How my wife & I built a Multi-Million Dollar Empire

Summary

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Ideas That Matter Podcast with Vusi Thembekwayo

Episode: How my wife & I built a Multi-Million Dollar Empire

Guest: Lamar Tyler
Date: February 3, 2025

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Overview

In this insightful episode, Vusi Thembekwayo welcomes Lamar Tyler, serial entrepreneur, speaker, and founder of "Traffic Sales and Profit" (TSP), to discuss how he and his wife built a multi-million dollar business empire together. The conversation explores Lamar’s upbringing, the early seeds of his entrepreneurial spirit, the challenges of leaving employee life for entrepreneurship, scaling businesses beyond six figures, managing partnerships with a spouse, and the unique mindset shifts required for extraordinary business growth. The tone is candid, energetic, and filled with practical wisdom — highlighting both the emotional and technical journey behind building generational wealth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Childhood Foundations & Early Entrepreneurial Drive

• Lamar’s Background:
  • Youngest of three brothers, raised by a single mother in Washington D.C.
  • Early entrepreneurial ambition: "At eight years old, I was probably first getting the inclinations that I was dreaming about entrepreneurship…I didn’t know what that would be, because I didn’t grow up in a family of entrepreneurs." (Lamar Tyler, 07:35)
  • Inspired observing his mother’s hard work and perseverance.
• Exposure to Black Enterprise:
  • Seeing role models in Black Enterprise magazine unlocked his understanding of what was possible:
    • "Sometimes before you know how, you just have to know that it’s possible." (Lamar Tyler, 12:06)

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2. Making the Leap: From Corporate to Entrepreneurship [13:13–18:03]

• Catalyst for Change:
  • Frustration with limitations in corporate America pushed him toward building his own thing.
  • Experience of having innovative ideas ignored by leadership with a "scarcity and poverty mindset."
  • Decision to invest creative potential into his own business:
    • "I went home to my wife and said, ‘I'm no longer going to give them my million dollar ideas. I want to create our own million dollar business.’" (Lamar Tyler, 17:14)
• Importance of Preparation and Work Ethic:
  • Even while preparing to leave, Lamar maintained "A player" performance at work:
    • "A players are A players. You can’t go from being a C player at work to being an A player in business. The laws of life don’t work like that." (Lamar Tyler, 17:57)

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3. The First 90 Days: Building From Scratch [18:25–22:15]

• Starting the Business:
  • Began with a blog about relationships in the Black community (pre-Facebook era).
  • Treated the venture seriously from day one: "Let’s create it as if it’s going to become a real business, so that when it does, we don’t have to backtrack." (Lamar Tyler, 19:23)
• Speed Over Perfection:
  • Focused on launching, analyzing, and optimizing ("LAO"):
    • "No matter what, you have to Launch, Analyze, Optimize. And that perfectionism never happens—it hinders too many entrepreneurs." (Lamar Tyler, 20:46)
  • Perfectionism is often fear of judgment and rejection.

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4. Doing Business with Your Spouse: Navigating Life and Legacy [25:05–28:18]

• Balancing Act:
  • "It’s infinitely harder building with your life partner because you’re doing life and commerce, figuring it all out as you go." (Vusi, 25:17)
• Managing Conflicts and Complementary Strengths:
  • Success requires clear communication, aligned goals, and knowing you’re on the same team.
  • "If you can get it right, it’s exponential growth." (Lamar Tyler, 26:44)

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5. Mindset, Failure & Resilience [28:21–33:33]

• Approach to Failure:
  • "I win more than most because I fail more than most…and consistently." (Lamar Tyler, 28:21)
  • Does not view failures as endpoints, but as progress toward success:
    • "You only fail when you quit." (Lamar Tyler, 66:49)
• Moving On Quickly:
  • Vusi’s tip: "Leave the crime scene. Don’t stay there analyzing what failed—start again tomorrow."
• Importance of Community:
  • "You have to get in the community of like-minded people that celebrate you…too many times we’re trying to share the vision with people who aren’t visionary." (Lamar Tyler, 67:44)
• Managing Energy and Burnout:
  • Lamar identifies as an "ambivert", needing downtime to recharge even as a public figure.
  • Leans on networks outside his business, since both spouses are invested and sometimes need emotional backup from elsewhere.

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6. Scaling Beyond Six Figures: The Growth Mindset [33:34–46:31]

• Thinking Bigger & the Limiting Mindset:
  • The biggest mental limitation: "Not thinking big enough." (Lamar Tyler, 33:33)
  • Too many aim just for six-figure businesses, not realizing that sustainable business starts at higher revenue levels.
• Why Many Don’t Scale:
  • The comfort trap: "Around 400k to 800k, a lot of them have a major hurdle—that hurdle is comfort."
  • Team-building is often the greatest skill gap for founders moving from solopreneurs to scalable enterprises.
  • "A lot of people say, ‘I don’t want to grow further’—the team part is the hardest part." (Lamar Tyler, 43:12)
• Technical Skills Needed:
  • Shift from brute force sales to strategy, leadership, and developing the capacity to delegate and build teams.

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7. Unlocking Business Revenue: PURE Framework [47:47–53:22]

PURE stands for: Proposals, Upsells, Referrals, and Experience.

• Proposals:
  • Systematize; don’t delay or overcomplicate proposals. "A failure to follow up is costing us millions." (Lamar Tyler, 50:16)
• Upsells:
  • "It's not being salesy, it's serving. Ask the extra question—what else can you offer of value?"
  • McDonald's example: "Would you like fries with that?"
• Referrals:
  • Find the "bliss point" for your customer and embed referral asks and incentives into your process.
• Experience:
  • People pay for experience, not just the product.
  • Unforgettable story of the $11 Krispy Kreme “Big Apple” donut:
    • “At that point, I didn’t want the donut, I wanted the experience.” (Lamar Tyler, 55:27)
  • “When you establish the experience, you have to maintain the experience, because a poor experience is worse than no experience at all.” (Lamar Tyler, 60:16)

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8. Building Community and a Legacy Brand [61:16–64:33]

• Expansion of TSP:
  • From two-person operation on marriage and family, evolved to a global ecosystem for business growth.
  • Growth required shifting mindset from local to global and partnering with like-minded entrepreneurs overseas.
• Next Steps:
  • “For us, the same things our clients go through, we go through…thinking bigger meant accepting that our assignment is global.” (Lamar Tyler, 64:09)
• The Power of Community Across Borders:
  • Vusi: “The world has moved from demographics to psychographics. You may have more in common with someone in a different country, because you value the same things.” (Vousie Megwayo, 64:46)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Mindset and Scaling

• "Most people think in terms of six-figure businesses. But to be sustainable, you probably need to get closer to 500,000 just to live and start to pay yourself and other people."
  – Lamar Tyler (33:54)

• "If I have a million-dollar business, I can get punched and fall down to 500,000. With 100k, you take a punch, you're out of the game."
  – Lamar Tyler (35:37)

On Collaboration Over Competition

• "We should never look at others in our communities as competition. If you add it, nine times out of ten, you all together don’t make enough money to be competition."
  – Lamar Tyler (39:06)

On Doing Business with Your Partner

• "If you can get it right, it makes your life exponentially better and easier…what you need for a marriage is what you need for a business partnership."
  – Lamar Tyler (26:44)

On Failure and Resilience

• "You only fail when you quit."
  – Lamar Tyler (66:49)
• "Leave the crime scene. Don’t stay there analyzing what failed—start again tomorrow."
  – Vousie Megwayo (30:16)

On Purpose and Mission

• "Our mission is to work with 500 seven-figure companies, 50 eight-figure, five nine-figure, one unicorn. The mission is what keeps me moving through the hard parts."
  – Lamar Tyler (69:43)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Early Influences & Mom’s Impact: 07:35 – 10:03
• Catalyst for Starting a Business: 13:13 – 17:14
• Leaving Corporate, A Player Mindset: 17:47 – 18:03
• First 90 Days & LAO Method: 18:25 – 22:15
• Building with Your Spouse: 25:05 – 28:18
• Handling Failure: 28:21 – 33:33
• Biggest Entrepreneurial Mindset Limitation: 33:33 – 36:38
• PURE Revenue Framework: 47:47 – 53:22
• Krispy Kreme Experience Story: 53:23 – 60:16
• The Power of Community & Global Expansion: 61:16 – 64:33
• Single Idea that Mattered Most: 65:32 – 68:03

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Conclusion

Core Message:
The journey to building a multi-million-dollar business is not a straight line, nor one you walk alone. Lamar Tyler’s evolution from a dream-filled boy with no entrepreneurial blueprint to a founder of a global impact community highlights the necessity of mindset shift, relentless experimentation, partnership, resilience, and the power of community. Success is fueled by thinking bigger, moving fast, prioritizing experience, and forgiving yourself quickly when things go wrong.

Closing Reflection:
"Your vision is your own and not everyone will see it. Persevere, keep moving, connect with a community that celebrates you—and remember, you only fail when you quit."
— Lamar Tyler (66:49)

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For entrepreneurs and business builders at any stage, this episode is a blueprint for leveling up — in business, mindset, and legacy.

Transcript

[Vousie Megwayo]

Foreign.

[Dr. Tenral]

My name is Dr. Tenral from Botswana. So, you know, just a few hours ago, I was listening to this podcast titled A Time to look up. And you know, you were talking about a lot of things, and one thing that really stood out to me was, you know, this, I. This concept of the weak links that, you know, in our personal and professional networks, we tend to focus on strengthening ties with close friends or colleagues, but then ignore the weak links, those loose peripheral connections that may open unexpected doors. And I really liked how you were using your, your career to describe how chances, how chance encounters or distant acquaintances became pivotal in opening new opportunities. And this really resonated with me because sometimes I look up and I try to, to broaden my focus, especially in a world where rapid change and disruptions are constant. So now that I was looking back and, you know, resonating on my life, I then realized that, you know what, I, I always tap into my weak links and I always gain insights and opportunities and ideas that my, that I might have otherwise missed. I'm like, you know what? That, that is really, you know, a powerful thing that sometimes, you know, we, we really tend to ignore, you know, the weak links and we tend to focus on the, on the already existing ones that are just overflowing. So, yeah, I really learned a lot. You know, thank you for sharing that. And, you know, your message is very clear that, you know, success, you know, it comes from being open to growth. It comes from actively seeking new knowledge. It comes from embracing the opportunities that weak links and even broader connections offer. So I think it's one thing that people who are in, in the business sector and even in every sector that they should look up to and then embrace that thing. And I think that that concept, it can really open a lot of doors that were really difficult to open. So thanks for sharing that.

[Podcast Host]

Hello, family. There is nothing that feels more welcoming than hearing the words.

[Lamar Tyler]

Hello.

[Podcast Host]

Family. And welcome to another brand new episode of the VT Podcast. Here we talk about the ideas that matter. Oh my goodness. Mr. Temukoya, thank you very much for the work that you do, the work that you have done from the inception up until now. I can't, I can't say enough just how helpful and life changing the work that you do really is. Never really knew the work that you did on a professional basis, but it is in the how that you speak to the person you speak to your community, to your tribe that one truly sticks to the evangelism. And as a, as a good Christian has their Bible and an even better Muslim their Quran. So to attempt the VTNs requires to his good book or her good book merchandise. Mr. Ten Mukwai promised us merchandise. We need it in diaries, in books. The VTN book of all podcasts. We could say from the underdog all the way to all the way through the spirit of money, Kronos and kairos, the old money that moves different the tribe also informative new knowledge. And as you have said, and it is very true, it will transcend throughout the days of time. Because now we go back to this podcast and we sit to truly listen in on the well traveled experience that you have. And with you having said, the hundred hours that you take into rather than the hours that you sit to learn or study a subject, only to come and speak for that one hour is the true amount and value of what we are truly getting out of the written experience. So from me and everybody else, the truly unspoken gratitudes and appreciations of the work that you do for us can never truly be expressed in in a single lifetime. From me and yours, from me and Bay. Sorry to you and yours and the Liti tribe.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It'S time to take your seat at the table. Find out how with Vosite Megwayo as.

[Lamar Tyler]

We discuss ideas that matter, a catalyst for bold action.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Hello family. Hello family and welcome to another episode of Ideas that Matter plus. And here we talk about ideas that matter and that can transform your life. I can't believe we're now well over a million subscribers. It's an incredible place for us to have come to so quickly into the journey. Today I'm joined by an unbelievable human being. Now you guys know I love working with people who build other people because I think it's one thing to build yourself, especially if you come from a place where there wasn't a lot of success being modeled for you to build you is hard work, but for you to cognize what it takes to build and then build others, that's life changing stuff. And so it gives me great pleasure to introduce Lamar Tyler. We met here in Atlanta. He's hosting an incredible conference at which I'm speaking. And so I thought why not take the opportunity to have Lamar on the podcast. Hey, Lamar. Hey.

[Lamar Tyler]

Thank you for doing this, having me on. I'm excited. So.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It'S always difficult introducing somebody like you because there's so many like slashes to the things you've done, the various number of businesses that you've been in, the unbelievable, incredible journey that you've been on. And I'd like to start here with your permission.

[Lamar Tyler]

Sure.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Tell me about who Lamar was at 8 years old.

[Lamar Tyler]

Who Lamar was at 8 years old. At 8 years old, Lamar was the youngest of three sons.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

Growing up with a single mom.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

In the Washington, D.C. area. And probably around that time, I was first getting the inclinations that I was dreaming about entrepreneurship.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

Probably like the seeds, the initial seeds. Now, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that would look like. I didn't know what it would be because I didn't grow up in a family of entrepreneurs.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

So sometimes people say, well, you're doing all this. You must have grown up and see, I didn't. Which to me made the journey longer than it should have been to get to initial success. But those Cs were always there, though.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Tell me about mom.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah, my mother was a great woman, like I said, raised three. Not just three children, three sons, which is different. I want to be clear about that. Not three children, three sons, which I was the youngest of, which. And, you know, I don't know if my brothers see this or not, but I can tell you I was the best child, but I was. I was the best child, but also was the youngest child. So she really wanted to make sure I was better than them. You know what I mean? Which, you know, things turned out. It turned out correctly. That did actually happen.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Tell the truth. Were you the favorite?

[Lamar Tyler]

They would say I was. There's a little jealousy, a little bit of hate in their eyes, I think, you know, they definitely would say I was. And I think most of the older siblings say the youngest is the favorite. We have four kids and our older, you know, children say the youngest is our favorite.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I probably was. Right. But I also say I didn't give her the same amount of stress.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

You know, I just kind of watched everybody else did and said, all right, you know, I want to do that. I don't want to do that. They got in trouble for doing that. I don't want to get in that type of trouble and let me move on. But she did a great job of raising all three of us, becoming a success herself. And, you know, seeing her, she was a hard worker. So how she worked, she worked for the federal government here in the US So seeing how she worked, how she went to work to provide for myself and my brothers every day, to see how, you know, she not just worked, but she grew in her career. You know, she got her. Went back to college, got her degree when she was, you know, in round, like 40 years old or so. So I saw her doing all those things while raising three, you know, boys that were full of energy, full of, you know, spirit and all these different things, but still becoming a success. And why wasn't the entrepreneurship I modeled, you know, part of the grit, the sustainability, the hard work? I definitely can model after the work ethic. Exactly.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I love that.

[Lamar Tyler]

Exactly.

[Vousie Megwayo]

How do you, in your journey get to a point where you go, I think I want to be the guy that. That does something from nothing. How do you become the person who says, I don't want to walk into a building that exists. I want to imagine a building and build it. I don't want to walk into a building that. A business that's there. I want to imagine a business and build it.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah. Like you said, how does that happen? It was an earlier journey, and hopefully some of the people watching this can. Can, you know, connect with it. It's early journey of knowing I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to build something again. I just didn't know what that looked like. So I didn't know, like, okay, these are the first couple steps to me, I'm just trying to figure out, like, you know, what does that, you know, mean? So from a child, it might have meant, okay, me and my friend have a lawnmower. You know, I work hard, he works hard. He can draw well. So, you know, I can get the printer paper. So I got the paper, he draw it. Now we got flyers that we put in everybody's mailbox, and we're cutting grass.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Now you're in the media business.

[Lamar Tyler]

Exactly right. So literally just going like, step by step and trying to, you know, figure out, like, what that meant. And it was a lot of lessons, like, even in those earlier days, from, you know, being young to being in high school, to them being in college, eventually leaving college to start working early. But just like, path, path, path. Always while I was doing different things in my career and I was in a career that had a trajectory that was growing and moving, I still knew there was something burning inside of me. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn't know how. And really, even, like, how that initial concept of how became. You talked about the media. It was a magazine here in the States called Black Enterprise.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes.

[Lamar Tyler]

And Black Enterprise was started in the 70s by Earl Graves Sr. That's right, yeah. Because there was a lack of.

[Vousie Megwayo]

They broke a lot of stories. Black Enterprise.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes, exactly right. Because they were stories nobody was covering because they thought it wasn't important.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

But I'll never remember, like, you know, being a teenager walking past a newsstand and seeing that magazine and then reading inside the stories of entrepreneurs that looked like me, that had grown $100 million companies, billion dollar companies, and just creating a link that, hey, guess what? If they did it, I can too.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I love that.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I still didn't know how, but sometimes before you know how, you just have to know that it's possible. Then once I know it's possible, I can figure out how and the steps to actually do it.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So the interesting thing about you is there are some entrepreneurs who become entrepreneurs by default. They're like, don't have a choice. And so they start a business and they have to figure out how to make it work. You had a fledgling career.

[Lamar Tyler]

Correct.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And you made the decision to leave that and to start a business. And at the time you're doing that, you're an adult. So life is already happening to you. Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

This is both a wife and kids.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So I'm going with this.

[Lamar Tyler]

It was a real decision.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So you are at, I'm committed. I'm married. I've got, you know, other mouths I've got to feed.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And I'm willing to step away from the certainty of the paycheck to build something. I have so many questions around that, but here's the first question I have for you. The thing that drove you to want to start a business, it had to be such a burning thing that it was worth the risk. What was that? What was the thing that made you go, I'm definitely gonna do this?

[Lamar Tyler]

What it was is that I was tired of being turned down. And for years, again, I've been trying to figure out, like, what is entrepreneurship? I'm doing one thing, I'm doing another. Like, things aren't working. But it kind of came to a catalyst in the position I was in. I ran the IT department for a TV station in Washington, D.C. yes. And when they made the move as a station group to say, okay, we're late to the Internet, but we're going to go in heavy, they went in heavy. And I'll never forget, I pitched the idea and a concept to our general manager. He said yes, it took off out of, you know, there were like 25, 26 stations in the station group. And each of them had four or five, like, local regional websites based on their cities.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

A website that me and one of the team members on the team had created was number four out of like, 80 something websites. And we had no budget, we had no team and she had all the connections of people in the city that were on radio, tv, writers that were writing articles and creating content. I had built out a website on WordPress, and I was like the technical person because it was my background. I built a website and everything. And we grew it. And they didn't know how to sell it. They didn't know what to do with it. They didn't know, like, how to fit this new thing that we had. Even though it had the views, even though it had the traffic, they didn't.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Know the revenue model or monetization.

[Lamar Tyler]

They didn't know, you know, it was funny. I think about what great examples is that we would have small businesses inside the area that would call, you know, frequently, say, hey, I want to advertise on that website. And they would say, well, you know, as a, you know, station group, we cannot accept, you know, advertisements that are underneath, like a X amount might be like a $10,000 spend or something like that. And we're telling them, like, okay, well, we have 10 people that want to spend 5,000. Why don't we just take that money, get it on reoccurring, and let them spend 5,000 every month?

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's a good business.

[Lamar Tyler]

But they, they couldn't do it. I think part of was not that they couldn't, is that they didn't want to.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I hear you.

[Lamar Tyler]

And as I was pitching ideas because I've been. I've been an idea guys. I was pitching ideas in our meetings with the general manager and leadership team because I ran a department every, you know, morning about what we could do. They had a scarcity mindset and a poverty mindset, I call it. And what that looked like, I would say, hey, we can do, you know, this, this and this. We can get these musicians from the city to come in. We can do this at lunchtime. Because everyone in Washington, D.C. knows federal employees don't work during lunchtime. During lunchtime. Add that little part in case they watching during lunchtime. I paused, right? Pause on purpose during lunchtime, call me. So. Exactly. So we said, hey, you know, we'll create this content for them so they can watch it, they can stream it. And I would get answers like, well, we don't have enough team to do that.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I say, well, like, the newsroom is full of, you know, producers. It's full of talent. It's full of, you know, photographers that can run out and shoot video. And we don't even need all of that. Give me, like one person, like the two or three of us on this team and we can make it happen. They would say we don't have the money to bring in talent. I said, we are the leading TV station in Washington D.C. that's crazy. If we give people the visibility, they will come. They don't need the money to come. It's just like every excuse not to do the thing. When I knew the thing could be successful and I'd already proven success.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow, I have so many questions there. But, but here's the one that's at the top of my mind. So there's something about navigating an environment where you have vision to see what can happen, but you don't have the authority to make that thing manifest. Right. So you've got to lean on your powers of persuasion, et cetera. And when that doesn't work, how do you not just become despondent to go, you know what, I'll just be. Because there's somebody watching this who's in that space and who's going, let me just do my job right?

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Let me just do. This is what they pay me to do. This is what's on the job description. Let me just do that. How do you still keep the fire and the enthusiasm and the foresight for what you think is possible?

[Lamar Tyler]

Well, it was easy on the one side to keep doing my job because I had a wife and four kids. So I tell when people are like 22, 23 and they don't have like responsibilities, that's the best time. Yeah, that's what I tell them. I said, this is the time to take every risk, to do all the things when all you have depending on you is you.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

But you know what I did is I'll never forget, I went home to my wife one day and I said, you know, I'm no longer going to give them my million dollar ideas. Want to create our own million dollar business. And that was when we started thinking like, what can we do, what can we create, what can we mold? But at the same time, vousy on the other end, I didn't stop showing up at work. I tell people all the time that A players are A players. Meaning that, hey, if you think you want to be a A player in your business, mostly I know the A players in the business were A players when they worked in corporate. They worked jobs before. You can't go from being a C player working in corporate to being an A player in your own business. The laws of life don't work like that.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I'm getting goosebumps. I'M going to copy that. And I'm not paying license, so. Good.

[Lamar Tyler]

Let's end this now.

[Vousie Megwayo]

A players are a players, regardless of the context.

[Lamar Tyler]

Definitely.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So whether or not Michael Jordan is playing for the Bulls or he's playing baseball, he's an A player.

[Lamar Tyler]

Exactly.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And he's going to show up the same.

[Lamar Tyler]

Exactly.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And so good.

[Lamar Tyler]

And too many times I see people that have the mindset and they think that, okay, because I'm working for someone else, you know, I can just. I'm not giving them my all, but if I. But if I had the opportunity to do it on myself, I would so good. You can't flip the switch like that. And the people I found that are highly successful are highly successful at whatever they do.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Love that.

[Lamar Tyler]

So you.

[Vousie Megwayo]

You leave. You start the business.

[Lamar Tyler]

I start the business. Yeah.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And tell me about. This is my favorite question to ask entrepreneurs. Tell me about the first 90 days in your business.

[Lamar Tyler]

The first 90 days in the business. My wife and I, we said, what's something that we can do, we're passionate about? We said, let's create. This is 2007. We said, let's create a blog back then. It's not now. Like, we had heard that maybe somebody had made money one day somehow. Not a vlog. Yeah. So it was like the very.

[Vousie Megwayo]

This is the world tree. WordPress.

[Lamar Tyler]

Very. Yes. This is very early days. Yeah, we start on MySpace. Like, that's like Facebook was not there.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Started where?

[Lamar Tyler]

You know, I'm older than I look out here. Right.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Don't repeat that.

[Lamar Tyler]

So. So this is pre Facebook. But we said, what's something we're passionate about? And we said, relationships. We said, what's something that people will talk about? Because even though we could create the content, I can write, but I'm not like, you know, writers. I say, like, writers write even if no one's reading.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's a true story.

[Lamar Tyler]

If I'm writing, someone has to be reading this stuff, else I'm gonna stop writing.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

So we said it was something that people are passionate about, they want to talk about. We said relationships. Then we drill down and niche down relationships in the African American community. How we viewed marriage, how others outside of our community viewed our marriages. So we started a website. In the first 90 days, look like me telling my wife, ronnie, I don't know what's going to happen with this, but let's create it as if it's going to become a real business so that when it does, and if it does become a real business, we don't have to backtrack and set the foundation, do everything different. So when we got the domain, we got the real domain, we got the hosting, we got the real web hosting. For, like, everything that we did, we acted as if one day it would take off so that everything was already in position, even though we didn't know whether it would work or not. And what it looked like in the beginning was, you know, me and her just writing, you know, maybe one or two articles a week. And then as, you know, traction grew and more people came that went from, you know, two articles a week to three, three articles a week to five. And then what I love is that it built community. And I love community. As we built community, people started to come in and then they started to ask us, can I write an article for you? And literally, like that first 90 days just looked at us like, trying to get the foundation down. And what I tell people all the time, a lot of people can't get started in their first 90 days because they're stuck in perfectionist.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I tell like, like, if you put them against perfectionist, I can be the perfectionist any day of the week.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because things will never be perfect.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

And what I've learned, I call it lao. No matter what you do, you have to launch it, you have to analyze it, you have to optimize it and launch, analyze, optimize.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I like that.

[Lamar Tyler]

And it doesn't matter who you are, at what size, at what scale. So what happens is in that first 90 days, while I have the site out having ugly logo, having ugly website, I don't even like to show it to people anymore. But, but the stuff is hard to look at now. But I got it to market, I launched it, then I was able to analyze it and say, okay, are people reading this? Are they engaging with this content? What are the articles that they leave comments on? What's the ones that they scroll right by? And then I can optimize and go make more content like that. I can optimize it. And, you know, we ended up making 3, 4 variations of the website. 3, 4 variations of the logo. And meanwhile, while I'm doing all of that, there's somebody that's just stuck on trying to get the perfect logo, trying to get the first perfect article. And that perfectionism never happens. And it, it hinders too many entrepreneurs from really growing to the stage that they should.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I do you, I wonder, do you think people are perfectionists or do you think they just use that as a, like, A clutch to just go, I need it to be perfect. So until it's perfect, I'm not going to pull the trigger knowing full well that perfectionism as a state just doesn't exist. What do you think that's good?

[Lamar Tyler]

You know, probably what it boils down to, I never thought about like that probably would boil down to is fear.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's it.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because behind that perfectionist, a lot of time is fear of rejection and judgment of judgment of what happens if I put it out there and nobody reads it. What happens if I create the product and nobody buys it.

[Vousie Megwayo]

You said something which is so profound. You said, if I would look back at that, it would be embarrassing.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

As you said it, I vividly pictured logos of my own companies and went, yeah, I can't believe we had, we had a lion on fire.

[Lamar Tyler]

And none of the animal rights people came after you.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I'm sure Simba was like, what are you doing? You know, but, but, but the point is you were, you were, you were honest with where you were.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And you showed up with this, the phase you were at and the best you were at at that phase. I just want to, I need. You need to help me with the mindset of this. So your first iteration, you're at this business. You're going. There aren't yet the signs that this thing can be a commercial success. You're not getting the record news, but you've got this article that you're writing and you're going from one paragraph to the next paragraph because this is literally where entrepreneurs get stuck. I've got to write this article, but the dream is to build this media business and often can't connect the article and one paragraph to the next paragraph with this media empire they're trying to build. How did you disconnect from the stress of building this really big thing to just focus on the detail of writing this article in this moment?

[Lamar Tyler]

You know, what we look for oftentimes was confirmation and confirmation. I think sometimes, especially when we. We're starting out, we're looking for the wrong confirmation. Meaning that the confirmation has to mean I sold a hundred thousand the first month, or whatever it was. The confirmation for me might have been, hey, five people commented on this article. Somebody said this article changed the way they're going to talk to their husband. Somebody else said, hey, you know, I love this and I'm going to share it with a friend. Like, those levels of confirmation was enough to keep just moving. Because at the same time as we're doing this, I had a demanding 9 to 5, as I said, run an IT department. My wife had a demanded 9 to 5 as a project manager for IBM. We had four small kids under age of 11. I had an hour and a half commute to and from work each day. So as we're coming home, when I'm getting home, she's already stressed out from work, from the kids, she's had them all leave. It's already dinner time. We go from dinner time to bath time, bath time to bedtime. And I can't start building a business till 9, 10 o' clock at night, until 1, 2 in the morning. So to do that right, it's not always going to be like, hey, every action I take has a direct result into the bank account. But it's small signals. And those signals were we could see impact. And it wasn't, you know, I was about to get divorced. We didn't get divorced because I read this one article. But again it was like, hey, I shared this, hey, like this made me think. And people showing up every day to get more of it showed we want the right path and that's all we need. Like once we knew we're on the right path, then we would keep going.

[Vousie Megwayo]

One of the things I love about your answers is you use we a lot.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Tell me a bit about. It's hard building a business.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's infinitely harder building it with your life partner because you're doing life and doing commerce and figuring it all out as it goes. Tell me, tell me high level, how did you guys like strike the balance? Maybe. Let me, let me, let me, let me personalize it, right? So one of the things I get at home is I, I get the, I get this look. And this look is like if you ask me one more balance sheet question, you have not bought me flowers in six months. Take me out on a date. I am not talking about depreciation schedules right now. How did you, how did, how did you, how did you or how do you still. Yeah, right. Do the balance between this is you and my doing lifetime and this is you and my building for our children in our legacy time. How do you balance that?

[Lamar Tyler]

It's definitely a balancing act as you said. Right. And I think everyone has to think like anything we balance has ebbs and flows. So there's sometimes when like, hey, we're right in lockstep and everything is great is sometimes when I have to lean in more at the office or she has to lean in more in the office and the other one has to lean in more at home. But most of it has really just been over the years trying to get on the same page, the same accord. And even if we can't, making sure that we don't allow those cracks and those signs of an issue being there to hopefully flow down to either our children or our team.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Gotcha.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because if they see that right, then boom. A lot of times people see the cracks, they go into the cracks and they try to exploit them to make them happen. But over the years, what we've learned is that, hey, we have totally different strengths. Because one of the things you talked about, you said, hey, building a business with your spouse is exponentially more difficult or harder. Something to that degree. But if you can get it right, it makes your life exponentially better and easier. What we say, it's not additional, it's like exponential growth. Right? Because what that looks like the same things that you need to be successful in a marriage or relationship. Same thing you need to be successful with a business partner. We need to be able to communicate. We need to be able to have the same goals and the same mission moving in the same direction. I have to be able to trust you, like all the same things you need in a relationship. But the difference, I tell people all the time is that me and you could say, hey, we want to do something together. Let's become business partners right now. But the one wild card is life. And I could say, hey, you know, my youngest child is about to graduate high school. You know, we're about to be empty nesters. In the next five years, my goals for life could totally change which impact our business together.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Good, good.

[Lamar Tyler]

Right?

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's good.

[Lamar Tyler]

You can have a totally different approach, but hopefully with, you know, romantic relationship, like our personal goals are moving in the same direction too. So our business like wraps around that. I got that now. Again, like, it makes it tough because there are stressors that happen in the business that definitely like cascade down and affect, you know, our personal lives as well. When things get tough in the business, that makes it tougher in our personal lives and relationships. But the thing we always try to remember is that we're on the same team.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's so good. Have you ever failed?

[Lamar Tyler]

Oh, yes, all the time. I tell people all the time I win more than most because I fail more than most and consistently. Like failed launches, failed businesses. You know, a lot of times when people ask me like, like tell me, you know, five times you failed or four times you failed, it's hard for me to think about them because a lot of times I just don't process them as failures. To me, it's just part of the process. So I know if I want to launch, let's say we have a new product or something we want to take to market. You know, one of the things I already know is that we have to figure out not just what to sell, but how to sell it.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

And figuring out how to sell it, most likely the first way we launch is not going to be the way to actually launch. And again, that's like another keep talking about mindset. That's another mindset block. I see a lot of entrepreneurs where they think that, hey, you know, again, they're stuck in this perfection loop. They take a long time to get the first thing out, and then if the first thing doesn't work, then they feel like they've failed. Failed. And they feel like a failure. I'm looking at it from the standpoint of, hey, like, it may be the fourth thing or the 20th thing, I don't know. But the faster I can move through the cycle, the faster I can find out what it is. And I tell people, like. Like, I don't know whether for me, for clients, you know, no matter who it is, like, I don't know what the thing is, that's going to be the thing to be successful. And I can't dictate that. I can't dictate if it's the fourth trial or the 20th trial. The only thing I'm in control of is how fast I move through those trials.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So I just want to control that part of the process. But I don't process failure in that way. Again, it's just part of the process. So let me just get through the process as fast as possible so I can find success.

[Vousie Megwayo]

One of the expressions we have in our firm is, is leave the crime scene. So what. What that means is if something fails, it's a crime scene. Leave. Don't stay there. Because what we do, especially professionals, is we love staying at the crime scene. And now you are CSI and you're analyzing who shot who and where, but no matter how accurate the analysis is, it's dead.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's not going to come back. Leave the crime scene.

[Lamar Tyler]

Right.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So let's. Let's start again tomorrow, and let's try something new. You. You are high energy. We had our call online and our call was recorded. And immediately my head of marketing and research were looking at our call, preparing for my session for tomorrow, and they're like, wow, he's got A lot of energy. I said, yeah, I felt that too. And then I meet you and I'm like, wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

Do you.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Do you ever get overwhelmed? Do you ever get despondent? Do you ever just, like, shut down and just. I have nothing to give anymore. Does that ever happen to you?

[Lamar Tyler]

I definitely get overwhelmed because. Because what we do, the thing I try to make sure people know is that entrepreneurship is not easy.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

I feel like social media has done a disjustice. That's why I love your content so much.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Preach it.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because it's very realistic. Social media's done a disjustice where we think, the first thing I launch, I'm going to become a millionaire. Not even if people really knew the numbers of how few people actually make these millions and grow. Seven figure business things like this is not what we see on Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, except, etc. Amen. So it definitely gets overwhelming in growing a business, running a business, building teams, right? All the parts and pieces that go into trying to get from, you know, zero to wherever you're trying to go to. I think the thing with me that many people don't know is that I sway between introvert and extrovert. I'm ambivert. So Lamar, in these conversations, Lamar on stage is big. The people that meet me on stage are so disappointed in real life because they're like, make me laugh, tell me a joke, like, I want to hang out. And I was kind of like, yeah, like, Lamar, what do you think about this idea? I'm like, it could work, you know, and then the people that know me as Lamar and not the speaker, when they come to an event, they're like, who is this? Who is this dude? Like, I didn't. Because I'm the same guy that when I'm not at my event, I can sit in a room and not say a word and get everything I need without having to let you know that I'm there.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I love it.

[Lamar Tyler]

So I definitely have more quiet times than times when I'm on. So in those times, most times I'm going inside a lot and making sure I get filled up. And then also having a network again, using the word community. Having a network community of people that I can lean on that are going the same path that I'm going. Like, the importance of that, that know what it's like to build what we're building. Just know what it's like to have people depending on you. Not just your family now, but other families as you, so that you Know, there are times when you need somebody to just talk to. And this is where that part of being in business with my partner, like, impacts it because she's living it as well. When I need somebody to talk to, she's like, I don't want to talk about that. Like, we've been talking about that all day at work. I've been. She's going through it at the same time. So I have to have a community outside people that I can connect to, talk to, and then sometimes get things off my chest so I can process, they can help me process so I.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Can get back in the game without question. You are for sure top 1% of people operating in the space of helping entrepreneurs build value. And I wonder from your vantage, what do you see as the biggest limitation mentally that people have in terms of building and actually scaling their businesses?

[Lamar Tyler]

Not thinking big enough.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Is it really that? Or tell me more.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah, I think it's not thinking big enough because most of the entrepreneurs I talk to here in the U.S. for example, when I ask them, you know, what do you want to build? How do you want to build? One of the first things they say is, I want to build a six figure business, right? I want to get you $100,000. What they don't even realize is that $100,000 in your business is not like $100,000 on your job.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

So what I'm telling is like, go deeper there. We're starting off with the wrong mindset already about what growth looks like. And I'm telling them that, hey, in order to build a sustainable business, that takes a Punch. In the US, nine out of 10, you know, in the black community, nine out of 10 black entrepreneurs are solopreneurships, meaning that only that person works in the business. So what I'm telling them is that, hey, when you build that solopreneurship, and most of them build because, hey, you know, I don't like working for this person. I want to do my own thing. I want freedom. I want time, freedom, financial freedom. But you've just left the job and created a new job. But the problem with the new job voice is that the old job had two weeks of vacation. But now I'm an entrepreneur on my own. I don't have no vacation support. I didn't like working 50 hours on the old job, but in the new job by myself, 80. Now I'm working 80 hours, right? The old job, I had benefits, I had healthcare, I had different things. The new job I may not have Any of this. So a lot of times we don't know because we don't really know the numbers and what that looks like. We know these things and words and terms that we've heard, hey, I want to be a six figure business. Not knowing that, hey, you know, to be sustainable and really just to be healthy, we probably need to get closer to 500,000 just so that you can live and you can start to pay yourself and other people. Then I tell them all the time like 100k can be a milestone. Okay, that validates the initial idea. You know, I might have product market, I might know what I sell, how I sell it and who I sell it to. But we need to get it bigger so that you can take a punch. They say in the US the first, you know, four months of COVID like a large amount of black businesses went out of business. Like they're just back on the sidelines, work for somebody else, not working, doing whatever it is. It's because in my estimation, too many of them are too small. And when you run a 100,000, $200,000 business and you take a punch, you don't get back up, you get punched out of the game. If I have a million dollar business, I can get punched and fall down to 500,000. If I have a $10 million business, I might get punched and go down to 5 million. And it's going to be some things that have to change and shift, but I'm still in the game. So we have to build just big enough to stay in the game. So when I talk about the fact like number one, I don't think most people think big enough since they're thinking in a framework of success as a six figure business, they create the frameworks of a six figure business, which means they'll always be trapped in a six figure business. Because a lot of them, as I talk to them, we're looking at, okay, you have this business set up, but you know, and I'll say, what's your goal for this year? They may say, okay, my goal is to go from 100,000 to 250,000. I said, what if instead of 250,000 we said let's go to 2.5 million. Instead of that, what if we went to 25 million? What would have to change? And then one of the first things they say vousy is well, if I did that, I would have to get someone else to do what I do.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

Bingo. Like now we're starting to think bigger. What else would have to happen. Why? I'd have to spend money on marketing. Well, I'd have to, you know, get these operational pieces in. I might have to look for different types of client and different markets that I can move into. But if we're thinking too small, our brain never even opens up to think about the things that. That lead to large business growth. We think like a small business, so we have a small business until we're out of business.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Man, I have been absolutely mutilated on Twitter for saying exactly what you just said. So I'm glad you said it and come after you now. And the reason I'm saying that is because it. It seems in particular amongst our people, it's like a disease that just won't go away. It's like, we can't treat this cancer, right? This. This idea that small is all we're capable of.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right. And in fact, if you. If you're one of us and you aspire for anything larger than small, we have words that describe you, and they're not words of flattery. Right? We start talking about how big you think you are and how much better you think you are and etc. Etc. But when we observe it in other communities, we don't. We don't have the same reaction. We're like, okay, that makes sense. You know, they scale their business 10x in 5 years. Makes perfect sense. Where, in your estimation, do you think that mindset comes from? Let me tell you why I'm asking this question, because there is absolutely no way all of us across the world, no matter the continent, you find us in Southern North America, Africa, Europe, we have exactly this mindset. Where does it come from?

[Lamar Tyler]

Oh, that's a good question. That's deep. I feel like it comes from us being broken apart. Right. And what I love now is that I feel like for one of the first times, if not the first time, like, we're trying to piece this thing back together. It was like our conversation we had before, we were talking about, like, how can we link, Like, I want communities. We have to link the things together because we've been separated apart. And that mentality, I think, has led to a scarcity mentality where we think that there's not enough success for all of us. I tell people all the time that they should never look at other people in their communities as competition. Because I said, if you add it, nine times out of ten, all of you together, you don't make enough money to be competition.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's a true story.

[Lamar Tyler]

Like. Like. Like you could Add, you know, all these people, there's. Okay, even if they have, let's say they have, you know, $10 million a year businesses, you put 10 of them together, they making $100 million a year. Whatever industry that's in, that's not even scratching the pinky. Not even the fingernail of the pinky of that actual industry. So instead of thinking we're competition, what if we said, how can we collaborate? Collaboration over competition. How can we get together so now we can go after bigger jobs, bigger contracts. But it's just been ingrained in us not to work together like that. But I do see things changing. I think the world is changing. There's a drawing now. We want to learn more about each other. There's a drawing now where influence from Nigeria is permeating all across the world. Influence from South Africa is permeating all across the world. Right. US Culture is all across the world. London, like, you know, so now we have this new interest. Now there's an interest here where we want to travel to all these places where before we never could have imagined travel. Not because the destination wasn't a great destination, but because what we were told about the destination, that's good. And I think that's starting to change.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's good. So you're talking to me and I'm an entrepreneur and I'm stuck at that six figure. I'm the 100,000 and. And I aspire for the million and the 10 million. What are the changes I would need to make? Yeah. For me to be able to move from where I'm at to where I'm aspiring to go.

[Lamar Tyler]

Sure. I tell most people that, like six figures trying to get to seven. What I feel like it boils down to are a few things. Number one is traffic. Like, do you have enough people? Right. Lead generation. So if I have a storefront that could be like, literally people coming into doors every day. If I have a website, there's enough people landing on the website. Because what I find in that, in that lane is people that are good at selling whatever they have. They have great products and great services. They just don't have enough people to actually see the products and services. And then number one, once they see them, do they have a good mechanism to actually convert those leads into customers? So that's. That's the big piece. Also around the top of that, once we get closer to a million, that's when, like, a lot of solopreneurs stumble because they have to start building teams. And I can be great at Creating a product. I can be great at creating a service. That does not mean I know how to lead people, operate people and teams.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So now it means like, hey, am I going to take on the burden? Right. Which is for some. Right. The adventure for others of building that muscle so that I can develop something I haven't had before. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs that have never led anyone in their corporate careers before.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

So that's a whole new muscle they have to build. I talk to entrepreneurs that have never had a job. So with me, a lot of what I learned around leadership is what I modeled from the leaders that I worked under.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So good.

[Lamar Tyler]

What if you never worked on anyone?

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's so good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So it literally, you know, has to build another muscle. Back to the mindset, conversation. The other thing that's tricky, getting into those six figures, I tell my clients this all the time is that around that 400, 500, 6, 7, $800,000, a lot of them have a major hurdle, and that hurdle is comfort, because that's where they start to get comfortable. Now, it doesn't mean that, hey, I have my dream home, but it means I have a nice home. I'm going to have my dream car.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I got a nice car.

[Lamar Tyler]

I'm riding clean. You know, I feel. I feel good when I get in and people. People look at me. Someone may be, you know, snapping a video or taking pictures.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So do you have enough internal fortitude that you say, okay, I'm living comfortable. I may have made more than. I may work for somebody else, but I still want to go further.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So good.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I think that part is the internal thing. When I see people that go from six figures to seven, seven to eight, they have an internal drive that's not driven just about the money.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's so good.

[Lamar Tyler]

It's something deeper that they want. Is something deeper that they want to build. It's like a mission behind it. There's something there because they already, for the most part, again, live how they want to live. They're taking the trips they want to take, but they know they want to just drive bigger.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So mindset, attitude.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And. And at a technical skills level, is there anything that you think, like, if you're at six figures, these are the skills you should be investing in getting.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah. Like I said, one of it is you have to begin building yourself as a leader, because as you're going, and you have to master it all, but you need to start building that muscle.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because as you're going, what I'VE learned like in that six figure lane. It's a lot about again, sales conversions. Can I get the people to me, can I convert them into my product or service? You have to be a good salesperson, right? Because even if you bring other people in later, you know, they need to know what you know. So if I'm working alone, right, I have to be able to sell people on the idea. The concept that I have. As I'm starting to get closer to seven figures and I build people in, then like most of my seven figure entrepreneurs are great salespeople. But again, now we have to become better leaders. Now they have to become more strategic about how they spend their time and how their team spends time. Now it's less about, you know, I tell people all the time they can get to 100,000, 500,000 just by hustle. I can just brute force my way there of just doing all the things by myself all day, every day. But as we grow larger, as now, like the strategy comes into place. Are we doing annual planning? Are we, you know, breaking those annual goals down into quarterly goals, quarterly down into monthlies, monthlies and the weekly, you know, like, are we delegating and handing things off of our plate onto other people's plate so that they can execute? And then are we developing not just employees, but leaders out of the employees so that they can grow? It becomes a different skillset. Now a lot of people get stuck here, so. And a lot of people say, I don't want to grow further. Because what I find is that a lot of people tell me the team part is the hardest part. They say I can, as long as I can sell, I can sell things. I can bake the cookies, I can build the homes, I can do whatever it is. But the team part is hard because they get into this cycle with team where they hire someone and they're so excited. I have my first employee, I'm so excited. They want to change everything, be with me forever. And then it doesn't work.

[Vousie Megwayo]

True story.

[Lamar Tyler]

And then that person, you know, they get, they get people and, and oftentimes we hire the wrong way as well. Because what happens is we hire technicians to take this part off of me. I do this every day. I want you to do it instead. And now we have a team of technicians. And I tell folks, now we're doing work, it's just a different type of work. So before where I was doing the thing, now I have somebody else doing the thing. But they're asking me questions, everything about questions every day. About the thing that they do.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I get burnt out from answering the questions. What I'm thinking is, if they're going to ask me these questions over and over, then I might as well do it myself.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because I'm looking at the money, I'm paying them, sometimes more than I pay myself. But I'm asking these same questions. Why can't you get it? Because I'm doing 20 things. I just want you to do just one thing. Just one thing.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

But the problem is because we're trying to build from the bottom up instead of the top down. So instead of saying, hey, how can I get these technicians? And then realizing that they still need someone to lead them, to nurture them, to onboard, to train, how can I get a leader that can then build a team of technicians beneath them? And if I get a leader that can build that team, now I'm not talking to all the technicians, I'm just talking to the leader. The leader then is saddled with making sure they get the results, making sure they drive the team, making sure they nurture and lead the team. A lot of things I may not have time to do because I'm trying to look at the overall vision and grow the overall business.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And the only way the business can afford a leader at that level is if you're willing to accelerate its rate of growth to cover those costs. Right?

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes. You know, it's funny, we've been having this conversation about fast cash. And a lot of times when people think of the words fast cash, they think of it as a negative thing. It's a scam. It's like, what are you trying to do? But, you know, it made me realize we've been talking a lot of entrepreneurs over the last year. Like businesses need fast cash. And we have a goal where we might say, hey, by the end of this year, I want to get to, you know, I'm at 500,000 when I get to 5 million. But what I've noticed and what I've been telling is that that's your, you know, 12 month longer goal. But you need a fast cash goal in the middle of that. And oftentimes that fast cash helps you get to the longer cash. And I'll explain, I'll ask them, okay, you want to give 500,000 to 5 million, what would that take? Well, I need to increase my ad spend and do my advertising. How much do you need to increase your ad spend? Well, if I had an extra $5,000 a month, that could bring in the sales. I Need to have my $5 million year. Well, I say, well, okay, before we focus on the 5 million, let's focus on the 5,000. Because then if we can focus on the 5,000, you have what you need to move forward. People say, well, I could, you know, grow to $10 million if I had this leader on the team. How much don't cost you for the leader? Or maybe it cost me 8,000amonth. Well, the fast cash number is 8,000amonth. How can we unlock that? And most of us have it in the business, it's just locked up. When I say locked up, what I mean is we haven't pulled the levers, right? A lever. You know, if we pull a lever, it's a small, you know, gear mechanism that's going to have a maximum or major output.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I like that.

[Lamar Tyler]

So when I look, there are people that send out proposals, but they don't send them out properly. It's people that do proposals. And it's like four levels I like to talk about. If I can explain them, go for it, right? There are people that send out proposals. That's the first lever. And what they do is oftentimes they send out proposals for things they don't have to send proposals for. About 30% of the people I talk to are speaking with people and saying, I'm gonna send a proposal. When people don't need a proposal, all they need is the price.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Oh, man, that is so good. So you share the other three. Why would they say. And I know this cause I've suffered it, but I'm gonna ask the question anyway. Why would you say that? Why would you say. Why would you invent more admin for you to do? The thing that the person on the other side of the phone is already.

[Lamar Tyler]

Wanting to do most time is confidence or lack of confidence in pricing. So I don't have confidence in my pricing. So let's get on the phone. When I get on the phone, when a person gets on the phone in today's age, by the time someone gets on the phone, they've done 90% of their research.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's good.

[Lamar Tyler]

When I walked in the room, you told me what I feel like I know you exactly. Because I've been watching all the. So if I want someone to fix the door in my home, the same thing. I've looked up all the reviews, I've done everything. When I get on the phone, I want to know one thing. What is the price? But when I get on the phone, I have to talk to you for 30 minutes. After answer all these questions and at the very end when I finally say, okay, here comes the price, you tell me, well, let me get together a proposal. And then I say, okay, how long is it going to take? You say two to three days. I know that that is a lie and I will not get that proposal. Two, three days. But I play along and then two, three days turns in two or three weeks. And when I ask the entrepreneurs why aren't you sending their proposal out, It's a few things happen again, they don't have confidence in pricing. So I'm afraid that if I send it out and it's too low, I'm not making the money I should make. I'm afraid if I send this too high, I'm not going to get the job. So I just don't send it. I procrastinate, put it off and then when I send it two or three weeks later, I don't follow up.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Love it.

[Lamar Tyler]

When I say why you don't follow up? Like what's going on? They say, well, I feel bad because I sent it late. Late. So it's literally a cycle that goes around and around. So we say first, like do you even need to be doing a call? If not, can we just add a pricing on our website somewhere so the person has the ability to pay? If we do, let's systemize our products and services so that we already know if I'm talking to and you tell me this is what you need. I have a template, I have spreadsheets, hey, they need this, this, it's going to be this many labor hours and I can give you a price then, or I can do it very quickly within 24 hours. Get that to you. And then our follow up processes should not be manual, they should be automated.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Love that.

[Lamar Tyler]

So how can we have systems where emails, text messages, no matter what it is, needs to go out can go out automatically because a failure to follow up is costing us millions.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Love that. So that's the first level.

[Lamar Tyler]

That's the first one.

[Vousie Megwayo]

What are the other three?

[Lamar Tyler]

The second one and I call them pure. Pure for people that are watching, remember? Right. So the first proposals. Second is upsells.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right.

[Lamar Tyler]

If I go to McDonald's anywhere in the world and I say, hey, I'd like a Big Mac, the first question going to ask me is would you like fries and a drink with that? Like would you like to make it a combo?

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes.

[Lamar Tyler]

They might change the language.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

But they're going to ask me those questions and, and by Asking that one question, McDonald's makes billions of dollars in extra revenue. But what I find is that I'm talking to entrepreneurs in 8 out of 10 people, 9 out of 10 people are not asking that one additional question. Hey, you're buying this. Would you like this to go along with it? And a lot of times they think, hey, I don't want to be salesy. But it's not sales, is serving. I love it because oftentimes the other thing that you're offering serves that person at a higher level. And just by asking that one question, we can make more money. The third one is referrals. A lot of service based businesses I speak to, I say, how do you get new clients? 90% of the hands will go up and they'll say, referrals. I'll say, well, do you have a referral system? Hands go down, I'm leaving hands. And this is the thing. In food service, they have something called the bliss point. And what the bliss point is, right? Like the food industry created and it's like the perfect moment when someone is, you know, drinking a beverage or they're eating a food and at their happiest level.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Love it.

[Lamar Tyler]

So, so here in the States, they got these potato chips called lay's, right? And I love lay's plain potato chips. And if I have a lay's plain chip, it's the right amount of crispiness that when I bite into it, it just snaps, breaks. Has the right amount of saltiness. I'll make you 100 tasting right now. I'll make you 100 with this story. The right amount of saltiness, it all comes together, same thing. I'm a Coca Cola guy, right? We're in Atlanta. I love Coca Cola, the home of Atlanta. A whole cola here. So with a Coca Cola, it has to be fresh, right? I need like the bubbles in the fizz. More importantly than fresh, it has to be what?

[Vousie Megwayo]

Cold.

[Podcast Host]

Cold.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

Right when I drink it, that's the bliss point. When I have that chip, if I have that lay's chip and it's.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So you can hear the.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah, exactly. Right when I'm eating that lay's chip, if the chip is salty but it's soggy, it's not the same.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes.

[Lamar Tyler]

If the Coke, right, it's fresh, but it's warm, it's not the same. So in our business, we have to figure out what is the bliss point. What is the time when that customer is at their happiest level, which for some could be right when they purchase, depending on what it is for some, it might not be till 30 days later once they actually use it.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So good.

[Lamar Tyler]

And you know, for a clothing or boutique, it might be once the person wears it and they get compliments. Right. It's different for every business. But A, we have to figure out what the bliss point is. And then B, beyond the bliss point, then we have to figure out, how can I automatically, systematically, every single time, every single customer, meet them at the bliss point and then ask for the referral? And not just ask for a referral, but how can I incentivize you for referring people to me and then incentivize the person that comes in? So it's a win for both you and them.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So it keeps that wheel turning.

[Lamar Tyler]

Exactly. It creates the flywheel.

[Vousie Megwayo]

What's the E?

[Lamar Tyler]

The eat is my favorite. The E is experience. And if I could tell a brief story, a few years ago, one of my daughters turned 16 years old, said, dad, I want to go to.

[Vousie Megwayo]

How old are you kids?

[Lamar Tyler]

Man, oh, man, I'm an old man. I told you, I'm 24. Hey, Black don't crack. So we go to New York. She wants to go to New York City, right? So we're in Times Square, and Times Square is lit up at nighttime like it's the daytime, super bright. And right outside of our window is a donut shop called Krispy Kreme.

[Podcast Host]

Indeed.

[Lamar Tyler]

Krispy Kreme is amazing. It's great and it's lit up. It's their flagship store. My daughter says, dad, can we go down? So it's her birthday weekend. I say, sure, let's go. So I take my two youngest daughters down, and as we're walking into the door, the line is backed up. It's like a 20 minute wait at 11pm at night to get donuts.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

Now, anyone that's ever seen a Krispy Kreme? I had one knows that Krispy Kreme are best when they're hot.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's right.

[Lamar Tyler]

So we're waiting in line and inside of it, they're selling merchandise. People are buying Krispy Kreme. I'm like, who needs a donut T shirt? They buying T shirts. They buying hats. They have like stadium seating that looks like a donut box so that people can just eat the hot donut right there. There's a window that has a conveyor belt. And on a conveyor belt, they have a glazed waterfall where little naked donuts are just going down the conveyor belt getting drizzled with the glaze. You're gonna be hungry after this. We're eating after this. So we're seeing all this. But the amazing thing is, as we stood in the back of that line, I heard a guy at the counter yell out, ladies and gentlemen, we just sold another Big Apple donut. And everybody made some noise. And I'm like, this is interesting. And about another five minutes, we move up a little closer. And he said, ladies and gentlemen, we just sold another Big Apple donut. Everybody make some noise. And people clapped. And even though I couldn't even see up to the counter what was going on, there was one thing in my mind. And the one thing in my mind is, what is a Big Apple donut? And how can I get one? And at that point, vousy, it was not about the donut because I didn't know what the donut tasted like. So I didn't necessarily want the donut. What I wanted, intrinsically, was that experience.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's a true story.

[Lamar Tyler]

So I get all the way up to the counter. And as I get up to the counter, you know, as a young lady helped me and I said, hey, you know, my daughters want. You know, because kids eat all kind of nasty, sour things and weird. They just eat crazy. So they got what they want. I said, I want one of those Big Apple donuts. So she got the Big Apple donut for me. You know, I paid everything, and then she just slid across the table. So I slid it back, and I was like, I don't want this. Like, because I didn't. She was under the mistake that I wanted the donut. I didn't want the donut. I wanted the experience. So she didn't want to do it. She asked the guy next door, like, hey, you know, would you mind doing the whole thing? And I realized that this is the guy I heard the entire time. So he said, sure, I'll do it. He said, ladies and gentlemen, we just sold another Big Apple donut. Makes a noise, people clapped and everything, and I got what I needed. So I went back across the street to the hotel, opened it up. You know, the first thing I did was what? I took video. I'm a social media guy. I'm a digital marketer, right? So we just don't eat stuff, right? We gotta film it, we gotta curate it. I said, I might need this later. This is a great story, right? We're going through, like, collecting stories. This is a great story. So I videotaped it. And as I videotaped it, right? And I tell a story, you know, different places, I Speak. The number one question people always have is like, how much did it cost? And what I tell them is that a regular glazed donut at that Krispy Kreme store cost roughly about $2.49.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Right?

[Lamar Tyler]

The most expensive filled donut, which is called the birthday cake donut, has yellow glaze on top and confetti candy sprinkles on top, cost 389.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Stop it.

[Lamar Tyler]

The Big Apple donut cost $11. And what I tell people is that $11 for one donut now, and this is pre, pre pandemic. This is pre Covid pricing with inflation. Now, I hear it's closer to 13.

[Vousie Megwayo]

But here's it come with a mother in law.

[Lamar Tyler]

What's the story? No, it comes with an experience. And that's what people need to realize. If you can take your product or service and wrap it in an experience, there are people that are willing to pay two, three, four times as much, not because they want the product, but because they want the experience so good. In Miami and Las Vegas, it's a steakhouse called Poppy Steak.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yes, sir.

[Lamar Tyler]

They sell a $1,000 steak. And it's not about the. I asked a guy from Texas, because here in the U.S. like Texas, where they have all the cattle and it's like beef country, Fort Worth. I said, take a look at that picture. How much would you say that steak is worth? He said, 50 bucks, you know, in that kind of southern Texas draw. So I'm looking at it. It's a thousand dollar steak. But it's not that people want a thousand dollar steak. It's when they bring it out. We went to the restaurant because I got to see what the experience is. We go to the restaurant. Before they brought it out, I told my wife, Ronnie, I tapped her and said, hey, something just changed in here. And what it was, the atmosphere shifted. And it shifted because the music changed. And until that point, I thought the music was just coming through the speakers. Didn't realize it was a DJ in the corner. And the DJ had changed the music up. And I saw the waiting. The wait staff was like bunched up back in the corner and they were coming out with like, which looked like a briefcase. Now, this briefcase is what they call a beef case. And when they bring it out to your table, they open it up. It has a huge raw tomahawk steak on it sitting on like a bed of what looks like. They're not diamonds. They look like diamonds. And everybody is cheering, everybody is chanting. They got the box closed. They open it up. They like let's go. Go, go, go. Ah. Then they close it back, open it up again. So it's the whole experience again. They sell these things for $1,000. The owner posted that when the super bowl weekend, right. The super bowl was in town, they sold over 200 of those steaks at $1,000 each. Yes. Now, again, I can guarantee you there's someone here, might be someone in the same city that makes a better steak, for sure. It's not about who has the best steak. It's about who has the best experience.

[Vousie Megwayo]

What did the Krispy Kreme doughnut taste like?

[Lamar Tyler]

That's the second question.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I just need to know.

[Lamar Tyler]

People always want to know how much it costs, what it tastes like. It actually didn't taste bad. Now, it wasn't memorable, but it was bright red and shiny. It looked like an apple. It was bright red and shiny. It had, like, a little leaf on it. It had a apple stem. The apple stem is actually a pretzel stick. So very creative. And it comes in a big. Almost like a ring box, but it's like the size of a big donut. So. So excellent packaging. Now, I can tell you that packaging does not cost him an extra $9 to create. So I'm sure the profit on it is great. But it didn't taste bad. It didn't taste good, didn't taste bad. I don't even remember what it tasted like, but it tasted better than I thought. But I didn't want to go back again to taste another one. It's good because I had already gotten the experience, but. But if I can just piggyback on that as I tell that story, someone tags me every week. Lamar, look, I'm in Times Square, a Krispy Kreme. And almost every time they're disappointed because when they go in, the person doesn't say, somebody just. Somebody just bought a big Apple donut. Like, the last person that wants somebody tagged me two weeks ago, and he showed me the donut, and I said, hey, how did you like it? He said, I didn't like the donut. Didn't taste good. And he said, when I went in, they didn't do it. They said. I asked them about it. They said, they no longer do that. So the other part of experience, I tell people is that when you establish the experience, you have to maintain the experience, because once the word gets out and you become known for that experience, you can't drop a level, because having a poor experience is better than having no experience at all.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Proposal, upsell, referrals. Experience. Experience. Love it. Thank you for this. This has been an enlightening conversation. Thank you. There are very few people that can take business animated and, and make it an exciting conversation. Before we, before we wrap TSP game plan. Why did you build a community? And, and where do you, where do you see this community plugging in the next couple of years as you're scaling entrepreneurs and businesses?

[Lamar Tyler]

Great question. We, we, you know, had that original brand around marriage and family and as we built it, it was very public. So people saw us go from husband and wife in a corner bedroom to now we got an office, now we got a team, now we got staff. And they started asking us, can you teach me how to build what you built? So we transitioned into, you know, traffic, sales and profit. What you call TSP now. And we started out by, you know, we have two conferences per year, every January, June, sales and profit. Yep. Like very direct. You know what this is?

[Vousie Megwayo]

It literally is the investment.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes, exactly. So we started by doing two conferences a year. We've been doing that now. June will be our 10th year, 10 year anniversary. We started in 2015 with the brand. Our first conference was June 2016. And as we've grown, what we've taught has grown. It used to be like, hey, people came for sales and marketing, but then as the businesses inside of the ecosystem got bigger, they needed help with teams, they needed help with leadership, they needed help with their business financials. And now that we've grown this ecosystem, it's like a complete ecosystem of growing these, most of them bootstrap businesses to six, seven, eight figures and beyond. Like you said, like we've, I was thinking about like, what's next and probably one of those biggest pieces, we bring in the most amazing history makers and business people in the world like yourself. And there was about two years ago we brought in Matthew Knowles, Beyonce's dad, and he came in and did a training for our private mastermind clients. And he came to the main conference and spoke at the main conference. And as we were having a meal, on his way out the door, he said, you ever been to London?

[Vousie Megwayo]

Wow.

[Lamar Tyler]

And I said, you know, we want to our original brand. We had an audience over there, we just never went. And I said, you know, I told myself, trap sells a profit. We're going this year. And he said, there's a guy in London I need you to meet that does what you do. He just does it in London. He connected me with a guy, Rafael Sophaluk from UK Black Business Week.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I know Rafael.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah. So we connect, right? And it's like, partnership, relationship. How can we link this thing together? So Raphael comes over to my conference, speaks to the people, educates them. I come over to his conference. The next time Rafael comes and brings four entrepreneurs with him, and they teach and train, and I bring four of my entrepreneurs, right? Teach and train so good. And we're looking like, how can we tie more of this together? Because my people need what you have, your people need what I have. Right. It's relationships. So what we really realized is there's a global need for this information that we were so focused on the need being right here. But as we begin to step outside the confines, right. For anybody watching, that could be, hey, it may not be from country to country, may, like, get outside of your city, get outside of your town, or. Right. Like. Like, as we expanded, we realized that there are way more people that need what we have than what we initially thought. So at this point, it's all just about us connecting the dots and getting in front of those people and thinking bigger. Because for us, like, the same things our clients go through, we go through the same things. So thinking bigger to me meant, okay, I thought our assignment was here in the United States. Our assignment is global. And we're serving the same. When I'm in London, I'm serving the same types of people that I serve here. Right. Like. Like, I want to get to the continent, Africa. I want to serve the same types of people, because inside, we all have the same ambition, the same drive, like. Like the same heart.

[Vousie Megwayo]

For sure. We're going to make.

[Lamar Tyler]

What we're lacking is the information and the strategy.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Absolutely.

[Lamar Tyler]

And that's what we want to build with traffic, sales, and profit.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Done for sure. By the way, Africa's on me. We're going to make that happen. I shared something with the team after our call. I said to them, you know, it's interesting. The world has moved from being driven by demographics to driven by psychographics.

[Podcast Host]

And.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And one of the limitations around demographics was always the locality. Yes, but. But this little rectangular device we all have in our pocket now connects the whole world so much that you have more in common with somebody in a part of the world you've never been to, whose language you don't speak, whose culture you don't understand, because you see the world in a similar way and you share values. And I think precisely this conversation is something that we need to advance. I can't thank you enough for this conversation. We have one question we ask everybody at the end of every podcast. It's called Ideas that Matter for a reason. What is the single idea that has mattered most in your life? That is the reason you are the person you are.

[Lamar Tyler]

The single idea is probably that everything happens for a reason. The good, the bad. No matter what happens, I feel like every step that I take, every misstep I take builds on the next thing.

[Vousie Megwayo]

I like that.

[Lamar Tyler]

So when I'm in that moment of things not going right, doesn't mean I have to like it. Right? But I'm realizing, like, hey, somewhere later down the line, like, this is building me for that next thing. And if I look at where I'm, where I am today, the things that I do are all. Because the things that I've gone through again, good and bad, but they all have made me like who I am right now in this moment.

[Vousie Megwayo]

The wisdom I've taken from our conversation has been to forgive myself more. You have, and I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but you have an incredible grace in, in your ability to let failure go. A lot of people don't know how to do this, especially high performers and high achievers. Right. If you've spent all your life being an a student, a 4.0 student, the one on the track team, the football team, the this team, failing is hard for you. It's very foreign to your nature. And you have an incredible grace in your ability to just move on. So you've really ministered to me for that. Thank you.

[Lamar Tyler]

Can I say one thing about that?

[Vousie Megwayo]

Go for it.

[Lamar Tyler]

To me, you only fail when you quit.

[Vousie Megwayo]

You only fail when you quit. When you quit.

[Lamar Tyler]

Because if I keep trying, if I'm keep doing the thing, I may fail that week, but overall it can be a success as long as I keep trying.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And even in today's judgmental society. You think that's true?

[Lamar Tyler]

Yeah, I think what we have to make sure that we do is we have to make sure we put the blinders on. We have to make sure we cover our ears to some of the naysayers and people around you. Because most of the people say all the time, most people in this world, you don't want what they have.

[Vousie Megwayo]

So good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So why are you listening to them? And that's the importance again, I said it two or three times. Community, you. And that's why we built Travis as a profit. You have to get in the community of like minded people that celebrate you. And too many times we're trying to share the vision with people that aren't visionary.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Man, Man, Man, Man. What? Say that in English. We're trying to share the vision with people that aren't visionary.

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes. And it's not their burden to carry. Your dream is your dream.

[Vousie Megwayo]

It's so good.

[Lamar Tyler]

So what people respond to are results. So keep the faith, keep moving forward. A lot of times because of what we do as a couple, people come and say, well, my husband, my wife doesn't support me. If you're at this conference and they're at home holding down the kids, if you're full time in business and they have a corporate career, they're supporting you. You may think support looks like sitting at the conference next to you, speaking on stage with you, but if they're, you know, doing some things there so that you can do things here, they're supporting you. And a lot of times the people closest to us have seen our limitations, they've seen our flaws.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Fact.

[Lamar Tyler]

The person beside you saw that you bought a gym membership, but you never go to the gym.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

They saw you say, I'm going to the conference, but never implemented anything.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

They saw you buy all the books, but you never read them.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Yeah.

[Lamar Tyler]

You know, like, like the notes, but do anything about it. Exactly. So all good. So all of a sudden we tell them, hey, I'm going to build this thing. And we expect them to say, yes and be cheering. Go get success. And when you get success and you validate it and you show people that you're serious about what you say, then people start to get on board. And for the ones that don't, don't worry. Because again. Right. Your vision, your dream is for you. And when you start to grow, the thing you said that was brilliant about connection not being geographic anymore is that in today's time, there's someone that is looking for you. They may not be in Atlanta, they may not be in the us they may not be in London, they may not be in south. Somewhere in this world. Is someone looking for the message? I have and because of the Internet, because of our mobile devices, that person can find me if I put the message out.

[Vousie Megwayo]

Do you get a lot of resistance?

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes, I think everybody does. Everyone does.

[Vousie Megwayo]

And how do you deal with that?

[Lamar Tyler]

I just keep focused on the mission. I think that's important to having a mission, like a goal. Like what's the thing that drives you and drives towards you. In our company, our mission right now, we say by the end of this decade, December 31, 2030, we want to work directly with 507 figure companies, 58 figure, 5, 9 figure doing 100 million a year, one with a unicorn billion dollar valuation. And we want to have worked and like help those companies grow and amass that. Having that mission is what keeps me moving through the hard parts. And I articulate that with the team all the time. When stuff is hard in the business, when we having to do extra lift, extra work, the events are coming up. I tell them all the time, hey, don't forget, I talk about those numbers, 550, you know, 5 and 1. Like, if we do that, we'll make history. And nobody ever said making history would be easy. And if you want to be easy, this probably is not the place because we chasing mission. Like, we want people that are serious about the impact, serious about the purpose, and have that mindset towards that. And when I feel like this isn't worth it, when I feel like, hey, like a million other ways I can make money a lot easier than the work I do and still bring home net the same amount, the mission is what keeps me moving.

[Vousie Megwayo]

My mentor said to me, and I'm cognizant that I've gone over a time, but my mentor once said to me, he said, do you know any single author of any hit piece that was directed at any person that's changed the world? And I had a moment's thought and I said, no. He said, exactly. But every single person that dared to step out of the comfort zone and walk their own path and leave a print in the world had somebody say something or write something that in the moment looked more important than it actually was in the arc of time. Yeah. It just didn't matter. It's your point. It's like, leave the number on the scoreboard, right?

[Lamar Tyler]

Yes.

[Vousie Megwayo]

What did they, what did Jay Z say? Numbers don't like, check the scoreboard. Thank you for joining us, my friend. I'm looking forward to being on stage tomorrow. Yes. And I can't wait for us to. To invite you to South Africa. I think you're absolutely gonna. You're gonna, you're gonna do very well. People are gonna love you there.

[Lamar Tyler]

Looking forward to it. Thank you.

[Vousie Megwayo]

That's my brother, Lamar Tyler. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Leave us with your comment. I'll see you soon, family. Sayonara. Cheers. This podcast was proudly brought to you by my growth fund in partnership with Sound and Sound.