Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Fishing Boats to Million Dollar Relationships: Kevin Thompson’s Path to Entrepreneurship

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From Fishing Boats to Million Dollar Relationships: Kevin Thompson’s Path to Entrepreneurship · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  That led to revenue because we created an impact there.
• 0:09
  And that's when I learned that, you know, revenue comes as the natural organic byproduct of impact.
• 0:15
  The bigger impact we make, the more revenue that gets created.
• 0:19
  Today we're joined by Kevin Thompson, a connector extraordinaire and a powerhouse in the world of entrepreneurial relationships.
• 0:28
  Kevin's journey began on Alaska's Bering Sea as commercial fisherman before he dove into entrepreneurship by building and scaling a top 1% cleaning and restoration company.
• 0:40
  He then transitioned into online publishing where he orchestrated nearly 500 strategic partnerships and generated over $16 million in sales.
• 0:51
  Now, as the founder of the Impact and Legacy Collective and host of the Million Dollar Relationships podcast, KE dedicates his work to building high level networks that spark massive business opportunities.
• 1:05
  In this episode, Kevin gets real about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
• 1:10
  From blowing his first $300,000 to learning that impact driven relationships are the truest source of business success.
• 1:19
  We dive into the mindset shifts that changed his life, the power of genuine connections, and how hitting rock bottom led him to a more fulfilling and and sustainable way to serve others.
• 1:32
  If you're ready for an honest look behind the scenes of a high level networking and personal transformation entrepreneur, you don't want to miss this episode.
• 1:41
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:47
  All right, Kevin Thompson, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:50
  Hey, I have been looking forward to this, Dave.
• 1:53
  I'm looking forward to this.
• 1:55
  Yes, sir, we're looking forward to it as well.
• 1:57
  We appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:59
  Yeah.
• 2:00
  So Kevin, you host a podcast which is called Million Dollars Relate, Million Dollar Relationships.
• 2:08
  And you also run a high level networking group for entrepreneurs where you, you connect people that are creating five, six and seven figure deals.
• 2:19
  But prior to this point, you've had quite a fascinating entrepreneurial journey.
• 2:25
  So if you could, for everyone, can you just talk about that journey and how you got to where you are right now?
• 2:30
  Sure, sure.
• 2:32
  So my first business, I started my very first business back in 1995 after working for seven years as a commercial fisherman on Alaska's Bering Sea so that I could save up money to start that first business.
• 2:48
  And, and the first business that I got into, I was, I opened a cleaning and restoration business, carpet cleaning, water damage restoration.
• 2:57
  And, and I knew a guy in Seattle, which was where I live, that he was in that industry and I thought, well, gosh, if he could do it, so can I.
• 3:05
  And I didn't give it much more than that thought than that, Dave.
• 3:08
  And you know I definitely had a lot to learn about running a business for sure.
• 3:15
  And, and, and I had, you know, through the, the first year I blew through about $300,000 and I still wasn't making a profit in business.
• 3:25
  And that's when I really started figuring out that you don't have a clue what you're doing in business here.
• 3:29
  You need to get some help.
• 3:30
  And I, I ran into this guy, Joe Polish in a trade publication for the industry.
• 3:35
  And, and that was 30 years ago.
• 3:38
  And over the next three years, Joe helped me completely transform that business into a by referral only company that served high end homeowners and stuff.
• 3:50
  And we grew that we, we became top 1% in the industry.
• 3:55
  And along the way I started this website called Get Mold Solution as an extension of that cleaning and restoration business.
• 4:05
  And we launched that in 2000.
• 4:07
  By 2003 that website was producing about 15, 16,000amonth for the business.
• 4:14
  And, and Joe, he used to host these annual events for the cleaning and restoration industry.
• 4:21
  And he said, Kev, he's like, why don't you down here in November?
• 4:25
  We were talking in the spring, he said, why don't you come down here in November and speak at the event and show everybody what you're doing with your website.
• 4:32
  And I was like, okay.
• 4:34
  And he's like, and before you come, be sure to document what you do and how you do it because a certain percentage of the folks, they're going to want your help and just make sure you're ready to offer
• 4:46
  that to them.
• 4:47
  And so I did that.
• 4:49
  I created a course and, and we offered it at that event and, and we ended up making $35,000 in sales of that course.
• 4:58
  And I was like, wow, that's a whole lot more than I make in an afternoon running the cleaning business.
• 5:04
  And we ended up going into that full time.
• 5:07
  The next year, April of 2004, or yeah, 2004, I sold the cleaning and restoration business.
• 5:14
  We moved into the publishing business full time.
• 5:17
  And over the course of the next 12 years I did almost 500 strategic partnerships and, and we sold $16.1 million worth of that training that I had created.
• 5:30
  And that was how I really came to understand the value of right relationships.
• 5:40
  And that's when I started making all these connections.
• 5:42
  I, I have this natural ability.
• 5:44
  I love talking with entrepreneurs, I love hearing what they're working on, what challenges they're dealing with, what opportunities.
• 5:51
  And I naturally default to who do I know who might be able to help them?
• 5:56
  And I started making these connections and so I, I kind of became this connector.
• 6:01
  I've been doing that for 20 plus years now.
• 6:04
  And only recently did we actually, in the last, well, 2017, so eight years ago, did we turn that into a business.
• 6:12
  And now that's my full time gig.
• 6:14
  So that's kind of the big broad overview, broad strokes, and there's a whole lot of stuff in the middle.
• 6:22
  Okay.
• 6:22
  Wow.
• 6:23
  Yeah.
• 6:23
  So a lot to unpack there.
• 6:25
  All right.
• 6:26
  So you, you knew early on you wanted to start a business, right?
• 6:30
  You wanted to start this business.
• 6:31
  And so you're working as a fisherman to save up capital to start the business.
• 6:35
  And you knew someone in Seattle had restoration and, and like you said they could do it, I could do it.
• 6:41
  You didn't really think through much, much more than that.
• 6:44
  So not at all typical Ready, fire, aim, entrepreneurial.
• 6:50
  Exactly.
• 6:50
  Mindset.
• 6:51
  And you went for it and you realized you didn't know what you're doing.
• 6:56
  Pretty early on you blew through a bunch of money and you realize you needed help.
• 7:00
  And along the way, you meet Joe, helps you completely transform that business, get into the top 1% of the industry, become very profitable, and turn everything around.
• 7:11
  And so like that you would say, that's when you started to really realize the power of the right relationship and the right person at the right time.
• 7:20
  Amen.
• 7:21
  Yes.
• 7:22
  Yes.
• 7:22
  And Joe, you know, I, I didn't realize it at the time, but him inviting me to speak at his event, that was the very first strategic partnership I ever did.
• 7:34
  And, and what was so cool about it is, you know, Joe and I were just friends and he knew that I was doing something that his folks would find valuable.
• 7:44
  And he's like, ken, why don't you come down and share?
• 7:47
  And we just did.
• 7:48
  And that led to revenue because we created an impact there.
• 7:52
  And, and that's when I learned that, you know, revenue comes as the natural, organic byproduct of impact.
• 7:58
  The bigger impact we make, the more revenue that gets created.
• 8:02
  And I kind of learned that, you know, not going through it, but later looking back and figuring out and, and dissecting all this, I was, I can articulate it way better today than I could way back then, you
• 8:15
  know, so.
• 8:17
  I love that as a concept too, that revenue is the byproduct of the impact that you make.
• 8:21
  Yes.
• 8:22
  Because so so often we see people strictly chasing the money or strictly doing something for the end.
• 8:28
  Look, obviously money is important, right?
• 8:31
  But when you talk about placing the focus on the impact and then the money is a natural byproduct of that, I mean, Would you, would you say that, that that light bulb kind of changed your whole philosophy on,
• 8:43
  on business?
• 8:45
  Oh, absolutely.
• 8:46
  Because, you know, you, you mentioned mindset.
• 8:48
  I, I, you know, I had to work through a lot of mindset stuff in my own doggone head.
• 8:54
  And, and, you know, I mean, when I got into my first business, it was all because I thought I could make money doing that, you know, and, and, you know, when, when you get to the point where you
• 9:08
  figure out and make the distinction of like, you know, I want to focus on how to make my biggest impact through my business, and now it changes the conversation, it changes the way we show up.
• 9:21
  It changes the way people see us because they know that, like, people around me, they know Kevin's all about making impact and stuff, you know, and it, it does, it totally changes everything.
• 9:35
  Okay.
• 9:35
  And so you get, you meet Joe, turns your business around, things are taken off there.
• 9:40
  He says, hey, speak at my event, and then be prepared because people may want, or a certain percentage is going to want what you have to offer.
• 9:48
  So you just, so, from someone that started a business without really knowing anything and, you know, kind of figured it out a few years later, and now he says, hey, be ready to document it.
• 10:00
  What was that process like, creating the course of what you're doing with the website at the time?
• 10:06
  So at that point in time, I'd already invested in a bunch of informational kinds of products from Joe and stuff, so I kind of knew what that looked like because Joe had created a lot and I had invested
• 10:18
  in those.
• 10:19
  And so, and I'd invested through Joe.
• 10:22
  I'd met other people who also had courses on different things that I had invested in.
• 10:27
  And so I'd seen examples of that.
• 10:30
  And so I just, what I did was like, I, I just asked myself, okay, if I was going to teach my best friend how to do what I was doing online with that Get Mold Solutions website, what would
• 10:44
  I tell them?
• 10:45
  You know, what is, what would I tell them?
• 10:47
  This is what you got to do first.
• 10:48
  This is what you do next.
• 10:49
  This is.
• 10:50
  And so I just kind of made an outline of.
• 10:52
  This is everything that I would tell my friend that they needed to do if they wanted to do what I was doing and stuff.
• 10:57
  And now I just filled that in and created a course and made recordings of it and all of that kind of stuff.
• 11:03
  And then I just took screenshots of, like, my website and put that into a manual.
• 11:08
  And, and it's, you know, and, and it went pretty dog on quickly as far as that creation, because I was already doing it and stuff.
• 11:16
  I was just now teaching what I was doing and stuff.
• 11:20
  But because I'd already done the work, so much of it was already put together for me to draw from in order to create that course and stuff.
• 11:27
  And I created that whole course in like inside of two months.
• 11:31
  I created that course to, to, you know, be able to offer other people and stuff.
• 11:36
  Okay.
• 11:36
  And when you get down there, you speak and then you realize that after that you, you sell 35k in courses.
• 11:43
  I mean, what, what was that feeling like?
• 11:45
  That was like, that was just like, that was so energizing to.
• 11:52
  Because, because when I first took the stage, I had never spoken public in my life, Dave.
• 11:58
  And I was a little bit nervous.
• 11:59
  For sure.
• 12:00
  I was nervous to get on stage because I'd never public spoken public before.
• 12:04
  I'd also, I was like, man, in the back of my head I'm thinking like, man, I just want to do right by Joe, my friend who put me here.
• 12:11
  You know, I'm going to do right by him and I want to make him proud.
• 12:14
  And, and, but, and it was fortunately a lot of the people that were in attendance at that event, they knew me already.
• 12:22
  And so it, I, I was a really warm audience and, and like they got into it and I'm like, wow, wow, they're really liking this.
• 12:29
  Which then got me into it.
• 12:31
  And, and pretty much I just forgot about my nervousness and stuff because it was such an engaging experience for me and for them.
• 12:39
  And then to make that kind of sales and to have 35 new clients that I was now serving and man, I'll tell you what, that was so exciting.
• 12:52
  I started hosting monthly calls and back then there was no zoom.
• 12:56
  We.
• 12:57
  I used a teleconference line and we, we did teleseminars and I hosted phone training calls and coaching calls over the telephone for these people to serve them.
• 13:06
  And it was such a rewarding experience that I'm just like, man, I want to do more of this.
• 13:14
  And that's why.
• 13:15
  April 19, 2004.
• 13:18
  The following spring, we sold the cleaning and restoration business and we moved into the publishing company full time.
• 13:25
  Okay, so like you said, you're making an impact.
• 13:29
  It's extremely energizing.
• 13:30
  You're getting the revenue as a byproduct, you completely pivot and you, you dive headfirst into this brand new business.
• 13:38
  And then you did that for the next 12 years.
• 13:40
  What was it like in terms of growing the publishing business and being so new in that and not having experience there?
• 13:48
  So I Had I.
• 13:51
  So I started back then.
• 13:53
  So that was 4-19-04, that about the same time when Google AdWords came out.
• 14:01
  And, and I started playing around with Google and running ads on Google.
• 14:06
  You could get, you could buy, viz, you could buy a traffic for 5 cents a visitor to your website at that point in time.
• 14:12
  And so I just started driving Google.
• 14:14
  I created a website and we, and I kind of just took the presentation that I gave at Joe's and I just created some more documents around that.
• 14:22
  And now I started doing that presentation over the telephone on what would be called a teleseminar at that point in time, because like I said, video wasn't even a thing online at that point in time.
• 14:32
  And so I just, I would drive traffic from Google to a website that said, hey, here's information on a training that I'm going to host.
• 14:42
  And you can enter your contact information here.
• 14:45
  If you want to join us for this training, it'll be on this date at this time.
• 14:48
  And so I just took the same presentation that I gave at Joe's and now I started doing it on a teleseminar training.
• 14:56
  And we were, we were making progress.
• 14:59
  It was, I mean, it, we, we were figuring things out.
• 15:02
  And then a friend of mine who I'd known from attending some of these events, he, he just was like, Kev, he's like, how are things going?
• 15:10
  I'm like, you know, I was like, thanks for cooking along.
• 15:12
  I was like, I'm pretty much reinvesting everything back into the business.
• 15:16
  And, and, and he's like, well, he's like, are you open to sharing your numbers with me and sharing all that?
• 15:22
  I'm like, yeah, totally.
• 15:23
  I'd do that, Chris.
• 15:25
  And so I sent that to him and, and he's like, you know, he's like, Kev, after looking everything over, he said, you know what?
• 15:32
  He said, all you need, you need is you just need an influx of money right now because that'll allow you to grow the company way faster.
• 15:39
  But man, you're totally profitable here and you're just reinvesting everything.
• 15:43
  He's like, if you're open to it, I'll come in and I'll invest with you.
• 15:48
  And you, you keep doing your stuff on Google.
• 15:51
  But what I want to do, I, I want to start investing in direct mail.
• 15:55
  He's like, we'll start putting some direct mail pieces out there.
• 15:58
  And I'm like, oh, man, Chris, I, I don't know anything about that.
• 16:01
  I don't know how to do that.
• 16:02
  And he's like, it's okay, I know how to do that.
• 16:05
  I know the list, brokers to call.
• 16:07
  I'll help you put the direct mail piece together.
• 16:09
  We'll do the same thing.
• 16:10
  We'll drive to your landing page on the Internet and, and to your training, and we'll just do that.
• 16:15
  And he's like, and I'll cover the expenses of the mailing and the renting the list and all of that.
• 16:21
  I'll cover that.
• 16:22
  And then you just give me that back when we make sales.
• 16:26
  And then anything over the expenses, we'll just split 50, 50, if you're cool with that.
• 16:31
  And I'm like, I'm totally cool with that.
• 16:33
  And so that's what we started doing.
• 16:34
  And I'll tell you what, when Chris got involved, boy, that business started taking off.
• 16:42
  I mean, and, and once again, that was another example of a strategic partnership that he saw what I was doing and he was like, man, all you need is some money to really grow this thing.
• 16:54
  And I would totally fund that, you know, and, and that's what really allowed that business to take off quickly.
• 17:02
  Okay, so once again, the power of relationships comes into play again in your life.
• 17:07
  And then that, that business takes off.
• 17:09
  And then how, how long after that did you start this entrepreneurs networking group?
• 17:17
  Oh, well, that didn't start.
• 17:19
  So it would have been so 14 years ago, so 2010, 2000.
• 17:26
  Because this whole time I'm doing all this stuff and then I started doing a bunch of strategic partnerships for that business as well.
• 17:34
  And, and so I'm making connections for people too, because I just would do that all the time.
• 17:39
  I'd make introductions because I just talk with entrepreneurs and would just do that all the time.
• 17:44
  And the first really big introduction I made was 14 years ago where these two guys, within eight months they were hosting this big huge event with hundreds of people at it and stuff.
• 17:57
  And, and since they've gone on to make millions and millions of dollars and, and that's what first got me thinking 14 years ago of wouldn't it be cool if you could have a business where you just got to
• 18:11
  do that all the time?
• 18:13
  And it took a while to germinate and I was still running the publishing company and stuff.
• 18:18
  But it was in 2017, eight years ago, that I had a conversation with this guy and he was a guy who knew me well and he was like, just was when we, before we finished the conversation, he just
• 18:32
  kind of mentions, I kept saying, why have you never held an in person get together for all these amazing entrepreneurs that, you know.
• 18:40
  And I'm like, I don't know, Jim.
• 18:42
  I guess I just never thought of it.
• 18:44
  And he's like, well, he's like, you should seriously consider it because if you did, I would totally want to attend that.
• 18:51
  And I'm like, really?
• 18:52
  I was like, you would.
• 18:54
  He lived in Florida and I live in Washington, in Seattle.
• 18:57
  I'm like, are you telling me you would hop if I just did it at my home?
• 19:00
  You'd hop on a plane and you'd fly all the way across the country, you'd invest what I was asking to attend the event and you would come to it?
• 19:07
  He said, I would totally come to it.
• 19:08
  And I'm like, why is that?
• 19:10
  And he said, well, because I know the kind and caliber of people that you would invite and they would be people that I would want to get to know.
• 19:19
  And I'm just like, wow.
• 19:21
  And so long story short, I just, I couldn't even sleep that night, Dave.
• 19:28
  I was just like thinking about, because this was like, in my mind, this was like hosting a really cool party for a bunch of my cool friends, you know, and I just get to start bringing them together.
• 19:37
  And August of that year, we held our first get together.
• 19:43
  Fifteen entrepreneurs flew in here.
• 19:46
  I held it right here at my home, in fact, right on the other side of this wall and in my living room.
• 19:51
  And I had 15amazing entrepreneurs come for that event.
• 19:55
  And I was a little bit nervous on one hand I was like, well, wow, look who's sitting in my living room right now.
• 20:02
  And at the same time I'm like, God, please let this be valuable for them.
• 20:08
  And it turns out that it was.
• 20:10
  And that that was the event that launched me in this new direction that's now been my full time gig for eight years now and stuff.
• 20:20
  Okay.
• 20:21
  So.
• 20:22
  And the, the networking group is called.
• 20:25
  The Impact and Legacy Collective.
• 20:28
  The Impact and Legacy Collective.
• 20:29
  Okay, so you had that first event, you had 15 or so entrepreneurs that you knew, people flying in from a variety of parts of the country, right.
• 20:39
  And first event was a big success.
• 20:42
  And then how, how did that, once you, like you said you, you had this idea, you couldn't sleep, people recommended you do it, you took the action, you did it, you get great results.
• 20:52
  How did you build that, that into like a tangible business going forward from there?
• 20:57
  Yes.
• 20:59
  Okay, so.
• 21:01
  And it was not all rainbows, rainbows and unicorns, as my little daughter would say.
• 21:07
  So on the exciting front, at the end of that two day event, I.
• 21:15
  And, and I had that one scheduled in August of, of 2017, I had another one scheduled one month later in September of 2017 that 14 more entrepreneurs came to.
• 21:26
  One guy couldn't make it last minute to that second event.
• 21:29
  At the end of that first event, I just simply said, hey, if you got value from being here and you made some really valuable connections and met some new people that are going to help expand your business and
• 21:42
  just help you do what you do in a lot better way and make a much bigger impact, I would love, I would totally be honored to help you ongoing and make a lot more connections and introductions for you
• 21:56
  and I would be totally willing to ride with you for the next year and we can focus on this.
• 22:00
  And what I would like for my role in that is I would like $25,000.
• 22:04
  And my buddy Travis Sega was sitting on the couch and he right away, well, heck, I'm in.
• 22:11
  And five more people followed his lead.
• 22:15
  So six people in total said yes to that offer.
• 22:20
  One month later at the second event, I made the same offer.
• 22:24
  Six more people out of 14 said yes to that offer.
• 22:28
  So 12 people said yes to a 25, 000.
• 22:32
  So what, what's, what's the math on that?
• 22:34
  That's, that's 300, 000 in revenue that came in.
• 22:38
  And that's the great news.
• 22:41
  We were off to the races.
• 22:42
  We were running this new business and now reality.
• 22:48
  Two years later, I had a total of 27 people who had said yes to that offer.
• 22:55
  And I was absolutely hating life.
• 22:58
  Dave.
• 23:00
  I a matter of fact, I was in such a dark spot because I was having one on one conversations with all of these entrepreneurs.
• 23:09
  And so it was, it was taken up a considerable amount of my time.
• 23:13
  But, but I was also some like some guys like Travis, man, I was, I hit some home runs with Travis and in fact about eight months in to our one year agreement, Travis is like, Kev, he's like, I
• 23:27
  know this is my fault, but he's like, we just got to stop doing this.
• 23:30
  He's, I don't want no money back or nothing, but I can't take on any more business right now.
• 23:35
  And he's like, so we just got to pause this because I got to get things in place so I can even grow this further.
• 23:42
  That was really great.
• 23:44
  But then there was other entrepreneurs that I felt I wasn't having those home runs with and stuff.
• 23:50
  And the thing is, is all those early entrepreneurs, most of them, they were friends of mine that I went way back with them and I felt like I was letting them down and I felt like, man, these guys
• 24:02
  had invested time and money with me.
• 24:05
  And, you know, Travis was kind of the benchmark that I compared everybody else to.
• 24:10
  And I'm like, I'm not winning with everybody else.
• 24:12
  Like I am with Travis, you know, and, and that made me feel bad and like.
• 24:19
  And it was just, it was take.
• 24:20
  I mean, heck, I remember being on an airplane flight home from Dallas in September of 2019, wishing the doggone plane would just crash because at least my wife would have the insurance money.
• 24:36
  And that's how dark of a spot I was in.
• 24:40
  And, and I, and I was like, man, I.
• 24:42
  I'm not going to take on another client because I'm already like, maxed out on time right now.
• 24:48
  And I'm just.
• 24:49
  I feel like I'm not serving these clients.
• 24:51
  Like I would really, like, I envisioned that I'd be able to.
• 24:55
  And fortunately, I had a close friend that I finally.
• 25:00
  Because I've been bottling all this stuff up and not talking to anybody about it.
• 25:05
  And, and finally I was just having a conversation with one of my friends and I was like, you know what?
• 25:13
  I'm just gonna share because I gotta share with somebody.
• 25:16
  And so I just shared with her.
• 25:19
  And, and she just started.
• 25:21
  We just started having conversations and she started asking me questions about stuff and, and, and looking at the business model, she's like, kevin, she goes, maybe the way that you're doing this just isn't a really great fit for
• 25:32
  you.
• 25:32
  And maybe there's another way you can go about more in alignment with who you are and all.
• 25:38
  So anyways, I could go into all kinds of stuff.
• 25:41
  We did figure it out.
• 25:43
  It took a little while, but I don't know, maybe I.
• 25:46
  To just pause there for a little bit and just kind of, you know, let you ask what you want to ask.
• 25:53
  Okay, so you're super excited about this new business, connecting people, helping other entrepreneurs.
• 26:00
  You plan these events, you get success right away with the revenue people saying, yes, everyone's energized.
• 26:07
  You're thinking, this is great new business I'm passionate about.
• 26:11
  But as you go along into it, you find you're doing a lot of work, you're maxed out on time.
• 26:18
  And then because you're not, you know, these people made a sizable upfront investment in you.
• 26:24
  And because you're not delivering the results that, I guess comparing it to the, the.
• 26:30
  To Travis and that kind of like, I, I mean that, that level of success, right?
• 26:36
  You're.
• 26:37
  You're seeing that you're feeling bad because you're not delivering for them.
• 26:40
  And that's taking a toll on you mentally, emotionally, to the point where you wanted to end it all.
• 26:48
  Yeah.
• 26:48
  And like you said, you're in a very dark place.
• 26:51
  You finally start to talk to somebody and kind of get those emotions out and from where you were at that point, let's just call that sounds like rock bottom, in essence, at least mentally, emotionally, how did you make
• 27:05
  it out of that spot?
• 27:08
  So that friend of mine, she.
• 27:10
  She was like, kevin, she goes, I don't think this is as bad as you think it is.
• 27:16
  She goes, I think the stories you're telling yourself are much worse than reality.
• 27:21
  She goes, have you talked about, with any of your clients about this?
• 27:25
  And I'm like, no, I'm like, I don't want to, like, put it right in their face.
• 27:30
  What a failure, I feel like.
• 27:32
  And she goes, well, why don't you at least ask them about their experience and see what they think, you know, and, and come to find out that because I felt the way I did, that it was just.
• 27:49
  And I wasn't following up on connections that I'd made for them, that I wasn't finding out that, like, oh, there was some really cool stuff happened that they just hadn't told me about because, you know, because we just
• 28:02
  hadn't talked about it and stuff.
• 28:04
  And.
• 28:04
  But there wasn't one of them that felt like they had wasted their time or money with me.
• 28:11
  Not a single one, you know, and, and so, and there was other challenges that we had to overcome.
• 28:18
  You know, the, the way I was doing it, one on one, having calls with all of them every month, was, Was not efficient and stuff.
• 28:29
  I.
• 28:29
  I discovered that doing group calls, bringing them together, where I facilitate and, and all that, that was far more powerful, got far better results, and it was way, way easier and more enjoyable for me as well and stuff.
• 28:48
  So we've made a lot of discoveries along the way to get to where we are now that now we have a business model that works.
• 28:56
  And I just continue to attract, I mean, absolutely amazing entrepreneurs that at one time I, I would have maybe even thought.
• 29:04
  In fact, I did think that, like, wow, they're already really successful.
• 29:09
  You know, what.
• 29:10
  What do I think I'm doing?
• 29:11
  Trying to serve somebody like that kind of a thing.
• 29:14
  And so, yeah, we've definitely worked through a lot of the, the head trash and, and the mindset stuff.
• 29:21
  And, and we've also found a model that's working really well that will continue to get dialed in, continue to make adjustments as we go along and stuff.
• 29:32
  All right, and Kevin, what's the biggest lesson that you learned after going through that whole experience that you just described?
• 29:40
  Yeah, the biggest lesson, you know, was I is, is that it's okay for us to just show up and be us with, you know, complete with our God given gifts and abilities, as well as being able to openly
• 29:57
  talk about what's what challenges we're dealing with too and stuff and, and do that and come from this place.
• 30:06
  My, my buddy Jesse calls it.
• 30:08
  You know, he comes from this place where he's like, I got nothing to prove and nothing to hide.
• 30:13
  And when I remember the first time he said that to me years ago, I'm like, wow, what an amazing place that must be to come from.
• 30:22
  And yet I come from that place today.
• 30:25
  Nothing to prove and nothing to hide.
• 30:27
  And I just attract the right people into my life at the right time.
• 30:31
  And those that don't come into it, that's totally cool too.
• 30:35
  And I'll tell you, that has been the most freeing feeling and ever that I can just be me and I don't have to bottle this stuff up inside.
• 30:44
  I can talk about it in my circles and stuff.
• 30:47
  And that's been an incredible experience.
• 30:51
  Wow, love that.
• 30:52
  Nothing to prove, nothing to hide.
• 30:54
  Yeah.
• 30:55
  All right.
• 30:56
  All right.
• 30:57
  And Kevin, if people want to reach out to you and learn more about your, your networking group or we didn't even get into your podcast.
• 31:07
  You also host a podcast called Million Dollar Relationships where you, you interview a wide variety of entrepreneurs and we're going to link that in the show notes as well.
• 31:16
  But if people want to learn more about what you do, get in touch, talk to you further, see if there's a business synergy and an opportunity to, to collaborate.
• 31:25
  What's the best way that people can reach out to you?
• 31:28
  I'm on LinkedIn, Kevin Thompson on LinkedIn or on, on Facebook too.
• 31:33
  Kevin the Connector on Facebook.
• 31:35
  And, and yeah, definitely check out the Million Dollar Relationships podcast and, and see what we're doing there.
• 31:42
  We, we've really, at this point, we've released over 300 episodes of that podcast.
• 31:47
  And I will tell you, hosting that podcast over the last three years has been the most rewarding and impactful thing I've done in my 30 years as an entrepreneur.
• 31:58
  I get to just have amazing conversations around, relate this topic of relationships with amazing entrepreneurs, huge impact.
• 32:07
  And, and if what that, if what you see there, if that resonates with you, I would absolutely love to have a conversation, get to know you a little bit and, and discuss the possibility of doing an interview for
• 32:19
  the podcast and what a great way that is to meet somebody for the first time.
• 32:25
  And so, yeah, if that speaks to you, definitely reach out.
• 32:27
  And I'd be more than honored to talk with you about doing a podcast interview, too.
• 32:32
  All right.
• 32:33
  All right.
• 32:33
  We will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 32:36
  All right, Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our audience.
• 32:43
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 32:44
  My pleasure.
• 32:45
  Thanks, Dave.