← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
FROM NAVY TO NINE FIGURES ft. Douglas James | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby
01:18:39
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- [00:00]
Host
Most people leave the military and struggle to find purpose again. Douglas James, he built a multi million dollar business while still in uniform. This guy didn't just transition out of the Navy, he rewrote the rules on how to do it. From hospital corpsman to high ticket coaching mogul, from sleeping in chaos to flying clients into penthouses, from almost losing it all to to building lead fi a company that's changing how we qualify leads before the call even happens. He's been broke, he's been battle tested, and now he's on a mission to help other Christian entrepreneurs build legacy through faith, business and radical transparency. This one's not just about marketing, it's about miracles, mindset and money that means something.
- [00:51]
Interviewer
Welcome to coffees, but thanks for coming. Thanks for driving down from San Diego. It's been great to meet you, great to collaborate with you on various masterminds and you know, we got so many more years of collaboration opportunities coming down the pipe. So thank you. Thanks for this partnership that we have and doing this show with me. So I'm gonna dive right into it. I'd like to start the show off with the same question I asked everybody and Doug, what's your morning routine?
- [01:16]
Douglas James
My morning routine, um, let's see. As soon as I opened my eyes, I thank God for another day. That's the very first thing. Thank you for the air in my lungs. Thank you for my family. Thank you for the food we're about to eat. Thank you for all the blessings, you know, and that's it. I wake up. Obviously I have a note taker on my phone. So I basically just write down some affirmations, a couple things of what I want for me and my family here over the next day to five years. And just kind of vision where I'm trying to go. I think if you don't have, you know, targets on the board, it's hard to know where you're going, Right? So I do that and then immediately go into my daughter's room and get my kids and hug them and tell them I love them and that's it. Roll over, kiss my wife, obviously. And yeah, that's kind of how I start my day. Beautiful. No cold plunges or anything like that.
- [02:08]
Interviewer
You know, it's funny because I always have founders and CEOs on the show. Everyone's a founder, CEO and. And cold plunging is a big thing. A lot of guys do that. Like probably I would say 30% of CEOs are cold plunging or doing some sort of elaborate morning routine. So it's Always fascinating to see, you know, but starting with gratitude is, Is an amazing way to start the day. And, you know, God's always in our midst, right? So we're gonna, we're gonna lead with the spirit. I always, I always use that as a catalyst here. And, you know, it's just God continues to bless this, this encounter. The people who I bring on the show. Now you're. You're a 10 year Navy vet. It's a 10 year Navy vet, yeah. 10 years, man. So how was the transition going from the Navy to entrepreneurship?
- [02:57]
Douglas James
Yeah, it was quite the journey, right? So I served in the Navy as a hospital corpsman, got to do, see, travel all over the world, do amazing things. You know, I built schools for kids in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Philippines. We did a whole bunch of humanitarian work. And I just remember it was like 2015, I come back from that deployment and I'm like, I just made E6, which is like a high ranking supervisory position. It takes the average person 12 years to make E6. I did it in five years.
- [03:26]
Interviewer
Wow.
- [03:26]
Douglas James
Yeah. So I, I kind of like, was like, man, I want to get my time back. I want to, you know, start a family. I want, you know, time, freedom, location, freedom, kind of like all those things. So I started thinking about what life would be like after the military. And I didn't have a plan. I just knew I needed to do. I wanted to do something different. So I ended up finding, like, digital marketing, right? I found digital marketing and I figured out how to, you know, help businesses get new customers from the Internet using paid ads like Facebook and Google. Right? So that's, that's what I got into. And, and the transition for me was pretty easy because I had now. It was easy, but with a lot of challenges and roadblocks, right? So about six months into starting my journey as an entrepreneur while still active duty, I end up making my annual salary on the monthly basis from the military. And I did that for about four years before I could even get out. So I was making a lot of money while I was in, but I was still expected to show up in uniform, shine my boots, stand at attention, right? All these things that you got to do when you're in the military. A lot of sacrifice, you know, So I continue to build my business. And what happened was there was a lot of. I noticed that there was a lot of people in the military that were going to be retiring soon that were looking for, hey, what's my next chapter?
- [04:48]
Co-Host
Right.
- [04:48]
Douglas James
When you're in the military, you go through Class called Taps. It's about a week long, right? And Taps is built to help you transition to the civilian world, right? How to fill out a job resume, how to have a LinkedIn profile set up so you can get a job, how to interview for a job. What are ways to go apply for jobs, right? And that's what they do. And you know, that system, although it's, it's there to help, you know, active duty transition out to civilian world and find a job. It's. It's. It's imperfect, right?
- [05:18]
Interviewer
So I'm sure it's probably dated too, and.
- [05:20]
Douglas James
Yeah, very dated. And, you know, so I had a lot of people looking at me. I was at a hospital with over 6,000 people. I would drive, you know, on base with, like, this $200,000 Mercedes. They're like, dude, where are you making the money to, like, do what you're doing?
- [05:35]
Interviewer
$200,000 Mercedes on base.
- [05:38]
Douglas James
Yeah, you know, I was. I. My pay should not have been, you know, I wasn't making enough to afford the car, right? And I definitely made some, you know, semi dumb decisions, decisions with money early on. But, you know, I was very proud. I like to, you know, have the finer things in life. But I just remember I had a master chief come up to me, right? To be a master Chief, it's like E9. It's the highest ranking active duty position. You can go. He came up to me while I was in uniform, and he's like, hey, man, I've heard about you. I saw your car. I heard you're making money. Like, I'm 45 years old. I've been in the Navy for 25 years, and I'm getting out next month. Can you teach me what you do, how to make money? And I was like, yeah. So I went home, I recorded my whole process. How to acquire local business clients, how to run Facebook ads to get them customers. You know, how to set up the whole client acquisition system. And I put it in a Dropbox folder. It was the worst course you've ever seen in your life. And I gave it to him. And he's like, dude, thanks. Here's 900 bucks. I'm like, great, thanks. And then next weekend, he landed a client paying him a thousand bucks a month. So that was my first client. And that's when I realized, wow, people are willing to pay you just for, like, what, you know, like, you know, knowledge. And I was like, wow, that's cool. And now we know a lot knowledge. Like, why did Jordan, you know, Michael Jordan reach His heights, you know, people even like, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, he was coached by Jim Rohn, right? So we all have coaches. If there's somewhere you want to be, go latch onto people that are already doing it at a high level and pay them. Pay, pay them for their time.
- [07:04]
Co-Host
Right.
- [07:04]
Douglas James
Because they've obviously earned that right. So I got into coaching and consulting then. So then I created a program where I was helping active duty transition to civilian sector, but as entrepreneurs, helping them start these local marketing agencies. And today we've helped over 15,000, 15,000 military veterans. Veterans and active duty. You know, I've had people that were on deployment on my coaching calls in uniform, you know, so it's, it's. Yeah, it's been amazing. We've helped a lot of them, but we also helped just regular people. The bartender, TGI Fridays, the, you know, construction worker that's tired of being on roofs, a whole slew of people in the medical field, real estate, mortgage, a lot of different verticals. But through that journey, you asked me, like, how did I transition over? It was from a financial standpoint, it was easy because by the time I got out, I was already doing six figures a month, right? And I had had found this whole new respect and understanding for the value of my time. I was like, wow, I can work an hour in the military and make 40 bucks or I can work an hour outside the military and make 4,000 bucks. It was like a complete paradigm shift. So. And I had already started to make such impact with my program. I was doing amazing things. And I was like, it's time for me to transition out. So I end up going all in. I finished out my time. It took four years. And it wasn't without meaning scrutiny either. You know, my superiors when I was in the military, a lot of them had a hard time, you know, accepting that there was someone below them in the ranks making all this money, right? And that had superiors that put me up for captain's master or brought me to like the head honcho of the hospital and said, hey, this guy's unauthorized to have this business or go make this money. And I had to go through the whole wringer with them. And they tried to get me thrown out the Navy and put in the brig and take my money and pay for me. But, you know, I persevered. I went on the board and it actually got thrown last minute, got thrown out because there was no written military instruction saying that an active duty member can be an entrepreneur. So active duty entrepreneur was a new thing at that time and there was no restriction that.
- [09:19]
Interviewer
So, so did you create the active duty entrepreneur? Like, did you coin that phrase?
- [09:24]
Douglas James
I, I think I, I think people like me because I wasn't the only guy. Overall, we're talking about military wide, but at my hospital, I know it went up really high in the chain of command and now there's, there is formal regulation now on what you can and can't do in the military, which it didn't exist before. So, yeah, I like to say you set precedent. I did. I definitely set precedent. And we're in a new time and age right now. Everyone has a phone, everyone has chatgpt on their phone. When I was in the military, we were in charge. We had to write our evaluation. Like every year you had to submit a piece of paper that basically said why you're entitled and why you should be advancing to the next rank.
- [10:10]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
And on the block on the back of the paper there's like a paragraph, a long paragraph you gotta write with all your accomplishments why you're deserving of advancing to the next rank. And there were so many writers and people, people would have writers that were like overseas, that are stationed in other parts of the world that were like these expert writers that were serving active duty and they would pay them hundreds of dollars to write the block for them. And I'm thinking now I'm like, you don't need to do that anymore, dude. You could just use ChatGPT.
- [10:39]
Interviewer
We'll write that for you.
- [10:40]
Douglas James
Right. So a lot of things in the military and the government are obviously dated. And you know, and we all have social media. Anyone can go live on their phone right now and share their story, share their heart. And that message is going to attract an audience. And if they have awareness and audience, well now what solution are they offering to solve those people's problems? And that's how they could obviously make money. So we all have access to this technology, we all have access to the ability to earn from home and ourselves. And that's been the message that I've shared with, you know, thousands of people up until this point.
- [11:16]
Interviewer
So it's amazing. So one thing you've done that's unique is you, you've, you've become like the high ticket client guy. So what sort of issues or what sort of like, you know, know, conflicts did you face in creating like a high ticket offer? Because that's a hard thing to really offer.
- [11:36]
Douglas James
It is. And so for local businesses, right, I would sell packages, like they would sign up, you know, Doug, hey, we Run a dental clinic. We want, you know, 400 new leads a month. For people that, you know, want Invisalign or whatever the service might be, we would just say, hey, we're going to charge you 50 bucks per lead, right? So if you do the math on that, that's, you know, per hundred, that's 4,000. So 400 would be 16,000amonth that I would make from that one client, right? So, which is pretty high ticket. But the direct value that I'm delivering them is, okay, you're giving me $50, but I'm also giving you someone that's raising their hand saying, hey, I want to come in and do this business with you. Which if that person buys, it's going to be exponentially more than the 50 you gave me.
- [12:24]
Co-Host
Right?
- [12:26]
Douglas James
So in local business, that's the base model that I ran with. But when I got into coaching and consulting, I was able to craft offers because if you're doing courses, info products, coaching, teaching people how to do things. My favorite way to model it was modeling it after institutions or colleges. If you sign up for an accelerated online university, right? It's which I did when I was in the military. I got an associate's degree. I don't have a bachelor's or PhD or anything. But it's eight weeks. It's one class a week, right? And that's how you go to college when you're working a job. So I just modeled that same thing. I said I had already had my course. Here's a bunch of videos. Give me a few grand. Go the videos, you know, run with it. But people wanted more access, right? They wanted to jump on live calls, they wanted to jump on coaching calls. So what we created was a done with you model, which was like the accelerated university was said, hey, we're going to hold class every single week. It's online. You're going to come to the class, the instructors are going to go through all the material for that week and what you need to implement to start and grow your business. And you're going to be with us for eight weeks, right? And for that package, I charge you 10 grand for, you're basically getting a skill set that you can go into the marketplace and start to immediately make cash. Whereas in college, it's if you paid for that one class, well, you got to go take 100 other classes and then you have a bachelor's degree that you're 40 grand in debt for, and you're not even guaranteed a job after that, right? How many people do you know, my wife's got a bachelor's degree and she at best she was working merchandising at, you know, for Target or you know, Ulta Beauty. Right. So I know a lot of people that are, and you probably do that have bachelor's that have degrees and they can't get a job nowadays.
- [14:12]
Interviewer
I mean a bachelor's degree is, is worthless now. Even like, I mean I'm gonna, for our kids, we want our kids to get degrees just as kind of like a rite of passage. But I have them in these coaching classes. At 9, 10 years old, I got my 9 year old boy doing coaching calls with adults, trading cards. I paid for the coaching class. I'm like, this is better than school. Like I don't even care if you actually, you know, like the fact that he's liking it and trading cards and understanding how like this, the sport of trading cards, like business, business is a sport. This is where you make money. School is just like, you know, social and understanding, kind of like just helping you mature.
- [14:47]
Douglas James
Yeah. And look, we all need nurses, we need pilots, right. We need doctors. Of course those trades go to go to school for those. But for, for the majority of people that aren't in those fields, I mean at the end of the day you go to school because you're trying to get an education so you can take care of your family. And that system's completely outdated at this point. That's why the coaching industry is growing by the billions every year.
- [15:07]
Co-Host
Right.
- [15:08]
Douglas James
So this is not like a message that you know, anyone listening, this needs to go start a coaching business. But just understand that I think that there's better information that you can get from somebody that's gone build amazing companies and done all these amazing things and if they're saying, hey, I'm willing to teach you what I did for a few grand or whatever it cost to learn my skill set to basically get the roadmap. I think if you're passionate about doing that and if the person's credible and real, be careful of the gurus. If there's a Lambo, as you know, if there's a Lambo in the video, you might want to think twice, right? But then verify. I think that's a better way to go about getting your education out. That's why YouTube is huge. You go on YouTube, it's a how to platform, right. People are going on there. TikTok is blowing up huge right now for that. Actually. I predict that TikTok is going to be the new way of, of solving Your problems because our attention span's really short.
- [16:04]
Co-Host
Right.
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Douglas James
Like we want to consume these 30, 60 second bites. YouTube is cool. You'll get a 5, 10 minute, 30 an hour long video. Like long form is cool for podcasts, but what do you do with the podcast? Yeah, you chop it up into these short form, bite sized chunks where you're getting these little value nuggets. And that's what people are doing on TikTok right now. Hey, how do I change my tire? Hey, how do I make an, you know, an English muffin?
- [16:27]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
All these, all these different little things.
- [16:29]
Interviewer
In 10 seconds you could learn to make a. Change your tire or make an English muffin.
- [16:32]
Douglas James
Exactly.
- [16:34]
Interviewer
It's funny you mentioned that because I know a lot of like specialized doctors and they like specialized surgeons, dermatologists, whatever, and hanging out with them, they've referenced, oh, I just saw this video, medical video on TikTok. Like doctors, specialized doctors are referencing TikTok, you know, as the place where they're getting their updated education. So I mean it's, it's changing every landscape of professionals. So your, your programs, they, they offer, you promise in these programs some significant returns yet, you know, some, some of the critics have labeled them as like, they're expensive. How do you address concerns about the value proposition of your high Tiffany ticket offerings? And how are you addressing like haters?
- [17:22]
Douglas James
That's a good question. I haven't actually been asked that directly. So I sold packages all the way up to 50 grand.
- [17:31]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
Like my top package was 50 grand, $50,000 ticket offer.
- [17:36]
Interviewer
That's expensive.
- [17:37]
Douglas James
Yeah, that's. But that's like, fly out to my penthouse in San Diego, spend two and a half days with me, our team builds out your entire business and three turns your ads on and have sales calls rolling by day two. And then we'll have dinner, we'll have wine, you know, all the things. You'll meet my mentor, you'll get to meet other people that I'm doing business with.
- [17:55]
Co-Host
Right.
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Interviewer
So many people bought that package.
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Douglas James
I probably sold about 200 of those.
- [18:01]
Interviewer
200 of those?
- [18:02]
Douglas James
Yeah.
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Interviewer
Wow.
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Douglas James
Yeah.
- [18:03]
Interviewer
But you're hands on for two days straight.
- [18:05]
Douglas James
Yeah, hands on for two days. We did that event. We do that event probably like every 6 to 7 weeks roughly. The core packages people bought was like 5k, 10k, 25k. And the 50k was only to verified buyers of the 25k that were qualified to go into that package. But here's the thing. Look at what I'm solving. I'm helping people that are Transitioning careers, Right. So one of the reasons why. And make significantly more money or income for their family. Right. So my biggest thing on how I was able to scale and sell those products is I was talking to the nurse practitioner that was in hospitals for 20, 30 years, that was running the floors, taking care of patients and her back's hurting, she's getting older, she's tired, but she has all of this medical experience and all these things in her head that she could share with other people in the medical field, private practices, doctors, you know, that are all generating patients that need cash based patients to come into their clinic or use something like carecredita for their high ticket services. So. Or the roofer that's been roofing for the last 20 years and he's tired, right? So I would go to them and I would say, hey, you are an expert in your subject matter, expert in your field. You've been doing this for 20, 30 years. What if you, you know, paused that part of your career and shifted your whole model to being the go to lead provider to everyone else in your industry? So now the doctor or the nurse practitioner or the roofer can go to every other professional in the country that owns a business doing what they've been doing the last 20 years and said, hey, I, I can speak your language. I've done, I've done what you've done for the last 20, 30 years. Now I can also provide, I know exactly how to get these patients booked on your calendar, get these jobs booked on your calendar. And, and I'm just gonna charge you a small fee for every time. So that is really how I scaled my bigger packages, by just working with these professionals. I, when I did my penthouse events, I would have, you know, CEOs show up that were doing, you know, eight plus figures a year. I had a spinal surgeon that was doing about $9 million a year and he, something happened as a hand, he got in a car wreck and they were basically gonna take his license away to do perform spinal surgery. And he's, you know, 50 years old and he's got another probably 70 plus years. Like he wants to work for another. No one really wants to retire at 50. This guy was a motivator, right? So he came in with me, we basically made him the go to lead provider for everyone in private practices, right? To come to him to get patients.
- [20:48]
Interviewer
So scary if you're a surgeon and your hand gets hurt, like I've heard it from surgeons, like, this is my money maker. Yeah, like, and it's this is like the most fragile thing you got. You know, you go to school 20 years and your hand's gone, you're toast. And that's every surgeon, by the way.
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Douglas James
That's it.
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Interviewer
That's every surgeon.
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Douglas James
And, and there's many stories like that. It could be the hand. It could be like you can't walk anymore. You create some. Over time, you get some kind of disability that doesn't allow you to work anymore. Right? So there were a lot of people like that that we were able to help and transition into the online space. You know, So I was, I was not just teaching people marketing. I was transitioning people from what they've been doing 20 years. I was breaking their back to getting into a more predictable, sustainable online income by just doing what I've been doing, learning my skill sets. Right, and what is that worth to you? You know, what would you pay for that? If you were in that situation, you couldn't work for the next 20 years and you were going to be jobless, but you had a million dollars or a few million dollars in the bank or even a couple hundred grand in the bank. And I'm saying, hey, I'll devote this amount of time to you. I'll give you, I'll teach you this skill set. Our team will do all of these things for you. We just need you to pay, show up, and execute.
- [21:57]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
That's why the education space is so big.
- [22:01]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
So I think when the value, I think when the pain of not solving the problem is greater than the pain of having the problem, prices, like, what is price? You know what I'm saying? It becomes priceless. So, and I mean, to the haters of charging high ticket, you just, you've never sold high ticket. I've worked with, I've consulted so many businesses that have been selling a $500 thing their whole life or a $50 thing. Like, they're like, oh my gosh, my, my audience will never pay five grand for something like that or 20 grand for something like that. It's like, have you tried, you know, if you're, if you're able to get somebody from A to B and it's going to be, you're providing a better lifestyle for them. They're healthier, they're more fit, they're making more money, they're having better sex with their wife or their husband or whatever the case is, if you're solving for that, people will pay money to solve these significant issues. So if it's anything around health, their, their money or their beauty Aesthetics. Why do women pay 15 grand to get a boob job?
- [23:02]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
That's high ticket does. You know, why do people pay 20 grand for rhinoplasty to have their nose fixed?
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Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
Because they probably have. They were probably picked on as kids or felt, you know, self conscious. That's something that they want that boost of confidence for the next 50 years of their life, so they'll go pay big money to get it fixed, right? So that's. To answer my question. To answer your question, I think if there's. If the value is exceeding that pain, then, you know, price is irrelevant. And the haters just, They're. They don't know how to sell high ticket and never tried, so.
- [23:37]
Interviewer
And they're always going to exist. And matter of fact, they're. They're a catalyst for your success anyways. So they got to be there to help you grow anyway.
- [23:44]
Douglas James
Exactly.
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Interviewer
I always look at, I. I love haters. I welcome them. I thank them. You know, they're. They're the ones who get us to where we're at.
- [23:52]
Douglas James
They're the ones that usually don't have money, haven't really achieved much, and. And look at other people or. And are truly envious.
- [24:00]
Co-Host
Right?
- [24:01]
Douglas James
And. And also, honestly, I have compassion for those people. I welcome. I welcome it. And I don't look at it like, oh, fu. You made this comment. I actually had a mentor who was named. His name is Randy Massingale. He was the senior advisor to Bill Gates. And he says that there's two tyrants of leadership. There's scrutiny and expectations. So every time you elevate yourself and create space between you and other people, people get really uncomfortable, right? Because they know you like this. Like, that was my boy. We used to go to the bar, we played ball together. You know, we used to date the same girls together, blah, blah, blah, right? But when you elevate yourself, they're like, oh, my gosh, what happened to. What happened to Joseph? You know, that used to be my boy. Now he's off here doing this mortgage company, right? Going to college or whatever. You, you know, read a little bit of your. Your backstory. You graduated in 2002, I think. Yeah, Right. So, you know, they get uncomfortable with that, so they start to scrutinize. You, say, hey, man, this is. What are you doing? This is not. You, like, come back, right? And they try to pull you back down to where you once were. But once you start to make money, you start to have success, right? How many people came so said, hey, man, what do you Do. Hey, can you teach me? Hey, can I get a. Can I get a loan?
- [25:11]
Co-Host
Right?
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Douglas James
Like personal loan? Not. I know you do mortgage. But like, hey, your. Your mom needs to buy. You know, mom needs a new car. Mom needs a new house, right? People start to expect things from you. That's exactly why I got into coaching. You know, people ask me, why do you teach this stuff? Why didn't. If it was so good, why not just go out there and make a whole bunch of money and not share it with people? Like, you know, first of all, my mom raised me well, like, sharing is caring, right? You got. Remember that when you were 4 years old, 5 years old. Sharing is caring, right? So if there's something that you know that can impact someone else's life, it's my belief that it's your moral duty to share that information with that other individual, right? If it's going to help better their life or even save their life, you would be selfish not to share that with them.
- [25:55]
Co-Host
Right?
- [25:57]
Douglas James
And number two, I genuinely love helping people. What people may not know about me or that follow me that know this. The only reason why I was successful in the military and successful in business is because I believe in helping other people get to where they're trying to go. Because I know. There's a quote that I read from Zig Ziglar early in my journey when I. When I first started looking into business, marketing, all this stuff, I looked into Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, all these moguls, and Zig Ziglar said, help enough other people get what they want in life, and you'll have all you want in your life, right? So when I. The reason why I made E6 so fast in the military is because every time I took on a program, project, went on deployment, anything I did, I ran the command. I was a command fitness leader for thousands of people, all these things. I brought junior sailors with me and I said, here, here's what we need to do. Here's the end result, and here's how we're going to go do it. I need you here, here, here, here. And people ran off. They accomplished the mission, right? Who got the award at the end of the day and the additional rank and recognition? I did. But those were bullet points that they were able to put on their eval. So when it came time for them to make rank, they said, hey, I work with HM1. Dougherty Doherty's my actual last name. James. James is my middle name. They were able to see that, hey, they were a part of all these programs that I led, and they made more rank, which means they made more money, which they were able to give their families a more comfortable lifestyle, right? So I do the same thing in business. I brought my good friend Oscar here that apparently knows everyone in your office because he's a OG in the mortgage guy in mortgage space, right? I bring people with me, right? I'm not going to come here alone, right? So that whole mentality is the same thing. Because I know if I put out enough goodwill, that's going to come full circle back to me, right? So again, scrutiny and expectations, it's a part of what's going to happen. But as soon as I started to make money, like I said, what happened? People were like, hey, the master chief, you're making this money. I'm getting out military next month. Will you teach me? People start to expect things from you, right? And because you know this now, like Jack is out of the box, right? You know, people are going to scrutinize you, expect things from you. That's just human nature, but it allows you to now discern and make the choice. Am I going to be pissed off at this hater and get upset over my, the, the comments people are leaving on my Facebook ad, or am I just going to let it go and have compassion for these people because they just don't know any better? They don't have. They're not. God is showing me, not them, right? So this might be an opportunity for you to educate them, but give, at the minimum, pray for them, give them compassion, right?
- [28:35]
Interviewer
So I love that. Now you've spent millions on Facebook ads. What are some, like the biggest failures and lessons that you've learned from running ads for your own business at such a high level?
- [28:50]
Douglas James
Not every platform is made equally. So I ran ads on TikTok, Facebook, you know, Instagram, YouTube. We've done 80 native ads like Taboola, things like that. Every platform in LinkedIn, every platform has a certain way that audiences are. There's a reason why they're on that platform, right? And if you understand why they're on that platform, you can craft content that matches the reason why they're visiting those platforms. For example, if I am on YouTube, I need to make how to content, because YouTube, you go there to solve your problems and, you know, learn how to fix things, right. If I'm on Facebook, right, It's a very passive audience. I can, on YouTube, I can actually target people that are searching on Google for local carpet cleaning services or local mortgage company, right? And I could Go show them how to get the best rate on for their home when they go apply for the loan. I can actually do that, right Because I know they searched on Google and I could put videos in front of them on YouTube, on Facebook. I can also do like an interest based targeting. However, it's more, it's more passive. They may not be in the market right now. It might be based off of search they've done in the last six months but if the offer right they just might click, right? So with Facebook and Instagram it's more of family, it's more lifestyle, it's more hey, I'm here to kill time. I'm not here necessarily to do business. So you have to meet people where they're at. So you have to be more entertaining, a little bit more educational and attention grabbing. On YouTube you can be a little bit more forward as to what the, what the thing is, right? TikTok is the same way I think TikTok is now how to but extreme entertainment. High dopamine scrolling every two seconds. I don't like this boom, boom, boom, boom. So you need to be really quick on how you grab attention and what your hook or angle or edit is in that one second because they're going to flip right off your video. So understanding like all these different plat. If I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn because I am searching for an executive that I can connect with that can bring my business from A to B or an employee or I'm, I'm, I'm hiring people, right? So because you can see through Sales Navigator their job title, how many we could go on your Sales Navigator right now on LinkedIn and see the job you number, number employees, your position or everyone that works here in the office, right? That's what we're, we're doing on LinkedIn. So if you understand these different reasons why people on these platforms you have to craft content that matches meet them where they're at. That's what people get, right?
- [31:35]
Co-Host
Wrong.
- [31:35]
Douglas James
Most in marketing they don't meet people where they at. They're me, me, me. We're really selfish. We're human beings. We're all built for survival. It's a part of our human nature, right. So but you have to keep it. What's in it for them, right? Meet them where they're at. So I think that's been the biggest thing, right? So when I'm, when I'm creating content, right And I'm talking to veterans and I'm talking to single Moms, and I'm talking to parents, and I'm talking to doctors, right? I'm crafting messaging. That is exactly who the avatar is that I work with. But I'm also presenting it to them in a way that is aligned with the type of content that's showing on these different platforms, right? So for me, that's the best way to utilize these social media platforms. And I will say this also, you asked me, like, at a high level with some lessons I can pull out of spending millions on ads. You know, obviously when you're spending money on ads, you're trying to spend a dollar and make three, four dollars out, right? That's, that's the whole point.
- [32:36]
Co-Host
Or more.
- [32:37]
Douglas James
And what I've noticed is you can have the best marketing, you know, you can have the best, the best ad that's bringing attention. But if your funnel system, when you, when you drive traffic from these social media platforms, you're sending them to an engine, right? It's a system. Every system is designed to get a certain result, right? For example, the tax code, right? The IRS is going to, is looking for their nut every year, okay, you made whatever you made last year, someone makes a million dollars, $10 million here, they're coming for, you know, 30, 50% of that, right? So we can't get away from the tax code. That system is designed to make the IRS money, right? And whatever else they, you know, whoever that else that money goes to, well, we can change the inputs into that system, right? So if you want to pay less taxes, what do you do? You buy assets, you write, you write things off, right? So with, with Facebook, Instagram and all of these other systems, we're running traffic to an engine that is designed to convert awareness into ultimately a sale at the end. So if there's incongruencies from when people see your ad to see when they see the initial landing page, to when they opt into your landing page to get their video, the webinar, or the product, to when they actually go book a call to when they speak with your team. If there's inconsistency in the congruency of the initial messaging, at any point in that funnel, they're gonna drop off and think, hey, this is a scam. They told me this thing, but now they're saying this, right? You should always reference the last page, the last thing that they saw, and set expectation of what is gonna happen in the next step of the funnel. And that's how you build congruency, right? So people get this whole thing messed up they like, let's just jam a whole bunch of traffic to a book a call.
- [34:28]
Co-Host
Right?
- [34:28]
Douglas James
Okay, Great. You're getting $30 book calls. Congratulations. Because the industry average is like 200. Congratulations. But these people booking on a calendar have no idea what the heck you're trying to sell, what your mission is, what's in it for them. They just booked a call because they were bored at 12:00am Right. So you have to really indoctrinate people.
- [34:48]
Co-Host
Right.
- [34:49]
Douglas James
You have to give them the exact next step that you want them to take on that journey. You don't rely on them to just say, hey, here's a funnel. Let's just see what, what happens. So you have to indoctrinate them. You have to put certain copy and videos within the whole funnel to pull them through all the way till the end.
- [35:07]
Interviewer
That's awesome. Congruency is tough to maintain too if you're creating so many various ads and referencing them correctly. And we're dealing with that now with, with some of our optimization of our recruiting strategy here at Mortgage. So I totally understand all that now. And what I do is also high ticket because I convince people the same thing that you do, but I don't coach them. I offer the product for free now, which is I convince them to join our organization, leave their mortgage company that they started and leave it to join our ecosystem, our platform. So it's the same kind of concept. So it takes a lot to convince someone on high ticket offers. Even though my high ticket offer effectively is free.
- [35:48]
Douglas James
Yeah. Wow.
- [35:50]
Interviewer
Yeah, it's free. But you know, but it's also like I'm dealing with ego, you know, like, hey, I'm going to leave my company I built to go to your company.
- [35:58]
Douglas James
Yeah.
- [35:59]
Interviewer
And white label your solution. Like, yeah, you're make a lot more money.
- [36:01]
Douglas James
Yeah. And you know what's interesting too about high ticket too? You talk, we talked a lot about currency. These sales don't happen with one call usually.
- [36:10]
Interviewer
No.
- [36:11]
Douglas James
Like, yeah, sure, there's the 1% or whatever, less than 1% that will like here's the credit card, boom, whatever.
- [36:16]
Co-Host
Right.
- [36:17]
Douglas James
But you usually do need a back end educational process to put people through so that they feel confident in their decision, that they feel comfortable moving forward.
- [36:28]
Co-Host
Right.
- [36:28]
Interviewer
So okay, it's your back end educational process. Like right now his minds are just. Mine is just video ads, various video ads in just like couple minutes. But like, yeah. And webinars. But I'm always looking to increase, increase and implement new effective educational strategies. I'm starting a coaching platform Too, just to help kind of navigate. Help people navigate or enter the mortgage industry.
- [36:52]
Douglas James
Yeah, people. You have to build a no, like trust factor. Right. So people need to know who you are, they need to know what you do, they need to know how to do it, and they need to know that you've done it for other people, that there's other people that are successful working with you.
- [37:06]
Co-Host
Right.
- [37:07]
Douglas James
So you can accomplish most of what I just, a lot of what I just said through a funnel, pre appointment or at the appointment of book a call. But you have to go deeper after the initial call.
- [37:17]
Interviewer
That's all, by the way, accomplished. Everything you said through brand strategy. Like, people know that from my brand or the podcast or like the size of the company or that's all easy. But like, convincing them mentally to make that paradigm shift is tough, you know, because in my space, I deal with ego. Ego is a tough thing to overcome. In your space, you're. You were dealing with people that, like, I don't have a choice, you know, like, I'm. My hands busted. I can't do this. Or I'm, I'm an EAM. EA6. I got a year left. How would you overcome, like, let's say that the doctor's still practicing. How would you. And he's like, I'm going to go to you and make less money. My hand's fine. So that's. How would you overcome that barrier, you know, well, to leave that and his hand still working. Like, I can show you how to make more, 10 times more coaching here or doing that.
- [38:12]
Douglas James
So it's. The money is more significant on this side. But then there's also. Okay, how many, how much, how many hours are you spending at the hospital?
- [38:20]
Co-Host
Yeah.
- [38:21]
Douglas James
Okay. Okay. You're working 10 hours a day. You're on call four days a week.
- [38:27]
Co-Host
Right.
- [38:27]
Douglas James
You're in there six days a week. Someone's always calling you or texting you about work. Okay. Are you married? Do you have kids? Yeah, got three daughters. Oh, how old are they? You know, three, six and ten.
- [38:38]
Co-Host
Oh.
- [38:39]
Douglas James
What kind of sport are they into? Sports. What's great, what grades are then? Oh, you know, they play soccer, they do this. But I'm always missing it because I'm out freaking working. I'm on call and I've always got to take a call.
- [38:49]
Co-Host
Right.
- [38:49]
Douglas James
Well, how are you married? Your relationship with your wife? Yeah, we're married, but, you know, we're in counseling. We're having, you know, issues at home.
- [38:55]
Co-Host
Right.
- [38:55]
Douglas James
Okay, so you're telling me. It seems like there's an imbalance here. Well, how, tell me about your faith. How much, how much time do you spend with God every day?
- [39:02]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:03]
Douglas James
There's. And so I start to get into what their day to day is.
- [39:07]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:08]
Douglas James
And how much, how much time do they spend. Scrolling social media Are they watching Netflix?
- [39:13]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:14]
Douglas James
Who their friends are, what are they doing after work.
- [39:17]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:17]
Douglas James
And if you go through the average person's schedule, I guarantee you, if you wanted to build a business while working a full time, a full time job, there's at least four to five hours in there a day that you're just, you're wasting.
- [39:31]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:31]
Douglas James
That you could be given to your family or you can be given to another passion project.
- [39:37]
Co-Host
Right.
- [39:37]
Douglas James
So when you start to break all these things down and you start to help people realize, wow, my marriage is struggling, I'm not connected to my faith, I don't have time for my kids. You're offering me a solution to make more money and get all my time back. Man, that sounds amazing.
- [39:50]
Co-Host
Right?
- [39:51]
Douglas James
So that's the path that I would take with most of the people that I've worked with in my coaching business. What I do today is I work with a lot of business owners that are actually generating a bunch of leads. They've done seven, eight and even nine figures and 10 figures across in other industries. But they're having issues with like dealing with the natural, the normal flows of the market of people opting in and maybe not be financially qualified for things. So that's why I got into the software space because now I can basically help people, give them 100% certainty. When somebody says, hey, I'm interested in your product or service, they give you their name, email, phone number, how many times that happens. And they book a call and they no show or you take the call and they're not financially qualified.
- [40:39]
Co-Host
Right.
- [40:39]
Douglas James
It's a waste of time, money and energy. So what our new company does that I'm focused on now that I'm sure we'll probably get into, it basically identifies exactly who's financially qualified to buy from you before you even talk to them.
- [40:52]
Co-Host
Right.
- [40:53]
Douglas James
And so it's the same, it's, it's, it's just a different vertical now. Now I'm solving business problems for busy entrepreneurs that are, that are doing a lot of money.
- [41:03]
Interviewer
So you've. Now we'll just dive right into that for the sake of time because I want to make sure we talk about lead fi. So you still have the coaching company, it's still a revenue generator for you.
- [41:12]
Douglas James
Correct.
- [41:13]
Interviewer
But you're just not, it's, you're just not passion as passionate about it as this new project.
- [41:17]
Douglas James
Well, I'll, I'll tell you this, I am actually still very passionate about it. I'm actually shifting my whole model to lead with Christian Faith because I feel like that community has been really underserved from an entrepreneurial standpoint, at least from my end. There's other programs and people doing amazing things like my friend Oscar. But, but I actually want to help more faith based entrepreneurs find entrepreneurship and get the skills to be able to grow not only in their faith and marriage, but definitely in business using my marketing and sales experience. So I'm shifting my whole model to lead with that and then we'll get into the, the actual marketing and sales side of things. So yes to, to answer your question, I'm still passionate about it. I'm just shifting how I'm going to be focused on that going forward. But lead fi. My software company is literally 95 plus percent of my time now. It's a SaaS product that I just developed and I'll just go right into it. We started working on the technology just about a year ago. I met my partner Eric. He was been doing underwriting for banks for like 15 years, has like a 15 year relationship with the credit bureaus and he was working on, he was working on some kind of tech similar in the financial sector to deliver pre approvals. But you know, when I first found him about a year ago, I mean my company had already done significant numbers. We had already done over 100 million in revenue. We spent like 30 million on ads to do that. But through that journey of me spending all that money and scaling that company, I had to overcome a lot over those years. I had over 100 people on payroll, right? And there was, and I don't, there was months where like, shoot, I don't know if I'm going to make payroll, right? I mean I, I look at it, it's like there's a hundred people, but there's, that's really 100 families. Like they're, they're moms and dads that are trying to feed their kids and if I can't come up with payroll, this is going to be some, someone's child is not going to eat tonight. And I, that was a lot for me to bear on my shoulders, right? And I hired every conversion rate optimization guy, sales salesperson, you know, marketing person, technology, AI, marketing, attribution softwares, trying to figure out how do we get certainty and predictability and Sustainability in our, in our business because we're spending at one point 30 grand a day on ads. A million dollars a month. And you know, I'm losing 1.2 million in a month, losing half a million this month. It got to the point where, like, because I was selling such high ticket at a high level for so long, I couldn't look at my P and L month to month, right? Cause I knew, okay, it's going to be a shit month, right? Month two, I know I can't look at that. It's probably going to be a shit month. But month three over the quarter will have this crazy spike. And okay, the quarter looks good now. Like, we're all good. And I operated like that for a number of years. But then about a year and a half ago, almost getting closer. Two years ago, it wasn't like that. I will look at the quarter. Oh, my God, we're red. Okay. Month four, we're still red. Month, month five, month six, two quarters straight in the red. Something's wrong, right? So, and, and that's. I went in a slew of trying to figure it, figure it, solve it, book a call funnels, webinars, low ticket to high ticket purchases. You name it, I did it. I did it all. And I think I was just. I think I was just drinking some coffee one day. I was like, man, I want to know exactly how much money's in someone's pocket right? When they opt in. Like, these people are gonna run me into the ground. I'm gonna go bankrupt. I'm gonna lose everything. My wife's gonna think I'm a piece of crap, you know, whatever, Whatever story I was in my head. And then I met Eric, you know, and then we got together. He was developing something. I was like, dude, did you meet.
- [45:06]
Interviewer
Him at a Masterminds, by the way?
- [45:08]
Douglas James
No. I got randomly thrown into a text message with him. He's like, dude, this guy is doing something. And I think there could be something here with you guys. And. Yeah, and we jumped on a call. I'm like, dude, I've done like nine figures. I'm doing everything that I can in my brain to find certainty. And I left this out. But I did have a sales. My sales director and my two sales partners at the time. I found out that they were like, shaving points and like, taking money from me. Yeah. Funneling money. And some of my customers were promised stuff that I didn't even do. I had to refund a bunch of money.
- [45:51]
Co-Host
Right.
- [45:52]
Douglas James
And we were trying to make sure we were compliant and all those things. Luckily everything's good but I had to let them go. And I was like, crap, I'm gonna have to like rebuild this from the ground up. And so I just, I just shared, I poured into him like dude, this is where I'm at, this is what I've done. He's like, bro, I've been looking for somebody like you. This is what I'm doing. I don't know the high ticket online space at all. So we partnered, we got together and we created Lead fi which is the only identity verification technology on the market that is able to take a name, email, phone number and basically give you exact credit and financial information on someone by someone soft pulling them. Right? So we get the name, email, phone, we own the patent to the technology that goes through a true identity process. We acquire fields of information like address, date of birth, we know who their kids are. It's kind of weird on all the data that we get, but this is all public stuff and we do it compliantly, legally and then because of our relationship with the bureaus, we just solve, pull from Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, Real Time. So now we know their exact credit score, exactly how much money they can spend on their credit cards right now in their wallet, annual income, debt to income ratio. We can see if they are qualified for debt resolution if there's any contingencies like anything like that. And then the real secret sauce here is we have a proprietary system called automated underwriting system aus and so we take the credit report and then we're able to underwrite how much additional capital or funding we could get for this person as well. So when we deliver that data through the API in real time, you'll see. Okay, they can drop 50 grand right now, but they're proof for another 100 grand.
- [47:30]
Co-Host
Right.
- [47:31]
Douglas James
And we took, so we took that same data and that in that same credit report and then we started to free feed in. Okay, what can we do in the mortgage space? Freddie Mac, right, And we use Corelogix to do analyze properties, right. And we use Freddie Racks, Freddie Mac to get basically all the underwriting criteria.
- [47:51]
Co-Host
Right.
- [47:51]
Douglas James
And we basically go through and deliver pre approvals with just name, email, phone. So if you, if somebody wants to buy this house with this address we can basically tell you okay, they're, they're not only pre approved but we have, we can basically have you actually give you the exact term loan, the, the, the interest rate, what their payments are going to be per month. If you factor in the property tax, the HOA fees, everything. And as you know, I mean borrowers, borrowers will pay probably, I don't know, 60 to 80 bucks to see if somebody's approved to buy a home or pre approved.
- [48:24]
Interviewer
80 to 120, but.
- [48:26]
Douglas James
80 to 120, right. And if there's a co borrower it's probably going to be soft.
- [48:29]
Interviewer
Pools are even, you know, pretty expensive. But how can that apply to self employed people? Because you can't deduct that data if someone just writes everything off. I mean we use bank statements for that information.
- [48:43]
Douglas James
Yeah. So we actually have an algorithm where we're actually able to pull everything from them. So we're able to do their personal, we can actually pull all their assets, we can see their investable assets. I can see their 401k RA stocks, bonds, CDs, all their open accounts, bank accounts. We actually can get bank accounts as well. So we actually get the full picture. We get all the mortgages that are currently open on their, that they have open right now.
- [49:09]
Interviewer
The data and you know, analyze 12 months of deposits from that same.
- [49:16]
Douglas James
That's right, all real time, just name, email, phone and Instead of paying 100 bucks, you'll only pay 20 bucks. And you don't need all this information, you just need email, phone basically. So that's the underwriting.
- [49:28]
Interviewer
That's insane.
- [49:29]
Douglas James
That's on the mortgage side. So I told you we broke into that market about three months ago. My use case was for, for it was the high ticket coaching space or people that sell high ticket products or services.
- [49:41]
Interviewer
Right.
- [49:42]
Douglas James
That's what I was going after because I was looking to solve my own shit.
- [49:46]
Co-Host
Right.
- [49:46]
Douglas James
All this other amazing stuff we're talking about happen after the fact. So you know, so people that sell like a 10, $20,000 package, right. It could be rhinoplasty for nose jobs, it could be boob jobs, it could be $10,000 coaching package, whatever it is, right. When somebody opts into your funnel, your website with name, email, phone, boom. Now you know how much they can spend on their cards and how much additional capital you can raise for them through credit cards. Or buy now, pay later, like Klarner, affirm after pay and then boom. So the sales team gets the data real time. Okay, John Smith can afford our package. Let's prioritize him and get him on the phone ASAP to put him through an indoctrination process faster instead of wasting time on the 80% of people that can't buy.
- [50:28]
Co-Host
Right.
- [50:29]
Douglas James
70, 80% of people that Raised their hand and say they want to do business with you, they might put on their application, hey, this is my income, this is my job, these are all my things. We actually found out that 50% of all of that data is inaccurate. People with money typically don't want you to know they have it. People without it want you to think they, that they do. So they'll, they won't fill out the application 100%, right? And then you're over here trying to make strategic marketing sales decisions on data that's half accurate. It's like lefi now just gives you that information right when they opt in. So you could actually remove restrictive applications asking all these questions and probably drop your cost per call or app by as much as 30 or 40% because usually people, they get cold feet when they get into those questions anyway, right. So we're able to basically just create more efficiency and the whole marketing sale. We can even feed back the data to Meta and Google and supercharger targeting. So now you're getting in front of more people that are like 700 plus, credit score or high net worth, high income, whatever you want through the API we build. So yeah man, it's been a huge game changer. We have like over 107 to nine figure brands now. Some of the people that you probably look up to and follow and authors use it and yeah, it's been going great. I would probably say the average result, like results are cool, right? So the average result, somebody sees from it. We're actually able to help people increase the number of qualified people booking into their funnel by as much as 40%. This just means 40% more people can like move forward. Whereas before lead 5, these 40% would have been tire kickers, right? And average revenue is somewhere around 30%. But I do have people literally doubling their business because they're doing all the things, they're running ads with it, they're prioritizing, you know, high value prospects. Right. When they opt in right there, you know, if you run a, if you run a funnel, right, you got an opt in, usually have a video they watch, then you got an application, then you got to book a call, right? So that's a basic funnel, but every page has a conversion rate drop off point, right? Not everyone's going to go book a call. You might have a hundred people visit your opt in page, then you might have 30 people that get to the video page, but then you might have 15 people get the application, but then only seven people end up booking a call. So out of 100 people, only seven booked a call. Dude, that's 93 people in your funnel that your sales team should be outbounding and calling. But what most sales teams do is they'll call all 93 people and waste time on 80% of people that can't buy. So now they're setting all these calls, jamming up their sales team's calendar with 80% of people that can't buy because they don't know any better. They're just setting calls. Setters get paid to put calls on calendars with lead fi. You run it on the opt in, boom. It immediately reveals the 20 to 30% that can actually move forward. You just focus on those people, give them the time as immediately as possible. Per record or just charge per record? It's a soft pull per record basically.
- [53:33]
Interviewer
And you're charging 20 bucks per record.
- [53:35]
Douglas James
Or how you doing on the mortgage side? Yes, for the coaching and industry side we don't need as because on the coaching on the mortgage side we're actually providing a full credit summary. All their open accounts like, like literally everything with mortgage, you know, there's more data points over to get. But if you're just selling, simply need to know the buying power and for your high ticket product or service there's a lot less data, data points needed and we.
- [53:59]
Interviewer
Couple bucks.
- [54:00]
Douglas James
Yeah, it's just a few, yeah, couple, few bucks. But here's the distinction. So when you do mortgage, right, it's a, it's a pre qual. So whenever they give up their name, email, phone, they check the check, checkbox. Hey, I agreed to a soft pull, right. So on the mortgage side, yes, you absolutely need to do that for FCRA compliance. But if you're selling high ticket and you just need to know the buying power, we're pre screening leads. We're not pre qualifying, we're pre screening them.
- [54:27]
Co-Host
Right.
- [54:28]
Douglas James
For, for a funding option, for like a pre approval for a credit card. Right. So how many times have you gotten a pre, pre approved credit card in the mail?
- [54:37]
Interviewer
I mean every day.
- [54:38]
Douglas James
Every day. My wife got one yesterday. I got one yesterday. So our credit's being ran nonstop without our consent.
- [54:45]
Co-Host
Right.
- [54:45]
Douglas James
So it is, we're being pre screened nonstop by Chase, Wells Fargo, all these different banks. So we're basically doing the same exact thing, but just in the online space when somebody gives us their phone number, all that, all we have to do is add some simple language to our privacy policy. And as long as the coach or the business owner follows tcpa, which is the checkbox, but the check box is only for saying, hey, we're gonna, you know, I agree to have my phone number processed, marketed to, I can opt out at any point, which is standard practice. If you generate leads, then you're in compliance.
- [55:20]
Co-Host
Right.
- [55:21]
Douglas James
But if you're pre qualifying someone, someone has to definitely say, hey, I agree to the soft credit check. So that's the distinction.
- [55:27]
Interviewer
Now, pivoting a little, I want to ask you a couple questions because we're going to talk about some goals here. And, and also I want to talk about your family. You got two kids, right?
- [55:38]
Co-Host
Correct.
- [55:39]
Interviewer
Okay. Now, one of the things I always bring up with entrepreneurs who are successful, and I know you probably don't, you know, grew up different than your kids, so you come from, you know, more humble roots. How are you instilling that same level of grit and that mindset, that winning mindset that you've had and you continue to have in your children today, given that they're, they're in a world of abundance?
- [56:04]
Douglas James
Yeah. Well, here's the interesting thing about me. Yeah. When I grow up, when I grew up, there was times I didn't know I was going to eat. There was times I went to bed hungry. There was times that I didn't know if my dad was going to kick my door down and maybe beat me or, you know, go after my mom.
- [56:24]
Co-Host
Right.
- [56:24]
Douglas James
So I grew up in a household where there was, it was, was a very, very chaotic environment. Physical verbal abuse, abuse of drugs, alcohol. It was tough. It was a really tough upbringing. I saw and endured things that no kid should see. So I think my whole life I've been searching for predictability because I didn't have it for so long. For 17, 18 years of my life, it was very chaotic, uncertain.
- [57:05]
Co-Host
Right.
- [57:06]
Douglas James
And so when I joined the military. The military instills discipline, integrity, respect for other people, and they give you structure. Here's how to fold your sheets. Here's how to iron your uniform. Here's how to put your ribbons on your uniform. You know, here's how to greet people in the morning. Here's how to be a good human being, basically.
- [57:25]
Co-Host
Right.
- [57:26]
Douglas James
And I did well in that because I strive for that. When I was 16 years old, I approached my dad and I'm like, daddy, I don't agree with your behavior. Like, stop treating my mom this way, Stop bringing drugs and alcohol into this house. Stop being physical and verbally abusive. And I, I confronted him one day and he took a swing at me. And ever since that moment, I, I left, I was 16 years old. I moved out, went and lived with my best friend's parents at the time, and eventually moved to my grandparents. And then I found the military. So. So going through the military and then, you know, going into entrepreneurship and. And doing what I've done today, I've always wanted to have a family. I've always wanted to have girls or kids. Whether God gave me boys or girls. I wanted to cultivate an environment for them in a lifestyle where they didn't have to worry about if they were going to eat. They wouldn't have to worry about if their dad was going to yell at them or beat them or hurt their mom.
- [58:24]
Co-Host
Right?
- [58:25]
Douglas James
So for me, I think we're all here to raise kids and pass on our legacy to our kids.
- [58:33]
Co-Host
Right?
- [58:35]
Douglas James
Like, for me, I can't. You can't take the Lambos when you leave.
- [58:40]
Co-Host
Right?
- [58:40]
Douglas James
You can't take the money. You can't take the yachts or whatever people aspire to have, even though these things are so cool in the flesh. And you should own a yacht or a Lambo, for sure. I, you know, I would love to have a massive boat one day, which I can probably get, but, you know, my wife will probably be not too. It's other things that we want to accomplish first. But when I'm. When I'm dead and gone and, you know, and people are. People ask me, like, what's the legacy? What's the thing that I want to leave behind? Or what do they think. Want to think of me when I'm gone? My only answer is, like, the only. The only legacy I want to leave behind is the stories that my children are able to tell about me when I'm gone. And if they're able to share and articulate the impact that their daddy had on their life and the people around us, then that's. That's all I need. I want that story to be positive, profoundly positive.
- [59:33]
Co-Host
Right?
- [59:34]
Douglas James
And I don't care about what other people have to say, their opinions of me or anything else. To me, it's what my two girls, the example that I'm setting for them. So because I know if that story is good and locked in, then that tells me, okay, most of the things around me in my life are locked in. So that's my barometer of success, is what my kids say about me and what they think of their dad.
- [59:57]
Interviewer
Love that. Love that. Now, you know, it's. It's. It's amazing because I get a lot of entrepreneurs in here, and it's like, they all. A lot of them, most of them come from humble beginnings or beginnings where they suffered. And it's like, I'm always looking because I'm. I'm a father of four, you know, it's like, I want to give my kids the best life, but I also want them to suffer, which they're not, you know, like. And it's finding that balance where I want them to grind really hard, just like me, but I don't want them to suffer. And it's like. And I don't want them to be spoiled. Spoiled. And it's something I'm always on a quest to learn and to become a better father, a better parent, and just a better teacher and coach to them.
- [60:43]
Douglas James
Yeah, I. I do feel that my kids are going to. We were all kids at one point, right? We all made.
- [60:50]
Interviewer
You're still a kid. I don't know what you're still.
- [60:52]
Co-Host
Right?
- [60:52]
Douglas James
Hey, I agree, dude. I agree. I'm still a kid at heart. I laugh at the. At the silliest stuff and make the dumbest jokes and laugh, and everybody's like, who's this guy? You know, so, you know I'm talking about.
- [61:01]
Co-Host
Right?
- [61:05]
Douglas James
So our kids are going to go through that, too, and they're going to make some dumb decisions. And so the only thing I can do as a parent is not restrict, Put restrictions on their life and control at a young age, for sure. Hey, baby, don't peek over that bridge. You might fall over. Like, I'm going to hold on to it, right? Simple stuff like that. But when they get older, they're going to go through their own struggles and go and learn, make their own decisions. And the only thing that I can feel I can do as a parent is say, all right, baby, you want to do this? Well, here's the potential outcomes. Let's risk mitigate this, right? You know, what is it you're trying to solve? Is really that worth it? Because this, this, and this could happen, right? And that's the only thing that I can do as a parent right now as far as far as, like, the business and the success. Like, you know, right now I'm teaching my daughter the value of money, you know, and every single time we have to go and she. There's something that she wants, like a toy or anything like that or an experience. I'll be like, all right, baby, this is. I'll break out some money. I say, this is how much this is going to cost, right?
- [62:06]
Co-Host
What?
- [62:07]
Douglas James
And I would teach her. I teach her, what type of work or effort do you think is necessary to make this kind of money that's on the table, right? And then I would give her, I give her little tasks. I'm like, all right, let's go in the yard. Let's pick up all the pine cones. Let's, let's mow, let's make your bed, right? And I would, I tie time and effort to certain levels of money on the table. I was like, all right, baby, you did this many tasks today. This is how much money you made, right? And she'll say, okay, but she'll count it. But that's not enough to go to Legoland. I was like, okay, we got to do more tests. So I, I'm doing things like that to now instill the value of money and hard work, right? Because it takes a lot, man. Like, after coaching so many people and going through a time where If I worked 9 to 5 or showed up this many hours per week, I get this check. But then in my business, in the business world, it's like, shit, if I don't show up, I don't, I don't need and people don't get paid, you know, but my, my income could be expense exponentially higher. So it's, it's a, it's a crazy mindset shift that you have to go through. And I think, you know, fortunately for us, like we have in kids, they're gonna see that, right? And they're gonna be exposed to a whole new world where they look at other people and other things. Like, it's funny, we lived in, live in little here in San Diego, and I have this 7,000 square foot penthouse. I didn't get it to be like, hey, I want to live in a penthouse. I wanted to have experiences. I wanted to bring people together. I saw it as an opportunity to help a lot of people. And we live there too. And we're walking Little Italy and my daughter, 3, 4 years old, we're walking through Little Italy and she goes, mommy, daddy, can we go back to the penthouse? And we're in this busy, busy place with all these people, all these people, like, penthouse. Who's this kid? Like four year old penthouse, right? And so she, and every time we fly first class, you know, so like she's getting these experiences that I never got as a kid. But it's now, now it's coming to the point where like, hey baby, we have to really, you have to understand where we are in life and the work daddy has had to do, do to have us give it, bring this his life, right? And you know, to Be honest. A lot of that goes back to faith God and our commitment to our Lord and Savior and, you know, giving him and honoring him every day and then. And then the work behind that, because God does provide, but he's not going to provide if you just sit on your hands. You have to get and do the work. So I think faith business, these are things that we're still in our kids, right? We're starting to. My oldest is five and a half. My youngest is two and a half, so. But, yeah, I'm excited. Being a dad is. It's the thing that I've always wanted to do, and I'm doing it now. And I get to kind of. I think I have a second chance at childhood.
- [64:55]
Co-Host
Right.
- [64:56]
Douglas James
Like, when you become a parent, you get a second chance at childhood.
- [64:59]
Co-Host
Right.
- [64:59]
Douglas James
So growing up, I didn't have the best childhood. Now I'm reliving that time with my kids, but correcting a lot of things that are wrong. And it's beautiful to see the smile on their faces and the life that they have, you know, Incredible.
- [65:13]
Interviewer
Beautiful. Beautifully said. A couple last questions for you. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, A business goal that you have for the lead fi and the consulting company and a family goal that you have for the family. And you could answer those in any order?
- [65:32]
Douglas James
Yeah, I can. I can probably go in order. I would probably say a personal goal right now. There's two quick ones, and I'll cover them. Number one, About a year and a half ago, when I was going through all this before I found Eric, I literally. I was not in my faith. I was not praying. I was not even going to church. I was trying to do it on my own. And I just remember I fell on my knees in my office and just said, God, this is all you. I surrendered everything to him. And ever since that moment, I watched, you know, I have red candles and green candles in the stock market. I was at the bottom, red candle, basically fully liquidated. And then I got this massive green candle that I'm on, I'm sitting on right now. And if it wasn't for that, I don't feel anything would have corrected because I immediately started to build the blocks that have led me to finding what I am doing today. So I think continuing my faith is really big for me.
- [66:31]
Co-Host
Right.
- [66:31]
Douglas James
And which it, you know, should be for, for a lot of people. If you haven't connected everybody for everyone, Right. And you don't know how bad it is until you hit rock bottom. When you hit Rock bottom. You think, oh, this rock bottom. And then something else happens, right? It's like our friend, we were just with Dave Meltzer last week. And one of the quotes that really hit from him when I was at his house last week, he said, you either humbled or you're about to be. It's like, dude, you think you got it all figured out? No God's gonna come along and be like, no, you don't.
- [67:01]
Interviewer
Boom.
- [67:01]
Douglas James
Here you go. Deal with this. Now you have a challenge. Get out of that, right? So stay humble. Oscar says, stay humble and hungry, you know, And I think that's. That's what's keeping me going forward through everything I have. So faith, number one, huge. Number two, personal. I wanna give you this because I think it's fun to talk about. Everything starts with your gut, man. Like, I found out I have a friend, Mike, that is, like an expert on gut biome. Did a test and everything. He told me all these things about my digestion. I'm like, oh, my gosh. That's why I can't get results in the gym. That's why I'm bloated all the time. That's why I can't sleep.
- [67:37]
Co-Host
Right?
- [67:38]
Douglas James
You know, having issues in the bedroom with my wife. Like, all these things, right? And we fix it, and my life is like. Like, boom. Just like that.
- [67:45]
Interviewer
What you. What was the. I mean, everything does start in the gut.
- [67:49]
Douglas James
Yeah. So I basically found out you work.
- [67:51]
Interviewer
For Biome, the company. Biome.
- [67:52]
Douglas James
No, it's a different Gut. Biome was like a study of your gut.
- [67:56]
Interviewer
I just did the gut test.
- [67:58]
Douglas James
I think the clinic he works with is called Everwell. It's out in Arizona. But I found out that my pancreas is not secreting digestive enzymes. So every time I eat, my body's basically not getting the nutrition from the food that I'm eating. So that's showing up and everything. My mood, my clarity, my thought, you know, my. My results in the gym. So. So now I've gotten on a stack of peptides supplements, no drugs, all natural stuff. And it's like completely night and day, you know, so. So continuing to focus on my health, starting with the gut, and then, you know, getting back into shape. Because I used to be, like, when I was 25, I was, like, walking around 12% body fat. I'm not trying to be like that now, but I'm just trying to really trying to optimize to have a fit body to keep up with my kids, because they're running around like crazy.
- [68:44]
Co-Host
Right.
- [68:45]
Interviewer
And that sports haven't started, you know, like where you're training with them, like baseball or football or basketball, whatever sports are gonna. You want to be playing with them.
- [68:53]
Douglas James
Yeah, tennis, we're gonna do tennis and soccer of the two there, she's in ballet right now and swimming. So we're do tennis and soccer soon next.
- [69:01]
Interviewer
So that's when you're acting. You got to be really in shape.
- [69:03]
Douglas James
Yeah, I gotta be ready. I gotta be able to cut. And I had ACL surgery in 09 and sometimes it bothered me, so I gotta be careful with the cuts. But yeah, business goals. We repackaged, relaunched, we're gonna launch Kingdom CEO, which is my new coaching consulting company towards the Christian community. And we're gonna help them scale their businesses online with. With our experience. So really excited about that. Right now. It's just a matter of we just want to help as many Christians and that, you know, God says too, there's nothing wrong with, you know, monetizing and making money. He wants us to have fortune, but also feeding that back to purpose. So for purpose business with Kingdom CEO, we're going to be helping a lot of people. We're going to be helping veterans pay off medical debt. We're going to help build schools for kids in Mexico with pencils of promise and do a lot of good stuff like that. And then for lead fi, my goal at this point, you know, we, is to basically get about a 4 or 5x where I'm at right now, to have 100 mil valuation and then seek an exit strategy. I'm already getting offers right now, but I think that there's a lot more we can do with it.
- [70:20]
Interviewer
You just started and you're getting offers.
- [70:21]
Douglas James
Yeah.
- [70:22]
Interviewer
So sit tight, build it and they'll come, they'll keep coming.
- [70:26]
Douglas James
Yeah. And for family, dude, it's just, I want my kids to have a great life, dude. I want to wake up every day, see them and my wife. Me and my wife have rebound big time over the last year too. Because when I said I hit rock bottom, everything was rock bottom. There was a point where I don't know if my business were going to survive. My kids didn't know me, I was traveling. Me and my wife were very distant. And, you know, because of my faith and work, me and my wife now have a very close, loving marriage again, like we did before. And so everything that I'm doing now is just to main keep the family intact.
- [71:10]
Co-Host
Right.
- [71:10]
Douglas James
Keep the family intact so that everything else could benefit.
- [71:13]
Co-Host
Right.
- [71:14]
Douglas James
Because I could be thriving. In business. But if my wife's upset or my kids are not taken care of, like, what kind of. What's the point?
- [71:21]
Co-Host
Right?
- [71:22]
Douglas James
So growing in our faith. Faith, faith, faith, man. You've heard me say it for my family. That's. That's the number one focus right now. Because I know all things will blossom from there.
- [71:33]
Interviewer
You know, we. We are only called just to. Just to plant the seed. Then God waters, you know, Apollo waters right after. So one thing I live by is just like making sure that our family's always praying together and kids are going to church and just being as active as we possibly can in the, in the church community my whole life. You know, I came from Egypt as a persecuted Christian, and so I'm pretty vocal about faith just because I can be. Even as a CEO of the company, it's like, dude, taboo almost.
- [72:07]
Douglas James
Yeah.
- [72:07]
Interviewer
You know, but. But just because I come from that community, I'm like, well, you know, in America, people raise, you know, FL their flags or rainbow flags or whatever. And I'm allowed to do that with faith, you know, just because that's how we were killed for that in Egypt.
- [72:25]
Douglas James
Yeah.
- [72:26]
Interviewer
And here we are in America where it's like we just be as vocal as we want. So when you're at a. When you're a CEO of a company, you're just supposed to be like, accepting whatever. But I'm vocal about it. So it's how I live and it's how God continues to bless. Last question. I ask everybody this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?
- [73:03]
Douglas James
I have, like, two things I want to say.
- [73:06]
Interviewer
Same both.
- [73:12]
Douglas James
I think if I went right now, I think that he would accept and understand that I've been saved because I've surrendered, because I've repented, because I've turned things around and I've given him.
- [73:34]
Co-Host
The.
- [73:34]
Douglas James
Attention he deserves, in which I've given to my marriage and the people around me. But at the same time, this is an everyday choice. I'm 37, you know, I pray that I'm around for another 50 plus years, you know, live to 100. But I gotta choose this lifestyle every day. You know, I have to choose to keep doing what I'm doing. And it brings up a quote. And the quote is from Virginia Satire. She says that most people choose the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. And that it's like if you have two doors in front of you, door behind, door number one's the miserable Life as you know it, the same car, job, the same body, circumstances. Most people choose that door because they know what they're going to get. But door number two is there's uncertainty behind that door. You don't know exactly how that's going to play out, but you know, all your goals, dreams and aspirations could be behind that door. And unfortunately, most people don't choose that door because they can't handle the uncertainty aspect. But for me, I've lived my life taking risk, understanding that there's going to be times of uncertainty, that if I want to get somewhere, I have to be comfortable with uncertainty for long periods of times and not necessarily expect a result. And that's why time in business, time in the markets, you win if you can withstand the downturns, if you can withstand the darkness. So every day I have to continue to choose door number two because there's thoughts in my head every day. Even though I'm at where I'm at, that tells me why I should not keep going forward. And we all have those thoughts, but we have to choose to continue to persevere and keep going the narrow road.
- [75:37]
Interviewer
Man.
- [75:38]
Douglas James
Exactly. So I want to say the path that I'm on is on the path that God is calling me to be on at this point. The fact that that man is standing there, right there is a big reflection of to where I'm at in my life because that is a man of God. Someone that I really look up to, that I really love, and somebody that you should definitely have in this seat in the future.
- [76:06]
Interviewer
I love that.
- [76:09]
Douglas James
And then you right your story, the fact that you're a man of faith. So I think I'm where I need to be and God has put me exactly where I need to be. So I need to keep doing what I'm doing and just follow his calling. The fact that I've switched a nine figure company all the way to focus on Christian entrepreneurs, why would I do that? You know, like. So I asked myself these questions, am I in line with what he's calling me to do? And I feel like my story, my journey, the things that I overcome, a lot of people are going to be impacted from that over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And yeah, I might have a cool software that makes money that helps people with business problems, but to me, helping men and women get closer to God I think is the one thing that I'm very passionate about. And I think that's exactly where God wants me to continue to pursue. And again, that will feed back to My kids, the legacy and everything will keep blossoming from there.
- [77:12]
Interviewer
Man, I love that. You know, that's the most important thing we teach our kids. It's like, love God, serve God, do God's work, and then he provides. Like, how does he provide? It's magic. I don't know. It just happens. He will always provide. And we wrap our heads around it. We try to think about, like, how is this going to happen? Like, how are my kids going to stay close to me? Inflation, this, that, the other. Like, do I got to buy them houses? But God got to figure it out for us.
- [77:40]
Co-Host
Yeah.
- [77:40]
Interviewer
As long as we stay true and fervent and steadfast, it just happens. People want to connect with you. How do they find you?
- [77:50]
Douglas James
Instagram. Just go to Instagram, type in Douglas James should be the first one with the blue channel deck, but I think the handle is at the underscore. Douglas James. And then my website for my company, LeadFi. It's LeadFi. AI. So l, e a d f I dot AI go there if you want to stop talking to broke people and focus on people that can afford you. Basically, that's all I'll say.
- [78:12]
Interviewer
So love that. Thanks, Doug. Thanks for coming on the show. God bless you. I hope you hit each and every one of your goals and keep dominating, bro. Keep doing God's work. Beloved, I'm over here at the IT.