Henry Kaminski Jr. on Growing 7+ Figure Agencies and Building Your Business Brand and Authority
I recently had a chance to sit down with Henry Kaminski Jr. and talk to him about:
- How to replace yourself in your business (and stop being the bottleneck)
- Branding your company
- Building authority
- Running a multi 7-Figure marketing agency
- … and a whole lot more.
You can watch the whole interview right here (or read the transcript below).
By the way…
If you want early access to all of my Expert Spotlight interviews — not to mention funnel hacks, trainings and a whole lot more — make sure you join the free Funnel Momentum Facebook Group.
Expert Spotlight Interview with Henry Kaminski Jr.
April 10th, 2020
Note: This transcript has been lightly edited to remove filler words and stutters, but that’s about it.
Mikael Dia (00:01)
Bam! We are live. What’s up Facebook? What’s up Funnel Momentum. How’s it going? I’m here with Henry Kaminski Jr. What’s up Henry? How are you doing?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (00:10)
What’s going on, Mikael? What’s shaking, Dude? I appreciate you having me on today.
Mikael Dia (00:14)
I’m excited. I’m excited to have a chat with you. I’m excited to talk about branding and upping your authority. So first of all, before we get started, everyone in the Funnel Momentum, if you are watching live, as always, please put #live in the comments and that way we know you’re watching live, you can ask questions and all that stuff. If you’re watching the replay, #replay that way we know you’re watching the replay and we can come back and interact with you afterwards. So in this particular interview, Henry, I’m super stoked because we’re going to talk about a lot of stuff that relates to branding and authority and leveraging. I mean, you run an agency called Unique Designz. You are, I see it right there in the back corner there, that two comma club award. You’ve built an entire business and an entire agency helping entrepreneurs up their brand and up their presence online. So we’re going to dive into a lot of that and figure out how do we, you know, what’s the system, what’s the framework for entrepreneurs to really level up their branding. But before we do, I want you to introduce yourself. I want you to tell everybody who you are and let’s talk about your not so humble bragging rights.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (01:33)
When you said that offline, I was like, okay, I haven’t had that one before. We’ll give that one a shot. So the not so, humble bragging rights is, I basically was a freelance designer 13 years ago. I was making nightclub flyers, you know, for the local clubs here in New Jersey. And I transformed that. I made my first million after the first 36 months and then went on 13 years later to build a multimillion dollar branding agency, boutique agency, but branding agency that helps entrepreneurs level up their standards and scale their businesses online. And I’ve almost lost the business twice, you know, just due to poor decision making and financially illiteracy, and was able to weather two of those storms and come out on top. And so here I am, you know, 13 years later and I feel like I just started and I feel like the winds against my back, even though we’re going through all this covid nonsense right now, I shouldn’t call it nonsense.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (02:31)
I mean, covid is a serious, serious virus and it’s, it’s affecting a lot of people’s health. And so don’t get, I don’t want anybody to take that the wrong way, but we’re going through some really serious times right now. Unprecedented by, by any means. And you know, I’m, I’m sitting here saying to myself, like, I’m not gonna let this consume me. I’m not going to let this take me. I’m, I am going to take the day and I’m going to serve, going to help, and I’m going to lead my audience through this. And so here I am with, you know, with everything I’ve been equipped with and studied and learned over the past 13 years and basically just coming out doing lives like this and serving the audience the best that I can.
Mikael Dia (03:18)
Man, I appreciate, I appreciate that and I appreciate the fact that you said you know, you’ve been at this for 13 years and the reality is it’s always a journey, right? And even though you now run a multi seven figure agency it’s still just the beginning and you just finally feel like your, your, the pieces of the puzzle are, are fitting together. So let’s talk about the journey of you running your agency. Let’s start with the beginning of your agency and, and what was so hard to figure out the puzzle? Like what were you missing? Why, why did it take long? And Let’s talk about those puzzle pieces.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (04:00)
Sure, sure. So one of the biggest issues and bottlenecks that I had before I scaled was understanding and knowing how to replace myself in the business so that I can do what I love to do. And other people that are better than me, execute what they love to do. So I had a really hard time with that. And so what happened was about five years into my business, I was hitting a glass ceiling and I was looking for help because business wasn’t doing well, but I was still living high on the hog and I wanted to mask my, my failure. I wanted to mask my business, not doing well. So what I did was I went out and I spent more and I, and I just made everything look like it was perfect and that was a big problem.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (05:00)
And so I wind up running the business down to the ground. And one day I just caved and I said to my wife, I said, here’s what’s going on. There’s no money in the bank. I got some cash stashed, but that’s about it. So I need help. And so she, you know, I remember that day clear as day, she hopped off my off our bed and ran into my office, grabbed the laptop, came back in, and when she said, let’s go to work, I didn’t know if we were going to go look for divorce attorneys or if she was going to help me with my business. And luckily she was there to help me with my business. So she comes from a marketing background as well. So she was pretty savvy in that world, but she was helping me do a lot of research and that’s when I stumbled upon Russell Brunson.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (05:47)
And when I stumbled upon Russell Brunson he had this coaching program that I knew really nothing about other than what he talked about in his podcast. So I went through his funnel and I got to a sales rep and they were like, this is a $25,000 investment. I’m like, I, I barely have two sticks to rub together. Like I need to figure this. Like, is there any like is there anything else? Cause I think this could help. So they were like, well, there’s this $10,000 program you can, you can, you can enroll in, and I’m still like $10,000. I never spent $10,000 on anything in my life at that point. So they said, well listen, I said, listen, if you could give me some leeway, I’ll pay you five grand on a card and I’ll pay the $5k off over time. And they said, all right, well let’s do it.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (06:35)
So I jumped on a call with Russell and within 20 minutes of meeting with him, like very similar to this on a zoom call, we’re both hysterical crying based on me just telling him my story and how I got to where I was at. And he said, listen, I got this book coming out. It’s called DotCom Secrets. You’re a phenomenal designer and I need somebody to help me market it and create some collateral for it. So would you, would you want to help me? And I said, yeah. And he was like, well, what are you getting? What, what, how much? And I said, I don’t know. Can I, can you let me know like, you know, what you’re looking for? And he was like, Oh, some infographics here. I said, okay, let me get back to you tomorrow. So I didn’t know what to charge him.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (07:15)
So I just was like, hows $6,000 sound? And he was like done. And that was it. And then from that point on, I worked with Russell for close to two and a half years after that. Literally branding ClickFunnels to what it is, what you see today and helped him become that hundred million dollar brand and then eventually just handed over the, you know, handed over the foundation to his team and they took it and ran with it. And they’re doing fantastic now. So, you know, it’s, it’s great to see how that relationship, you know, him helping me and then me helping him and, and how that spawned into a great friendship is, is really a blessing. And so he’ll always have a part in my, in my entrepreneur journey.
Mikael Dia (08:03)
So you mentioned, and that’s awesome by the way. I could also go into some stories around that, but I want to touch on something that you mentioned, which is you had a lot of trouble replacing yourself. And here’s the reality. I mean in our group, the vast majority, you know, about 60% of the marketers in the Funnel Momentum group are agencies. They sell services, and a big, a big challenge is replacing yourself, right? How did you do it? How did you, you know, how did you get to that point of replacing yourself? Especially because it’s such a talent that you have, right? It’s, it’s a skill. It’s creative skill. So what, how did you do that?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (08:51)
So when Russell and I were talking about this, he said to me, if you want to get to the next level, you have to replace yourself. I said, Russell, that sounds easy, but I am petrified of taking that next step. How do I go about that? And he said, well, you gotta, you gotta figure out who you need to hire first and then next, and then next, and then next.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (09:16)
So I was like, all right, who do I need to really help me with with stuff first? And it’s one, a project manager, so somebody to help me with admin stuff, right? So I hired my first project manager. I said, you’re going to start in two weeks. She says, okay. We jumped on a zoom call and we’re both looking at each other. And she was like, well, what do you want me to do? And I’m like, Oh well, I don’t know. This is what I’m struggling with. Like I, I’m all over the place. Well, okay well how do I, how do I help you? And I was like, Oh my God, what a disaster this is. So what happened was I realized I hired too soon. So what I needed to do was create a standard operating procedure before I hired her. So luckily this project manager was patient and we actually worked together to build out my standard operating procedure for what it is that she needed to do.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (10:15)
So she was going to take on new clients or new projects and make sure that they got to me properly. So I had all the information I needed to create the design because at the time I was still designing. Okay. So that started to work. Now when I started to get busy and I couldn’t take on any more client work, I was like, well I need another designer to help me with the volume. So I didn’t make the same mistake twice. I said, okay, what we need to do is I need to replicate, I need to create a standard operating procedure for how I take on a new job, how I complete it and how I send it to client. And the whole, like that whole process needed to be documented. So my project manager and myself mapped this all out in a Google doc.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (11:04)
And then I recorded myself basically processing a dummy project. And when we had that recording all buttoned up, we went out and we found our next designer. And at the time, I think it was E-Lance or whatever the hell that that platform was, I think it’s now Upwork. And we hired our first designer. We said, designer, this is our standard operating procedure. We’re gonna, we’re gonna make you do this one job for, for free. We want to see how you work. And if you accomplish it quickly and efficiently, then you’re on board. So we give them a dummy job. He did great. So there was our next designer, so we kept that designer on. Then we hired, then we got an intern. We had the intern come on as a, as a junior designer. She was helping out with some work and I slowly got out of the position of designer and then I, I transferred my position into strategist because that’s where I loved going.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (12:09)
That’s what I love doing with the client. Most of all, like I loved, still design to this day, but me working with the client to try to identify their brand’s attributes and positioning and messaging and how they’re going to stand out in their marketplace. That’s what I love to do. That’s what I’m super passionate about. So I eventually positioned myself into that role and then had my project manager manage the designers. And then we were like, all right, well now we’re getting into funnel builds and funnel architecture. Who do we need? We need a copywriter, we need a developer, we need somebody that’s savvy in ClickFunnel design we need a designer that is specifically for social media identity. So then I started to cherry pick those particular team members. So now we have a team of eight me at the head. And then we have project manager, she has two admins. And then we have copywriter, funnel designer, social media identity designer, which is logo and color scheme and all of that, right? And then we have our ClickFunnel developer and then we have our WordPress developer. So we have that whole team all scaled out. So I work specifically with the client one-on-one. My team does all the rest. Once we finished with the discovery and strategy, I have an internal team meeting with my team and then the team actually executes everything.
Mikael Dia (13:42)
Amazing. So, you first needed to replace yourself because that was your glass ceiling. Now you’re a team of eight and you’ve got it in this beautiful structure where you sit and only do the stuff that you truly love, even though you still love design. Really that positioning that, that discovering how do we position this client, Right?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (14:03)
Correct.
Mikael Dia (14:03)
Let’s talk about the other aspect of growing an agency, which is, now you’ve got the team, What about the clients? How do you, did you, did you choose a niche? I think like a lot of agencies have this hard problem of like, do I choose a niche? How do I niche down? How do I decide who I go after? Were you lucky enough that leveraging, you know, Russell Brunson and the ClickFunnels brand that brought you a lot of customers and that’s how it started? Or did you have to go and find them? Where did that, how did that happen?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (14:42)
So they found me. So one of the things I realized was I’m an extrovert by nature. Okay. You know, God rest the soul of my mom, she was the one, she was the life of the party. And my dad was sort of the guy that sort of stayed behind the scenes and he was the low key guy, but he was sharp as hell. Right? And so I got, I kinda got the best of both worlds, but one of the things that Russell told me that I did not see because I was working in my business and I couldn’t, I was just in the bottle and I couldn’t see on the outside of the label. Right. You hear that a lot. He said, man, I’m doing an audit of your, of your website right now and Jesus, look at this design work you’ve done and look at the site and look at, look at who you’ve worked with. Like I worked with Bon Jovi for two and a half years and two world tours, you know, designing stuff for his fan club and, and, and concerts all over the country and world. He was like, where is that on your website? And then he goes, dude, you have this glowing personality that’s very vibrant and, you know, energetic. I don’t see you anywhere on your site. You’re, you’re, you’re behind all of this pretty design. There’s no real personality to this brand. You’re just another designer, so you got to come out from behind the curtain. So I was like, well, I have no problem with that. I just don’t know what to do. So slowly but surely I started to figure out how content marketing was key.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (16:26)
So I would go out on, on Facebook and I would do a Facebook live every day or I would post up a video or I would, this is before IG stories or stories were around and I would just go out and I would do little videos on myself, you know, and I, I really didn’t know what I was doing, so I was kind of bouncing off the walls. But then eventually I got into brand messaging and brand positioning and I started to study and study and study and I realized like, you need to really focus on a specific audience and you really need to look at yourself as like your best client and what are the attributes that you possess, right? And start to break yourself down as your ideal client. And when I started to do that, I started to paint a really clear picture of who I wanted to serve.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (17:17)
So then when I went back out and I started doing content marketing, my messaging was much tighter, my focus was much tighter. What I was explaining and doing was focusing on one specific audience. And that was the ClickFunnels community. And so they started to find me and then it was just a matter of are we going to be a good fit for each other? You clearly have the qualifications, but are we going to work well together? And so now what I’ve done is I’ve really structured to be one of the premier funnel architects and builders and designers and brand specialists in the, in the industry. And I did that for, for purposely because there was a lot of people coming to me looking for like $500 funnels. And I’m like, that’s not what we do. You know, if you want that, you know, go to any Tom, Dick and Harry in the ClickFunnels group and you’ll find a cheap, a cheap funnel designer, but you’re going to look cheap, you know?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (18:18)
So it depends on what you’re trying to do and how you’re supposed to, how you want to position yourself. And you know, I only work with 10 clients a year now and that’s it. So I wanted to do that on purpose because I wanted to scale my business to a point that was comfortable. I have a two and a half year old son now and I want to watch him grow up. I don’t want to be stressed, you know? I want to continue to do what I love to do with who I love to do it with when I want to do it. And I’ve, I’ve achieved that. So now it’s just, I get to the point where this is what I do. This is what I love to do. If you want my help, here’s the process. If you don’t agree with it, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with me. But I have a very systematic process that gets my clients the results that they’re looking for. And it took me 13 years to build that. I know it works and I’m not deviating from it. Because a lot of times people come in and they try to, they try to become the, the funnel designer. They try to become the captain of the ship and it doesn’t work.
Mikael Dia (19:28)
Yeah. I think that that’s the great story. And I love what you say here about breaking down yourself, right? I think that that’s making sure that you understand your dream client and who do you understand better than you to some degree, right? Making yourself your own dream client, it makes it easy for your messaging. It makes it easy. So I want to talk about messaging. I want to talk about positioning and authority. One of the attributes that I’ve just come to learn from you that you have, that you possess is honesty and vulnerability. Like you are, you started off this conversation being very vulnerable and saying like, I have to be honest with myself. I was faking it. I had a facade and even though I wanted to like be successful on the, in the back, I wasn’t, you know, but on the surface I was trying to, and that’s, that takes a lot of vulnerability to, to admit that. So let’s talk about how do you help your clients? Like how do you extract the essence of what is their brand, right? So what is the process that you go through and let’s do it as an exercise with me, right? How would you do with me if I wanted to, you know, start myself and all that stuff and let’s, let’s just do it.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (20:51)
There’s a couple of things that we need to explore, right? So the first thing is, who is your ideal client?
Mikael Dia (21:00)
Okay. So for me, it’s, it’s marketers who, performance based marketers, I call them, let’s call them funnel marketers, but people who love to draw out funnels like this, build them look at whether they’re working, what not sending ads to them. So let’s call them performance based marketers.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (21:21)
What is the biggest challenge and pain point that they have in their business and in their personal life right now?
Mikael Dia (21:30)
Usually it comes down to in their business it’s typically around like looking at making sure that their funnels are performing right? So I spend a dollar, I try it and it doesn’t really work. What’s working, what’s not. I don’t understand data. I don’t like looking at Google analytics. I’ve just spent 500 bucks, but like maybe I got a hundred dollars back and I’m like, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next. Right? So it’s, it’s being able to understand whether or not their traffic is, is really truly converting.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (22:08)
Okay. So as a marketer, don’t you think that that should, before they go out and try to sell that service, don’t you think that they should be primed in that specific skill?
Mikael Dia (22:20)
Yeah, and there’s various levels of performance marketers, right? So if you think of a ClickFunnels user, somebody who just came into ClickFunnels you know, they may have read expert secrets and they may have sat there and said, Hey, like I, you know, I know I need to get my message out, but like the minute I set up some Facebook ads, I’m like, ah, I don’t know what to do next.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (22:43)
So they’re not really marketers are they?
Mikael Dia (22:46)
So they’re more like solo preneurs who ended up being, you know, start becoming marketers.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (22:53)
There you go.
Mikael Dia (22:54)
Yeah. So there’s, there’s that group. But then there’s also, you know, the next level is where you go and hire that, that next marketer, if you want to be able to spend you know, $10,000 a month or 30,000, $50,000 a month on that, you need to be able to attribute that.
Mikael Dia (23:12)
You need to be able to, you know, and there’s a lot of tools like wicked reports and all that stuff, but for most people, unless you’re a data scientist and you understand or you have somebody on your team, you’re sitting there like, I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m looking at. Right? So there’s various levels of marketers. The ones that I like to speak to are the ones who, who, who are, who are trying to optimize their funnels. We’re trying to, like, they got traffic, but they’re trying to look at this and say, okay, well where can I improve this?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (23:50)
Got it.
Mikael Dia (23:50)
That kind of stuff.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (23:52)
Okay. So now that we know who that person is, is there a specific niche?
Mikael Dia (24:00)
Not per se. I mean, small agencies, I would say like small performance based agencies. So the ones that set up funnels and the ones that drive traffic for clients.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (24:16)
Okay. Alright. Now what makes you different from everybody else out there that that helps people optimize their marketing?
Mikael Dia (24:30)
Number one, I’ve built a tool that makes it much, much cooler and much better than, than everything else. Number two, I’ve been doing this for a really long time. You know, Russell Brunson just promoted Funnelytics on the back of his traffic secrets book as, as an offer because he also felt like it was a tool that every marketer should use. And so I think that that ultimately is what makes me different. I’ve done it, I’ve built three, seven figure businesses myself. My software itself is now at a seven figure price point. But more importantly, I built the tool for myself. I ran my own agency, which I grew to seven figures, but I built it because it was a problem that I was facing when I was running campaigns for my clients.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (25:25)
Got it. Okay, great. I love it. Getting back to, so how have you positioned yourself from a branding standpoint so far?
Mikael Dia (25:37)
Personally or the tool?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (25:41)
I would say personally,
Mikael Dia (25:45)
That’s a good question. So, and by the way, like I, I love this interview and I love that we’re doing this. I want to make sure that people, as you’re listening to this, you’re picking up on the cues that Henry is, is saying, right? Like the questions, because that is what is starting to flesh out the framework. Yeah.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (26:07)
Is there any questions? I just, I want to make sure that I leave room for some questions if there are any.
Mikael Dia (26:16)
Mmm, so far, no, just a few people commenting, saying hello and all that stuff. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments so that we can, we can dive into that. So, you know, how have I positioned myself so far is as a funnel marketer,, it’s quite broad, quite generic, but you know, as this person who knows how to build funnels, how to generate or build a million dollar business through funnels.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (26:53)
Okay. So what is the, the mindset around what it is that you do? So what is the attitude and opinion about what it is that you do inside of your client’s mind?
Mikael Dia (27:14)
Hmm. Yeah, that’s a good question. Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about that.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (27:30)
Okay, so we need to explore that a little bit. Okay. Okay. We need to explore that a little bit. What’s important to them? What makes them want to pull out their credit card and buy from you? So a lot of people, I see these avatars and I see, you know, people talking about here’s how you build your avatar and it’s filled with demographic information. Demographic information, there’s no meat on the bones there, right? It’s surface level stuff. What we need to do is get into the psychographics of why someone.
Mikael Dia (28:10)
So Describe that.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (28:10)
Okay, so demographics is easy. It’s age, it’s association, right? We know what demographics are, but the psychographics are what makes people tick and what gets them to buy and what makes them the people that they are today based on these buying decisions. So I’ll ask a brand accelerator client, what kind of car does this person drive? What kind of house do they live in? What books do they read? Where do they get their information? What are 10 podcasts that they listen to? Who are the top 10 influencers that they’re following? What phones do they use? What kind of tech do they use? What kind of clothes do they wear? And then what does this say about them as a person?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (28:58)
And then I will explore that in deep depth and then we’ll like, okay, now we know that this guy likes the finer things in life, is humble. He’s willing to put in the work. So he’s determined. He’s a family oriented individual. He wants to leave a legacy behind. Like these are the psychographics that we need. And then we want to ask why is all this important to him? Well, maybe he was, maybe he was bullied as a kid. He’s got a chip on his shoulder, right? When you know all of the psycho graphic, you’ll be, you’ll know how to put the messaging in front of that person for him to just gravitate to you.
Mikael Dia (29:49)
So, so is your job then when I’m positioning and creating my brand to mirror that pyschographic on my, on my site, on my landing pages, the stories that I share, the imagery that I use is basically like you said, okay, well I potentially he was bullied as a kid. So you know, think through all of your stories in your life and is there any story that kind of could resonate from that?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (30:19)
Right. And then you talk about that and then you talk about that and you can relate it to business, you can relate it to personal, you can right? And then I’ve had people hire me for the simple fact that I almost lost my business during hurricane Sandy. And so did they. If I never told that story in one of my videos, they would never know. And that wouldn’t be, there wouldn’t be anything to grab a hold of and to connect with. So Russell talks about this in his new book, which, you know, you find your five pillars that you want to talk about. His is like wealth and relationships and family. And there’s two other, there’s two more. Obviously funnels and marketing, right? So every piece of content that he puts out falls underneath one of those pillars. That’s your structure and framework that you need to just play inside of, to attract the ideal clients that you’re looking for. And you want to make sure that you don’t deviate from those five pillars. Otherwise you’re going to start attracting people that don’t care and don’t want what you sell.
Mikael Dia (31:32)
So that’s basically saying, man, and I love this. I love, I love you know, a lot of times people try to create their brand off of, you know, their own thoughts and their own ideas, but really the way you should create your brand and the imagery and the messaging is okay, well there’s five pillars that are true to you, but those five pillars also need to be true to your dream customer.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (32:01)
Correct. More importantly, more important to your, to your dream customer. Exactly. Right. Because we’re not, see, I always tell my clients, we’re not designing this logo for you. Quite frankly, I don’t care if you like the color blue or that font selection. That’s a selfish move.
Mikael Dia (32:27)
Yeah, I love that man. I love that. That’s a quotable right there. Like we’re not, we’re not designing this logo for you, we’re designing it for your customer
Henry Kaminski Jr. (32:38)
Because if they don’t resonate with it, do you have a funnel? Do you have a business? Do you have a brand?
Mikael Dia (32:42)
Right. Interesting.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (32:44)
We don’t. So that kind of humbles them and that kind of puts them in their place a little bit. And again, this is a working relationship. I don’t want to sound or come across like I’m like this Gestapo, when you work with me and my way’s the highway, I’m just explaining, I’m just showing people how important it is to remove yourself from your likings and focus on the customer and their likings and what they’re passionate about. So I go through this exercise where we determine the archetype of that particular client and we find out exactly what their brand affinities are, how they see the world as a person. And then we want to see, we want to generate messaging and create a brand that connects with them, right?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (33:40)
So we’ll use the right color scheme, we’ll use the right typography, we’ll use the right imagery, we’ll use the right messaging. So to communicate our message, the biggest issue my clients have is they have a great product or service. They do not know how to articulate its value to the right people. So I’m working with, I was working with a franchise not too long ago and they are the top creme de la creme of their industry, right? But they’re getting outplayed by Sally down the street who does hair removal because they’re just not putting the right message in front of the right people. So now they’re a commodity and they’re getting outplayed and they’re competing on price, right? Where you want to compete on value. So again, you got to get in front of the right people. So, God, I can talk about this for days, but this is what we do when we take a client through the brand accelerator program and we bring them through this discovery phase to help them identify these underlying customer personas, defining what our brand’s attributes are. So what do we need to sound like? What do we need to look like? What do we need to feel like? How does our community describe us? What’s our X factor? Who do we champion? Who we for who are we against, right? And we start to identify all those different things.
Mikael Dia (35:13)
So I’ve got a couple of questions on this. This is a fascinating conversation by the way. Appreciate you sharing a ton of value and being so open about this stuff. Two things. What are your thoughts around, how do you look at a business brand versus a personal brand? Is there like ClickFunnels versus Russell? How do you create that distinction and where do you draw the line between those two, like Henry versus Unique Designz, right? Where’s that line drawn where you’re not, people don’t think, Oh, Unique Designz is Henry. Therefore I need to hire Henry.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (36:00)
Yeah. Here’s my question. Does there need to be line?
Mikael Dia (36:05)
I dunno. I guess that’s all replay. I’ll flip it around and say it does. There needs to be a line.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (36:12)
Yeah. I don’t know if there needs to be a line. I mean there’s a couple of things here. You know it all goes down to the question of are you trying to sell this agency after a while and if that’s the case then I would highly recommend you read the book built to sell. If you’re looking to scale it up and exit, right. That book will walk you. It is literally the playbook on how to do it. Right. If you love what you do and don’t plan on selling off or exiting, then there really shouldn’t be a line. I shouldn’t say there shouldn’t be a line. There doesn’t have to be a line. Right? Like I don’t plan on selling my agency. I love what I do. Right. It’s been a 13 year project for me. Right. This is, people ask me like, what do you do? What’s your hobbies? This is my hobby. It really is, but it makes me money. So it’s really a business too. Like I’ve, I’ve built a really beautiful lifestyle and life from it. So, it’s a business, but it truly is a hobby.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (37:27)
I mean, I love to travel with my wife and family and stuff, but that could be considered a hobby, but that’s it. I really, I don’t know if there needs to be a line.
Mikael Dia (37:37)
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s a very valid point. I think it really comes down to your intentions. And if so, yeah, build your business to sell it and therefore follow that playbook. Very, very interesting. So let me ask you then just to further get to know you that, let me ask you, you’ve built this beautiful business that is lucrative and also it is centered around how you want to live your lifestyle. So what are your ambitions? What’s next for Henry?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (38:18)
Man, this is second, second time I got this question in two days. So there’s a couple of things I really can’t predict the future. I don’t know. Especially now. Right? I can tell you this, we will weather this storm like we weathered 2008. I will weather the storm like I weathered, losing my business twice due to financially poor decision making and we will get through this. I don’t have another option. I don’t have something to fall back on. My business and my brand will prevail through this. What does this business look like five years from now? I really couldn’t tell you, but I can tell you in the next year what my focus is on since this covid hit, building your business online is no longer a nice to have. It is a necessity. If you want to be covid proof, it’s a must that you get your business scaling online. So what I will be focused on is serving my audience and transitioning how I sell the business now to how I sell what I do a year from now.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (39:49)
And it’s going to be focused on the necessity of being online. There is no more you know funnels look cool. I think I’m gonna, you know tap into this and dive into this funnel thing and see what, see what I can do online. It’s why when, when I get my funnel strategy together and build out funnels that are going to help me scale online is now the conversation. So that’s my focus over the next year is just teaching, educating and positioning myself as the go to to help you do that online so that you don’t get caught with your pants down like millions of business owners did due to this covid crisis.
Mikael Dia (40:39)
I love it. Yeah, it’s true. Right. And, and you know, thankfully, I’m in kind of the same, same boat as you in the sense that like every thing that we do with Funnelytics is obviously helping online businesses better understand what’s happening with their online marketing. And that’s important, right? It’s a new reality once this passes, I think, you know, number one I think people are, especially if we spend the next two months at home, if not longer, like people are going to be hesitant to even go out for a while. Like the subways aren’t going to be as busy and people are going to be like, man, can I just keep working from home. People are going to get used to working from home. They’re going to be like, why am I spending all this money in an office space if I’m like, I can work remotely. Like I don’t need to drop $15,000 a month on office space.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (41:38)
Yup. I was laughing. So I’ll share this with you. So there’s a big affluent guy in the ClickFunnels community, makes a lot of money and I did some work with them last year and it was very interesting what he said to me. So the project didn’t go, we never finished the project because we couldn’t work together anymore. It was just, yeah. So the one of the best things that was ever said to me, now here’s a guy that owns a lot of office space, big, big office, right? I can only imagine what he pays in rent, right? He said to me, Henry, dude, I make $20 million a year. I have multiple facilities. You work out of your house. And I just laughed.
Mikael Dia (42:31)
And especially now.
Henry Kaminksi Jr. (42:33)
I just laughed because I just said to myself, what does that, one, what does that have to do with anything? Right and two, I get to see my kids, my dog. I have a 13 second commute every day. Right? Where are you at now Bud?
Mikael Dia (42:58)
Now, now all of those facilities are costing you a lot of money, and nobody is in them.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (43:05)
So I just, I want to share that because I think that again, like to your point, I think a lot of people are going to open their eyes and say, wow, there is a different way of doing this. There’s a more efficient way of doing this and maybe this is the route we go moving forward and we take for granted Mikael, because we, we’ve been doing this for so long from the comfort of our homes and well, I don’t know if you, if you have an office or not, but there’s so much that I’ve learned over the past 13 years of working from home that I’ve taken for granted and since covid hit has made me like take a step back and like come out of my body for a second and say, Henry, what are some of the things that you take for granted daily that you could be serving and helping people with right now?
Henry Kaminski Jr. (43:54)
Because this is some of the things that I really want to tell your audience that I think will help you differentiate yourself during this time. And then we’ll, we’ll kind of wrap up from here. So I was talking to my mindset coach yesterday and she made a really good point. She says, Henry, before all this went down, it was hard for you to differentiate yourself from everybody else that does what you do. Because I’m not the only, I’m, I’m not the only chef on the block right. Anymore. But since covid hit, you have done so much to stand out because there’s people out there that act like they’re helping you. And then there’s people that actually help. You’ve stepped up in such a way during this, since this all went down, there is a clear distinction between you and everybody else that does what you do now. So I want, I want your audience and take that and run with it because the relationships that you make and the clients that you land now will be life long clients. And maybe even lifelong friends. So that’s how we need to look at these opportunities, to look at these situations as opportunities and step up.
Mikael Dia (45:23)
Yup. It’s time and I, I’ve been preaching this and saying this to the whole Funnel Momentum community and you know, there’s about 22,000 of us in here in this group. And it’s about giving value, right? Like the first thing that I did when I when I, when this happened and yeah, I do have an office and it’s funny how an office can actually make you not provide as much value, because you’re so, it’s contained with your team and you’re just doing stuff within your, with your team and you’re in the office and you’re not out there as much in your community or, or you know, giving value to your audience and stuff like that. And the first thing that I said and I did is start interviewing other people and start getting third take and start giving value and start sharing, like going behind the scenes of like, here’s what we’re doing, here’s how we’re building stuff.
Mikael Dia (46:20)
Here’s how you can get clients. Here’s how you know, all of these things. Number one, it positions you and allows you to be the leader. And guess what, people follow leaders at the end of the day. But also you, you feel really good, right? Like, it makes you feel so good when you’re like, people are actually like, man, you’re just this thing you just said and did just helping. Right? And like that’s, that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. So Henry, you’ve just helped a lot of people. You’ve just helped a ton of people by sharing all this value, sharing this knowledge. And, I have a bunch of notes that I write on my, on my thing here.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (47:01)
Nice. Nice.
Mikael Dia (47:01)
Yeah. I just write in with my marker on my table. So, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate everything that you’re doing and keep helping these entrepreneurs and these businesses better position themselves because they need your help and with your help, they now can go and serve so many more people.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (47:25)
So I’ll leave your audience with this, and I’ve been saying this for, but the quality of your brand will determine the quality of your clients and the quality of your clients will determine the quality of your life.
Mikael Dia (47:38)
Yeah, I love that.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (47:40)
That’s it. So how do you want to be remembered and how do you want to show up to the people that you truly want to serve?
Mikael Dia (47:49)
Yeah, that’s awesome. Henry, where can people find out more where, send them somewhere.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (47:57)
Yeah, so I’m really, my biggest audience is on Instagram and you could find me there at TheBrandDR or you could go to my website. It’s Unique Designz with a Z at the end, not an S. Dot net and you’ll get access to my podcast, the brand doctor podcast, my YouTube channel, Instagram, the whole nine. So you could go check me out there. and again, Mikael thank you so much for, for having me on and, and reaching out. It was a pleasure. And finally, nice to meet you again.
Mikael Dia (48:28)
Nice to meet you again, Thank you very much. Take care, everybody. Have a great weekend.
Henry Kaminski Jr. (48:32)
Bye. Bye.
