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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, are you open to opportunity? Welcome back to the show. This is solo show. It's just me, you and the mic, just us, just chilling like always. Today we had three episodes go out. One's a co hosted show with my producer Eric, as well as an interview with a successful entrepreneur. If you want to go check those ones out, you can. On these episodes though, this is basically a lot of notes that I've written down over the years. I've now done wild to think about over 1500 podcast episodes, read over 200 books in the last few years, listened to countless hours of podcasts myself, not to mention been in the rooms with people running billion dollar businesses, multi hundred million dollar businesses, events, conferences, speaking, you name it, everything in between. Over the last almost decade now since I've been doing stuff online, just crazy to think about. So this is basically a collection of the things that I've learned along the way and hopefully you'll find some value in these episodes as well. Today we're talking about being open to opportunity. The first time that I remember really internalizing this lesson actually came from my door to door days. For those who don't know. I know my producer Eric is rolling his eyes right now as he edits this because I talk about it a lot, but I learned a lot of, a lot of lessons doing door to door sales. And this is probably one of the more underrated ones that I don't really ever talk about this one that much because there's so many other obviously like lower hanging fruit things that I learned like overcoming rejection and how to communicate with people and you know, selling persuasion at its core. But there's a, this one lesson that I took away that I think was really helpful for me in my life and led directly to immediate impact as soon as I embodied it, which is being open to what other people have to say, being open to opportunity. That was presented to me and it was because when I first started knocking doors and selling, I was selling, I was selling solar. I was working for a solar company. For you solar reps, this was the OG days. This was back before there was a ton of door to door programs for solar. This is like 2012, I want to say, and Sun Run, which is now a massive solar company and they were a massive solar company at the time. As well. I think they were number two behind SolarCity in terms of residential solar. Obviously there's big commercial companies that are doing bigger and better projects, but for residential, I was working for sunrun, but it wasn't sun run yet because sunrun at the time basically just bought contracts. They were not doing the actual, they didn't have any sales teams or distribution teams on their own. They basically just, you could basically sign up as a contractor, be a, be a roofing solar contractor and then sell sunrun contracts. So we're selling sunrun contracts. But when I started, I was not even the sales guy. I was an appointment setter. And so my job was literally just to go door to door, set appointments, to have a solar consultant to come in and then close, close the deals. And it was a great, I mean this is when I was in college, it was a fantastic college job because you got paid hourly and then you got paid bonuses on appointments that you set and you got paid bonuses on how many appointments you could set in a day. Then you got paid bonuses on, on when if the, if the appointment that you set went to a closed deal, you got bonused on that. And if you got a certain amount of closed deals, you got bonus on that. So by the time I was like 20, I was leading a team of 15 to 20 solar reps and, and, and running this door to door crew. And I was making in college like 75,000 a year, something like that. So it was a pretty sweet gig to be honest. And I learned a lot during that time period. And I remember because when we were selling at the time it was called the power purchase agreement. And frankly I've been out of solar for so long that I don't know whether or not this is like the thing that people are still selling. I know there's a big push for purchases, but I think with like tax credits going away, I think maybe purchases have gone down again and people are selling PPAs again. But ultimately what a power purchase agreement is, and this is relevant to the lesson here, okay, this is why I'm sharing. This is not a deep dive into the solar industry. Power purchase agreement was basically you get the equipment for free, the installation is free, you pay nothing to get everything installed on your roof. You're, you're, it's power purchase agreement because you are literally agreeing to purchase power from the solar company that is generating electricity using your roof space. So it's basically like you're allowing the solar, solar company to put a mini power plant on your roof and then you're agreeing to purchase that power back from that company at a certain rate per kilowatt hour, just like you would pay your utility, your utility company. And so the pitch to me, like, just made sense. It was one of those things where I was like, I don't understand why somebody would say no to this, because there's no, there's no downside. Like, if you own your home, you have decent credit, like throw these up on your roof because ultimately it's going to be cheaper than what your utility company's charging you. And you get the predictability because we're going to lock in the rate versus the solar company or I mean, the utility company is going to send you a rate increase on an annual basis for the next 30 years. So it was a, it was a good pitch solid product, you know, clean energy, sustainable energy, all this good stuff. And it blew my mind at that time as a, you know, 19, 20 year old going door to door, how many people would not give me the time of day to at least explain what I was doing just simply because of the fact that I had knocked on their door. Like, their response to me knocking on their door was so negative that they were not even open to hearing the possibility of what this could potentially do for them. And I remember like walking away from several doors that I was thinking like, man, this person's got a $400 a month electricity bill. I, I know enough about this industry now where like, I know we could get them closer to like 150 bucks a month for free. Like, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm basically offering to swap out your 400, $400 a month bill with $150 a month bill. There's virtually no downsides now. I learned later, like, the only real downside came from like selling your home because then you had to transfer the contract. The new, the new person had to agree to all the same terms and it sort of like stalled some things like that. And I learned that because my dad was a real estate agent and so he started having to deal with this. And I actually did a couple of trainings for real estate agents at his office because they were all curious about what was going on in the solar industry because it was brand new at the time. But that stuck with me as a big lesson. I was like, you're not even, you're not even willing to hear me out. Like, this could be something that's actually awesome for you, but because I knocked on your door, you are Totally closed off to hearing anything that I have to say to you. And I made a vow to myself at that point that I would never remain completely closed off to the ideas that other people had to share with me. And then fast forward maybe a year or so I had in that time, graduated college, gotten married, moved away from home for the first time ever. And so I was up in, up in Fresno, which is central California, after having grown up in Southern California. And when I, when I got up there, I was. Long story short, I was, at the time I was just. I was a hustler. I was a young hustler. I had no idea how to make money, but I knew that I wanted to do some form of entrepreneurship or making money to some degree. So basically I was always doing a full time door to door thing and then always a part time network marketing thing. And look, I'm not even a big, to be honest, not a fan really of the network marketing space anymore. I think there's a lot of scammy stuff. Not everybody's a scam artist obviously. I think there's a lot of really great people doing cool stuff in that space. But it is one of those spaces that attracts a lot of people who are like that. So I've sort of distanced myself from that. That's why we don't bring on anybody on the show who's an MLM or network marketer or anything like that. Just because I kind of got insider access to a lot of things that were going on, like some sort of nefarious activity that was going on in that industry. And it was just like kind of on distance myself from this. Anyway, I was doing full time door to door and part time marketing. And then this network marketing company pops up and they were called Direct Network and basically it was you. You can switch to DirecTV as a television provide. Then they had a multi level payment program for a VIP plan that was to help like essentially a warranty on the satellite equipment and additional servicing essentially. So it was basically a VIP service package that we sold on top of the DirecTV thing. But it was like 10 bucks a month or something like that. And it was cool because this is the first, this is like the first time in any sort of MLM experience that I had where I actually saw
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this episode of the show is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard, it's terrifying. So much work goes into this thing
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that you're not entirely sure it'll work
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out and it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this. When I started my podcast, I wasn't even sure what I was doing, to
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be honest with you.
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What if nobody listens? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I'm embarrassed?
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You know?
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What if nobody buys stuff that I put out there? Now I know that I was right in believing myself in launching this podcast and subsequent businesses that have come along with it, despite all the fears and hesitations. It also helps when you have a partner like Shop Shopify on your side to help Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Magic Spoon to brands just getting started. You can get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style, accelerate your efficiency. Whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing products, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. There's really no excuses anymore, people, because Shopify literally does all of this stuff for you. And did I mention that the iconic Purple Shop pay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world? It's from Shopify. It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. It also helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your one per month trial today at shopify.com TMM go to shopify.com TMM that's shopify.com TMM. This episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. Look, it is time for that spring cleaning part of the year. So refresh your space and make your home work better for you with Wayfair. From furniture and decor to organization solutions and outdoor essentials, Wayfair makes it easy to find exactly what fits your style and your needs, regardless of your home's unique style. Style, right?
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Your aesthetic.
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I've used it.
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The organization started to take off on its own because I'd done a lot of leg work to get, you know, the first 12 people, the first 20 people, the first 30 people. And I remember looking, logging into my account one day and seeing like, oh, like this team's actually taking off. They've signed up 25 people in the last two weeks without me even talking to anybody. That's real really cool. I started seeing it take off, but what happened was the owners of that company were underwhelmed by the growth of the company at that time. And they came from the door to door alarm space. So what they decided to do was basically take the DirecTV idea, the direct network experience, and they turned it into a direct sales company on doors. And they added in an alarm package and they added in a phone package. So I went from selling like, DirecTV in, like, living room presentations to people to going door to door and selling a bundle of DirecTV, an alarm service. I want to say it was through Monitronics at that time, and then a phone service which dates me. You can tell how long I was doing door to door for, because even satellite TV by itself is something that I feel like not a lot of people have anymore, but especially a phone line Nobody even needs a phone line. That was like, right at the end of that. So we're selling these packages door to door. And what happened was I was out on doors one day and then when I got home, my wife gave me a business card because we had just bought a house and somebody was knocking a new homeowner's list for a door to door alarm company at that time. And they came to the house, pitched this new thing, and my wife told him, like, oh, actually my husband sells alarms for this other company that just started this new, you know, program. And so this guy was like, tell your husband I like me and the owner of this company want to talk to him. And I remember thinking about at that time being like, I'm gonna meet with this guy, but only so that I can recruit him for what I'm doing. And then I caught myself in the middle of thinking that and I said, you know what? I promised myself that I was always going to be open to opportunity. So let me just set up this meeting with this guy. We'll grab, you know, we'll grab a meal and see if there's some good vibes, see what he has to say, see what he has to offer. And we sat down. Long story short, they, he, this guy was building a local alarm company, had been there for several years, had done really well with it, and he was actively trying to recruit me. And then upon asking further questions about, about me and who I was at the time, he basically was like, started seeing dollar signs in his eyes because he saw a young kid. I was 21, 22 at the time. I was married and I had a house. Like, all those things were just like, I could see the light in his eyes as he kept asking more questions and I answered them because he was used to dealing with the typical, you know, Central California door to door rep, which is people who typically don't have their lives together and this is like the only thing that they can do, and he's having to pay for their DUI so they can come back to work and things like that. So he was like, oh, young, professional, clean cut kid, great communicator, acts older than he looks, has a house, has a wife, has his life in order. I want to bring this guy on. And so what ended up happening was he offered me a $10,000 signing bonus. And this is at a time life, like right when I was like, this was probably the brokest I ever was, where I was like, I got like a couple thousand bucks left to my name. And I just Bought this house. I have a mortgage to pay. This thing that I've been working on for the last few months is now not panning out. If they would have stuck with the network marketing model, I think it would have probably worked out pretty well for them, at least in the short term, and they could have pivoted at some other time, but then they switched it to the door to door thing. Didn't have good infrastructure, didn't have good training. So we're just kind of left to figure it out on our own. So this guy comes in, gives me a $10,000 signing bonus, and then basically I was selling what we call the triple play, which was the DirecTV package, the alarm, and the phone all together. And my commission on that, I think, was 900 bucks. So he basically comes in, he goes, well, how about I pay you 800 bucks, but you only have to sell an alarm, so nothing else. You don't have to sell all these other services at the same time to make this commission. You sell the alarm, I'll pay you 800 bucks for the alarm, and I'll give you a $10,000 signing bonus if you bring you and the other, like, four people that I had on my team at that time over to my company. So I said, deal. And that was one of the times where it immediately played out for me, where being open to an opportunity rather than just being like, nah, screw that guy, I'll figure this out and do it on my own type of thing, where it probably would not have ended up. That company ended up going under within, probably within five, six months of me switching to. To the other alarm company. That company I was working with that had teams across the country. They. They went under, they. They went out of business, and I ended up staying with this company. And that was where I made my first six figures. And that was where I really cut my teeth in sales and learned a lot under the guy that was operating that business at the time. And it put me in a good financial position because he gave me a $10,000 signing bonus and then. And then gave me actual real training and then put me in the car with other managers who were really good at it, who could. They'd train me up and teach me and tell me exactly what to do. So it was. It was a direct application of the lesson that I learned from being on doors selling solar, where I was just so blown away that people were completely closed off to any new opportunity, that I was just like, even when I get older, I just. I don't want to be that person who just says no without ever hearing somebody out. Now, I think you can't always do that because the older you get and the more success that you get, you get bombarded with opportunities and you can't say yes to all of them. And you literally just don't have the time or physical capacity to meet with everybody who wants to gain some of your time and try to recruit you to this thing or present this opportunity to you. So I understand that it has some sort of limitations there, but what I found is that the people who end up being at that successful inflection point where they now are the ones in control of their schedule, and they're the ones who have the ability to say no and actually have to learn how to say no better. The only way to get to that is to first start with being open to all opportunity by saying yes to everything for, for a period of time until you earn the ability to start saying no to things. But most people say no to everything right off the bat. And that's when you start limiting your perspective. You start limiting even the. The beliefs that you have, the values that you hold close. You start getting set in stone on everything way too early. And then don't ever put yourself in a position to be able to say no to good opportunities that are. That are knocking on your door. So literally knocking, pun not intended. So, so that immediately translated for me, and there was a. There was a story that I read that, that a long time ago, that sort of was another one of those, you know, notches in the belt to get me to believe this. And it was. I heard the story about Mark Zuckerberg. He invited five people to his Harvard dorm back in 2004 to discuss a business opportunity. I'll give you one guess as to what that business opportunity was. Only two of the five people that he invited to his room actually showed up to learn about what Mark Zuckerberg was working on. Today. Those two people are billionaires. Dustin Moskovitz is worth. And I wrote this a few years ago, by the way. So Dustin Moskovitz was worth at the time of this writing, 6.5 billion. I assume it's much greater than that now. And Eduardo Severin is. Was worth three and a half billion of time. This writing. Again, I'm sure it's worth a lot more now. And the three people who did not show up to that meeting, who knows where they are? They honestly, they probably have some success. They were at Harvard. They're probably not in poverty or homeless or something like that, and they probably ended up doing fairly well for themselves. But did they do as well as this? I'm guessing probably no. I'm guessing they did not create generational wealth for themselves because they did not show up to the dorm room. So just remember that nothing is more expensive than a closed mind. Have discernment, be smart, yes, but stay open, because you never know what opportunity is knocking at your door. So that's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace.