#18 Navigating Entrepreneurship, Success, and Retirement with Tom Sylvester

 Entrepreneur Tips: Mastering Success with Tom - Real Estate, AI, and Effective Leadership

In this insightful episode, we sit down with Tom, an entrepreneur and advisor, who shares his journey from a computer science student to a successful business owner who retired at 32. Tom discusses pivotal moments such as discovering books like 'The Automatic Millionaire' and 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' that shaped his financial mindset. He delves into navigating the entrepreneurial landscape, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's 'why,' the balance of work-life integration, overcoming the fear of delegating tasks, and integrating AI into business strategies for growth. Whether you're a budding or seasoned entrepreneur, this episode is packed with valuable tips on building businesses, selecting impactful strategies, and scaling effectively.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:20 Tom's Journey to Entrepreneurship
01:05 The Influence of Key Books
03:47 Balancing Work and Life
06:58 Overcoming Resistance and Challenges
12:29 Steps for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
18:08 Tom's Business Ventures
22:45 The Importance of Verification in Leadership
23:14 Military-Inspired Leadership Practices
23:29 Setting Clear Expectations and Continuous Improvement
24:50 Strategies for Early Retirement and Business Success
25:21 Understanding and Utilizing Key Business Metrics
28:18 Effective Traffic and Lead Generation Techniques
38:03 Leveraging AI for Business Growth
40:17 The Future of AI in Business and Coaching
44:02 Concluding Thoughts and Final Remarks 

Transcript

0:06

A lot of entrepreneurs are struggling to get their feet off the ground. I'm here with a special guest today, Tom, and his whole purpose is to help the entrepreneur figure out how to get started, and that's the biggest step for a lot of us. Tom, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah, so. Right now I invest and advise business owners. Uh, but it wasn't always that way. Uh, quick backstory, when I started out in college, I was going for computer science. And as what happens with most people, you get towards the end of college and you start looking ahead at your career and everything else. And, uh, you either really love it or in my case, I looked ahead and I said, what did I do? Um, I met my girlfriend at college and as we got ready to graduate, neither of us had jobs. We had a ton of debt. And I started looking at what my career was gonna look like, and it was sitting at a cubicle for 40 plus hours a week for 45 years. Wow. And I was like, that is not the path that I want to go on. Yeah. And so at that point, I started just looking for alternatives. And I had a friend give me a book called The Automatic Millionaire, and I'm like, man, I don't read books. He's like, listen, read this one. So I read the book and it taught me the power of compound interest. Mm-hmm. Basically means if you start investing, you know, money early on, the longer you invest it, the more it can grow. And it shows you how you can become a millionaire. So I was like, this is amazing. Like I came from very humble beginnings. You grew up frugal and I'm like, I can be a millionaire. Yeah. And then I was like, but it's gonna take like 45 years. That seems way too long. So then someone gave me another book called Rich Dad, poor Dad. And the whole concept of that book is buy assets and then those assets can pay for your life. Yeah. And build that income. So I was like, well if I take this like automatic millionaire with this rich dad concept and put it together, I bet I can do it sooner than 45 years. Definitely. And so at that point I said, girlfriend, which who? She's now my wife. I said, we're gonna retire by 35. And she's like, what are you talking about? We have all this debt. We don't have jobs. Go get a job. Nobody retires by 35. And so we went and got the jobs, but I was committed to like making that happen. Mm-hmm. That's awesome man. Uh, I found that it's kind of a recurring thing. There's some books that are just very influential in people's lives and Rich Dad, poor Dad seems to be one that sets a lot of people on that, that drive and that path to retire earlier or to start their entrepreneurial journey. Or even just starting in real estate, buying assets, things like that. Um, was there anything in particular that you felt like spearheaded you down the path? Any, uh, pokes or prods in your past that maybe just kind of helped nudge you in the direction of entrepreneurship? Yeah, absolutely. I, I think we all have something that nudges us there. Um, and for me, you know, in my past, you know, my parents had gotten divorced. Uh, you know, at 16 I had my own apartment. I was kinda working three jobs to get through school. And so like, I wasn't afraid of work, but I wanted to make sure that the work I was doing, I actually cared about and meant something. Definitely. And especially with my parents getting divorced and, you know, splitting time between their houses, I knew that that wasn't the life that I wanted to create for my family in the future. Mm-hmm. So my big thing was how do I create a life that I have control over? And you know, you ever seen those movies where, you know, the father's like working at the office and like the son has like a game or something like that. The father's trying to get there and they show up and everyone's gone. Yeah. And he missed the game. That was like my biggest fear. Mm. So I was like, how do I make sure that I have control of this and I never have to miss something in life because something in my job or career like dictated that. Definitely. You touched on something that I'm, I'm really passionate about sharing. A lot of entrepreneurs think that you have to have this unglamorous loser business to make money, and I hate that concept. You talked about building around something you want to do. Right. I'm really big on entrepreneurship being a gateway for us to start businesses and work in fields that we're passionate about and that, you know, are fulfilling and give us meaning, but at the same time. What's the purpose of doing that if it's not to make your life better and ensure you make those kids games? Right. It's a balance of, and I'm not gonna say work life balance, that's not it at all, but it's a balance of being able to facilitate the life you want to have through the entrepreneurship journey. Yeah. Well, and and I'm glad you mentioned work-life balance, because I wanna touch on that for a second. So many people talk about work life balance, and I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Oh, I agree. And one of the things I, I found to be so important is it's all about principles and the lenses or beliefs that we have. Mm-hmm. And so I like to talk about work life integration. And really what this means is that you know, you've got some life you want to create, and the goal is to say, how do I build my work that's going to intentionally get me there? Yes. And a really important concept with that is this concept of seasons. And so if we think about seasons in nature, you know, you've got, you know, winter and spring and summer and fall, and that cycle repeats. And in each season there's gonna be certain things that take the forefront and certain things that, you know, kind of set back. Mm-hmm. So when we think about what season we're in, in life, and what season we're in, in business, that might mean that we're gonna spend more time in the business or more time in life. Yeah. Great example. You start the business. You're gonna spend more time there because you gotta get it off the ground. But like when my daughter was born, I was like, business is still running, but I'm gonna spend more time with my family because that's the season I'm in. So I think it's really important to really get clear on what you want and then design and figure out how much time, energy, and priority should go into each thing so that you are not, you know, maybe building a successful business but leaving your family and everything else behind. Definitely. That's a, a really powerful concept and, and. It rings true. I mean, in my own experience, I, when I started my first company, I found myself staying in my office late seven, 8:00 PM just to talk to, you know, distributors or manufacturers or suppliers around the world. And obviously the time requirement there was much greater than what my peers were putting into their jobs. Uh, and they thought it was weird and almost, uh, maybe I lost some relationships throughout the, the way. But they thought it was weird that I was investing so much more time into a business and everyone said, you don't have work life balance. And you're right, I didn't have work life balance, but I was using the work to build to a point where I could get to my life where it wanted to be. And then I integrated the two together. So like, my wife's here now as my executive assistant in the business, right? So it's, it's nice to be able to do that and entrepreneurship gives you an avenue to do that. That's not the traditional. Nine to five slug and no control of your time. Absolutely. Well, I can I hit on that quick? Yeah. So it's, it's very challenging to do something different than the norm, and entrepreneurship is not the norm. Now, you might look on social media or whatever and think that like everyone's an entrepreneur has a business, but the reality is it's a very small group, and that group is, is different. Like they want something different. They're not gonna go down that traditional path. So the second you start changing or going after entrepreneurship, you're gonna face that resistance. Now, sometimes the resistance comes from other people because they're worried about you. Like they, they hear that like, business is gonna fail and you're gonna lose money. So it might come from a place of concern. But here's the thing, for a lot of people, they're actually, you're a mirror for them. And when you step out of the bounds, yeah, they start to look at themselves and say, well, I want to do that, but I'm not confident, or I don't have the means or whatnot. And so they actually are gonna push back on you, not for anything, for you. But because that's showing up for them on how they're not fully living. Yeah. Based on their own subconscious kind of belief and limitations that they have. You know, we heard, uh, Dr. Ben Hardy talk earlier in the week about your frame, and really someone can't fathom what you're doing if it's not within their frame either. So you have two different kinds of people that will offer you a lot of resistance. I think the first is the people that have a subconscious resistance to that and can't see themselves doing it. The second is the people who don't have that in their frame of reference, they can't even imagine that being real. You know, uh, when I started my first business, a couple years in, um, we became profitable. I started taking paychecks, things like that, and I, my wife and I got married. Her parents came over, uh, to visit while we were pregnant with our first child, and they asked me, because I'm, I was running e-commerce online. They asked me, you know. What are you, what job are you gonna get to support this family? And I said, well, I, you know, I own the e-commerce business. I sell things online. And they goes, yeah, that's nice, but what's your real job? And I said, no, that's the real job. That's what pays all our bills. You know, they said, no, no, no, no, no. Parker like, do you need help with money? Do you need, do you need us to buy your food? I said, no, guys, we're doing fine. We're like. They had saw, I came home, uh, actually that day that they were visiting with like new Samsung watches for us, and they were like, it's really not wise for you to be, you know, spending your money on things so frivolous when you don't have a real job. And I tried to convince them that, you know, my journey through entrepreneurship, my starting a business, all those things were a real job. They were all actually paying me, but they couldn't comprehend that world as even possible. Mm-hmm. It's been six years since then, seven years since then. And just this year her dad finally realized that I'm not like a drug dealer and I actually have a company and I actually have employees and we are doing things. Uh, but I mean, it just goes to show you, there are some people that just won't understand. Yeah. And that's okay. I wouldn't get hung up on them. If you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to start or you're, you're someone who's aspiring to entrepreneurship. Don't get hung up on the negative stuff. Right? Your frame of reference and your belief is unique to you as an individual, and that's where you're gonna drive your inspiration from. That's where you're gonna drive your momentum from. That's where you're going to continue to grow from. Hope that made sense? Yeah, it did. And and I, I love that you said that because, um. When I set that goal to retire by 35, I was going after trying to figure out how to do it. And a lot of my initial businesses or concepts failed. Mm-hmm. And immediately everyone was like, well, that's why it didn't work. Go get the job, all of that. And then it was interesting, and my wife was very afraid. She was afraid that entrepreneurship was going to take our time away, take our money, all the risk. But it was interesting. We ended up retiring at 32, not 35. That's awesome. And can, and we can get into some of that and how that worked, but what was interesting was. When like she left her job first when we had our daughter, and then I left my job and there was all this transition that I didn't realize was gonna happen. Mm-hmm. So even though we built a couple businesses, everything was working well. I had transitions of going from somebody that had a job and like a paycheck through the job. Yeah. Even like being part of my identity of like the people I'm around and all of that. But what was interesting was that. People looked at me differently when I made that transition. So my wife and I, we got all these questions after we did it, of how we did it. Mm-hmm. So we started a podcast and we wrote a book together. And what was interesting was in the book, we shared key parts of our journey and I would share it from my perspective, and then she would share the same journey from her perspective. And you could see the very different views. Yeah. On key moments. But the reason I bring this whole thing up, the final section of, so the book is called Lifestyle Builders. Build your business, quit your job, and live your ideal life. Love it. The final section of the book is all about how do you transition from having that job or whatnot into full entrepreneurship. Mm-hmm. Because there is so much that goes on that most people don't realize when you make that transition. So I always tell people like, yes, we can talk about how you build the business and the mindset and all of that, but it's really important to realize when you make those transitions, things are gonna come up. And it's just gonna be one more thing for you to navigate and for you to be able to grow through. Definitely. Okay. Lots to unpack before we talk about retiring, 'cause I wanna bring that up before we end. Uh, let's go back to the viewers and the viewer's journey here. I suspect that a lot of the people watching, the majority of the people listening are young entrepreneurs. The reason I suspect that is I know half of you, they, um, you know, have a business. They have an idea, a lot of them are taking action to get these things off the ground and you know, they feel a little bit lost. They don't have direction guidance, things like that. Are there any like steps that you recommend an entrepreneur taking to kind of create the foundation? What they would, you know, start their business from, uh, you do, you know, consulting, coaching for this? Yep. What's kind of the common trends that you see people making mistakes in, and then how do they correct that? Yeah. There's a couple key things I'd recommend. So first off is just get really clear on why you're doing this. Mm-hmm. Right? And for a lot of people, when I first start talking to them, they'll tell me like a dollar number or they wanna retire early, or whatever that is. So that's a good start, but go deeper. Why? Mm-hmm. Why? Why? Because when things get tough. You gotta come back to having a why that's bigger than the challenge in front of you. A hundred percent. Because entrepreneurship is just gonna constantly force you to grow and develop. And if you don't have a strong enough drive, it's gonna be so easy to stop or shift or go over here. Yeah. So that's the first thing. Well, that's why I used passion as a, a necessity. When you start a business, if you're passionate about what you do, it's easier to overcome those obstacles that get in your way or the roadblocks. Same concept, I think. Yeah. Well, and what's interesting about passion, 'cause you know, there's people that start a business that they're passionate about and they can do well, but I've also seen people that start a business that they're passionate about and they struggle. Mm-hmm. And you know, I love passion, but one of the challenges I've seen, if people start the business purely on passion, is when the passion fades. Yeah, the business tends to stop. So what I like to tell people to do, get clear on where you're going and why. And then the second part of that is get clear on who you wanna serve and who you wanna make an impact with. Mm-hmm. Because a lot of times we struggle when we focus too much on ourself. So I wanna be like, I'm going here and here's the path, or at least what I think the path is. I'm gonna take the first step. It, but it's really about who am I serving and why? Definitely. So I never planned to be a coach or a consultant or any of this. My first couple businesses aren't even in this realm, but the reason that I'm so passionate about this now, and I'm glad you talked about retirement, I don't recommend using the word retire because that's an outdated concept. Yeah. That is stopping doing this work so that you can sit on a beach or do whatever. That's not what entrepreneurs do. Yeah. It's really just a transition. Yes, it's a transition or it's a graduation. What am I moving on to next? Yeah. So that's the important thing. It's like, what am I, who am I serving? And then when I, you know, kind of take the next step in my journey, what am I moving on to? Because quick story, when, uh, I set the goal to retire by 35, and we did it at 32. The first handful of months were amazing. Mm-hmm. I don't have to go to a job anymore. I'm with my kids and family every day. Yeah. We've got money, we've got time. But an interesting thing happened, I started to like get depressed. And I didn't know why and I started seeking, you know, advice from people around me. And what was interesting was people like were giving me crap. They were like, Tom, what do you have to be depressed about? They're like, you are, you're not working. You're with your family. Yeah. You've got money. Like boom, you the things that they say they want to achieve. Yeah. And so that made me feel worse'cause I'm like, I don't know. You're right. But like, what's going on? And thankfully I had some good mentors in my life and they said, well Tom. You have always been hardworking, you've always been driven, and you love helping people and you love building businesses. Mm-hmm. And now that you quote unquote retired, you're not doing any of that. Yeah. That's it. No wonder you're depressed. And that was when I found early on most people what, when, when you ask somebody what their goal is, you know, it's usually a money goal for things they can buy or it's a tying goal for experiences they can create. But then you realize that there's two other components that most of us miss. The third one is the relationships and the people you have. Yeah. And the fourth is the impact of the contribution. So what I recommend for people is get clear on the things you want and the money. That's absolutely great. Get clear on how you want your time to be spent and the experiences you want to have. But then also get clear on who do you want to have deeper relationships with in your life, and who do you wanna attract in? I mean, so much of my success has been going to events, getting around really good people, and having them to be able to be my mentors and guides. Yeah. And then ultimately getting super clear on like, what is that mission? What is that thing that, whether I get paid or not, I'm gonna leave that mark on the world and I'm gonna serve these people. And it's once you have all of those together. Yeah. It's so much easier than to drive the business. But if you're just trying to do it on PA passion, when the passion fades, what most newer entrepreneurs do is they stop this business and they go to the next one they're passionate about, and that passion cycle is gonna go up and down. But if you are committed to serving that group and creating that outcome. It doesn't matter what passion feels like, you're gonna show up every day to serve. Yeah. It's a, I mean, it sounds like that is a concept that strengthens your why into a variety of areas. Right? It's not just a why that's personal anymore. It's a why that's, it's community based. It's a why that's gonna not only change your financial position, but you know, improve the lives of the people around you. I really, really like that, and I think that that's something really valuable for people to pick up on if you didn't. So we kind of talked about who you are and how you got into entrepreneurship. Uh, let's talk a little bit about what your business actually is. Yeah. So, um, my first business was at, the first successful business was real estate investing. Mm-hmm. And so I tried a bunch of things. I tried stock markets, I tried, you know, a franchise and all these different things. Real estate investing was my first successful one. So I did that for a handful of years, and then I started looking at like, oh, well we had this recession in like oh 7, 0 8. What if that happens again? So then I started looking at how do I offset that? So I ended up, uh, buying a building and I have a, uh, wine and liquor store. So that was my second business. But, uh, today most of my, uh, time is spent working with entrepreneurs. Uh, so we work with entrepreneurs that have an established business and are looking to scale it. And the thing that I found with business owners is that you get started and you know, you've got the grit and you kind of figure things out, but there's a certain point where the business isn't gonna outgrow your leadership. And for a lot of us, we've been able to get to like step one or maybe step two, and the business gets stuck. So we help business owners when they get to that stage. To really come back to that why and make sure it's strong and guiding them, really look at who they get to be and maybe what's blocking them or how they get to level up their leadership. And then make sure they put the strategy and the machine and all the pieces in place so the business can continue to scale, not only for their lifestyle and their life goals, but also to serve more and more people on the impact they want to create. I love that. So I'm a huge believer. I'm a leadership and team development coach as well. Uh. You cannot outscale your leadership a hundred percent. You cannot outscale your team. If you want to have a million dollar business, you have to have a million dollar team. If you want to have a $10 million business, you need a $10 million team. And those things require your leadership to match that level and exceed it so that you can continue to guide them. Yep. Brilliant. I love this stuff. So I have a lot of, uh, clients right now and I know listeners. They are doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year still in the solopreneur kind of mindset. And one of the big objections they often have is overcoming maybe the trust issue or barrier of bringing in someone else to their business. Right? And handing off some of that responsibility because it's their baby, right? I mean, it really is. You raise it, you nurture it from zero to whatever it's become, and then they have a hard time letting people in. What's your advice to those people? I. Yeah. Well, so there's a couple things. Uh, first off, with everything we do, it comes back to taking ownership for that, right? And so what, what solopreneurs tend to do is they, and, and you need to do this. At that phase, you start out and you are doing everything. But the thing is, if you are not taking ownership for the growth of the business and realizing that you can't do everything Yeah. Or you can't do everything at scale. That's the first step. So it's like realize that nothing happens to you, everything happens for you. And so for that newer business owner, you can't have the impact you want if you are trying to do everything. You literally don't have that many hours in a day. So what I recommend is get super clear, kind of do an audit. So get super clear on like where your time is being spent. And then with that, we call it the time and energy audit. Mm-hmm. So look at a typical week. And track all the things you do, track how much time you spend, and then there's a couple more categories on each one. First off, what does that do to your energy? Yeah. Does that give you energy? Is it neutral or does it drain your energy? Mm-hmm. And then second. How valuable is that task? Is that a very high valuable task? Like a thousand dollars an hour, $10,000 an hour, depending on your business, maybe a hundred dollars an hour? Is that a high value task? Is it a medium or is it a low? And then what we want to do is basically say, let's find the things that are low value. Drain your energy and take the most time. Because for all of us, we've got a zone of genius. And you might be spending five hours a week in that zone of genius. What you really love doing, what you're really good at, and has a high impact. But most of your time is spent in the other areas. So the first hire is really getting the stuff off your plate that you don't wanna be doing is low value and drain your energy. And why I like to start there is people usually don't fight me on that. They're like, wait, Tom, you're telling me that I don't have to check my email anymore and spend hours in my inbox? They're like, that'd be great. And I'm like, okay, so let's start there. Yeah. And then with that, it's not about just like bringing someone in and say, Hey, go do this. It's about having them shadow you and setting expectations. Mm-hmm. Having them basically watch you and then you watch them until you develop trust and understand that they're gonna do it. And then you can kinda step away. But the key part is then verifying. Right. So I, I'm gonna show you how to do it. Make sure you get it. I'm gonna have you do it and watch. And once I have enough trust. Now you can go do it, but I'm gonna have verification systems that come back in. So now I know, yeah, it's getting done. And then once you do that a couple of times, then you just go back and repeat the process. What are the next things to get off my plate? Who can I bring in to do it? And then what systems or training do they need to be able to take that off my plate? I love this. So I draw on my military experiences. I love it to create my leadership practices. Something that we say often is trust but verify. Yes, I'm going to trust you to complete the tra task. I'm gonna verify that it's done. Yep. With that concept you mentioned setting the expectation on the front and the verification on the back end. So something that I, I try to share with people often is, and this is something you can plug into a business immediately and start getting wins with, in the military, we start every operation with a mission brief. You are gonna sit down. You're gonna detail what the mission is. What does winning look like? The end state, where do you want to get to? It's so key, and how are you gonna do it? Okay. After that, you let your people go execute. You don't need to micromanage the execution when they're complete or the time is up or whatever. You come back and you're gonna reassess in a after action report. Yep. What happened? What was supposed to happen, what actually he happened? How can we get better? That kind of thing. And if you get in that cycle of setting the expectation and then verifying you are in a, a process, a system of continuous improvement. Yes. And when you make that a habit in your business, your business starts to continuously improve because there's no other option, right? The things that you're applying your time and energy to are the things that you're gonna get better at. And if you're applying mental energy to get to learn a process or to think about how you're going to improve it. You're always gonna get better at it. I love that. I absolutely love that. Okay. Do you mind if we ask strategy real quick? Absolutely. So for the entrepreneurs that are listening right now, or the business owners, the executives who are interested in reaching maybe your level of success, right? They still have the goal in their mind of retiring. Even though it's a transition. It's a transition. Um, early or younger than, you know, 55, 60, right? Maybe that more traditional age. For you, what did the strategy to get there look like, if you don't mind sharing? Yeah. Well, and I think one of the most important things when we think about strategy is this question I asked myself when I opened my second business. So just for context, at that point I was still working a full-time job. Uh, started as a software developer, got into like project management. So I still had a corporate career and I had all these real estate investments, and then I go and open this wine and liquor store. Now, I don't know if you know, but a store requires hours to be open. Yeah. And when hours are open, somebody has to be there and, well, I still have this full-time job and this real estate and this store. I didn't really think that through. So I asked myself this profound question and it was, what needs to be true for this to run without me? And that changed the game. And I'll share why. We normally get in and think we're gonna do everything, and we just go. Mm-hmm. And to your point, if we're not like doing that after action report and debriefing and continuously learning, we're just gonna keep doing the same things. So when I asked what needs to be true, it helped me really clarify what the future needed to look like so I could start, start working towards that. So if we think about success, it's like, first off, what? What game are we in? What does success look like? What's the mission? Then from there we say, how do we win? Right. So we're gonna put some numbers on there. Mm-hmm. That could be a financial number, but like there's a scoreboard and then we wanna bring it back and say, okay, so in order to hit this financial number, what are the key numbers that I can look at every day or week that tell me am I winning or losing? In what area do I focus on? Yeah. So the first thing is, let's get super clear on the numbers. Just basic example. Let's say that you wanna do, uh, a million dollars a year and your customers each pay you a hundred thousand dollars. Well, now we know that we need 10 customers in order to hit that million dollars. Mm-hmm. And now we can go back and say, okay, so if I have, if I need 10 customers, how many do I have to make an offer to to get 10? Yeah. Well, let's say that you were able to get 50% of the people you talk to, to then buy. Well, if I need 10, now I know I need to talk to 20 people to get 10. So that is what we call the value chain. And you get a couple of key numbers in place and those should guide daily, weekly, monthly actions. Mm-hmm. So those are the numbers. Once we know what the numbers need to look like, then there's two other questions. One, what actions or jobs need to be done to achieve those numbers? Because we need a system and people or that job to be run. Yeah. And then the third is, who is going to do that job? Who do I need? So at the end of the day, if you've got the numbers you're going after, you've got the jobs to be done to get those numbers, and you've got the people to do it. Now the business can run. And my job as the business owner is to say, what is the next bottleneck or thing that we need to focus on? I'm gonna have other people do the day-to-day and what's working, and I'm gonna solve and attack that biggest problem so that we can continue to grow. So for me, that is what strategy comes down to. That's awesome. Uh, something that you didn't touch on that I'm thinking about and is one of the most common questions that I think most successful entrepreneurs get. It, people wanna know how do they drive traffic, right? You mentioned, you know, if you want to get 10 sales in your business, example, you need 20 people to talk to. Yep. You're closing half of 'em, but where are those 20 people coming from? And for me. Uh, you know, I, I typically recommend Facebook groups and engaging in there and you build a little bit of notoriety. You get in with the admins, you talk to 'em, that kind of thing. And then, uh, from my e-commerce background, it's paid advertising really for me. So, you know, we create our video sales letters or our webinars. We drive traffic to those things and, uh, we let we let those convert for us. Uh, what have you seen that's worked for people? What hasn't worked for people? What might be helpful to the audience? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first off, I love that you talked about Facebook groups, so I want to ask you a question. Why Facebook groups? What's the, what's the reason that you recommend that to people? Well, so typically with a Facebook group, it's, uh, already a collection of like-minded individuals, right? They've already niched themselves down for you, so you don't, it's not necessarily cold, cold. They may be warmer or receptive to your message already, and you know that by the group that they're participating in. Uh, so that's kind of why I like to get into those. And then honestly, it's just very authentic relationship building, right? You go into those groups, you provide value, talk about what's working for you, talk about what you need help with, uh, and you just start having conversations with individuals and you help them. Uh, I like to give them as much help as I can without it actually. Consuming time, if that makes sense. Like if I see a question or a comment or a concern, I'll jump in there. I'll give 'em just a quick response if I have one that comes to mind, but I'm not gonna read too deep into stuff and get super in depth, uh, until they reach out to me. And if they reach out to me and ask me for help, then uh, I typically will answer a question or two and I'll say, Hey, you know what? We should hop on a call. And that's what I would try to pitch 'em into a, a program. If that makes sense. Yeah. So I, I use Facebook groups just because they've already me themselves down. Yeah. And, and that's, I, I'm so glad and you, you explain that really well. So when we look at like, you know, traffics and leads and getting people in, there's many different strategies and just about all of them work in the right context. But what I like to start people with is. Go find where the people that you're trying to serve are congregating. Yeah. And that can be online in a Facebook group or somewhere else. That could be offline at an event or a physical location. But what most people do is they're trying to find one person and have that conversation and that person might not even be aware of the challenge. Yeah. Or looking for a solution. But if you find people that congregate. Around a common challenge or outcome, and then you can get in front of them by being on a podcast, giving a webinar, giving a free training, showing up and giving value. That does a couple of things. One, you don't need many of those groups in order to hit a lot of people. And two, they are more aware of the problem and probably more aware of looking for a solution and that's what you want. Mm-hmm. So I see so many people that get started and they're like, I'm gonna go to the cold people. I'm gonna spend money on paid traffic. If you think about it, that is the longest path for them to become a customer. Yeah. So what I recommend is get super clear on who you wanna be working with, find out where they congregate, and then you wanna work with the people that are closest to making a decision to change. Because once you can learn how to get those people to buy, then you move the step back and say, people that aren't quite ready. How do I speak to them and move them to be ready to go? And that's my favorite strategy. Yeah. So get in front of the people where they congregate, give value and figure out how you can get them to change, to take action to get the outcome they want. Sweet. I love it. The time to unpack here, one of the things that I like, um, just you brought up the cold traffic. People want to go find individuals on their own right. And, and try to bring'em into the business. Because maybe that's the traditional way of doing it, if you are set on doing something like that. The social media platform that I most recommend right now for that is YouTube. And the reason I recommend YouTube is that YouTube is maximally incentivized to one, keep viewers on the platform. And two, uh, YouTube does a really good job. Of making sure your content is going to the right people, because YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. So people don't view YouTube as a search engine. They view YouTube as a video platform, but the reality is people are going to YouTube watching those videos to learn something, and that's the key, right? Because every platform has a different use for people. Mm-hmm. Right? If somebody's going on Facebook. They're not going to learn something and they're not searching. Yeah. But if they're going on YouTube, to your point, it's a search engine. What are they doing? They're going on and typing in the challenge or the thing that they want. Yeah. And so if we think about their awareness and their intent towards purchasing, they're further down the path. Then you random like, I mean, if you go and talk to a stranger, yeah. That's just making a blast. Yeah. You go and talk to a stranger on the street and start talking about something, you don't know where they're at, what's going on. Yeah. But if somebody has come and bought a book. You know, they're interested in that and they're looking for more YouTube's the same thing. They're coming and looking for that. And if you can then be there providing that solution and guiding them through Phenomenal. Correct. So I love, I love YouTube right now. Uh, and I've just found that they're doing a better job. Even, even I, I'm using the Instagram trial reel strategy and that's how blow up my Instagram, but I get more views on YouTube. Hmm. Even posting way less content, like I'll do, uh, one or two shorts a day on YouTube. Yep. I'll do five to 12 trial reels a day on Instagram, and those one or two shorts on YouTube gets probably two to three times as many views as my 12 trial reels. Just because YouTube does a better job of getting the content in front of the people that it needs to be in front of, because it knows what they're searching for. It knows what they're looking for. Yeah. Well, and I wanna come back just to something you said earlier about your military background and that after action report and what you just shared, there is a perfect demonstration of that, right? You're like, Hey, I'm gonna try this platform with this strategy, this platform here, and then afterwards I'm gonna compare. What worked, what didn't, and I'm gonna let that, you know, drive what I do next. And I just think that's such an important thing because so many people just go and do something and assume it's gonna work and when it doesn't, they get frustrated. Mm-hmm. Here's the reality, a lot of the stuff you do isn't going to work. So what you want to do is put the strategy out there, try it, get the feedback, do the after action report, and then adjust on that. And the key thing, if you want to scale and you wanna scale fast, the more you can do that. Yeah. Right? The faster that you can try something, get feedback and do the next thing. The faster you're gonna be able to break through, figure out what works in scale. So I'm a big believer, sorry, I'm just checking our timer here. I'm a big believer in, um, take so much action that it would be statistically unlikely for you to fail. Love it. Right? It, it's the, the Alex Hormoze mindset, or you just keep trying, trying, trying. But you can refine that process with the learning aspect, the verification, the after action review. Right, and I think that really the success formula for an entrepreneur is that if you can one, take continuous action and two, be continuously learning, you will find success. Yep. Right. It would be impossible in my mind for you to always be learning new ways of doing things or becoming more efficient and learning how to be better at what you do and to continuously be taking action to implement those steps and become that. And still fail. Just doesn't make any sense. So as long as you're taking action, as long as you're learning, you win. That's, that's the end, end result for me, at least in my opinion. Okay. We've delved into a lot of stuff here. Can I ask, uh, is there any struggles or obstacles that you or your business are going through right now? Anything that you need help working through or, or any value that I can provide you? Yeah. You know, and, and I love that question. And one thing I'll just say before I answer, I think it's really important to, to give. And then to receive. Mm-hmm. And some people are much better at giving and maybe not as good at receiving and vice versa. So one of my personal growth, uh, you know, journeys over the years has been, I've always been a giver, but I've been struggling to receive. Mm-hmm. And I realized that. It. I love giving because I'm helping people, but if I don't receive, I'm not letting other people have that gift of giving to me. So I appreciate that. Um, what we're going through right now is we've had a lot of success, but there's a lot changing in the world. Sure. You know, at the moment we've got some political stuff. We've got AI coming, and so what we're currently doing is looking at all of our customers and clients and our own business in saying, you know, the Wayne Gretzky. Great Wayne Gretzky quote of, you know, skate to where the puck is going. Yeah. That's the big thing we're focusing on now. Where is the puck going over the next couple of years in terms of, hey, what impact is AI gonna have? What other stuff is coming up? And then making sure our business is set up to support that uhhuh. So, you know, the big thing we're looking at, we do coaching, right? And if you look at AI, for example, coaching typically is broken up into two parts. One is the knowledge and skillset. And then one is the, uh, transformation and the questioning and the like, helping that person to grow. So what we've realized and are working through is that the IQ stuff, the skillset and all of that, that's gonna be way better with AI way faster. So what we're doing is reshifting our business model to leverage AI and what it does well. And then for us really figuring out what is the place and value of a coach and how do we serve our clients in the future. So our current, uh, strategy, and I'll get your feedback on it, is we take AI and let AI do the data analysis, the pattern recognition, and basically act like a co-pilot. Yeah. So we're working with business owners to collect all their data in one spot. We're then having AI to be able to analyze that and help them understand it, to make decisions. And then we're having our human coaches work on more of the emotional intelligence leadership side of that business owner, and then building a community of like-minded people to go through that together. So I, I think there's just spot on. I'm doing the same thing with AI right now where I'm letting it do all of my pattern recognition. Yep. And that's everything from, uh, advertising split tests to. Uh, what's working in my, my Facebook posts, my Instagram posts, my YouTube posts, all of that stuff. I just feed it as much information as I can, and I ask it to find the patterns that are making some posts more successful than other posts or some posts more unsuccessful so that I can avoid those things. Yes. And then I let it give me recommendations for how to create new content. Right. So I already am a big fan of, of that aspect of it. I think the other part, right, with ai, the more and more every single day, the world is gonna become more reliant and dependent on ai. Yep. With that, every single day we become exposed to more AI content and the more AI content we're exposed to, the more fatigued from it we become, uh, it's maybe a little bit cliche in our, our, you know, inner circle group here, but the reality is I'm very convinced. That the in person, the authentic connection is where the future is for especially coaches, right? Because anyone can get on ai, plug in their problems and get personalized coaching and feedback. Now, so the, the actual thing that's gonna differentiate us, that's gonna separate us, that's gonna keep us alive is gonna be, are we making good connections with our people and providing value to them through the relationship based format? So I, I think, you know, you're definitely, definitely on the track that I am thinking is the right track, if that makes sense. Absolutely. And, and I love that you said that with the, with the community piece, because I see a lot of coaches that are, you know, really worried about AI and I'm actually really excited about it because all of us have a zone of genius. Yeah. And for coaches it's about transformation and leveling people up. But right now we end up getting stuck or spending a lot of time trying to do the pattern recognition and all the, uh, stuff that AI is really good at. So coming back to what we talked about earlier with the time and energy audit, man, if AI can save me a lot of time and energy by doing the heavy lifting, it does well, it actually frees me and every other coach a lot more time up to do what we do well. Yeah, what gives us energy and where we bring the greatest value. Okay. So I have to go backwards in time a little bit here. You were talking earlier about. Taking those menial tasks that are unfulfilling, that consume your time, that keep you out of your zone of genius. That's what you're hiring for first, right? Those are the things that I'm looking to automate with AI first. Yep. Ai, right? You do what you do best. You outsource the rest. It's the, the old saying, AI is the outsource now. Yep. For a lot of those things. So you can actually, you know, very cost effective, quickly pass those tasks off. To stay in your zone of genius longer if you didn't catch that hand off the hard menial tasks that someone else can do their low value and stay in your zone of genius longer. Absolutely. And, and I'll come back to something I said earlier. So what needs to be true for this to run without me? Part of it is like, who is going to do it now? So we run quarterly in-person masterminds for our clients and for people that we can help. Yes. So we've always, we, we've run 22 of these, so we already have that community component and we're seeing it be stronger, just like you said. Now here's what's cool. At our last mastermind we talked about how do you build an AI integrated business and that who piece in, in the future your team is gonna consist of people. Doing what they do best, ai doing what is does duds best, and this overlap of people in AI doing it. So in the future, it's no longer just, who am I gonna hire for this? Yeah. It's should this be a pure person, pure ai or a combination. And that's such a great way of thinking about it because AI can now be really a team member for you. Yeah. I I, to be honest. My customer service team was terrified as AI got better and better, that they're like, oh, we're gonna lose our jobs. You're gonna kick us out. I'm like, no. AI is the tool to integrate with our people and our team to make you more effective and more efficient. Yeah, I don't necessarily view it as replacing the individual. I view it as replacing some of their. Time and effort so that they can focus on the things that actually matter and move the needle. Absolutely. So I talked earlier about like seasons and when everyone's afraid of AI or any, you know, innovation, I bring them back. I'm like, let's look at the printing press. Let's look at the steam engine. There's a cycle in spring when it's new, like it's kind of being figured out. And then in summer it like flourishes. And then in fall. Or SAR is kind of like hard work and in fall it like really kind of like takes off or like we reap the benefits of it and then in winter it dies. But then we have a new cycle. So the printing press didn't get rid of it, it got rid of the long medial time and allowed us to do more. So with ai it's gonna be the same thing. Like will there be some jobs that maybe go away? Yes. But if we can look at now that those go away because we don't need to be doing them, what can we do instead? Yeah. Right. Because any technology innovation. It only hurts people that don't understand what's going on and don't adopt it. So with ai, I'd recommend people just start using it and then really think about how can this do the things that are low value and like you said, that you don't like to do, so that you can do more of the high value things in your zone of genius. Absolutely. Man, that was beautiful. Thank you. I think we're out of time. I apologize for that. Sorry I was a little bit late this morning, but thanks so much for coming on, man. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure to have you. Absolutely appreciate it and keep doing what you're doing, man. This is, uh, so important and the more that people can hear this and hear from other people and the perspectives and the wisdom, uh, the better off you're gonna be. So listen to all these shows. There's so much wisdom, and thank you for just asking such insightful questions to get this conversation going. Go team. Beautiful dude. Great job man. Awesome. I love, uh, I love just your ability to have the conversation flow. And, um, you know, even just like the small nuances of, you know, when you're looking to the camera and speaking to the audience. Mm-hmm. And when you're looking at the guest and just kind of connecting. That was right at 45 minutes too. Beautiful. It'll be a good episode. Awesome dude. Thank you for, uh, being willing to come on and dude, I'm glad we did story and uh, yeah, a hundred percent. And man, if I can, uh, I know I gotta run now, but yeah, if I can help you or your community or anything in the future, you know, don't hesitate to reach out. I appreciate it, man. I'll, uh, upload all, well, you know how slow the Mexico internet is. I'll try to upload this to, uh, Google Drive and give you all the footage and everything too. Oh, beautiful. I mean, this is what I've been doing for, uh, content creation for a while now. Oh.