What's going on everybody?

Hey, I want to welcome you to another episode of learning from the experts.

On this episode I want to tell you a little story about how I was making a fraction of my potential and I had no idea.

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've created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learned 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.

So I know talked a little bit earlier in one of my earlier podcasts about how I was running a phone and tablet repair business while I was in college.

But I want to tell you a little bit more and go into a little more detail about how everything was going and how the business was going and things that I didn't realize I was doing / not doing.

I could have been doing so much better than I was.

First off, I really had no marketing experience.

I had taken some marketing classes in college, but it seemed like those classes were for a bigger company and marketing tactics that are a bit older than new strategies.

So I really didn't know much about marketing at all.

But I was growing this business and I actually was paying for some marketing and I even ran a facebook contest and didn't even realize what I was doing really.

I thought, hey, we'll run a facebook contest, see if we can get some followers.

We actually got quite a few followers and then didn't really run anymore contests.

I think we ran one more, but I should have just kept it going.

What I want to tell you though is with the money that we were making and were not making very much really honestly.

But we were putting a lot of money into our inventory actually.

And the problem with that was we had all this money in inventory but phones are getting outdated pretty quick.

Tablets get outdated pretty quick as well and a lot of times you don't end up using the extra inventory for quite some time.

But I didn't realize until later that it actually still worked if we only carried the parts that were used more often and then special ordered the ones in that we're one time fixes and we could have saved a ton of money that way.

Anyway, so what I realized since I've ran that business is I've learned a lot from different marketers and experts.

One of them, the main one being Russell Brunson.

And if I would have known back then what I know now, I know that I could have made at least 10 times as much as I was making back then.

But the problem is also I didn't know back then that I didn't know what I didn't know.

If that makes sense.

Honestly, I was still kind of getting into learning from all of these experts and so now that I've gone through and learned different things and applied myself and gotten better at different marketing tactics and techniques and learned from lots of experts in that field.

If I could go back to that time, I would have done things a lot differently as well as more things that I wasn't doing and I would have structured things differently.

But now that I'm looking back on it, I have also learned what I can do better in the future.

So my point is that there are still things I don't know.

There's still things I don't realize that I don't even know.

I feel like it's an almost daily, if not weekly occurrence where I'll hear Something when I'm listening to an audio book or a podcast or reading a different book or I'm sitting next to Steve Larsen and he's doing a podcast or teaching somebody something and I'll learn something really valuable from that.

From all that is going on around me and I'm like, Oh, I never actually realized that before.

And Wow, that's a really cool concept.

So write it down and I'll try to teach it so I can internalize it a little bit better.

That's actually why I am doing this podcast.

So I can teach the awesome things I learn from the experts around me.

I don't know if you've noticed these golden nuggets or as Steve Larsen would put it, truth nukes.

We're trying to change that term to truth nukes…

As I learned these awesome little bits of marketing knowledge, I try to teach them on this podcast so that I can better internalize them, but also so that you can also learn them for yourself and use them in your business.

Great experts out there, like Russell Brunson's, I've been following him for a long time.

I think it's been like five years now before ClickFunnels was even around when I stumbled upon him.

He totally sold me on something on a Webinar when I was brand new into college.

I was even brand new into business online.

I was just barely starting to apply myself back then.

I was just getting into all this stuff and he totally sold me on a Webinar.

It had to have been the perfect webinar script.

I'm pretty sure I was like, I don't really know what this is, but I know I have to have it.

So I totally bought it and I really had no idea what it was.

So that was the start of following Russell Brunson, before he had click funnels

Obviously now he's done pretty well in ClickFunnels.

We use it daily.

Obviously it's what drives our business.

So my point is though, as of right now, even for Russell Brunson, someone as big as himself, there are still things that he doesn't know or hasn't realized or may have not come about yet.

And there's things that I know he publishes about like new things, new ideas, that haven't really been in the industry or been taught before.

And so there's always something new coming out all the time.

And if you're not actively in that realm, or actively listening, or actively paying attention to the things that are happening, you're going to miss those golden nuggets or the truth nukes that come by.

So my point is you have to be staying current.

And yes, these experts are people that are just so well ingrained with marketing or what they're doing.

Even in your industry.

With what you're doing in your industry, like when I was in the tech industry when I was running my business, fixing phones and tablets, I was actively researching phones and repair guides and different things that people were seeing issues on.

And as a new phone came out I was watching the tear downs or people tearing them apart and then things that maybe going wrong as they tore them apart.

So in your industry you have to be actively studying and if you're not, you'll fall behind.

I haven't been actively studying the tech industry and I can tell you that I am like a years behind now because I haven't studied it for well over two years now and two years in the tech industry, that's huge.

It would take me a lot to catch back up and get going on that.

So you have to always be actively studying and learning.

A great thing Tony Robbins talks about is net time, "no extra time".

I live by this rule 100%.

When I'm driving to work or driving somewhere else, especially when I'm by myself, I don't just drive with nothing playing from my phone.

Occasionally I will play some music when my brain may be a little fried or something.

But other than that, I always have a podcast on.

Or I have an audio book playing, no matter what.

And the reason behind that is because I'm always studying.

I'm always increasing my knowledge.

I'm always upping my game.

And if you're not doing that, you're going to fall behind pretty quickly.

One thing kind of crazy thing I learned in school was, the reason big corporations actually go bankrupt or just cease to exist or won't be able to keep going the way they are or downsize or shut down is they can't innovate quickly enough.

It's interesting because there may be someone in the company that is studying and keeping up with the times, but then as they try to make changes, it doesn't happen quick enough and so a huge corporation can go bankrupt or lose all of their market just based on not being able to implement something or new strategies and innovations in time.

That has something to say about the importance of keeping up on your game in your industry or in marketing because if you don't it's going to be really hard to stay relevant.

It's going to be really hard to just be staying above the water and nowadays things can change so quickly.

You have to really be on your game.

So that's the podcast idea that I wanted to talk about today.

And I have a good quote here that I think applies very well.

When I heard it I thought, that is so true.

It's by Dan Kennedy.

That guy is the man.

If you haven't studied Dan Kennedy, I would highly recommend you do so.

But the quote is "the higher the income, the more the person paid for who they are rather than what they do."

I'll say it again.

"The higher the income, the more the person paid for who they are rather than what they do."

I think that has a lot to say about the importance of always educating and staying relevant.

One last story to let you go.

I work with Steve Larsen and obviously Steve Larsen was (if you know Steve Larsen at all) Russell Brunson's lead funnel builder for two years.

He was telling me his story.

I think he's actually told this on his podcast and other places, but he's telling me a story about when ClickFunnels moved offices.

When ClickFunnels moved offices, Russell had to throw away a ton of books and courses.

Steve said it was interesting because as they were throwing stuff away, Steve would hold up a book and ask, do you want this book?

Russel would look at it and go, hmm, no, he's not relevant anymore.

Throw it away.

Then he'd hold up another book and Russell would say, yeah, he's relevant.

He's good, keep it.

That's really interesting to me that Russell would base the keeping of a book on whether or not the person was relevant.

Meaning if the guy is actually producing content that still works for today, but almost wonder if he meant that he is still putting out content, he's still a up on his game.

That's really interesting to me and I hope you find that interesting as well.

So that's a big, big thing for someone like Russell Brunson to base the keeping of someone's book or course on if they are just relevant or not.

Some good things to learn from that.

I'm super excited for you guys to be on this podcast and look forward to sharing more things that I'm learning and things that I'm coming by, from experts around me as I'm around them and in their areas.

So thank you very much and we'll talk to you later.

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