Smarter Destiny Podcast: Quick Proven Growth Tactics From Founders You Can Use ASAP - Subscribe Now!

Norm Lanier is the CEO of Lone Star Art, a successful sign manufacturer and seller based in Texas. After getting his degree in photography and starting his creative career, he worked his way up to become a Senior Graphic Designer for companies like Exxon, Compaq and HP. On his 50th birthday, he walked away from corporate life to fulfill his lifelong dream of working and creating art for himself. Today he has a team that helps him create products in-house with the singular vision of bringing beautiful art into people's homes. Lone Star Art is now a 6-figure company that recognizes its responsibility to do good in the world as they grow, and every month they donate to different organizations.

Bullet points

(00:10) Intro

(02:40) The start as an entrepreneur

(06:02) Transitioning to full time, selling on Amazon and starting to sell artwork

(08:27) The feedback loop with the customer

(13:05) Getting more space, manufacturing and building a Shopify store

(16:09) Buying a house instead of a commercial space

(19:00) Expanding the product line, diversifying and selling wholesale

(20:27) How to find wholesale opportunities

(24:17) The manufacturing side

(28:04) The charitable side

(30:51) Rapid fire question round

(31:07) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(31:53) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(32:42) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(33:37) How do you evaluate a good business deal?

(34:32) What is one of your proudest moments?

(36:00) What is one interesting fact about you that not many people would know?

(36:36) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(37:33) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(39:18) What is the most exciting question you spend your time thinking about?

(40:32) What advice would you give your younger self?

(41:21) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(42:00) What makes you happiest?

(43:29) Any asks or requests for the audience?

(44:12) Where to find out more

Roland Frasier is a serial entrepreneur, business mentor, investor and a lawyer. He’s truly passionate about business and has been advising massive brands on both business and legal-related issues. His specialties include scaling businesses through the design and implementation of marketing campaigns, as well as negotiating, structuring and funding mergers and acquisitions, among many others. Roland is constantly looking for businesses to buy, re-position and sell, and shares his story on today’s episode of Smarter Destiny Podcast.

Gretta van Riel is one of Australia’s top young serial entrepreneurs and influencers, with a massive Instagram following and her own ecommerce course. Having 5 multi-million dollar startups under her belt, she truly knows how to turn audiences into brands and trends into markets. With her deep understanding of the influencer marketing scene both as a brand and an influencer, Gretta created her own marketing platform, Hey Influencers, to help connect brands and social media influencers. Find out how she went from launching her first startup at the age of 22 with $24 in the bank to becoming a global success in today’s episode of Smarter Destiny.

Moiz Ali is a Harvard lawyer turned entrepreneur, investor and speaker. After selling his first business, a flash sales site for spirits called Caskers, Moiz founded Native. The company specializes in creating high-quality natural care products, and it’s the fastest growing CPG company in the United States, with over 1 million customers nationwide. The company was acquired for $100 Million in November 2017. Today Moiz is an active investor in over 100 startups, and a speaker on stages across the world.

Sean is an entrepreneur, a husband, father, author and co-trustee of Kind Foundation. He is also the founder of Strategic Wealth Network, and has impacted over a 100 children’s lives by providing foster services. Sean has been in financial services for over 18 years, helping business owners, entrepreneurs and investors to keep their money, grow their wealth and give back more. In today’s episode you will learn the tax strategy the ultra-elite uses to save money on their taxes, which the rest of the world doesn't know about and isn't leveraging. All this and much more, up next.

Bullet points

(00:28) Intro

(02:49) The start as an entrepreneur

(04:31) The first management job, working for Dell and retiring and 29

(06:00) Starting the first online shop in 1999, doubling down and the dot com crisis

(07:53) Getting into real estate and losing everything again

(11:16) Going through a tough time

(12:44) Starting to volunteer and teaching financial strategies

(15:35) Fostering

(16:45) The first secret: The two different tax systems

(19:22) The second secret: Giving up ownership

(22:40) A real world example: Not getting taxed

(26:40) A real world example: Getting paid

(29:52) Creating a network and giving back

(37:00) Venture philanthropist

(38:30) Where to find out more

(39:10) The third secret: Giving your wealth away

(44:22) Rapid fire question round

(44:35) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(44:49) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(44:58) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(47:00) What is one of your proudest moments?

(47:40) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(49:18) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(50:10) What advice would you give your younger self?

(52:03) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(52:57) What makes you happiest?

Michael Brooks is the CEO and founder of goLance, an award-winning online freelance marketplace with more than $82 million in payouts. Today Michael will share his story and how goLance managed to scale without running ads on Facebook or Google. We will also discuss how you can add value to your business by leveraging the offerings of the freelance world. All this and much more, up next.

Bullet points

(00:20) Intro

(02:04) The start as an entrepreneur

(09:40) Commitment and the entrepreneurial mindset

(10:34) Building the first business and its hiring process

(13:55) The next thing: How much longer do I want to work?

(16:38) The importance of trust

(18:37) Scaling a digital business without paid ads

(24:08) Tracking

(26:48) The strategy

(29:31) The biggest mistake businesses make when hiring freelancers

(33:51) Where to find out more

(34:30) Rapid fire question round

(34:50) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(35:46) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(37:11) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(40:32) What is one of your proudest moments?

(42:49) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(43:22) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(45:09) What advice would you give your younger self?

(48:31) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(49:04) What makes you happiest?

Matt Beaudreau is the founder of Acton Placer and cofounder of the Apogee Strong Program. There is an alternative to the current education system, and Matt is opening that up to the masses, helping driven entrepreneurs open student-led campuses for real education and freedom. Matt is the founder and owner of three separate schools, and a multiple TEDx speaker and consultant who has spoken to 250,000 people all over the world. He is building strong young people so we don't have broken older people, he's unleashing dragon slayers in a world where dragons exist.

Bullet points

(00:12) Intro

(01:48) The start as an entrepreneur

(04:40) The first step to a new education system

(06:53) What parents are unhappy about the current education system

(10:09) Creating a new curriculum: Giving young people new experiences

(13:03) What the school looks like

(19:19) The legitimacy of the new system

(21:18) Nurturing children as an entrepreneur

(25:09) Dealing with conflicting advice

(29:05) The Apogee Strong Program

(31:43) Unleashing dragon slayers

(34:25) Where to find out more

(35:20) Rapid fire question round

(36:02) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(36:18) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(37:10) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(38:31) How do you hire top talent?

(39:26) What is one of your proudest moments?

(40:22) What is one interesting fact about you that not many people would know?

(40:54) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(41:32) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(42:29) What is the most exciting question you spend your time thinking about?

(43:28) What advice would you give your younger self?

(44:18) Failure and responsibility

(46:12) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(47:10) What makes you happiest?

Peter Kell is one of the dominant VSL marketers, and the VSL Advertising Lead at Mindvalley. He managed to drive revenue from a brand of a standing start of 0 all the way to 40 million in 12 months, before exiting and moving on to the next adventure. Peter's mission is to help ecommerce marketers and affiliate marketers hit multiple 7-figure months, and today he will share all his best-kept secrets to succeed using the power of VSL. All this and much more, up next.

Bullet points

(00:04) Intro

(02:00) The start as an entrepreneur

(05:47) Learning the hard way

(08:35) Finding a mentor to learn media buying

(10:21) Pivoting toward ecommerce and VSL

(13:45) The three things that take to crush VSL on Facebook

(15:44) Long VSL on Facebook

(17:32) The formula to make a VSL

(21:53) The visual components of a VSL

(24:51) Where to find VSL now

(26:48) Current projects and a million a day

(29:35) Best traffic sources for ecommerce

(33:24) Native and the two big ideas of VSL

(34:27) Authority and working with celebrities

(38:06) Getting started

(41:51) Testing different videos

(45:38) Where to find out more

(46:33) Rapid fire question round

(46:46) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(47:03) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(47:28) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(48:09) How do you hire top talent?

(50:15) What is one of your proudest moments?

(51:03) What is one interesting fact about you that not many people would know?

(51:47) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(53:11) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(56:56) What is the most exciting question you spend your time thinking about?

(58:56) What advice would you give your younger self?

(59:11) What was your biggest challenge starting in business and how did you overcome it?

(59:48) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(01:00:17) What makes you happiest?

Quinn Hobbs is the founder and winemaker at Hollow Wines, a 7-figure ethical wine brand producing fantastic wines as they are supposed to be: as free from additives as humanly possible while ethically employing people, sustainably farming the grapes and educating the world about how we can produce amazing things without a terribly bad impact on the planet. Today Quinn will share his story, from a former bicycle enthusiast turned marketer/entrepreneur to getting into natural wine making. All this and much more, up next.

(00:09) Intro

(02:47) The start as an entrepreneur

(07:38) Getting into ecommerce

(10:29) Getting into wine

(13:40) Why wine?

(16:30) Approaching different challenges

(20:32) Finding farmers

(23:34) What is a natural wine?

(26:16) Why most wines are not vegetarian

(30:39) Where to find out more

(32:46) Rapid fire question round

(33:01) If you ever had to start again, how would you make your money?

(34:48) What is the most common or biggest mistake that leaders make?

(36:27) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(38:26) How do you hire top talent?

(39:42) What is one of your proudest moments?

(41:19) What is one interesting fact about you that not many people would know?

(43:14) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(45:47) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(46:37) What advice would you give your younger self?

(48:33) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(51:46) What makes you happiest?

(52:48) Any asks or requests for the audience?

Akshay Mohunta is the founder and CEO of HITS Direct Response Design Studio, where he works with brands and businesses to help conceptualize, design and optimize profitable direct response online campaigns. He has been in business for 11 years, has grown into a multiple 7-figure brand serving up to 9-figure brands from referrals alone. Some of his celebrity clients include Mike Tyson, Tommy Chong and Jennifer Stallone. In this episode we are to get into the weeds about performance, conversion rates, add hacks, tricks and strategies that will enable you to do better in 2022.

(00:12) Intro

(02:22) The start as an entrepreneur

(06:00) The different stages of the sales funnel

(14:38) Best performing ads

(17:56) What elements are important in the pre-sell?

(18:20) What not to do

(19:30) What to do

(23:03) Getting stories from your customers

(27:39) Measuring the bounce rate

(29:33) Doing VSL

(31:25) Native ads

(35:36) The product page

(38:55) The checkout page

(42:05) Being driven by a social cause

(48:34) Rapid fire question round

(48:56) Who is a great leader (alive or dead) and why?

(49:11) What is one of your proudest moments?

(50:14) What is one interesting fact about you that not many people would know?

(51:25) What book (or books) changed your mindset or life?

(51:42) What daily routines do you have (morning or evening) that have helped make you successful?

(52:05) What advice would you give your younger self?

(52:17) What unusual or underrated food or drink should more people try out?

(53:03) What makes you happiest?

(54:16) Where to find out more