Transcription
Bill: Welcome to the show.
Uh, thank you very much, buddy. Thank you for having me. How are you?
So far, so good. So, man, listen, at this point, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't know you in this space, but for those who don't, how would you describe yourself and what you do in one sentence?
Oh Jesus, uh, it can be too uniquely bold, innovative, and completely disruptive.
Okay, that's an interesting way to put it.
Yes, it's interesting. Like I look at the industry that we're in. I look at a tremendous amount of vanilla personalities. I look at a tremendous amount of people playing both sides, you know, Democratic and Republican. If you could imagine that, I know it's a hot topic at the moment. People are friends with everybody, uh, which ends up being friends with nobody. I'm not like that. I'm very polarized in terms of my personality, the brand, but who I am as a person—you would like it or you hate it, and that's perfectly fine with me. I don't care either side. So that's what it is. Uh, I appreciate you though telling me that everybody knows who I am. It was never the goal. The goal was always to help tremendous people and to, you know, give them something that I wasn't able to have in life, you know, at a very early age. It's, you know, the ability to have education and a skill set that could take care of your loved ones. So that's the goal of all of it.
Okay, so when you say that, before all the success, before sales, like what was like for you growing up, if you don't mind me asking? Like what were some of those struggles?
We had a great life. Uh, I got two brothers that I'm very fortunate enough now that are working with me, um, which was a lifelong dream of mine. I grew up in a in a in a family business that, you know, tried to take care of everybody, so I grew up learning the good and bad of that type of life. And I wanted to create a business that ultimately allowed my kids to be successful and to have a good start in life, but also my brothers and to take care of their families, you know. So I'm very fortunate that side. I grew up in uh, in a small town, Karma, very much like you. We didn't have internet like they have it today. I didn't have a credit card till I was 26 years of age. So I grew up in a different time. I grew up in a time where, you know, if you talk smack online or if you talk smack in person, you were going to get a smashed melting, you know. So I look at the industries and I look at people that hide behind keyboards and stuff like that, and it's like it's just embarrassing, and it's it's just really corny and really kind of icky in my eyes. But I grew up in Ireland, you know, I had two great brothers, lots of great friends, you know, a good life, uh, and had a lot of great things happen, also lots of bad things. That's just life, you know, and that's just the natural occurrence of growing up and, you know, we've always taken the good and bad of both things and try to make it better for other people, you know.
Yeah, yeah. So what were you doing directly before sales?
Before sales, uh, I'll give you a time storm. So when I was 17, just turning 18, I joined the military, so I spent four and a half years in the Irish Defence Forces. After that, I got out and I started to train people physically, uh, and then I moved to London at 22 years of age and that ran its course up until 2020 when I started in sales full-time. Uh, Co kind of wiped that business off the board, which was the best thing that ever happened to me. We started in sales in 2020. Uh, by March, I was, you know, Germany's top rep, and I did that for 18 months until we got to a position where I got fired, uh, which is perfectly fine, and that's great. And then I set up the business in May of 2022, and then we have, you know, coached and developed over 3,000 individuals in that time, which has been awesome, and it's been a privilege of mine and it's been a lifelong dream of mine to have that amount of impact in a lot of lives. So we're very fortunate.
I mean, so you started Basis in 2021, and I mean, within a few months, you made it a multi-million dollar business.
Yeah, when we set up the business in May 2022, um, 2022, yeah, 2022, the following four months we made over a million dollars, you know. We got like what you have behind you, one of those ClickFunnels of War. I'm waiting on my next one, which is the 10-million one. Hopefully, we'll get that very, very soon. But uh, yeah, it just took off because I solved a big problem for a lot of people, and when you do that, you ultimately create a lot of enemies too. You create a lot of, you know, people that want to come and take what you got, you know. People see what I have—the beautiful home that I have, the cars that I have, the watches that I have, the respect that I have, you know, the net worth that I have, you know. Lots of people want that. Lots of people feel that, you know, they're entitled to it, and they want to, you know, try and take you down, and that's great. That's just parcel of being the guy, I guess, you know.
Yeah, but what was the hardest part of that journey? Like were there ever moments where you wanted to quit?
I've never quit in my entire life, unfortunately.
Um, I never said you did, but were there a moment where you wanted…?
I've never I've never got to a stage where I wanted to quit. I think the hardest part for me is I'm very emotional. I'm very emotionally driven. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I've always been the best for people. And when people do you wrong and people, you know, take kindness for weakness, I learn very quickly in life, especially around this type of business, um, that is just par parcel of, you know, building and growing. As I said to you offline, it's like you can't have the plus without the minus, you know. And I had to I had to get used to that. I had to get used to, for life, for most of my life I was chasing, if that makes sense.
Mhm.
Now you're flipping, and people are chasing you. It's it's a different dynamic, and it's a different respect that you have to give it, and it comes with different it comes with different insecurities and different problems, but it also comes with many, many great pluses, you know. So that's probably been the biggest issue that I've had to deal with is, you know, lots of people know your name, but also lots of people, you know, wanting to take you out, which is great. It means you're doing something right.
Yeah, yeah. So, man, I got to ask you because, like, to prepare for our interview today, I've been watching some of your podcasts, and in one of those podcasts you said that success isn't about the talent, but it's about becoming a person who deserves it. So how do you feel this transformation looks like on an internal level?
Uh, Genie, I'm not too sure what you're referring to in terms of podcast. We've done so many of them, but um, like if you're just going to take take that statement, how like how could you refer to it?
Yeah, see, a lot of one person told me when when once when I used to play sport, um, I was 18 years of age, and I one-manned the match, and I basically scored a hat trick in football terms and won the game against our biggest local rival, and uh, he said to me one time, and I'll never forget it—this is 15 years ago, probably 12 years ago—he said to me, um, you know, enjoy the night, cuz we were in the pub, we were celebrating, and we were drinking and all of that great stuff. And uh, he rang me—old man, very wise—he said to me, you're never as good as they say you are when you're winning, and you're never as bad as they say you are when you're losing. And that stuck with me for my entire life. It stuck with me even to today. That's why I bring it up, and the whole concept of, you know, believing that you're entitled to it is never leaving a stone unturned. It's always doing the best that you can, even when people aren't watching you, even when, you know, there's nothing on the line. You know, I have a great photo here on my wall that I got commissioned, and I'll read it out to you because it's really important. What it says is, "I believed in me long before everyone else believed," and I hold by that every day because if I didn't believe in myself and I didn't believe that I could get to here today in whatever capacity or whatever vehicle that was going to look like, then none of you guys would be able to believe in yourself either, and none of you would would ever be able to believe in me as a leader. So you have to believe in yourself first, but you also have to back it up with a like unfiltered amount of [ __ ] evidence and work and resilience, and you're going to lose 90% of the time, but if if you keep going and going and going, you only need to win 10% of your time to win and to change your life like I've been able to do. So that's what I mean about doing the internal work—believe in all the way through.
Yeah, it's all about the 10%. And going back to what you said, yes, you need to have the conviction and you need to have confidence in yourself, like otherwise, with what you do right now, you wouldn't be able to transfer that conviction and confidence to your students.
No, no, no. And but also it's like you have to believe that what you're doing is good. Cuz like you can talk about conviction and confidence and certainty, like I call it my tre's all the time, but if you don't truly believe what you're doing is actually impacting positively, it's very, very hard to have confidence in doing it. And that's why, you know, that's why when you see a lot of people coaching and training and a lot of people, you know, trying to build businesses, do they truly, truly believe that what they're doing is improving on what they already know? And if the answer is no, that's why you keep seeing people flipping and flopping up and down and in and out.
Yeah, um, which is really, really important because all you got to do is just look for the clues. That's it. You look for the clues in terms of like, one month we're doing X, next month we're doing Y, the month after that we're doing one, the next month after that we're back to Z, and so on and so forth. If you truly believe what you're doing, you stay on the course all the way, and that's the difference.
Yeah, and it's that easy sometimes, you know, with everything that is going on around—shiny object syndrome sometimes is kicking in—it's sometimes it's hard to stay on that course.
It is, but like if you don't believe in yourself and you don't believe in your product and you don't believe in what you're doing, that's when you do look for shiny penny syndrome. And it's like I take it back to the first day of, you know, building the objection box. If I didn't believe truly wholeheartedly in it 100%, I wouldn't have been able to make a million dollars in the first four months of opening up the doors. We pretty much have kept going at that pace ever since.
How do you build that belief and confidence without having proof of concept though? Because like, at this point, when you have been building the objection box, you only had this proof of concept for yourself, like being a salesperson yourself. How did you know it's going to be able to help so many people though?
Yeah, it's it's it's a great question. I I had already proven the concept in terms of training because I used to run the trainings for hundreds of people at any one time on my calls. Now you have to understand like when I started in sales, after a couple of months, you know, I was asked to coach and to lead great people, you know, bringing people from 10 grand a month to 40 grand a month and things like that. And I was like, the penny started dropping for me when it was like, something's not right here. Uh, I'm doing great work, but I'm not I'm not getting paid great payments. I'm not getting great assets back, not, you know, getting my fair whip at the stick. So that was the start to the end. But anyway, um, I had already proven it that side. I already proven it with the amount of sales that I was making on a monthly basis, but also the amount of people that I personally coached and trained. I didn't prove it in a sense of like group aspects, but I just knew if I got enough people in the room and I just coached them and I led them properly, um, that the winners would win anyway. Because once you have the right information and you have the right amount of accountability, it's very, very hard not to fail. What I mean is, it's very, very hard, you know, to go out of your way and actually fail if you have the right information, you have the right amount of work rate, and the right accountability. It's very, very hard not to win. What I've seen, but you still can. So you absolutely can't even if you have those like character traits. Like what could be the reason you fail in this page? There's many, many reasons, you know, external reasons, you know, your family are falling apart, like M unfortunately did, and there's, you know, like poor Nicky, you [ __ ] end up in a car crash and you're out of work for [ __ ] six months at a time, um, you know, and not everybody would have a great friend like me who can float you and take care of you and look out for you and, you know, make sure that you're all right, cuz it's a very, very selfish industry, and it's a very, you know, we would say me-me-me industry, which is me, me, me, me, me, you know. O, so there's lots of ways that you can fail, you know, the offer tanks, and you haven't done enough work to shaking off hands and kissing off babies, as I would say, and then people don't know who are external reasons. Maybe what do you think?
Yeah, external reasons. There's lots of external reasons. The external reasons—what's that—outside of the external reasons, internally?
Yeah, there's lots, you know, you can, for whatever reason, your girlfriend breaks up with you, probably, and, you know, you're not able to deal with that, or you're on an offer where, you know, they're not laydowns, and you actually have to go to work and you have to do some follow-ups and you have to actually go out and create opportunity. You know, there's lots there's lots of issues. There's lots of stuff that people don't have enough skill sets to actually go out and do. I would actually wish that we would stop booking calls and I could give my guys a thousand leads and say, okay, bring me back X amount every month or let you're out, you know. I think we've been conditioned to be soft. I was unfortunately in that position too, you know, where it was like, I just hit the right space at the right time with the right people on the right mission on the right offer on the right price point with the right of exposure with the right amount of marketing with the right leadership people in place, and, you know, it was all all all roads came together at once to create a [ __ ] machine.
So do you feel that success is also dependent on being in the right place at the right time?
See, that comes to the concept of, you know, look, but if you constantly turn up, you'll eventually get lucky. Denzel Washington, who's back there, who's my favorite actor of all time, he says, if you hang around the barber shop long enough, you'll get a haircut. What that basically means is, if you continuously turn up day after day after day, you'll eventually catch a break. So it's not actually catching the break meaning that like one random day you just did something and then it just took off. It's like you do something 100 times and you fail 99, and one time that you do it right, you hit a break, you hit a bit of luck, and you [ __ ] take off. So you have to fail and be willing to fail 99% of the time to hit the one to take off. That's the concept.
I want to go back for a second, uh, to what we have been speaking about before about, you know, your journey. So you went to the military, out of the military, transition into fitness, then into sales. Like what was the moment that made you realize that sales is going to be your path?
Very simple. I remember it clear as day. I remember the first week, uh, a friend of mine at the very, very start of my sales career, he came to me—David Kingsbury is his name—and I'll always be good friends with the man, and, you know, I see him quite regularly. Um, I used to work as a PT back in the day in his gyms, and uh, he came to me one time over Co—this is like six, seven weeks into Co—everything is shut down, no gyms, everybody was canceling their memberships. I went from, you know, having 20 clients to zero, and I had a baby due in six weeks, who was my second born, India [ __ ]—she was born on the 5th of May 2020—2020. So this was six weeks prior to that. He came to me—think was about four or five weeks—so uh, he came to me and he said, look, I need a hand. I need you to help me sell some of this stuff online. Uh, we got nothing to give them other than push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks, but we're going to keep them accountable, and we're going to rock and roll it. And he was selling it for £79 a month, and at that time he said to me, if you sell these, I will give you £5 per sale. And after the first week of that offer, of that selling, I think I closed out at like 32 or 36 sales in the week, and I looked at my parent at the time and I said to her, I think we're in the right vehicle. I think we're doing the right thing, cuz I was making £52 an hour going to the gym every day, having to get up at 5:00 in the morning to take my first session at 6:00. Now I'm in an office, I made made, you know, offers in the space of a minute with a laptop sitting there in the basing heat of that summer, uh, in a pair of boxers and socks, making more in an hour selling fitness than I was doing fitness. And then the penny dropped. I was like, we are in fitness, but we're in fitness the wrong way. I think I'm better at selling it than I am at actually, you know, producing it and directing it. And then that was just it. Then we would just kept going and going and going. In the first month, we made, you know, two or three X more of what we made as a PT, and then I took six weeks off to be with my little girl, cuz I was like, I'm coming back to something I know I'm going to make money here. I just had complete conviction in it, and uh, I kept doing that. And then the second biggest break that I got in sales was I met Matt Ryder—TR that information—introduced relationship—and uh, whatever relationship I have with Matt Ryder now, I will always have to say thank you, and I will always pay my respects to him because without him, I wouldn't be here today, and I always want to do that with people because most people don't do that anymore. Most people don't pay respect, and they don't pay homage to people that actually put them on. They don't pass back the flowers, which is an insult to the people that helped them. But anyway, that's a different story. They try to pretend like they got where they are by their own, like on their own.
Yeah, I I have no I have no doubt that you first have to put yourself in the relationship. You first have to put yourself in the shop window. You first have to get up, and you first have to self-start. That's completely fine. I can completely respect that. But when somebody actually connects with you and then they take you on the journey and they give you something that you fundamentally couldn't give yourself, then you have to always pay respect. So I'll always pay respects that way. How the relationship ended is a different conversation.
That's perfectly understandable, and that's normal. That's just life. That's a breakdown of relationships. Completely fine. But anyway, the second part of the break was so that relationship was formed through David Kingsbury, and the offer—David's offer—started to fall apart, which was perfectly normal. That's what happens in business.
Yeah.
And I met Matt at that time, and I said, hey, things aren't working out with David at the moment. If there's any work, uh, would love to work with you guys. Totally respect what you're building, and, you know, would love to be a part of it if you feel there would be a place for me, and he did, and and he put me on outbound dials, and I did three offers at the time. I used to work for a man in the morning called James Kant over there in Australia in the early, early morning, so like 4, 5, 6:00 in the morning, then I would come to the UK and work with David, and then I would go to Eastern Standard Time and work with another man called Vince Delonte. Now I don't know what you know who those people are, but those are the people that ultimately helped me get to where I am today. But anyway, so we did that for October, September, October, November, December. December comes now. What tends to happen in December, Conrad, is people go away in holidays, and people take Christmas off. And I remember as clear as day, so we—I was doing outbound dials for Vince Delonte, and um, you know, cuz people just think that I just created the objection box and, you know, I just, you know, never done any of the work, but that's a different story. But that's why people are just silly and uh, anyway, so we got to like two or three days just before the Christmas period, you know, when the Christmas period is like the 20th to the 27th.
Yeah.
So it's like a couple of days before that, and um, the two people that were working Vince Delonte's offer at that time—two great salespeople—Will ODMs and Rh—I can't pronounce the second name—but two great people that, you know, I was very fortunate enough to work with at that time—and um, it got to the couple of days before Christmas, and the guys never turned off their calendars. Oh [ __ ] yes, and the guys were like going away. They were like taking time off cuz they had made money. They they had had a good year, you know what I mean? And uh, the guys are like, uh, we [ __ ] up. There's calls on the calendar, but we're off. They're like, I think there was like 13, 14 calls on the calendar, and they're like, do you want the calls? I was like, uh, yeah [ __ ] damn straight, do I? I don't want to be stuck on help and dials for the rest of my life. So I took the 14 calls. I think 13 of them showed up, and I think we sold 10 or 11 out of the first 13 calls, and this was like two or three days before Christmas. And I remember clear as day, over that Christmas period, Matt Ryder sent me a voice note. I was like, uh, when you come back in January, you're not doing any more outbound dials. You're just going under, you're just going to sell. And that was the second break. That was the second break. And then I went from, you know, this is what I tell people all the time, like, you're going to get a chance. You will get a chance in life if you keep turning up and you keep doing the work and you keep improving your skill sets and you keep being resilient. You will get a chance. That was my second chance in six months. Now, for the other eight or nine years, I got my dick kicked in, but I got two chances, and I took both. When I went back in January, I was just selling, and then I got a third opportunity. The third opportunity came at the end of February. At that month, SE level needed a [ __ ] complete line to go in and slap salespeople around and get them out of the wrong way and go and sell. So that was the third break. The third break was then to become, you know, Seven Levels' top guy, and pretty much everything else has been built off the back of that Seven Level and that relationship and everything else. So that's what I would say to you in a long-winded way. There is chances in life that you will get an opportunity. You got to be able to meet opportunity with a skill set. If you do the risk and take care of itself. I mean, opportunities may come, but you also need to be able to see them. You need to be able to prove yourself whenever they come.
Correct. Just like you prove yourself whenever, you know, they forgot to turn on the turn off the calendar. It's like you could have just said no, I'm going to be spending the time with my family.
Correct.
Correct. But then you have to take your chances, you know. It won't keep coming around. You know, there's only a certain amount of opportunities and chances that you get in your life, you know, you being very fortunate enough to have a couple of them yourself, and you have to be willing enough and, you know, bold enough to take them. And sometimes you take them, and it doesn't work out, and you learn and you grow and you put yourself in a better position moving forward. That's how it takes care of itself, you know.
Yeah, yeah. So one of my favorite quotes is like, you never fail; you either learn or or succeed or succeed.
Yep.
Yeah, we we have a different kind of quote on that: you earn or you learn. So every call you're earning or learning, you know. And it's like, you're either going to earn some dollars here today and I'm going to help a great person, or I'm going to learn what not to do, you know. That's that's the case. You have to look at every concept and say to yourself, how am I going to learn or earn off this? That's the key.
Yeah. So you've been on three offers at once. How many hours per day you have been working? Enough. Some people are like, I only want to work X amount of hours.
Yeah, great. Well, you'll only ever get X amount back, yeah. You know, I worked in Australia, and this is facts, like I can go back and show you the CI. I worked in Australia, and then I worked in the UK, and then once it hit like 2, 3, 4:00 p.m. in the day, then I worked for Vince Delonte, and I did it until like 11, 12:00 at night. Yeah, cuz I was like, I had two young kids. I have an opportunity in life. I'll be [ __ ] if I'm just going to hold on to like, I'm tired or, you know, I haven't gone to the gym or I haven't gone for my run. I probably put on two stone when I started working at that level cuz I just put everything into it. I have a very dedicated life, you know. You just have to look at, you know, how I keep in shape, you know. I don't drink or smoke to excess. I don't smoke at all, I should say. I don't drink or eat rubbish to excess. So for me to put on a stone, nearly a stone and a half, in just pure fat was like, I was just all in. That's what it was. And most people want to have balance. No such thing as balance. It's like all in or you're all out.
That's true. I can relate to it a little bit. So my first year in sales, uh, I've been working 12 to 14 hours a day as well, like at least—30 pounds of weight.
Yeah. So just right now finishing shredding it off.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm the same. Like I'm probably below 7% body fat, and I carried that for the last number of years, but when I started in sales, it just wasn't that cuz I knew I knew I could always get back in shape, having been in shape my entire life.
Yeah.
But um, this was the skill set at that time. Yeah, it was more like, I'm just going to put all the time and energy in focus into building this because this is what's going to um give me the life that I always wanted. Anyway, I can always get back in shape, but I can't always have—I can't just stop and say, hey, I need to go and train and come back. Can you give me the opportunity later on in today? Don't work like that.
Yeah. I mean, man, you've built an intense and insane work ethic. So can I ask like, what were some non-negotiables that helped you get where you are right now?
The non-negotiables for me: the first thing is, um, you got to work at the weekends. Only broke people take time off at the weekends. And that's going to ruffle a couple of feathers.
Yeah.
But broke people feel they deserve two days off. I never felt I deserved two days off, and and if you love what you do and you're doing it for the right reasons—the right reasons being your family, people let you love, your future building, you know, security—you don't need to take two days off. And it's like every 9-to-5 job, they fundamentally get two days off because they hate what they do more often than not. Yeah. So that was the first non-negotiable. I would never take two days off, cuz if I took two days off, that meant that I didn't want it bad enough. And and Patrick Bet-David said something one time in his book: if I work a weekend, my biggest competitor feels that they don't need to work a weekend anymore. Or if I work a full day on a Saturday and they're only working a half day, over the course of time I'm I'm cutting them down. Yeah. And I looked at that as like, well, I know for a fact there's no salesperson coming to the [ __ ] coffee shop on a Sunday morning rewriting scripts, rewriting hooks, rewriting analogies, objection handling frameworks, looking at the process, reviewing all our calls, and saying, how can I set myself up next week for success? That's the difference. So I was the first biggest non-negotiable. The second one was that, you know, it's going to be relentless, and I wasn't going to, you know, just allow the word no to affect me. I've been denied my entire life in every which way, professionally and uh, personally. So I always say there's only four things happen at the end of a call: yes, no, [ __ ] you, and hang up. You know, those are some of the non-negotiables that I had when I walked into sales, you know, and that was really important, and that kind of really set me apart because if you work harder than everybody and you're constantly improving your skill sets, then it's just it's just inevitable that you are going to beat them.
Yeah, that's true. Regarding those four things that can happen at the end of the call—yes, no, [ __ ] you, hang up—uh, I remember from the objection box, your motto is like that the pipelines are for people who cannot close. So uh, what does that mean for you? Like why do you feel so many salespeople hide behind their pipelines?
It's different, like, and I say that in regards to B2C. I know B2B, cuz, you know, there will be a couple of [ __ ] jackasses out there, but like that's not how you do B2B. That's not how you do this. That's not how you do that. Not everything applies universally across the [ __ ] sales space, you [ __ ] district. Um, I'm talking about people that fold under a a bit of pressure, in terms of a smoke screen. Think about a partner writing to me in an email: Let's get back to you next week. Can you send over proposal X, Y, Z? I'm talking about that way. I'm talking about people just not having the skill sets to know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, why they're doing it. Most people, when they get objections and their problems, their cortisol levels go through the roof. They enter into fight or flight, and they just fold. That's what I mean, you know. You shouldn't rely on a pipeline. If the deal is there, you know, B2C, which is business-to-consumer, which is selling online products, coaching, consultancies, agencies, fitness products, you know, anything that's in a group capacity, anything that, you know, is in a money-making process, all of those can be dealt with on the first call. You don't need a pipeline of [ __ ] 60 [ __ ] people that are constantly referring back to—now don't get me wrong, those are great, but they shouldn't be the bulk of your income. Those should be bonuses. I always looked at, you know, follow-ups as bonuses that you get paid based on last week's work, you know.
So would you say you are not about follow-ups at all?
No, of course. You know, there's—I make money. Yeah, I'm not egotistical enough to say, well, if you don't pay on the first day, I'm never going to follow up at you. Of course, we will. Of course, we will. You couldn't be a true professional if you're just going to do that, you know. And some people are just not in a position to make a decision. That's perfectly fine. But if if I've done everything that I can and that person, you know, wasn't able to make any amount of decision today, then number one, I'm not there for the person. Number two, my outcome is more important than the individual
I made a little bit of money and all that kind of stuff. I'd rather hire based on personalities and people I can trust. So, as I said, I have Nikki, who's a great guy and a great friend of mine. I have Kieran, who's been with me since pretty much day one. I have my two brothers—they're the core. Then we have guys that come and go, and that's perfectly fine. But if you keep your core strong, you can add to it, but you can't be rocked if the core is solid. So we hire on integrity; we hire on resilience. I want to know the bad [ __ ] that's happened in your life and what you've overcome. I want to hire based on hard work; everything else I can teach you. I can teach you the education; I can teach you the skill sets. I can't teach you what's fundamentally not inside you—the right integrity, the right respect, and the right amount of hard work.
So you have a really close core team, and then some people just come and go? Yeah, always. We have a really good core team that has taken years to solidify. But also, it solidified because you want to share; you want to give them great opportunities. You can't just expect. And that's something I'll always be open and honest about: you have to build companies together. It's not the Bill Welsh show; that's really important. It's not Bill Welsh's objection box. It's my name, hopefully, in ten years' time, won't even be associated with it. I hope it'll be like Salesforce or Sandler or Train or whatever. That's what I'm trying to get to, because then it's not dependent on me. To get it to the dizzy heights that I know it can get to, you can't necessarily have someone as divisive as me there. Does that make sense?
Why do you say "hopefully," though? Uh, hopefully is like I'm being polite; I'm being K. Because if I didn't believe it, I wouldn't keep doing it. I've already done what I needed to do in life; I've already made enough; I've already earned enough; I've already had enough success stories to be able to walk away and have an impact for the rest of my life. Yeah, and that's important. But now it's just about taking care of everyone else. Yeah, and that core team doesn't need to be polite with me right now. You know, it's not about you; it's about... and Harry that hears this and be like, "[ __ ] this guy is so egotistical, and he's so X and he's so Y." I am, and that's perfectly fine. I am, but sometimes I have to play devil's advocate a little bit.
Yeah, yeah. I read the book of Grant Cardone. Like, I mean, sometimes you've got to be obsessed with what you want, or otherwise you're going to become average. So it's not about egos; it's about the confidence and the conviction that you have in your goals and in your vision. It is. And it's also like, I'll tell you this: everybody wants it. I've never met anybody that wants to be successful that doesn't actually want to be successful. So like, what am I doing on a daily basis that ultimately is going to not just keep me ahead of the pack, but also keep me hungry to chase down another pack? Because there's always something doing better than you. Oh, and I know that—like, I know where I'm going, and I also know who I have to take out in order to get there. For the 400 other people that want to take me out, because I'll probably be the next thing in their line, or maybe there's six or seven steps ahead of them, you know, they've got to have that level of resilience as well, and that level of work rate. Because if they don't, they're not going to make it—they won't make it till the end of the year, never mind in ten years' time.
Yeah, so you have to be respectful to the game, and that's really important. Yeah, yeah. And on a long enough time horizon, those people won't even count anymore. That's the beauty of it—you just have to stay relevant long enough for everybody else to be irrelevant. Yeah, that's the key. Yeah. So, man, like, in also—also in one of the podcasts you said that you only take advice from people who have what you want. So can I ask like, what is the best advice that you ever received? Oh, [ __ ]! The best advice that I ever received—I always go back to what I just explained earlier: I'm never as good as I think I am, and I'm never as bad as I think I am. I'm never as good as people think I am, and I'm never as bad as they think I am. Because if I can always believe in that, and I can always hold value to that, then I can always be somewhat grounded. Now, of course, it's very hard to be grounded when you're trying to be excellent, because you're trying to elevate yourself to new heights. And in order to elevate yourself to new heights, you have to get off the ground. So it's very hard to be grounded when you're trying to move ahead in life. But what I always say is, if I can look around and I can see my family, knowing that I'm doing it for the right reasons, knowing that I'm taking care of people that I love, I'll always take the shots.
Which is really funny: I actually saw Drake this weekend. He's in Australia at the moment doing his tour. Okay. And I love his costume; his costume is bullet holes and smoke out his back, and he's still moving through. You know, I'm not, for any reason, comparing myself to Drizzy Drake, but what I am saying is I can definitely understand some of that. You know, I can understand taking the hits and the licks and keeping going. Relatable concept. Yeah, I appreciate the concept. I think it was really, really good and well thought out, especially with what happened with the NFL and the halftime show and this, that, and the other stuff. And it's just the name of the game: you can't stay at the top for too long until people want to come and take it away from you. That's just the reality of life; that just happens in every walk of life. Yeah, but he also said something that it's your family that motivates you. So you are a father of two, correct me if I'm wrong, right? Yeah, I got two little girls. Yeah, yeah. How has fatherhood shaped your leadership and maybe business decisions, or in any way?
It's different because when you're a father, you know, you do things that are selfish for the family, not for the individual. And that's really important because everything I do will fundamentally be passed back; that's just how it works. My role as a father is to protect and provide—those are the two Ps that I talk about all the time. You've got to protect, and you've got to provide. And in order to protect, you have to be out in front, and you have to protect them from every issue, problem, and concern. And provide means is you've got to give them a great life. And I always ask people, if you're not doing both, then what are you? Are you living up to the core values that you think you want to have in life? If the answer is no, then you've got to change. So business decisions, I think, were very risky in a sense of growth, but I'll never put the jeopardy of their future at risk; that's really important for me. But also, my family doesn't just stop with my kids. You know, I've got my brothers; I've got my mom that I, you know, took care of and—you know—my brother has three kids, and hopefully my other brother will start having his own kids. You know, and that's because it's like I always tell people, it's not about what we do; it's about what we inspire the rest of them to do. So like, my greatest legacy, hopefully, in life, when it's all said and done, is I will impact thousands of lives. But the lives that I really want to impact and really influence are my nieces and nephews and my own kids. Because if I can show them what it's like to grow and to go after and to believe and to [ __ ] go all in, then isn't that the greatest thing? Because our family were on this path now—I fundamentally am the line breaker. The line breaker is, for years, my family are hardworking individuals: plumbers, carpenters, electricians, small business owners—people that are just not necessarily professional in their right minds, if that makes sense. I mean, professional like lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, proper business owners, meaning like multiple businesses, thousands of employees, and stuff like that. If I can break the line and I can give my nieces and nephews and my kids that new path, then that's the only legacy that I ever want to have. You know, and that's the key for me. And if I can change and influence that, then I've done my job in life.
Yeah, it's all about the perspective, right? So working—we both know that working hard alone doesn't make you money, right? No, otherwise the construction workers would be rich. Mhm. Right. Yeah. Showing that it's possible, but also providing them with their proper tools in terms of mindset, approach to life. Yeah, and it's—it's—it's very hard to ask somebody to believe in something they've never seen. Yeah, it's why it's very, very hard for somebody to believe in religion, because it's just a feeling that you have to truly believe, because there's nothing there that shows us—well, this is actual fact. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's very, very hard, and it's also—that's why it's really, really hard to change a family's route and a path. You know, you have to change internally; you have to change how they believe and what they think and what they feel and what they, you know, go all in for. You know, it's like—I don't know—it's like when you have a really successful sports person in your family, yeah, then there's a blueprint, if that makes sense. You know, there's a blueprint of success, and it's based on—well, that person has already done it. I know what it's going to take to at least get to that level, if not get better. And that's—that's the goal—like, that's the legacy that I want to have—that if I can give them that, and I can give them the blueprint, then… Did you always have that belief in yourself, though? No, you don't. You don't have that belief in yourself; you have to form it. You have to form it. Mine have always been based on negatives. I grew up in a life where, you know, I was six or seven years of age when my mom and dad split, and my biggest goal in life was to protect. You know, I remember being six or seven years of age and being helpless in that situation. You know, so I had to believe in myself in order to help others. You know, so if I didn't do it, I don't think anyone was going to do it. That's the belief—that's the belief—it's got to be—it's got to come from somewhere. It's from pain more often than not, but you know, wanting to take care of people and protect people.
So if you could—looking back—if you could go back and give yourself, like, your younger self, like one piece of advice before all of the success that you just had—not just had, but that you have—like, what advice would that be? The advice is that it's going to take way longer than you thought it would be, and that you're going to have to give it everything you've got, and I mean everything. So for years—for ten years, Conrad—like, I live in one of the best cities in the world, in London. I've never been to a nightclub—like, never been to a nightclub here in the city. I've given away like trips away with my friends; I've given away the whole concept of a social lifestyle. I go on holidays, but they're not holidays; they're work trips flittered in with, you know, three hours at the pool. Understand what I'm saying to you? I don't go on holidays and, you know, spend ten days by the pool. Like, I'll go to Miami next week—Monday and Tuesday, I'll have meetings and dinners; I'll probably have podcasts that we'll have to get on, and then Thursday, Friday, I will do an event. Wednesday, I'll welcome all my boys, and so I'll sit down; we will like process the whole couple of days, and I will strategize and I'll connect with them all and shake their hands and ask them how their life is and all that—that is actual work. And then Saturday and Sunday, I will take off. You know, and then Monday and Tuesday, I'm back to work. So I don't—like, I fly around the world and I go on holidays? No, I don't. I'm flying around the world shaking hands and kissing babies, as they say. Yeah, so that's the key. But like, that's the trade-off. That was what I understood to be—I know what it takes; I know what it takes to get to where I want to go, and I'm all in. You know? Yeah, I can relate to it a little bit myself. I mean, when you have that vision, when you have that something that you are willing to put work towards, I mean, you don't even look for the vacation from it. Like, I've been on an anniversary with my wife in Mexico for like a week or so, and she was just getting angry; I was taking calls at the pool. You know, but at the end of the day, you know, I am taking calls right now so we can, you know, be where we are.
Yeah, it's a—it's a selfish life, unfortunately. It's a very, very selfish life to be with somebody that's ambitious and, you know, wants to win. It takes a very, very special type of person to understand this—to respect it, but also be in a position where it doesn't create friction. You know, it takes a very, very special person to be in that position, and that's why, you know, great partners are far and few between. Yeah, you know, I can never be with somebody that wants a nine-to-five and a white picket fence. It just wouldn't work; it doesn't work. I've tried it; it doesn't work, unfortunately. So you have to have someone that believes in the passage that you're on, and, you know, that is going to support you every which way and just know… You know, I tell people all the time, like, if I have 100% in a day, 90% of that gets taken up by the work and the [ __ ] that I've got to deal with on a daily basis, as I just said to you earlier on. You know, we have our own [ __ ] this weekend, and you say to me, "How's your week?" I'm like, "Of the week, buddy." That's just life; that's just what it is when you get to the level that we're at. Yeah. Um, but if you've got 10% left in the day, who you decide to give that 10% to should be really important for that person. Yeah, and it may only be just 10%, but that person has to know that it's all you can give at the moment; that's all I got. You know, and that's really important, because, like, relationships depend on 100%. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, the other person has to give 90; you give 10. But then the other side of it, as you just alluded to, they get to go to Mexico for the week, and they get to have all-inclusive, and they get to have everything that they've always desired: great, secure home, you know, life, travel, good food, everything else. So there's always a trade-off; that's really important.
So I've got a question for you. Before you mentioned that a lot of your beliefs come from pain, right? But this is kind of like a little bit unique approach, and not everybody creates their beliefs from the pains that they're going through. So like, if you could give like one piece of advice for anyone who might be struggling with the things that he's going through right now in life, like what do you feel should be the first step for them to turn things around? The first step is always like, if you don't feel good in yourself, then you'll never be good externally. So I'll bring you back to when I first started in sales. I needed to be financially secure in life, because I had—I had issues with COVID, and you know, I had two young kids, and you know, you wanted to build a life for—you wanted to give them a life. So the first thing and the first step that I had to do was I had to—I had to get somewhere to be able to breathe. And when people are struggling, that means they can't breathe. So there's two ways that you go about it: one, you financially get secure, which gives you time. Does that make sense? Because if you're not financially secure, you don't have the time to emotionally get secure. 50 Cent said something—I take inspiration from everybody—it's meant—50 Cent said something one time, he was like, "Nobody in the hood has mental health…" something around this verb, but he was like, "We don't have time to have, you know, off days." Yeah, we don't have—we don't have enough food in the fridge to not go to work; we don't have enough, you know, resources to not, you know, stop because we're anxious. I'm saying to you, we don't have mental health days. And I'm not throwing shade at mental health, and that's really important that people understand that. What I'm saying is like, we have to go—we have to keep moving. You know, and that comes—in my opinion—it's two facets: either I get financially secure, which allows me time—it buys me time, which is really important—you know, or the other option is I get physically secure. So that means I'm physically fit; that means, you know, aerobic, anaerobic—that I'm solid. You know, I can look in the mirror, and if—if everything is down in the day—I can look in the mirror and have pride in how I feel and how I look about myself. But there's two ways: you can be financially—financially secure, which is going to give you time, or you can look in the mirror and you can be physically secure, and it gives you a sense of pride. That's how I've been able to do it if I'm ever feeling bad. You know, and that's just my piece of advice, and this is big: if you look in the mirror and you like yourself and you actually are proud of yourself, how you look like—I mean, this is big—this gives you—this gives you such a big confidence that you feel like you can go out there and accomplish anything, like, especially if you put the work towards building that physique.
Correct. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, if you can look in the mirror and find pride and you know that it's taken effort and it's taken a tremendous amount of work rate, and you can take that amount of time, you can put it into something else and create something else out of it. It's like when I got into sales, I just like stopped the physical aspect, because I was all in on this, because I knew that I could get back here anyway, because I just—I've done it so many times. Yeah, you know what I mean? So that would be my advice: either get financially secure and learn a high-level skill and go all in on something, or get so physically fit that you can look in the mirror and feel—not go—pride. Brother, before we disconnect, uh, one last question. So we have been speaking about, you know, how you like Drake's drip—the bullet holes in their back. I mean, over the past couple of years, you coached hundreds, thousands of people, right? Mhm. And there have been dozens of people that have been ripping you off, yeah, regarding recent events that just say… Can I ask like what made you go after that one guy recently that when you say this, like, "Enough is enough"? And yeah, just put that light on the S over here.
It's really difficult because you don't ever want to be that person. I never wanted to be that person; I don't ever want to be. But unfortunately, as a CEO of a company that employs 15 people and hopefully, over the next couple of years, 1,500 people, um, you have to take a stand. You have to respect what you have, which is intellectual property and trademarked education. And that's really important that people understand that, and people take heed of that. I always—I'm always of the opinion—it's like, if you don't own it, don't take the—don't take the applause of using it, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? It's like, you've got a Rolex on your arm—it's a Submariner, two-tone, right? Correct. You could have stolen that, or you could have earned it. Which do you think is going to give you more pride wearing it every day? I mean, of course, we earned it, correct. And that's really important because, at the end of the day, you've got to hit the pillow tonight; you've got to know that you've done everything you can in your life. So you can do it the short way, which is just taking something, ripping it apart, and producing as your own without any improvement, or you can spend years learning and developing and having something that you can fundamentally be proud of and build something so great that helps thousands of people that you feel it's so important that you protect it, which is important. And that's what—where we are—it's like, I built something so great that we need to protect it and to keep it at the standard and value that it was made to be. And if I continue to let people rip it apart and use it for what they want to use it without ever paying homage or whatever, you know, taking out a licensing deal, um, then I'm doing it a disservice, and I'm also doing the business a disservice. And as a CEO, what you fundamentally have to do is you've got to protect people, and in order to protect people, you have to protect how they protect themselves. If I don't protect the IP and I don't protect the business as a whole, how can I fundamentally look at my guys in the eye every single day and say, "I'm doing everything I can for you"? So there's a time in life when you have to leave what you want out of it, which is like, I don't want to be in a position that you have to do that to people. But I also have to take on the responsibility of being a great CEO, which is ultimately taking care of my people. Yeah, you know, and that's important. And everyone—you can be—you can be judged by social media, or you can be judged by business, and you can be judged based on, you know, right and facts rather than feelings and emotions. And unfortunately, in the world that we live in, and I am—I am just as guilty as everybody is—sometimes you let your emotions flow, you know, and it—it sometimes—it gets lost in the source—the fundamental fact. And the reality is, if you allow people to steal from you, they won't stop. If I own the shop and I had food in the [ __ ] fridge, and someone came in and took the food out of the fridge, and people knew that you could go there and do that, guess what will happen? But it also goes back to the belief and the confidence in your product, because like, if on the bottom of your heart you like—you would feel that your product is weak, like you wouldn't care; just take it, you know, resell it, right?
Correct. Yeah. And I built something that's so fundamentally brilliant—with all the respect—it's never been coached; it's never been built. And people that don't know will just talk [ __ ] at me, like, "Yeah, but sales has been coached for hundreds and hundreds of years." Yeah, it has, as an ideology, but not my ideology. My ideology is blueprinted, and it is specific to me—that's around fear, that's around the objection frameworks, that's around the yin and yang, that's around the negatives and positives in the conversation, that's around the entire framework of everything that we have fundamentally spent years building—that is IP. Yeah, that's important that you protect it. And if I didn't believe that it was worth valuable assets and valuable… uh… finances… and have it… But unfortunately, you can't—you can't allow people to steal and then think that it's okay, yeah, because everyone will do it then, and then that's the issue. Yeah, Bill, I appreciate you—you know, for that hour; it means a lot. Is there like anything that you want to add by yourself to the audience or to anyone who might be listening? Yeah, the biggest thing is—is to show, don't tell. If you are good, don't tell people you're good; show people that you're good, and after a while, people will just tell for you. There are too many people that want to tell that they're good without actually proving that they're good. As, you know, people would say when you get into the ring: put up or shut up. Yeah, you know, comment actually shows that you're good at what you do; if not, just shut the [ __ ] up and go and do some work. Yeah. Awesome. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right, buddy. I'm right to you.