Learning From Others

Today's guest is a former engineer at Yahoo who understands search engines second to none. We talk about all the ways to run an agency wrong, hoping to teach you how to be successful and do it right. He founded BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that provides training and mentorship for aspiring entrepreneurs across the globe. On a mission to create a million jobs internationally, please welcome Dennis Yu. Dennis Yu, it's a pleasure. Welcome to the Learning from Others Show. How you doing, man? Good, Damon, and it's awesome hanging out with you again. I wish it was in person like we were driving race cars in Vegas. I. That was fun. You know, we got a couple stories we could probably hit. Um, you and I have engaged on mostly Facebook over the years and kinda got a little friendship going on and, um, yeah, I, I flew out and I, every time I fly out somewhere I try and kinda keep track of who's where and, um, I. And meet up with somebody and establish a relationship a little bit better. So I appreciate the opportunity of you being willing to go hang out. And we did, we went and did a limo in race cars and um, I mean, you live in Vegas, but we, we did the tourist a little bit of the touristy thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and thanks for taking the time. That was such an honor. And you know, you're one of the few ss e o people out there. I know this is being recorded. You're one of the few ss, e o people out there that is legit and drives results. And I am not being compensated to say this. But I've been sharing this and I'm, I know people that are watching this and have seen my Facebook posts. They're coming to you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's, um, we'll probably talk 'cause you're legit about that today, you know? Yeah. Not, not about me, but about the industry. And, um, for, for me, that's been, uh, Good and bad to throw rocks at my own industry. Right? Like, it's unfortunate that that's such a valuable sales proposition to distinguish yourself as actually doing your job. But, but it is. So why don't we, why don't we start there? So, um, actually before we get into it, um, let's, let's have you talk about yourself the most, uh, enjoyable, comfortable part of a podcast. Um, I, I actually like how you put it on the intake form when, uh, so I ask the guests, you know, what's your elevator pitch that we can use? And Dennis just puts Google me. If we're talking about s e o and, and you don't have a knowledge panel show up when I Google you, you're a fat weight loss coach. Fat weight loss goes, where's, where's the analogy of a fat weight loss coach? Oh, fat, okay. Overweight weight, weight loss coach. That's overweight. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So Dennis, um, has been in marketing for how, how long have you been in marketing? 30 years. Yeah, how'd you get into it? And I was one of the original people, one of the first people at Yahoo. So I built the internal analytics at Yahoo. So I'm a search engine engineer, so I'm not an S E o. I am the person who's trying to protect the results from the SS e o people trying to trick us. Yeah. Have you got jaded over the years knowing like how this works and being able to see the manipulation that's going on when it's not done for the right audience and the right users? Do you think that weight loss scams will ever go away? Every year there's a new scam, right? And people fall for it. 'cause they're just like, how do you not know that? It's a scam? Hey, if I take this one pill, you're gonna lose 30 pounds in 12 days. Like it's a scam, right? Mm-hmm. So the salespeople are always inventing new techniques. And I remember, this is like back in my day, we used to walk uphill both ways. I built websites by hand using Microsoft Front page. It was engineers that were building websites, people like us that actually physically knew how to do the thing. It was before the marketing people and all that came in back then. You remember it was called web mastering. Mm-hmm. Before it became digital marketing and social media and influencer and all these other words that are now really just buzz words, new words for the same thing. Mm-hmm. Right. And now I'm, I'm gonna blame the internet money Bross. Yeah. And the motivational speakers for now, all of them are ai. Experts and crypto experts and chat G P T experts and they're SS e o experts too. So all these people have come in in the last few years seeing easy money and now they're gonna start selling S E o. I was a Josh Nelson seven figure agency conference and Josh Nelson's amazing. I love the guy. They're people that come into that program 'cause they think it's easy money. And in the program Josh teaches you should sell s e o, but he also says you should also deliver s e o too. You should also understand what it is. Some agency owners, the guilty will be unnamed, are selling ss e o and they don't even know what it is, but they know that people want it and they need it. So they sell it for $2,000 a month and they're making all this money. This one company that I'm probably gonna release a full investigation later today is making three. Well, they're, they were making last month, $320,000 a month off of 150 clients that are paying for s e o and Facebook ads and websites and things like that. It is a scam. There's no way to defend it. It's a scam, but it's a sales guy running it. He has no operations, he has no marketing. He's a sales guy and some of them even white label their stuff out. So they have no idea what it is and someone else is doing it. They, the client doesn't know anymore. I mean, you know, they, but they're selling it 'cause they're salespeople. There's too many salespeople in the s e O space. Mm-hmm. We need more mechanics, not people in the car dealership wearing a tie. Slick hair saying all these things about the car. We need more mechanics that actually have grease on their fingers, like you and me. Yeah. I mean, I often get asked what, um, what should I know as I shop s e o and, and I think that why people are so attracted to, to you know, you and your transparency is because it establishes trust when you're willing to go, Hey, you know, One example, s e o takes time, but here's why. And then you explain it. Or, hey, not only here are the advantages of s e o, but here are the disadvantages because what they're getting pitched to you. You nailed it with the sales bros and not enough actual people doing the work is the majority of the time. These people that. Sounds smooth, are not the people that are actually doing any of the work. So they're gonna tell you whatever they think that you want to hear. And so when, when I get asked, you know, what should I be, be looking out for? And I'd be curious, some of the things that are top of your mind is, is my first thing is transparency. Like, they should be able to communicate. You don't need to know, you know, the, the full granular details of, of everything that's going on, but you should be able to clearly communicate, you know, here's. The intent behind why we're gonna focus on this thing in content, not just, we're gonna write stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. And what's, how, how are we gonna measure progress? Right. And how long is this gonna take and why? Yeah. But the majority of the people that are out there are just like, oh yeah, no, we'll get to it. You know, we'll get there, you'll see. And it's just like these vague responses, and I think that's become a thing of, of. Beyond just ss e o, but you and I are, are in that space more so just marketing in general is these constant sales bros of it's yell loud or talk louder or be flashier. Mm-hmm. And the emotions overtake the sales process. And then it doesn't matter, like right before we hit record, I was telling you about somebody that we're working with and they're killing it and the data shows they're killing it. But a, a sales bro got in their ear about, Hey, you need to be louder and flashier, and they're tearing it all down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The sales bross are focused on collecting the money. I. They'll make huge promises. They're, they don't even know whether they can hit those promises 'cause they're not operators. The fact that you are posting screenshots, of course you're masking out like the client name and the keywords and all that, but showing the increase in traffic and sales, not just ranking on more keywords. 'cause you can rank on a bunch of garbage keywords and claim victory. Yeah. We need more people doing what you're doing and actually teaching the techniques. Not that these clients wanna learn how to, you know, who wants to learn how to change a transmission or, but at least if you know that that guy who is an actual mechanic is posting videos of him as he's, you know, working on the transmission and got grease on his hands as he's working on the car. There's a lot more trust there and especially if the mechanic shows what they're doing, right? I'd love to, you know when, when you go to a car or uh, you know the dealership and something's wrong with the car, they're gonna give you an itemized list. Of the things that are broken and what, and therefore the toll and you know, maybe the dealership will still overcharge you, but at least you know what they're doing, right? Yeah. If you're buying a new car or not a new car. So Damon, let's say you're buying a, a car off of whatever, like Facebook marketplace and the guy says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always been in the garage the whole time and never been driven. And you see it's got 150,000 miles on it. I don't know if that's exactly true. Oh, it's, it's never been in a crash, really. I don't know. It just looks like some of these. Here don't look like they were the original parts. Are you sure? Oh yeah. It's brand new. You know, it's, it, I don't trust, I just hate to be cynical. I don't trust what other people have to say. So if you're gonna buy a car, Damon from somebody, third party, are you just gonna take what that guy says or are you gonna have a mechanic check it out real quick? Yeah. You, you're, you're doing the equivalent of an audit. Yeah. So I, you know, audits take two minutes. In two minutes we can spot all kinds of garbage. That you and I know, like buying a bunch of fake links or most commonly having done nothing. Yeah. And letting the, especially in a service-based business, letting the G M B and the reviews that are actually done by the client carry the weight and claiming credit for that. Yeah. How dare you claim credit for something the client did? Yeah. And dressing it up as, oh well, Google's algorithm changes all the time and it takes a while and it's a mystery. And I can't tell you our methods 'cause they're proprietary, can't give you access to our systems. I hope you understand. It's such a big secret. I'd have to kill you. Proprietary is one of, if the not top red flag for me, as soon as somebody says that in, in a marketing sales discussion, because we're all using the same dozen or two tools. Mm-hmm. It's just who knows how to use them most efficiently in which combination to deliver on the results. Yeah. If any that you have mapped out into SOPs, Can you imagine if you ask a mechanic, so you're fixing my transmission. What tools are you using? Oh, it's prop tools. Using wrenches are secret. Yeah, yeah, I can understand if you're like Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookies, but even they put their recipe out there as like a, a campaign to try to, you know, what was like a gorilla campaign? 'cause they, they planted that thing to try to make it popular. But I flew back from LA yesterday to Vegas and the pilot greeted me. I always liked to just have a quick chat with the pilot if I'm the last one on the plane. And can you imagine asking the pilot, so, um, How did you learn how to fly? A 7 27? And he says, oh, it's a secret. I can't tell you. It's super proprietary. No, there's flight training manuals and all that kind of stuff out there. It's, it's public. In any field. If you're a doctor, hey, you're a heart surgeon and you're gonna do heart surgery on me, what scalpels are you using? Hell yeah. Super proprietary, the scalpel and you know, it's the scalpel that I use. It's, you know what, you could be a heart surgeon too. If you pay me $10,000 and sign up for my weekend course. I'll teach you how you can be a heart surgeon just in a weekend, because I'm also gonna give you access to my proprietary scalpels. It's the skill of who's using the scalpel. It's the, do you remember Mars Blackman and the Air Jordan campaigns? I think you're old enough to remember that. Uh, I never got in the shoes and think that, but that's No. Uh, but it, but so they had Air Jordan, you know, Michael Jordan, the most famous basketball player ever, and they were making fun. It was, the commercials back in the eighties were hilarious. Mm-hmm. That Mars Blackman, who was Spike Lee would say, it's the shoes. It's the shoes. Got the shoes, Uhhuh. You could jump as high as Michael Jordan and hit your head on the rim, right? Yep. So do you think if I switched from Adidas to Nike that I'd all of a sudden be a better basketball player, do you think If like me doing ss e o, if I just switched from my primary tool to, you know, the proprietary ones or Majestic or Hfss or SEMrush, like, do you think that would matter? No, it's all the same data. There's no proprietary, like you said. Yeah, it's, it's your skill. The other red flag for me is guarantees and, and my position on gu. Sure, they sound lovely. I get why they're attractive, uh, attractive to the consumer and attractive to sell. Um, and, and, and in some forms of marketing, maybe there's guarantees. But in s e o there, there's so many abstract variables and, and wildcard that you should be able to communicate why they're variable in a wildcard and also communicate. Why you can't offer a guarantee on it. What you can do though, is you can communicate averages and expectations. Mm-hmm. You know, you can't guarantee you're gonna be on page one in 10 months, but you could say on average it's 12 months or whatever, give or take. You can talk about the home runs that took four months. But to me it's a huge red flag. It it's a sales guy. Anytime I hear somebody saying there's a guarantee. As you talked earlier, it's the guy doing the sales and not the person actually doing the fulfillment and the guarantee in our space, what, what you and I are doing, it's competitive SS e o. So for us to move from position five to position one, that means we have to get ahead of those other four guys. So we, we can't, we. Guarantee what those other four people are doing. Yeah, we can, we can guarantee our effort level, we can guarantee higher r o i because we can focus where there's less competition or where there's more bang for the buck by going, by changing our strategy. Yeah. But we can't guarantee number one on Google for city name, you know, plumbing or whatever it is. Real estate city name. Yeah. Well, let's talk to, um, Let's talk to the aspiring agency owner and how they can avoid being part of our future discussions and how to approach. You do not want me writing an article about you in that I love writing articles about people, and they're either very positive, which is 99% of the time, like I love Uplifting You, Damon. And then there's the 1% of the people that are outright scamming 'cause A, they're not delivering, and B, they know it. There's a lot of people that are unintentionally ignorant. And this is the advice that we're giving agency owners right now. You wanna take care of your clients. You recognize there's a lot of stuff that you'll never know as much as Damon Burton, but there's certain things you do need to know. You've gotta learn the basic tools to see that rankings turn into traffic. That turn into sales. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you just generate, so there's one personal injury client that they were paying this guy. His name sounds like a whiskey. His first name is Jason. You can maybe figure out who it is. And he was charging this personal injury attorney $70,000 a month. And what he did was upload a dictionary to the site on how do you get a commercial truck driving licenses. So they, you know, attorneys, they want truck driving cases. 'cause those are million dollar cases versus like fender-bender ones, right? They really want the truck driving cases. So, This guy was ranking on all these, these truck driving terms, but they're all like, how do, what are the, you know, how long does it take to get a commercial truck, uh, driving license? And what is a C D L? And none of them had the intent of someone who got hit by a truck. Yeah. And this guy that was charging $70,000 a month, what he did was he was, he was creating 200 garbagey posts in a glossary every month. I told you about this one. Mm-hmm. We talked about this before. Yeah. And. The client who's wealthy and has made, you know, over a billion dollars, didn't know any better, but he suspect it's, you know, these guys are not dumb, but they don't know about s e o. They're real smart and they, like, you don't wanna try to pull the wool over. Just because they don't know about SS e o doesn't mean they're dumb. Okay. They're, they can kind of, they're busy. Yeah. They're, they're good at the thing that they do, and you're good at the thing you do, and I get that, but, So this guy Jason was claiming, look at all the look we're driving, we're ranking on another 2000 keywords. Yeah, but they're all garbage. And I looked inside the analytics and there is no more phone calls and no more cases being driven off of this s e o. All the cases from a search engine organic search standpoint, we're coming on. People searching for the client's name. This, this client is on TV, billboards. He has more billboards in Kentucky than anyone else. He's all over the place, right? So they Google his name and, and then this s e o guy was claiming credit for this guy's TV ads and billboards. So my number one thing for people that your agency owners and your, you know, you need to offer, you can't just offer Facebook ads 'cause then you have a 90 day churn. That's just unfortunate, right? Mm-hmm. You can't offer social media by itself unless you just wanna churn it out. You have to offer s e o, you have to offer some kind of P P C or whatnot to show that you can drive results. But the key is start with the results first. Yeah. Don't talk about all the s e o, whatever. Start with you need more cases, you need more clients, you need more book jobs, you need more phone calls. And that comes from people that. Come to our website because they search on these certain keywords and here's the competition on those keywords. So most of these s e o people, they use the s e O tools that you and I know that generate that auto, generate these reports and put the agency's name on them, right? Mm-hmm. Because why wouldn't, why wouldn't I wanna use these different tools that just send out reports to make it look like there's work being done? Mm-hmm. But that's not work that's being done. It's just showing rankings that go up and down. Hopefully the numbers are going up every month and if the business is doing well and they're taking care of their customers, even if you do nothing from an ss e o standpoint, those s e o numbers will go up, won't they? Yeah. So don't rely upon rankings. Rankings are nothing compared to traffic. And traffic is nothing compared to sales. 'cause even if you drive more traffic, this one personal injury attorney was, was driving an extra, I forgot the number, but two or 3000 visits a month to their website. People that were looking to become truck drivers. Yeah. And then that pollutes our remarketing audiences. 'cause we pay to remarket against people who come to the site. Right. 'cause all of those could be cases. So we're remarketing everywhere. 'cause of the pixels. Yeah. So s e o start, it sounds fundamental and it doesn't matter if you do Facebook ads or website building or email. Start with the client's goal and what that's worth and then trace it back to what you do. Yeah. Like there's one client, they're a big personal injury. Firm for some reason. We got a lot of these PIs and they're spending 1.7 million a month on Google ads. Yeah. And they're also doing SS e o. They're using Ben Fisher for L S a I love Ben. They're using Steve Wedeman for SS e o I love Steve. And there's more calls that are coming in. The firm has been growing, but they couldn't figure out where this. Cases were coming from because there's 10 different systems that have to be tied together. Hmm. And sometimes the in, in CallRail or, or RingCentral, we can automatically append where that call came from. But sometimes we have to ask 'em. And a lot of what we call digital plumbing wasn't in place 'cause, you know, multiple LSAs and a different website for P P C versus one for the main firm for different reasons. So we had to tie all this stuff together and it was only last week. Outta this firm's 15, 20 years. It's only last week that for the first time we're able to see Marketing Source. So if you're the agency, you've gotta be able to show that what you are doing goes all the way down to the bottom line where there's sales. And that means you often have to go into the call rail or into their C R M or whatnot. What percent of the time Damon are SS e o agencies going all the way down to see that there was a sale that was occurring. And or do you think that's important? I think it's important, but not, you know, most people don't, uh, almost never. It's, it's mind boggling to me when I get on, uh, a lead call and they're with an agency already, and I ask them for basic stuff. What, what are you currently targeting? What's been done today? And. I for, I'm 17 years into doing this and it still blows my mind like the first time. Every time when their reply is, I don't know what we're targeting. I'm like, okay, well what have they done to date? I don't know what we've done to date. They just send me these flashy reports every month that said they did something. It is surprisingly, the majority of the time, and I can't wrap, you know, I have such a hard time with this because even though I see it so often, I can't put myself in that position to rationalize that approach. And so it's such a, it's like a twilight zone to me because I can't, I can't relate to it whatsoever. Yeah. There's so many scams. I wrote an article like 15 years ago and I think it was something along the lines of, I mean we could Google it to find it, but you know how to, how to sell ss e o and I basically, it was a joke 'cause it was revealing the techniques and I said, you know, the best way. To win a client. 'cause these guys are all, all the sales bros are all about selling, selling, selling, right? They don't care about delivery. They just wanna sell. So I'm like, okay, you wanna sell? Here's the easiest way to sell. Before you go into that sales meeting, put up a blog post on a site that at least has a little bit of juice. Like hopefully you have a blog that has some amount of trust and ha optimize it for a long tail keyword. So let's say that this is, uh, you're talking to a. Veterinarian. So then write a blog post that ranks for Boulder, Colorado, golden Retriever, toenail clipping tips. Mm. Right. How difficult do you think that would be? Yeah, not at all. You were difficult to zero, right? Yeah. So write a blog post, make a video about it, rank for it, and then go in there. And say, yeah, you know, with S E O I even came prepared and I know you're a veterinarian. Go ahead and go into Google right now on your computer, on your phone and search Golden Retriever toenail clipping tips. Boulder, Colorado, and like, oh look, we're number one. See? Yeah. Then if that doesn't work, 'cause sometimes it doesn't work, you know, sometimes whatever, sometimes your site has no power. Then buy that on Google. Buy that keyword on Google and Geotarget just to Boulder, Colorado on golden retriever, toenail clipping tips. Exact match, right? And put a dollar a day on that campaign and say, go ahead and search. And then you could, ideally, they do a search on it and they see your ad and they see that you rank number one on that. That's fantastic. That's so funny. Yeah, because it's especially with local like you and I know with local, we're not talking about national golden retriever, toenail clipping tips. We're saying in Boulder, Colorado. How many other people are writing articles about Golden retriever toenail clipping tips? No one. Yeah, no one. So with SS e o, I think so. To be clear, I know it's easy to rag on these ss e o people 'cause it like 95% of it's scam, unfortunately. But here's the good news. You and I know that ranking for local. It's way easier 'cause you only have to beat the other people in Orange County, California that do whatever the thing is. You know, meds, liposuction, orange County and other Santa Ana and Newport Beach. Like that's, that's not competitive, but liposuction, if I like, how much effort would it be to rank on liposuction if I, you know, needed you to, to do that for some reason versus liposuction, small city name. Yeah. Oh, it could, it could be a night and day difference depending on the location. Yeah. 'cause you, you also have to take into consideration the indirect competition. And I think this is something that, um, I don't, I don't really hear a lot of other SEOs talk about. I'm sure plenty of 'em know about it, but I. What this goes into the transparency thing when you're explaining the realistic expectations to your client is you not only have to take into consideration the quantity of results that you're fighting against, but the quality of the big players that are in the way too. I mean, there's so many variables in in which you look at. These results that, um, you know, I don't know where I'm going with this, but I think it's just, at the end of the day, it's, you can't outrun your reputation. Right? And so these, these people that say sells over service, right? And, and just like you said, where it's just, just sell more is, is the solution that won't last forever. And then, and then what are you gonna do? Yeah. Reputation's everything I think. I'd be curious to see if you agree, but I believe that pro-level SS e o is indistinguishable from pr, reputation management, social media, whatever it is, because it's other people that are credible in that particular topic that are talking about you co-creating content like we're doing here. And that's showing up on reputable industry specific websites, not like random websites that happen to be DR. 73. About websites that are authoritative and rank on those keywords in that industry. So if you build those relationships, if you have that expertise and you've done a great job, then your reputation's great and your SEO's great. I don't know how, how someone could have great s e O in a competitive area and not have a great reputation as if me at Google, well, I was at Yahoo, but a lot of my people I trained went to Google as if we couldn't tell. Who is legit and what links were real or not, and if that content was generated by chat PT or you know, if it didn't have, maybe we can't tell if it was autogenerated, but we can certainly tell if it has pieces of experience in there as part of eat. Yeah. You know, you know, maybe what you and I should do is create, um, an ss e o escrow validating company. Oh. I do that all day. Where it's like, you know, we don't want your business, we just want to, you know, we charge a consulting fee to protect you, help vet which your choices are, you know, bring us a three. You're considering, and we'll tell you the pros and cons of all of 'em. There we go. Thanks everybody. I would love to do that. Yeah, that, I mean, I've been doing that for 20 plus years. How many friends have you had coming saying, you know, Hey, you know, can you just like look at my s e o real quick? I, I'm sort of suspicious every day. That's like a, a dude saying, I think my, I think my wife's cheating on me. Do you think like, if they're ha if they're having to ask, I think you know what the answer is, right? Yeah. Every day I had, uh, co comes and goes, uh, in higher quantities, uh, on certain days, but it is nearly, I've had three, it's, we hit record at 1:00 PM today and by 1:00 PM I had three just today that asked me that. Yeah. I've had 35 in the last 10 days. Yeah. Yeah. And it's consistent. Yeah. And I help most people for free. Like there's this one that hit me up literally just 15 minutes ago and I'm looking at their text. Hey Dennis, my name is Chris. I'm a friend of so-and-so. She gave me your number in regards to an SS e o audit I was hoping to get done on a site I'm working on. And then there's some specifics there. I'd love to chat if you're free. Anytime. Yeah, I'll, when we're done, I'll call him back. I'll take a look at the site and in three minutes I'll tell him what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, because you and I are mechanics, we pop open the hood, we take a look, we hook up the diagnostics, and we're like, okay, here's what's actually going on with the car. Why don't we talk about, you know, you, you just made the comment that you'll, you'll usually help 'em for free. Um, as do I. And a lot of times the, the industry will tell you to do otherwise. It's, it's charged. They're sales oriented, and yes, your time is valuable and like, I'm not gonna get on a whole hour call. I'll just do a, a look at a couple quick things and because I think that, I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think s e o is, is now verticalized. It's better to, if, if I know a lot about liposuction, I can do li, I can do ss e o for liposuction, doctors all over the place. I'll just have a competitive advantage over all the other people like. Over people like you and me that are just like good generally, but we also know certain categories. You've been doing 17 years, you know, a number of categories by now. But I think that when people come in and I do a quick audit, like any of us can do this, looking at the basics. Mm-hmm. It's easy to do the analysis. Doing the work is different. I'll pass them to someone that I know, like I'll pass 'em to you. Mm-hmm. Or I'll pass them to someone that's really good in that particular industry for real estate agents. For insurance brokers, for e-commerce, for like whatever, right? And the days when 25 years ago, you, you, you could be a generalist, but I feel like you have to be vertically specific if you really want to be world class. It's, it's literally minutes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, why not? Why put the berry up? Yeah. Literally, you're right. Two minutes I can, I can audit someone at two. And I've done this like we did one last week for the city of San Francisco and the small Business development center, which is this nationwide thing, part of the S B A and people were signing up. We had a whole bunch of people on Zoom and I just did audit after audit after audit. People love doing it. We've been doing it now for 18 months 'cause they started it up in the middle of Covid and we've been doing it every month. It's great. Yeah. Free audits. Why not? Not selling anything, but people say, oh, can you recommend someone to, you know, my website's on Wix. Okay. Go to Upwork and use the job postings that we have on converting and, and here's the job posting. This is my website. It's on Wix. I wanna move to WordPress. Here's another guy's website. Don't copy it exactly. But can you make it like that and host it on WP Engine? And I wanted to meet this other criteria. We have website, we have criteria. You can literally Google it, like website audit checklist, blitz metrics, you'll see. And, and it also has to fit this criteria. How much? $300. Okay, cool. This guy's 95% and has 200 ratings, and his earnings are $200,000. Like he's in Pakistan. Okay, fine. Sure. $300, let's do it. Right? Yeah. And we teach people how to hire VAs and how to hire people in Upwork, in Fiverr. But the data that you get is, is infinitely, it's worth more, more than that. I mean, you're, you're buying so much wisdom in such a compressed amount of time to make a long-term decision. Yeah. And so if it's a, it's a Fortune 500 company, I'll say, okay, it's a power hour, go to blitz metrics.com/powerhour and we have an onboarding process because they don't want just three minutes of my time. I'll give anybody three minutes of my time. 'cause it's just, it's too rude to say no and I'm important or whatever. I'll just give you three minutes of my time. Fine. Right? Mm-hmm. I'll prerecord it so it doesn't require being live. Yep. But if it's a, well, yeah, it's a well-known company, then I'm like, yeah, it's 15 hundreds, nothing for you. Mm-hmm. So we'll do that. And we had one two weeks ago and they bought that and they said, yeah, you know, we really are struggling. Can you help us? The s e o agency is playing games and like, yep. I already know what they're saying. And now we have a large contract. Yeah. So the 1500 led to, it was basically like a paid sales call. Yeah. If you're an agency, know that when you do, when you do it the right way, you just, you provide value, whether it's free or charged, or you know, you will drive more real clients because they trust you. Yep. And, and from my perspective, uh, I've talked about how there's only three types of content consumers. So the, the, and this is why you should give away your, your content for free or, or give your time as as availability permits. So consumer number one is the person that takes your advice and runs. Okay. Well they were never a client anyway, so you didn't lose them, but now you increased your reputation and your reach. Right? And then content consumer number two is somebody that may not need what you offer now, but knows somebody that does or they come back later, or three is they buy. Mm-hmm. So from my perspective, you have no losing reason to not just give away. All the answers for free, right? 'cause I want the person that values time more than money. So if, if they can implement it, I'm happy they made progress with it. Otherwise, you know, we, we, we establish trust, we establish credibility, and then when it makes sense, it, it just eliminates the sales walls. They would've been a horrible client to begin with. So we call those free tarts, right? You're a D I Y, you're gonna try to do it yourself. Save every penny. You know, you go and get your own groceries. I have the freaking ghost groceries delivered to me from Costco. I'm not gonna be a driver of like, I, you know, so those pe you give away your information for free because you don't want those kinds of clients to come to you. 'cause they're just gonna complain. They're nightmare clients. They're gonna, they're cheap. You know, you all. But I can get that for way less from the Philippines. Yeah, you go do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I think you and I could talk indefinitely, um, about a variety of things, especially this in this, this topic of the industry. Um, now, now as we get kind of closer to wrapping up, let's, let's kinda take the opposite approach. Um, so we've kind of, we've kind of beat up on our own industry a little bit. Um, let's, let's kinda help the aspiring, um, Agency owners with some, some wins, right? So we've said, don't do these things, which I guess imply the opposite of do these other things. But, um, you know, how did you start to build up your reputation? How did you start to get your foot in the door? How did you start to earn the trust of people? So we can kind of maybe end with a couple little tips there on the high note. So I believe that, you know, when I was a, a young adult and I. I didn't even speak English, you know, until I was seven. I always felt that I wasn't good enough and I felt that all these other people were so much bigger and better than me. And I remember going to Pubcon and Kevin Lee of did it was speaking. And this guy started analytics company. He's well known in the world of SS e o, and I thought, wow, this guy's like a God. I would love to be able to do SS e o and all this, but I don't think I'm like him. He's so well spoken and just everything about him. I just worshiped this guy. Now, I was an engineer at Yahoo and I was a great engineer, but I didn't know how to communicate and. I didn't know if I could make promises to the client. 'cause you know, I wanted to make money as an agency 'cause on my way, you know, as I was about, about to leave Yahoo. And, but I didn't, you know, I knew I'd work really hard and I knew I was honest and ethical, but I, I, I didn't wanna go out there and just start making promises 'cause there's a chance I couldn't deliver. So, you know, I would tend to not say anything or tend to not. I put myself out there 'cause I thought all these other people are out there just aggressive, fast talking salespeople didn't wanna be like that. 'cause I heard so much the garbage, like what we talked about. And then I realized, you know, there are clients, if you find the right clients that they will, it's like night and day. So when we had Quiznos as a client, Hmm. They were a fantastic client. They weren't the nightmare where they're, every day they're like checking their rankings and asking what's going on. And they paid us a lot of money, and I find that if you're an aspiring s e o and you're growing, it's yes, obviously learn from people like Damon and keep improving and work hard and have great operations and all that stuff, but I think client selection is the most important part. When you have the right client and you're transparent with them and you have a relationship with them, and you, you, you go out to dinner with them, maybe if you could meet them, right? It's just so much better and it results in retention and you feel good about what you're doing. And then you have 'em on your podcast as you start to have results and they love to talk about you. Like we did this for the Golden State Warriors, the basketball team. And I loved working with the Golden State Warriors. They treated us so well. I got to meet Steph Curry and hang out in the locker room and go to the playoff games. They paid us a lot of money. And here's the, the thing that may seem too far away for most younger ss, e o people, I put them on stage. I was given the opportunity to speak, to be a keynote speaker at one of the largest conferences in Europe. The last year's keynote was Richard Branson. And they wanted me to be keynote, and I said, no, no. Instead of me being the keynote, I wanna put the head of marketing from the Golden State Warriors, the very popular basketball team as the keynote, and I'll introduce 'em. Right? And that worked wonders. There was a case study that was done by Facebook on us. So your reputation carries everything. The relationships that you have, interviewing your clients, interviewing other people that are competitors, you know, maybe Damon or I are competitors. Not really. 'cause there's plenty out there for all of us. So by having the abundance mindset that enables us to be able to share what we've learned and elevate other people like, wow, Damon just wrote this great article. I'm gonna share it. I don't if he generates more clients because of that, that is fantastic. It doesn't have to come to me. Most of my posts that I put out there on Facebook are elevating other people and how awesome they are. I think that's hard to do if you're small and you're not making money. You're like, oh, I want every dollar that comes my way 'cause I need every penny to pay rent and whatnot. I get it. But if you change your mindset, this is the last I'll say about this whole like motivational speaker walk on Kohl's, Tony Robbins kind of thing. But I found if, and I wish I knew this 20 years ago, that. If I spent more effort honoring and elevating other people in the industry that will drive me more of the right kind of clients that I want, even without me talking about my expertise or what I know or how good I am. I closed five clients last week on SS e o pieces because I was elevating, you can go back to my Facebook mm-hmm. And figure out what it was. But by elevating other people that are well-known. Industry. I interviewed yesterday on my podcast, one of the top content marketing experts, and she's a big deal at LinkedIn that's driving my reputation up. People buy based on your reputation. It's all based on your perceived authority. That's why clients buy if you're a sales minded person. The perceived authority gives you the opportunity to get the right client. And then, like you said, Damon, those three, three categories, when you do the audit, figure out which one they are. Mm-hmm. And if they're great, then you have to deliver. As long as you can deliver, then you're great. Right? And so I approached from the standpoint of I learned how to deliver first as a search engine engineer. So I feel like Damon, I'm credible to talk about ss e o 'cause I'm one of the few people that actually worked at the search engine and you know, like I have a good opinion about this thing. I have some credibility here. And so now it's easy for me to audit. It's, I've done this enough times, I've learned from, from other people. So I would hang out in, in like London. Singapore with Rand Fishkin and his mom, Jillian, who's the one who's really running the show. Mm-hmm. And you know, we're putting together s e o presentations, we're hanging out with the conference organizers, and I realized these are these people that I thought were gods, were humans too. Kevin Lee, who I told you was the guy I worshiped before he, he invited me on his podcast twice. And I said, I said to him on the podcast, I can't believe you can even Google it. And see, this is what I said. I can't believe I'm on, I'm hanging out with you, Kevin. I mean, this is a guy, like when you were done speaking on stage and then all the people would come up to you, I, and I'd never get a chance to talk to you like, oh, one day I'd love to talk to Kevin Lee. And here I, here you are reaching out to me to be on your podcast. What the heck is going on here? He said, no, no, no, Dennis, I'm just honored to be spending time with you. And then he said all these great things about me. And I said, this is being recorded, isn't it? Yeah. But maybe, you know, if you're doing ss e o and, and you feel like you don't know as much as Damon or whatnot, you know, sometimes you, you have to step back and look at how much you know. So when you interview someone or someone else interviews you, you realize like, oh wow. I actually have come a long way. I've actually learned a lot. That puts you in a, in a position of gratitude and you honor your clients and you're not worried about poaching, you're not worried about other people that do s e o I help other people that do s e o for a living. I'm, you do that too, Damon. Mm-hmm. Does that hurt your business at all in any way? Not at all. It helps your business. So we have a lot of clients do that. We do s e o for, and still I'm talking about Damon and I'm sending people to Damon and it doesn't hurt me at all. Yeah. And, and it, it only, it only helps. And, and when Dennis says he, 90% of his posts are about lifting other people up. He, he's very literal. It's. Probably 90% or, or plus. And it's just, you know, it's not necessarily contact creation, but documentation of Yeah. What you're doing and the engagements and the people that you're connecting with. Um, and, and I actually just made a post on LinkedIn this morning about, um, on the same topic, there's somebody who I've been mentoring and. I send them business. Right? Yeah. Because then it helps the the person that I connected them with to finally get somebody that can support them morally and ethically, and then it helps a young aspiring entrepreneur to build their business up and then they're going to reciprocate the other way when, when it's a client that's a little bit outta their league. Yeah, but it's a, it's amazing to watch for, for me, the, the part that I find most fascinating, obviously, yeah, sales is great. Um, growing is great, but the Wild Card is, is always what I find the most fascinating and rewarding, where you get a relationship that you didn't expect or an opportunity to, to meet or do a thing. You know, just like you said, you, you got to go, um, in the locker room, meet Steph Curry, just like those things that. You, you didn't have on your to-do list. But then when it happened, it was such an amazing thing. That's what I find the most rewarding about serving and helping others and, and just being moral and transparent. Yeah, serendipity. And you build these relationships over time and they start to unlock other things. And in finance, this is called a, a real option. So by having the Golden State Warriors as a client, we then were able to work with the N F L. Yeah, and the N B A and all these other sports teams came calling, and I never would've realized. I guess in hindsight it's like, well, yeah, obviously you're promoting how awesome the Golden State Warriors are. Facebook wrote a case study. Mark Zuckerberg mentions you on stage, you know, and how we got a 39 r every dollar got $39 back of what we invested. Of course that would've happened, but you never at, in the moment, you're not thinking about that. Mm-hmm. So really when you, when you have great relationships that for you young s e o people focus on the relationships, focus, make sure your communication is great. The ss e o people have a reputation for being geeks that don't communicate. Be personable. You, you sent me some cookies, Damon. Wow, that was so awesome that that was serendipitous. I enjoyed that. And that that's just building relationship. Checking in on people, clicking like on their posts and delivering great work leads to so much more. The referrals that you get from your existing clients are worth more than any marketing you could ever do. You do a good job of that. You never need to do marketing. Uh, I, I'm 17 years in and this is the first year I've considered spending a dollar on advertising. So the entirety of this multimillion dollar business has built, uh, purely on reputation and results because you've earned it. You have the perceived authority and you have the actual authority. Yeah. Well, Dennis, um, I appreciate, uh, that I, I just love talking to you. You got a good vibe. Um, it's good to be in company with somebody else who's transparent and straightforward. Um, I did not pay Dennis to say kind things about me, but I greatly appreciate them. Are you giving me a commission at all? No, I, because 'cause I believe in you. Yeah. And you've, you've taken the effort and I've taken the effort to build the relationship over years and people can tell. Yep. Yeah. And then once you get in, as you just started talking about with Golden State Warriors and then other professional sports teams, when you get in with somebody, you know, I'm not gonna refer anybody to somebody that I won't put my name behind. And I'm sure you feel the same way, right? Yep. And so when you get in and you establish these relationships with people at high level, they, they have a, a. A, a circle of trust, right. That you get exposed to once you establish your authority and your ability to deliver. So, I mean, there's so many different, to kind of wrap this up on the, the thing of, you know, you can't outrun your reputation and you can't outsell your reputation. You can probably get pretty far in the beginning by focusing on sales and not reputation. Yeah. Uh, but eventually you hit that. Amplifier of, of reputation where it begins to go tenfold times tenfold, times tenfold. That you couldn't spend, I mean, you couldn't have bought your way into a relationship with the Golden State Warriors. No. Because they get three calls a day from people that are offering ss, e o, and P p C and all kinds of magic promises. Yeah. You know, funny. Um, I got to work with, uh, Utah Jazz on their retail division, team store. Same thing. Came from a relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're, if you're a player in the game, you wanna be here long term, focus on relationships. If you just wanna make some quick money now focus on sales, but you'll, you'll be run out and then whatever the next new thing is, you'll do that in a year or two. But if you wanna be like Damon relationships all day, I know like people say that all day, but I, I promise you that's the thing. It's not sales calls. It's not the cold email. Magic blasting using ai. That's not it. Yeah, Dennis, you blitz metrics. Uh, how can people get ahold of you, learn more about you? They can Google me and they can see a full knowledge panel and whatever your favorite channel is, and I respond to everybody. It's not a va, it's me. It might take me a few days, but I, you know, LinkedIn's probably the best way to reach me from a business standpoint. Well, Dennis, you blitz metrics, Google m Dennis, last name, y u. It's been a pleasure looking forward to meeting up again and doing our thing wherever that is next time. Awesome Damon. Appreciate you

Today's guest is an award-winning, internationally recognized personal investing and wealth management expert. This former electrical engineer is on a mission to help 1 million moms take control of their financial future with her movement called Invest Diva. Please welcome Kiana Danial. https://investdiva.com/ https://www.instagram.com/investdiva/ https://www.facebook.com/KianaDanial https://www.tiktok.com/@kianadanial https://www.youtube.com/@InvestDiva https://twitter.com/InvestDiva https://www.linkedin.com/company/investdiva-com/  

Today's guest is the Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech and the Director of STEM Education Strategy at Google. Hear his story when he witnessed someone with a broken arm screwed to a board to set it instead of a cast opened his perspective to the differences in economies and education, and that set him in motion to aim to make a difference where he could. As the first generation in his family born in America, to Guyana immigrants, his work focuses on building an equitable approach to computing education as a cornerstone of modern citizenship, to support opportunities in education for all. Please welcome Kamau Bobb. https://www.kamaubobb.com https://twitter.com/kamaubobb https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbobb/  

Today's guest had a massive success with his very first business. But opportunity can come at a cost. Listen as he shares with you the awesome journey of entrepreneurship with a realistic view of what to expect with rapid growth. Please welcome Chris Michael Harris. 02.03.54 How Startup U Podcast Started 06.45.35 Entrepreneurial Journey 19.31.68 About the Learning Curve 32.35.59 Website's Name 33.10.78 A Favor: The Two Things You Must Do Contact Info: https://chrismichaelharris.com https://instagram.com/heychm https://twitter.com/heycmh   Today's guest had a massive success with his very first business, but opportunity can come at a cost. Listen, as he shares with you, the awesome journey of entrepreneurship with a realistic view of what to expect with rapid growth, please welcome Chris Michael Harris, you are ready to grow your business, and I love helping entrepreneurs find success. So let's do this. I'm Damon Burton, Forbes contributor, author of the search engine optimization book, outrank and president of SEO National. I've been featured on Forbes, entrepreneur and hundreds of websites and podcasts for helping big businesses grow bigger and make more money by showing up higher on search engines, including shark tank, featured businesses, NBA teams, and Inc 5,000 companies. I'm bringing my successful network to you here@learningfromothers.com. Whether success to you means financial freedom, freedom of time or freedom of the soul. We're in this together. Welcome to the learning from others podcast. Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com today. Chris, Michael Harris, welcome learning from others. Good to meet you. Hey man. Great to meet you. Hey, so before we hit record, he said, uh, you know, you recognized a couple other people we've chatted with and, uh, I think that's kind of something interesting that you find when you kind of dive into the podcast world, regardless of which side of the mic you're on. I think it's called that you can run into. there's so much opportunity and there's so many people out there, but you kind of realize it's, uh, it's its own little world too. Yeah. Especially when you like really niche down to entrepreneurship, you see a lot of the same names and faces kind of popping up. It's interesting. Cause like we have our own little world, but yet we have the people that kind of continue to pop up in that world. So yeah, it was interesting to see a lot of the folks in there that I write. Yeah, I appreciate you jumping on. So, you know, the drill two questions, question number one is who are you and why are we listening to today? All right, well, I am the founder of StartUpU, you and the host of StartUpU podcast started UTV, uh, and that all kind of came to be because I had early success with my first venture when my, uh, my brother and I decided to launch a little side hustle. And that evolved into a multi-million dollar company within the next 36 months. By the time I was in my mid twenties and realized throughout that process, wow. They didn't teach me like how to do this. And despite the fact that I was at a very notable school university of Georgia go dogs by the way, national champions and right now, um, yeah, I just feel like there was so little application, both in life and formal education, not to disparage those, but that actually applied to running a business, especially when it was growing as quickly as we can. From year one to year two 48,000 to $500,000. I mean, it's ramping growth, right? Not no funding whatsoever. And so I kind of had this vision of what I would do after that, that business. And it really revolved around education. It really evolved around, I can't build every single business, but I can help people and indirectly create a lot of businesses. Uh, and so that's what we've kind of started to work on with startup you, and as we continue to serve people in the online space, both in all animals. Uh, that's the, there's a big vision as far as what we can accomplish doing that. Well, I want to dig into that entrepreneurial journey. Uh, but not until I ask you a question number two, which is why do you suck at dude? I suck so bad at feeling like I don't have to insert myself into bloody everything. Uh, I, I I'm just so some of us are just so type a, we just can't freaking take a chill pill. And sometimes I get myself in trouble and get a little distracted, uh, probably is the best way to say it by just literally feeling like I have to like, not just do something, but like I joke with a buddy of mine this morning literally is why it's so relevant. I'm like, I feel like I have to assemble the damn Avengers with everything, with everything I'm doing in my life. Like, I can't let anybody take the lead. Like I have to be, you know, the driving force of it and it drives me nuts. So I'm really bad about that. So it's in business. Business and business, personal family, everybody's health around me. I mean, it's just like, don't take me to the grocery store. I'll tell you everything you want to know about human health and wellness and optimization and what you should eat. Shouldn't eat. And it's like, bro, some people just trying to eat and enjoy their food. They don't want you analyze their label for them. And that's what I do. I'm I am a food Nazi for sure. Did you realize this? Was it? When did you become aware of this problem? My whole life. So, so you've known about it. There wasn't like a tipping point where you're like, oh, damn, I need that. I think, I think there's a more recent revelation in terms of how problematic it was. Like. Like a more of a, this is actually a detriment it's not serving you kind of thing. Right. And I think also there was a lot of underlying frustrations that have been there for a long time, but not necessarily cognizant to me to address it as a real problem that it is right. It's kinda looked at it as like me being the overachiever and everything that I do. And I kind of like staked my claim on that. Like, yeah. But then as you get older and wiser, and I think entrepreneurship really does that to you, you kind of realized that you need to pick and choose your spots a little bit more strategically and the best that's what they do, right? The best of the best. That's what they do. And so I'm, I'm I always tell us, I have acquired a lot of knowledge now. I'm like, let's acquire some wisdom. Let's get that. Like John C. Maxwell wisdom going on, like that's my that's kind of the season of life that I'm in. Yeah. Let's I mean, I think this is where it's digging into a little bit more, um, you're right. Like you learn, uh, you learn a lot, but then you also learn that not everybody cares and the part that's, the part that's frustrating for me is, um, is when people ask, you know, when, when they go, Chris, I know you've accomplished a lot of things. How did you do it? Or Chris? I know you've been through this, you know, gave me some pointers and then. You feel compelled to help them because when you find success, if you want to bring other stuff with you, but the part for me that's frustrating is when you're in that scenario, when somebody asks for it and then they don't take action on it drives me insane. Yep. Totally agree. All right. So let's talk about the first venture. Um, w what did you say? The figures where you do. Yeah. So we went from launch from college department to we at one point to within 36 months, no funding. It was a, it was a residential moving service for college students during the transitional summer months and evolved into doing furniture installation for college apartments. So we kind of did a, we were kind of on both sides. We had a commercial on a residential division. And how long ago did this? Let's see, that was, I finished. So 11 was when it was a side hustle. 12 was full time. 13 was half mil, 14 was 1.2. So it was a good, yeah. Okay. Has that jaded you having success the first round of you run into, you know, cause I think that's where we're going to want to talk about next is like the entrepreneurial journey and um, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of saying that. So entrepreneurial success was locked, right? Because I think the majority of people work really hard at it, but having such a great success, um, round number one, you know, did you walk into venture number 2, 3, 4, or whatever point, and then look back and go, this one wasn't as successful or as quickly successful. So what's different this time question. Um, so it was definitely a fail forward situation. Let me be crystal clear about that because I think a lot of people here. Revenue numbers. And they immediately think like, oh man, like he's just a hot shot. Maverick business owner, entrepreneur, like just with kit. And it's like, no, no, no. I got my ass kicked. I did, um, I got, I just, I accelerated the process and we were very blessed to be in the right place. Right time. But don't dismiss. We worked very hard to achieve what we did, right. There was just a, but to dismiss how hard I suffered, how much and how hard I struggled and suffered throughout that process, uh, there was a starvation period, but then there was like a keeping up with growth struggle. And I was in really bad shape for a long time. Like my 2014 brutal. I spent 95% of my time managing cashflow because now we're working with big companies that installation work. I told you about those manufacturers that were giving us those. They're passing their, their revenue lag on to us, right? Like their cashflow management was we had to deal with because we're the last link in the chain, there was the actual manufacturer of the product. And there was the furniture supplier who we worked with. And then there was us and all of them were trying to manage their cashflow. Well guess why? At one point I was at $443,000 in 2014, when I made one, two. It's kind of hard to make payroll when you don't have, when you're not that liquid at that point when you're still so young and the banks at that point, I think they've gone a little bit better now. They won't give you a line of credit or even a credit card until you're, well-established in the world until you're a big boy and you've shown that you can manage things, but it's kinda like when you, when you first start driving a car, they don't trust you. Insurance companies don't trust you yet until you've got a proven track record. It's no different than that. Even if you show rampant. And I've got some pretty funny stories around that with the banks and stuff like that. But I really sabotage my personal credit to get that business off the ground. So like getting even a credit card, two, three years later, even though I had the proven revenues, my, my personal credit hadn't recovered. And so it was a really tough kind of situation to kind of get out of that or whatever. But, so I want to make sure that's known because I think a lot of people hear these stories and people don't, people don't tell you what it took to do that they just tell you the sunny day scenario in revenue is only one part of the growth equation. So make sure people know. Um, not you, I'm not, I'm not getting the instruction by the way. I'm just saying people listening, please. Sorry. I'm not like I was I apologize. Um, but what I realized thereafter, there are a couple of things. One don't take growth for granted. It's it's it lightening sometimes as cotton a bottle. However, the way that you maximize the probability to catch lightning in a bottle, there is a formulaic process you go through, not again. But there is a more formulaic process that you go through. Um, I think a lot of people lean into their business venture with a gut, feel about what they're doing. Maybe it's a cute and clever idea that they have, but they don't really analyze the market. They don't analyze the, the, the need in the market. Who's underserved. And, and so what I've done is try to take a more scientific approach. I call it the science of. Um, and I already bought the URL to write the book by the way. So I was thinking about doing that. I already beat you to the punch, uh, but I, but I really have kind of tried to craft the science of startups, taking all the intangibles or as many as we possibly can. Right. The failure rate in entrepreneurship is so high. I was just reading a statistic. They showed that 70% of businesses that are started will not be around in day. And I would presume that that number is actually quite higher because there's a lot of businesses that start, they never actually register as a business. And so they're just kind of, there's no statistic around that per se. Um, but anyways, if we can somehow kind of massage a little bit further to increase the likelihood of success in relation to what it is right now, that's kind of what my goal has been and learning through. Having other ventures that I thought were just like amazing ideas. Like I was involved with the neuro marketing company. Uh, we were actually using four different layers of biometric tools to actually sense a person's response to a marketing stimuli. So not that sounded like really complicated. It's really not basically we're, we're analyzing, we're analyzing brainwaves, we're analyzing what's called galvanic skin response. So we can, we can sense like how you're actually responding to something with the intensity that you're responding to it. So we were testing this on McDonald's with their, where their kiosks. Yeah, it's all in person, right? So you have somebody go in and have all these gadgets attached to them. And what it's doing is we have, we can measure how much they, well, first, if they like something or if they did it, or if they were confused. So if they went, try to order off a kiosk, McDonald's was concerned. People are not gonna to use this because it's going to be complicated, confusing versus ordering from an actual person when you go into a McDonald's. Right. So this would effectively allow you to come in order. They could cut down on that expense and like, they would just run more autonomously. The store would, right. I was like, this is a home run is a slam. Completely flopped on his face. And there was a large clever flopped on his face. Um, and there was a reason for that because we didn't analyze the market. We didn't analyze that first. We ran into this cute idea. We didn't know. I was like, is this something people actually really want that's better than the current solution that's out there. And the answer was no. And so we got nowhere with it, even though I thought it was like, this is a billion dollar idea. Oh my God. I'm so excited about it. Got it. So the, the research FOC or the kiosk as a whole flop, the kiosk is still a thing that's happening, which is actually kinda interesting, kind of a gross anecdote here, but they were testing it in Europe and they found that like every single one of them had fecal matter on it, which is disgusting. It's okay. So this is funny conversation because. I agree with kiosk that they're going to continue to proceed. But even me, I would consider myself a relatively smart person. And especially where I go through the methodical internal dialogue where I'm like, oh, what's the marketing scenario behind them using kiosks. And you know, what do the AB tests and things like that. And I still run into. User experience issues with those. And so it's interesting to see that such a, you know, cause I knew that, uh, somebody did some research and some process went behind it, but it's amazing something so simplistic in nature, which is just take your order. Um, yeah, no. So decide now, but you know, this whole comment is definitely not to go down. Discussion of COVID, but what's interesting is with all these plexiglass things and all that everywhere, that's the first thing that I think of is now it just as this wall that captures everything and it just sits there. Everything's now touch and do it yourself and walls. And I just, every time I see it, I just think of how much stuff is just there. It's great. Um, all right. Um, I want to talk about, go back to credit. So you talked about, um, you know, growth and managing payroll and things like that. And liquidity did you have to, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize how, just like you said, everybody looks at the sunny, the sunny side of growth and they don't realize the pain and managing cashflow. And then specifically you mentioned in credit. You can grow too fast to where it shoots you in the foot. And then I'm curious if you had it, you had briefly commented in passing on personal credit. So did you have to personally guarantee a lot of the credit lines to support the business? Well, so that, that's what I'm, that's what I could not get even get approved for because I, so I went to bank of America when I was starting this business. And we had like, uh, you know, we had done it as a summer kind of side gig in college and had proven think we made like $12,000 and, you know, whatever, like it was north of 10 grand, right. So we'd already proven we can make money. So I go to bank of America where I banked and the, the regional vice president of small business division at bank of America was like, Hey, Nobody's given out credit cards or loans to small businesses to startups, there's just not. So go use your, your personal credit. And then when you're making some money, then come back and talk to us. So that's what I did. So I put all this stuff on credit cards. Growth took longer than I expected, which I know that sounds really counterintuitive. Cause they just say we grew so fast, but there was a period where like growth this when people realize growth requires. Like just because you say you made $500,000 in revenue doesn't mean you took $500,000 home. I think some people have that. So bastardized this such a distorted view, it's like Elon Musk is worth blah, blah, blah. It's like Elon Musk company is valued at that, but he's not personally walking around with that kind of liquidity, nor is Jeff Bezos. Right? Like, so there's a huge distortion between business revenue, generation, the amount of capital that that's required to continue growing that firm because every step, especially when you're growing. Now you're having to acquire all of the things quickly to facilitate and keep up with that growth. Meaning you're bringing on things you're not taking affordable steps necessarily. So you have to keep up with this massive rampant growth revenue wise. Your profitability is going to suffer because of it more than likely because you're not going to be efficient because you don't have the resources you need yet. Plus now you're bringing in resources like expanding your insurance. Well, guess what? I'm in the involuntary insurance market at that point. Cause I'm a brand new company. My rate for insurance just work comp alone was 33. Meaning every single a hundred dollars I spent in payroll, I'm spending $33 on top of that in work comp, I paid, I paid bloody Liberty mutual way more money than I ever paid myself in that business way more money. So people don't know those things, they don't analyze it, which is why we have such a vanity metric around revenue. And by the time I got to the point where I wanted that credit card, a low margin business, they see that despite the rev. Now I assaulted my personal credit to try to get that business off the ground. And you know, it, even, it took six, eight months to really get good traction, six, eight months of not paying your credit cards, maxed out, hurts your credit pretty bad. And that's exactly what happened so that there was a blemish and it was like, well, yeah, you got the revenues, man, but there's still not a lot to show that you're gonna be able to pay us back because you're not even paying, even pay yourself at this point. So, you know, we really have to Daymond John Thomas when he came on into my show and he said, take affordable steps. And I, that had never resonated with me when he said that I was like, that's what I didn't do. That's what I did not do that. I wish that I had done, there were many times throughout his journey. Um, him specifically in many others that they actually would take a quick pause. Yeah. But he closed down FUBU like three or four times. And because it just like it. Wasn't the race season, or need to go back to the drawing board or like you go, you know, make money elsewhere doing this, doing that. Now here's the deal. Don't get it twisted. I'm not telling you be a habitual professional learner. I'm not telling you up. Shut down. I need to go read a book up, shut down. You need to go take this course, listen to this podcast. That's not what I'm telling you. What I'm telling you is this though, you have to understand the law and respect the learning curve because it is a massive. And so if you've got to slow down and make sure that you've got good footing underneath you, or you've got to make sure that you've got good side hustles in place for, for a period of time, that you can always fall back on if you need to, or if you need to keep that job and do this business on the side, there's a period. You can do that and you need to be full-time in the business. But I would focus on this and somebody told me this and it changed my life forever. Revenue is about vanity profitability is about sanity. I would rather see somebody make a hundred grand and be extremely profitable than fly out of the gates and make a hundred, make half a million dollars. Like we. And have Lola low margins and very little to show for it. That's what I would rather see, like selling his name of the game. I'm not, I don't don't it don't get to, don't get it twisted. That's important, but make sure you're doing it in a healthy way that you can actually be. For a long period of time and it's not going to drive you insane and cause serious health complications like it did for me, like my health spiral, because I just, it was nonstop 20 hours a day, just stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. Um, and, and you have to respect at 25, 26 years old, which I was, I didn't know what I was doing. I'm learning all stuff on the. So you can only drink through a firehouse so much before stuff starts to break. And you're just like, man, I can't like this is it's too much. It's just too much. Yeah. I think, um, there's a couple of things that I want to touch on that. I agree with the, you know, the internet and social media as a whole, we all know it has its advantages and disadvantages. Um, and I think entrepreneurs should. Share their wins, but I think that they also don't properly expose their audience, their losses too. And so it just becomes as big highlight reel and. Um, what I'm referring to is you talking about, you know, the vanity metrics of revenue because they can, there's people out there left and right. That I know are out there bragging, you know, I did seven figures. I did whatever figures. Right. You know, they may have met, they may have grossed a million dollars. But they also spent $999,999 in ads to make that $1 in profit. So, um, and, and the other thing is about the learning curve and this is something I've been super passionate about. And, um, so I I've, I've had the same business for 15 years and I've intentionally. Not pushed myself aggressively and the way I kind kinda compare it is I I've dated the S the phase is right. And if I was to generalize what those phases were, it was like, okay, the first year, it was just cool to be. Self-employed like, who doesn't want to just set their own hours and work when they want, or work early work late, whatever. So I enjoyed that part of it. I dated that moment in time and took away what I liked. And didn't like, Business relationship. And then, then you move to the next phase. And for me, that was okay. Let's bring on some more team and start, um, delegating some of those responsibilities and do it so I can focus on the parts that I like. And then I grow to, you know, two to four people do that for a year or two. And then, then it's like, okay, now I understand how to manage people. Now I understand how to balance cashflow for payroll. Now I understand the personal side of business where. I have to take care of those guys, but those guys have to take care of their family too. And so you'll learn those more intimate things. And then after that, it's like, okay, let's grow. And then you go, you go from five people that 20, and that's a big difference actually going from five to 10 is a big difference than 10 to 20 is different than, than above 30 is that's a train wreck. And so then you have to go, okay, how do I manage this many people? And then you finally date all those phases and go, okay, nothing scary anymore. So now let's shoot for the moon. And like you said, you can do that. Slow and steady, but sanely. And I think that so many people just are like, let's go from zero to a hundred now. Yep. No, I, I think that's the perfect way to approach it. And something you said that I want to highlight is embracing that, dating that season, which I like you call it dating. Um, but, but embracing that season and learning what you need to learn for that. And I think that's a beautiful way to approach it. Um, and in some cases in that business in particular, we have one, two, I had to take a step back to do things that I should have been dating, as you would say. And the previous season that I had just skipped over. Right. Because you just try and keep up with, you're trying to keep up with sales. You can sell yourself to death. So I think the general thing, and I don't want to do, I don't want to discourage people. Like, obviously people are like, well, what about this other birds? And those guys that like, they were billionaire by 30 units, but I'm not, I'm not dismissing you from growth. There's a way to do it. Right. And there's a way to do it wrong. And it doesn't mean that you can't expedite the dating process. If you want to like consume everything you need for that. In a more rapid succession or more efficiently rather, there's probably a better way to say it. I think that's possible. But the thing that you can just here's okay. Let me give you the contrary. My viewpoint was this. If I make a million dollars, I can afford everything that I need to like, just kill it. Right? Like, so it was kind of like a, not skipped a step mentality, but like money will be the. And money does not money. Didn't give me knowledge money. Didn't give me no how money didn't give me systems and processes that could scale organically money. Didn't give me think there's so many things that money didn't give me that I needed to have as an entrepreneur, to be the best entrepreneur that I could be. Right. And so, so I think I love what you're saying and how long you decide to stay in that dating phase at each one of those seasons is totally up to you, but respect that they're there. So I totally agree with that. Yeah. You couldn't pay me enough money to be in mark Zuckerberg's position. I would not, but he's got going on. Sure. A billion dollars sounds amazing, but don't want it. Oh, they've got to, to a degree. If we're being honest, where they're at now with their crazy rise, they're kind of in emergency fix PR mode. Now, like the fact that Facebook is having to literally change their name to Metta after being what they've been, where at one point they had half of the population of the world on their planet. I think it's safe to say that's a dying platform. Now, fortunately for them they've acquired Instagram and WhatsApp and you know, basically their acquisition by, they can just buy where anything is social media they want to, but they're hedging, basically everything on metaverse they really are. Uh, and it should be very indicative of what's going on behind the scenes that they're like. We're going to have Facebook as a two dimensional thing that we keep while we all also launched Metta. The fact that they're kind of merging and Facebook will be no more and its current iteration. At some point I don't expect to happen overnight. That's very indicative. It's very indicative of where they're at and it's possible that they miss some things along that growth. For sure. Yeah. There's a lot more and you, and I don't know what those things are, but there's a lot more going on than just a, a PR position named James, for sure. Represent, um, you know, one of the things I wanna go back to the image was something about, um, the, the lifespan of a business and how many survived pests a certain amount of time. Um, I can't remember the existed, the, the exact statistics, but. Um, a really interesting slide that Tony Robins gave at funnel hacking live last year. And it was something like one I'm going to be off a little bit, but it was along the lines of less than 1% of businesses last 10 years. And so he went through this thing and it was like, all right, raise your hand. If you've been in business over a year and then stay or stand up, you know, and then stay standing if you've been two years, five years, 10 years. And it was just massive, 50% cuts. That's never, ever timeframe change. But what was interesting is then you layer that with another statistic, which was something like. The less than 1% of businesses ever make $1 million now, 1 million a year, 1 million ever, ever humidity compounding. Yeah. And so you, you take the combination of most business owners, five, 10 years, and most businesses don't even ever make a cumulative million dollars. And you're like, you're like 1% of 1%. And so back to you saying the unicorns of mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and things like that. Go kill it. Go be an entrepreneurial success, but have realistic expectations. Right? What you're walking into. You're basically, you're basically saying like, Hey mark Zuckerberg went, won the lottery. I can go in the lottery too. Um, in all of those situations, I'm not disparaging or taking anything away. Cause they're in a position they're in for a reason specifically somebody's Ilan. I mean, I have so much respect for that guy. It's unbelievable. Uh, but to think that that every, anybody that's just going to happen, there's so many things that have to go, right. And there's so much, um, There's so much that that requires you look at a guy like jobs. I think even in his book, I think he talked about this. Um, I think there's a lot of things he missed out on in his human experience in pursuit of that thing. Now here's the deal. If that's your conviction, if that's a God-given conviction that you have to do, the thing you're doing, then maybe that's what your purpose was in this world and that you have to pursue that. And that's what. You know, but, but don't, you have to do it for the right reasons. You can't do it because, Hey, I want to be rich, famous and have people talk about me, you know, in GQ magazine. Like that's not, you know, Forbes, that's not, that's not the reason you do it. I feel like the guys that do it, they have a deep conviction, a God-given conviction. And once you find that alignment, then it, things kind of happen organically because you're following something. And I always tell people this, I don't know how entrepreneurs, uh, and this isn't gonna get too preachy here, but I don't know how entrepreneur. Do it without a faith or belief in something bigger than themselves. I just don't, I don't like a purpose of some reason. Other like that vanity BS. It's not going to pick you up. It's not, when you find you're flat on your face and you're going to find your face all the time as an entrepreneur, like way more than you succeed, you're going to fail way more. Um, I don't know what picks you up cause the money right. In my experience, the money is not what picks me up. Money's nice, but it's not, when I'm down the money, I'm not like, oh, but let's, you know, thirsty for that. It will, for a period of time, it will for a period of time. But like over time, that's why some people would just fade it. What they're doing in my opinion is because that's the sole focus. Rich and having all the vanity stuff and stuff like that. But if it's a, if it's a conviction, if it's something that you feel like you were called to do that, you're serving people because you feel like that's the way that you were uniquely designed to serve people, those people being your customers. That's where I see the longterm sustainability. That's when I see people serving and not focused on the numbers because. I will lose the quality of how I'm serving people if I just focused on revenue growth. So they have that very disciplined. That's kind of the north node as I've experienced it. And that's what I've used as my north node. Am I serving to the degree that I can not staying stuck in a mat where that particular season of revenue, but like, how do I make sure that's the core of my equation? And that, that has always been, you know, this is, this is how I keep myself in line where I don't get scattered and lose sight of the sole focus of. Yeah, there's, I'm going to be willing to bet that you agree that you go through an evolutionary process as an entrepreneur where in the beginning. There's a big part of us that are in it for material benefits. You know, especially when we're younger, it's like, I want to conquer the world. I want all the money in the world. Uh, but then you go, but then as you said, you mature and then it, for me, it became, I no longer, I no longer want all the money in the world. I want just as little as, as much as possible to maintain a lifestyle. And then spend more time with my family, with my wife, with my kids. Right. You get those base needs. Yes. You need, you know, you, you want the nice house. You want those things that support general stability. Right. But then you get wiser in, in how you can make a more positive impact on the world far beyond just accumulating financial ends. No, but I think it's good. I'm glad, I'm glad this came up. Cause I think it's actually a good thing. And it's like the, the, the grand scheme of the beauty of. I'm glad that the younger folks, if you're in your twenties and that's what is driving you right now, go pursue it. We're not telling you to act wise for the sake of acting wise, you will learn, right? Just like I'm going to put my wise hat on today. No, no, no. What wisdom is accumulated through experience, go pursue those things. Go get that nice car, go have those nice things and come back and be like, yeah, wasn't really what I thought I was going to be. It didn't feel like I thought it was. 'cause I feel like that's more of like the catalyst of leading to, right. It's always, it's always a hindsight's 2020 thing. Like I can look back and say that now, but when I was in that same season, like you're talking about, it was like, yeah, I'm going to be feature, you know, 30, under 30. And like, I don't talk about it. Like I had all those aspirations and stuff like that, but it led me to having the wisdom that I have now that, that I feel like I'm, I'm a healthier human that can provide bigger contribution to the world because I arrived at that place faster. Would that have happened if I didn't pursue the vanities? Maybe not as fast it's anybody's guess. So I think you just have to embrace the season you're in. If you're like you listen to this and you're in your twenties or something, and you're like, I don't care about any of this noise. I don't care about higher powers. I just want to go make money, do, go for it, go for it. Cause you're going to end up here. I promise you and it's going to be, you're going to be better off for it. But, but then they learn. Yeah. I mean, cause we all know these things, but you don't embrace them until you experience it yourself. You know, my wife's nephew I've been mentoring him and he's he's 21 and mentoring him for about two years. And so when he was 19, it was, it was that it was like, Hey, I want to get a new car here. Here's a picture of it. What do you think? And I said, I'm gonna answer it two ways. One is me at your age. Go by. And then the other is me at my age saying that still go buy it, but you're going to quickly learn. It's not what makes you happy? Yeah, he had. Six months before he was like, I hate this car. I hate the gas behind it. I hate the insurance behind it. And what was funny is before he bought it, I said, who are you going to go race? Like, what are you, what are you getting this far? I go, it's not impressed women. You've had your high school sweetheart for years and you guys aren't going anywhere and they're still together. And so he quickly learns, you know, it, it wasn't for him, but. But I'm proud of him for still buying it to learn that it wasn't for him. Exactly. There's an interesting Jim Carrey quote. He said something like, you know, I hope that everybody finds fortunate and fame so they can realize it's not what makes them happy. And I think that says a lot, like we all know that, but there's a big difference between experiencing it and not, um, you know, maybe the last thing we'll talk about here is just a quick comment on there's a great book by Rand Fishkin called lost and founder. I have not, I know who he is though. I need to read that one. Yeah. And so, you know, most, so if you're not familiar with the audience, you're not familiar through Rand Fishkin is he started a company called Moz, had wild success. It was like the, the VC, um, darling baby story got a bunch of funding. Um, and then he talks in this book though about why that whole thing sucks, everything that was in the limelight or behind the scenes that sucked. And it talks about. He went to exit and how to buy an offer, I think was from HubSpot, offered the 28 million for the company. And he S and he held out for 40 and, um, they politely declined, and that was the peak of MAs. And it was just downhill from there. And so he gets, you know, he just, like you say, you paid Liberty mutual way more than you ever took. Um, he was a very public. He sends kind of exited, um, Mazda is that he was, he was the face of Mars for a long time. And so I really thought he was rich and with his funny mustache. Yeah. And so he gets all this publicity and, but in the book, I wish I would have taken that payout. I wish I would've done this. I wish I, would've not taken funding because I'm sorry, friends. I can't, I can barely, you know, I can barely afford my two bedroom studio in Seattle. I don't have money sitting around to lend you. I don't have all these things that everybody thinks I have everybody else made way more money than I did in that company then than myself. And so it's a really transparent book. It's, it's much along the lines of what we've talked about, where it's like, Hey, go do those big things, but understand this is a more accurate perspective of what you're going to go through. Yeah. All right, Chris Michael Harris. Thanks for the therapy session. I'll give you that the last few moments to tell our listeners how they can find out. Yeah. Everyone on social media ad. Hey CMH. Uh, obviously I mentioned StartUp U podcast started VTV so the podcasts have been around longer than YouTube. Uh, but definitely checked out there. We do. I think we have pretty similar audiences in terms of season of business that people are in. Um, so if you're interested in, in those kinds of discussions, very similar platform in a lot of senses. So, uh, that'd be great. heycmh.com. Uh, a lot of awesome free resources there as well. And my last ask of your audience would be this. It takes literally 22 seconds to do this. I promise you 22 seconds, whatever platform you're listening, whatever, wherever you get your podcasts, whatever apps you listen to podcasts on. Make sure you go and do my buddy here. A favor, do two things. I'll tell you why. And subscribe and leave a review. Those are the two most important things you can do to help a podcaster establish more reach because that tells the podcast platforms, wow, this is a show that's worth promoting. This is a show that people should know about. So if those two things it's like leaving a tip for your waiter or your waitress. So please do that for my friend here today to help his show, continue to reach more people and help them through their entrepreneurial journey. I appreciate that Chris Michael Harris, thanks for jumping on learning from others. heycmh.com. Damon Burton here. And thank you so much for listening to the learning from others podcast. I sincerely hope that today's guest helped you learn something since 2007, I've generated millions of dollars for businesses like yours. Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my new SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com today.

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Today's guest is a successful entrepreneur in his fourth business in 20 years. He's an Amazon best selling author of the book "Let's Go Win, The Keys to Living Your Best Life" and “Champion's Daily Playbook." With a passion to help other succeed, he coaches athletes, executives, and leaders on peak performance. We talk about the valuable insights you can discover in your first world problems that help you decide how to live you life by design. Please welcome JM Ryerson. Contact Info https://letsgowin.com https://www.facebook.com/letsgowin365 https://twitter.com/letsgowin365 https://www.instagram.com/letsgowin365/  

Today's guest is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, international speaker and coach. But, most importantly, he's an advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. Listen as we talk deeply about how things in your past effect your performance and mindset today. Learn what he learned from his own parent cutting off his finger as a child, growing up around drugs and violence, and how he went from being a self-admitted asshole... to compassion and helping others. Please welcome, Michael "Unbroken." Contact Info https://www.thinkunbroken.com https://twitter.com/michaelunbroken https://www.instagram.com/michaelunbroken/    

After nearly two decades of marriage, today's guest was thrown into a tailspin. His ex-wife accused him of cheating and drug use, and even went as far as to get him involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. Here to talk about the positive that he took away from it all and what you can learn about yourself in hard times, please welcome JD McCabe. Contact Info https://thirdgift.com https://www.instagram.com/thethirdgift/ https://www.facebook.com/thirdgift/ https://twitter.com/thirdgiftbook    

Today's guest just finished year one as a solopreneur and is here to share his journey. He is a Direct Marketing Consultant from Dublin, Ireland, helping direct-to-consumer businesses create offers and messages that are relevant, timely, and attractive to their ideal customers. He talks about his first client, and scaling sales to his first six-figure year without doing any marketing. Please welcome John Caprani. Contact Info https://www.facebook.com/jdcaprani https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncaprani/   [1]  

  Today's guest has built and sold two agencies that were 100% bootstrapped. He took what he learned and married it with his strong passion for scaling service-based businesses and now helps entrepreneurs and professionals scale sales without the gross sales approach. Ready to sale more in a way you can be proud of? Please welcome James Harper. Contact Info https://agencyflare.com https://twitter.com/jharpermedia https://www.instagram.com/jamesdharper3/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdharper3/    

  Today's guest is an evangelist for what he calls "acquisition entrepreneurship." Why start a business when you can skip they startup headache and buy one? He's ready to help you become the entrepreneur that everyone admires and respects. Please welcome Philip Arthurs. Contact Info https://www.thebusinessminer.com/learning https://twitter.com/TheBizMiner     https://www.instagram.com/phil.arthurs/ https://www.facebook.com/TheBusinessMiner    

Today's guest is a performance coach, author, and speaker that has been featured by Yahoo! Finance as one of the Top Business Leaders to Follow and is on a mission to build people. He talks about why you don't need to entirely remove negativity from your life. Yes, you don't want negativity, but what if instead of ignoring it you embraced it and converted it to rocket fuel? Please welcome Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco.   Contact Info https://www.mikecroc.com/book https://www.instagram.com/mikeycroc/    

  Today's guest is a doctor in organization and is among the nation's most respected experts in online higher education. What I enjoyed most about our conversation was that he had nothing to hide about the pros and cons of considering a college or university. His diversity in direct experiences in and out of schools and entrepreneurial environments, including helping launch a new university from zero students to 300, brings a great discussion on the future of higher education. Please welcome Dr. Joe Sallustio.   Contact Info: https://www.claremontlincoln.edu https://www.edupexperience.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/joesallustio/  

Today's guest is a digital marketing expert, and author of five books, including the 4th Edition of the Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising. Since 1998, he has been helping his clients achieve their goals through digital media and storytelling, and he is eager to share his experience with you of not only the ups of Facebook advertising, but also what to watch out for. Please welcome Bob Regnerus. 00.00.53 Facebook Ads 00.14.32 Ads Click-through Rate 00.25.57 Published a Book Contact Info https://bobregnerus.com Bob Regnerus Facebook wizard. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you? Hey, Damon. Good to be on man. Good. Look at you and your fancy background while the listeners can't see the fancy background, but you got a fancy background. I do I do it's yeah. It's a green screen with a nice blue background. So it leaves at least some of the cluttered office, uh, out of people's of you. So these backgrounds are getting fancy. I was actually on a call just a little bit before you and I jumping on and the person says, how do I get rid of the background? And I said, are you talking about you can't get rid of your background? He goes, no, no, no. That's not where I'm at. That was like, oh, that looks super real. Well, I love the ones where they're like on a beach or something. Yeah. Sit back in their chair and disappear into the ocean. That's always fun. Yeah. The stuff we never knew, we would learn in 2020, right? Yeah. All right, Bob. Well, why we listening to you today? What are we going? Hey, I want to talk about Facebook ads, but doing it for seven plus years, been in direct marketing for 22 years. So, um, let's, let's learn a little bit about how to make Facebook, Facebook ads work. Right. But not until I ask you a question number two, which is what do you suck at Bob? Um, well, I, I I'll give you two answers. Um, number one, I suck at it. So maybe that's just laziness, but like, thanks to this. My wife knows how to do it. Um, the other character I would say is, uh, I hate to lose, like, I'm a basketball coach, so like I'm just wired to win. So I'm a really poor loser, whether it's cards or I don't care if I like, if I lose a game or Rumi cube on my phone or something like I'm a sore loser. So I'll give you two floods. Do you legitimately suck at ironing? Like you burned stuff or you just don't like it. I can't do the process. Like I can't iron a collared shirt and make it look good. Like I can get a little bit of the creases out, but I actually create more creases when I do it. So like, thank goodness I got a spouse that like enjoys it. And, and also, you know what, I don't wear that many shirts that need to be ironed. So that's also, yeah. What, what, what type of age? Uh, basketball coach are we talking? High school, high school boys. So 15, 16 year old boy. Okay. All right. I'll let that one slide. I was going to say, are you like the aggressive seven-year-old coach? Oh no, I did. I've been coaching for 33 years. I started when I was 16 years old and I've done it every year since, um, I've coached anywhere up from five-year-olds up to 18 year olds. So boys, girls. Yeah, I am not a screaming idiot. Right? Well, let's talk, let's talk Facebook ads. So, um, why don't we, why don't we start with Facebook ads? 1 0 1. What is it? What's so amazing about it. Let's start with super basics. Yeah. I mean, Facebook obviously is, is where everybody is. Um, it, it's a media that people spend hours per day on. And so. One of our responsibilities as a, as a, as a business is to be in front of the people where they're at. And Facebook makes it really easy to do that. Obviously it's got its issues and we could dive into some of those, but Facebook remains one of the best places to reach your target audience in advertising today. Why is it such a good place to reach? Uh, what I like about it is you target people based on who they are. So you target at the kind of the user level versus keywords. Like if you doing Google ad words, right? Um, Google ad words, you're figuring out what people might type in to solve a problem into the search engine. With Facebook. What you're doing is you're interrupted. You're, you're basically interrupting them, looking at pictures of family, friends, and food, and you interrupt them with an ad. Um, but it's based on who they are and you figure out who your best prospect is, develop that list and target them. It's a really good way to advertise, I think, and you bring up a good point because I'm on the other side of the spectrum in the space of SEO. And, and I often talk about that same topic where it's not, you know, there's no one magic solution there's different, there's different, uh, advertising methods that are better or worse for different platforms, different platforms for different types of products and services. And you brought up one of the main things I talk about is. Um, you know, on search engines, it's based on buyer intent, like you said, what's the question, that's the problem they want to solve, and that can be good or bad for certain products or services. And then likewise on Facebook, it's, you're targeting a demographic you're targeting habits, your targeting patterns. And so that's better or worse for other types of products. Yeah. And similar to, you know, Google with Facebook, with, with their technology, with the other Facebook pixel, is they track behavior. Um, not only do they know what you put on your profile, the things you like, the things you read, they also know how you behave. So they know your buying behaviors. So they know the types of stuff you buy, the type of stuff you're in market for. Um, so, you know, Facebook's use of, what's called a lookalike audience where you, you give them a list of customers and create a model. Um, Really it's powerful from the standpoint of finding more people that are likely to buy from you. So like if you sell golf, like golf clubs and golf shoes, whatever, um, Facebook knows who's in market for that stuff. Uh, just the other day, I, um, I, I bought a driver, a new driver and. Was researching drivers. And guess what I saw in my Facebook feed for like the next two weeks, all kinds of golf stuff and not just golf clubs. Yeah. I got re-targeted for the golf club, but I got targeted by, uh, golf courses, offering packages for the holidays. Um, I got targeted for training videos. So like Facebook knows you're in market for stuff and, and yeah, but like, if I'm going to buy a driver, maybe I do want to buy new shoes and maybe I do want to get a lesson or something like that. So it's a really powerful mechanism if you want to, if you want to get in front of people and how does Facebook know all that stuff? Well, again, there's, there's a piece of code that's on basically every website it's called the pixel. And so what that's doing is it's not just tracking what's happening with your Facebook ads, it's tracking behavior of, of the user. So Facebook knows that let's say they, and you do a good job for your client. And, you know, they're getting a lot of organic traffic based on these keywords to a blog or an article or whatever. If there's a Facebook pixel on there. And, and I happened to land on one of those, those pages, it knows that I'm interested in that topic, right. So it's not just that. Oh, I clicked on a Facebook ad it's that Facebook knows that I visited that page. And maybe if I go visit another page that has a similar topic or similar, similar angle. Now I've created a pattern of behavior that the algorithm can pick up on. So it knows, oh, um, I might be interested in this particular health condition or something like that. So that's what makes it powerful is the technology behind the tracking that's on there. You know, Facebook is probably in Google for that matter too, is going to be up against privacy laws and things like that. And that technology will probably change, but essentially, I don't think it goes away in terms of being able to track behavior and for, for advertisers to be able to target those people directly based on the things that they're interested in right now in the moment. So I want to, you brought up privacy laws and technology. There's a couple things I want to ask you about your opinion on that here in a minute, but I kinda want. Go a little bit deeper on some of the basics for some listeners that might not understand. So it sounds like Facebook is a good tool for not only, um, you know, with, with SEO, the main driver, right. Is to, to bring awareness to theoretically a new audience. And so, but, but with Facebook you can do new audience and retargeting, so you can play on both sides of the coin, right? Yeah. So, um, I recently wrote a book, the ultimate guide to Facebook advertising, and I purposely put retargeting in, in chapter three because it's a quick win for anybody. So retargeting uses that pixel that I've been talking about basically to say, Hey, you know, I visited this particular site to research drivers and then other advertisers, you know, hooked onto that and showed me ads related to that. But also. Um, individual, like, uh, you know, I went to Dick's sporting goods website, you know, just for example, not PR, not endorsing them, of course, but I went to their site specifically to look at a, at a couple of different drivers. Well, what happened is within, you know, within a couple hours of going into Facebook, I saw ads from Dick's sporting goods. Showing me the same driver that I was looking at, right. Reminding me that I did that. So retargeting is just simply the technology of, of calling people back. You know, one of the, one of the things that's kind of alarming for people is that, um, you know, 99% of the traffic that visits your site, Doesn't buy or doesn't leave their email address or doesn't do anything. Uh, retargeting is the technology allows you to call them back. Um, you know, it hasn't really been around that long, but it really has transformed campaigns. So. W what are the things that we used to see before we really had retargeting in place was negative return on ad spend. So, you know, spend a dollar to make 25 cents for instance. But if you run a retargeting campaign, you know, we routinely see, spend a dollar, make nine, make 15, make 30, um, retargeting allows, uh, especially if you're a new, especially in the e-commerce space to basically pull people back in based on the products they looked at. You know, give them an offer, invite them to come back and they buy, um, one of the most powerful things we teach is like, if you have a simple add to cart retargeting mechanism, uh, as a Facebook ad. So somebody goes to your store, puts a product in their shopping cart and goes away. Um, according to, um, Banyard 69% of the people last year, um, put something into their cart and abandoned. So like that's huge, right? But just a simple retargeting ad to remind them that they had something in their cart and to call them back, um, is really powerful. And that's where you can get those 30, 40, 50 to one return on ad spend, uh, types of types of numbers. So it's a powerful, powerful technology. So it sounds like. The goal is to be profitable on the initial ad, but it sounds like that sometimes it makes sense to be willing to take a loss on the initial ad and then convert it on the follow-up very, very big. And, um, so it, it kinda depends on market Damon, but, um, let's just take like the supplement market, for instance. It's it's pretty routine that you're going to go negative a acquiring customer. So let's say, you know, you do a lot of these companies do free trials, well, or, you know, buy your first bottle of these supplement for a buck. What they're willing to do is go negative, uh, on the front end because they know that they're going to get, make, you know, make that money up on continuity. But it, it is a challenge, uh, to. I'll I'll say this, Damon, the most expensive traffic you're ever going to generate is cold traffic. Uh, they don't know who you are. They don't know about your brand. They don't know what services you provide or the products you have. So you really, you really have to have. What I call a good retargeting platform in place before you run any cold traffic, because retargeting traffic typically converts at a profit and it's usually a very healthy profit. And so you need that in place. So when you do your cold traffic and you, you maybe are negative on the front end of that cold traffic, the retargeting. Uh, campaigns actually make you profitable, like early on. So you might be losing money, let's say in the first seven days. And if they buy within that seven day period, then you go back into the black. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So how does, how does the bidding system work? Because I imagine it's not identical, but comparable in the concept. Facebook doesn't want to just give the ad space away to whoever throws the largest budget at it, because there could be some irrelevant ads. Is that true? Yeah, it's actually a big deal. So, you know, one of the things that happened a few years ago is Facebook quote unquote, ran out of space, meaning they couldn't have any more. Onto their platform. So they started doing some other things like the, the, they created Facebook stories. Um, they created, what's called the audience network where you can see ads shown on apps and games you play and things like that. But if we talk just about the newsfeed for a minute, that's where we traditionally see the ads roll by. So Facebook is not going to fill their newsfeed with all ads because that's a very poor user experience. Um, they, they have a very. Simple formula for each person and how many ads that they, that they want to see. So Damon, you may say, I never click on ads. Your Facebook newsfeed may have one ad for every 20 posts that you see. And maybe I'm a little bit more like, like maybe I click on ads to more. So they may be show me two ads, every 10 posts or something like that. Okay. Facebook knows. Your behavior, but what's happening is at any millisecond. There are there's, there's billions of auctions that happen every day. And there's, there's, there's hundreds of thousands that happen every millisecond. And so. There are a number of, of advertisers competing for my attention, competing for your attention. Um, all based on the targeting of the, those ads. So there's essentially a competition, every millisecond for my attention. And so there's really three components that go into whether or not you're going to win the auction. The first is very obvious, which is your budget. So if you have a larger budget, you have a greater chance of winning the auction and getting your ad shown. Um, so if you have a limited budget, you're not going to win as many auctions. Okay. But there's two components that really allow any advertiser to compete with somebody who's a big. First is the click-through rate of the ad. So Facebook does one thing. Um, when they, when, when they look to put your ad in front of somebody, they actually have, what's called an expected click through rate and they know your behavior. They know my behavior, they know the listers behaviors. They, they generally know before they even show the ad the first time about what that ads click-through rate is going to be. And so obviously the ad with the higher click through rate gets priority. And then there's a third component, which is the expected value of the ad, meaning it's what happens after the person clicks and goes to your website. So this is where the Facebook pixel comes into play. Damon it's it knows like what's the conversion rate of your page. It might know that your e-commerce store converse at 3%. And so it's going to actually calculate the value of, of that click. And so those three factors will contribute to whether or not your ads get shown and it contributes to whether or not you're going to get a discount for having a really good performing ad and a really good performing. Website also going to factor in a quote unquote penalty, if you have a poor performing ad in a poor performing website. So I'd like to say that the level that, that the playing field is leveled for an advertiser that can write really good ads and has a really highly converting landing page. And you can compete with Coca Cola and low. And target and Amazon and people that are spending, you know, millions of dollars a day, uh, on ads, we can compete with them and have a good cost for action, because we're really good at writing ads. And we're really good at converting people on our way. On the value that gets calculated based on a conversion happening does, is it based more on the conversion rate or the value of the conversion? The reason why I ask is does that, does it give priority to a higher ticket item? Um, it's overall value. And when, when it's considering value, it's not, it's not considering dollar value. I know that's probably one component of it, but what, what they're actually measuring is that the, that the user or at the individual users. Satisfied with the process from beginning end Facebook's number one goal is if they have three goals, the first goal is to have a really great user experience. Like if, if Facebook became a really crappy place to be like, they couldn't make any money. So they're always gonna, they're always gonna prioritize their users first. The second people they prioritize are their investors, right? They're a publicly traded company and they are, they are responsible to make a profit for their shareholders. So that's the second party that they, that they put in the priority list. Um, advertisers are a distant third. Okay. The, the advertiser, they need the advertisers for the revenue, but they're always going to put the priority of their shareholders and their users before us. Okay. But I'm saying that because when, when a user sees an ad. They enjoy the ad or an interest them and they click to the website and they take a desired action. So whether that's like, just grab an email address, um, or it's complete a purchase, if the users are doing that consistent consistently Facebook sees that as a positive user experience. Um, it's very similar to maybe what you experienced with Google with SEO is the bounce rate of a page. So if Google is the Texas, right. For their algorithm, if somebody searches for a patient, they land on it and it doesn't give them what they want. And they quickly jump back. That's going to lower the quality score of that page in the algorithm. Right. So similarly Facebook sees that and goes, wait a minute, people are clicking on the ad and they're not completing the action, which you know, is eventually going to be a purchase or an opt-in or something like that. And what it's going to do is go, it's like, this is not working. So it's going to start to do, it's going to start to charge us more for that ad. And then eventually it's going to stop actually giving impressions. If people aren't completing the action, it's not going to start. It's not going to give us priority on that ad anymore. And eventually it's going to stop showing. So I got, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about technology and evolution and you talking about privacy laws. And so part of what I think comes to that territory is Google recently announced in Chrome, they're going to be getting rid of, um, cookies. So. Impact the potential on Facebook ads or has, has Facebook come out with an alternative to maintain the advertising platform? Yeah, I think 20, 21. And, and going into 2022, it's going to be a big shift for advertisers, uh, Facebook and Google. Uh, I, I can't talk to Google specifically, but Facebook has, what's called a conversion API, and that is going to be replaced. Excellent. Um, pixel's not going to go away, but it's gonna, it's going to be there as a fail safe. So people are going to have much more control over their information. I believe. Um, kind of going into 20, 21 and 2022. And so there's going to be old technology where the pixel and cookies will still work. But as people, like you said, if on newer versions of safari and Chrome, There's going to be default settings, which kind of block those things. So advertisers are going to have to shift and start to use the technology called conversion API to actually plug in directly from their website into Facebook. So. That's just starting to happen now, you know, we're recording this at the end of 2020, but I, I see probably the second quarter of 2021 that becoming a very prominent thing. And I would think by the time holiday shopping comes around in 2021, we're going to see most advertisers shifting to the API versus the cookies as being the most reliable way to track conversions and, uh, use that for retargeting purposes. Do you have a love, hate relationship with Facebook? Like I do with Google. Yeah, I do. Um, I, it's interesting. Isn't it like Facebook is what I teach. It's what I write about. It's how my clients make money, but I don't particularly enjoy spending a lot of time there. Um, personally, um, I'll, I'll check it maybe once a day, but I am definitely not one of their top users. But I also, you know, the love hate also comes in terms of some of the funky things that happen. Uh, this year has been a challenging year. Not because of COVID it's because Facebook's gotten really restrictive. Um, they've had a lot of instances this year where they've shut down ad accounts, rejected ads, um, and it's kind of arbitrary. It's, it's hard to put, put my finger on. So it's, it's created a challenge for me and my clients. A lot of times where. We're we're we're we're basically trying to prove that we're innocent. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's very opposite of her justice system here in the U S where it's innocent until proven guilty. Working with platform like Facebook and I'm sure Google's the same way, Damon, where you're, you're guilty until proven innocent. That's very frustrating and it's frustrating a lot of advertisers and quite frankly, it's, it's, it's that up in people's minds. Like if there's something that comes along, that's less restrictive, you're going to start to see money, move away from Google and Facebook to that new media. I'm not sure what it is. I don't think Tik TOK. I think Tik TOK will be. Uh, a good medium, but I don't see tick-tock in the long-term. Um, So like being so open that it's not going to be restrictive, like the other big ones. Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree. It's and I don't even get into Facebook advertising, but I, I have a lot of, you know, partners and friends in the space and, and you saying arbitrary is totally how I see it, even from my limited exposure, I hear a lot of, a lot of what my friends talk about how their ad accounts get shut down, left and right. And then I'll immediately see it followed up by an ad. Of like an implied graphic ad of a man holding an eggplant with whipped cream on top of it, talking about his Manliness. And it's like, come on, you know exactly what the ad is talking and that one passes, but then the one that's talking about selling grandma's cookies doesn't well, I had it if I had an interesting conversation with a Facebook engineer, um, a while ago, it's been a couple of years now. And one of the things he revealed is like, there's, there's, you know, we talk about artificial intelligence now. It's not like the matrix yet, but there, there are algorithms that are running that are, that are monitoring ad content and add images and all those things. And I think part of it is that. I don't think the engineers necessarily know what the program is doing quite frankly, like it's gotten away from them. So one of the things that they're, they're very sensitive about, and this, this probably comes down from Zurich, which is they're going to be overly aggressive at trying to protect people. All right. And we could have a whole political discussion, like, you know, there, you know, about censorship and things like that. But Facebook has become very sensitive because they've got the government looking at them and, and they're going to be much more sensitive and way conservative in terms of letting things slip through. So, um, they, they are, they are. Being very protective of their users. And in some cases, overly protective, um, you know, they feel like, you know, there's markets that are just really difficult. Um, the marketing space, number one, you know, with claims and things like that, very difficult, lot of, a lot of account shut down. Um, finance and, and money is a big deal. Uh, alternative health is a big deal. I know it's a huge deal in Google, um, but there's just certain market segments that, that are. Impossible to go and get through or to have any sustainable, um, success on. So it becomes a challenge, um, as an advertiser to like, if you're in some of these markets where there's more scrutiny, how to really get yourself seen, because not only does Facebook restrict and Google does. So it was Mo uh, most ad moderation, AI based Marcel than manual review. Nowadays it is, it is 100%, um, AI ma monitored, and then it's human review on the backend. So when you get an ad that is rejected or an account that has rejected, um, that is a machine doing that first and foremost. And then the re the review process puts you in a queue where you're getting reviewed by. So that's only, if you say, Hey, wait a second. I want somebody to review this. Yes. Yeah. Machine does the machine, does the shutting down 100% of the time. Um, and that's, that's a function too, of, of Facebook's workers working from home. So, you know, they've got workers all over the globe that are not in offices or in their homes, so they they're relying on the machine to do the monitoring. It used to be the other way around was the humans would review it before it would go on. But now it's, it's, it's all AI and you'll get shutdowns at any particular time. And then the only way to get your ad reviewed is to click the button request for review for a human to actually get in, get in queue for a human to review it. Well, you clearly know a lot about Facebook advertising and you had mentioned briefly about you had written a book. How long ago did you write this book? Yeah, it was just published in October of 2020, it's called the ultimate guide to Facebook advertising. It's in its fourth edition. Um, the last edition came out three years ago. Um, I'm a new author in this series. Uh, the, the previous kind of primary author wrote to two additions before that, but it's, it's really a complete rewrite. Uh, 2017 was the last publication of the, of the manual. So, um, there's about 90% new material. Book because so much has changed. Um, but what, what I really proud of is the, the book is not about the dials and switches as much as it's about strategy. Um, so, uh, even the previous versions contained a lot of strategies, so the books are still applicable. Um, you know, if you write up, if you write a book about a particular media. Immediately when you give it to the publisher, it's not a date. Um, so we had some of that too, where we, we actually submitted to the publisher six months prior to that. And we had to go in and make changes because Facebook changed their ad interface. So we wanted to make sure the screenshots were fresh, but yeah. But what we're really proud of is the, you know, the book itself is filled with strategies which are going to be good for 10, 20 years. Um, so I, I, I enjoy talking about Facebook. Uh, I work on Facebook accounts. I coach people. I have courses, I do training. Um, like I said, um, I'm a coach, so my basketball court is a place, but also the business court is a place I like to help people. Yeah. Well, cool. Congrats on writing the book. I published a book earlier this year as well, so I know what a task it is to come through and do that. So, um, well, why don't, I'll give you the floor for the last few moments. I appreciate you jumping on Bob. Um, tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. Yeah. Yeah, I have a website set up. I think it's pretty interesting. It's called ultimate fb.com. So not only does that have a link to it, Amazon where you get the book, but, um, I was fortunate to have some, uh, people that contributed to the book as well. Uh, people that you would know, like Ryan dice, Jeff Walker, Brian Kurtz Perry. Marshall, of course. Um, so I did some interviews with them. So when you go to ultimate fb.com, I've got 10 interviews in there. Um, so a really interesting conversation. Um, and not just kind of the basic stuff that you might hear. Um, I've known Ryan dice for number of years, Jeff Walker, a number of years. So we talked about things that maybe they normally don't talk about. Um, so, uh, I'd love for people to go there. And, uh, obviously, uh, I'm going to ask for an email address, but I'm not going to abuse the privilege, but, uh, yeah, I've got 10 interviews there plus a link to the book. Um, I'd really love for people to get the book. Um, as you know, When you write a book, Damon, he kind of put your heart and soul in that thing. And you just want people to read it early reviews are great. We actually sold out the first day had to reorder it at Amazon. So I'm pretty happy with it. And, uh, look forward to getting in people's hands. Yeah. Good for you. And that was ultimate fb.com. Yeah. All right. Cool, Bob thanks so much for jumping on learning from others. Awesome. Damon, good to be on.

  Today's guest was a rock concert roadie turned entrepreneur. He's spoken in over 30 countries on six continents, helping you become a better speaker and presenter. He's written three books, was voted top 40 under 40, and is just a good guy. Really enjoyed this conversation. Listen to the end to hear how he almost died on stage in front of thousands of people. Please welcome Richard Mulholland.  

  Today's guest helps business owners and entrepreneurs learn how to achieve success without losing focus. For more than two decades, he has helped countless executives transform their business and professional lives by empowering them with systematic, scalable approaches. Please welcome S. A. Grant. Contact Info http://www.sagrant.com https://www.bossuncaged.com  

  Today's guest is here to tell you that being customer centric is more smiling and a polite voice. Those are great and all, but turning customers into raving fans and team members into creative idea machines goes beyond basic customer service. Please welcome Dennis Geelen. Contact Info: https://www.zero-in.ca/ https://twitter.com/dennis_geelen https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-geelen-5a95703/    

At 22, today's guest was a corporate success with a 6-figure job. He quit it all to post half-naked selfies as an online fitness coach and hasn't looked back sense. Here to not only give entrepreneurs health and fitness advice as you do your daily grind, he also shares ideas on how to follow your dreams and make the jump like he did. Please welcome Moe Ghias. Contact Info https://www.facebook.com/MoeGhias84 https://www.instagram.com/moeghias/    

Today's guest began her journey at blue chip companies, where she found that the success of marketing initiatives was remarkably hit or miss. She felt strongly that branding should be more than just pretty pictures and clever ad campaigns. That's when she founded the first woman-owned brand consultancy, with a mission of increasing top-line revenue for her clients by applying her knowledge about instincts to help companies understand the roots of bias. A Yale and Harvard Business School graduate, book author, and TEDx speaker, she's here to share perspectives on driving business growth pre- and post-COVID. Please welcome Leslie Zane. Contact Info: https://www.triggers.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliepicotzane/ https://twitter.com/Leslie_Zane https://www.facebook.com/leslie.zane.9  

  Today's guest is our FIRST repeat guest on Learning From Others. He helps entrepreneurs and business owners to close more premium sales, but not how you think. He does it through hypnotic influence. "Hypnotist," you say? Yes, but through all of your preconceived notions out the window, because it's not what you think. Having hypnotized hundreds of thousands of people, this certified professional hypnotist has been supercharging business growth for over two decades. This isn't about tricking or manipulating people... It's about helping your prospects to ethically sell themselves into your products or services. Please welcome author of Work Smart Business, Jason Linett. Contact Info https://jasonlinett.com/    

  Today's new leaders are not born, but made. And they bring up those around them. Today's super successful surprise guest explains how becoming this strong leader comes down to the choices that you make and the habits that you create. We also talk about how the relationship that him and I built after I missed our first appointment, sending him cupcakes... and something about constipation. Please welcome, Alain Hunkins. Contact https://www.alainhunkins.com http://www.crackingtheleadershipcode.com    

  Alright, decision makers with physical offices. This episode is for you. Cubicles suck. Meeting rooms suck. Just about everything with the footprint of an office sucks. But offices are necessary for many businesses. What do you do when you need privacy, a conference room, to make a phone call, or a million other scenarios where one moment a certain type of office space is fine and minutes later you need a different room for a different purpose? Worse, what do you do in a post-COVID world when your health, safety and concerns are a top priority? Today's guest is a former VP of Regus and serial entrepreneur helping companies get back to work in a safe, cost effective, and creative way. Please welcome Sande Golgart, President at Zonez.     Contact Info http://www.cleanzonez.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/sande-golgart-3078787/      

  Today's guest has found a way to profitably make the world a better place. He focuses on helping heroic organizations to build and champion themselves using their most powerful asset, their web presence. He's an expert in web design and accessibility, digital marketing, company culture, and social responsibility. His goal for himself and those he aids is to be driven by a purpose beyond profit. Please welcome Chris Yoko. Contact Info https://www.yokoco.com https://twitter.com/chrisyoko   https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisyoko/   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXPEtnZpJ_dzl7fkxwJkwmg   https://www.facebook.com/chrisyoko    

Today's guest is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and award-winning coach. She's here today to help you identify what is draining your focus, in order to make room for more time and abundance with the things you love in life. Here to share the value of self-care and living a life of value... and to talk about accidentally showing up on Zoom in her swimsuit, please welcome Chris Atley. Contact Info https://www.chrisatley.com/power/ https://www.facebook.com/ChrisAtleyLLC/    

  Today's guest is a passionate leader, author, speaker, and women's advocate. With over 25 years of experience as a senior leader for global companies like Microsoft and Johnson and Johnson, she's here to share stories of going from rock star to rock bottom, and coming back stronger than ever. We talk funny stories in board rooms and fears of jail in foreign countries from business travel. Please welcome Pattie Grimm. Contact Info pattiegrimm@live.com http://www.advantage-training.com https://twitter.com/pattie_grimm https://www.instagram.com/pattie_grimm/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattie-grimm/ https://www.facebook.com/pattie.grimm    

  Having worked in helping startups find venture capital funding, today's guest now finds himself on the other side of the coin. He took his experience of networking to fund and grow businesses to fund and grow his own startup, 4 degrees, applying machine intelligence to help companies maximize relationships. He's here to help you better understand the advantages and disadvantages of venture capital funding and the world of startups. Please welcome Ablorde Ashibgi. Contact Info https://4degrees.ai  

  Today's guest left corporate America when he realized that his role offered financial gain, but little significance. He is a believer that dreams can, and should be real. He is the founder and head coach of Myers Methods and has been featured in Business Insider, Black Enterprise and numerous podcasts. After building a highly profitable division of a fortune 550 company, he left the rat race to get away from what seemed to be the endless slew of layoffs. He took that experience to create systems for exiting corporate America and creating a life of impact. Today, he and his company help other apex performers find their calling and live every day with purpose. Please welcome Jerome Myers. Contact Info https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromemyers/ https://www.jeromemyers.co    

Today's guest started his business at the age of 14. From forming his LLC, to finding underwriting for insurance, he did it all, and now has a retail product in shelves across the country. He talks about putting in 100 hours weeks, what he thinks about four Mercedes versus three, and what his daily rally with his team is. Please welcome Tyler Ornstein. Contact Info: tyler@tylerscoffees.com    

  Today's guest is an expert at building brand loyalty and die-hard customers. Listen to learn why she says to NOT start with paid ads to build your audience, and what to do instead. Please welcome Sushmita Jain. Contact Info http://sushmitajain.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesushmitaj/  

Why do some people buy from you and others don't? The human mind has only one need and today's guest can help you figure what it is. The answer might surprise you. Please welcome John Voris. Contact Info: Email: john@authentic-systems.com Skype: john@authentic-systems.com Telephone: (831) 521-5553 Website: http://johnvoris.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnvoris/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/johnwvoris Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnVorisPhilosopher/ Book Links: https://johnvoris.com/books/    

    Personal question for you. Do you do "the video?" You know, video... like you do "the phone," "the text," or "the email?" Today's guest is here to help you communicate with video faster, easier, and in a more personal, human way to grow your business. And why video shouldn't be used any less than text, email, and phone and should be just as convenient. And listen until the end to hear why decades ago he drove a 70 seater school bus around the country for Microsoft. Please welcome Ethan Beute.   Contact Info https://bombbomb.com https://bombbomb.com/book https://bombbomb.com/podcast    

Today's guest is an author, Forbes speaker, and President & CEO of Project Success. Clarity in business is always important, but even more-so in today's confusing times. "If you confuse, you lose," today's guest says. With over 30 years as a project manager and leader, today's guest is here to ensure that you don't let working remotely add to lack of communication. Please welcome Clint Padgett. Contact Info https://projectsuccess.com  

  Today's guest is the self proclaimed "laziest salesman in America." He is here today to show you how to grow your sales by leveraging technology and automation. Having won sales awards at two different Fortunate 500 companies and with 20 years of sales experience, please welcome a man whose name I will slaughter at least three times in this episode... Gessie Schechinger.  

As a business owner, bringing on an intern often sounds enticing. But interns are only as good as the framework that you have built in place for them. What's that? You don't have a strategy plan for your interns? Today's guest can help. He founded Internship Institute, helping businesses maximize the value of interns. Additionally, this athlete, single parent, caretaker, consultant and nonprofit founder has a goal of positively impacting 100,000,000 people in the next five years. Will you be one of them? Please welcome Matt Zinman. Contact Info https://z-isms.com https://mattzinman.com  

What if you could increase your revenue but without increasing your customer count? Today's guest is here to show you how you can grow more loyal customers that not only buy more from you and more consistently, but also become brand advocates to share your company with others. Please welcome Blake Binns. 0:55 - Are of Expertise of Blake Binns 4:18 - Blake's Journey 9:08 - Concept Differences 13:27 - Think About the Customer Experience 17-13 - Importance of Intent and Where Do you Begin Contact Info https://goodadvicecoaching.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakebinns/   Mr. Blake Binns. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing? Hey man. How are you doing? I'm good. I'll um, before we hit record, we we're talking about very masculine things and beard. So, um, naturally. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. You, like you said, it seems like every time we have a guest that, um, one of us has a beard than, than. You talk about beards, you got to man. Well, you know, it's, it's, I feel like all of us, or maybe I'm projecting. I feel like when I was a kid, like all of my friends, none of us could grow beards. And so now that we are all at the age that we can find, I mean, I think it came in at like 25 and now that we're at the age that everyone can have a beard. Now we just like explicitly make sure to like, when we see someone's Beaver, like it's a nice beard to a stranger. I'm sure. I'm sure strangers are like, what's wrong with you? Like, why are, you know, Thanks. All right. So Blake, um, I asked our guests two questions. Question number one is what's your area of expertise and what are we gonna learn from you today? Yeah, so I run a business coaching company called good advice and really the sweet spot for our company is we help companies build their 1000 raving fans, which is a very basic concept that comes from the thousand true fans concept. And it's basically, how do you really grow a business where your customers love to buy from you again and again, and again? And it's not just your external company customers, it's also your internal customers. Meaning how do you have employees who really love your company? Uh, which is especially true right now during COVID, because frankly there's a lot of employees who are like, do my company sucks. Like they did not keep take care of me at all. Um, so, so essentially we're we're growing businesses is what we do for a living. Okay, cool. Yeah, I actually have, um, uh, I want to dig pretty deep on that, because like you said, it's applicable to the current economic environment, but not until I ask you question number two, which is, what do you suck at? Like, well, we probably should get my wife in here cause she would, she would probably tell you, you know, it's funny because. I, I was doing, uh, a personality test with some people. And there were like all these flaws that showed up and I was like, I was like, this test sucks. And so I got home, I got home. Sure. Her name is my, my wife's name is joy. And I was like, can you believe how jive this test is? And she's like, Oh yeah, that's all you sure. I would say I probably I'm super sarcastic. And so I'm, I'm pretty sucky at like going deep with people. Like it's hard for me to like, not make a joke. And especially like when my wife is like really feeling raw about something and I make some comment and she's like, all right, I'm calling my sister. Listen. Yeah. So I would say, aye. Aye. I mean, I can have deep conversation and not that all the therapists listening are like, what's wrong with this guy? I just, I just like humor, you know, I just like to make jokes and I dunno, it's just my personality, I guess. So I was, um, we were talking to Todd Hartley, I guess the other day. And, and, uh, he runs this big company. He was kind of saying the same thing. He's like, man, when I'm in meetings, like I'm just waiting for the punchline. Like I can't stare at spreadsheets and numbers and the whole time I'm looking for jokes, let's see. Isn't that kind like, you know, you think about it and like so many meetings get so in the weeds, you kind of need that person to like. Bring people out of it and be like, okay, let's, let's actually lighten up and really think about what we do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So a thousand raving fans, um, I'm familiar with concept and I assume that some of the people might, even if they're not familiar with concept, they they're probably familiar because of like the what's what's the other thing, a hundred. Your dream 100. So I assume it's like, kind of, yeah. There's tons of variants of it. Yes. I say that with me having a variant of it. I mean, it's, it is very intuitive. I mean, it doesn't take it. Doesn't take rocket science to understand the concept. Uh, but in case maybe your listeners aren't fully familiar of it. The bottom line is. To, to grow a sustainable business. You don't need to chase thousands and thousands or millions of customers. What's actually more profitable and sustainable for your business is to build a tribe of people who love your brand and who actually will buy from you over and over and over again. And it there's a lot of, um, uh, you can get really into the weeds on the details of looking at like the. The value of a return customer versus what you spend to acquire a new customer. Um, all of these things together, kind of what build this, um, very common strategy in business. So how did you get into specializing in this? So I was working for a consulting. I was an executive coach at a consulting company here in Northwest Arkansas, um, which I got to plug Northwest Arkansas for a second. Cause anytime I mentioned that people are like, actually I mentioned that the other day and someone was like, Oh man, I was in Phoenix the other day. And I was like, okay, well that's Arizona, you know, you got the a right. You know, but, um, so people really mix it up. Oh yeah, man. Well, you know, the South is, you never know what state you're in, I guess. I don't know. But, uh, comments, I get comments like that all the time or, you know, they're like, Oh, what's even in Arkansas. And I'm like, well, that's a fair question, but. In Northwest Arkansas, we actually have the headquarters of Walmart, Tyson, JB hunt, three really awesome fortune 500 companies. And so probably about four years ago, I was working as an executive coach for this really awesome consulting company in our area. And we were serving companies like Walmart, Tyson, JB hunt, these other companies. But part of what was happening in this process was I was realizing that. We were leaving a lot of money on the table by really not nurturing the relationships we had. We were kind of all over the place. And so whenever I left that company, I kind of had that in the back of my mind. And when I went on to start good advice, I started working with business owners who. And this is so true in business. I'm sure you see this all the time as well. There's, there's nothing, there's no new concept in business. Like a lot of this stuff is really, um, basic. It's easy to understand. However, it's hard to actually implement. And so I started working with business owners and I was just, I was just talking about growing businesses. I wasn't even talking about raving fans. But it starts talking to business owners who were doing things that were, so they were, they were in such opposition of the concepts. So here's a great example. I was working with a guy who sells, basically sells protein powder and he had a customer who, you know, the average customer buys like a, a, um, A two quart container of protein and it's maybe like 20 bucks, 30 bucks or whatever. Well, he had this one customer who bought something like $300 worth of protein powder. And then the customer asks and you know, those little like obnoxious plastic, uh, cup things that, you know, they get lost in the protein powder. You can never find it. I, yeah. Yeah. Well, so I say it, like, I work out, like, I just know what I know about it. So. You had these really obnoxious little cups, they get lost in the protein powder. Well, this customer says, Hey, could I possibly get a couple of extra just since I bought so much? Um, sometimes I typically lose it. Would it be okay? Well, this business owner got so offended and talking to me was like, I feel like my customers taking advantage of me that he's trying to get an extra buck out of me. Like, how do I tell this person? No. And I'm like, You know, you're crazy. What are you doing? And I'm like, how much does this little plastic thing costs you? And he's like, well, it cost me. Yeah. It cost me, pennies cost me nothing. And I'm like, what, what is wrong with you? You need to tell them. Yeah, of course you can have these cups, like, absolutely thank you for your business. And that's an extreme example, but, but over and over and over again, I was seeing business owners who were really tanking their company by not. Not understanding what good customer service looks like and really, how do I really retain a really incredible customer rather than, um, actually I had one business owner who was like, well, if they don't like what I'm selling, they can go somewhere else. And I was like, well, they, they, they will go somewhere else. That's, that's how business works. And so I would say over the last couple of years of my business, it's really sort of, it's just been a passion project for me. I've kind of just. The business has evolved to really hone in on and you need to be building those raving fans. If you're going to have something meaningful. All right side. Now on the protein guy, because I'm in that pain. I see the, I ha I am that problem customer, but I don't know if you still talk to the guy, but you know, what you need to do is, is I can't remember who does it, but I've seen brands that they have a little slit underneath the lid and it slides in. And so it just stays there. So then when you take off, it's just there. Yeah, so that would be great. But see, here's, what's funny about that though, is that maybe I bet that top the plastic top for that container, I would say that top maybe cost them an additional maybe like two or 3 cents, like nothing, but this type of business owner would cause again, these types of people are so cost cutting focused that we'll let the customer experience suffer. That kind of person wouldn't ever, it would never indulge in that kind of idea, you know? Um, All right. So, um, what type? So I imagine that some of the listeners are thinking like, okay, this sounds cool. Um, you know, Sure Blake, a thousand thousand or eight pounds is all I need, but I am the guy or the woman that sells two millions. And my sales is based on volume. So is there like a difference in this concept of businesses that do low dollar high volume versus high dollar low volume? Because it sounds like it makes more sense for K you don't need as many people, but you have a higher ticket. Item. Well, I would say don't get lost in like the details of like literally how many customers, like, for example, if you have, if you are closing 10,000 customers a month, you know, on some, on basically a product that's nine 95 or whatever, you know, it's, it's not like, Oh, this doesn't apply to me. The concept at its heart is how do I take someone? And on like the funnel of how they perceive my business, how do I build enough trust with them and give them such a great experience that they will buy from me again and again and again. So like Amazon's a really great example of this, Amazon it, in terms of like the two day shipping, that's really, it, it's a great. It's a great offer, but now you have other companies like Walmart who are offering the same thing. What Amazon does that makes them so valuable in the customer's mind is anytime you need to return something, I mean, you could do it. You could snap your fingers. It doesn't matter. You know, if it's open, it doesn't matter how you've used it. Nine times out of 10, if you try to return something on Amazon, it's a no questions asked. Sure. Send it off. We'll get it returned. What have you, that creates a lot of trust in the customer's mind and it makes them more likely to buy from you. So it's, it's less about how many customers you're dealing with. And it's more about how am I crafting an experience that someone says, okay, wow, this wasn't just a transaction for me. I'm actually, I'm interested in this brand. Now. I I'm excited about this brand. And another great example of this would be something like Chick-fil-A. Um, here in the South Chick-fil-A is like, it's like, God, I mean, people are, you mentioned Chick-fil-A people lose their mind. You have people who are so, um, just jazzed about Chick-fil-A, even though they're doing, you know, they're serving millions of people. And you don't have to work hard to see how many times Chick-fil-A

Coronavirus forced a new evolution in business, where everyone now knows the importance of video in online communication. So what if you could learn from the original expert that's been preaching the value of video since before the world changed in 2020? Today's guest has done campaigns with legends like Justin Timberlake and Tony Robbins. He's here to teach you how to explode your business with video, and how to do it with simplicity. Please welcome Todd Hartley. Contact Info https://www.linkedin.com/in/videotodd/    

  What if you could sell more... but without selling? What if, instead, you focused on building relationships and those free relationships became your most profitable source of sales? Today's guest talks about doing exactly that, and the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Please welcome Joy Abdullah. Contact Info https://3minutemarketing.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyabdullah/    

  As a business owner, what's your exit strategy? You likely got into business either for the money, the freedom, or because you're passionate about what you do. What if that changes? What if it's time you decide you want to do something new? There's a big difference between a 1x multiple, a 3x multiple, and a 5 or 10x multiple. And how do you get the bigger one? Todays guest has been featured in INC, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and USA Magazine, she is an international keynote speaker and makes regular radio and TV appearances on Fox Business News and CNBC. She is a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Professional with 20 years in the industry and is here to teach you how to exit rich.   Please welcome Michelle Tucker. Contact Info https://www.facebook.com/michele.seilertucker exitrichbook.com  

20 years as a Navy SEAL Commander, today's guest is obsessed with what it takes to be the best and the cost of success. That means discussing not only the benefits of striving hard for success, but the pitfalls. Listen to him share his stories of triumph and failures so that you can learn and grow professionally, physically, and mentally. Please welcome Jack Riggins. 1:45 Jack's background 7:02 - Stands Out the Most 9:27 - Moment of Realization 14:11 - Type of Consulting 17:17 - Trust Theory Contact Info https://thedarksideofelite.com/ https://www.twitter.com/riggins_jack   Jack Riggins, welcome to learning from others. How you doing? Good. Thanks for having me. Yeah. What do you got in the background on the pitcher that you got? Are you a golfer? Yeah, golf is my one, a competitive endeavor left in life. Um, so I've been doing it for about 20 years and I probably take it too serious, but I enjoy the, uh, I enjoy the process of trying to get better at golf on an individual level. Having spent my entire life in teams, in groups, it's kind of fun to take on something where it's just you. And so, yeah. Yeah. Golf is my one habit. Maybe addiction. If you ask my wife. You know, it's funny as our, as our guest that I was with just yesterday as a total opposite, he's been in, he's been golfing for not quite as long but long enough, I think 10 or 15 years. And he says he just sucks. Uh, the same as day one. So, well, we usually, it's a, it's a difficult skill. Yeah. Yeah. I was telling him and the listeners don't have to excuse us. So it looks like there's a little delay between our replies, but what I was telling him, Sam is our guests yesterday, as I said, I have his name's Tom Mattson. I said, I haven't picked up golf because I'm afraid that I'll embrace it. And I just don't want another thing on my plate. Understood understood it. Uh, if it gets you, it becomes, I mean, you gotta kind of pattern your life around it, depending on how hard you want to chase it. Yeah. All right. So, Jack, I told you we start with two questions. Question number one is what's your background? What's your area of expertise? What are we gonna learn from you today? Yeah. Great question. Um, So I'm a retired Navy seal commander with 20 years experience. Um, what I would tell you is, um, I've been in teams in groups, uh, my entire life. I was an athlete before seal team. Um, my expertise is in leadership and collaboration and, or getting groups of people to accomplish something, whatever that may be. Um, and so I both have a formal education in that with my undergrad, my master's degree. And. I also have a lot of years, two decades, uh, doing that internationally, not just with us forces, but coalition forces and also partner forces around the world. So, um, that's my area of expertise. And, and to sum that up real quickly, my whole thing is it's all about the people. So no matter what you do, people is your most valuable commodity. Yeah, I agree with that. Uh, I have a lot of questions that come to mind being in the Navy as a seal for that long. Yeah. But not until I asked you a question. Number two is what do you suck at? Yeah, I think that's a great question. Um, because it's not asked a lot, so to speak, I ask a lot myself when I'm consulting and helping folks, um, What's interesting is so we spend a lot of time, especially in seal teams, even in my consulting, work with businesses and teams talking about arousal control or managing your fight or flight space so that you can perform at your optimum at the given time. And even though I teach it, and even though I would say I've had lots of experience in it, I would also say that it's one of the things I suck at. And I, I suck at it the most. It's in my own home. Um, meaning that I've found that when there's an emotional connection, um, to people you care about, um, that adds another stressor. And so it's a balance, um, between, you know, groups and teammates and things like that, and getting to know them and care about them, but also. You know, not only for performance standpoint and whatever you do, managing that space, but managing those relationships. And, and so in one way, I think I'm really good at it, but I would tell you that I'm also really bad at it and constantly trying to grow and learn in that space. Um, and I think that's because I'm human, like everyone else. Yeah. It seems like there's a reoccurring theme with, uh, you know, our different guests at different levels of performance. It's almost like more often than not. Whatever they are exceptional at, there is a, there's a parallel to that. That's completely opposite in the same, in the same space. So you as a Navy command or a Navy seal commander, and you talk about you, your area of expertise as being a leader, did that role as being a leader? Come from a, I mean, obviously the Navy seals played part of that, but were you a leader before that or did that develop primarily through that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, five was to go back and talk to peers or mentors or coaches, teachers. I mean, in my area, I grew up in, in Nebraska, small town. Um, I would say that, that I was introduced to leadership, um, primarily through sports early. And as I grew through those and in my formative years and high school, if you will, I would say I was kind of designated that. And so I paid attention to it a little bit. Um, and I even read things on that. And so I, I had some experience and there's certainly some, um, you know, nature versus nurture. If you will. And there's a little of both. I mean, some people I'm an outgoing person and so we tend to think, Oh, outgoing people. Well, you know, they're a leader, you know, that's not always the case, but, you know, I had some inherent skills that maybe showed that. And then certainly as the years would go on, I would say that, you know, I formally was educated, trained and, and, and learned a lot of things. And certainly believe that leadership can be taught without a doubt. Um, and, and got hopefully really good at it. Um, throughout the Navy, at least enough to have a Navy career. But what I would say is that to me, you know, leadership is a journey. So if you're really trying to be a leader or you are a leader, it's best that you think about being on a growth curve that never ends. So it, you know, you're constantly not only trying to improve, but learn and, you know, in leadership, if you think you've arrived, you haven't. And so, uh, you know, I almost feel like, well, I, I am a leader and I am an expert in it and it. Each it at the same time, I feel that there's so much more out there. And sometimes that I don't know anything. Yeah. Is kind of on what you just touched on. Is there looking at yourself before and after your Navy career? Is, is there something that stands out the most about how you yourself has changed? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think like a lot of young people, I mean, I was driven to service, um, by the excitement and definitely wanting to serve. I certainly was wanting to find kind of another locker room. Cause I was a big sports guy and you know, I was a little bit naive, um, to maybe the, the big picture of things and dynamics of human beings on teams.   Um, and so there was a lot of learning. You know, about different types of people, different ways they communicate, things like that. Yeah. And ultimately through that experience, um, you know, I would say I was a hard charger, I would say, you know, out front, you know, I probably thought louder is better at first. Um, and then throughout the years, you know, I learned to, um, you know, move more towards a, a servant leadership role. You know, which was to listen, you know, find compassion and empathy and all the people I lead and, and try to make those three things, the cornerstone of my leadership. Um, and at the same time, um, develop a real good self-awareness to where, you know, I had some shortcomings in my case addiction and, you know, not handling injuries right. Or mental health. Right. And so I had prioritized a lot of other things well, before myself, Um, and kind of drove myself into the ground. And so in the end, you know, getting those challenges and taking care of them on a self thing, you know, that realization that I'm a better leader, I'm a better person. If I take care of myself, um, and you know, I'm in the best state that I can be to lead. And then going back to those cornerstones of, you know, servant compassion, empathetic leadership, and listening. And so, you know, I think what that taught me was, um, again, growth and that, you know, sometimes people get sideways and they need some help. And, um, and so I would say ultimately I learned balance. What made you realize the benefit of taking care of yourself first? Was it just a slow evolution of understanding that? Or was there a very specific moment that made you realize that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think in the end there was, it's a very specific moment or two. Yeah. Um, and you know, to back up, um, given how I was raised, I had an abusive father and so I kinda threw all my coping skills into athletics and just. Getting exhausted as a young person, certainly drove me to, um, the excitement of joining a special operations unit. Um, and so my coping mechanism was just to physically get exhausted every day. Um, And that's not a great coping mechanism because as we get older, you know, it's tough to do that. You get injured. And so anyway, um, and, and some of those things played out well in that type of career, meaning, you know, the go, go, go, go mentality. But. Ultimately, you know, I broke myself. And so there were a lot of people around me in the teams, mentors of mine or teammates that, you know, and you see that I think in a lot of those jobs, but anyway, you know, some of those people had to essentially intervene in the case of injuries. They were like, you need to go get fixed, you know, because physically you're not performing and you're just trying to power through something. Um, and that was one, wake up call more on the physical side. And then, you know, I used a lot of, uh, opioids, things like that to block pain and that kind of caused addiction to go into overdrive and then alcohol. And then it was my family. Um, my wife and my children who, you know, kind of gave me the, hit on the head and said, you know, you've messed yourself up. And, uh, I'm so thankful. Both those groups of people, um, one had the courage to do that. Um, cause at that time in my life, I don't think I had the courage myself to do that. I was just going to grind into the ground. Um, but then, you know, then I went and got professional help and uh, you know, have really stuck with it and uh, in an, an. I am in a better place with better mechanisms and it's all just part of the growth curve. So yeah, I needed some people, um, to help me out a lot of that. Well, well, I imagine benefits your ability to relay and, and do consulting. And I want to get into your consulting, but I kinda have one more question before we transition to that. Um, so. That's amazing that they were willing, like you said, to have the courage to come up and, you know, have a little intervention. Um, when, when did you yourself realize that the exhaustion component was a coping mechanism? I would say about 50, 15 years into my career. So, you know, right before I turned 40, so my late thirties, um, I realized that, you know, I was very frustrated at work and, you know, wasn't always excited to come in and, and was just trying to survive if you will. Even though I was very seasoned and I, you know, was an expert in, in special operations. Um, you know, and I wasn't sleeping well and the injuries, you know, wrongfully, I was trying to hide the injuries, you know, because of a fear of what might that might do to my career. Um, and so, you know, ultimately, you know, it was exhausting and, um, and I guess I just didn't, I just thought that I could. Power through if you will. And you know, eventually, you know, for me, you know, physical health, you know, led to mental health, mental health. Uh, degragation, you know, lead to wrong coping mechanisms to the point where I couldn't overcome it individually or really as a group. And, uh, and that's when, you know, I learned that it's okay to ask for help, you know, whether it's inside or outside and, you know, and in my case, it saved my life, but it took me a very long time. If you will, you know, late 30. You don't realize that professionally and personally. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about what you're doing now. So now you have like all this experience as a leader, you have the ability to personally relate to situations because you've overcome them yourself. So give me an example of what type of consulting you do now. And then I want to specifically get into the phrase that you mentioned the dark side, and I assume that that's a transition we can make based on that first question. Yeah, no, no, that's great. Um, you know, first I was lucky enough to, while I was in seal team to be asked and begin kind of consultant. Well Dean with, uh, sports teams around the Midwest national level sports teams. And for me at the time, you know, that was a nice one. What I called leadership exchange. Because if you think about the age groups, 18 to 22, 23, there's a lot of that military. And obviously in college sports teams, that's the demographic that you're trying to lead. Um, and so I learned a lot and I thought, wow, this is great. You know, I learned a lot. I took back to seal team. I'd like to think coaches, mentors and athletes learned a lot from me as well. And that just kind of led to more, um, more, uh, eggs are more clients, if you will. And, and through that, I met a psychiatrist too, was working more on kind of the mental health side of things with people. And so we formed our own company  mountain in 2016, um, just to bring it to a broader audience, um, businesses. Cause we felt that what we really teach is personal skills. Um, and you know, from my angle, I relate to them, you know, military stories and addiction and recovery. And those type things. And, you know, my doctor partner relates to it both in psychiatry, but also he's been doing high performance mental skills. So just this kind of dual approach, um, we've added some other people have had some success over the years. And so, you know, really what we do. Is again, teaching leadership from a, uh, basic foundational level, um, and guiding and mentoring leaders of people through that, as well as teaching a lot about followership and, and what it means to be a good follower and role acceptance. Um, and we do one on one coaching, of course. So some of those may be more personal to where someone like me, as you said, can relate to issues that are going on. Um, in some leaders lie, if. Um, but ultimately, you know, when you break it down, what we're doing is we're trying to invest in the individual human and make them the best that they can be with their potential. And then of course, making the group function. And oftentimes what we find is it's just really all about communication. And then if we can get everybody communicating in an open and honest fashion, you know, we can get the group to what we call ultimate trust and people function really good in that environment. I mean, we spend a lot of time talking about vulnerability and being your true self. Um, so sometimes leaders. Are leading, but they're not doing it from a place that's their true self. And they may not even have explored what their true self is. And so then that creates friction in their leadership, um, and vice versa, you know, there's other dynamics. So, you know, in a way we're a life skills consulting group. Is there an ideal quantity of participants in a unit that kind of better support the group trust theory? From my experience, um, both in seal team and in sports and business, um, certainly the more people, right? So you take a seal team roughly, you know, 50 to a hundred, um, that's manageable. Um, the smaller is obviously better. You just have. A numbers favor on your side with personalities, you know, different experiences in human beings. So there's less, um, potential points of friction or things you have to work on. Obviously easier to teach a small group. Um, But I would say, you know, our success has been, you know, 50 and below. If you start to look at college football teams that can get to 150, um, you know, and then there's another 20 coaches. So very difficult. If that group is trying to all be on the same page. And certainly as you get to bigger corporations, you know, There's a lot of people. And so trying to generate the same culture dynamics across say 20,000, you know, that's a difficult task, you know, the United States military does do it. Well, you know, each service. Um, but in the end of the day, I mean, when you're talking about, you know, individual units, individual kind of cultures, then a culture, you know, I would say my experience has been, you know, 15 Dean below you, you can make. Some great gains then hopefully, you know, you go to the next 50 and you make great gains. Yeah. Um, but that's just been my experience. And I think it's mainly because of the personal nature in which we do it. And so, you know, difficult to mass produce on us a 10,000 person level. Yeah, uh, kind of on that same note because of the potential of how diverse the groups are that you're working with and the participants within the groups. I imagine. And though with all that diversity, there's, there's probably a reoccurring trend in like, is there a reoccurring thing such as self-doubt ignorance, naiveness, whatever, no matter how diverse the group is, there's always like this top one or two reoccurring theme that you run into. Yeah, the top reoccurring theme that I noticed in seal team. And then I kind of, for my own leadership, if you will ballad. Dated it in different groups, men's sports, women's sports. And then, you know, the businesses I've worked with, um, is communication. Um, and when I say communication, I mean, person to person, face to face communication and, and most of the, the issues that arise in those groups just comes down to that. Simple facts. So whether it's a lack of it, um, on one person ability simply to communicate face to face, um, or another person to misread body language and social cues. That tends to then spiral and not be taken care of and, or create, you know, mass quantities of miscommunications, which then lead people, you know, to not work effectively or to, you know, have grievances. And so we spend a lot of time, um, on that, right. And almost like an arbitrator watch a situation from your experience of say leader follower. And see the dynamic and then, you know, go back and discuss, you know, what was the leader trying to say? What was the follower interpreting? You know, how can we bridge that gap? And so for me, for that question, um, in human dynamics and trying to perform at an elite level and whatever that is for people, and almost always comes down to communication skills on both sides. Yeah. Is, is you have a term that you use before we jumped on the call, uh, the dark side, and then that's part of, you know, your entity, the dark side of elite. Can you define dark side for us? Yeah. So. Part of it, as you said, it's, it's a little bit of a hook into my journey, um, into seal team, which, you know, for the most part, most people would say that's an elite organization and, and I'm a leap. I don't necessarily believe that. I mean, in the end of the day, I realized from a numbers perspective, um, and it is an elite unit. Um, but it's what I wanted to accomplish. That's what I wanted to do in the first half of my life. And so what, what I've seen, not only there, but then consulting with elite sports teams and personalities from Olympians to pro sports athletes to very successful business people is that there's a cost to being elite. Not everybody has it, so to speak. Um, but it may be family time, right? It may be like me, you get off kilter, get your priorities out of whack back. And you, you know, you have physical and mental health injuries, um, in your job. And so I look at it more like there's challenges and I use the term, the dark side of it, say that when you're striving. You know, to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish. And you know, the more you push there is blow back. There are things that you have to be careful of, um, and balance and or work through. And I just feel, um, especially in the male culture and maybe my background and seal team that it's not talked about a lot and that it really shouldn't be something we're scared of. It should be something that we do discuss, and we realize a lot of other people have these thoughts and things get out of whack. And it's something that if we discuss it and get it front and center, you know, we can deal with it. And so that's why I use the term, the dark side of elite, um, in my podcast. And that's why, um, most of our guests, if they, if they're willing to share, um, we'll talk about that to bring it. Front and center to not only people that have accomplished things, but everyday people with stressors and, and, and, and help them understand that they're not alone in that no matter where we're at, you know, we can deal with this together because I think it's inherent in human nature that, you know, at some level we all have, uh, bad decisions we make and our stressors, we don't handle well. Yeah. Why do you think it is that in the culture of men, that mental health is, is still not discussed as, um, equally or openly as other demographics? Yeah. I think just one, it it's kind of society in general. Um, you know, without ostracizing different side, uh, sides of whether it's science or, um, evolution is that, you know, most societies have males generally. You know, when you're young, it is about toughness. I mean, we see more of that, um, and that, you know, crying or talking about mental health is quote unquote a weakness. Um, and so that still is a stigma that's out there, whether we like it or not. Um, the other thing is, I mean, here in America, right? We have a lot of fatherless children, um, that creates anger and resentment. Even if a kid doesn't understand that at the time. Um, right. And so now we have kind of a two negatives, you know, that are prevailing in society. And, and then ultimately, you know, we tend to run with that because. Of peer pressure, then all around us as we grow up up until we learn something different. And let's be honest, there's a lot of jobs and a lot of places where then if we are making money and providing a, we fear on the male side, you know, well, what if someone thinks I'm weak or, or what if. I disclosed this is it going to hurt my job? And so, you know, and obviously there are places that, um, if you do do that, it can cost you your job. Is it right? I don't think so, but it is a reality. And so, so I think that, you know, right now, as we sit in the year 20, 20, the default still is for a man to beat his chest, you know, when stressed to a degree and to hold things internally, And not to try to process it in an inappropriate way. And it takes time, it takes a maturation and it also takes more people to be open about it, to say there's another way. Yeah. Is, is there anyone throughout your journey, whether it was in the Navy or with performance teams and the athletics that really kind of stands out that made the most progress underneath your wings? Underneath like my leadership or, uh, uh, of some young person that I was grooming. If you will just like a standout story of progress. Yeah. I mean, I've, um, you know, without, without giving names, um, there's several CLR officers and seals that are still on active duty, that I'm very proud of helping them in their careers. And it always warms my heart when they call, um, for some advice, whether that's professionally or personally. Say in marriage or, or whatever they're struggling with. Um, I would say one of the ones that isn't in seal team is a student athlete that had a phenomenal career in the sport, um, and still does, um, but was very suicidal and had a lot of mental health issues, you know, young, beginning of college and being one piece of, of the group that helped, um, You know, help work through those things. Um, that's very gratifying to me because it definitely could have turned out very bad and, um, been very nice, only shocking to her family or friends, um, but you know, on a national stage. And so that's very gratifying to help someone, uh, work through maybe some of the issues that I struggled with in my professional career. Yeah, well, Jack, has we get kind of closer to wrapping up? What I want to ask you next is, you know, what's what's next? Are you going to stay in performance consulting? Are you going to branch off into something else? What's what's the longterm play. Yeah, that's great. I mean, you know, performance, mountain, if you will, our company is kind of the umbrella. Um, Got me from a military London, again, a high performance psychiatrist. Um, we've added some other professional sports athletes. We're close to adding some people that have been very successful in business, um, so that we can work those lines and kind of share our experiences to help people grow individually and to grow as a group. Um, in whatever they're doing, um, from that each one of us has our own, um, if you will individual brand where we are sharing our experience through prod podcasts and books. Um, and I think we're going to continue just to grow that and share those experiences to the audiences and groups that, you know, find it beneficial. And all of us, I guess, are fortunate enough to. Have succeed in one thing. And so we don't, I don't necessarily need the money, which is a stressor for a lot of people. And so we can focus on giving it away and just helping, you know, one person or one group at a time. And so it's very gratifying. Um, Through, you know, podcasts, social media books, interactions with other people, um, share that on an individual level that falls underneath the umbrella of the corporation. And then of course, if, if there's good client synergy to absolutely go out and work with groups, which is what we love the most. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, I want to give you the last moment, uh, I want to say thanks for jumping on learning from others, but it give, be the last few moments to put out contact information, or how can people find out more about you? Yeah, that's great. Um, our performance company is performance mountain, and it's a performancemountain.com. Um, you can email us at info@performancemountain.com. Again, we educate, train and provide the tools to motivate and develop elite mindsets and winning culture across business for life on my own personal podcast, the dark side of elite it's at the dark side of elite.com. It is on all platforms. And we regularly put out about two or three podcasts from interviews to just, um, little series with thoughts on leadership and culture and addiction and any stressors that people are going through. I'm very proud of that. Cause we've had international people on everyday people up to Olympians up to people that have been so successful, but they've been very good about sharing their struggles. And I think that that's a great learning platform for all people. Yeah, I agree. I know a couple of people personally that have gone from addiction to, um, you know, some sort of performance thing. Um, one that comes to mind is, uh, an organization called, uh, now I'm going to forget it addicted to. Addicted to now, now I'm going to slaughter it, but it's like a it's they do triathlons and marathons and it's all just a group of people that have recovered from addiction. Very cool. Jack. I support several things. I mean, yeah, go ahead. No, I support for several things. Obviously, as I support seal family foundation, I'm big on supporting our active duty and their families. You know, I support veterans here in Nebraska and Nebraska soldiers fund. And so you'll find me big on, uh, on that. Cause of course, and I also, you know, and I'm an influencer for the same here, global health mental Alliance. So, so I'm big on trying to change that stigma. And use my background, uh, to help people realize that all of us have a little something that we have to work through. So yeah, I appreciate you having me was a great, great interview. Yeah. Thanks. Um, well, as we wrap up, when we jump off here, I'm going to introduce you to a couple of people. I've got a couple of a couple of people to come to mind, but Jack Reagan's performance, mountain. Thanks so much for jumping on learning from others. Thank you.

As a teenager, today's guest came from an upper-middle class lifestyle in Africa and his family moved to the US. Miscalculating finances lead to his family living in a small apartment and hustling side jobs to survive. As an adult, he then lost it all in 9/11. Hear his story of how he overcame it all and built a 7-figure net worth with 6-figures in passive income. Please welcome Ike Ikokwu. 0:28 - Ike lkokwu's Background 2:29 - Patience is a Virtue 4:01 - Ike's Things that He Overcomes 5:46 - A Teenager Story 6:58 - Ike's Journey Mr. Ike, how you doing man? Welcome to learning from others. Hey brother. I am doing fabulous. Thanks for having me excited to be joining you today. We connect on LinkedIn. So this is our first a virtual face to face. It is. I am still mad. Yeah. Well, so I know a little about a bit about you, but why don't you bring our audience up to speed? So as they know, I like to start with two questions. Question number one is what's your area of expertise? What are we going to learn from you today? Awesome. So I am a bit of a triple threat. Uh, I follow a lot of people on LinkedIn that are branding gurus and you know, the, the word out on the street is you got to stay in your lane and take it one specific thing. That's just not the way I'm wired. So my three areas of expertise are as a business growth strategist, personal finance expert, and as a success and mindset coach and all the work that I do typically kind of reverberates around those three different domains. Got it. Okay. Now, before we dig into those more specifically, a question number two is what do you suck at? Well, what do I suck at? Um, and I want a question. I suck at being patient dude. Like when I want to get done, it's gotta be like a week ago. Like I'm always behind the eight ball. I just. I guess it's part of the way that I'm wired as a visionary and just the go getter. It's like, once I get wind of like what it is I'm supposed to be doing or where I'm supposed to be, I forget about the process of planting the seed. The water, the seed running the seed grows my mouth. Yeah. You know, that, that, that, that's, that's actually an interesting opportunity for us to kind of transition into what you do because I heard somebody on another podcast a while ago, say, say something that actually kind of resonated with me. And so he said something along the lines that, um, you know, the more. Um, the more empathetic Nick, you are to people like understanding their circumstances, the less patient you are. And it's because you just want to say, here's the answer. So go, like, what are you waiting for? And so when he said that, I was like, yeah, that's why I'm so impatient with people. Cause I'm like the answers right there. Like, why aren't you just doing the thing? So do you find yourself, um, with you joking about you being a patient, but then also being in a position where you help people, do you find yourself sometimes like having to. Say that like pause yourself. They're like, no, don't go too hard on them because yes, the answers right there. But you know, they got to figure this out. You know, it's a, I believe it's a gift from God because I, I totally get what you're referring to. It's like, it's, it's so obvious. It's like, it's screaming at you. Like, well, why don't you see it at the same time? I can be extremely, extremely patient with my clients. Because, I mean, you've seen parts of my story. I mean, I have, I have been through so much adversity over my life that quite frankly, so many people would probably want to check out, just looking at the magnitude of stuff that I've been through. And I know the depths of what takes to crawl yourself out of a hole and not be able to see the opportunities that are in front of you, because you're just so high profile. Focused and how jacked up and how broken your life is. It's like, that's all you have your attention focus on. So you've had it said, you know, it's hard to see yourself with you in the picture frame. And so. I've been gifted through the pain, through, through the gift of adversity to be, be able to be patient with people, to kind of help them see the diamond, see the gym that they truly are and just kind of shine that thing until it's like, just evident for them. Cause I know what it was like, you know, during my stages of trying to. Dig myself out of a hole. So it's a bit weird because there are instances where I'm okay with myself. I'm extremely impatient. But with those that I serve, I tend to be very, very patient with. Yeah. Why don't we, um, can you share whatever stories you want to share with the audience so they can kind of better understand some of those things that you've overcome? Yeah. So, um, man, there is no shortage of them. So I'm originally from Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa, and came to this country in the late eighties. My a bit of our family values. Education is really, really big. And so my dad and my mom got there from all education from England, always had it in the cards to ship us off to Europe or the United States to get a formal education. So that happened late eighties. He had a business business apartments based out of Columbus, Georgia. We ended up here going to school. And working extremely hard to do that. And I worked multiple jobs. I had a paper route with my mom. I used to get up at 3:00 AM in the morning to go through a paper route. Uh, just cause my dad didn't do the financial calculations quite as well as it needed to do to transition from a third world country to here. I get up. Yeah. I mean, we went from living an upper middle class lifestyle where. Um, I had a driver, he used to take me to school every day. I have a cook who used to cook for us. I had maids who would like take care of the house. Yeah. And Africa. Right. And again, you know, here it's like lifestyles of the rich and famous, but that's kind of like standard for like upper middle class. And then we ended up here in the United States and due to his faulty calculations. My mom and youngest of three siblings, uh, we ended up in like a 450 square foot apartment. I'm getting up at 3:00 AM with my mom to go through a paper route because they have me in a private Catholic school. And education is extremely important and five dog gone. It, we're going to make sure you get that education. So I'm throwing a paper route with my mom at 3:00 AM in the morning for three hours before I get around this time. 14 teenagers. So, I mean, so imagine like I'm coming into the teenage years and it's like the last thing a teenager wants to be doing is waking up at three in the morning. It's good. Throw a paper out. My mom bless her soul. She's such a kindhearted, servant, a leader. She knew all of it. Details about everybody on the, in the route. Mr. Johnson likes his newspaper in his mailbox. Stephanie wants it right at her front door. So she had all these particulars and I'm like, mom, just like go around there. All of a sudden now sling these things out there. She's like, no, get out of the car. I'm like 14 years old. I'm like with that. So I had that measure of diversity in terms of just having the odds again and still ending up. Selling not only was I working at 3:00 AM in the morning, I'd be at school from seven till three. My brother would drop me off at like, uh, Google car wash and Roca carwash. I'd do that for a minute. Three hours, come home, chug down some dinner, do my homework and make straight A's. So those were the formative years. Getting through some adversity, which served me well later on, then I got into the workforce. Um, 1996 degree in the County go work for the top six accounting firms. Spend some time there do well. Cause I start learning that not only do I like accounting in tags, I liked tax specifically, but the Christmas financial planning aspects of that by working those divisions and we do some phenomenal work for like really, really wealthy people. And I'm a big believer in. Uh, duplicating imitating success, right? So it's like, you know, duplication is the greatest from a flattery. So all the stuff that they were doing at a much higher level, I was trying to figure out ways to do it at my level. So young 20 something year old kid, and I had control of like an international business corporation that was based out of Panama. I had control. Of an offshore trust that was based out of Latvia. Um, I had banking accounts that were, I mean, I was exposed to a lot of stuff as a 20 something year old that I probably shouldn't have  50 or something, but I took advantage of that things that you're seeing, financial tax planning strategies that quite frankly, you know, Extremely ultra wealthy utilize for asset protection for opportunities that rank and file don't get access to a, but just through my extreme level of curiosity around money and always wanting to apply what I'm learning. I opened up those avenues for me. And I might have been making 30, 40, 50 grand, you know, on the job, but I was making as much as that. And then some through some of the different opportunities I was getting exposed to. So I did well and, uh, you know, save a couple of nickels and dimes for lack of a better word and then Lebanon. And when nine 11 hit. Obviously we know the impacts for our country, but a lot of people lost a lot of wealth. I'm no exception to that, but it was the first time in my life, Damon that I suffered being unemployed. And unlike most people who go through like a few weeks or a month or two of unemployment, mine lasted 18 months. That's a pretty long time. So I got no income coming in. I got to ask it's wiped out as a result of the tech bubble and losses in investments. And then my real estate portfolio, almost a dozen properties that ends up going South. Cause I ended up with tenants who can't pay their rent. Well, I don't have assets. I don't have income. So properties go into foreclosure. I felt bankruptcy. Start all over again. I start all over again. Not as an employee working for somebody else, but as an entrepreneur working for myself, I then realized that the reason why I couldn't find the job. And if you looked at my resume, CPA, CFP, two of the top six accounting firms, top of the class graduation, if you're going to bet anybody, you could find a job. I was probably the guy you'd be betting on. One of the big revelations that came through that season was the fact that my destiny and my purpose was not tied to being an employee for somebody else I believe. And I know that God specifically like shut the doors for me to get reemployed, just to make sure I stepped into purpose and destiny. And the reason I know that to be true is because five years later, after filing bankruptcy, I had to find myself back for the seven figure net worth six figures in passive income. I'm actually realizing something. I've heard coaches and mentors. Tell me all the time I do, you know that you can actually turn your annual income into a monthly income. And that sounds like a really, really good coaching sales start to get you signed into one of their coaching programs. I was like, dude, I'm not falling for that. But God is truth. That only occurred to me. One when my mind, my mindset was ready for it. But two, when I stepped into the world of being an entrepreneur, that's the only time that ever happened in my life. Um, so that's another huge, huge, um, you know, season of adversity for me. So you'd think like it's all systems go now, right? I'm 34 years old, you know, financially independent by life. Can't be better. So I write a book about all of that in 2012 called what are you? The money game? Released the book on Amazon, it becomes a best seller. Um, I remember actually getting a screenshot of my book ranking ahead of Robert Kiyosaki's book, cashflow quadrant at the time. And he's like an icon and an idol just growing up in the financial services world. So that was just like a huge, surreal moment for me. So that's 2012. I get asked to blog the Huffington post and their personal finance division. Uh, that was awesome. And then 2014, it comes around and I suffered too devastating business be trails that cost me seven figures plus, so my income dropped about a third of what it was very, very excruciating time and to make matters worse. One of those business, B track sort of a classic Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. So both me and like, you know, several handfuls of clients that I used to serve as an investment advisor, we all fell victims of that and lost tons and tons of money. 2014 that happens. Unlike Bernie, the was case where he was brought to justice, the Burnie reiterated the fraud in our instance actually fled the country. We think he's in Switzerland somewhere. So the sec couldn't even bring them to justice. So the years after that in 2016, I find out. And this is just my impression that one, because we don't have the, the magnitude of celebrities that are involved in the case. And because it's not a $50 billion case, it's just 200 million in quotes. You're not about to expend any resources to try to go track this guy down instead. Because I am regulated investment advisor. By the sec, they decided to turn the cards and actually try to hold. So they file complaints against me and my companies and an attempt to try to hold me responsible for not only my losses, but for the losses of my crimes, which if you know anything about my personality and just my core values. Even being remotely accused of anything fraudulent as the antithesis of who I am. So I bathed that season in prayer. I'm like, Lord, what am I supposed to do about this? And he's like, dude, go for it. You're going to experience victory. Cause I had to decide whether I was going to litigate, you know, just, you know, bow down and disappears. So he's like, go for it. You're going to get victory. I'm like, but. Um, I can, like, nobody knows me. I mean, it's like going up against the Italian mob for lack of a better word. Like the SCC is a freaking Billman. He's like, go for it. You go and get victory. So I go for, I hire what I feel like is the best representation I can get with the attorneys to represent me. I spend over six figures and in the span of almost two years and. Basically run out of money and here's how the victory shows up my life. Damon's. And by the end of 2018, I've agreed to settle my case with them on a neither admit nor deny basis, which is good. No admission of guilt, no denial of what took place. Fine, no big deal. But this was after spending six speakers with my attorneys. And as part of the settlement, I ended up having to pay out over 320,000, just to settle a case. I also CRE. To have my investment advisory license suspended with the rights to reapply. Now, once that happens, if you hold any other professional licenses, you gotta disclose to all of them. So I did, I did for my CPA, I did for my CFP license, my insurance license. My CFP license went down the exact same track as my investment advisory license, but that was gone. I got to keep my CPA. I got to keep my insurance license, but now in my new normal, in the world that I was in, nobody wanted to provide it in Arizona. So it's like, I couldn't even use the licenses and all of the insurance carriers that I was like, one of their top producers are like, yeah, you were good to us in the past, but we don't know if we really want you representing us now. Right. So here I am at the end of 2018, started 2019. Basically assets are depleted. Income is basically depleted. Reputation is shot, as you can imagine. And I'm like, God, you said I was going to experience victory. Like, how do you guys spell victory of heaven? Cause it's nothing like what I'm experiencing down here. Right? I kid you not the revelations I got during those quiet times where this one, that I was actually experiencing the victory that he had promised me the difference. Was the perspective I had around that. Like, I was expecting a very external, yeah, victory, maybe explosive injustice at the sec, ready, persecution or damage, not lose on my assets and income and all that stuff. And he's like, look as devastating as those losses were, the most devastating loss was the loss of your identity. Because my whole world, the only reason why I was comfortable looking at the guy in the mirror was because of all of that external stuff. And he's like, dude, if I got to strip you of all of that, just to remind you of this carnal truth, and that's the fact that your value to me and to the world at large has nothing to do with what you do. It's built on the fact that you're my son. I don't know if you have kids, Damon, but if you ever had the joy of bringing a child into this earth, there is a love and a value that is ascribed to that child that has nothing to do with what they will ever do in life. Right. And so for me, it was this huge distinction between my, my, my human being, like my intrinsic value versus my human doing what I do externally. And so that was a huge area of victory in my marriage, you know, 23 years of marriage to my wonderful wife, Emma, it was finally coming to a place where I was like really loving her the way she was yearning to be loved for much of our marriage. There's huge victory there, huge victory with our kids. I got three kids, a 13 and a 10 and a five. And just being present in their lives, like being comfortable, being on vacation and not having your laptop to work on because that's the only way you define being fulfilled. Huge huge victory. And then he goes, you're just like a bunch of my other kids out there. And so now it's like, he gave me this mandate to go out there and essentially help people that are just like me. But we're out there trying to bring to pass what they feel like is their purpose or their destiny in business in life, but not pay the ultimate price of losing in their identity. Cause they get clouded with whatever measure of success. So yeah, I focus now on what I call the inner and the outer game of success. Helping people create indestructible and limitless mindsets around what they can do. Inner game, but also working on the outer games, identified the very specific tactics and strategies that they need to explore, deliver incredible value into the marketplace and get to a point where money is you're actually chasing them versus them chasing after money. Yeah. And I imagine that that makes you more relatable too, for them. They go, okay, he's been here, he's been through the ups, he's been through the downs. And then that also gives you the ability to relate to them more personally, you know, it's interesting. Did you, um, are you familiar with when Mark Cuban, uh, had a suit against him from, I had a huge, huge deal with the SCC now he spent. Um, infinitely more money than I did you off the case. I actually reached out to his attorney, um, because I was, I was, I was certain that there was corruption that I was supposed to try and help expose. I was like, God, you got to point me to the best, the best of the best. And I reached out to them. It didn't quite work out the way that I'd hoped to, in terms of actually giving them to represent me. But it's funny that you even bring that up now, just kind of reminded me about that. I remember when he was going through that, he was on, I watched a little clip. He was on a late night talk show and he was talking about how he said, look, it varies. He had similar comments to what you said, where, you know, I know, um, this is the right thing and I didn't do this. And, and for him, he said, look, I could either. Falsely admit Gail, just to put it behind me, but he says, you know, there was way more on the line than, than just the finances. Like this is my reputation. This is all my future deals. So it's interesting to, and I've had, I know several other people that would agree with you on the topic of, um, There's potential corruption that needs to be expelled. It's not just them. I mean, I think all of our government entities, I mean, I look at the city of Atlanta. I mean, just the mayor and the governor, like at odds at each other with whether or not they're going to mandate, we should wear masks in public. Unlike in the myths of the pandemic, we actually have people in office who can't see eye to eye and are more vested in their personal or political interests. And that of the constituents that they serve. I mean, that is just a travesty, right? So what's that. You know, I want to go back a little bit. So you talk about how, uh, I believe it was when you were saying about nine 11 and, and the impact that had on you and you were out for about 18 months. So during the 18 months, like, how are you surviving? Did you have savings? Like, how are you eating? Like, what's the basics like that look like? Yeah. So we had, um, some amount of savings that were being depleted rapidly. It was just the weird set of circumstances. So, um, We had it very unique mortgage. We were fortunate to be in a very, very expensive home at the time. And when we acquired the mortgage on that property, it had a very unique deal where like, if you were severed from employment, it was like a disability rider where the bank would automatically continue making your payments for you as luck would have it, that bank went under. And when it went under, it was taken over by the FDC and the new bank that was appointed to kind of, you know, clean house black, sorry, we're not honoring any of those covenants or things that you guys had with the bank that's been under. So what I flooded, I had as a saving grace to kind of help, you know, get us through that time period. Didn't actually work out. So we went through like several months where like, you know, the mortgage was in arrears and we just kept on waiting and waiting and waiting. And, you know, being a guy in that space, it was just a huge blow to my ego. But just, you know, I went to, I went to the Lord and I prayed and I said, listen, you know, I'm trying to do, we actually even went back to the bank and said, Hey, I'm in a position now where I've started my own business. I'm actually generating some income. Can we renegotiate this mortgage and do something and they would, my God, I'm doing everything that I know to be honorable. You know, if the writing is on the wall, then. Make it such that it's obvious. And when I have a conversation with my wife, Emma, she knows that this is what we're supposed to do. And when push came to shove, I'm like, listen, this, this looks like what we have to do. We have to just file and start over. So we did. Yeah. God was gracious to resurrect our finances after that and kind of clean things out for us. Do you find anything comparable to what you went through or the circumstances at nine 11 to what's going on right now with the, with the virus? There's certainly elements of fear, um, that are, uh, that are present with that. I think there are not to get into conspiracy theories, um, but I pay attention to both sides and there's something peculiar about the virus. I mean, you can look at the reporting and then we just, yesterday we were, it was, my wife was showing me something about how Florida, which we're on vacation in Florida just a few weeks ago. But you know, Florida has been in the news for having just extraordinarily high accounts. If this is true, apparently if you go in and you got total, it. And they're giving you a treatment. They have to give you multiple injections and multiple procedures. Then it ends up being like 15 times, you have to go through whatever it is that they're doing, rather than counting that as one case case, counting that as 15 different. So there's, there's some parallel there between some of the stuff that happened around nine 11, what's going on right now. Uh, but what I say is, you know, when it's, when it's a bleeding out in the streets is. Is when unprecedented transformation takes place. That's when wealth is created, that's when opportunities are bound. And so I always like to try look at things from the other perspective and see, like, what are people missing and all of this in terms of opportunities or things that they can do different. Um, so it's, it's an exciting time. I, you know, A lot of people are going through really dark times. That's not been my story. We, as a business, as a family, we have been thriving through all of this. And it's kind of like when you drive down the street and you see like it's raining on one side and the sweat pouring rain in the other, that's sort of what it's felt like. I think it's a matter of perspective, planning, preparation, where your heart is at, where your mind says as to which side of the road you might end up in this time. Yeah. Speaking of opportunities, why don't you tell us you got a challenge coming up? What's that all about? Yes. I offer a 10 K challenge and it's it's so, um, so timely too, with everything that's going on with COBIT. So, uh, I wear three different hats, as I said earlier on business growth, strategist, personal finance experts, and, um, Success and mindset coach when it comes to the business growth side. One of the things that we love to do is give a challenge, which is simply this, you know, Geico 15 minutes with them and we'll save you 50% or more on insurance. Well, the challenge that I give to business owners is spend an hour with me and I guarantee that I'll help you uncover it. At least a $10,000 in hidden revenues and profits within your business. And if they want to take me up on that challenge, they can simply head over to meet me that SL slash IQ, Coco book, the 10 K Andrew with me, and we'll spend an hour with them and try to uncover at least 10 and times. It's several multiple of that hidden opportunities within their business that they're not seeing. I don't necessarily want you to give away what the secrets are, but like what, what can you say about how this works? Like what type of things do you look at? What do you expose to them? Like, bring us up to speed so we can get excited about it. Yeah. So, um, we have a, what we call a five step profit formula and the fibers we look at are one, what are the things that you're not currently doing that are right underneath your nose to help you generate more leads? Once you're generating more leads because that's the lifeblood of every business, right. Businesses go down. Cause they don't have enough people to see. But when you have enough people to see the next major thing is how all, what percentage of those are you converting? So how do you generate more conversions in your business when you generating more conversions, which is people going from leads or prospects to actual kinds. So somebody made a purchase with you. Well, what are some of the opportunities that you're missing? Because once you've had somebody become a client, they are one of your best assets that they've bought from you once they'll buy from you time and time and time again. So how can you generate more transactions from each individual client that you've acquired? So more leads, more conversions, more transactions. And then we look at what can we do to generate more profits for your business? And there's a whole host of different things that we look at, you know, within that I mentioned as well. And, um, so those are some of the areas that we kind of look at and again, without giving out the seat, good sauce. What we often find is there are hidden opportunities in just about every business and sometimes it just takes an external third party. Analyze and point out what seems so obvious to them. Maybe not so obvious. Oh, it is. It's just those little things that end up coming through and having big contributions to your growth. I can, it's been a pleasure. I want to thank, I want to tell you, thanks for jumping on and learning from others and sharing your story. You know, I think, I think most people, a lot of people often learn more from the trials than the one, two, three blueprint on, you know, follow these steps. So it's always good to get some real life stories like that. I'll give you the last few moments to throw out that link again, maybe spell your name for the people that are listening on audio only so they can find out more about you. Absolutely. So the name is Ike, kind of like Mike without the M so I K E last name it is  I K. Okay. W you, if you're interested in 10 K challenge, you can have an opportunity to book back directly off of my calendar. It's meet me and E T M E dot S O four slash first name, last name Ike I K E. Last name I K O K W U and then just select the 10 K challenge option there to book the appointment. And we'd love to spend some time with DNC what we're going to uncover. Awesome. Everybody. Thanks so much for depth. I'm learning from others. Thanks for having me brother. Appreciate it.

What if you helped others without expecting anything in return? That's it. No sexy spin on this. But today's guest is here to tell you how doing something so simple could change your life and your business. Please welcome Brian Sexton. [INTRO] 2:17 - Brian's Background 8:00 - Intentional Encouragement 13:29 - Encouragement 17:35 - Behind every Engagement. 21:16 - Established the Trust Contact Info https://twitter.com/BrianSexton13 https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansextonmba/ Right. Let's go, Brian Sexton. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing, man? I'm doing great. Damon. What's going on today? How come I have not see? And so the people that are listening to this and not catching the video, um, Brian's got rocking this green screen, but he went like the whole other level and he painted the whole wall. Like that's what you, yeah. I'm surprised that it was my wife's idea. So she was like, so she was like, listen, um, cause where I am. So for full disclosure where I am, I'm literally about 20 feet from a Creek in West Virginia. And so she's like, you're going to draw rats and you know, my wife just thinks all this stuff, you're gonna draw rats and swamp creatures and all this stuff. And she's like, well, let's go to home Depot and Lowe's, let's get some green paint. So I knew the kind of green paint I wanted. So behind me is painted green. And then when I need to do a virtual background for the intentional encourage podcast, I just dropped a piece of fabric. Then I went to hobby lobby and paid six bucks for it. And that, so that's that just kind of surrounds the green, but yeah, most people think, cause I went to Marshall university, Damon in Huntington, West Virginia, and. Our school colors are green and white. So people think, well, you made you're all in on the Marshall stuff. So they think that it's just an homage to my tamale Alma mater, but no, it's the cheapest way I could find to do a green screen dude. So wait, so wait, you dropped the cloth. So, so do you have, uh, two different purposes? So you have the clot and the greens, the green paint. Well, I didn't figure out about the cloth until after I'd already painted. And so I, after I it into the paint, I was like, okay, this is all right, but what am I going to do about this? What I need a professional background. And so, you know, I was like, well, I'll just drop, listen to me. And I do things and then I have to go back and fix them. And then it's like, Oh, why didn't I do that in the first place? You know, we were actually talking about that just briefly for a hit record about, you know, the things you learn when you're doing podcasts that you know, now that you wish you knew before. And all right, before we get too deep in that let's, uh, let's bring our listeners up to speed. So, Brian, what are we gonna learn from you today? Well, Damon, hopefully that the audience gets from me the power of intentional encouragement. Um, I went all in at the beginning of this year. Um, basically starting on linked in and said, I see so much expertise out there that I'm going to focus on intentional encouragement. And so, you know, guys like you and you rocket man on LinkedIn, you, you are just constantly giving people great information. Thanks. And, and I didn't want to play in that sandbox. I wanted to leave that to the, to the experts like you, but I knew what I could bring to the party. Was intentional encouragement and little, you know, nobody knew we were gonna have a global pandemic. Right. Nobody knew we were going to all be working from home and zooming. Zooming would be a, a verb in 2020. Yeah. It's like Google it. Yeah. Like Google it. Yeah. So nobody, you know, nobody figured zooming would be a big thing. In fact, I hadn't heard of zoom. I had a couple people mentioned zoom about recording podcasts, but. Again, I just decided Damon. I was going to go all in on intentional encouragement. And so hopefully today, what folks will get from me is the power of intentional encouragement, how it spreads like wildfire and, and what, what intentional encouragement can do to a whole tribe of people that buy into it. All right. Before we go deeper into that, uh, Brian, what are you not so good at? Well, apparently painting your greens. You know what? I'm not good at. Damon is figuring out. You know, in, I'll give you a good example. So when I started my podcast, I was buying compressor mikes and I bought a mixer and I bought it all the way to the one. And yeah, and what I didn't realize was that the compressor might had to have Phantom power. And so then I had to go buy a mixer. What I suck at is figuring out upfront what I really need to get the job done. What I really needed was a nice Yeti mic. Like you've got in a $30 webcam that I finally had that V8 moment with God, this is what, this is what I needed. So I suck it kind of figuring it out. But once I figured it out, Then I try to, to be prepared the other way. So yeah, that's kind of what I eat now. If my wife were on the podcast with his name and she would have thing that I saw it yet. Okay. But since it's just me and you, man, that that's, that's the first thing that comes to the top of my mind. Okay. Well, we'll get her on next week. This will be part two. All right. Going to happen. Tell her about it, man. You know, you know, what's funny about you talking about how you didn't know what to do was is, um, my, my older boy, he has, one of his friends has a little birthday get together to just slips across the street this weekend. And it was his mom when the pandemic started. Um, so I, I was, you know, already on zoom and most, all of my team is remote. And so it's just been a way of life for me. And so when everything happened, I was hooking my kids up with their friends and saying, Hey, do you guys want to zoom each other? Like, you know, the first couple of weeks when no one, no, no one still knows what we're doing. But like the first couple of weeks, we really didn't know what we're doing. And so it was like total isolation. And so I knew the importance of, uh, my kids having that interaction. So I said, Hey, let's, I'm gonna message your friends, parents and see if you can get on zoom. And so it was funny in our, in our neighborhood, we have Facebook group. And so I, I. I got on there and tagged like three or four of the neighborhood's parents. And I said, Hey, my kid wants to know if you and you and you, if your kids want to get on zoom. And so then, you know, they did that zoom thing and then three or four weeks later, the one parent comes back to that post and she's like, Okay, full disclosure. I had no idea what zoom was and I'm just barely figuring it out. And I just came, I'm coming back to this post to say, yeah, my kid now wants to get on zoom and well, here in West Virginia people thought zoom was just another word for going fast, you know? I'm to zoomed down the interstate. Yeah. So we were just kind of caught off guard to me, you know? Yeah. So that's how West Virginia is deal with a pandemic. You, you never tell you never, you never introduced new words to a hillbilly. It'll just. It will just go over their head. They get lost in the weeds. Joking. When we were communicating, before we jumped on an email and I said, I have a friend that's in West Virginia, and you were mentioning something about your internet. I said, yeah, my friend's internet. She says, it runs on hamsters. And you're like, well, she's not wrong. No. And, and Damon, we got to say in here, we've got a saying here in the Southern part of the state, they say that that they're hanging on like a hair in a biscuit. And I am stunned that my internet is hanging on like a heritage. Never heard that. Yeah. So that's horrible. I had neither. I had neither, well, a few years ago I was working down in Southern West Virginia. And one of the guys I worked with, he said, uh, he said it and no joke. This is the way he talked. He said, Hey, Brian, how are you doing this morning? That's me. I'm doing good. And he goes, I said, how are you doing? He's a man hanging on like a hair to be skew. Did you just sit there? Oh, I was still, I was dumbstruck, man. I was dumb struggle. Like how do you respond to that? Yeah. All right. So let's talk about intentional encouragement. I want to give you the opportunity to kind of differentiate because, um, in, in your intro, I don't think you, uh, segmented where you, I don't think you defined the difference between when you were saying. You know, I didn't want to play in that sandbox, but I wanted to bring this to the table. So if you kind of differentiate between, um, you know, maybe what got you inspired to bring the intentional encouragement versus what actually is what intentional courage actually is. So what actual, so what intention virtual encouragement actually is Damon is, is being, um, specific. About giving someone else something that will help them. Okay. And I'll use this as an example. I text people a lot and I'll say, Hey, I just, I was just thinking about you today and I'll give them something specifically like, Hey, don't be afraid to take the next step or, Hey, listen, I'm praying for you. And I feel like this is what. You know what I want to say to you? Intentional encouragement is specifically designed for that other person to help that other person, because what happens with encouragement, Damon is it triggers something in our minds because humans run on hope. Zig Ziglar says encouragement is the fuel. That powers hope. Hmm. And so what encouragement does is when somebody is walking through something and I may not know that somebody is dealing with something, right. And so, but if I can just share something specific and say, Hey man, you've got this, you're built to do this. Knowing that person like I do, then that person may be going, man, you know, you're right. And all of a sudden it starts to unlock some things in the mind that can help them go. Okay. You know, maybe today, maybe they hadn't thought about taking that next step today, but maybe that piece of intentional encouragement specifically gives them the impetus to go ahead and say, okay man, today's the day. And so that's why I wanted to be intentional about it, because again, I saw a lot of people still facing challenges and I thought I can help. I can help there because here's the thing today. And I'll say this real quick. Is that when you are walking through the midst of something unknown, when you're trying to figure things out, the last thing that you need to add to something like that is expertise, because then expertise gets lost in the process of the mind expertise kind of gets lost in all the other things you're trying to process in making that decision and stepping in that direction. Encouragement does the other. Encouragement motivates the feelings. So encouragement speaks directly to the, to the, to the soul and the spirit and it bypasses the mind. And a lot of times, if you can get to someone's spirit and you can get into their soul, then it unlocks things that go to the mind. And then all of a sudden you've got, you've got that person's attention. You know why I love this. So, um, I'm over here grabbing my phone because. I just met up with a friend yesterday and, um, I sent him this message. So he just started, he left. I'm not going to say his name, but he listens. Um, and so I went and met him yesterday for coffee. Cause we had, I had started this post, like, you know, two months before the pandemic happened and I said, Hey, I want to start making, um, Rounds of connecting with people like in person, because just you and I engaging before we hit record, like, I like conversation. I genuinely like me to networking with people with, with no, ultimately, you know, no other conditions behind it. Like, you know, other people get together if there's the potential for business. And I get that, there's no hate against that. Right, but I'm totally cool with the wild card. Like some of the best things I've ever come in have come to me in life. Or I went in there with no intentions, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So I do this post and I say, Hey guys, I want to start meeting up like every other Friday with just like one person. So, you know, drop a comment if you want to, if you want to get on this list and I'll go meet up with somebody every other week coronavirus happens, you know? So that falls through, but. This one friend keeps following up. When am I going to have meet up? When am I going to meet up? And so I've known him for a, and so I said, you know, I'm call me now if you want to meet up. So anyways, he tells me about all these cool things he's doing. And how he went through, um, you know, he's launching this new product and the ups and downs of business and this and that. And at the end of it, what he talked about was, um, how he finally realized that I can't, he he's been following, you know, some influencer and through that info influencer finally realized he's in control of his life. And so he goes, you know, I finally realized that there's. All these excuses. And I went through every one, my dog died, the coronavirus hit this, this and this. And then I finally realized, like, it doesn't matter. Like I can still have forward momentum and do my own thing. So anyways, I send them, I send them this message after we leave. And I said, super proud of you. The last topic about you realizing you're in control of your life made my day. And so that, and I'm curious if you're the same way, but one of the things that frustrates me the most about. Trying to help other people is, is that little gap of them realizing that they can take ownership. And so in the conversation I had with my friend, Sometimes it's frustrating for me because I'm like your problems right there. Like you see it, it's like right here. Can you just do that? Yeah. Can you do that? But the thing's right there. Can you just do the thing? Yeah. And so I like it. Yeah. Those, those little nudges and I'm actually glad you put a word to it, a phrase to it. Um, because now I feel like that will help me go. Okay. Yeah. It's in touch with encouragement and then, and then that'll help me. Proceed better with intentional encouragement. So I rambled about a bunch of things. Take it where you want w what you said there was brilliant. And, and here's the thing. Don't discount what you've done in the process too, because a lot of people, it can be sexy to say, Oh, man, this influencer, um, showed me something and I saw the light. I had a V8 moment. Right. But. Don't discount what you've done in the process as well to Daymond because you might've been here's it. Here's what a lot of people miss about encouragement, intentional encouragement. You're going to plant way more seeds than you take in and harvest and using the, the farming kind of thing. And the reason I say that is. Just literally 20 feet away from where I'm sitting by walk out the door about, about 20 feet away from where the door is here. There used to be a garden there. My wife's 98 year old grandfather. He's still alive, but he planted gardens till he was about 92 or 93 years old. And he used it a section of our property to do it. I saw him work and work and work and work every day he was doing something. When he planted his garden every day, it was doing something. He put way more work into the garden than what he got out of it. But when he got something out of it, he was satisfied. Yeah. Because you reached something. And what I want to say is this is don't give intentional encouragement with the expectation of immediate gratification coming back. It doesn't always happen that way for sure. But when it does happen, It's incredible because you you've planted those seeds. You watered, you've done those things. And when it finally comes back to you, man, it's powerful. And then it's tangible. You can learn, right. You can see it, right. Just like you were talking about. You can see it right in front of you. And so that's the thing that you have to keep in mind is if you decide to go all in on intentional encouragement, understand you're going to do a lot more giving than receiving and, and Damon. That's why a lot of people don't like to do intentional encouragement because there's, our society is instant gratification, right? I mean, if we want something, we go get it. You know, Amazon has spoiled everybody because you can place an Amazon order today. And if you're a prime member, most of the time, depending on where you live, you're going to get it that day. And so intentional encouragement takes time sometimes to get it back. But when you see it, man, it's powerful and it, and it's like, it's like fuel. Like I just talked about with Zig Ziglar quote it's it fuels you and you go, I got to do this more and do this more. And so that's what I see from you, man. You, you really saw that. It's like, man, I got to do this more. Yeah, I don't, I don't take it as discouragement. Um, when I say that it's frustrating, um, it doesn't, it doesn't delay the process, but it is something that I, excuse me, that I observed. And that's kind of like along the lines of what I wanted to ask you next is, is I'm okay with the, for myself, I'm okay. With delayed gratification. And then that's why I like encouraging others because as we kind of, the metaphor is. I see my friends and family and, you know, whatever associates the problem right here. And I'm like, here's the thing, do the thing. And I'm okay with them not doing the thing, because I know it has to click for them too, but it doesn't mean for me, at least it's any less frustrating. So. I S I power through that, but I'm curious, you being somebody else that's on the same page about encouraging other people, whether you, you beat that frustration or not. Then the next thing I wanted to ask the same lines to see if you observed the same thing for me is do some people find it weird that you do this? Because I noticed that I'll go out to people and I'll just send them a message or all this. No, I don't want to, I don't have a, I don't have an agenda. I just. Can we just talk, you know, and, and do you run into that awkwardness sometimes because people are, are so, uh, like you talked about society and we're so rewired nowadays that everyone thinks that there's an agenda behind every engagement. So not to name drop, but, but, um, the reason I mentioned exemplary is I, I was, I I've been in sales and customer engagement for 25 years. And so Zig was a sales hero of mine about. A year ago, a little over a year ago. Um, I got the chance to talk to his son, um, and. What was cool for me. And I think I've got a video issue here. Give me just a quick second. We use audio. Okay. Um, but, but with Tom, um, the last conversation I had was when he was on the intentional encourage your podcast. I said to him, I said, Tom, can I, do you mind giving me your cell phone number? I said, because I just figured like you're in the business of encouragement, but who's encouraging you. Hmm. And he goes, man, no, not at all. Here you go. And that, that I try to be very sensitive Daymond because it does weird. Some people out, he can weird somebody out. If you say to them, Hey, do you mind us changing cell phone numbers? And I can reach out to you and provide you some intentional encouragement. And, you know, you just, what I say to to people is this is just be up front and say, this is why I want to, with your permission, do this. And then it kind of removes the weird, then they understand your intention behind being intentional. So, you know, I've tried to just say, this is what I want to do with your permission. And if somebody says, no, I'm not really comfortable with that. Okay. I'm totally cool with it because again, You don't want to try to encourage somebody that, that is weirded out by it because you're just going to, it's going to be spitting into the wind. Right. And so that's how I kind of handle that situation. I even get that on LinkedIn, where you and I connected is a lot of times when I engage with somebody like in my communications with networking with somebody I want. I want them in my network and exposed to my content and the things that I do. I don't, I want to showcase what I do instead of just messaging by my thing, or, you know, Hey, take this action, sign up for my funnel. And so in my messages, when I connect with somebody, I flat out say that it's totally the opposite of what most people do or are taught to do. And I say, Hey, this is, this is my, you know, I'm a father, I'm a husband. Um, here's my background. This is the company that I run. And I, I quite literally say, that's a wrap. Like I'm not going to message you anymore. And I get so much positive reinforcement from that on a daily basis, I get at least one or two of the replies, uh, people replying back from the engagement that I send out that says that was the best intro ever, or, you know, thanks for not pitching me something. And I, and I live by it. I don't pitch them unless they respond to me. That is the last message that I'm going to send them. But even then, so some people listening, saying, well, what's the point. Because you build trust and relationship with them because you didn't sell them. You had the opportunity, as you said to plant seeds, they get exposed to your personality. You know, what you offer, what your expertise is. And then they come around when the time is right. And best of all. They now, you know, quote unquote know you because they've been exposed to that content. They've built a relationship with you and whether it becomes a, the next step is some sort of personal engagement or a business engagement, like all the cells walls come down because they, they already have established that trust with you. And then I don't know. I, I just, uh, I think that there's a lot of people understand this, but given the current situation in the world, I think that there's, um, it's getting more attention as it should. Well, I want to give you some mad props too, because you were, I noticed when, when this thing started, you did a post on LinkedIn. The you didn't have to do, but you said, Hey, if you're a podcast, connect with me, let me, let me, let me help you. Let me give you something. And I applaud you for doing that because a lot of people don't want to give something unless they can give something back. And I'm not talking about you specifically. I'm just saying for me, that impressed the daylights out of me about you. And it showed me the kind of person that you were, because I think you're intentional about helping as many people as you can try to get better. At their business and things like that. And it just speaks to, to your personality and your character, Damon, that you're a giver. I've never seen people that are givers by nature, that they didn't receive way more back than what they gave. And so that that's really what, and thank you for doing that, man. We probably wouldn't be having this conversation. Had you not been bold enough to, to say, let me help some of you that, that want help. I commend you for that. And, and I think if, if we're more intentional about doing that with encouragement and other things that we have, it's going to come back to us in spades, it's really just going to come flooding back to us. And now is the greatest time to do that. Damon, because everybody needs something through this pandemic. And it's the brotherhood of man, right? We can, we can help each other, you know, you're 2,500 miles away from me. But we can help each other and we can make each other better and lift each other up through this. Unusual time in our country's history. Yeah. Uh, I have, um, my wife's nephew, I've been mentoring him a little bit and, and I've been really kind of busting them up lately about telling them about the opportunities that he's missing right now, because you know, you, and I understand it from an, from a business and a non-business perspective. He's, he's young, he's 19. And so. For him, it's all all about like his starting his entrepreneurial journey. So with him, I've been focusing on like, Hey, you know, there's all this opportunity. Here's my position. You, as the young money hungry, you know, 19 year old, I'm going to satisfy that desire to the same seven turns 20 in two weeks. I totally get it. Yeah. And I've been telling them, I'm like, dude, I, you know, I'm out here, you see these relationships I'm establishing. I'm going to play. I'm going to cater to your desire for money and, and explain it in those terms like you are missing out right now. So yes, there is understandably businesses and people that are being negatively impacted, but there is so much opportunity out there because all those people that need to stretch their dollar further. They want to give it to somebody that they know has genuinely their best interests at heart, or at least it's going to give it their all to protect that dollar. And you there's so many options and I've talked on other podcasts about how get in now and don't discount your price, or, you know, your whatever, don't, don't theoretically discount it. You like come to the table and say, Hey. I want to establish a relationship with you. And even, even the super, super I told the super young kids. I said, if you're mowing lawns for, if the, if the competitive rate in your neighborhood is 30 bucks, go mow lawns for 20 bucks, don't set your expectations. That it's always going to be 20 bucks. Let them know like, Hey, I want an opportunity to, just to prove that I can mow lawns better. So for five times I'm going to do it for 20 bucks. And then after that, you can go to 30 bucks, but. You go in there and you prove your worth, that, that person's never going to go to another lawnmower again, and you can take that same concept and apply it to, you know, the listeners that are web designers, the listeners that are insurance agents, listeners that are plumbers, whatever your expertise is. If you can come in there and say, Hey, you know, I'll I'll take it. I'll take a chance on you. You take a chance on me. You're going to establish a relationship that you couldn't create. Otherwise, man, I'm glad you said that because you're, you're tapping into my sales brain for just a minute here. So, so here's the reason why customers view compelled to look at other options. And I love that that lesson you gave your, your 19 year old nephew, it's powerful and it's right on the money. Because when customers don't feel like that, the person they're doing business with Damon is providing the value. Then they're going to search the marketplace for somebody that will. And so sometimes you have to go, listen, I know I'm an unknown commodity to you, but I'm telling you, if you give me an opportunity and then you just do a bang up job, you do the job that, that you, you know, you under promise and you over-deliver, you're going to go so far. Above your competition is not going to be funny and you're right. Mow. And those launch for 20 bucks, that person might say, well, crap, I was paying 35 or 40 in this kid's doing twice. The job that I was paying for now, all of a sudden, the intrinsic value. In the mind of that customer just went through the roof and now they're happy to pay 25 or 30 cause guess what? You're, they're getting a better quality and they're saving money and they're willing to come up a little bit and they'll go, man, you're really discounting your price. I'm, I'm happy to pay more for what you do. Just be sure that when you do it, you do it well, and you do it consistently continue continuing to over deliver that value. Yeah, consistency is huge to it. What, so what got you into this whole world? What were you doing before this? Well, it's what I'm, it's what I'm still doing. So I, you know, uh, the work from home thing. Um, so being in the pharmaceutical industry, um, obviously we can't go out in, um, call our offices and things like that. And so it's given me time to be able to podcast. I always wanted a podcast. Amen. Um, I've done for the last 18 years. Um, part-time, I've done live radio. And so, uh, I had people in my circle that said, Hey, you should do, you should podcast. You should podcast. And I'm a guy that for me, I want to wait for the right time to do something. And so when this hit, I was, I was already in preparation. Anyway, I kind of put a plan together, had some really good friends of mine that are doing podcasts that. That were kind of in my year that I pick their brain and then the pandemic kits is like, okay, well, I guess I'm, I'm going all in on this thing. And so I've been able to use the time, you know, I get my work done and then I podcast and, and I, you know, that's how I balance it. Now, when I go back out, um, it's going to be a little challenging, but, but you know, so far we've recorded. Well, man, we've probably recorded 50 episodes and I've released, um, with bonus episodes. Um, probably close to 40 episodes. And so, um, it's good. It's it, it really gets into where, what I've been doing for the last 18 years part time. Um, but it's different because instead of doing the interviews, you know, when you do live radio, my, and I do fill in work for a friend of mine has morning talk show. When I filled in for him about three weeks ago, I did interviews. So I would do, you know, send me your talking points and I would do it. And I'm fine with that. But the intentional encourage your podcast is designed to be an organic conversation that I don't want to interview. I would rather have a conversation and I'll tell you what it's done for me, Damon. I really been able to dive deep and really pull incredible stories out of people that they've told me afterwards. They're like, man, I didn't anticipate telling this, but it felt like the right time to tell it. Yeah. And so that's been the, that's been the aha moment for me in this. And I'll tell you this, man, I'm not really, a lot of people say, well, you can build your audience this way or that way for me, man, I'm focused on one. If one person listens to the intentional encourage your podcast and they get something from it, I'm golden because I know that the growth will calm. As people tap into this. And that's what I say, but that's what I was telling you earlier. Damon, in the, when we started recording is, um, that's, that's my goal is to intentionally encourage as many, as many people as I can trying to bring something unique to the table. And not trying to, to have a podcast about sports and I love sports. You can see behind me. Yeah. You and I are talking over a video autograph picture of coach K behind me, Mike Shashefski, uh, I'm a, I'm a huge reds and Bengals fan. I I'm a, I'm a big time sports fan. I can talk sports and I have. But I wanted to do something that was universe, so that could help people, um, 'cause stories, people connect to stories in fucking connect, one person to somebody else through a powerful story. Job done. Mission accomplished. Yeah, I got, I got two comments on that and then we'll, we'll get closer to wrapping up. Um, but you're totally right there. I had, um, the last guest, uh, recently I recorded with, um, he get, he got off and he's like, dude, I saw half of those topics I never even talked about before. And I would've never known because he was all about it and he was, you know, into it and yeah, we had a great conversation, but in that kind of leads me to my second point is I have, um, another guest that's pending and we got on the phone and they said, Well, what do you get out of this? And I said, I don't have an angle. You know, they, they were, they were wondering like what the pitch was or what, the, whatever it was. And I'm like, is it just not having a conversation? Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. I don't mean to rub that. I'm glad you brought that up because I have a similar process. And so, you know, I'll have people to reach out to me. And I had somebody reach out to me the other day and said, you know, I was searching podcast, came across yours and I said, I want to have a conversation with the person you're trying to get on my podcast because. Every podcast. I want it to feel like people are in the, in the room with my guest and I, and you're, and you're coming on real soon too. And I want to have that same feeling when somebody listens to that. I want them to think that they're in the room with the two of us as we're talking and they're observing that conversation. And so I do I get on the phone with somebody or I'll zoom. With somebody to get that feel of how they are so that I know this is how I need to bring the conversation to the audience. And so, I mean, I commend you for doing that. That is so neat because so many people are trying to get on as many podcasts as they can. And it's like, okay, w what, what are they bringing to my audience? And, and, you know, I was intentional about praying this morning because I wanted to bring something to your audience, man, that. That helps your, you know, your, your audience comes you Damon, because they're looking for that, that content that you uniquely provide. And so as a guest, I feel that pressure to just continue to deliver that for you and your audience. So when they listen to that episode, they go, yeah, that totally aligns with what Damon's all about. Yeah, these are always the best conversations. The one you get, the ones you get the feedback with the ones that you and I and the guests enjoy the mouse. So I appreciate you coming on and just having a conversation. Yeah, you got to sweep the med. It keeps the voice lubricated it's hot tea. Listen, man. It's hot tea. It's coffee. There's some honey there and there's some Stevia that, so, I mean, that's, that's my, uh, that's my go-to drink when I'm doing podcasts or what I'm, I'm talking on the radio. I got to have some hot tea next to me. Cause it, it, it keeps the, it keeps the vocal chords lubricated. I don't mean to one up you, but. I love it, dude. You're my hero, man. So this is my hero. You can't see, my wife talked me into buying this gallon jug that's twice as big as my head. Yeah. You have to have that thing home delivered. Isn't that what she does? I mean, It's it's like one of those gallon jugs you see in an office, like the water pool? No, it's not that big. It's got a portable water cooler right there. I just slipped a lot. I just got a little hamster tube right here to the portable water cooler. That's like a 20 gallon. I think your wife's side, you guys up for a contract. And she was just. Telling you to casual way, like this is, this is what's about to go down is not that big. No, it's Hey, listen, when you, when you talk like you, do, you do a ton of podcast a week, so do I, you have to do something that protects your voice because you know, I will talk between podcasts and phone calls and things like that. I'll probably talk 25 hours a week easy. And so, you know, you, you have to. Really get those things to help your voice. Um, I had voices use, I'll share this with you. So I was launching the podcast back in March and I was starting to have some voices use and I'd never had voice issues. Um, maybe one other time and I had some acid reflux issues and that was like 12 years ago. I had never really had voices use and I was seriously concerned that I wasn't going to be able to deliver what I had started out to deliver. And, and it was, it was pretty bad. Um, thank, thank God that, that, that it recovered. But I'm very intentional about making sure that I drink that tea. Cause it, it does, it helps my boys. It stimulates it. And so, you know, you just kind of wonder, it's like, man, I'm launching this podcast now all of a sudden I've got voices used, this is not good for a podcast or, and so yeah. You, you do those things, but again, man, we powered through it and got a better microphone. So that helped. And so, you know, and, and, and Damon's rock and such a cool mic. I've got Mike in man. He was the coolest Mick. And so I've got. So forgive me, man. I've got a little bit of Mike envy here, so, Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I appreciate them. I can be, I feel like I missed an opportunity to make a joke about Brian, Brian being a professional lube expert, but so I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna leave. I'm gonna leave it up. Well, you need to make that on. When you come on the intentional encourager podcast, you just need to file the thing away and just save it and drop it there. So, you know, okay. Be prepared. So. I, I have had to, to, uh, to bleep out F bombs and things like that. So again, I'm ready for anything. So, you know, it's all good. I kinda, I try to keep the intentional encourager podcast, family friendly. Now I only, now I have room only to disappoint. I think so, man, I think you're going to bring it strong, but, uh, yeah. But yeah, th th this is, this has been great conversation. And, uh, again, thank you for what you're doing for your community. Um, I have learned from you in watching your, your post on LinkedIn, please, man, follow this guy. If you're not following Damon burden, what are you doing? You need to be following this guy cause he's dropped and you just you're drop knowledge, man. I learned something from every post that you do. So thank you, man. People like me are benefiting from what people like you are doing. I appreciate it. Like you said, it kind kinda comes around at random times when you get that reinforcement that makes it all worth it. So we're going to leave it at that. Brian Sexton. I want to give you the last few moments to tell people how they can find out more about you. Yeah. So, uh, the intentional encourage your podcast is on all the podcasts platforms. iHeartMedia, Google play Spotify. I don't think we're on Pandora, but no. Oh, well we've got everything else covered. Um, but uh, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brian Sexton MBA, and then when you. Typed in, in search bar, the, you know, comes up in my. Profile headline is the intentional encourager. Uh, I'm on Twitter at Sexton, Brian 13, the podcast at intentional ENC one is on Twitter. Uh, Facebook just type in Brian Sexton and a pop-up the intentional encouragers. So I don't do Snapchat and I don't do Instagram because I'm not 20 I'm 48. And so I leave that to my 20 year old son to maybe me he'll help dad out and get us an Instagram or something. I say this, I say the same thing about Tik TOK. Yeah. I don't do tick. I like take tax, but I don't like, I don't do tick tock. That was the like orange. That was the worst joke ever. That was so worst that man, it is what it is, dude. I lose it. I know my own limitations. And then I've got my son, my son came to me. I get, I get to tell you this really quick. My son came to me one day. He said, dad, I'm going to start a podcast. And his name is Bryce. I said, Yar Bryce. And see, he said, yeah, he said, it's the unintentional discourage your podcast to have a counterbalance to what you're doing. Uh, Mike, my kid, man. I tell you what your, your boys, man, you are, you are in for it. My man is my kid, my kid. Yeah. My kid I'm like as much as I thought, like, okay, he's got his no. He just comes up with stuff, man. And I told my wife, one day, I said, listen, looked her right in the eye, Damon. I said, listen, as long as he's alive, I'll never die. Because he looks like me and, and, and, and things like that. So, yeah, man, your day's coming and, uh, I'm going to get the grade and the beard, I already got the gray. I already got the all zoom. Yeah. They do an outstanding job of hide my man. I got to know what your product, my mic is right here. No doubt. But listen, I want to connect with as many people as I can send me a message, you know, um, again, I just want to. Do what I can to help so many people out there professionally and personally that are kind of walking this road, like we're doing man, you know, we're all just kind of feeling our way through it, but. Damon brother, this has been so good, man. I am so honored to be a part of your podcast and thank you for the time. And, uh, looking forward to, by the way, Daymond Burton is going to be on an intentional encourage your podcast. So you got to check that one out too. So we got Tom Ziglar, we've got Dale Dupree, we've got our Robertson from duck dynasty. We've got a whole host of people that, you know, Christian Sherry, a lot of LinkedIn influencers, my friends that have come on the podcast and. I'd be honored if you check it out, um, intentional, encourage your podcast.podbean.com. So that's another way to get to it. But man, thank you for the time. I, my honor, and my privilege to be here today. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate your time, Brian, and you and I will chat soon. Thanks so much.

Today's guest is a super-connector. What's that mean? He, self-admittedly, sucks at nearly everything... except remembering others' talents and connecting them with those that needed those skills. Having been new to entrepreneurism just 3.5 years ago, he now runs a successful global PR company. Listen to find out how he did it. Please welcome Justin Breen. 0:40 - Justin Breen's Background 2:16 - Connecting on a Global Level 10:06 - Secrets of Success 13:22 - Me and my wife 16:05 - Scaling with other People Contact Info https://www.brepicllc.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinbreen1   Justin Breen, welcome to learning from others. How are you, sir? Dude, you're the man I'm pumped for this man. Big time. And funny, we've been on a world. We've been on a whirlwind romance. Justin, we've only known each other for a couple of back and forth. So it's been fun. I mean, it's a high-level bromance, highest level, 30 minutes you can imagine. And it's just going to continue to bromance. It's the bromance will exponentially Broman. Well, you, and I know why we love each other, but why do the listeners love you? What is your background?   What are we gonna learn from you today? Sure. Um, so in terms of, uh, connecting people on a global level and getting people in mainstream media and on podcasts at the highest level, there are very few people in the world that are better at it than I am. And I just stay in my zone of genius. And, uh, I'll tell you what, I'm not good at later, but I just, a hundred percent of my day is in my zone of genius.   None of this has worked for me at all. A lot of fun. Yeah, I want to ask you about that, but you, you already touched on what was coming. Next is question number two is what are you not so good at? So one of the best people in the world that connected people on a global level and getting people in news at the highest level, really, really good dad, average above average husband, useless to society, besides that things that a child could do, like make a puzzle or, you know, build something very easily.   Can't do it. Can't do it. Well, you being a good dad. I wouldn't say you're worthless to society because I'm sure that's a trickle down effect in some capacity. Yeah. So as long as my kids don't ask me to like, do a puzzle with them or, Hey, can you build this? Would they knew. I asked mommy, what was your kids?   What would your kids say dad does? Yeah, so, um, my eight year old's already started his first business and my six year old wants to be a Navy seal. So this isn't like typical family. Um, they would say that, uh, their dad, uh, Works with some of the most brilliant people on the planet. Well, let's dig into dig in deeper to that because people that aren't familiar with you, that's going to be a pretty broad statement.   So can you say more on what you mean connecting on a global level? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so I'm flying the plane. Uh, most people are landing the plane, I'm flying the plane. Um, but, uh, No, I'm in three of the top entrepreneurial groups in the world. One is strategic coach, the others entrepreneurs organization.   Then just trying to abundance three 60 with, uh, you know, Dr. Peter Diamandis started that, uh, you know, people like Elon Musk are in it. And so it's the most brilliant people on the planet. And so, yeah. I have access to the top minds access to the most innovative technology access. So the top networks in the world.   And so I just hang out with people like that all the time. And then when you do that, you just become, you just become one of those people, you rise with the tide. And so I can talk to someone in Australia, someone in Melbourne or Sydney, or. Adelaide or whatever, whatever. And then they'll say something random and I'll be like, Oh, I know someone in Utah that thinks like that.   And then I'll just connect them. We closed it. It'd be like, how'd, you know how to do that? We're doing business together. We're best friends or we're partners or referral buddies, whatever. And they're like, how do you know how to do that? Yeah. I don't know snide to do it. So it's just what I know how to do.   And so a by-product of that. By-product is constantly getting intros to companies around the world that want to hire my firm. No sales, no, no funnels, no, no, no scrape value for people they create value for you, create value, create value. Well, how does that translate to Justin paying his bills? Yeah. So thank you.   They, uh, you know, companies invest in my company to, um, get a news at the highest level. So they pay, they invest in, uh, my company's ability to. Tell very high level newsworthy stories and then get connected to the right mainstream media or podcast host. So you're like a mega Rolodex. Yeah. That's one of the best questions anyone asked me ever has ever asked me because my brain is essentially a supercomputer of geniuses.   So I have a PR firm, but, um, what, well, my company really is, it's just this giant incubator geniuses around the world and we're constantly introducing each other. So my 10 X thing in life. One, what I've learned is my brain has endless capacity to store that type of knowledge. I don't know how I don't question it.   I know just don't question. It just don't ask me to build anything, but, uh, I, it's just an endless, endless, endless CRS. I'm like, I don't have a CRM. I don't write anything down. It's just my brain's a CRM of geniuses and it just keeps growing every single day. All right, Justin, I'm the random listener that isn't Damon and doesn't know you.   You're arrogant. Justin, what do you say to that? Yep. Yep. So people with the wrong mindset, that's what they say. People with the right mindset, understand that that's not arrogance at all. It's actually extreme confidence. So arrogant people think they're great at everything. I'm actually terrible at almost everything terrible at almost everything.   What's one thing that you're terrible at that you enjoy and wish you weren't so terrible at   usually I'm not stumped, but I don't have to think of it now. I don't do anything that I'm terrible at. I don't do anything that I'm not good at it. And I don't like to do, um, I used to be a much faster runner. I still run six days a week outside, no matter the weather conditions. So it gets to be negative 20 years sometimes.   And blizzards, I guess I'm pretty terrible runner now, but I still like doing it. Um, why do you like running? Yeah, so I run a, I've been running six days a week. No matter the weather conditions outside for 15 years, at least. So. Usually before the sun comes up. So that can be pretty dangerous here, black ice or skunks or whatever.   Um, you know, both, both, they're both dangerous, but, um, is it her physical benefit or do you do it for like mental clarity? Um, most of the really good ideas I've had with my company since I started in the last three and a half years has been during those runs are solidifying things. And then, uh, I listened to 'em.   He used to listen to a lot of music, concerts and stuff, um, live concerts. And then I, now I listened to a lot of, uh, like podcasts like this, or, um, things in strategic coach, one of the entrepreneurial groups I'm in Dan, Sullivan's the co-founder, he's my hero. And, uh, so I listened to a lot of his podcast and it's a great way to great way to start the day, get motivated in the right way.   And then, and then just breathe. You remind me of, uh, uh, your own version of a savant. Are you a savant, Justin? Yeah. Some people think I'm an idiot savant. Um, but, uh, I'm a, I'm a polymath that's on my, uh, LinkedIn and Facebook and, uh, so I'm just kind of know. Things about things, but explain, define that. What is that?   It's just like someone who's wise in a lot of different things. Um, and I guess, you know, the thing that I, again, I, I don't, I stopped questioning my brain, uh, in terms of how it works. I just focused on what works and what I like to do. And then I just keep doubling down on that and those things. And again, I worked zero hours every week.   None of this has worked for me at all. It's just a lot of fun. Um, byproduct is companies insanely profitable and will continue to be that way because you know what I've learned three and a half years is you plant seeds was these types of people. These things happen. Talk to these type of people. These things happen partner with these types of people.   This is the result. And so the seeds that have been planted in 2020, and even since COVID, it'll be amazing, but fruit is what bear fruit bears from that because, uh, you know, the seeds I planted. Three years ago, those are starting to bear fruit now. And the people three years ago, it was just a different, different type of person than it is now, just because a lot of the groups I'm in.   So those seeds planted will lead to what's 2020 been like for you. Cause, uh, understandably, a lot of listeners they've had downsides, um, you know, you and I have chatted. Uh, I'm one of the fortunate ones that have been on the upside, but what about you? Yeah. Thank you for asking that. So, um, When COVID started, I'm like, Oh, maybe this will destroy my company, entrepreneur life, whatever you can handle.   Bankruptcy, depression, anxiety, dice level, or traumatic experiences as a child or younger. You're an adult. Don't become an entrepreneur because I have not met one. I haven't met one yet. Who hasn't overcome at least one of those four things most are well over one, but at least one. So on. When, uh, COVID started, I'm like, Oh, maybe it'll destroy my business.   And, uh, his background, my wife's a pediatrician. I have a lot of clients in healthcare. I've had a client that almost died from COVID. So I'm very empathetic, very empathetic. My wife's in there front lines. Um, so because I only partnered with visionary investment, abundance mindset, people, again, visionary, abundance, investment mindset.   People it's been the opposite of destroying my company since COVID, it's actually exploded since then, because those people. There's no cost scarcity. There's no panic. They're just figuring it out. Invest pivot and invest, pivot and invest. So are you talking about how you don't question your brain and it just works the way it does.   So is it awkward at when somebody comes to you and says, Hey, guess when you've had success? What's the secret is the answer basically. I dunno, a kid. No. So it's the opposite answer to that. So here's the, here's the, that's a really good question because the question I get is, are like, so. So, how did you do this?   How did, uh, like, so I started my business three and a half years ago. Didn't know what an entrepreneur was. Didn't know, an LLC was didn't know you had to pay taxes four times a year. Didn't know what a w nine was. I still don't know what S-corp stands for. All that stuff. Just landing the plane garbage.   Who cares mean that's just meaningless. It's just flight. That's landing the plane. So, so people like, how did you, that's what I wrote my book about. It's like, how did I do this? So, but, so it's mindset, one mindset, one network, one a. And then everything else is a byproduct of that. So mindset one. That's why I'm so intentional with how I talk, because it's a magnet for attracting people with visionary, abundance, investment mindsets, and those people are either running high six figure to 10 figure businesses, see their families whenever they want to and do what they like to do and what they're good at, or they will be one of those people they're not there yet, but they will because they have that mindset.   So it eliminates all the noise and nonsense and just, it just eliminates that. And then those people, because they have that mindset, they're attracted to other people with that mindset. And then they just introduced me to more people like that. So there's no sales or fun. None of that. There's no funnel.   It's just tray value people with the right people. And then they create value for me. It's very simple. I the story I'm about to tell, I, I told when you and I met with Steven and I'll probably tell every audience that you and I are on together as it's funny. So when Justin and I first met, he says, um, kind of like what you touched on entrepreneurs.   Perform highly have this characteristic and this characteristic and this characteristic. And then, and then one of the other things that he said was, and interestingly enough, most of their, their spouses, if it's a male entrepreneur, their wife is, did you say teacher and nurse teacher, nurse pediatrician, social worker, something normal kind of rules, order meetings.   All of that. So he goes still, he goes, what about your wife, Damon? And I said, ah, you know, she stays home and he sits there for a second. And then he goes, what would she do? I'm like, damn it. A nurse. So there's two again, because, so my brain is a pattern of simplify a brain. So you talk to these number of people, you see what, you just see what the patterns are, and I can just.   I can just squirrel it away. So there's two patterns in that regard. Most of the time, visionary, wackadoos like us, they marry someone who's a nurse or a social worker, someone who's a human someone. Who's like a very sound very sound fundamentally. Um, my wife is literally the exact opposite personality as me.   Thank God. So that's most of the people, I guess, married people like that. Good balance. Some of the people like us marry other people like us and they become business partners and that does work. That's great. Sometimes it doesn't work sometimes it does. Um, but again, if I had someone like me, I can't even imagine it would just be, it would be terrible.   What, what, so your wife's the opposite of you? Does, what does she think of your brain? Does she not question it or does she, is she just like, whatever boy, that's a really good question. So at first she'd never understood. She didn't understand, uh, now here's what happened. So my wife, here's how I answered that my wife has made me somewhat of a human somewhat, and then I have made her more adventurous, more risk taker.   Now I'm like, Oh, do you think I should invest 15 K in this thing? She's like, yeah, do it. She would have never said that three years ago. No, no, no, no, no. That would have been, that would have been like an alien landing on the planet if I had said that, but now she's like, no, no, no, you just do it. Just do it.   It is the scope of, of the increase in being a risk taker within the business world. Or you can jump out of an airplane for me, both my wife would never jump out of an airplane. Um, but the reason why I jumped out of an airplane last year to 2019 is that, uh, time and time again, people had told me.   Starting a business from nothing which I did with zero clients. Zero revenue is the same as jumping out of an airplane, seeing if the parachute will open. So my business, the parachute open parachute open. And when I jumped out of a plane with an instructor, I certainly didn't do that by myself, but with an instructor of the parachute open.   Very similar feeling of what were you doing before three and a half years ago? Yeah, so I was a journalist for 20 years, created my entire business model based on how PR firms annoyed me for 20 years. So when people laugh at that, but it's, so here's the, again, you see the pattern simplifier. So it's a very simple formula to creating a successful global company.   So here it is, this is it. You see a problem. You create solution to problem, problem solved, successful global company. See a problem creates solution to problem, problem solved successful global company. So that's all I did in PR. So I problem created solution problem solved, successful global company. Well, what are some examples of what were annoying and the traditional PR world?   Yep. Yep. Sure. So the problem is, again, I'm a simplifier. So the problem is hundreds of times a day, you receive useless press releases from people you don't know as a journalist see hundreds of times of the day being annoyed. I don't like to be annoyed. So badging being annoyed, hundreds of times a day for your professional career, by people you don't know.   So that's annoying. That's a problem. So my firm, this is all my firm's website. No hidden tricks. No, no, just here's what my firm does. No hidden trips. So it's go ahead. What's the w how do you approach these? So how do you scale, you're obviously very personal and intentional with your relationships. How do you do that at scale with other people?   Or is it, is it really you behind the scenes? Yeah, so I've, I have, um, some freelance writers that do some of the stories, how this will scale is, uh, I'm on a mission to find my Babs. So 99.9% of people have no idea what I'm, what I'm talking about, but I will, I will land the plane with that. So Dan Sullivan is my hero.   He's the co-founder of strategic coach. He just, he just does his damn thing. He does his podcast. He does his speeches. He does his workshops, his co-founder partner. Her name is Babs. Babs does all the logistical behind the scene. Things. Yeah, it's the, the, the employees. So when I find my Babs, that person can do all that stuff.   Um, I'm just flying the plane. I'll I would never be able to hire a bunch of people. That'd be a terrible thing for me to, so I just hired the one person. Then that person does everything from there. That's how it's scaled. Tell me about writing. About how many books have you written. So I've written one book officially.   I've. I don't have the exact number, but since I've been a journalist over 10,000 stories, so yeah. What, uh, what format were the stories that you mostly wrote was just like newspaper or magazine? What was this? Every thing you could imagine? Uh, I've been in every basically, so when I was a journalist, they didn't know what to do with me, cause I was never really meant to be.   An employee. Um, so they'd give me these weird jobs. So it'd be like assistant managing editor for content or some BS like that, or photo editor slash sports editor or pages designer slash sports reporter. Like it's just not, how did you get work in there then if you weren't meant to be there to begin with?   That's a good question. So I've always wanted to be a journalist, but what I've learned is I'm an entrepreneur who happens to be a journalist. Big difference between an entrepreneur who happens to be a journalist, as opposed to a journalist who happens to be a journalist big it's like a lawyer, who's a lawyer, as opposed to an entrepreneur who happens to be a lawyer.   Very big difference. So it was good that I did that for my whole career. Cause it, cause I liked him. I liked to be here journalist. I'm just an entrepreneur that happens to be a journalist. So I learned that since starting my company. Did your kids, you talked about what they're aspiring to be. So is that because of, did they inherit your Savantas or are you guiding them above?   Yeah.   So that kids can do whatever they want. What I will say as my eye now he's eight. He started his first business when he was seven. He's a mini version of me, tremendous pain in the ass. But he has just enough of my wife's just enough of my wife's genetics to, um, you know, normalize him. And, um, so, and then the six year old wants to be a Navy seal, but, um, he's, he's nothing like me other than his temper and he eats a lot.   Um, but he's, he's like, uh, he's like the snugly sweetest. He's just like my wife. Well, it will probably be a PDF and he has, they both have photographic memories like my wife does. So they'll the six year old, probably be a doctor. Like my wife is seven or he's eight now the eight year old, whatever. I don't even care if they go to college, that's English to me.   It's half my clients can barely read, but if they do go to college, which I'm sure they will, because my wife is different than me in that regard. But yeah, if they do go, my only deal breakers, they have to must. Must take entrepreneurial and business classes led by people that are not yeah, they actually know what the hell they're doing.   That's my only that's it. I don't care what else they do, but that's the only deal breaker. How long ago did you realize that Justin is different? Yup. Boy, that's a good question. So again, seeing patterns. So I have found that people like me were floating around up here. They are aliens within their own families.   They're aliens within their own communities. They're aliens with their own verticals. And so that's why I'm constantly on a quest to find people like me on a global level, because I need to find people that I know. I understand that they understand that you understand me. And so entrepreneurs at the highest level in terms of mindset and network, which I definitely am.   Um, they did their families, usually not always, but usually their families don't understand them. Their community does not understand them. So that's check one, check two, and then usually the vertical journalism, whatever it is. And they have no idea what I was doing. No idea, but I was doing or what I was.   Okay. So, so I've known that I was different basically my whole life. Now I just submitted, did that by understanding that people like made their that's, how they are aliens. So I'll, I'll ask him the same question, but then with, on the last note you said, so you may have always recognized it, but at what point did you accept it and realize the value in owning that?  Probably when I joined strategic coach, which has been about two years, Because that's changed my life. And people say life-changing flippantly being in that program has changed my life in every, every possible way. 90% of the way I communicate live my life from my businesses, what I've learned in that program in the last two years.   So   let me answer it like this. So most people are miserable in their lives for two reasons. One, they never. Find out what they're good at and what they like to do. So they're doing something eight to 10 hours a day that they don't like to do, or they're not good at it, or both. You would be miserable too. If you were doing that too, too, they do find out what they're good at and what they like to do, but they don't do anything about it.   So strategic coach has taught me a million things, but the main thing is just focusing on what I'm good at and what I like to do. So whether that means I'm an alien or different or whatever, which I know I am. But I just focus on it's. Okay. Then I'm different. It's in fact, it's awesome. People don't want normal.   They want weird, they want different normal two-ish years ago when you kind of grew from what you're learning is strategic coast coach, uh, was being different uncomfortable before that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, because, uh, so I'd go to these lower level networking things. And I'm like, what the hell is wrong with me?   I don't, I, I don't need a painter. I like trying to run a global company here. I don't understand why don't these people think like me. So I'm like, is there something wrong with me? And when I found out, no, there's nothing wrong with me. It's just, I, I don't think like 99% of people, or even 95% of entrepreneurs, I just don't think like that   But what I did find is once you find people that you do think like, then. No people like you at a high level, then it becomes infinite. Then the possibilities. It's interesting. A lot of things that you say because, um, you know, it bothered my head over here. You know, I went to a lot of, like, I could just never do the BNIs and things like that.   Like I get why they're beneficial for some people, but great. That's your tribe. If that's your tribe, then fine. Be happy in your tribe. That is not my tribe. God. Yeah. So , I'm always, it's comforting to hear and I'm sure for some listeners too, when, you know, I've I recognize the things that make me happy in my alienness, but you're like a step ahead of me in, you know, recognizing the patterns and things like that.   So it's probably comforting for a lot of listeners to go. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I just haven't found my tribe yet, or I need to be open to accepting my differences. I think a lot of people it'll it'll click for them. So the dings that just went off in my head, the, the non audible things is that you just summed up exactly why my company is a successful global business.   So what happens if I do, I do interviews like this or whatever 90. It, depending on the audience, but most little, just say most of the audience will be like, what the hell is going on here? This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's arrogant, whatever, all day, whatever. But the people who get it, they will reach out.   And the people who get it again are either running high six figure to 10 figure businesses. Either families, whenever they want to doing what they're like to do, or they will be those people because they have those attributes. That's why I'm so intentional. All right. So let me, let me plan out a timeline here.   So prior to three and a half, there's Justin prior to three and half years ago, there's Justin now who are, seem like significantly different people, but what about the beginning of big Justin? What about the beginning of the new Justin? Maybe the two and a half, three year Mark would. So you've accepted your alienness, you're starting to find your superpowers already done that.   Yeah. Did, did you accept where you offended when you would get the arrogant statements at that point in your life? Because right now it's clear that like you get the, it's just a difference and understanding, but what about three years ago? No, that never offended me ever. Um, that's so interesting that that was your question because that, um, never offended me because I've always known, I've always known that there's just.   I'm just not like most, I'm just not, I'm just not like most people, um, uh, you know, like if you get me at a normal party talking about normal things, I'll sit in the corner and not say anything. So people like me were like ambiverts so you get me talking on a format like this I'm the biggest extrovert, because I'm so passionate about this.   I care so much. That like, Oh, this is the way people can live their lives, make as much money as they want to and see their families whenever they want to and work with only the people that will like, why wouldn't I be passionate about that? You asked me about the, you know, white socks or what's going on in the local diner.   I don't know, carrot, like that's meaningless to me. I don't just don't care. Um, but what's interesting about you is your Colby's nine five three two. So, and as the fact-finder side, I just, I think that's, what's amazing because, uh, I'm an aid fact finder and I'm so endlessly curious. It's unbelievable. And then you're even a step above that.   So that's what really. A lot of things. Interesting. Interesting me about you, but that's that's number one, because you're just on a constant quest to find information. I think that's the neatest they needed and I've never met a 10 fact finder. Never. I don't even know if, I mean, I guess it exists, but I've never met one.   So you're the highest I've met. Explain to the listeners what scoring metric you're referring to. Okay. Sorry. Ellen. Okay. So I've taken a lot of entrepreneurial tests or personality tests, whatever. So coldy K O L B E the a index test. It's by far based on my experience, the top entrepreneurial test in the world, it's the Bible of strategic coach.   Anyone who's, anyone has taken that test or knows what that is. So when you know, someone's Colby test or they've taken it, it's a higher level of conversation. Okay. So that's the background. Any top entrepreneur in the world knows what this test is or has taken it. So there you go with that. I can't recommend it enough.   It's $55, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. It's B. So it's not a personality test. It's your brain strengths. And so, so you are a nine five, three, two. So I'll translate that for audience. So it's one to 10 that there are no bad scores, no bad scores. So nine fact finder that's really high. Really really most entrepreneurs are like a five or six.   It's still pretty high, but not a nine. I'm an eight. You're a five follow-through which for an entrepreneur that's really high. Most entrepre nurses have little to no follow through. They're all over the place. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And they have no follow-through, that's why they hire a million people you don't follow through is higher than most.   Entrepreneurs is a five. Mine's a six. So it's even higher than that. Your quick start is really low for an entrepreneur. You're a three. Most entrepreneurs are eight, nine, even 10, and Sullivan's at 10. So they're like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then they have no follow-ups there.   They hire a bunch of people. So I'm a seven quick start, six follow through. So I have high quick start. Boom, boom, boom, and high follow-through. So I just say it, do it, say it, do it, hit the gas, pump the brakes. Do what I say. That's very rare by the way, for people in general and for entrepreneurs, but. And then you're a two implementer, meaning like working with your hands and things like that.   You're up futurist see things in the future. So I'm a one implementer I'm a million times worse at implementing things than you are the difference. The woman, the two, my wife's a two implementer. If we have to build anything, she won't like doing it, but she'll do it. I will run across in traffic as opposed to trying to build something.   Um, So that's what, that's what it is. And so when you're hiring some, if you're hiring someone or you just want to know how people's brains, it means work, the Colby test is the ultimate. It's the ultimate guide for that ultimate. Well, I was having a discussion with my wife yesterday, about something he touched on about, you know, small talk and same thing for me.   Like, it's just not my thing. And, but, but I am sympathetic to it being other people's things. So I'll listen, I don't say that I care. Oh yeah. Humanize it. You'll humanize it. Yeah, it is. Can you do that or you can't even do that. I can do it. And, um, It's not easy for me, but what, what I here's, here's the interesting thing of what you just asked is that sometimes I actually crave it because when you're up here flying the plane with these tens of thousands of these people, and I have, we'll just call this a meeting I have between five and 10 of these types of meetings every single day with people at your level.   So when you're up here all the time, I mean, all the time. Um, it's it actually is it's. Yeah. So I was talking to one of my fraternity brothers is by the way, also a very high level entrepreneur. And I was just talking about fantasy football, which I'm like, Oh man, can we just not talk about like scaling our businesses or like, you know, working on this six figure project.   And like, it would just. Like talk about Antonio Brown if he's gonna play. And so that, but just every now and then I liked those conversations most of the time. No, do not get me involved with that. Cause I will be very bored very quickly. All right. Well, let's uh, as we wrap up, I want to ask you what's next what's what's the big game plan.   Where are you at five years? 10 years, whatever. Again, nothing random about that question. So I'm working on my 10 year vision now. And, uh, so the mission statement, I have to write a 300 word synopsis of it, but the mission statement is to connect every visionary, abundance, investment mindset person, and share their stories with the world.   So I'm doing that now, but it's a hundred X thing that it's whatever. And so again, finding that Babs, finding that person to, yeah. Integrated, what did he do at all? What do you imagine Babs will do? Like how's everything that I don't want to do everything. Well from a technical answer. Yeah. She's gonna do all that stuff, but from a visionary position, what, what do you think she's going to bring to the table?   So Moneyball, good movie. So there's a scene in Moneyball and Moneyball is the movie about the Oakland A's general manager, Billy Bean. So the owner, this is. This is what I'm trying to say. It's not like this, but this is what I'm trying to say. So the owner of the AEs has a five minute meeting with Billy Bean saying, here's your budget and I'll get to work on the owner floating up here.   Here's my five minute thing do this. And Billy Bean takes care of everything else. That's it. So that, that Babs person just needs to follow my vision and to make sure every person that they hired. So you don't even have any specifics in mind that you would hope Babs would bring to the table. You're gonna lean entirely on Babs lean entirely on.   Yeah, because, because I have zero implementation skills, meaning I just want to fly the plane. Yeah. Yep. And, and if, if I w I will find that person, um, Because it's just going to organically happen. Do you think that's what I was going to ask? Do you think it'll come through, like, it'll, it'll probably come through a connection and like this, where I'm putting out these radio frequencies now, and then someone will see it and they'll reach out to me.   That's what, that's what will happen. You know, I think he'll be blindsided. You think it'll come from some point of connection when it's meant to happen? It's meant to happen. I don't believe in randomness because. Like, there's nothing random about your ten-year question when I'm working on my 10 year vision right now.   No, there's nothing random about that. So, um, I listen to my self on podcasts from three years ago and things I was saying, then they weren't happening then, but they're happening now. Of underwear. Are you wearing, can I throw you a random one? Uh, blue and green boxers. All right. Random enough. All right, Justin, it's been a pleasure.   I enjoy our relationship. I'm looking forward to seeing where we continue to grow together. And I'm going to give you the last few moments to tell our listeners and your future Babs, how they can find out more about you.   No, you're just a good, you're just a good human being. And, uh, that's what people like about you, all this SEO stuff, whatever. I mean, that's fine, but they like you, they they're attracted to you and you do do a good job. I appreciate that. Stephen gentlemen, that we did a duo with, he, he said something similar.   Right? So Stevens, if you think I'm flying the plane, he's flying the spaceship. Yeah. Yeah. He's on a different he's on, he might not be human. He's like, that's not it. I mean, he might not be human. Yeah. I mean, I haven't invited him now. I need to invite him on the show. Oh my God. That's it. That's it. All right.   Kevin, the editor listeners, I hope by the time this errors, Steven follows up Justin's episode. I mean, that will be a really interesting you. Two are very, you're very different. I mean, he's different than everyone. That's what makes him so interesting. But yeah. I'm trying. I will listen to that because he he's just.   He won't be able to draw anything in that interview will yeah. For the listeners. Uh, Steven's very visual with how he communicates and he has a whiteboard on his thing. So. All right. I'm going to steer the, I'm going to steer this back to, okay. So you were landing the plane. Uh, LinkedIn. I use LinkedIn as a commercial for other people.   I'd like 23,000 flowers there. Uh, so if you want. There's my book. It was what I always have is never talk about the, so Chris Wallace wrote the forward. No, it's always funny because it doesn't, that's just, that doesn't matter. Like it's, it's the brain, but, uh, the, so that's how the book is the, like I talked that the book is exactly that there's no deviation and then Chris FOSS wrote the forward.   So. Anyone who's anyone has read Chris's book. I never split the difference. So he's the, he's the real deal. So let me ask you on that because, um, the last couple of guests we've had have talked about having really cool foreword writers, how did you get that forward written? Yeah, so Chris's son, Brandon's in my strategic coach group.   And, um, so Brandon is the first person that ever called me connector. He's like, Oh, you're just the connector. I'm like, what? So Brandon is the genius. And so Brandon. They're the it's a black Swan group is Chris bosses and Brandon's company. So they were looking for an entrepreneurial financial planner.   I'm like, Oh, one of my clients is a perfect fit. So then I introduced them. They want to pertaining and for all their employees, then when it came down to, uh, writing the forward a book, I'm like, Brandon, your dad would be, I mean, there's a perk. That's perfect. He Brandon's in strategic coach with me. Chris Voss is in strategic coach.   Uh, total. So there you go. That's so that's one out of a good Jillian stories of how built company that's one tiny, good example, but one of many, many, many, all right. Justin's on LinkedIn and www.brepicllc.com Well, tell, tell me about the company name. Where'd that come from? I always laugh when people are like, Oh, we spent millions of dollars and months and it's playing in.   No, no, no. So I was driving up to Wisconsin. My wife has surprised me for my 40th birthday. I go into this five-star lodge and on the way, halfway up through Wisconsin, I'm like, Oh, I'll just name my company.  cause I like saying the word Epic.  That's it? No, no thought just action   town is falling apart. I was going to say they didn't like the name now we live by a hospital, so, Oh, I was going to say, I've heard a few sirens run by. All right. Justin Breen find him on LinkedIn and uh, that's it. That's a wrap. Thanks Justin. Thanks for joining, learning from others in the man. You're the man. Damon. 

Today's guest has been river rafting for over two decades. After running into the owner of a river rafting company while skiing, the opportunity presented itself to buy his way into owning a river guide company of his own. With his wife by his side, he's here to talk about riding the waves of being a first time business owner and sharing stories of enjoying the beauty of nature in some of America's national parks. Please welcome Tyler Callantine. Contact Info https://dinosaurriverexpeditions.com/ https://www.facebook.com/dinoriverexp/ https://www.instagram.com/dinoriverexp/    

Today's guest has started 87 businesses, most earning seven figures and beyond. And he teaches others to do the same, with his clients having generated more than $100,000,000 in sales in dozens of industries. For as much success he's earned, he's equally failed, making and losing millions several times over. Hear his real-life stories of glorious triumphs and colossal failures. And listen through to the end to learn of scholarships he's giving away to entrepreneurs and business owners just like you. Please welcome Tom Matzen. Business https://embarkmilliondollarauthority.com Non-Profits https://entrepreneurempowerment.org