WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 It's usually one founder that's breathing life into this thing with lots of 2 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.760 little helpers. It's a genius of the thousand hands. And of course, if you 3 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:08.960 remove the genius, there's nothing, right? And that's most businesses and most 4 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:11.120 businesses aren't worth anything because they're not businesses. They're 5 00:00:11.120 --> 00:00:15.360 leverage jobs. Welcome to the game, where we talk about how to get more 6 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:18.320 customers, how to make more for customers, how to keep them longer, and the many 7 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:21.200 failures and lessons we have learned alone the way. Hope you enjoy and 8 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:25.200 subscribe. Alex Harbose, welcome to the Bigger 9 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:28.960 Podcast. Great to have you. Thank you for having me, very honored to be here. 10 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:33.520 Yeah, so for anyone who's been living under a rock and hasn't heard about your 11 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:37.280 astronomical success, amazing insight that you're giving to small business owners, 12 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:42.000 would you mind giving us a background of where you started and where you are right now? 13 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.840 All right, I'll give the the world shortest play by play milestones. 14 00:00:46.400 --> 00:00:50.400 So I was a management consultant, went to Vanderbilt, graduated, did defense 15 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:53.760 contracting for two years, really didn't like it, got my top secret clearances. 16 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:55.840 Sounded sexy on paper, wasn't cool in real life. 17 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:59.600 Wanted to leave Baltimore, went to West Coast, started at GM, 18 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.080 slept on the floor for the first nine months, was able to figure it out. 19 00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:04.720 By month 15, we had our second location, every six months after that, 20 00:01:04.720 --> 00:01:08.160 opened a new one, had six locations, had lots of gym owners started asking me, 21 00:01:08.160 --> 00:01:11.280 hey, how did you grow so fast? And so I started helping those guys out. 22 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.920 I ended up doing gym turnarounds where I'd fly out to a gym, fill it up, fix it, etc. 23 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.720 We did 32 or 33 turnarounds over the next two years. 24 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:22.640 And then from there, I sold my six gyms and then transition from the turn around 25 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:26.800 flying out guys to GM's business to a licensing model, because it was more scalable. 26 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:30.080 And so that was 2017, we transitioned to licensing. 27 00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:34.960 That business scaled to I think 37 million a year with very good margins. 28 00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:39.840 And then we started a supplement company, prestige labs, which we sold to our distribution 29 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:44.560 base. We had 4500 locations. From there, we started Allen, which was a software that worked 30 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:48.560 leads for brick and mortar businesses of any kind. We exited all three of those businesses, 31 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:53.680 one to a strategic buyer for the software and the other two as a package deal to American 32 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:57.280 Pacific Group, which is a private equity for just that one was 46 million. The other one, 33 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.280 I'm not a lot to disclose it, but I can tell you that we did 12 million top line the year before 34 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:05.360 we sold it for the software company. It was an all stock deal. And so that was last year. 35 00:02:05.360 --> 00:02:09.760 We started acquisition.com in 2020, which became our holding company for a portfolio. 36 00:02:09.760 --> 00:02:14.560 Right now the portfolio does north of $150 million a year. I'm only going to time stamp this. 37 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:19.200 It is currently July of 2022, because people here are these clips later and they're like, 38 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:23.520 you said, I know we grow. That's why the numbers change. But you know, at this moment, 39 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:27.200 the north of $150 million a year in portfolio revenue between our companies, 40 00:02:27.200 --> 00:02:32.000 we specialize in high cash flow service businesses and things of that nature. 41 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:37.040 So it sounds like you started the gym business. You jumped into it. You pursued excellence in that 42 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:41.520 area. You learned sales techniques, the psychology behind how you get people to do things, 43 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:45.120 then you learned business techniques, how to run a profitable business. You took the step that 44 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.360 most people never take when they hit that point is you said, how do I scale this and took on bigger 45 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:52.880 and more difficult problems to solve? You started solving other people's problems, 46 00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:57.200 constantly helping them to do more. And then once you hit this point of big success, you said, 47 00:02:57.200 --> 00:03:01.280 okay, now what synergy do I have? I can go sell supplement products because I understand fitness 48 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:05.760 people. Trust me. And then you solve a new problem. And you said, okay, now I can have a software 49 00:03:05.760 --> 00:03:10.560 company that's going to help manage this. And you sort of just spread in this like synergistic way. 50 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:14.400 Rather than I'm going to go start a gym and then I'm going to go start a car wash and then I'm 51 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:19.680 going to go start something like a loan brokerage or something completely unrelated. Is that more or 52 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.520 less a good summary of your approach? Yeah, I definitely did a whole bunch of things that I probably 53 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:27.280 wouldn't do again. And probably would have done it necessarily in that order, etc. A lot of things 54 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:31.360 were more difficult than they should have been. But yes, that was 100%. They were synergistic in nature. 55 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:34.560 I felt like I was leaving money on the table. And so I took those opportunities. If I could do it 56 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:39.040 again, I wouldn't have done that way. But they were still obviously very good outcomes. But I feel 57 00:03:39.040 --> 00:03:42.880 like I've learned. So since then, yeah, I don't think there's too many people that would be in a 58 00:03:42.880 --> 00:03:48.960 position to criticize how it turned out for you. I think if anyone is. Actually, I've got notes. 59 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:56.720 I'm today's episode. Rob is going to tear apart Alex's business strategy and teach him what he 60 00:03:56.720 --> 00:04:01.280 should have done instead. All right. Well, thank you for for sharing that. I really appreciate it. 61 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:04.880 You are an incredibly intelligent man. And I'm not saying that to butter you up. I'm just saying, 62 00:04:04.880 --> 00:04:10.960 I take a lot of what you say. It's not fluff. It is very, very practical, well thought out. 63 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:16.000 The type of advice you only get from trying and failing a lot and then figure out, okay, 64 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.600 this is what actually works. It's kind of like listening to a grace you talk about you, Jitsu. 65 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:23.120 That's the same feeling that I get when I'm listening to you talk about business. So 66 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:27.120 before we get into today's show, we actually have a fun game that we're going to play. It's going to 67 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:34.400 be called Mosy Nation or Mosy imitation. Oh, so in today's episode, Rob and I are going to try 68 00:04:34.400 --> 00:04:39.600 to guess if a fact about you is true or not and then you are going to let us know which one was 69 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:44.880 right and we're going to see who wins. This is great. I'm so excited. All right. I feel I feel 70 00:04:44.880 --> 00:04:50.400 pretty confident. I do watch some some Mosy YouTube videos. So I think I got this one in the bag. 71 00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:54.800 Yeah, he's been practicing. He's been researching this so that he could win. So we'll see, we'll see 72 00:04:54.800 --> 00:05:00.160 a talent or preparation wins out here. You guys can figure out which one of us is the talent based 73 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:06.320 on what he said so far. All right. Fact number one, Alex and Layla Hormosi met on a dating app. 74 00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:11.680 Rob, what say you? I think I'm going to go, uh, no, I think I'll go, no, they did not meet 75 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:17.040 on a dating app met on bubble. What's okay? They did be an unbumble. So I was going to say, no, 76 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:25.040 so I did confuse you there. The reason I didn't answer right away is I remembered hearing a 77 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.800 interview that you were talking about. I can't remember who it was with, but I remember you talking 78 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:32.320 about your relationship with her and how you were super busy. And there was a time she came in the 79 00:05:32.320 --> 00:05:36.400 room. She was like, do you want to break up? And you're like, yeah, whatever. Like, okay. And then 80 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:40.800 at some point you needed help on a business deal. She went out there. She absolutely crushed it 81 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:43.840 for you. And it's sort of like had a paradigm shift. Like, oh, maybe this person's a little more 82 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:48.880 special to me than what I thought, which I frankly love that you shared that information. Because 83 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:51.920 this is something dudes go through all the time. And we never want to talk about. We want to look 84 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:56.320 like Batman. We just show up and, you know, like everything goes well. But that's not how real life 85 00:05:56.320 --> 00:05:59.280 works out. So I was trying to remember if you had mentioned the dating app or not. 86 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.400 All right. That one. All right. I'm going to say in a gym for sure. But all right. I'll get it on 87 00:06:04.400 --> 00:06:09.840 this one. It's all good. All right. Question or fact, Alex emailed himself all of his failures 88 00:06:09.840 --> 00:06:16.160 for the last five years. I think we'll go true on that. Not from something anecdotally that I 89 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:21.520 know, but it does seem like something you would do. I could see and then I could see how you 90 00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:26.720 like use that to fuel your success. I'm going to go, yes, on that one. I'm going to shoot with yes, 91 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:32.320 but not for any of the reasons Rob said. It's because I watched Alex's micro expression. 92 00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:35.360 When we asked the question, I was like, just going to read him completion. 93 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:41.200 All right. All right. All right. All in the talent. All in. Yeah. No, 100%. That was, 94 00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:47.120 that was how I, yeah, that's how I remembered the lessons. Yep. That'll keep you humble too. And 95 00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:51.600 that's, I mean, something we could talk about later on in the show purposely pursuing humility when 96 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:56.000 you're having massive success is absolutely in my opinion, like crucial. It's not something that 97 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:00.880 just happens. You have to make an intentional effort to stay in a humble place when it feels like 98 00:07:00.880 --> 00:07:05.200 everything that you're doing is just falling in line perfectly. So I can see that would be very wise. 99 00:07:05.840 --> 00:07:11.040 All right. Alex starts his mornings with a hot sauna and an ice bath. You go first. 100 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:16.960 I'm going to go with no. I think he only does the ice bath because a hot sauna would be too 101 00:07:16.960 --> 00:07:22.080 comforting. And that just sounds like something that Alex without reward himself with comfort before 102 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:27.840 he earned it throughout the day. I'm going to go yes, because I know that you wake up at four. 103 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:32.560 And that's a lot of time. You talk about how you get more done in those hours than people do all 104 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:37.920 week. And it's very time consuming to take ice baths and sit in the sauna. So I'm going to go yes. 105 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:43.760 No, I wake up, I drink up a coffee and I work my morning. You're also a great answer. 106 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:48.000 I love that, man. There's certain trends that you pick up on when you follow people in this 107 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.320 business. That everyone starts saying it because everyone else said it like one of the really 108 00:07:52.320 --> 00:07:58.160 common ones that I noticed was Mark Zuckerberg was credited with saying I wear the same shirt every 109 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:02.320 day because then I don't have to think about what I'm going to wear. And I am so incredibly 110 00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:06.560 beyond your level that that that I don't even have mental energy to spare to pick out my shirt. 111 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:09.520 And we were like, Oh, that sounds good. Say that. I'm going to start doing that too. And 112 00:08:09.520 --> 00:08:14.000 everyone started wearing the same shirt. And I heard him on a interview with Gary Vee. 113 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:18.240 And he said, Yeah, I just said that because really I'm not good at dressing myself and it sounded 114 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:23.200 better than admitting I don't pick out clothes. And I was like, how many of us have been repeating 115 00:08:23.200 --> 00:08:27.760 this as this business maximum that's super. And he's like, Yeah, I made the whole thing up. So 116 00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:33.040 there's a lot of things like that, like the ice bath in the morning, the the waking up super 117 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:36.400 early, which I think is really good, especially if you're in a competitive environment where 118 00:08:36.400 --> 00:08:39.920 you're competing with others for business. But like if you're just someone who writes books, 119 00:08:39.920 --> 00:08:43.040 it doesn't really give you an advantage because then you got to go to bed at 8 o'clock at night. 120 00:08:43.040 --> 00:08:47.680 It's sort of a similar situation. So I really appreciate you admitting that you're not 121 00:08:47.680 --> 00:08:51.600 doing it just because everyone else says they are. I can go hard on that question. 122 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:55.840 Well, let's start with that. Like let's hear your opinion if you think that I'm way off here. 123 00:08:55.840 --> 00:09:01.440 I think it's a big pile of gobbledygook. I mean, the amount of stuff that is espoused by the 124 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.960 TikTok gurus of wealth and finance is insanity. You know, you've got the cold plunges, the 125 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:10.960 the finger toe shoes, the yellow glasses, the affirmations, the morning, the gratitude journal. 126 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:13.600 It's like, by the time you do that, you're already halfway through your day and you haven't 127 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:17.840 done anything. And so if you break this down to like a first principles thinking, it's like, okay, 128 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:21.840 in order for me to do more, I must do more. Anything that is not me doing more is detracting 129 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:26.080 from my ability to do. And so period, you know, like that's it. And so 130 00:09:27.040 --> 00:09:32.160 the time thinking about doing time procrastinating, doing time recovering, like all those things 131 00:09:32.160 --> 00:09:36.560 are just not things that are you doing. So I think the ability to work itself is trainable. 132 00:09:36.560 --> 00:09:41.600 And so if people like feel like they need that prep beforehand, then I think that is something 133 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:45.600 that is a crush that can be eliminated and then ultimately make you more productive, not because 134 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:50.080 you have some hack, but simply because you just put more time in. I do love the simplicity of that. 135 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:53.120 It's really just kind of breaking it all through. And it's just like, oh, it's just this one 136 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:57.920 really simple thing. And I remember I watched one of your videos that was like my $100 million 137 00:09:57.920 --> 00:10:02.480 diet or something. And then you talked about how you went into a room with a bunch of CEOs, 138 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:06.960 one had wheatgrass shots. And then the other one was like meditating in the corner. And then 139 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:10.720 you're eating twizzlers. And they're like, what are you doing, bro? And then you basically broke 140 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:15.360 down how all diets are sham. And it shams. And it basically comes down to calorie deficits. 141 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:20.320 And that ever since then, I'm like, okay, I need to stop. I need to stop micro counting. It's just 142 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:24.400 calorie deficit. I mean, obviously, I don't want to oversimplify, but it was just like how funny, 143 00:10:24.400 --> 00:10:28.960 it's just like these perceptions really cloud our minds. And it's just like much more simple 144 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:33.680 than what we think a lot of the times. I had a mentor who's told me this this this quote, 145 00:10:33.680 --> 00:10:38.240 it's a two-minute story. And I think it's very memorable. It's don't be cute, right? He was like, 146 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:42.640 you know, he was from Long Island. He's like, you know, when I used to play a back-out football, 147 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:46.880 I was like, yeah, sure. He's like, yeah. So, you know, you got everybody wants to be fancy, 148 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:50.960 you know, got the, you know, we're going to flip it to Timmy. And Timmy's going to reverse this 149 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.000 way. And then we're going to fake it. And then we're going to go along to what happens. You drop 150 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.920 the ball and then it's fumble and you lose the odds. He's like, nah, we're talking fundamentals 151 00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:02.560 football. Put the two fat guys in the middle, run to the right. And he was like, don't be cute. 152 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:06.320 And he was telling me this because I was talking about this idea that I had for for for Jim 153 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:10.160 Orange in terms of one of the a new initiative that I wanted to take. And he was like, don't be cute, 154 00:11:10.160 --> 00:11:14.480 man. He's like, just do more what you're doing. And I feel like there's a lot of truth to that 155 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:18.240 in terms of like people over complicate things that they already know because the truth is too 156 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.720 difficult to stomach. Right? So it's like they want to, they don't want to accept that they 157 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:25.680 should just eat less and move more. And so they want to come up with a hundred ways to be too 158 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:29.440 rather than just confronting the fact that you just need to eat less and move more. And like, 159 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:32.400 they don't want to confront the fact that they just need a f***ing work. And so then they're like, 160 00:11:32.400 --> 00:11:35.360 I'm going to do all these things to prepare myself to work, right? And get myself in the right 161 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:40.640 zen and like have an attitude of abundance or rora and like read my affirmations and do my daily 162 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:44.560 journal and all this stuff when it's like, dude, the work, the doing needs doing. So it's just 163 00:11:45.520 --> 00:11:52.400 who's going to do it? You know, I have a theory on that that like our audience is particularly 164 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:57.120 susceptible to these guru's that say, I will teach you how to make a million dollars by taking 165 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:00.720 my hundred thousand dollar course. And once you take this course, you're going to go out there and 166 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:06.320 you're going to flip 40 houses a year by showing you how I do it. And even if they gave you the 167 00:12:06.400 --> 00:12:12.640 information to flip 40 houses a year, you're not in shape to jump onto that level of a workout. 168 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:16.480 It would be like, if the rock said, I will show you my workout, that doesn't mean you can go do 169 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:21.840 his workout. It takes time to build the skills that you would need to accomplish that. And it's that 170 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:27.280 like whenever someone's being taken advantage of, there is a part of them that is making them 171 00:12:27.280 --> 00:12:30.640 vulnerable to that because like you said, it's they don't want to do the work. They're either lazy 172 00:12:30.640 --> 00:12:35.680 or they're greedy or there's some component of that that isn't what they don't want to accept. 173 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:40.000 It's the case. And I feel like this is why we there's constantly a new diet or a new trend or a 174 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.320 new something. And if you're the person that sells that to people, they'll buy it. You'll make a bunch 175 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:48.720 of money. And then it's funny because now you actually have money. And so you can show that your 176 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:53.280 system works, but you didn't do it by working the system. You did it by selling other people on 177 00:12:53.280 --> 00:12:57.440 what they could be doing, which is I really like you because you took the opposite approach. You 178 00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:01.680 went in there and built these gyms and grinded to learn these things. And then you said, okay, 179 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:05.440 here's what I've learned after everything I've done. And I love that don't be cute. 180 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:08.640 Approach is just this is the fundamentals is how it works to do this better. 181 00:13:08.640 --> 00:13:12.400 Yeah, definitely wasn't a new opportunity. We're just like, so one of the things that we call 182 00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:16.240 database marketing, but when we work with a portfolio company, especially if they're in the 183 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:22.160 education space, one of the first systems that we implement is data tracking or customer success. 184 00:13:22.160 --> 00:13:25.760 And so, you know, we have activation points that we want to track. We know that, you know, if someone 185 00:13:25.760 --> 00:13:30.160 does XYZ by day 30 or whatever, the likelihood that they, you know, Stair said goes up, you know, 186 00:13:30.160 --> 00:13:34.960 threefold, whatever. And so what happens is then we can make substantiated claims based on based 187 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:38.480 on what we can observe. And so the more data we collect, we can say, hey, of the people who 188 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:45.920 actually send, you know, 1000 emails to perspective homeowners, people who do that on average four out 189 00:13:45.920 --> 00:13:51.040 of five of them will close the deal in their first 45 days. And so then it gives people prescriptions 190 00:13:51.040 --> 00:13:54.240 of activation. It's like, I can't guarantee that you're going to do it, but I can give you the data 191 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:58.240 to support what actions are going to create the outcome. And so then you can start reworking marketing 192 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:01.840 message rather than being another guy who's making the same promise. You just say, hey, again, 193 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.120 I'm not making the promise. I'm just telling you what's happened. And then you can make your own 194 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:09.600 decision based on that. And that's how I prefer it is also gives you unlimited amounts of kind of 195 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:13.360 marketing angles and hooks because once you have data, you can talk to the top 20% of the bottom 196 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:18.000 20% the median the average. You can talk about people who do XYZ add contingencies to, you know, 197 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:21.200 the claims that you make and it gives you an unlimited way, but it all starts with actually focusing on 198 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:25.120 the customer and making sure that they're getting what they're supposed to, you know, be getting. 199 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:31.360 Right. Yeah. So I like this a lot that don't be cute. And I am a frequent watcher of your 200 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:36.000 YouTube channel. And it's a very raw channel where you sit and you talk about life lessons that 201 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.520 you've gone through. And I really like that. I really appreciate you basically you leave it all 202 00:14:41.520 --> 00:14:46.000 out there for people to kind of take and apply to their life. So one of the things that I hear you 203 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:52.240 talk about really often, you know, is scaling. And that seems to be somewhat of your specialty. I 204 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:57.120 know that there's different tiers of kind of scaling companies, right? There's the first million 205 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:01.440 than million to three million and then three million to 30 million. So I was kind of hoping we could 206 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:05.920 dive into that a little bit because I think a lot of people in the bigger pockets audience, 207 00:15:05.920 --> 00:15:11.200 they're trying to get to that first million dollars, right? And we want to really dive into some 208 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:16.320 of those concepts and what's needed to really hit that million dollar mark in the company. So 209 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:20.240 do you think you could just sort of walk us through those different tiers starting with that first, 210 00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:25.120 how do we get to that golden egg of a million dollars for a business? I'll actually even break it down 211 00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:29.680 to six figures too because I was asked on a different podcast about six figures and it actually, 212 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:35.520 it's even simpler. So, you know, to get started, you have to sell something to someone. That's it. 213 00:15:35.520 --> 00:15:39.840 Like literally that's all one avatar, one product, one channel. That's it. So you have one way of 214 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:44.240 getting customers. You saw one thing to one specific type of person. That is all you need to do to 215 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:48.880 get to six figures. To get to seven figures, you need to learn how to do those three things, 216 00:15:48.880 --> 00:15:53.520 comma reliably, comma consistently, right? So it's you know how to sell one product to one 217 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:57.200 avatar on one channel in a consistent manner. So you start having predictive metrics on 218 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:00.960 how you can acquire customers. So it's either I spend this amount of money on advertising and this 219 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:04.400 is how many, you know, calls to give up and then from that many calls, I get that many, you know, 220 00:16:04.400 --> 00:16:08.160 sales, et cetera. If it's outbound, it's like I send this many emails or make this many calls or 221 00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:11.760 this many texts and then this many, you know, reply back, this many schedule, this many show, 222 00:16:11.760 --> 00:16:16.320 this many clothes, et cetera. If you're running organic, it's I know that I need to have this many 223 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:19.840 posts that I have to make across these different channels with call to actions that drive towards this 224 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:24.400 page for every thousand visitors on this page. I get why opt-ins. You know what I mean? So each of 225 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:29.200 these vehicles or I have to hit my email list, you know, once a week and if I hit it once a week 226 00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:32.320 with a call to action again. So all these are the different ways you can get customers. You could 227 00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:35.920 also do affiliates. You can do referrals. There's many ways to do it. But the point is that you pick one 228 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:42.320 avatar, one channel and one product and then as soon as you can start predicting how many inputs it 229 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:47.280 takes to get an output, then you get to a million, right? And at that point, you're, you know, 230 00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:51.760 one, two, three million a year. One to three, you have to build out your core team. So that's usually 231 00:16:51.760 --> 00:16:56.400 like the first five hires, first five, the tenish that are, it depends on the ticket of the thing that's 232 00:16:56.400 --> 00:17:01.520 being sold. You know, if you're selling 25,000 more and things versus $500 things, the the team size 233 00:17:01.520 --> 00:17:06.800 is going to be different. But it's the core team at about three million. And that's the reason 234 00:17:06.800 --> 00:17:10.640 that we take companies on at three is usually there because because there's a core team and at three 235 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:14.880 million, there's product market fit. So they've demonstrated that people want this thing and they have 236 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:19.520 enough support that we can take them from three to 10, three to 10. And this is interesting because 237 00:17:19.520 --> 00:17:23.360 there's a mistake a lot of people make it three. And I can stop whenever you want me to cut the lines 238 00:17:23.360 --> 00:17:29.280 of the problems that come up. But the problems that come up at three ish are that people start 239 00:17:29.280 --> 00:17:33.200 getting cute, right? And they start saying, and here's what's difficult is that you get reinforced 240 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:37.600 on the fact that the more you market, the more you sell, the more money you make, right? And it's true. 241 00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:41.520 And you can scale from there by doing more sales and more marketing. And that is what the vast 242 00:17:41.520 --> 00:17:47.040 majority of the industry will do because they got reinforced doing it early. The problem is that 243 00:17:47.040 --> 00:17:50.880 they switched the objectives. The objective of the first phase of business, which for me is like zero 244 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:55.520 to three, is just to demonstrate product market fit and an acquisition channel that is profitable. 245 00:17:55.520 --> 00:18:00.400 That is the objective. Now at this point, we transition objectives to increasing left and right 246 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:03.520 for customers. So this is improving customer experience, putting data tracking in place. 247 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:07.520 If there's an ascension opportunity that makes sense, we need to build out that product or service 248 00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:12.880 so that, and this is the big point, so that when we do choose to add another channel or expand 249 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:17.360 on our current channel, we can do so more profitably, right? Where if you just sell a single product 250 00:18:17.360 --> 00:18:23.120 that might not have as much LTV as you would, you know, you would want, as you scale or put more in, 251 00:18:23.120 --> 00:18:27.600 your margins begin to compress. So you might go up to 10 million, but your margins have compressed 252 00:18:27.600 --> 00:18:31.520 over time. And then you get in this place where you have to keep selling to maintain your overhead, 253 00:18:31.520 --> 00:18:35.040 but you're not really taking enough home and you can't have enough cash free cash load to grow 254 00:18:35.120 --> 00:18:39.360 the business. And so sometimes it's like you have to take the step back, fix the product, fix the 255 00:18:39.360 --> 00:18:43.280 customer experience, fix the service, fix the data, fix the infrastructure that everything's built on, 256 00:18:43.280 --> 00:18:46.880 probably higher and fire some people that you promoted a little bit too early that didn't have 257 00:18:46.880 --> 00:18:50.160 the experience because they're actually not actually running things that well. And then once we 258 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:54.400 fix that stuff, then honestly, going from three to 10 usually almost happens on its own. Once we're 259 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:59.280 at 10, then we go far more aggressively on the acquisition side, which is, you know, the easiest 260 00:18:59.280 --> 00:19:04.800 moniker that I use is more better new. So we do more what we're currently doing until we max that out. 261 00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:08.320 And then we do better of what we're currently doing. Is there any CRO opportunity? So 262 00:19:08.320 --> 00:19:12.480 conversion rate optimization, can we switch this headline out? Can we change this lead magnet? Can we 263 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:15.920 implement some of the best practices that we know to get more people to shop if it's a service 264 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.920 business, if it's a product's business, and I only focus on service businesses. So lots of 265 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:24.720 me, lots of our stuff is over the phone. Can we change the video sales letters and the follow-up 266 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:29.200 emails, things like that? All the improvements that can happen. And then different is, okay, 267 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:33.360 or new, is can we add a new channel to this? So we have six that we can choose from to get new 268 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:38.240 customers. We've got, we've got, we can hit up our own lists, we can do cold, cold outbound, 269 00:19:38.240 --> 00:19:42.480 we can do content, we can do paid ads, we can do affiliates, we can do referrals. And so there's 270 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:45.840 the only six ways to get new customers. We look at those six and say of the skills that we currently 271 00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:50.240 have, which of these would make the most sense to add to it. And you can even go adding a new thing 272 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:53.840 within a current. So if you're running paid ads, it's like going from Facebook to YouTube, 273 00:19:53.840 --> 00:19:58.640 we're going from Facebook to TikTok. And so there's, you know, each one of those six squares has 274 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.600 channels or media channels that you can, or platforms that you can tap into that give you new 275 00:20:03.600 --> 00:20:07.520 audiences. So that was a little bit of a crash horse there. But that's what allows you to scale from 276 00:20:07.520 --> 00:20:12.640 10 to 30 and beyond. At 30-ish, the founders typically will start feeling constrained because they 277 00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:16.160 are the two Jew behind the entire business. And please cut me off from starting to bore you guys. 278 00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:22.400 But at 30-ish is when it's, it stops being about the founder. Not that it was about the founder 279 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:27.200 to begin with, but like you can will your way to 30. But at some point, like right around there, 280 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:30.720 there's like just, oh, you get spread too thin. And so, and this was missed, I stayed. 281 00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:37.200 Okay, I'll stop. The point is, is that you need more, you need more stallions, right? And so you 282 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:42.880 have to find more people who can drive things like you do. And so this is where employee compensation 283 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:47.280 and recruiting become paramount to getting to the next level. Because you need to bring people in 284 00:20:47.280 --> 00:20:51.040 who've already won the Olympic gold, who've already run this race multiple times at companies just 285 00:20:51.040 --> 00:20:55.680 like yours, but bigger and better, and then have them come and run the playbook for you so that 286 00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:58.960 you're not driving it but someone else's. And so that's where like, compensation and recruiting 287 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:03.600 becomes really important so you can incentivize people who, who deserve to have that level of 288 00:21:03.600 --> 00:21:08.960 compensation. And that's you get to, you know, it's a nine figures plus. Okay, all right. Well, 289 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:14.400 I think we're, we can probably just end the podcast there, right? We've got a lot to cover on this. 290 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:20.160 So let's talk about the first million because that seems to be where a lot of people aren't all 291 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:24.160 of this. So you talked about in your first million, you're kind of identifying a few things, 292 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:28.160 it's going to be your avatar, which is going to be your customer profile. Who is your customer 293 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:32.960 profile? But then you also mentioned your one channel. Can you explain that? Do you mean the one 294 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:37.360 channel that you're marketing or the one channel that you're, yeah, explain that? Do you mean like 295 00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:42.160 YouTube, like social channel? Give us a little bit more on that. Yeah. So there's, there's three 296 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:46.960 variables, right? So you got platform, you've got, you've got media, and then you've got the content, 297 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:51.760 right? Of whatever you're marketing. So you just have to pick one of those three things together. 298 00:21:51.760 --> 00:21:55.760 So I told you about six ways to get your customers just now, right? So there's six ways to get 299 00:21:55.760 --> 00:21:59.120 your customers. You pick one, you double click on that and it's like, okay, within there, if I do 300 00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:02.480 call it out, by the way, I'm going to call call, I'm going to do call text, call the emails, all 301 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:06.720 of those would be one platform, right? So one method, and then you've got the platform that you're 302 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:10.480 doing it on, and then you pick the type of media that you want to send. Do I want to send a voice 303 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:13.600 memo? Do I want to send a text? Do I want to send a handwritten card? Do I want it? You don't even 304 00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:16.960 like depends on the platform because some platforms you can send multiple types of media. Some of them 305 00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:21.280 can only send one. And so you pick one channel, which is all those things together, which is just 306 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:25.520 a fancy word for a pathway for a stranger to become a customer, right? So we pick a pathway for 307 00:22:25.520 --> 00:22:30.640 a stranger to become a customer and we focus on that one thing. Real quick, guys, you guys already 308 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:35.520 know that I don't run any ads on this and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can 309 00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:38.800 ever have if you guys that you help me spread the word so we can have more entrepreneurs, 310 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:43.040 make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have better experiences for 311 00:22:43.040 --> 00:22:48.080 their employees and customers. And the only way we do that is if you can rate and review and share 312 00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:51.440 this podcast. So the single thing that I asked you to do is you can just leave a review, 313 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:55.600 but take 10 seconds or one type of the thumb to the absolute world to me and more importantly, 314 00:22:55.600 --> 00:23:03.200 it may change the world for someone else. And do you feel that for breaking your first million, 315 00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:09.280 the entrepreneur that's in this journey, is that kind of like the loneliest phase of the company? 316 00:23:10.080 --> 00:23:16.640 Because I feel like for me, you know, I was alone for a lot of it in terms of just in the weeds 317 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:21.920 of my own businesses and I really didn't start hiring until breaking the threshold of that in 318 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:27.760 my businesses. Is that a pretty common sentiment you think or is it, you know, like do people 319 00:23:27.760 --> 00:23:30.720 have like well-established teams and that's how they get to a million? 320 00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:35.440 No, I mean, at a million, it's usually a few hires, a few contractors, you know, it depends 321 00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:40.240 again on the number of units sold to get to a million, you know, because you got to make 83k 322 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:44.400 a month, you got to make 20k a week, right? So 20k a week, if you're selling 20k things, 323 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:47.680 it's like you're selling four clients a month, like that's pretty easy to manage. If you're selling, 324 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.960 you know, a hundred dollar things, you got to sell 200 clients a week, so it's a little bit harder. 325 00:23:53.280 --> 00:23:56.240 Again, if it's a physical products business, then it's going to be mostly like support, 326 00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:00.640 and if you're the media buyer, slash marketer, then, you know, you can probably manage any commerce, 327 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:04.960 but again, it just depends on the type of business. But I would say from a zoom out perspective, 328 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:09.920 I think all all seasons of entrepreneurship have elements of lowliness, and I think that it changes. 329 00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:13.360 I think in the beginning, it's a lot harder because you are really competitive. 330 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:16.160 You're really competitive against other people rather than being competitive against yourself. 331 00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:19.840 And so like in the beginning, you're like, this guy ripped off my ****, this guy's love, 332 00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:23.600 but you have all this like finger pointing, and I was just on a podcast with Ed Mylett, 333 00:24:23.600 --> 00:24:27.200 and we had a really good conversation about it. But like the 20 year club, you know, 334 00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:32.000 I mean, like I'm only in the decade club, right? But like, you know, five years in, 80% of people 335 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:35.920 are gone, right? So it's like, okay, it's a little bit friendly. You're at 10 years, you know, 336 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:40.720 at least for me, like I have no, I just know how big the, the world is. And so 337 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:45.520 if there's like, I remember when I was starting out with Jim Lodge, I thought about doing a 338 00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:49.280 weight loss business because we were good at weight loss. And that was actually what ended up, 339 00:24:49.280 --> 00:24:53.360 we decided to do the weight loss business. And that's when I pivoted. And I told the guys, 340 00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:56.800 the gyms that were going to do their turn around the next month that we weren't going to do it. 341 00:24:56.800 --> 00:24:59.680 And the guys were like, well, can you just show me how to do it? And I was like, fine, 342 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:03.680 I'll show you how to do it. And I sold them just kind of like a licensing of all my, 343 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:07.520 all my, my ads and all my pages and everything that I already built out and tested. 344 00:25:07.600 --> 00:25:10.720 And then that ended up being, you know, that became Jim Lodge and became way bigger 345 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.520 than the, than the little weight loss thing that we had. But when I started doing weight loss, 346 00:25:13.520 --> 00:25:16.640 just for a few weeks, a buddy of mine who was in weight loss came up to me and he said, 347 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:21.440 yo, if you do weight loss, we can't be friends. He was doing like 150 grand a month. 348 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:26.000 I was like, dude, it's a $60 billion industry. Like we can't both do weight loss. He's like, dude, 349 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:30.000 I was doing weight loss first. I was like, bro, I had six gyms. I've been doing weight lessons, 350 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:35.840 but you were 17. You know what I mean? That's crazy. That's crazy. He invented the concept of 351 00:25:35.840 --> 00:25:41.280 weight loss. Like you know that guy. That's so cool. It's there. And so I say that because like, 352 00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:45.680 it sounds ridiculous. And that guy ended up becoming very, very successful too. And he like later on 353 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:51.760 was like, dude, I was just, I don't know. Sorry. You know, because you're so afraid. It's just fear. 354 00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:56.480 You're just so afraid that that something's going to go wrong that you just want to like hold on 355 00:25:56.480 --> 00:26:01.040 and clench and just, and just point at everybody else when it just like, it just isn't about you. 356 00:26:01.040 --> 00:26:03.920 You know what I mean? It's just like, if you can serve your customers, you'll have business. It 357 00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:08.480 doesn't matter what the competition is doing. And the market's so big. You know what I mean? So 358 00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:12.960 anyways, I think that's why it's lonely. But like it's lonely at my point too, just in a different 359 00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:16.480 way. It's lonely because there's just not that many people that I can talk to who are, you know, 360 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:22.080 doing with the same things. Right. So do you feel, because that that makes sense for me. Like I've 361 00:26:22.080 --> 00:26:25.760 been in a lot of moments like that where it's it's rare to connect to something that's going through 362 00:26:25.760 --> 00:26:33.280 the exact kind of very nuanced thing that you're going through. Like have you found people in your 363 00:26:33.280 --> 00:26:37.680 journey that you've have connected in that way? And like, how does one even find that? Because I 364 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:42.400 think that is really tough for a lot of people to to find something that really grasps what they're 365 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:47.200 saying on a personal level. So to talk on one of the points that we were talking about in the 366 00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:54.160 game show earlier, I'm a huge, huge, huge, huge pro bonnet of alternative education. I love, I love 367 00:26:54.160 --> 00:27:01.040 the education businesses. I love guru businesses. I mean, I love them, comma, as long as they're being 368 00:27:01.040 --> 00:27:06.480 done well and promising the correct thing and really focused on the product and the customer. 369 00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:11.040 I love that. And fundamentally like, guru businesses are just education businesses and they are 370 00:27:11.040 --> 00:27:15.440 sprouting all over the place because the demand is unmet by the formal education system. And the 371 00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:19.600 demand is for skills that make money. And people are not getting them, but the demand is not going 372 00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:22.560 away. If anything is grown because people are seeing on social media, all these other people make 373 00:27:22.560 --> 00:27:26.800 you money. They're like, this is possible. And so in one good way, I think Instagram and all that 374 00:27:26.800 --> 00:27:31.280 stuff has made more people believe that they can do it. The downside is obviously whenever you 375 00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:34.560 have upside, you've got an equal opposite reaction of people who are scamming people and things 376 00:27:34.560 --> 00:27:38.720 like that. And I think that the difference between a scam and somebody who is trying to deliver 377 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:42.800 is intention. I think there are many well-hearted or well-intentioned educators who are really 378 00:27:42.800 --> 00:27:46.080 trying to do a good job, but they are poor teachers, just like there are people who love the 379 00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:49.600 teacher or teachers and were terrible at teaching math. And you probably had them, but they really 380 00:27:49.600 --> 00:27:53.040 wanted to help and they just weren't that good at it. And so I have a little bit more of a heart 381 00:27:53.280 --> 00:27:57.760 for both sides of the equation here, but I do think that education is the way. And how did I find 382 00:27:57.760 --> 00:28:03.120 people? I asked and I was willing to have people say no. And real, real, fair a few people said 383 00:28:03.120 --> 00:28:07.600 no to me, my whole journey. And I think it was because the way that I asked was I didn't ask. 384 00:28:07.600 --> 00:28:12.560 I went and said, hey, this is all the stuff I'm good at. And then I would just prepare stuff and 385 00:28:12.560 --> 00:28:16.960 I do work ahead of time to help them with their business. And I would just get on a call and be like, 386 00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:21.600 here's all the value I could possibly deliver to you. And then if there was anybody worth anything 387 00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:27.120 because winners give back, they were like, dude, this was, I was not expecting this. Dude, 388 00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:30.960 what can I do for you? And I'd be like, okay, I really have this question. Do you know how to do 389 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:35.680 this thing? And they're like, no, but I know a guy and I'll put you guys together. And so 390 00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:41.200 I like my first mastermind, I was a part of, I got voted member of the year with like a hundred 391 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:44.240 internet marketers and I wasn't an internet marketer. Because I didn't know anything about 392 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:48.000 internet marketing, which is ridiculous. I joined it because I wanted to learn. And so I just 393 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:53.200 only think I knew then with sales. And so all of that, I was, I rewrote so many scripts for guys 394 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:56.800 in that community because it was the only thing I was good at. And so they're like, wow, this is 395 00:28:56.800 --> 00:28:59.760 awesome. And then they would help me out. And I was like, how do I connect a landing page to 396 00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:04.240 an opt-in thing? And they would sit there and they would show me how to do it. And that's how I 397 00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:09.600 learned. Like I did not, I learned like this. Like you and me on the phone right here. This is how I 398 00:29:09.600 --> 00:29:13.600 learned. And I paid dearly for that because I didn't buy that many courses. I actually bought 399 00:29:13.600 --> 00:29:18.160 way more one-on-one. And I bought a lot of my one-on-one by doing work for other people for free. 400 00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:24.400 Yeah. I can definitely relate with the opt-in form and connecting into the landing page. When I, 401 00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:29.040 when I first launched my very first program, that was the hardest week of my life because I did 402 00:29:29.040 --> 00:29:34.960 all the tech and all the marketing and all the content and all the editing and all the copywriting. 403 00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:39.040 And it hurt my brain, you know, but at the end of it, I was like, okay. And so I'm a really big 404 00:29:39.040 --> 00:29:45.120 proponent of learning all this stuff and mastering it before I can delegate it out to somebody 405 00:29:45.120 --> 00:29:49.760 else because I just want to know that they are good at what they're doing. But I feel like that's 406 00:29:49.760 --> 00:29:55.360 not necessarily super sustainable as the organization grows. And I think you kind of mentioned this 407 00:29:55.360 --> 00:30:00.080 earlier where you said, once you start scaling up, you have to start hiring these stallions or people 408 00:30:00.080 --> 00:30:06.000 that are better than you at certain functions. I struggle with that not because I think I'm smarter 409 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:11.440 than everybody, but I'm just always like, no one knows it the way I know it. Is that a limiting 410 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:16.480 belief that that is difficult to shake your entire journey? Are you pretty good at breaking 411 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:21.760 free from that, that limiting belief? Yeah, 100% limiting belief. I mean, it's it's prideful to 412 00:30:21.760 --> 00:30:26.800 think that no one can do something better than you. So a lot of times what happens is people hire 413 00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:30.320 people who've never done the thing and then are like, oh my god, I'm better than this person. 414 00:30:30.320 --> 00:30:34.320 It's equal obviously they've never done it before. Hire someone who's significantly better than you, 415 00:30:34.320 --> 00:30:38.080 who's done that thing for a very long time, a comma who's not also running every other 416 00:30:38.080 --> 00:30:41.840 department of the business. And you'll be amazed at how much somebody can do. In the beginning, 417 00:30:41.840 --> 00:30:46.640 though, just to be clear, it is normal for people to have to learn all the basics, right? Like 418 00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:50.560 entrepreneurship in the beginning is very much, you know, master of all trades, you know, what 419 00:30:50.560 --> 00:30:54.160 is the jack of all trades master of none. Like that's very much the beginning. You have to just be 420 00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:57.520 good enough at everything. You don't have to be great. You just have to be good enough to get it 421 00:30:57.520 --> 00:31:01.760 done and get the first dollar across the bridge. From there, you start to begin to get more 422 00:31:01.760 --> 00:31:04.800 leverage. And so the entire conversation of scaling and entrepreneurship got two things, 423 00:31:04.800 --> 00:31:10.000 control and leverage. And so the control component is that you have, it's a consistent relinquishing 424 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.800 of control as you move up the leverage ladder, right? Because you can't see every email that goes 425 00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:19.680 out. You can't approve every post. You can't review every sales call. You can't, you know, 426 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:23.200 make every video that's going to be in your in your course from what you're saying, right? Like, 427 00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:27.360 you can't make every one of those things. And the person who's making it in the beginning might 428 00:31:27.360 --> 00:31:30.880 not be as good as you. But the questions are they good enough? And that's why organizations 429 00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:34.800 improve over time because like you have to scale with good enough until you can replace it 430 00:31:34.800 --> 00:31:38.160 with better because you have more leverage because you have more cash flow. You can attract better 431 00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:43.280 people. You can fix the culture, et cetera, et cetera. And so the whole concept of moving up in 432 00:31:43.280 --> 00:31:49.120 entrepreneurship is trading your time for increasing amounts of money. And so we're defining 433 00:31:49.120 --> 00:31:52.640 leverage as getting more for what you put in, right? Inputs and outputs and systems. The 434 00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:56.000 script is between two is the leverage. If that's the leverage in a system, we try and use more 435 00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.640 more leverage. And the first four version of that is is labor, right? And so that's the lowest 436 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:06.000 form of leverage that we can use. And so we we hire people to do things for us so that we can 437 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:12.080 have time back to do more valuable things. In your experience, Alex, do you feel that the skill of 438 00:32:12.080 --> 00:32:18.880 hiring well is a really big hurdle that people have to overcome? Is this one of the bigger problems? 439 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:24.720 Or is it not as big as I'm thinking in my mind? It is the problem. Yeah. It is the biggest problem. 440 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:29.840 So think about this from a truly theoretical standpoint. If you understood what was required 441 00:32:29.840 --> 00:32:34.400 in a business, like what has to happen for a business to succeed? And then all you did was put 442 00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:39.760 the people in place to have that happen, then you would not need to work. And so the reason that 443 00:32:39.760 --> 00:32:44.240 things are not happening is because the people are not doing the things. And so for our ability 444 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:50.800 as entrepreneurs to select, so first attract, recruit, hire, manage, and ascend, slash keep. 445 00:32:51.360 --> 00:32:55.040 The higher up you go in the business, the more leverage you have on how much money in your time you 446 00:32:55.040 --> 00:32:59.280 make, it all becomes about recruiting. And so you might like this from a real estate perspective, 447 00:32:59.280 --> 00:33:03.600 but you know, you can buy or you can build. That's kind of an M&A thing, right? So like if we have 448 00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:07.120 a new division that we want to get into, we can either build the thing from scratch or we can buy it. 449 00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:11.760 But if you if you zero down at a micro level, you can either build talent or you can buy it. 450 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:16.880 And so it's much faster to buy talent. And so I think one of the things that people overestimate, 451 00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:21.280 this is a quote from my wife, but she says everyone, everyone thinks they're a good judge a character 452 00:33:21.280 --> 00:33:26.240 until they get judged by the people they hire. And so it's a little little mic drop for you. 453 00:33:26.240 --> 00:33:32.240 But it's true, right? Yeah, it's true. And so if we're judging, if we're being judged based on 454 00:33:32.240 --> 00:33:38.800 the people we hire, I would say that in my experience, the objective facts have worked better. 455 00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:45.280 And so track record and case study analysis on before they start. So it's like if I want to hire 456 00:33:45.280 --> 00:33:49.920 a video editor, for example, to cut content, then I want to look at their track record, 457 00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:52.960 show me the stuff that you've already done, and that you've been doing this for a long time, 458 00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:56.720 for people just like me trying to get to where I want to go. Those are all nuances and what I just 459 00:33:56.720 --> 00:34:03.360 said. The second piece is, hey, here's some laws. This is what I want. Go make stuff. And then I 460 00:34:03.360 --> 00:34:07.920 can have 10 guys compete. And the thing is is that there's so much psychological bias of like, 461 00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:11.840 I like this guy. He looks the way I look, blah, blah, blah, blah, that we don't let the work do the 462 00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:15.200 talking. And so the more objective we can be about it. So in that way, I really do believe in 463 00:34:15.200 --> 00:34:19.280 being like color blind and all that kind of stuff. And it comes to recruiting talent because like 464 00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:23.200 talent comes in all forms. And so all I really care about is the productivity, the output of the 465 00:34:23.200 --> 00:34:26.480 person. And so I think for me, that's been the easiest thing. This is much more lay list 466 00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:31.280 department. But in terms of like how we scale businesses in acquisition.com, we consider 467 00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:36.320 recruiting to be our core and number one competency. Because at 3 million, with the business 468 00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:40.640 lacks its talent. And so what we do, because it's usually one founder that's breathing life into 469 00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:44.400 this thing with lots of little helpers. It's a genius of the thousand hands. And of course, 470 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:48.160 if you remove the genius, there's nothing, right? And that's most businesses. And most businesses 471 00:34:48.160 --> 00:34:52.400 aren't worth anything because they're not businesses. They're very, they're leveraged jobs. And so 472 00:34:53.120 --> 00:34:56.560 what we do is we look at the needs of the business and then we recruit people who've done the thing 473 00:34:56.560 --> 00:35:00.320 already and can demonstrate that they can solve the specific problem that we're facing. And the 474 00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:03.200 nice thing is that if you are hiring somebody, you should have a problem that they should be solving. 475 00:35:03.200 --> 00:35:07.440 And so the problem sitting in front of you and you're like, hey, head of marketing. Fix my 476 00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:12.400 marketing on the job interview and two things happen. Either they don't know how to do it or they 477 00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.920 do know how to do it and they teach you stuff. And so during the interview process, if you're not 478 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:19.760 learning from the person that you're supposed to hire to take the job from you, then they're going 479 00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:23.760 to work as a subset of your knowledge because you know more than them, which means you need to train 480 00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:27.520 them. And so you're not buying talent. You're building it again. But you might be paying, buying 481 00:35:27.520 --> 00:35:32.000 it price for building it work, which is not the trade we want to make. So I can talk about that 482 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:36.400 longer, but that's fundamentally that's how you skip. You're making me very uncomfortable because I'm 483 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:42.480 realizing as you're talking here that I tend to lean towards the, uh, I want to coach this person 484 00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:46.480 up. They have a great attitude. They want to learn. They're like, whatever you want, I'll go do it. 485 00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:50.320 And then I actually, not only am I paying you, but I'm losing money because I'm taking time 486 00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:54.720 away from revenue generating activities to train you to do the thing that I'm also paying you 487 00:35:54.720 --> 00:35:58.560 to do and it never, and I'm just stuck in the like sort of this treadmill that I can't get out of 488 00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:07.280 right now.