Seb Brantigan on Personal Branding, Systems, and Being a Britpreneur
Seb Brantigan’s life changed when he was 15 and a motivational speaker spoke to his class. He realized he could create his own destiny. His story.
Thanks so much for this interview, Seb! I’ve been aware of your blog for some time and excited to learn more about you. So, let’s get started!
Where were you born and raised, what was childhood like, and what did you want to become when you grew up?
When I was young my parents gave me a lot of love and affection, but for a lot of reasons they divorced when I was around 9 years old. I was brought up in a village called Shotley just outside of a town called Ipswich (where I now reside) in England.
My Dad used to work long hours and be away from home a lot which was stressful, and there was never an abundance of money when growing up.
My parents no longer being together shook up my world a bit, but over time you come to understand the advantages…who in the world would complain about having two birthdays and two Christmases?
At the time, I found it a bit hard to adjust but I got used to it and wouldn’t change it for the world, as it really lead me onto the entrepreneurial journey that I’m on now. Also, I am very grateful for my parents’ love and support as I know not everybody is lucky enough to have that.
Like many people, I always struggled with knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up, all you really want to be is happy and I didn’t see anyone around me in a job but also happy at the same time.
I only got average grades in school, I was pretty well behaved but had no aspirations to go to university to further my studies as it would have involved retaking a lot of exams.
Instead, I went searching for ways to make money that were flexible and didn’t require reporting to a bipolar boss or being stuck in a cubicle all day.
It was hard because I had very little savings, no financial backing other than borrowing money from my relatives and nobody I could call a mentor at the time to help out. I started marketing online probably when I was about 16.
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What did your parents do for a living, and was there any Entrepreneurship in the family?
My Dad was a double-glazed windows salesman at a company called Zenith, a very successful one actually who won some awards for his efforts.
Although he’s been out of the sales game for a while he gives me some great insight and tips, particularly on what NOT to do and mistakes to avoid like the plague!
My Mum was primarily a homemaker but did go and find some part time jobs to fund the family when my parents were both together. Although it didn’t work out between them they always put us first, which is the best thing any parent can do.
I was inspired by my Grandfather who sadly passed away last year, as he ran a successful chemical business and worked on his own schedule (as well as taking many days off out with us as kids). This made me think about the time freedom I’d like to have once I grow up and start a family.
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What was that life-changing event that changed your life when you were 15?
I always love to tell this story…back in high school we had this speaker (not sure where from) who came in to try and motivate us to perform better in our exams that were soon to come up.
This guy (name is now forgotten but I believe it was Raj?) told some crazy stories, such as from when he used to be in the Army and went out to fight in Afghanistan.
So Raj spent almost three hours talking and telling stories, I was listening to virtually none of it and just enjoyed my afternoon not having to do any school work for the most part.
Then all of a sudden, Raj mentioned the book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ and for whatever reason, my ears extended and I began to listen.
I don’t even remember in what context he mentioned the book, but something inside me said to go and ask him more about this book after he was done talking. So I did that, wrote down the name of the book as well as the author’s name Robert Kiyosaki so I could go study it later at the library.
Raj then reached into his wallet and took out a £5 note, then showed me where he’d written four 0000’s at the end of it so it said £50,000 (about $80,000 US) and said this was his monthly goal from doing speaking and coaching.
I was inspired to really study this stuff and how everything worked. I left the classroom that day a totally different person in my eyes, I only wish I could thank him for leading me down the path I’m on now.
In this book Raj recommended, you discovered something called the Cashflow Quadrant and how this affects everyone in what they do to make money, in any walk of life.
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Can you explain what the Cashflow Quadrant is?
The Cashflow Quadrant is how Robert Kiyosaki, successful entrepreneur and investor, describes the four main career groups.
This concept changed how I thought about careers and made me want to explore being an entrepreneur too. These quadrants are defined as the following:
Employed
Self Employed
Business Owner
Investor
The goal is to move from being employed and self employed where you have the least leverage (and pay the most tax!) to being a business owner and investor to where you have your money working for you, instead of always chasing money.
Doesn’t it make sense to spend as little time as possible working, whilst maximising your income? That can only happen if you move into the Business Owner and Investor quadrants. You can Google ‘Cashflow Quadrant’ for an image that displays the above but that’s the basic concept.
When and how did you discover network marketing, and what were your first two years like?
I found it like most people, by Googling ways to make money and came across the industry by chance. Like many, what attracted me was being able to create a team who could keep working the business and making you money even if you weren’t able to.
Also you got to surround yourself with inspiring and successful business people which I didn’t have much of when growing up. A lot of my friends and family were naturally sceptical and rejected me, I also tried prospecting strangers which failed miserably too.
For around four years I struggled to recruit a soul, and I probably joined 9 different companies before even breaking even.
What made me want to carry on even when I was painfully trying to grow my business is seeing lots of totally normal people having success, and they were no better than me. Most hadn’t ever been to university or even finished high school!
So I did all I could to attend events, get around the right people, ask them what they did to succeed and then apply it as best as I could to my business.
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What was the biggest lesson you learned, and what is the best advice you have for new marketers?
Probably the biggest key for me in actually getting results is finding a mentor with a decent track record and is happy to show you exactly what they’ve done.
I got more results in 3 months of having the right mentoring than I did struggling for 3 long and tough years on my own. A lot of people in Internet and network marketing tend to run before they can walk, and you need to grasp the basics before trying to make it as a lone wolf.
Once you’ve gotten some results and have skills to build your own capture pages, offers and products then there’s no reason to go for it, but it helps to have some credibility first by creating a powerful brand through content that you post, on places like blogs.
You discovered a system that helped you brand yourself and implement Attraction Marketing. Can you tell us about that?
Absolutely, for me it has been something called My Lead System Pro which has been around since around 2008; it started from a few top earners who used a system just for their team but then made it available for the masses. What it does is provides the tools, training and resources any marketer needs to promote their business.
It’s become a lot more ‘generic’ over the recent years and used to be just for network marketers, but is now more relevant even for niche marketers who have a very specific audience or product.
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You have a book entitled: 7 Steps for Unstoppable Sponsoring. Can you tell us a little bit about that and who is it for?
So, this book is for anyone looking to sponsor more distributors in their business, position themselves as a leader online or generate more leads without resistance.
You’ll find it quite digestible and I make it easy for someone to apply the concepts, whether they have been in the industry for years or are brand new. Although this is really for network marketers you may get value from it, if you’re in another industry.
You’ll even find a glossary of terms on the back page if you’re new to online or network marketing.
Also, I just got finished creating a 3 part video training series on how to use video to get more leads and brand yourself online without needing a videographer or expensive equipment.
If you look up ‘Video Marketing Domination’ in Google and click in the videos on the search results with me in it’ll explain more about these trainings.
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When did you coin “Britpreneur” and how does Britain look at network marketing?
Honest answer for this is I’m not sure, and I think it was almost entirely by accident (the power of those late night 3am brainstorming sessions!) but the name just stuck with me and I haven’t seen anyone create anything with a similar name.
My view is that Britain is still a bit more sceptical towards their attitude to network marketing but gradually it’s becoming more accepted.
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What’s more popular in Britain, fish and chips, or Brats? (I’m hungry 🙂
Haha, good question now we are talking…fish and chips for sure, but I believe ‘brats’ is called bangers and mash here! In any case it’ll always be fish and chips for me because the batter on the fish is just delicious lol.
Seriously if you have never tried it, visit Aldeburgh if you want real authentic English fish and chips, there’s no replacement for it. We also do a good pie and mash if you’re not a fan of fish!
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I love your blog! When did you start blogging, how many posts are on your blog, and what is your traffic like?
Thanks Erik! I started a few years ago, I stopped blogging for a while and then entered the blogging world more consistently around April 2016. Currently I have 186 blog posts on my site and I post about three to five times per week.
Traffic-wise it’s at around fifty hits per day, with around 20% who are new visitors. With Alexa it’s currently just over 1 million in ranking which is not bad as there are over 1 billion websites on the Internet! I can always do better but I am of course pleased with progress so far.
Right now, my blog does get leads and some sales even without speaking to people. I’m in the process of optimising my blog to get more opt ins and sales without needing to increase traffic, and this is a great tip I can recommend if you run a blog too.
Always test, track and tweak. Sometimes more traffic is not the answer.
What is your favorite platform right now for generating leads, and can you tell us how you use it?
Right now it’s definitely Facebook, I use it for free marketing and only dabble a little in paid marketing, but not very much.
I’ve been able to generate as many as 91 incoming enquiries in 36 hours just from one status post, that’s not a typical day but just goes to show what’s possible.
I typically get 3-8 people per day looking at a business presentation of some sort consistently. Also you have to be organised and relentless (but not annoying) with your follow up!
Second to this is YouTube where I have a channel with just under 50,000 views and only having 18 videos on it. I have other channels too, and again this is from doing free marketing on YouTube with a little bit of keyword optimisation.
The videos give value, solve a few problems the watcher is having and then I lead to more value (that is congruent to the video topic) in the form of an opt in page.
There’s videos out there I created years ago that still bring me leads, in fact while writing this I generated a lead from a video about buying MLM leads I did back in 2015! So I highly recommend getting up and running on YouTube too. Just always backup your content
I am currently testing some paid advertising platforms such as Facebook ads using pay per click, and also YouTube advertising.
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What is your favorite book right now and why?
My favourite book I’ve read for a long time is the 10X Rule by Grant Cardone, it talks about the art of taking a huge amount of action in order to succeed. Not only that, but you get to learn how to actually take action!
This book has a lot of practical knowledge that you can apply as soon as you read it, and has been invaluable for growing my business. I also recommend buying the audio version which I think was $11 on Grant’s website. Pirating ain’t cool, kids!
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What are your goals for 2017?
I made three trips to the US last year – I went to Nashville, TN in April, Las Vegas in May and Austin, TX in August so my plan is to do as many if not more, and combine travelling for fun with attending events or masterminding with some of the world’s greatest out there.
There is only so much you can do staying in Ipswich all the time! Also the plan is to create a full product launch to help marketers struggling with YouTube and getting leads with it. I feel there are very few good courses out there which help with this, and some are incredibly outdated.
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What is your favorite quote and why?
Here it is: “the fastest way to become an authority is by teaching” – Ray Higdon
This is so important to get…you must good at becoming a teacher by sharing your value, knowledge and lessons with the world. They say that you will be paid in direct correlation to the value that you provide, and so you must gain as well as share more value.
You can do this by attending events, webinars and read more books to gain insight. Do this daily and watch your life slowly change for the better! Just do a little bit every single day to grow and move your business forward, you get out what you put in.
Wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed Erik, love what you are doing on your blog here and keep crushing it!
Thanks so much for this interview, Seb!
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