← The Personal Finance Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
I was sort of between a rock and a hard place because I got married before I finished college and bought a house right after I finished college. So now I have a mortgage to pay, I have a wife, and I have an unaccredited Bible degree. And if I'm doing this for this, like, and not focusing on, like, being a happy, fulfilled person, then, you know, what's all this other stuff? For the people who have seen the most outsized success in life, like the really, really successful people, wealthy people, tend to be the ones who had a rock bottom moment. Something happened, some external circumstance happened that took away all levels of comfort in their life and they all of a sudden had to do something. You don't have to be working 80, 90 hours a week for 70 years to make a lot of money. You work more than most people for a decade and you'll live the life that most people can't for the rest of your life.
- [00:54]
B
Oh, what's up, everybody? And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney Co, and today on the Personal Finance podcast, we have Travis Chappelle, who's going to be talking to us about how to increase our income. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to mastermoney.com/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, come consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. Now today we're going to be talking to Travis Chappelle. Where most people think increasing their income starts with a new job, they think it starts with a side hustle or some secret strategy that they have not found yet. But in reality, income growth usually starts somewhere else entirely. It starts with how you communicate value, how you communicate whether you realize you're selling or not, and who you build relationships with over time. Now, in today's episode, Travis and I are gonna talk about the real drivers of income growth and how they don't show up on a paycheck right away, but quietly compound into massive opportunities. My guest today is Travis Chappelle, host of the podcast Travis Makes Money. And Travis has spent years studying high earners, entrepreneurs and operators. Not just how to see how they make money, but why some people break through while others stay stuck. And if you've ever felt capped in your income, unsure what skill you need to build next, or confused about how relationships actually turn into opportunity. This conversation is for you, so let's welcome Travis to the Personal Finance Podcast. So you've heard me talk about Bilt as the loyalty program that allows you to earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their mortgage payments. This is thanks to Bilt's three new credit cards, the Palladium card, the Obsidian card and the Blue card. All three can turn your housing payments, rent or mortgage into flexible rewards. So you can choose the card that fits your lifestyle without missing out on points and exclusive benefits and bill points. They can be redeemed at top airlines and hotels, Amazon.com purchases, future rent payments and more. And bill points have also been ranked by top publications as the industry's most valuable point currency. Your housing payment is already your biggest expense. Make it your most rewarding. Find the card that fits your lifestyle and apply today at joinbuilt.compfp that's J O I N bilt.compfp and make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply subject to approval and eligibility. Built cards are issued by column in a member FDIC pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. So you just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. So how do you find amazing candidates fast? It's easy. You just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. Your post jumps to the top of the page for the most relevant candidates so you reach the right people faster and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed get 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. There are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts and you only pay for results. In fact, while I've been reading this ad, 23 hires were made on Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit. To boost your post visibility@ Indeed.com personal finance, just go to Indeed.com personal finance and and support this show by letting them know you heard it here. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. So Travis, welcome to the Personal Finance podcast.
- [05:13]
A
Andrew what's up dude? Thanks for having me.
- [05:15]
B
We are really excited to have you here because today we're going to go through a Bunch of different things that can help people increase their income. Now one of the big things that we truly believe here is that increasing your income is the biggest lever that you can pull when it comes to building wealth. And you have interviewed a ton of different people about, about increasing your income. You have increased your own income in a bunch of different various ways. And so today in this episode, I want to dive deeper into, you know, increasing your income. The skills that are going to help you do this, things like sales, in addition, going into networking and how to build relationships so that you can help increase your income as well. So before we dive into this, can you tell us more about yourself and your background?
- [05:53]
A
Sure, man. Yeah, I just a 30,000 foot view here. Grew up, thought I was going to be in ministry. I grew up in sort of like a religious bubble, cultish type thing. Anyway, I ended up graduating Bible college with an unaccredited degree in Bible and church ministries. And by the time I got that, realized I didn't really want to do that. And so I was sort of between a rock and a hard place because I got married before I finished college and bought a house right after I finished college. So now I have a mortgage to pay, I have a wife and I have an unaccredited Bible degree which doesn't necessarily line up the employers, you know what I mean, they're not actively looking for like the next unaccredited Bible degree guy to bring on to, to their, to their team. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was door to door sales. I did some door to door in college and got pretty good at it. So I just went right back into doing door to door and I ended up doing 100% commission door to door sales for probably four or five years right out, right outside of college. And then after like a year and a half of doing it though, I basically realized I didn't want to continue doing that either. So it was like I'm, I'm good at this thing that I don't want to do and I'm qual qualified with a degree to do this thing, but I don't want to do that either. So now I'm just kind of back to square one doing the work of like what a 14 year old should be doing. But I was doing it at 23 with a wife and a mortgage. So I dove into personal development. That was what, that was what it was. It was just like I got to figure out what's out there, what's available. I got, I Don't. I don't know anybody that's successful, let alone like a millionaire. I should probably go meet some of those people if I want to be successful myself. And so I started listening to podcasts for the first time, reading books, listening to audiobooks. I was just desperate for information. And that eventually turned into me starting a podcast, which then turned into me doing podcast consulting, coaching courses, communities, masterminds. We did international retreats, we did a software company, a couple different agency plays. And the whole time I've kept my podcast going. I started another podcast, and now We've done over 1500 podcast episodes in the last eight years and then held every sort of like, job that you could hold in terms of consulting or coaching or something like that within that industry as well. So, yeah, all things podcasting now for.
- [08:05]
B
The past few years now, the cool thing about your story is that you kind of made a decision and at a certain point in time where you started to kind of work in the real world in quotations, and you started to kind of get the ball rolling there, but you made a decision, hey, I don't want to do door to door sales anymore. Now I'm sure, honestly, that door to door sales job was probably a great experience, just overall learning those skills and getting, you know, door slammed in your face, those types of things. And I think, you know, going forward, you made a decision. Well, I'm first going to change my mindset and I'm so I'm going to start listening to podcasts, reading books, those types of things, which is something that I did as well very early on. What do you think is the most important for someone who wants to increase their income when they're just starting out? Is it kind of shifting their mindset? Is it developing a skill? Is it doing both? What do you think is the most important there?
- [08:47]
A
Yeah, I think it, I think it's got to start with mindset because a lot of people just don't think it's possible for them. They're from this, this place of we. Finances tend to be hereditary, you know, so credit seems to be hereditary, savings seem to be hereditary. Unless you, unless you are somebody who just got so sick of never having any money and not understanding why we didn't have any money growing up. And then you take. And then those people are the ones who like, go become a financial planner, you know what I mean? Because everything was so unstable with finances, but for the most part, on average, like, finances are hereditary. And so I think a lot of people just have a bad relationship with money that stems from generational poor relationships with money. And it's nobody's fault. It's just a matter of do you want to continue the cycle or do you want to have money? And if you want to have money, you're going to have to fix the very first thing in that sequence, which is the mindset around money, the relationship that you have with money. So that was the first thing I did, man, was just like, started. Started reading books about money, started listening to books about money, started listening to podcasts about money. It was all a reframe to try to figure out what. What do I currently believe about this and what is standing in my way of making sure that I can live the life that I really want to live. And then you have to follow it up at some point with massive action, right? Like the action. You can't. You can't separate the action from the mindset. But I think it's. I think it's. It's sort of like shooting yourself in the foot to see if you can walk if you go directly to action without mindset, because you'll find that your action can sometimes be limited by your own mind. So if you don't focus and try to fix that at least a little bit, you're gonna. You're gonna probably run into some obstacles in terms of just setting your pricing if you have a side hustle or knowing how to sell something or feeling confident in your ability to do that when you. When you are starting this on the side to make some more money, like whatever that, whatever that looks like, it's just, you're probably going to struggle a little bit if you don't do some sort of work internally around how you think about money or what your relationship to money is.
- [10:45]
B
Exactly. And our upbringing really does have a huge impact on how we think about money early on in life. And so shifting some of those preconceived notions that we have about money is really important. And so getting that financial education and learning different ways that you can make money, earn money, and see that there's so much more out there. There's so much more potential that you have to build wealth. You just have to learn how to unloc kind of stuff. And so I think people have these limiting money beliefs. They have these beliefs that, you know, maybe I can't, you know, increase my income enough or I'm not going to be able to. To kind of do some of the stuff that I see other people do out there on Instagram or Tik Tok or wherever else. So do you think that there are beliefs that keep people stuck and what are the biggest money beliefs that keep people stuck in the same place, especially at the same income level for years?
- [11:28]
A
Yeah, I think people just, People write their own stories and then buy into them. They tell themselves that this particular thing is TR about people who make money. Therefore it is impossible for me to make money. Right. So they'll tell themselves that rich people are bad, that they're bad people, that all they did was step on people in society and they, they, they stepped on toes in the success ladder and that's why they're so high up there type of a thing. And then they, they create this entire narrative that says that rich people are bad. Therefore I do not want to be rich because if I make money, I will be bad. None of that's true. It's just a story that you've made up because you have been distanced from the wealthy class, from rich people for your entire life. Again, not your fault, not anybody's fault. It's just a thing that happened. Right? That's kind of how I was growing up, was just like, I, I don't, I don't, I've never met a millionaire, let alone like have access to be able to text one or call one or something like that. So you don't know what you don't know because you never got into those circles. And what I found is getting in touch with all the people I've got in touch with now over the past few years is that the wealthy people that I know tend to be counterintuitively, some of the most generous people that, that I've ever met. And it's really taught me a really important lesson about money, which is that money is just a tool. It's a neutral tool. It is not good or bad. It is only a tool to be used by the person who has the money. And so if you're a bad person, you're probably, it's going to amplify the bad qualities. You're probably going to be a little bit worse if you have a bunch of money, if you're a good person, it's probably going to amplify those qualities and you're probably going to be a little bit better. If you have a lot of money, you'd be more generous, you can take care of more people, you can help more people around you, you can take care of society, you can, you can graduate from taking care of personal problems and move into helping people with societal problem. There's A lot of really great things that happen with money. But some people have told themselves a story that rich people are bad, therefore I should not try to get rich because then I will not be a good person. And that's not just not true. And then you have, you know, other things about, about class or, or social status or college degree or the absence of a college degree. There's so many of these stories that people start telling themselves, well, I can't get rich because I didn't go to college, or I can't get rich because I'm not a natural salesperson, or I can't get rich because fill in the blank and is is just people trying to justify their lack of income rather than taking control or ownership and asking themselves if it were possible, what would it take and how do I go make that happen? So it, it's a, it's a rewiring, a reframing of, a retelling of stories, if you will, that are, that are going on in the mind of the person who's self sabotaging.
- [13:58]
B
Exactly. And I think that's, that's why it's so important to have that rewiring like you're talking about because you really have to figure out exactly where you're going to be going. And then you have to take that massive action that we're talking about here where I see so many people are stuck in the same sp, say they want to earn more money and they say they want to go out and do some of these things, but they never actually do it.
- [14:17]
A
So that's right.
- [14:18]
B
I see people that I talk to all the time and they stay at the same income level. They keep talking about, oh, I'm, I want to earn more but I just can't do it, or I want to earn more but I don't have the time, those types of things. And so we see people at the same income level for long periods of time. Why do you think most people get stuck at that income level?
- [14:33]
A
There's no urgency. Y what happens is you get too comfortable making what you make and you know that you can survive making what you make. And you're not necessarily getting ahead, but you're not necessarily getting behind. And maybe you have a few thousand dollars in credit card debt every now and again because you had to put new tires on the car. And maybe, you know, maybe you can't quite afford to eat at that restaurant, but you do it anyway because you know, hey, yolo and, and may as well just go do what I want. So you're just in this constant state of barely surviving and it's just comfortable enough to not kick your butt into gear, to go do something in your free time or to create free time to do something in. And then you again start, tell yourself a new story, which is that I don't have enough time to go make more money or I'm, I'm limited because my job does not allow me to get a raise except for once a year and it's only an inflation raise. Or like again, you start, you start telling yourself these lies that are just, they're just, they're, that's what they are, they're lies. They're not true. But you tell them, you tell yourself these things to make yourself feel better about the fact that you're not actually doing the action of somebody who says they want to make a lot of money. And we all want to act in consistency with our identity. So if your identity is somebody who says I want to go make more money and then you're not doing it, then you're looking for ways to justify why you're not doing it so that you don't clash with that internal identity instead of just sitting there and going like, what am I doing that I actually could not be doing that I could be replacing with money making activities and is it possible for me to go do that? So that's why I think a lot of times, man, I don't know about you, but some of the people who I've talked to on my show who have seen the most outsized success in life, like the really, really successful people, wealthy people, tend to be the ones who had a rock bottom moment. Moment because they weren't comfortable. Something happened, some external circumstance happened, something completely outside of their control that took away all levels of comfort in their life. And they all of a sudden had to do something. There was no, there was no path forward. The only two options were like bankruptcy and drug addiction or, or like figure this thing the F out and take some action and move forward in life. And it, in something this, this, this, you know, alchemist mixture of event of like happened in their life. And then they took this massive action. They saw this huge result. There's so many people, they're just like, they're comfy. They're comfy at 85,000 a year. You know, it's like. Yeah, is it, is it always comfy? No. And are the holidays a bit of a stretch? Yeah. And would I like to go on that trip?
- [17:03]
B
Sure.
- [17:04]
A
But we can't really afford to Bring the whole family on the plane. So, like, we're just going to do this one in the car. So everything's good, everything's okay. You know what I mean? It's just like that's. You have to engineer some, some sort of like rock bottom moment or brick wall or some sort of struggle. You have to almost engineer that in your life to force you out of this milieu of complacency and push you into this world of urgency that says, like, look, life is short, you know, I've only got X number of years left, Lord willing. And during that time, I'm going to make the best of my, of my time here and then just say, like, I'm going to sprint for a little while. You know what I mean? That's, that's what I always tell people is like, the dedication to trying to make more money now does not mean that you have to do this for the next 50 years. You don't have to be working 80, 90 hours a week for 70 years to make a lot of money. You, you work more than most people for a decade and you'll live the life that most people can't for the rest of your life. I promise you, if you work on the right things the right way, work like, build the right skill sets and then bust your tail for a decade, maybe even five years, the results that you'll see in that period of time will be enough to be able to set you up to live a life that nobody el else can for the rest of your life. Or you can just take the next 40 years like everybody else and just do the bare minimum and see where that gets you.
- [18:22]
B
It's, it's so true. And I think the financial foundation that you set up over the course of just that specific decade will just change your life forever. If you understand, you know, the compounding effects of that. And you mentioned, you know, a lot of people have to hit rock bottom. It's like a lot of longtime listeners know from my story alone that I had to hit rock bottom. I hit rock bottom early on where I didn't even have enough money to fill up my tank of gas in my car. And that's where I said, I was so mad and I was so frustrated. And I said, I'm going forever. This is never, ever going to happen again to me. And that's where I made the drastic changes and, and kind of made a huge, huge shift in my life. And that's where everything started. And so you can see this over and over and over again. You have to have some sort of friction in your life to make it happen. If you don't. I have so many friends out there, for example, who have lived with their parents well into their 30s, and then they'll say, I'm going to be here one more year and then I'm going to go out on my own. And you see them five years later, they're still living with their parents because they don't have to make it happen. They don't have to go out and do something to make it happen. There's so many people out there in these situations that really just don't have this friction, this economic friction that needs to happen in order for you to actually, you know, get on top of your money, get on top of your income levels and actually go out and do something. And so this is something where a lot of people out there who may be struggling right now, maybe you're on your own and you're struggling. This is a good thing because what's going to happen is that you're going to find ways to actually, you know, increase your income. You're going to find ways to actually go out and save a little more or invest more of your money so you can have financial freedom, so you can have freedom against, you know, this life that you are, you know, pursuing right now. And so I think that's really, really important for most people out there to understand is that this is the moment where you can make a change. You can make a change today and make that decision. And it's all about shifting that mindset. What was the first income level break for through for you? Was it early on when you started that sales job or was it when you started some of your businesses?
- [20:08]
A
Yeah, it was the sales job early on. It was six figures in the sales was like my first big financial goal and did that when I was like, like 20, 22, 23, something like that, doing 100% commission, door to door sales. And it was the best thing that could have happened to me, bro, because for two reasons. Number one, it taught me first of all that I had already kind of hit a ceiling at the, the place that I was working. Like, if I knew that if I gone that if I went and worked twice the number of hours, I would not have had twice the amount of results. And that sort of like scared me and started making me think about like, okay, well what does this look like in 10 years from now? Am I, am I just going to keep knocking doors and making 100 grand a year? Because that's Obvious that's not a good situation either. And then the that happened is I realized that 100 grand is not that much money. I was like. Like, it was. You know, I was living in California at the time, and. And it was central California, so not as bad as SoCal or NorCal, but still California pricing and all that stuff. And it was just like. It was me and my wife, you know, I was. I wasn't single, but we didn't have kids and super low mortgage payment and lifted my head up at the end of the year. I was just like, I mean, we have some money in the bank, but, like, I thought we made, like, growing up, dude, you know, six figures was like. Like the. The. The golden goose, you know? It's like I. I made it six figures, you know, and then I made it for the first time, and I was like, this is not that much. Like, if you want to. If you want to travel a little bit, if you want to drive a nice car and live in a decent house and you want to save for retirement and you want to invest a little bit, and you want to start a business, and you want to have kids in the future, it's like, you start adding all these things up, and it's like, oh, my gosh, dude. Like, we are. We are not making enough money here. And I think that that was, like, one of the reasons rebranding the. The show to Travis Makes Money was like, I. I just think. I just think not enough people have done the math. I think. I think everybody's got this magic number in their mind, usually some multiple of what they're currently making. If you're making 30 grand, you're probably thinking, if I could make 90 grand. If you're making 90 grand, you're probably thinking, if I can make a quarter million, like, it.
- [22:05]
B
If.
- [22:05]
A
If at every income level, you. You have some sort of, like a. If I could make this, all. All things would be taken care of type of a thing. But you've never actually done the math to figure out what that number means. Like, what. What can I. What actually. What life can I actually afford here? Is this. What. Is this the house that we're trying to raise our kids in? Well, how much is that house, and what does that payment look like? Is these. Are these the cars we want to be able to drive? Well, how much is that car, and what does that payment look like? Are these the vacations that we want to take? Okay, well, that vacation's $10,000. Okay, so that means that. That means that there's an extra thousand bucks a month that I have to make in order to be able to pay for that vacation on top of all the other things that I'm paying for. Then you have life emergencies. You have medical bills. You have replacing the transmission in your car. You have, like, your roof goes bad. You have an H VAC problem in the summertime in the middle of the heat, and you got to get that taken care of. Like, you're. We're not doing the math right. It's like, even if you have taken a step further than most people and budgeted all your things and figured out your expenses and your income, and you have. You're telling your dollars to go different places, you've done all of that, but then you forgot the emergency stuff. It's like, oh, damn, dude. Well, you. It may not be that much over the course of a given year, but now that I've lived enough life, man, like, you know, my wife and I've been married for almost 12 years now. It's like, well, a decade, though. If you add up all of the emergency expenses that have had that have had to take place over the course of a decade, and then you average it out across that 10 years, it's not insignificant. You know what I mean?
- [23:31]
B
Right.
- [23:31]
A
And then you add in kids, and then you add in education and preschool and school and all these other things. Like, well, if I want my daughter to go to preschool, like, I want to put her in one that's going to educate her and not just have her sit around and watch movies all day. So got to pay for that. And we got to pay for this and got this other thing that we want to move, so we got to save up money here. So I think it's like, people, people just don't do the math, man. And, and, and so making that first six figures that young to me was a really big blessing because it taught me that it was just like, wow, I am not going to be able to both live the life that I want to now and the life that I want to later by making this amount of money. I have to increase that.
- [24:07]
B
Exactly. I think that's for. Most people need to understand kind of what their living expenses are and their living costs are. And you need to recalculate that on a yearly basis at least, is kind of one of the. The beliefs that we talk about a lot here. And it comes down to how much you're spending every single year. But life is going to change that over time. You're going to get Married and your expenses are going to go up, then you're going to have kids. And when you're, when you have kids, most people know, like daycare costs, for example, are going to be one of their biggest expenses that they have. It's crazy. It really is. I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, I have three kids, seven and under, and like, it's just, it's one of those things where each time that they enter, you know, that daycare stage, it is one of those high costs that is just absolutely insane. And for most people out there, there, they need to recalculate how much they're spending on a yearly basis and then understand those numbers. That's one of the biggest numbers that you need to note is just what your burn rate is. Because if you don't know that number and you just start to frivolously spend on random things, you're going to get yourself into trouble and you're going to slowly start to fall behind. And so this is a really important note that you're making here is I think is really just knowing where you stand and then learning to increase your income based on how life is going to change what you need. And I think overall that's a huge, huge, huge thing. So you mentioned that you were in door to door sales. I think that's probably one of the best kind of ways to learn sales out there because it's one of the hardest ways to, to learn sales. And so can you kind of talk about, I want to get into the sales process because I think sales is one of the most valuable skills that people can acquire. And for most people, even if you're bad at sales, you can kind of do this based on practice and based on understanding and learning. And so this is something where especially even in the age of AI, sales is going to reign true. And I think for most people, people, once they start to learn this skill, you can sell yourself at your job, you can sell yourself in every single situation in life. This is going to help you dramatically. So what do you think is the most common sales mistakes that people make?
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, so sales a hundred percent, just to echo you real quick, is it has been the bedrock, it's been the foundation that I've been able to build everything else off of, because I know one thing is true, I know that I can sell. And the confidence in my ability to sell has brought me through so many sources of like down cycles in my entrepreneurship journey where it's like sometimes things are going really well, sometimes Things are not going really well. And so it's really nice to know that when things are not going really well that if worse comes to worse, I know that I can go just work a sales gig for a few months, store some cash and get right back at it. You know what I'm saying? So it's been like your, your ability to take risk is directly correlated to your confidence in making back the money that you're risking risking a hundred percent of the time. Like if you, if you knew that you could go make a hundred grand next month in your business and profit and like put 100k back into your bank account, then you're probably more likely to take that 75000 risk. But if it takes you 2 years to make 100k in profit, you're probably less likely to take that 75000 risk. Like and if you can risk more then you can have better access to speed, which success loves speed, money loves momentum, them. And so you can start seeing that that cycle compound a lot quicker if you can increase your confidence in your ability to go generate more cash quickly. And sales is one of those skill sets that's just like, it's, it's the, it's the you know, contract killer, hire contract killer for hire type thing which is like there's always going to be work, you know what I mean? Like everybody's going to like at some point. Every business needs somebody to sell something. So if you can work on that as a skill set, it will help like you said, take you through each aspect of your career whether you're in sal or not sales or especially if you're an entrepreneurship. Every entrepreneur has some version of salesmanship afforded to them or they partner with somebody who does. Right? There's no version of successful business that's never had somebody who was really good at sales in some sort of position in leadership in the company itself. So it's absolutely some one of those things that they should be working on door to door is a great way to cut your teeth just because it's volume. So whenever, whenever I'm trying to like tell somebody who's younger who, who's coming up or somebody who just wants to learn sales go somewh where there's a strong system, where there are already high performers and a proven system and where you get excess volume because the more volume you get, the better you get, the faster. So you, you, you, if there's a lull, a large lull in between the time that you see success, you're Less likely to make it doing that thing. So that's why I say, like, you want to see, you want to be in a system that works. You don't just want to like go start randomly selling stuff on your own unless you're already really good. Because it's difficult to keep a good mindse during those rejection, those high rejection times, because you don't, you don't, you don't see it, you don't see a result happening on a daily basis for other people. So if you get involved in an organization where they have good systems, they have good setup, and they have good processes, and then you can see other salespeople and you can see what their numbers are and, and visualize how much money they're making, that will kick you into high gear and go like, look, it's possible for so and so. It's possible for so and so. It's possible for so and so. They're doing it out here every single day with the same leads or the same process, the same list, or the same neighborhood or whatever it is where you're cold calling, knocking doors, whatever. And they're making it happen. And they're making $250,000 a year. And so if they can do it, I can do it. And I just gotta figure out what they're doing. So like my M.O. dude, anytime I got into some new sales gig, it was study the top producer and then do more volume than that person's doing. That's it. That's the equation. That's the magic formula. Like, you don't have to, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have to make it your own. You don't have, have to do a whole brand new pitch and insert this thing here and put this story over here. I did my dead level best impression of the top set. And the impression is important because it's not just about the words on the script. It's not the words on the page. It's tonality, it's body language. It's all of those things. So I would watch them pitch and then I would mirror exactly what they were doing. The same hand motions, the same tonality, the same look of concern in my eyes, the same like, facial structure when they, when they would ask this question. I would do my best impression of that person and then I would do more volume than anybody else in the company. And I would do that for the first 30, 60, 90 days and I start taking my volume down and then I would start sort of making it my own and like having it more through my personality over time. But that was like the formula that I used to become like top sales guy in multiple organizations throughout the course of the time that I was selling.
- [30:36]
B
And that's just a great formula overall, just to, you know, exceed in anything out there. And I think for most people, that's one of the things that I did when I was in the corporate world is I would look at the people above me and I would say, say, okay, what skills do they have and what are they doing in order to get to that level? And then I would try to acquire all of those skills and try to go from there. So when you started out a new sales job, for example, and you saw those top performers, did you just ask them, hey, can I shadow you or watch you kind of pitch to other people?
- [30:58]
A
Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. Or like, you know, some of them, if you're doing something online or zoom call or something like that, they'll have recordings. You know, everybody, everybody's calls get recorded and they just have a library of recordings. So I just sit there and watch recordings. But yeah, a lot of times it would be like my, my manager or the person who owns the company who, who, who wrote the pitch or whatever, just like, okay, well show me exactly what you do. And I just video them and then I just study the video. It was really like, it's really that simple. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's, it's the, it's the whole it's simple, not easy type of a thing. You know, it's not easy to do door to door sales, but it was very simple to learn the process and just do exactly. It was, it blew my mind, dude, because I would have, I would be doing this exact, exact process and it would work for me and I would go recruit other people and I'd hire them and I'd train them and I'd manage, manage them. And then we'd be doing like a, a recap of the day, like a debrief at the end of the day as to like why they didn't sell anything. And they would be like, okay, well I talked to this person, I was like, okay, what did they say? And they said, and then they go, well, they said this. And I go like, well, next time when they say that, say this. And they'd be like, well, I said something like, you know, that was sort of like this. But like, I just don't think that would have worked for this person. And it's just like, bro, I'M telling you that if you do this more times than you don't do this, it will work more times than what you're saying currently will work. Like, I'm. It blew my mind. Dude, just. People are just not teachable. They have big egos and they don't want to admit that they need help on, on, on the, on the pitch. So for me, it was just like, dude, be as teachable as I possibly can. Listen to the people who are getting the results have every right to tell me that I'm doing something wrong. Because if they're getting results and I'm not, clearly it's something that they're doing well, that I'm not doing well. So I should be open to hearing what they have to say as much as I possibly can be. It doesn't mean that I can't help other people if I see something that they're doing that might be helpful for them. But it does mean that I gotta earn my stripes here. Like, this happened recently. Dude, I sold the company I started, I started doing some sales on the side and, and I've done sales for a long time. I've had a lot of experience. I've managed teams of 20 plus people. Like, I've, I've done this for a while. I've sold lots of different products, lots of different services from, you know, something that's 50 bucks a month to 15,000 bucks a month. And when I come into that organization, I didn't say a word to anybody, anybody for like two months. Like, I didn't say anything until people started realizing, like, oh, that guy's actually pretty good. And they started watching my calls. And then I became number one within a month and a half of being there by watching everybody else's closes again. And then I started helping people when they started asking me. But like, I'm not just gonna come in and be like, look, everybody, I know what I'm doing. You're all dumb. I've been doing this longer than all of you, and I'm gonna school you now. It's like, look, they knew exactly what they were doing. Why would I try to come in and reinvent everything just because I have a past or a history of selling? I'm just going to do exactly what the top producer is doing. I'm do more. And then eventually that'll, the numbers will pan out and I'll end up somewhere near the top and I'll make good money and that's it. You know what I mean? It's a pretty simple equation to follow for the most part.
- [33:50]
B
I agree. And I think, you know, so many times we have, you know, folks in our lives, maybe it's a mentor or someone else who is telling us to do something, and internally we're like, that's never going to work. That's not something that will actually work, or I won't be able to do that. But if you just fight that and you fight against that and actually try out the thing that they're actually asking you to do, every single time I've done that, it typically will work or it'll go way better than I ever thought it would. And really, for a lot of us, we just have these internal convictions that we just have to overcome. And it goes all the way back to what we talked about the top of the show, where we just have these preconceived notions about money or about how things work. Instead, if you can just fight back on those, it'll absolutely change the way that you, you know, operate in everyday life. And it's, it's been one of the most helpful things for me overall, for sure. If there's someone out there who wants to get better at sales, their, their number one goal is to get better at sales, but they feel like I'm an introvert. I don't know how to sell. I don't even know what I'm really doing here. Is it something like repetition? You just got to get out there and start doing it. Or do you have any tips for someone like that?
- [34:48]
A
Yeah, first of all, perfect if you're an introvert. I think introverts make better salespeople. To be honest, it's counterintuitive. But I'm, I, I, I'm an introvert. I'm an introvert by nature. I tend to, tend to be very, not anti people. I love people, but it's more like people suck the energy out of me. I, I don't get refueled by being around people unless it's like really, really, really close friends and we're doing nothing. You know what I mean? But for the most part, if I'm at an event or something like that, I'm, I, I get, I burn out pretty quickly. And so I think, I think introverts actually tend to make better salespeople and better networkers counterintuitively. So don't, first of all, get yourself out of that story if you're telling yourself that story, that you can't be good at it because you're an introvert. I, I would argue that you would actually tend to be better at. Because what introverts tend to do is they tend to go a mile deep and an inch wide, whereas extroverts tend to go a mile wide and an inch deep. And in sales for good, for really good salespeople, you gotta go deep with, with the prospect and you gotta, you gotta like, so besides, beyond just like repetition and training and running scripts, which are all really important, if you do that every single day, there's no chance that you're not going to get better at this thing. And then it's just a matter of how much rejection can you withstand before you earn the skill set in order to be able to earn the big paycheck. Because once you get the paycheck, bro, like I'll tell, I used to tell people all the time when I was on doors was like, all you need is a taste of blood. Just get that first taste of blood, man. Like when you, when, when you're busting your tail knocking doors, it sucks and it's hard work and people slam door in your face and, and cuss you out on their porch and you go three days without selling anything while you're training. And it's just like, this is the longest work days. I don't want to knock any more doors. It's 100% commission. So I don't get paid anything unless I bring a deal home. You know what I mean? But then you get that first deal, you get those first two, three deals and you see that first paycheck and you're like, I made 10 times as much money doing this this last week than I did in two weeks of working, working at Starbucks or whatever it was. You know, it's like, it's pretty hard to go back to minimum wage hourly work or, or not even just minimum wage, but like, you know, anything under than 50 bucks, anything under 50 bucks an hour or something like that is really difficult to do. Because if you learn to be competent at 100 commission sales gig, you'll still make more than 90% of the population doing whatever it is that they were doing. So you get that first taste of blood. You know, I think some people are just like, man, they, they taste that blood and they're like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm good. You know what I mean? Like, like, yeah, I'll get rejected a little bit, you know that. I know paydays come in around the corner and I know it's only a matter of time before somebody else says yes. So beyond just like the Normal, like stick, stay in the game, be consistent, run your scripts, train and you'll get better type of a thing. The probably the best thing that I could say is just learn to get better at the game of people. Learn to get better at understanding people. Like the pitch. The pitch is going to come. The objection. Overcoming that's going to come like all of those things, they'll come with training, they'll come with practice and scripting and role playing and things like that. Like that before you get started selling for the day. But understanding people having genuine empathy, genuine curiosity, authentic questioning or line of questioning at the beginning, that, that's something that I think that people often overlook in that space. That to me is probably the, the most, the most important skill set that you can develop not only in sales, but also it translates into everything else that you do. So learn to ask really good questions and try and learn to try to understand people at their core from a place of just genuine curiosity about that person. Person. And people will, People will pick up on that energy. Man. That's why I say that tonality and body language, those things are arguably much more important than the words that you're saying for, for the most part because you want to portray to this person that they are a person and you are a person. Not that this is a transaction. It's not that I'm going to win and you're going to lose. It's that I have a product or a service that I genuinely 100% feel can solve this particular problem for you. What I want to know from you, what is the problem that you're experiencing? How has that played out in your life? What issues is that causing inside of your business or your home or whatever it is? My product service helps them, you know, solve. And then how can this product service potentially fit into solving the problems that you have available right now? And the more that you try to understand what people's problems are, the easier you'll find the sales process to be later on in the conversation. The people who spend almost no time in discovery will spend all their time overcoming objections. And vice versa is also true. The people who spend the most time in discovery will spend the least time having to overcome re. Overcome objections. And I found that it's much easier mentally to be able to help people through the discovery process and spend more time there than it is to spend time in overcoming reject objections because that's a very taxing mental process. It's like almost like structured debate with a, with a cost at the end of it. So I, I try to, like, I'm. I'm, you know, I'll overcome objections. I'm not saying I won't, but I. I'm saying if I can make it easier on myself and the prospect by just asking better questions at the beginning and actually just caring a little bit, it's not that hard, guys. Like, it's really not that hard. Just care. Try to think about your. Try to think about your grandma sitting across the table from you trying to get a deal on a car and actually help her get the thing that she's looking for. Like, don't be that douche who just is in it to maximize every commission and then brag about it to your buddies after you, after you're done about how you raked them over the coals. It's never going to work long term. It's going to do damage, I think, to your psyche, to your ego over time. And then you're never going to get referral business, return business, because people are going to realize you screwed them over later. Just do your best to take care of people and, and actually try to solve problems. Because if you can, like, if you can state the problem better than the prospect can state the problem, they'll automatically assume that you have the solution and they'll trust you to provide that solution.
- [40:42]
B
It is such a powerful lesson for most people. And you see these people all across. Even when you come across just like friends or family or new people that you meet. You go up and you meet somebody and then you're asking them questions and they never ask you any questions back. And it's one of those things that they just genuinely do not care or they do not get to know you more. There's a great book out there for people who haven't read it yet. It's a classic called how to Win Friends that Influence People. That kind of helps you develop some of these skills that Travis is talking about here. And I think it's really, really great way to kind of learn this skill. You got to think more. So, you know, how can I ask questions and get a deeper understanding of what these folks want or what they need? Need is so that we can kind of develop this relationship and it's truly what they need. Again, we do not want to be ripping people off. We do not want to kind of give them something they don't need and they regret it later on in the line. Instead, we want to make sure this is a genuine sale of something that someone actually needs. And I think that's just such a Powerful lesson for most people out there as they get started. Now this also understanding this concept helps you in relationships, it helps you network, it helps you develop these relationships that I think most people really need to understand how powerful these can be. So how have relationships helps you with your income over time and why are they so important for you to go out and network?
- [41:48]
A
I mean, it's like everything, dude. I mean I, I think you might have known the answer to that question prior to asking it, but I. The, the show, the name of the show used to be called build your network. So it was all about networking, building relationships with people. And it stemmed from the idea that like when I left that kind of culture that I grew up in, I didn't know anybody. And so I was sort of starting from scratch in terms of like a professional network. I didn't know anybody that did anything of any significance. I sort of in a silo by myself trying to figure out how to make money in business. So I started this podcast about networking because I was like, I figured if I ask people about networking, there's no way I can't get better at it, right? And I should probably learn how to do this thing. And then it sort of was this like Trojan horse that evolved into its own beast because I started realizing that the best networking tool that I ever had at my disposal was the podcast itself. So it was sort of like I was learning from people on the podcast about how to network better. And then I was using those principles to reach out to better and better people, to bring them onto the podcast so I could learn from them. And it was sort of just kind of like self fulfilling prophecy type of thing, you know. And so over time it really just evolved into this thing where it was like, I started looking around, it was like everything that I've ever done is a direct result of some relationship that I, that I had along the way. And it's, it's one of those, we call it engineering serendipity because you can't really place your finger exactly on it. It's not the same as running Facebook ads. You know what I mean? It's so linear. It's like we spend X, we're bidding this much for this cpm and we expect that we can get this CPC and this CPL and this cpa and if we can get those number, then we can back out. It's like relationships aren't like that. So I think a lot of people just don't spend any time doing them, especially the more analytical type people, because they're like, oh, it's just not worth the time. You know, show me the, show me the impact this has on the P and L. And it's like, well, I can't necessarily show you that ahead of time, but if I look back over the last decade, I could probably show you that to some degree over the, you know, the money that I made doing what I've been doing so far. So yeah, the relationships to me have been, have been everything. And then frankly it's, it's sort of been this realization. So like I, I tend to go through like study phases, you know, so like if, if, if it, if I'm wanting to learn about persuasion or whatever, it's like a deep dive. It's like how however many Robert Cialdini books I could fit into my brain at any given time, right? And then, you know, Win Bigley from Scott Adams and whatever else, other psychology of persuasion books that I can pick up or just genuine or general psychology. And then I'll switch over to like philosophy and read about like Buddhism and stoicism, all this other stuff and then, and then I'll switch over to, to some, something else. So a little while back I did a deep dive into relationships and happiness and really figured out that at the end of the day all studies on human happiness stem back to strong relationships, every single one of them. The most famous one is the Harvard study on happiness which has took place over the course of these entire people, the entire lives of these people is like a 90 year study. I think they're still doing, doing it to this day, like with generational, you know, people of, of the, like those people's lineages that they're continuing to study with. But anyway, started this study with these, these people that were in college at the time and started making guesses about what was going to make them happy over the course of their life. And it was something about character and it was something about, you know, aptitude and skill set. And did they get a degree? Did they not get a degree? Did they, you know, then they started tracking all these things. What they found over the course of a long period, time of, of their lives is that by far the number one indicator of happiness over this course of people's lives were their relationships, the quality of the close relationships that they had in their life. And so to me that studying happiness and then studying the relationship side was like, not only do I believe the relationships are going to help in my professional life to a really significant degree, but it also seems to be that if you have strong relationships. That's the best indicator of whether or not you're going to have a happy life. And if I'm doing this for this like, and not focusing on like being a happy, fulfilled person, then, you know, what's all this other stuff for? So it's sort of, it sort of just reconfirmed my thought process that, like, relationships are, are really the key to, to life. They're the key to everything. It's good what's, it's what's going to bring you more professional success in your career, but it's also what's going to bring you more personal happiness in your life as well. So you can't neglect relationships if you want success and happiness. And I think most people would say that they want both of those things.
- [46:08]
B
And I just read a study recently that said that people are spending 60% less, less of less time with other people and, and building some of those relationships. And I think this is something where, if you develop this skill in the age of AI and a lot of things that are coming going forward, this is one of the most valuable things that you can develop over time because, you know, having, having this network and having this system and these relationships, you know, are, are just so incredibly powerful and something that really, really can help people. So if someone wanted to start doing this, they wanted to start networking, they want to start building relationships. Maybe they wanted to, to do a couple of things. Maybe they wanted to start building relationships with folks out there who are, you know, in business or more successful than them. Maybe one, they wanted to start networking with people who are in their industry. What would you tell them to do? How would they start doing that?
- [46:52]
A
Be a host. This is, this is the hack, bro. Like, if you want to, if you want to shortcut the line of relationships, be a host. I don't care what you host. It could be a newsletter, it could be a podcast, which is obviously mine and Andrew's vehicle of choice here. It could be, could be local meetups, national events, international retreats, a blog, a YouTube channel. Be a host. Host something and have an excuse to reach out to the people that you want to build the best relationships with. That's really what it is because most people are going to say no to a. You know, the worst verbiage you could possibly use is let me pick your brain. Worst thing you could say to somebody. It does not sound like a fun activity for either party, like picking my brain. That sounds terr. I can absolutely not. I have a bunch of other demands on my Calendar. And if I'm going to let anybody pick my brain, it's going to be my six year old son. Meaning that I'm going to spend my free time hanging out with him, not going to coffee with some rando that sent me a DM on Instagram, you know what I mean? So don't use the verbiage of let me pick your brain or like buy you a virtual cup of coffee or things like that people just don't have. There's no time block in the calendar for just like random BS calls for people who are super busy, right? You might be able to do that for people who are on a similar level who are just getting started and you want to like try to, you know, go together and, and you, and you're just trying to get around other people, that might work for that, that might be fine. But if you're reaching out to anybody who's had any sort of success, they all know one thing to be true, which is that time is our most important and, and only non renewable asset that we have at our disposal and they will take their time very seriously. So asking for stuff like that isn't going to get you anywhere. However, a podcast interview, a Q and A at a local meetup or speaking on your stage or commenting on a YouTube video so that they can, you can run traffic back to them or something like that. You'll be surprised at the volume of people who will say yes even if you just got started. That was one of the biggest realizations I ever had. Starting my show, bro, is like, like very beginning, beginning days. I reached out to a couple of people who were on my list as like sort of influencer, you know, type people. And one of them was, was deemed the father of modern networking by cnn. And I was like, I'm starting to show on networking, I should probably go get this guy, right? Reach out to him, shoot him an email. And I just say, hey, do you have, I think I said, do you have three minutes on a quick phone call where I can just ask you a question? And he replied back and said no, you can't have three minutes of my time on a phone call. But he was like, but if you want to shoot your question here, I'll, you know, find time at some point and shoot you an email back. And I was like, okay, great, cool, whatever, shoot him, shoot him a question back. I mentioned that I had a podcast like somewhere in that question. And he replies back, answers the question and goes, I'm happy to do an episode on your Podcast sometime. And I was like, what? I. The only, only reason that I asked for the 3 minute phone call was that I thought the podcast interview was a huge ask and that the phone call would be much easier to say yes to. But he literally saw it and offered to come on the show without me even saying anything about it. And that was like a huge unlock for me because it was still at the very beginning of my show. Like I, you know, I don't know, 60 downloads an episode or something like that. Like nobody's listening to my show, minus my dad, you know what I mean? And like a couple of friends who I was asking for critique from. Other than that, like, nobody to listened listen. But he saw that at a podcast and offered to come on. I was like, that is, it's the Trojan horse. It gets you past the gatekeepers inside of the gates where you can get out and then actually ask the questions that you really want to ask. So we did like a full 30 minute conversation. He gave me a great snippet to use on my website. He made an introduction to Jack Canfield to get him on my show. The author of Chicken Soup for the Soul that sold like half a billion copies worldwide. One of the best, like self help guys of all time made an intro to that guy for me. And it like all came from just. He realized I had a pot podcast, did it with another guy at the same time, right around the same time, asked him for the same thing, three minute phone call. He replies back. He goes, well, people join my mastermind for $30,000 a year to have like one on one access to coaching with me, so I can't do the phone call. But he saw my, in my email signature that had a podcast and he was like, but I see you have a podcast. I'm happy to come on the show sometime. I was like, this is insane. It was two people within like a week time frame that both offered to me to come onto my podcast because they saw I had one after they turned down a three minute phone call that nobody would ever had to note even took place. But now I can like get them for 45 minutes, ask them whatever questions. I want to publish it as an interview and like use their credibility to go get even better guests and bring in more listeners for my show. This is insane. So yeah, it was, it was like be a host man. Like, like I said, local meetup podcast. Something that enables you to have an excuse to reach out to people you respect, admire, want to get in touch with, and then offer some piece of value to them, which is essentially like, come share your story with my audience. And will it work 100% of the time? Obviously not. I got rejected more. I've been rejected more times than I've been accepted for guests to come on my show. But we've also done 1500 episodes. So it tells you how many people have said yes. And, and then if, if 800 people have said yes, probably a thousand or 1500 have said no, but people are going to say yes. And you'll be surprised at the quality of the people who do.
- [52:19]
B
It's such a valuable tip because I think for most people out there, they'll say, for example, here's one that we've talked about in the past. I say, hey, if you want to invest in real estate, go to your local real estate meetup. And people will come back to me and say, well, we don't have a local real estate meetup in my area. And the key to this is, okay, that's great, because now you can host the local real estate meetup in your area. And guess what? The person who hosts every single person that comes to that meetup is going to know who that person is. They're going to bring you deals all the time. They're going to bring you real estate deals, and you're going to be able to do transactions. And so there's so many cool things that can happen when you host events like that. And I just think it's such a valuable way to meet more people. So that is, that is a great tip. I think, for most is if you can leave, it doesn't have to be this big thing. You can, you know, start, you know, opening up with, you know, just things where other people are going to interact with you and interact with the meeting. And it'll be a lot easier than you actually think it is. And you will get so much value out of that just from that specifically. Even if I was dropped in a new city, that's the first thing I would do is try to host some sort of meetup because you get to meet all these different people and have different ways to kind of market that, that meetup. And I think that's just such a powerful thing.
- [53:20]
A
And those people will, Sorry, sorry to cut you off. I really, really quick. Those people will look at that as such a valuable thing that, like, the value. The value will come from the people that are there, does not have to come from you. So get out of your head if you're thinking like, well, I've never done a real Estate deal. Why would anybody come to my meetup? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Like host a podcast, interview the best investor in that area that you can find and then have them come out to be the guest speaker of honor at the meetup. And then you'll have 50 people show up to hear from that guy and then you'll be the one that connected all those people to that guy and all those people to each other. And then if you do that, if you do that month after month after month after month, the first month you might have four people that come to meet up. Three people, the next month might be six, then it might be 15, then it might be four, and then three years down the road you'll have 400. You know what I mean? Like you'll, it will continue to stack over time because the value, the, it's impossible to not get value from that because the people who are there are the value. So if people show up, there will be value to be had and there will be value to be shared and people will continue to show up. And it'll only get bigger over time because people will start telling other people about the value that they got from this six person meetup that they went to two and a half years ago. So the point is just start something because it's not going to just happen, happen on its own.
- [54:28]
B
And here's a great example of this is I have a friend who kind of, he wanted to become an entrepreneur. He wanted to get into buying businesses and buying small businesses and, and doing those types of things. So he would start a local business meetup of business owners. And it'd be early in the morning, it'd be, you know, seven o' clock in the morning because he knew that they had, you know, the slot available on their calendar to do that. And so they would come, he provides breakfast for them and everything else. He has done three deals in three years just from having that meetup there alone, where now he owns three different businesses that, that each do over a million dollars in revenue just from having that specific meetup. That's how valuable these can be. If you actually set these up. Maybe you want to be someone in your industry and you're in the, you're in the medical industry and you want to be able to go out there and meet other professionals in that area and kind of bounce ideas off each other, those types of things. Set up a meetup for that specific industry and you can really expand your network by doing that. A lot of people are having trouble for example, finding jobs right now. And if you have a network offer already set up before you are out looking for a job within your career, that is going to be one of the most powerful things that you could do. People will go up to bat for you, they will help you out, they will help you find a job within their company. And that is just another way that you can look at this. So I think, I think pretty much everybody listening to this right now, if you don't go to a local meetup, at least attend one. If you don't attend one, start one of your own. Start one of your own locally in that area. Because it's really, really important that we have these local meetups and these networking events in and there's not enough of them whatsoever. And especially now in today's day and age, you need to have relationships more than ever. I think is just one of the most important things. After the holiday chaos calmed down, I had a moment one morning, coffee in hand, kids still asleep, where I paused and thought, this is it. This is the life that we've been building. And then I felt something else too. The weight of protecting it. And that's where Policy Genius comes in. Policy Genius is the online marketplace that lets you compare quotes from top agents, insurers, side by side, completely for free. Their licensed team doesn't work on commission and they don't push you into a policy. They help you figure out what's best for your needs and your family. And they make the whole process easier, answering questions, handling the paperwork, and guiding you step by step so you can stop worrying about it. So start your year with clarity and peace of mind. And plan the year knowing you've protected what you've built. And with Paul Policygenius, real users have gotten 20 year 2 million dollar policies for just $53 per month. So head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com billion dollar investors don't typically park their cash in high yield savings accounts. Instead, they use one of the premier passive income strategies for institutional investors, which is private credit. Now the same passive income strategy is available to investors of all sizes thanks to Fundrise Income Fund, which has more than $600 million invested in a 7.97 distribution rate. 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Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that I use to actually move the needle. It shows where my money is going across every account, budget, investment and debt. And it helps me to redirect it towards my goals. And it's not just tracking. It gives me projections, timelines and visuals that show how close I am to financially financial freedom. I can even share it with my wife. So we're on the same page with no additional cost. So set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch. Use code pfp monarch.com for 50 off your first year. That's half off of monarch.com with code pfp. What is the best question that someone can ask someone to build a genuine connection? Because I think a lot of people, and we talked about this and alluded to this slightly earlier on the sales process, but there something or is there a way that they can approach people where it doesn't look like they're trying to get a transaction, but that they're trying to build this genuine connection?
- [59:10]
A
Yeah, it's less of like a scripted question that I would say, because it's really hard to be genuine with a scripted question. I. I would say it's more sort of like a line of questioning rather than. Rather. So along the way of the show build your network, we ended up so long story short, we ended up rebranding it to Travis makes Friends and then we rebranded it again to Travis makes Money. And then we moved Travis Makes Friends to its own feed because it sort of kind of became like its own sort of thing. So now we have Travis makes Friends podcast, we have Travis makes money podcast, but Travis makes Friends sort of branched off of Build your Network. And the reason that we rebranded it was because I realized that over time the people who were quote unquote networking the best were people who just collected friendships. They were not engaging in the activity of networking, so to speak. Like they were, weren't. They weren't this people who, quote, unquote, network. They're treating it like an in person, cold calling opportunity where they're just going person to person, spitting out an elevator pitch, throwing a business card in their face, and then moving on to the next potential buyer of their product or service. And if you do that, you will see success. I'm not saying it won't work like it's a numbers game. You talk to enough people, you know you'll be able to do some business with somebody. But the majority of the people are going to leave with a bad taste in their mouth. And that is how you guarantee that you have to stay on that hamster wheel of throwing business card on people's faces for the next one 40 years. If you want to eventually get off of that and have some sort of success beyond just your ability to go shake hands with people at a networking cocktail mixer, then you have to learn how to actually build genuine relationships with people. Because then when you leave that one, you have a collection of relationships rather than just like one person you did business with. And even if zero of them do business with you, if you're collecting relationships and friendships over the course of a decade, you will win to a much, much, much higher degree than the person who is just burning and turning and trying to get short term cash out of shaking hands with at the cocktail mixer. So great. Don't be networking, Ned. Be the person who's actually out there looking to add value to somebody and, and try to see how you can reframe it. From what can I take from this conversation? What can I take from this event? What can I take to make sure my time was worth it tonight? It's what can I give? How can I offer something? How can I make somebody else feel good about themselves? How can I, how can I leave a situation better than I found? That's why we, we sign off. Travis makes friends every episode. We sign off with the phrase leave every relationship better than you found it. Because it's like even if you only have a teeny tiny interaction with somebody, you have an opportunity. Every interaction is an opportunity to impact somebody. So if you can use that interaction as a positive opportunity to impact somebody, whether it's just a smile, whether it's just asking them about their life and genuinely caring, or it's making an introduction to somebody you just met earlier that night who you think might be a really good conversation for these people, or it's introduction to somebody in your Rolodex or it's like an article that you read the other day that you want to send over to them or you're going to send them a copy of a book that you both like. It's just thinking about other people, man. It's like, it's the, it's the opposite of what old, older, older generations taught networking to be, but it's also the thing that works. And especially in 2025, it's like people are moving away from automation. They're trying to get out of AI. If they're at in person meetups, they don't want everything to be automated. They don't want this broad connection with a thousand people. They want to actually meet people and build genuine friendships. So that's why I say it's not necessarily like a single question. It's a line of questioning. And think of the line of questioning to, to a line of questioning that you would have with mutual friends at a bar. Like, you, like you go out with a childhood friend and a college buddy who, and they don't know each other. And then your college buddy brought two of his co workers and your childhood friend brought a friend that he made at his work. And now there's like six people in a bar and there's some common thread between everybody. But you don't know three of those people. What are the questions you're going to ask those people? It's not going to be like, so tell me what you do. Oh, yeah, how you work there. Okay, cool. Like, how much, you know, how much business do you have to, how much business do you have to share or around? Like, are you the decision maker? You know what I mean? Like, we're not, we're not talking about stuff like that. It's just like, hey, you know, where are you from? Okay, cool. How long you been there? Oh, just a couple of years. Where'd you move from? Oh, no way. Yeah, I used to live out like somewhere around there actually. Myself. My cousin actually lives over in this area. Yeah, he does this other thing, but yeah, that's, you know, like, see, like play a game with yourself and see how long you can go in that line of questioning without asking them what they do for a living. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, don't, don't try to make it immediately about numbers and money and sales and like, try to make it actually about the other person because this is 100% true, bro. People will never remember what you say, but they will always Remember how you make them feel. So your goal in every relationship that you're quote, unquote collecting is just to leave that person feeling better about themselves than they felt coming into the conversation. And you can't do that if you're word vomiting all over the person the entire interaction. Everybody likes talking about themselves, so just get really good at asking questions, man. Like, the best interactions that I have at events are when I'm talking like 15, 20% of the time, I, I'm just asking questions. And it's not from a place of like, you know, I want, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to psychologically manipulate you into being my friend so that we can do business in seven years from now. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not that. It's just I'm, I get genuinely curious, which is another reason to have a podcast because it makes me more naturally genuinely curious. And I get much, much better at asking questions and formulating a line of questioning because I have a podcast. And that translates directly to in person meeting opportunities. So that's why I say like, maybe, maybe don't think of it like I want to ask this particular question, but think of it more like I want to stick on this line of questioning like I would with a friend at a bar who introduced me to his buddy from work. Not like, I'm here to get business. And if I don't get business, my company's gonna go under tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like, that feeling, that air of desperation is just so gross and disgusting that people can smell it from a mile away. And then you're gonna be the person that leaves early after you talked to every person to maximize your time. And then every person in that room is just gon talking about how annoying you were the whole time. You know what I mean? It's not going to lead to anything good for you. So just be about people, man. We're, we're all in the people business. No matter what business you're in, you're in the people business and that's the long term of it. Regardless of what AI does. I, I personally think we're going to see a regression, especially in this next generation. I personally think in the next couple of decades there'll be a, a yearning, a psychological longing for in person style connection and events and things like that. So it is not going to be a skill set that you can leave on the table. In fact, I think it's going to be the superpower for the next generation.
- [65:37]
B
I think you should double down on it. I completely agree. I think. Is there something that you do? Because I think this is what a lot of people struggle with too, is there's always those people. And we can all think of this right now. There's those folks in our lives that we say, man, I wish I spent more time with them, or I wish I, you know, I hung out with them more often or had more conversations with them. Is there anything you do to maintain relationships with people? Is there either a tactic where you kind of reach out to them every couple of months, or how do you kind of maintain those relationships? I know I just have. Have a lot of people in the back of my head. I always think about where, like, I like to golf and I don't get out to golf a lot, but there's a lot of people that I always say, hey, let's go golfing sometime. And they're, you know, maybe some sort of relationship that I have. And I never call them. I just, it's just one of those things that I just. Every single time I go, I feel like I go with the some, you know, the similar or same people. Yeah. And I never, you know, have time to actually. Or I never spend the time to actually reach out and call them. And I need to kind of create a system in order to fix that a little bit. I know this systematically doesn't feel like a relationship thing, but at the same time time sometimes for, for me specifically, I have to do stuff like that. So is there anything you do to help maintain those relationships or just keep in contact?
- [66:37]
A
Yeah, well, like you said, you don't, you don't. We don't rise to the level of our ambition. We fall to the level of our systems. Right. So just because the relationships doesn't mean you can't have systems to make sure that you stay in touch with them. There's a couple things that I do first off, and I, and I don't do as good of a job at this as I used to do, frankly. Like when I, when I was like in my, in the weeds of my business every day that I just sold a few months ago, it was much easier because it was just like at the end of every workday, I would do this. I would basically go to my phone or you can, you can do your email if you want. Just for me. Texting, I think, is a little bit better. And I would scroll all the way that I pop, like all the way down to, to the bottom of my messages, you know, where you're moving like six, seven years in the past and I'll see a, a conversation with somebody who I haven't talked to in a long time. I'll just stop there, tap on it, and send them a quick message and usually a video message. It's like, hey, what's up, dude? It's, it's been, been a long time. I hope you're doing well. You know, here's what I'm up to. Shoot me a message back. Let me know what you're up to and, and, and let me know if there's anything I can do for you. I hope you hope you're having a great rest of the day. Boom. Send. I do five of every workday so that you're always staying in touch with people who would normally be dormant relationships. Because there's a lot of, there's actually a lot of studies that say that the majority of opportunities come from dormant ties rather than strong ties or weak ties. They're, they're ties that have been in the past or maybe they're a connection removed away from you. And there's a lot of opportunities to be had from, from those in terms of career moves and, and business to be shared and things like that. So you just don't want to neglect those relationships. That's the first thing is I try, I try as best as I can to as often as I can, go down to the bottom the of my messages and just shoot a few messages out. And if you go for, like, I do this on my walks, because I go for walks all the time, it's really easy just to like, while I'm on a walk, shoot a quick message and then keep walking. So that's the first thing. Second thing, at the risk of sounding repetitive here, host again, I sent out a bunch of messages because I was running low on, on episodes for my podcast. We do daily, we do actually now twice daily episodes on Travis Makes Money podcast. One of them is, is a solo show, but one of them is an interview. And I was running low on, on my interview, you know, batching schedule. So I reached out to probably like 40 people who were friends, quasi friends, people I met. An event type of a thing was just like, hey, come on the show. And the way I phrased it to them was exactly that. It was like, hey man, it's been a while. Let's catch up and call it work. Here's my link to my podcast. Let's do a show together. You know what I mean? So like we would just spend 25 minutes essentially catching up, but in a valuable way to the audience where I'm asking questions about what they're doing, what they're working on, and how they got, you know, to see that success in this new venture type of a thing, but enables me to stay on top of those relationships and have these 25 minute conversations, 30 minute conversations on that show where I get to talk to people I haven't talked to in four years, but they're people that are up to really cool things. So it's still a really valuable conversation. Just happens to also be a great way to maintain that relationship over time. And it of course, shares my audience with that person, which is another big value add for them. So, so, so I do that and then I'll host dinners and events, things like that. So it's actually been a couple, probably been a year and a half since I've done one of these, so I need to do another one. But every once in a while we' a dinner and we'll send an email out to all of my past guests on the show and say, hey, I'm hosting a dinner out here in Vegas. If you can get out for it, you know, I'm going to bring in a special friend. We had the CEO or the CEO of Chipotle who took it from 12 stores to like, you know, a $14 billion company. We had him come in, do like a Q and A and stuff. And we just had everybody that was there was either like an investor in my company or a client that had done work with us, or they were a guest on my podcast in the past. I paid for everything. It was all free for them. It was just get to the, get to the dinner and meet a bunch of cool people. That's a really, really great way to stay in touch, to stay in touch with people. So if you do those combination of things where just like have a gathering of all the people that, you know once a year and then you just stay on top of it throughout the remainder of the year. You, you're doing more than 95% of people are doing. And, and those people that you invite out to those things will definitely remember it.
- [70:19]
B
Awesome. I think those are some amazing tips. And for most people out there, I highly encourage you to take action on some of this stuff because it'll absolutely change your life. And the way that Travis has set all this stuff up, those are just so such great, actionable tips that you can have and really get out there and, and get started. So, Travis, I want to shift gears here to some Quick rapid fire questions before we wrap this episode up, just to get some of your answers on here because I love, I love going through some of these. So what is the best money advice you've ever received? Oh.
- [70:50]
A
Don'T try to beat the market.
- [70:53]
B
That's a great one. What are the biggest things you're going to do to level up your finances this year?
- [70:59]
A
For me, me earning. For me, it's, it's, it's all, it's all about earning power this year. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out and we're, we're actually building a new offer inside of my podcast business. So we're gonna, we're gonna launch something, something, you know, January probably timeframe for helping podcasters and entrepreneurs get content created better.
- [71:16]
B
Oh, that's incredible. And I think that that's always, for me too, is, is increasing income and, and utilizing that income on things that I value as a tool is just one of the biggest things for me. What is that you wish you made sooner?
- [71:32]
A
Again, repetitive, but probably the market thing because I, I probably lost, I don't know, 150 grand in the last few years. Investing in other nonsense things, I mean, they weren't nonsense, they were strong businesses and good proposals from founders I trusted and things like that. But you know, it's, it's such a risky, risky, risky game to try to win in that sense. So if I would have left, if I would just sort of like invested that money in the markets at that same time, it'd probably be like a little bit over double what it is right now, if my math is correct, and now it's at zero. So that was, that was a bummer. Financial lesson to have to learn. But yeah, I wish I would have learned that one a little bit sooner.
- [72:11]
B
What is one money habit that changed your life the most?
- [72:16]
A
Investing in myself. Yeah. Hands down. Yeah, I probably put over $400,000. Like me, like my relationships, masterminds, events, coaching, consulting, relationships, like all those things in the last seven or eight years. And it's hands down the thing that's changed my life the most.
- [72:37]
B
Is there something that you stopped spending money on that made you happier?
- [72:42]
A
Eating out. We were spending a ton of money and eating out, bro. Like, I don't know how it happened. It just kind of like kept bloating and getting more and more and more and frankly, to be fair, we were both super busy at time. My wife was working a full time job, I a full time, you know, software startup, and we had two small kids, both under three at the time. And so things were really, really busy, and so we. We kind of almost had to go eat out, but we could have done it in a much smarter way. So I've. I've found a lot of personal fulfillment, really. Oddly enough, I never thought I would do this, but, like, I cook by probably like four. Four nights a week now, because I got. I got pretty good at cooking Steak, bro. You've ever come out to Vegas, you come over to the house, I'll cook you a steak. I've gotten. I've gotten pretty good at it over the last couple of years. So we. We actually, we. We eat at home for the most part now and, like, worry about it at all, because I've gotten pretty good at a couple things. My wife's already a good cook, so between the two of us, it's like we. We cook every. Every day, basically. But it saved us a ton of money. It's made us much healthier, and I just feel better about it when I get to make something that people enjoy. So.
- [73:40]
B
That steak sounds amazing. That's my favorite thing to eat. And then the last one is, what is something you now spend more on that you think is worth it?
- [73:48]
A
Oh, probably my daughter's school. It's so. It's ridiculous, dude. Every time I see it, I'm like, this is so much. This is a mortgage payment to put her in presch. This is insane. But also, it's like, I see how much she loves it, and she's learning so much, and she can focus so well, and, like, what. What am I going to do? Try to save 600 bucks a month and make her education not as good? I don't know. It just doesn't make sense, so. But it is. It is. Like, every time I see it, though, I'm like, ooh, man. Oh, that's a. That's a hefty payment. But, you know. You know it's going to be worth it.
- [74:17]
B
It is. New parents get prepared for it. It is one of those things that it's definitely worth it, but it is one of those things that will creep up on you if you're not ready for it.
- [74:24]
A
No kidding.
- [74:25]
B
Well, Travis, this has been absolutely incredible. There are so many valuable things for people to take away on this episode. Can you tell people where they could find out more about you, your podcasts and everything else?
- [74:33]
A
Yeah, Easy Way, man, is just like, if you like listening to podcasts, I got two of them. Travis makes money. We do, like I said, twice daily episodes on that solo Shows are me and my producer. We talk mostly about sales, entrepreneurship, networking, things like what we talk about on the show today, podcasting, content, and then the interviews. I interview again every day. All of them are successful entrepreneurs to some degree. We interview anybody from just like people who had a side hustle that they're making a few thousand bucks a month extra on to, you know, people. I had a guy on a couple weeks ago who managed his team manages over $500 billion in assets under management. We had a couple of billionaires on recently. So we have. We run the gamut. Like anybody who makes extra money doing something, we bring them the show, we talk about it. So then we have Travis Makes Friends, which is more of my scratching. My curiosity itch through the lens of friendship is kind of how I say it, because I can talk to whoever I want to talk to. Psychologists, athletes, nutritionists, fitness people, entrepreneurs, comedians who have the impractical jokers there. That's where I had Shaq on the show, Rob Dyrdek, entertainers, you know, lots of people like that. So Travis Makes Friends is sort of my do whatever I want show. And then Travis Makes Money is all about business, entrepreneurship, how to increase that, that earning. So if you like listening to podcasts, go check those out.
- [75:41]
B
That is absolutely incredible. So, Travis, thank you so much for being on here again. We truly appreciate it.
- [75:46]
A
Andrew, thanks for having me, man. Looking forward to this.
- [75:48]
B
After the holiday chaos calmed down, I had a moment. One morning, coffee in hand, kids still asleep, working, I paused and thought, this is it. This is the life that we've been building. And then I felt something else, too. The weight of protecting it. And that's where policygenius comes in. Policy Genius is the online marketplace that lets you compare quotes from top insurers side by side, completely for free. Their licensed team doesn't work on commission, and they don't push you into a policy. They help you figure out what's best for your needs and your family. And they make the whole process, process easier. Answering questions, handling the paperwork, and guiding you step by step so you can stop worrying about it. So start your year with clarity and peace of mind. And plan the year knowing you've protected what you've built. And with Policygenius, real users have gotten 20 year $2 million policies for just $53 per month. So head to Policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com.