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Editor:
I’m excited to welcome today’s guest, David Fagan, the visionary behind the Icon Builder. As a former CEO of Gorilla Marketing, which sold over 23 million books worldwide, David has a storied history of elevating brands and individuals to iconic status. In the helm of the Icon Builder, he’s now focused on crafting the image and market presence of tomorrow’s leaders. So it gives me great pleasure to say, David, welcome.
David T Fagan:
Thank you. Thank you. That’s a great introduction. I think I want you to do all my introductions moving forward here.
Editor:
I was going to say, just give me the nod and I’ll be there. It really is a pleasure to have you here though, David. Maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about the journey that led you to create the Icon Builder.
David T Fagan:
Oh, absolutely. For years, I was in a whole different industry, had a whole different life. I don’t talk about it a lot because of trading brand confusion, but I very quickly realized the power of what is now referred to as authority marketing. 20 years ago, it was maybe just being called, being bold, maybe being a little egocentric, but I started to kind of form this belief that I called the Humility Myth, that a matter of fact, I included it in several of my books, including the book Cracking the Icon Code, and the Humility Myth is this idea that, if we’re just a good person and we live a nice life and we treat people well, that everything’s just going to work out and we’re going to be successful.
Well, that is the Humility Myth, and that is not necessarily the case, and it’s a very fast way to have very skinny kids.
What I learned is we could not be the world’s best kept secret and we did need to say, “Why us?” There is this question that everybody is asking themselves out there, either consciously or subconsciously, and it’s, “Why should I hire you? Why should I work with you instead of somebody else or something else?” And so from that belief system came Icon Business Development, which became Icon Builder and Icon Builder Media and Cracking the Icon Code and Icon Bootcamp, and so on and so forth.
So that’s kind of how it all got started is just really learning the power behind different ways to put yourself out there and become somewhat of a celebrity expert.
Editor:
And when you started on this journey yourself, where did you come from, and what is your background prior to doing this? I know you said you don’t like to touch on that very much, but, hey.
David T Fagan:
So more than 20 years ago, I was in the mortgage business, the banking business, the real estate business, late nineties, early 2000s, right out of school there was a very big boom going on, one of the first booms in my lifetime, if you will. And so I was involved in that quite a bit. I oversaw nine different bank branches before too long as it pertained to real estate and lending. And so I was very much required to speak, to train, to attract referral partners, people that would refer business in the real estate industry and other industries.
And I realized that I looked very young. I probably still look kind of young, but I mean back then I looked like I was 13 years old. I did not have a college education. So I realized early on like, “How do I get these people to listen to me? What does it take to get somebody to not just persuade, but attract and enroll?” And so I had to get clever at how to quote certain kinds of people and how to read certain kinds of things and earn certain types of accomplishments, to ultimately impact, persuade, influence, have credibility, get exposure, these types of things.
Editor:
I think the concept though of turning individuals and businesses into icons is fascinating. Maybe you could share just a little bit about how you would encourage somebody to become an icon.
David T Fagan:
Well, back in the 2000s, this is really when reality television started to takeoff. And so one of the other things that helped form my belief, as well as other people’s beliefs, is that the individual consumer, the individual person, period, we became less enamored and interested in the company, that you can’t really hug a building.
And so even though a person could be flawed, we found ourselves as an individual and as a society drawn to people and their flaws as long as they were real, as long as they were authentic, as long as they were honest. And we started understanding that you could even screw up if you said you were sorry. This is even kind of when the anti-hero started to take off more and more in just everyday culture. And it was really from that, that it wasn’t really like me putting out this belief, it was more of me being an observer of what was going on around me, that this was really becoming a thing.
David T Fagan:
And people started having a following, a following on YouTube, 2007, 2008, you see social media, things like Facebook, LinkedIn come out, people starting to have a following in these places. And this was really before the word even influencer came around, but it was something that I noticed and caught onto pretty early and started observing, too, that this wasn’t necessarily an accidental thing. Somebody could very purposefully write books and speak on stages and serve in certain positions and put themselves out there in these ways, winning awards, serving on boards, getting testimonials, client testimonials, getting celebrity endorsements. And all these things started to become something that I formulated as the way to crack the icon code, and not to just be like an icon in the world, but you could be an icon in your industry, in your geographical area, and that people were doing it all over the place. And it didn’t have to be this accidental thing, but you could become very intentional about this process.
Editor:
Were you surprised by how people embraced this notion, this idea when you released your first book?
David T Fagan:
I really wasn’t too shocked by it. I was obviously more surprised by the people who didn’t get it because there are a lot of people out there still to this day, but especially back then, they were like, “I don’t need to be a celebrity. Matter of fact, I don’t really want to be on TV. I don’t want to be on stage.” And I started doing news and media. I started doing a radio show. I had a cable TV show which further heightened my own icon status. And that got me touring places. And what was even more fascinating is I would go to places like Australia and they have something there, which maybe you’re aware of, but they call it the tall poppy syndrome.
And the tall poppy syndrome is those little things that have the flowers, and in the US we like to pick them, and you make a wish. You just blow the poppies away and they float away.
Well, in Australia, that’s the best thing. It’s like you really start to pop yourself up. People start to pump you up and maybe hero worship you a little bit, and you really put yourself out there and it really leaves you exposed for the winds to come along and just blow you and all your works away…
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