Latest / Forge Fire Protocol Podcast / Go, Pivot, or Kill: Validate Your Idea. Build Financial Freedom.

Transcript

Go, Pivot, or Kill: Validate Your Idea. Build Financial Freedom. · Forge Fire Protocol Podcast

• 0:02
  Imagine breaking free from the grind and building a business that lights you up, ignites with purpose, and delivers the ultimate reward.
• 0:12
  Forge Fire Protocol gives ambitious entrepreneurs the proven five-step system to choose the right business, launch it successfully, scale it strategically, and exit on your terms.
• 0:26
  Turning vision into lasting wealth, forged in fire, built for legacy.
• 0:35
  All right, welcome back to the ForgeFire Protocol podcast.
• 0:38
  We're excited to have you here.
• 0:39
  We've got Michael Sullivan, Steven Moynihan, and myself, Don LaPlume.
• 0:44
  And we have a great episode here today.
• 0:47
  I'm looking forward to today's, because we've talked about the challenge in the past.
• 0:51
  We're actually gonna define it.
• 0:53
  Just let you know sort of what it's like, because the current challenge is live, right guys?
• 0:56
  Yeah, it already went live.
• 1:00
  So we want you to understand what it's really all about.
• 1:02
  Why do we talk about this?
• 1:04
  And actually, why are we hosting a challenge once a month?
• 1:08
  All right.
• 1:08
  Now, these challenges last longer than that.
• 1:12
  But we have a new one that launches close to the beginning of every month.
• 1:16
  Mike, when's the next one launching?
• 1:18
  I know you said the week.
• 1:19
  So it'll be November 1st because this one's kicking off on Monday.
• 1:22
  We're doing this one a little bit early.
• 1:23
  It's basically right around the first of the month because then we're kicking them off.
• 1:26
  So that could be a couple of days before, a couple of days after.
• 1:28
  It could be right on point.
• 1:29
  But basically right around the beginning of the month, about every 30 days, we're going to be kicking them off.
• 1:33
  And I know we start, so the Sunday night before we kick it off, we do an intro call for everybody.
• 1:40
  Correct.
• 1:41
  Right.
• 1:41
  And then it's a Monday that it kicks off.
• 1:43
  So if you're thinking, okay, I want to be part of the next one, just keep in mind that, yeah, it's going to start on the first, officially start on the first Monday of the month, unless maybe it's a holiday.
• 1:56
  But other than that, it'll start on the first Monday of the month and on the Sunday before, so that, you know, the day before, we go for a welcome and intro call to really go over the rules, right?
• 2:07
  Explain how this works, what you're going to do, what the process is, what you want to set up, because it's really simple, but it's important to cover that.
• 2:17
  It is.
• 2:18
  But the other thing that we cover on that too.
• 2:19
  So our next intro call will be November 1st.
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  Then our next go live for our next one won't be until November 2nd.
• 2:25
  So that's why we want to make just people aware of that.
• 2:27
  So if you're ready or you think you're going to be ready, just jump in now.
• 2:30
  And that's what we're saying is get in on the, get on the call with us.
• 2:33
  And there's no right or wrong answer to a lot of this.
• 2:36
  Okay.
• 2:36
  I mean, you have to figure it out, but the bottom line is, is I was saying to you guys earlier, you know, if I had known a lot of this information back in 2014, when I started getting serious about branching off and starting businesses and
• 2:47
  thinking in that way.
• 2:49
  I had my own IT consulting company since 2009, but I wasn't thinking truly like an entrepreneur.
• 2:54
  I was thinking like an engineer who could just make some money on the side.
• 2:57
  I called it my side business.
• 2:58
  I literally called it my side business.
• 3:00
  So if you think about it like that, it can be side from your primary, but that's not the right way to be thinking.
• 3:05
  But the bottom line is, is on that intro call, we do everything you just said, but we also make sure you understand that here's what you need to be thinking going into Monday.
• 3:12
  Here's the things just to think about and prepare for tomorrow.
• 3:15
  And it's not extensive.
• 3:17
  It's not going to take a lot of time, but it just gets you in the right frame of mind.
• 3:20
  So it gets you thinking the right things.
• 3:22
  So knowing what we're looking for on day one.
• 3:25
  So as you start to bring your idea to the table, like what is the idea?
• 3:29
  Okay, so do you have three or four ideas?
• 3:31
  A lot of people have a bunch of ideas.
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  Well, let's prioritize.
• 3:34
  Let's prioritize.
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  Okay, let's prioritize and see which one do you think serves the most people?
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  Which one do you care most about that you think has the strongest legs?
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  And whether you're right or wrong doesn't matter.
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  Let's just go and find out.
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  And let's figure it out.
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  And then we can either move forward and check it off.
• 3:52
  We can cross it off.
• 3:53
  Or we can fix it.
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  But you got to take action.
• 3:56
  We were talking about this earlier.
• 4:00
  One of the things that defines the most successful CEOs and something that you live by, it's in all your bios, as you said, is you always take action.
• 4:08
  That's right.
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  And that's what separates people who do nothing from people who do something.
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  We've made it so that the barrier to entry to start is less than $10.
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  So it's a way to step in to see exactly what the Forge can do and what it can do for you and for your business.
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  And this is the perfect opportunity.
• 4:32
  Yep.
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  I mean, I, again, I really wish I had this 10, 12 years ago.
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  I mean, we, that's how it was built.
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  It was built by lessons learned.
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  And how can we help people not go through some of the stuff that you went through?
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  I went through, Steve went through.
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  That's why we're here.
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  Right.
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  And it's not, you know, a lot of people think it's all about coaching.
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  I've heard that already.
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  Right.
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  And it's like,
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  It isn't.
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  I mean, a lot of times coaches go in, you'll find coaches in different fields and they've never really done it, but they've taken classes.
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  So they've learned how to coach.
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  And they have a bit of knowledge on the subject.
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  So they coach.
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  That's great.
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  That's not us.
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  Each of us has launched businesses.
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  Right.
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  I mean, you know, it was before this year, I launched nine businesses in the past 39 years.
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  Traditional business, other network marketing companies as well.
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  But those aren't those weren't the businesses that I'm talking about.
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  I'm talking about nine traditional businesses this year.
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  I will have launched three new businesses by the end of this year.
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  To add to that.
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  Can I add can I add can I add one thing to that?
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  So for somebody hearing that, okay, there's two different ways that people hear that.
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  People hear that and like, that's great.
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  That's awesome.
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  I want to do that.
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  And some people are like, well, isn't that a lack of focus if you're pursuing three different things?
• 6:00
  That's where, and that's where what's going on with AI comes in.
• 6:04
  And can you just elaborate on that on why it's not a lack of focus?
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  I can.
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  And it's, and I love that question.
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  I'm so glad that you asked it because it's,
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  Because of what I'm able to do with AI, first of all, I've multiplied myself many, many times over with what I'm able to accomplish.
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  But the other side of this, and I want to go to this part before the AI part really is everything that I'm launching, it is, it works in conjunction with.
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  So I can have, for instance, one sales team representing the entire system.
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  Right.
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  When, when one builds, it drives to another.
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  So they're, they're interconnected.
• 6:51
  They have to be like, for instance, one of my copies, the company called Smartflex benefits, right?
• 6:56
  That I launched because I liked the product that was available, which is a specific type of 125 plan, section 125, it's a, it's a tax plan.
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  tax code, I should say, not a tax plan, that helps businesses to save money by offering additional benefits to their employees.
• 7:18
  And I'm not going to go into all the details there, but I was offering that product with one of my companies, my resiliency company and solar company for businesses.
• 7:30
  But I couldn't find a good company that could handle that.
• 7:35
  Right.
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  They just were not professional.
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  They had issues.
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  So I said, OK, well, I'm going to replace them.
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  So I launched that company.
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  But who's selling that?
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  That's the sales team over here.
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  And so I didn't I didn't need to add all kinds of infrastructure is the point.
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  I could launch this.
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  But it is it is an insurance group and will be a full fledged insurance group soon.
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  So it had to be a separate company.
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  All right.
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  So that's a separate company for the purposes of legalities and protection and liability, etc.
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  But it's really utilizing the same infrastructure.
• 8:14
  All right.
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  But it's truly a separate company.
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  And so everything I do works together.
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  And so that's that's one factor.
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  So you got to think about that.
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  I don't want to have 15 different directions.
• 8:27
  I've got one direction with support.
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  But the AI side, that's where
• 8:34
  One, I can produce a lot more myself, but even what my team does, I've been able to give the team additional tools because of AI and teach them how to use it so that they're able to sell, they're able to produce, they're able to prospect, they're able to do all the things that they need to do much faster.
• 8:57
  And much more of it.
• 8:59
  And they've got a better life.
• 9:01
  And what's important about that for me is, you know, I've mentioned years ago, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on this podcast or not, but...
• 9:07
  Years ago, I took a job, basically a two-year contract for the most part, with a construction company with a person who my wife knew the family and I didn't know them that well.
• 9:19
  I knew of them.
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  They were big in some huge construction projects in the Boston area.
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  And I wanted to see how the CEO possibly ran six, seven, eight companies simultaneously because I didn't understand how it was possible to do that.
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  I understood it could be done because I see people doing it, but I couldn't wrap my head around how do you do this without being pulled in 40 different directions.
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  So I wanted to be inside and see how this happens.
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  And the three things that really stood out to me in that sort of scenario, and I'm going to bring this back in a second to the challenge and the importance of it, is number one, he was in the office least amount out of anybody.
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  but he wasn't absent.
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  He was always doing something.
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  He would have consistent meetings at his home because he had a big enough area to do that and it was central to a lot of people.
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  He would meet with companies.
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  He'd come in for X amount of days per week, per month, and he would have meetings set up the entire day and met with the CEO.
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  He had CEOs for all his companies.
• 10:27
  He wasn't the CEO of all the companies, but he met with the CEOs and the executive team from each of the companies and they'd go through and they'd bang out this, this, this, this, this.
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  And they had a strict structure they went through.
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  And it was more just listening, weighing in and providing input as to things that he saw, et cetera.
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  So that was number one.
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  Number two, he had think tanks where he would have the whole,
• 10:49
  leadership team from each company and not just the leadership team, the main engineers, the main whatever they may be.
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  And they'd have them go into the room and they would close their eyes and he would say, I want you to think about this problem.
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  Here's a problem that we have.
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  I know there's no solution for it as of right now.
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  I want you to get creative.
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  I want you to think crazy.
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  How can we possibly fix this?
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  No idea is off the table.
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  And it had people shut their eyes for like 15 minutes and just think about it and then come back and you just start weighing that out.
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  Through that process, some insane innovation came out of it.
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  Yeah.
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  And I was shocked.
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  I remember walking in there once because he had an issue.
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  I went to walk in the room and everyone's like, shh.
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  And I'm like, what's the big thing?
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  I'm like, I'll be quiet.
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  But I didn't realize they had just started that part of the session of it.
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  So he looked at me and was like...
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  that you can come in and do this thing, but it was no, and he went in complete silence while I did that.
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  So I just did it and didn't even say a word to him.
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  This was like hand signing and then walked out of the room.
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  But I just wanted to, I thought it was a fascinating process.
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  And that's why
• 12:01
  the importance of having a very strong idea and validating that initially is like, and that's primarily what the challenge is doing when we're doing the challenge.
• 12:08
  And the reason, one of the reasons we're prioritizing, and I'd love to hear you guys' take on this, but I see it as we're, we're the catalyst for action.
• 12:17
  Yeah.
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  Okay.
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  So we are saying, you have a great idea.
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  Okay.
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  But now let's just do something with it.
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  It's not just an idea.
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  And whether it be fear or whether it be, you think you're too busy, you're not, by the way.
• 12:30
  Um, that Richard Branson isn't too busy.
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  You're not sorry.
• 12:33
  Um, bottom line is, and I get how people think that way.
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  Cause I've felt that way, but the bottom line is, wait, you, you felt that you were too busy.
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  years ago.
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  I remember saying, I said out loud and I caught myself a couple years later as I started to delve more into personal development side, there aren't enough hours in the day.
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  I remember saying that out loud.
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  There are a perfect amount of hours in the day.
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  That's why it's structured the way it is.
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  The day isn't the problem.
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  I was the problem.
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  But I didn't get that at the time.
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  I just was trying to do what I had to do based on what I knew, which was the best practice
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  But I wasn't thinking outside the box as to how could I make it better.
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  I was just trusting that best practice that I knew was industry best practice across the board.
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  So that has to be the best way.
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  But anyway.
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  Your dad spent all those years trying to tell you that.
• 13:28
  Yeah.
• 13:28
  Well, he was just like, find a way to do it better.
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  That was his big thing.
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  Again, he had me at 15 running certain things inside the office, inside the warehouse at times.
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  And I didn't understand why.
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  I'm like, why is he trusting me to do this?
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  I'm 15.
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  He's like, I thought that you might do it a different way than we do it.
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  Maybe you'd figure out something that we weren't thinking about just because of the way you think differently.
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  Yeah.
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  In that advice.
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  Yeah.
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  And I was like, I never thought of that.
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  Because I'm like, well, how do I do it?
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  He's like, I don't know.
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  He's like, how do you think you do it?
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  He's like, you take the truck, have someone show you how to do it, but then just figure it out.
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  If you have a better way, do it your way.
• 14:04
  If it doesn't work, stop.
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  I got an exact story on that, thinking about it differently.
• 14:08
  So I'm in college, summertime.
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  I work on, father was a commercial form heating contractor.
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  I worked there during the day.
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  And then on Monday through Friday, Saturdays, I worked for a friend.
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  It was a landscaper.
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  And he had a smaller Toyota pickup truck, so it didn't have the longest bed.
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  And he had two boards that he had and the clips on him so he could put them down on the edge and you could wheel stuff up, you know, like, you know, push lawnmowers and blowers and stuff.
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  And so one day I'm loading the truck up by myself and he always had the boards were too long.
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  So he put the tailgate up and the boards would stick out.
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  And I looked at it and I turned the board sideways and closed the gate because they fit.
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  He sees it, comes running over, and he's like, look at my boards.
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  What did you do?
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  And I'm like, no, I just turned them sideways.
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  Just like that, looking at it differently.
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  That's key.
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  And when somebody hasn't done something before or seen, oh, it's always done this way, you do.
• 15:08
  You come at it with a different vision.
• 15:10
  On the timing, I've got to share this one because you struck a chord when you said that on timing because I always used to say,
• 15:19
  man, I just need more days in an hour so I can get this stuff all done.
• 15:23
  Yep.
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  And it was the same mentality.
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  And I had to get that out of my head.
• 15:28
  I probably said that thousands of times, right?
• 15:31
  Because I was always trying to do a ton of stuff.
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  And now that's gone because now it's, I look at, okay, my focus is what do I choose to put my time into?
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  Because you're right.
• 15:44
  There's plenty of time to do what we need to do
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  But we have to choose where we assign our time.
• 15:52
  That's what it comes down to.
• 15:54
  And I wanted to go back to one other thing, because you were asking me about my multiple businesses.
• 15:59
  And this is a question for everybody.
• 16:00
  How many businesses does Elon Musk have?
• 16:05
  And he's got a ton of them.
• 16:06
  But here's a follow-up question to that.
• 16:07
  I want you to think about this.
• 16:09
  How many visions does Elon Musk have?
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  He's got one very important.
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  focused, intense vision.
• 16:19
  And if you look at pretty much everything that he does, it ties in with that.
• 16:25
  You don't see it at first sometimes, but they all tie in, even down to Tesla cars.
• 16:30
  I mean, you're not going to be able to run a gasoline-powered vehicle on Mars, but you can run an electric vehicle on Mars.
• 16:39
  Right.
• 16:40
  Right.
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  Everything ties together into his vision.
• 16:44
  And that's how you have to look at it.
• 16:46
  There's so much you can do, but you have to know what that end point is.
• 16:50
  You don't have to know how you can get there.
• 16:52
  That was another conversation we had earlier, but that's beside the point.
• 16:55
  But you do have to have that vision and you have to start.
• 16:58
  Yeah, and to tie that directly into jobs, even.
• 17:02
  And I say, Steve Jobs there.
• 17:04
  I mean, so I was on a call with an IT executive yesterday.
• 17:08
  We were having a conversation about different methodologies and approaches and how do you prioritize and how do you say no?
• 17:15
  Are you comfortable saying no?
• 17:19
  And I kind of smiled because I started thinking how I've adopted.
• 17:24
  I'm not nearly as good at it yet as Jobs was, but he famously stated that focus is not about saying yes to your main goal.
• 17:32
  but it's saying no to the many other good ideas that compete for your time and that could take you off track from being laser focused on your primary goal.
• 17:41
  So that's why it's important as we, even as you tie that into the challenges, I think about what the challenge is doing.
• 17:48
  And this is why we're so important to us and why we want to make sure people understand it.
• 17:52
  Step one, you enter the challenge, you do the 72 hour market test.
• 17:56
  You now have that laser direction.
• 18:01
  Okay, so now you know this is where we're moving forward.
• 18:03
  You have a validated idea.
• 18:05
  You have your exit target.
• 18:07
  You already have your exit in mind.
• 18:08
  Your exit value design is complete.
• 18:11
  Okay, from the get-go.
• 18:13
  Now you just have to start taking action and following steps forward.
• 18:17
  And when you're focused, and this is why I'm making this triangular shape, when you're focused in one direction, everything else that comes up is just going to come up and bounce off.
• 18:27
  If you can stay focused inside there, nope, that's a good idea.
• 18:30
  But right now, this is where I am.
• 18:32
  And then as you see, sometimes as you're going in this direction, and this is where the multiple companies comes in, Don, to what we were talking about, is if you're going in this direction, I might say, I'm doing all this.
• 18:42
  These guys are terrible.
• 18:43
  These are the best people I got to work with.
• 18:45
  They're terrible.
• 18:47
  I could have AI do this.
• 18:50
  So either you or someone from the exchange, you're going to be able to find solutions or just build out a solution
• 18:57
  That's going to fix a problem you have that keeps you on track and laser focused.
• 19:00
  By the way, now you have another company or another solution that can be sold in another revenue stream.
• 19:06
  Even the Bible recommends what?
• 19:08
  Eight streams of revenue, I believe is what's recommended.
• 19:10
  Yep.
• 19:11
  So this is old thinking.
• 19:12
  This is not new thinking here.
• 19:15
  No.
• 19:16
  No.
• 19:16
  And again, too, as you're doing that laser focus, it's all about faith.
• 19:19
  When you're seeing it and you're believing in the unseen, you know what you want.
• 19:22
  You have the vision.
• 19:23
  You have the vision.
• 19:24
  You're going towards that primary goal, to the pinnacle of what you're trying to achieve.
• 19:29
  You need to tune out everything else and keep on following the system and go.
• 19:33
  If we just even look at our journey, where we started in June on Forge Fire, and what's transpired and what's come out of that, and how many other businesses...
• 19:46
  together that we created and then individually, just from that time, from the Forge catalyst and everything that the knowledge that we gained, and then problems we had to solve.
• 19:57
  And instead of using paying somebody else, another company do it, we did it internally because we discovered those, you know, the truly revolutionary skills and capabilities that come from using AI.
• 20:12
  And it's not having to be a coder.
• 20:16
  ask the questions and then get to the right question.
• 20:18
  And it's just been amazing to think about that.
• 20:23
  Yeah, we're compressing time, right?
• 20:25
  That's what we're doing with those solutions is we're not going off or losing focus.
• 20:30
  We're creating something that works faster and more efficiently within the system to get us towards our goal.
• 20:34
  So it's part of that focus.
• 20:36
  Yeah, and say compressing time is such an understatement in terms of what the time used to be to complete the task to what it is right now.
• 20:46
  I mean, we literally have come up with ideas ourselves in the morning when we meet and brainstorming.
• 20:52
  And within an hour, two-hour session, all of a sudden we got this idea and the next day, we got an app that's, you know, the core basic of a new business.
• 21:02
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  Yep.
• 21:04
  You know, and I look at it.
• 21:06
  For instance, yesterday, I did a training at seven o'clock last night for our, for the SmartFlex team, which has doubled in size in the past week.
• 21:15
  I mean, it's, we're, we're growing, right?
• 21:17
  And we've got a lot of great stuff happening there.
• 21:20
  But I've been building tools for that so that the team can really expand and, and, and sell a lot more.
• 21:27
  So it helps all the way through.
• 21:29
  But last night I trained the team.
• 21:33
  Stephen, you were there.
• 21:36
  I was teaching them how to do what over the next five years.
• 21:40
  Stephen Buehler, Ph.D.: How to build a business and what it would do and what that exit in five, not the exit in five years, but what they would achieve in five years by just doing small steps
• 21:55
  on a weekly basis on what they could do and where to reach out to do that.
• 22:00
  So it was a plan where the average person, okay, if I do this little bit of research and I make a few phone calls, each week I'm going to get so many appointments because what I'm offering people is solves a huge problem for them.
• 22:18
  And in this case, it doesn't cost any out of pocket money for a business.
• 22:22
  And then you showed in five years, here's where you are.
• 22:25
  And you're at a million dollars of reoccurring revenue every month.
• 22:30
  Every year.
• 22:30
  Every year.
• 22:31
  I'm sorry.
• 22:32
  Every year.
• 22:33
  But but that but that equates to the amount of revenue you need every month for that.
• 22:39
  Oh, yes.
• 22:40
  And it was very doable.
• 22:42
  Yes, it was very doable.
• 22:44
  And thank you.
• 22:45
  I put you on the spot there.
• 22:47
  Like I did that training last night.
• 22:49
  I didn't know what your answer was going to be.
• 22:50
  I knew what I wanted to get across.
• 22:53
  I got it across and you paid attention.
• 22:55
  So that's awesome.
• 22:56
  I love it.
• 22:57
  So hopefully everybody else that was there did too.
• 22:59
  It sounded like you're from a lot of the comments.
• 23:02
  But yeah, I mean, how many people out there working at something would be happy with a million dollar a year income?
• 23:12
  Most people I think would.
• 23:14
  Not everybody, but most people.
• 23:16
  And I showed everybody last night how to do that in a simple way, just like you said.
• 23:22
  But here's the thing, that presentation that I did, it would have taken me hours to put together a year ago.
• 23:31
  And I literally spoke it into AI and had it within less than five minutes.
• 23:38
  I mean, when we talk about compressing time, that's an example of compressing time.
• 23:45
  And it was effective, apparently, because Stephen remembers it.
• 23:47
  So thank you, Stephen, for validating.
• 23:49
  I was going to say, too, the important thing that ties into that and what we're talking about as well is with your process, persistence and actions are key.
• 23:56
  Yes.
• 23:57
  So one of the quotes I had heard from one of my mentors, I was talking with him yesterday, was persistence is being loyal to the unseen.
• 24:04
  I like that.
• 24:05
  And when you believe in something or you set a goal for something, that action that we're talking about, that persistence –
• 24:13
  That's the great part.
• 24:14
  And that's why we want...
• 24:16
  When people start with the challenge, we validate that idea.
• 24:20
  And the reason why we're validating the idea is that is kicking off.
• 24:25
  That is the catalyst to that consistency, to that persistence, to that action.
• 24:31
  It's going to help you get there.
• 24:32
  So exactly like you were talking about.
• 24:34
  Okay, so you have a validated idea.
• 24:36
  With SmartFlex, you have a validated product.
• 24:38
  You've already gone through the 72-hour market test.
• 24:40
  You already have a validated product.
• 24:41
  You know it works perfectly.
• 24:43
  Now you're just helping more people be able to reach more people.
• 24:47
  It's reach.
• 24:48
  And then by expanding reach, you're helping companies.
• 24:51
  You're helping the people who are just sharing the news.
• 24:54
  You're serving.
• 24:56
  You're creating opportunity and jobs.
• 24:59
  The way I had someone very intelligently reframe this for me is, you're looking at an arbitrary number that you want to make per month.
• 25:06
  Don't.
• 25:07
  And I'm like, what?
• 25:08
  He's like, no, it's great to have a goal, but I want you to feel it.
• 25:12
  What is that going to solve?
• 25:14
  How much is your wife's car payment?
• 25:16
  How much is your wife's insurance?
• 25:17
  How much is your insurance?
• 25:19
  How much is this?
• 25:20
  How much is your mortgage?
• 25:21
  How much is your utility bill?
• 25:22
  Let's put that all down on paper.
• 25:25
  And let's set a goal of just knocking off one by one by one.
• 25:28
  We're just going to keep on building.
• 25:30
  We're going to get to keep on knocking off.
• 25:31
  And sometimes we're going to knock off two or three at a time.
• 25:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:34
  He's like, and take some of that money out for you to be able to enjoy nice dinners.
• 25:38
  Now you're going to go out once a week rather than once a month.
• 25:41
  Or you're going to go out whatever it is.
• 25:45
  This is all because you followed a proven system.
• 25:49
  You trusted your ideas and you trusted yourself and you started taking action.
• 25:54
  And that freedom, emotionally and financially, that can be provided by just being persistent.
• 26:01
  and following steps is absolutely essential.
• 26:04
  And that's why I think the challenge is so important and why we're talking about it again, because we talked about it last week, but I think it's important people realize is you need to start.
• 26:16
  You have to start.
• 26:17
  It's the thing that holds most people back is the start.
• 26:20
  And that's why we made it an under $10 barrier to entry to get in the door.
• 26:25
  Get this thing started.
• 26:27
  Get going.
• 26:27
  Let's start that persistence and let's commit to doing this every single day.
• 26:31
  Let's do small steps every single day.
• 26:32
  Let's get 1% better.
• 26:34
  Again, cliche number, but very true.
• 26:38
  That compounds.
• 26:40
  Let's, cause we're getting pretty close to the end of the podcast.
• 26:43
  I do end of this episode anyways, by the way, we, wow.
• 26:46
  We got a killer episode next coming up.
• 26:49
  Um, uh, and it, and it's all about how do you define the $10 million exit?
• 26:52
  People ask about that.
• 26:54
  It's like, all right, well, that sounds great, but define it.
• 26:56
  Tell me what it looks like.
• 26:57
  Cause I don't know that I can get my head around that yet.
• 26:59
  Right.
• 27:00
  Uh, so we're going to cover that in the next one, but, but one thing I wanted to close out this with, or, or finish, um, exploring a little bit is.
• 27:08
  What happens when we end up with a pivot?
• 27:10
  Because you're talking about, we're just talking about a validated idea.
• 27:13
  Right.
• 27:14
  Right.
• 27:14
  But you're going to have ideas that aren't validated.
• 27:17
  They're not a go.
• 27:18
  They're a pivot.
• 27:19
  Or they could be a kill.
• 27:21
  Right.
• 27:21
  But let's go for that pivot.
• 27:22
  Let's talk about that a little bit.
• 27:26
  So if an idea is not fully validated, it's a pivot.
• 27:33
  Or it could be a kill.
• 27:34
  So a pivot is, all right, we need to tweak something.
• 27:36
  We need to change something.
• 27:38
  Maybe our target client is wrong, right?
• 27:43
  When we do that 72-hour test, we're going to know, are we speaking to the right clients?
• 27:48
  Or is it the idea just there's nobody really spending any money for what this thing solves?
• 27:54
  Nobody really cares, all right?
• 27:58
  But they would care if it was just a little bit different.
• 28:02
  You get that information when you're doing that 72-hour test.
• 28:06
  Now, if they're not going to care no matter what you do with it, then that's a kill.
• 28:09
  That's a gun.
• 28:09
  You don't have a marketplace.
• 28:15
  But let's dive into that a little bit more because it's important.
• 28:21
  So I can't tell you, that's why I started smiling when you were saying that, how many times I've had ideas that were great, but not good, great.
• 28:31
  The phrase we've said often is it's no longer a value question.
• 28:35
  It's an IQ test.
• 28:36
  It's that blatantly obvious that this is a no-brainer that everyone should do it.
• 28:40
  Well, everyone is clearly not going to do it, first and foremost.
• 28:45
  But it's hard the first time you bring something to the table to somebody, especially someone who you respect and who you think you can really help, and you're so excited to bring them something of value, and they are so disinterested.
• 28:58
  Oh my God, yes.
• 28:59
  It hits hard.
• 29:02
  So you're like, number one, your thought is, did they just not get it?
• 29:07
  I thought they were brilliant at business.
• 29:09
  How did they not see this?
• 29:12
  And then it's, oh my God, am I terrible?
• 29:14
  Am I just bad at presenting this?
• 29:15
  Am I the problem?
• 29:16
  Because this guy's doing it and he's talking to people like this.
• 29:20
  There's so much that goes into it, but that's where the market test
• 29:24
  And when we're going through that and you understand the pivot could be, as you said, multiple things, that industry or that person you're going to is great for X, Y, and Z, but they're awful for a, B, and C. And I just brought them capital A, you know what I mean?
• 29:42
  So yes, target my audience is a problem there.
• 29:45
  Also the pivot could be because some of the people you're talking to have different beliefs and,
• 29:53
  from their past, if it has to do, let's say on the energy side in there, they think that clean energy is just a hoax.
• 29:59
  They don't believe, there's no point in talking to that person, but you might be in the right industry.
• 30:03
  You just have the wrong person.
• 30:06
  Okay, so that's where hitting multiple people is important.
• 30:10
  So you're taking a look at this data, and it could be your problem, your problem could be the people you reach out to, it could be your target market, it could be your product, it could be your offer, it could be your marketing, it could be so many things, but you don't know.
• 30:23
  And if you just do that to one person, what are you gonna do?
• 30:26
  Nine times out of 10, people are gonna cower.
• 30:28
  Right.
• 30:29
  And they're gonna say,
• 30:31
  Most people, when they're asking somebody or sharing something with somebody, how many people do they share when they get no's before they stop?
• 30:37
  One.
• 30:39
  I guess.
• 30:39
  Maybe two.
• 30:40
  Yeah.
• 30:41
  Some people, maybe three at max.
• 30:43
  You know, unless you're just crazy like we are.
• 30:47
  And people like us, I don't know, hardcore entrepreneurs.
• 30:51
  But, yeah, most people, one or two people, and that's it.
• 30:54
  They're done.
• 30:55
  This doesn't work.
• 30:57
  And that's...
• 30:58
  And it really hurts when it's somebody that's personal, a friend, a family, somebody you care about or somebody you know, cares about you.
• 31:04
  But that's why when we do this, so much of our tests, one of the key things is we, we don't want you ever going to a friend or family member or somebody that you're close to, um, when you do the 72 hour market test, what we want you to do is to find your target client and find them.
• 31:20
  We give you all the tools to do that, by the way, in that test, but, um,
• 31:24
  when you've defined who you believe your target market is and you go to them and you go to 10, 15, 20 of them, really 50 to 20 is, is, is that sweet spot.
• 31:34
  Now you're going to know you're going to get actual honest feedback, sometimes very brutal feedback, but here's the cool thing.
• 31:42
  It's not personal, right?
• 31:44
  And it shouldn't be personal.
• 31:46
  It's because it's business, but now you're going to know.
• 31:49
  And now based off of the questions that we've given you to ask them,
• 31:54
  What happens?
• 31:55
  You now know whether, yes, this is validated or you know what, this is a kill or this is a pivot.
• 32:01
  Yep.
• 32:01
  All right.
• 32:02
  But but who you're asking is really critical in this.
• 32:07
  And and you have to commit to going through the 15 to 20.
• 32:12
  Yep.
• 32:13
  Because you stop at one or two, you're never going to know the answer.
• 32:16
  Yeah, and you need to emotionally detach too because a lot of times we have a personal love for our idea.
• 32:20
  Yeah.
• 32:21
  You need to emotionally detach so you can objectively look at it and see everything as constructive, whether it's delivered to you in yelling.
• 32:27
  I don't care how it's delivered to you, appropriately or not.
• 32:30
  It's constructive criticism.
• 32:32
  You need to take it in.
• 32:34
  You just feel like – in your mind, you can be thinking, well, I'm just –
• 32:37
  That was an interesting way of putting it.
• 32:38
  I definitely don't want to work with that guy.
• 32:42
  But their opinion could be valid.
• 32:43
  If it's like vehemently, no, I get, wow, that induced a strong reaction.
• 32:48
  I'm sorry, that wasn't my goal.
• 32:50
  What about it frustrated you so much?
• 32:52
  And often they want to get it out.
• 32:54
  If they're blowing up, they've been keeping stuff in.
• 32:56
  So this might not even be the issue.
• 32:58
  And sometimes they'll be like, you know what?
• 32:59
  I'm sorry.
• 33:01
  Don't come back to earth.
• 33:02
  But it's important that you ask the question so you can understand how to move forward.
• 33:07
  that's so powerful.
• 33:08
  Think about what you just said, Mike.
• 33:10
  When people have a visceral or a really deep, intense reaction to something, there's a reason for that.
• 33:18
  That's not necessarily normal.
• 33:20
  It is normal because it's something that really struck them.
• 33:25
  But that means that there's a lot of emotion behind it.
• 33:27
  That means that there's a lot of importance behind it in some way, right?
• 33:33
  Whether it's something that's really hurting them or hurting their business.
• 33:37
  or their family or whatever it is, depending on what it's solving.
• 33:40
  And so you're right, they have to get that out.
• 33:44
  But don't take it personal.
• 33:45
  Right.
• 33:46
  It's not about you.
• 33:48
  But now if you end up with a solution, and this is something you're gonna see, some of your ideas out there, guys and gals, you're gonna have an idea that's gonna create massive emotion with different people.
• 34:00
  Because it's either the solution that they've been looking for for their lives
• 34:05
  or for their business or whatever it is, or it's something that's bugged them for so long.
• 34:09
  You're going to have those things happen.
• 34:12
  That's when you know you're on track to something.
• 34:15
  You might not necessarily have the right answer, but you're on track to finding something that really matters to people.
• 34:21
  Yep.
• 34:22
  Nope, couldn't agree more.
• 34:23
  And that's where just their information, though, is valid.
• 34:28
  Nine times out of 10.
• 34:29
  Some people are just going to be like, and you have to be prepared for this, but some people are just going to say, listen, I don't have time.
• 34:33
  I don't have time right now.
• 34:35
  Great.
• 34:36
  Thank you so much.
• 34:37
  Thanks for taking my call.
• 34:38
  Have a great day.
• 34:39
  Move on to the next.
• 34:40
  That's just one of the no's along the way, but that's part of the process.
• 34:43
  But you need to have a tough skin because your goal is to extract as much information as possible so you can make your offer, your product, your idea the best it can possibly be.
• 34:52
  And you can't do that if you're not going out there and talking to people.
• 34:55
  And that's where I think the pivot is so common for a lot of people that most people aren't going to have the perfect idea day one.
• 35:06
  is going to have to be tweaked and massaged and then go back.
• 35:08
  So Don, I mean, really quick, I know we got to end up here, but what do you do?
• 35:12
  So let's say you have to pivot on your target audience.
• 35:15
  What would be your next step?
• 35:16
  Obviously you can just start figuring it out, but how would you start figuring it out?
• 35:20
  So, you know, I would still be looking at all of the feedback that I got, first of all, because I want to understand that I want to evaluate that feedback, but what is it that made it so that these people were not, um, the right target audience?
• 35:34
  know do they not really have that problem or is it something completely different and then i'd say okay well i thought that restaurants used a lot of water and my solution helps them save on water just as an example right and so um but but this whole group of restaurants uh they they don't this particular style of restaurant doesn't use very much water and so i know that all right i've got i've got to change the particular um
• 36:03
  group or the, you know, the, the type of restaurant I'm looking for, right.
• 36:06
  Or, or, you know, the type of business I'm looking for.
• 36:09
  The other thing is once I know what the definition is, cause that's, that's, that's the key.
• 36:15
  You've got to be able to find that target client.
• 36:19
  Right.
• 36:19
  So once I know what was wrong on that one, now I can say, okay, well, let me, let me tweak this and, and those things wrong.
• 36:26
  I got to do it this way.
• 36:28
  So that way I'm, I'm making sure I'm hitting my target.
• 36:32
  Right.
• 36:33
  And then my next step from there is to test that target, right?
• 36:37
  Because you might go through a couple of targets and here's, here's the other side of that.
• 36:44
  If you go through a couple of targets and you say, I still haven't hit it.
• 36:47
  I don't know that I'm right.
• 36:49
  It might just be that, wait a minute.
• 36:53
  Um, it's not so much the target, it's the solution.
• 36:56
  Yep.
• 36:57
  Right.
• 36:57
  And then it's going to be a kill.
• 36:59
  All right.
• 37:00
  But you don't necessarily know.
• 37:01
  So it really, the short answer, and I could have said this earlier, is you need to just look at your feedback.
• 37:08
  What are you getting from these people?
• 37:09
  And is it really the idea?
• 37:11
  Or is it truly that they are just not the target audience?
• 37:15
  Okay.
• 37:16
  And then from there, you refine it and you go to the target audience.
• 37:20
  All right.
• 37:23
  That's it for me.
• 37:23
  I think we're good for today.
• 37:24
  We covered this a lot.
• 37:25
  And Steve, I don't know what else you want to add.
• 37:26
  Yeah.
• 37:27
  Yeah, real quick, just activate the 72-hour validation engine with zero risk.
• 37:32
  That's what the challenge lets you do.
• 37:34
  You get direct immediate access to AA, you know, our blueprints that prove real customer demand and secure paid commitments before you risk your savings or build the wrong thing.
• 37:47
  That's what the challenge is.
• 37:48
  challenges designed to show you what you can get done and the power that's behind the whole ecosystem.
• 37:54
  And remember our key thing, the reverse.
• 37:58
  We engineered a $10 million exit from day one.
• 38:01
  And really, when you get into the challenge, you'll be able to take that to heart and see what that means and what that can mean to your business.
• 38:09
  It's not generic motivational theory.
• 38:12
  You step out of the grind and learn the exact five-step architecture to scale a self-running asset.
• 38:19
  Again, self-running.
• 38:20
  An AI agent leverage that you can exit on your terms.
• 38:24
  That's what you get in charge.
• 38:27
  And I'll leave this thought for my last.
• 38:30
  And that is that every one of us has ideas out there.
• 38:33
  We all have ideas.
• 38:34
  We don't know whether those ideas are good or bad.
• 38:37
  We think they're good or bad or whatever we're thinking, but we're not sure.
• 38:41
  Even if you're not sure if it's good, doing that 72 hour challenge is going to, or 72 hour process, market test, you're going to find out, do you have something worth building?
• 38:53
  The thing I want you to never do is don't die before you've gotten your ideas out because that is the most selfish thing you can possibly do.
• 39:03
  If you don't test your ideas,
• 39:06
  and you let them die within you, when you pass away, you've basically taken those ideas away from the rest of society.
• 39:14
  You could have solved some incredible challenges.
• 39:17
  And I think about when we mastermind, and we, you know, we'll throw something at the wall, and another person hears that and says, wait a minute, but what about this?
• 39:25
  And then another person, oh, that's good.
• 39:27
  Yeah, that makes sense.
• 39:28
  What about this?
• 39:29
  If your idea never comes out, those things never happen.
• 39:33
  You have no idea the impact you could have had had you just moved forward to test your idea.
• 39:39
  So that's my challenge to you is test your ideas, validate them.
• 39:44
  If they're good, let's rock.
• 39:48
  That's it for this episode of the Forge Fire Protocol podcast.
• 39:52
  Take at least one step from today's episode while the fire is still hot.
• 39:57
  Don't let the insight cool.
• 40:00
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• 40:04
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• 40:16
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• 40:24
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