Transcription
So I'm here with Nick Fischer today, co-founder of New Reach. They do over 150 million a year. And so between us, we probably invested 5 million plus into coaches, gurus, courses, etc. And in this podcast, we're going to give the top five that were most impactful for us in building our eight and nine figure businesses. So Nick, we should start with some honorable mentions.
Dude, I'm super pumped for this. Yeah, we've spent way too much on on courses, but in a good way, I think, over the years. Honorable mentions. There's a few that didn't crack my top five that were super impactful for me in my career because they just gave me like one thing or even a mindset shift. The first one I wrote down was the first course that I bought that was over $1,000 which was Derek Halpern's Yes Engines.
Oh, he was a he was a goat back in the day. He was the man.
And he still is, I think, in the ecom space. We just literally it's my fiance's favorite protein powder.
No way. Well, shout out to Der. He actually was one of the few cuz it's funny how few uh people from like back then it was info. I don't even really call it info anymore. It's more of like coaching and services, but he was one of the only few people who there's only been a few who actually can break out, you know, like Alex Becker broke it out. I mean, but he was an OG in terms of going into EOB and then I mean they're in retail now doing really well.
You're right, dude. I think there is that perception. There's like a lot of people that say they're going to get out of man this place sucks. I'm going to get out of it. You guys and they come right back in. They come right back in. Come right back in about 18 months later.
Yeah. Derek left for good. He's It's been 10% go 1k course. Anything else on that?
Yeah. 1K course. It might have been 2K. I just remember it was a stretch for me and I felt like I might refund this. Like what's his risk reversal [laughter] at the time? And the thing that actually reassured me that I brought into my business to this day is Derek Halpern himself called me on the welcome call.
Wow.
And I thought it was you know how people are like is this AI? Is this a setter? Like whatever else. Well, it wasn't back then.
It wasn't back then. And I just recently did that myself. I just called a few people that I've sold um in the past and they said the same thing and I had that like full circle moment. I'm like, "This is me questioning if Derrick Halford is Dererick Halford."
Yeah. What's funny about that course, too, just to make you feel better is uh I I looked at that and I think I was too poor to even afford it. I was like 1K. I was like [laughter] I got like 300 bucks.
Yeah. Yeah. We were roughly at that same age.
Just finishing college, right? Very poor.
Yeah. No, 100%. So, what was yours?
Let me So, you just have one honorable mention?
No, I have five.
Oh my [laughter] god. Okay, let's rapid fire through the honorable mentions. So, mine I'm going to give in one big group. Okay. So, my honorable mentions are all my copywriting teachers because for me, >> you know, I think um I was obviously really good at sales when I started my company, but the way I thought about it is like, okay, I'm really good at sales. There's a lot of other sales trainers who are really good at sales. I don't necessarily want to out compete these guys on sales, even though I still need to make sure my training and everything is good. I want to be the best marketer and the best business person. Yeah. Out of all these people. And that's where I put my focus. And so part of what helped me be a good marketer was these copyrightiting people. But that was kind of my blue ocean strategy in a way, if you want to call it that, when I first started the company. So I'll give you what do I got? I got four.
Okay.
Okay. You're going to know all of these.
So obviously you're giving me giving me heck for giving five when you have four. Well, but I'm going to give you I'm gonna I'm gonna rapid fire them all. I'll rapid fire too. So, >> one is Frank Kern. So, obvious, you know, you got to give him the mask conversion.
But, um I bought the thing that was like just buy every single thing I've ever had.
And the there was a few like trainings in there that I still use the language and the framework of like some of the stuff that he taught today. So, like the one I used I still use today is the here's what I got, here's what it'll do for you, here's what to do next. It's just like the most simple direct offer copy of all time. And so, when I first learned that was when I first started the recruiting offer and we started placing setters and so I did a simple post on Facebook that was in that format for setters. It was like read if you need setters like here's what it is, here's the benefits, DM me. That was like it. That post did like 171k. It was the first time I ever sold any sales recruiting, but 171,000 from that one post.
So Frank Kern, obviously got to throw Jason Flaglin in there. He's the webinar goat. Uh he's like just probably the best one to many sal I almost view him more as a salesperson, but he's a little bit I mean it's both. And uh he's like one of the best one to many guys. Insane objections. John Benson in his VSL course. So he's the only person you know you hear about big ideas. I think he created P90X. I'm not sure, but it was he's created something like that. I might It might not be P90X. It might have been something else, >> but um he's created one of those things that's like you would know what it is.
But he has Have you seen his big idea map?
No. The only thing I bought from Benson is like 3 Accelerator or something like that. It was a long time ago.
I don't know. I I just did the thing with him, too. I just bought all the things.
That's smart. I need to start doing that.
He has the only process I've ever seen for like creating big ideas that's like a mechanical type of process. So he was good. Then the last >> and I think this is the best teacher of direct response marketing period >> is Todd Brown.
Because his uh I think it's called E5.
E5.
It just goes over like you know how to create a marketing thesis, how to create a central marketing argument and then how to create the subbeliefs of those argument and then the claims and the proof of that argument and then how to actually really uh put that into marketing and sales um assets. Right. So I kind of group them all into my honorable mentions.
Well, can I ask a question on those? Because the first time we worked together, it was like in the very early days of STA and I've never had anyone do this because you're right, you were the most copy savvy sales trainer I've ever met in my life.
Well, and I sent you a document that basically I called it the copy platform and it was essentially like the argument, the thesis, the subbelief, the belief ladder to get there.
Yeah. And it had the empathy, the common enemy and then like
Yeah. It was the um what I do is I I forget what it's called, but it's it not empathy map, but it's like a visceral painoint thing. So it's uh you know when you describe their pain points or their dreams, hopes, and desires or whatever, you want to relate it to what do they see, hear, feel, touch, etc. So like a classic one if you're selling like lead generation, what do they see in terms of a painoint? They see an empty calendar, right? What do they feel? they feel instability of not knowing where the next dollar is going to come from. But like that's why like one of the ads that you know I don't know if this ad still runs but it worked for me for a long time is I would point to like an empty calendar. I'd be like does your calendar look like this and do you want it to look like this? Like a lot of people have done that one but it's like that's that's coming from that seed.
So you're using visual hooks off what do they see?
Yeah. And what do you hear? So like what you might hear is is you only get unqualified prospects that say I don't have the money for this for instance. But like when you brainstorm all of that stuff, you will like and and and that's why going through that copy platform process, >> you will come out of that with a hundred ad ideas.
Yeah.
It's just like it'll flow so well. And now AI can actually help you with it a lot. But that's why when you have that, it makes you're never really starting an ad from a blank page. Like you're start like you the ad starts in this like ideation process. And you know, if you want to like if I wanted to make a bunch of ads, what I really should do is just go through and fill that out from scratch, even from my existing offer, >> because like just by the nature of doing it, you're like, "Dude, I should have an ad like this. I should have an ad like this, etc."
So, how do you pull those out? Cuz a lot of them you could pull from transcript from like sales call transcripts.
Well, there's that, right? Uh, well, I mean, honestly, AI can give you good stuff. There's the transcripts of sales calls. You can look at competitor testimonials or your own testimonials. Um, some of it you can just use common sense. Like >> if they don't have leads, their calendar is empty. Like I just know that, right? Um, so there's other things like what else? Uh, you know, there there's a lot of other things you could probably put in there. But it's oh, it's called dimensionalized pain points is what I call >> dimensionalized pain points.
That's one of the most uh helpful things you can do.
It's one of the most powerful things I >> The best way to start an ad is you want to try to start it if possible. like you know I don't necessarily follow this because I do a lot of offer guarantee ads but you know the best [laughter] way true the best way to start it is if you could call out a painoint that you can touch you like you could finger touch it right so like a lot of people they're like do you not have leads well that's like an abstract concept so that's taking the vague if I make that specific >> then what happens is specific and tangible and concrete language is does your calendar look like this you see how there's a difference there >> I see It's It's very powerful.
Back to the honorable mentions. We need to finish these up.
All right. Sweet. My honorable mentions. I'll group. I'll just speedrun it real fast. Nathan Laca, he had some sort of giveaway course. Taught me just promotion and honestly from how he moved. I learned a lot. Lewis House had a live webinar course which he taught by doing live webinars every day. And that just taught me grit and like discipline of like if you want something, you should just do it every day.
Old school Lewis House.
Yeah. I just remember like saying really I remember joining multiple times to see if he was actually doing an autovy or or like like live. He was actually live.
Uh John Loomer advanced Facebook ads. He taught me kind of like the basics and the guards.
He's an OG. You're an OG when you're a Facebook targeting option.
Yes, [laughter] man.
100%. Yeah. Shout out to John Loomer, Frank Kern, and Ryan Dice and few of those OG Facebook targeting options.
And then um the perfect webinar by Brunson. I think it was part of a bigger course that he probably did. But that one hour live training on the perfect webinar is like textbook marketing like fundamentals of how you actually run a webinar.
That's good. All right, then you go. Let's go into your number five.
All right. My number five, and I put people through this um in variance of this as soon as they start for me in New Reach is Alex Horoszy's free course on acquisition.com. I want to say it's the lead generation course. It's the one that starts with more better new. And it's such an important lead genen >> the lead genen course and it's such an important concept to me because a lot of times people especially in marketing they come to me and they're like >> oh I got this new ad idea for pace and it's day one. I'm like oh I'm sure you do >> you got a great ad. So like I take them through this process and any beginner I started there because a it's free and it just builds the fundamentals that you need in marketing. You got to do more before you can refine or do better ads and you got to do better ads before you start thinking of new concepts altogether.
Yeah I agree. Uh so that's your number five. That's my number five.
My number five. Have you ever heard of catal?
No.
Okay. Whoa.
So, I got to get I got to set the stage here. So, basically, when I first started my business, >> you know, long story short, I was bartending in college. I started a nutrition blog. And then eventually that kind of over time, maybe like a year, 14 months, 15 months, morphed into a Facebook ads agency. And then when I did the Facebook ads agency, I basically went another full year of just sending 50 cold emails a day with no response.
And that sucks.
By the way, as an aside, I now know from back then what had happened was the first day I sent those cold emails, I got myself so pumped up, you know, I'm like post out of college, right? So I pull an allnighter, I sent 400 emails >> off of my domain. So like, you know what I did? I blacklisted the domain. Yeah, >> because the first day I got a bunch of responses and then after that I sent 50 a day religious like discipline. 50 a day, nothing. And I did that. I'm not kidding. I did that for a year, >> bro. I love that about you.
I was so like I took a program on cold email. This is what you're doing. You're supposed to get this client. You're supposed to send this. And it was like the program really hammered you too. It was like don't quit. Don't deviate from the process. [laughter] Like volume whatever. And so I'm like, I'm gonna make the most out of this [ __ ] investment. And so I'm like 50 emails a day, customized written emails.
Oh [ __ ] [laughter]
For a year. And it morphed to the point where I was like, I got to make the offer better. So I was like trying to ask people to work for free. And I was getting nothing.
And I now know like I was able to I didn't know this till like four or five years later when I started doing cold email at scale for my company. And I was like, "Oh, that's why that didn't work 5 years ago. I blacklisted my domain the first day [laughter] >> and then I spent 11 months and 29 days >> basically just in the dirt.
You're probably the only example where quantity didn't win.
No, more did not win. That was when I needed to do I think that's I needed to shift to better and that's better. But anyways, so [laughter] I'm like in the quality email 12-month grind and I'm like [ __ ] like this is you know what am I going to what is what is wrong? Like why is this not working? And so I see an ad and it's like grow your Facebook ads agency yada yada yada and it's Kah's ad. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to click this ad because back that was the first ad I saw that was like a specific uh I mean this is how long ago this is. I mean this ended up being such a popular offer, right? But it was the first ad I saw that was like how to grow your Facebook ads agency. So I'm like >> click, you know, I'm like this is not what I'm trying to do. What I'm doing is not working.
And so I I book this call. I get on a sales call and the sales the sales guy's really good. He's super nice. He's it's it's um he pitches me four grand, which at that point was like, you know, half of my net worth. And [laughter] so I was like, "Holy shit." I still bought anyways. And then I get on um in the program and I remember like kind of going through the modules. I'm like doing my thing. I attended a group call. Then I attend the second group call and she's like basically the the client journey in that program was you were supposed to like launch a funnel and with ads to get clients and you know so I was doing cold emails so that appealed to me but I was kind of dragging ass. I get on the second group call and she yells at me and I was like oh [ __ ] So then I'm like the by by the next thing I had my freaking funnel launched and um what ended up happening was dude back then I was getting like $50 calls for agency leads. I mean in hindsight all these leads were unqualified but but that didn't keep me from pitching them.
Still pretty good for a bad
So I ended up doing like I think it was 60 grand total over the course of like 10 weeks. Um, I know I did 32 or 31 grand in a month, but the problem was, anyways, the problem was I I I was so new and so green and I was getting business like so fast. I outsourced a lot of the business to contractors and I spent more on the contractors because like they would have to fire them and hire a new person and then they wouldn't get results. I spent more in the contractors than I actually like made in revenue. So, I ended up losing all my money, but that wasn't her fault. Like, it was a it was a good program. But here's here's the interesting thing about this >> is that and this is the reason it's my top five >> is when I came in that program that sales guy who sold me we just got in the conversation and he was like yeah I'm making like 30,000 a month and I was like you know to me I was making dude I was bartending in Appalachia Ohio okay so I was making two grand a month so I like 30 grand a month you know you might as well told me you're making a million a month at that at that point in my life and so I thought like I seated in the back of my head I was like if this doesn't work out I'm gonna do this sales thing, >> high ticket sales rep.
And then also then what happened was the only thing I sucked at funnels. That's why I contracted it out. I really wasn't that good at ads. And like this program cuz she was like a uh divorced lady in her 30s. So all the people in the program naturally are divorced ladies in their 30s. And so I'm like this young 23-year-old dude who's like living in a shack.
Wait, this is funny. I think I was in her free group actually. You have a free group?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm like living in a shack. my my computer screen barely even works and I don't know how to run ads. I don't know how to do funnels. I'm just like whatever, but I'm making freaking sales. And so the thing was is I I think because they were like, "How is this [ __ ] kid like some I was beating like some of these people who were way better than I was?"
And they were just like, "Oh, you know, he's just so good at sales." And so when I heard that I was like, "Oh, like I'm good at sales."
And so then I kind of identified with, >> okay, I'm good at sales. Like I grabbed on to that because like when you suck at everything, the first thing you kind of >> trying to figure out like what am I good at? Who am I in this like new career world I'm in? So like I latched on to that as an identity. Realistically I wasn't that good but I latched on to that and then that's kind of also fed into that okay if this doesn't work out I'm going to get into sales. So when I lost all my money that's what I got into sales. So the reason that was so important to me and it's number five is not necessarily because I made a bajillion dollars. I mean, I actually lost all my money, which wasn't again her not her fault at all.
But that sort of what I did after that is I was like, "Okay, I'm getting into sales." And then I got my first sales job right after that.
Dude, I would challenge the idea that you probably weren't that good at sales, too. Cuz if you ran like 60 grand, >> dude, I suck.
Well, what was your redeeming quality? Did you follow script to a tea or did you >> No, a volume. So, like I would take 10 calls a day [laughter] and dude, my close rate was like 4%.
Cool.
You know, so but when I applied to the sales job, I just didn't tell him that. I was like, "Oh, yeah. In 10 weeks, I just like ripped, you know, 62 grand. I'm I'm the shit." No, my my self my [laughter] my close rate was literally four or five%. And I was just burning leads, dude. Like, and I sucked. I sucked so bad, actually. But I thought I was good, which is what matters.
That is what matters. Self belief and conviction.
You want to move on to number four?
Let's do it. If you're enjoying this conversation and you want to be in a room of people who are just like the people I have on this podcast so you can ultimately network with the highest level people in the industry and uplevel your business, you should fly out to meet us in Scotland at the end of July. So this is a onetime opportunity where you can get a ticket to actually be able to come if you qualify to network and get content and ultimately work with me and my team and so many other highle speakers in the industry in Scotland at the end of July. So, you have to be doing at least $100,000 a month in your business to qualify. If not, don't bother with it. But if that's you and you're trying to scale to 10 million or even 20 million or 100 million a year, there's other people in the room who have done that. And the speakers I'm going to have in Scotland have done that, too. So, check out the link in the description and see if you qualify. And if you do, book a call with my team. We'll talk about the ticket price to be able to come. This is the only time you're going to be able to do this, so take advantage of it. Now, back to the podcast. Dude, number four. This is the only one I tried not to do ones that I had direct involvement in for, but it's consulting accelerator 2.0.
Okay?
And it's maybe not for the reason that some people think like I I worked on that course. I didn't end up buying it. So, I was comped it, let's call it, but I've probably been through it six times >> just because of how much work I had to put into it.
Um, rewrote it, did transcripts of it, made the workbooks, the whole gamut, if you guys know that era.
And it teaches people how to get clients, right?
It never did that for me. But what it really taught me was how to make a great course which was super impactful. So anyone watching this in like growth operating too is the story goes when I got there to work with Sam Ovens I was on a base plus a revshare the first day I audited our Addis account and I told him it was [ __ ] basically or like we can do a lot better than this. Um and at the time he was just samvens.com and he was like okay, we're going to shut it down then and work on um a new product and it ended up being accelerator.
Oh wow. And I didn't know how long,
which was a 2K webinar.
It was a 2K webinar, but we were nine months from that point at that point. And he was like, we're just going to shut it down and make no money. And I was like, bro, I kind of like took less salary than I had before to come out here thinking the rev share was going to kick in. So for 3 months, we made zero money. And I was sitting there in New York in an apartment that Sam told me to live in in Midtown, uh, just burning through cash. So I was like, this has to work. But it taught me uh the lesson that I got out of it was the discipline to work on a product every day. So like Sam had outlined and done all the curriculum and then I was doing all of the customer calls and testimonial reviews and if you remember we launched.
I do remember that. Yes.
And that's like the lesson I learned out is if you can really if you can afford to put yourself in a point where you can shut off or not at least you don't have to shut it off. We just didn't have a team. It was me and Sam at the time. So it was either like you know he knew ads would be a distraction. He's a big preacher of focus. So, I just did he made me do over 800 customer interviews and get those like first testimonials and then Nick Hower and a bunch of people took it from there and we had 3,000 to launch. But I just remember being like,
"Holy crap, if I have to do another user interview, [laughter]
I'm going to
So, give So, so a couple things. Uh, so give people a little context. So, you Sam was doing uplevel and he was probably doing you know,
he was actually doing something called consulting blueprint at the time if you remember that. I thought it was up level.
It was It was uplevel 1.0, but he wasn't even selling that anymore when I
But it was like a high ticket 5K thing, right? It was a high ticket. He was doing that and he was probably doing like 400 800 grand a month or something like that.
He was.
And then you came on. Okay. You guys shut it all down. Then you launched the 2K auto webinar.
2K Auto,
right? Which that's what scaled him to like at the time it was like 30 millionish a year, which at that at that stage in our industry was like, you know, 100 million a year. It was like 100 million. Nobody was doing that.
Yeah. It was like publishing.com like today.
Yeah. And and when you first launched it, it was just ads or uh it was just ads or was the JV the initial launch?
Did I'll have to show you >> the JV was the initial launch?
I've never shown you the full pre-launch war map. I'll send it to you. Not not for this uh this room to see. But it was ads JV.
Yeah.
One and two. And he had come off a year 2016 when we met where he had Tai Lopez. He had met Tai Lopez and Sean Vosard had hooked them up and he had printed money in JV space. So he knew how to do that and he had that relationship. I didn't grease that at all. I just came in from like the ads and I was like whatever we're doing in JV I was like I can definitely
because the J what happened was the JV went nuclear but then as that audience started fatigue you had to place replace it with ads. Correct.
Yeah. Okay. Y
so and then and then just to help the audience understand because I know what you're talking about. I still think today that 2.0 0 course is the best course. I mean, it's not really as relevant the tactically specific, >> but for its time, I do think it is the best course that has ever been made.
Dude, thank you.
I think it is the best course that has ever been made because of how like >> he does such a good job of it's all like the highlevel concepts, but then it chunks down to the littlest detail and catches all of the limiting beliefs, etc., and then it chunks back up. And every every single module course, every anything I have ever made, I always try to like think about that framework of when I took that course.
Yeah. So anyways, let's move on to number my number four.
That's cool.
So, uh, Alex Becker's SAS mastermind. Oh,
I was never in that one, but I've heard.
So, have you ever done an Alex Becker? You've probably done iron.
Okay. Have you ever done anything else? No.
So, okay.
So, what's funny about this is I didn't even have a SAS, but when he launched it, it was 30K. I was like, I don't I was like, you know, and Hyros was like exploding. It was like, you know, the the big thing in the industry at the time. I'm like, I'm just [ __ ] going. I don't care. I'm just going to say I'm going to start a SAS.
And so I go I did ROI actually just from the networking because I got a lot of clients for the sales people. And you know, a lot of the SAS stuff was just kind of like way over my head. But the cool part about number one,
you didn't have a SAS
is it is it Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I just [laughter] was like this is not really relevant to me right now, but I just sat there because the thing is if you've never done like an in-person Becker event and Spencer, who's my CMO, he's done multiple. So he said this is like always how it is it's not like you get there and there's coffee and tea and there's a breakfast and then there's like an intro applause. that he just like doesn't say anything, gets up there and then he opens up his laptop and just runs through a Google doc for eight hours straight just fire hosing information [laughter] like he I mean he almost like he was like hey guys all right we're just going to go through this and we were all sitting in Airbnb and we're just like [ __ ] [laughter] you know just like fire hosing information you know no breaks no nothing you know it just was that's all it was and apparently that's just like how he how he does it so [laughter] I actually uh I enjoyed I mean, I I just want the information, so I enjoyed it. But here's the deal.
So,
at the very end, he was doing how to do marketing for SAS, and he was breaking down uh what I call now today like the direct VSSL funnel. And he was breaking down essentially like his funnel that was like this, you know, what was it like this hard drive or whatever will decrease your uh cost per book call and increase your rorowaz and do x y and z or you don't pay for it. And then he would hammer you with the social. So, it was offer guarantee, hammer with the social proof, >> and then it was a CTA, and then it was like, "So, if that's all you need to hear, go ahead and book. But if you want to know more about why this works so well, keep watching and I'll tell you why." And then he would go into essentially like a demo of the product, so to speak, of like kind of a little bit more detail of why it worked to essentially sell more higher information buyers. And I saw that and he had actually said that, you know, he evolved that from Hormos's gym launch funnel. That's what he said. And so
they were really the only two kind of doing it at the time. Uh Joelway also with his power offer thing. He was doing it and and he what his system was really good as well.
Yeah.
And I I thought about it and I'm like I'm thinking about like Joel's stuff and I was thinking about what he did and I'm like I have like a done for you recruiting offer like this has got to work for my business because at that time I was just doing like 500 grand a month off referrals >> and organic, >> right? So I went back and wrote that funnel and that funnel has produced I think alone it's had to have been over a hundred million you know because that's been the main funnel for my B2B side of the company for years.
It's it's had to have done at least over 100. It might be like 120. I don't know.
It still runs.
That makes so much sense. Yeah.
You Becker and Hormosi and Joel all come from that. You have such strong direct leads.
Yeah. Direct. I mean it worked. So that's my number four. Number three.
Number three for me is Cole didn't pay me to say this is STA. [laughter]
All right.
And the reason being >> glaze me up right now. I will glaze you up. I will glaze you up. You guys should click the link below. I'm going to include it in my description in [laughter] the >> if Cole doesn't. But STA, so uh going back like let's call it four years ago. It was about 2021 or 2022. Um, we had kind of maxed what I would call like the relative scale of the VSSL call funnel, inbound, one call, direct close that I was kind of getting known for at the time.
And we had all these leads. In fact, like I want to say the first time I looked, it was like over 60,000 leads that we had a phone number that hadn't been called. And around this time, Cole was starting to blow up. And he's made modifications, refinements, and a bunch of other things. I was like, "Okay, maybe the game has changed here. There needs to there need to be a set close model." And I remember I was like I was against it at first. I was like, "No, you don't need to do that. It's just like delaying the sales motion. We want to liquidate cash faster." And then I don't know what caused me to look into it, dude one more time. And I was like, "Okay, maybe it was a conversation we had and you told me your average like basically time to liquidate ad spend and it was less than mine and I'm pretty fast." And I remember being like, "Maybe that close is actually better and faster." So that was the aha. And then I ended up buying it for our sales managers. Chad went through it first and then I made everyone. So like our whole sales team, they still train on it to this day. Someone asked me for the login last month.
Oh, nice.
Joel on our team.
So legitimately um STA like I don't know how much like improvements and refinements you've made over the years since then, but it's still relevant to our team to this day. They train
on I've done multiple versions, but I app I appreciate it.
Yeah, we'll leave it at that.
We'll we'll leave the link in the the link in the description. in my description.
All right, I'm going to give you number three. And so this is my I cheated on this one a little bit because it's not something I invested in, but they were technically a coach, but I was working for them, which was TNF and particularly Taylor Welch because he was my manager when I was a salesperson at at uh at uh Traffic and Funnels. And so that was by far in my life the most transformative year in terms of personal development in my life. And so there's a couple reasons why. And the first thing is is I was able to work and you probably had this a lot with Sam >> is I was able to work in person in an office with a company that went from at the time I started they were kind of rebuilding. They they had kind of peaked and then they had went back down. They were like three 400 grand a month and I got to be all the way up to a million to a million five a month which again >> you know now that's like >> great you you did a good job. back then it was like we did that and was like Sam that was it. It was like just us two in the industry that were the only ones to do that. So I was able to see how we scaled through that journey and because we were in an office >> and I just am naturally you know a pretty social person like I would talk to Ashton Shanks who was the CMO and I'd be like oh you know how do you do this? How do you set the budgets? Oh you got to spend you know 400 grand this we would spend probably more because we would do a liquidating funnel. So like he'd be like yeah we're spending like 600 grand. I'd be like okay like how does that work? How are we doing that? how are you doing the budgets? So, I I would learn so much about how the marketing department worked and how they would have, you know, copywriters and media buyers and this and that and people on low ticket and people on the email and all this stuff. And I also learned like, okay, here's the ops people, here's what they do, here's HR, here's what they do. Um, obviously, you know, our sales team scaled and all that stuff. That's where really also um I don't want to say we invented it because clearly calling your leads has been around for a long time. [laughter] You you got to realize in our industry at that moment there was you know high ticket was more of a thing where it's like oh you know it's all about you reaching out to me and you booking a call with me and me being the authority why should we work with you it's like and that was really pioneered by Kevin Nations >> Kevin Nations which he's a legend right he's a beast >> uh but at the time like the idea of calling your leads was like beta in a way and I remember Taylor being like >> you know dude every business calls our leads. We need to call our leads. And he's like, "I want you to figure it out." So, like one day, I literally, this is when I first started at the company. I I had like never done outbound, you know? I I had done high ticket before. I had several other sales positions, but like all we did was inbound. And if we did outbound, we just like followed up, you know?
And so,
I remember sitting down with the wolf, what was it called? The straight line selling book.
And I'm like, there's got to be something in here, you [snorts] know, I can I was like, I don't even know what to say to these people. And do you remember the memos? No, >> like there was the newsletter that he sent out every month. He had this 79 uh Taylor. It was $79 a month.
I do remember Taylor.
So, we had all these like we had,200 memo buyers. So, I just pull up that list in the CRM and I'm just like I'm going to just call these people >> and you know newsletter people who read a print newsletter are probably the warmest leads of all time. Yeah.
So, I'm calling these people and it's so easy and I just kind of create the script on the fly calling them and like my first set of 100 calls, I got several sets and like got several closes out of it. And then I refined that over time and then eventually helped train the entire setter team that we had at TF with that scripting. And then we shifted from webinar to low ticket and then obviously everything was setter driven. And that was we were really the first company at that time who was doing any I mean no no company was setter driven. I mean there might be like maybe some old school heavy direct response companies or something like that. I'm not saying we created it by any means, but like in Rustfino, Sam Evans, Scottford at the time, us like we nobody else was doing it. So >> obviously I learned all of that kind of on the fly. A lot of it I kind of just like figured out just because he told me I should figure it out. I was like, "All right, I'm just going to sit down and call a bunch of leads." So there was that. Um the other thing and you probably got this at consulting as well is what was so transformative about that experience is I got to see because we were a coaching company for companies in the industry right >> so I got to see like all these clients come in and then like you you pick up a pattern recognition so you're like okay the clients who hit 500 grand a month to a million a month they do they usually have this type of offer they usually have this type of funnel they're all pretty good at sales they run good sal like you just pick up like these basics and pattern recognition And so that combined with knowing how to run like seeing how an 8 figure company operated and then also being good at sales >> was part of the reason like when I went to start my own company I basically did 70 like I launched the company and then did 71k in 48 hours. Yeah.
Is because like I had those skills that I learned sort of from osmosis. And so there was that and then I would say the other two things is like the standards at that company and the culture was so intense and so high that like I had a lot of sales mechanics coming in and a lot of people asked me like what did Taylor teach you about sales and he you know I learned some stuff about sales from him no doubt but >> we really didn't train on sales a lot like he didn't review my calls a lot what it was was like >> a massive demand of performance and a super high standard and we would just have to like figure it the [ __ ] out. So like I was investing in sales trainers and coaching and this and that. I was reviewing my calls and I just had this so such a tight feedback loop to where I got so good just under that culture. Like I got good because of the culture not necessarily because of the training but still that's like really important. And so I grew a lot that way. And then you know I you know me and Taylor have made up since but when we left >> Yeah. I remember when we didn't have the best uh departure. [laughter] And so uh you know he even told me at the time and like you know I I love Taylor now and everything but he told me at the time he was like you're never going to make more money than you make here, right? And I was like [ __ ] you. And so I swear from like zero to like probably beyond a million a month. I mean, I was like determined to just prove him wrong. And I'm kind of glad he did it because it gave me a lot of like dark energy fuel, [laughter] you know, and so that's my number three.
Number two for you.
That's so funny. I had a similar experience with uh Cody Sperber, though, like that culture. He just
A lot of people have had that, you know, experience like that.
Uh-huh. 100%. I agree. And I love Taylor. I need to check out his new podcast. Have you listened to it?
Dude, he's ripping right now. He gets like 400 to 600,000 views a video. It's some sort of Christian niche. I don't really understand that. It's not my um particular like uh yeah, I just don't consume that level of content. But I I don't even know what his monetization is.
But if you're getting 4 to 100 to 600,000 views a video somewhere up there. I mean, it's a lot like multiple hundreds or thousands.
I'm sure you're making money somehow. Yeah.
So, good for him.
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Now, back to the video. Number two, this one I thought about for a while, and this one is for people who specifically have a course and are thinking about the future of operations. I'm like, which one has inspired me um in looking forward of how education is going to be consumed with especially with AI being so prevalent? And it is Spencer Hanley's Sonora Guitar Accelerator.
[laughter] And you guys like it's it's it's the deepest gut I have for you guys. And if you don't want to play guitar, I would still recommend going through it because for the operations for the operations, he is an operations genius because the dude's mind is so He's an operational genius. Yeah. He was the first dev at Patreon. So he has experience in like coding LMS. And his LMS was the first one that I ever went into that wasn't just a Kajjabi go highle like Clickfunnels backend. The thing was customuilt and because it's a practice skill. If any of you guys sell a practice skill where you need to continue the practice in order to maintain the skill which is like guitar. Imagine going through his course and it has an algorithmic LMS backend where instead of just going through a linear course process it's like oh you you play the guitar at like 80 beats per minute now we want you to do it at 100 the same structure just go faster and then so it's unlocking or thinking like thinking through of how you actually get good at a skill. Um, and I told him eventually it'd be super cool if you like put the camera on it, analyzed like think of where AI could go and you could just it could just be a live like teacher with you in real time. Um, for linearbased outcome courses where you're getting the knowledge and then just going practicing it, it doesn't really change much. Not so relevant. But about half the people in industry are teaching a practice skill. So that was a huge unlock for me. And I haven't done it to the effect that he has. But I've thought about that concept in other courses where people get rusty in certain courses. I'm like, "Okay, instead of having him watch a new video, have him do this thing again. Have him just re-watch the same video in a slight variation."
Yeah.
You know, I'm his ideal market because I I told him I was like, "Yeah, you know, I can play pentatonic scales. I can like play pretty much anything you hear on the radio unless it's like some crazy John Mayer solo or something like that. But, you know what I can't do is I can't like listen to something and then kind of know what key it's in and then riff like a solo or whatever to the key." and I can't pick up and like just jam with somebody or I can't like if somebody lays on a drum beat I can like do something with guitar like I can't do that. I'm like I gotta do the tabs and listen to it on the radio and then like figure it out but I can like like my coordination is decent, right? But I don't have that like ear and that and he was like yeah dude like you're literally he's like that's the intro of every single discovery call that we have as a sales call. And so I was like, and then he tried to sell me and I was like, uh, and honestly, you might make me buy because
I would go through it and and relearn like a lot of the guitar stuff I've dropped off and it sounds like it would help me with, you know, even like fulfillment stuff, too. But I will tell you this.
So Spencer Hanley, uh, who was a client of mine and it might even still be in our mastermind. I'm not sure, but, you know, he was he's been in our stuff, you know, for years and he's a great guy. Um, he is one of the mo it's a great example of an extremely advanced operator in my opinion in like not the best opportunity vehicle probably.
[laughter] Yeah. Which he still got to I think 10 million a yearish.
He did. I had I didn't think he would. And and you know he had to really squeeze everything out of that business he could to probably get it there. Now that doesn't mean necessarily that I think he should do something else cuz I know also he likes guitar. He likes to travel. He likes to like go to South America and like learn this crazy type of guitar and jam with these random people. So maybe it's a business that you know I mean dude if you could make a lot of money which he's certainly making and also do you know everything that you love and lifestyle and all that stuff I mean that's probably better than just making a lot of money. So I'm not saying you should change but like if he was in a different like if he had a SAS company with like a high like a high ticket type of SAS I mean he could you know sell a company for nine figures. I mean he's very he's very impressive. like he would show us some stuff and I'd be like be like okay like do our setters do that? My team would be like my team would be like yeah what he's doing is pretty good like we do it but he would I will say this he was probably especially with setter operations
setter operations
probably the most advanced clients we've ever had.
I would agree. He he showed me and we had to course correct it sub two. His setters were um there's a bunch of different metrics you could evaluate it on but let's call it two times more active in just
active time. Active time.
Yeah. which Dialer now has built in. But he was really the first one to do that
and we talked about that with Ryder. Yeah. So like he was he was the first one to show me and I was like shoot maybe my my people are just like lazy.
Yeah.
Or maybe I'm lazy as a manager. I just didn't know.
Is he still doing that business? What is he doing now?
Yeah. He's still he's still running.
I should hit him up.
You should.
Okay. So that was your number two.
That was my number two.
Okay. My number two is my series of Hormosi investments.
So I got to tell you a few stories. So, the best Hormosi training I ever went through was one of my clients. Well, so I'll tell you a little backstory. I I I knew who Hermoszi was cuz Taylor had told me, who again was my old boss, he was like, "Yeah, dude." He's like the real dude who's [ __ ] crushing it in this industry, is this Hermosi guy who sells gyms. And I was like, "What? What do you mean?" He's like, "Yeah, dude. He's doing like 40 bill." I was like, "What the fuck?"
[laughter] Like, "What is this?" So, I had no idea. This was 2018, 2019 or something.
And so I'm like, I kind of knew who this guy was, but I'm like, okay, he's like a gym guy, right? And then I had these clients, he had mustaches with people on stage. I'm like, okay, cool, whatever. And then he had I had these clients that were agency owners and kind of, you know, Homozi sort of like is agency adjacent. Gym Launch was agency adjacent. So there they were telling me and particularly this one person, like one guy was like, "Dude, I funnel hack their sales process. It's like the greatest thing I've ever seen." I was like, "Okay." And then this other person told me, they were like, "Dude, you should listen to the Gym Launch Secrets podcast." I was like, "What do you mean? I don't have a gym." And they were like, "No, it's just really good business stuff." So, I started binging the podcast. This was in 20 early early uh 2020
during COVID.
And so, I started binging the podcast. I was like, "This is [ __ ] good." Then, I had uh I don't I don't know. I don't want to get him in trouble. So, I had a different client who was like, "Yeah, dude. I spent 50k to get a consulting day with her." And he was telling me a little bit about it and I was like, "Dude, you got to send me these recordings." And he's like, "I'm not going to." I was like, "I'll buy them from you." And he was like, he was like, "Look,"
he's like, "If you give me a sales rep, I'll give you the recordings." So, I bartered a sales rep for the one-on-one full day uh consulting day recording that they got with Herboszi. And that was probably at that time the best content I have ever been through in my entire life because like he hadn't he didn't publish a lot of like business stuff on YouTube yet, right? I mean it was like business stuff at Jason for gyms.
So this was the first time like you know more better new, right? Like
I was like more better knew that's pretty [ __ ] cool. Like I had heard that before it was like public and there was a bunch of other these frameworks like you know how he has the other one that's like
beliefs, character traits and skills or whatever it is like like there was that which like he still says now but like I I had that back before he was even like a YouTuber, right? And so I go through this oneonone day and I'm like dude this is amazing.
So then I have another client who's like yeah dude we also just invested in a one-day coaching for like I'll give you two sales reps for the recordings.
[laughter] So, so I bartered the sales reps again to get the recordings. So, I'm going through these recordings and I'm like, "Dude, this is like the shit." So, then they were like, you know, when he launched Allen,
he that's like the the lead nurture software that he had for I missed that era
that you know, so he was reselling it for agencies as like a white label. That's what he was doing. So, he would like bring an agency in, you'd pay money or whatever, then you would like use the software. He would obviously make money from you using the software and then you would charge the client or whatever. But when he would bring them in as like affiliates or what have you, um you would get all this course material about how to like scale your agency and that was like the OG like all the hormosi frameworks. So like the profit genie like all this stuff was in there. You didn't tell me about
I barted I bartered sales reps for that too cuz I I was like I don't have an agency. So I was like yo dude I had this one guy my program. I was like I'll give you some more sales reps if
[laughter]
you get if you give me the login. And I would have bought it to be clear. I wasn't trying to be cheap. I just wasn't like I was like I don't have an age. I've done that too.
Yeah. So I was like trying to get in. So then you know
I'm already like wellversed in the Heroszi stuff because I'm like I kind of got underground content which by the way underground content sometimes the best content.
I would agree.
Um then you know he he gets big on YouTube right and like the the 2020 and 2021 Hormosi era of YouTube like any advanced person will tell you is like the OG Hormosi videos were like the best videos. like now like
you know they're just broader you know and I've heard a lot of the same concepts like again and again and again. So um those were good but then I did the 250k thing right which I made a video about. I don't know if you saw it. So did you
which 250k thing? Uh well, I don't know if it's a thing, but basically when he did that Money Models launch,
uh one of my sales reps who was a top sales rep for me at the time, Herozi poached him
and but I you know, I was like, "Yeah, I get I was like, yeah." I was like, "I get it, dude." Like, you know, he got this really good offer and I was like, "You should just take it, dude. It's don't even worry about it. We're good."
And so, we're still friends and he called me like during the launch and he's like, "Hey, dude. There's this like special offer. It's like 250k, you know, it's like a consulting with herozi and then it's also this like event you get to go to with 10 people who also pay 250k.
So I was like, "Yeah, [ __ ] it. I'll just do it." So he bought I bought the 250k for my old sales rep.
[laughter] And you know, I want to support the other thing is too is like I want to support my old sales rep like I'm like you're going to get commissions from this. Yeah. So I bought it and
the thing is it's hard to like I always get roasted when I talk about it online.
Why? Uh because well people will I I'll be like oh I spent 250k with Hermosi. Then I'll be like here's what I learned. And then all the comments are like you could have learned that in chat GPT. You know I could have told you that. I'm like dude you're [ __ ] broke. Like it's a bunch of broke people being like well I could have told you that. I'm like well if you could have told me that why are you broke? You know first of all but anyways so
his time is worth it. But it's hard to like encapsulate everything you learn because you're there for so long and a lot of the stuff is like a little nugget here, a little nugget there, a little nugget there, a little nugget there, They all like do culminate, but they're not it's not like I can't make content about it because it's I'd have to give you so much context on like
my whole business and then okay, I had this relationship with this one leader and now I restructured that and blah blah. Yeah. It's like it's very difficult. Yeah. I can't really It's not It doesn't make for good content, right? So, you know, when I try to summarize it into like my takeaways, I always get roasted because it seems like good confidence with that headline.
Yeah. It seems like I didn't get did any good things from it. But I'll give you a few I'll give you a few. All right. So, he g you know, I want to I've been trying forever to move the business into a different industry or andor up market.
Sure.
And so, we talked a lot a lot about that. Got a lot of great strategies. Um
is that for valuation multiple or for a different
No, just because I think um we could scale further into the high ticket online services market. I think we'll have better LTV to CAC in a different industry.
So it's really just hit
and also diversification just in case you know something happens to our industry which I don't foresee happening like in the next couple of years but you never know just AI and stuff. So expansion target particularly want to move into home service because home service can be you know small business all the way up to private equity rollups agree
and whereas like coaching like
you know I mean you get a extreme level of topping out at like 10 million there's just not that many people who whereas like you know there's a there's a wider segment of let's say bigger businesses and home service and others so
um
okay yeah so I want to do that so we talked a lot about that uh we mapped out like a lot of content strategy And so I got to see like how all their whole content team, content department works, how that's all working, etc. And uh I mean obviously I've basically we get more views probably in 15 to 30 days now than we did all in 2025 in and in two weeks two to two to three weeks. We probably get more views in that time frame across all platforms than all of 2025. I think that worked. And then
I would say so
and then uh got some good leadership and management stuff, but I would say like the biggest thing and and again a lot of that leadership and management stuff is just stuff that's like it it's not sexy to talk about in content,
but um the biggest thing is like it was just overall such a sick experience. And so you go in like his office is sick,
right? His team is really [ __ ] good. And then also like a lot of the value I got was I was just interested in what he was doing and why he was doing it and you know and and how big he was thinking and okay what what's like Chiron doing? What's Shiron over? What's Leila doing? What's she you know all of that stuff and obviously again I can't say that on social media because like I would feel like it's a little bit of like you know I don't know I don't know if some stuff was told to me in confidence or not. So I'm not going to like be like oh they told me this. So, but like seeing how big their vision is, how good their team is, how sick they're You leave and you're like,
"Fuck, like I'm playing like so small, you know, and like, okay, and look, if all I got from it was a absolutely like belief breaking ideal of what's possible to me, when you're running a $30 million company, 250k is worth it, right?" And so, there was that as well. But, um, overall, I would put like all of those experiences as my number two.
All right. Sweet.
All right. Number one.
Number one. Number one I thought about a lot and I wanted it kind of fits in that same category as your hormone like experience of like what is it impacted me the most at like the CEO founder level in this industry and it's the Agora blackbook and I can finally talk about it because it's an underground training but it's 600 pages and I had the same experience dude. I tried to buy it off people that Michael Masterson had mentored. Yeah. Like directly. And I was like, I finally found someone who's like, "Yeah, I would just send it to you for free." I go, "Could you do that right now?"
Yeah.
And then I made a pull of his email and he sent me the PDF version of the blackbook. I have read it over six times and it's at the source. that sits on my desk and like if there's ever just a publishing problem cuz if you guys don't know Agora they're the only one the only one I know in our pocket of the industry that's overion been over a billion
and they're like not necessarily a coaching company they're an investment newsletter investment
which is an info product basically
with high [snorts] ticket stuff on the back end
and you know they they've had controversy because like I think some of their I think even they would say like some of their marketing at certain points got pretty out of control.
Yeah. They use heavy fear-based marketing.
Yeah. But but obviously you can learn a lot from how they
how they operated as a company and same thing is you go into acquisition.com. I actually I had Agora as a client um for a GEXA. We didn't have equity in it. Um if you guys don't know we have two different models like one partner with people take equity um and only get paid if the business goes well. B for a little bit we had a marketing agency for cash flow. Yeah.
So, Agora was a cash flow client and they were the first ones that were like, "Hey, could you just could we just prepay you for ad spend and you could put it on your card?" And I was like, "Sick, I get points and you're going to give me 100k upfront to just blow. Hell yeah." So, uh, I got invited to the office. It was right around the launch they did with Tim Sykes, but then I learned they had 40 or 50 other brands and newsletters, too, and like sub affiliates. So, it kind of opened my eyes to what my business model could be if I played it right. um just this house of brands and you have all these experts that are going well and then behind the scenes they cross-promote each other. That's like is how they got to a billion.
Okay.
Um there's more nuance to it than that, but this 600page book I didn't know about at the time, but I was chasing people kept telling me there's like this internal SOP book and like series of letters from the founders. It's everything you need to know about how to like launch a publishing company. I was going to bring it dude and I totally forgot. I didn't have enough time to swing by the office.
I read it and I should reread it.
I have physicals. It's funny is like
it's an underground thing, but like when I I had dinner with Hermosi uh right as he was starting to get big
and I remember I was like, "Dude, have you read the black book?" And he was like, "Dude, have I read the black book?" And
[laughter] and like it's so funny that like really good operators, they all know about like that secret piece of content. There's also one
that is uh I think just a Stanberry one. Oh,
there's a I there's like three actually
and I've read all of them. Um the Stanberry one has a lot of carryover from the black book. So I think if you read the black book is
um
Yeah.
is like the main thing.
And if you've read Ready, Fire, Aim, that's basically one6th of the Black Book.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is really phenomenal. Um that book, cuz I was going to bring it up, is the best book in business I've probably ever read. And I was actually thinking recently I need to reread it. I've probably read it four times.
No way. And because
when I'll say this, a lot of I think um you know, not to just keep like bringing up, but a lot of his early content you could tell was very inspired from Ready, Fire, Aim,
you know, like and I think it's a lot evolved since then, but you could tell that like was a big influence in some of his thinking
in my opinion at least. And it was in mine as well. And if you're running a publishing company, it makes perfect sense because there's different phases, right? And like the phase one from zero to a million is really good. I think most people should read that because a lot of like when you read books out there and it's like oh how to go from zero to a million or whatever. It's so general and broad-based or it's like a lot of business writing is really built for like software companies because that's kind of like
the you know that's really I mean look that's like most of the American stock market is software companies right? So a lot of like business writing is softwarebased which doesn't mean you can't learn from it. But if I'm like a beginner you know that book the 0 to 1 million phase which is really more about like how to properly market and sell to get product market fit is really good. Then there's a the million to 10 million phase which I believe is like essentially kind of scaling it and um getting a good front end. It getting a good front end to backend system, right? And then the 10 to 50 is more operational. It is
I believe gosh I need to read it. I'm I'm a little rusty, but is more operational and like bringing in proper management yada yada and then the 50 to 100 and really I think 100 to a billion is essentially the proliferation of different frontends for the same core product or even like essentially kind of like different product lines and just repeating the process which they did with Agora because essentially they're a publishing company so they were just always trying to find and produce the next hit if
Exactly. Yeah, dude you nailed it. like that actually is at least how I remember it too the exact four different phases of scale that they walk through and I have found myself like guardrailing against it is we've gone over 100 million you start to want to start non-standardizing things I'm like no like if we don't standardize our funnel model our acquisition model and start printing and going off and be like this one can do this this one can be a low ticket funnel this one can be a low ticket ascension this one can be a $5400 mid ticket with a one call close all of a sudden you have no synergies across the whole business and you're sitting there wondering why things are so complex and confusing.
So,
yeah, I 100% agree.
I think we got to move on to my number one.
Let's do it.
Do you want to guess what it is?
[sighs] Uplevel 2.0.
Close.
[laughter] It's consulting accelerator 2.0.
Oo, sick.
Yeah. So, this was funny. So, you know how I said earlier that I was sending the cold emails because like I was trying to be so disciplined from the program. It was consulting accelerator that I was trying to be disciplined
[laughter]
from. So what happened was is again you know for people who don't know I've said this story a million times I started you know now I have a 30 million company I've also got two SAS companies that so the two SAS companies actually are together doing like almost 800 grand a month
dang pretty cool
and then I've obviously had RCA and that did you know 20 million a year and then if you count the medical company that did 30 million uh you know 30-ish million a year so three eight figure companies and two seven figure soon to be eight figure SAS companies. But anyways, before any of that, I started, you know, I was going to be a doctor and then I was like, "Okay, that's I basically read a book. It was How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis." Have you ever read that?
I remember you telling me this story, but no,
I read this book, you know, I was bartending. I read this book when it was over the winter break. All the students were gone. Nobody was there. It was just me and a hobo in the bar. And the hobo was drinking this beer called Little Kings. And so I'm giving him these Little Kings. And then all, you know, he's just sitting there being a hobo and then I'm just, okay, I'm gonna read this book. So I finished this whole book on my shift because not a single person came in the bar. And that book, what it really helped me realize was I was trying to be a doctor because I thought that's how you make money. And the book literally was like if you want to make money, you should basically be in business. Like that's like just start a business, that's how you make money. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna start a business." Like entrepreneurship wasn't like trendy like it is now. So I was like, "Oh, entrepreneur, I'm gonna start a business. Okay, cool." And so I'm like, "What business am I going to start?" Well, I was a nutrition major, right? Who was kind of going to do premed?
Um, so I was like, "Okay, I'm going to start aut nutrition blog." Because I had seen like uh Muscle for Life, Mike Matthews, and some some of these other bloggers out there.
And I'm like, "Okay,
you know, they're making money somehow, I guess. So, I'm going to start a blog." Well, obviously that didn't work out because I basically started publishing blog posts and I'm like so proud of these blogs. I'm sending it to like my friends and my view count was like three. And so I was like, okay, well, so how do I get traffic? And that's when I saw the ad that was like how a 26y old punk.
Yeah.
[laughter] And so I saw that ad and I'm like who's this guy? Okay, whatever.
Then I'm also like any 23 year old who wants to make money does. I'm following Tai Lopez on Snapchat and I see the JV.
I forgot that was the thing.
So then like I saw the ad. Then I'm like, "Oh, that's the guy from the ad." I see him in the JV and I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna register for the webinar." And so this was my first real like direct response experience as a consumer and I get in to the funnel, right? And I'm like watching the webinar. I had no desire to become a consultant. I didn't know what a consultant was. I didn't even know what I wanted. I realiz I didn't even know what I would do. Like am I going to cons what am I going to consult on? What am I going to coach on? I don't know. It's just almost like I got put in a hypnotic state and I just bought. And then immediately after I was like I got a refund. So I like email and I'm like can I get a refund? And I think they were like well you can get a refund but you have to go through the course. So I was like
it was action based.
I was like okay I'll go through the course. Then I start going through this course and I'm like holy [ __ ] this is like the best thing. Like it blew my socks off. I went through it like three times,
dude.
And it blew my freaking socks off. And so again, like part of it, it was a really well structured course, but uh the best part for me, obviously being super young at the time, was the mindset training week.
Like you remember the uh week two and it was like you he's talking about like
uh what is it called? Quantum physics and monklike discipline and you know all this stuff, right? And
I'm like okay. So now I'm like so dialed in productivity wise to where it's like you know like even if you get up to P you're like oh this is messing with my productivity you know
[laughter]
so like you know how like that phase people go through and like Sam Sam went through that phase where it was like you just have to be like such a relentless like focus obsession machine.
He made me like that too. I've never worked 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. consistently like I did under Sams.
Yeah. I was like dialed down to the 15 minutes. I didn't even have a business. I'm just like I'm just so focused.
[laughter] But I also learned, you know, some barebones sales stuff. I learned what Facebook ads was. I didn't even know what Facebook ads was. Then obviously, like most people in the program who had no idea what the [ __ ] was going on, which is like me.
[laughter]
What did we all do? We were like, he's like, don't start a Facebook ad agency. He's like, you could do it if you want. Here's how to do it, but like try to do something unique.
Yeah.
And I'm like, I'm starting a Facebook ad agency.
[laughter] So I started the agency. And then you know how do they teach you how to get your first clients? Cold email.
Dude, I did that. That that spurted my whole year
of essentially sending 50 emails a day with no response,
dude. Good.
Because I burned my thing the first I mean I I was so And then I got into the cow program. So that but that the reason it's the most impactful for me is is it started my journey because like it blew it literally blew my mind. Like I remember doing the consulting math spreadsheet.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it was my first uh ever encounter with u you know being spreadsheet rich is what they call it where you're like oh if I get this clients and this and this price and then you're like oh my god I could make a h 100,000 a month
and then you're like but if I increase the price to this and you're like200,000
[laughter]
a month you're like oh my god you know and so uh yeah and I think you know genuinely too like obviously Sam is probably I think the best entrepreneur to ever come out of our industry.
I think so too.
You know, I think even more so than Hormosi. Um I don't he's never publicly said this or wouldn't say this, but
there's a reason why he's technically I think a billionaire now.
I think on paper
on paper. Yeah.
And I think he's going to be a lot more than that. And you know, especially when you think about he basically when people saw him go from making a ton of money to starting a Facebook group competitor, I will even call you out. Even you and some other people too were like, I don't know why the [ __ ] he's doing this is stupid.
Do I know?
You're like, this makes no [ __ ] sense.
And now that company's worth, I think, you know, I I don't know. I'm just speculating, but probably well over a billion dollars. And so it's it's absolutely crushing it. So I think you got to give him props. Like he I think he's the goat of our
of our industry.
I know. And I'm so proud of school, too, and what it became. Like it's cool. I was there the day we bought school. And I just remember him saying, "Yo, I bought school.com. and like without consulting me and we were working on this together and I was like what do you mean school.com how much that costs it was a lot less than I thought and then he was like it's skol and I was like shoot what are we doing here
[laughter]
we're like we're really all in on this and yeah he just had that belief man and like I always tell people I'm like Sam I would never bet against Sam Ovens
yeah he's he's an animal you think I mean you worked with him what do you think are the things that make him you know unique different just really Dude, I the first thing that came to mind that I experienced with him that I've never seen to that level with anyone else is
he just does not he's hardened himself to the point where he really doesn't care what people think. Like
a lot of people will say that on camera and is Jensen Hong or Elon Musk would put it, you know, Jensen this is Jensen Hong's quote is he tortures himself into greatness.
That's exactly what Sam did.
Yeah. And I learned just from our discovery calls, like I could I have my theories like he got bullied as a kid, he doesn't talk about that a lot too. He had like bad acne. Like there's a lot of things that if people think Sam's a robot. There's a lot of empathy I've pulled out of him like behind the scenes doing things that we just didn't tell certain stories. Like I had to I did parent interviews with him before because he wouldn't even tell me on some of the stuff. So like he I feel a lot of empathy just towards his come-up story and how like how he was treated as a kid and me to me and him like once I got that story like I'm willing to go to war with someone. So me and Sam kind of like at our worst we bullied people back during that era. We just like did not care both me and him. I was like shoot you'll let me write whatever I want. I was ghost writing stuff for Tai Lopez and he was like screw it Ty we'll watch it we'll do it. I'm like sick I'll just write the most crazy stuff I can. So that era of copy I felt I felt maybe invincible and I don't know what Sam felt but he gave me that feeling of invincibility which is super cool. It's very rare for an entrepreneur to give you that much control, freedom, autonomy where you feel invincible in your craft.
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think consulting would have became if he just went all in on just info and coaching and stuff?
Yeah, I think he would have done what I'll send you the original Sam Ovens job offer letter that he sent me. I've showed it to people and people are like, "Dude, it's bat [ __ ] crazy." Uh, and it said, "We're going to grow consulting in three years to $100 million company and sell on the NASDAQ." And I believed it. Like that's what got me to come to New York. And I remember thinking it was crazy, too, as I read it, by the way.
Yeah. What would have been the purpose of going public, though?
I don't even know. And
just because it's cool.
Just cuz it's cool.
Because I mean, the only reason to go public is obviously to raise money.
To raise money. So, we like
I mean, not necessarily. Yeah, I guess you could just get a huge cash out, but generally it's really the expand because obviously if your stock price goes up, you could issue more stock. You can expand. Uh also the initial liquidity of the IPO gives you a lot of capital to be able to expand. I mean that's why most companies go public,
right? Like
and also because of you know the venture and PE cycle of they got to get liquidity at some point.
Yeah. Phase two like LMS wasn't even a thought. That came in about a year after we started thinking about LMS and I started doing research on Teachables come up, Kajjabi's come up, circles come up and that became the market research for school. But before that, we just thought we could get with three products, we could get to 100 million. We would IPO because that's like definition of success is you look cool in NASDAQ because it had a tech leaning to it. Yeah. And Sam liked that. Um and then we thought we were going to buy something like entrepreneur.com and just content distribution network.
Interesting.
Yeah, that was the original plan.
Interesting. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're also probably going to like this podcast I also did recently that you can check out by clicking the screen right.