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A
Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast, where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the Go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.
B
Michael Callan is in the house today. Now, he's been a guest before on my show on NBC. Today, we're talking about something that pains business owners and he's devised the solution. I'm going to call him Mr. Solution from Down Under. Michael, welcome to this Mr.
C
Solution from Down Under.
B
Yeah.
C
What a great tagline.
B
Well, it just came to me right now on a occasion I'm able to come up with these and that came out of thin air, but that's what you're providing. And the topic is Go High Level, which in itself is an amazing program, yet people are troubled by it. Tell us why you decided and a smart decision, you decided to attack this niche and help people.
C
Hey, Mitch, thank you for having me on the show. I love coming on. You make me laugh. I always feel lighter after we finish talking. Yeah, Go High Level. The journey about Go High Level is one that I think everybody gets. It's flashy, it looks good, it's got a lot of flexibility. I've seen various versions of it where people have done some fantastic things with this really good piece of software. But the problem that really gets to you is trying to figure out how to make this puppy work and not just work, but work for you effectively. Yeah. So there's plenty of customer relationship management software systems that go, I can give you a list of your contacts, I can send emails to your contacts, I can send SMS's out contacts, I can give you funnels, I can give you websites. But the thing is, they don't integrate it as well as gov High Level does. And on top of that, what a great system because we use it in one of my businesses, we use that system to actually provide resources internationally. So it's got a great deal of flexibility, but it's just so painful to come together. So for me, when I saw that and the conversations I've had with a lot of clients has been, look, mate, I'd love to have this piece of software, but it's too hard to work and it's too hard to set up and it's too hard to understand.
B
Oh, gosh. And I, I'm, I'm in that pain as we speak. Here's what happened. I got to share this story. I have an assistant that's been with me a year and nine months in Manila, in Luzon, which is outside of province, outside of Manila. She left me on September 2nd. Today is late September, and with no. No notice, no nothing, claim that she had flooding and had to get back to me. And sorry. And all the typical excuses. I've heard them all. I've been in the Philippines 15 years with employees, and they've all got. It's like you can pull them off the shelf, the, the. The excuses. And, you know, some of them are religious, some of them are this or that, but they've all got the same excuses, and it's just a matter of which day. So she used that one. True or not? Don't know. But she disappeared. Now I'm left hanging. And I'm not a technical person, Michael. I'm up shit's creek. I'm up shit's creek because I got this go high level that I'm paying for every month. I've got my. My email list in there, valuable email list from Facebook ads that I paid for. These are people that resonated with my message, whatever event I was selling. Many of them are for my author summit, and some are for my speaking programs that I have, you know, and now I'm left and I'm screaming. It's like, oh, my God. And I reached out to our mutual friend David Kavanaugh, and I said, david, I'm blank, you know, right now with an app. And I said, hi. What do I do? I said, I'm not technical. I never want to be technical. You're the one that recommended this program to me, you know, a couple of years back. I'm using it. What do I do? And then. And then we're having this conversation, and it's like, dude, I'm your first customer. I need replacement, like, lickety split. So are you Mr. Solution or Not?
C
Well, I am.
B
I'm putting the pressure to you, bud.
C
Put the pressure to me? Yeah. We are the solution. So one of the things, when I started my journey at the same time, I brought on a virtual assistant who's now my business partner, of all things. And this has been a great journey for both of us. So we sat down. Took us about a month, but we sat down and we went through step by step and wrote down what we did to get that bit working. So we've got a massive knowledge base about how these things work. So then took them back to. I took it Back to, okay, we can do this in little dribs or drabs, or we can have a process. And we onboard you so when you come along, you go, this is my business. We take you through a checklist, a step by step approach where we just start setting it up for you line by line. But not only that, we sit down with you and we show you what we did and we show you how to use it. So we've got clients, we've got some big end clients. We have several virtual assistants working, doing the back end for this business. They just tell us what we want, what they want, and we just deliver. That's a pretty easy solution. That's most of the solutions that the big end people would be doing with go high level. But people like yourself who either don't have a VA or can't get a VA or had a VA that ghosted them. I'm pretty sour. Sorry about that.
B
That's exactly what happened. I'm ghosted.
C
So how do you do next is we train you. We train you to use the system itself, and at the same time, we provide someone in the background that can. When you go, I can't. How the hell do you do this? We either do it for you, you know, at a cost, or we give you the advice and the checklist to go through, to get through it. So, for example, horror show trying to get a mobile telephone number connected to go high level in Australia. If you don't get that right, you'd be there for weeks.
B
And you pull your hair out.
C
Yeah, you pull my hair an hour, I take it takes an hour. Now we have a checklist for that. Everything to say is, whatever you do, just follow the bouncing ball. Great way of doing the business. Now the other thing we did for smaller businesses, we said, so what type of business are you? Well, I'm. I'm a bicycle repair guy. Okay, well, we've got the bicycle repair guy. Go high level, ready to go. So we've made these snapshot templates, whatever you want to call them, that you, you ask us, we set it, we set it up like that. Just roll it up, open it up, roll it out, put your branding on it, and away you go. You're ready to rock and roll. That's the difference. But the big difference between us and other businesses, we're there. Even if you're not paying us for the va, you're paying for the most basic of one of our services. We're there to help you.
B
Well, Michael, I gotta ask a question for clarity. And this is also a potential boost to your credibility and why people should listen to you. And I think it's an important one. You might disagree, but I think it's an important one. What qualifies you as an individual to talk about processes and step by step, what's an integral part of Michael Callan's background where people say, oh shit, he does know his stuff because he was trained in X, Y and Z. And I'll let you fill in the xyz.
C
Well, thank, thank you very much for that, Mitch. Thank you. Look, so I'm a trained investigator. An investigation is a process. You start at the beginning of the process, you step by step methodically work your way to the end state. And I'm a successful investigator. There's very few cases that I have not come to a conclusion with whether they're guilty or not guilty. I'm also a trainer now. We train in doing criminal investigations. We train in a range of open source intelligence, corruption investigations. We've worked for international colleges, we've worked for the Australian Federal Police. We've trained their people in forensics of all things. But we know how to set up the process so they can follow it easily to get to the end state. We hold the world's only digital forensics software that actually takes you through an investigation process called Forensics Pro. We built that ourselves, we devised that process. It's one of a kind. So that's. We've got an experience in looking at something and a situation and turning into a process that allows you a really methodical way of doing it and an easy way of doing it, not a hard way, not 18 different branches, but really simple, step by step for you. So that's where we get that experience, where my team gets that experience from. Because it's not just me, there's like about a dozen more people out there who work for me who work on this process development part of it, the whole system.
B
So let me sum this up. You analyze, you diagnose and you prescribe. So that's. The doctors diagnose and prescribe, but you run an analysis thoroughly on the business itself because of your forensics background. And you have a little bit of a military background too. That was where I was hinting.
C
And then they're not so process driven, mate. If you've ever been in the Australian army, it's. She'll be right.
B
So let's. So we'll stay focused on the forensics aspect of Michael Cowan's background. And you've embraced the right partner over in the Philippines who speak good English, cute little accent, but they speak good English and they have very good analytical skills and details. Once you lay out the foundation for Filipinos, and I'm generalizing and I'm saying this in a positive, judgmental way, once you lay out the foundation for Filipinos, they tend to follow the roadmap very well and they love to share with enthusiasm the secrets that you may not have known that existed.
C
And, and to be honest, one of the big things I found about working with my team, especially the Filipino sides of the house is when they hit a roadblock, they'll tell me like really can't do that so well. What I think you need to do is that go step by go, come back that process approach and they, once you show that process to them, it's dead easy. It is dead easy for them to figure out where they need to go next. And a lot of times the thing I also love about the Filipino team that I've got is their ability to network is that's the next level. So I would ring my VA and go, hey, do you know anybody that can do X? And she says yes, it's not her cousin, but she does know or she knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. So we have picked up some amazing people and talking about the forensic stuff. We've got a big client coming up that we're looking at forensics. We've been able to secure some forensics people in the Philippines who can do the work for us really quickly too. So and we are not talking about, you know, dumb guys, we're talking about some really smart people who just clicking and clicking well with their team. So yeah, there's a range of it's. The approach that we have is to analyze the problem and try and find out what that end state for the user is. So one of the smallest examples I've got and it would sound stupid to anyone but it actually really important. We had a client yesterday, the VA has taken the client through the system and saying, well at this point we now have to put your mobile phone in into the system so you can send SMS's. The client's response was I don't want to send people SMS's. I don't want to be paying through. I want to pay through the system, but I don't want to use my credit card. I don't want to pay through the system, but I'd be paid by the system, but I don't want to use, I don't want to use a. You Know the old click online, pay by credit card, everything by bank transfer. And my VA went, I can do that. And within 10 minutes she'd set up the system. So that's exactly what the client got. Only sends emails. Everything gets paid straight into a bank account, no fees and charges. We did that. Took us 10 minutes to do it because we listened to what the customer had to say. And she is super happy about that. Super, super happy. Sending out posts, sending out emails to the client she needs to getting the funnels work and coming in with client leads. But the one thing we didn't do is go, you can't do that. You got to have a mobile phone because it doesn't work because everybody else uses that. But you can't have that approach. You gotta have that approach of, okay, what are you trying to achieve? And that's the biggest question we ask in the first place, is how do you want to work with your clients? How do you want the client's experiences comes into my business. That's what we ask. And it's amazing how often we find, wow, we can do a really simple solution for you because we're not imposing our solution on you, if that makes sense. So there's another big difference between us and other businesses. We don't give you a cookie cutter. Yeah, sure, we can give you an example. But we'll build that particular process for you.
B
That's great because I'm eager to find this solution. We'll certainly talk about this because we.
C
Will talk about that because. Can I do you a deal? We will get it set up, we'll get it running. I've got, I guarantee you that Mitch, my team will come along, have a look, you give us access and we'll run that baby for you.
B
Well, yeah, And I'll be a hell of a case study to show.
C
Yeah. Because I've got a big mouth.
B
I've got a big mouth and I could certainly be a good, good trumpet for helping you launch your new, your, your business here, you know, on a larger scale.
C
Yeah, it's fantastic. Thanks. Me.
B
Yeah, we'll talk about that. Well, Michael, how can they get in touch with you so they can do this?
C
Hey, if you're looking for, for some information from us. Yes. What you need to do is just send us, drop us a line at two locations. You, you send a, an email to infofca.edu au or just send me a text on 048174, 9476. Don't forget we're +6 1 here in Australia.
B
Are you Australian? Is that a real accent?
C
That's a real accent.
B
I just wanted to make sure, mate. All right.
C
Why do I put up with this?
B
Oh, all right. Well, Michael, super. That has been a. A great information and solution. A solution to my problem. I did not know this. I'm excited. I'm gonna be client number one with the American accent. And it's real. Just so you know. You've got a real Australian. I got a real American one. So we're good?
C
We're. Yeah, no problems. Thanks for that, Mitch. Cheers. All right, thanks. Okay. Welcome to Lessons in Deception, the podcast where fraud meets its match. I'm Michael Callan. I'm the founder of the Australian Fraud and Anti Corruption Academy. After years of investigating scams and schemes, I've learned that fraudsters think they're clever, but they're usually predictable. Each episode we come, we'll climb the fraud tree, expose the tricks and share the lessons. You need to spot Deceptions fast. So let's get started this morning with a really out of left field guest. And the guest I'm talking about is Mitch Carson, former pitchman on the Home Shopping Network, Amazon best selling author, man of many talents, a good friend, and really a bit of a statesman in his field. Hi, Mitch, how are you? Welcome to the podcast.
B
Well, I'm excited to be here. This is going to be a great session and I love the topic.
C
Excellent, excellent. Why this is out of left field is most people would be thinking, I'll be talking to criminal lawyers, I'd be talking to police officers, I'd be talking to fraud investigators. But in actual fact, I need to talk to the people at the front line who were dealing in the space where things can go wrong, so where the money changes hands, where people are actually advertising things and talking about stuff. And you were right in that, weren't you? In the 90s and right here into the 2000s, you've been part of that. That, that not sales so much, but the marketing element of it. So can you give me some thoughts about, you know, having been in the industry, what's it like on the ground when you're going out there to pitch for someone or you're selling something? How did you know? How did you personally know that the things that you were selling were, you know, okay, legit?
B
You don't know until you find out.
C
That's a good answer. Yeah.
B
And that's true. There was an Australian company and I'm going to leave him nameless, but you'll probably be able to fill in the gaps. I have worked as a pitchman for hire. Essentially this means somebody's got a great product service system and they are brilliant at creating it. They don't know how to wrap it, they don't know how to market it and sell it. That's where I've come in. In many cases I either come in for a straight 10%. If they've got the system, I'm just going to give the numbers how it works, usually around a 10%. So for example, if you've got a service and say mitch, I want to hire you because I know you know how to market and sell and you've got all the deliverables for me and I'm just the voice and I've done this for several Australian companies also several. I would come in, fix the PowerPoints, fix it, use my language, know how to then package it and deliver it with convincing persuasive language so people are motivated to buy. However, I've rejected quite a few because if I didn't believe in the product or service, because if it's not ethical, it's not honorable. I'm going to walk. Let me give you an example. I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia a few years back. This is pre Covid and one of the attendees said I love how you present and sell from the stage. I said thank you because this is my craft, this is what I do. He said I've got a product or service. Have you heard about the money game? I said no, it's something that is involved in Malaysia where you sell people. They essentially wanted me to sell a pyramid scheme and I'm so it's a pyramid scheme of some type of a money thing to wealthy people in Malaysia who've also got something that is essential and is in most human beings around the world and it's called the greed gland. Once you rub it three times, a genie rub comes popping out. It's the green gland.
C
It is true. That is actually true. That is very, very, very true. Comment the Greed clan once you rub it three times. Absolutely true. So.
B
So let me tell you what happened. If I could share this, that's what.
C
I was going to ask.
B
So I was. Well, actually I'd spoken two days in and so was the drive over my promoter in we drove to Johor Bahru which is about a three and a half hour drive in a car. Okay. It's on the border of Singapore which I then went on to after on my speaking tour. So I was there to do two events in Johor Bahru. And I met different people there who said, okay, we saw you. We've got to go back to KL to meet this person who's got this product that he wants sold. And now in the drive from the Joe Hor Baru back to kl, I was presented what this was in vague terms. And this guy said, you know, it's just so, you know, it's a little bit illegal. A little bit illegal. I said, tell me more before I say yes. And he said, well, all you have to do is sell yourself to the man who's got this system. And he's what is called a dotto. A datto in, in Malaysia is someone that's given a title by some member of the royal family. They have kings throughout different areas. There are about 12 different kings in Malaysia. And it's a, it's a status label for somebody. It credentializes them in the public. Like they're able to use that title. You can. It's pay to play, really. And this dotto is the person that you have to convince and tell and sell him on what you're doing now. Something inside of me said, I don't want to sell him. Because when they hinted at it might be illegal, it is illegal. It's not. If it's a might be, that is enough for me to destroy the deal. Now I ruined a relationship because I didn't sell this guy. I went through it. I was in the man's car that drove me over there, and I come to find out that he was connected to something called Triads, which is one of the largest gangs in the world. I had found out, I'm not saying name, so I'm not going to get stabbed in my sleep. And I met this particular dotto and KL didn't ask for the order. Now the people that took me there, the representatives, were pissed off at me because I didn't ask for the order. Well, you have to sell them. You didn't sell them. I said, huh, huh. I'm just mumbling under my breath, let me out of here. And it was fraudulent where essentially you get people in a room, you promise them that they're going to make money by bringing other people in underneath them. And it's a pyramid scheme. You can make so much money. And they had all these fictitious people at the top of a pyramid who are apparently making all this money and you get checks. I, I remember getting pitched on that in the 70s and my stepfather was one of the people that got raided. I was out of the house working. I was 19 years old at the time and my stepfather who had invested in this pyramid scheme got raided by the FBI, which is the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. Thrown on the floor, my mom was arrested. I all of this falsely. They were innocent. They weren't part of the the deal, but they were one of. They ran a sting operation throughout. So I had firsthand knowledge of this as a boy and seeing the terror and tragedy that took place from a fraudster in America. And then I saw this image again about what was this would have been about seven years ago in Malaysia. And I said fraud might be illegal. And Mitch being in jail in Malaysia, no can do.
C
No, no. And that is a fantastic story. I do like the red flag. It's a little bit illegal.
B
It might be illegal. It might be illegal.
C
Okay. So that's a kind of red flag there. Which would. But you would have seen this so often. You would have had people come to you in your gut feeling. Wouldn't it, Wouldn't it have been. I've got this really good product. There's a difference between I've got this good product that does X and you know it's not going to do it and the guy's got no clue that it's never going to sell. Right. It's. It's a bit like the old Nintendo stuff that used to come out. Yeah, good idea. A Commodore 64 all shorts.
B
Sure.
C
Good. Good idea. It never survived. As opposed to. You would get that gut feeling. But surely you must have had like dozens of these guys. Not, not as obvious as that. Where you've gone. There's something about you that just doesn't sniff.
B
Right. Well, you know. And another one that I'll bring close to home to Australia. A man that sold share trading in Australia had apparently a full. Now this. Listen to the wording, Michael. Foolproof system guaranteeing results. Listen to the words guaranteeing returns of X amount of percentage per month and you'll know who he is. I'm not saying his name. I was in America in between. I, I would always augment my income after I sold my advertising business and I was semi retired as I said. And then I would take certain assignments for a period of time till the product ran through. And I did this successfully with other software companies. I would sell. I would know enough just to pitch it for them because they're geeks and this, this and that's fine. It was a good, good relationship. And I worked with a Swiss company all these until their product sunset it and it was a good relationship. I made my money, they made their money, you know, and I added the fuel to the fire. This Australian company guaranteed these promotions with a foolproof system. And I was trained to handle the Americas. I was going to do this in the US for them. And I went through their two day training how to do it, how to run the system and understand it. And I was waiting for stages that they were supposed to arrange for me. I would come in, make 10%, they cover my travel, cover my, my lodging, all of that, my food. And I just go in and pitch on these multi speaker platforms. So it was a $5,000 sale. So each sale I'd make 500 bucks. And if a room had 500 people and I do 10%, you do the math, you know. So I make my money. Yeah. So it's a. And if I were to go city to city, it's nice little income where I don't have any responsibility on the back end. Or do I? Or do I? Or do I? Because. Yes. Or do I? Because that brings up the question how much accountability do I have as their front person? Being American in an America, selling an Australian product in America from an Australia. Fast forward what happened. This individual cannot go back to Australia ever again. He fled. He lives in a foreign country. You'll be able to piece it together.
C
Don't mention, oh yeah, I already know who it is. Yeah.
B
Yes. And he lives outside of the US now. I mean not out outside of Australia. And I think it's ASIC or what. What's the name of the Australian.
C
The Federal police shut them down.
B
I mean we have the FTC in America. I think you have ASIC there. And we, you know, we have different regulatory. Securities Exchange Commission. You have the equivalence in Australia. And I'm not getting involved in a boxing match. They're big ass kangaroos with clubs and claws and you know, hell no. Hell no. And I fortunately dodged that bullet because he said we're having a review for masic. And I looked it up and I realized I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.
C
Again. It's. It's that due diligence you've gone through to go. I got a red flag. I really need to check this. I really need to check what I'm selling. There's isn't to you in your sense, is it? I'm doesn't matter if I'm legally accountable.
B
Or it's my own moral, ethically responsible. How can I sell something that doesn't deliver what I'm Saying is promised. I, for example, I have a podcast course that you're in. Yeah, you've been in. And I made promises. I must deliver. I want to deliver. I cannot look myself in the mirror and see who I am with my glasses on. If I take them off, I imagine handsome with them on. I see who I am.
C
George Clooney.
B
Yeah, that's it. You know, the reality is. Or Brad the Pit, whatever. I'm just Mitch Carson and I must deliver on the promises. I have specific deliverables and because it's my program, I know they'll be met. But if I'm pitching somebody else, and this is the, the quandary a pitchman goes through, do those products get delivered as promised? Do they meet the standards in which you claim? Claim are present with each product. When I was a pitchman selling products as a person on Home Shopping Network, I'm contract. I'm a contract person. I'm not an employee, I'm a contractor. I come in and sell with products of other people because they don't know how to sell. That's my specialty. Is the product ethical? Does it hurt people? Is it safe? All of these things had to be considered. Now, ultimately, most of the experiences I had were very positive. There were few exceptions. Most of the clients that I represented and sold were ethical, had good products. But there are such standards. I'm sure it exists in Australia. If cha. If they're child proof, what happens if a kid rubs this? Will he cut his finger? All you know, if it's a physical product and there are a list of criteria you must check before you embrace and represent a product or service.
C
But see here, herein lies for us, the frauds that would always say to you, I did my due diligence. I didn't know that was.
B
But it wasn't mine.
C
Yeah, it wasn't mine. See, that comes back to the accountability thing. And self justification is a fraud. So I, I had no doubts or any doubts I had. I checked and it was fine. So what you're talking about is actual factors going. I'm going to do more than check. I'm going to look myself in the mirror and say, do I feel comfortable about this? Is this really matching my values? Okay, there's a difference between ask to sell something. You go, really? I would never use this in a pink fit. Never. But there's nothing wrong with it. And you know, one man's trash might be another man's treasure. So I'm going to sell a product that I know it works. B If no one's going to get harmed. C. It's ethical. It's not my cup of tea, but you know, here you go. As opposed to, I don't really give a big rat's ass what I'm selling as long as I'm getting my cut.
B
That's not responsible.
C
No, that's not responsible. So it's really interesting. But you would see that, you would see that type of approach across that, across your industry where you're. There's a range of these people that would. The pitch man would pitch. There'd be people like yourself.
B
They don't care.
C
They don't care. Yeah, well, it's true. It's true.
B
They don't care. I mean, there have been speakers. Now, I've traveled the world, 63 countries, I've spoken on stages in all around the world. There are a handful of speakers. I can name five of them off the top of my head and I'm sure there are more whom I haven't shared the stage with who are unethical individuals. Will would sell their mother if it gave them a drink at the bar, who are just all about extracting money from the audience and without consequence. They just don't care. Now, they're terrific salespeople. I admire the mechanism that they access and their methodology to sell, but the product does not match the promise. And there are so many of those. Well, there are five that I can name off the top of my head. And they just don't care. They're only interested in the outcome of the cash. And that's. I can't do that.
C
No, no. And so I think, I think that's where you choose. You choose a path that might not be as lucrative. I think is correct. That's where it becomes very important. And I see that a lot with. I have seen some really super highly efficient and very, very profitable ethical businesses. But it's a hard road when you think about it, for a business to do because there are a lot of temptations to cut corners, ignore things and lay yourself and go, well, it's not my product, I'm just selling it. It's really not my problem, it's yours. And the justification I loathe, which is they knew what they were paying for when actual fact, they didn't. So this pitch man approach really is for some would be a great way to rip people off, but others, like yourself, would be a great way to sell good products.
B
Well, sell it ethically. There's enough money out there to not have to grab at every fruit that's available. There are enough, there's enough fruit in the tree for you to, to eat well, feel sated, satisfied, and then to have to go in and sell and sell the rotten fruit for what? It's just not worth it. That's the mentality, it's the unethical mentality that exists with certain individuals. Why sell rotten fruit when there's so much that's ripe and ready and delicious.
C
Stage of your life to build their own business. Now you're really getting the message out there to the community that you've got something that's rich in experience that you want to share. And I think just talking to you just exposes that fantastic point of view that you bring to your business, which is why personally, I joined up with your course because I recognize the integrity behind it. Fantastic talking to you today, Mitch. Really, really good. Thank you. Bringing that insight into what I think is probably a big risk area for some people who are buying, not so much selling. You've got some great courses coming and some great things that I think should be shared. How can people get in contact with you to learn that sort of ethical skill sets that you bring to pitchman and selling?
B
Basically, well, two ways. One, you could find me on and if you're interested in learning about how to build your personal brand, go to get interviewed guaranteed.com. get interviewed guaranteed.com. get interview guaranteed.com. i just proved that I have some years of television and radio interviewing. The call to action or mentioning the call to action three times. That's where they can find me.
C
Okay. Hey, Mitch, thank you very much today. Good luck and I'm sure I'll catch up with you too in your apartment. What is it? The 64th floor overlooking John.
B
Oh, that, yeah, that. That was the 43rd floor. Yes, 43rd. You did your interview? Yes. Perfect.
C
Damn good view, Mike. Damn good view. Okay, thanks very much. Have a good day.
A
Thanks for tuning in to the amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired, inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.
The Amazing Authorities Podcast
Episode: Simplifying Go High Level: Automation, Ethics & Client Success with Michael Callan
Host: Mitch Carson
Guest: Michael Callan
Date: December 2, 2025
This episode presents a dual focus. First, host Mitch Carson and recurring guest Michael Callan (“Mr. Solution from Down Under”) deeply explore strategies for simplifying and implementing Go High Level, a popular but often intimidating business automation platform. The discussion centers on pain points, effective onboarding, and delivering client-centric solutions.
In the second half, the conversation shifts to Mitch Carson’s experiences with ethical sales in the product and pitchman world, revealing how to recognize and avoid fraud — drawing on both Michael’s investigative expertise and Mitch’s “on the ground” insights from decades in sales and media.
[01:27-04:48]
[04:48-07:31]
[07:31-09:53]
[09:53-13:43]
[13:43-14:54]
[14:23-14:54]
[16:12-28:42]
[27:50-32:41]
[32:41-34:36]
[35:26-35:57]
Mitch (on tech overwhelm by Go High Level):
“I’m up shit’s creek… I never want to be technical. You’re the one that recommended this program to me.” (03:39)
Michael (on his process-driven solution):
“We sit down with you and show you what we did and how to use it.” (06:10)
Michael (on the difference his background makes):
“We hold the world’s only digital forensics software that actually takes you through an investigation process… We know how to set up the process so they can follow it easily to get to the end state.” (08:16)
Michael (on Filipino teams):
“Their ability to network is… next level… we’ve picked up some amazing people.” (10:45)
Mitch (on unethical opportunities):
“When they hinted at it might be illegal, it is illegal… that is enough for me to destroy the deal.” (19:57)
Mitch (on moral responsibility):
“It’s my own moral, ethically responsible. How can I sell something that doesn’t deliver what I’m saying is promised?” (28:07)
Mitch (on industry temptations):
“They’re only interested in the outcome of the cash. And that’s, I can’t do that.” (32:41)
| Time | Topic/Segment | Speaker | Key Point/Quote | |--------------|-----------------------------------------------|-------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:27-04:48 | Go High Level strengths/pain points | Michael/Mitch | “It’s got a lot of flexibility…but it’s just so painful to come together.” | | 04:48-07:31 | Checklist/set up & tiered support | Michael | “We train you, and provide someone in the background…” | | 07:31-09:53 | Michael’s investigative credentials | Michael | “Investigation is a process… step by step…” | | 10:29-12:36 | Filipino VA value and team customization | Michael | “Their ability to network is… next level…” | | 13:38 | Custom, non-cookie cutter solutions | Michael | “We don’t give you a cookie cutter… we’ll build that particular process…” | | 16:12-28:42 | Ethical pitchman, fraud, sales accountability | Mitch/Michael | “You don’t know until you find out.” | | 19:39 | Refusal to promote a pyramid scheme | Mitch | “When they hinted at it might be illegal, it is illegal…” | | 28:07 | Own moral responsibility in sales | Mitch | “How can I sell something that doesn’t deliver what I’m saying is promised?” | | 35:26-35:57 | Contact/call to action for Mitch | Mitch | “getinterviewedguaranteed.com… three times.” |
For Go High Level Solutions:
For Building Your Authority & Ethical Pitching:
Recommended for anyone struggling with business automation, seeking trustworthy partners, or wanting to maintain ethics while building influence and success.