Brad Weimert is a mountain climber, adventurer, and entrepreneur at heart. He developed his entrepreneurial and marketing spirit from rich life experiences. At the age of 20, Brad began breaking national sales records as the #1 sales representative in a company of more than 30,000 and continued to do so year after year. Brad is the Founder of Easy Pay Direct, a platform that is both a merchant account provider and a payment gateway.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

What is Easy Pay Direct?

Easy Pay Direct is a mechanism to accept payments predominantly online. They're both a merchant account provider and a payment gateway. They work with established eCommerce brands to optimize the way they're accepting payments.

What Makes Easy Pay Direct Different From Other Providers

If you set up Stripe or PayPal, you can process payments immediately. But they don't know who you are, what you do, what you sell, how you sell it, how you deliver it and if you deliver it. So the only recourse they have is to control risk for themselves.

The alternate way to accept payments is with somebody like Easy Pay Direct that wants to understand who you are, what you do, how you do it, how the business operates, and what the marketing model is. They underwrite that on the front end and get to know the models that have that higher likelihood so that you don't run into a problem as a business owner where they’ll have to close your account or hold your money later.

What's a high-risk merchant?

On one end of the spectrum, it means that the expectations are going to be met. It's a face-to-face transaction. It's a small dollar amount, and you know what you're getting when you go in. On the exact opposite end of the risk spectrum, is a supplement company that sells pills guaranteed to enhance your manhood in seven days or less. It's free, and then after seven days, they automatically bill you $99 a month. It's not FDA-approved and it's based in India. As soon as you go online, the likelihood of fraud spikes. If you're a person that wants to commit fraud, you don’t walk into a Best Buy. You order them online. So all e-commerce has a risk spectrum. It's just a question of the variants there.

One of the fundamental tenants is that the gateway that they built allows you to have more than one merchant account present, and then split the volume across them. So if you have a problem with one, the others are still up and running. They want to help business owners have control over this problem.

The Current State of Our Economy

Everything went from retail to online. In fact, 95% of its portfolio is online. Then money will start to leave the economy. There are a lot of opportunities, but at the same time, it's not going to sustain. So you have to be prepared. There are industries that are going to do better, and also industries that are going to have challenges. But within each of those, there is still opportunity.

Resources Mentioned:

Easy Pay Direct

Cheryl Herrick is the quintessential entrepreneur. Their family-owned medical device business went from breakeven to $4 million per year, to selling personal development and running a 100-employee automotive company, to coaching.

Cheryl credits her success to following this system that she has created for herself and continues to innovate. She is currently a partner in a startup company producing new technology houses and she’s the founder of Ponytail Racing.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

Making a Business Decision vs. a Personal Decision

Emotion and passion run us as people and we should take that into our business. But there are certain moments where we have to disconnect those two things. When we're trying to make decisions about business, we have to take a more professional and a little bit of a distant decision about it when emotions are really high.

Self-reflection is very important. You have to be honest with yourself to try to figure out if you’ve made a bad bet and whether you need to get out of it and stop investing.

What is the Crest?

If the big order has fallen through something that you thought was factually accurate turns out not to be, it means you have to take five steps backward. When everything feels tiring, and it seems like no matter what you're doing, none of it is easy. It's that moment where it feels like nothing is going right and you've been in this space for a while. This is usually the moment when people tap out because they're tired.

How to Get Over to the Other Side of the Crest

When you're at that moment, and it feels like everything is kind of working against you in your back is up against the wall, that's not the moment to quit. Even if that business does not work out, that isn't the moment to quit. 

Get to the other side of the crest, because on the other side of the crest, then you'll really know if there's something there or not. But giving up just out of exhaustion and frustration will only live on you forever.

To get over to the other side of the crest, have a small circle of very reliable friends who have your permission to tell you the unvarnished truth. Follow a system founded on a business philosophy and get the knowledge from trusted advisors who are outside of you.

Sketch out a system for yourself and everything you need to do for the job to be successful. Then develop the processes necessary to get all of those things done.

Resources Mentioned:

Ponytail Racing

Jen Jose is the Owner at Jolific Homes and Jolific Properties Creator and Coach at REIGN: Real Estate Investor Growth Network. Jen has taken on a persona of the "bestower badassery." After 16 years of teaching, and having worked in a global health insurance provider, Jen ultimately decided to get into the real estate industry. Through REIGN, Jen was able to create a platform where investors could share their superpowers within a network, sprinkled with a little bit of accountability, thus building confidence and credibility.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

REIGN: Real Estate Investor Growth Network

Jen runs a four-week deep dive where they work together to help people in these four aspects:

1.  Knowing the destination: They share needle movers in the business and what has worked for them. Then they prioritize their focus and get clear on their why’s.

2. Sharing superpowers: Using a mastermind format, REIGN is designed to provide a platform for people to share their superpowers and establish credibility with people in our network.

3. Accountability: They have a Monday morning goal call where people publicly announce their goals. And then they do a check-in on Thursday, and then on Sunday, they do a gold poll, where they can then announce if they've achieved their goals, or what they can do differently, etc.

4. Your network is your net worth: Go to your local REIA (real estate investment association) meetings. Learn from the experts there and find a group that fits you.

Build that credibility and when you have that credibility, it builds your confidence, which is huge. And then you can go out and take over anything because you have that confidence now.

The Power of Stages

Realize that the ultimate power is providing stages for other people. As opposed to being the star of the stage, you have access to put anybody's expertise on a pedestal to a group of people. The person whose expertise you put on a pedestal will thank you forever because you gave them the validation. While the people whom you've exposed to the message who needed to hear it will thank you forever because you were the conduit for that.

The Power of Attraction

You don't have to know every step of the way to get started. You just have to release it to the universe, and then it will reveal itself. Just go for it and trust that the "how" will find you.

Resources Mentioned:

https://www.therealjenjosey.com/

https://www.reignmastermind.com/

The Success Principles by Jack Canfield

Timothy Dick is a lifelong, seasoned entrepreneur, founder, and CEO that has built multiple successful companies from the ground up. He has helped build industry icons such as Hostgator, which grew from a small company to over 3 million websites hosted during his time there. Currently, Tim is the founder and CEO of Profit Layer.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

How to Cope with Impostor Syndrome

It helps to talk about it. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Nothing going to be perfect. But if you just show up, it's usually going to work out. Work on your personal development.

Scaling Your Business

A lot of people are so worried about getting all the details perfect whether they're scaling or even just starting.

Different people are going to have a unique set of processes and ways they want to run their business. And if they try to follow something conflicting with what they naturally feel they should do, that's where they run into problems.

If you have a pulse on your business, you're going to make fairly good decisions. They're not always going to be accurate or the right thing. But if you figure out what you want and where you want to be, it's going to be much easier to use your gut. And if you don't know what you want and you don't know where you want to get to, then your gut decisions are probably not going to be as good.

Figure out what you want and create what you want.

Resources Mentioned:

www.profitlayer.com

Hostgator

Shownotes:

Pablo Gonzalez is a professional speaker and the founder and Chief Executive Connector at Connect With Pablo, a content marketing and community creation agency, proving that community creation is the future of business development and building his business around the core things that he loves doing.

Obsessed with human connection, Pablo has used his expertise on the subject to manage a 120-person, $15M-construction business at 25, build various young professional groups for charities, and be named a Latino Leader of the Future by Latino Leaders Magazine and a Top 20 Under 40 for Brickell Magazine.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

How Immigrants Make for the Most Successful Entrepreneurs

There's this story of two fish swimming in the ocean. A larger fish comes by and says, "The water is nice today." As they swim past that larger fish, the two little fish look at each other, and they go, "What's water?"

This story highlights two immigrants coming into this country, understanding where they are. This is the land of opportunity in America. I know I'm in the water, and I'm going to make the most out of it. Whereas the majority of people in America who are born here don't even get the context of where they are.

Scarcity creates resourcefulness. But we have been living in the land of abundance and have gotten to the point where we're so spoiled. We think the minor things that are happening to us in life are big deals. We're creatures of comfort. Then now that things are shut down, people are freaking out. But there's no need to freak out because people have experienced way worse than this.

The Future of Business Development is Community Creation

The way you scale is via content. Provide stages for people in an audience. And if you can capture that in content and redistribute that, it then becomes a self-feeding machine.

There is creating content for yourself creating content for others. But the magic is when you are sharing the stage with brilliant people, and you're both adding value to each other.

The Venn Diagram of Relationship

Where all those things meet is a community driving ball of value.

Resources Mentioned:

Know more about Pablo Gonzalez on www.connectwithpablo.com.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX / Propelify where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Matthew Passy of Podcast Me Anything leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join the us for our next event at www.podmax.co

And grab your virtual seat for the next Propelify Innovation Festival on October 5-9 at www.propelify.com

TOM ZEREGA

Tom Zerega is the Founder and CEO of Magnetic 3D. Tom was a former employee of major broadcasting networks including ABC/Disney, CBS, NBS, before founding a US digital signage network in malls and nightclubs where a successful exit led him to pursue Glasses-free 3D Solutions.

Mr. Zerega is an investor, inventor and evangelist playing an integral role in the development of the Company's product line. On the sales and marketing front he has secured high profile deployments and had the privilege of working on the Super Bowl, Hard Rock's Guitar Hotel, major theme parks, retail stores, defense energy and medical projects.

He is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for Film and Television, and recent alum of Draper University's Entrepreneurship Program in Silicon Valley and is regarded by many as the industry's principal authority on glasses-free 3D technology.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX / Propelify where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Matthew Passy of Podcast Me Anything leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join the us for our next event at www.podmax.co

And grab your virtual seat for the next Propelify Innovation Festival on October 5-9 at www.propelify.com

ADRIAN DEEN

Adrian Deen is Founder and CEO of Funding Innovation Network, which started a movement to revolutionize startup funding and support. The company launched an AI/ML marketplace platform to help startups assess themselves and connect them to investors and business services.

ADRIAN has served in senior director positions at Credit Suisse and Citigroup prior to founding FIN. He is also a Board member of We'll Life Network, a not-for-profit offering residential, clinical, and day programs to 25,000 individuals with developmental, psychological, and behavioral disabilities in NYC.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX / Propelify where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Matthew Passy of Podcast Me Anything leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join the us for our next event at www.podmax.co

And grab your virtual seat for the next Propelify Innovation Festival on October 5-9 at www.propelify.com

Christopher W. Frey

Founder & President

Crowd Funding NJ, Inc.

Founder and President of Crowd Funding NJ, Inc. Christopher Frey has significant experience in the entrepreneurial, start-up and growth company business community.  Crowd Funding NJ, Inc. (CFNJ) is New Jersey’s first authorized and registered Equity Crowdfunding Portal.  CFNJ’s Portal was launched in March 2018.  Now New Jersey businesses can raise up to $1 Million in funding and any New Jersey resident can invest in these offerings using the CFNJ Equity Crowdfunding Portal.  This is a significant, and much needed, new source of funding for New Jersey’s entrepreneurial, start-up and growth company business community.  This is also the first time that the general public has had the opportunity to invest in start-up and early growth stage high potential companies.

Prior to starting CFNJ, Frey Founded and is Managing Director of CFO Solutions. Inc. a financial and business advisory firm providing growth-stage companies with outsourced CFO leadership. Specializing in high growth and turn-around situations Frey has been retained by technology start-ups and family-owned businesses, serving as CFO for more than 25 companies.   Frey has raised more than $200 million in capital through his ability to create financing alternatives and collaborate with equity investors and lending institutions, which has earned him a reputation as an innovative and pro-active leader.

Prior to launching CFO Solutions, Inc., Frey served as the Chief Financial Officer for KPMG Peat Marwick's manufacturing retailing & distribution (MR&D) line of business where his efforts were instrumental in spearheading the turnaround of this $900 million Audit, Tax, and Advisory business.  Earlier, as Controller, Frey led the worldwide accounting and control operations of Grace Cocoa, the world's largest processor of cocoa beans and a $750 million division of W.R. Grace & Co., during its formation and significant growth through M&A activity.

Frey has an MBA from Columbia University and a BS in Accounting from Lehigh University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Global Management Accountant.  Frey has been the treasurer and a board member of the New Jersey Business Incubation Network (NJBIN), an editorial advisory board member of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants (NJCPA), and the SEC small business capital forum representative for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).  As a way of giving back to this community, Frey has been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at NJIT’s EDC Business Incubator for more than 15 years where he has advised literally hundreds of start-up and entrepreneurial companies.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX / Propelify where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Hoan Thai of "I Escaped My 9 to 5" leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join the us for our next event at www.podmax.co

And grab your virtual seat for the next Propelify Innovation Festival on October 5-9 at www.propelify.com

BARRY RUBIN

Barry has been in sales and business development for over 25 years and since 2016 he has enjoyed the opportunity to expand his career in value based technology consulting and sales with customer centricity. Currently Barry is a Sr. Business Development Manager who loves to find new clients from start-ups, small to medium sized businesses that need help with anything from a software development and technology standpoint – whether outsourcing software development engagements, augmentation services, custom software development or selling Damco products.

Barry is also heavily active in the community and the arts, he sits on both MCRCC Technology Committee and Ambassador Committee, Advisory Board to Elijah’s Promise, A Friend of Rotary New Brunswick chapter. He also has recorded, played and taught music for many years, private lessons and workshops and he currently works with a few projects and leads his own group Contact High Vibration “With One Hit of Music”.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX / Propelify where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Hoan Thai of "I Escaped My 9 to 5" leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Hoan sits down with Rajesh Sinha the founder of Fulcrum Digital and his mission to make the world a better place.

Join the us for our next event at www.podmax.co

And grab your virtual seat for the next Propelify Innovation Festival on October 5-9 at www.propelify.com