Latest / Social Proof Podcast / 10 Things You MUST Master Before You Leave Your 9–5 | Social Proof Podcast #551

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10 Things You MUST Master Before You Leave Your 9–5 | Social Proof Podcast #551 · Social Proof Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is hard.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You are going to have to eat dog food for a while before you get any type of reward or results.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: People really need to understand the basic fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: This check is not coming every week.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to embrace the risk.
0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to understand failure is a possibility.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas are cheap.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody has ideas.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Execution is what separates the winners from the losers.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Attention is currency and if people don't know you they can't pay whoever you were before you watched this episode You are no longer that you are who you are going to be
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another edition of the social pro podcast, man, I am here all alone by myself.
0:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not by myself because you're here.
0:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was thinking to myself, man, people really need to understand the basic fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Because even if you've been doing entrepreneurship for a long time,
0:57
[SPEAKER_00]: We just do it wrong.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am not the guru of, I've been able to accomplish some things, I understand some things about the space.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I'm always growing, I'm always learning, I'm always building, I'm always observing, I'm always studying because the landscape continues to change of how people make money.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, 20 years ago, people did make money off of creating content in just the content alone.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, but now we have social media where the idea is, I'm going to create a certain amount of content and I'm going to live my life that way.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make money by being a content creator that wasn't an industry before, but the landscape keeps changing, however, the fundamentals in the foundation has not changed.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: in a thousand years.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Business is business.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship.
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you are an entrepreneur, maybe you've been struggling and you're journey for a while, I've really wanted to pay close attention, okay?
2:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you could probably be a part of the morning meet-up, which is only 19 bucks.
2:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could talk to me on a regular basis.
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk to my community every single week, twice a week, and then the community got there.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a commercial for that.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: However, it will be a good idea.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry to some links somewhere.
2:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
2:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into it, I have to ask you a question.
2:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you really, really want to be an entrepreneur?
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You're working a job, but you have a dream.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And because you don't like your job, you say, I'm going to become a full-time entrepreneur.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to just do my own thing, but the question is, do you really, really want to?
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: 20% of US businesses fail in the first year.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: think about this for a second.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a 20% chance of failure when you start.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You start.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They say I'm going to quit my job because I'm going full time.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're going to see.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the 20% of new businesses failing in the first year are actually
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: including people who have been entrepreneurs for very long times.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had businesses that I started to feel the first year as a season entrepreneur.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you haven't done business in a while or ever, I mean, what will be your percentage?
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: By the ending year five, 50% of businesses are going out of business.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Half the businesses that get started do not survive five years.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a real conversation.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, 65% done in 10 years.
3:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm saying 65% of businesses fail within 10 years, but this also includes businesses that have been failing for a long time.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just when they shut their doors.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not saying that all the other 20 files that 35% are actually thriving.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That means they haven't gone out of business yet.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That means maybe they're breaking even for another 10 years.
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is hard.
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard.
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So I need you to ask yourself, do I really want to be an entrepreneur?
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to be an entrepreneur because you hate your job?
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a horrible reason to be an entrepreneur.
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still trying to figure out to this day if entrepreneurs were born or built.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't an entrepreneur be created if you just don't have the stuff in you to be an entrepreneur.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I be developed?
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so, but some people just have it.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't take a whole lot of convincing to do what you need to do, but some of us need so much inspiration.
4:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We need so much motivation.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We need so much like someone to drag us because you are just in your feelings on a regular basis and you may not have the chops for it.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm gonna tell you all the things you need.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not one of those things where I have to sell you something at the end.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't care about your feelings right now.
5:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you the real.
5:17
[SPEAKER_00]: There's 10 things we have to consider.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If your business isn't doing well, it's probably because a lot of the things on this list are missing.
5:26
[SPEAKER_00]: However, we can now start to check them off.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's get into it.
5:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing we have to check.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know it's gonna sound so redundant, and I know it's gonna blow, oh my gosh, here we go again, but this is the whole game, actually.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why it's number one.
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It is your mindset.
5:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The way your brain processes information, the way you look at the world, I need you to change how you see this thing, okay?
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: For one, there's a clear difference between an entrepreneur and an employee.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: An employee says, I will trade my time for the money.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's real, it's real simple, very easy.
6:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say you get paid by the hour.
6:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I do this for an hour.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I make this amount of money.
6:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple, it's easy.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a one-to-one ratio.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I do the thing I get paid.
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I do the thing I get paid.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is different.
6:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do everything right.
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And for some reason, the laws of the universe will not give you any input for all this output.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: you may have to do the same thing over and over and over and over again to get the first inkling of success.
6:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to prepare you because there's so many people.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They say, oh, I've been doing the work and I'm not getting the result.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, welcome to entrepreneurship.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you can do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, then get a reward.
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: and then do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, do the work, get another reward.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you could do barely anywhere and get at a abundance of reward because the season has changed.
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to understand, you are going to have to eat dog food for a while before you get any type of reward or results.
7:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to check your mindset.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: If you, if you can't bear the thought
7:30
[SPEAKER_00]: or you can't even, you gotta look at it like this.
7:32
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was working at the Cheesecake Factory, I remember it was like the 20th of the month.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I had about $750 my rent at the time was around that.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I can either save my money to pay my rent and try to work some extra shifts to get the money from my apparel or I will make a bet.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna take this $750 and print up some t-shirts and the clock is running now.
8:00
[SPEAKER_00]: clock is running.
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to get this 750 back in 10 days.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Well actually I drop the shirts off on the 20th.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They got them back to me on the 23rd at seven days to get them sold.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But my mindset says I'm going to show some other people to design and I'm going to collect the money now so I keep the full 10 days.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm willing to take that risk.
8:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody put it in the chat.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a one big ball of risk in entrepreneurship.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm trying to scare you to death, so hopefully you're quit and you won't even be an entrepreneur.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you can survive this conversation, you can say, okay, I'm cool with that, I'm cool with that.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, bet, I'm ready to go.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That means you are ready to go.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: This check is not coming every week.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to embrace the risk.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to understand that failure is a possibility.
8:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you to take the action of failing
9:00
[SPEAKER_00]: but you have to understand what you're getting yourself into.
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why I have no sympathy for the people's like, oh, I've been trying, I'm trying, I'm not getting anything I'm not going to be doing it.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's been like the last three weeks, I've been going all hard, three weeks.
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that a 40% of businesses stop simply based off of fear?
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And fear isn't even real.
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear isn't even something that's happened yet.
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear.
9:28
[SPEAKER_00]: is like, you're anticipating something happening that's gonna be unfavorable?
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you fear.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It hasn't even happened yet.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So faith and fear have the same exact definition.
9:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the anticipation of something happening.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the fear that the thing that's going to happen and it's going to harm you or you have the faith that the thing that's going to happen is gonna work out in your favor.
9:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Same definition.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: that depends on how you look at it.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how I also want you to look at this failure thing.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Failure is not a bad thing necessarily.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Failure is actually a necessity.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Failure is a prerequisite to success.
10:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I failed more times than most of the people that I know.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've succeeded at a higher level than most of the people that I know.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's only because I've been willing to go through more failures than anybody else.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I am willing to fail.
10:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I am willing to fall flat on my face, so I learn what it feels like to fall on your face and then I get to learn how to not fall anymore.
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I fail.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to time my shoes.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to wear more comfortable shoes.
10:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to look down as I'm walking.
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to be looking in the air.
10:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you get to learn some stuff about life and how to things work.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So all the things that you've experienced,
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: The start of the business is stopped or it hurting you been depressed because it's this idea that you had in your mind was going to change the world.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm telling you, you're not going through anything that anybody else hasn't gone through.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to check your mindset.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to see yourself as who you're going to be.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Not seeing yourself as who you are.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all mindset shaping stuff.
11:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw myself as a server, a worker at the cheesecake factory that I was going to have a side hustle.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I saw myself.
11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So for years, I'm side hustling while working on these low paying jobs.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I see myself.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I work a job, and I got a hustle.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I always got a hustle.
11:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I never even see myself as a businessman, as a CEO.
11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I never see myself as somebody who could make $100,000 in a year, but once I saw it, once I started envisioning, what my life is going to look like when I finally get to that thing.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I started walking out.
12:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So while I'm working at the cheesecake factory, I saw this vision for myself of who I was going to be and how successful I was going to be.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started walking into work with a different posture.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking at myself and someone at work said the cheesecake factory in a hustler, but once it clicked and said, yo, I'm gonna be a multi-millionaire.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I started buying new ties to where I work.
12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I started asking, like, you had to buy a apron.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: What we would do, we would just run the apron until they say, you know, you need a new apron, or you need to use bleach with that thing.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just coming to work because it was a job, but then I started working on my presentation because I saw myself as a multi-millionaire.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started washing my apron a little more often.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I started ironing my shirt.
12:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I started ironing my pants.
12:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It was out of point.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't care what kind of shoes I were working on.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I was working on the restaurant.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get dirty anyway.
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But once I saw myself as a multi millionaire, I started cleaning my shoes because I had to, I was just in this situation.
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not who I was.
13:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I saw it, those were the steps out.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of us don't see it.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes you have to lie to yourself and I have to lie to myself and say that the reason I didn't do well in school is because I'm an entrepreneur.
13:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do well in school because the things that they were trying to teach me, they were trying to teach me how to be an employee, I said, oh, the reason I didn't do well in school and traditional education is because I have an entrepreneurship mindset, that's why.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I started really thinking about this thing.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, oh, all the things I went through in the past was, oh, those were lessons.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They taught me some stuff.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: This is me changing my mindset.
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to become something else.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You get to make a decision every single day.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to scroll through Instagram?
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to listen to that new album that dropped or are you going to listen to an e-book here, car?
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Every, you get these micro decisions every day.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm asking you to change your mindset.
14:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever you were before you watched this episode, you are no longer them.
14:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You are who you are going to be.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need you to see that.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And start doing the things that that future person would do today.
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Would that future person go out to the club and spend 30% of the money in their bank account on drinks with friends that aren't going anywhere?
14:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that person at your going to be would do that.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got $1,000, I'm going line it up at a sneaker store to spend 25% of the money in my bank account on sneakers.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What a wealthy person, spend 25% of all they had, all of the wealth on sneakers?
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so.
15:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's when things change for me because I had to see myself as who I was going to be.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all ready to move on?
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is not about selling products, but about solving problems.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Most entrepreneurs look at business as, oh, I came up with this cool product, and I'm gonna sell this cool product.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't look at it as, okay, there's a problem that needs to be solved, and I'm creating this product to solve that problem.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a mindset shift.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if we have a cool product and nobody buys it, we can't understand why nobody's buying it.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What an answer is, there's not a need.
15:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship, we sell and stuff.
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not solving a problem.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not looking at the thing that we're going to sell as a big problem.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm talking to this is Jenny Lady in the morning meetup and she is a housekeeper.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And she doesn't see it as a need.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, well, you talk about every product a service needs to be a need.
16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I really just have a want because you can live without having your house clean.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, you never gonna be kidding me.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: that's unorganized, who has three kids and is busy.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I look at our housekeeper as someone who saves our marriage.
16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, my wife is frustrated because she actually has to run around these kids and kids make a mess at a house all day long.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If I don't have a housekeeper,
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, she has to manage all of the stress and everything starts to pile up in our house.
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I get to the house, I can't help.
16:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not really good at organizing.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There's bumping heads here.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I know for, hey, my office has to be cleaned.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not an organized person.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in my office isn't clean.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think straight.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I can't think straight, I can't go make $10 million.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Meaning that housekeeper,
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: is a big reason why I can go perform the way I perform.
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can think straight, I, potential is unlimited.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can't think straight, my potential is limited.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't see, so when you talk to me like, hey, do you want your house clean?
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't think about it that way, but if you knew it was a need and you know it was an essential for an entrepreneur, you come at me with a different approach, you would talk to me differently.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, well how much money did you make last year?
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, cool, you made $200,000.
17:39
[SPEAKER_00]: When you like to make $500,000.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, half of the time you're spinning is because you're looking for stuff.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You need someone to come structure and organize.
17:48
[SPEAKER_00]: This is me solving a problem, not selling a product or a service.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Get your story together.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: All I'm asking you is to identify a story and the story needs to include a pain point.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the pain point?
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll see in another
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to know your audiences, paint point, what hurts?
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can start recognizing an opportunity.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Selling someone at school, brother, there are those people in the gold rush that sold shovels.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, I don't need to go get the gold.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there's a problem.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people that want this gold.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to sell the shovels.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw teach at podcast some in every year and I am seeing an increasing number of people who are making money from podcasting without having a podcast because they're the people who service the podcasters because they need someone to record, they need someone to take the pictures, they need somebody to manage the file, they need somebody to pull clips.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a need in the marketplace.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm asking you to not look at the business as a product or service that I can sell to people, but what is the problem that I solve?
19:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So do me a favor, make a list of problems that you're seeing.
19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not in entrepreneur just yet, make a list of problems that you believe you could solve.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are an entrepreneur, and you have a product or service, it sounds like I'm talking to you.
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to get real clear on all the major problems that you solve and expand the problem.
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Make the problem bigger than the audience even recognizes you solving a problem, not selling the product.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, and I just alluded to it, you need to know your audience.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to define who your customer is, because if we're starting with the I just sell a product, we think the product is amazing, we're the services amazing, and we're going out to tell people about this amazing product or service, but if you are clear on the audience, you can actually reshape the product to fit the audience, for instance.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm one Instagram live to other day.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: and she and lady comes on and says I built out a nail salon or I bought a nail salon from somebody.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I said cool.
20:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, who?
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: When she said it, I was like, it doesn't seem like a good idea.
20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm being honest.
20:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I get a little more, I get a little deeper into the conversation.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realize, one, she opened up a nail salon.
20:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a black woman.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And for some reason, she tells me to address that I'm looking at it on live, and I'm trying to see the neighborhood of where it's at.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to like on Google Maps, you can see the actual salon.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I see the salon, and then it's like a road next to the salon.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like a store down here, and I started looking around on Google Maps, and I see it's a residential neighborhood, but I go down the street on Google Maps, and I see there's a gas station when it was country gas stations too.
21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, yo, who's in this neighborhood?
21:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's the demographic?
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, oh, it's all white.
21:23
[SPEAKER_00]: A black woman opens a nail salon, and a all white neighborhood.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And the neighborhood didn't necessarily look like all these people have a high desire to get their nails done.
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm judging right now.
21:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm being very judge-judging and judgmental right now.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that white women don't get their nails done by black people.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that black people don't get their nails done by white people.
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't see it a lot.
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked her because I don't know the industry.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, yup, you are right.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my mind, I'm like, why did you open up this business here?
22:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know who's here.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know the demographic.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what they want.
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even, you ain't never ever been white.
22:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I don't even know how much you've been around this audience of people, but you don't know to have it.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, this isn't a race thing, it's about an it's an audience thing.
22:20
[SPEAKER_00]: This does not seem like the area that people have a high desire of getting the nails done.
22:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you go downtown, Buckhead Atlanta, Atlanta, goodness gracious, there are professionals who get the nails done because they are big on appearance, but this was a, it looked like one of the rules is like a dirt road.
22:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we are going to struggle here.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But because we think of the good idea business or service, as a good idea, we just open up, but we don't think about the need or the person that we're going to talk to.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm asking you to find your customer.
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to write down a creating avatar.
23:03
[SPEAKER_00]: An avatar is somewhat of a model, a person who has a name, they have an age, they have,
23:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to write down what's on their playlist, what did they listen to, what did they do for fun, I want you to know what they struggle with, why they struggle with it, just create up your avatars name might be Mary, my avatars name is Rico when I did this years ago.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Rico as a job in a dream 32 years old.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: He has a job in a dream.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to build a business.
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't know what business to build, but he also has these friends that do spades every night.
23:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just hang out and play spades and we drink beer and nobody has any goals and bishops, but Rico has been watching podcasts.
23:47
[SPEAKER_00]: He's watching these reading books.
23:49
[SPEAKER_00]: He's listed in the audio books.
23:50
[SPEAKER_00]: His mindset is changing.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't know why he doesn't want to hang out with these clowns anymore, but he doesn't.
23:55
[SPEAKER_00]: He still doesn't know what he wants to do, but he doesn't understand entrepreneurship.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a person that I'm talking to, I understand what he's going through at work.
24:04
[SPEAKER_00]: He's thinking about business all day and trying to figure out the ideas and he's an entrepreneur, a hustler, like, I've been talking to Rico forever.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still talking to Rico in this video as we speak.
24:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Get to know the people that you're talking to.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you find someone that fits this demographic of the person that you're talking to, I want you to have a conversation to confirm your suspicions.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, what are you struggling with?
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say, for instance, you want to help people in the podcasting industry.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you might be talking to are you talking about people who are already having a super successful podcast or are you talking to the people who are just getting started or you talking to the person who just has an idea or you have some eye that stuck in their plaid soda and they did not grow and they're trying to figure out why these are two.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: These are totally different audiences.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And your branding and messaging will be totally different because I need you to understand who you are talking to.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And once you get clear on that, you'll start attracting those people.
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Number four, you have to be able to execute.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas are cheap.
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody has ideas.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Execution is what separates the winners from the losers.
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Execution is what separates the multi-millionaires from the brain stormers.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's implementation and speed matters.
25:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to challenge some of you all to launch something that's imperfect.
25:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's our gathering some feedback.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Iterane, are you afraid to drop something that's not perfect?
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, most of us are.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us are just afraid to drop something that's not 100% right.
25:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, execution matters.
25:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people don't stop because they feel more comfortable in the ideation phase.
25:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just thinking about what I should do or in brainstorming.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I love talking to people.
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are going through have to execute.
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a big problem with many of us.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We have too many ideas, not enough execution.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you need to do, but you're not executing.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You just wrote a book and you like, man, I need to go out in the streets and coach people from my book and go to chapter three and record the content.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But for some reason, you have not got off the couch, you have not reached out to your friend neck and hold your phone while you're doing this stuff.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You have amazing ideas, but you just do not execute.
26:32
[SPEAKER_00]: What I want you to write down right now is what is the next thing that we can execute on in your business?
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the idea that we can move on today?
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: even if it doesn't work out.
26:45
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you think things work out?
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my starting of them and they're not working out.
26:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you make the tweaks and your adjustments.
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: How else do you expect to win?
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to go execute.
27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you have an idea?
27:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll hit the team, let's execute.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the effort as video.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yo, let's set up the cameras.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's shoot it.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's execute.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you gonna talk about?
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll figure that out.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: When are we gonna release it?
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: How you want it to look?
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just start setting stuff up.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: What colors do you need?
27:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Our body came up with these colors that you see right now.
27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I add to like map it out perfectly, we'd have never started.
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Just do it.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you all like this.
27:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you all don't like this video, it doesn't get a lot of views.
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do something else.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, something hits.
27:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, somebody put that in chat.
27:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, it sounds so simple, but I think I just gave you a bar that would change your life eventually.
27:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Something hits.
27:57
[SPEAKER_00]: If you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall,
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: something sticks.
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So even as a content creator, we are looking to make the most perfect piece of content.
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to make the most perfect real.
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying don't get better.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying don't improve, but we spend weeks trying to come up with the perfect video and it doesn't do anything.
28:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't do what you thought it was going to do.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if you're just doing three a day?
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just dropping three a day.
28:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What I found out is we dropped three a day on all these different platforms and every now and again, one hit goes crazy.
28:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And typically the one that goes crazy isn't one that I had to pick that was going to go crazy.
28:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But the more you put out, the more you can look at it and adjusts you, just execute.
28:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the difference between entrepreneurs.
28:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and employees.
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurs are willing to let the execution provide the data.
28:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The execution provides the data.
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just employee mine it.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just, okay, just tell me what to do and I'll do it.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know, after this, you give me a lot of chance of some time after I hired to learn and I just do about a book, listen, y'all.
29:13
[SPEAKER_00]: execution provides all of the lessons that we need.
29:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to read a whole manual.
29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Life has become a manual.
29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, family, if it's taking you six months to perfect the logo and the website and the business cards come out with the play you are doing it wrong.
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop waiting.
29:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's coming to do this work for you.
29:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's execute, guess what?
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: When you launch your product, when you just execute, and it doesn't work out the way you think is gonna work out, or you fall flat on your face, guess what?
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people, won't even see it.
29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people don't even care.
29:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people won't even know that you failed.
29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people won't even know that you did the thing until you taught a story of how it didn't work out.
30:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in your head.
30:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we think that when we launch a product, we do a episode or we do something that the whole eight billion people world stops everything we're doing and looks at you.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Take this note, nobody cares.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody cares, let's execute.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Number five, money math, okay, this is very, very important that we pay attention to the math.
30:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I'm not, I'm not about to go high level stuff.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about basic business,
30:45
[SPEAKER_00]: finance.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of us that have been entrepreneurs for a long time, we still haven't really gathered what's going on here, understand it.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We sell a product or sell a service, and we don't, we don't feel like we're making any money.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not making any money.
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we don't know why.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And we think that when we sell more, that will solve all of our problems.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: it doesn't solve the problems.
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go through some, let's just go through some definitions real quick, okay?
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you are a super high advanced entrepreneur, you probably need to pay attention, because it will still remind you of some things, okay?
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just go through revenue.
31:29
[SPEAKER_00]: What is revenue?
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Revenue is the screenshot that your favorite influence are posted about how much money they made.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: That's revenue.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a total amount of money that your business earns.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: from selling the products or the services.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not taking out expenses.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you sell 100 t-shirts for $20 each, you're revenue $2,000.
31:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Easy map, 100 times 20 to grand that you're revenue that's the top line.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what most people will tell you.
32:08
[SPEAKER_00]: They're revenue numbers.
32:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the flex.
32:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you another definition, cost.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: What is cost, cost is a total amount of money that it takes you to make the revenue.
32:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So this includes materials and labor and rent and marketing and all that stuff.
32:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the cost.
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it costs $10 to make a shirt, and you sell the shirt for $20.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And you sell 100 shirts, your cost is $1,000.
32:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It cost you $1,000 to make $2,000.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This is some of the most important information you'll ever hear from any entrepreneurial guru you need to know the cost.
33:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really know our true costs like that.
33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: What else goes into cost?
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, well, if you have to drive back and forth
33:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Your car is a cost.
33:18
[SPEAKER_00]: to make them, I mean, to make the money.
33:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't, you know what we don't calculate?
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't calculate that Zoom account.
33:25
[SPEAKER_00]: How much is Zoom?
33:26
[SPEAKER_00]: $20 a month?
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: $10 a month?
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't calculate that.
33:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're not looking at that.
33:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have Zoom and we got high level, which is $100 or $200.
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the light bill.
33:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We have all these different costs.
33:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You got a little VA. You need to sit down.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and outline every single cost that you have in your business.
33:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You put that furniture for your office on a credit card and you do not pay that credit card off.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And that credit card accumulates interest every single month that adds to the cost of you running this business.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why you got to be careful taking everybody a lunch.
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop doing all these lunch meetings.
34:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Just let's just meet.
34:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go into a book store.
34:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We ain't got to go to lunch, why?
34:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if I'm calling the meeting, I may feel pressured to pay for it.
34:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a cost and it's eating into the next definition that we're going over, which is profit.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: This is important, you know, like, that we die in business because we haven't calculated the cost.
34:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's real quick, man.
34:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I go through this every now and again, where I got all these systems set up and I kind of forget about them and they just accumulate.
34:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just went over that, bro.
34:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I just went through all of my calls, maybe like three months ago.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: and I was able to eliminate like $5,000 in cost that just hit.
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The stuff just hits.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I was storage unit $1,000 a month.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't even know it's a storage unit.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I sold all the stuff.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went to hold on to, I was actually spending, I was talking to my wife.
35:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, yeah, you're gonna throw away auto's charger plates because we have an event area.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna throw away auto's charger plates and it was nice little forks and stuff we got.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, baby, how much did it cost us to buy the stuff?
35:34
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, a couple hundred dollars we had to spend on that.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, what's the last time we used it?
35:41
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, well, a few months ago, but you never know when an event's coming up.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I said,
35:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of spending $1,000 a month on the storage, we'll just buy some more.
35:53
[SPEAKER_00]: When we need them, the carrying cost, $1,000 to keep this stuff that I just have in storage.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: When, listen, I rather instead of paying $1,000 a month for four months, which is $4,000, anything I need in there, I was gonna buy it, I'll buy it again, not throw it in the trash.
36:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the four, we need to understand the cost I just went through this family.
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's go into profit.
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: What is profit?
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what's left after you subtract a cost from your revenue.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
36:31
[SPEAKER_00]: between success and failure, profit.
36:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, your favorite influencer to post it.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yo, I made $100,000.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my question will be profit.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know that there are all-line marketers that will make a million dollars, to make a million dollars online?
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But they spent a million dollars on ads.
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: They spent a million dollars on influencer posts.
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not profitable.
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying not being profitable is a bad thing because Uber, not profitable for very long time, Airbnb, not profitable for very long time.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: These big companies, we work, I don't think they were ever profitable, right?
37:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, but you need to know it as this starting off, what is my profit?
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Revenue.
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I made $5,000 this month.
37:28
[SPEAKER_00]: If it costs me $4,000, my profit is $1,000.
37:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the number we need to grow.
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I go for $1,000 to $1,500 or $2,000 in profit?
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the bottom line.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Last definition.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Or not last.
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Another definition.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Margin.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't only get too deep in a margin, but margin is the percentage that shows how much profit you make from every dollar in revenue.
38:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So the example of the T-shirts.
38:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say for instance, I make $1,000 in T-shirt sales, let's say it cost me $600, that means my profit margin is 40%.
38:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But so the formula is profit divided by revenue times 100.
38:28
[SPEAKER_00]: and then give you your profit percentage, okay?
38:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is helpful because you can start looking at what percentage can be increased.
38:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say you're operating at 40% margins.
38:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you can go find a T-shirt manufacturer that can drop 10%.
38:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's huge.
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say the T-shirt we're buying is,
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say it costs $10 for a t-shirt, and you can find it somewhere else for $9.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You're saying we're saving a dollar per t-shirt, so while we bother.
39:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a 10% margin increase.
39:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That's huge when business, especially when we start talking to investors.
39:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay, last thing, we'll get all because I know some of your brains are hurting in the math, but cash flow.
39:24
[SPEAKER_00]: cash flow simply the movement of money in and out of your business, okay?
39:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have positive cash flow or negative cash flow.
39:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Positive means more money coming in than going out.
39:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Negative cash flow less money coming in than going out.
39:42
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something we need to pay attention to.
39:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Cash flow is important.
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So also, let's say for instance, you make $10,000 in sales in a month,
39:53
[SPEAKER_00]: invoice or they didn't give you the money, what your rents do.
39:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's always just delay in how people pay you.
40:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You could be operating at a negative cash flow, even though you're making a bunch of money.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Because how the money flows in and out of your business is very important.
40:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So listen to family, the numbers are vitally important.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, they did a study that's at 82% of small businesses fail due to poor cash flow management.
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just one of those things, okay?
40:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to number six.
40:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to get into the marketing.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Number six is marketing.
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Take this note, attention is currency.
40:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And if people don't know you they can't pay you, period.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So marketing goes into like storytelling and the content that you put out, you wanna build a no-like and trust factor, that is marketing.
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Marketing is how many people can I get this brand in front of?
40:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I do an Instagram live or something with an influencer.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: That is my attempt at marketing because I'm getting in front of a different audience.
41:00
[SPEAKER_00]: In marketing consistency is huge.
41:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Take this note, do not produce what you can't promote.
41:08
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a tell my podcast is all the time.
41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not even smart.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You think because you have a good podcast, you just upload it on Facebook and YouTube that it's just gonna go viral.
41:17
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you've got to pull three clips a day and post it on every single platform.
41:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We take the 45 minute conversation.
41:24
[SPEAKER_00]: We take three clips or 10 clips and post them joys over a week.
41:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We take one of the clips, put it on Instagram, take the same clip, put it on TikTok, put the same clip, YouTube short, same clip on Facebook.
41:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's vitally important, vitally, vitally, vitally important that we market it, and you say, I'm not good at marketing, read a book, learn, you need to know your messaging, what is the messaging that you're putting out and what type of frequency, how many channels are we posting on?
42:00
[SPEAKER_00]: How many avenues are we using to get our message out to the people?
42:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, if someone watches this, is there a way that I'm gonna give a call to action and gather your email somehow?
42:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if there's a link below that says, hey, give me your email.
42:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, another form of marketing, it's email marketing.
42:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You watched this, you like it, ivory email.
42:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm gonna start sending you some stuff.
42:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you ever seen somebody say, Hey, text this number to that that's the marketing.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to gather your phone number.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can keep talking to you.
42:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So in marketing, I need you to start putting a little more energy and getting the message out there.
42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, let me give you an example.
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Highcast Summit, we've been having incremental growth.
42:54
[SPEAKER_00]: We had 750 to first year, 1100 to second year, 1500 to 10, he's 30 years.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, man, how can we make this jump to double this year?
43:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the double in 2026.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: marketing brain says man why don't I just start talking to podcast distribution platforms that would that I can partner with and somebody's platforms got 50 60 thousand active podcasters.
43:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask you to send an email to that audience, give them a discount code, maybe I'll give you some sort of percentage to market to your audience.
43:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And now if I have all these different platforms that will send out an email to the audience, this is me marketing at a higher level, okay?
43:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to market.
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, number seven, rating and positioning.
43:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Branding is not just a cool logo, it's who you are at the core, which you stand for.
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And how people feel when they interact with you, that is your brand.
43:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people that I would not let come into my house because they're brand.
44:00
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, listen, if you are, if you are late, everywhere you go, that's a part of your brand.
44:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you for being late, you're always gonna be late.
44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: If I know you as underperforming,
44:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You are starting to build a brand.
44:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time I talk to you, you got some excuses.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a part of your brand.
44:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So we gotta be clear that our brand needs to represent something.
44:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I take pride, that my brand is consistency.
44:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe if you got a chance to talk to some people that know me, they would use the word consistency somewhere, but that's by design.
44:39
[SPEAKER_00]: What does your brand represent?
44:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want people to say about you?
44:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I want my brand to be like, okay, we're always elevating in our content.
44:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm always thinking of, do I need different lights?
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I need more lights, do I need another background, do I need more cameras?
44:57
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of lens would it just, what about the concept?
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: How would I, my branch is saying, we're not doing the same thing for the next 10 years.
45:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's always continue to progress in your brand.
45:11
[SPEAKER_00]: What makes you different than everybody else?
45:17
[SPEAKER_00]: How do people look at you?
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not just starting a business, you're starting a brand.
45:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And these are things that need to be taken to consideration.
45:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to stop, I had to stop going to the airport.
45:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at homeless, I just throw clothes on and be in the airport with flip-flops on.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yo, I'm building a brand when people see me, would all want them to say,
45:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't want them to say, oh my gosh, that's what I was meant to airport.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked, let me have a little rougher on the edges.
45:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't look successful.
45:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't like he knows what he's talking about.
45:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a part of the brand.
45:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not starting a business.
46:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You're starting a brand.
46:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a whole lot to, let's keep on, let's keep on.
46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't got a lot of time to get into all of them, let's get to it.
46:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Number eight, systems and processes.
46:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Your business needs systems.
46:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Your business also needs processes.
46:19
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some people put them together as it's one word, but it's not one word.
46:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is what, it's an outbreak now, system of processes.
46:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is the difference between someone is like hustling as a business and building a scalable business.
46:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what is a system?
46:39
[SPEAKER_00]: A system?
46:41
[SPEAKER_00]: is a way of doing something that works the same way every time.
46:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a system, it's a way of doing something that works the same way every time what a process is the step by step checklist that makes the system run smoothly.
47:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
47:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot have a strong system without the documented process.
47:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically,
47:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Systems and processes are how you start working as hard and you start working smarter.
47:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And you start being able to scale your efforts.
47:20
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I mean?
47:20
[SPEAKER_00]: When you first start doing a business, you're doing everything by yourself.
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're doing the marketing, your sales, funnels, customer service, all that kind of stuff.
47:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Well,
47:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's essentially normal.
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, on a business, you just own a job.
47:36
[SPEAKER_00]: The systems and processes allow your business to run without you doing every single thing.
47:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So for instance, a system is McDonald's.
47:45
[SPEAKER_00]: McDonald's has a perfect system.
47:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They make every single hamburger the same exact way.
47:54
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what, every time, same thing.
47:56
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter who's on the shift, that's why,
47:58
[SPEAKER_00]: a 15-year-old can run a multi-billion-dollar organization.
48:03
[SPEAKER_00]: McDonald's is running a billion-dollar company, trillion-dollar company, probably a display.
48:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's run by 14 year olds, 15 year olds.
48:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So the system is, we create, we create this burger at the same way every single time.
48:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the process?
48:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, grill time, number of pickles.
48:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we wrap it?
48:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all written down.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So anybody can do it.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to document the process so you can put someone in that seat.
48:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The tighter your systems become.
48:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And the cleaner your process becomes.
48:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Easier it is for you to make transitions when someone has to leave.
48:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So you gotta be careful when you're building a business off of talent.
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So we find somebody's really, really good.
48:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And they know all the passwords and they know how to execute and things that I nature and what they do is not documented in a process they're just really, really good at it.
49:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if they leave your business crashes,
49:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you know, I record, I record my show, every single Tuesday, what we do is we take the episode, every Wednesday, we pull the clips out of it, we post on these platforms this time, every there's a system and a process.
49:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if someone gets upset like, I won't be anymore.
49:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we have the system and the process was not changing.
49:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find someone to put in that seat, but the cool thing is you can work yourself out of a job.
49:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I say, okay, I'm going to set the cameras and I'm going to record every Tuesday and then I go and I pull the clips.
49:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if I have the system in the process, I could say, well, who can set up this camera?
49:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Who can pull those clips?
49:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And just do exactly what I've done which is according to the system and it's documented in a process is how we do it.
50:02
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, number nine, networking and relationships is vitally important.
50:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not gonna stay too long on this.
50:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Point, but you've heard it before, your network is your network.
50:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I truly, truly believe that.
50:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking back over my career, every advance in my career there's always been a person there.
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's ushered me into that advance.
50:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always somebody that knew somebody, or somebody that gave me a great piece of advice, or someone that introduced me to somebody, or somebody that recommended something to me to, your network.
50:40
[SPEAKER_00]: is your net worth for sure, proximity matters.
50:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, I'm asking you to get close to successful people period.
50:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta get close.
50:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be in that room.
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be in that environment.
50:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause it changed your whole mindset.
50:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, shout, shout, I'm not gonna say his name all enough.
50:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't me, it's his name, but it was a gentleman who started, he's working for another guy.
51:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And the guy was like, hey,
51:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You should, I was like, I need some help in my studio.
51:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if you want me to shit.
51:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
51:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's time.
51:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Five of them I got.
51:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he started working, he was a referral.
51:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was so interesting.
51:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he started coming around in a studio a little more often.
51:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And my man, full time entrepreneur just worked for himself, just commissioned jobs.
51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had like a hourly wage essentially.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, he might have been thinking about this all at his own, but I'm not taking credit for anything, but it's just like for the environment.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But I started talking to him like, oh bro, we said about a company together and start building up people's studios.
51:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, y'all, I would, but he's like, bro, I need an exchange of dollars for time.
51:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, it was going to take some time.
51:59
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not going to get paid for it like that.
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just got to work that thing.
52:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I'm cool with the entrepreneurial thing, but I'm not really interested in doing the work and not getting paid.
52:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm just telling entrepreneurs.
52:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But then he came back, he was like, oh, bro, I think this is gonna be something.
52:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And we started having these conversations of you like, oh, he got charged, extra amount of dollars.
52:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe he wasn't thinking in it.
52:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe he was, again, this is not me taking credit.
52:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to make a point.
52:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I connect him with another one of my friends to build out the studio.
52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And at friend, essentially paid him what he was charging me because I told my friend how much he charged.
52:40
[SPEAKER_00]: and he gets around, I'm a big thank you, my friend, just on the deal, he's a big thank you, we just have in these conversations.
52:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I honestly believe.
52:51
[SPEAKER_00]: that my boy Tybo was in the environment long enough for his brilliant brain to click and say, y'all, I'm recording all these people that are talking big.
53:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I refer him to Neo, Neo refers him to a bunch of people.
53:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I refer him to other people.
53:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got a lot of, it's network created as well.
53:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And he talked to me another day and he said, bro, the year ain't even over.
53:15
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I made my first $100,000.
53:21
[SPEAKER_00]: because of his network and his relationships.
53:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Network isn't always something that somebody can do for you.
53:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes your network is just proximity to people who think.
53:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem that maybe many of us are having right now is that you watching this, maybe having right now is the proximity of people that you're around is trash.
53:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to get lucky by sports betting.
53:46
[SPEAKER_00]: or we want to like this, we get lottery tickets or our major success is, I don't know, being able to go to a club and buy a bottle.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to get in a different environment.
54:00
[SPEAKER_00]: My network is single, handily changed my life by being an environment.
54:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if you know it.
54:07
[SPEAKER_00]: 79% of small business owners,
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: They say that having trusted partners and vendors are more important than sufficient cash flow.
54:18
[SPEAKER_00]: 79% of entrepreneurs will attribute their network as being more important than they amount of money that they make because they go hand in hand.
54:29
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, don't just build a business.
54:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to build a community, a tribe around you.
54:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my last point for I get to my last point.
54:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to have mentors, mentees, and colleagues, mentors that are going to give you the game and they can connect you to other high-level people.
54:44
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be able to see a little further than you, because maybe they've been through it and they have some game that you don't have.
54:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You need mentees because the best way to learn is to teach.
54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you take the information from the mentors and you start teaching the mentees,
54:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It sticks with you and certain level of accountability because if you're teaching other people how to stay motivated How to stay inspired you will stay inspired because you can't tell them something and you not do it yourself So you need mentors mentees and you also need college and need people that are in the space that are all going in the same direction So y'all could run together all right last point
55:21
[SPEAKER_00]: longevity.
55:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I just leave a one-word longevity.
55:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The business world can save the change with technology and competition, market shifts.
55:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurs have to adapt with the changes.
55:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you start now and you stop and you don't start again till next year, so many things have changed.
55:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That is hard for me to really adjust that a change.
55:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be in the game and stay in the game.
55:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so frustrating, man.
55:52
[SPEAKER_00]: People say, yo, I've been in this industry for 20 years.
55:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you started 20 years ago, it doesn't mean you've been in an industry for 20 years.
55:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It means you started 20 years ago and you started working in the space and you took five years off and you got back into it.
56:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You took another six years off and you told them, I've been at it.
56:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Know you haven't.
56:12
[SPEAKER_00]: longevity and consistency.
56:15
[SPEAKER_00]: My biggest flex is I've been doing the same thing talking to the same audience since I left my job in 2012.
56:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I built a t-shirt brand for entrepreneurs.
56:27
[SPEAKER_00]: at the time when I wasn't a full-time entrepreneur, but I'm telling you, I'm telling the people, like, you already sleep as for circus teachers, we don't sleep, we weren't, we don't get to it, I'm saying, if I wear these teachers long enough, one day I'll be successful, so this is the messaging.
56:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking to an entrepreneur, the underdog, the one that's really got to get this thing done, the one that was the grind.
56:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been talking to that entrepreneur, I'm...
56:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is...
56:55
[SPEAKER_00]: This is...
56:57
[SPEAKER_00]: 15 years later, 13 years later, and I'm still having the same conversation when entrepreneurs are trying to get it out the month.
57:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I just gave it the same audience, Rico, 10 tips, you.
57:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been talking to you.
57:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't start talking to multi-millionaires, I didn't start talking about relationships, I didn't start talking about mental health, I don't do not it as stuff.
57:22
[SPEAKER_00]: My biggest flex is I've been talking to the same group of people.
57:28
[SPEAKER_00]: for over a decade, you have to consistently improve.
57:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to be in the game next year?
57:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is this just another big idea, another thing that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and get all excited for nothing because we not go on move on it.
57:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm asking you to stay in the game long enough to figure it out.
57:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Entrepreneurship is like,
57:56
[SPEAKER_00]: almost it's it's about playing a game long enough to figure out a play.
58:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to play soccer.
58:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If I get on a feel and start like kicking a ball around, I'm not going to know what I'm doing.
58:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody's going to want me on a team.
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I show up every single day five years from today, I'd be a soccer player.
58:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, you're so good.
58:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you didn't see when I just started.
58:21
[SPEAKER_00]: and then stop and show them to this field every single day for five years.
58:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was intentionally looking to grow that I found a network, a tribe of people who could help me and give me some tips.
58:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I understood how long it took and I started studying and to get you to see it.
58:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And those of us starting stopping, starting stopping, starting stopping, starting stopping, starting stopping, what are you gonna stop, starting and stopping?
58:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Now as a time we take this thing seriously, we see the person that we're going to be.
58:51
[SPEAKER_00]: and we go after.
58:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Count the calls.
58:53
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of things we talked about in this episode.
58:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go back and look at all 10 that we discussed.
59:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one is the biggest pain point?
59:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And from now to the end of the year, I want you to focus on improving that.
59:09
[SPEAKER_00]: What if over the next 10 years you focused on mastering?
59:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You spent a year mastering every single one of these points that I talked about.
59:16
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 years from today, you'll be living the life that you only would have dreamed of.
59:22
[SPEAKER_00]: No, thank you all so much, family.
59:24
[SPEAKER_00]: If you all need assistance, join the morning meet up, go to the morning meet up.
59:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise the most amazing community in the world.
59:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you all for tapping it.
59:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you all.
59:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.