← Travis Makes Money
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The world moves fast, your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot. You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the show. Today for this episode, it is just me, you and the mic. Just us just chilling together and we're talking a little bit about the value and relationships and how to build better relationships. I guess this is sort of like the philosophy really for building better relationships in your professional network, not necessarily friendships, although this does apply to friendships. And the more that research I've done, the more I just come to the conclusion that networking and friend making are basically the same thing. And the people who tend to treat them as two separate activities are people who don't do either one of them especially well. So, you know, just think of it as making friends with people who happen to be professionally aligned with you, but ultimately it's the same activity. And the first time I realized this, actually there's a couple, a couple of stories that I want to tell you. First off, this was, I think, gosh, 2013, maybe I was selling solar still at the time. So maybe 2014, it might have been like right when I got married, I was selling solar in college and then got married and was still selling solar before I actually graduated. So I was, I graduated a semester early. So I was done with all my classes in December, got married in January and then walked and got my diploma in May. My unaccredited diploma that did nothing for me. That's a different story. Anyway, I, during that time I was still selling solar, waiting to do my like full time thing after I was done, you know, walking and getting my degree, which was supposed to be ministry, which I didn't end up doing, I kept selling solar. Spoiler alert. And so at the time, I remember, I don't know, I don't even remember how this came across my, my desk, so to speak. My, my, my, my desk, meaning my childhood bedroom desk that I did college projects from. But I got somehow got notified of this event that was happening at the Westin near LAX in Los Angeles. And I lived in Lancaster at the time, which was probably from lax, depending on traffic, which there was always traffic on the 405, but you know, 90 minutes from, from LAX on a good day, you know, could take up to three hours if it's crazy traffic. But 90 minutes or give or take a few minutes here or there's. And it was this, there was this sales networking event thing. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I've never done something like that. I've heard people do stuff like that. I'd seen my dad do stuff like that for real estate, so I figured, why not? I'll go check this thing out. And if memory serves me right, it might have been for real estate, specifically like that industry at least. And I go to this thing, Turns out it was a seminar. I, I didn't really understand exactly what that was at the time. I thought it was just sort of like, oh, great information. But there's obviously a sales pitch at the end, which I didn't end buying, but I remember being there and felt like a fish out of water. I was maybe 19, 20 years old at the time and I was selling solar. And so my, my goal, my, When I showed up, my goal was basically like, what if I could just find a couple referral partners, People who are in the real estate industry, they just sold a house and maybe they need their, their client wants solar and maybe I can be that person. So I show up to this event at the Westin in la and I remember thinking at the time that it was a waste of my time because I end up actually meeting anybody that did anything for, for my career. And it was because I was measuring everything the way that most people measure things, which is immediate roi, meaning that I was treating it as a in person cold calling opportunity, which is exactly the opposite of what networking's for. And people who do that are people who are the quote unquote networkers, the people who would refer to themselves as this. Which is why the term networking has this slimy vibe to it. You go to a networking event, you feel like you got to go home and take a shower just to get rid of the icky ness of everybod that was there. This is where this comes from because I call them networking Net. It's the person that shows up with a thousand hot off the press business cards, the elbow patches on their sport coat and their elevator pitch just buttoned up really tight. Then they go around to Every single person at the event, more hands you shake, the more money you make. And they talk to every single person. They barf out an elevator pitch. And then when you start to say anything about what you do, they just completely get turned off. They start looking for another person to target, and they move on to that conversation as soon as they realize that you don't have any business to give them. This is what gives networking a bad name. And it is what I was doing because to my credit at that time and to most people's credit who are doing this still actively to this day, they didn't know any better and I didn't know any better. And so I remember doing that thing and it was a lesson for me that said that this was not worth my time because the time that I did it, nothing ended up coming from it. And now fast forward, I don't know, three years, ish somewhere in there. And I was coming out of doing door to door and I, I was still doing door to door at the time. I wanted to be done doing door to door and I wanted to lear how to make money online because door to door gave me a good amount of time freedom and it gave me a little bit of financial freedom because you can make good money and you can do it on your own time, but gave me zero location freedom. I had to obviously be there knocking doors in order to make money. And I wanted to figure out, how can I do this when I'm gone, when I'm out of town, how can I continue working and still make money when I leave? And at the time, the version of that that was apparent to me was I got to do something online. I figure out this online game, so I go into podcasting, of all things. For some reason, I didn't realize how difficult it was to make money podcasting, but I attacked it, you know, full force. And I remember going to my first ever podcasting event and it was because I got in touch with this guy. His name is John Lee Dumas, who's actually a recent guest on the show again for a third or fourth time. And he was sort of like the go to guy at that time, especially in the business podcasting space. Like this is John. John is kind of like the low key savage who coached a bunch of people who are really well known today. People like Lewis Hatch, Tim Ferriss, he was their podcast coach because he's been doing it for so long, and he did really well with it. And I had paid to go to this mastermind coaching event thing at his house in Puerto Rico and had built some sort of a, you know, decent relationship with him there. And I had volunteered, and I'll get into this part of the story a little bit later. I volunteered to work his booth for him for free at a podcasting event that was coming up, frankly, because I didn't have a ton of money and I was trying to figure out a way to go to these events without having to come out of pocket for it that much. So I got a free ticket to the event because I was working John the Dumas booth, who was one of the keynote speakers at that podcast movement. And this was Podcast Movement 2017. And I remember being there and I was working this booth for him, but I was still very much in like my door to door sales mindset in this like in person, cold calling type mindset. And there was a guy that was going to be there that I really wanted to meet, that I wanted to connect with. His name is Pat Flynn. Pat is a podcaster, entrepreneur, blogger. He, at the time, he had a really well known blog called Smart Passive Income, still, still really well known to this day. And he had a podcast by the same name. And Pat was one of the people who I was like, I looked up to and I really wanted to meet him and I wanted to get him on my podcast at the time, which I had just launched like two weeks prior to this event. And so I'm in the event hall, the exhibitors hall where all the booths are, and I see Pat walk outside of the convention center and, and somebody's talking to him. So he's locked into a conversation and I just remember thinking, like, now's my chance, gotta shoot my shot, you know what I mean? And to my credit at the time, you know, like, most people aren't willing to risk that initial rejection of a conversation. And I suppose I was willing to. Coming off of doors, it seemed easier to me to just approach people and talk to them. And I, as I, as I start making my way toward him, what had happened was at the time he was talking to John, the guy that I was with at that, the booth. And so I figured like, this is a perfect time for me to walk up to this conversation because John is there and he'll be able to make an intro directly to me and talk about me, and then I'll be able to, you know, build this sort of relationship with Pat. So as I'm walking toward John and Pat, John, they ended their conversation and John immediately just turns around and books it the other direction. And when I say book it. He wasn't like, running or anything, but if you know anything about John, he's very. He acts with a purpose. Like, wherever he goes, he's like making a beat line in this direction. So he was like, he was really far away. But I had already, like, at this time, I was. I was like, okay, you know, we're calling it off. You know what I mean? Like, cancel, cancel. And let's call an audible on the play. Let me just pivot in this direction. Pretend like I'm not walking directly toward this guy. But the problem was is that Pat looked up right around the time where I was considering breaking off contact and regrouping later. But right when John turned around and walked away and I was considering moving a different direction, Pat turned around and I made eye contact with him and I was walking directly toward him. So there was no salvaging. At this point, it's like I had to say something and this episode is
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After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there. Just like White Claw Search. And with big, bold flavors to enjoy, like blood orange, BlackBerry, cranberry and more, it's time to go all in on taste. Unleash the flavor. Unleash White Cloth Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors. 8% alcohol by volume. White cloth seltzer works Chicago, Illinois. I don't even quite remember exactly how I started the conversation, but it was terrible because at this point, I had. I had not rehearsed what I was going to say in my mind because I figured John was just going to make the intro. So now I just, like, come up with something off the top of my head. And I literally think what I did is I just walked up to him and said, hey, great to meet you. Will you come on my podcast? Something like that. It was just. It was terrible. No. No value, no conversation, no commonality. Just immediately directly into a request. Which is what people like that get at events like that ad nauseam. Like they get it all the time. And so instead of what I wanted, which was like, yeah, of course, man, anytime, you know, he gave me the typical spiel, which he should have because it was a terrible introduction, and said something like, ye, I get a lot of requests. Just reach out to my team and, you know, we'll see, basically. Which is layman's terms for no, you idiot, don't ask me stupid question like that when you first met me, I have no idea who you are. And I turned around and walked away just, like, completely downtrodden and discouraged from that interaction. And it took me a while to recuperate from that. I was not able to get an introduction to him from any of the people that I wanted. And it probably took me another year and a half before I actually finally, like, built some sort of a friendship with Pat. Now, to this day, Pat's a friend of mine, and super cool guy, very gracious guy in this story. It sort of makes him out to be the bad guy. It is not my intention at all. Pat's of. Pat's one of the sweetest dudes on the face of the planet. You know, great family man, epic entrepreneur. Just somebody who I respect a lot. And like I said, I deserved every bit of that rejection in that. In that particular instance. But I also learned a lot from that. And then fast forward now, he's become a good friend. But it took me, like I said, a full year, year and a half to recover from this, like, really bad first impression. And frankly, I don't even remember if he knew about that first impression until I told this exact story on stage at an event that both him and I were speakers at in Australia a year and a half afterwards. So 18 full months to fully recover from this debacle of an initial introduction to somebody who I really respected. But. But I see that play out so often with so many other people. I watch it happen in real time. Just like being around some of the successful people that I'm around at events like this, I watch people walk up to them and just completely fumble the bag and destroy their ability to connect with these people. And so it taught me a really important lesson about, first of all, rehearsing what you're going to say in a couple different scenarios so that you don't freeze up when you get in front of somebody who you really respect, but also taught me a lot about the frame. Now, I. I don't really just go up to random people like that at events like that. I. My. My thought process at that point is More like I'm going to have another opportunity to make this connection happen. If I do something right now, it's probably not going to play out very well. So, you know, coming back and actually, you know, full circle and building a friendship with him started because I was now a speaker at an event that he was also a speaker at. And then while I was on stage, I told this kind of funny story. He's cracking up in the audience about my social awkwardness in this first interaction with him. Talk that I was giving was a talk about relationships and networking because at that point I had started to become known for being a guy who was batting out of my league all the time. Was, was, you know, finding a way to get in touch with people who were really successful when I, when I really had no reason to gain access to their time. And so it again taught me a few important lessons. The very first one was think long term. You sometimes get this idea that if I don't connect with this person now, I will miss all opportunity to be, ever be able to connect with them in the future. And that's just most of the time it's not true. It's just not true. Especially if it's somebody who's like an industry titan, like somebody who is in and around the same industry or circles or conventions or things that you find yourself being at all the time. You'll probably have another opportunity to connect with this person. Think of it more long term. What's going to set me, what's going to set this relationship up for success over the long term rather than the, the immediate short term. And there have been several situations now where I have seen somebody walking around at a convention type of a, type of an arena, and I like, I could go up to them right now. This is probably not a great frame. I'm probably gonna have to talk myself up to some degree, which doesn't typically work out because everybody wants to make themselves sound awesome to awesome people. And they get that all the time. So it sounds way better if somebody else is talking you up. So there have been several times where now I've passed on this initial interaction as an opportunity and then have revisited it three months, six months, a year down the road with a much, much better frame. And then those people have also turned into friends of mine. So think long term. The only like sort of caveat to this is like you, you, you see a celebrity walking around Beverly Hills or something and you live in Alabama and there's no chance you'll ever see this person again. And there's no chance that you were ever going to do business with this person. And you just want to get a picture that's completely different. But if we're talking about this like social scenario where you want to end up doing business with somebody or you want to end up, you know, connecting with them later, then you probably will have more opportunities to connect with them than you think that you do, than you think that you do that particular moment. So don't, don't, don't fumble the bag in that scenario. Just have a longer term thinking, a longer term approach. What I'll do a lot of times is if I see them kind of walking around in a convention type of a setting, I won't go to them. I'll go, I'll look around them and go to somebody who's in their little quote unquote entourage, who's probably the point person that you're going to be directed to at a later interaction anyway. So, or even if you wanted to do business with them in that context and you talk to them at that event, gonna be like, oh yeah, talk to my guy right here. And then they're gonna move on. Which is really just a way for them to give the responsibility of rejecting you to their gatekeeper because that's their job. So I try in those scenarios just to make friends with the gatekeeper. You know, everybody else is badgering and hounding this person. I'm just gonna go to the person who's standing behind them, looking around, checking their watch, taking notes. I'm gonna go to them, introduce myself to them because I know I have a better chance of building some sort of a connection with them because nobody else is and because they're the ones the gate ultimately. So think long term, try not to think too short term about this next thing. Always try your best to add 51% of the value in every relationship that you have. And this is really difficult, especially when you're first getting started, because you don't have a ton of value to offer. You're not a crazy valuable person. And it's okay to be in that scenario, by the way. And frankly, you'll be more respected if you have the self awareness to understand the position that you're currently holding within that social hierarchy.
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Perky rather than just assuming that you're, you know, cream of the crop and best of the best. And then because those people can spot that a mile away, you know, people who spend their time with really high quality people can spot it when somebody is trying to posture themselves as if they are already in that position when they're clearly not. And you're just gonna again, have the opposite of, of the effect that you really want to have. So even in this scenario that I was talking about with being with John at this event, and it was really difficult at that time in my career, in my life to add value to somebody like that because somebody like him in that position had everything and I had nothing in terms of what, what could be offered to one another, right? So he had all the relationships that I wanted, he had all the money that I wanted, he had the podcast that I wanted. He had all the information, the knowledge, the connections, all the stuff that I wanted. He had. I don't really have much to. To offer in exchange. So the very first thing that I offer in exchange was money. First time by going out to his mastermind. There's a lot of people that pay those types of people a lot of money for coaching or for to be a part of a mastermind or something like that that never end up doing anything with them afterwards. So while I was there, I was thinking, how do I add value in this relationship? Because I can't in any other context. And I don't know how to do that. So I literally, at the time, I was doing a lot of. I'd done a lot of photography and videography like in college and stuff, and done some wedding shoots and things like that. And I had some good camera gear. And so at the time my thought was like, okay, we're going down to this guy's house in Puerto Rico. He's probably got a really, you know, I knew he had a cool infinity pool view overlooking the ocean and Stu stuff Like that. And I knew that he didn't have a ton of footage from that place because they had just moved there, like, a year before. So when I was going out there, I literally bought a drone, like a 1200 drone, to take out there with me so that I could capture footage of their house and give it to them. And I had this whole plan to, like, add value by giving them a bunch of free, you know, content and footage and videos and pictures of their, you know, essentially event venue that they were hosting, which was really their house. And I bought this drone, and first night, I throw it up in. In Puerto Rico. This is like the second or third time I've ever flown this thing, by the way, because I happen to live near restricted airspace in Lancaster. We were like, right next to a Northrop. So as soon as I threw it up the first time, it was like, error, like, warning, warning. You can't fly this drone here. So the threw it up in the. In at the top of our Airbnb in Puerto Rico with a couple of the other attendees that were there who are still friends of mine to this day. And I fly in this drone, get some footage of the sunset, and I was like, cool, got a little practice in. Now I can. I can land it. But I thought that the landing was a little bit more automated than it turned out to be. So basically, long story short, what ended up happening is when I came, when I brought this drone in for a landing, it. It hit this plant, this potted plant in the corner, and one of the propellers caught one of the leaves on the. On the thing, and it just threw the drone directly into the wall, broke two of the propeller blades, and I only had one replacement blade for it. So literally, the entire plan that I had to you while I was there was completely botched and literally went up. It crashed in front of my eyes, quite literally. And then like that night at dinner, of course, one of the other attendees tells that story, which was super embarrassing because I was supposed to be this, like, videographer guy, you know, and from there I was like, man, how. How am I gonna do this now? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And then he mentioned that he was going to this event and that he had an intern that was going to be selling journals. And he asked me at the time because he knew I did door to door sales. He was like, hey, do you mind stopp my booth at Podcast Movement? I'm going to have an intern there. He's going to be selling some stuff. Can you just give him like some sales pointers to sell more journals. And I just said, I'll just work the booth with him for you for free. You don't have to pay me. You don't have to pay for any of my stuff. I'll get myself there. So what ended up happening was I saved them a ton of money on postage to the event because they actually ended up shipping a bunch of their product to my house in Lancaster. I drove it to Anaheim, that, for the event, unpacked it, you know, loaded it all up, set up the booth for them, and then for three full days I was working a booth hawking journals, which was frankly an underappreciation of my time for, for me, right? Of course John's going to say yes, because I offered. But if I were working at an event or a convention or like a home show or something like that for the products I was selling door to door, I know I could have made, you know, a few thousand dollars that weekend, maybe even close to $10,000 that weekend selling my own products and services, selling at the time. But I did it for free, volunteered, didn't ask for anything in return because I knew that that was going to be something that was going to be a valuable piece for him and it ended up being really valuable for him. And he ended up helping me out. He ended up making some intros to me. He ended up inviting me to another event where I met a bunch more people, got involved into a new mastermind with a bunch of other people that I would not have known if I were. If I didn't volunteer to go to that first event with him. And then that was eventually what led for me, led me to be able to start making full time income online, was that I had accidentally gotten a podcast coaching client because somebody that I knew, a friend of mine that I had made at an event, go figure. She was like, hey, you are good at this podcasting thing. Can you help me start a podcast? What would that look like? And I was like, I don't know. Threw out a number and she was like, okay, cool. So I was flabbergasted that she was willing to pay me for my time to coach her on starting a podcast. And so I go back to this guy, to John the Dumas, and I was like, hey, I know you have a lot of people who reach out to you for coaching. I know that because I was one of those people. And he introduced me to a coach because he didn't do one on one coaching anymore. And so I was like, I know you send out intros to other people. What if, if I were to be one of those people, here's like three reasons why I would be better than any of the other people that you're currently sending these referrals to. And, and then I realized when I started negotiating with him, he was like, well, the people I currently send people to, they pay me 50% commission for sending them people. 50% 5 0, 50% commission for literally making an email intro to these people. Which blew me away. I was like, it taught me the value of bringing traffic, right, because there were so many people out there who just didn't have that inbound traffic and they were willing to give away 50% for one on one coaching. Mind you, this is not just like a 50% affiliate commission. 50% for high ticket one on one coaching that they were giving away to John for making these intros. And I said, well, I'm not going to do it for that. However, I said, you know that I am a good salesperson, so what I will do is I will increase the price and I will make sure that you get paid the same amount that you're currently getting paid. But that's going to be 30% for me because if I'm going to take one on one time with these people, then I want to get paid appropriately for the time that I'm spending with these people. And he said, yeah, sure. And tested it out. Send me a couple people. And we were underway. And this was how I was able to initially make the transition from door to door. Now I wasn't making as much as I was making door to door because when I'm selling door to door, it's like I could work two, three weeks of the month and make, you know, 10 to 20 grand somewhere in there selling products door to door and podcast coaching was not paying me that much. However, it paid me in enough to be able to move my focus full time to making money online and through the podcast. And that all stemmed from the initial conversation of being willing to add more value to that relationship. Taking three full days of my time traveling and packing all these books in a back of my car, like all this stuff that I was not getting paid for. But I was actively and eagerly trying to add 51% of the value in a relationship like this because I knew if I spent enough time with this person that I would be able to get the information that I needed, the knowledge that I needed, they'd be willing to even make a couple connections for me. And then Add value back into my life and then fast forward. He actually was one of the first checks into a software startup that I, that I had because we actually built a solid relationship over that time period. So always strive to add at least 51% of the value in your relationships. And then lastly, think relationally, not transactionally. And this sort of goes into the long term versus short term thing. If you're in a networking situation, you're going to find that most people are looking for transactions. They're, they're looking to do business. And look, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're in that context, you should be looking to do business, but not at the expense of building real relationships. Because the real relationships long term will prevent you from having to do these sort of base level activities the more that you're in the space that you're in. And you can spot this a mile away for people who've never figured this out because they've been going to the same chamber meeting, they've been going to the same meetup, the same BNI group, they've been doing the same thing for 30 years. And their insurance sales business has never increased year over year. It's because they're on the hamster wheel of transactional thinking. And what happens is, will you be able to do business? Yes, because it is true that the more hands you shake, the more money you make just by volume. It's an, it's a numbers game. However, people should not be treated as a numbers game, especially in this type of a context. And what happens is, if you actually do the work of building real relationships over a long enough period of time, then you will not have to do the hamster wheel initial work that you did at the very beginning in order to be able to receive business from all those people just because you have built actually good relationships. Because the problem is when you build these sort of transactional relationships is that you will succeed in building transactional relationships. But fast forward 10 years and ask yourself the question, do I want to have built a network full of givers or do I want to have built a network full of takers? And if you are a taker and you are only thinking about transactions, then chances are you will only build a network full of takers, which is not a network that I want any part of, frankly, like I said, given a long enough period of time. So think relationally, not transactionally, add 51% of the value in relationships, and understand that when you're first getting started, it might take a lot More time, energy, effort, investment, whatever, in order to be able to add that type of value and just be okay with that and ask yourself, okay, well, I might not be able to do that. I might not be able to, you know, add value this way, but can I add value this other way? Can. Is there something that I can spot? There's something that I can do. And I asked John this question, actually, when I had him on the show last time. I was like, what do you. I asked him what. What. What do you think was different about the way that I approached that situation? Because we've actually been friends now for a long time. We've actually, like, hung out in multiple different settings. We were part of a bachelor party trip together. Like, he's an actual friend of mine, and he was like this. This. That was it. It was that. It was the fact that you were willing to come add a ton of value in my life completely for free just to. To be around me and get some more exposure into. Into my world. And that was enough to separate you from all the other people that were trying to get some of my time. So think long term. Add 51% of the value in the relationships that you have. Think rel actually, and you'll probably be off to a good start here. There's a lot more, obviously, especially when it comes to immediate social interactions in terms of what to say and tonality and body language, and maybe we'll go into those on future episodes. But the philosophy at first is really the thing to get down and to have a strong mindset of somebody who treats relationships seriously and who always tries to give more than you receive. So that's it for this episode of the show. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll catch you guys video in next. The next one. Peace. @blinds.com it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because@blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than Windows is you. 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