The First Customer - Crafting Success in Marketing with CEO and Founder Ben Albert

[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast today. I'm lucky enough to be joined by Ben Albert. a guy who's founded a bunch of different stuff. He's the CEO and founder of Balbert Marketing. Maybe my favorite name of any company for any guests and real business connections. Ben, hello, my friend.

How are you?

[00:00:45] Ben: I'm excited, man. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for the next Super Bowl Eagles Broncos. I don't know if it's going to happen, but

[00:00:53] Jay: maybe if you guys draft a quarterback, we won't bore people who don't like football though. You know, I am very obviously decked out today. The people who can't see me, who listened to the podcast, I'm decked out in Eagle's gear because it is opening home opener for the, Eagles today. So Ben,

[00:01:08] Ben: go.

[00:01:09] Jay: you're out, you're in New York, you said your dad's from, I think Colorado.

I mean, tell me, did, when you were growing up, where did you grow up exactly? And did that kind of have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?

[00:01:21] Ben: Yeah, born and raised in Rochester, New York. don't necessarily think that impacted me being an entrepreneur. Never saw myself as an entrepreneur. Never had a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or any of those people on the wall growing up. Really, truly went a more traditional route. always had side hustles. I mean, if you're a high school student that sells weed, I mean, it's legal now, so I can say it, right?

If you're a high school student that sells weed. Are you an entrepreneur? I don't know, but I went a typical route, went to school, went the corporate route at the start of my career, and was kind of an accidental entrepreneur, so, yeah, I don't know, man. It's a good question, but I kind of think it just kind of happened on its own.

Ha ha ha

[00:02:06] Jay: For the record, I don't think it's legal for kids to sell weed still yet, but I, I love that analogy. and I think that's a great one. what was the first real, business you started?

[00:02:19] Ben: Yeah. So real, like legitimate would be Balbert marketing that I started in the pandemic, to give you a little bit of kind of background is I was obsessed with music. I mean, first 13, some years of my life, I was actually super shy, super occlusive, wanted to be a basketball player, lived to be five foot eight.

So you can only. Imagine I didn't grow up to be a basketball player and since I was kind of the shy kid and a creative kid and kind of a weirdo, I found alignment in the music scene and it was right around that high school time that I started to find peers that were like minded. We would go to shows and I didn't know what marketing was, but that's what I was doing. I was handing out flyers, I was setting up MySpace pages, I was selling merch, I was advocating for a good thing. So once I got into more of a career in sales and marketing on the side, I was a music booker and promoter, so I wasn't making much money doing this. Maybe a few thousand a year, but I was getting into places for free, which was the best part and kind of on the side had a music podcast, had a music blog and was doing the marketing thing for myself well before 2020 when the pandemic hit. Got let go as a sales executive, started from scratch and reinvented myself from music Ben, who was a party animal to business Ben, who wanted to make something better for himself and the world around him. So the first official business was 2020 mid pandemic, but 2016 is when I launched my initial music blog. so that side hustle was able to transform into something that became a business.

[00:04:07] Jay: There's a lot there. 

[00:04:08] Ben: apologize.

[00:04:08] Jay: no, it's great. I feel like we could do, a few episodes together and just dig into all the stuff you just said.

Um, so. How did you make that switch? Like you're doing the sales executive thing, you get let go. And instead of going and find another nine to five or sales job, you said, I'm going to do my own thing.

what, I mean, it's a scary thing. I mean, I think after you've been in it for a while, you realize it's not a scary thing, but at the time it's very scary and you're like, holy shit. Like, how am I going to do this as a, you know, adult and support myself and my family, whatever else you're doing.

What was that thought process? Like, where did you go to learn how to do that or did you just have it in you? You know, what was the process there?

[00:04:53] Ben: I don't have a perfect answer. I will say any action is better than no action at all. And the first step After I basically felt sorry for myself for quite some time and was going in a bad route, I mean I don't, we don't have to talk about COVID, but me, like many people, everything was just stripped from me. So a lot of confusion, a lot of not sharing what to do next. And I actually got on LinkedIn and revamped my profile and rewrote my cover letter. And it was basically, in short, it was. You know, we can't control the pandemic, but we can control what we get out of it. Am I going to stare at the wall waiting for the paint to dry?

Or am I going to go out there and work with good mentors, teams, this and that. And I kind of wrote this aspiration statement that I was using for my cover letter, because I honestly didn't know what my next move was. No fault to any of the companies, but no one was hiring. I probably applied for, you know, 5, 10 serious jobs.

And whether it was a salary or they weren't hiring, like nothing was landing for me. and then it was late August that I kind of had that light bulb moment that I'm still on the laptop I started with right in front of me here. I have a laptop. I have marketing skills. I have a background in guerrilla marketing in the music industry, so I know how to go out and ultimately the more hands you shake, the more money you make.

I know how to go out and reach out to people. We're in a really unique situation where it's a pandemic and everybody's at home and I understand podcasting. So I said, let's see what happens. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I started a business podcast. It was called Rochester Business Connections. It's now called Real Business Connections. I've since kind of rebranded and made it more of an international show. But it was Rochester, New York. Rochester Business Connections. Started Balbert Marketing. Cause my name's Ben Albert and it's the first thing that came to mind. The first piece of feedback is my buddy says, no one calls you Balbert, man. I'm like, it doesn't matter. I'm reinventing myself. So Balbert Marketing, Rochester Business Connections, and I started just having conversations. I was smart enough to realize that my target client was a business owner. And I understood web design, SEO, social media, marketing, Google, all the basics. so ultimately I started this podcast to highlight Rochester, New York business owners. I wasn't going to call up Elon Musk and earn his business, but if I can't earn any momentum or support or mentorship or peers in my hometown, I Who am I and what am I doing? Starting a business. So my niche wasn't specific to an industry or specific to a kind of person. It was specific to my location, Rochester, New York business owners, and that was able to build a foundation that turned into a podcast rebrand and a company that can serve people nationally, no international clients, but. We'll see where it goes, man. It, but really it was really just putting my chips on my hometown and learning from people that were way smarter than me. I'll shut up after this one last point. Not only were they business owners. they were possible clients, so they were teaching me how to run a business and I was a good marketer, so I was good at promoting them, so it wasn't out of the question that they'd become a client or refer clients to me. so I kinda knew what I was doing. I think the way I'm, explaining it now makes it way more clear than it was at the time, but if I were to start again, I would be very narrow minded with. Exactly what I did and I'd do it even better next time.

[00:08:48] Jay: I mean, it's really genius. And it's,

[00:08:52] Ben: I've never been called a genius before.

[00:08:54] Jay: I didn't say you were a genius. I said, that was, I'm kidding. I said, that was genius. no, it's, I think you get a lot of people who would think, why would I start with Rochester, New York? There's not that many people here. There's not that big of a place. There's, you know, there's a limited amount of like money that I can get from here.

What is that going to do for me? And I tell people all the time, like there is a hometown discount. I don't care what anybody tells you, there's a hometown discount. People will let you in the door because you're from where they're from, just because you're from where they're from. Not for any other reason, because you're handsome or because whatever, it's because you're from Philadelphia or from Rochester or from Denver or wherever.

It makes a lot of sense. So I think that's a great idea for anybody. You know, we always said the friends and family plan is something that we hear when people start a business, right? They reach out to their friends, they reach out to their family, reach out to their network, but. Like kind of at the same time and in parallel, like building that business in a location as you were vertical is I think a great idea.

And I think people shy away from it because they think that they're not going big enough. And it's like, well, how could you go big if you can't even start small? So I think it's a really great approach.

[00:10:08] Ben: Can I add one thing to that,

[00:10:09] Jay: Yes, please do.

[00:10:10] Ben: There's a hometown discount. There's also a new to town discount.

I'm adamant that I could do this better in any city in the world. Because all you have to do is say, you know, Hey Jay, I'm new to Philly. I'll be honest with you, like, I don't know anybody, but I want to see the streets, I want to see the town, maybe grab a beer, and because I'm new to Philly, I'm starting an x about Philadelphia. A business blog about Philadelphia, a photo series about Philadelphia, a report about Philadelphia, a social media, just an x about Philadelphia. Would you like to be a part of it? And people are like, they're new, they want to see the city, they want to grab a beer with me at my favorite spot. Hell yeah!

And then, you actually have benefit! It's the new to town discount.

[00:11:01] Jay: Right now. I like that. I

[00:11:02] Ben: As long as you can connect based on proximity or a mutual interest, you'll be able to get someone's attention. But if you're just someone out of the blue reaching out to them for no reason, there's no proximity or mutual interest. You're not going to get their attention.

So what does your target have in common with you and connect on that regard?

[00:11:23] Jay: love that. And what could you envision? And I deal with this with my own business, but could you envision a scaled out business where you have different people doing that in different locations that aren't you? Right? Because there's only one you, so you're not going to move to Denver and to California and to Oregon and to all these places.

Is that something you think you could replicate by, you know, training other people in those locations to kind of sell that way? Right.

[00:11:50] Ben: He's easily, it's coming at some point. it's two years ago, I bought like 20 domain names. Austin business connections, Los Angeles business connections. I don't think I own Philadelphia business connections, but own Denver business connections. Cause I had that dream. I'm like, I'm going to document what I did locally and show other people the best person to do it is someone podcast. To incept yourself into the local business world, meet the people that you can learn from and gain clients. So I want to do that. It's a good problem to have. I just haven't had the time to build the program, but that will happen. And if anybody's listening to this and want some feedback, we'll just jump on a discovery call and I'll show you how to do it.

But thank you for asking because it's kind of been on the back burner. I want to do exactly what you just said.

[00:12:53] Jay: May have to go buy Philadelphia business connections after this and sell it to you for 10 times what you would have bought it for. So that'll, no, I think that's a great, I think the same thing with like LinkedIn marketing, right? Not, I guess it's not LinkedIn marketing, but LinkedIn sales.

I get a lot of You know, business from people in Philadelphia and people are very, easy to connect with in the city.

If you're from the city, I even had a guy tell me, you know, and I was giving him, I usually don't do it. I don't do a direct sales pitch from a connection request. Cause that's a really good way to just to get, you know, like a 0. 05 percent connection request acceptance rate. But, you know, like a follow up, you know, maybe a couple weeks later or whatever, he's like, dude, stop messaging me.

I would block you and report you if you weren't from Philadelphia. and now,

you That on the surface is like, well, maybe that guy's a dick or like me, but it really taught me like, even in rejection, the fact that I'm in the same general location, this guy gave me the benefit of the doubt and didn't, you know, block me, ban me, you know, whatever he was going to do.

so there's definitely, I love that, you know, starting local kind of approach. All right. So you started a bunch of different stuff. I think. you sound like you were ahead of the curve on the podcast thing too. Tell me a little bit about that. Like podcast really. I mean, there's been a couple of surges, I think, and I think we're in the middle of another one right now where people are like going back and going like, Oh, this is another really great way to market and, you know, pod match fantastic service that like, you know, people are starting to realize, Oh, I can be on 50 different people's feeds and get connection, you know, get in front of all their connections.

And like, that's just like a kind of, another resurgence in podcasting. When did you start your first pocket? Like what year was that?

[00:14:46] Ben: It was October 2016.

I was way ahead of the curve in podcasting then. now there's a time and place for everything. I was a party animal music guy. If I had started a business podcast, a self growth business show in 2016, I probably would be way farther along. There's a lot of shows that started back then that are huge now, but there's a time and place for everything and started in 2016. The recent show I launched in November of 2020 and nowadays, man, I don't know if it has anything to do with me. Or if it's the people just I hang out with everybody I know start in a podcast, man, there's a huge surge. And even with that surge, it's the best form of long form content you could create for your audience. That isn't as it isn't that difficult. Writing a book is very difficult. If you want to create long form value for your audience, there's no better way to do it than a podcast. And it's still like a 10th of a fraction the size of a YouTube. So, I think there's a huge space for it, but I definitely see a second wave where everybody's starting a show, which is a

good thing, right? 

[00:15:57] Jay: No, I think it's great. I do. I think it's awesome. I mean, I've had mine for about a year

and my friend told me a couple years ago, I should start one. And I was like, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I should never start a podcast. And like, now I love it. and I, it took me a while, even after I was recording a bunch of episodes to.

Understand what it meant for my business, right? Cause I don't do podcasting. I don't do business growth stuff. I run a software quality assurance firm, right? So there, but at the same time, a lot of people don't want to hear about software quality. Sure. This is boring, right? I mean, there's like, it's not an exciting, sexy kind of thing.

So like how many episodes or shows you're going to do talking about. Yeah. The same thing over and over again. So I had to be a little creative

 I had to sort of figure out, well, I have this kind of established podcast. How do I use that to target a little bit better? So how do you use your podcast to target, you know, potential clients?

And you mentioned the way you did it with your Rochester show. How do you do that today? Is it any different? Have you changed? have you modified the way that you go after, you know, you find your people that you want to have on your show and then your approach after the show's over about getting them to be a client of yours.

[00:17:08] Ben: Yeah, so, I give myself a hard time about this because the better strategy, like, tens of thousands of business leaders just in Rochester, New York. The better strategy, maybe not tens of thousands, there's a lot of people though. The better strategy would be to continue local, to be the guy for marketing, production, the everything locally.

Build local groups. That would have been a better strategy for quick income. I actually noticed when I rebranded and started bringing on people from everywhere in the world, especially a big name speaker that comes on a lot of podcasts, they don't become a client. Reasonably so. It was the local people that never had been on a show, that appreciated me promoting them that built, I built really good friendships with a lot of these people.

Some are clients, some are friends, peers, referral partners both ways. So the better income strategy possibly is just to stay local. But when I look at long term impact and long term capacity, and just, we'll go to the second part later, but long term impact and capacity, I want to reach as many people as possible. I want to reach as many people as possible. And then the second thing is, I get to learn from people I only imagined I'd be in the room with. Five years back, I was listening to their show. I was reading their books. I was watching their YouTube and I was not implementing much. I wasn't just in corporate.

I was just kind of infotainment. I was a consumer, not a producer. Now I get to have one to one conversations with these people that charge 50, 000 for key for keynotes, people that charge 2, 000 for an hour. I get to sit down and learn from them. Does it make as much revenue as the local show did? Kind of not, but. I'm investing in the education because I know that if I build a long term sustainable foundation and a good brand, the revenue is going to come and it might not be two years. It might not be four years, but if I continue doing exactly what I'm doing for another 5 to 10 years, like you cannot fail. There's no way that I won't kick ass if I continue this trajectory. So I know it's a very nuanced answer, but sticking to the hyper niche was actually better for revenue. But then Changing the brand was better for my personal growth and better for the long term vision that I'm looking to accomplish. Does that make sense?

[00:19:45] Jay: Makes so much sense. I was just thinking. I need to be the QA guy for Philly, 

[00:19:51] Ben: There you go. Do 

[00:19:51] Jay: that should be my, and that's a big enough city where, you know, there's lots of, and like you said, it's easy to think that your town is not, now look, if you're like, if you're like in the middle of like Montana or something, like being the guy in your, like, you know, a thousand person town, maybe isn't the.

Best, you know, short term midterm strategy. But if you're in a Metro area or even an area that's like reasonably populated, it is that you're dead on, man. That's a great point. Like being the guy somewhere, it kind of opens the door for the next one and the next one and the next one. So it is an interesting dynamic.

I love the personal education you're getting from the, you know, the bigger guys, but I think you're dead on some of our best and longest. Clients are local and they're the ones that you can use to get more local clients. And then it just kind of just springboards off each other because they go, Oh, you're working with that guy.

Really? He's the best. Like we work with ArcWeb in Philadelphia, which is like a staple technology company. And when I tell people that was one of our first companies, I had to buy a suit to go pitch at his company. Like, they're like, wow, that's a great story. Like, that's all, you know, Chris, like, it's amazing.

And so like. I think you're dead on dude and entrenching yourself in that local, scene. And like you said, making groups, doing events, it's all great strategies, man. I love this. I think, 

[00:21:09] Ben: care if I add something, 

[00:21:10] Jay: killing it. I please just keep adding 

[00:21:12] Ben: my, I love conversations because your thoughts help me expand and grow kind of together here. And it's like, let's say you're the guy in Philly. You don't think people in Pittsburgh know about you? Do people in Erie know about you? Do people in Atlantic City or the Jersey area know about you? You might be the Philly guy, but if you have enough of a brand there, it's still gonna warm you up to other brands that aren't in your specific metro area. Now, someone in Cali might not care, but someone in Cali might see your grind and still respect the heck out of it. But... Yeah, man. it's better to be the best at something smaller than being, you know, a minnow in an ocean of sameness, so.

[00:21:58] Jay: I feel like we should do our own podcast.

[00:22:00] Ben: I'm down. As long as you

run it, edit it,

and

I just show up, I already got enough going on,

[00:22:06] Jay: I was about to say, I do. yeah, maybe, we'll talk afterward. all right. So a couple more questions. I want to get at, how do you keep your pipeline full today? Like, what are you, how are you filling it up? Like, who are you?

Are you, I mean, pod matchers, obviously a source of potential people, but like, how are you. Really driving your lead funnel right now.

[00:22:24] Ben: Yeah, I'm doing a really bad job. I'm open to advice. I create a lot of content. this is, I hope some people will relate to this and I'm open to advice. I create a lot of content. I put on networking events. I put out a lot of podcasts. I meet a lot of people. I make a lot of introductions. Those aren't always the quickest revenue drivers. It might seem crazy, but if I picked up a phone, went to the Better Business Bureau, Looked for local BBB accredited businesses and cold called them. Jay, I see you're part of the BBB. Congrats on an A plus and 15 year history. I'm a local as well. I'd love to blah blah blah.

If I just cold called people, I would make more money quicker. But I like creating the content. I like the networking. I've been traveling like crazy and it's a great problem to have, but I haven't Hat is full of a pipeline because I've been on vacation. So do I not go on vacation and have a full pipeline? Or do I have a full pipeline and then I don't have time to travel and do fun stuff? So I'm in this weird state where I'm loving my business. but I'm moderately plateaued. I gained a ton of momentum and now I'm kinda chillin out. So I'm open to feedback. It's a good problem to have. but, yeah man, I just like to give value. And then it comes back around, but that is not the quickest growth strategy. It's a fun one, but Hey man, I'm always open to feedback.

[00:24:00] Jay: I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head though. there's a balance and it's different at different times. And I get, I mean, I get down to myself because like, you know, sometimes you're very motivated to grow and then sometimes you're very motivated to. Kind of do that self care where you're like, I've worked really hard and I need to relax and I need to go on vacation and I need to travel and see things and do all this stuff.

So I think it's, you know, I just think it's natural man. I think there's like peaks and valleys and I think there's plateaus and I think there's growth spots and it's just like, if you're enjoying it, then you're doing the right thing. You know, it's, I don't know. It's either that or go work for some nine to five company and do your, You know, your shitty nine to five hours and then come home and then like, have that time off and take your two weeks a year.

And then it's like, what do you do? Right? So, I don't know, man. I'm proud of the growth that you had. I'm glad you've got to go off and take vacations and do, that's good. Those are good things. So,

[00:24:56] Ben: And a full pipeline, and we would have to spend a lot of time getting kind of nuanced, but if your pipeline's full with brand new people that don't know who you are, your conversion's not going to be good, and there might be a higher churn rate. I have a full pipeline of mutual connections that aren't spending money on me, but I'm still nurturing that relationship. So it's kind of different. They're not leads. But if I nurture that relationship, if I create content, if I add value, when someone needs something, I'm their guy.

So

it's a little more detached from outcome. Yeah, it is about timing. It's huge.

[00:25:35] Jay: lock and timing. People wanna discount those. People wanna discount those things as part of being successful. But like, lock and timing I think are huge. All 

[00:25:46] Ben: think we kind of make our own luck, though? I know I'm on a tangent, but don't you think we kind of

make our own luck? 

[00:25:52] Jay: I think, you know, the old quote is very true that like, you know, chance favors the prepared, right? So a little bit of both. I think if you were Yes, you can make your own luck, but you can also watch luck shoot by your head because you're not, you know, focused enough to pick it up. So I think there's some of both.

I think sometimes you can try everything and nothing works because of 50 million reasons that have nothing to do with you. And I think that sometimes you can get really big deals and not be doing the right thing. And so, yeah, I mean, to, you know, I think you can create opportunities for yourself.

Absolutely. And be in the position that if. Yeah. luck comes around, you're ready for it. But yeah, I think it's somewhere in between. I think I definitely believe in, you know, being successful because of luck. But anyway, this was fantastic. I want to have you on again someday. And hopefully we remain friends and hopefully people gain some good things from this show.

I have one more question for you. Non business related.

[00:26:52] Ben: Mm.

[00:26:54] Jay: If you knew you could do anything on earth and you knew you couldn't fail. What would it be?

[00:27:00] Ben: Wow. Anything on earth and I knew I couldn't fail. I want to say fly through the sky, but truly, I think I want to be like an NBA, like

[00:27:15] Jay: I knew you were going to say it. I knew you were going to say NBA.

[00:27:19] Ben: I, and if we were to get raw and authentic, I think I have some trauma because I was obsessed with basketball, and I was the shortest kid in school. And I had a jersey every day of the week, but I got pushed around and bullied. And I think part of me is still very, scarred. And if I could just dunk on all those mother... If I could just dunk on all of them, I think it would be very satisfying, you know?

[00:27:45] Jay: I love that. you could be like the white Muggsy Bogues,

[00:27:48] Ben: Let's

go, 

yeah! 

[00:27:49] Jay: you know, break out the old Hornets starter jacket. 

[00:27:52] Ben: like 5'3 I've got like

4 to 5 

[00:27:55] Jay: yeah, you tower, you would tower over Muggsy Bogues. He was a little fellow. All right. all right, Ben, this was fantastic.

If people want to find you, if they want to find more about Balbert or real business connections, what is the way to reach you

[00:28:07] Ben: Yeah, so I really want to start with the fact that I would not be here without Jay. You might be a subscriber already, but if not, click subscribe here.

You might have already left a five star review, but if you hadn't, you can click five. If you want bonus points, you just write him a quick little short review. You can find me where you found this. Do the first part first, show Jay some love. but just type in real business connections or Google it. Wherever you found this, and a pretty high probability I'll come up. If not, someone needs to tell me I'm doing something wrong. So, just type in Real Business Connections and you'll find me.

[00:28:44] Jay: a legend, Ben, you're fantastic. My friend, go birds. I go Broncos, you know, they can be my FC team. I don't mind that. 

[00:28:52] Ben: Okay.

[00:28:53] Jay: all right. Be good, brother. It was great talking to you and have a good rest of your week. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Ben.

[00:28:58] Ben: You

[00:28:59] Jay: See you, man. 

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