James Brown talks with Jason Barnard about the marketing machine.

Marketing Machine! James Brown—serial entrepreneur, business accelerator expert, CEO, and founder of Business Accelerator Institute and Perseverance Squared—reveals the systematic approach that transforms struggling businesses into thriving enterprises. Drawing from his remarkable journey of helping over 450 business owners nationwide, James breaks down his proven blueprint for creating predictable revenue engines that scale beyond the founder.

Get ready for a deep dive on:- The emotional vs. logical buying journey: Why leading with credentials kills conversions and how to enter the conversation already happening in your prospect's mind- Direct response vs. branding strategies: When to use each approach and how small businesses can afford to compete with industry giants- The "stand out or get out" principle: How one Miami law firm's shocking headline ("Is he sleeping with her right now?") generated massive leads by breaking through the noise- The buyer's journey blueprint: Homepage → Problem content → About Us → Contact—and why this sequence is hardwired into human psychology- Client research goldmine: The simple questions that reveal exactly where your ideal customers consume information (and why copying competitors' marketing channels is gambling)- The marketing machine framework: How James went from 2 clients per week to 68 clients in the first week using systematic direct response- Channel optimization secrets: Why the same $10,000 ad spend failed on news/talk radio but generated 50+ calls on jazz stations

This episode delivers battle-tested, psychology-driven strategies for entrepreneurs, professional service providers, and business owners ready to build predictable lead generation systems that work.

#MarketingMachine #BusinessGrowth #DirectResponse #LeadGeneration #BusinessAccelerator #EntrepreneurJourney #FastlaneFounders #JamesBrown #MarketingStrategy #BusinessScaling #ProfessionalServices #RevenueGrowth #BusinessSystems #MarketingPsychology #EntrepreneurTips

What you’ll learn from James Brown

This episode was recorded live on video September 2nd 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_07X81nmbo

Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-blueprint-from-struggling-to-scaling/id1680772901?i=1000718705518https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-7-profitable-parts-of-a-business-with-james-brown/id1508245322?i=1000715275905https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-the-sacrifice-myth-building-a-business/id1640536151?i=1000684409291James Brown

Transcript from James Brown with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. Marketing Machine

[00:00:00] James Brown: We make decisions in the emotional side of our brain. That's how humans are wired. We like to say we make logical decisions. Even lawyers especially like to say we make logical decisions, but we don't. I started looking for another car and I found this Lexus ES 350 with low profile tires and chrome rims and blacked-out windows.

Man, that's a sexy car, right? And so the emotional side of my brain was, I want that car. And so as soon as I made a decision to, this is the car for me, the logical side of the brain started kicking in and looking for justifications. Oh, it gets 30 miles to the gallon. Oh, I can park in a regular garage with that thing, right?

Oh, this way my wife can drive this car. She couldn't drive the Hummer. So all of a sudden your brain kicks in to justify your decision. That's where buyer's remorse lives. So when we're marketing, the buyer's journey, what they do is they got all these things going on in their head and you tap into the emotion and they make a decision. Oh, I think this is the right business for me.

And as soon as they make that decision, they start to look for justifications, 

[00:01:22] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world.

How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands the test of time and becomes our legacy? A legacy we're proud of.  Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. 

[00:01:51] Jason Barnard: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another  Fastlane Founders and Legacy with me, Jason Barnard. And a quick hello and we're good to go.

Welcome to the show, James Brown. 

[00:02:04] James Brown: Oh my goodness. What an introduction. Thank you so much, Jason. I'm happy to be here today. 

[00:02:09] Jason Barnard: Right, and I had to do a tiny pause before your name because of this. Obviously.

[00:02:16] James Brown: That's right.

[00:02:18] Jason Barnard: Anybody searches your name, they come across James Brown. Oh, get on down.

[00:02:24] James Brown: I feel good.

[00:02:24] Jason Barnard: That was a terrible imitation of James Brown. I have no idea how to imitate James Brown. I'm a singer, but he is a real singer. I mean, this guy knows how to sing. How do you live with that brand name confusion, James Brown? 

[00:02:42] James Brown: I get a lot of I feel good every time I give somebody my name.

[00:02:48] Jason Barnard: I feel good.

[00:02:49] James Brown: Yeah. So it's just been something I got used to. And we try, we really haven't had any issues with branding around the name. And it's somebody to try to live up to. I don't think I ever could, but I gotta create my own path as James Brown.

[00:03:13] Jason Barnard: Sure. I suppose that's the point is once you're faced with somebody like James Brown, the singer, I feel good, it ceases to be a problem simply because there's no expectation of beating that James Brown to fame when somebody searches your name. So what I then did, obviously search your name with Business Accelerator Institute, and that's the search result for your name with that what we call qualifier term.

[00:03:40] James Brown: Yeah.

[00:03:42] Jason Barnard: Looks good. You're obviously on podcasts a lot. Doesn't look as good as James Brown, but I'd like to point out to anybody watching this, there is no reason why our James Brown here couldn't have a result like this James Brown when you add the qualifier, Business Accelerator Institute. So there is a question of famousness. But there's also a question of once Google does understand who you're looking for, our James Brown in this case, there's no reason it shouldn't show you in such a wonderful light with that Knowledge Panel and the cards and the information, the things that you've done and your achievements.

[00:04:18] James Brown: Yeah.

[00:04:18] Jason Barnard: So there's a bit of Brand SERP information that I share at the beginning of every episode. Would you like that, James?

[00:04:25] James Brown: Oh yeah, for sure.

[00:04:27] Jason Barnard: Yeah. We all like to look our very best, and we do like to have the result that we deserve. James Brown deserves this result. Our James Brown with the qualifier deserves a result just as good.

[00:04:39] James Brown: Yes.

[00:04:40] Jason Barnard: But today, we're talking about Marketing Machine. Oh, by the way, that's what we do at Kalicube®, for anybody who wasn't clear about it before. We optimize brands and people for Google and AI and there's a post behind me for that, for somebody who's listening on audio only. But I was interested in your marketing machine.

You've been helping brands with marketing to scale their businesses. And that's exactly what we're trying to do at Kalicube®. We have a brand, we have a business, we have a marketing strategy. How do we scale it, please? 

[00:05:15] James Brown: Well, I've worked now with over 450 business owners, and it's mostly in the professional service businesses.

[00:05:24] Jason Barnard: Oh, perfect.

[00:05:25] James Brown: And what I've found, I'm a retired lawyer. So I kind of got into my own business not by choice, but by necessity. I got married when I was 19. I worked at General Motors on the assembly line, building 512 cars a day through undergraduate and law school. And then right when I was getting outta law school, they announced they were gonna close the plant, which was great timing. I just passed the bar exam, right? So I sent out 200 resumes and I got zero response. At that time, I had a 5-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 1-year-old. And I'm like, I guess I'm gonna start my own place. And what I did was, not being trained in school on how to run a business, not being trained in school, on how to market my business.

They just said, hey, hang your shingle out and people will come. It's not how it works. To some extent, it will if you have a large circle of influence. But that usually allows you to keep, it doesn't allow you to to scale, right? So I started, I didn't know what to do, so I started copying what everybody else does.

And I just ran the same ads that everybody else did. I did consumer bankruptcy work. And so I just copied what the other people were doing.

[00:07:03] Jason Barnard: I bet my bottom dollar that didn't work.

[00:07:06] James Brown: Correct. And I didn't know it at the time. And I had a lot of marketing vendors that came to me and said, here, just do this, right? Not realizing it was like a cookie cutter approach for every law firm that they represented, and that exacerbated the problem. So I was getting maybe two clients a week. Okay. It sounds like, hey, that's a pretty good, but two clients a week. It wasn't what I wanted to do based on the volume of cases filed in our area.

So I started studying human buying behavior, what makes people take action. And one of the things that I found out early on, it was like a light bulb moment for me was the prospect, when they have a problem, they're constantly thinking about it.