Learning From The Experts

Learn about what it takes to be able to scale your business. You can't scale without scaling your personal level.

It's like trying to beat Super Mario without ever getting a mushroom that levels you up...

I'll be talking through the things I've learned from other experts that have helped me to grow personally and professionally.

Such as the belief window from Hyrum Smith, founder of Franklin planners. As well as some of the things I have picked up on from the experts around me.  

What is going on, guys? Hey, this is Colton woods. Come back to you with another episode from learning from the experts. Um, now today's gonna be a little bit different. So I'm recording on the podcast. Uh, so I got my mic here and recorded on the podcast mic, but I'm also recording on a video so I can throw something up here on YouTube. Um, so you guys, if you want to see a little bit more, what I'm talking about, you can, you can come on in the YouTube channel and check it out there. Um, but I'm gonna do my best to make it so you don't necessarily have to, but if you'd like to, you can. Um, so today something's been on my mind and I actually went live in a different group, kind of about this a little bit in depth here. And it's, I don't know, it's blowing my mind, how many people are not doing this.

 

Like, it blows my mind how many people don't have this figured out and they're in business and they think they're going to be successful. They may be fairly successful, but then like, they, they, they could be so much more if they just understood these things. So I want to go through it. I want to explain it. I'm definitely going to be writing here on the video. I'm going to be showing some stuff as I pull in my iPad feeds. So I can like write down and show you where I'm at. But, uh, for the podcast, hopefully you guys will be able to just, you know, understand it from where I'm speaking. But anyway, so welcome to this episode. Um, let's go ahead and get started. Now, if you guys follow Steve Larson at all, um, you'll know, he talks about the three core markets. Now, when I say three core markets, there are literally three markets that anybody, any business sells into. Um, and those three markets being, let me, uh, I'm going to be writing this. So it might be a little bit of lag on the podcast. Sorry about that guys. Um, so the three core markets, literally it's health, wealth, and relationships.

 

Now, what does that mean? Um, essentially what that means is whatever you sell needs to fit in one of those three core markets. And if you are not, if your message or your messaging, uh, for whatever you're selling, doesn't fit into those three core markets, then you're doing something wrong. You've, you're, you're yeah. Typically any pretty much everything fits in there anyway. Um, most people may even be doing it and not realizing it. If they didn't know what three core markets were. Now, these three core markets, this is like the sum of all business right here. Um, so health, like there's a ton of health products. There's a ton of wealth products and there's a ton of relationship products. Um, and example of those, I absolutely love Steve Larson's, um, example of the Gillette razor when he came up, that one, his genius. Um, so he talks about how like Gillette razors, you would think that they're in like the health market, you know, like it's Oh, healthy.

 

You want to make yourself looking better, whatever it may be. Um, but in reality, they're actually in the relationships market, which is interesting because every time you see a commercial from them, um, after the dude's like done shaving his face off and looking all clean and like slick, some lady comes up behind him and just like fills his face up, you know? So like they're selling relationships like, Hey, if you get this razor, you're gonna be able to find, you know, a girl or your wife is going to love you more, whatever it may be, your girlfriend's going to be, um, won't be able to keep her hands off. You know what I mean? So like, that's exactly what they're selling, but it's a razor, like you wouldn't think razors would fit into one of those three core markets, but they do. And the reason we bring that up is because you may not think, Oh, my product doesn't fit.

 

One of those three markets it's possible that you may think that, but the reality is can it's all messaging. Um, yeah, there's some really good stories that I'm like, uh, I just thought of another one that I wasn't really thinking of before, but, um, some good old school marketers, uh, Steve talks a lot about our Lasker. Um, and now I'm trying to think of the other guy and I can't think of his name. Yup. Anyway, they're amazing like a dove soap, one that if you went to any of the offer mind, um, events from Steve in the past, well, I guess last one, um, in 2019, he talked about dove soap. Um, and the messaging behind that was it's, it's super genius on that one. It's not so it's lotion, like it's literally not soap. Like they literally say it's not soap the whole time, even though it literally is soap.

 

Like, but it's not soap it's soap, but it isn't. Um, the messaging is so key on that. They're actually selling, I would say even relationships in there because it's like, yeah, health actually. Um, that's interesting. Like, Oh my, my, um, it moistens my skin and I feel better and better. Like, and then it talks even about how like, um, one of the ads is like, it's awesome. She's like I was going to go out with my girlfriends. And, um, I got in the bath and dove, slipped in with me. And I ended up spending the entire day with dove. I'm like, I have to tell all my friends about it, you know, like it's super funny. Um, so anyway, it's soap, but it fits in one of those three. Yes. A lot of different soaps can fit into health, but you can also make it relationships thing.

 

Um, old spice sells soap and it's all about like ax is probably the best acts. I forgot about acts. They're probably the best example of like, yeah. Trying to get relationships from your soap. So hopefully that's kind of a little bit of a, an idea of what these three core are. Now, if you're trying to sell your product specifically, or I guess generally in this market, one of these three markets you're missing the Mark here. Um, you don't necessarily want to sell directly into this huge ocean, um, of, of all these different products and people. Now we talk about how those three oceans are like the re or those three markets are like a red ocean. Like there's so many sharks in there. There's so many people just trying to sell their stuff in there that they're like just eating each other. So there's just blood all through the water cause everybody's killing each other.

 

So you don't want to be in those three markets like selling directly into it. You want to, you want to, you want to go a couple deep and if you're watching on the YouTube video, you'll see this, but I'll try to explain it for the podcast. Excuse me. Um, well you want to do is like, so for the race relationships, health, and wealth, uh, whatever your product may need or whatever it's going to be. So like for me, we sell a lot of keto stuff. So if I go to the next, if I go down and if you've ever heard of like niching down, this is kind of that idea there, you want to find your pocket of your, or your smaller market of people who are looking for your product, but your, and you can position it in a way that seems different than the rest of the markets.

 

So you're creating your own market essentially, um, or finding a current market that's small enough that you can actually pivot and sell into. Ah, there's so many different ways, but I'll explain a little bit here. So, um, the Quito market is fairly huge. Like if I were to just, if I were to get on ad words and do nothing but paver ads where I'm talking, or I'm trying to get people on Quito where I'm like, Hey, you're doing keto by this stuff. Like anybody who searches, just the general word Quito, I'm going to spend a ton of money, trying to get them to come find my stuff because keto is going to be an expensive keyword. I mean that, that's a hot topic. That's a really big market. Now, the chances of me finding somebody who searches Quito, um, sorry about that. Uh, I thought I'd turned notifications off. So anybody that searches the word Quito,

 

It's going to be expensive cause it's a huge market. But if I were to go like, um, Quito for, I mean it's a little bit small. So if we go down and I find a smaller market, I'm going to try to make this seem a little bit more realistic here. If I try to find a smaller market, um, one thing like we were doing was, um, or I was explaining on different videos, like Hito for entrepreneurs. Um, that's interesting stuff like, Hey, if you're an entrepreneur, you need to be on keto. And they're like, wait, what, anybody that knows anything about keto is searching Quito and entrepreneurship or has any kind of keywords for that. Like, that's going to be a cheap keyword for me to, to get. And not only that, I'm going to find somebody who is looking for like exactly what I'm talking about.

 

So when they come onto my page or my sales funnel, the first page of my funnel, they're literally going to be like, he's speaking directly to me because I'm going to make the copy specifically for that person. So anybody that's searching this stuff, Hey, you know what, like I'm entrepreneurship like, uh, I'm an entrepreneurship or I'm an entrepreneur, um, Quito entrepreneurs on Quito, like different, different variations of that. Um, if they, if they're searching that they're ready essentially to buy whatever I'm selling, because I'm speaking directly to entrepreneurs who need to be doing keto or entrepreneurs who understand things about Quito. So I can pay a lot less for keyword. Yeah. There's not going to be as many people searching it, but that's the point as well. I'm not just looking for a general idea or general keyword that I'm going to try to pick off people that might be understanding where I'm going to be selling them, like might be ready for what I'm selling them.

 

Instead. I'm just going to go for the smaller numbers and get directly to the people who I do want to sell right away. So hopefully, hopefully this helps a little bit, if you're selling more to just the generic market and let me get into this a little bit more, if you have a generic person or a generic who everybody talks about, know who you're selling. If you have a generic who then your, your it's not very good. Um, I think it was Perry Belcher that talked about, um, I think it was him, but I can't, I gotta find this, don't quote me on that. Um, I got to find out where the story exactly is I can't remember, but he was

 

Pitching these two salon owners, um, these two, these two women that owned a salon, pitching them on this product that he was trying to sell them. So he goes in there, they're like the main people. And he's talking through this whole product, like giving his whole spiel, his pitch. Um, and they're like, wow. Yeah, this is great. This is cool. And then they kept like looking at each other and they kept asking each other. You think, you think Karen would like this? I don't remember if that's the exact name of the user. I feel like I, I, I feel like I used the correct name the other day. Anyway. You think Karen would actually like this? You think Karen would buy this? Do you think Karen would, um, use this product? Uh, and they kept, they said it enough that eventually he's like, all right, who is caring and why is she not here?

 

Cause it sounds like she's the decision maker and she should be here because I don't want to be talking to somebody who can't make a decision on whether or not this product, whether or not you can actually buy this from me. Like otherwise I'm just standing here wasting my time, trying to pitch you guys on this product. And now you're going to go tell somebody and not deliver it correctly to the person who actually makes, you know, the decisions. Um, and they just kind of laughed at him and like, Oh no, no, it's, Karen's our customer avatar. And he's like, you're what, like, he'd never heard of a customer avatar this time at this point. So, um, let me go back here.

 

So customer avatar, that's an interesting concept in & of itself. So the customer avatar, they literally had a paper filled out like this big poster that had a picture, like a stick figure on it. Um, I'm just thinking through what, what I saw in my head as I listened to the story, um, like a stick figure of somebody with like, its kinda drawn out into this girl named her Karen and then gave like, put on all of the things she likes to do the things she doesn't like to do. Like, you name it, like they had this person dial down. Like it wasn't even a real person, but you would have thought it's a real person. They knew their customers so well, they knew exactly what they liked, what they didn't like any of that stuff. So when he came in, started pitching them, they're like, you know what?

 

We just don't feel like Karen would actually like, this would be good for her. Like, we don't feel like she would enjoy this. We don't feel like she would actually buy it again or buy it in the first place. So they passed on it. And he's like, that is amazing. If you don't know your customer avatar, you don't know who you're actually like selling to. You don't know how to talk to them. If you don't know how to talk to the person you're trying to sell and chances are, they're not going to relate with you and chances are, they're not going to understand what you're trying to say or sell them. So, and if you're just selling a generic person, you're going to get kind of a generic result, which is interesting. So I just wanted to go through this with you guys. This is kind of a base level.

I know Steven's got some, I think he's got some deeper, uh, three core markets podcasts that you guys can check out to you if you want to go into a little bit deeper, but I just wanted to put this out there. Like I'm seeing so many people mess this up right now. So I wanted you to run this, run through this with you guys. Um, and have you, yeah. Give you something to think on so you can like figure out, you know what my actually might talk to the right person. And chances are like, if, if you know who you're actually selling, when they ask you something or they ask you a question, you're going to be able to answer and they're going to be like, Oh my goodness, you are totally correct. Like that. Exactly how I'm feeling. You validated exactly what I'm thinking, how I felt.

I feel the emotion of you taking off the problem and giving me the solution that I've been needing. So yes, I need to pay you because you provide the exact solution for my exact like scenario or problem or whatever it may be. Whereas if I'm just trying to sell Quito to anybody, it's like, yeah, you're you can still sell it, but yeah, I'm going to sell it nearly as well, unless you're like speaking directly to your customer avatar. So hopefully that helps guys. I wanted to run that through that with you guys today. Um, yeah, go out there, keep crushing it. And trust me, there's like listening to the experts and stuff. And this is a, yeah, this is, this is the way to think about it. So awesome stuff guys. Um, thank you very much. We'll talk to you all later.

 

What's going on guys. Hey, this is Colton woods and you are listening to another episode of learning from the experts. And today I want to actually walk you through or talk about some of the things that I learned from the legendary Rallycross driver Ken block. Hey, what's going on guys? So a couple of weekends ago, I actually got the opportunity to be one of Ken block's guests at the rally cross, um, for red bull, which is a super huge event. Travis was drawn, if you don't know who he is, he's like, he's like the biggest man in the that sport, like in those sports, I mean period and uh, motors or dirt bikes, everything. Like he is crazy into those kinds of sports rally cross, um, especially to you. Um, he, yeah. Anyway, so he puts on the event, um, called nitro world games and I actually got to attend it and be able to kind of meet, uh, Ken block and be with his crew and see how they all work and how they do it.

And not only that, I got to see a lot of like the insides of how they operate and, uh, the different issues that we're having and also like their tactics, which I thought was really interesting, really cool. Um, so, uh, the guy who actually hooked me up, that was a follower of Steve Larson, um, ended up meeting or talking to me and we kind of got acquainted and then he's like, Hey dude, I work for these guys name, uh, Ken block and Travis [inaudible]. He, I dunno if you know who they are. And I'm like, dude, heck yes. I know who they are. They're freaking legendary. Um, and so we, yeah, we got acquainted there and I'm like, that's crazy. You work with them. Like that's super awesome. Those guys, I've watched their, their stuff for years now. Um, really respect them a ton and they had both put out a ton of content, so they, both marketers as well, which is really cool.

Um, so we were talking, he's like, Hey man, we're going to be racing at the natural world games and um, we'd love to have you there as a guest. And you can kind of hang out, meet the crew, uh, check out how we do it and do this different things. And I'm like, Oh man, this is like a dream come true right there. That's like stuff I dreamed of as a kid, uh, which is, which is a pretty cool, um, anyway, so, uh, his name is, uh, David Mansfield and he, he's he, yeah. So he totally hooked me up. Um, and he's like, dude, it's really cool to see because it's, it really relates to business, um, on how like we run it. It's only like a hundred times faster than it, which is pretty cool. So he actually is like, like the coach, like he kind of coaches can block through his driving as he's driving, which means he has to be super fast at it, make really quick decisions and help, can make the quickest decisions and the best decisions that's gonna make him the best time.

So it was really interesting watching all of this. Um, they would get out there, they start racing and David Mansfield would be up on this stand, kind of watching everybody race around. And he had a headset on and he would talk to Ken as he's driving. And so I'm watching this and literally it's like split second decisions, um, and like, okay, like this is what's coming on up. This is going to be the best way to take that turn or so-and-so's on your outside. You need to push them out and cut into the turn here. Like you do this, Oh, you need to take this path on the next one and you get around them here, I've noticed that these people are doing this. And so it's just really interesting to watch. Um, and then what was actually also very interesting was just to see how well they were able to race.

But then when like the, we're having the worst time with, uh, with tires and blowing out, like these are brand new tires, like really expensive, nice tires and they're just shredding them. I guess that that's what happens when you have 700 horsepower in a tiny little car and you are on the gas, but all the time. So it makes sense I guess. Um, but it was interesting to see how they kind of got through it and what I also, okay, so here's the kicker. Here's the biggest takeaway that I got from this. Um, besides all the little things like the coaching through the going, um, you know, going around like pushing people through this corner and cutting them here and doing all this like cool, like tactical stuff. Um, there was one, there was one spot or one time, I guess one thing in the event that really stood out to me and what is, what makes Ken block the man.

He who he is. I feel like, um, so on, I think, I believe he's like the second race of the day. Now let me pre-frame this a little bit. This, this is so rally cross is there in these cars, like there, a lot of them are Subarus. Uh, Ken block drives this Ford Fiesta, which is literally not a Fiesta anymore. Like there literally is no stock parts left on it. Um, these cars cost $750,000 a piece. Yes. You heard that right? $750,000. Three quarters of a million dollars per car and they have three of them. Um, so that's, yeah, these cars are nuts. It's not a little Ford Fiesta. You would go buy at the dealership for $14,000. Um, definitely highly, insanely modified. And yeah, so they drive these cars around and it's typically, it's on a pavement track and they're burning tires everywhere. Like they're sliding sideways.

All four tires are burning and they have to come around the corner sliding and make it through it as quick as they can and then come around another quarter corner as a pivot and slide the other way. It's crazy stuff. If you want to see an example of what I'm talking about. Um, the Jim Canna, um, videos on YouTube is literally like what made them big ins, kind of what he just started for fun and then became a franchise. Um, and Jim Conner being J a, G Y M K H, a, N. a, um, I believe that's how you spell it. I could totally be wrong. Anyway. Um, Jim [inaudible] like, so the latest one, they just came out with Jim [inaudible], which is completely Epic by the way. And really they just do these crazy stunts and these crazy driving around in like cities like Chicago and uh, LA, different places that are just Epic deceive and they, so they, they record these and they come out with the best as they can and then it's just, it's super entertaining for that, that area.

Well this track was at the nitrile world games was mostly dirt, which is highly way different than most of them since they're all mostly pavement. This is a lot different because it's all dirt. Um, there was a payment section in there, but it really wasn't much and I don't know. Super cool. And then the jump is like a world record jump. Now this is, they're in a car and there's 110 foot jump on the track. 110 feet in a car. And by the time they actually get off the jump and land, it's usually about 120 feet or more. That's, that's like a massive jump. Like, I don't even know if you can picture that. It's huge. Um, let alone in a car, like that's, that's massive on a dirt bike, um, in a car. That's insane. So they have to hit this jump at like 75 miles an hour at least.

And you don't want to be going over 80 or like 78. You want to be between like 75 and 80 or 75 and 78 or something like that. Um, he was telling me, and I forget the exact numbers, um, but he's like, yeah, if you, if I hit that jump at like 85, I'm like toast because I'll land on this flat part and probably break my back in the process, you know, because all hit so hard. Um, which he actually ended up hitting the last race of the day. He actually ended up hitting the jump like 82 and he was definitely hurting from it. He's like, man, those, it was not good anyway, so they have to hit this jump super fast. Well on the second race of the day, they're Ryan round and he's in first. And like for the first two laps he's in first.

What I didn't realize at first was that he actually blew his back, right tire in the first lap, literally shredded in the first lap. Well then he kept it in first place, the second lap, and then he kind of fell behind a little bit on the third lap. Well I knew his tire was shredded for sure in the second lap. And what's crazy is like I'm watching him and he's driving around this tire and he's still just going crazy with it. Just making it happen. And I see him coming around and there's a part where you can hit the 110 foot jump or you can go to the right or you can go to the left. There's like three different ways. And typically if you have a broken tire, a shredded tire, you're going to go to the right of the left. Right. And so I see him coming up to that spot and I'm like, kind of looks like he's going for the jump in the middle.

And I'm like, there's no way. Like how would he, like why? How would he ever just, yeah. Anyway, so I'm like, there's no way he's actually going for it. Probably just looks like he's going in the middle, which kind of looks similar to when they go to the right. No, sure enough he hits his jump with a flat tire and totally clears it. It makes it, and I think he hit it again after that, but I know he hit it at least once, but that one time I remember just watching it like, Holy cow, this is, this is blowing my mind right now that he is literally hitting this jump with a flat tire. Nobody does that. Nobody does that. Everybody's like, Oh, you know, I got a flat tire. I gotta make it, you know, get, take it easy. I'm going to go the right.

I'm going to keep it safe, whatever it may be. Well, it's interesting to me because so many Rallycross drivers, you don't actually really know who many of them are. Literally, you don't know who many of them are. And what's interesting about that is none of them publish or get out and talk or have any videos about them or stunts that they do or rally, crest driving at all. What's really interesting is Ken block is, I would say arguably the most well known drift like Rallycross person out there besides maybe Travis was Serrano, but he had, you know, some other stuff. Anyway, um, as far as Rallycross, I almost think Ken blocks probably the most well known and known as like the best Rallycross driver out there. What's really interesting, I know I've said that like five times, um, is even though he's known for that, he's actually never won like first place in a podium on like championships.

I mean he's, he's won races and he's, he's gotten like second or third and plenty of them, but he's not actually like the number one driver in the world, you know, but he's known more than any other driver out there in the world. And therefore he's associated as one of the best drivers in the world. I don't know if that maybe lights up a few light bulbs or not, but to me it did. And as I saw him take this jump with a flat tire, um, I mean I already knew this, but I, it reaffirmed to me that he knows what he's doing. He is, he's very much different. Um, and it's funny, I was actually just reading this book niche down, um, and niche down as amazing book by the way. So I was reading niche down and it talks about how being better will get you nowhere literally in business, but being different is huge.

Um, any category King out there, any business that is like the number one, the top business out there, it's because they were different. They did something differently. Um, an example that I was actually walking through and I was talking to my wife about it, which is kind of funny. Um, Pepsi spent billions of dollars on ads that were just a complete flop really because the ad was, Pepsi is better than co like Coke. And so they would have these taste tests like tasty for yourself, Pepsi, you know, it's better than Coke. And what's really funny about that as the, the totally just shot themselves in the foot because now they're trying to argue that they're better, which is a race to the bottom. Really. Like it's, if you do that in any business, that you're just going to start competing on price at that point and people aren't going to really care who you are unless you're the cheapest, which sucks to be that person essentially.

Um, and so it, Pepsi's doing this and the problem was is they were pitching themselves as better than Coke. Whoa. In reality, they just set Coke up to be the best because they're pushing more of their focus towards Coke. And so now people are seeing Pepsi ads for Coke, which is not what you want to do because that's your number one competition. And yet you're like showing everybody that they're better than you. That's not a very good idea. This is not a very good thing to do. You know, like that doesn't make a lot of sense because now everybody's going to see or associate that Coke is better than Pepsi because you're, you're essentially saying that subconsciously. Um, so there was another example though that I've always kind of thought about. Now you can always pit yourself against another company that you're different from. If Pepsi would have done this, it would've been a whole lot better for them.

But Pepsi did not pit themselves as different from Coke. They pitted themselves as better than Coke. And that's where they got a wrong one. Good example is Apple. So Apple actually used to have these Mac versus PC commercials. And I mean, unlike Pepsi, they weren't talking about how they were better per se. It was more of how we're different. And that actually kind of separated the two. And what's was really cool about that is winter PC was bigger than Mac at the time, right? So they're, they're definitely like, they were a smaller company, um, or PCs a lot bigger than max. So what's cool about that is you can pit yourself against, so Matt can pit themselves against PC. And say that they're different now, if they would've said, Hey, we're better, they would have, that would've been actually pretty bad campaign. It could have helped them a little bit cause they were, they were a bit smaller at the time.

But um, because they put in themselves as different, well it does two things. It shows that they're not trying to take the PC, um, customers essentially they're not, they're just trying to show people that we do things differently. And if you want to be different, if you want to see something different, who you want to use a different product that is more fitted to you. This, that's us. This is what we do. Um, and there's a whole lot anyway. Um, and then the second thing is since Mac was smaller than PC by a bit at that time by, so shading themselves with, with PC, by pity, the throwing rocks against PC at the time, they kind of almost brought themselves up to kind of the same area because now they're associating with PC, the biggest person out there. Um, and then once you get to about the same level, so once Mac and PC are kind of close, you can't, you can't be throwing rocks anymore cause then you'll, you'll take PC with you.

Um, Mac would take them with them because now they're still associated with them and so is going to grow with them because now they're there. They're showing they're putting focus on them. Um, same thing with Pepsi. Pepsi was thrown focus on Coke and Coke still number one. You know, obviously that didn't work for them and they spent billions of dollars. Mack did a little bit differently and said, Hey, this is why we're different than them not [inaudible]. And they were definitely thrown rocks, that's for sure. But not all of the time. It was more of like, Hey, this is why we, we, we aren't the same thing. So don't categorize us as the same thing. We can do things differently in this way. And people are like, Oh, I like that. So they go there and then as peace or as Apple got to be as big as PC, they stopped talking about PC.

It's the same thing with click funnels. Click funnels with thrown rocks at a few different companies. Infusion soft, which they called them Confusionsoft and a couple other ones, but they would throw rocks at them as they were smaller. Well then the got to be about the same size and that's when you stop talking about anybody that's your size or lower because you'll, you'll bring them with you, you'll add attention to them. So you always go for the bigger and then once you get to that spot you cut it. So, huh. I feel like I probably just barbed a bunch of stuff all over you guys right there. So hopefully that was good. Hopefully I helped you understand a few different things there guys. Don't create a better product. Oh, that drove me nuts. In college, people were always building a product that was better than the other one.

That is a horrible idea is a horrible way to go. You're just setting yourself up for failure. Category Kings on average own about 75% of the market and the other 25% is literally left to the other hundreds of companies that try to say they're different. Don't be that person. If there's a category King out there and you want to be better than them, you're already screwed. Don't even think about it during try make yourself different, then you can create your own niche and create your own category there. So hopefully I helped you guys today. I'm sorry. It's been awhile since I've been on. Yeah, I've had lots of other distractions and things going on around me and offer mind is coming up. I am. Yeah. I feel like I've just, I've talked about way too many things but offer, mine is coming up this weekend actually, which I'm really excited about.

Um, we've, we've been going kind of nuts with that and so freaking stoked about how much is going into and how awesome was going to be. Oh, for all of you that are listening that are coming off from mine or that went off for mind, you will know. It's just been, it's amazing. Um, it's an, it's a yearly event though. And if you missed out, I'm telling you, good off. remind.com check it out. You will not miss out if you do marketing. If you need to create your offer and differentiate or position yourself the way you need or differently or the way you should. Definitely want to hit hit up an offer mine. So anyway, full circle, Ken block. The reason he is the man and the reason he is bigger than the rest is because he's different. He does things differently. While like when he was, um, when he would be racing on a rally cross race, um, and that he knew he was going to lose, he would literally just drive like way different than everybody else and show off or like not show off, but like jump way higher than the rest.

And people would talk about him more than the winner. That's another golden nugget. There be different people talk about you more than those who are just good at what they do. Yeah. Anyway, hopefully that's cool guys. Um, thank you so much for being on here, and we will talk to y'all later.

What's going on guys? Hey, it's Coulton, Woods here? And I know it's been awhile since I've podcasted, but I just happened to get off an interview with a guy named Christoph Merrill and let's just say he put a little bit of a fire underneath my butt and lit it and kind of stoked the fire a little bit more. And then after I was done getting interviewed by him, I realized, Holy cow, I need to really get on and actually share some things from the interview that I think you guys would actually really enjoy,

insert intro.

So I thought I'd get on here and share a couple of the habits that he was asking about. Now Christoph Merrill, if you don't know who he is, what he dives into is habits essentially because his habits saved his life. You'll have to go check out his channel to hear that story.

It's, it's an amazing story to hear. Um, and if you want to see the interview that he did with me, then I'm sure you can find it on his YouTube channel. Um, just search habit freak. I think it's all one word and should be able to find it. YouTube. Um, but I wanted to share a couple things that centrally, some of the habits he helped me identify that I even have, which I know I'm super far still from having or developing all this habits that I need in order to be that super successful person. You know, I'm not like Jeff base of style, you know, or, uh, I'm not on that level, you know, but he definitely helped me figure out some things and think through it. And I was like, man, this is actually really good. This is gold to, to figure out so that we can kind of understand better, um, the different habits that actually help us accomplish the things that we need to in life in order to be successful per se.

Now, I know I've shared this story tons of different places, but, um, obviously it may be the first for you. So, um, I, he, he asked me like, what, what's one of the habits that you have had that you feel like have helped make you a little bit more successful? Um, and it was interesting. I was like, you know what, I, it takes me back to a story of when I was younger. Not that I, I would say, um, I'm super successful at all. Um, but I feel like, you know, I'm successful than relatively more than some other people who are just starting out. I'm not that successful. Um, but he asked me that and I'm like, okay, well that's cool that you think that first off. But, um, he asked me that and it made me think of when I was younger and when I feel like I was like 10 or 11.

I was pretty young and I remember the day of being outside when this, when this thought or when this kind of paradigm, this mental paradigm shift kind of happened for me. Um, and a little bit of a pre-frame to it is my dad would wake us up on like Saturday, like every Saturday. Now. He claims it was every other Saturday, but I don't really, I don't feel like it was a really Saturday, Saturday. It felt like every Saturday team to me. Um, but he would wake us up early on Saturday, which most kids, pretty much every kid's going to not like being woken up on a Saturday to go outside and work. Let's just face it. Um, nobody wants to do that. No kid wants to do that. You know, Hey, I want to stay home. I want to play video games. I wanna play with my friends.

I want to veg out and do nothing, you know, or like watch cartoons. And my dad would instead take us outside to work. And I'm like, man, this is, and I remember it for years, it would bother me, you know, and I, I would just kind of be mad at my dad because he's making me come outside and do all this hard work when it was Saturday should be my data. Excuse me. How fun and, you know, do other things not work? You know, like I have to go to school every other day. Um, but I remember the day I, I can see myself outside working and I remember I was like, Holy cow, like this. Like, this is horrible. You know, like this is not fun. And I had a thought and I was like, what if I made this a challenge? Um, and I, I looked at my brothers and I was like, I bet you I can, I can do this facet and you can do that, you know, or I bet I can get this done before you do, you know, or faster than you.

And it was interesting as I, I didn't know at that time or at that point what was actually happening, but I figured out a way to, instead of dreading and hating work, I started to enjoy it. And pretty soon we were making everything a competition. All of our work was a competition and we would get things done faster and then we'd be done earlier and I could actually go do things with my friends because I wasn't like dragging it out, like having a hard time and not enjoying any of it, you know, I was dragging it out, making it last longer and just the day was horrible. But when I was making it a competition, things we get done faster, but the day would, you know, like the time of working would actually get go faster as well for me. And I'm so, I'm just so thankful for my dad for making me go outside and do that because I wouldn't have had that lesson otherwise at that young age.

And I just learned, Hey, I can look at this thing as, you know, I'm going to enjoy it and have a good time and just get it done. Or I could be like most of the other kids my age and just complain and make it a hard thing and fuss about it and whatever and make their, you know, make their parents mad at them. Um, instead of just get things done and things just got done and it was fun and I would be able to go move on to whatever the next thing was. Um, and I've, I attribute that to my work and working now is I've found ways to enjoy it, found ways to make it fun and to almost essentially make it a challenge for myself so that I continue to push myself. And then that will also give you, I mean there's so many men or there's so many psychological things behind it as well that help.

But essentially, I mean it helps in so many different ways of your life that there's just healthy for you essentially. But um, I've added it to a lot of things I do now. Um, and uh, you know me, so if you know, I work with Steven Larson, it's funny we'll be doing stuff and like it's kind of a joke. Like, Oh man, this is like a hard thing to do. And we kind of make it a joke of make it hard coach. But really we think that way a lot of the times of like this is going to be a hard thing. All right. Make it hard coach. Like, cause I know it's going to push me and make me better essentially things I'm doing. So make it hard coach, like, yeah, let's do this, you know. So anyway, I just wanted to share that one part of it.

Um, I feel like, I think we were on there for almost an hour. I don't know if that's, but as long as the interview is probably 30, 40 minutes. Um, but if you want to go check it out, go check it out and see all the other things you asked me there. I definitely want to have him on the show and kind of understand his point of view and his side of things because habits really do dictate and determine different things in our life, including the success that you have in whatever you're doing. So, um, I totally believe in that and I, I wouldn't have been able to, I mean it's, he asked me about how I lost weight essentially cause they used to weigh 300 pounds and I got down to 230 pounds. And he's like, do you feel like you've made a habit out of that?

And I'm like, you know what? I never really thought about it till now. But yeah, I've made a habit out of different things in ways that I eat. It's really good interview. I would highly suggest you listen to if you're, if you want to learn more and understand habits a little bit more, but I thought I'd just drop that one main habit there that I thought was pretty cool that he pulled out of me. Um, hopefully it helps you guys, uh, and hopefully y'all do and get, and thank you so much for listening and as always, if you got any comments or questions or anything, please feel free to comment on where you may be seeing this or hearing it and let me know your thoughts and reactions as well. And, um, yeah, we'll talk to y'all later.

 

What's going on guys. Hey, this is Coulton Woods and welcome to another episode of learning from the experts.

And today I actually want to go over the worst haircut experience of my entire life.

So here's the deal.

I know how frustrating it is to waste countless hours sifting through, wanna-be experts who never actually help you in the end.

Then to learn years later that there was a real expert who could have helped you a hundred times faster than learning it on your own.

I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learn from real experts who can actually help you grow your business.

My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to learning from the experts.

Hey guys.

So, I actually just got my hair cut on Monday and it was the worst experience ever, but then I actually had a pretty good profound lesson from it at the same time.

Which obviously you can always make something into a good lesson, right?

There's never failure, only learning experiences, you know, which that was definitely a learning experience for me.

So, I went and got my haircut.

Now normally I go to the same person every time because I found this lady that is really good at doing haircuts.

She's been doing it for like 15 years or something.

She knows my style.

She knows what I like.

So every time I go in there, she knows exactly what to do and she doesn't even have to ask me, you know, she just gets it done, which I love.

Like I roll in there, she shoots the breeze with me and we just kind of, yeah, talk while she cuts my hair.

So lately though, I haven't been in town and it's just been crazy.

So I haven't really scheduled a time to actually go in and see her.

Well, I can look on the app and see if she's actually working.

So the Times that I have been able to go, she wasn't there.

So I'm like, crap, I don't want to go because I don't want to go to somebody else.

You know, I don't want to have a bad experience.

Finally on Monday, I was like, whatever, I just need to go get a haircut so I don't care who it is, I'm just going to go in.

The first mistake, well I guess it wasn't quite a mistake, but my thought was I looked at the app, there's two people available, right?

One of them had their picture and the other didn't.

So I’m thinking.

Okay.

The one that has their pictures probably been there longer because she has a picture on there.

So I'm going to trust that one and go with my instinct, you know, so I book it and she was available earlier anyway, so it worked out.

I get there, I show up, she takes me back, sits me in the chair and she's like, so why'd you pick me today?

And I'm like, oh, that's a really awkward question.

Um, well I actually picked you because I looked on the app and you were the only one that had a picture on there, so I figured you'd been here longer.

Then she proceeds laugh at me and tell me that she's the newest employee there and that she's only been doing hair for two years and like, well there goes your theory.

Yeah, that was a bad start.

And I'm like, you realize you're just telling me that I was wrong and that you are the newest one here when I was hoping to get the person with the most experience and you have the least experience, so now I really don't have any faith in you.

Good job.

She's just not thinking on that one.

Anyway, we'll get going. And she proceeds to, before we even started, she proceeds to sell me on this package of this haircut that is the same price as the package below it.

But since they're having a deal on it, it's the same price as the one below it.

And I totally got to get it because it's totally worth it.

And I'm like, what even is it?

Oh well it's this, this and this.

It's totally worth it.

You totally got to do it.

Like, yeah, you just got to do it.

And I'm like, ah, I don't know if I really care.

No, let me tell you it's totally worth it.

And I'm like, Nah, I don't know.

Like I just want a haircut.

I kind of got a time constraint cause I'd like to get back to work and doing some stuff.

Right.

No.

So she continues to sell it, trying to sell me on this and why I need to get it.

And then she's like, oh, don't be checking your time with me.

Like you're getting your haircut.

Time does not matter.

And I'm like, ah, well I kinda need to hurry up, you know, like 20 minutes ish, like that'd be awesome.

She's like, Oh yeah, we'll have it done in 20 minutes, no problem.

And I'm like, okay, whatever.

And then she kept trying to sell me on the same freaking package.

So finally, I'm like, okay, let's do it.

I don't care.

Just do it, I'm done.

I don't want to sit here and try to tell, you know, like 50 times and still not get a no out of it.

Like, come on.

Anyway, so finally I'd just tell her whatever, let's just go. I'd rather just start getting my hair cut than sitting here trying to barter with you about it.

So, she starts to look at my hair and she kind of does this, like, I had a hat on, so my hair was really bad.

It was, it didn't look good, you know, it was just like a swirl.

I don't know.

Anyway, she looks at my hair and she's like, what is this?

And she’s like is pointing at my hair and putting her fingers through and it's like curling over, you know, kind of weird.

And she's like, what is this?

Uh, I had my hat on, so it probably just messed my hair up.

No, this is too long.

Well, yeah, that's where I'm here to get a haircut.

No, we need to go much shorter than this.

Much shorter than you were saying.

And I was like, uh, I dunno.

No, trust me.

Like it needs to go much shorter.

Hopefully you're okay with that.

We'll go ahead and do it.

I'm like, are you freaking kidding me right now?

Like I just told you what I wanted on my haircut, and then you're telling me that I'm wrong and that I you shouldn't do that and that you're going to do whatever the heck you want to do anyway.

No, it doesn't work that way.

And I'm like, ah, no.

But honestly, I used to have my hair a lot shorter anyway, so I was like, Eh, maybe she'll do something cool.

I don't care.

Anyway, so she proceeds to cut my hair and like she's rough about it too.

Like she's talking to me and cutting it, like not even looking at it at all and it's kind of making me a little worried, you know, because she's just going at it and pushing my head over, it was really bad.

It was weird.

And she just keeps going.

Whatever.

And then she tells you or she gets me to do that package, right?

So I'm like, whatever, do it, go for it.

And then, as she's like rubbing my head to, oh, it was horrible.

They massage the shampoo and your scalp or whatever.

Oh man, that sounds kind of funny.

Sounds a little weird now that I say.

Anyway.

She's using her nails and digging in my head.

I'm like, oh that does not feel good.

And then she's proceeding to tell me how great of a Salesman she is because she knows how to talk about products and stuff.

And I'm like, trust me, you are nothing near a good salesman.

You are the antithesis of a salesman.

You are what give salespeople a bad rap.

Seriously.

Anyway.

She's doing her thing.

What was really crazy though is at the end, she decided to rub some beard oil in my beard for me.

She's like, you gotta try this beard oil is the best beard oil ever.

Check this out.

And I was like, okay, that's cool.

I really don't care.

And she puts it in her palm and puts her hands together and then proceeds the smear it all over my face and just goes at it and back and forth.

It was really weird and really awkward at the same time cause I'm sitting there and her hand is just all over my face.

Like, what the heck are you doing right now?

Are you trying to feel my face up?

This is really weird right now.

I'm like, why didn't you just give it to me and let me put it on.

It was like the absolute worst hair cut ever.

And at the end of it she put product in my hair and smeared it all around and tells me why my product that I told her I have is really bad or not the best when the other hair cut lady just sold me on that one because I asked her what would be good with my hair and she gave me a few options and she's like, you need this and this kind of mixture with your hair because of this.

And I was like, okay, I really like that.

That feels good.

That's a great one to go with.

And then this lady is telling me that it's a really bad product, and why would you use that product and that this product is so much better.

And she puts it in my hair and tells me why it's so much better.

And then after she puts it in, I can see hairs that are way longer than the rest of the hairs next to it on the side of my head.

I mean very easy to see that those were not cut.

Like they were cut a little bit, but not completely.

And I'm like, wow, she really doesn't see that right now.

I can see it and I'm looking in the mirror that's a few feet away from me and she's not even a foot away.

Like, how do you not see that.

And then there's another spot on the other side of my head.

It was the worst haircut I've ever had.

Seriously.

She would put everything down that I was using or doing.

Everything about my hair was bad and that she made it so much better.

Yet it was not even cut all the way.

I was really not happy.

I totally got on Instagram and ranted about it for awhile.

Maybe I'll add those audio files to the end of this.

That'd be kind of funny.

I'll have to see if I can pull them in.

That'd be hilarious.

It was just such a bad experience.

Afterwards I got thinking about it and I'm like, you know what's funny is I told her exactly what I wanted and then she proceeded to give me what she thought I needed, not what I wanted.

I was thinking about that afterwards.

How many times have I done that in business where I've given people what I thought they needed when in reality they wanted something else?

And so I'm not actually giving them what they want.

What kind of experience do you think they're having when I'm giving them what I think they need, when in reality I should be giving them what they want instead?

Ryan Levesque wrote a book called ASK.

It's amazing actually, and it totally, if you do any kind of surveys in your business already about trying to figure out what your customers want or how you can better help them, which I see so many people doing it so wrong is it's an industry norm to do it the wrong way, which is really sad.

He wrote a book, he's like the authoritative person on how to get the things that your customers actually want out of them and to make, to be able to make that product for them that fulfills their need or their want.

If you do any kind of that stuff, I would totally recommend the book called ASK by Ryan Levesque.

So, stop giving people what you think they need, figure out what they actually want and give it to them.

It's that simple.

Like on the Secret MLM Hacks business that we run and Steve Larson built.

He literally sold that before it was even published.

Like, before he was even done.

I mean, it's a whole member's area with five modules and a bunch of other stuff in there.

There wasn't even module one done when he sold that.

And we literally were asking people what they wanted next and giving it to them.

And that was the product.

It blows people's minds when they hear that.

We actually made a ton of money on the launch of that and we didn't even have it done and we were still just fulfilling on things.

We had an idea of kind of where it was going and what we're doing, but there were some things that we thought they needed that we were wrong. Instead we adapted it to what they wanted instead of what we thought they needed or what we thought they needed.

And so we adapted it to give them what they wanted, but also  in the way that it happened so that they could actually benefit from it.

You know?

Oh Man.

Anyway, stop giving people what you think they need and give them what they want because people buy what they want.

It's just that plain and simple.

Anyway, thank you so much for being on here guys.

Hope you enjoyed that.

And yeah, let me know if you got any questions or comments on this.

I always like hearing your guys’ feedback too.

We'll see y'all later.

Are you looking to jumpstart your business by learning or getting help from the real experts?

Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you.

Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating, and leaving feedback.

 

What's going on guys.

Hey, this is Coulton Woods and you are listening to another episode of Learning From The Experts and today and I actually want to talk to you about something that I learned from my dad.

Something that he failed to recognize or at least I feel like he failed to recognize it.

But I totally learned something from it that just shaped the way that I looked at things and the way I bought things in the future.

So here's the deal.

I know how frustrating it is to waste countless hours sifting through, want to be experts who never actually help you in the end.

Then to learn years later that there was a real expert who could have helped you a hundred times faster than learning it on your own.

I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learned from a real experts who can actually help you grow your business.

My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to Learning From The Experts.

As a kid, I remember so many times my dad would essentially just whenever he had to buy anything, especially if he didn't want it, but whenever we had to buy anything, he would go with whatever was the cheapest option.

As a kid I'm like, that's kind of weird, but I guess you get it, you know, you want the cheapest option because who wants to pay more for something that they don't necessarily need more of?

Or it's the same thing, right?

So why pay more for it?

Well I remember we had this truck growing up and my dad just would never, never could seem to get rid of this truck.

But what happened was we must have gone through at least eight transmissions in this one truck.

It was pretty bad.

I don't know why he didn't get rid of it after like number two.

But the transmission on this truck would go out and he would just go get it rebuilt.

He wouldn't buy a new transmission.

He wouldn't buy a high-performance transmission.

He would just go to the cheapest mechanic he could.

And just go get it rebuilt.

And I think it's just cause he had the truck paid off and he didn't want to go buy a new truck or go through all the hassle of getting new truck or a new car payment, whatever it may be.

So his thought was, okay, well I'll just, I'll just buy or I'll just have somebody, you know, Redo this transmission for as cheap as I can cause I don't wanna put a whole lot of money into this truck that's not worth a ton of money anyway.

So he would just go to the local mechanic guy and have him rebuild it first chief as he could.

And then not too long after that and the transmission would go out again and it kept happening and happening and happening.

Finally he's like, okay, I can't do this anymore.

I just got to get rid of it.

So he finally got rid of the truck.

But what's funny is like, he did that in lot of other things that I saw also.

Whenever we'd go to the store and he had to buy replacement part or whatever it may be for something, he would always just go with the cheapest option.

Now I totally get it.

You want to go with the cheap option, especially if it's not like something that's worth a whole lot.

Why put some more money into it then you need to.

But then I also saw the other side of it too, and multiple times he would have to go by that part again because it had broke or whatever, didn't work or it worked only for a little bit when if he would've just bought a little bit more of an expensive part in the first place, it wouldn't have broke or would have had as many issues as it did.

A lot of times I look at people getting started online in the marketing or online marketing area and they want someone to help them for free or they want somebody that can tell them how to do it that isn't making any money yet.

Or we'll give them free advice on how they can do it.

 And so they go with those people, they find those people and they say, okay, I found this free option.

I can totally, you know, learn from this person when I need to in order to make money.

I see it over and over again when in reality, I mean, that can get you started and that's totally fine.

I get it there.

There's a lot of good information out there for free, but it's not always the most constructed information or the right information that's gonna help you out.

So I think in the same way as when you're looking for someone to get you started or do a service for you or get something rolling for you that you need, you can go find the cheap person and get a cheap result.

Or you can find somebody who knows what they're doing and get a better result and expert result or high performance results out of it.

Just like as if my dad would have spent the extra money to buy high-performance transmission in his truck, he could've gotten a high performance results out of it and not had to buy or have somebody rebuild this transmission all the time or have issues and go out different things like that when he could have just spent the extra money and had extra high performance results from it.

That was actually a story that I shared in our Facebook group called Hack MLM.

I shared that one and I was like, you know what, I gotta make that a podcast.

That's too good to pass up.

So that I would make it more of a podcast episode.

I just kind of shared it fairly quickly on the Facebook live there, but thought I'd give you guys a little bit more of an insight of what I was thinking with that story and how you guys can apply it to, you know, those who you are looking at online or different experts online that you may be wanting to use for service would have remained be that we can maybe kind of think about it a little bit more on what you're actually or who you're actually going to pick.

I totally look at it the same way.

I don't want to go find somebody online that to follow that has no success or know anything.

I'm totally gonna go find somebody that does have success in that area or is an expert in that specifics, that specific area.

So I just thought I would share that with you guys.

Hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you have any feedback or a review, that would be awesome.

Love to see that.

Please feel free to drop me your view anywhere on iTunes or whatever platform you may be on at this time.

But thank you so much for following and thank you very much for listening to me today and we will talk to y'all later.

Are you looking to jumpstart your business by learning or getting help from the real experts?

Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you.

Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating, and leaving feedback.

 

All right, well welcome Coulton.

 

Dude, thanks for having me brother.

 

Yeah, no Coulton esteem is actually - if I can give a few seconds background, probably the people who pushed me the most to actually get started on Retailer Secrets, so it's a big honor to have you on as the first guest.

 

Dude, I didn’t know I was the one that pushed you the most, that's pretty good.

 

I guess the past few months we've had the chance to cross paths a few times and increasingly in the last few weeks too. So, I take it as a sign and yeah, such a thrill man to have you on and being able to spend some good quality time with you.

 

Yeah dude, I’m super stoked for this, thanks a ton for having me.

 

Yeah, totally. Actually, when I met you first at the conference, it was back in February I think. One of the thing I messaged you, I was like "dude, I want to hear your story man".

 

[Laughs] That's totally weird huh.

 

I never thought it would actually happen in a podcast interview, so you know, I thought it could be actually great to start with kind of your back story of how you got started in retail or what got you to start there. Kind of like the context of what happened that you decided to go in to retail.

 

Dude I love it and honestly I love your podcast cover too, like the Retail Secrets. I was like "oh, it looks so good".

 

Thank you.

 

So, how did I get started? Honestly, it's kind of a crazy story; I was in college and it was kind of weird being in college because I was a bit more of an entrepreneur and college was more like, follow these rules and guidelines and do this and that and then I just happened to get one class from a teacher who's actually an entrepreneur too. So it was like fate brought together you know?

 

Yeah.

 

And I had been thinking so much on like a business that I had wanted to start. And I mean, this is like my freshman, maybe sophomore year of college, like I’m ready to go you know? Like I’m taking all these classes, I have nothing to do with like business and this was like my first one. That was actually like kind of like business like tied in and related. And it just so happened that this was the teacher's like first class he'd ever taught and he was - he has his own business that he's running on the side, so I think I kind of got lucky with that because he wasn't straight textbook, he was more entrepreneurial.

 

That is rare.

 

Yeah, it's very rare actually. I was pretty lucky to have that happen. And the whole premise of the class was actually to start a business online and I’m like "OK, Wow!" like that's a big step, I know nothing about online business you know? Like I’m just like barely started a business and alone. And he kind of let me slip with actually starting a business more of like locally instead of having to go straight online, but it was - we'd create kind of like a WordPress, very basic site.

 

Was it a choice of yours to actually wanting to do something more local than online based?

 

Yeah, because I had no idea how to do anything online at the point. At that time, online was just so foreign to me. I knew the potential of it and knew these stuff but I didn't understand how far I could go with it. So I’m like, I’m gonna start locally small and then grow it online, that was my goal, right. And so, you know what, I wasn't even planning on sharing this story but I’m walking around campus trying to figure out this business idea and I would think through all these things - I literally was thinking about near my biodiesel at one time. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's like you go collect like the fryer grease from like McDonald’s and those place and then you refine it into like diesel. So, I was trying to just think of something, like anything I could do and I was walking around and I pull out my phone from my pocket and it was back then when like iPhone 4 was like the thing you know?

 

Yeah.

 

Like those things are straight glass, right?

 

Yeah, for sure.

 

Yeah, I pull it out my pocket and it literally like fly out of my pocket, just like is soaring through the air. I just like chucked it like this.

 

Your slow motion moment.

 

Yeah, exactly. I don't know how it happened but for some reason like it caught my pocket and just - all I remember is seeing it fly through the air totally just slow-motion and it just smashes dude, just slides across the cement. And it's like icey out too you know, so it slid extra-long and it didn't even like roll, like it literally landed like face down and just slid. And I’m like "there's no way that thing made it" like, "there's no way that it is okay". And I’ve had some pretty lucky drops in the past but -

 

That was not it?

 

No, sure not dude. I pull it up and it is just completely demolished, like just shattered all the way across. And I’m like you know what, I’m kind of a - I like to fix my own things, I like to understand how things work and so when I see an opportunity to like see how it works, I’m all over it dude. So I’m like you know what, "I’m gonna pull this apart and see if I can fix it", why not? And so I bought the screen, I bought like some tools with it, some cheap stuff and it shows up and sure enough dude, like two hours later I’ve got it fixed and it was great.

 

Damn!

 

Somehow like sweet lose you know? And then it was literally that week that I had to have like this business idea 100% down. I’m like, "what if I just start fixing phones for people?" like I can do it, like I did it to my own, I can do it for other people you know?

 

Totally.

 

So that was my business plan, like my business idea and I kind of wrote up the plan a little bit and I ordered some inventory, some stock and I had some screens on hand and my teacher happened to have like a marketing agency that would send out text messages locally as well and he's like "bro, I’ve throw it on there for you" like, "do a deal". And so I came up with this deal, started marketing it through his text messaging thing. He gave me like one free one you know, and sure enough, I got like five customers off the first.

 

Oh, damn, OK.

 

Dude, I was like sweet! And you know what's funny, the first guy I ever fix something for, he was like a lifetime customer. I probably fixed 20 of his thing.

 

Oh yeah, really?

 

He was breaking them all the time, it's kind of funny but - dude, I was so nervous the first time, I’m like pulling apart this phone in front of this guy dude. And he's like watching me do it, I’m like this like [Inaudible] you know. Pulled it apart, and like it took me a while and I got it back together and it was fixed and working for him, he was all excited. So, that's kind of like how I started and then it just kind of took off from there, a little bit a little bit and I worked on it as I went through the semester. But you're asking about like retail; well, that's where I started. Two years - I think it was two years later... A year and a half or two later, I had a buddy of mine come to me and he's like "bro, I want to partner with you and like make this big".

 

OK.

 

I was like "alright dude", because I literally by that time, every night, I had one or two people coming by and I was fixing stuff for them and I literally had my own home office, like all this stuff, all this tech -

 

Boxes everywhere.

 

Yeah, it was bad, like it was his total mancave, like just stuff everywhere. And something like you know what, yeah totally. Like he was an awesome guy, I really respected him and we opened up a shop together and had a - while going to college, had our own like retail store and sure enough, we were fixing phones, we were selling phones, we were selling different things.

 

How did that feel?

 

Dude, it was awesome man! It was amazing! There's no better feeling than walking into your own business like -

 

Yeah, I bet, yeah for sure.

 

Dude, I mean like I built this you know.

 

Yeah and you were younger too right?

 

Yeah.

 

So, it must have felt like you're the man.

 

Exactly yeah. Honestly like I got out of it like four years ago. I think it was like four years ago. Yeah, so I haven't been out of it for too long but yeah.

 

Really cool.

 

That's kind of like how I got started and how I kind of got into it a little bit.

 

And did you have like any desire, kind of hidden desire when you started apart from you know being a school project? Like what do you expect for it to be when you started? Or I guess what's the the drawing you had in your head?

 

Yeah, you know what, that's funny because I think a lot of people will like kind of dabble in something and start it and then do a few things and like, "uh, that's not really working as well" or you know, it's not going as far as I’d like it to be and they give up at that point. And for me I’m like "no, I’m gonna keep at this and I want to make it - I want to make it big enough to where I’m in my own place". And yeah, it took a year and a half ish to get there yeah, but I was going to school full-time at the same time. And when I first started, I was also like doing a part-time job on top of it, so I don't even know how I did it but I did.

 

That's awesome.

 

But like, my idea was, I want to make this something and I don't want to just start one business and then keep starting another one, another one and not get anywhere. I want to actually make it something where I can go with it. And I really enjoyed it, so yeah, that helped a lot too.

 

OK, yeah definitely and I’m assuming that when you started and you know, at that age and you have to - like you got like an actual place, like an actual store where people walked in and like - I’m assuming it's a lot of pressure too and like probably some like doubts, a lot of doubts coming, like kind of struggles with juggling with everything you're doing on the side. How did you deal with that?

 

That's a great question man. It was definitely stressful times, it's definitely hard. Even in the beginning when I’m putting so much time into it and my wife's kind of wondering if it's gonna go anywhere farther and I’m like totally like it's gonna make it huge and I really don't know. But like, it definitely can be more of a stress than you can let it be. How do I rephrase that better? You can focus on the negative parts of it and we would address about it or you can plan out what you need to be getting done, what you need to have on hand for cash and kind of plan around it and we go around a lot of those stresses that you're gonna bring upon yourself if you don't. And so, honestly like the way I got around it is we knew what we needed, we knew what we could spend and we knew what we needed to put into marketing different things to go bigger. And so, that helped a lot but still, there was plenty of times where it's stressful but I loved the heck out of it doing it, you know, like it was just so fun that it almost took away a lot of that stress.

 

Yeah, for sure. So it seems like you had a game plan already. Like you had an idea how it would work, you knew where you wanted to take it. Like how far the reality was from that game plan though?

 

Oh dude [Laughter], you know what's funny, us entrepreneurs, a lot of times we'll kind of think of something like "I can accomplish this in this amount of time". I feel like every time I say that, it's never ever anywhere close to that. And you know, actually I was listening to Grant Cardone the other day, and he's like "guys, you need to like 10x that time a lot of the times". Like you need to pull the plan for being able to like stay in business for 10 times longer than what you think, you're gonna be getting return on investment.

 

Totally.

 

And I totally believe it. Like it took us a lot longer to be revenue positive, like that good revenue positive after paying for the store, paying for the parts, paying for wages and salaries, that kind of stuff. It took us a while longer than we expected but we planned it out pretty well and we had to skim at first for a while. So, just make sure that you're not planning on - or like whatever time you think it's gonna take -

 

10x that.

 

Make sure you have a little bit of leeway on top of that. It's gonna help a ton and, that'll reduce the stress a lot for sure.

 

And I think like everybody can relate so much to that because - and business owners and entrepreneurs in general, like we want things to happen so fast, it is so frustrating to see I guess at the beginning how things actually take so much time, right?

 

Yeah.

 

And the little activities need to happen again and again and then again before it actually starts to form into something that you can see grow, right?

 

Yeah. And one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make too is they expect everybody else on their team to be just like them. To be like married to it as they are and it's just not gonna happen, like that's not the way the world works you know?

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, you can you can do some different stuff there.

 

Was that one of the real first challenge that you faced?

 

You know what, funny enough, I didn't quite expect - I feel like I had seen it enough in other people, I knew that it wasn't quite like - it was more of a dream than reality for a lot of entrepreneurs to like hire somebody that's just gonna be awesome and amazing. And if you like - like my business partner was awesome, the guy that we had working for us, just like younger kid in college as well, he was awesome like we got lucky with him. But honestly, they're not gonna know nearly as much as you. They're not gonna be as invested and I understood that before then and so I think it helped a ton knowing that, hey, he's gonna be good but - or like he may be really good but honestly, you got to account for him not knowing nearly as much as you do.

 

Sure, yeah. I think definitely partnerships are hard but the expectations you have in people is actually - it is pretty insane I think for everybody. How do you adjust though? Like from this.

 

How do you adjust from like expectations of those around you?

 

Yeah, as a starter I guess. When you just start and you're I guess disappointed or just raging because it doesn't - people are not putting in the same amount of work as you do right?

 

Yeah, you know what's funny is um, I’ve always been a little bit more of a laid-back kind of chill guy and so I’ve - so that like for me, I knew not to go in with too many expectations. But you are gonna have those times where it's like "come on people", like "you seriously didn't catch this?" you know, like that's easy and it is easy to you. But like communication is huge. Other times it's a lack of the communications. A lot of times it's your own fault that that happened because you didn't put the time into training, you were too busy doing what you thought only you can do. I see that a lot of time with entrepreneurs like "oh, I’m like the best at this, nobody else can do like I can". Actually like yeah.

 

Actually a lot of people can.

 

Yeah, people can take things off your plate that you didn't think they could but [Inaudible] that way. And honestly like the biggest thing that I saw too was showing - in a way like showing the gratitude for what they're doing. Because a lot of times, I’ve seen it happen so many times with entrepreneurs, like they're always upset with everybody that they work with because nobody's doing what they wanted them to do or is working as hard as they wanted them to and so they're just mad about it. Well like, first off when you understand like their expectations, it's different but when you work with them, you communicate and you're like being grateful for what they are doing, it changes the whole scene. Now they don't see you as a dictator, they see you as like somebody they can actually work with. And then a lot of times they're happier, which means they get more done too. But too many entrepreneurs are just stressed out of their minds stressing about everything else that's going on instead of thinking about what's actually going good for them.

 

Yeah, that's a great point. And just for context, at this point, so you were in business for four years, about four years you said?

 

I stopped about four years - I think it was four years ago. It's like three or four years ago. I had been in business at about a year and a half before we got the store and then we had it for about a year after that before I sold it.

 

So, the ending is you sold it though. OK, well let's not spoil it though, we will be getting there. But you know what I’m curious about... And this is a very selfish interview by the way, like I’m really trying to just get in your head and trying to figure out exactly like what happened, how it felt and all of this. And all the questions I ask is just... I’m really trying to put some traits around the person, right?

 

Yeah.

 

And I’m sure around the experience as well like, when you got the store, I’m assuming it's when things picked up a bit or the good stuff which is that stuff right? Like are there any challenges that you faced that you actually didn't expect at all that would ever be a thing?

 

You know um, plenty actually.

 

Oh, I thought.

 

I thought that it would be easier to stock the retail place, well, buy inventory in the first place and holy cow, it was a huge investment upfront just for the inventory that we did get and then the management system, trying to manage what you've sold and how to like reorder, I thought that would be a lot easier, keeping track of everything and then also like the stock that I had in the back, like the parts, I will tell you, I learned a ton about what not to do.

 

[Inaudible] too.

 

Yeah, like there's a ton of small parts, we had way too many of some stuff and then not enough of other things and one thing that I did that I - oh, I really wish I would not have done this but I did it because I thought it was smart at the time; every time we'd get like a new phone like screen or you know, like a new phone would come in that had parts that we didn't have on hand, I would order two of them. So I would price it so that I could buy two parts and my money on the sale. So like, I wanted to make a little bit of money and be able to pay for two parts. So that means, after I would fix the phone, I’d make a little bit of money and I’d have an extra part still in hand. Smart right?

 

Totally.

 

Now [Laughter] dude, I had so many stupid parts in there that I didn't use for months dude, and they were just lying on the shelf and like just depreciating in value, just going down and going down and going down. And then you don't want to turn around and resell it because that takes a lot of time to like get all the pictures, like you know, type out the listings, put them on like eBay or wherever it's at and then try to resell. And then you got to ship it out, like that's just annoying. And so, I had all of these parts that were just like garbage essentially at the end. And what I didn't realize was most people were okay with waiting in a few days for the part come in. Like "hey, you have a specialty phone, we don't have the part in here, I will order it right now, let's get you to pay for it and then it'll be here in a few days, I’ll give you a call".

 

Right.

 

Holy cow! When we started like - you know what's funny, the - I probably shouldn't go too far but the guy I sold it to, I ended up - we like kind of sold it to and I like transitioned into working for him, to like become a general manager and like [Inaudible] and like help him open up more. So it's kind of - yeah, it's interesting but I learned a lot from that too, that was definitely a learning experience. But like his system, when I saw it, I was like "bro, this is way better than the system I had". Like, they didn't buy any extra stupid parts, they knew like "okay, keep this mini [sp] on hand of this this this this and this" and I’m like - just like "oh, maybe I need yeah, to -". Well, back when I was running on myself, you know I’m like, "oh, maybe I should just buy a few more because that's probably what I need to have on hand", but when I sold out, it was like "wow, this is so much more simplified, so much better", and the profits were way higher because of it.

 

For sure yeah. And it makes total sense that I guess, looking backwards you think or you need to look at what the sales actually or what people in majority need and that's what you need to invest more in and the rest is like, "I’m sure they can wait a bit".

 

Yeah, exactly. But I was just trying to stock up so I could have stuff in stock for them and then just that I am -

 

How did you deal with like splitting budget? Did you find like finding customer was an easy thing for you or like did you invest a lot for acquiring customers?

 

Well, I mean, initially I put some money into ads and it was more of like that local marketing using those text messages. I think I did some Google Ad words and I was like "this is dumb, I’m just wasting money", which is kind of - for local businesses a lot of times it is you know?

 

Yeah, for sure.

 

And then what's funny is that it grew pretty fast actually by word-of-mouth. But not just that, like I had a strategy for getting more word-of-mouth, like -

 

Okay, viral.

 

In a way yes, so we would do competitions. We would actually - they have people post like their pictures of their broken phone and see like who had the worst phone and then like get as many people as you can to like it and the one with the most likes wins. And so we'd have people just flooding into our Facebook group, going crazy, dropping all these things because they want a free fix. We told them the winner gets a free phone repair.

 

That is brilliant.

 

And you know what's funny it's like we had a Facebook group and I think I have like a hundred people in there and we did one competition and at the end of it, we had like 800 people on it. Like it was just damn! Like instantly you know.

 

How to get all the students in one spot, right?

 

Yeah, exactly. And then like it spread too and then people were like "bro, check out this phone, like it's totally demolished", you know, and so like it was fun to see. So that was like one thing that we would do. We'd pay in the parts but honestly it was like, it was really cheap because - I mean, granted we lost out on a sale but who knows if they would have actually came in and got it repaired themselves. But then other people that had broken phones knew where to go now, so that's cool but then - so that was one of our kind of strategies that we'd do. And then another one that I do that was my favorite was - I was kind of a little bit of like the monopoly in town. First off because people like - I knew a lot of like kind of the bigwigs in the town because I had worked around it pretty good and so I had become friends with a lot of them. And it's like new people would come in, they'd be like "don't go to that guy, this is your dude, this is the guy you need to go to".

So, I kind of had that reputation as well which was cool, but the most favorite thing I do, that really worked very well is I would literally walk into Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, all of like the cell phone places, all the cell phone stores that - like the computer place, whatever it maybe, that were around me, I’d walk in with like a 12-pack of Mountain Dew, a 12-pack of dr. Pepper and like another 12-pack of coke you know and I’d be like "well yo, what's up guys! Hey, I got some like - I just thought I’d come over introduce myself, I got some pop for you guys, I ordered some pizza, like hopefully you guys didn't eat yet, like I got some pizza for you guys for lunch. Just wanted to come and introduce myself and give you guys some snacks since there's some pop and some Pizza and stuff and if you guys ever got anybody that's got a broken phone you wanna - if you need somewhere to send them, like I’d love to help out, so I’m just kind of here for you but here's some pop, here's all this" and like I’d be friends with all these guys.

 

That is smart, yeah.

 

And then, they're like "holy cow, this dude is bringing us like pop, soda, like pizza like -" and I did parties too. Like I’d bring them all in and like - yeah just you know, whatever. And pretty soon, like that one move, I had every store in town referring to me and like me only and they loved me because I gave them like what they wanted. You know, it's cheap bro. Like some pizza and pop, I’d spend like 30 bucks maybe you know.

 

Yeah.

 

And then now all of them are sending all their traffic over to me. And dude, that actually blew us up pretty quick which is pretty sweet.

 

Yeah, I guess you figured out quickly where to go to get the biggest return on investment right?

 

Exactly, yes.

 

Because, I mean, this compared to bidding on keywords one by one click, I mean, that is definitely something.

 

There's no personality in keywords man. Like there's no personality.

 

And you're a local business.

 

Yeah. Now, online it's different and I still don't believe in Adwords I’m gonna say for online stuff but you have to have the publishing part and attractive character part for what you're doing and that's the key.

 

And that's actually a great point. In the new world of entrepreneurship online, we talk a lot about those things, but it's actually true for offline too. I mean, you are the attractive character online or offline, in real life like we actually don't think about this but you are.

 

It's true. And a lot of online strategies like the Dream 100 that I was doing for these stores around me, a lot of those online strategy you can use as well for -

 

And Dream 100 is, to give a bit of context, it's definitely something we actually will touch on a lot in this podcast. But essentially it's playing around with influencers in your space. And if you're a local business, it's got to be the other businesses around you. It's got to be the people who knows your customer, they don't necessarily are competitors. It can be a lot of different types, schools - I mean, we'll talk a lot more about this. This is really powerful stuff.

 

Huge, huge. That made my business, yeah.

 

Yeah, that's what fueled your business and that's what I guess allowed you to make mistakes with ordering too many parts.

 

Yeah exactly. I tracked that, I’d ask people "how did you hear about us?" and a lot of times it was "oh, it's down at the Verizon store and they were like; you gotta go to this dude. It's a modern firm, it's the best", so yeah.

 

That's actually so interesting and I’m thinking of a lot of questions that are actually are a little bit of ahead of this thing. So, I’m sure we'll come back a bit to this because this is so interesting. But one other thing I think - every time I talk to business owners, at one point in the conversation, they tell me about something that drives them nuts. And I find it just hilarious because - in fact, when you deal with people a lot, you've got to be like droven nuts so many times and I wonder what it was for you or for your partners. Something that drove you nuts.

 

You know what's funny is um, there's just always something specific in each industry that people do repeatedly that's like "why? How do you not get this?". You know what's funny for me, like it kind of drove me nuts but I also like laughed at it at the same time, I don't know how many people would come in and literally be like "I don't know what's wrong on my phone, it just died. Like it's dead. Like it won't do anything." and I’m like "oh, that's really interesting, let me look at it." and I would literally like plug it in and turn on, like literally.

People would come in or I do a hard reset which is literally like - most people know how to do that, you just hold down like the home button and the top button and that resets it. And I would do that like multiple times a day almost. Like it was sad how many times I would have to do that. Like people who come in and then for like a lot of the Android phones, like it just died. I’d pull the battery out and put it back in and turn it on like all the time. And so like people come in you're like "great, another customer!". Nope, they just don’t know how to use their phone.

 

Yeah and you know what's funny is that it's totally the friendly neighbor type of thing to do you know?

 

Oh yeah.

 

Because for many people, I mean business is built the community we live in right? Through our neighbors and you've got to play that game too, right?

 

Yeah.

 

It's part of building a nice place we all live in.

 

Yap. And you know what's funny is some people will try to capitalize on that. And they'll be like "oh yes, what's wrong with your phone?" or whatever, like "let me go look at it. Oh, that's like 50 bucks", for like me having to [Inaudible] or whatever. And sometimes like I’d clean out the port, like the charging port because they have lint in there and they didn't realize that it wasn't going all the way. That happened a lot and so I could clean it out and I’d plug it in and they're like "oh, you fixed it!" like "holy cow!". And they'd ask me like how much do I owe you and I’m like "oh no, don't worry about it", like I didn't do anything. You know like "don't worry about it" like "you're good to go. If you need anything else let me know". I don't know how many times people would be like "yo, someone told me like you know how to take care of stuff really well and like they loved it when they came in and you helped them out, so like I needed to come over this place and like see you". So it definitely pays back I feel like. For me it did a lot because people knew that I wasn't there to just sell them or make money off of them. Like I didn't see them as a dollar sign, I saw him as an actual person that I wanted to help, so yeah.

 

Yeah. No, totally yeah. Do you feel like - after these three years I guess of business, do you feel like you achieved what you wanted when you got started?

 

Yeah actually. I have achieved - well, since then, I’ve achieved more than I - when I first started, I was kind of limited on what I could see because I didn't understand the whole lot of the online world, I didn't understand a whole lot of that. I guess I wouldn't say I’ve achieved what I was dreaming about totally, but I’ve accomplished - I feel like a more than I was even expecting to you in a way. It's a fun road, I really enjoyed it.

 

That's awesome.

 

I honestly didn't think I’d have an actual store within a year and a half. I thought I’d take longer than that, so yeah.

 

And I loved about what Steve Jobs says when he says that "you can only connect the dot backwards" and I’m sure - and it's some of the questions I totally want to ask. It's about like, now that you connect the dots, you know what I mean, like you've been through it once and I’m sure you have a ton of things that pops in your mind when you talk about those stories you're thinking like "oh dude, I could have done this or I should have done like this right from the beginning". Those are some questions I want to get to but first, I want to understand, why did you stop or why did you get out of retail, what happened?

 

You know what's funny is um, I started listening to this dude named Russell Brunson and it was my dream to go online. And what's funny is I actually sold the company in hopes of starting it online, like business part. So, what's funny is, I don't know if you actually even know this but I had met Steven Larson just like months before I was going through like the sell and transitioning over to working with him.

 

Oh yeah.

 

Just a few months before that even happened, and what's funny is like, we were talking one day, we would talk a lot just on marketing stuff, I’m like "this guy actually gets it, I love it". And one day I was like "bro, do this guy named Russell Brunson?" and he was like "dude, you know who Russell Brunson is?" like "yeah I know who Russell Brunson is". And he's like "nobody knows who Russell Brunson is". This was before ClickFunnels you know.

 

Yeah.

 

So, nobody really - like yeah, he had a following but nobody around me knew who he was in college. It just wasn't a thing then. And so, we had gotten - like we were talking and I really wanted to start a smartphone insurance, like an online website for that and I had been talking to him and he's like - it's funny, we were sitting down in his living room one day and we're talking and I know Steve like... And in college, there's so many opportunities and so many things and so many people trying to get you to like selling you on doing something with them you know?

 

For sure.

 

And I was like "bro, you have like a talent for online stuff that I don't have yet" like I’m working on it you know. And I was like "let me tell you about this business". Yeah, it's not like - it's funny, a lot of people think they're just gonna - like people will steal your business idea, you know, like -

 

I know right, yeah.

 

A lot of times you're the expert that they would need in order to accomplish it, to pull it off. It doesn't happen like that, you know. And so I’m like, "let me tell you about this idea that I have"... And so I kind of ran him through it and I was telling him about like how I wanted to partner with repair stores across the U.S. but have it all online and it would just work online, I would never have any stock, I wouldn't have anything, it would all be taken care of locally. And so, he was like "bro, this is awesome". And yeah, so we actually started that. That was like our first funnel ever. Like Steve's first funnel ever, just like ClickFunnels itself.

 

That is awesome.

 

Yes. That was my hopes, was to blow that up, make it huge, we like broke even and that's cool. We just like shut it down yeah.

 

Well and it makes total sense when you think about like a repair store, I was thinking like a lot of the challenges I guess in retail is like having recurring customers and putting somebody on a continuity program, like insurance for phone repair, like this is pretty freaking cool.

 

It is, yeah, great idea, I loved it.

 

But yeah, I’m happy you mentioned Russell Brunson actually. In the second episode of this podcast, I mention Russell Brunson and the thing he talks about which is " Amateurs focus on the front end and professionals focus on the back end", right?

 

Yeah.

 

And he tells the story of the group on citysmart.com and the vacuum cleaner guy who had this ad on CitySmart and who complained about it working pootie because he didn't make any money.

 

Yeah, I don’t remember this one that much.

 

And it's such an amazing story because it's basically telling about how a lot in business, we think everything we do to acquire customers is the final result, but really the dude probably had to 150 leads from there. Russell Brunson and his wife was one of the leads -

 

Oh wow!

 

And he hired him like seven times after that. And the guy was complaining about how it was a waste of time and money to do that ad. But really, what was fueling his business was literally all the backend of all those people who came in right? Through that offer. And I have a feeling in brick-and-mortar businesses, it's huge right? And we always see like the holiday sales and those stuff and - they're made to bring people in but if you think about repair stores, one of the following problems people gonna have is, it's gonna happen again. And it can be as small as my little like charger thing is broken and you just need to clean it, right?

 

Yeah.

 

And I’m just bringing this up because, first I like to bridge the fact that you've brought in Russell Brunson and Steve Larsen and that's awesome, I love it and I think it brings a lot to think about when you have a local business and you can actually do stuff but they're solving some problems that people have when they come in in the first place right? But you can go further than just why they came in for.

 

Oh yeah.

 

And it's definitely really cool that that was your second business then.

 

Yeah, that's true, oh man. I wish it would have gone - well, we didn't know quite nearly as much as we do now back then but yeah, wish it would have gone a little better than it did but -

 

Yeah. No, for sure. And so um, this is really where the fun is for me, I’m really curious about this part because I know that - we know that you got out of the business but I’m very curious to see if you were to start again, what are some of the things you know you would do differently right away?

 

Ooh, interesting. If I were to restart the repair business?

 

Yes.

 

Not necessarily like a business but the repair business?

 

Yeah or a local business.

 

OK local yes. I actually would have built a lot more hype than I did. So if you follow Jeff Walker, he has a book called "Launch". If you follow him, if you read that book, it helps you understand how businesses do their Grand Openings the right way. Like it's more online but it totally applies for local as well. I wish I would have put way more emphasis and gone around and done the Dream 100 part with all those people a lot earlier than I did.

 

And start a Fire Festival.

 

[Laughter] Not that much. I would make sure that I had things lined up. Oh, that's funny dude. Yeah that was pretty sad. Anyway, so yeah, I totally would have built that more of like the launch of the business, like the opening of it. That way when it comes in, I would have had a more of a solid foundation for like just customers in general coming in and knowing about me. I would have done a lot more ads, different things locally as well to kind of push it. But then, also I wish I would have researched a little bit more about like how inventory, like kind of like figure it out right. Like how to not only manage it but like -

 

Leverage it.

 

Yeah, leverage it and know like - I wish I would have looked at other people's businesses that applied to mine more, so I’d have better ideas, better like kind of direction and know where I’m going. It's so funny like, you're saying Steve Jobs says you can always connect the dots backwards but you can't really connect them forward because you don't know where the heck you're going.

 

Of course yeah.

 

Well if you think about it, like I always - so there's a saying on the internet marketing world with like Russell and Steve, "get a coach, be a coach". Like you want to get a coach and part of like looking at those other people's businesses where they are at, it's almost like getting a coach and kind of seeing the dots that got them to where they're at. And if you can get a coach that's ahead of you, farther ahead of you, they can look backwards on those dots.

 

That's right, yeah.

 

You can look forward to where they're at so easily and so if you get their direction, they can say "hey, I’ve been at that same point that you're at, I can help you connect the dots to get to where I’m at".

 

Totally.

 

Instead of just me shooting from the hip trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing you know. I had kind of an idea of what to stock because I’d been doing it and I only really stock like the iphone parts before I started like the actual brick and mortar and I thought it was smart to stock more and that was a total just dumb idea really to do that. So, if I would have seen that, it would have helped me revenue a ton more and to be able to put more into, not inventory but more into marketing, more into growing the business. I was putting more into marketing or more into inventory than I was marketing and that's a huge mistake. So, I would have done a lot more marketing. I would have done a lot more because a lot of times, we have this like limiting - like mind - like belief that there's only so many customers out there, when in reality, there's way more than you even realize.

 

And so much applicable for when you're local.

 

Oh yeah, totally. They think "oh, I’m local, like it's small, like there's not a whole lot of people out there". There's a lot more than you think there are and if you can be that attractive character, like market the right way instead of just "hey, come buy it from me", like so much better.

 

Yeah. I totally need to put some resources, links for this interview because, I mean, you mentioned Jeff Walker and you're "Attractive Character" and all those stuff are just actually so relevant to building a business rather online or offline and it's big.

 

And I’m sure you've talked about Expert Secrets as part of like Active Character, that's -

 

Totally, Expert Secrets - dotcom Secrets is actually very interesting when you think about it because, it's supposedly the underground playbook for a business online but really, it is much more applicable also offline than we think.

 

I literally read that like right after I had sold the business which makes me mad but - that's right when it came out, I wish I had read it way before that.

 

Yeah. This is probably the one book that I had epiphany after epiphany after epiphany.

 

It's just straight gold bro.

 

Crazy.

 

Both of them.

 

Yeah. Rethink the whole business game um, super super interesting. I have a bunch of little questions, little rapid-fire question I’d love to ask you and yeah totally. So, one thing I guess could be... What is the piece of advice you have given the most or would give and why to business owners?

 

To business owners?

 

Entrepreneurs, yeah.

 

Man, I feel like I’ve given so many different ones. Thinking on the context of this interview though, honestly kind of what I just said a little bit earlier is find those who are successful and model them. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, find somebody who's been on the path that you want to go on. I guess that's actually pretty much what I preach on like my podcast. I try to give people information on there about experts in certain areas of business so that they know who to go to and I think that’s key because like I said, the coach. Like they know, they've seen the path. You have no idea, you're just one foot at a time trying to get there and so, I’d totally say find somebody who's super successful in it, figure out why and try to model it.

 

Totally and that's pretty much what happened when you got - I guess when you sold the business in; you had somebody who came in with more experience and showed you ways to do that, you didn't think about right?

 

Yeah exactly. I had no idea then when I saw it was like "what the heck have I been doing?" like, "you know how much better this would have been?" like "oh man!".

 

You could have sold this business for twice more.

 

I know, right? Like I honestly did not make like very much at all on that sell and it was a very big learning experience, so I’ll just say that.

 

That's awesome.

 

Learn from your experiences, that's what I would say.

 

Yeah, for sure. Any bad recommendations you had in your profession or industry?

 

Ooh! Any bad - you know what's funny to me um, I’ll tell this in a little bit of story. So, as I was in college, I actually was literally going to school in business, my degree was in business management and my emphasis was in entrepreneurship. So I was literally going to be an entrepreneur. Which is kind of funny because college isn’t really like entrepreneurial focused... I don't know.

I learned a lot, I didn't learn like a ton of the marketing skills that are out there now. But what's funny is people would ask me, they'd be like "hey, what's your name?" "I’m Colton", whatever or like "where're you from?", you know, all those questions, and then they'd be like "well, what's your degree? What are you going into?" and I’d be like "Oh, business management." and they're like "oh yeah, like what's your emphasis?", "well, entrepreneurship". And dude, I don't know how many times they would look at me and be like "entrepreneurship? Like really?" and I’d kind of get that like look like "oh man, I’m so sorry for you right now". Kind of like the pity look, like "oh, you got to entrepreneurship, like that's kind of suck" you know. And they would literally like - they would - no joke, they would say this to my face. They'd be like "oh, don't they're like 90% of businesses fail?" and I’m like "you're seriously telling me this right now? Like you don’t think I know that", like huh, you know?

And honestly if you look at the numbers, 90% of them are like some mom and dad that just started a business for their house or whatever like - and then they shut it down. So there's a ton of the little startups that people are dreaming and then don't really work at it. But at first it like bugged me, you know. I’m like "holy cow! They're right. Like 90% of businesses fail. Like what am I doing? Like I only got a 10% chance and then like a 1% that ever make it past like the million".

And so like that got to me at first and then, I remember one day I was thinking about it, I was like "wait a second, I would way rather be at the top and know when the business is gonna fail". But then, literally what I would say back to people and I loved it, I loved saying this, I don't know why like I just - because man, nobody ever thinks about like the next thing. They always think "oh well, based on what I known and the statistic, 90% of businesses fail", right. They never think about like what that means for them, they just know they want to give you the advice.

And so, I would literally look at them and be like "oh, don't you know you're gonna be working for one of those 90%?". Like dude, like do you not - like what do you - you will work for a business. If you get a job, it's a business and if you say 90% of them fail, that's no different for me and you, like it's no different.

 

[Crosstalk] chance you lose your job.

 

Yeah, and like, I would way rather be at the top because it's a pyramid, I would way rather be at the top and know when it's going down and have the choice to change it and try to get it from not failing or knowing when to get out, you know what I mean?

 

 

Dude, this is awesome.

 

And like [Crosstalk] on top of it, so yeah.

 

This is awesome. So a bad recommendation you got was, don't do it?

 

Yeah, a lot of people are like "no, like you can't do that, like businesses fail" and I’m like "obviously not all of them" like people have - there have to be entrepreneurs for there to be businesses in the world. I mean, we wouldn't have any businesses if people were too scared to even start one. But there's gonna be so many people that are just gonna say "oh well, I know based on these numbers or my cousin who has no idea what he's doing in the business, I know that it doesn't work, so you should -". So, don't listen to people. If they haven't done it or if they're not making a ton of money and they're very respected, I would not listen to them because you can get the poor mentality a lot.

 

Yeah, totally agreed. And I mean, I couldn't agree more. I mean, this podcast is really about talking to the people who do their work and not the rest and there is a lot of content out there.

 

Oh yeah, there's a ton and you're gonna get told a lot of stuff that - yeah. Find somebody who's actually doing it yeah, making it.

 

For sure. I know, I find myself a lot of time in situations when I get super overwhelmed and when I get overwhelmed and unfocused, I get nothing done and that makes me really sad. What's some of the thing you do when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused or have lost focus? Like what do you do to get it back or I get reset?

 

So, there's a few hacks that I have. It still happens, there's still days when I can't like get past it, yeah totally. Everybody's gonna have those days, you're human. There's a few hacks though; we listen to a ton of music because music - you know what's funny, I just wrote this quote down actually "all learning is state dependent" and I think all work is also state dependent.

Even just slouching back in your chair and like kind of uh... You're naturally like kind of have - it's almost like the endorphins are released for like - not endorphins but like the chemicals are released for - like I need to get tired because I’m like slouching but when you've got high energy music going on, a lot of time we listen to higher beat music that keeps us going. A lot of it is what you eat as well; if you're eating some crappy stuff during the day... I feel like crap after I eat a pizza, you know like - it's natural. But one thing that me and Steve do every day that's kind of interesting is every morning we drink ketones, so there's like keto supplements out there.

So we literally every morning drink ketones and we try not to eat until like noonish and then we have more of like a balanced meal because I don't know how many times - back in the day when I was in like high school, like "oh, I’m gonna go grab a pizza for lunch" you know, like eat the whole thing, I’m OK, and then I’m like just dragging afterwards, like dying because my insulin is getting pumped out like crazy and like my whole body's shutting down because my stomach needs all the blood flow. You know what I mean?

 

Yeah, totally.

 

That's like one of the biggest like hacks we do is making sure that you're not putting yourself in the situations that's gonna cause the energy drop.

 

Yeah, totally. Prevent instead of repair, right?

 

Exactly man, that's true, so yeah, totally.

 

It makes sense. What's the thing you love to go buy from the store directly? What's the one thing you like to go buy from the store? You know, I’m not as long as big, but what do you still go do and you love, you know, that thing is your thing, you love to buy it there.

 

Oh that's interesting, that's a good question. This is kind of bad, I had to like stop this for a while but literally like I love switching it up and changing, like mundane everything's the same kind of day it is, driving me nuts, so I love to switch it up every now and then and it feel like really diving and we can't get it to stay back up. I’ll head to the convenience store or whatever and just like get out and get some Sun or whatever it maybe. Hopefully my total crush, like my kryptonite is really like I pick up like an energy drink a lot of the times.

 

Dude, that's awesome.

 

You know a lot of times, I don't feel like caffeine actually affects me that much. I do drink a little bit of it, so maybe that's why it doesn't affect me because I drink a lot it anyway, but I just - for some reason, that's my - and don't get sugared ones, this is sugar free, 100% like you know.

 

Right, yeah.

 

I just will go pick up something to drink, that's not super bad for you even though it would save energies for you which I totally - actually I agree in a way.

 

No, but I get it.

 

That was the best I found.

 

Yeah, that's awesome. What's Coulton up to?

 

What I’m I up too?

 

Yeah.

 

Dude, a lot of things right now. So, as I kind of mentioned earlier, me and Stephen Larsen worked together, we did this stuff. It is funny that we met in college, split up and then came back together. Yeah, so right now honestly like I do a lot of the operations part for Stephen on his side of business. I run a lot of the - we have a whole nother side that teaches MLM [Inaudible] actually do it without bugging their friends and family, how to actually market. I manage like all of that, the group, like I do the lives in there, I do all that stuff. And then honestly, other than that, like I have my own podcast that I keep doing. I’m trying to start a second one which I don't even know I’m gonna have the time for it but I’m doing it.

 

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, look, because you guys pushed me to start so much, I’ll say you should start it too, the second one.

 

Yeah. I’ve already got a bunch of the content, like recording and getting it together, so I’m excited about it.

 

That is great, yeah. OK, so the next big thing is the podcast coming up soon?

 

Yeah.

 

Cool. And what is the impact that you would love to have in this world or in your neighborhood?

 

That's actually funny because I’ve been trying to get clear and clear on that and I think one of the biggest - one of the things that drives me, that I would love to have an impact on is literally helping - not helping but showing the beginners, a lot of the people who are getting started online, that they're really the person that's in the way and helping them understand - it's hard to say this because I don't want to get into mindset stuff too much but like, you dictate how you're gonna end up going. Like you're - what you believe you can accomplish has a lot to do with what you actually accomplish. And so, if I can help people get past their own crap and like understand how much they can actually do and actually accomplish, that would mean a ton to me, to help people go farther than they think they can.

 

Totally. And that's something you already do, so that's great that you get to do it more and more and I’m sure you'll be able to help a ton more people.

 

Dude, I hope so, I hope so yeah.

 

What's a good place people can find more about you?

 

You can find me on Instagram and my name's super weird, not super weird but it spelled different so it's Coulton, it's C-O-U-L-T-O-N. A lot of people drop the "U" and in fact, a lot of times they even spell it without the "U" because people like you don’t want to have the conversation every time I say my name. So you can find me on Instagram, it's Coulton.woods, my podcast is "Learning From the Experts, find me on Facebook", wherever you know, like I’m pretty available on a lot of the social platforms there.

 

Awesome. And I’ll definitely drop some links and the transcripts, the blog post for this episode so that people can actually find the stuff without the "U" and yeah, totally.

 

Yeah, don’t forget the "U".

 

Don’t forget the "U". Thanks so much man for showing up on this interview, it was a blast and I’m happy I finally got to hear the story of Coulton.

 

You didn't know I was in retail at all, did ya?

 

I didn’t know.

 

Uhh, it's funny. It's all good dude, no worries. I’m glad we got to meet up a little more and yeah.

Okay. I am seriously going to skip the intro.

Yes, it's another episode, but I'm choosing to skip, the intro because I'm dying right now.

It is literally 2:00 in the morning and I just spent the past hour reading through this book that I just got a couple of weeks ago and finally picked it up tonight, which was a bad idea to pick it up at midnight pretty much, or I guess one o'clock but I'm dying right now.

I'm like, holy cow.

I don't know if it's just because it's late, but I got to tell you about it.

So here's the deal. I know how frustrating it is as an entrepreneur to waste countless hours sifting through, want to be experts who've never actually helped me in the end.

Then to learn years later that there was an expert who really could help me a hundred times faster than learning it on my own.

I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learned from an interview, real experts who can actually help you grow your business.

My name is Coulton Woods, and you're listening to Learning From The Experts.

What's going on guys.

So, backstory.

I went to Jeff Walker's product launch formula event, right.

And as we were sitting there, a few rows back from the front, we were just paying attention, watching the event, hanging out me and Steve trying to figure out how everything's going with them, how they're running it.

And Pretty Soon Jeff Walker has us turn around and talk to people around us and get to know them and what they're doing.

Well, it turns out that Stephen starts talking to the guy in front of us and his name is Jack Turk.

And if you know who Jack Turk is, you'll know exactly where I'm going with this.

But, his name is Jack Turk.

I actually didn't know who he was at all.

He writes for, I don't know if I can even really say who he ghost writes for, but he's, he's like a legend, a legendary ghost writer.

He ghost writed for a really big person that I probably can't even name, I don't even know if it's legal or not, but he is very huge in the online marketing space.

Anyway, so we got talking to him and he's like, yeah, I ghost wrote all these books, all this sales copy, all of these different offers, you name it, for this one really huge person.

So that kind of intrigued us a bit and he's like, yeah, I totally know exactly what you do Stephen.

Like, I know your industry and what you teach so well, cause I've literally written books on it myself for other people.

And if you don't know what a ghost writer is, it's a writer for a certain individual.

Like if Steven got somebody to write a book for him, but not giving that person the credit for the book, that would be a ghost writer.

So essentially they'll come in and say, Hey, I know your stuff, or give me access to all your stuff.

I will write a book on your stuff.

That will sound exactly like it's coming from you.

So it's almost like they wrote their own book, but somebody just kind of helped put it together for them and write it.

So he's a ghost writer and he was like, Hey, I'd love to write some stuff for you.

So that was pretty awesome actually, especially since he's been writing for some really huge people, which is crazy.

But anyway, so we're sitting in an event and he actually had his own book, on the chair below him.

And before we even met him and talked to him, I saw sitting on the ground and I was like, that actually looks like a book that I would really like.

So I told a few of them, like, I actually took a picture of it, literally took a picture of it like right there beneath this chair so that I could remember like, you know, look it up on Google or Amazon and buy it and get it shipped to my house so I could check it out.

It was funny.

I was like telling Steve, dude, like I want that book.

And he's like, no way.

I saw it too.

Now I want it as well.

So we totally bought a couple of copies for us.

And also it was kind of just to say that to the guy like, hey, we bought a couple of copies of your book.

It looked pretty interesting so we thought we'd buy a couple.

And he's like, oh sweet, I'm glad.

It's hope you guys really enjoy it.

So I've had it sitting on my desk for the past couple of weeks since the event, cause literally the day you get back from the event, Amazon's got it at your door.

So it's pretty quick stuff.

Right, man, anyway, I could feel a side rant coming on, but I'm not going to go there.

So it's been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks and I finally picked it up tonight and I was kind of getting tired and I was like, I'll probably go to bed here soon.

It is one o'clock in the morning.

And I was like, you know, I'm going to look at that real quick and kind of see what it's about.

And I literally opened it up and the first couple pages I started just reading through it and I was like, what the, this is freaking gold.

This is like everything that I've seen even Russell and Steve Teaching things, but in copy, just laid out. It's super easy to go through and read and get what you need from it.

So pretty soon I realize I'm on like page 90, there's only like 123 pages in the whole book.

So it's not very much, but I'm on like page 90 and I'm like, holy cow, this is just straight gold.

Obviously I'm kind of skimming through some of it and then reading pretty good on heavily on some parts of it, but I'm just diving in right now.

I cannot believe how much is given in here.

And I can tell that he's been writing for some really huge people by the way, that he literally has written this and how easy it is to just see it.

But then also like the straight up just golden nuggets on every freaking page.

If you guys are writing anything with sales copy, if you guys are writing ads for any kind of ad platform, it doesn't matter, anything on your website.

literally, if you're creating mailers, I remember I saw something in there about creating or writing an actual Mailer, sales copy for the mailer, the mailer itself.

Hopefully I'm saying that right.

It is two o'clock in the morning.

So if I slur my words, I'm sorry.

So if you guys do any kind of writing for sales on any level of that, you need to get this book, you need to figure out who this guy is.

I'll drop you the headline of the book cause I know you're probably dying.

I hope you're dying because you should go buy it right now.

In fact, let me actually pull it up on Amazon.

I want to see how much it is so you can even know how much it's going to cost you on Amazon.

let's see here, it's called the "101 fast, good cheap hacks to writing a killer sales letter" it's pretty awesome. I can't, I just can't believe it's $14.95 paper back and you get it in two days, which is awesome.

So if you guys write any kind of copy, if you write anything on websites, if you do any kind of, even just social media posting, whatever it may be, I cannot believe how easily this is laid out.

I mean it's 101 like hacks to writing a killer sales letter and it literally is on this page it's hack number seven, you know, and then the title of it, it's like hack number seven, make it so good It hurts.

And he talks a lot about offers in here and different parts of the offer and the sales copy with it.

Oh Man.

Anyway, I know I could probably go on forever just talking about, not even really talking about what it say it says, but okay, check this out.

Here's one, hack number 45, use the right words and headlines.

This is really interesting.

He says, make sure your copy uses the top 10 money making words you should use in your headlines, John Capitals, hopefully I said that right, who was head of the third largest AD agency in the US for 40 years.

If that doesn't say something, I don't know What doesn't, the most commonly used words in 100 successful headlines.

Here's what he found.

You want to use the word "you".

Okay. Okay.

So in 100 successful headlines, here are the words, the top, words used in those headlines.

Man. Hopefully that makes sense.

So I'll list off the top 10 words used in those headlines.

So the word "you" was used 31 times the word "your" was, so "why", "oh", "you" "are" "your" was views a 14 times how 12 times and new 10 times who?

Eight times money, six times now, four times people, four times want four times.

And why four times.

I never would have guessed that you your how new who money now people was or Wasn’t.

And why would be the top 10 money making words that you should be using in your headline?

That almost sounds too simple stupid to be true, but it actually makes sense when you look at it.

So the most common words of course were you and your, it should be obvious, when you're writing to sell.

The biggest mistake most often made is to focus on we and I.

I Looked through the Valpak ads you get in the mail, how many times do you see ads?

They only tell their story.

Do you care?

Me Neither.

Using the right words is critical to making a sales letter do their job.

I saw that one. It was like what?

That's so stupid, simple and easy, but it makes so much sense.

Like how many people were writing like, oh, we have 30 years of experience in business.

Who the freak cares, they want to know about how you are going to help them, not the fact that you have all this great, awesome, cool experience stuff like no, instead of saying that, twists around and say something about how your experience is going to get them what they want anyway.

So I know I've been going on this longer than I even expected to, but I just wanted to take a minute and drop this real quick.

I don't even know how I didn't hear about this book before.

It's probably super underrated.

I don't even know when it was released.

That would actually probably be a good, I don't think it would be it on Amazon, but that might be a good indication.

Oh, Independently published November 12th, 2018. Oh well that makes sense.

It just barely came out.

This thing is going to go huge and you guys want to know about it right now.

So I would say hurry up and get your copy, I wonder if he has a funnel for it, he's got to have a funnel.

Anyway, if you find a funnel for it, let me know cause I'm totally going to go through here and yeah, figure out what he's doing.

I'm going to find everything I can about him because every headline that he has written, I'm totally going to be getting ideas from and modeling.

So that's just kind of what I wanted to drop on you guys today.

Hopefully that is something that you guys like and something you want to hear.

If you're into sales at all, if you're in anything business related, you should like that.

If you have somebody that does your marketing for you in house than I would 100% say, get this book, have them go through it, use it.

Often.

I can already tell this is going to be like a Bible for sells copy.

Anyway, that’s what I have for you tonight.

I will let you go and I'm going to go to bed.

Well, hopefully here soon.

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What's going on everybody. This is Coulton woods and you are listening to another episode of Learning From The Experts and today I actually want to respond to one of the reviews that was left on my podcast in iTunes. Someone asked a question on there and I thought, I'd respond.

So here's the deal. I know how frustrating it is as an entrepreneur to waste countless hours sifting through wanna be experts who've never actually helped me in the end. Then to learn years later that there was an expert who really could help me a hundred times faster than learning it on my own. I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learn from an interview real experts who can actually help you grow your business. My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to Learning From The Experts.

If you actually go look at one of the reviews on learning from the experts, one of them is by little pig 177. Just wanted to give you a quick shout out and say thanks for the review and thanks for asking a question there too. You asked the question and said maybe for an episode idea, you could talk about how successful people have tried and fail and how it's okay to fail as long as you keep trying until you've reached your goals and beyond. It's actually a really great question and something that needs to be addressed because so many people are afraid of failure and don't even start in their business or don't even get going because of the fear of failure. When I was running my repair store, I actually, I learned a lot from failure on that one.

I essentially just took the bull by the horns and got started in the repair business, without even really known anything about it. I just started and I every time I failed, I literally had to find the solution myself and I didn't even know that there was that problem or that issue until I had failed at it. And then would Google the solution for it. And because I had failed and gone through that experience and then found the solution, I learned from it that much better and that much quicker. But what's really interesting is I had no idea how to run a business. I had no idea how to fix phones. I had no idea how to even, you know, do the whole brick and mortar thing until I just kind of got started.

And as I overcame one obstacle or failure, I knew how to adjust for that in the future and not make the same failure. I continually had failure after failure until I had less because I knew certain things that I could do to correct my path or correct what I was doing. So I wouldn't have that failure again. I'll tell you what's interesting. A quote by Robert Herjavec, one of the sharks on shark tank says, "experience is your most valuable asset", which is actually kind of interesting to think about. Experience is your most valuable asset. Now, if you think about that, how do you gain experience? Obviously by doing something, by getting started, by just trying it out. You can't gain experience by just reading about something. It's kind of interesting if you think about like a marathon, you have to have a lot of experience behind you in running before you can accomplish a marathon.

You can't sit on your butt, watch TV and learn about how to run a marathon the best way you know, and do nothing and then expect to be able to go and run the marathon. You have to have experience and you have to be doing things that are going to give you that experience that you need in order to be able to accomplish the marathon. So it's interesting to me that people think that they can learn all this stuff and just spend their time learning and that is the experience they need in order to be successful. Another interesting thought to me too, actually that just comes to mind is if you look at people who are successful, you typically look at them and say, oh well they're successful because of x, y, and Z. And I can never do that because I don't have x, y, and z.

What's interesting to me is, are we born successful? Is Anybody born successful? Nobody's born successful. Nobody's born with just the genius of knowing everything that they know. It's not until they go through the experiences that they do in order to get to where they're at. Nobody is born with a following either. I mean, unless you're like the son of a king, or something, then obviously has a huge following or whatever may be already, but you still have to gain the following for yourself. So it's interesting to me that people will look at these big successful people and say, oh, well they are just successful because of they were given that stuff. Or, they just got lucky or whatever it may be. When in reality it's because they literally just started doing it, started going and as would gain experiences in fail, they would overcome those failures and gain more experience and become better at what they're doing.

And if they hadn't had the experiences that they had, if they hadn't just started, they wouldn't be where they're at now. It's interesting to me that people think that you can just learn your way to success and that actually doesn't quite work. I'm back in school. So when I was going to college, I remember taking an entrepreneurial class and this is while I was running my business already and being successful in it and the teacher would be teaching certain things and students wouldn't understand it in the least bit. It just didn't make any sense to them. And to me, having had experience already, even though I didn't know exactly what some terms were for what I had been doing, I've had the experience already. I knew exactly what he's talking about and it made sense to me. Now, I can tell you right now, if I hadn't had those experiences or if I hadn't been already doing something that I could tie what I was learning to the experience, I would not have been able to learn it as much as I was.

I wouldn't have internalized it. I would have literally listened to the teacher said, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And then forgot about it because I hadn't actually experienced it. I hadn't actually done it. That happens to a lot of us. But the best thing you can do is fail and fail fast. You don't want to fail slow because that means you're going to be taking more time to be learning the things you need to in order to become better at what you're doing. So fail fast and get pushing towards it. Hopefully that helps you guys today. And those a little bit of a shorter one. But um, I'm trying to be a little better at making them a little bit shorter instead of these longer ones. But that's kind of the message. The thing that I wanted to talk about today. And honestly, failure is so essential to becoming successful.

If you don't even start, you don't have the option to fail, which means you don't have the option to become successful. So yeah, there it is for you. Hope you guys enjoyed that. And if you have any reviews or questions, please leave a rating on the iTunes podcast. I'm on soundcloud as well. If you want to go there, or, Google play, different places, please feel free to leave some ratings, reviews, and if you've got any questions, go ahead and throw them on there too. That would be awesome. Thank you very much for listening.

Are you looking to jump start your business by learning or getting help from the real experts? Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you. Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating, and leaving feedback.

What's going on guys hey this is Coulton Woods and you're listening to another episode of learning from the experts.

And today I'm actually coming to you from Phoenix, Arizona.

I'm sitting in the hotel room right now, actually brought my recording Mic with me so we can have it for some Facebook lives we were doing in our hack MLM group and helping a bunch of people in there.

But anyway, so I brought my Mic and I wasn't planning on recording any episodes while I was here, but I have something that I want to share with you guys that I totally was just like, I have to share this because it 100% agrees with what I teach and my philosophy on learning from experts.

So here's the deal.

I know how frustrating it is as an entrepreneur to waste countless hours sifting through, want to be experts who've never actually helped me in the end.

Then to learn years later that there was an expert who really could help me a hundred times faster than learning it on my own.

I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learned from an interview, real experts who can actually help you grow your business.

My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to Learning From The Experts.

I'm actually coming to you tonight because I wanted to go through something that I think is super key for everybody in all of your Business, whatever you do, whether it's online marketing, even if it's a brick and mortar, whatever it may be.

I was just sitting on my hotel bed actually and I was working through some stuff on my laptop and I was like, holy cow, I gotta record this episode like right now and get it out to you guys.

So that's what I'm doing.

I'm recording it right now and getting it out to you and I hope you guys enjoy this, but I wanted to walk through something with you.

So we are here at the product launch formula live event from Jeff Walker.

And if you haven't read Jeff Walker's launch book, I highly suggest you do.

So if you sell any kind of products and you want to really increase the revenue of your launch of any new products that you're putting out there, um, his strategies have worked for hundreds.

I mean thousands.

I should say thousands of companies, to actually launch their products successfully.

So we are here because we want to hack his event essentially.

So we're modeling after his own event, the event team that runs his event is one of the best and we really want to hire them and they're kind of not really giving us the time of day right now.

So we are here to hack them essentially.

So we can figure out the little things they do, the little isms here and there and how many people they have going here and what the structure is and how they frame everything.

The registration tables, like everything down to the detail.

We're here to figure out for our OfferMind event so that we can make it that much better.

Just give it that extra little touch.

But as I've always said, if you want to learn how to do it right, you go to the expert, you find out the person who is doing it right right now.

That's what we're doing.

We're following that model, the model that I've seen so many experts do.

They find the expert that is the best, and they say, that's the person we need to go to.

That's the person we need to hire.

That's the person we need to figure out, to get the right stuff from them so that we can upgrade our business to the next level.

So that's exactly what we're doing.

That's such a huge hack, I mean, I don't feel like I really illustrated that well enough for you.

But that's such a huge key to getting to the next level in whatever you're doing.

If you guys haven't read launch by Jeff Walker, I highly suggest you do.

He's helped thousands of people launch their businesses, and their products and be successful in it.

He has a very good system for that.

Steve's really good at launching all of his products as well.

And he learned from Jeff Walker quite a while ago in the beginning and that's why he's good at what he does on the launch campaigns for his products because he learned from him in the beginning.

So we're here to learn from him again and I'm like, I have to let everybody know what we're doing here and why we're doing it because you guys need to be doing the same thing.

If you guys want to get to the next level, you need to find that expert, you need to find the person that's going to get you there.

And look around, kind of check it out.

And that's exactly why I interview people on the show and I'm really excited for the next interview that I'm going to be putting on here.

I have recorded it already.

I've got it all together.

I'm actually going to do a launch.

I wanted to come to Jeff Walker's launch event first so that I could get a little bit more of a deep dive into the launch campaign stuff so I can do a bit more of a launch for that episode and kind of Redo my podcast there cause I really haven't promoted this a ton yet.

So I want to start promoting it and kind of do a little bit more of a launch with this.

So that's one of the reasons why we're here.

But I just wanted to go through that real quick, make it a little bit of a shorter episode for you guys today.

If you need to get to the next level or if you know where you need to improve on to get to the next level, find the expert who has already done it, knows the path and can take you along that path to the right success or the right point that you want to get to.

 And that's all I got for you guys today.

Thank you so much for listening.

Are you looking to jumpstart your business by learning or getting help from the real experts?

Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you.

Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating, and leaving feedback.