← Living The Red Life
Living The Red Life
From Fitness to Fortune: Strategies for Scaling and Building Winning Teams
00:31:35
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- [00:00]
A
Leadership is the most important skill you can learn. And what that means is, like, you're very good at finding talent. Like, if you had no skills, you weren't good at sales, you weren't good at marketing, you weren't good at anything. But you knew how to find people who are good at that that actually would overcome your deficiencies.
- [00:16]
B
Like, I know, like, two people where they're like, pretty useless at business, and I'm like, dude, how do you make so much money? And then it's just because they've got a.
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A
They just got around. And so if you can get better at, like, hiring staff and finding a players, all of a sudden you notice like, oh, there's really not any problems in the. You can trust that that person is going to do a good job. And that just took me years to learn.
- [00:36]
B
My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, Take the red pill, join me in wonderland and change your life. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today we're going to talk about both of our journeys in fitness, where we both started, go into many, many millions, up to 100 staff, how we both survive this space, thrived in this space, the lessons learned in the coaching space with my buddy Tanner. Welcome to the show.
- [01:09]
A
Thanks for having me do excited for.
- [01:12]
B
You to be here because, like, you know, out of everyone, there's me and a couple of other people we're friends with that have, like, I think we started, you know, 10 years ago, however long, and we both in fitness and then we did well there, built a business, then got into coaching. But not many people get past the 10 million mark, you know, grow big teams. So I want to dissect today for everyone listening, what made us different and how we did it, right? Because a lot of people that are on that journey that we've been through, right, and they can learn. So just if someone doesn't know, do you mind just recapping?
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A
Yeah. So, so quick recap about me. My name is Sarah Chester. I grew up in a family, seven kids, so pretty big family, religious family, four sisters, two brothers. Dad was a teacher, mom stayed at home. So it wasn't a lot of money growing up. And because of that, I wanted to get rich, you know, make a lot of money. And up until I was about 22 is pretty much to play in the NFL. That was my dream. Like I wanted to play sports, playing the NFL. I got very into weightlifting, mostly because I got bullied as a kid. I was a little strange. And then at, you know, 22ish is when that ended. And I had a mentor who convinced me. He's like, hey, you should drop out of school and start a business. And I was like, you're crazy. And eventually I did drop out, but it took me two to three years to actually start making money. But once I started making money, it just blew up really fast because I kind of, I feel like looking back, I. There's three things that really make you a different person. And it's like skills, obviously characteristics, and then beliefs. Right. And I think I just was doing all this work on beliefs and characteristics without knowing it. And so finally when I got the skills, things just blew up.
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B
So.
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A
And in a short amount of time, like six years, we did 100 million in sales. And it was, it was pretty crazy.
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B
Yeah. And 100 million sales and you built teams. About 100 to me. Right. So I want to dive into like what were some of the biggest jumps and lessons during that journey to start.
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A
I think one lesson that I look back now and I didn't realize is I was lucky I had my brothers to start with because I could trust them and I just.
- [03:14]
B
And they were good in the business.
- [03:15]
A
I mean, just to be frank, like at first I didn't train them very much. So I was like, figure it out. And I just would get mad, I scream at him. But that actually gave me like some latitude to, to grow really fast because I had reliable people.
- [03:27]
B
Yeah.
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A
Outside of that, I think a big mistake I made when hiring is I didn't, I didn't hire them before I hired them, meaning I didn't test people out. And I wish if I could go back, I would have tested people out, meaning, hey, like a sales rep. I would be like, hey, here's some calls, here's a script. When you're ready, like we're going to give you a live call. If you close it, you get paid, you know, and like trying to actually test people out before you bring them on. Because you bring people on and then you waste all this time and ramp up period, getting them up to speed. And then they're not even a long term fit.
- [03:57]
B
And a lot of people like, like I learned from going to 110 staff, especially W2 in office, like a lot of them straight up lie on their resume too. It's not even like, yeah, I don't.
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A
Know how it was for you, but I didn't really look at resumes from the standpoint of where they go to school. It was just what experience you had.
- [04:16]
B
But even that like people like we had somewhat like people working for us where they're like, oh, produce shows at Netflix and then four months later I fire them because they're useless. And then you learn that they were like sweeping the floor at Netflix.
- [04:27]
A
So they weren't. So what they were saying.
- [04:29]
B
Yeah, it was like straight up, like not even like elaborate.
- [04:33]
A
It wasn't a little. Yeah. Completely bullshit. Yeah.
- [04:35]
B
Yeah. So you do get it. Like I think it just to emphasize the point though because we've gone back to doing a lot more. Like, hey, you want to work with us? Well, we're going to put you through a two week probation and test you.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then make a decision because I used to be.
- [04:48]
A
It feels like, it feels on the front end like more work. But I think in the long run it's actually better.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Right. Because you don't waste time. Because what actually hurts the business the worst is the onboarding, the off boarding.
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B
And the trusting of. They've got that now and then you find they don't.
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A
Right. Like it's just better if it takes you longer to like and you have to work with more people up front. But then you find that like longer, I guess person on the back end, like it's streamlined.
- [05:15]
B
That too. For anyone listening, like, so now for most of the roles we test, we literally have like a doc that's like test one, here's how you're going to get paid. Here's how to do it, here's what you've got to do. Once approved, go to test two. So it's like now we just hand them this packet. So it's like we try to automate it.
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A
I think that was the other thing is I didn't have like set SOPs and KPIs when I started. So you know, like now they can come through and it's like, right, here's the job, here's exactly what to do, here's a video for everything. So if they can't follow that, you're, you're just like, you can't work here. But in the beginning when you're growing really fast, I think having that structure just like it sounds nice on paper but it's like sometimes you don't get to build it as you're going or you, you build it too slow. Like and that's just reality. Though.
- [05:57]
B
And I also think like, as entrepreneurs, it's great hiring mentors and everyone that tells you to do this, but I think part of us entrepreneurs, we like have to get punched in the face to learn.
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A
Yeah, ultimately you have to go through it. Yeah, ultimately, like one of the best learners is like spiritual experience.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
You can like read stuff all you want, but like, there's nothing. There's no substitute for like having a kid and then probably reading about having a kid. It's like not anywhere near the same, you know, so probably similar.
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B
So. So on the journey. So like testing people better, maybe having some system, you know, building out the systems process. Sops. What about the marketing sales side? Like, we both obviously have a gift.
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A
For selling and you know, I lucked out on that. I, I'm so glad I was good at sales and marketing because I see horror stories all the time. Like people like, oh, this person says they'll come in and run all my sales. And I'm like, yeah, but like, why would they run your business for you? Like, it doesn't make sense. Like the. One of the best benefits I ever had was door to door sales. Because door to door sales teaches you so many skills very quickly. It teaches you not to be nervous. It teaches you to be quick on your feet. It teaches you like to just be bold and aggressive. I think because of that, that really helped me grow faster because I was able. That was like one of those things I could just tell right away is like, you're full of shit, you're good or you're not. And there's some positions you're not as skilled. I think being good at sales and marketing is more important in the beginning than it is to be like product or client fulfillment. Right. You can come back and get better at that. But like in the beginning, if you're not good at sales and marketing, you can't make any sales.
- [07:27]
B
You don't have a business. Right. You don't need product client fulfillment if you have no clients. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, it's funny you say the sales side because, you know, I was a personal trainer for three years in a gym and you're like, I was 17, 18, 19, 20. And like you legit had to walk up to someone like running on a treadmill and try and talk to them, you know, and they're like.
- [07:46]
A
And it's like, it get at least for me. I don't know how it was for you, but when I did dordocells like two months, I probably really nervous when I would knock on the door, like my heart would like beat and after two months you're just like, whatever. Like you just get so used to like abnormal situations that I think it just made abnormal situations are normal. So I was like, I'm not going to even get nervous anymore because who cares? Because, because I realized it didn't really for the situation. Like it doesn't do anything. They are not, they don't care as much as I think they do. This isn't as big a moment as I think it is and you're never.
- [08:16]
B
Going to see them again.
- [08:17]
A
Oh, and that was a big thing too is you just realize like, I'm never going to talk to that person ever again. Like literally not ever again in my entire life. And once you start to realize that, it gets a lot less scary.
- [08:28]
B
Yeah. So. So Matt, you know, what would you say here's a question then because I do see, you know, and probably you too. We coach, we've coached a lot of people, the entrepreneurs and CEOs that don't have the sales and marketing background. I think they struggle so much because they don't know how to hire their agencies. Do it themselves.
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A
Yeah.
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B
What advice would you give to someone like that, dude?
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A
Honestly, like if people are willing to do it. Obviously very few people are, but dude, go. Going and doing door to door sales for like two or three months would absolutely change someone's life. I even look back today to this day at the hardest thing I've ever done. And some people are like, you know, was building a hundred million dollar company the hardest thing? And I'm like, I still think door to door sales was harder.
- [09:10]
B
Well, you're literally just walking around getting the door.
- [09:13]
A
It's mentally just a beat down and it's like, like pretend you're working out at the gym and people are yelling and screaming at you at the same time. That was kind of what it was. And so I will tell people usually like do that. If you can't do that, the next best thing is just to get on some type of sales team and get your feet wet. But there's really nothing that's going to be experienced in that realm because like you kind of hear what people say. But there's a difference between like hearing and implementation. But like for me, door to door sales was by far what made me so successful because when I finally sold like online services I was like, this guy actually wants what I'm selling.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that was so different for me. But it was so much easier obviously.
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B
And your sales Experience. Did that help you a lot in training the sales team and.
- [09:59]
A
Oh yeah, because it's like you just copy me, right? Like a lot of the times when you're building the business to start, you're not hiring people smarter than you because you can't afford it. You're hiring people to follow you. So the better you are at the skill, the easier it is to get results. Because you say, guys, this is the script, this is the cause, this is how it should sound. Do it like me, right? Versus a lot of people who, like, I just, I just don't see a lot of people very successful at business who are not good at sales or marketing because that's how the business grows.
- [10:27]
B
In the beginning, even like the billionaires, when you actually learn about them, a lot of them were like, had a sales or marketing background because like, end.
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A
Of the day it's like you have to convince a stranger that what you have is a good product. And like, I just don't understand how someone can't be good at that. Even like, like today for example, we had this. We were like short on staff and like I had to go in and message on one of our sub accounts and go high level. And like, I haven't done it in three years and I booked three calls in an hour. And like our normal KPI is 0.5 per hour, so I had three. I booked six times as many calls. But it's just so natural to me because like, hey, like how stuff going? Oh, good, great. Like what's your goal? Great. Oh, like why is it, why you struggle that? Oh, have you, have you thought about getting help? Oh, and then you just like offer help. It's not like that complex.
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B
And, and I think also like sales and marketing at its core is persuasion, which you're going to use to lead your team to persuade a business partner. Like understanding that psychology goes into everything.
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A
Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, I like to this day I don't know why that happened, but like, I still think like getting my feet wet. Indoor door cells helped me because when I got to online sales, I was so far ahead of the curve without realizing it because I had not. I did nine months and it was usually like after drive time, like it was eight hours a day, six days a week. So that's 40 something hours a week of sales practice. It's like it doesn't get much harder. Better than that.
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B
Yeah. Okay. And so let's just shift now about. I would, you know, people are like 100 mil. That's a lot selling, you know, online. What are some of the tactics, like the types of funnels you used and things that really worked for you?
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A
Sure. The best thing that's ever worked for me specifically, I don't know why it's worked better for me than other people, but is like DM ads. It drove me bonkers because to this day there's people who just have better like straight to page funnels but like for whatever reason they just have not converted as well for me. I don't know if it's because my VSL is not as it's like, but.
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B
Everyone has their thing. Like mine was always low ticket. I've done.
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A
Yeah, everyone has their thing. Right. And so, so DM ads have been great for us because when they come in they get the link to the training and they can get their email and phone number but we then like our setters will go in and they like have a full on conversation and if they book a call from the conversation, great. If they book a call from the opt in page, great. That's been good. Outside of that, we did do a lot of low ticket too. But out of all the low ticket, the thing I always hate about low ticket is like one and done sales, right? So you get 97 bucks and usually low ticket it's like 50% liquidation is what you want. So if you spend 100 grand you make 50,000 up front. The best low ticket funnel I've actually ran. I thought I was going to get massive chargebacks and disputes. And so we call it forced continuity. And what we do is we sell a $3 $2.95 so it's really three bucks but it's, you can sell whatever but we sell my book on the front end of the ebook. So we actually make a little money and not just like waste 20 something dollars on shipping. And then we put them into a seven day free trial. In our community we call it forced continuity. And for whatever reason we don't get a lot of cancellations or upset people. And so what's happened is what we've seen on average is usually for about every $10,000 we spend, we get $25 increase in MMR.
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B
Wow.
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A
And it's worked great. And so it's kind of nice because you get those low ticket buyers, you can still send them but you get them in a $97 a month continuity. And like that makes it feel more worth it to me than just like trying to like sell a low ticket buyer and then try to get them saying because it's like, sometimes that's.
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B
Yeah. We tracked it over thousands of clients, tens of millions. And we got up to 7% with a send, which was like, we started.
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A
And that's like even crazy at 2%.
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B
And we got up to 7 even.
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A
That's like crazy to think of, like, how many buyers you have to go through to get them to buy.
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B
And I would say I'm one of the best in the world, right?
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A
And so. And so I would say, like, out of the best funnels, like that got the most money, like the quickest add to DMs was the best. Then there was probably that forced continuity funnel. And then there was like, very. It was always variable.
- [14:25]
B
Did you ever do much with webinars? Ever cracked up? Not really.
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A
Like, we did like in the beginning I did automated webinar. But like, I didn't really. I don't really view that as like a legitimate webinar. It was more like a vsl.
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B
Yeah, I was. I never did like, I did, you know, a few meal with webinars, but never like tens. I never. It's funny how everyone has their thing and I think that's important if you're listening, like, don't. I think because at one point I became obsessed of trying to get like, all of them working and making me tens of millions. And then my energy got split between, like, trying to get away. Dm load ticket vsl.
- [14:59]
A
Yeah. When you actually go back to the book I think about the most is Ready Fire in by Mike Masterson. Like, I think the way he describes it the best is it's not necessarily you need a bunch of funnels selling the same thing. It's like you need to have different products. And like, really what he talks about in that book, to scales, he says you get something working and then you scale it and then you create a different variation. And sometimes it's not like a completely different product. But like in his, his book, he talks about newsletter business. So we create a new newsletter, but it was still a newsletter. And that's how he really scaled his company. And I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that than thinking, all right, like, we got it working with the webinar, now we got to get it working with this. It's like, whatever works the best is fine. But I think ultimately when you run into scaling issues, it's because, like, people are just seeing the same stuff over and over and like, they've decided, like, I'm never going to buy that I don't need it. So I need something else to buy.
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B
I teach people a lot. Like, a good way to look at it is just put in a new outfit on.
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A
Right.
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B
Like, you're still the same person and body.
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A
Right.
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B
But sometimes you got to change outfits for people to take notice. And that's the best way because I think sometimes we try and create a whole new person.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, like today.
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A
And a great way to test is like, just send an email. Like today we, we. I was asking my team, like, what else can we sell? Right. To make more money. What else can we sell? And my team's like, well, let's. We could test out selling a Done for you VA service. I'm like, okay, like, let's send an email and let's send them to a type form. And the team says like, dude, we're getting killed. Like applications. I was like, cool. And if it works, then we can scale it up and if it doesn't, no big deal. But like, it's the same buyers that we've already had. Like, it wasn't like, we ran a new ad. No one even knows about it right now. We just ran it to our email list.
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B
And I, I do that. And the Instagram poll too is like a great way to test.
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A
Yeah. And like, there's like, I think a lot of times we just get stuck in a rut of like doing the same thing over and over. And like, even I found myself like this year. You know, sometimes you just get away from the basics because you've been doing it so long. Right. And so you forget that the basics are what made you successful, not like all this other shit.
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B
And that was hard for me because when we got to 100 staff, I was like changing who I was. It's like now a CEO and I was filming my Amazon prime show and working with these celebrities. So I, for the first time in my life, I got off my marketing call and I had a nine people marketing team doing a daily call. And that year, like, our revenue dropped because I left the marketing pool. Right. And now I'm back on it.
- [17:24]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I probably will never leave it again until there's certain things.
- [17:29]
A
Like it's just hard to replace yourself with unless you find a true number two. But. But like, to get a true number.
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B
Two like you, they might still not be good at marketing.
- [17:36]
A
Yeah. Or, or you just got to be willing to pay the piper. Because I think, I think sometimes like, we're like, oh, yeah, like I found this guy and he's willing to come in for like a good amount. And like it's a good amount, but it's not like it doesn't hurt. And sometimes I think like, if your skills are high enough, you got to be willing to pay that person where it's like, this kind of sucks, but it is what it is. I have to get this guy.
- [17:56]
B
And I make it fit too. Now, like, I do my marketing call at 8 in the morning when I'm at the gym. So I'm like just on a headphone giving ideas, approvals. So it's like, it's not a chore.
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A
It's just like, just like it's a lot easier when you don't have to.
- [18:09]
B
But it's like those little ideas I do give or approvals, like create massive effects. If you're listening, I think it's like always look at what's your superpower and how do you create that mass effect with it?
- [18:20]
A
Yeah, 100%.
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B
So. So next question for you. You know, you're testing these things now. You're constantly innovating. How, as an entrepreneur, do they juggle selling their core product and sticking to the foundations and knowing when to create new products?
- [18:37]
A
That's a great question. I think the way you know, is just like when you start having issues with scale with ads, right? Because ultimately, like, if you're spending two can ads, you're making eight, then it's like, okay, if I spend four, I'll make six. I'll make. Yeah. And it keeps going up. So eventually though, with ads, there comes that blocking point. And the first thing I try to do is like, optimize. So it's like, hey, can we look at the sales team? Can we look at the ads? Where can we optimize? But eventually you kind of see like, hey, like, you know, we spent about 200 grand on this and we're going to make about eight. And every time we've gone up from that, we really don't make a bunch more, but it's a lot more bullshit. So I think like in that going back and looking at like ready, Fire, Aim, Michael Masterson and like some other books, that's when I should have just stopped having ego of like, oh, yeah, we can like force it and then maybe make something else. Because at the end of the day, no one really cares. Like, you don't really care how you get there. You just want to get there. I just think the issue is a lot of people, they'll lose focus too soon. Like, it gets hard and so they're like, oh, I got to make something. It's like, no, like, you just suck at marketing. But eventually, like, if you're at a high enough level, it makes sense. Where it's like, hey, instead of trying to keep pushing this thing, let's maybe sell something else and that's where you can look for another opportunity. Or like, even now, where I've made millions of dollars, like, I've invested in other companies that I'm like, okay, like, this guy's running the company. It's a different avenue. It's different leverage. It's like, different. Right. It's like, gives me a different way to win. That's. That's unique and I think that's important.
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B
Well, and I want to add to that. I just had Damon John on my podcast. You were talking about licensing. And he grew FUBU to hundreds of millions through licensing. So as an entrepreneur, we don't like licensing.
- [20:15]
A
So when, when he was licensing clothes, what does he know?
- [20:18]
B
He would license other stuff. So he built the clothes, but then he was like, well, I can sell shoes to all my customers, but I don't want to learn how to sell shoes, so I'll let license.
- [20:28]
A
So he would license it to another company.
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B
Yeah, yeah. So, but we don't think about that as entrepreneurs.
- [20:32]
A
Right.
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B
We just try and do like hammer and nail more. Just like figure you can create these JVs and cross. Like in our industry, the simple version of licensing is JVs and selling additional services. And like if you sell, say you do this VA offer, right? You could sell 200 grand of VA offers and find someone that has a 10 grand a month VA agency that's awesome at hiring them and training. They're crappy at marketing. And now you basically create and deal with the fulfillment.
- [21:03]
A
Yeah, because the fulfillment is usually the biggest nightmare with scales like actually fulfilling on customers.
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B
And most of us listening are marketers that were great at the selling part. And there's most people are sucky at the marketing part.
- [21:14]
A
We're always worried about a reputation going down through the fulfillment, not through the actual marketing.
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B
Yeah. So. So I think listening to like, like licensing in the big billion dollar brand world, we can still do in the smaller.
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A
Yeah, I was thinking Kevin O'Leary when I hear licensing, because that's just his game on the show.
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B
Most of the big, like you see the biggest brands like Damon, like, because I'm partners with him now. Like since partnering with him, every time I talk, like, I learned so much about like Disney, like Disney is like a whole empire and half of its licensing. Richard Branson, who I'm friendly with half of his companies. He doesn't like Virgin.
- [21:49]
A
Oh, yes, he has to, because he has just so many companies.
- [21:54]
B
And I remember sitting with Richard on his island, asking him about Virgin bank.
- [21:57]
A
And he like, oh, he's like, I don't know.
- [21:59]
B
Yeah, he can answer like a question about a credit, you know, like some basic question. So. So I think that's a great lesson too, as an entrepreneur. Like, it doesn't always have to be you, especially if you're good at the brand.
- [22:11]
A
I think, like, the end of the day, like, to summarize what you said, like, and I agree with this, is like, leadership is the most important skill you can learn. And what that means is, like, you're very good at finding talent to do stuff because ultimately you can't. Like, if you had no skills, you weren't good at sales, you weren't good at marketing, you weren't good at anything. But you knew how to find people who were good at that that actually would overcome your deficiencies.
- [22:35]
B
Well, I know like, two people where they're like, pretty useless at business, and I'm like, dude, how do make so much money? And then it's just because they've got.
- [22:42]
A
A bunch of studs. And so I. I think, like, that's hard to happen over time. But, like, I think now what I've realized is the best skill I can learn is like, acquiring good team players. Because when I look at the issues we've had, it's like, oh, this guy sucked. Or this guy had a problem. This girl sucked, this girl had. And it's like, you're. Who was a common denominator yourself. You're the one who's hiring them.
- [23:02]
B
Yeah, of course.
- [23:02]
A
So if you can get better at, like, hiring staff and finding a players, all of a sudden you notice like, oh, there's really not any problems in the business because you can trust that that person is going to do a good job. And that just took me years to learn.
- [23:14]
B
And I think that's so important listening. Like, we've both built teams to 100, which in our industry is like, we're one of the biggest, really. Right. There's Grant, Tony, and then probably us, really. So, like, you know, because no one teaches this. Me and him, we learned the hard way. Right. And we got hit in the face along the way a bunch by all the parts.
- [23:32]
A
Yeah, most. Most of the headaches I've had from business has been from bad decisions. So, like, if you think about, like, you Know, use a dating example. Like, if you think about, like, in a dating example, like, you have a high stress girlfriend, it's the same thing. It's like your life's gonna suck. Like, if she's like, constantly sucking your time, like, oh, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? You're just like, oh, my gosh. Like, it's the same thing with the team. But a lot of times in hindsight, you think, at least what I thought is I was like, oh, I got to do better training. I got to do this. But it's like, yes, that's part of it. But really finding a 7 and making him a 10 is way easier than getting a 3 and then trying to make him a 7. And even if the 3 is a 7, he's still just a 7. Yeah, he's not that great. He's average.
- [24:12]
B
And there's. Yeah, there's such a big jump there. Like, so we went from 110 staff to 70, and we run better now. We're doing more celeb partnerships. More stuff with the 70. Because I just like the top people. I trusted more and gave more and I got more.
- [24:27]
A
Just give them more stuff. Yeah. Like, the first thing you do when you cut stuff staff is like, you go, okay, is there someone on the team who can handle this responsibility? That's the first thing you do. Because, like, ultimately, if you're cutting staff, you don't want to, like, have to replace them unless it's, like, vital.
- [24:40]
B
Well, we didn't. Yeah. So one of my guys, Luke, for example, he's an old school friend of mine, actually. He now runs four departments better than, like, four highly paid people that were like, super experienced and seasoned crazy. And it's one guy. It's like, just like, you've got to understand that as an entrepreneur, because I was wrong. And I used to think more staff equaled faster progression.
- [25:00]
A
Yeah. But it doesn't.
- [25:01]
B
And it doesn't.
- [25:01]
A
It doesn't. It, like, comes down to how good the staff is. Ultimately, that's great.
- [25:05]
B
So last couple of questions for you. Where do you see the industry right now? Because I know, like, me and most people, we grew a bunch post Covid.
- [25:14]
A
Yeah.
- [25:15]
B
And I feel in the last year, everyone's like that. Yeah, it stopped.
- [25:19]
A
Yeah. So I. I think part of my success is, like, I didn't realize it, but it was like, right place at the right time, and I was like. Like, I didn't realize it. Like, when Covid happened, I didn't realize that that actually was a massive boost business, I'd say now, like, trust is lower because online services and online coaching, they've been out now, flooded. Right, Right. So there's so many options. Trust is much lower. So either has to be much better or people have pivoted because, like, ultimately I think I also want to grow. And like, I just told myself, like, I don't want to be 6 years old and like still doing coaching. Right. So it's, it's like, I think where the industry is right now is like either A, you have to be willing to build more trust. Right. And it just take time. So you got to really be on top of people's minds with your marketing ads. Yeah, your branding. Or B, it's like moving to other industries that have higher equity and like, you know, software, like, you know Hermosi, I saw him just recently. Like he got into school with Sam Ovens. Now when I saw school, to be frank with you, I was like, this is a piece of shit. Like, I honestly to this day I still was like, I cannot believe this got as big as it has. But like, ultimately that company can probably sell for over a bill. But because it's got so many users and it's so much revenue. Yeah. So it's, but it's a different business model. No one's ever going to be like, school's a scam. But in coaching consulting, people do it all the time. So I think in this industry, like, you can learn a lot of skills, you got to build more trust with people and. Or you just like be done with it, like wipe your hands clean and move on. The great thing about this industry is it's high cash flow. And cash flow you can move into other things, but I don't think it's a great equitable business.
- [26:52]
B
Well, the good thing about this industry too is you learn the skills to go and conquer other industries where they don't.
- [26:57]
A
This industry, this industry, you learn more skills than any other business because you have to like other businesses where there's marketing, all this stuff. You're not going to learn it with a fast feedback loop that you do in this industry. This industry is crazy.
- [27:09]
B
Yeah. Like, I've took all of my skills into some of the celebrity brands like industries and the like cinema TV industry. And it's like no one knows what I know in those industries. So it's just like, it's like what this industry was 10 years ago.
- [27:23]
A
Yeah. And so it gives you that competitive edge. And then also I think when you take, take like I don't know how you want to say it. Like, more legit, like a more seasoned industry. Like, it's crazy. You'll just see, like, people, they don't know how to market. They don't know anything. Because this industry, if you look at it, it's like, it's actually much higher levels of marketing and client acquisition and sales and all that. So when you take it into, like, a normal industry, you just stand out because it's like, dude, these people don't have any practice, like, with actual marketing.
- [27:50]
B
It's funny. Yeah. So clever investor Cody was on my podcast and he said the same. He was like, like one of the first in our space to build the info products in real estate. Right. And now he's doing it in, like, manual labor, like, flooring companies. And he's like, no, it's just like, play. A child's play.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah. Because he says no one's doing it and you're the only option. The other. The other thing that makes you successful, and I tell this to a lot of people is like, low competition.
- [28:13]
B
Yeah.
- [28:13]
A
Like, some of my best clients, I look at their offers. One of the clients, it's like he helps people get EBT1 green cards.
- [28:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:21]
A
Like, no one's doing that. And, like, he's one of the only people. So his application's like, it's 15 grand.
- [28:25]
B
Yeah. Like, and as long as his ads, more than, like, one line that most people are winning.
- [28:30]
A
Yeah. Or like, there's a girl who we're working with right now who does career progression for, like, engineers.
- [28:37]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:37]
A
And it's just like. It's just the fact that there's no competition, which gives them this a massive advantage that they don't understand that they have.
- [28:44]
B
Yeah, we see that a lot. Like this clients making millions. I'm like, looking at it, I'm like, how are you making any money with this? And then, terrible.
- [28:52]
A
But it's just like, some of it is just like, how much competition there is a market marketplace.
- [28:55]
B
So I think that's good for listening. Like, the market, you know, understanding the marketplace. And what I'm always saying now in this year especially, is like, how do you take a side step to the left or right? Right. Like, and looking at those opportunities. So just last question, as we wrap up today, I always ask a couple of questions, like, what's the. If you could go in a teleport, you know, time machine to your younger self, what would you say to yourself?
- [29:17]
A
My younger self? I just would have told him to like, invest sooner, like, and I didn't. There were two reasons. One, I didn't know this world existed. I didn't know you could pay people to, like, learn stuff. I. I was like, that's not. Wasn't a thing. And number two was, I told myself, I like, oh, I can't afford it. And as an adult, I just think that's a bullshit excuse. It's like, you do whatever you got to do to survive, right? And so instead, if I. If I had the mentality I had now, what would happen is I probably would have not wasted three years. I would have made a million dollars two or three years sooner. And then if you do the math on, like, how much I made, let's say, on average, like, I do 15 million a year or something. Well, that's $30 million I lost by delaying that. And so I always tell people, just, just be willing to invest in yourself because that is the best investment you're going to make, and it's going to be the one you're not going to regret. You're not going to look back at your life and go, man, I wish I didn't try harder. I wish I hadn't, you know, sacrifice as much like you only care, usually because other people talk shit. But it's like, if you can just move that to the side and not worry, it's not that big of a deal. Like, it's something you'll be proud of.
- [30:19]
B
Love it. And last final question. If people want to learn more from you or see what you're up to, where do they find you?
- [30:25]
A
Yeah, honestly, if people are listening to the podcast, they could DM me on Tanner, Chester, Rudy so that I know they came from this, and they can just ask me for whatever help they want and I'll do my best.
- [30:34]
B
And the software companies, what have you got going on right now?
- [30:38]
A
Yeah, so we have Elite360IO, which is a white label Go High Level. So I don't, I don't lie to people or try to, like, you know, make it up, but, like, it's got the Go High level infrastructure, but it's our own stuff. It does about six figures a month. The benefit, though, when people work with us is they get our software templates, our templates, our services, and then I have some other ones I've invested in, but, like, nothing. I'm really, like, pushing out, like, right now.
- [30:59]
B
Nice. Great. Love it. Well, thanks for coming on. I know it's been a long time. Come in, guys. You know, obviously two of the somewhat OGs, I feel, at this point. Right. And hopefully you learned some things from all of our, you know, experience and mistakes and hard lessons. So hopefully you don't have to live through all of them. So that's a wrap. Keep living the red life. I'll see you guys soon. Take care.