Unknown Speaker 0:01
Alright. Welcome to this week's podcast and IG Live episode of The Make More Keep More Show. We're gonna get Dominic
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in a moment, although he's recovering from the Rona. So we'll see. We'll see how he's doing. And there we go. There's the man himself. What's up, sir? Nothing. Man. I was just telling you about the show. If you guys are brand new and never listened to us before, we chat about all things money. I usually shot from my front porch Dominic shots from his office, depending on things. I guess I'm the one responsible for the bird noises in the background. But really, we talk about everything related to your money, how to make more, keep more grow it, keep it, spend it, what to spend it on everything. So anyway, John, this week, we were going to talk about overcoming challenges because the news is kind of rough. 24/7. Right. It is. There. It is. And it's interesting, because I started thinking about it this week when I came back from vacation, ready to rock and roll and then tested positive for COVID. And got really sick. So you know, balances are abundant. Right? Well, wife got it and your wife got it and barely got sick at all right? She got pretty sick for like the first two days in but then pretty snapped back from it pretty quickly. Yeah, they do. And you had it a lot worse, right? Yeah. Well, because I'm a guy and I'm a wimp. That's probably part of it. And they do say it affects the obese more than it does the normal. No, you say that? I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember what your foul comment was because I'm so distracted by your rockhard six pack abs. But But yeah, that's apparently what it is.
Unknown Speaker 1:46
I know. I am wanting to talk. But anyway, so Well, God, your bibles get to work here. Yeah. Let's see when, when chatting about. You know, you brought up the concept, the topic of you know, how do you overcome obstacles in whatever business life personal life, all of that. And I think between us, we've got almost 100 years on this planet, sadly. And we both been divorced.
Unknown Speaker 2:18
We both had custody stuff go on in our lives. And we've had I mean, we both
Unknown Speaker 2:26
were you in business in 2008. I know I was the 2008 meltdown, which was a I mean, I'm not dismissing anything that's going on right now. But 2008 was legend. I'd never been through anything like it. Sure. Even the melt even the.com meltdown of the early 2000s where the stock market just kind of slowly kept tanking lower and lower and lower. To the point where it got 80% The NASDAQ dropped off 80% We got a bad shout out for the Huskies jersey. Heck, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 2:59
My kid went there. And so anyway, we
Unknown Speaker 3:05
2008 was brutal. But there's a lot of I mean, there from what I'm seeing the real estate market is starting to turn and kind of go the other direction. I'm seeing that contract cancellations are skyrocketing. So people are buying houses all sudden, like whoa, one of my clients, Dominique, who is a real estate agent that was in yesterday. I love this woman. She always looks like she is heading out she comes into my office at 10 o'clock in the morning with her kid, we do some college stuff. And this woman's got a Chanel dress on and high heels. And that's literally anytime she comes to my office. She's dressed to the nines. I love it. It's so old school, and I love it. But she was telling me like, hey, part of the problem is with the rise in interest rates, buyers that could have afforded a million dollar property at three and a half percent. Now at five and a quarter, five and a half can only afford a $750,000 property sure that is going to have an impact on the marketplace. So for sure, well and I say it because because that's why this topic is so interesting about overcoming obstacles because we think about the glaring obstacles that are all over the news what you just talked about the the real estate market potentially softening, investments softening people were in the crypto obviously we know those story lines. The Crypto Yeah, we have something to I made the mistake of looking at my crypto once when I was on a call with a client like last week
Unknown Speaker 4:48
no yeah, I there's certain I have certain trading accounts I just don't look at because it's just not any point to it. But But yeah, do you think about all those things? Those are the storylines that we hear every day that definitely are obstacles.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
and things that can come over that we need to overcome. But what you mentioned was also some of the other ones that got me thinking this week about this topic. Because, like, for instance, I was on a call with somebody. And not all the obstacles are necessarily always bad, though they often are. It least the result of them could be positive, but the in the end while you're going through, it's negative. So I was on a call earlier this week, or got a message earlier this week for somebody I've helped with a little bit of coaching with, and he's like, Dude, I can't get a single person to say yes, right now, because they're all like, you know what, I need to wait for a little while and just see what's going on before I can move forward. Right? So we talked about some practical sales things you can do to help with that. But but that's the reality, all sudden, you're gonna get clients who either pause or prospects who just pause. That's one obstacle that I had somebody else actually had a call yesterday with somebody who's in an obstacle, because NMSU I'll talk to you about maybe bringing him on the show. He's a brand, he's he's been an entrepreneur many, many times, sort of a serial entrepreneur, if you will, but he's got a new company. And it's actually going so well, that it's actually causing problems. Like it's it's things are sales leads all this stuff. And he's like, Dude, I don't know how to pay people. I don't know what to do right now. I don't, that's an obstacle, right, then you mentioned some ones that are really important. And I've seen this, I know, some, some people in this. I actually know some people on this, that I saw her live on the issues. Like I talked with business owners who have custody problems.
Unknown Speaker 6:27
Gone through law and financial issues, like the list doesn't end. And I think that that's such an interesting, it's such an interesting topic and such something that has to do with our ability to navigate those things. Like, we could give entrepreneurial tips all day long. But sometimes the ability to weather the storm, is what defines whether or not you're going to last for the long term. And that storm can come in any number of shapes and sizes.
Unknown Speaker 6:54
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting. Warren Buffett has a great quote, which is when the tide goes out, you get to see who's been swimming naked. Right? And on.
Unknown Speaker 7:07
You're gonna have I mean, look, if you're gonna be in the market, markets, any of them. And we just had a client taking a massive write down on some crypto that they were staking. So do you know, do you not crypto staking works? Me know. So, crypto sticking is basically and if I screw this up, guys throw it in the comments on, but basically, you put your money into a crypto account and stable coin, right, which isn't tied to anything, and then it gets lent to someone else who's gonna
Unknown Speaker 7:43
speculate with it. And then they're gonna pay you an interest rate. That's pretty high. I think it was like 70%, you know, but the minute what, and this client had to take a write off of a significant amount of money, because the whole exchange went up a stable, you know, the whole thing fell through, you just have to realize it. But what was great about it was he had a great attitude. He was like, Yeah, it sucks, man, can I write it off on my taxes? And I'm like, yeah, and he goes, Great. He's like, good thing, we have more. And for someone else, just thinking about this, that would have totally derailed. Now, from a financial standpoint, I'm like, anytime you're going to get paid more than a bank is paying you you're going to be taking some version of risk, or there's going to be something else. So to assume that it was, you know, totally safe and secure. When you're getting a seven, eight 10% rate of return, you know, we got to have that conversation. But what I was so impressed with was the attitude where it didn't even faze him. He was like,
Unknown Speaker 8:49
you know, whatever, and somebody else was money the same week that was also young that was like I'm never you know, never going into the markets and can never going to do this again. Like somebody's having their heart broken for the first time that will never love again. So I don't know how I got up on that rant. But attitude is a big deal on it. It's a huge deal and I think that idea of like a good thing we have more is just a really good thing to think about when it comes to that mindset like we even much just said and I'm sure everybody on this this shows her the concept of like an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset. But part of what that is like if you dial it down to its simplest parts, it's just realizing that Well at least we have more so even if even if your business goes to zero that doesn't change the fact that you are a smart person who came up with a pretty darn good idea and probably will come up with another one. Right like there's still there's a it's, I don't know maybe like silver lining type of scenario, but it is it's along those lines of like, just stay positive about where you're at and, and and have the right mindset of it like things don't always just knowing and expecting the
Unknown Speaker 10:00
I think you were on maybe one of my shows when or one of my events when we had Brad mark, no speak. Some of you might know him. He runs a company called Six division which does a lot of work with like Infusionsoft. So those of you who are marketing or small businesses using Infusionsoft, you might have heard of them. But no longer Infusionsoft. Oh, yes, he? Yeah, well, which takes forever. It's forever. Infusionsoft. Come on now. So but yeah, but so. So Brad Martin knows actually, I think it's his brother or something. He's one of the founders. And yeah, well, 60 brother comes from.
Unknown Speaker 10:33
Yeah, brother who founded Infusionsoft. Right? So Brad's was the sixth employee and all that. So that's where all that stuff comes from. But anyway, so he had this discussion, and I heard him give a presentation years ago, now you guys have all seen memes on his line. But he's like, in our mind, when we start a business, or basically set out on any journey in life, we assume it's going to be a straight line up like that, you know, like the graph. And then he's like, and then here's the reality. And again, this is like an Instagram meme, you've all seen, but it's just like, it's up, it's down. It's all over the place. You know, he had one of the Canyons is one of the dips is like, filled with water. You know, like, it's all of that stuff that happens. And it was it's an interesting as far as, as simple as that concept is, and as much as many of us has heard that kind of concept. When you're living it, you can easily forget it, that you are this was this was to be expected. Like you could there's no way you were going to start a business and run it for any length of time and not have an economic downturn. There's virtually no way that you're going to run a business for a period of time and not have a personal issue. Like it just it just happened. Like you know, and I think the stress of running businesses causes divorces, sometimes from people, right, especially if it's a husband and wife now I'm, I'm blessed because Ivana and I work in the business every day together. And it actually i They strengthen our marriage like so we're kind of one of those weird examples. That's not everybody's experience with that, right? So is to have those challenges. And so that mindset of understanding that what you're doing is what you're going through is completely normal and and to be expected is is a huge part of it. And we've talked about on the show, too, is right when COVID started, I had a I did a comp like a online conference for agency owners. And it was interesting because I had one of the and I talked about here before Mike RC came on. He's that fitness, fitness marketing expert. And he came on and he one of his comments which I love. He's like, Yeah, for since the the great recession, the 2008 2009 market that you were talking about. He's like, since that time period, we've all been bowling with the bumpers up.
Unknown Speaker 12:45
And he's like, now we're going to start finding out who the real businesses are, and who's going to do stuff. But that honestly happens every day, which is why I make my point. If you're going through a custody issue right now, it feels like a massive market correction. Right? Like it's that distracting. It's that hard. If you're going through a divorce, it's that distracting that hard. Heck, if you're going through a breakup, if it's bad enough, or or even the opposite, you might be getting married, it might be a positive thing, right? And you're distracted, and it can have a negative impact on your business. But understanding that all of these things were to be expected and normal for every single business owner. I don't know. For me personally, it's kind of nice to know that you're not alone.
Unknown Speaker 13:30
helps. It really does. And you know what's interesting, while you were chatting, Dominic, I was thinking about how many of these shows we probably every fourth show we devote some mindset or overcoming obstacles. And if you guys are wondering, you may be like, Hey, man, I just want the tips like what can I do to close more sales? What can I do to write off my taxes? We're gonna have,
Unknown Speaker 13:50
I was just talking to Irene, we're gonna get her on. I think we're going to try to get her on next Friday, Dawn, I'll reach out to her this afternoon or over the weekend. She's the credit lady and how to repair your credit and build credit and establish business credit, like this girl knows her stuff on it. But
Unknown Speaker 14:09
what, what the reason we keep coming back to mindset over and over again, is because that's what controls everything else that you do. And I've coached a lot of people in my business, which is, I have a training program for people that want to help families
Unknown Speaker 14:27
pay the least amount for college. Because I did it for years. It was a specialty I kind of tripped into and what I've noticed is I've had a couple people that you just like everybody's been successful, except for one guy, but his brother in law paid for it. And it was literally the brother in law was just trying to give them something to do and he was absolutely lazy, had no motivation whatsoever. But there was another guy that I worked with whose business he would make
Unknown Speaker 14:58
freakishly large amount
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Some money
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one year, and then he loses it all the next year that he built it all back up, and he lose it the next year. And it was a direct reflection of what was going on in his personal life.
Unknown Speaker 15:13
So it was he had a good girlfriend. And she was like, supportive. And one thing and this was not a young man, this guy was in his 60s, when I was training late 50s, early 60s, and he died right at the beginning of COVID. But it was, he had a good girlfriend, he'd be excited, he'd be killing it. And then he'd get this other girlfriend who was kind of a
Unknown Speaker 15:37
never nevermind. But anyway, she wasn't a good girlfriend, okay. And she'd nag him and harass them, and break up with him and come back into his life. And then he would, he would just his money would go out. And he'd run out of money, and he'd be depressed again. And it was literally what was going on right here. And we kept trying to keep trying to break through that, like, Look, man, you got to separate. You know that from this, and you gotta get your mind, right and feed your mind with, you know, what you want. Not all the misery that is going on in your life. And put that in a box until you're done with work and then go home and deal with it. Or you shoot the girlfriend, not literally, not literally, metaphorically put her out to pasture because she was absolutely caustic for him. But it all came down to mindset. And that's why you can have some of the most revered people that we have in our history like Abraham Lincoln. And I'm scared to say it, but Donald Trump, before he became president was loved and people rapped about him and everything. But hey, that was a man who was a billion dollars in debt at one point and kept fighting his way back to get back on top and getting TV show. And even if you didn't love Miss President, you know, and he's the bad Orange Man. Forget that. But look at what he overcame prior to that, you know, or Abraham Lincoln or pick someone else if you just can't fathom Trump. Yeah, that's that's what I why I have all the books is I didn't read the ones about politics or presidency. But the ones think again, Chagas is one of my favorite books of all times. Well, and it's interesting, because we think about I think it was you actually, so I've worked with, off and on for years with a guy who
Unknown Speaker 17:22
has been on and off the billionaires list a few times, you know, doing pretty well. And it was funny, because I was actually I think it was you a few years ago, and I was telling you about him, I think I'm pretty sure it was you actually. And I was telling I was like, oh, it's crazy. Because like, you know, he's he's made a billion got himself on the billionaires list, then pretty well lost it all. And then started another business got back on the list again, and then lost it all again. And, and did all that stuff. And the comment, again, I'm pretty sure it was you but it or somebody like you who said, so you mean like, like every really good entrepreneur.
Unknown Speaker 17:57
And it's, it's, you know, and and that's one of the things that I've talked to him getting to know him over the years and talking to him a little bit about it is just like he's like, Yeah, I mean, you have ideas, you have stuff that you you think about and, and you put it together, and then the market reverses on you or something unforeseen happens. I mean, in his case, he had one guy, you know, a business partner who basically tried to do a hostile takeover and really bury did a lot of shady stuff to bury the business, it's still that business is still around but, but really cost him a ton of money, then he went through a divorce that cost him a ton of money and not
Unknown Speaker 18:31
not just on the divorce side, not that part of it. But like, the mental anguish and the the time away, and just dealing with all that stuff cost the that money. And then you know, and so that's that entrepreneurial. Again, like you look at most examples you use, you use too, but I think you if you look through most examples of entrepreneurs, even Elon Musk and others, like, you'll see people who are worth billions of dollars or take it down a notch people who are worth a few million, but you know that, that are not so aspirational, if you will that but but somebody you can actually kind of achieve them, there may be few years ahead of you, you'll have seen they probably had five, six failed businesses to go along with the one or two that are really, really successful. And I think even in my situation, like I look back at all the businesses we've done and ideas that we've tried, and, you know, we've we I don't know, we've started, I don't know, Ivana could correct me, but I don't know, five or seven different business or business, you know, sub sub businesses of the main business. And two of them have worked really well. You know, they worked exceptionally well. But there's a whole bunch of others that didn't work or didn't work to our you know, we eventually shattered it because it wasn't worth it. So, you know, the distraction and I even shared that example, under a different situation when we're talking about taxes if you have maybe the last season, or no rants, beginning of this season, about my buddy who is doing his own taxes on a 20 $20 million business, but he shuttered that $20 million business because it turned out well
Unknown Speaker 20:00
He got an actual professional to look at his taxes. They were like You do realize you're losing money? And he's like, no, no, I'm making money. They're not making money at all. And and it's, you know that so that he's like, Oh, shoot. So he's shuttered that business and did and does exceptionally well with the other one. But if you were to focus in on that failure, suppose a failure,
Unknown Speaker 20:19
then then your mindset changes, and then everything feels like it's, you know, oh, I failed, I failed. No, you didn't you just learn something.
Unknown Speaker 20:30
There is so much truth to that, because, again, the market will dictate what's right and what's wrong. And it will tell you kind of an interesting story about this, about how I kind of blew up on Twitter, which was, I will tell you guys the Twitter story.
Unknown Speaker 20:48
We had, this was 2019. So pre pandemic, mid 2019, erratic ran a guy, random guy on Twitter, that kind of worked on Twitter, and I think I had 300 followers. And I'm a little over 30,000 Right now, and I've kind of been on and off Twitter, for the last year, because I did I said something bad about CNN. And literally, I could see immediately they throttled my engagement, like I stay away from politics unless it relates to taxes, you know, and I'll pipe in long enough to say taxation is theft, you know, at least at the rates they're doing it at. And, but so I'm not, you know, supporting anybody, I'm not trashing anybody except Liz Warren, I can't stand her.
Unknown Speaker 21:33
But going through,
Unknown Speaker 21:37
and I found a guy who was into Austrian Austrian economics at the Mises Institute, if you guys have never checked them out, they're kind of like, the epic times but for money, so I get a lot of good articles. And then they'll occasionally throw in a crazy article. But they talk a lot about how to fix Social Security, because it can be fixed pretty easily and stuff. So this guy was clearly in the Austrian economics thought, I gotta give him a call. And so we'd arrange the call one day just to chat. And, you know, because we knew one of the same mentors who used to write for them that I was actually friends with, and he quoted in so long story short, we're chatting. And he's like, Yeah, I've got this little course on there. And I've sold like 700 copies and 100 bucks each. Now I'm driving while I'm talking to him, and I got wrecked my car. And so I'm like, wait, what? You sold? How much? Did you say 700? copies, no advertising bill? You know, so again, seven? What? What is that workout to $70,000 of revenue plus backend revenue from it with no advertising, I had no idea Twitter was that powerful. So I'm like, dang, I gotta do something with this. Now, my business at the time, which was tax and financial, but with a college emphasis was really and again, if you guys have late stage College, we did the interview, while Dominic was on his cruise, getting COVID last week with Ed Sanderson, who I've known almost as long as I've known Dominic, it's a great interview about what to do. And we do need to get back Dominic, because we only touch the financial piece and none of the getting in. But back to this, I started writing about college stuff and nobody cared. The Marketplace on Twitter was literally like, and so what college sucks, start a business from your dorm room, do whatever, but the minute I talked about mortgages or taxes, my accounts Absolutely, like blew up, my engagement was through the roof. And the point was, I just tried different stuff until somebody turned around, you know, and something stuck and resonated with that audience.
Unknown Speaker 23:46
Now, fast forward a few months 2020 I'm like, Hey, would you guys like a course on taxes? You know, like, how to pay the least, and how to talk to your account and how to hire an accountant and all those sorts of things. And the market was like, yes, so we actually sold 500 of those in a matter of a couple of weeks. So the marketplace dictated to me. But the point was, I didn't cry myself to sleep.
Unknown Speaker 24:14
About everybody ignored me on college. I didn't, I just was like, well, let's try this instead. So it's not to brag on me. Really, it's not. It's just saying from personal experience. When you're starting a business, we get people who get so hung up on, I gotta get my LLC, and I gotta get a trademark. And I gotta, I gotta do all that stuff. And I need an office furniture. If I'm going to have the physical space where like, no, no, no, no, no, you need to get clients. And you had that test that you've talked about before, about getting people's opinion. I'll let you try out about that in a moment when I take a breath, but about getting people's opinions on stuff and seeing where the marketplace leads view before you do any of that other stuff.
Unknown Speaker 25:01
And then at the marketplace leads you that direction, then go for it and we can get the LLC and do all their stuff. But if you don't have any clients, none of that other stuff is gonna change. And you guys, by the way, let me take the moment to say that this is the make Mortimore show for those of you just jumping on. We talk about everything related to money. Today we're talking about the mindset around money, but, and the mindset around business and everything. I'm on Crothers, that's Dominic Cummins, of real business advisors. And
Unknown Speaker 25:31
you should you should make money and keep it. That's a good thing. Well, thanks for that. You know, on that note, we could basically just drop the mic that was
Unknown Speaker 25:41
up real quickly, because someone's posting, I can't see who it is. But yeah, there are a lot of advisors like, oh, Lindsey, oh, Hitler's
Unknown Speaker 25:48
that telling him Yeah, you gotta get your you've got to get your LLC and gotta get your financing. It's like, no, no, no.
Unknown Speaker 25:55
Dude, donated, edited. By the way, before I let you speak.
Unknown Speaker 26:01
Dan Kennedy, who is you know, the man that I credit, being responsible with any success that we've had in business beyond a baseline survival level.
Unknown Speaker 26:12
And who wrote a really good book about wealth, attraction for entrepreneurs. And, by the way, which is, I would say, required reading for anybody on here. But Dan mentioned that his average business owner has to go through seven different ideas to get one that
Unknown Speaker 26:31
for sure. Now, you translate that in the sales business for how many contacts somebody needs to follow up with before a sale closes, and all those other things. But the point is, the worst thing that can happen to you, the freaking worst thing that can happen to you is to be successful on your first attempt, because then you'll think it's easy on your second attempt. And we've had in all my years of doing this, we've had one client be successful, his very first year in business where he made a couple $100,000. He used to work for Sony, and he bought out the division that Sony was going to close down, they had tons of money the first year, and then they absolutely crashed and burned the next year. And I remember doing his taxes that first year like bro was great.
Unknown Speaker 27:15
Actually, I don't I didn't do prepare them. I reviewed them and made some corrections to him. But I'm like, man, you're like the one guy. And apparently I jinxed it for him. So just keep that in mind.
Unknown Speaker 27:28
Well, I think something I've heard next season, you know, I'll jump in some point next season. We do have a question. For five. Okay, sorry. Let's be realistic. Yeah. I do want to come back to a question that popped up, which I think is really good. And you kind of alluded to a little bit of the answer on that one, a little bit. But But yeah, I think you're you're absolutely right. Like, there's actually a concept, which we know about from a psychological standpoint called confirmation bias. But a lot of times what confirmation bias will do, especially as an entrepreneur is that you think what's working today and has been working for you for a little while will continue to work forever. And it's rare that that's actually the case, right? There are exceptions to that. But there are like, like, if anybody's ever done like online advertising, through Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, anything like that, you'll have an ad that hits for a while, and then all of a sudden, nobody likes it anymore. And you're like, What the heck right? So that's, that's a very small microcosm of it. But like your example, your guy like we had that I talked about this a lot. And content that I put out is like, well, our first year we did so well. And I was told, I remember telling my buddy, who I've talked about a lot, Robert, the one who I just talked about who shut down the $20 million business, and I remember being with him, and he was chatting with me. And he was like, Dude, how you guys doing us on some of our numbers? And he's like, Alright, thanks some of that. Like, you're doing really well. And I'm like, Yeah, but dude, we're crushing. And it was our first year. And he was like, Yeah, but just be careful. Like, it could change. And I'm like, yeah, man, I think my business models really.
Unknown Speaker 29:00
That conversation still resonates in my head. shot right. In your dream. I do. Yeah, we play golf together all the time. A little bit of a man crush on him. It's all right. I do. I do. That's all right. I've got I've got one on Elon Musk watching him. I never, you know, thought I would admit this, but watching him? Absolutely. Batter Twitter is kind of hilarious, because I'm still pissed off that they throttled my account back in December of 2020.
Unknown Speaker 29:28
Very non political posts. So we do have a question that says, what can you do? Let's see. I can't these. Sometimes it's hard to interpret the handles here, but ch VRL yc. BYOB? Yeah, I don't know. It's like reading a license plate sometimes. So but but we're getting to your question, what can you do when you get stuck? And you can't grow anymore? How to give it the extra to grow to the next level feeling because he's feeling stuck in his current level. And I think actually, I'll start with this a little bit. I think Ron talked a little bit
Unknown Speaker 30:00
about it, to some extent is also testing the market a little bit. So what happens is most businesses or all businesses should have the ability to continue to grow. And if you've stagnated you, you may need to look a little bit one of the things you may need look at is your offer. Like what is it that you're going out there? Has the market changed a little bit around you? Like did like Ron's example, where for many years, and Ron underplays unless you listened last week to that, in the last episode underplays? Like he's literally been the nation's leading expert on college funding for 20 years plus, and 30, almost 30. So, you know, he's been on every single news thing. He's been interviewed for every, I mean, all the news channels, everything on this topic, written books on it. This is his jam, right? But yet, all of you the vast majority of you know him as a tax guy. And that's kind of interesting, because you think about like that business did really, really well. But then it had some obstacles as well. It's still around, but it had a few things. And you went, you tried something different, and you looked at the market was doing for you? And like, I think that's interesting story for you to say, like, yeah, man, I got on Twitter as the nation's leading expert on college planning, and nobody really cared. I'm getting crazy. And I'm so hot, right? So if you already unknown and recognize resource in that area, and then you get on a platform and it doesn't work, then you can start to feel like you're stuck. We're what Ron do is start to look around, hey, oh, wow, sure. These these posts seem to really resonate with people. Let me go. Let me talk about some of that stuff. So I think that's one of those things. And just evaluating it doesn't mean to give up what you're currently doing if you're stuck Koran, but it's also it's an opportunity just to evaluate some things like, you know, it's kind of that whole and I this is overplayed, but like the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, tweak something, tweak something about the way you're selling it, you know, tweak something about the way you're talking about it, try a different advertising channel, maybe put some content out there, if you haven't, up to this point, right. Like if, if you've never done video content, I'm a huge fan of that put out. So stick a camera in your face and say something valuable. But like talk to your audience a little bit and see if some of that doesn't spark some life into you the only other one I have. And then I'll let Ron talk see Google I took over this time. But the only other one that I'll put out there too is is look at your client base and look at your situation currently and see if there is something that's draining you. So in my situation, I've had to periodically evaluate whether or not I'm spending too much time with one client or I've got a situation or an investment or somebody we're working with it's just really taking up a lot of my headspace typically and leads to some form of of stagnation in the growth process. So those are just a couple of practical tips. I don't know we're on went off camera so maybe up Yeah, because the apparently the we had this problem last week or the week before. Apparently the
Unknown Speaker 33:11
got landscaper for the house across the street. His new time is Friday at 830 in the morning.
Unknown Speaker 33:17
You fired up the thing and then my wife walked me out of the house. So I had to dig up the spare key. So I'll be back on camera what's back here? Well, then that tells everybody listening that you have a spare key somewhere hidden around the house if you guys all know where one lives.
Unknown Speaker 33:33
Where the spare key is hidden is literally built worst kept secret. You guys, if you guys want anything out of my house, feel free to come and help yourselves. All I ask is you leave my wine alone. I got some pretty good wine. If you guys want the whiskey or anything like that, knock yourselves out. Just leave the wind out of it. So that's my only request. But what were we talking about Dominic getting through when you when you're stuck when you're just sort of ignited stuck, not growing. I'm gonna have to have a chat with that woman about locking me out of the house. I don't think that was an accident.
Unknown Speaker 34:13
You Yeah, man. Interesting thing is even in the world of advertising. I'm Dan Kennedy. Again, sorry for referencing him. But even an ad a great ad has a lifespan of about 18 months. Literally, they're their highest performing ads because he would write ads for every kind of business. Now we in the college world, we were kind of blessed to have pretty evergreen ads, but even then they would only work every couple we'd maybe get three years out of an ad because the marketplace was recycling every year as people had kids. You know, you might not be interested in a college ad right now because you got a freshman in high school and you're like whatever man like I got all the time in the world and then all sudden
Unknown Speaker 35:00
that kids a junior, they're like, Oh my God, they're gonna be going in like two years, like, I didn't even, oh, I'm in trouble. And it turns out, they have no athletic ability and earn as smart as you said, they were when they were a kid.
Unknown Speaker 35:12
Maybe I don't know. But um, so yeah, even then he would talk about ways that you would, you could take an ad that was running. So again, that you might have paid a copywriter, Dan, I think back then 20 years ago, charge 75,000 for an ad plus 3% of the
Unknown Speaker 35:28
3% of all sales, and you would have to rework it in about 12 to 18 months, then you would have to turn around, you'd get another six months out of it. And then you'd have to turn around and
Unknown Speaker 35:42
take the whole thing and throw it out, basically, and start from scratch. So the point was, even when something's working really, really good, it constantly needs to be tweaked and refined. And you just have to accept that as, as part of what now principles are timeless, you know, when it comes to paying the least amount of money on your taxes, you know, securing more of that money setting aside, ideally, 20% of your income, making sure it's not all in the market. So when the market goes sideways, you're not stuck having cash in your business, you know, training salespeople in helping people turn their side hustle into their main hustle, which is your thing, you know, hey, having clients, you know, following up, following up following up, those principles never change, but the actual specifics might, right, by the way, I gotta bounce like five or 10 minutes early today, just so I thought I'd so that, which I think speaks I love this idea of being stuck. Because this is an obstacle that people can find out years ago, I remember a guy I saw I kind of categorize businesses is like, you know, you have your side hustle from your zero to say, like a buck 50 a year, you know, you're probably it's kind of side hustle, it's probably, you know, it's it's a, you know, it's you're monetizing your hobby, if you will, to some degree. And then you get into that, like when you break through that 150 200 marker on up to maybe the 300, I call it like the look, ma you have a real business kind of thing. Like you actually can say to your mom, like, oh, I formed a company and like we actually like I quit my day job, and they're gonna worry about you and all that good stuff. But that's when you get to that level. And then from some point there forward, you get what I actually heard from another
Unknown Speaker 37:27
guy out there a camera was named right now. Great Scottish accent, but I can't remember his name.
Unknown Speaker 37:33
He talked about how you hit business, Whitewater.
Unknown Speaker 37:37
And that's one of those areas where he and actually what's interesting about that presentation, I wish I could find that looked and looked and looked and try to find it. But I saw it years ago, and it just stuck with me.
Unknown Speaker 37:48
But he talked about that, that's when you have to make a decision. When you hit business, whitewater like things are going, you've grown, you've grown, you've grown. And then you're gonna hit this whitewater spot, which for some people is a small stretch of whitewater other people. It's a long stretch of Whitewater. But where you have to decide is whether you want to maintain a lifestyle business at that point. Or you want to try to go for a scaled business like actually trying to take it to something else. And what happens in why people hit that Whitewater? What in my experience this party didn't talk about, but my experience is they hit that Whitewater, because they didn't have it clearly in mind, which one they wanted to have? Like, did they want to have a lifestyle business where they made two $300,000 a year, you know, take home? And or did they want to try to go to something where they're going to sell it for $10 million in a few years. And because they didn't really have that in mind, maybe they thought in their mind, I want to build a $10 million business but because they didn't have any real clue what that takes, what needs to be done there and how to run financials, they really weren't that type of trained business professional, which most of us aren't, when we start out, they hit that whitewater phase and have to make those decisions. And I think that's where that mindset then comes in that the mindset of yes, it's okay to have a lifestyle business, where you take off to Europe for a month or you go on cruises, or you get COVID or you do whatever, and you make good money and you live the lifestyle that you want. And you're not worried about selling the practice in five or 10 years. And worrying about like investors and all that kind of stuff, or do you gotta go kind of the opposite direction and say like, No, I want all that stuff and I think I see there's a somewhat of a converse relationship to age on that as well. I feel like the older I get the more I like a lifestyle business. But you know, that's that that's that piece where you can make that decision and so again, going back to that question of how do you get unstuck is sometimes making a decision of what you really really want. You may not be that stuck. We just assume we have to keep you can grow without growing to a scale level like you can have just consistent growth year over year. Get better at what you do. I love Frank Kern, Uncle Frank's comment around this is stabilize, optimize expand is his sort of three tiers. And he's like, man, the older I get the less interested I am
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Man expanding, I want to stabilize the business. And then he's like, and then I just advise people double your prices for the exact same thing, just double your prices, and then wait for that to stabilize, and then double them again, and you may never need to expand and all sudden you're making a ton of money. So I think so those are those are those mindset issues around getting around obstacles or getting stuck.
Unknown Speaker 40:21
Yeah, man. So back to mindset. Really good. Great advice. We got about 10 minutes. And then like I said, I gotta bounce.
Unknown Speaker 40:30
What would you say? What is the number one book that you would tell our podcast or resource that you would tell someone who needs to get their mind right to read? Well, obviously, sure, whatever, this podcast because clearly, you're here. So. Yeah, no. So by the way, what's the website? I tried to give it out to someone. I couldn't remember it. So I'm typing it in. Someone asked me like, Hey, man, do you have the back shows by the way? We do? Yes. They're good. But I couldn't remember the website. I'm like, make more keep more show. Make more keep our show. Make more, keep more. So that calm will take you to all the episodes. There's no, no, no. We're on Apple and Spotify and things like that. Right? Yes, Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, like pretty much everywhere you listen to podcasts. We're there. So yeah, we have a we have all the episodes up to this point. All loaded in there for our season, whatever, I don't know 1213 episodes and and the love every day. Right? on their back to the question, what's the one thing you tell them? Hey, man, if you're just struggling right now, and the news is getting you down, or the economy is getting you down, or you were just trying to buy a house interest rates jumped?
Unknown Speaker 41:45
And you can't anymore? What's the top one or two pieces of advice that you would give someone? What should they read? What should they do? Yeah, so one of the things I love, one of the books that I love is is the hard thing about hard things.
Unknown Speaker 41:58
And there's actually a chapter in there called there's no silver bullets. So part of the understanding is, is that there's not going to be a hack to get you out of that. Like, don't go you're gonna spend a lot of time people I see entrepreneurs do this, is they spend a lot of time when they're stuck, or when things are going rough. Spend a lot of time trying to find some way to to like,
Unknown Speaker 42:20
I don't know,
Unknown Speaker 42:22
I mean, speed up, the process isn't the right word. But like just a hack. They want something that like, oh, okay, well, this sucks. Let me let me find some trick to get around it. There are no tricks you got, you got to sit down and do the business fundamentals. And I think getting so when your business is stuck, because it's not growing, or when you're you lose a couple of clients, or when you're going through a divorce or any other obstacle that comes back to it. Don't forget your business. Your primary job, I talked about this in my mastermind with my group this week, is the primary job of the CEO and a corporation. This is answering your question. So keeping this mindset the primary job of a CEO or a big corporation. I don't remember what the question was, I do keep so the primary job of a CEO and a big corporation is to ensure that that company is providing a return to the shareholders. Like if you're if you're the CEO of a, you know, IBM or whatever, is that even a company, you still you that's that's your job, when you're the CEO, call it whatever you are in your business, but you're the CEO of that that doesn't actually change your job is still to make sure there's a return to the shareholders, which means you have to dedicate some time every single day to making sales. Whether it's 50, even if it's 15 minutes, do something that's promoting your business on a daily basis, whether and what you'll find in my experience with this, even though I know you might hate sales, or it's not your favorite part of the business, kind of gotta get over that. But all of that it doesn't really matter. You'll find that sometimes when you have when, when everything else in life sucks. refocusing on your business helps because was my mentor said, I've said it on the show revenue is the best deodorant.
Unknown Speaker 44:06
And it turns out that when you sell something and get a deposit in your bank account, it often makes life a little bit better. So sell something, right? Just go out there focus on those activities and keep selling is part of that mindset. Remember, that's your job as the founder of that company. What advice do you have for mindset or books?
Unknown Speaker 44:30
So,
Unknown Speaker 44:31
just one quick thing when you said that about revenue being the best theater and it reminded me of the Yiddish saying, I'll butcher it a little bit, but I'm getting close. With money in your pocket. You're handsome, you're funny and you sing good too. So I was like that one. But one of my favorite one of my favorite books
Unknown Speaker 44:51
is Self Made in America, John McCormack.
Unknown Speaker 44:56
It came out about, like 30 years ago.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
He was a new york city cop who started messing around in the stock market in the 70s. Right at I think this 70s and made a ton of money and then, you know, like, turned into a complete asshole. And like 2223 would like send a limo to get his girlfriend instead of picking her up himself. She broke up with that. And then of course, the markets turned because they always do lost all his money. You know, because he left being a cop to do in that didn't want to go back to being Irish cop McCormack. And so he kind of went on this journey of self discovery to figure out what's he going to do thought about killing himself, right? It's an old man on the beach. And the story is a great story, because it's his story. And if any of you guys live in Texas, he's the founder of visible changes hair salon, which they were kind of the first ones to put hair inside haircutting place inside the mall, and make it like a studio and make it fancy, but the story of how he got there, and why he decided on it, and the obstacles he hit on the way and the other businesses you tried, is fantastic. And there's a great story in there of Lee Van Vu, which was a real estate millionaire, multi decade millionaire, who actually had to flee Vietnam. And as he was fleeing, leaving all his property, and his wealth behind over there thought about killing himself. And they ended up running a bakery and one of the malls, that the guy was opening a salon. And so they got to be friends. And his story is insane. So he tells it in one of the chapters there, but it's just like, I made my kids read it when they were little. And I mean, my kids still talk about it to this day, the impact that it had on them, because then we can read it when they're like 11 or 12. By the way, as a parent, one of the best tips I can give you is to pay your kids to read good books, books that emphasize entrepreneurship, how to handle money, how to handle finance, how to biographies of people that have overcome obstacles, because it will, you know, I read some of what they're teaching in school these days. And it's not, it's not the principles of self reliance, entrepreneurship, you know, figuring it out yourself, all those sorts of things. So that is one of my all time favorite books. I think it's out of print. So you got to find it use, but it is worth whatever you guys pay for it. It's a fantastic book. And my copy is like treasure. You know, it would be one of the things I would grab besides the good wine if the house was going to catch fire. That is yeah, it's actually you can get it on Amazon. Great, but it's used that you can. And then as far as
Unknown Speaker 47:47
Lindsay puts you were reading books that schools have banned just for fun. Well, that's kind of why it's biting me in the ass now. But I went and bought a car with 600 horsepower, like 590, because the governor of California was like by 2034, everybody's going to have an electric vehicle. And by the way, I would have bought an electric vehicle. It just pissed me off so bad that they said you can't you have to, like Well, no, I'm gonna go the other direction. We can't even keep the power on here in the summer anyways,
Unknown Speaker 48:15
what to do?
Unknown Speaker 48:17
This is an interesting time, and I'm gonna give a total cliche, but it's worth noting the Chinese symbol for crisis has the word opportunity in it. And you've heard that if you've ever been to a motivational speech ever, at any time in your life, they have to trot that out.
Unknown Speaker 48:38
My book Lane was Self Made in America, John McCormack and it's got like, what's funny is he's got kind of a crappy haircut for guidelines about your hair salons. And he's holding his jacket over his shoulder and like standing there looking very wise, but with a bad haircut. That was my book. And Dominic's was the hard thing about hard things.
Unknown Speaker 48:57
Make sure you get the book version and not the movie version. Because nevermind, you
Unknown Speaker 49:03
thought it was funny. That was good, then look at what to do.
Unknown Speaker 49:08
What to do is where is the opfor particularly for whoever wrote about being stuck. The question is where is the opportunity now? Okay, so let me give you a perfect example of this.
Unknown Speaker 49:22
I have a buddy hand but he's pushing it for more than acquaintances. He nods at me asked me how I'm doing when I run into him, but his name is Rhonda grant, Riley grands, a crotchety old real estate guy. And he makes his money in good markets and bad buying real estate kind of unconventional. So let me be perfect. For instance, when the markets crashed in 2008, the housing market crash two and Ron and his students got rich. Going to people who couldn't sell their houses didn't want to get foreclosed on
Unknown Speaker 50:00
and saying, Listen, if I take over your mortgage and I make the payments, will you sell me this house? Because say the house is worth
Unknown Speaker 50:09
seven 750. But there was an $850,000 mortgage on it. Well, you can't sell that without paying 100,000 Go or and the real estate agents Commission's or going through a short sale which is kind of just we'll get Irene on To find out how bad it is for your credit. But the point was, there was a whole industry that he created going and keeping those houses from going into foreclosure. By providing an opportunity, Dominic, I'll take your payment on it. And it might be at a 3% or much lower interest rate. But if housing prices fall 20%, and people cashed out, Oh, love winning through intimidation. Oh, you posted that? Yeah, one of my favorites. But anyway, back to this. So
Unknown Speaker 50:55
what would he do? What do you do with a house? That is upside down? How do you even sell it? Well, here's what he would do. He would go to self employed people that traditionally have a really hard time you locked me out, by the way, we're gonna have words later,
Unknown Speaker 51:11
he would have
Unknown Speaker 51:14
he would sell it to entrepreneurs, newly divorced guys, things like that, that didn't have the credit, but had cash to pay him and down payment, which is how he got paid. And then they take over the mortgage. And a lot of people were just happy to have a house that was their house, that they could decorate the way they wanted, the landlord wasn't gonna give him any crap. And he's like, look, I'm treating you like an owner, I won't sell you the house until you can finance out. But you're gonna take care of the repairs, and you're gonna do this, and you're gonna give me a bunch of money up front. And it was a win win for everybody. Now, I've messed in that business and made money. I don't love it, love it. But there is such an opportunity there that as houses adjust, I may go back and mess around and pick up a house every month, or every other month or something like that, just for laughs. And he's like, Heck, you can find your own house to live in that way. You know, go find somebody who's upside down. Who cares? If you've got a great payment, it'll eventually come back. And you live and get the deductions and all that. So that's an example of where is the market moving? If people are having trouble with other things, where can you jump in and provide value at just keeping your eyes open and asking the question all the time? How can I profit from this? How can I help people and profit from this current circumstance will be a big deal. Alright, man, well, in on that I do gotta balance going back to all the way back to what you said. We're how we started this with mindset is the ability to do that stems from your mindset. And if you curl up in a fetal position, because stuff is going bad? Yeah, you're never going to get there and Okay, have your moment, half a day, drink a bottle of wine, do your thing, right? What every once in a while, we all have those days curve. Fit. Yeah, no, do all that fine. But do it for a minute, rage against them, and then be done. And then be done. And then move on. Because the thing is, is the faster that you can that you can get through that, especially when it's a big enough market condition. Like right now, like a divorce isn't universal to everybody. But like the market conditions right now, when they're really difficult, then there is opportunity for those who can snap out of the depression part of it quickly, and start looking for those opportunities. So it's really again, it's that you're right, about every four or five shows we do mindset. But it's because every other tip, important thing, because none of the other tips will work if your mindsets not right. Let me give you a one last perfect example, I had a buddy who was a cosmetic dentist,
Unknown Speaker 53:53
engineer who he targeted, newly divorced. Because he was like, Look, particularly you know, and this was 15 years ago that we were friends, we were still a little more of a traditional society where, you know, the men had made the money, the women would get the payout. And then they'd need to go find another husband. And he's like, hey, they would think nothing of dropping 40,000 $50,000 Even in a bad economy, if their teeth were a problem to improve their self confidence. Same with plastic surgeons seems with everything. So just realize that if every negative there always is in fact a positive, which is one of the original Napoleon Hill
Unknown Speaker 54:31
thinking Grow Rich principles, which is, you know, out of every obstacle or
Unknown Speaker 54:37
out of every adversity comes the seed of an equal or greater opportunity. So
Unknown Speaker 54:43
I want to try to track down the credit Queen for next week and she's around on so we'll post that and I hope you guys enjoyed the show couple of you but we see JP we're a little late getting here today. Everything's going well. And we're pretty
Unknown Speaker 55:00
shit you guys, obviously there's no show with nobody listening. So I appreciate it ever you guys want to go check the backlash episodes. You can do it here on my Instagram feed just look for the longer videos, but also Dominique, make make more show.
Unknown Speaker 55:15
Yep, make our keep more show.com, your apple, Spotify, anything, anywhere where you can look for podcasts where they're right on and remember get the book version of the hard thing about hard things. Take care, you guys. We'll do it next week. All right, guys. Thank you
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