Jerried Williams was in and out of the corporate world for nearly ten years. He worked in diverse industries and even spent a fair share of time working at start-ups. He was constantly on the move, but having grown up in a Military family, he had become accustomed to his ever-changing surroundings.
The one thing that was constant, was his feelings of confinement and constraint that arose from working in very bureaucratic, corporate environments. But this past December, everything changed. Starting from a blank slate, Jerried began exploring all the avenues that he simply couldn’t ever do in the past, leading him to where he is today.
Jerried Williams Website: https://www.bigmajority.com/
Josh:
Hi, everyone. This week we’re here with Jerred Williams. He is the founder of Big Majority, a marketer and mindset coach. And I’m super excited to talk with you, Jerried, because you’ve done something that not a lot of people do. And that thing is that you left your job in December of last year and are building up Big Majority, but it’s yet to start bringing in revenue.
Josh:
And I think that’s amazing, because that’s a very common story, but it’s also not something that people… They don’t go on shows and talk about it when they’re in that stage. Right? They hide it until later, and then they talk about it. So I think it’s great that we get to be talking today. So thanks for coming on the show,
Jerried:
For sure. For sure. Yeah. It’s a interesting thing. As an entrepreneur, there’s always avenues to make money, especially in the marketing world as you go along. But for what I was building, it took a lot of exploration and really finding how I can put together a solid foundation for something that’s going to endure 5, 10, 20 years from now.
Jerried:
This might be grandiose, but Amazon lost money for 20 years, and then they started making money. So to give yourself the freedom of not dying to bring in revenue until you have reached a certain foundation, that’s kind of been the vision of our following. And it’s interesting. Things internally, inside my mind, my vision, manifest slower in the real world. But it’s cool to see when it does connect, because that gives me the positive feedback loop to continue.
Jerried:
But it’s definitely not for the faint of heart to go at it this way. It requires a lot of focus, and I didn’t want to split my focus by working with clients and trying to give them my all and the value that they’re paying for and trying to feed the energy that I need into my business and our vision. So by allowing myself the freedom to give my all to Big Majority, I’ve made massive gains in terms of the clarity and the ability to communicate what it is that I do, but also to understand exactly what my target customers and clients want and the best way to deliver it to them. So it’s not for the faint of heart. It could definitely be scary at times. You have your doubts and your fears, but that’s part of the journey.
Josh:
Yeah, I think that’s really cool. And then, that’s a good point. It gives you that full focus. But let’s peel it a few layers, because what you’re doing takes a lot of just guts. You’re doing something that’s scary, leaving behind stability. Where did that come from in terms of your background? What brought you to a point where you were able to just go ahead and do that?
Jerried:
I think there’s a few influences. Just going straight to family influences, because that’s pretty much where it all starts. I was born in New Orleans but I was raised in Maryland. And when I got to Maryland, I was pretty young. My dad joined the military, and then we were stationed in Germany for three years. And then I moved back to the States, to Maryland, and then got into middle school, then switched to a different high school.
Jerried:
So I’ve always had a little bit of movement going on in my upbringing, especially since most of my family’s from New Orleans. So there’s a certain isolation that comes from that type of being basically a military brat. And that isolation makes you have to be comfortable with figuring things out on your own, keeping yourself engaged, meeting new people. It’s not like you’re with the same group of friends your whole life type of situation, right? So that’s probably one factor.
Jerried:
The second factor is probably most important. I really get a feeling of confinement and constraints working in very bureaucratic, corporate environments. I have a very creative mindset. I love exploring new things, and that definitely is not always in alignment with the goals of an organization of business. Sometimes you just… Certain levels of creativity just aren’t well-suited for those types of organizations.
Jerried:
So it almost got to a point where I was relieved to leave the company I was with. It was a good day, because I felt free for the first time. I felt like I could explore my creativity and all the avenues that I wanted to that I simply couldn’t ever do in the past 10 years working for other organizations.
Jerried:
So between my upbringing, just my level of curiosity for the world… I’ve worked in all kinds of industries, beauty, fashion, government, training, consulting, e-commerce. So I’ve been all over the board. And because I’m so curious to learn new things… And I also love seeing how the patterns fit together, which is a crucial skill to have as entrepreneur. So, it’s definitely scary at times, but I can clearly see on the other side of that fear and that doubt is strength, positivity, successes, and achievement. So I think those are some of the core elements that have created me, created the person that I am.
Josh:
Yeah. And then I’m curious about the specific situation that led you to leaving last December, because if you’re in it for 10 years… It sounds like you were in here for 10 years. It wasn’t-
Jerried:
Oh no, not that one… It’s not because you’re… Not that one organization. I was at that [crosstalk 00:06:36] for roughly a year.
Josh:
Right. But in the corporate world for 10 years-
Jerried:
In and out.
Josh:
…then.
Jerried:
So yeah, in and out of the corporate. So I worked for startups, I worked for corporations, but to go full-time entrepreneur, yes, that definitely is split. So it was not of my own fruition. You can clarify that right now. So I was laid off in December, and there were a round of other layoffs in the organization, and that continued the following months. So it was a sad day for some of the people I worked with, but it was probably the happiest day of my time at that organization.
Jerried:
And it was the greatest job I ever had. That’s the crazy thing. Out of all the things that I’ve done, it had the most freedom, the most benefits, the coolest people, and it still was unsatisfied. I had the most I ever got paid at a corporation. So it was all these benefits and I still wasn’t happy. So the day that I got let go was like, “Oh, man, finally I can just give myself to this endeavor.” And it’s giving my all, that I felt like I couldn’t really push myself to the way that I wanted within the confines of someone else’s vision and dream.
Josh:
Did you feel like you just needed a push to actually do it? Because I’m curious why you wouldn’t have just left earlier to do your own thing.
Jerried:
Oh, I’ve definitely tried before. It just keeps [crosstalk 00:08:00].
Josh:
Oh, okay.
Jerried:
You know what I mean? One of the first jobs out of grad school, I left that job and then I was like, “I’m going entrepreneur, full entrepreneur.” And I really didn’t have the pieces yet. So I worked at it, had minor successes, but I couldn’t maintain it. So, yeah, I had to go back to a regular job again. And I basically bounce between an organization I’m working for and then, all right, now I’m trying to make this entrepreneur thing work, going back and forth until it’s like, “All right, basically at this point I feel like I have all the skills, the understanding, the vision that I need to make this happen.” And I still didn’t have many of the pieces. It’s embarrassing how little I still had in December, but it was enough to give me comfort in knowing that I can figure it out.
Jerried:
And one of the first thing I did when I left was I started telling people about some of the things I was thinking about doing, and they were… And these were people that I respected and admired. So it’s like if I can get them to buy in, then that’ll give me a little bit more external, like I’m not crazy, like I can… All right. It in their minds it’ll work, because they’re not just being nice either. They would tell me. So that gave me a little extra capacity of confidence to go further.
Josh:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s like getting that buy-in before you even went into it. So what’s happened since December? What have you been working on?
Jerried:
Yeah, so I’d definitely taken a different approach at all this. And I realized that I would need to work on myself. I need to be more disciplined. I need to be more focused. I needed to be healthy. I need to be open-minded and just ready to take this on. I felt like I was preparing for battle in January, because what happened is I actually decided to not just hunker down in an apartment and try to get it done, build up the business. I was trying to be financially conscious, so I said, “Okay, well, right now I have this apartment. I have some money saved up. What’s the best way for me to leverage the assets that I have, to stretch them as long as I need to? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Jerried:
So I did some research, decided, okay, well, let’s, first of all, just clear my mind, and I’m going to just travel around to places where it’s a little bit cheaper, the cost of living is a little bit cheaper, and the environment’s more conducive to the financial situation that I was in.
Jerried:
So, what the first thing I did was in January, I decided to go living on a farm in a Purcellville, Virginia, to get my mind right, to get focused, figure out what’s going on. And that was amazing. I have never lived on a farm before, but it was beautiful waking up. And there was a massive hill in the backyard, and I was getting really into David Goggins at the time. So he was like, “You just got to go for it. You got to go after it every day.”
Jerried:
So I was making these videos and posting them on Instagram and my friends. So I was running up this hill in the morning. And the first day I tried to run up it, I got literally… I think I ran down and up once, and I was like, “Wow, this was… Was not expecting that.”
Jerried:
But it was really cool to see, day two, I’d already gone up. I can do four up and downs. And it is progressing. I got up to 25. Already spent up 30 days. So it was like that helped me to get mentally tough for the journey ahead. And then after that, I went to Belize. I have some family out there, because it’s also less expensive to live there. So I went there and I, again, I was trying to figure things out and starting to piece together… I had some freelance clients that I was doing regular marketing stuff for, like design work, just general marketing activities. And then I… Well, actually, should I name the clients or no?
Josh:
I mean, if you are allowed to, then sure. Yeah. It doesn’t… It’s cool.
Jerried:
Yeah, I’m sure they won’t mind. So I was actually planning a Free Minds, working with some psychologists, Dr. Isaiah Pickens, really cool guy, smart guy, and planning a festival called Free Minds Festival. It was going to be held in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. And basically it’s exactly what it sounds. So we’re going to give millennials an opportunity to come together as a community and really learn how to unleash their potential in the workplace and in life and in business.
Jerried:
And that got postponed. And then they ended up doing it webinar style, kind of like a virtual reality, which was pretty cool, an integrated virtual reality into it. But I was working on at the time as well, so I ended up going to Los Angeles at some point to work on that. But yeah, it was a lot of traveling early on. And then getting to this point, I just had a… I didn’t tell you this, but yesterday, I just did a promo video, because I’m going to be a strategic partner with a company called VSP. And they basically are a technology incubator for apps. And I’m helping them to guide their entrepreneurs, who are starting up these companies, with their marketing activities.
Jerried:
So it’s like, since I started, it was early stages was, all right, getting my mind right, getting a little bit of cashflow where I could. And then at one point I was like, “All right, now I got to get rid of all the clients and go full-time on Big Majority.” And that kind of led up to this point.
Josh:
That was awesome. I think what you said about getting the mind right and having that be the basis, that resonates a lot with me. What are your thoughts on that in terms of how you’re looking at starting Big Majority, growing it? Also, what is big majority?
Jerried:
Oh, yeah. That’s right. [crosstalk 00:14:20] Pretty good question to ask. So Big Majority, we help entrepreneurs where they need it most, and that is the acquisition of customer and clients on a steady and dependable basis. And how we do that is we create elegant marketing systems and training courses to help entrepreneurs grow their business.
Jerried:
And one of the cool ways that we accomplish that is with quizzes, super engaging quizzes. As you know all about quizzes, of course. So we use these super engaging quizzes. You’ve seen them on Facebook and Buzzfeed. And we help them figure out the best ways to implement that into their business.
Jerried:
So that’s what Big Majority does in a nutshell. We also are, in the future, very shortly, creating some more mindset-focused training course as well, because that is a vital piece. What I’ve seen in my research, in my experience, is it’s just not about having the tools or even the systems, no matter how well they work, if you don’t press the start button on it because of something that’s going on in your mind, then it’s irrelevant. You just wasted your money and your time. So we’re going to implement that, as well, to just make sure that the people that we work with, entrepreneurs that we work with, have the best chances of being successful.
Josh:
Yeah. That’s a huge part of it. In your own experience, as you’re thinking about, because you mentioned at the beginning, 5, 10 years, how do you mentally prepare for that part of it, where it’s like you’re looking at this… And the other question that comes to mind is, what are you hoping to build out of it? Are you hoping to build a really big company? Are you hoping to… What are you hoping to do with it? And then how are you thinking about it from the mental side of how long that’s going to take?
Jerried:
Yeah. So if you look at it that way, it’s daunting and makes you not want to do anything. It’s a very scary way for me. So at least that didn’t work for me. So I’ve looked at it that way and I realize that a better way for me, the vantage point was saying, okay, this business has a few reasons for being… Being an entrepreneur, there’s a few reasons for that, provide a service or products, help people to achieve their goals. But for me, what’s going to keep me motivated to waking up and working on it is the joy and pleasure of knowing that through this work I make myself better. So this work, the business, helping other people, making money, learning, building, all of that allows me to build up myself. So this entrepreneurship is actually the best personal development tool that you can have.
Jerried:
And so by focusing only on myself as like, “Am I getting better? Is it easier for me to handle tough situations? Am I communicating more clearly? Am I more confident? Am I curious? Am I energized in the morning?” If the answer to those types of questions is yes, then I know that I’m making progress, right? Obviously, you need money in the bank account going up as well. But the first signs when you don’t have that yet, and even longer, when the numbers start to matter less, this is what’s going to carry me through and has carried me through is, “Am I becoming a better person? Am I becoming more capable, more confident, more courageous? Am I committed to something, a vision of the future?” And that’s kind of the way that I look at it.
Jerried:
And I didn’t always have that clarity of understanding. That piece of it, I always… And I lost it sometimes. I followed my curiosity. I followed things that make me happy. And then sometimes you lose faith in it. So through grace, you find it back. I mean, I have no understanding how it got back there, but you just keep trying again. And now that’s kind of led me to my current philosophy. And it’s the only way I know to have made it this far in the year and to still be excited to wake up, genuinely excited to work on the next thing that I have to do and get it done, and go to sleep happy, regardless of what time it may be. Eat without seeing the actual dollars in the bank account.
Josh:
I’m curious how you think about staying focused on the things that you enjoy rather than the quote, unquote “negative things,” like the things haven’t yet happened. How do you fix your mind on the things that are positive and are going well and that you really enjoy as opposed to getting fixated on what you don’t have yet?
Jerried:
Yeah. So that’s a great question. I think a great marker for that is asking yourself… Well, this is a good place. And I believe that the quality of your life in business is determined by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself. So I think that by looking at asking myself, “Is this helpful? Is this useful? Is it helping me progress?” Now the nos are things that I need to be focusing on.
Jerried:
If it’s not helping me progress, it’s not useful, it’s not helpful, then there has no place at this moment. And I can be staring at things that aren’t a picture in my current existence. That’s not what I want. It’s not helpful or useful. It’s good to know. Yeah, I need to know that. But in reality, the thing that matters the most is, where do I want to go? And am I getting a step closer to that today? And if I am, that’s great. I feel really good about that. The other stuff really has no place in that equation. It’s just looking behind you in the past, and it’s slowing you down.
Josh:
Yeah. That’s a really good point. And I’d imagine that makes life feel much more rewarding.
Jerried:
Sure. Yeah.
Josh:
Awesome. Well, with that we’re coming up on the end here, but for anybody that wants to hear more, or follow along with where you’re at and jump in at this point and then follow the whole thing through, where can they go to follow you and see what you’re working on?
Jerried:
Yeah, sure. So you can go to bigmajority.com, and you can follow me there. We also are… You can check out our YouTube channel that that we have. We’re going to be posting a lot more out there, starting a little show or these vignettes, where we ask very pointed questions and offer as much value as we can in the shortest amount of time possible, kind of like a quiz. So that’s going to be cool. So you can check out for that. So go to bigmajority.com, and you can find out how to get in contact with me, or learn more about my story, or what we’re doing with the organization there.
Josh:
Awesome. Thanks, Jerred.
Jerried:
Cool. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate it.