Brian D. Evans
Most people play within the lines when they build their business. But to get ahead, Brian D. Evans had to take these 7 unconventional steps.
Nowadays, I see entrepreneurs all around me. It’s become so hard to really identify who is the real deal and who is riding on fluff.
It’s been so hard that the first time that Brian D. Evans of Influencive reached out to me, I completely ignored him. About a year ago, he asked me to help him get verified on Facebook and told me he would pay for an audit of his page.
Brian asking me to audit his Facebook page.
I’m like scam. Delete.
But here he was, a founder of an Inc. 500 company and a columnist at all these major publications. Plus he had built out an empire for himself. Now, more so than ever with his new project Influencive.
Curious about how Brian was able to take his career to the next level, I sat down with Brian over dinner asked him how he did it.
These are the 7 unconventional steps Brian used to build his empire (that you can do too):
1. Ask outrageous questions
Brian asked me to help him verify his Facebook page. Who in the world knows what else he asked other people to do. Jump off a cliff with him? Connect him with major influencers? Get him into an exclusive party?
Whatever it is, Brian has no fear when it comes to asking questions. He will ask questions that others may be afraid to ask, and often times as scary as it may be to ask tough questions, the answer is often yes.
2. Be a contrarian
If you do the same thing as 99% of people, you will get the same result 99% of people get. But, if you do something different and get a stand out result, Brian says, you have to take big risk but have the potential for big reward, too.
By doing something contrarian and posting a screen shot of his Twitter question, Brian was able to get over 2,500 likes on his Instagram post.
“I’m like a human multivariate test. I will ‘split test’ different things in my business and life to figure out the best combinations that work for me, regardless of what others say. I don’t just accept traditional thinking without testing it,” says Brian.
3. Listen to everyone but follow only yourself
“One of the best pieces of advice I’d ever received was to listen to everyone, but to follow myself and trust my own judgement,” Brian said.
You have to have your own filter. If you listen to everyone else, and say yes to everyone else, you never have time to say yes to yourself.
This goes hand in hand with knowing who you are. If you don’t know who you are, if you don’t know what you stand for, it’s going to make entrepreneurship that much harder.
4. Network when you don’t need to network
Networking is single handedly one of the most important things that an entrepreneur, and really everyone should be doing. But most people do it wrong, Brian says.
“I hear all these authors advising to go out and build your network right before your big product/book launch. That’s the worst time to build your network, when you need something.
Instead, you should follow the likes of Lewis Howes, Tim Ferriss and others and build your network before you need your network,” said Brian.
5. Pay big money for mentors and masterminds
“One of the smartest things that I do every year is pay ridiculous amounts of money on mentorship, consultants and masterminds,” Brian said.
These ridiculous amounts of money spent on mentorship, consultants, masterminds, and network building have helped Brain build two of his multi-million dollar businesses. He attributes the majority of his success to his ability to build a world-class network. He says that he’s not afraid to ask for help when needed, don’t have an ego about it, and not to be afraid to pay for help.
6. Get really good at something considered difficult to do
Brian can do a Rubik’s cube in under 60 seconds. In fact, if you watch any of his YouTube video interviews you can see his Rubik’s cube on his desk in most of the videos. He always has one on hand to use as a mental reset, and confidence builder.
“I didn’t think I was very smart as a kid, so I started learning how to do things that most people don’t know how to do. I wanted to prove to myself and others that I was smart. It started with a Rubik’s but has transcended into other areas of my life. Now I seek out the hardest things to do and that has helped me build my successful businesses.”
The point, is that if you rewire your brain and challenge yourself to intentionally seek out “difficult” things, you start to build up your confidence and have a better success rate.
7. Utilize extreme positivity and optimism
Brian will tell you that he’s the most positive and optimistic person in most rooms. In fact, so overly positive that one of the only negative comments he gets on his videos is that he smiles too much.
“It’s funny, I’m so optimistic and positive that I actually get ‘negative’ comments that I smile too much in my videos, Instagram stories, but for people that get to know me they grow to appreciate the optimism and now I have people that follow me daily to get a burst of optimism every day,” said Brian.