've done a lot lot of my branding. Now,
don't get me wrong, I'm an early adopter of technology.
As we talked. I was on tele seminars where people
would dial in. Then there was a podcast company, but
(20:13):
it wasn't like this type of modern podcast. It was
all you would record something on the computer and then
you would upload it to this site. And it was
the only site in the world that you could upload
your voice and then people would go and listen to
it online. So this is the precursor of podcasts. And
(20:36):
that was the only thing. And I recorded it live
maybe to ten people, but then five thousand, ten thousand
people would go over the years to listen to the information.
Then came webinars, and then I was doing a webinar
a week and videos. I do a lot of videos.
I like to do long videos like webinars, and then
(20:57):
I can enter them into AI or cut for short videos.
Now all of that right now is a red ocean.
In other words, everybody's doing it. Books, on the other hand,
require more work, more dedication, more organization in your brain,
(21:21):
and then you can give a book to your prospects,
either ebook or printed book. So now you just pulled
yourself away from probably ninety to ninety nine percent of
your competitors when you can do that, and that's what
I do. I started doing it with ebooks. Before you
could do print on demand, Before small independent authors could
(21:42):
get a voids, you had to go and get published.
Not anymore, it's almost free to get published now with
self publishing. Maybe Amazon with Amazon is completely free, not
a dollar. You don't spend a dollar print on demand,
maybe you set it up for fifty bucks and then
you're old set up. So I did it with the
(22:03):
books first, and then just sending you books. I did
it with recorded videos, and since print on demand, I've
done it with printed books.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay, this is so good because what we're talking about
here is thought leadership in its encapsulated form, however that
form happens to be. And for you, you started way
back when with Hella seminars, and even I know there
was one one that we used to use a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I believe I used audio Acrobat or something.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It was way back in the day, but we uploaded
our audios and sent people there. And so so you're
starting way back here where you're taking your thoughtnership and
using that for your audio and then later your videos.
For your webinars. You said you did a webinar per
week or per day.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yes, per week, week a week to two hours.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
That's amazing and I can only imagine how many webinars
you produce, and then from there you have your books
you have I'm sure you have so many places online
that people can find your content that you've accumulated over
the years. But I want to focus on the book
that you've written called Marketing Karma. I'm really intrigued about
(23:19):
what this is about and just how this can help
podcasters and content creators just sort of help us align
ourselves with attracting the right clients. So tell us a
little bit about Marketing Karma.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I wrote Marketing Karma, and this is my fifth business book,
or I would say health, half self help and half marketing.
I've written twenty books. I've published fifteen five hunder my name.
Ten is a collaboration helping entrepreneurs publish. I used to
(23:53):
have a mastermind for publishers or for authors, and then
I have five non things because I also write science
fiction and fantasy. Now with Marketing Karma, my other books
are very niche. They're extremely extremely niche. For example, Build
Your Beverage Empire, which is for beverage entrepreneurs, very very
(24:17):
little right, only a few months search for how to
start a beverage on Google. Then I wrote other books,
including whostole Mba, which is how to sell whostal distribution.
Very niche. However, a lot of people, including the people
that I help with beverages, vitamins, etc. Do not know
(24:38):
how to market themselves, and they think they need to
market their beverage, their vitamin, their clothing brand, or whatever
consumer good they're making. And I always, even though we're
working on designs for their clothing or for their beverage
or for their vitamin company, I'm always on them. But
you need videos, but we need you forget about the brand.
(25:01):
You are the brand until you sell a million dollars,
you're the brand, and maybe beyond you are the brand.
And they're like, I don't want to be the brand.
I don't know how to be the brand. And I say, hey,
don't set yourself up for failure. You are the brand.
More now than ever, where we see CEOs of fortune
companies branding themselves, not only technology companies but everybody now, politicians.
(25:28):
Red Lobster just came out the CEOs branding himself, and
Red Loster's coming up big because he took responsibility and
he's a video. So that's all the news. Right. Everybody
knows that they need to be the brandy. But how
is the problem? How do you go about it? The
(25:49):
book is the how you go about it, and the
premise is the following. If I write this book in
India or in China or in Japan, I would call
call it karma. Because I wrote it in the US,
I have to call it marketing karma because it is
(26:09):
karma for the West. In other words, it's still karma.
But people don't understand the meaning of karma in the West.
They do in the East, so I don't have to
explain it. I just have to tell them karma and
they know how it's applied to business, to marketing to
life marketing. Karma is how to do good, starting with yourself.
(26:32):
If you're not good to yourself, it is very difficult
to be good to others. So the self love sometimes
is difficult. The self criticism negative words, negative words means
negative actions, and positive words and positive thoughts translate to
(26:55):
positive actions. So you need to even if you stump
your toe and you want to do that bad word
about yourself and how dumb you are because you stuff,
you have to stop yourself made scream or sentence and
say that was funny.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Instead of whatever whatever else you wanted to say.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Gonna I do it, Especially if I drop something right
and I want to go like, then I stop myself
and I say I'm cool. I'm a cool person. I
just I'm just clumsy, right, I'm just clumsy. And it
starts with you. Then it starts with your immediate family.
If you want to brand yourself to the messes and
(27:38):
you're not a pillar of your family with your mom,
your dad, your cousins, your brothers, your sisters, your your
aunts and uncles where they can call you for help.
It doesn't have to be moving in a couch. It
can be I'm struggling. It can be hey, do you
have a time to have a cup of coffee? Yes? Right,
instead of I'm I'm playing video games or I'm into
(28:01):
my own stuff. I have my own problems. Right. Once
you start changing that and saying yes, I will help you,
I will have an ear for you. I will just
shut up and listen. Even if I have the answer
to your problems. For those men out there, I will
shut up and listen. It starts with that. That's karma.
And then when you start doing this and you and
(28:23):
then the ripple goes into your community, your neighborhood, and
then into business. With the way you speak, the way
we're speaking now, and how we're very professional to each
other and we're kind to each other. I think that's
what I mean, And that's the ripple that has to
go out. No, the funny thing about karma is even
(28:46):
if you don't want anything in return, and you're a
monk and you know you say I don't want anything,
Karma doesn't care, Karma doesn't ask. Karma will give it
to you whether you want it or not. Because that's
the definition of karma. And my uncle was a Franciscan
monk and he was in the hills with the indigenous
(29:08):
population of Mexico, the most remote places. So talk about karma, uh,
And of course everybody loved him. We would. I went
to visit for two weeks and we were we were
in a mountain who knows where, no cars, no reception, nothing.
Here comes one of these Native Americans in a donkey
(29:30):
with two like a movie, right, like like a movie
with firewood. Right. There's no electricity up there, there's no
running water. It's just a thousand years in the past,
and the lady sees my uncle Fried Gucci and goes fright, Gucci,
And I'm thinking, this is the middle of nowhere. We're
(29:51):
like six hours from his little shack, and everybody knew
him in every mountain, and that's karma and they want
the hut him. Do you want to hug him? And
I'm thinking, what did you cultivate here? Yeah, like you
have to tell me what is all this love that
you're getting? Of course, nothing material, because if if I
(30:12):
would give him a sweater, he would go like this
and give it to the first person he's walking by. Right,
So he doesn't care about that. We have to pay
the rent, right, so we will accept the karma that
comes our way in business. And I think that's the difference.
Our necessities are different and that and there, and then
(30:33):
karma will say, Okay, you're giving love to your family,
and then to your community, and then to your business community.
Here you go, here's the clients, here's the perfect clients,
not the crappy client.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Exactly right.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I love this. I have never heard this perspective on business.
Of course life. You know, people talk about karma, but
like you said, as Westerners, we don't often think about
what that truly means. We were not in a culture
where we're steeped in, you know, thinking of these types
of things, and so it's so eye opening as I'm thinking,
(31:11):
I'm marinating right now on everything you just said and
how it starts with yourself and then reaching outward to
your family, to the people you're close to, to your neighbors,
to your community, and then out into the world, and
that you kind of gave this explanation and you said
it's like a ripple effect, that it affects everything around
you and it comes back to you whether you want
(31:32):
it or not. And that's got me thinking, I'm going
to be thinking on this probably the rest of the
week or so. Is really seeing how what all of
our actions and what we do in business is tied
back to really the core of who we are, and
every choice we make in life, including business, really just
(31:52):
points right back to our soul. Soul podcasting is why
I like to call it that, because I think about
like your passions and who you are bringing that to
the surface. But I love how you're showing us something
that we can look at, how we're reflecting life and
how it comes back to the root of who we are.
(32:13):
That's why we see the results we see. And if
we sort of just follow what you did, which was
I'm thinking you were so.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
You were just I can't describe.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I'm at a loss for words right now, but I
love how you just pushed through. You did what you
needed to do, and you did more than enough, and
you were listening to all of the audios that helped
you to become who you are today and your self learner.
You continue to learn, you continue to grow, and I
think that openness to learning, it's a humbling thing. It's
(32:51):
humility that keeps you on that learning path and keeps
you growing into who you will be. And I just
think that's phenomenal, what a great a thank you for
showing us that and how to live that way. And
I just want to just ask you one more question
about as we're going through life as podcasters, as entrepreneurs,
(33:15):
we have to keep some level of boundaries, you know,
and protecting our piece, and you operate at a really
high level, and so I'm wondering, just for my own
personal benefit, I would love.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
To hear what your answer is.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
How do you protect your piece while you operate on
this level and what boundaries for you personally have become
non negotiable.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Oh man, I think this is a very important question,
especially because of cyber bullying for example. Again, I think
the preparation for this moment is important, and then going
through something is important. Sports I think are for me
(33:59):
at least when you perform sports, or maybe it doesn't
have to be sports, maybe it's performing arts or something
else where you're constantly in front of people and being criticized.
I think that's important. Old school sports coaching, well, no,
they still doing they still do it. It's in your
face everything that you do wrong right, instead of good job,
(34:22):
you're wonderful, right, and forget about that free free throws.
I can't believe you missed the free throw. So it's
very negative. And going through that helps you because you say,
it's part of life. They're telling me what to do,
or they didn't they don't like me, or maybe you
go play in the in a different city and everybody
(34:46):
starts hating on you and the other teams, and then
you have to just let it go because you do
that every week. Right. So kids that are in traveling teams,
for example, where the other team is screaming at them
with negatativity. That actually helps. Now, when I was working
in these publicly traded companies, one of them had fifty
(35:10):
thousand shareholders, which is a lot for a public company.
Then you have fifty thousand problems when you're managing investor relations.
And this was probably the worst time with criticism, death threats,
racial slurs that you can't believe because they're so hideous
(35:30):
that their hate crimes right, their hate crimes. You know,
I'm going to kill you, you know, like everything that
you can imagine the worst of people. And of course
they can hide, or they think they can hide because
some people are really dumb. They would send me emails
and their IP would appear under email, sometimes for work,
(35:52):
and I would just respond, hey, next time you're doing
racial slurs, make sure you don't use your IP, and
the questing never answered. How dumb? Can you be a
dumb crook? So I think that's important, and then going
through it and having a mechanism for deleting. And I'm
(36:15):
talking cyberbullying because I think most people that are doing
podcasts will experience it, and people can hide. This is
why I like LinkedIn versus the other the other platforms
because you know where they work. You have the picture,
and people behave because they're either afraid. Some people start something,
but as soon as you call them on it, they
(36:39):
stop because they know their bosses looking at it, their
clients are looking at it. Now in the other side,
when all of this was happening, what I did was
I started just in the beginning was very hurtful, and
then you go into this humanity. Why are humans like this?
And why is this happening? And then you think poor
(37:03):
people that are like this, poor people that are pretending
to be nice at home, they're pretending to be nice
at work. They're pretenders. Poor people. Maybe poor families, poor
husband and wife or kids or parents that get this.
Maybe they fight, maybe they're passive aggressive with their family.
(37:27):
Poor people. And then once I started having pity pity
for them, my whole perspective changed and I went, oh,
my god, they're suffering. Their life really sucks, and look
at my life, and I'm so happy all the time,
and I'm smiling no matter what happens in my life,
I'm smiling. And they have so much hate, poor people.
(37:50):
And then I would just but this is a funny story.
I would block them, of course, delete them and report them,
right one of them. Actually a few of them reached
out to other people that are not blocked, so that
they reach out to me to please unblock them, because
(38:13):
they're missing out on what I'm saying. And I'm going,
wait a minute, you're sending in private messages hurtful racial slurs,
and they want to be unblocked community. This is ridiculous.
But that that tells you that it's for them, it's
(38:34):
entertainment and maybe they're investors, maybe not. And they say,
I don't want to miss anything, Well, then I don't
need your energy. And maybe maybe their their life sucks
so much that that's normal for them, and they're wondering,
why did you block me? I don't know. I speak
(38:55):
like this to everybody.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Wow, right, eye opening them.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yes, you're not talking to me this way, just like
you would walk away from a conversation.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Somebody's suppressive like no, I don't need this, I'm having
a day bye, and they're like wait, wait, wait, don't
go right, And I think, and I think you do
have to go through it, yeah, and then get the jitters,
get the panic, the anger or whatever emotions you go through,
(39:27):
then please have pity on them and then just block. No.
I think thousands I was blocking because then they were
using bots for the stock to go down, they were
using bots, so it was massive. Thousand, you know, thousand,
two thousand bots were attacking me.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
That is wild, and I can't imagine the amount of
energy that went into having to just deal with that.
But I love that you put up your boundaries and
you said, I'm not dealing with your energy.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
We're going to block you.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
We're going to keep you in your so that I
can continue to live the life that I'm supposed to live,
because obviously, like you said, they're unhappy, but for you
to have empathy for that is still it's it's amazing,
you know, to be able to see from their perspective
that they are just really broken people that want to
take down other people and destroy them. And unfortunately, being
(40:21):
in the public the way we are is going to
call to that kind of energy. People are going to
see that and want a piece of it and want
to just you know, to take us down a not
or to whatever they can do. And so I love
that you're showing us how to put up those boundaries.
To protect ourselves. And there's all kinds of ways of
(40:43):
protecting ourselves legally, and there's a lot of things that
go into that. But I love that you protect your
peace by saying, you know, you stay at a distance
and you just get to watch, you don't get to
participate in what I'm doing here.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
That is so great.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
And so one last thing, you say that business should
bring peace. Basically, that's what I feel like. You're saying
that there should be some peace, not just how much
money we make or what our profit is. We want that,
but we also want to be at peace with the
work we're doing. So for you right now, what does
a soul aligned business look like? And just kind of
(41:21):
give us some ideas of how we as entrepreneurs and
podcasters can find ways to explore both freedom and personal
fulfillment in what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
All right. I think when you start a business, maybe
a podcast is a business, Maybe it's a lifestyle decision,
maybe it's part of your other business, and you want
to incorporate it or get leads or at least get
your voice out as much as possible. You have to
(41:55):
have a goal, and that's important even if you don't
write down thissiness plan, a fifty page business plan. Do
two sentences or maybe even a paragraph. Why are you
starting this podcast? Why are you starting this business? What
is it for? I think, and that's called business modeling,
(42:16):
And I think as small business entrepreneurs, nobody teaches us
business modeling. And if you're an entrepreneur that makes it
and you're growing exponentially, you will hit a barrier, or
you will get a mentor, or maybe it's your attorney
or your CPA or your investment banker. Somebody is going
(42:38):
to tell you, or an adventure capitalist. If you're asking
for capital, they're going to ask you what's your goal?
Sooner or later? What's the end game for this? Are
you doing this forever? Is this a lifestyle thing? Is
this a side hustle? Are you leaving your job? Or
are you already all in? This is your business? Are
(42:59):
you going into race capital? Why? What are you going
to do with the money? All of these questions you
need to write down the questions. By the way, if
you get us a young entrepreneur want to be that
comes to you and says I want to start a business,
these are the questions that you will ask them instead
of saying it's hard instead of saying, oh my god,
(43:21):
I tried it and I failed. All of these negative
things that we talked about, they need to be positive thoughts, right,
because that's positive actions. If you fail the business, which
I failed a lot, then you know more about business
than people who succeeded. Think about that, right, because most
people fail in business, not succeed, So then you learned more.
(43:44):
Teach that to this person, teach it to yourself, and
answer these questions. For example, the companies that I sent
public from the start, we wanted to send them public.
It wasn't a coincidence. We didn't say, I guess we're
big enough, now let's go public. No, should we open
(44:05):
this business and take it public like that right? Or
should we open this business and just meet a lot
of entrepreneurs like it can be a podcast because I
just love entrepreneurs. Or maybe you're you want to write
books with entrepreneurs, and you start a podcast to interview
entrepreneurs and then maybe some of them or the listeners
(44:26):
want to want to write a book with you. So
what's your main goal? To meet cool entrepreneurs network, maybe
do a mastermind and then write stories with them that's
a fantastic goal. No public company, no exit, no racing capital.
So I think it's very important to start with that.
What why am I starting this business. I have businesses
(44:49):
that are lifestyle businesses as well. I'm never going to
take them public. I don't want a thousand clients. I
want three four clients, and that's it. For example, I
have my beverage mentoring business still after twenty years, and
now I do vitamins and other things, not just beverages,
but fast moving consumer goods. I want to work with
(45:13):
a handful. I cannot have more than five that I
mentor personally because I don't want to write five. I
do one hour a day, so one hour a week
with each one.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Very hard.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
That's it, very manageable for me. I like to write,
and that takes a long time. I like to write edit,
I like to paint. I love to study, and that
takes a long time. But I can do one hour
a day for my clients. That's a lifestyle business. Nobody's
gonna buy it from me because they don't want that business.
(45:50):
But if that's your goal, and then you have all
of this time to pursue your other passions, that is fantastic.
So I would say one of the most important things
is to learn the definition of business modeling, because this
is big, big, high finance terminology for investment banking, right,
but now we're bringing it down to the everyday entrepreneur podcaster.
(46:15):
That you say, all right, and then that that plan,
that goal is going to dictate your daily activity. You
will know what to do when you wake up in
the morning instead of what should I do today? You
will know because you work backward backwards from your business
model to this morning when I woke up.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, that's good, like that reverse engineering, just because you
already have.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
The end result in mind. Yes, you're working towards that.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Oh. I love this and I love how you just
you broke it down for us and helped us to
see what that lifestyle could look like and that we
all have the potential to create the type.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Of lifestyle we want with our business.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
But we just have to be very clear what kind
of business we want and why we want to do this,
what is our why? And I just I think that's
so so helpful. You've given us so much support today.
Thank you so much, and I just want you to
share how we can find out more about marketing karma.
We want to get a hold of that book and
also anything that you services, you provide, coaching, anything that
(47:23):
you do to help entrepreneurs, please share that with us.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Sure. The book is available in bookstores, libraries, and Amazon
dot com. It's kindle paperback. To contact me, you can
go to LinkedIn and then email me. If you want
something urgent, if you want to learn more about what
I say and how I say it, my story, you
can go to Quorge Lson dot com, which is my
(47:46):
name j O R G E O L s O
N dot com and I have a free newsletter where
I send, for example, clips from this interview, this podcast.
I will send videos to to my subscribers. So if
I do two podcasts per week, you will get two
videos per week from those podcasts. Because I think people
(48:08):
learn in different ways. Some are visual, so I send
the videos because we are on video, we're looking at
each other, not just on microphones. I will send them
the video. I will send them the audio, but I
will also send them the text. For those readers, that
way you can you can consume the information the way
you like to consume it.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
That is awesome and that's that's the way to do it.
Ketch us where we learn best, and I love that.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Jorge, you have been a blessing to us.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Thank you so much for sharing your story, for being
so real and transparent and encouraging us, inspiring us to
do better and to just to be who we are
and find out what we're supposed to do and why
and just do it.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So thank you so much for your support.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
You're very, very welcome.
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