Intro: Welcome to The Level Up Show with Edward Purmalis, where I will be bringing on experts that have their own level up experiences to share so you can start to level up both personally and professionally. We’ll be digging into their big successes and failures that have gotten them where they are today. Let’s do this. Here we go!
Edward Purmalis: What’s up, ladies and gentlemen?
Welcome to another episode of the Level Up Show!
Today, my guest of honor is Patrick Burns. He is the founder of Patrick Burns Co. A company that helps B2B brands generates more awareness and revenue through digital marketing.
Since starting in the digital marketing space, his brand has created a mass following of over 74,000, generated millions of content views, and produced thousands of leads. He is passionately curious about the psychology of marketing and the technology that empowers it. He’s on a mission to make entrepreneurs visions become a reality.
Now, Patrick, the way I found out about you is actually this is on LinkedIn, right? We started talking about Meta and stuff. There was some post. I commented, I was like, this dude has, like, a massive following.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, that was an interesting thread. I basically made a poll question, like, if the rebrand for Meta was a good idea. And then you added a comment, and I’m like, I think we’re going to have to talk about this ten years down the road because people are saying it’s a terrible idea, but I know it’s a real long term play. And then you sent me a schedule link for ten years. So we got ten years, we’re going to have a follow up meeting. But yeah, that was hilarious.
I had to engage with you and I didn’t even know what you did. Really. I mean, I just saw you post that and I’m like, oh, he’s in podcasting. Like, well, that’s huge for B2B stuff. So I’m like, I got to get a hold of this guy for business stuff. But it was hilarious. No?
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, that was a good interaction. That meeting that we’ve scheduled, I’m still planning to keep it on the tracks. I even put in my personal email schedule.
Patrick Burns: Okay.
Edward Purmalis: So that thing is going to happen. We’re going to see what the Meta came to be. And funny thing is, did you see that news article, like, right after they did the rebrand about something about genocide and 150,000,000 penalty or something crazy like that? So they basically rebranded it just before the moment the hammer came down on some pretty serious allegations. But now it’s not Facebook that I’ll describe, it’s Meta. And half the people won’t even put the connection together.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, I mean that it’s all about perception. I mean, it’s definitely a big perception play, but I think it’s also about just the value offering of the platform. Like they’re trying to expand and not just be a social network. It’s basically a Metaverse, which is a pioneering thing that’s not going to come to fruition for years, but it definitely can.
I heard a funny story that they were trying to get the Meta tag on Instagram, the handle. And there was like some publishing company, there was some magazine company that had Meta and they couldn’t get it from them. Isn’t that ironic? They owned the company and then they couldn’t get the handle or something. It was hilarious.
Edward Purmalis: Oh, yeah, like some other company has that already trademarked and everything else in the socials. And funny thing is Facebook is like, bullying them like crazy. They released like they released [crosstalk] like a letter. I saw it on Reddit. I think that they’re getting bullied by Facebook and all the news articles and all the social media activity they’re trying to get and all the views they’re trying to get to this issue are all getting just slammed by Facebook so, you know, the Zuck will do what the Zuck does.
Patrick Burns: Yeah. For better or worse.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah. So I guess I’ll see you in a virtual conference sometime in a couple of years in virtual reality on the Metaverse.
Patrick Burns: For sure. We could do a show like that and then people could be sitting at the table with us. That’d be cool.
Edward Purmalis: Future of podcasting, man. All right, so as far as your career goes, are you a career marketer or is that something that you fell into sometime a couple of years into your professional journey?
Patrick Burns: It was right as soon as I graduated college. It’s interesting, my whole entrepreneurial journey. Well, my whole career journey as a whole. I mean, first if we go through it’s interesting looking back and you connect the dots, but I initially wanted to be a physical therapist. I’ve always had like, a passion for health and wellness.
And then they told me that I had to get straight A’s and I might still not make the program. And I could only make maybe six figures based on where I live. I’m like, man, this is demanding and there’s a ceiling. I’m like, I might as well just do business, because business, I could do anything with that. And it’s really generalized.
So from there, that’s what I went to college for, business management in Indiana, graduated with that degree, and my career counselor would always try to just get me a regular nine to five job, and I would keep turning them down. I’m like, I don’t think I want to do my own thing or I want to get with a young company.
So he positioned me and connected me with it was basically like Uber for lawn care. So if you wanted your yard this was back in 2015, so if you wanted your lawn mode, you could just have somebody come home and lawn care provider would take care of it. And I basically was the marketing manager for that.
I did that for about three months. I would help with the social and I would onboard lawn care providers and help them through the app. Then it wasn’t even my company. I mean, I had no equity in the company, and I was just a young kid trying to get my feet wet. And the founder is like, you probably should start your own company because you’re so aggressive. You’re like, steamrolling everything I put in front of you. I’m like. Okay. Well, I guess I will.
So I pivoted from there. I basically was working on it was a third party software, but it was to bring online personal trainers connected with clients and like, a platform to facilitate that relationship. So I’d recruit personal and I would get them clients. I did that for about a year. Failed right on my face. Failed miserably with it. I mean, there was so much that you don’t learn in school that’s applied to real world application like entrepreneurship.
But what I found through both of those was I was naturally good at branding, marketing. So I’m like, okay, well, I could just double down on that and become an expert and just help other companies do that, like as a consultant and do contract work with that. So then that’s what I’ve been doing ever since then.
Ever since I stopped doing the fitness thing, I just doubled down and started my own, quote, unquote, agency. And now we just help companies grow awareness and leads through digital marketing, and we focus on B2B companies specifically because that’s what I had the most experience with. I mean, I was the digital marketing manager for a fitness franchise for a couple of years, and then I would get these leads of other consumer stuff.
But I’m like, man, I have to reinvent the wheel every time I’m going to work with these people. And I have the more experience in B2B because that’s how I built my own brand. So I’m like, well, I just need to focus on that model and help those people because now it’s replicable scalable given the same service to the same demographic.
Edward Purmalis: Got it.
Patrick Burns: Here we are.
Edward Purmalis: Got it. No, that’s an impressive journey. I wasn’t aware there was an app for getting people to mow your lawn. But I guess it’s true what they say, there’s an app for everything nowadays.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, it was during Uber this. I mean, it was during the Uber.
Edward Purmalis: Uber boom.
Patrick Burns: Everybody was trying to make the next Uber, like Uber this, Uber that was what it was. So it was interesting times.
Edward Purmalis: We’ll have Uber for dog. Yeah, it’s crazy, right? But all these apps are bringing so much quality of life improvements, except maybe for the yellow cab taxi drivers in New York that are getting a bit pissy about the whole ordeal. But their business model is reliant on a monopoly of sorts, for sure. So you kind of went the standard route of got out of school, got a job, and quickly figured out that that wasn’t exactly what you were going to do.
Patrick Burns: No, I didn’t even get I’ve never worked a regular job ever in my whole life. Like regular, like nine to five, I’ve never done I instantly did this right off the bat.
Edward Purmalis: Pretty much same thing. I had like a regular job for like three months and I found my first sales job. Yeah. Why would I do anything else if I can set my own hours to an extent and eat what I hunt to a stage?
Patrick Burns: Well, just having no ceiling based on your ambition, that was a big thing for me. Well, I mean, I would do some jobs, they just weren’t white collar, but they were just like college jobs. Just know, buy groceries and stuff. Like, I worked I remember this is like a vivid memory of my applying.
I worked at FedEx Ground just to get side money while I was through college and I was applying to be a manager. And I did an interview and the guy said that was above me. He’s like, well, you’re not going to get the position. He’s like, what are you going to school for? And it was a management position. I’m like, business management. And he’s like you’re, too. Business management like and I’m like what? Isn’t that what you want?
And then I realized the corporate world, there’s all these political things and people are worried about you taking their spot. And it’s like, if you’re overly ambitious, it can actually hurt you. So I’m like, I don’t want to be in an ecosystem where I’m held back. I’m actually penalized from being real ambitious or real knowledgeable about something. So that had a profound effect on me. It’s crazy, like, just one singular moment changed my whole trajectory like that.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, a lot of people go into that position, right? Like, you see the corporate BS and you decide, this is something I really do not want to do, and it hurts a lot of people. And a lot of solopreneurs also talk about my life as a corporate worker was so bad. And people get all these health issues by the time they’re 30. You don’t really hear that from solopreneurs that are crushing it. They’re usually fairly happy and kind of well adjusted.
Patrick Burns: Lifestyle is huge. I mean, you could be doing the same work, but how you approach it and be able to do it anytime, that’s huge. To control your own time and destiny is like, very big on life satisfaction, I would say, for sure.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah. Growing your own baby and seeing where it goes is the best thing to do. Right?
Patrick Burns: That’s not to say the challenges that are involved with that. You’re going to have a lot more challenges involved, a lot more hurdles, a lot more struggles to make that happen, as opposed to just taking the traditional route.
Edward Purmalis: That’s exactly….
Patrick Burns: So much worth it.
Edward Purmalis: That’s exactly what I wanted to transition into. So there you are, kind of still green, right, and you decide, fuck it, I’m going to go full into this entrepreneurship thing and start my own agency. How did that start out? What were kind of your feelings going into it? Were you confident that you’re going to be able to make ends meet? Did you take a crazy loan? Did you move back into your parents? What was your structure right at the beginning stages of becoming an entrepreneur?
Patrick Burns: At the beginning, when I started more of the consulting stuff, I would just try to make what little amount of money I had stretched. I mean, nickel and diaming, like just scraping. But I was so tunnel vision on my plan that I would not let it stop. I was so focused on that plan and I had no contingency plans or anything else. It was just like plan A all the way. We’re going to put it to the floor and something’s going to happen.
And what I realized was my plan wasn’t like life’s plan because I actually stayed with my grandpa for a while in Florida, then I had to move back home. All while I was trying to build this up because it’s like I couldn’t keep myself afloat. But I definitely didn’t take out any business loans or anything like that because I didn’t want more financial liability with that because that’s interesting.
I actually wanted to build a gym. I was almost in the process of getting as a partner on developing a whole gym complex, like a workout place. And the guy was trying to go 50 50 with me on taking out a massive loan to do that. And I’m like, dude, I’m only like 23 years old. I’m going to screw this so up and I’m going to be financially ruined trying to like because that’s why I got into more tech based or consulting based work.
Because it’s just your time and your skills that you have to develop and you don’t have to use a lot of money to get that off the ground. So it’s a lot less financial risk to get that up and running because the overhead is so low. So that was a big factor of why I did that.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah. Going into a massive loan at the age of 23, a lot of people do it, and most of them are not happy afterwards. It is a painful, painful journey, especially from what you’re telling me. It sounds like you like the idea, but it wasn’t exactly your idea, right? It was the other guy’s idea. And he just wanted your name on the….. [crosstalk]
Patrick Burns: Yeah, well, I mean, he was really savvy, like real estate development guy. I mean, he was very keen. He was very sharp and he was on a bunch of projects. And I had an intuitive feeling that this guy would not do me right. Also too, I could just sense because he was so knowledgeable and skilled. I’m like, I am not going in with you because I know you’re going to rip me apart because I don’t know enough about this space.
I mean, I know about fitness, but the business side of things and the contracts and all that stuff, that’s why I backed out of it as well because I did intuitively. I mean, you got to sense people in a partnership or something like that because you picked the wrong partner can completely ruin. I mean, you got to have a good read on people.
Edward Purmalis: True. And it’s a very vulnerable position if somebody knows everything and you kind of know nothing of the business side of it all. And that’s what usually tips me off with people who are a bit too slick about these type of things when offering, like, yeah, I know this and I know that, and then, boom, you just do this one thing that you know that I could have. Maybe other people do too. But I need your name on the lease.
So it’s kind of like, why do you need me if you seem to know everything? And the reason why he needed you is to maybe mitigate 50% of that upcoming risk.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, and I wasn’t willing to take that bet. I knew that was a bad bet because who knows what could happen? I mean, that’s a really tough saturated market too. So that’s a tough market to break into, for sure.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, just like all the supplement sellers.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, for sure.
Edward Purmalis: All right, so you bootstrapped your way through consulting, started your agency. What was the growth path there and what were some of the main things that you learned? What were kind of your AHA moments that you learned while going up the trajectory from, let’s just say beginning six months to where you are today?
Patrick Burns: Systems are huge for scalability. If you don’t have systems, it’s going to take you a long time just to onboard people, get new deals and do that. So, I mean, systems were huge when I first started, I was so long term thinking I was all about just building brand. That’s literally all I did. I wasn’t even like really? Which is looking back was kind of stupid because I should have been focused on short term revenues while doing that simultaneously.
But initially I’m just like, I’m going to build a massive brand and build up all these connections, get this visibility and I know it’s going to open doors and I’m just going to double down on that, just go all in. So I would spend all my time just building brand and I would get a couple of prospects because I wasn’t like short term lead generation, like just trying to get things in the pipeline.
I was just so about awareness and then through that, sales calls were terrible because I didn’t have enough reps to get down my pitch, get down with all that. And if you only have one sales call when I was first starting out in a day, you’re like, oh my God, this is the biggest thing in the world. Because once you have a few calls, you get in a rhythm and you’re kind of like used to it and stuff. But if you only have a couple, then it’s hard to get into a rhythm and you overthink it.
So that was big, too and then just being able to delegate. I mean, we have a team. I have a team. I have a virtual assistant. I have account managers that run automation software. We’re bringing in more people. I got like an email marketing specialist that we just brought on board and another account manager. So be able to scale, be able to hire people, give them direction.
And leadership, I mean, leadership is a big thing about it. You can be a technical expert, but being a leader and actually trying to build an organization is just a totally different thing because there’s a lot of solo. I mean, I’m not looking to be like a solo. I’m looking to build like a real company, like a certain level sized company. I mean, at least few hundred employees, I would say.
And with that, you need to be able to incentivize people, motivate people, be compassionate, empathetic with people when situations arise, and really put them first. You eat last. You got to make sure your people are taken care of because I’ve worked with some leaders that didn’t do that.
They just didn’t take care of their people. They try to squeeze them out. It’s like, I’m not going to be that. I’m going to take care of you first and hopefully I’ll be all right, but I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of. So that was a big thing. Systems, sales, leadership, I would say those are like three elements that I really learned to get where I am.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, the biggest caveat of not having a ton of formidable corporate experience is that you don’t really get to see how shitty the average leader is.
Patrick Burns: Yeah.
Edward Purmalis: But once you see that, you understand that you don’t want to be that and that you want to pave your own way. And that’s what the whole great resignation is about too. It’s not just about getting an extra five or ten grand a year or an extra health benefit. It’s because people are tired of leaders that are dragging them down and not taking care of them and treating them like factory workers in somewhere dirty, somewhere bad.
Patrick Burns: They train like cogs in the machine. It’s like you got to remember these are people. You got to always remember the human element. I mean, that’s the big thing. I have very specific cultures and values that we embody and I embody because you got to set that tone from day one on what your culture is and what you stand for and take care of your people.
So that’s huge too, because if you build an organization, you don’t bring up culture, it could be too late. Down the road, you could have built something that’s toxic, that doesn’t have the right code of conduct. So you have to solidify that in the beginning stages to have a healthy, inspirational, family type culture. It’s huge.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, I’ve been a part of a bro, culture esque sales, aggressive office before and truthfully, to a 19 year old kid or 20 year old kid or however old I was when I started, it all seemed like fun and hey, this and that. But looking back, now that I’ve had a good leader for about a year and good leadership and a good team and a team that can call itself a family without all the reasons why you should avoid any team, that calls themselves a family.
It’s mind boggling how much better your mental health gets and how your productivity changes from output to results that it just naturally happens. You’re no longer focused on some BS KPI based on activity because your manager is too lazy to actually see what you’re doing. You start working with yourself and with your own brain and you start kind of moving those little neurons that at the end of the day make the magic happen. The things that differentiate you from salesperson or marketing person number 752 and 753. And that’s a huge, huge psychological layer for having a human led, human focused leadership.
Patrick Burns: Totally agree.
Edward Purmalis: Well, yeah, that all sounds pretty good. Looks like you’re in a good state of getting up. So what are your next kind of passion projects? Where are you looking at now? You built the company. You now have people, you now have…
Patrick Burns: Ahmm.
Edward Purmalis: Oh, I think I got muted for a second.
Patrick Burns: Yeah, I can hear you now. We’re good.
Edward Purmalis: So you’ve built the company, right? You’ve started hiring people. You’ve started delegating properly, becoming a leader, doing all these things, scaling. So what’s the next step? Like, where do you see your next step being? Is it just let’s take the same formula that’s working now and try to add more people and just more activity to it, or is there like a bigger goal or like a next level, level up moment?
Patrick Burns: I mean, a lot of it is just — we got to reach a certain level of growth with what we’re already doing and a little bit of complementary services to what we’re already doing. But, I mean, the biggest thing that I got to address as soon as possible is to replace me because I still work personally with basically all the clients so they still have direct connection with me and there’s no way that can scale.
So I’m going to have to get somebody to substitute me and then scale that out and build out teams on the service offerings that we already do. I’m looking to get to that, like, a certain line of revenue, and then I’ll do line extension with other products and services that we can internally use. But basically I almost see this as a means to an end because it’s so like human capital, exhaustive like to build out an agency. I mean the company had just to build an agency requires a lot of people.
So looking at that it’s like, well if I really want to get a big market share and grow a company, I’m going to have to hire so many people. I would rather have it more lean, like a really lean organization that’s really scalable. So we’ll definitely get involved in the developing software, definitely going to develop software and tools with that because we already have a bunch of relationships with software development companies and other tech partners and so on and so forth. But I’m not going to pursue that until I hit a certain line of revenue with what we currently do.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, working and once the fundamentals are set into a level then you just go from there, start working on your – [Crosstalk]
Patrick Burns: Yeah, I mean, reinvest because software can be expenses up, a lot of expenses up front. I mean our model doesn’t cost much up front. So I have to build up a certain line of revenue then reinvest into that software. And then I’m thinking B2B like sales arm because if we can help through the whole process of lead generation to close, that could be very valuable to our organization. I mean, I want to just build a complete revenue generating machine from start to finish.
We got their interest, we got them connected with a salesperson, they close the deal. We got your revenue without you having to getting really involved or build a bunch of in house resources to do that. But it’s a long game. I mean these are ideas and stuff, but I always look at a very long term vision. It’s like, okay, I’m here, I got to take these steps to get here, then I’m going to do this. Strategy is so huge. I would say that’s another big thing that I learned a ton about through my journey is strategy and leverage. Because I used to just be so 100 miles an hour just doing anything and everything.
But I wasn’t being as productive because I wasn’t focused on the right things that would get the most output and I wasn’t setting myself up in certain positions that I could get a lot of leverage. That’s profound. I’ve studied and now I’m obsessed with strategy. It’s like one of the biggest things. I mean, I’ll hustle and I’ll talk to a bunch of people, do a bunch of sales and get people. But then I’ll have a lot of time where it’s just quiet and I’m just analyzing every single move I make, like what moves I need to make, where I need to improve all these different things, to lay out a map so I can be most productive and give the most value and not waste the least amount of time.
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, people who don’t sink but end up swimming usually at some point get to that realization that, yeah, this is the point where I need to start really self-reflecting, looking at my strategy, looking at my process, and developing something that’s sustainable in the long term and doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting on my end.
All right, so sounds to me like what you’re trying to do is solve the mysterious, deadly connection of sales and marketing, get them working together seamlessly, which, I mean, that’s the billion dollar question to any company. I’ve been with companies that don’t have a strong marketing department and leads are plentiful, but then you’re just digging through BS.
And as you mentioned before, you said that you’re looking for a mentee, for a protégé, right, for somebody who can take all the knowledge that you’ve gathered and start taking away some of those client meetings that you’re currently worked on.
Patrick Burns: Yep, for sure.
Edward Purmalis: Well, anybody listening, send a message to Patrick.
Patrick Burns: Hey, there we go. We’re always hiring. I mean, I’m ready to go. So, yeah, we’ll bring on people. We’ll onboard people and get them ready to roll. And if I feel confident, I would like them to have a lot of experience. I want them almost to be better at marketing than I am currently right now. I want them to outdo me because that’s the big thing, too. I am kind of a specialist, but I also am running a company, so I get into the weeds with a bunch of the new tactics and technologies and all that stuff, but I have to do so much leadership and strategy and go out and do the sales and stuff. It makes it difficult to also be a real deep level expert on solely marketing.
If all I did all day was just marketing, if I was just like, VP, I would be a genius. I would be next level, like, genius with that. But there’s so many elements I have to worry about outside of that. So it’s like, if somebody can be better than me at marketing, I’m going to make them take over my spot, really.
And that’s what you got to do. You got to be humble as a leader. You got to pick people that are smarter than you, better than you in certain ways, and be comfortable with that and set them up to succeed and just support them. I mean, I don’t want to be the only smart person in the room. I want everybody to be smart and challenging me and challenging my ideas so we can grow.
Edward Purmalis: That right. There is a level up mindset. All right, Patrick.
Patrick Burns: [Crosstalk] Easy. You got to be vulnerable and you got to be humble, but it helps so much, and people respect you so much more for that.
Edward Purmalis: True. You’ll build a real team, a real machine, a real engine. All right, Patrick, tell us where we can find you on social media. How can we find your company? Go.
Patrick Burns: Okay, well, you can find me on LinkedIn. It’s Patrick Burns. And then you’ll see a little flame emoji.
Edward Purmalis: Fire.
Patrick Burns: That’s me. You’ll see that little icon by my name. Five, one, six…
Edward Purmalis: Wait, this is going to need some editing. Please restart after you said the fire thing, you cut out for a good 10 seconds.
Patrick Burns: Okay, you want me to just start from scratch of like…
Edward Purmalis: Yeah, you can start from scratch. We’ll just edit it together.
Patrick Burns: Okay. So you can find me on LinkedIn. It’s Patrick Burns. And then I have a little fire icon. You’ll see that by my name. It’ll be like, one of the top search results. When you search Patrick Burns, you can reach out to me. I mean, I’m on Twitter at Burns.co. That’s my handle. I’m on Instagram, but I’m not really active.
But you could reach out to me directly if you have interest in what we offer, like you want to learn more about our services or other ways that we could help each other collaborate. You can email me at hello@patrickburns.co. That’s co. And then you could text me. You find if you text me too, at 574-516-7434. Those are all the ways you can reach out to me. Follow me.
Edward Purmalis: All right, all of this info will be in the show notes. No need to start typing. Thank you, everybody for listening, and please feel free to leave a nice review on Apple. It surely, surely does help. All right, until next time.Outro: Thanks for sticking to the end. That means that you’re serious about leveling up. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please write a survey and share the show with your friends. If you’re interested in starting your own podcast or guesting on more top rated podcasts, head over to SalesCast.co-ed. To get your free podcast strategy call.