I had the pleasure of interviewing Jake Strange, Teenage entrepreneur marketing master. Currently operating a company called strange marketing and is also an avid stock trader.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? Well, it all started when I was a little kid, I was always messing around with a camera and I wanted to become a Youtuber just like every other 11-year-old boy. So down the road, while I was chasing that dream I learned a lot about social media marketing and met a bunch of people over time. So naturally, as I was seeking to promote myself I was also able to help other people out. Things just seemed to flow so naturally. Fast forward a few years we have built strategic marketing plans for Instagram comedians, actors, music artist (a lot of music artist) and models. We typically sign contracts with our clients guaranteeing them X amount of followers, and in return, we get a percentage of their profits the sponsorships we earn them for the rest of the term of the contract which is usually 6–18 months.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your company? The most interesting thing was seeing my viewpoint on the world and all the media in our lives shift from a consumer’s view to a marketers viewpoint. And I laugh at how much content on Instagram that seems “natural” is actually just really good marketing. With every week people get better and better at fooling people someone is the new “trend”.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that? It was definitely taking the wrong clients on. Everyone wants their business to be on social media, but a lot of businesses just aren’t cut out for it. One time I had a lady come to me wanting me to promote her knitting classes on Instagram. And at the time I was just trying to get as much business as possible to ramp up my business, I ended up spending
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story? We have access to a higher and deeper level of personnel in the social marketing world. People that have access to internal Instagram algorithms allowing us to have a better understanding of how to make our clients stand out over our competitors. We also have our own algorithms and program developed to make it easy to create and manage advertising campaigns with multiple large pages at once. We plan on releasing this program to the public late 2019 for a membership price to allow people to easily start their own marketing companies and or market themselves. At this time we don’t want to give too much info into how we manage our clients with this program and how it works because its a highly valued process and the patent on the process is still pending. We’ve gained our clients over 100,000 followers in a matter of days with impressions reaching 7 digit figures. We do this by creating a fabricated sense or viral aura.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”? The biggest thing I see today is people “selling the talk before they really walk”. So many guys in any industry of ecom or ecom services will turn to sell courses or consulting calls, and then market themselves that they are doing 6 figures annually to generate sales on their courses. When in reality if they were doing 6 figures a year on ecom, then be focused on doing more ecom. That’s all self-marketing and hype and these guys are just trying to climb the ladder as fast as possible and eventually, their feet won’t be able to keep up with their hands, and they will fall. So if you want to stay in the business, focus on the business you got into and not all the other culture hype surrounding it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story? I made most of my connections and learned everything about social marketing through my own research and case studies. But I would attribute my deep business concept understanding to my father who has taught me a lot about overall business practice and how money moves. But I took a lot of his theory and brought it to the digital world, from there it was just natural by replacing newspapers and billboards with youtube ads and Instagram posts.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? While I focus on business at heart I’m still an artist, and I’m constantly brainstorming new creative ideas to help motivate and inspire people to achieve more than what you’re supposed to get. To go above average and that life is only what you make it. So I’m continuously working on short films and photography, as well as writing a book called “LIFE: IDEAS, DISCUSSIONS, PERSPECTIVES” which is a book to open people to outside the box thoughts and concepts of the purpose of life and many topics within. I just think in today’s world we as humans have developed this assumption of what life looks like you know? Go to school, then go to college, then get a job and get married have kids and retire and pick up a simple hobby like golfing or gardening. When in reality you should be doing whatever interest you throughout life at any stage within it. You shouldn’t spend one second doing anything because that’s “what you are supposed to do”. So most of my expenses are going on trips and filming a lot of crazy things that go into my videos which will be released periodically throughout 2019.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life? The theory I live my life by isn’t really a quote but is more of a thought inspired by a study. A nurse wrote a book on people’s top 5 regrets on the deathbed, and the number one thing people regretted was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” And that hit me deeper than anything else I had ever read in my life. So I wanted to expand on that and share it with everyone.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started my company” and why?
1. Learn as much as you can before you start practicing
(You can never enter a business knowing too much about your market, and the more you research the less time you’ll spend solving issues down the road.)
2. Don’t spread yourself out too much.
(Think about a submarine going through the water, the wider it is, the slower it will move, but if you keep things focused and narrow you’ll be able to go fast. So focus on your main business aspect and you will excel in light speed compared to trying to do 100 services at once, When I first started I was trying to do facebook, google ads, and Instagram and I ended up being average at all 3 and when I focused on Instagram I was leading in marketing development and new strategies over all my competitors.
3. Work is fun, but always remember you’re working for something
(Basically, this one is for those like myself that just love running and starting new businesses. Sometimes I forget to remember that work is called work for a reason and is separate from life. I have to remind myself to wipe my brain from work-related things at times and just sit back and enjoy the company of others and all the other things in life. Your business should not be everything all the time, because you’ll quickly grow to dread it or you will lose everything else.)
4. Don’t chase the money, chase the product
5. To address your excuses. (You always want to identify the reasons you tell yourself you can’t do something and then decide if that’s a legit reason or if it’s just something you tell yourself to avoid harder work or risk. Having a full understanding of your natural behavior is extremely important.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. It would be to open peoples minds to their full potential during life, whatever it may be, starting a massive blue chip company, creating beautiful art, seeing the world, anything you can imagine your life to be, I would want to make people realize that it can happen.
How can our readers follow you on social media? You can go to my website or @jakestrange on Instagram
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!