With a name reminiscent of a Michael Jackson song, it’s no wonder that Billy Gene is such a successful salesperson. Forbes and Entrepreneur have named Gene as one of the marketing geniuses of the last few years. He keenly understands how businesses work, how to connect brands to their audience, and how to communicate clearly. Yet he wasn’t always this successful.
Hitting Rock Bottom Changes Your Perspective
Gene’s outlook on business was naïve, with the idea that just working hard would be enough to guarantee success. With his first venture, things looked good for a short period after the start but went sour quickly.
When his first business folded, Gene was broke and out of luck. Yet he derived some crucial lessons from his first failure. One of the things that stood out to him was how important social media was and how little he was utilizing it to drive traffic and get eyes on his product.
Finding His Way in The World
Gene’s first foray into business was in 2009. He was attending the University of San Diego at the time but decided that traditional education was not for him. Instead, he opened a mobile oil change business and worked part-time at a local 24-Hour Fitness.
He got his first taste of owning his own business when one of his friends’ dads encouraged him to license a program. He started his first business called Rethink and Relive. After a short period, the business nose-dived.
Struggling For A While
While some internet marketers talk about becoming overnight successes, Gene’s success path was much rockier. His big break came when he started selling wetsuits. He bought $5,500 worth of product and turned it into $150,000.
This success led him to get a cheap camera and develop a case study showing how he did what he did. Before long, he had people asking him to run their social media networks for him. His marketing business was born.
Failure Teaches You What Doesn’t Work
Gene’s approach to failure is like trial and error testing. Each failure that he encounters teaches him what isn’t likely to work. Failure, Gene says, builds up the strength to handle rejection. He says they’re like calluses that teach you how to accept your failures.
Gene’s acceptance of failure is a huge lesson most online entrepreneurs fail to truly realize. Not every idea is a winner. He thinks entrepreneurs should allow themselves to fail and learn from their failures. Accepting that failure might happen removes a huge burden from an entrepreneur.
Knowing The Difference Between Ideas and Execution
One of the most critical lessons Gene learned from the failure of his first business was that there is a distinct difference between an idea and its execution. As someone who grew up watching Shark Tank, he knew what a million-dollar idea sounds like, but the idea may not necessarily make a million dollars.
Gene’s business idea was sound and came from a licensed product, but he didn’t have any idea how to market that idea. He learned that while an idea might seem foolproof, it takes skill in execution to turn it into something tangible.
Don’t Listen To Your Ego
One of Gene’s most significant shortcomings as a young entrepreneur was thinking about what other people thought of him. His first business failure hit him extremely hard because he worried about what others would say about it.
Ego is something most entrepreneurs have because they grow up being told that they have so much promise and potential. Failure feels like throwing away that potential. Yet, this is the wrong way to look at things. Instead, entrepreneurs should see their failure as a stepping stone, not an endpoint. Too many of them quit before they even get started.
Setting Up Billy Gene is Marketing
Currently, Gene runs a business he calls “Billy Gene is Marketing” (BGIM). Setting up this business allowed him to explore the avenues he discovered while marketing and turn around the failure of his first business in a big way.
Gene says that setting up the business changed how he saw marketing and made him learn new things. His goal of staying ahead of things enabled him to overcome the doubt he faced from the failure of his last business. Learning, reading, and staying informed is how he intends to ensure BGIM doesn’t fail the same way.
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
Gene says that one of the things that kept him struggling to succeed for so long was limiting beliefs. He knew what he wanted, but in his heart, he also thought he couldn’t achieve it. He had to permit himself to achieve what he wanted to achieve.
Starting a business in the environment that he did, he stood out as an outsider. He was a black college dropout trying to sell things to white college-educated people. What made him stand out was that he was so good they couldn’t deny what he was giving to them.
There’s No Space in Marketing for Boring
Standing out from the crowd is how businesses get noticed. Gene decided early on that he would never allow boring advertising to be part of this marketing brand. BGIM is about offering clients marketing that their audience can identify with, which means avoiding the boring stuff.
He narrowed down content that converts to things that entertain, tell a compelling story, and give away valuable things to the audience. Combining these three elements into something audiences can identify with is the core concept of BGIM.
The Three-Step Premise
One of the things Gene suggests to all those who want to follow what he’s done is to look at a simple three-step formula. First, entertain the audience since that’s what gets them coming back for more. Next, educate them about something they don’t know. This develops a rapport with the audience. Finally, execute your game plan that lets them buy from you. Gene sees these cues as how to scale a business and ensure it delivers what it promises to its audience.
