Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mic Unplugged. And if you are about fast scaling and growing your brand, this is the episode for you. He is the strategist behind some of the fastest scaling brands in digital today, mastering legion like a surgeon and building magnetic identities that convert.
From building and growing the gem social to partnering with Grow With Us Agency, he is redefining how brands connect and grow. He is the bold. He is the relentless. He is a visionary. My guy, Joe McCracken. All about you, man. All about you. This is such an interesting discussion that we're going to have. A lot of topics we're going to go through.
But Joe, I love starting off my conversations by understanding what's your because, that true purpose that you have today that's driving you forward. To do all the amazing things that you're doing. So Joe McCarthy, man, what is your because? I think someone asked me that and I really don't have a specific why. I really just think I'm a psycho in a way. I love the game. I love the hunt.
I love the chasing my potential. Right. I feel like God did bless me with. Yeah. just abnormal drive to want to achieve things and help people. But I guess to answer the question, like when I was growing up trying to build my personal brand, I had a lot of struggles with growing it and figuring out my identity and my finding my own voice, confidence. So
I just wanted to be that light or that point in the future for people to be able to look up to and be like, okay, I just need to follow this guy and just do what he says because I didn't really have that. I didn't have a specific branding coach necessarily to get me that fast track result.
So I just wanted to be that for other people who are either just getting started with branding or they're in it, but they're not really seeing the results that they want to be seeing. I love that, dude. The fact that, and you know that you're unique, right? Because a lot of people that have somewhat mastered brand try to keep all the sauce to themselves, right?
And then when they go to help other people, it never goes like they plan on it because they've only figured out themselves and they've never worked with others and they never put others first. And that's why I appreciate you the most because you genuinely do take the time to understand who people are, right? What's their mission? What are they actually trying to accomplish?
And you build those plans around that. And so when I say we have so much to talk through, man, we're at a time now where the algorithms and branding are so important to everyone, whether you're a business, individual, influencer, whatever it is that you're trying to do, social validation is a thing, right? Like I have this stat where 60% of companies
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Chapter 2: What foundational work is essential for personal branding?
So Joe, for those that are listening, that are like, okay, how do I build this brand? What are the first two or three things I need to look for? that you need to get clear on would be who is your target audience? What are your skill sets? What can you help them with?
I think a lot of people, they choose a niche, they go super broad, and then they just start posting content because that's what people are telling them to do. They're like, okay, I'll post once or twice a day because that's what all the gurus are saying. but they haven't done that deep work or that foundational work to figure out like, who is my target audience? What are their pain points?
What do they struggle with? What's that ideal outcome or core desire that they're trying to achieve? And then even just as a person, right? I feel like a lot of, I'm seeing at least these days, a lot of people regurgitating content or like taking quotes and other opinions and other viewpoints and just essentially indoctrinating that into themselves and just posting that on their feed.
So they almost don't have their own voice. And I felt like that was a big issue with me. You can even scroll back on my page at Real Jeff McCarthy and you'll see a lot of my first content was just Grant Cardone quotes or Robert Kiyosaki posts or whatnot. So it's like I didn't have my own voice. So I think it's also just getting clear on who are you as a person and Like, what do you stand for?
What are your values? What are your beliefs? What are your opinions? Maybe you are in like a specific industry and you've you've clarified that, OK, I'm gifted at fitness. So maybe I'm going to dive into that. What are some things that I agree or disagree with in the fitness space? What are some misconceptions that I feel like exist that I could talk about?
Because a lot of people, they don't have even like a backbone to speak their truth or speak their opinions. And I feel like when you are able to do that clearly and you can convey that on your personal brand, it demands more authority. So I think that's the, those are the first things you would need to just get clear on is just the foundational things that is boring work.
It's, it's not necessarily scalable work. Like I could tell you a sexy answer, like, yeah, go spend 500 bucks on ads and then launch an offer and make a ton of money. But that comes way down the line after you've built the foundational unscalable things first. And that's what I want people to understand.
All the things that you want to happen with the right work, maybe even with the right guidance of someone like Joe, right, can work, but it doesn't happen tomorrow. It doesn't happen next week. Honestly, it's probably not going to happen in 120 days. But there's some mundane stuff that has to happen that builds credibility.
And honestly, and Joe, I know you know this, like that's what the algorithms look for, too. Like the algorithm isn't going to take a chance on a wild card. And like Joe had this very nice quote or this very funny segment. Let me go push this to five million people. No, the algorithm is looking at your history as well, too. And it's like, well, yeah. Joe's actually never talked about this before.
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Chapter 3: How are branding and lead generation interconnected?
And here's what matters. You don't need to be technical. You don't need IT. You don't need complexity. Zapier is built for real teams doing real work who want real results. No hype, no buzzwords, just time back and momentum forward. Join the 3.4 million companies already automating with Zapier and transform how you work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com slash mick.
That's Z-A-P-I-E-R dot com slash M-I-C-K. So for the folks that are watching or listening and they feel like my page is looking good, but I'm not getting the actual lead gen or, you know, I've got the right messaging. And now I'm at that point of how do I turn it into lead gen? I don't know what to do without feeling salesy, right?
And that's always one of the first couple of things I get when I'm working with people is, Like, I'm not a salesperson. I'm like, well, then you're not trying to make money. Right. Like at some point, something has to convert into a sale, a transaction. So let's talk to the viewers and listeners on that point of, OK, you've got the brand down. Your messaging is good.
How do you start converting that into traffic or leads or someone that's like, yes, I want to have a conversation with you? Well, so there's the tactical route and then there's more like the mindset, because like what I heard there in that scenario, for instance, is there's a lot of like mindset things of I don't want to be a salesperson. I'm not salesy.
So clearly that means that you have to kind of dive into the mindset piece. I also think it comes down to your offer. And that's a huge piece of what I help my clients with is like structuring out really solid offers. And I never come at lead generation as like salesy or scammy or like, hey, I wanna sell you this thing just to make money off of you. Every single thing I do is a service, right?
Like I'm spending time on this podcast because I'm just serving people. I'm not here necessarily looking to get business or get a ton of leads or make a ton of money. I'm just here to serve. And then by default, people trust me. They see me as an authority and they wanna work with me. So it's the same thing with offers, with the messaging in the DMs or that conversation exchange that you have.
to get them to a call. I always come at it with the angle of service. So if you don't want to sound salesy, you know, stop selling on the front end and saying, hey, we'll let the book a call to sell you my product. Instead, you know, try to come at it and say like, hey, how long have you been an entrepreneur for? Five years. Awesome. Do you get business through Instagram? Not really. Gotcha.
We'll actually help people. I've helped people for the past nine years with this thing, this thing, this thing. I'd love to hop on a call to show you what's working for me, working for my clients, see if You know, you can get value from that. Like, would you be down? Yes. I book calls. Like, I've been doing outreach for eight years now. So I know what scripts work.
I know the targeting, the follow-up processes. I never come at it as being salesy. But at the same time, even if I'm on a call and it's getting to, like, maybe the price drop and, you know, we have to maybe go back and forth here and there, I never think for once, like, I'm selling this person. Because I believe so wholeheartedly in my offer and my service that...
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Chapter 4: What are the first steps to take when building a personal brand?
He was able to buy his dream house. He was able to retire his wife and literally be able to spend more time with his family, but making quadruple the amount. I think that's the beauty about coaching is whatever life you want to build, whatever lifestyle you want to live, coaching allows you to do that if you're willing to put in the work and follow a process. And then you can scroll through.
You go through my highlights on my Instagram, my website, tons and tons of results. I had a client, Andrew, do 15 million views in September alone. I got tons of clients locking in brand deals, hitting their first high ticket clients. It's yeah, it's nuts.
So Joe, when did you know that you had a system that worked again, not just for you, but that it will work for, I'm not going to say anybody, but for the right person that's willing to do the things. I mean, I was confident just upfront that it was going to work for me because I did it. So I, really all I did is I just took what I did.
Like I'm never one to necessarily say like, hey, this is always gonna work or you have to do this or that type of stuff. I just come at it as like, this is me documenting my journey. This is what's worked for me. This is how I grew my brand, how I locked in my first handful of clients, how I structured my offer. So like you said, like I didn't, there's no process that's gonna work for everybody.
They have to put in the work to see the results. But really all I did was I just took what I learned and I started getting people messaging me asking like, hey, do you have, coaching? Like, do you do consultation? Do you have like a course or a program? So I waited until people were like knocking on my DMs, like saying like, hey, do you have some sort of offer?
And then I'm like, okay, that must mean I have some sort of credibility in the space or some sort of result that people want to achieve. So really, I just deconstructed what I did over the past eight, nine years to hit that and put it into an actual program step by step. Amazing.
Yeah.
I know you're all about systems and tools. What are some of the tools that you're using or that you recommend for people that are, again, looking to get this launch and scaling happening for their business? That's a good question. I mean, in the beginning, I feel like a lot of people overcomplicate it. I mean, I did not have a ton of systems and like automations.
Like I use GHL, I go high level now and I hate it because it's such, it's just so overwhelming. So I just have my team handle it for me at this point. So I'm, I'm all about like simple skills. Like you could have a 50K per month business with two employees and chat GPT. I would say ChatGPT to answer your question. Dive headfirst into that. That software is insane. You can create scripts.
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Chapter 5: Why is leading with value more effective than direct sales?
I wonder if he has like a product or service, then you can start
pitching that on your stories and putting it in your content and your captions that's probably how I would go about it just on the front end I love it and you segued exactly where I wanted to go because again I know you're humble right Joe pitches what is working with Joe McCarthy like man like let's hear that pitch working with Joe because everybody that's what that's listening or watching I know they're like this is good how do I get to work with Joe I really work with
coaches, entrepreneurs, right? Even people that just know they have some value and they want to package it up and use social media to hit their first 10, 20, 30K per month. So to work with me over 12 weeks, it's essentially a 12 week program. In that 12 weeks, you get a few things. Number one, you get six one-on-one calls with me personally. So every other week we would hop on
individually just go over any customizable support that you need. Second thing is you get those modules that I built out. Like I mentioned, you get the video content, the course material, worksheets, workbooks, action items, and there's that group portion on Slack as well. So like Sean's in there, a lot of my other clients that are crushing it are in that group.
And we do weekly group Q&A calls every single Thursday. So you can hop in there, ask me questions. And typically, like I mentioned, with the process, the first thing we'd want to build out over that 12 weeks would be the offer. So getting crystal clear on The deliverables, timeframes, price points, like also just what are we charging? That's one thing I didn't really mention.
And good offers need to charge the right price. So many people, they undercharge and they way overdo it on the deliverables. Like I used to have way more calls and I was like, okay, people are not taking the one-on-one calls because I'm giving them like 10. They usually take six. And I'm overwhelmed, so it's not as scalable.
So I show my clients from the get-go, let's create an offer that's scalable, makes us good amount of money, but also has our customer success and client success in mind as well. So obviously dialing the price points and just getting crystal clear on that.
Then once we have the offer, moving to social media, like I mentioned on the front end, it's going to be like the aesthetics, the bio, pinned posts, highlights, making sure everything is in check there, and then really nailing the messaging in the content. Then once we have that, we can move into lead generation. I like to start with outreach.
Again, I've been doing DM outreach for eight years at this point. So I basically just give my clients on a silver platter, like the scripts I use, the targeting, follow-up processes, literally everything that I've used and I'm still using to this day to book calls organically through my page. But we just want like a predictable, consistent lead gen method to get clients and get paid.
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Chapter 6: How can you clarify your messaging to resonate with your audience?
Right. But I need you to to want to want it and to to have a clear vision of success. So if you can tell Joe that that you want it and if you when you book that first meeting with him, if you can be very clear about what success looks like to you, I can promise you Joe can get you to that vision. Biggest factors, too, is just like the.
the clarity on what you want and like the willingness to do it. Cause I've had people pay me 5k and then they disappear. They don't show up to call and it's like, well, I mean, I can't help you there, but yeah, it's, I've built it out scientifically. Like,
to a T where it's like, if you follow this blueprint, if you take action on it and you have the courage to show up and stay consistent, like you will see results. So that I'd say is a huge factor of success to just, you know, that dog and you wanting to achieve success. Absolutely. Joe, I know how busy you are, man. I'm going to get you out of here with my rapid five. All right, here we go.
If you could work with any celebrity on their social, on their brand, on their offer, who would it be? Probably Elon Musk. I feel like he's kind of all over the place. I think we could hone in some things for them. He's also big on Twitter and not really Instagram. Yeah, Elon. Yeah, Clarity Elon. That's the thing. Clarity. Clarity. All right. What's your get hype song? Right?
Like you're in a little grind. Probably I'm a Boss by Rick Ross. Okay. Roger himself. What's one... piece of advice you've received that's changed the trajectory of your career? People are going to judge you no matter what you do. So you might as well do what you're meant to do and stop caring about other people's opinions. Love that. Love that. Early morning or late night?
That's my wife is a late night owl and I am probably more of a morning person, but that creates a lot of problems because she's keeping me up late. And then, yeah, if I had to choose, I'd say morning. Yeah. Naturally get up early, huh? What's one book you're reading right now? This one, Steve Jobs book is massive. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Good stuff. Joe McCarthy, man.
Where can people find and follow you? On all socials, primarily Instagram though. If you want to get the most value, I would check out my Instagram at real Joe McCarthy. I love it, brother. I appreciate all the wisdom you dropped today. You're about to get a lot of calls or DMs. I can promise you that, man, because I know a lot of people that need Joe McCarthy. I appreciate that, man. Good stuff.
And to all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.
That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark. And leave a review so more people can find their because. I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.
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