[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Jason Barnard. He is the CEO of Kalicube with a K. he is currently in France. We had a fun, beautiful political conversation before the podcast, because we don't talk about politics on the first customer, Jason, how are you my friend?

[00:00:47] Jason: I'm doing very well, thank you very much, Jay. And I'm delighted to be talking about my first customers three times 

[00:00:53] Jay: Yes. Your three first customers. I love when people have more than one, and let's get to each of those. But tell me first, where did you grow up and did that have an impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:01:05] Jason: Oh wow, that's a great question. Yes, I grew up in the north of England, in the countryside, isolated, in a tiny village. I didn't have any friends, and I was left very much to figure out my own life as a child. And that has made me a dynamic, decisive, enthusiastic entrepreneur. I make things happen.

[00:01:30] Jay: Beautiful. I make things happen. I love that. so tell me about the first of the three companies and what was it and how did you get your first customer?

[00:01:40] Jason: My first company was because I joined a music group playing punk folk double bass. We wanted to get a record deal. We couldn't get a record deal. Nobody wanted us. So we, or I created a record company to release the record, record the record, release it. And the first customer was the record company.

I convinced to take on board our album when we had already done all the hard work and it was all about relationship building, nothing else mattered. The person who signed us. Was pretty much a friend. So it's make a friend make a deal first customer

[00:02:26] Jay: It's just that easy. It's just that easy.

[00:02:31] Jason: Yeah, i'd like to think i'm charming.

[00:02:34] Jay: You are charming. You've been

charming since I've met you and I've known you for 21 minutes and I'm already charmed. I'm going to fly over to France and hang out and we'll have a baguette and some beer. I don't know if

[00:02:44] Jason: Please come over.

[00:02:45] Jay: but yes, I will. all right, so what was the 2nd company and your 1st company or 1st customer there

[00:02:50] Jason: The second company was more difficult because nobody believed we had Cartoon characters for children. I was convinced that they were going to be successful And I had to build the success in order to get people to talk to me And the person who signed with us the first customer orange in france, which is the equivalent of Oh, i'm trying to think of an american, telecoms company help me

[00:03:22] Jay: about, Viacom?

[00:03:24] Jason: Yeah, viacom the equivalent of viacom signed with us not because they liked me But because they saw there was a huge business opportunity Because I had something they wanted and I had the audience they wanted to reach they were You askers. I was offering them something they needed and it worked that way.

So the first was a friend. The second was somebody who needed me.

[00:03:51] Jay: how did you convince them or show them or pitch to them? Like, what was the process to show them that you had something that, that they wanted? Like, how did you get in front of them to begin with? And

[00:04:00] Jason: I demonstrated that we had 5 million children under 10 years old visiting our website every month. And they said, that's very niche. That's a huge number. We want that. Simple as that.

[00:04:16] Jay: what was the business? What was the business there?

[00:04:20] Jason: Children's entertainment, initially online and then as a TV series with, ITV International and, TG in France. So what it came down to was once we could prove the attractiveness of our product, which was entertainment for children, everybody wanted a piece of the pie.

[00:04:43] Jay: And was it, were you writing these shows? Did you hire people to write these shows in this content? Like, what was the, where'd the content come from?

[00:04:51] Jason: Oh, that's a, either a great or a terrible question, depending on how you look at it. I wrote the shows. I was the characters of the shows. I wrote the songs. I did the production. I built the website. I did everything. So it was pure determination to make it work. Once I made it work, everybody wanted a piece of the pie.

I ended up in a situation where I was in great demand. Whereas the first one was all about friendship.

[00:05:21] Jay: All right. So we've got friendship, demand generation, and that probably brings us to Kalicube, which, first of all, tell everybody what Kalicube ishow you got it started

[00:05:34] Jason: Kalicube will help you become the reference in your industry as a thought leader. So you move from being one of many to the one.

[00:05:48] Jay: and

[00:05:48] Jason: And I got into that by making myself the reference in my industry for what I was doing, which is managing, AI, Google, and, Big Tech algorithms understanding of who I am, and therefore how they represent me.

So what we can do is ensure that machines, AI, Big Tech, Google, Bing, ChatGPT, represent you the way you want to be represented. So it's controlling the machines. That's huge. So my first customer,

[00:06:22] Jay: Let's hear it. I want to hear the 1st customer.

[00:06:24] Jason: well, the first customer who truly believed in what we were doing is somebody who said, I want to pivot my career.

Google understands me as CEO of company ABC. I want Google and my audience to perceive me as a business advisor. So we pivoted the machines understanding. Of that person and to do that we had to change the way the person was representing themselves to their own audience So in fact the machines are simply replicating What your human audience are doing?

[00:07:05] Jay: Is it a service or is it a platform? Is it a combination of both? Like how? I mean, I'm sure some of this is like, you know, black box magic, as part of what you do, but can you tell us how it happens? How do you do it? Is it a going through Google and, you know, changing search results? Or is there a platform that's pushing content?

Like, what is this? What is this machine?

[00:07:28] Jason: It's a great question. It's two things. Number one is It's a process Understandability credibility deliverability if you can build understanding with your audience and with machines You can demonstrate your credibility to the audience and the machines and you can provide the solution That suits the audience that the machines can believe in and deliver You've won the game understandability deliver credibility and deliverability.

We share all of that information for free online carrycube. com k a l i c u b e dot com and you do it yourself But if you want to do it effectively efficiently and faster You We have 2 billion data points from Google that allow us to tell you exactly what to do in what order and where to focus at any one time.

Whatever your industry, whatever your pivot, whatever your desire to control your own personal brand might be. So the services we offer are actually simply saving your headspace, making it more efficient, making it more effective, and making it faster. But you can do it for free.

[00:08:48] Jay: What's the common thread here? These are such separate. Businesses from a glance. 

right.

You have a record label. You have a, you know, another platform you have, or, you know, you have a children's, platform. And then you have this persona modification system, which I'll call it just for brevity sake. what's the commonality here? How did you get to where you are now?

[00:09:13] Jason: The Persona Modification System. I love it. Nobody has ever said that to me, but you've actually answered your own question.

[00:09:23] Jay: Okay.

[00:09:25] Jason: If you look at my life, I was a musician. I was a CEO of a music company. Then I was a blue dog, a songwriter, a script writer, CEO of a children's entertainment company. Then I managed to switch the world's perception of me from musician to children's entertainer to digital marketer to entrepreneur and somebody who can help you control your personal brand.

And I have control my own personal brand online throughout the entire process. So, in fact, my current job is simply an extension of how I've managed my own personal brand over the last 30 years.

[00:10:14] Jay: That's a nice, neat little package. I like how that's wrapped together. how. Who is your customer today versus what it was when you started with Kalicube?

[00:10:28] Jason: When I started with Kalicube,no. Well, in fact, it's not at all. when I started with Kalicube, I was hugely ambitious. I thought I can manage a corporation brand online. No problem. And we can, it absolutely is something we can do. But what I now realize is the CEO or founder of a company Has a personal brand that drives their business and drives their career They are the people we can serve the best because they have skin in the game They want this to work and they really care So anybody who's investing in their personal brand is the perfect client for Kelly cube if you want to make your brand Bigger, better, more focused, get the right people talking to you about the right topics for your business and your career.

We're the company for you. Whereas with a corporation, it's much more political, it's much more complicated, it's much more difficult, it's slower. So, my initial idea was corporations. My current focus is CEOs and founders. Because, Dealing with a personal brand is exactly where we excel.

[00:11:45] Jay: All right, well, I'm going to turn the,Magnifying glass back to you, then how do you control your personal brand? how do you see your personal brand? how do you affect it from a day to day basis? What are you doing? Are you putting out content? Are you going to, you know, talks? Are you, I mean, obviously you're doing fantastic podcasts.

you picked the greatest ones to go on. I can see that. what do you do to control your own personal brand? I asked that question to a lot of people and I don't think I could ask it to a better person. How do you do it? All right.

[00:12:15] Jason: The focus and the key is my own personal website and that's where most people fail. If you don't have a personal website, you have a nowhere for the machines. Google the AI algorithms from chat GPT to Bing, to perplexity, to Google's, Gemini. You have nowhere for them to refer to for information about you from you.

Because then what they do is take the information from you about you and corroborate and see the corroboration And see if everybody else agrees Then you become the truth teller about yourself and you can feed them anything you want but secondarily If you don't have a personal website, you have no destination for your audience.

And that's the big loss. So you need a website for yourself. A, to educate the machines, so that they perceive you the way you want to be perceived and represent you the way you want to be represented. And B, give a destination for the audience that you're reaching out to. And I see so many business leaders pushing out their personal brand, but giving no destination.

[00:13:31] Jay: Well, I think a lot of people's first thought is, well, just go to my LinkedIn instead. And why is that not the right answer?

[00:13:39] Jason: Because you don't own LinkedIn. LinkedIn owns you. So, you have a level of control, they can delete your account, they can redirect it somewhere else, somebody can say something nasty about you, you have no control. Your own website, you have total control. And I think we all agree, as a business leader, with our personal brand, we want control.

Your personal website gives you control, if you don't have that. I wouldn't even start.

[00:14:08] Jay: Well, you're making me realize I should probably dust off jayagner. com, that I think I did own at some point. So maybe, maybe after this conversation, I'll go spin that back up. 

[00:14:19] Jason: Well, we actually just had a huge name in the SEO industry. People who do search engine optimization, who are interested in Google, who turned around to me and said, can you help me? Because I'm struggling. And the answer to him was, you need to restart your own website that you closed down 10 years ago.

[00:14:40] Jay: right.

[00:14:40] Jason: And he found that very surprising, but the point is, that's your only hope of control. That's your only hope of self determination in the world of AI that's about to take over. So if you want these machines to understand you the way you want to be understood, and represent you the way you want to be represented, to the subset of their users who are your audience, Start with your own website.

If you don't do that, you've lost the game right off the bat.

[00:15:09] Jay: I'm going to ask you a potentially dumb question. Okay. Let's say I go spend on my website. I listen to Jason and I say, okay, I don't have my own personal brand website. I go out and hire somebody or I spend my own time and I spin it up and it's all about me and I do all this stuff. How long does it take to feed it in the machine? what is the output?

Like what is the actual effect it has to do something like that? Is it immediate? Is it six months? Is it five years? Like when do you see any sort of kind of full cycle comeback of like, Oh, the thing that I just went and created actually had some results. And

[00:15:45] Jason: Right. Well, number one, your KPI is the Google search result for your name. And the answer chat GPT gives you for who is Jason Barnard, who is Jayania. Those are your KPI. The timeline is minimum three months, maximum with us 12 months. because humans are multifaceted and these machines are very simplistic, If you get it wrong and you misinform the machines that one year can turn into five years So my advice is to be very intentional very decisive very clear And communicate to the machines through your own personal website your entity home, which is what we call it today You can expect some results in three months You can expect dominant results in 12 months where you become the dominant person within your industry and the dominant person with your own name.

But if you get it wrong, you're going to be pushing things back 2 3 years. Because machines have super good memories. When you mess it up, they remember.

[00:17:03] Jay: when you say dominant in your industry, let's just use, I don't know, say me, for example, I'm a QA automation expert to some degree. That's all I do is QA and QA agency work. What would that look like for me to dominate That industry, like, I mean, there's obviously the Accenture's of the world and, you know, Google's of the world that have all sorts of giant awareness around who their quality control experts are, do I compete with that?

And what is like dominating it mean,when you kind of put it in the context that you did,

[00:17:43] Jason: Dominating is being the person that people think about when they think about your topic. And I'll give you a good example. Right before this interview, I had a meeting, a sales call, with somebody who said I was talking to my marketing advisor who said, you need to talk to is Jason. And he said to me, this is going to be the easiest sales call you have ever had.

So, that's being dominant. It's that everybody immediately thinks that's the person. Jason Barnard is the person for personal branding online, for knowledge panels on Google, for dominating the AI algorithms, and the KPI is always going to be what does Google and ChatGPT say about you. And that dominance is if they think you're more important than other people with your own name, you're dominating your own name.

If you associate your name with the topic, Jason Barnard, digital marketing, Jason Barnard, entrepreneur, and I come out top, I'm dominating my niche with my name. So,I would use Google and chat GPT as KPI, but at the end of the day, all they're doing is reflecting human behavior. So I actually have to walk the walk and what we do with Kalicube with the 2 billion data points is ensure that we understand exactly where.

We need to focus. for you, we would analyze you. We would analyze the cohort, the peer group that you belong to. And we would see where are the key points that Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft see as important for you. And that gives us the places you need to be standing where your audience is looking.

If you're standing where your audience is looking, you're already winning the game.

[00:19:53] Jay: make it sound pretty attractive, my friend. I feel like I could talk to you all day. We're up against it, but I do have one more question for you. Non business related, non personal brand related. If you could do anything on earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:20:16] Jason: I would figure out a way to play double bass and sing in front of 200, 000 people in a stadium.

[00:20:30] Jay: You are not the first person to say, well, not double base, but you're not the first person to, Rockstar is up there on the list of like number of answers, you know, I think there's a very visceral thing about that, that a lot of people enjoy. So, love that answer.

[00:20:44] Jason: the thing is, and I've already done it, I played on a festival with Bob Dylan. So we were bottom of the bill, he was top of the bill, but we still had the same audience. So it wasn't 000 people. We played the gig. I've done that. And that's given me a taste. And you know, that's definitely something I want to do again.

And I would love to do bigger.

[00:21:13] Jay: I love it. All right. Well, this may be the most enlightening episode we've ever had. I love everything you had to say. I love the, sincerity that you bring to it and your experience with it. So I hope people great, you know, perked up and heard some of the things you said, because a lot of it's very applicable, if you want to find you, I think I know the answer to this question since we just talked about it, but people want to find you Jason.

How do they do that?

[00:21:44] Jason: they search on Google, Jason Barnard, J A S O N B A R N A R D, or ask chat GPT, who is Jason Barnard? How can I get in contact with him? And they will give you the answer that I wanted.

I'm the one in control.

[00:22:02] Jay: a beautiful way to end this episode. They will tell you the answer that you wanted. I love it very much Jason. You are a fantastic I hope I get to go to France and meet you in person. this was very fun episode I hope people check you out. Kalicube. That's k a l i c u b e Dot com is that right? All right. Well, I hope people check you out. Jason. You are fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today. I want to have you back on. I feel like we talked for hours. let's, let's stay in touch my friend and thank you so much for the time. All right.

[00:22:36] Jason: Brilliant. Thank you so much Jay.

[00:22:38] Jay: Thanks Jason. 

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