Devon Brown Interview

Editor:

Today, we're chatting with a marketer who is arguably the most sought after MC in the event industry. He started out as an internet entrepreneur in 2007 and in the last 15 years or so, he's made a massive, massive impact. Not only is he motivational and charismatic, but he's also got a great story to tell. So it's a pleasure to welcome Devon Brown.

Devon Brown:

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate those kind words.

Editor:

Well, it's great to have you here for anyone who is unfamiliar with you though. Devon, maybe you could start with just a quick background.

Devon Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, my name is Devon brown. My claim the fame is two things. Number one, I am an internet marketer and have been quote, unquote "successful" for the past 15 years or so. I actually got my start back in 2001 and failed miserably and lost tens of thousands of dollars. And it wasn't until about somewhere between '07 and '09, that I finally figured out how to make this online marketing thing work. Since then, I've been a two comma club award winner.

Devon Brown:

For those of you who are familiar with the whole ClickFunnels brand, I've had a number one product on ClickBank. And the industry that I focus very heavily on in internet marketing is the affiliate marketing world, teaching entrepreneurs, how to sell other people's products. Simultaneously, I've gotten the reputation as the number one MC in the event space in our world. I MC a lot of the big events with people like Russell Brunson and Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins and Brendan Broussard and Rachel Hollis. And a lot of the names in the entrepreneur success space, I'm the individual that they call when they're having an event and they're looking for an MC. So those are the two things I'm known for. It's a little background on me.

Editor:

Great. I guess your little black book is now a big black book with all the names of the contacts that you have now. Can I start then by asking who has impressed you the most?

Devon Brown:

Wow. That's a really great question. I'm going to answer that in a way. Here's the most honest way I can answer that. One of the things that I've realised is that a lot of the big names that we see are no more special than the people who are not big names. And that's not exactly the answer to your question and I totally understand that. I can say a lot of great things. Russell Brunson is one of the nicest people you'll ever met. Brendan Broussard is an amazing speaker. And he connects on a human level. Tony Robbins is Tony Robbins. Rachel Hollis is connected with women on a way that so few people have.

Devon Brown:

But what I would say, overall, is that they're all just people. And what they've done is they've decided to live into their truth without fear. They've decided to live wholly into who they are and to spread their message. And if I'm being completely honest, I have heard quote, unquote, "everyday people" on stages who have impressed me as much, if not more, than some of the biggest names in this game. And I say that to say that if you're listening to my voice right now, I want you to understand that the people who you look up to, or you idolise, give them their props, but understand that they are no more special than you.

Editor:

That's a great answer though. It's a great answer. You must have been inspired by so many people along the way, Devon, and I love the fact that you mentioned that back in 2001, when you first got started, you did burn through tens of thousands of dollars before you achieved real success. How was that at the time for you? What did it feel like to be burning through that cash and not really getting anywhere?

Devon Brown:

Yeah. I felt like a failure. I felt like none of this stuff works so often in this industry. What we see is we see the stories of the most successful. And we think that's the average and it's not. We see the 4% or the 3%. And that's what's put in our faces every day. And we think that is the rule, not the exception. And so when I was first trying and burning through all that money, the first thing I thought was, "Wow, this stuff definitely does not work." This stuff is a scam. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. And if I'm being completely honest, I was doing a lot wrong. I was absolutely doing a lot wrong because I didn't have the "sticktuitiveness" that I needed to succeed.

Devon Brown:

My biggest challenge, and I didn't realise this until I was a little bit older in looking back. My biggest challenge was that I wanted things to work overnight. I thought that the stories of "Bob joins company" or "Bob launches business on Monday and is a millionaire by Wednesday." I thought that's how it was supposed to be. So if I would join or start a business on Monday, and I wasn't rich by Wednesday, then I would jump into the next business and thereby losing all the money that I put into the first business. And it wasn't until I learned and understood the importance of "sticktuitiveness" and of consistency that I stopped realising that, "Oh, I'm not a failure. I just keep giving up." And those are two different things.

Editor:

So what were you doing prior to 2001, prior to that initial failure? What was your lead up to that?

Devon Brown:

I was I in college. I graduated from Georgia Southern university where I was hilariously one of the top 16 mascots in the country. I graduated from college in 2000, and as opposed to using my degree, I decided that I was going to be an entrepreneur. And so immediately after graduating college, I stopped looking for any jobs in my degree. And I started just jumping into entrepreneurial ventures, MLMs, and real estate, and internet marketing, and you name it. I tried it. And while I was doing that, I was also selling cars and teaching TaeKwonDo and just living with my mom and attempting to make ends meet while I jumped into all of these different ventures at the time. So, yeah.

Editor:

What did your mom make of it? I mean, did she think you were crazy for not following...

Devon Brown:

Yes, yes. Yes. She thought I was absolutely insane and I appreciate where she was coming from and she was doing the best with what she knew and she did. She thought I was absolutely insane. But hilariously enough, or funny enough, when the stuff hit the fan, and I found myself in times of destitution of brokeness, she was the one who was there to still support me and make sure that I had. So while she thought I was crazy, she still supported me as her son. And looking back, I definitely appreciate that until I... I would not have been able to crack the code, had it not been for her support along the way. And so while there was some support... Her idea was, "Why don't you just use your degree? That's what you went to school for", which is the standard thinking of most people in the world. And even though I wasn't doing that, she still supported me as her son. And I appreciate that.

Editor:

That's fantastic. And you know, is she around now to enjoy your successes?

Devon Brown:

She is. And she appreciates it. She sees me gone all the time, speaking on stages, travelling around the world. And she appreciates what the journey that I've been through. And she sees me on stage and our relationship is one of, we don't hug a lot, but we know we love each other, kind of thing. We don't say it, but you can tell there's a look in each other's eyes where we both love and appreciate each other. So she is.

Editor:

Does she know what the two comma club is?

Devon Brown:

She has no earthly idea what any of this stuff is. She has no earthly idea what I do for a living. She has no earthly idea what a two comma club is. She just knows that I'm doing pretty well and she's grateful for that.

Editor:

Fantastic. What made you want to get into the online space then, Devon? What was the key factor?

Devon Brown:

Real talk, I just wanted to get rich. I would see infomercials back in the late nineties and early 2000s, and I would say to myself, "If that's an option, if the type of life that is being portrayed on this infomercial is an option, then why would I not go for that option?" The idea of making a bunch of money and having financial freedom and being able to travel at will and do those types of things, all of that stuff is very appealing. And so, as opposed to saying, "Wow, that's unrealistic, let me go do something else." I said, "Well, what if it's possible? Why would I not want that?" And I think that most people, even those who think that the kind of life that this business can create, even the people who think that it's unrealistic, still want it. It's just a matter of whether they let themselves believe it's possible or not.

Editor:

Yeah. So what changed for you between 2001 and 2007, 2008, when you did start to achieve success? What changed?

Devon Brown:

In 2005, I met a gentleman who you all may know named Matt Bacak. And Matt, as an internet marketer, he is an old school internet marketer, and Matt had an ad in the paper. He was looking for a sales guy, a phone sales guy to sell his big ticket in-person coaching programme thing. And I had been selling cars at the time, and I had been failing miserably in the internet marketing world. And I was like, "You know what? I know how to do sales. And I understand this industry, let me go see if I can get a job with this guy." And I did. And that job, and that relationship ended up changing everything for me. In '05, I went to work with Matt. About three months after working with him, he was like, "Hey, Devon, I'm going to fly out to an event in California."

Devon Brown:

And this was an event being put on by Mark Victor Hansen, coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And that was my first big event with all these big famous speakers. And the world that I wanted to be in, my job with Matt allowed me to be in that world. And while I was at this event, Matt was supposed to go on stage for something. They couldn't find him. So Mark Victor Hansen's assistant literally threw me on stage with no preparation to take Matt's spot in front of 700 people. I was 26 years old and being somebody who was just naturally drawn to the stage, I did well. And I got a standing ovation. Matt found out about it. He was like, "Devon, you're going to MC all of our internal events." And so I did. And so the three years that I worked with Matt, two things happened.

Devon Brown:

Number one, I got to see behind the scenes of how people actually make money online. And I realised that there is work and there is effort involved in it. And I realised the importance of building a list and building an audience. And those are things that I didn't really understand before. And it's the first thing is I realised that, "Oh, this is how you make the make money online thing work." And then the second thing that happened because of my job with Matt, is that I ended up becoming an event MC for all of our internal events and a lot of the internet marketers who were on the come up, who were coming up back then, saw me on stage, asked me to do their events, and here we are all these years later, and I'm arguably the number one event MC in the world. So absolutely.

Editor:

There you go. What a journey, what a journey. Yeah. And you'd done zero public speaking before being thrust onto stage?

Devon Brown:

Correct. That being said, yes, I had done zero public speaking. People ask me all the time. They say, "Devon, where have you been trained in your stage presence and your speaking?" And I've never been trained in speaking or in stage presence. But like I said, I have been a school mascot and my life throughout my late teens and all of my twenties was spent at nightclubs dancing. I'm a former hip hop dancer. So when it comes to understanding the crowd and engaging with the crowd and entertaining the crowd, that just comes naturally and comes from my life in nightclubs, five, six nights a week for 12, 14 years.

Editor:

Got you. My next question has to be, what advice would you give to someone who perhaps is a little nervous about getting up on stage and either speaking or MCing?

Devon Brown:

Great question. A couple of pieces of advice. Number one, you have to understand that, selfishly, the audience wants you to win. And let me explain what I mean by that. Have you ever gone to a comedy show and hoped that the comedian bombs?

Editor:

No.

Devon Brown:

No. Have you ever gone to an event like a motivational event or a business event and hoped that the person on stage does a crap job or doesn't give you any value?

Editor:

No, never.

Devon Brown:

No, never. And so the audience, whether they realise it or not, selfishly, they want you to win because the better you do, the more they get from the experience. And we all want to get something from the experience when we see somebody on stage. And so, so often, people are scared to go on stage because they think the audience is judging them. When in reality, the audience is less judgey and is more pulling for you. They want you to do well, selfishly, because that betters their life. That's the first thing I'll say. And the second thing I'll say is that what audiences don't want is perfection. What they do want is authenticity. And I didn't realise how true this was until one time I was on stage and Matt, my boss at the time, he was like, "Devon, I need you to just kill 15 minutes. Just make something up. There's a speaker. Who's running late, make something up for 15 minutes."

Devon Brown:

And I freaked out. And the only thing I could do was to think was to hip hop dance with the audience. And this is an internet marketing event. And these people are not here to learn hip hop. And the only thing I could do. So I ended up dancing hip hop with the audience and the feedback I got was amazing. They were like, "Devon, that's the most fun I've ever had an at an event. I'm going to take those moves and show them to my kids when I get home." And what I realised in that moment was, "Oh, they want authenticity." And by me being authentically myself, that gives them permission to be authentically themselves. So don't worry about being perfect, worry about being authentic. And the crowd will love you even more.

Editor:

Love that. Love that. Now I know you are also a great believer in the fact that everyone should start creating their best life. Maybe you could just tell us a little bit about that and how you arrived at that destination.

Devon Brown:

Yeah. So I heard the answer to a question. I was at an event. I don't remember the event, but this was some time ago. There was a woman who was speaking, and I don't remember who she was, but one of the audience members stood up and asked a question, something along the lines of, "What's your life's purpose? Or what's life's purpose? Or what do you think the meaning of life is?" Or something like that. And her answer was something to the effect of, "I believe that the reason that everyone is here is to live the fullest expression of themselves. Every single person has a song inside of them. And your job while you are here is to sing that song that is inside of you as authentically as possible."

Devon Brown:

And when she said that, it hit me and it made me ask the question, "What is the song that I want to be singing?" What is the thing that I would dare to do? If I knew I could not fail as Brian Tracy asks? If I had a year to live, what would I spend it creating? If I had one hundred million dollars in the bank, what would I do with my time? What is it that comes to me that is as easy and natural for me as swimming is for a fish.

Devon Brown:

And when I started asking myself these questions, I realised how excited and how fearful I got about living my truth, my purpose. And by the way, that's how I just define my best life. And so, the times that I've leaned into that and gotten to do that, it's given me a sense of fulfilment that I want everybody to get to feel. And the only way you get to feel that is to strip away the fear. And to be honest with yourself and pursue the song that is in your heart to sing, if that makes sense.

Editor:

Absolutely. What is your best life at the moment, Devon?

Devon Brown:

The life that I'm living into now that I'm working on is to teach people how to be awesome on stage. There are so many people who, to your line of questioning, want to be public speakers and who want to be on stage and who are terrified of it. And I'm blessed that, number one, it's come quite naturally to me, not that I don't get scared, not that I don't get nervous. I do. But it's come quite naturally to me, number one. And number two, I've been blessed to be on stage enough to be able to dissect what I'm doing and understand what works and what doesn't work and truths and realities about audiences.

Devon Brown:

And so what I'm working on now, is working on a course to teach people how to be awesome on stage. If you have a message that's inside of you and you want to share it and you want to be on stage and you are terrified, or maybe you're just at work. And you have things that you want to say to your company, and you're scared to stand up and say that, I want to teach you how to do that. I want to teach you how to share your message more confidently. I want to teach you how to connect with a crowd. I want to teach you how to be more captivating, and I want to teach you how to have more clarity around your message.

Editor:

Excellent. Could you give us a couple of quick tips of anybody who's either listening to this or reading this as to what they could do? What are the first things that you would perhaps suggest?

Devon Brown:

Yeah, so the very first thing that I would suggest, it depends on what the environment is. So there are people who are like, "I have this message inside of me and I want to share this with the world." And the first thing I would say is just start sharing it as ugly as possible, and as simply as possible. And that could be literally pulling out your phone and recording 60 second videos and sticking them on Instagram. Don't worry about it being perfect. Worry about just saying your message, because the more you say your message, the more you speak your message, the more clear you're going to get.

Devon Brown:

The more you go live on Facebook, or the more you go live on Instagram, the more comfortable you are going to get on stage. The more you force yourself to make YouTube videos, the more comfortable you are going to get in front of the camera. And there is no substitute for experience. But the neat thing is that experience doesn't have to be you on the big stage in front of a thousand people. Experience can literally be you with your phone, holding it up on a 30 second Instagram reel or something like that. And so the first thing I would say is start putting your message out there and don't worry about it being perfect. Just start to say it

Editor:

Nice. Yeah. So just get comfortable, isn't it? So true. Do you have any rituals that you go through to get yourself into the zone before you step out, or rather, run out on stage?

Devon Brown:

I do. The biggest thing I do is I'll slow my breathing and I will say to myself, and this is just my thing, this is what works for me. I say to myself, "Throw your sexy on it." And that is a saying that me and my buddies used to use at nightclubs. And what we used to do is we would see a circle forming or we would be about to form a big, giant circle of people watching us dance, or we were about to go on the dance floor. And what would happen was every so often when we were out entertaining and performing, we would be in the quote, unquote "zone." And the entire audience would be captivated by us. You ever watch somebody, and you're like, "Wow, whatever that person is doing right now, they are channelling something amazing through them and it's captivating."

Devon Brown:

And they're quote, unquote "in the zone." we would call the zone "sexy." And what we would do is be like, "Man, did you see the crowd's response? We were throwing our sexy all over that crowd" is what me and me and my buddies used to say back in the day. And so what I say to myself before I go on stage is, "Devon just throw sexy on it, throw your sexy on them." And what that is that's a note to me to be authentic and let the magic or the divine or the universe or God, or whoever you want to call it, flow through me and be less concerned with them judging me and more concerned with how much I can give to the audience. That just puts me in my little zone of, "Okay, I'm here to serve, and I'm here to share what I've got with you. And that's the only thing I need to do in order to be successful."

Editor:

Absolutely. And also you've got that inner monologue as well saying, "These people want me to succeed." So it all kind of, it all merges together in that respect, doesn't it? You talk about the desire to educate and entertain. I believe you've even coined a phrase regarding this, Devon.

Devon Brown:

Yeah. I wish I could take credit for that phrase, "Edutainment". I cannot take credit. I don't remember the first place I've heard that, but edutainment is, I want to educate in an entertaining way. I want you to say, "Man, that..." So two things I love is number one, being a dancer, being a hip hop dancer. I love entertaining the crowd. I loved the responses I would get from the crowd. I loved when a member of the audience would come up to me and say, "Wow, watching you dance made my whole experience and my whole night that much better." and That's what I loved on one hand. On the other hand, I loved when I was teaching TaeKwonDo, I used to be a martial arts instructor.

Devon Brown:

And I loved when little Timmy or little Susie would come up or the adult version of Timmy and Susie would come up and say, "I didn't understand this move before. Thank you so much for helping me understand it. The light bulb went off and now I understand it." And those two feelings, the feeling of entertaining to the point of, "Wow, you gave me a better experience." And also educating to the point, of, "Wow. My life is more... Or I understand this thing to the point that now I am more fulfilled by it." Those two things being put together, I was like, "How can I do both?" And that's what I attempt to do whenever I'm on stage.

Editor:

Great. So "edutainment." It's a great phrase as well. For anybody who is interested in learning more about your course on how to speak better from the stage, or do presentations better, where can we go to find out more about you, Devon?

Devon Brown:

That'll be launching soon, but you can go to devonbrown.com. That's D-E-V-O-N-B-R-O-W-N, like the colour, devonbrown.com. And if you just stay plugged in there, then when it's time to release, you will be the first to know.

Editor:

Excellent. Excellent. One other quick question I have is just about the pandemic because obviously a lot of events were cancelled or postponed because of the pandemic. Did that impact you, Devon? And if so, what did you do to overcome it?

Devon Brown:

So, yes, it absolutely impacted me. I got home. I was at an event in March of 2020, and they actually shut down the event early because that was the time the world decided that it was going to shut down. And when I got home from that event, all of my gigs for the year had been cancelled. And I went from crazy booked a year out in advance to nothing, literally overnight, just like that. So a couple of things. Number one, I decided to use the time wisely. I said, "what is it that I've been wanting to do that I haven't had the time to do that I can now use this time for, number one." And number two, what we saw as a whole is that the industry went to virtual events. And it took about six months to do, but the industry as a whole started doing virtual events.

Devon Brown:

And when virtual events started kicking back up, I started getting invited to MC virtual events. So I kind of lucked out. But there's a great book that a lot of your listeners may have heard of called The Obstacle is the Way. And if you haven't, write that book title down, it's a great book that basically says, "Whenever there is an obstacle that comes up, that obstacle is serving a purpose and there's a gift inside of that obstacle so approach it head on. Don't wish it were different.

Devon Brown:

Approach it head on and understand and find the gift in it." So when COVID hit and it took all of my events away overnight, I asked myself, "What's the gift in this?" And I ended up realising that the first gift was that I had time to write and to get out, into written form, a lot of the stuff that had been inside. And then the second gift was that it gave me a much needed break from being on stage that I didn't realise I needed. And the third gift is that the industry as a whole shifted to be more virtual. And then I became a top virtual event MC as well, which I still do today.

Editor:

Great. And the course that you're putting together will touch upon online virtual events as well as actually physically being on a stage?

Devon Brown:

Correct. I always like to say, when we talk about being on stage very often people think, "Oh, you're talking about the raised platform that's 10 feet in front of the audience." And I'm like, "Well, yes and I'm also talking about your YouTube channel. I'm also talking about your social media. I'm also talking about virtual events. I'm also talking about you being out in a public setting and wanting to have more confidence to do something in that public setting." As Shakespeare says, "The world is a stage." Or, "All the world's a stage." And so when we talk about being awesome on stage, what I'm really talking about is being awesome on the stage of life.

Editor:

Got you. No, completely get it. Now, a little bird tells me that you love selfies, which is a relatively new phenomenon. They've become super important, haven't they? But also could you estimate how many selfies you've taken over the years?

Devon Brown:

Oh, thousands. Thousands and thousands. Because I'm at events, it's like, "Selfie time." And I've gotten really good at taking selfies. My most popular selfies, or whenever I travel for an event, I take a selfie of myself on the aeroplane wearing a funny t-shirt. I've got a t-shirt that says, "I pooped today." Got another one that says, "Five out of four people struggle with math." I've got a dozen or so of these t-shirts and every time I travel, I post a selfie of myself on the plane with a hashtag, "Obligatory aeroplane selfie." And the thing about doing selfies consistently, or just doing anything consistently is that it becomes part of your brand, so much so that I forgot to take a selfie one time and had like half the internet mad at me. So that was a good thing.

Editor:

I love it. Well, I believe also congratulations are in order. I believe you are now a married man. So we just wanted to wish you congratulations as well, Devon.

Devon Brown:

Thank you so much. Yeah, actually my wife is from where you're from. We met on online, on Tinder, and just swiping around the world and I was in Atlanta and she was in London and now we're married.

Editor:

Fantastic. So you bagged yourself a London girl.

Devon Brown:

I did.

Editor:

And they can be hard to impress, Devon. So you've done well.

Devon Brown:

Thank you so much.

Editor:

My final question. I mean this as well. My final question is, what's next for you? What are you working on next?

Devon Brown:

What's next for me is the awesome on stage. Living into the whole awesome onstage brand fully. If there's one thing that I genuinely have more experience in, more than 99.9% of the world, it is being on stage in some capacity, whether as a TaeKwonDo instructor, a hip hop dancer or a school mascot, a speaker, an MC. And my goal for the next three years is to be one of the world's most foremost experts in helping people become awesome on stage and to launch a New York Times bestselling book about how to be awesome on stage.

Editor:

Fantastic. I think if I can take one key thing from this entire interview, Devon it's embrace the stage. Yes. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it.

Devon Brown:

Absolutely.

Editor:

Devon, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been a fascinating time with you. So once again, huge thanks.

Devon Brown:

Oh, the pleasure was all mine. Thank you so much for having me.