Future-Proofing Your Personal Brand with Jason Barnard

Published by: The Grampion Podcast – Grandpa Chats with Champions. Host: Jim Tracy. Guest: Jason Barnard, Founder and CEO of Kalicube®. July 29, 2025

Listen here: Future-Proofing Your Personal Brand with Jason Barnard

Join us on this episode of the Grampian as we dive into the entrepreneurial journey of Jason Barnard, CEO of Kalicube. From his beginnings as a voiceover artist for a cartoon blue dog to becoming a digital marketing expert, Jason shares his insights on building successful companies with soul. Discover how he transformed his career, the importance of personal branding in today’s AI-driven world, and the lessons learned from his diverse ventures. Tune in to explore the strategies that have led to his remarkable success and the creation of Kalicube, a company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs control their digital narrative. Jason’s journey is a masterclass in turning a business problem into a global solution. He shares the pivotal moment he was regularly losing $10,000 a month contracts because his digital footprint identified him as a ‘cartoon blue dog voiceover artist’ instead of a digital marketing CEO. That painful lesson forced him to reverse-engineer how machines learn, leading to his powerful ‘claim, frame, prove’ methodology. He explains how to establish an ‘Entity Home’ - a single source of truth - and build an ‘information feedback loop’ that educates algorithms on your true value. Jason walks listeners through how he defined his own four core facets - serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, acclaimed keynote speaker, and award-winning innovator - to transform his own digital narrative and build the system that now powers Kalicube.

Highlights from Future-Proofing Your Personal Brand with Jason Barnard:

The entire Kalicube Process was developed to solve Jason’s own critical business problem: Google’s search results identified him primarily as a cartoon dog voice actor, which directly caused him to lose high-value corporate contracts. The methodology is fundamentally future-proof. The system Jason built between 2012 and 2015 for Google’s traditional search engine worked perfectly for ChatGPT and other generative AIs from the moment they launched, proving it’s based on how machines learn, not just a single algorithm. Jason’s own personal brand, managed using his company’s techniques, is a testament to the process’s effectiveness, as it drives 80% of Kalicube’s revenue. Kalicube practices what it preaches with verifiable success. By applying its own process to the company’s brand, it achieved a six-fold increase in revenue over four years. Jason is positioned as a pioneer in the field, having built the platform and data to solve today’s AI branding challenges between 2015 and 2020, well before the rest of the marketing industry began reacting to the AI boom. Jason understates the amount of data Kalicube has; he said 3 billion data points, but we researched and the actual number is now 9.4 billion. This demonstrates the massive and rapidly growing scale of the data infrastructure that powers their technology.

Future-Proofing Your Personal Brand with Jason Barnard

Welcome and Introduction to Kalicube

[00:00:00] Jim Tracy: Hey, Grampion Nation. Jason Barnard is an expert at making Google focus on you. Hang on. We’ll be right back with Jason, CEO of Kalicube® on The Grampion.

[00:00:15] Narrator: In 2013, I coined the name Grampion and I gave it to your host, Jim Tracy.

[00:00:22] Jim Tracy: Jason, CEO of Kalicube®. Welcome to The Grampion. How are you, sir?

[00:00:28] Jason Barnard: I’m doing very well.

[00:00:29] Jason Barnard: Thank you very much, Jim.

[00:00:30] Jim Tracy: Good. And where are you coming at us from today?

[00:00:33] Jason Barnard: I’m coming in from the Grampion of France where it’s warm and sunny and the food is good.

[00:00:39] Jim Tracy: So South of France. Well, that’s awesome. Not many of my guests have been able to say that. You are the CEO of Kalicube® and you are an expert at making Google focus on an individual or a company or a process, tell us a little bit more about that. Because everybody wants the [00:01:00] Big G.

[00:01:01] Jason Barnard: Right? Well, in fact, increasingly people want the Big G and the Big CGPT ChatGPT, that’s now huge and Google becoming AI, more and more AI, Bing, Claude, Perplexity. So it’s now Google and AI, we need to say.

[00:01:17] Jason Barnard: And it’s all about educating AI algorithms to understand who you want to be presented as. So what’s your brand narrative? Help them to understand how you want them to present you to the subset of their users, who your audience. And surprisingly, if you are clear about it and you are honest, then you are consistent. They’ll do it. They have no reason to present you anyway other than the way you want to be presented, unless of course you’re lying or you’re hiding a horrible secret. But that’s generally not the case. Yeah.

The Shift from SERP to Conversational AI

[00:01:51] Jim Tracy: So, when I read your bio, it says that you are a Brand SERP. SERP spelled S-E-R-P. That’s a term I was unfamiliar with.

[00:01:59] Jim Tracy: [00:02:00] So can you help our audience and this old dude understand what that is?

[00:02:05] Jason Barnard: Search Engine Results Page. But in fact, it’s less and less about Search Engine Results Page and more about conversations between the user, the person and a machine like ChatGPT, or AI Mode in Google, or Copilot or Perplexity.

[00:02:21] Jason Barnard: So what we’re seeing is the idea of Search Engine Results Page, like the traditional blue links that you saw on Google is gradually disappearing and being replaced by conversational interface. Where the machine is answering questions that the user has, sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit to help them find the solution to their problem.

[00:02:46] Jason Barnard: Because search was always that. It was, I need the solution to a problem and I use Google to find it on the web somewhere and Google relatively sorts the world relatively well, and so I can use the search engine, but now, [00:03:00] Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT can summarize the results and predict what your next question might be, and save you a lot of time going through all those websites, figuring out where the answer might be, and potentially helping you to skip a couple of steps.

[00:03:14] Jason Barnard: So the whole paradigm has now shifted, and in this world, your aim as a person or a business is to have that machine introduce you to the conversation at the most opportune moment. Then when push comes to shove and the person says, well, who’s gonna solve this problem for me? Who should I pay to solve this problem for me?

[00:03:36] Jason Barnard: You want the machine to say, in my case, Jason Barnard..

[00:03:42] Jim Tracy: And that’s the goal, is to get them to, focus in like a laser beam. How did you come across the idea or the, did you have an experience that led to the development of this?

[00:03:56] Jason Barnard: That’s a lovely question today because I’ve just gone through and said like, the whole world [00:04:00] has changed and the search engine results page no longer matters.

[00:04:03] Jason Barnard: And obviously it still is part of the game. But the reason I started doing this is a such a long way away from all of that because when I, my previous job, sorry, was CEO, founder of an EdTech company called up to 10. it was huge. We were doing deals with Disney, with ITV International, with Radio Canada.

[00:04:25] Jason Barnard: Um, we were making millions and I had built this company, made it very, very successful. But part of my job was voiceover actor for Cartoon Blue Dog. That was the fun part of my day. And because on the web, the cartoon Blue Dog was very famous. I as the CEO and founder of Up to 10, the EdTech company was not famous.

[00:04:54] Jason Barnard: Google focused on the blue dog. So if you search my name in 2012, you said, [00:05:00] who’s Jason Barnard.. It was say, well, Jason Barnard.. is a cartoon blue dog voiceover artist. And I thought, well this is really bad. Now that I’ve exited that ed tech company, that’s really bad for my future career. As a digital marketer and the CEO of CCU helping entrepreneurs with their personal brand.

[00:05:19] Jason Barnard: Yeah, and so I figured out the system to change Google’s perspective. So I educated Google to understand that the cartoon blue dog was not very important anymore. That the, my role as CEO, founder, entrepreneur and my role as a digital marketer today specialize in personal branding in search and AI is the important part.

[00:05:44] Jason Barnard: And once I’d done that, I realized that I could do it for other people. And CCU was born and now I have a company, pla, a technical platform, 3 billion data points, a tech layer, a, team of people serving. Entrepreneurs, [00:06:00] founders and their companies helping them to be represented in search and AI the way they want, giving them control.

[00:06:09] Jason Barnard: you mentioned that you’re an entrepreneur that got a bit serious, didn’t it? I started off with a cartoon blog and all a dog and all, all of a sudden at the end it was always seriousness, but it all started with the cartoon Bleed dog. Awesome.

The Entrepreneurial Journey

[00:06:21] Jim Tracy: you, are a self-proclaimed entrepreneur. Um, yes.

[00:06:28] Jim Tracy: A lot of the folks who listen to this podcast know exactly what that means, and they know about the grind and they know about the hustle of, they know about the fun and they know about the rewards. but you’ve been doing that for a long time. You’ve launched companies that have a, a, massive history, like 66 years of combined profitability.

[00:06:50] Jim Tracy: How did that come about?

[00:06:54] Jason Barnard: I think I just created companies that have legs and then left them with people who [00:07:00] managed to keep those legs going. The first company was a music publishing company and Xavier, is the CEO now, and he took over the company in 2000 and he’s running incredibly well and has built it to be something actually bigger than it was when I was there.

[00:07:18] Jason Barnard: but it was successful when I was there. To a very good extent. To an extent that it made me a living. It made him a living. It made 10 or 11 people a living. That’s what the company was there for. And we all had, as you just said, fun. It was music. And we were not just music publishers. We were music publishers who played music.

[00:07:36] Jason Barnard: And we toured and we were part of the music scene. And then up to 10 was a company where I was making cartoons for kids. And being the CEO and the founder allowed me to be the entrepreneur. The person who drove it, the person who made the decisions, the per the person who actually made it a success. But once again, I was having fun being a cartoon blue dog.

[00:07:57] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And [00:08:00] that has legs. In fact, both of them I think have legs because they had soul. They’re based on something real. They’re based on something human. And I think that’s maybe. The key point. And I think Cali Cube is the same. It’s human focused. Human based, with a aim of helping the make the world a slightly better place.

[00:08:23] Jason Barnard: I like to think. And I think that gives a company legs because it gives motivation to everybody involved.

[00:08:30] Jim Tracy: And now when you say, it’s got legs, what I, think you’re saying is that it is solving a problem that people find valuable. Is that accurate?

[00:08:42] Jason Barnard: Yeah, it is. And the interesting thing, as you said, Dan, I was thinking, okay, so music, which problem does that solve?

[00:08:48] Jason Barnard: It solves the problem of entertainment and time off and relaxing or having a party. Mm-hmm. Which is what I was all about. And then the ed tech was all about educating and entertaining children. [00:09:00] So the Blue Dog and the Yellow Koala were entertaining children with a soul and with a aim of. Fun education, helping the child understand the world.

[00:09:11] Jason Barnard: And I, I now have people writing to me who are 20, 25 years old saying, that was my childhood. Thank you so much. And that means so much to me, but that’s why it’s got legs.

[00:09:22] Jim Tracy: Okay.

[00:09:22] Jason Barnard: And Kalicube® is perhaps more pragmatic in the sense that we’re saying, well, it’s your personal brand in search and ai. But I would argue that it’s an existential problem for humanity.

[00:09:38] Jason Barnard: Okay. How our AI understands you and represents you is actually, I think, gonna be turn out to be one of the great, great problems of our epoch. And although we serve entrepreneurs, helping them boost, amplify their personal brand, which is purely commercial. Approach. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, we [00:10:00] share it all.

[00:10:00] Jason Barnard: There’s a, there’s a link here, ka cube.com, K-A-L-I-C, ube.com/guides, and I share that because it’s free and we explain everything you need to do because I believe anybody who wants to control how AI understands and represents them should have the ability to do so, and this is the ability to do so.

[00:10:22] Jim Tracy: All right.

How to Future-Proof Your Brand

[00:10:22] Jim Tracy: So how do you go about, uh, you mentioned future proofing your personal brand on, Google Chat, GTP, Microsoft, Bing, et cetera. Do you have to be at the like, I am the furthest thing from a computer geek. Do you have to be a little bit, geeky in order to do

[00:10:44] Jason Barnard: that? No, you don’t and that’s the good news.

[00:10:48] Jason Barnard: machines obviously love code. So if you are a bit of a geek, it helps, but at the end of the day, the machines are so smart today that if you simply organize [00:11:00] yourself in a meaningful, understandable, and consistent manner, they’ll get it. But the actual key is very, very, very simple. It’s that they need to understand which webpage on the internet represents you and comes from you.

[00:11:18] Jason Barnard: And they’re looking for that. In my case, it’s a whole website For you, it might just be one webpage. It doesn’t matter. But they’re looking for the source of truth, which is you, and they read that source of truth. So you write on the page, who you are, what you do, who you serve, why you matter. You know anything you particularly want.

[00:11:36] Jason Barnard: I like skiing. If you want ’em to talk, about skiing when they, mention you, and then you make sure that every single mention of you around the web. Is consistent with what you are saying on that one webpage, and then you link from that one webpage out to the sources that corroborate what it is you’re saying, and back if possible from those sources to that central hub.

[00:11:57] Jason Barnard: We call it the Entity Home, and what then [00:12:00] happens is the machine reads your version of the truth, says, well, okay, brilliant like that. Jim says that he loves skiing, he’s loves sitting in front of trees, and he’s a great podcaster and an entrepreneur of extreme talent. Now, I don’t believe Jim on his own good word.

[00:12:16] Jason Barnard: However, if I go around the web and every time I find a resource that he’s pointed to from his Entity Home, his hub, and it says more or less the same thing, or it confirms part of his story, after a while I’ll say, okay, yeah, Jim’s telling the truth. That’s fine, and that is what I will say. And it gives you control essence.

[00:12:36] Jim Tracy: Yeah. In essence, are you creating a information feedback loop? Yep, that’s exactly it. How did you figure that out? I mean, what, what kind of brain sits down and says, you know, I need to, I need to train Google and chat GTP and AI and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:12:53] Jason Barnard: what was lovely is that I did it for Google and because I come, I was an SEO expert as well.

[00:12:59] Jason Barnard: So I [00:13:00] understand algorithms for the blue links in Google search engine results. And my first job was to how to solve, how to manipulate or to change those results and get Google to prioritize. Specific pieces of content over the Blue Dog. So how do I get Google to prioritize a piece of content where I’m talking about entrepreneurship or I’m talking about digital marketing over the Blue Dog, which was significantly more famous.

[00:13:24] Jason Barnard: And once I’d figured that out for my own, what I used to call Google Business Card, it turns out that system was all about what I’ve just described there. It took me a maybe a year and a half, two years to figure out that that’s all I was doing, and I think that’s the beauty. What I really love about it is when you, when you can explain something, this fundamentally important in less than two minutes to anybody and they understand.

[00:13:51] Jason Barnard: I explained it to the baker downstairs the other day and she went, alright, brilliant. Yeah, okay, I’ve got you completely understood When you’ve got it that simple, you know you’ve got it right and you’ve got a universal [00:14:00] fundamental truth. And it is a universal fundamental truth because when Chat G PT came out, chat GPT immediately.

[00:14:07] Jason Barnard: It could say exactly who I was, exactly what I’d done it. Got it. All right. It didn’t talk very much about the blue dog. It mentioned it as a, as a, a footnote and perplexity the same thing. Deep seek the same thing. Bring copilot the same thing. Clawed the same thing. Google AI mode. Now the same thing. And it’s a fundamental fact of how machines learn.

[00:14:26] Jason Barnard: And that’s the thing machines learn and all you need to do is teach them.

The Critical Importance of a Personal Brand

[00:14:32] Jim Tracy: Okay. In teaching them, why is it important for Joe Schmo to take control of his personal brand and what AI is searching and feeding back, and what, why, is that critical in today’s business environment?

[00:14:51] Jason Barnard: Right. one of the, one of the big mistakes I made was thinking that everybody should care about this, and that’s not true.

[00:14:57] Jason Barnard: The baker downstairs understands what she would need to do. [00:15:00] In order to take control of her personal brand online, but she doesn’t care and she’s right not to care because it literally doesn’t matter to her. whereas in business it does, especially in B2B, people do business with bus with people, and how you represent yourself and how AI and search represent you is very bottom of funnel.

[00:15:23] Jason Barnard: People are gonna research you when they’re doing business with you. So it’s a revenue driver. So as a, as a B2B business owner myself, I’m saying, well, my personal brand drives 80% of Cali cube’s revenue. Right now, my personal brand is hugely important to ccu, so it’s my personal brand is making a lot of money for ccu.

[00:15:43] Jason Barnard: So me being on podcasts, writing books, publishing articles, being out there, generally speaking is driving business for Cali Cube. That’s fundamental for my bottom line and Cali Cube’s bottom line today. Then also what happens when I pivot? I don’t intend to pivot again [00:16:00] in this life, maybe in a future life, but my pivot from Bois to Cali Cube or up to 10 to Cali Cube was painful and slow and difficult, and I lost millions of dollars.

[00:16:13] Jason Barnard: Next time I pivot, or if I ever decide to pivot again, it won’t take me three years. It will take me less than a year, and I’ll pivot it completely and the whole thing will be talking about me in a completely different frame. I can reframe my entire career in the space of less than a year. And then the third thing is legacy.

[00:16:32] Jason Barnard: When I die, which I hope won’t be soon, I would love it if what I left behind was, how can you put it? An eternal ringing of the good things. I’ve done a legacy, so my legacy is important. So I’ve got the three things. Business today, career pivots in the future, and legacy when I die. Okay. Not wishing to be morbid.

The Kalicube Process™ in Action

[00:16:57] Jim Tracy: So what you’re describing when you say [00:17:00] if you pivoted it would take a year. So you’re talking about kind of a process rather than an event. You don’t just like log on to Google and say Fix gym today.

[00:17:12] Jason Barnard: Well, okay, so I said a year and I was my, my brain kind of goes through multiple ideas before I say something.

[00:17:19] Jason Barnard: It doesn’t sound like it ’cause it all just kind of flows out. There are a lot. There’s lots going on inside, and I was gonna say a couple of months, but that sets unreasonable expectations for people. Sure. because I’ve got such tight control of my personal brand in search and ai, I can do it in a couple of months.

[00:17:37] Jason Barnard: So it really is pretty much flipping a switch. Okay. Whereas for Jim Tracy, we’d have to set the foundations and then start moving things around. So we’d be looking at a year. So I, I kind of misrepresented it from my perspective is I can do it very quickly. If we do it for somebody else, it’s gonna take a lot longer.

[00:17:53] Jason Barnard: And if you DIY, it, it may well take two years because you’re gonna make mistakes. Mm-hmm. Um, so [00:18:00] that pivot requires having control and that Entity Home. I talked about the central hub of information. The machines don’t just find it easily, you have to guide them towards it, and that takes time. Then you have to convince them that it is the correct person.

[00:18:16] Jason Barnard: Then you have to convince them to trust you. Yeah. Then you have to show them that all the other information says the same thing, and you’re at a year. I’ve already done all the, all the first stages. I’ve just gotta change that central hub, update my digital footprint, and bob’s your on call job done. Yeah.

[00:18:34] Jim Tracy: And is that why you say that Google is the new business card or your new business card?

[00:18:38] Jason Barnard: Yeah, Google. And now Chachi PT are the new business card. I mean, yeah. PE people Google you or look up you, look you up on Chachi pt, as they’re talking to you on a Zoom call. After meetings. That was my big thing, is I would walk into meetings with, huge.

[00:18:55] Jason Barnard: It was in France, huge French corporations. I would say, I’m Jason Barnard.. I’m [00:19:00] gonna make your digital strategy incredibly uh, effective. We’re gonna get you to the top of Google. Bingo. Bob’s your uncle, and that’s gonna be $10,000 a month. And they would go, brilliant. We’re on board. Absolutely. Great. I have the CEO on board.

[00:19:11] Jason Barnard: I would walk out, give them my business card on the way out, walk out, and then they wouldn’t sign. The reason they didn’t sign was ’cause they threw my business card in the bin and they Googled my name and it said, Jason Barnard.. is Cartoon Blue Dog, no contract.

[00:19:31] Jim Tracy: So Blue Dog has a bit of credibility, but it’s the wrong direction for corporate. Exactly. In France.

[00:19:37] Jason Barnard: Yeah. No, a hundred percent. But good story. Good story today is somebody just contacted me and said, I have a, a, a dog training company. And I want to make a cartoon with a dog, and I would love to talk to you about how to make a cartoon with a dog.

[00:19:51] Jason Barnard: So the blue dog is still useful. It might actually still come into the business. All

[00:19:56] Jim Tracy: right. um, when, when you, [00:20:00] when you speak to, these entrepreneurs and c-suite level employees, and how are you upskilling them to craft this accurate persona that’s

[00:20:12] Jason Barnard: online? Ooh, that’s a lovely question. Now, there are a few things going on, which I’ve found really, really interesting.

[00:20:19] Jason Barnard: number one is that when we talk to people about what is your brand narrative, a lot of the time they don’t really know. We want to know what are your facets? I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’m a bestselling author. I’m an acclaimed keynote speaker, and an award-winning innovator. Those are my four facets.

[00:20:41] Jason Barnard: So the first thing we do is set, set somebody down and say, what are your facets? Two to four. So one of them is gonna be entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. Another might be, you know, ski instructor. I don’t know, but probably not, but you know what I mean? Yeah. I dunno why I’m obsessed by ski today. It’s ’cause it’s a wall outside.

[00:20:57] Jason Barnard: then should be an Australia skiing today. [00:21:00] Yeah. Then the question is, uh, what are, what are your skills? What’s, what’s your expertise? Then who do you know then who have you worked with? We need to go all through all of these things and then they’re what we call the claims things we are claiming to be true.

[00:21:18] Jason Barnard: Then we need to take all of that and frame it in a way that makes sense to their business today, their career tomorrow, and their legacy when they die. So claim then frame, bringing it all together. And then prove it. Okay, where’s the proof? Find me the proof online. And we have a machine Kalicube® Pro with 3 billion data points that just goes out and finds the proof.

[00:21:39] Jason Barnard: So what we have then is a situation where we’re saying to somebody, what are you claiming? how do we frame it? And then we’ll go out and prove it to the machines. So that’s the big one, that that’s your brand narrative. Then we say to them, okay, you’re on podcast, you’re writing books. You’re maybe on tv, I don’t know, you’re writing blog posts for entrepreneur.com or [00:22:00] mm-hmm The New York Times.

[00:22:02] Jason Barnard: You are putting a lot of effort and time and resources into that. Are you getting full value? Do the machines, do Google chat, GP and so on and so forth, understand quite how important and authoritative all of that makes you. And the answer is no. And so what we then do is take all of that and in that claim frame, prove model, bring it all together to amplify it.

[00:22:25] Jason Barnard: So we amplify whatever, whatever it is they’re currently already doing, then. We take a look at them and their peer group and we say, well, what does Google and Chat GPT and the other AI tell us are the commonalities in this group in terms of what makes a huge difference to their understanding and their belief in the Authority of this person and their ability to make that person more famous and amplify their voice?

[00:22:53] Jason Barnard: That’s what we’re gonna focus on. So we use our data points to do that. We bring together multiple things. [00:23:00] Number one is proving who you are, what you do, why you’re important. Number two, amplifying what you’re already doing for your personal brand. Number three, pointing you in exactly the right direction of what you need to do next to have the most possible effect with the efforts you are putting in.

[00:23:14] Jason Barnard: And only now as a CEO founder who’s taken a step back from the company, do I realize how valuable my time is? And that every podcast I do, every article I write. Is taking me away from the business I could otherwise be doing. So I have to be sure that there’s value in there. And when I do do them, I have to show, I, I, leverage maximum value.

[00:23:38] Jim Tracy: Mm-hmm. So in essence, you are, creating a niche. A niche, um, yeah. And then you’re pointing the machines down that niche to find, um. Then go back out and proof test it, and then, [00:24:00] return to that is, I mean, is that it? Oversimplification, obviously, but,

[00:24:06] Jason Barnard: I, I, I think m as I said earlier on, when you can explain it that quickly Yeah.

[00:24:11] Jason Barnard: it is that simple. But the actual implementation is obviously complex and takes a lot of time, which is why we have a tech layer, which is why we use. 3 billion data points, which is why I have a team of super duper expert digital brand engineers. but the, the theory behind it is very, very, very simple.

[00:24:29] Jason Barnard: And that for me is indicative of how powerful it is. And it was interesting. I was talking to a prospect literally yesterday and he said, oh, but I’ve got such a, such a tiny niche, it’s not gonna work. And I was saying, but that’s exactly where it does work the best. Because we can take that niche, and it’s so simple for us to then explain that niche because it’s so explicit, because there’s so few people in that niche.

[00:24:55] Jason Barnard: But then what we can do is expand out to connected niche [00:25:00] and build your personal brand into, into a slightly wider, space.

The Growth of Kalicube® and Future Outlook

[00:25:07] Jason Barnard: Okay. That was me not being very professional, not turning my phone off. I do apologize. I’m glad you told me that this was an easygoing podcast because I look microphone. Oh, it’s so laid back.

[00:25:15] Jim Tracy: Yeah, we have fun. so is Kalicube® growing? how are you doing? How long’s it been in business and are you growing?

[00:25:23] Jason Barnard: Uh, it’s been 10 years in business and for the first six years it was just Jason and I, didn’t have the ambition to be the entrepreneur. Owner of a company that I am today. I’d already been entrepreneur twice, but it had been entrepreneur of very successful companies doing things I loved. And for Cali Cube, I re, I was enjoying the game of figuring out Google and I, I’m really glad I did because I spent from 2012 to 2015 figuring out the system from 2015 to 2020.

[00:25:57] Jason Barnard: Building the platform and the [00:26:00] algorithms and collecting the data to be able to apply it at scale. And then from 2020 to 2025, I’ve taken on a team, we’re now 15 people and we’ve multiplied revenue by six over the last four years. So yes, we’re growing and I think in retrospect I’ve made now, I don’t know, very wise decisions or very lucky decisions, but it’s worked out perfectly.

[00:26:26] Jim Tracy: Well, in hindsight,

[00:26:26] Jason Barnard: they look pretty wise. It might be like, it might also just be that as opportunities come, I wake up at the right moment and right now with AI exploding Google moving over to AI mode, people are freaking out in the marketing industry ’cause they dunno what to do. And I’ve got the solution.

[00:26:46] Jason Barnard: I figured it out in 2012, 2015. I’ve got the platform, the data that I’ve collected and built, 2015 2020. I’m ready. Yeah. This is, this is boon time. Sorry.

[00:26:58] Jim Tracy: No, no worry. Uh, [00:27:00] do you apply that then to a company in much the same way you would apply it to a person or an individual brand?

[00:27:07] Jason Barnard: Once again, theoretically, simply, it’s exactly the same process for a company, for a person, for a product, for a service, for a music group, for a book, for a film, they’re all the same.

[00:27:20] Jason Barnard: it would be exactly the same approach. Pragmatically and practically the problem with a company is that you have marketing teams, egos, per politics going on that make it more difficult. Uh, and what we find with corporations is it works incredibly well. I mean, we apply the Cali Q process to Cali Cube and we’ve grown sixfold in four years, and that indeed that shows you how powerful this is.

[00:27:43] Jason Barnard: But we need corporations to really get on board and get the team on board for it to really work properly. So

[00:27:53] Jim Tracy: what you’re doing is you are, in essence manipulating where Google is looking so [00:28:00] that you can point them strategically where you

[00:28:02] Jason Barnard: want them to go. I like that. Thank you. Because you used the word manipulation and then immediately swung it round to strategically get them where you want them to go, which is a really good way of putting it because I can say manipulator, I can say educate, but it is in fact that it’s, it’s.

[00:28:19] Jason Barnard: Manipulating, or you could say educating Google no is manipulating Google to look or AI to look where we want. To digest the information and understand it in the way that we intend. And that’s really important. It’s not what you say that’s important, it’s what you or what you intend to say that’s important.

[00:28:36] Jason Barnard: It’s what they understand that’s important. So getting from the point of what I intend to say to what they have understood me to have said is not as simple as it sounds. Then strategically point them in the right direction to say, well, at the critical moment for this specific person type or this type of person for this specific type of problem, I am the perfect solution.

[00:28:57] Jason Barnard: Send them my way, Uhhuh. [00:29:00] And it works so well. it, really is standing or so, sorry, what I’m now talking about is being top of mind for the machine. Top of algorithmic mind, if you like, at the critical moment in awareness, consideration, and decision within that funnel within the ai, so that the AI has you top of mind at the exact moment that somebody says who’s the solution.

[00:29:29] Jason Barnard: Yeah.

[00:29:31] Jim Tracy: That’s beautiful. just the, the, the entire concept of crafting a path, a map, a direction for this huge, amazing machine, and you’re just, and, you’re the, you’re the guy behind the curtain who’s like directing all the steps that this, uh, uh, machine that’s gonna take over the world is gonna follow.

[00:29:57] Jim Tracy: Yeah. It. [00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Jason Barnard: How much responsibility is that? Oh, honestly, I mean, that, that’s the thing. I was actually talking to my, the, the husband and my stepsister who, when I told him what I did, it was literally last week he said, oh, we’re all gonna need you one day. he, he works in a library, so it, it, it.

[00:30:21] Jason Barnard: It’s another example of somebody to whom I’ve explained this in a couple of minutes mm-hmm. And immediately understood the imp implications of it all. for me, the, thing right now is within the industry of digital marketing and SEO, which is generally freaking out a lot because they don’t understand what’s going on.

[00:30:42] Jason Barnard: They don’t know what to do. There’s either a tendency think this is way too complicated so we can’t do it. Or a tendency think, oh, what Jason’s doing is so simple. Any idiot can do it. And both are true, but yes, both are true. But as you say, to be the person who’s [00:31:00] actually pulling the strings and doing it effectively takes so much effort, so much time.

[00:31:05] Jason Barnard: And we’ve built the machine that does it, and I’ve got the team that do it. And that’s the difference is that. Every single detail counts how the machine moves around counts. For most people, the free stuff, the the free guides that we offer will work fine because you don’t have a huge digital footprint.

[00:31:24] Jason Barnard: It’s not very, but very sorry, complex, and it maybe isn’t very important. So you don’t need Cali Cube because it isn’t a huge monetary driver for you. But if your personal brand is a monetary driver for you. You need it for your career pivot or you need it for your legacy, then we can help. Because we know what we’re doing.

[00:31:45] Jason Barnard: We know what we do is right, and we are indeed manipulating the machines to look where we want so we can strategically redirect them to where you need them to be, to help you in your business, in your career. And that’s the key. And I really, really [00:32:00] want to reiterate that we are here to help people who can get true value from our hope.

[00:32:04] Jason Barnard: And everybody else, go for the free guide. Knock yourselves out. This is existential in my opinion, and I want you to be able to defend yourself.

[00:32:13] Jim Tracy: Yeah. So what it sounds like is you’ve created and crafted a business called Kalicube®, K-A-L-I-C-U-B e.com, Kalicube®, slash guides if you prefer, and you come alongside people to help them.

[00:32:33] Jim Tracy: Further what they, what they want to be is their personal brand or their company brand. And you do it in such a way that you control the outcome in advance.

[00:32:45] Jason Barnard: Yeah.

[00:32:46] Jim Tracy: Wow.

[00:32:47] Jason Barnard: I like

[00:32:47] Jim Tracy: that.

[00:32:48] Jason Barnard: And a quote from Elisa, who’s the head of production, her favorite quote is, it’s not, if we can do it, it’s how long it takes us.[00:33:00]

[00:33:00] Jason Barnard: How long it takes is depends on how big your digital footprint is, how much of a mess it is, and how much you actually do what we ask you to do.

[00:33:10] Jim Tracy: Yeah. How, when, when you describe a mess, I, in a generic terms, point to something that would be a mess in somebody’s digital footprint. Somebody

[00:33:22] Jason Barnard: with a long career like mine Who has left. All of the references to the blue dog talking only about the Blue dog. All of the references to the music groups from, uh, the nineties, talking only about the music group from the nineties. all of my different clients who have cited me on the websites, talking about me with slightly different descriptions of the work I did for them.

[00:33:45] Jason Barnard: And the, the gig I played last week in the bar, across the road, talking about me as a musician. That’s a mess.

[00:33:54] Jason Barnard: And what would happen there is Google would look at that and AI would look at that and imagine that it’s 20 different [00:34:00] people.

[00:34:02] Jason Barnard: And what we would do with that, and what I’ve done with my own is to make sure that all of the pieces join all the, dots join together and that it all makes sense and that all my central hub Entity Home, my website, I explain all of this very clearly in different sections on the website.

[00:34:18] Jason Barnard: So the machine is saying, ah, okay. Blue Dog over there is Jason Barnard.. The guy who did the voiceover for the, Yellow Koala is also Jason Barnard.. It’s the same guy, the guy who’s got the podcast Fast Lane of founders. That’s Jason Barnard.. too. The guy who wrote the book, Fundamentals of Brand SERP Business.

[00:34:36] Jason Barnard: That’s Jason Barnard.. too. The guy who played in The Barking Dogs is Jason, the guy who played in Stanley. The county horse is Jason Ball puts it all together and it says, okay, I’ve got this whole human being who just has 50 different facets. It’s not 50 different human beings. So the, classic mess is a whole career where somebody’s just left a lot of breadcrumbs behind them and the breadcrumbs are scattered all over the forest.

[00:34:59] Jason Barnard: Sure. [00:35:00] It’s, it, it

[00:35:01] Jim Tracy: sounds to me like the back of a tapestry and you’re connecting the dots and turning the tapestry around so that it can be clearly seen. I just had a thing in my head that goes, TA ta. Yes, that’s exactly

[00:35:16] Jason Barnard: it.

[00:35:17] Jim Tracy: Awesome. Well, you know, it has been delightful. I have a couple requests.

[00:35:22] Jim Tracy: Number one, sing us a quick Diddy.

[00:35:25] Jason Barnard: Ooh, Boowa Boowa. We Boowa we are. Hey, hey. Oh, and my favorite song of all from that series was This. Without my glasses, I can’t see. I count properly without my glasses. I can, but I can sing this song. La la, la, la, la la. Love the musician

[00:35:52] Jim Tracy: Never leaves you, does it? And the silly blue dog never leaves me either.

[00:35:59] Jim Tracy: You [00:36:00] have lived an incredible life. You’ve lived lots of places, and, uh, you’ve, you’ve obviously been incredibly successful. one of the questions that we ask of the champions that come on Grampion, is who affected or impacted you in such a way that you would be remiss not to give them a little prop?

[00:36:19] Jim Tracy: On this podcast,

[00:36:25] Jason Barnard: can I name three people for three faces in my life? Sure, sure. Number one, Dave Clayton, who’s a guitarist in Liverpool, who got me into my first band, and I met him 30 years later and I was so thankful for him. He gave me my first opportunity in a band. Turns out. He was incredibly thankful to me because he was about to give up music and he met me and I was so naive.

[00:36:51] Jason Barnard: He carried on playing music. He was so sick of musicians. He was gonna give up. So I’d spent all this time being grateful to him and he’d spent all that time being grateful to me. We were [00:37:00] grateful to each other. We saved each other. It was lovely. Secondly would be Veronica, my ex-wife, who. Allowed me to mess around with the cartoon Blue dog in yellow Koala and turn it into a business while she went out and did the proper work.

[00:37:14] Jason Barnard: And I was staying at home with our daughter, looking after her, looking after her and making cartoons. that was huge. And thirdly, right now it would be the coaches. I’ve had, I’ve had five coaches in the last year. Have made me realize that to be a really good CEOI have to be a different person for the company than I am naturally as a human being, and that I don’t have to lose my personal personality to be able to be a good CEO and that I’m now, I would say a very, very good CEO of a company that works, a company that’s going forward, a company that’s making a difference.

[00:37:58] Jason Barnard: But I can still sing songs [00:38:00] and play gigs across the road and hang out with my friends and that’s a great gift, is that you don’t have to be either one or the other, either a really good CEO and be a miserable, pragmatic, horrible person all day long, or be silly and never make it. You can be both and that’s delightful.

[00:38:20] Jason Barnard: Yeah. So thank you to all of those people.

[00:38:22] Jim Tracy: Yeah. And you’re making a shilling or two along the way.

[00:38:25] Jason Barnard: As my old British friend would say, making a shilling

[00:38:30] Jim Tracy: or two. Yes, exactly. Alright, Jason, I want to thank you for coming on the Grampion. Tell people how to get in touch with you. What’s the best way I would ask

[00:38:40] Jason Barnard: Chuck, GPT, or Google personally?

[00:38:43] Jason Barnard: Where do I find Jason? How do I do business with him? Where can I see him play a gig? That’s awesome. That is awesome and whack. And I see the

[00:38:50] Jim Tracy: cartoons he made and the proof is in the pudding. So folks get with Google and keep on dreaming those Grampion sized dreams. [00:39:00] Thanks, Jason, for coming on. This is Jim and I am out.

[00:39:04] Jim Tracy: Thank you, Jim. When you get an opportunity, subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcast. Tramp Nation. I wanted to say thank you. You have made. Building Men a category bestseller on Amazon. We’re doing phenomenal on Barnes and Noble. If you have not yet read Building Men, I’d encourage you go online, find a copy wherever you get books, and give us a great review.

[00:39:34] Jim Tracy: We appreciate it and we’re looking forward to the next time we get to chat on the Grampion.