EP.9 John Hall | MODERN ONTRAPRENEUR

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EPISODE 9
JOHN HALL: INFLUENCE & CO.

John Hall is the co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co., a company that helps brands create, publish and distribute content. In less than four years, the company has become one of the largest providers of high-quality content to the world’s top publications. They've been ranked 72 on Forbes’ “Most Promising Companies in America” list, named Empact’s “Best Marketing and Advertising Company of 2014” at the United Nations and mentioned in Inc. as the “#1 Company Dominating Content Marketing.”

IN THIS EPISODE

Trust is a currency that goes a long way in business, the antithesis of which is chasing profit first and foremost. John Hall stopped by MODERN ONTRAPRENEUR with an earnest message on making yourself helpful by leading with value. This principle is relevant across all industries. Learn what happens when an entrepreneur pushes him or herself to not only get the “A,” but to master their niche.

JUMP TO TOPIC

1:06 - Succeed by Making Yourself Helpful
John’s eye-opening discovery after crossing over from egotism

4:13 - Follow Value, Not Profits
The reason John refuses to break into the financial industry despite guaranteed profit

6:33 - Don’t Be Perceived as an Expert, Be One
And thus exercise your natural curiosity to learn more

9:58 - Legacy Transcends Professional Triumphs
When you die, how will you be perceived by peers, family and friends?

12:00 - The New Permutations of Entrepreneurship
Grow something of value and see it through.

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

LR Welcome to MODERN ONTRAPRENEUR. Today we have John Hall, who's the co-founder and CEO of Influence and Co, a company that helps brands, including Ontraport, create, publish, and distribute content. In less than four years, the company has become one of the largest providers of high quality content to the world's top publications. It's been ranked number 72 on Forbes' Most Promising Companies in America list, named Impact's Best Marketing and Advertising Company of 2014 at the United Nations, and mentioned in Inc. Magazine as the number one company dominating content marketing. Thanks so much for being here, John.

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JOHN HALL

Be the leader. Don't just be perceived as the leader. Read a ton. I read probably 50 articles a day. I probably have at least two or three conversations a day just to learn from somebody that has knowledge that I don't have.

JH No problem. Thanks for having me.

LR Yeah. Let's just dive right into it. Tell me what you think is your number one skill set, your unique skill set, and how that skill set has helped you be successful.

JH This is one that I would say that I didn't always have, but it's this natural ability to look to be helpful to other people. It's something where as a younger entrepreneur, I was very egotistical. I was very self-centered, I guess you could say, and I think where I started seeing a lot of success in just entrepreneurship or life is that I started looking at how I can naturally be helpful, whether it be towards a client, a partner, a friend, a media outlet. It's something that is in a business world where a lot of times everybody's thinking about themselves and their own benefit, I think it's a differentiating factors when you come into a relationship and you're very focused on what is the best way? How can I add value for you and be very, very focused on that. It's ultimately created a network of opportunities for me when I've taken that stance and it's done really well.

LR Just a natural tendency to lead with help and value.

JH Yeah. At the end of almost every conversation, I'll ask, "How can I be helpful to you?" You'll see with you. I'll find out a way or at least a general idea on what I could do. What's interesting is that I think that this skill has developed over time into a very ... People referred to it as connectors in the past, but I look at it as I try to find opportunities for people and find the right fit. It could be viewed as a connector, but ultimately that could be happening where you spend an extra let's say 30 minutes on a client when I didn't have to and say, hey, one client yesterday said, "I was surprised to see you." Called me up, spent 30 minutes helping me out. I think that that's something that's differentiated me and I think it's not just helped us out with clients, but just in general opportunities for myself and the company.

LR Yeah. Seems so simple, doesn't it?

JH Very simple. I could have got super complicated with some other answer, but it's something that I preach about all the time, is that ...

LR I don't mean it as a simple answer. It's why doesn't everybody do it?

JH Some people do, and you're drawn. You find each other. I'm a part of Summit Series, for example. I'm gonna be going on ...

LR The cruise.

JH Yeah, the cruise. That's a group that is very similar. I've had a lot of good friends in there and we've been able to create a lot of business opportunities together, but like I told you before we got on video, it is that you're drawn to people and brands that are either helpful or that you're attracted to. Because a lot of times, you're gonna be offering something similar to somebody else. We all have this attraction towards likeability, towards helpfulness, towards just enjoying being around someone. I've really focused on trying to work on myself and say, "Hey, what can I do to be helpful?" To actually, to be honest, give a shit about someone else rather than always being focused on what can I get out of them?

LR Yeah, awesome. You've grown insanely quickly, it sounds like. Last time we talked in person, it was a couple years ago, and you were like 12 people in your company. I just heard that you've got 170 people on the payroll now. Unbelievable growth. What's working in your business to grow your business right now? How is that happening?

JH We're following the value. We're not following the profits, necessarily, I would say. I think a lot of businesses are drawn by how can we immediately make the most money in the short amount of time as possible? We don't look at it that way. We look at it as simple from the start, is that we were created ... The three co-founders: Brent, Kelsey, and I got together and we said we want to truly help entrepreneurs, small business owners build trust with an audience. The best way we saw that was through education, and when you think about the most trusted people in the world, it's your mentors, your advisors, your parents, people who've educated you throughout life. We said, how can we develop a process and a service and technology behind how you extract that knowledge, create content, and distribute it?

It started off with that idea, but then as we've learned, it's that it's not just entrepreneurs and small business owners that needed it. That larger brands need it. Mid-level brands. Pretty much trust is a barrier across all different industries. What was interesting for us is that we've had so much success because the fact is that we've just been following the value and we haven't been saying, "Okay, let's try and make money over here." It's simply like, wow, we practice what we preach. We do a lot of content. We get attraction from these people and we're like, wow, there's an opportunity in this industry, in this brand. Then we look in and we dive in. How can we actually provide value here? There's industries like the financial industry, for example, we can make a ton of money. We can make a killing in the financial industry. However, there's a lot of challenges and barriers that happen there that could, I think, actually affect the long term brand of the company.

LR Your company, yeah.

JH Yeah. We look at it and we say no. We're gonna look at it and we're gonna make the right decisions for the long term and we've done that, and it's led us the right way. Also, there's a lot of great people on the team. Besides that, I would say the number one thing is recruiting, and we've actually done a very good job of getting good talent.

LR Awesome. As you grow from a company of a handful of people to a significant size, you obviously learn a lot and all go through challenges. Sometimes we look back and we say, "Man, I wish I knew then what I know now." If you could think of one thing that stands out at you that if you could whisper it in the ear of yourself three years ago or five ... When did you start your business?

JH This one, we started about four and a half, five years ago.

LR Five years ago. What is the thing that if you knew then what you know now would have made the biggest difference for your success?

JH Probably be two things. One is, A, really work on your natural curiosity to learn more. That was a big problem for me. When I was in school, I just went to get the A. I was the student that people who really, truly learned and did their best to learn probably hated because the fact is I would just go and find out what it took to get the A.

LR Figure out how to pass the test.

JH I looked at the result and that's what I did. Over time, you learn that that's not the best thing and the smartest people, the people that you truly want to deal with, are the smart, the intellectual ones, the people that really know their stuff. Especially in my world, I deal with so many different influencers, so many different thought leaders or perceived as thought leaders, and you learn that there's some people that actually don't know what the hell they're talking about. That's something that is found out and something that I think I came into business with false confidence, like I did know.

I would whisper. I would say, one, really challenge yourself to learn as much as you can. Be the leader. Don't just be perceived as the leader. Be the leader. Don't just be perceived as the leader. Read a ton. I read probably 50 articles a day. I probably have at least two or three conversations a day just to learn from somebody that has knowledge that I don't have. Doing things like that I think are extremely valuable, and then also just investing in yourself.

I think at first, we did, I was one of our first clients and we did the same service that I was offering the clients, but I wish we would've really dove in and focused on investing more in the brand because the fact is that it's created so many opportunities for us as a company, but you don't want to be too egotistical and like, "Hey, attention needs to be on me." It should've been. Let's make a significant investment not just in myself, but Kelsey, the other people within the company, because there's just such a payoff in doing that. We were a little slow to do that even though we were even doing that for clients. I would've said, "Guys, dive in. You're gonna be in this area. If you truly believe in it ..."

LR Walk the talk.

JH Walk the talk. That's what I would tell myself.

LR Awesome. Then when you think about moving forward, what is the thing you're most excited to learn next?

JH Learning next. I think I told you on the tech side, that's something I've always been ... We've developed technology behind the service that we offered, and so service and tech are so different. You know. It's very challenging to shift that mindset, and so for me, understanding how technology not just helps our clients but also help media partners, how it makes our company run more effectively, that's very different than the service side. I'm talking to people like you that have a really strong tech background from building software. For me, I'm really excited to learn more about that.

LR Yeah, great. Awesome. As entrepreneurs, we struggle for the first few years to get it up off the ground and all of our focus is on the here and now and making next payroll, but at some point you get to where you're flying and the ship is going, and we have the opportunity to look towards the future a little more and start thinking about what we're really up here to do and what our legacy's gonna be. When you think about that, what do you imagine is important to you to have be your legacy?

JH Legacy's a big question, because legacy, I think, it doesn't just mean your professional life. It's your personal life too. I don't know if you've read the book Essentialism. It's a pretty good book. I went out with Greg, who wrote that book, and did a leadership event with him, and he asked that question. He did these exercises where you looked at different people in your life. How do you, for example, want your grandchildren to look at you? How do you want your daughter to look at you after you die? What is that look? Actually visualize. When they're talking about you, what do you want them to say? What actually do you want to leave them with?

It's not just that, but it's also your co-workers. You look across that. For me, I think it's very hard to separate those two. For me, it's together, it's looking at is that I want to be known as someone who really tried to make people better, that I was known for making people better versions of themselves. Whether that was through challenging them through just actually being challenging, not being the friendliest person in the world, because sometimes bringing the best out of people you have to challenge them. You have to do that. Or it could be somebody knew that when they were down and they weren't doing well, that I was there for them in that instance and got them to where they could be successful.

I think for me, it's very big to bring the best out of people around you and help them enjoy life, but then also help them succeed, because the more you can do that, the more yourlife in general becomes better, because you're surrounded by people that are content at the same time as it's a spread effect. It gets to you too and it affects your life. For me, that's what I try to do. Sometimes I fail at it. Sometimes I do a great job, but I'm still working on that and trying to think, is that what does my legacy look like and how can I have core values that are aligned with that?

LR We call this series MODERN ONTRAPRENEUR. What do you think it means to you to be a modern entrepreneur?

JH I think the word entrepreneur's changed so much. There's so many people that can be an entrepreneur. There's entrepreneurs within companies. I look at some of the people within, I was just telling you, the technology side of what we're doing, and the two people leading that I would consider entrepreneur. Sometimes people used to look at it is that, okay, is it that you spent the money on it? That's obviously a big part. If you funded your company, that's a risk. I look at it as entrepreneurship, it can be a variety of things, but when it comes down to it, it's as simple as being in a position where you can take something that is either a challenge or a potential opportunity and providing that solution. Being creative to really think that through and to build something of value with that, and then have that grow and then nurture that.

It's kind of like a new parent. Well, this is my second one, but it's the same way as a kid. I've got a three month old at home, and it's cool to see her grow and learn and become better. Starting from a little baby. A lot of times, that's a business idea or just an idea within a company that ends up growing. For example, we do Startup Weekend for our company. We hosted. I will say we have the largest Startup Weekend that we actually host and provide the resources for, but we also host a Startup Weekend just for our company. One of the best things to do. They get together in these groups and they start almost a company within our company in that three or four hours, and then they work on it, and then we pick three that we really like. Last year, we implemented, I think, two of the three. Technology was a part of that. I think that that's a big question. I think a lot of people throw the term around, but it's as simple as I think the modern wording of entrepreneurship has changed into that.

LR Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. You're awesome.

JH I have the worst handwriting, by the way. You're gonna be like, "Man, you should've been a doctor because this handwriting is horrific."

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