#38 Funnels Don’t Work Like They Used To (Here’s Why) with Lisanne Murphy

Marketing strategy, Facebook ads, business growth, content marketing, entrepreneur mindset—Lisanne Murphy explains why modern marketing is broken and what actually works now.

In this episode of Based Business, Lisanne Murphy shares how she went from studying food science and public administration to building a successful marketing agency, growth lab, and podcast focused on helping entrepreneurs scale with trust-based marketing.

After teaching herself Facebook ads while working at Deseret Book, Lisanne built an agency during the rise of social media marketing—but says everything changed after iOS14, increased saturation, and declining consumer trust.

Her biggest insight?

👉 Most businesses don’t have a traffic problem…
they have a trust, messaging, and positioning problem

💡 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why Facebook ads and funnels don’t work like they used to
• The new rules of marketing after iOS14
• Why trust-based marketing beats “growth hacks”
• How to identify hidden revenue leaks in your business
• Why most entrepreneurs niche incorrectly
• How psychological pain-based messaging increases conversions
• Why organic content + paid ads work better together
• How to build a scalable content engine
• The difference between selling what people want vs what they need

🚀 Who this is for:

• Entrepreneurs struggling to grow online
• Coaches, creators, and agency owners
• Businesses frustrated with declining ad performance
• Founders trying to improve messaging and positioning
• High achievers questioning fulfillment and legacy

🔗 Connect with Lisanne Murphy:

🌐 Learn More / Work with Lisanne: Lumina Growth Lab
 🎙️ Podcast: The Marketing Matrix
 📸 Instagram: @lisannemurphyhq

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Meet Lisanne Murphy
00:25 Growth Lab Origins
01:46 Mastermind Connection
04:48 Entrepreneurship Reality Check
07:19 Holy Grail Debate
08:45 Money Versus Fulfillment
10:33 Family Roots And Boxes
14:54 Legacy And Selfishness
15:47 Parker Legacy Fears
22:30 Franklin Genius Stories
28:06 Defining Legacy
33:35 Faith And Business Drive
38:17 Service And Self Care
42:27 Entrepreneurial Beginnings
44:30 College Mission Pivot
46:14 MPA Meets OBHR
47:42 PhD Plans and Life Callings
48:38 Deseret Book Marketing Detour
53:05 Learning Facebook Ads Fast
55:13 Agency Born From Side Hustles
58:35 Facebook Ads Then vs Now
01:04:16 Organic Content and Trust
01:12:21 Follower Growth Trap
01:18:54 Niche Down Without Limiting
01:24:24 Psychological Pain Niching
01:27:12 Why Funnels Fail
01:28:05 Find Pain Language
01:29:56 Ads Research Pattern
01:31:34 Selling Leadership Help
01:32:42 Red Cross Rant
01:35:56 Coaching With Mandy
01:38:25 Sell Wants Give Needs
01:42:40 Message Symptoms Not Roots
01:47:40 Military Leadership Systems
01:51:52 Content Engine Strategy
01:55:22 Platform Fit And Repurpose
01:57:25 Pick One Platform
02:03:29 LinkedIn And TikTok Issues
02:08:07 TikTok Shadowban Spiral
02:09:16 Addiction and Boundaries
02:10:19 iOS14 Agency Wakeup Call
02:11:54 Choosing Travel Over Hustle
02:14:22 Monastery and Mindfulness
02:17:12 Japan and Host Travel Tales
02:22:09 Why Buddhism Resonated
02:25:33 Funding Travel Break Even
02:27:42 Travel Lessons for Leadership
02:33:29 Trust Systems to Delegate
02:36:54 Building Teams and Mentorship
02:44:07 Messaging Niche and Wrap Up

#marketingstrategy #facebookads #businessgrowth #entrepreneurship #contentmarketing

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Recognizing hidden patterns is often the key to solving the puzzle that leads to your success. I'm here today with Lizanne Murphy, and her superpower is finding those patterns and identifying them. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Yeah. Well, first of all, Parker, thank you so much for having me on the show today. Super excited to be here. Woo-woo. So my name is Lisanne Murphy. I am the founder and owner of Lumina Growth Lab. Lumina Growth Lab is a growth and scaling consultancy and agency. So I work with businesses to help them find missed opportunities. I like to think of myself like uh Sherlock Holmes. I like to pop up in the hood of the business and look for missed opportunities that people can lean into to leverage their growth. Um I also run a podcast myself. And so it's always fun to be on other people's podcasts. So my podcast is called The Marketing Matrix. So I started that in 2019 and we just hit our 200th episode. Right on.

SPEAKER_05 1:00

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

Thank you so much. So super excited about that. Um that's a little bit about me professionally. Um I am an avid, avid learner. And I so I I love I love to read books. Um when I was when I was in my dating area era, I would say that I ate business books for breakfast. That was like my dating profile. Um so I love I love to read and I love to consume. I love all things that are that are philosophy and business and and frameworks, it all that kind of stuff really fascinates me. Um I love to cook. Cooking is probably my my creative outlet. And uh so yeah, I can I can get me a give me a kitchen, some protein, some vegetables, and a knife. And I and I can work some magic.

SPEAKER_05 1:45

So I gotta tell you guys, I um we met after my first in-person mastermind October, right? Uh Mandy Keene introduced us, so I know longtime listeners, you guys know I always talk about Coach Mandy. Um and then you came to my January mastermind. I have never been so immediately caught off guard by someone's intelligence than when we were talking at the uh suite in the jazz game, where I was just like blown away in how you process information and the logical flow. And I said to myself, that's exactly how I perceive my own thought structure to be. And I said, Is this how other people feel when they talk to me? Are they like uh intimidated? Anyways, uh, so I I felt like there was um a pretty big similarity when it came to how we're thinking and solving problems. And I I like a lot of the things that you're saying. They are, in my opinion, and I've talked about them on the show many times, keys to success for someone to build a business to scale something of value, consuming information, always being willing to learn, right? And and taking that and making it the practical application of you and your craft. So your introduction, I'm just like, ah, yeah, this is all the stuff I love.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

I love it. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me at that event. That was truly a landmark event for for me. It was it was really, really important for for me to experience that. And you created an incredible environment. It really was remarkable to see what you did there. And it's funny you say that you identified with the thinking process because I felt the same. Like when you were standing in the back of the room, standing at the mic, you had your notebook, and like you were like writing notes as you were listening to people present their business problem. And like as you presented it, I was like, absolutely like there, like there, like everything that you said, I was like, yep, yep, yep. That's like exactly what I was thinking. So it's definitely a a likeness of mind there for sure. I felt I felt the same thing. And it was fun. It was a fun way to get to know you by watching you uh interact with your community that you're building there. So it was fun.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

I told my wife when we uh we got in the car to go home afterwards, I was like, I don't know if I've ever been like so caught off guard or in or I think I used the word intimidated, but it's not true intimidation, it's it's that like immediate respect for the thought process. I was like, I don't think I've ever experienced this before. It was just really uh unique. So I was pumped when you agreed to come on the show today because I'm like, this is I think gonna be something that's one, really valuable to the audience, sure, but I'm a little bit selfish, I'll admit it. It's gonna be really valuable to me to have uh, you know, that that sounding board and that level that we can maybe work through some stuff and grow together.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Absolutely. I can't wait. I think this is gonna be a really, really fun conversation. Okay. Can't wait to dive in.

SPEAKER_05 4:48

I I typically start the show. I want to get to know you on a little bit of a more historic personal level. So the reason I ask is often because, you know, entrepreneurship, um, business ownership, even just high-level executive operation is not really for everybody. And the reality is I think there's a disservice in marketing entrepreneur type circles right now, where everybody's peddling, you gotta build your business, you gotta sell, you gotta like, and it and the reality is it's just not for everyone. Um, there's a lot of risk associated with it. It takes a special person, is what I'm really trying to say to go down this path. I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing, you know, what kind of in your history and background led you into starting a business, starting a podcast, getting involved in marketing and scaling organizations.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Yeah. I love the question. And and, you know, to be completely transparent, I am still very much in the journey. You know, I can I can't say by any any means that like I have arrived and found it. I I think that my my journey is very much like I'm in search for my holy grail. And I think that most entrepreneurs are feeling the same. I think there are very few professionals and even fewer entrepreneurs where they feel like this is it. You know? Um, and I've spent a lot of time, frankly, like beating myself up for trying something and having it fail, or like like, you know, you know, the saying, like, you know, I built a ladder, but I realized when I got to the top that I was leaning against the wrong building.

SPEAKER_05 6:32

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

I have done that so many times and been really frustrated with myself, but in the process, and actually, and and I've had Mandy as as my coach as well in the past. And she was one of the one of the coaches and voices in my life that helped me realize like how dynamic I've become as a human being by building my ladders, quote unquote, on the wrong wall. And I think because I I don't feel like I've quite found my holy grail yet, it feels like they're the wrong walls. But like I just did, there's like this glimmer of hope like in the back of my mind that's like, you know, there's there's going to be a point where it will all converge and it will all make sense, and none of it will be quote unquote wrong anymore.

SPEAKER_05 7:19

I'm curious about this concept. You mentioned the holy grail a couple times now, and it's not something that I typically identify with, largely because I think when you find it, you've fallen in love with the journey so much that that can't be it. Right? I mean, that's how I perceive it. Sure. So even if I did like find my holy grail, could I ever actually be satisfied with the holy grail? Because the the process of you know building my businesses for the last decade, I I genuinely, I think, love the game. And so like when one thing ends, the next one just starts. Or when I need to make a transition in my life, I'm transitioning from one business into another business, but they're all Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

I think may maybe you're a much more mentally healthy human being than I am. But for for me, like to like I love that you bring it up, you know, what what what is the holy grail? Because I I do agree with you that the destination is never as exciting as the journey. Like I'll never forget when the first time that my bank account showed six figures. And I was like, oh my gosh, like this was a dream for me, you know?

SPEAKER_05 8:37

And and how long does it last?

SPEAKER_04 8:39

I know, right? And and as soon as you like you hit that, you're just like, well, why not seven?

SPEAKER_05 8:44

Yeah. It just continues.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

And so that mark continues to, you know, move out into the horizon, especially if um, you know, for those that are listeners that are personality test junkies, like I'm an Enneagram three, and so achievement is something for me that is a huge driver. And so I think like by nature, it it's very natural for that mark to continue to move. So, what is the holy grail for me? The holy grail for me is finding something that is where I'm I'm deeply passionate about it and it has lucrative success.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

That's kind of how I've like defined it because I've had lucrative success, but I and I've had deeply, deeply fulfilling work, but I haven't had both at the same time. And so for me, like that's what I'm searching for is like how can I be completely aligned with who I am in flow, where I wake up and I'm like, let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

And it's that money is money is flowing freely and easily.

SPEAKER_05 9:49

I'm grateful you're sharing this explanation because you know, when I was talking about my pursuit of the holy grail, maybe, and even if I got it, I wouldn't be satisfied. I think here's why I'm mentally unhealthy. I associate it with the number, with the figure, right? And not necessarily with the fulfillment. So I'm glad that you're sharing this definition.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Yeah. Well, and and I think that, and and I've I do feel that some people people are wired differently, right? Some people are wired that like they are after that monetary number, whatever it is, right? That makes them feel secure, successful, and like they have arrived in some form or fashion. Yeah. Um for whatever reason, I am wired for fulfillment. Like, even like my dad is a first-generation immigrant from the UK. And he's an amazing man. I mean, he came to the United States at 27 with a suitcase. And his father was living in Vegas at the time, working on like the marquee electric signs, and he came to work for his dad. But his ultimate dream was to come to America to get an education and live the American dream. And in all senses of the world, like he did that. Like I was very blessed. I grew up in a middle-class American family, and he really did provide for us. And when I was going through my education, he would always say, just get a job. Like you just, you just need to get a job. Like, get a job that'll pay well and it'll all work out. Right. And from his frame of being a first-generation immigrant, like that makes sense. And I was always so frustrated because I was like, it's not just about the job, it's not just about the money. Like, I want to find what really is what really drives me. And one of the things that's been challenging for me is because I'm such an avid learner, my interests are so varied that it's been really hard for me to find a box to fit in. And I keep looking for a box to fit in.

SPEAKER_05 11:51

You know, Mandy told me something about that once. Because I am a, we mentioned Enneagrams, I'm a seven. I don't want to be trapped. So I don't want to be in a box. Interesting. And she told me, she said, you know, everyone thinks about are they in the right box? What box do they need to be in? You don't want to be in a box. The reality is, regardless of how anyone self-identifies or perceives it, you're already in a box and you just don't know it yet.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

I think that's true. I think that's true. Yeah. And and what's been really interesting is like one of the lessons that I think that I'm supposed to learn in my life and that I'm learning slowly, it's one of those things where it's like, you know, I keep getting smacked with the lesson.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Is that I don't belong in a box. That like and it's okay to create your own box. It's okay to make a Franken box.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Um but that's been challenging for me. Like I always had this vision of like when I was small, it even as a child, like when I was nine years old, I was up really late at night with the flu one night, and my mom was wonderful and took the opportunity to say, you know, Lisanne, what do you want to do when you grow up? You know, and I think most nine-year-olds, they have some inkling, and it's usually some box. And whether it's accurate or not, you know, they'll say, Oh, I want to be a doctor, or I want to be a fireman, or I wanna, you know, they have they have like a job description in mind.

SPEAKER_05 13:18

I wanted to be a soldier.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Yeah. And at nine, I said, you know what? I don't know. But I know I want to help people. It's like while that's you know, cute and altruistic and stuff, it also was like really challenging because there are there are so many ways to help people. Yeah. And throughout my professional journey, I've always found a way to frame what I'm doing in terms of helping people. Like, for example, um the last, geez, how many years is it now? Eight years, as I've run a marketing agency, my frame is that as I work with businesses to help them unlock their potential, like there is no greater satisfaction than like seeing the light come on and realize, like, and have them say something like, I didn't know I could do this this fast.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

I didn't know that this was possible. Like, wow, like that's amazing. And so, like, I've I've been like, wow, like that is such an amazing, fulfilling purpose of helping a business owner reach their goals and dreams faster than they feel that they felt was possible.

SPEAKER_05 14:27

And think about the second and third order effects of that. That's where you really help people. Because you while you're helping the business owner, how many jobs are created? It's just as the business grows, right? More salespeople, more warehouse, more fulfillment, they're shipping products or or you know, providing services. They have uh buildings that they need to maintain, like everything just grows as a result. That's so there's there's untold number of lives that you help when you help the business owner.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Yeah, that that is true. And perhaps this is like a selfish nature of me, but there's also a piece of me that's like, but but what about me? What about my business? Like for whatever reason, building other people's businesses, while it's fun and it's been an amazing education. Like the variety of industries, funnels, business models, and opportunities that I've had to work in are it's priceless. And to be able to like be paid to learn how to do all these things, like wouldn't trade it. However, there's still this going back to that holy grail of fulfillment. Like, for me, it's like, well, it's not my business. It's not mine. Like I'm I am I am supporting other legacies, but what about mine?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

And for whatever reason, the helping support of other people's legacies isn't sufficient for my soul. And maybe that's selfish. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

Okay. This is freaking un oh uh wow. Um things happen for a reason. I believe in divine timing, I believe in the hand of God, and I'm just gonna say that he's pushing, makes things happen in your life when things need to happen in your life. I just had a call with Mandy, like it was either yesterday, it was yesterday. I had a call with Mandy. Sorry, the days blend together. I got a new baby at home, we're not sleeping. I told Mandy, thank you. Everything that you're talking about are things that I told her I had problems with personally on that call yesterday. Oh, interesting. So I'm like, what is the odds? Like, obviously, there is a lesson here that I have to learn. Yeah. Because this is now a repetitive theme in my life for really the last month, but very vocal the last couple days.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Tell me more.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

It I so I've taken some notes.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

They literally are a linear flow of the timeline of things that I've been struggling with talking about over the last month. So another crazy sign here, perhaps. Um You talked about the intersection between money and fulfillment. One of the things so I try to talk to Mandy as much as I can.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

It's a smart move.

SPEAKER_05 17:07

Like, I I if I can get on a call with her every week, I'm on a call with her every week. She throttles me sometimes to every other week based on her availability, but um so last week's call with her, I was explaining um that I have a legacy fear. It was stemming from my son. My son, Franklin, is a genius. And I don't mean that like every father's gonna say their kid's a genius. I am oh so when I uh uh was talking about, you know, meeting you and intelligence and the intimidation, I'm actually afraid of his intelligence. It is not often that I feel like I'm in a room with somebody who is just so vastly superior in IQ than me. And I was explaining to Mandy, I'll tell you some of the stories in a minute, they're kind of fun. Um, but I was explaining to Mandy that I had this crisis, perhaps, in my mind that anything that I did, no matter how hard I worked, no matter what I built, no matter how much I achieved, I was going to be forgotten because I was going to be overshadowed by my son. So that was the starting point for this downfall that we're about to go into. Not really a downfall, but yeah, I don't know the term here. The the waterfall of thoughts. Talking to her about this, unpacking it, you know, what's the root fear? Most people's root fear is death. My root fear, I think, is leaving the world, specifically my children, in a place where they will be taken care of, their needs are met if something happens to me. So my fear is just are my kids taken care of? My wife taken care of. If they're taken care of, it doesn't matter if I die, I'm dead, whatever. Weird. Okay. But from there, we're trying to unpack a little bit more. Well, okay, to achieve that, to mitigate that fear, we take action, we try to prepare ourselves, we plan. And we get to a point where we're unpacking that I chase money goals. Like I told you, my I'm I associate the holy grail with numbers.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 19:34

So yeah, it was six figures, then it was seven figures, then it's okay, let's build an eight-figure business, and now it's let's multiplic uh multiply that process and do it again with other businesses. Let's coach others. And it's always about I'm chasing a metric. But what I really want is fulfillment. And that's why I do the coaching and the consulting piece. Because when I do that and I help other people achieve their potential and I see their success and I see the impact that that can make going forward for like I mentioned, the trickle-down waterfall type effects where you know I help somebody double their revenue and they get to hire new employees, and I mean all of the lives that get affected from that. But the two don't necessarily align the same way. Like the coaching is one of my smaller businesses right now, and we're growing. Next logical point in this flow is that I feel selfish about it. I don't ask for help. I want to do more coaching, consulting, help other people, because that's what's fulfilling to me. But I feel guilty asking people for help, guidance, assistance because I've already had monetary success in other areas, and I feel like I I shouldn't take those resources from other people, I should be content with what I have. That selfish thought ties back into my fear with Franklin overshadowing me. I want to be remembered. Not necessarily by the world, but at least by my family. I don't want to be overshadowed. I'd like to have a building named after me sometime, and maybe a statue in downtown or something, you know. But then I feel really selfish about it, because that's a personal legacy type thing. And there's no necessary reason to have that desire or that drive, other than I want to be someone who was respected. I want to be someone who has that notoriety. And I think it's more so for the fact that I'm if I'm doing that, I'm setting a very high bar for my children to follow. So it's like I'm I'm setting the example that I want them to pursue. Yeah, okay. I just had to get all that out. Because I'm identifying as you're talking the patterns in where my fears and insecurities are right now, too.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Yeah.

unknown 22:09

Do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_05 22:10

Thanks for letting me just dump that in.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

I know I it's very fascinating. Do you feel like you're trying to set a bar so high that Franklin can't reach it so that he can't overshadow you?

SPEAKER_05 22:21

Yes, but I have I have absolutely no belief that that is possible. Here's the stories. Franklin is six years old. When did you learn multiplication?

SPEAKER_04 22:36

Oh geez. Probably like when I was like nine or ten.

SPEAKER_05 22:40

Yeah, for me it was fourth grade. Franklin has mastered multiplication. And I don't say that like he memorized his one through ten. The other day we're building number blocks. Right? Little little blocks they stack together, you can make shapes and things with them. And I build a cube. Franklin looks at that cube and says, Dad, that's a 27 cube. I said, 27? He's like, yeah. Yeah, that's that's 27 blocks. It's a cube. I'm like, oh. Cool. I'm like, I don't know how he knows that, right? So I ask him, I say, are there any cubes smaller than 27? He's like, dad, dad, duh, eight. I'm like, oh. Okay. What what's smaller is there a cube smaller than eight? He goes, well, it would be one, but one's not really a cube. It's just one. I'm like, okay. What cube's bigger than twenty-seven? Sixty-four. Duh. Come on, dad. Like, don't you know your cubes, dad? I'm like, yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's a six-year-old.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

This is remarkable.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

What cube's bigger than sixty four? Dad, it's a hundred and twenty-five. Come on. Stop. Why are you asking me about all these cubes? I'm just trying to play with my number blocks. What cubes bigger than 125? He's like, Dad, come on, it's 205. Oh, sorry, 206. I uh my bad. I'm like, how do you know this? He's like, well, dad, it's just the pattern. I'm like, what pattern? He's like, it's just the number times a number times a number. I'm like, I didn't learn that until I was 10, 11, maybe?

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:18

And he's just memor he just knows that. Like, that's he's he identified the pattern, memorized the pattern, and can do it in his head just immediately. Yeah. So I see that and I'm like, I was never that good with numbers. And I I got advanced degrees and business algebra and so that's the first one where I'm like, okay, that's I I'm scared a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 24:44

He's wired different.

SPEAKER_05 24:46

Yeah. He asked me to go to Mathnasium for fun.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 24:52

Like he just wants to go to Mathnasium.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Um the other day we're up in his room, we're building Legos. And I bought one of those big Lego buckets with like a ton of builds in it. And we dump out the bucket, we dump out all the pieces. And Franklin says, Oh, I want to build this one first. He points at the instruction book and then just goes to the pile, starts pulling out all his pieces. And I'm like, Well, buddy, let's look at the instructions and make sure we get the right pieces. He's like, Dad, I got it. And just pulls out all the pieces he needs. And I'm like, Yeah, okay, whatever, dude. We open the book to start building, and no joke, we used every single piece he pulled, not one more, not one less.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 25:34

And I'm like, there's pieces hidden inside the build. Like, how did you know that? He's like, Well, I could just look at it and I saw what I needed, so I just grabbed it.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 25:45

I'm like, okay, I could I could not do that. And there's not often times that I come to a point where I'm like, I can't do something. Normally I know I can do something. I figure out how to do it as I go.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:58

A little bit later in the afternoon, we're doing a bigger build, a little bit more complex, maybe a couple hundred pieces. You know, most people they do their Legos and they lay out their um their instruction sheet. They try to match the build so you're holding it at the angle that the sheet presents it so that you can look at it. And Franklin's sitting across from me. So the sheet is upside down to him. And he's just grabbing pieces, plugging and playing at full-time speed. And I'm watching him do this, and I'm like, Don't you need to look at the instructions? He's like, I can see them from here. Just and I'm like, the spatial reasoning on this. I can't even, I mean, like, I could probably do that, but I wouldn't do it as fast as him. So I'm seeing this stuff happen in real time, and I'm like, this is a six-year-old who was going to surpass anything that I can achieve or accomplish. Now, Mandy brought up a point that, you know, this is a really good sign, Parker. And it shows that you're nurturing him and facilitating his growth and you're letting him learn, and you know, how many of us got held back by our parents or the system. And I'm like, sure. And I I love and agree with that mindset. That doesn't mean I'm not absolutely horrified by the fact that whatever I do will never be enough to stay ahead of him. Okay. Anyways, that's my that's my my current my last month. My last month of uh midlife crisis, perhaps.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

Yeah, it's really it's really fascinating. I f I first of all, I appreciate you sharing that. It's really interesting.

SPEAKER_05 27:37

You, I think, have a very similar problem-solving flow. So uh as you're talking about this stuff too, and I'm just identifying it, I'm like, holy smokes. This is uh a point of connection that I felt like needs to just be made so that I can know I'm not alone in this world, that someone else can identify the horrors that I'm experiencing. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

Yeah, I think I think it's really interesting that you that you bring up legacy because you know I think that legacy is something that I have uh how do you define it and what does it actually mean, you know, and like I've always like ev even since I was small, like I've I've had a vision of you know helping lots of people and speaking on stages and and having ideas that are very, very impactful in the world. But then I also, you know, am like, well like for example, on on my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of my most profound lessons that I learned as a missionary was like I I was really hard on my companions in terms of like if they were slow or disobedient or like having a lazy day or whatever, I'd be like, we are doing the Lord's work, get up, get out the door.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

I called her the hammer.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

Yeah. Like, I don't care if you have social anxiety, like we are knocking on this door, we are having this conversation, like this is our purpose. And I was very frustrated with my companions when they were human.

SPEAKER_05 29:30

And when I got back, we're gonna relate on a whole machine level right now. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Yeah. When I got back from my mission, I realized that I was trying, I was going for the numbers. Right.

SPEAKER_05 29:44

Like I wanted to fill out my daily planner and Enneagram three, you seek achievement.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Yep. Yep. I wanted the numbers, right? And I knew that if we could talk to so many people, have so many conversations, that we would end up with so many lessons and so many baptisms. It was just it was a trickle-down of flow, just like it is with e-commerce or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:03

Uh, it's funny. Okay. I'm rewinding in my head. Ben Hardy in his book talks about the missionary that does this. Is are you the missionary that did this? Yes, absolutely. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

So, but the but the lesson was like I I realized that, you know, any soul that I had an opportunity to impact on my mission, the amount of time that you spend with them is so minimal in the grand scheme of things. Right. You know, it's why President Hinckley was like, you know, for people to stay in the church, they need a friend, they need a fellowshipper, they need to have community. And it has to be outside of the missionary, right? It's like it's critical for people to be able to stay in the church. Right. But for me, like I, and so I didn't recognize like the power of saturation of human influence. And what I didn't realize is that honestly, like the greatest people that I could have impacted on my mission were my companions. I was with them 24 hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

And I did not look at them as an opportunity for impact at all. For me, they were like they were a mandatory.

SPEAKER_05 31:14

They were the ankle chain.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Yeah. That it was like, come on, like we have, we have work to do. And and like one of my one of my greatest, greatest lessons from my mission was like, I like the the wish, the regret, if you will. Like I don't I don't necessarily really have any regrets, but like for the gravity of this lesson, my regret was that I didn't I wasn't as present with them and focused on them and and paid attention as that I that I think I I could have and should have. And and I would have had a much greater effect potentially on the life impact, whether it was just life or spirituality or whatever, as I could have. And um, and I probably did have an impact. And for many of them, it might have been negative because I was I was hard. I was like very, very hard because I had work to do. Um but so then I'm like, okay, well, like what is is legacy really speaking to a stadium of people? Or is legacy having a family?

unknown 32:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

And a gaggle of kids. And really spending time with the people and the humans that you are genetically tied to. Like, and is and is that legacy? You know, like I've I I've toyed a lot with like what what is what is legacy? Because I like you, I feel very motivated for legacy. And really, even wondering a lot, you know, if if it even matters. Like, I don't know if you if you've listened to Chris Williamson's podcast. Like, he has like a viral reel that's that where he talks about, you know, in three generations you'll be forgotten.

SPEAKER_05 32:48

I know, and I just don't want to be forgotten in three generations, at least not by my posterity.

SPEAKER_04 32:53

Well, and his point is like so just do whatever you want. Like just live your life.

SPEAKER_05 32:58

If you're gonna be forgotten anyways. And that's something that's been really unless I become the president of the United States.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

Unless, yes, and then you'll have a portrait in the National Gallery.

SPEAKER_05 33:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 33:08

But will anyone actually know anything really about you? I mean, when you look at those with those men.

SPEAKER_05 33:13

We have some pretty cool historical uh notes on some of these presidents. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

It's true. So anyway, yeah, I I mean this is just all philosophy and and pontificating, but I love it. But I but I hear you. I I it's my way to say like I identify with that, with that fear as well.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

I'm uh curious a little bit. You're still involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, correct? I am. What role would you say that that mission experience, subsequent religious experiences have played in your drive, desire, business ownership, marketing, any of those kind of business relations? Because the more I'm engaged in business communities, like uh uh in you know, Russell's inner circle and stuff, I'm always, always so impressed when you know you sit in one of those rooms and you have 20 plus presentations, every single one of them gets up and starts with, I just have to thank God for the opportunity to be here. And like I'm so grateful that his hand in my life brought me, you know, those kind of things. And it's been perhaps a big testimony builder for me to see, you know, what are the odds that you've got 20 people in a room or something like that, and they're all different faiths and backgrounds, and all of them recognize the hand of God in their life and the success that they've had. So I'm curious, what's your perspective on how that's influenced you?

SPEAKER_04 34:45

Yeah. Um I well, I think that there are um certain ways that I I think I'll break it into two categories. I think organizationally and then spiritually. So like organizationally, I feel like the impact, like the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an amazing factory for human beings.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

I've heard it called a lot of things, but never a factory.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

Think about it. It is a factory to create high-achieving, social, charismatic people that can be successful and impactful, influential in life. Whether that is to influence their communities or to pay lots of tithing or a little bit of both, but like the the opportunities that the church gives young people specifically to serve in their community and to think outside of themselves. Like, I'm sure there are organizations that do it well, but I've I think there are few that could that could swing and hit as many times as as the church does.

SPEAKER_05 35:47

Well, something maybe you remember who said this. I know I've heard it multiple times, but it was an assessment on why does Utah have so many entrepreneurs and so many successful salespeople, things like that, right? Like all of the major sales companies they draw here. Where do all the summer sales bros come from? They come from here.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:06

And why was that? And it was, you know, as you dig into it and their background, their history, the vast majority of them go on LDS missions and they learn to deal with rejection. They get doors slammed in their face. People tell them to F off, but they just keep going, they keep doing the thing.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

And you become maybe a little bit callous and indifferent to uh uh the rejection in and of itself, but you also just develop this ability to always keep going. And I think that when you talk about the factory, I see that as the main assembly line when it comes to why is there so much success.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Yeah, absolutely. I I think that's that's very true. You know, get getting used and and that um I think it's really drilled that like serving serving humanity is serving God, right? Like that's a huge, huge tenet for the church, right? If you serve the least of these, my brethren, you've done you've done it unto me, you know, like is taught in Matthew. So there's just like this huge push to like be outside of yourself, or or like or like that if you're sad, go serve somebody. You know, I mean that's what they tell youth all the time. Like it's it's just this outward-driven um humanitarian focus.

SPEAKER_05 37:20

I wish they did a better job of teaching that to the youth. In hindsight, I mean I I can remember come come up young men's programs, things like that, and it's all service, service, service, service, service. But it becomes the I mean, at least my perception of it then as a young man was that it was very much we're doing this because we're supposed to do this. And it wasn't until I was an adult uh where I started to actually see the personal benefit, the mindset shift, the spiritual upliftment when it came to serving others. Because it just I don't think it was ever explained. And you had to, I had to come to that realization myself, maybe. But it just felt like everything else was forced when I was young. So it kind of left me. I I think it was set up poorly, is what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

Yeah, well, and I I think well, and and for me, like how I've vocalized it in my own experience, it's that where it falls short is that I I think that and this is I'll I'll just speak from my experience. I do think that it's pretty um it's it's an epidemic across the church, but I'll I'll just say it from my own experience, is that we don't learn to go inside and listen to ourselves and listen to our hearts. And that I think that sometimes service is used as a deflection from like the pain that we just need to face. And I think that like in in my like part of my adult journey has been um I I I am very much a servant first, like sacrifice for your family, help anyone in need type person. And I've I've really had to learn that like I have needs too that are really important. And I need to um pay attention and you have to show up for yourself first. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 39:26

You put your air mask on first before helping others.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

Yeah, and and and that's you know, I I I don't think we recognize like the the deep, deep impact of like what what the the spiritual impact of that really has. And for me, in in my adult journey, it's been learning to yes, serve still, of course, but it is like what do what do I what do I want? What are my needs? And and I think that um it's and because growing up in a faith where service is so prevalent, even that notion of going within has felt selfish when it's critical.

SPEAKER_05 40:02

I relate to that. I can remember, you know, you're supposed to listen to the still small voice, right? And and there's maybe a conflict in how it's presented, uh being, you know, if you're like I can remember if I'm focused on trying to hear that, that prompting, then I'm inherently trying to shut off anything that comes from within, you know?

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:25

And so maybe I, you know, in hindsight, I think they can be one and the same. I mean, right? You're you're permitted to get revelation for yourself. Why can't that come internally through internal reflection too? You know, I don't know Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

No, I I couldn't agree.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

Who knows how God works?

SPEAKER_04 40:43

Who knows?

SPEAKER_05 40:43

Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 40:44

I know, right? Yeah. So yeah, it's it's an interesting, it's an interesting journey for sure. To um, I think, you know, we're we're taught with the creation that before the earth was created that it was matter unorganized. And I think the process of becoming a human being is organizing the matter.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

That's an interesting thought. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Bringing all the pieces together, bringing like, you know, where I I think because you when when we're younger, everything is so like binary and just two-dimensional. And as we get older and we realize like the gray and the angles and like just the the level of complexity that life is, you know, it's like, whoa, like, who am I really? And and what do I really care about? And how do I want to present in the world? And what are the values that I want to espouse? And and am I just going to continue to project the values that were given to me, or am I going to create my own frame? And it's really a gathering of matter and deciding, you know, what is the world that I want to create, that I want to live in.

SPEAKER_05 41:48

I like that we've gone down this philosophical rabbit hole because it's not something that we do often on these shows. And the shows are free-flow. I never try to stop it. It's just it's an uncommon spin, I think. And I I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Uh we can, we can, we can relate it back to business anytime.

SPEAKER_05 42:05

Well, I think that stuff like this is important. It lets um lets the audience get to know you, how you think, how you solve problems, your influence or the influences on you that have maybe led you to this position. So, okay, we'll tie it back into business. Tell us about your business and rope your podcast into that too. I mean, let us know who you are, what you serve, or what you do, who you serve, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

Yeah, of course. So um my, and and we even like started on this and I and I never really finished, but like my my journey's been like very like cyclical and like upward spiral, if you will. Like onwards and upwards. Onwards and upwards. Like my very like, I think I I truly believe that I personally am an entrepreneur at heart. I mean, when I was growing up, I was always trying to find ways to get an edge and always trying to find ways to like not do like the typical like teenage, young person jobs of, you know, work around the house to hopefully get some allowance or to go flip burgers or work at a movie theater or a grocery store or whatever. Like these were these were the these were my first ways that I made money. Like when I was in elementary school, I would take my allowance and I'd go to the gas station and I would buy candy and then I would resell it at school for more money. Like that was like how I would earn money. Um, in middle school, it was the the movie Titanic was really, really popular. And I loved to draw. And I would draw hand draw pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio. And girls would swoon over there and they would buy my hand-drawn pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio. And then in high school, It's true art. It's true art, yes. As like a as my 11-year-old. Yes, because I've been paid for my work. Um and I I love music. Um, music is very important to me. And in high school, I taught private drum lessons. And that was how I made money, is I just like, you know, talked to the kids that knew a little bit less than I did. And I would, I would give um parents a better deal than like the professional teachers that were in music stores. Um, and that's how I that's how I made my money in high school. And so, but but I feel like I I almost I got lost a little bit in like the traditional Western uh US culture of, you know, go to college, pick a major, work in that thing.

SPEAKER_05 44:26

Oh, I'm sorry. It happens to all of us.

SPEAKER_04 44:29

Yes. And so I went to school. Um, I went to Brigham Young University, I have two degrees from there. Um my undergrad was in food science.

SPEAKER_05 44:38

And you've deviated substantially from that.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Yes, just slightly. I mean, I do love to cook, but um I So I started I started college as a music major, and I couldn't complete that because my joints fell apart. I found out about four years ago. Well, at 18, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, but I found out four years ago that I actually had chronic Lyme disease. And I was misdiagnosed for two decades. And so my joints fell apart and I couldn't do music. And so in my mind, it was like, okay, well, what's the next best thing that I'm good at? And I'm good with science and numbers. And so I chose a science major, and that's how I ended up in science.

SPEAKER_05 45:19

Food scientist.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

Yep, food scientist. And when I had about a year left, I went and served my mission and I fell in love with people. People skills, talking to people, persuasion, uh, figuring out how to get people to change and what motivates people to act in certain ways. Like I just, I loved, loved my mission. And when I got back, going back into a food science lab and like analyzing the salt content of peanut butter, like just didn't do it for me anymore. And it was really tough because I was like, I have one year left.

SPEAKER_05 45:58

But like it's not what I want to do anymore.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

It's not what I want to do at all. And I went to almost every single college that had anything to do with communications. I mean, I went to the psychology department, I went to the PR department, I went to marketing and business, I went everywhere. But everyone was always like, you have too many credits. For you to start over now, you'd add another three years onto your university. You just have too many credits. So I resigned myself to just finish my degree in food science. And in my mind, I was like, okay, I will fix it in my graduate degree.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

That's what I'm gonna do. So I um after my uh after my degree, there was a few tryings and journeyings here or there, but I eventually I was doing a master's degree in public administration from the Marriott School at BYU. And my emphasis was in OBHR. And this is another like not fitting.

SPEAKER_05 46:50

Did you get your master's in public administration?

SPEAKER_04 46:52

I did. Yeah.

unknown 46:55

Mr.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

Counsel, we're we're hiring a city manager right now. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 46:59

This is another like non-box thing. It's like I didn't really like the emphasis that were that were for the MPA. Like they they they were focused on, you know, like uh local government, nonprofit management, different things like that. And I was like, uh I don't know. Like I was like, I want to do OBHR, organizational behavior and human resource management, which was with the MBAs. And luckily, because it was all in the Marriott school, they let me do an emphasis that was an MBA emphasis with my MPA, which I was really, really grateful for. Like kudos to the administration for letting me like create my own box. But that was one of those situations. And so I took classes from some amazing minds on design thinking and project management and and change management, and really just had an amazing time. Um, and one of my my plan at the time was because I love to learn, I wanted to go into academia. And my plan was to study life callings. Why do people do things that they're passionate about, regardless of the pay.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

And one of the leading professors who studies that is Professor Jeff Thompson. And he the way he like really discovered like his frameworks was he studied zoologists because zoologists are notoriously underpaid. Notoriously underpaid, but hyper passionate. Like they can't they can't envision themselves doing anything else. And so like they are like his his um population that he studies for to understand life callings better. So that was my plan was to be tutor tutored by Jeff Thompson and go and study at a at a another university where they were trying to build out their their research in terms of life callings. And when I was one week away from um applying to my um to like submit my applications to my PhD programs, I got a call from a director who worked for Desert Book up in Salt Lake. And they said, Hey, you just keep coming to mind. And I met them at an event like five years previous. And they're like, like I don't I don't even know what you're doing, but like we have a marketing position that's open. Like, do you want to apply? And I was like, marketing. I don't I don't know anything about marketing.

SPEAKER_05 49:09

My master's is in uh public administration.

SPEAKER_04 49:12

And they were like, well, like if you if you're interested, if you're I'm like, well, I'm you know, I'm about to I have in my mind, I was like, I've got an eight-month gap in between graduation and when my PhD starts. So, you know, we'll see what happens. And so I went and applied. And I literally like it was one of those situations where like you're sitting across from the people, you know, and I'm just kind of like, ask me whatever you want. Like, I don't, I've I don't really care about it.

SPEAKER_05 49:35

You got an eight-month gap.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

Yeah, like, like, you know, we'll see. And they invited me back for a second interview, a performance interview. And the interview was to create the Christmas campaigns to sell tickets to their spring events. And so they wanted to run like a Christmas special, right? And so they gave me the brief, and in it were words like campaign, audience, marketing, primary message, secondary message. And I was literally like, I don't know what any of that means. And so, because I had been in my the MBA emphasis, I paid one of my friends who was studying marketing, and I said, Hey, can I take you to dinner? Can I give you this brief? And can you just like tell me like, what do these terms even mean? And my friend, love her so much, she just gave me a crash course in marketing and told me about, you know, like the four Ps of like people, positioning, price, and you know, all the things. And so because I didn't know anything about marketing, I approached the project from a very, very different perspective. And the perspective was highly psychol psychological. It wasn't about, you know, like these pieces of content and whatever. It was I I thought about it like, okay, like who are the people that attend these events and how do we psychologically get their attention? And so I presented my project and they were like blown away because I didn't really do anything like marketing-y, yeah. I just approached it like, how do you get this? A psychological problem. Yeah. And they were like, we've never seen anyone do anything like this. And they were like, You have the job. And I was like, Well, I was like, I was just applying for fun, you know? And and and this was the point where I mentioned, like, you know, I I actually I only have eight months. And they were like, What? So they were like, Well, uh, that's not gonna work for us. And they were like, just think about it. We really want you, we think you'd be great. But like, we need you for more than eight months. And so they took back their offer and they asked me to think about it for a weekend, and then the next day they gave me another offer that was more money and said, We really want you for the job, but like we need you to commit to a longer time. And the minute I read the email, Parker, like now, granted, like I had been preparing to go get a PhD for two years at this point. Like, this was the path. And the minute I read that email, it was, you need to take this job. And I was so confused. This was not the plan.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

This was not what the hundreds of hours of work that I had done in research and making connections with professors. And but I knew I needed to take the job. And it was also like this, you know, the the my math mind was like, well, like what does the opportunity cost? You know, and I was like, well, if I go to PhD school, it'll take six years before I earn a salary, and like, what's my salary they're offering me? And can I earn that in this amount of time, you know, blah, blah, blah. But it didn't matter. It was like, you need to take the job. So I took the job, and that was my introduction to marketing.

SPEAKER_05 52:31

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 52:32

And I fell in love with it. And so it was completely by accident. Like it, it wasn't, I mean, to me, it was by accident. You if you could say there was a divine hand in that because like it wasn't anything that I constructed or conceived on my own, but it was very important for my development. And so I went, I moved up to Salt Lake, worked right across from Temple Square, and just had an amazing experience working there for a couple of years and promoted their events and helped them fill their any any live event that Deseret Book was putting on. I helped them sell tickets for it. And one of the things that I fell into was Facebook ads. And all of their marketing was very, very traditional marketing. It was like radio marketing, TV, print, uh, you know, ads in the Desret Book magazines.

SPEAKER_05 53:17

That's what you learn in school, so that's what you know how to do when you come out of marketing programs.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

Yeah. And so I, you know, was learning Facebook ads just because I was seeing, well, this is like where like you can know. I was sitting in these meetings, Parker, and like it was at the end of every quarter, it was basically, did our marketing work? And you didn't know until it was the end of the quarter. And you really didn't know it was till the end of the year. So like you had like four four points of accountability of if your marketing was working. And I was like, this will not do.

SPEAKER_05 53:48

Yeah, this is just not a good system.

SPEAKER_04 53:50

So I self-taught myself how to do Facebook ads. And what was funny is like in the first year of that job, their annual budget for social media paid advertising was, and you'll you'll think this is very funny because you're in e-commerce, it was $3,000. Annual budget.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

Yes. I've had daily budgets that's far surpassed this.

unknown 54:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:11

I think I mean I think the the biggest, the biggest account I've ever worked on during a Black Friday campaign was running $50,000 a day. A day. And so for this to be $3,000 for the year, you know, and so and because of my position, I was in charge of the budgeting for the next year.

SPEAKER_05 54:27

And so I, you know, had about I rearranged it so I had multiple six figures on the beauty of it is if you set it up right, you like get your pixel, your API, any of that stuff in place, you immediately know.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

You immediately know.

SPEAKER_05 54:41

You know the return. You know whether it's working or not working, right?

SPEAKER_04 54:45

So I mean I wasn't. Exactly. So I mean, I was running ads for Desert at Book and saying, look, we're getting an anywhere from like a 1.89 to a 2.4 ROAS on selling tickets, like and filling and putting butts in seats. That was like my job, it was like putting butts in seats. And I was like, look, we're doing it at a profit. And they were like, you go, girl, you know, just continue. And really, so like Facebook ads became a massive, massive vehicle for them. So as I was out with friends that were doing this and that at other corporate jobs, or even I had some friends that were already in Russell's world. This was in like 2018. Um, they were like, Can you do Facebook ads for me? And I'm like, I don't know, maybe. I was like, so I was like, I'll tell you what, like you just if you give me the budget, I'll play with your money and just see. And and then you just can pay me on the profits. Cause like I had like zero conception in my mind at the time of like creating an agency or like doing this. I was just playing. I was playing.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:47

And it worked really, really well. And so I had the opportunity to work with some really, really cool powerhouse players in the in the ClickFunnels world to um help grow their business. And at first it really was just like, well, let me just show you. You know, like I'm working a full-time corporate job. I'm traveling three, three times a month. Yeah. Um, don't really have a lot of time. But I was getting so much success that they were like, Can you train my person to do it? Or like, you're you're just you're just will you just do it? And I was like, well, I I guess. And like, poof, like an agency was like magically.

SPEAKER_05 56:21

It just formed.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

Yeah. And so I got to a point where I was making about four times as much just helping my friends as I was at Desireet Book.

SPEAKER_05 56:31

And I was just like, I gotta stop helping Desireet Book. Sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_04 56:35

Yeah. No, really. It was just like I'm making four times as much for about 25% of the work time-wise. And it was just like it was time, it was time to make the break. But that was really intimidating for me because I um, you know, I was like, well, what about insurance? What about benefits, you know? And then when I really broke it down, I remember uh when I really broke it down, it was like, oh, like at the time, you know, premiums have skyrocketed, it's so dumb. But at the time, it was like, oh, I only need like 260 bucks a month, like to get Yeah, now you need 700 a person. Yeah, it's ridiculous. But anyway, not not that's not it's not about that. But I remember it was it was at um it was at Funnel Hacking Live in 2018. It was one of the events, it was so it was it was their big event in Nashville. And I went I remember um going outside of a session and it was just like make the jump. It's time.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

It's time to make the jump.

SPEAKER_04 57:33

And so I did. I called my boss while I was still in Nashville and I was like, hey, like, we need to have a conversation. And um and really haven't looked back. And it hasn't been easy. You know, I I I've been very I I was very, very blessed to land in the Facebook world when Facebook was like the everything for business, businesses. And I still think that Facebook is the most powerful advertising platform on the planet. However, it's not it's not as easy to get as high a return as as it used to be. And people's perception of it is also they're a lot more uh weary. You know, it used to just be like, oh, you know Facebook ads, help me for anything. Like I'll pay, I'll pay you whatever. You know, and now it's very much like you know, especially with AI, I think, I think it's becoming even more commoditized. But anyway, so Facebook ads was my was my really entry into the the real the real world of business. And I had some amazing opportunities to work with, like I mentioned, like tons of different business models and funnels and different things like that.

SPEAKER_05 58:35

Um can we talk about Facebook ads for a minute?

SPEAKER_04 58:37

Let's do it. Because I know you just you just created a course, didn't you? Or like a mini, a mini-series on Facebook ads.

SPEAKER_05 58:43

Yeah. Yeah, would you look at it actually?

SPEAKER_04 58:45

I'd be happy to.

unknown 58:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 58:47

I'll make sure we we send you over. Um Facebook ads are what made me. That's where my success came from. And then, you know, especially back then, you know, 2018, 2019, 2020, if you had a good ad, you just kept pumping that ad, and it just kept taking care of you. It's not the same anymore. You touched on, I think, a couple of the the key issues. One, it is the most powerful advertising platform in the world. Because of that, it's the most saturated advertising platform in the world now. Which means competition's up. It's harder to get to your audience, harder to get to the people you want to get to, because other people, even if they have, you know, it's like a Venn diagram, there's a little bit of overlap, but that little bit of overlap has other businesses, other advertisements competing for that screen space. Then you pair it with there's way I think there's too many ads. What I mean by that is like you can't watch a video on Facebook anymore. If you watch a video that's longer than a reel, you are gonna get bombarded with an ad every single minute. Oh, that's so obnoxious. I was trying to watch a uh like just personal anecdote. Trying to watch a chess game. I'm a chess nerd a little bit. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:15

I'm I'm getting better. It's new. I it was uh uh part of my midlife crisis and trying to make sure that I can do things to keep me ahead of my son. Um so I got into chess for the first time in you know 20 years since I was in like the elementary school chess club, you know. Um but I'm trying to watch a chess game between a couple grandmasters. The game is like a rapid game, so it's you know a 10-minute video. And I can't watch it because every 60 seconds there's a boom, a one-minute ad. So now my 10-minute video is 20 minutes of video if I want to watch it. Yeah, I think that's a problem. Second problem is, and maybe this is getting better. I don't I'm actually not sure. So tell me, opine if you would. There was the scams. There was no barrier to entry, and so you had a ton of people advertising on Facebook trying to get rich quick. They would sell a product or a service and never actually deliver it. People get mad, they'd report them as scams, but then people lose faith in the platform, which, you know, I don't think is necessarily fair to the platform. It's not necessarily fair to the other advertisers, but there were some bad actors, I think, that that tarnished that reputation for a lot of people. So what are your what are your thoughts on the comparison, I think, Facebook now versus Facebook then? What's what's the important takeaways for now?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

Yeah. Yeah, I the the other factor that I would add is um I don't think that Facebook advertising has fully recovered since the iOS 14 update.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:47

No, not even close.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:49

And so visibility into behaviors off-platform is just over a 10 ROAS pre-iOS 14, very consistently.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:58

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:59

Post-iOS 14, four to five.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:03

Six on a good day.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:05

Which, you know, m ever people that are listening to this, especially if they're coaching in info product spaces, they're like, what a six?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

But in the e-commerce space, it's like Yeah, your break-evens like three, five.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:17

Your break-even is is a three, typically. I mean, it you uh you assume like a thirty percent margin, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

So it becomes a lot less impressive depending on the scope that you're in. But it it nerfed our ad efficacy by 50% overnight and just never recovered.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

Oh yeah. E-commerce brands that had slim margins, especially especially it's uh I think I think it impacted clothing brands the worst because clothing is typically.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:44

Hard margins, very competitive. I have I mean I made that that struggle. That was how we started was we did like stickers and decals. And then when we sold a bunch of those, we had proof of concept, we put those on apparel. Oh, cool. So that was kind of how we did it. But I mean, you think you sell a shirt for even 30 bucks, right? Cost you 15 bucks to get it made. I mean, materials in print.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:07

You got, you know, seven bucks for your prime shipping or uh what's it called? The priority mail or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:15

Um so it's not like, okay, well, there's eight bucks to play with, eight to nine bucks to play with when it comes to your ad.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:20

And your profit.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:21

And your profit.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:22

Yeah. Yeah. There was a clothing brand that I worked with that consistently we were getting eight to ten ROAS, and iOS 14 just obliterated the ads. And and the and the guy was like, man, he's like, if I knew what was coming, he's like, I I would have taken out loans upon loans upon loans to go all in while you could. All in while while I could, you know, because he and he was very conservative because especially, and you know with e-com, you have to conserve cash for supply chain product flow, right? And he was just like, oh man. You know. And a lot of advertisers, because Facebook was so golden, they just put all their eggs in that basket again. So there really wasn't any diversification into organic, other platforms.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:11

I think that that's where you have to be good now.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:13

Oh, it absolutely you have to have multi-channel. Absolutely have to have multi-channel.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:17

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Because especially from the e-commerce perspective, right? That's my my background, my bread and butter for the most part. You're not gonna get the same return on ads that you used to be able to get. So how do you generate the business to replace that? You gotta get out and tell your story more. You need more content that shows who you are, what you do, why it matters, who you serve, why you serve them, right?

unknown 1:04:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:39

Build the relationship at a whole new level. That's something that I'm trying to be very proactive with. I mean, I'm in the studio every day, we're filming content, we're trying to get you know more stuff posted and out. But I think that that's the requirement now. That's the new standard. It's not just go to Facebook, pump your ad. It's you have to be well-rounded.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:00

Yes. Yes. Well, and to your point of like, I think the companies that are succeeding on Facebook that are smaller are those that are really creating a brand around it. Like I don't think I mean it is possible, but like offers like dropshipping and affiliate offers and things like that, like they're working, but like the brands that are like really growing are the ones where like it's a lifestyle, there's a story behind it, right? Um and that's where it creates that loyalty that like you were saying is like there's just not as much trust on the platform. And that's true across the board. So like right now, my agency is primarily focused in B2B. So B2C is is you know business to customer, like direct to consumer, much like like your e commerce, B2B is like a business to business. And so most of my clients currently are in the B2B space. And even with the um rise of acceptance and popularity with AI, trust is at an all time low because people are just like, is it real? You know? And Like, can I trust it? Or like, is this being mass produced?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:02

Like, I mean, back to the Facebook problem. You open up Facebook and nine out of ten posts now are AI slop.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:10

I mean, just a generated video. It's not even great quality. It's somebody got on their computer, typed in a prompt, got an AI generated video and posted it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think one of the biggest changes that I've noticed, um, because you asked to talk about that, is that in the past, you you had more time in your content to create context and tell a story.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:33

Yes. Agreed.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:34

And now it is like if you're not saying, like, are you an agency owner or are you a blank, like whatever your hook them with the call out? Yeah, with your avatar is, like, if someone doesn't automatically feel resonance and identify with it, like they're gone. Because it's you you just there's like, oh, it doesn't apply to me. You know, and because there's so much content, if like the hook is more important than ever. I mean, I know like we've always known that the hook is important, but like it really is. Like if if someone doesn't like resonate within the first couple seconds, whether it is because it's like their identity or their problem, I think those are the two like best ways to hook people, then they're then they're out. Even if like you do say something that's really relevant, even like 15 or 30 seconds in, like it it has to be, it has to be at the front.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:24

You ready for a hook? Yeah. Hooking an ad?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:28

Are you an e-commerce owner stuck between $250 and $500,000? My name's Parker McCumber, and we will help you scale the seven figures for $100,000 upfront consulting fee. Uh, and and Lizanne will help because I'll pay her with it. Hello. How's that?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:43

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

I'm in.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:44

That was a hook. Now we have an ad.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:46

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:48

That's awesome. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:50

Um I'm I can I ask. Okay, sorry, a couple different things.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:55

Yeah. Did I answer your question that you were curious about?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:59

Yes, I love it. I love it. I agree with what you're saying. I think that that is my lived experience. So I'm I'm you're not going to get any pushback from me when it comes to that. I think that's a very thorough assessment. Lifestyle and story around the brand.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

What's working, what's not working, why does that matter?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:17

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I'm seeing this in the in the direct-to-consumer as well as the B2B space of like so first of all, things are changing so rapidly. Like, for example, like, so I run a lot of right now, I run I run a lot of cold email campaigns for businesses that are trying to uh start conversations, essentially, you know, in the B2B side, like sales cycles are long, right? It's not like with e-commerce where it's like, oh, I really like that. Like I'm gonna go buy that. And they might, you know, they might sit on it for a couple days and they might get a retargeting ad and go for it. But like B2B, you know, these relationships take months. Um, but usually people like even six months ago, people would respond to an email like if they were even curious. And now, like even six months later, it is like I think they're just overwhelmed. They're just inundated. And and so getting responses are really tough. So like we've really I I have built my agency primarily on um direct response conversion-based tools. I haven't really touched as much organic because I'm like, too slow, you know? And and for me, like I'm a numbers person, it's really hard to build the numbers around the organic. But almost but let's see, let me think about it. Yeah, right now, every single client that I have, I am also building out an organic content engine because if they don't have some sort of voice where they're talking about who they are, what they stand for, what are their causes, what are their villains, how how do they see the world, how do they think, then no amount of outreach is just is is gonna reach people. So, like how I'm thinking about it now, and a lot of this is experimental, but like, for example, on LinkedIn, all the clients that I'm working with, we're creating organic content that is that is very intentionally focused on their on the on the pain points of their um of their desired customer. So in and so their organic content is very much almost like an ad, but it's not, there's not a heavy call to action. It's very story-based, but it is very like more top-of-funnel type content.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:30

Yeah. But we are also doing outreach methods to grow their network. So their network is being grown with the right people. So we're not just allowing the algorithm to just trust to find who the content should be in front of. We're actually actively going out and building their network to like let's say they want to work with engineers. And so we are adding engineers to their network of followers so that when they post a piece of content, yes, the algorithm's gonna go take that out to the avatar that they're calling out in their content, but also their network is growing with engineers. So because these engineers are connected with them and following them, they're also going to see the content.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:08

For the people that don't know, when you make a post on social media or something like that, you initially your post maybe gets shared to like 10% of your online friends or your friends list or whatever, your followers. Um, if they resonate well, it goes to a little bit of a bigger portion of the pie. So when you build your network with the client or the target avatar, you have a better likelihood of that content getting to them quicker, helping it resonate, and then continually spreading to the next the people who are more similar.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

Yeah, you're exactly right. Because the posts, and I think this is this is what a lot of business owners are struggling with on platforms like Instagram. And I don't quite know how to crack it yet on Instagram. But like if someone creates top-of-funnel type content like for Facebook or Instagram and it goes viral, and they get a lot of followers, but they aren't necessarily the followers that are the going to be their buyers. So it inflates their audience.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:02

I am struggling through that right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:04

Yeah. So it inflates the audience with people that aren't gonna resonate with that more like middle or bottom of funnel type type.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:12

I'm literally going through my Instagram like account and just removing followers. Yeah. Every day I do like 50 to 100 followers, I just go remove them.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:21

Because I I made the mistake. Um, are you familiar with Brendan Kane?

unknown 1:12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:27

So he wrote the book, uh, Million Follower Method, I think is what it is. And I read that book and I'm like, I'm all in, let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

I love that book, by the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:36

So I I partnered up with the meme pages. Uh, we posted part one, part two videos, like followed his strategy to the letter. And it worked. I got like 50,000 followers in a month. Relatively low budget. None of those people are my target. None of those people actually cared about me or my content. There was no connection there. And so after the partnerships were done, after those um, you know, part one, part two videos had been posted and they'd been seen, I got no engagement. And that throttled my account and my reach because you know, Instagram would go show my content to 200 subscriber or 200 followers, and none of those 200 followers would engage with it. So like I've cleaned out like 25,000 people. That's crazy. And I'm still cleaning them out.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:24

Yeah. That's really interesting you say that because I've wondered, like, I I read I read um Kane's book, I don't know, I think about three years ago. And I've wondered if if that still applies, if you will, you know, in terms of it it really did work for getting followers.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:45

It really destroyed my account and my trust and my value when it came to me trying to produce content. Like I I mean at my peak, I've got 50,000 followers on that page, and I'm getting like maybe two or three likes on a post, and I'm getting less than 200 views.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

Yeah. I've actually noticed that on your page. And I've I've I've been wanting to talk to you about it. It's like, why is that happening? Because I mean you have like 30,000 followers or whatever, but like you're probably but I'm deleting them.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:15

They're not real. I mean, they're real.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:17

Like I didn't buy bots or uh followers like that. I used the the strategy that Brendan Kane teaches.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:23

Which, and and I guess, you know, this is something that's important. A lesson that I've learned that now I should share with people is that I, in doing that, I was optimizing for followers. Oh man, Ben Hardy would love to have this conversation with us. Um, because you get what you optimize for.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:41

I was optimizing for followers, and it worked, and I got followers. Those followers were all worthless to me. Those followers didn't care about my product, my service, they didn't care about what I was doing. They weren't interested in building the relationship with me, they didn't resonate with me, they didn't like anything about me.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:58

They were just there for the video that I made them follow me to get.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

Yeah. Well, and what's interesting is I do think that there still needs to be a.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:15

Shout out to Adam Ivy.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:16

Yeah. You do still need to have top-of-funnel content that's broadly. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:20

Agreed.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:21

Right? But you still have to have this blend of like it still has to show who you are and your values.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:26

And that needs to be as organic as possible in my mind. I mean, you take your best performing ones, run them as paid ads. But when the the difference is the content that I was doing with the Brendan Kane method isn't my organic top-of-funnel content. It's stuff to get clicks.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:48

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:49

But if I were doing it again, I would do it with my own content, my top of funnel content, because that would maybe help people understand me, resonate with me, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:59

Sure. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:00

So that's why my Instagram account is a mess.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:04

Recovering.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:05

It's recovering.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:06

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:06

Been in recovery for two years.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

Yeah. So I mean, and this is this is like someone, like I've I've always like even in like the early days of my agency, I was always like, okay, like, do you have time or money? Right? If you have time, do organic. If you have money, do paid. And like, as I've grown in experience, it's really like you you should do both.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:26

Oh, agreed, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:27

And truly both cost time and money. But it hasn't been until the last till this year, till 2026, that I've actually built in organic tools into my agency workflow. It's always been like, you should do it. It's a good idea, but like, but what we do is direct paid advertising. Like that's what we do. And now, I mean, I'm building and and AI, AI has really been what's allowed me to feel comfortable doing that because we can create custom GPTs in people's voices and we can create content and we can get approval for things faster, and it doesn't take as much heavy lifting on my team. And so I'm actually kind of having fun with it. Um, but it really hasn't been until the last six months that the that my agency has offered the blend because I just see like it's necessary. Like any client where I was like just only outreach, only outreach, only outreach, no like content, organic narrative base.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:28

The campaigns just suffered and I and the clients churned.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:31

So I've noticed, especially making the transition from e-com into more of the coaching and the info product type place, the marketing has to be very different, right? Um really easy to sell a product in the sense of like we're gonna agitate somebody's problems and anxieties, we're going to uh demonstrate benefits, right, and the value proposition of the product to solve their problem. I've struggled doing it as a coach. And I I I think what it really boils down to is I need to do a better job of building trust and awareness around who I am, what I do, how I serve people. Um I'm curious what differences are you seeing between those types of marketing? I think that both are supported, like you said, very important to have organic and very important to have paid. Paid brings more awareness than the organic alone, helps feed your views, your content, your page. Organic builds a lot more trust because it's not interruption-based marketing. They so it in that sense they feed each other. What are sorry, I've given you just a ton. I'm I've this is a rambling question now. What are you seeing as the most important hybrid or or way to advertise for the different types of business? Like if you were going to e-com, coaching, info.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:53

Yeah. So the majority of um the the primary avatar that I have focused on for the last 18 months has been people in the professional learning and development space, whether they are um coaches that are working with individuals in a more B2C manner, or there are coaches and consultants that are that are B2B and they're working with organizations. And the biggest struggle is that and this is the story that they all have, is like, like, you know, when I when I talk to them like in the discovery process or in the proposal process, I'm like, okay, well, like, how are you niching down? Like who who is your ideal avatar? And all of them are like, well, I can work with a variety of businesses. Like my stuff is agnostic, industry agnostic.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:34

Oh, help me, help me. Uh I I'm I'm uh This is my great weakness. Um I pay for a lot of coaches because I want to learn from everyone. I know I should niche down more. But I just feel like I'm not helping everyone if I niche down more.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:58

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. Well, and here's the thing is like a good coach, their principles by nature are industry agnostic.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:05

Correct. They'll help others.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:07

It's like right now I'm coaching um, you know, insurance agent, mortgage broker, uh real estate agent, uh, a bookkeeper. Um, we're coaching an e another e-com brand. I'm like, so we've got all of these people in these oh, fitness in there too. I'm like, we have people in all these different industries. I don't want to just limit, but at the same time, I'm like, maybe I would scale better. Maybe I would get more effective content if I did niche down more.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:33

Well, and and here's the thing is like, it's the beauty, I love I love that like I mean you you literally just like rattled off like six to eight different, like highly, highly different things. And that's really the power of your network. Yeah, a good framework, but like it's the power of network and and good organic content, is that if someone identifies with your framework, then like they're like, I if he can get me the result that I want, like I don't care if he's been in fitness before or whatever, like like they they will join with you. But it's the the exact problem that you mentioned is it's it's a problem with scale. Like you can't scale to everybody. You just can't. And so I mean you you have a couple options in front of you. Like option one is that you create niched content, but you create it across a variety of industries.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:22

Which I'm interested in. I like that. You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:25

So like you have content that's that's going out there for the fitness person, that's for the um e-commerce person, that's for the the the coach, that's for the um mom that's doing a side hustle, like whoever, whoever it is, right? Um and this is something that I'm playing with on my on my own platform. Um we uh in my agency currently we're building a lot of AI automations for people. But I'm trying to, like, what one of the things that I've noticed is that like when I talk about AI, generally people people either have have two responses. They either have, oh, I use AI, or they're like, I have someone that does that. Like those are like the two responses. But they but they because I'm being too general, like I can't like get into like the specifics of like, okay, this is how this can help you.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:14

So like for example, if you're a service-based industry, I have these specific AI agents that can do this specific thing that are helping people like you.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:21

Yeah. So like one of the things, like, for example, I'm creating content this week, targeting solopreneurs, because one of the things that I noticed that solopreneurs always say is oh man, I've got all these things that I really want to do, but like I need the people to do them, but like I don't really have the the accounts to handle justifying the people yet.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

And really it's so so I'm like, okay, well, an AI agent can help with that.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:49

It's a myth, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:51

It's true, but like you can build the team without actually hiring someone now in a very real way with an AI agent. That's not the only way to do it, like you just mentioned, but it is a way, right? And so I'm calling out a very specific person with this participant. Now, it's like do the AI agents that we create only help solopreneurs? No, of course not. But like that is like the avatar that I'm kind of like testing into and like creating content for this week, because I've just heard that sentiment so many times as I've spoken to um people that are solopreneurs, have really, really small teams. So like that that's one option is to is to like test different pieces of content that are still very niche to see like what what is resonating. Because even though your content and framework is is industry agnostic, what's not industry agnostic is clicking in the mind of somebody for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:46

Like to grab that attention where someone's like, that's me, that takes a ton of practice.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:54

It takes a lot of practice. And that doesn't matter whether you're a coach or you're an e-commerce brand. It takes, it takes a lot of practice. And so the danger in, you know, spraying across a bunch of different industries is it's just like you're signing up for a lot of, you know, how do I resonate in in all of these different niches? But it hurts for whatever reason for coaches, it hurts their soul to think that they could only help industry X.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:21

And I think and I think that's very, very understandable. Um so, but I think that one of the one of the things we get stuck in in our minds is it's not just about calling out the industry, it's about calling out the psychological pain and constraint that they're under.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:37

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:37

Like if if you say, like, you know, like let's say you're um because in theory, the psychological pain and constraint can be industry agnostic.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:45

Yes. Yes. So if you call out the psychological condition, you know, what like like let's say, let's say you're a um a coach that that helps people um get friends, you know. If you call out like their loneliness and what they're experiencing on a Friday night because they're not out with friends and they're like, they've binged their third Netflix series this weekend, like they hear that, they're gonna be like, oh, that's me. That's me. And that's not who I want to be, you know. And so I think that that, you know, while while industry niching is important, I think that like psychological pain niching is even more important.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:27

Write that down. That's a good one. I'm gonna put psychological pain. So what does that mean in your opinion? Uh like what's the the practice? If I want to psychologically pain niche down, yeah, how do I do it?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:47

Yeah. It's it's one of the things. F first of all, I it's one of the the uh frameworks that I'm personally playing with. I I started a Substack about a month ago.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:58

Okay. What's your Substack?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:00

My Substack is just it's just my name, Lassanne Murphy on Substack.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:05

Lasan Murphy.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:07

Well one of my one of my intentions there is like I I have felt with my content, I have felt very bound by needing to like show up for show up in my industry as like the agency owner that knows marketing things. Yeah and my Substack is my is my first project where I am like I am all me. Like it is just raw, authentic me. Um and one of the things that I'm trying to do is reach people who um really are stuck and lost and they can't see why. And it goes back to that pattern recognition thing of like you know, whether it's like I'm making the achievements and I don't necessarily feel fulfilled, or I'm trying so hard, but I'm not actually getting to where I want to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:00

Or I'm doing everything that my mentor has said, but it's not yielding the results that are promised. Which I think, I think is like, first of all, especially like in like Russell Brunson's community, is like pain number one, right? How many people are like have drunk the Kool-Aid and they're just like, I cannot get, yeah, I'm sure I'm one funnel away, but I am so many funnels in the middle.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:22

But I'm yeah, I'm a hundred funnels in and I'm still failing.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:25

Yeah. And so, you know, why why isn't it working for me?

SPEAKER_05 1:27:30

Yeah. Um, and so I'm I'm There's always another piece of the pie, though. It's never as simple as that, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:38

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um and and that's one of the things that I'm I know this is is this isn't answering your question directly, but like it's one of the things that I'm trying to uncover is like, how do I create a framework and a platform to help people find their X factor, find their their other piece of the puzzle, exactly the language that you just used. That makes it work for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:02

Um, and so I'm toying with a lot of different things. But I think I I think that if if you are going to create a system around this, how do you psychologically niche? You have to go to forums where people are using their words about their experience. So the best places to do that right now are Reddit and Twitter. I'm sorry. And Quora. I know Quora is like like old, old, but like it's it's real. And also comments on YouTube videos. So like if if someone else is like creating content around what you're doing, like go and read the comments of their YouTube videos. Um those are like the the places of gold to find what um what what is the psychological pain. And I think sometimes like and this is a mistake I've made a lot in my agency, is like, so I use my podcast as an opportunity to network, but I also use it as a lead gen strategy for my business. And one of my mistakes is like I get caught in the service, the services that I offer. And oftentimes people give me gold and they'll tell me exactly what they want. But I'm like, oh, but what you really need is this. Like, because this is what this is what we do. This is what I have a system built around.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:14

And one of the things that I've done recently is I've had um one of my tech guys go and because I have like AI fireflies in all my meetings now, analyze the last 100 meetings to say, like, what are they saying their pain points are? And let's create a service around that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:30

Not what I'm good at or what I what I'm naturally doing. And so I think that we need to pay pay attention to conversations, the conversations that we have, the conversations that other people are having online, and go and and scrape those conversations for for the psychological triggers that you that are repeated that people are um are struggling with.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:53

Patterns.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:54

Patterns.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:56

Do you know Michael Meyer?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:58

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:58

So Michael Meyer, I met him through Russell Brunson's inner circle. He is maybe the best in the world at Facebook ads. Now I used to think I was the best in the world at Facebook ads, and then I met Michael. What you just described with doing the research, finding what people's actual verbiage is, what they're saying, where that is, that is the same framework essentially that he uses to, and then he takes their exact word verbiage and he uses that verbiage in his ads. But that way he's speaking directly to their actual pain that they've identified, and then you know, he promotes, you know, his problem or um identifies their pain, their problem with that, and then the benefits of what he is offering. And then he pairs that with just an insane scale. Like the dude uh he made a post um the other day where he he said, Yeah, in Q4 last year we tested, split tested, over 9,000 advertisements. I'm like, I haven't even ran 9,000 ads in my life, but I like that uh, you know, success leaves clues. Identifying this is a pattern that these two people I really respect use. I need to use that pattern. You should use that pattern. Here's a thought. Creating a service around the pain points your customer has. We were just talking about that. I freaking probably need to just do that better. Maybe that's why I'm not at the level that I want to be at, is I'm trying to impose my offer. Now, here's here's my catch, and I wanted to get your your thought on it. I primarily position myself in the leadership and team development space, right? That's how I help businesses scale. If you scale your organization and the system that they run, you scale your outcomes. It's really hard, though, to convince an entrepreneur, and maybe that's the problem, is I'm trying to convince, that they're not as good of a leader as they think they might be. Right? Just because you have a business that maybe does a million dollars in revenue each year, that doesn't qualify you immediately as a good leader. You could be a good marketer and a bad leader. You could be a good owner and a bad leader. How do I have those conversations? Like what what would I corner you now into some some consulting here.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:30

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:31

Because this is B2B. Now, generally speaking, my most of my successes come from B2C, but but the marketing in B2B is a little bit different. Oh my phone. I didn't put it on Do Not Disturb.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:47

Do you dance?

SPEAKER_05 1:32:48

No, no, but I'm immediately filled with rage. You know why? Because I look over and I see American Red Cross on the collar ID. Now we're gonna get a rant. A rant from Parker McCumber. I made the mistake, and yes, I'm gonna call it a mistake, and this clip is gonna go viral. I made the mistake of supporting the American Red Cross. I like the mission, I like the charity. I absolutely effing hate their fundraising. American Red Cross do better, and here's what I mean. Every single day, I shiz you not. I have to check myself there because this makes me mad. For the last three, maybe four years, they call me. Every single day they call me and ask for money. I will never give them another cent again because of what they do to me. I I go get my mail. No joke, at least four days a week, they have a mailer come to me asking me for more money.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:57

What the hell are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:59

With your money.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:00

You have you have put me in a position where I never want to support you or your charity again. Because you harass, it's actually harassment every day. It doesn't matter what you what good you're doing now. You have alienated me from your cause. Anyways, so that phone call was the American Red Cross. They will surely call me again in an hour.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:27

That's wild. Okay, noted.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:31

Oh, it just makes me so mad. I'm like, I'm trying to be charitable. I'm getting my you know, one on the one hand, yeah, it's some charity. On the other hand, it's a tax deduction, so you know, donate to the people that influence or make an impact in my life or my family's life or my friends' lives, right? That that's how I choose the charities I support.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:50

Never again will I support the American Red Cross. Every day, really? Like, you know, maybe they don't call me on the weekends. But I guarantee they call me five weekdays.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:03

Yeah, it's a lot.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:04

Every week for three years. I'm gonna actually uh maybe this is dumb now. I just kind of want to look at the if it shows me, you know, caller uh like Okay, so they have multiple numbers. And each of these numbers, I mean, like they call me once a day, every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:25

Are they all different?

SPEAKER_05 1:35:27

Yeah, they've got like five or six different numbers. It's like you get one call per week from each of the different numbers.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:33

Hmm. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:36

Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. I absolutely Okay, I have a question for you. Please, please. Sorry. Sorry that that derailed us. I came in with a good hook. We're set up. It's a great hook.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:47

We're we're I'm continuing as if as if you just said the hook. Here's my question for you. Unless you want to redo the hook.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:54

No, go for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:56

Um, did you start working with Mandy through Inner Circle? Is that how you started working with her? What was your intention for your first couple calls? Like why why did you why did you do it?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:06

So I was curious. Uh I I understood that Mandy was her strength was personality and character. And I said, you know what, that's something I could maybe be better at. I'm often perceived as a cold and unfeeling robot. You talked about the machinism earlier.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:25

That's another thing we have in common.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:26

Another thing we have in common. Um you've seen me get more animated in the last two minutes than I ever do. I mean, to be honest. So I'm I'm very logic-focused. That means I'm not. One of my weaknesses is I don't connect with people emotionally. Now that sometimes is good and a lot of times is bad. When I started reaching out to Mandy, I was doing a lot of different things. Um that's also my mental illness. I was running for city council. I was coaching high school football, I've got a wife and kids, I'm running multiple businesses. Like, I wanted to see how I could leverage my unique characteristics and personality traits to be more effective at those things. And boy, oh boy, did Mandy deliver on that stuff. I think I'm a better person because of her coaching, but that's why I initially sought her out.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:20

If someone was to ask you today, like, why do you continue to meet with Coach Mandy? Like, what does she give you? Is your answer the same? Like, is it for personality and character? Or is it different?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:33

It's the same, but there is additions. So it's a little bit different in that regard. Um, for example, you know, I mentioned earlier, yesterday I'm talking to her and we're talking about my fears, my insecurity, my selfishness. She helps me maybe work through and understand some of that a little bit from a different perspective, right? Her and I are very different individuals, but we love and respect each other for what the each person's perspective brings and offers. And so, I mean, at this point, my relationship with Mandy is just it's very trusting. I can open up to her and share those vulnerabilities and insecurities. She can help me understand them in a way that maybe helps me move forward in a more effective or healthy manner.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:20

Yeah. I love it. I love it. All really, really important answers. One of the most one of my most favorite things I've learned from Steve Larson is that you need to sell people what they want, but give them what they need.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:36

Okay, I'm gonna write that down. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:38

So I'll share, I'll share my, and the reason why I bring up Mandy is because I'll I'll share briefly my experience with her with the same question. So the first question, why did why did I engage with Mandy? So for me, when I hired Mandy, I wasn't a part of Inner Circle, and so I hired her privately as as my coach. But I met her through the ClickFunnels world, right? I hired her because at the time I was um, this was back in 2021. And my agency was hummen. I had 13 employees, contractors. We were doing, you know, some some numbers. And but I just was like, I was I myself was feeling a little bit stuck. And I was like, Andy, I need your help. Like I need, I need to like, like, how do I be a better leader? How do I scale this thing? Like, how do I get a little bit more?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:30

Mandy's not the person you talk about or talk to when it comes to leadership and scaling. Yeah. I mean, maybe leadership in the the sense of how do you leverage your personality?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:39

Sure. Well, and and and I thought that it was, and again, for me, it was a little bit about the fulfillment. Like, I was working that she helps with the most, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:48

Yeah, for sure. I was working insane hours and I was like, oh man, I have worked myself into a corner with this with this business, like like the way my agency was operating in 2021. So I hired her for what I wanted. But what did I need? Like, I needed to listen. Yes. I needed to slow down.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:11

This is what Mandy is the most valuable at. Now that we're I'm we're talking about it, it's helping me see the picture a little bit more clearly. She will help you with what you need as an individual.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:23

Yes. Yes. Which is essentially, I I would venture to say, Parker, that you do the same with your clients.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:30

Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:30

Like you have enough maturity and business experience, even though a lot of it is in the B2C realm. Like, like you have you have a lot of human and leadership experience, like from your military background that like once you can get in and they can be honest with themselves and with you, you're like, I know what to do. I know what to do. Yeah. Like you have that confidence and experience to to to back it, right? And so you have this, you have this like this level of like, I can I can help you with whatever in this in these categories because this is this is my jam. This is how I'm positioning myself. But the thing is, is that like where I I truly believe that where people actually need help, they're blind to it. They're blind to it. And so, like what Mandy actually helped me, what's so funny, and and we actually laugh about it now, is I come to her with this, you know, like this machine that I've built of the agency. And by the time I was done with her working with a year after a year, I had let go of every single one of my employees and contractors, and I was traveling the world solo for a year.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:41

I wanted to ask about this actually, the story. Because I've I've seen, you know, your Instagram, I follow you now. And I uh I think it was right after maybe we met in October. I went and followed you. And I was like, oh, this is really cool. Like she's been world traveling and stuff like that. But I'm like, how do you I wanted to ask about one, why did you do that? Two, how did you do that?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:06

Yeah. So let's let's let's finish the the the thought. We will absolutely get there. But like, but the but the point is is like I hired her to help me get clarity on how do I, how do I be how do I be not just successful in my business, but but fulfilled by it. And what she gave me was what I needed, which was to take a step back. And I'm not saying that like this is what Mandy does. She helps you take a step back. But like that's what I needed, right? And I think that that is really the opportunity of like any coach is to understand the actual needs of those that they work with. So, but you have, but the opportunity, and this is where the marketing comes in, is you sell them what they want. Like, I bet if you went and interviewed a thousand business people, there would be a very, very small fraction that would say, I need help with my leadership.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:57

Yeah. They don't, and it's not something you identify unless you have a very high level of self-awareness.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:03

Yeah, you're exactly right. So, like what is falling apart that is indicating that they are a that they are a struggling leader, right? Like those are the things that you need to anchor your messaging into. Like whether it's high turnover or um a lot of conflict within the teams, or your revenue has stagnated or their health is falling apart. I mean, like you could take you could take any of the three major niches that Russell identifies health, wealth, or relationships, right? And you could probably tie an issue in any of those categories back to a leadership problem, whether it's leadership of their team, leadership of their business, or leadership of themselves, right? Um but what are the symptoms, right? Um, and I think that people understand their symptoms, but they rarely understand the medicine that will actually fix the root cause.

unknown 1:43:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:57

Like we're very quick to take Advil for a headache, but like that's a symptom reliever, right? Like what is the underlying issue? Like, is it it could be anything from like we're low in electrolytes to we have a brain tumor, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:11

But like a good coach is gonna get to the root of like, you just need a little bit more magnesium, or like we need to get you a CAT scan because your life is in danger. Yeah. You know? And so like what are those what what are those wants that they have that you can tap into with your messaging that will get them into a conversation with you?

SPEAKER_05 1:44:29

This is very good. I'm taking a lot of notes here. I'm um as I process this. I like the idea of how do we identify the struggle that they don't know they have based on the symptoms. So then to put this into a practical application, and I'm gonna go try this um now, is I'm gonna tweak my messaging around the common problems of someone that I would help. So, for example, you touched on a couple of them, is team conflict, high turnover, um, inefficiency in the operation. Right? I think all three of those things traditionally stem from a leadership failure. Some of the other ones would maybe be like, is it hiring a players or developing your talent?

unknown 1:45:30

Right?

SPEAKER_05 1:45:31

An effective leader can do both. And you learn how to do both. Um, so maybe I'm messaging or I need to message around those things to be more effective at what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:42

Okay.

unknown 1:45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:44

I love it. Well, tell me about your messaging now.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:49

I talk a lot about communication as a leader. That's probably not the right way to go. In hindsight, I can see that that's, you know, we talk about leadership clarity and sharing your vision and your mission with the team, and that helps them understand where they need to go, how they need to get there, what their left and right limits are to achieve, you know, what this end state or the goal is that you're defining. But I think that that in and of itself, it's not ever going to land or hit the pain point. I mean, maybe it does for some people where they'll say, oh yeah, you know, I I my team's just not getting done what I want them to get done the way I want them to get get it done. It's because they're incompetent or they're incapable. The leader doesn't necessarily self-identify as, you know, your lack of leadership or poor communication as a leader is what creates that environment. Right? You haven't explicitly given them very clear instruction on where they need to go, why it matters, and how to get there. So if you haven't done those three things, obviously you're the weak point. That's how I I message now. What might be worth trying that I'm picking up on in this is if you run a business with really high turnover, salespeople are leaving left and right, sure it could be what you're paying them, but it's probably a reflection of your leadership. Or hey, if you run high-performing teams and you see that there's a lot of conflict between those A players, it might actually not be because of the difference in their personality, and it might be the result of your leadership. I'm just I'm experimenting in my head in real time right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:38

I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:39

I talk a lot about the systems efficiency, right? The company is mission ready systems. Why is it mission-ready systems? It's because we teach military-inspired leadership systems that help you accomplish your mission. That's where we derive that name from. And the mission brief in the military specifies what the mission is, what objective you're trying to accomplish, and what a successful end state looks like. So, what does winning look like? It then proceeds to give you what your left limit is, your right limit is. That's the boundaries you can operate within. And as long as you stay within those boundaries, moving towards that objective, I'm not gonna micromanage you. I'm going to trust you to continue to execute until you achieve that end state. But then I don't have to be a micromanaging leader. I've clearly expressed what the desire outcome is. I'm going to revisit at the end of the time block that we've allowed for it, or the end of the operation in the mission, and use a system called an after-action review. And in the after action review, we're going to ask ourselves what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, why did that actually happen? What do we need to do better next time? And what should we do the same, or what should we sustain to keep progressing? And then you take those questions and answers, and you have to be very vulnerable in this, and you have to take the feedback from everybody, and you can't let your pride or ego get in the way, or you'll corrupt the results. But you can take the feedback from that system and then apply it to your next mission, your objective, your outcome, whether it's the same task or a different task, and you're in a position to constantly improve. Now, those have to be facilitated by the leadership, or they won't be effective. Because if there's no weight behind implementing those, then why do you implement those? Nobody listens or cares. Okay, so I'm just going through that those systems address the team inefficiency from the leadership perspective. So I could talk to those.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:58

Yeah. I love it. So two two thoughts. To like add. I and I I know you're like just like saying messaging like off the cuff, but but but two things to add. The first is is that it's really important that you vocalize what they think that the solution should be, right? Because that that is that's a thing where they're like, yeah, well, yeah, I that is that is the problem, but like it's not actually the problem. So like for example, if it's like um like you like your example of like, do you have team members who are constantly in conflict and at each other's throats? And like you might be thinking that you just need to get rid of one of them, or maybe even both of them. Or like they just need to like like what whatever whatever like the the thought process is in the business owner's mind that like needs to fix. Your your thing is like it's actually a leadership problem. Right? But it's really hard, especially for business owners, to like take ownership, especially when they don't like know you and trust you.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:55

Not everyone subscribes to the concept of extreme ownership.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:58

It's true, it's true.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:59

Shout out Jocko.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:00

Yes, shout out Jocko. He's that's a great book, by the way. Um but you can say and though this might not be your fault, it is your responsibility.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:10

Right? That's a great line.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:14

Because they don't want to take fault, but like if they're a business owner, like they do want to take responsibility. And if they're not taking responsibility, like you can like call them out and say, like, you should. Like they are the business owner, they are the leader in the in the organization. So like, especially like when you're earning trust, like let them off the hook a little bit, you know? Like it's not your fault. Like you don't know any better, but it is your responsibility. Um I think that will be like like those two pieces again, again, like speaking to what they think the solution should be in their mind, and then also um not not saying that it's a leadership problem, but saying that it's uh that it's their responsibility.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:52

Can I deviate what I think it goes in line with this? Content engines. Kind of touched on them earlier. I teach the authority engine. The authority engine is my four-step framework for building trust and content. Um the way that I teach that, I teach long form content as the baseline. That's like this podcast. Try to film at least one long-form piece of content each week. That allows you to derive your clips, shorts, reels that you can post as daily content or semi-daily content. Um those drive eyeballs to the long form. The long form is where you showcase what you do, how you solve problems, who you help, the you build the trust.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:43

We pair that with omnipresence, where we're posting on all the platforms where our community is, and we do it on a consistent cadence that signals to the algorithm that we're one present, two, holding attention, three, building trust with our community. What does your content engine look like? You talked about merging the organic and the paid earlier. I think it and I I just want to tie it in here in a minute, with how you message how you build your how you build your content engine should reflect how you're messaging it your audience. So sorry, I'm I'm merging these together. I I just gave you multiple questions in one question.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:28

I love it. I love it. Yeah, so I think there's there's lots of lots of angles that that you can take this, right? One is um I think that like I the I have a consulting client right now who um we were talking about about her content engine, and she was like, well, I do like motivation Monday, thoughtful Tuesday, or the thoughtful Thursday, you know, like and she had like she had like her essentially what is typically called those like content pillars.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:58

Yeah. I teach five content pillars. Yeah. Or you should build three to five, and those are where you keep your messaging around.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:03

Yeah. Well, but it's my personal opinion that people do not leverage the pillars appropriately. Agreed. So they either put their pillars in like thematic, like I just mentioned, or they put their pillars in terms of their personal interests, like especially like this is a huge, huge like push right now, like for like creating a personal brand is like a huge push right now. And so they're like, you know, well, like on uh one day a week I'm gonna talk about my interests of business, and another day a week, I'm gonna talk about my interests of cooking, and then another day of business I'm another day I'm gonna talk about uh client wins or like whatever, right? But I think like the real way that pillars can and should be used is by again hitting into the pain.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:47

Like, how are you fixing these pain points? You know, so like like take take like your pain, like let's let's say your pain points are focused, you brought you brought communication, operations, and um team, you know. Focusing content in that area specifically on the problem. Like that, that's I think where the real, where the real win can can happen. So I think like that's that's one piece of like the content engine is like you actually need to have the engine be reflective of like how you actually work with people, especially if you want that content to drive customers. Then the then the then the second piece is like, well, I think well, not I I shouldn't say the second piece, but then another piece is like uh what channels and what what mediums of content. Like you brought up, I love how you brought up like the the long form content that and you derive your short form clips out of that. I think that um while repurposing is powerful, what's a struggle is that if you're not creating content for how a platform is designed, then it's just it's it's you're doing the right thing, but it's gonna fall flat. Like um how LinkedIn is designed and how people interact on LinkedIn is very different than how Instagram is designed or how TikTok is designed or how a long-form podcast is designed, or even how how a podcast network versus YouTube is designed, right? And so there has to be some finesse, like if you if you're going to do it well, there has to be some finesse to like tweak the content to match how the platform uh prefers the prefers the content to be shown. Um so I think that's another really, really critical component in repurposing. Um I also think, and we talked about this as well, is like you need to make sure that you do have some content that is more broad and generic for like top of funnel.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:41

And then you do need to have some that's like a specific call out, like you did with the hook, that like if you're a business owner that has this amount of revenue and you're struggling with this, this is for you. Like that is like true like bottom of funnel type content.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:54

If you're in e-com and you can't break a million dollars, I'm your guy. Send me a message. Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:00

Exactly. That's that's the that's the bottom of funnel stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:03

So I typically recommend um I do like about 70% of my content is top of funnel. Then we go underneath it, we do 20-ish percent is mid middle of funnel. And then we have like 10%. So that's a hard call to action bottom of funnel type thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:20

Yeah, well that's great.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:21

Is that a pretty good one?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:22

Yeah, I think that's a great mix. That's a really, really good mix. Yeah. So, you know, it there, and it's hard because I and I hate to bring up the, you know, the well, there's this and this and this and this, but like there, there really is so many nuances. And I think that um people, people would do themselves a lot of favors, especially if they're newer in the content game, to just pick one, maybe two platforms and like really just like try to like master it and figure it out before they before they go and like just like smatter. You know, because you get the tools like Metricool, you know, where you can like load up a piece of content and it can go across all these platforms.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:58

I'm using it every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:59

I love MetroCool.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:00

I use I use it as well. Um, but like really getting content to stick in one area. Like I really, I really admire Adam Ivey for this. Um and like how he's like, he is just like YouTube is it.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:13

And he's like he doesn't even use the other platforms. I mean, he's on like Instagram, he's on Facebook. Go check out his Instagram, though. He doesn't use Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:21

Uh-uh. No, not really. So, and and I mean I think I think he will down the road, especially like with what he's doing, but like he is like, he is really trying to like prove his framework, how it works for long-form content with YouTube, and it's working.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:33

Yeah, he's doing a great job with it. Yeah. I just saw he had his second channel break, like, I can't remember if it was a subscribers or a view count, but I'm like, oh my gosh. Just both either way is both, yeah. He's killing it. He's killing it.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:44

So but even then, like, I was multiple seven-figure channels.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:47

Yeah, but I was I was having um a conversation with him over Instagram just a couple weeks ago, and he was like, he was like, I'm realizing that my content is pulling in the wrong avatar. And sorry, I had a lot of not a great thing to like forecast. But he he was like, but it he he needed to like go all in on this channel and see like and he was doing you know a bunch of free webinars and pulling people in and giving people offers to to like his his offer to like to realize that it was it was the wrong avatar. And I think when you when you distribute your stuff too wide, it's really challenging to see that clearly.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:25

Yeah, that's where you need the middle-of-funnel filter essentially.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So um, yeah, I think I mean the the content engine is the one that that is promoting your message effectively and it's driving in the people effectively. It's not just, it's not how, you know, like let's say each channel is a cylinder. It's not how many cylinders are in the engine. Yeah. Right. It's like, is it is it actually working? Like, and is it is it getting you to where you want to go?

SPEAKER_05 1:59:56

Absolutely. And I'm a big believer, especially you mentioned um early, right? Limit yourself, one or two platforms. I think when you start, make it as simple as possible. Right? Like I'm on every platform now, but I'm on every platform now because I've been in this game for a decade. I started on Instagram and Facebook. And then as Instagram and Facebook became good-ish for me, then I moved into YouTube. And then when I had those kind of three things going a little bit, then I moved into X. When I had those things going, then I actually started posting on LinkedIn, right? But it was a progressive build. It wasn't just I came out and I'm on 10 platforms every single day, all day. Like I just, I just added TikTok this past year. And TikTok's been it for a while. Right. So if you make it too complex when you start, you're gonna have a hard time sustaining it and you're gonna get burnt out on it, and you're not gonna be systematized into an appropriate way where you can sustain that effort.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:54

Yeah, it's it's very, very true. Yeah. And it's and it can be it can be hard to force yourself to commit to one thing. Like, for example, how I how I mentioned like I start I started a Substack. Like my natural inclination is to like just take my article, create a post about it, and like post it on my LinkedIn, post it on my Instagram, post it on my Facebook because I have followers in all those areas to point back to the Substack.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:19

Yeah. You know, and yes, that's it doesn't necessarily help you grow though.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:22

It doesn't, and and it and it, I mean, it helps you what's happening is like the the people that know mo already know, like, and trust me, like they're starting to follow me on Substack. But like I haven't cracked Substack's algorithm yet.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:35

You know? But it's there's a theory here.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:37

Can I go on? Sorry to pause or interject. This is what Adam was teaching me on YouTube. Is like if you take your YouTube video and you just go blast it everywhere like that, you actually do yourself a disservice because then the people who already know, like, and trust you are the ones that come on and like that, and then YouTube's trying to build off of that as the people in that audience, but that audience isn't your clients. That audience is your friends, your family, your neighbors. And then you actually hurt yourself. So I actually I assume that it is a similar thing for Substack.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:08

Oh, for sure. It's it's true for every platform. But like when I posted my first article and it got 60 views, I got sad.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:16

Because it was only 60 views?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:17

Yeah. I was like, so I posted it everywhere else, so it could like it, it could hit more.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:21

60 views is probably a win. I think my Substack, you know, gets me 30 to 40 on an article I post. It's it's a it's a Oh how the mighty have fallen. I used to write for like the Washington Examiner, and I was getting thousands of views on things I would write. And then you go to Substack and you get nothing.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:37

Yeah, it's uh it's it's an interesting platform. I'm I'm I'm excited to dive into it more because I think I think it has a very interesting audience. Um but it's but my but my pride, you know, of course.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:48

More intellectual, I would say.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:49

Yeah, for sure. You know, and they're and there are people that are a lot of communists, though.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:53

That's awesome. It's a good balance.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:55

It's a good balance. But but yeah, and it's it's it's tough. Well, and also like especially like for people getting started, um people are always asking, like, well, which platform? And it's hard to know, it's hard to know that as well.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:06

Aaron Powell Well, which one are you on? Which one do you use the most?

SPEAKER_04 2:03:09

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:09

If you already use it, that's where you start, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:12

Yeah. No, I think I think that's a good that's a good call, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:03:14

I mean, that's why I started with Facebook and Instagram, is because I was on Facebook and Instagram. So if I'm already using those platforms for myself and my organic, let's learn how to use those for the business. Let's learn how to use those for the advertising and then grow from there.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:28

Yeah. One thing I will say for you, Parker, specifically, there's a big opportunity. I don't know how how how much you're pushing LinkedIn right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:36

Not.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:37

I'm not LinkedIn, and this is this is like a fact. Only 1% of LinkedIn users post content. So there is a constant.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:46

I post daily on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn gets all my posts still.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:50

Good.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:51

But I don't I actually LinkedIn, I have never, to my knowledge, got a customer or client from LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:57

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:58

So it's been my least effective platform. Now I have some theories about that. And it's be uh So maybe, maybe you you share your experiences too. I get blown up on LinkedIn. I mean like 15, 20 cold outreach people a day that are just like, are you interested in looking at a partnership with us? Are you interested in investing in this? We do this service and you should buy from us.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:22

I'm not interested in any of that card.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:24

It's the same thing as like the IG messages of taking you onto Forbes and blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:29

Hey, I did that once too, maybe even twice. Um, younger me, I made so many mistakes, but the the LinkedIn one, people just get so burnt out on that because the only people who you use LinkedIn are trying to sell you something at this point, is what it seems like. So I've had no success. I post content, it gets no views on LinkedIn. I it just I engage on LinkedIn, I try to do um comments and likes and I talk to other people, and it's not reciprocated. And I just don't I don't understand why LinkedIn is the way that LinkedIn is.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:03

I should go. I'll I'll uh after our session, I'll uh I'll take us some time and I'll do a little LinkedIn audit and give you some some suggestions.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:10

Because I think I think it can be a powerful platform for you, especially in the great people's business.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:14

People tell me that. I just haven't ever seen a sign of life on the platform, which makes it hard to commit to the platform.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:22

Sure, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:22

And I'm afraid that if I go and I try to actually sell on LinkedIn or, you know, build the relationship and post an offer or something like that to somebody that they're just gonna it's gonna hit the inbox with 20 other pieces of garbage. And if everything in front of you is a piece of garbage, it doesn't matter if you get one more piece of gold in there, it's still garbage. It's true.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:42

It's true.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:42

You're not gonna sift through the trash bin to find the unopened milk carton.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:48

You just can't throw it away. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:51

It's a great analogy. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:52

So that's how I see LinkedIn. Um I want it to work. My top, if I'm just being objective, my top um platforms are probably Instagram, Facebook, and then it would be YouTube or X, but those two would be the next next ones. Um those are where I know I get clients from. Where I know people see my content, where they engage with the content, where they send me that's actually the indicator. They send me direct messages on those platforms. That's where people ask me for help.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:27

Yeah. Which is which is a powerful signal that that the way you're doing content on those channels is working for sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:35

Yes, but LinkedIn is the enigma.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:37

LinkedIn, LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:38

TikTok is also I had um a couple posts on TikTok do very well when I was early and on TikTok before I was doing any like the coaching content on TikTok. Yeah. I did some e-commerce stuff and some fun car things and some military stuff on there, and those got me views and likes and followers. And then I started posting a little bit about business, and TikTok actually like um they sent me a notice that they were it's not even a shadow ban on TikTok because they tell you they're banning you.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:11

They're like, hey, your page is gonna be limited. You won't show up in anyone's for you, you won't be um searchable, your content won't be searchable. If someone wants to see your content, they have to search your handle and go to your page directly to see your content.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:27

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:28

And I'm like, oh, why? And they're like, uh because we don't think your content is worth having on our platform. And I'm like, oh, oh wow. Can I appeal this? And they're like, sure. So I appealed it and they're like, okay, you can be on our platform again. But it my account never recovered. Interesting. Like it my account actually had a disclaimer on it. Like if I were to open my page and look at, you know, the real Parker McCumber on TikTok, it would say in red letters right across the top, this account is not promoted by TikTok. This account is not searchable on TikTok.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:00

I'm like, what the heck does this even mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:08:02

Is it still there?

SPEAKER_05 2:08:03

No, it's not anymore. Like I said, we appealed it.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:05

I just didn't recover.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:07

I just never recovered. So it's like I went from, you know, again, not that my TikTok was doing great. I had a few videos pop off, but then I got into like the zone where you get, you know, two to four hundred views and maybe you get a handful of likes and stuff. And now it's like one, two views. I'm like, it's a dead account now.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:28

Wow. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:31

Yeah. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't seen that.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:33

I mean, I've seen I've got a VA on TikTok now who's like, he's on my account. He's trying to, I probably shouldn't say that. No, TikTok's gonna ban me again. Um, he's like making sure he does like uh 50 comments every day on TikTok and he's doing likes every day on TikTok and he's sending messages on TikTok so that if he generates engagement, it comes back, helps revitalize the page. It's not working. I mean, he's been doing this for two months, and I'm like, we get no views on TikTok, no engagement.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:03

I just don't understand why.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:04

Yeah, well, that's interesting. I I don't I don't have a comment on that one, I'll be honest. TikTok is a platform I've been consuming a bit of to like try to understand it better, but it's it's an interesting platform.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:16

Yeah, I um I actually thought originally it was a conspiracy. Just the Chinese.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:21

Oh, yeah. Me too.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:22

Straight up.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:22

Me too.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:23

And it's probably not even a conspiracy. They would de-promote, downpromote. What's that called? They would de-incentivize the educational content or things that would actually help people, and they would only put the brain rod on there so that they could make Americans dumber. I think that was their competitive strategy.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:40

Well, it definitely it definitely is the most uh addictive platform, I would say. Agreed in TikTok.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:48

Them and reels, man, they get me. Well, mostly just reels. I never get on TikTok now because TikTok hurt me emotionally.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:55

Emotionally.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:56

Emotionally hurt me.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:57

You have to make boundaries somehow, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:09:58

We've hit a rabbit hole a little bit here. Let's bring it back to strategy. Compared to five years ago, are you happier now?

SPEAKER_04 2:10:09

Five years ago, 2021. Um this this is a this is a good opportunity. I'll I'll insert the the travel story now because it's an important part of it.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:18

Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:19

So um I uh okay, so going back, so t 20 2021, my agency doing really, really well. iOS 14 update happens and everything shifts in the market in terms of like we talked about the effectiveness of ads, people's attitude towards ads. And I didn't realize the power of positioning where market demand is until that moment. Like my expertise didn't change at all, but all of a sudden it was like I'd get on sales calls and people were like, but can you really make Facebook ads work? Whereas like before it was like, you can do Facebook ads, how much?

SPEAKER_05 2:11:00

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:01

Like it it was, it was just like selling was a piece of cake. I thought I was a sales genius. And it was, it was just positioning. It was all positioning. And so I felt like I had this decision to make. I I could either lean in and work with uh it was Facebook at the time, work with Meta, and like really figure out and be like one of the players that that weathers the storm. And I I mean, all of my clients had small small margins. They were they churned.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:28

Yeah, immediately gone.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:29

Yeah. All of the clients, the clients that remained were ones that had really healthy margins. So it's typically ones that were doing high-ticket sales. So they had like a VSL video sales letter funnel to an application and and to sell. Those were still working really, really well. But everything else.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:43

Yeah. You just need to have the margin that high ticket can provide.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:46

Yeah. And so I was like, I can lean in and become an expert through this, or I can walk away. And at the time I was working with Mandy, and she helped me like really list. And anytime I would like go inside and like listen deeply, the one word would always come. And it was travel. And I was like, travel, but like I mean, yeah, like I've always wanted to travel, but in my mind, it was like, well, I'll travel like when I have gobs and gobs, you know, of money, and and then I'll and I'll get all the you know the expensive cruises and yachts and private resorts and blah, blah, blah. But it was just like anytime I listened, it was travel. You need to travel. And I was like, well, like what about the agency? You know, because like my team was requiring a lot of me. And and I I'm I I would like to say I'm I'm better than average with people, but like there was still a lot to be desired. For for me, for me, my weakness is was with systems, SOPs. So my team, I I was, I was spending all day fielding.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:50

Questions, comments, concerns, needs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:53

And I had done a poor job of gatekeeping certain things with Facebook ads. So like I just I just became the bottleneck in terms of like certain elements of customization and and delivery, and then my and my systems were just like really poor. And so I was just I just created a jail for myself, like the first time I did I did the agency. And um travel is what always just came. And so finally, like I just like the I be between the iOS 14 like update, you know, wiped out over half of my clients immediately. And so like that created a crisis where like my expenses now were infinitely more than my my revenue that was coming in. You know, before it was, it was like this, and then all of a sudden, boom. And so I needed to like you know, skim some of the fat off. And as soon as I started like letting people go, it was just like, no, you really like need to travel. You just need to travel. So I I I made the decision to uh get rid of all but I think at the time it was two people and pare down really the clients to like I so I went from like an agency to basically being a freelancer with ads. And I traveled. And I um spent my my first stint of traveling. I spent a month in Spain. Ugh, I love Spain. Spain's probably my favorite country now. I just absolutely love it. In the in Catalonia, so like around Barcelona on the coast there. Absolutely love it, beautiful, food's amazing. And then I spent a month in France, and the majority of the time I was in France, I went and lived like a Buddhist monk in a monastery.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:31

And so I, you know, did their whole schedule, you know, like woke up at 5 a.m. and went and did sitting meditation for a few years.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:38

Why did you do that in France and not somewhere that Buddhism would be maybe more practiced?

SPEAKER_04 2:14:44

The the um the monastery that I went to was called Plum Village. It's run by Tik Not Han, um, who was a Vietnamese exile um during uh the during the the war uh the uh in Vietnam there. And he was exiled, he ended up in Europe. For me, like going to a place like India or somewhere, like it's because I was solo traveling, it just seemed too much. It seemed too big. So like Europe was like a safer place in my mind to go.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:13

And um I found Plum Village through YouTube, actually. I started listening to um, as I was learning to get back to get in, to get in touch with myself, I was listening to uh YouTube videos on meditation and on mindfulness and being present. And they mo the majority of them were produced by Plum Village. And so I went and looked at like I didn't know where Plum Village was, and I was like, oh my gosh, they have a center in France. Okay, great. And so and so that's how I ended up there instead of like uh an ashram in in India or something like that. Uh, but it was, I mean, most of the monks there are uh Vietnamese. And so I mean it was it was a very it was it wasn't a silent meditation retreat, but it was mostly silent. Like we ate in silence, you know, lots of sitting meditation, we worked in silence. Um so really it was it was the transition periods that you could speak to to people. But it was it was incredibly transformative for me to be to be there at the monastery. And then the last month I spent in um the UK between England and Scotland visiting my dad's family that still lives over there. And there there were cousins that I'd never met and family that I hadn't seen in 20 years. And I learned so much about myself because I'm very close to my mom's side of the family. You know, and whenever and whenever like you like you recognize the personality quirk, you're like, where does that come from? And it wasn't until I went to Europe for a month I was like, Oh, these people these are my people. I am, I am these people. You know, I was like, that's wow, this is where that comes from. And so like it was just incredibly illuminating for me. And so I had these amazing experiences across across Europe, and I didn't even um it was one of those things where like going back to like the concepts, like you don't necessarily know what you need. Like I knew I needed to travel, but I didn't know what I needed out of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:07

And like as I went, it became revealed like what I needed out of it. Um, and then shortly after that, I spent a couple months in Japan and because I got really interested in Buddhism from my experience in France. And so I went um to Japan and I lived with a with a Buddhist monk at a temple in like a little season little seaside town um after I saw like all like the big sites in Japan. And Japan is a wild country. Have you been?

SPEAKER_05 2:17:33

No. It's literally my next adventure. Okay, so great. Let me tell you my my travel problem. I got to do uh Europe young, as a young man. I was in the army, stationed in Germany for a couple years, and my job uh as a as a forward observer allowed me to work with some of the other nations through our um our unit, our second cavalry regiment, had a TACP, which is an Air Force group that um their specialty is like air strikes and things like that. But we have to train between the services, we have to work with the uh NATO allies to do annual certifications and things like that. So I got I was privileged to work with other countries, and I was privileged to travel uh um throughout Europe. So loved that. Went back a few years. Well, I guess now it's been six years, you know. Um went back with some friends as a as a college student. Um got stationed in Korea in the army, so I got some Asia under my belt a little bit, and uh Afghanistan through a deployment. Oh wow. So I I traveled the world through the military essentially, which was fun and exciting, and then I got, you know, literally coast to coast in the U.S. It was on like Fort Jackson, South Carolina, then uh the Presidio of Monterey in California, then uh Fort Hood, Texas, and uh Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and some other little bases for different trainings here and there. So I'm like, I've been I've gotten a good amount of travel through that. I've wanted to travel with my wife and take her, you know, maybe to see some of these places, have some of these experiences, also go get involved in other things. We're both very interested in going to Japan. Um the lifestyle in Japan intrigues me, the culture I like. Um and it's beautiful. It's beautiful. So it's it's on our list. Now, I've tried to travel with my wife. We've like started the planning process, or even I've made reservations multiple times. And then before the trip, surprise, we're pregnant. Oh, that trip ends you're gonna be uh eight and a half months pregnant? Yeah, probably shouldn't go. So that's been our like I had um a shout out to Delta for taking care of us. And a whim, maybe one day. I was like, oh, I'm gonna go book flights for us to go to Paris for her birthday. And uh went and I booked the flights with my sky miles and everything like that. And then uh I knew she was pregnant, but I hadn't it's like it hadn't internalized yet, hadn't been enough far enough in the pregnancy where it's like conscious on my mind.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:29

And uh she made a comment the next day about like, oh, I can't believe I'm gonna be like, you know, eight months pregnant on my birthday, and I'm like, And you were like Frick, man. I just told her. I was like, oh, so I thanks for telling me I had booked these tickets, uh, I'm gonna go cancel them. So that one happened. Yeah, we wanted to travel um a couple other times, and it just has like big travel has always been interrupted by pregnancy. Now, like we've gone to Mexico twice as a family, both times she was six months pregnant or something like that. One of them was, the other one was just family vacation. But I'm like, oh, this is really about the limit for where you can travel in the pregnancy too. The drain on like trying to corral the kids in a foreign country.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:27

Totally.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:28

Yeah, like we just yeah, it's been a limiting factor for us. So something that we will look to address and overcome. I don't know if we're done having kids either. That's just uh whole whole nother.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:43

I love it. You'll you'll get there. You'll you'll get out there. I don't know. Um so to go back like like how like one of the questions you asked about the travel is like how?

SPEAKER_05 2:21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:53

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:54

No, sorry, so many thoughts. I want to know how. I want to know how you did it. Um, but I also I'm curious now because you brought up Buddhism a couple times. What allured you to that lifestyle enough that you would do it twice?

SPEAKER_04 2:22:08

Yes. So um uh it comes down to to this. Like as I it all it always goes back to Mandy. As I was working with Mandy.

SPEAKER_05 2:22:25

Um This podcast is not a paid promotional ad for Mandy Keene.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:30

I realized that we have so much power within ourselves to release ourselves from the bondage that we create in our own minds. Being a religious person, we're we're very taught like to rely on God as an external source. Like rely on Jesus Christ. Jesus take the wheel, right? Like we have like all of like the sayings that you know, the that we we can only be saved through Christ. Like it's it's very, very Christ-centered. My experience as I learned to go within and meditate is I was released from so much pain and burden. And it was it was a true miracle to me. Now you could make the argument that, well, God did that. But like it really did feel like me. Like I was sitting with me in my pain, and like, does that mean that God was completely absent from the process? No. You know, it doesn't have to be like exclusive to those things. But all of a sudden the question came to my mind like, if we have this incredible power to sit in our discomfort and our pain and and get it to be released, and and really it's this process of enlightenment, right? Enlightenment through through like the Buddhist philosophy is like it's it's a it's a growth of self, it's growth from within. And like Eastern religions are all about like you go within to find God. And all of the Western religions are like you find God to find yourself. It's like it's the same journey, but it's opposite direction. Opposite direction being created. Yes. And I just I didn't really know anything about any Eastern philosophy and religion. And because I was so transformed by my own process of meditation, I was just like, I have to know more. I have to know more. And so the only way I could think to do that appropriately was to get completely out of my Western world and literally put myself in a monastery with a monk that literally, because Buddhism is what they call an inanimate religion, it's not theist, it's not theistic at all. Like they don't believe in God. Um, they believe that that everything around us has a spirit, you know, that this table has a spirit, you know, rocks have a spirit, mountains have a spirit, but they don't treat them as gods. It's just that that it's all important and all living and it's all a part, all all, we're all a part of one life force. And so I desperately wanted to learn about that journey from inward you know, up. And so because I'm just a hardcore human and I don't do anything. Hardcore. Yeah. That's that's how I that's what I decided to do. And I was just really and it also taught me so much about my faith, about my my Mormon upbringing and faith. You know, whenever you hear something in a different way, even if it's like the same thing, you're just like, oh wow, that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:21

Yeah. Like different perspective on it.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:23

Exactly. And so I feel like it helped me become a much more well-rounded spiritual being by studying something that is just so opposite.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:32

Very cool. Yeah. So can I uh go back to the how real quick?

SPEAKER_03 2:25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:36

A lot of people are like, oh, I would travel, but I gotta work my job or I gotta keep my business running. And you're talking about you closed it down, traveled, became essentially a freelancer.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:47

How were you able to, especially if you're like taking time off, how are you paying your bills? How are you?

SPEAKER_04 2:25:52

I mean, I'm assuming you probably didn't have too many bills back here if you're traveling the world for a year, but so I I first of all, I will recognize the privilege that I had with this particular circumstance. Like I didn't have a family. And at the time I was renting, and so I didn't have like a mortgage. And so really it was like as soon as I released myself from my lease with rent, it was just me. And and so really it was a calculation of like, well, like how much does it cost? And you you can travel fairly cheaply, especially if you're doing it, especially if you're doing it solo. So I'm uh in terms of like over the course of like the first three years of running my agency, like I scrolled away as much as I could. Like my margins in my agency were pretty healthy. And I had I had financial goals. And so I was like stash, stash, stash, stash. And um I so I basically like my my freelance covered the the trip. And so when I got back after my like putting together like the three months in Europe, the five, the the two months in Japan, like the five months total, I wasn't any, I wasn't financially better, but I wasn't financially worse. So I essentially took five months to travel the world to like to like break even. And so like my I wasn't, but I wasn't I wasn't trying to grow my business at this time. You know, I was I was really the my function for going on it was to um become my own best friend and figure out what I would really passionate, what I was really passionate about and what I wanted to do. Right on. Yeah. So that's how I did it. So I so I mean, luckily I didn't have to draw into the stores that I'd scrolled away. Like I really did like break even from like the freelance work that I did. But that's that was really the focus. The focus was it shifted from business to I became my business. And that's like how, as an Enneagram 3, like that's how I conceptualized it. It's like I am optimizing me. Yeah, that is my business right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:41

I like that. How would you say that the world travels influenced your business now that you've come back? You're running an agency again. What changed?

SPEAKER_04 2:27:51

Yeah. Um, that's such a good question. Um, first of all, I my my worldview expanded a lot. And so I am much slower to come to assumptions. So I listen longer. I think that's probably like the first thing, which is really, really important, especially when you're talking to people and like listening to like what they actually like are struggling with struggling with or what they want, like listening longer is is a huge, huge benefit.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:16

Can I comment on that? Yeah. We um that was one of the first things that impressed me about you was when we were talking, and I'm sure you notice it with other people too. I try to make it a point to always wait and let somebody finish what they're saying, conclude their thought, hear them, and then reply. And it's I think part of it is uh our our mental capacity, you know, we're in the the TikTok, the reels, you have, you know, three to five seconds to get people's attention and then you maybe lose it. That I think contributes to people talking over each other, interjecting a lot. Um and so it's uncommon now, I feel like, to actually see somebody do that consistently in practice.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:01

And I was impressed when we were having a conversation, and that was the reality of the conversation consistently. So I pick up on that and I I it views or signals to me. One, this person is willing to listen to logic, reason, arguments, nuance. Two, they're taking the time to understand your position so that they can better build their position.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:29

Three way to put that, by the way. I like that.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:32

I think it's important like um the best best uh way to win an argument is to understand your opponent's argument better than them. And if you can understand their point, then you can best build your position around or to defeat that point. But you have to be willing to hear them, understand them, and then take a hard internal look at the merits or flaws within your own position to have that meaningful progress and growth. So I see you, you know, listening. I recognize that this is what you're doing, and I think that that's actually another superpower. It's not common. It's actually one of the things I just talk just talking to my wife about it last night on our city council. I 100% of the time, I don't think I've ever violated this personal tenet. Is I will let whoever is talking talk to completion. I don't interrupt them, I don't interject, I let them complete the thought, and then I say, Hey, can I make that comment? Can I interject here? Can I but I want to make sure their thought is complete. I want to hear their entire position.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:44

That's tough in politics, man.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:46

It's tough in politics, but I think it's something that makes me very effective. And it's but it's not reciprocated, it's not across the board, right? I think I'm the only person on our city council who will wait. Who will wait? The others will talk over each other, and then you gotta get in, like, hey, let's let them finish, let them get the point in. Um and that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm agreeing with them, but I think that's just a good practice in your personal development, your patience, your understanding and knowledge and capacity. So I just wanted to say you mentioned that that was one of the benefits you got from travel. That is a superpower, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 2:31:25

Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah. I um yes, so a couple other things. Um I and I think we're probably similar in this way as well. Like one of the ways I tried to run my agency the first time was like, I I need to I can't manage it if I don't know it. And so like I I really strove to understand every piece before I outsourced it. And this time with my agency, my very, very first hire was a um software engineer from India who I knew could help me with um systems development, AI development, and and things that that I just didn't have my head wrapped around. And I was scared to death to hire him because I didn't know anything about what he was talking about in terms of like N workflows.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:24

You know you need the help, but you don't know enough to check him.

SPEAKER_04 2:32:26

Exactly. And so it scared me. And and it but but it was my first time of like trust someone else's expertise to get you farther than you could further than you could get on your own. And I think that that came from travel. I don't I don't know if it was like, you know, a direct correlation, but like the expansion that came from travel, like that was a that was a secondary effect of me trusting that there are people that will just know things that I will never know, and that I need that support to get where I want to go. That I don't have to know every piece of the business to grow the business.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:04

You mentioned that that was scary.

SPEAKER_04 2:33:06

It was very, very scary.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:07

There's a lot of trust involved.

SPEAKER_04 2:33:08

Yeah. I literally like I had like I had like three therapy sessions.

SPEAKER_05 2:33:11

Welcome back to Base Business. I'm your host, Parker McCumber. We have no idea where this footage cut off. Memory cards got full on the cameras. We've been going for a while now, but it's a great conversation. I feel like it's providing a ton of value, at least to myself and to the audience. So where do we pick back up now?

SPEAKER_04 2:33:29

Yeah. Well, um, I think the last thing we were talking about is hiring outside of my own expertise was incredibly scary. Like I literally spent like three sessions with my therapist on why it was so scary. And it really came down to I didn't trust people. I didn't trust that, like, like and you brought it up very well. Like, how do you manage something that you just like don't even have you can't even speak the vocabulary?

SPEAKER_05 2:33:55

So this is why I I wanted to ask you this, because um, sorry, I dropped my pen, how awkward I'm. Embarrassing. I this is the problem that I most commonly solve. And different people address it in different ways. I lead with trust through the system, is what I recommend. So we previously talked about the mission brief.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:18

Yeah. The framework.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:19

Very clear expectations and directing how things are going to be done. We mentioned the after action review, and that's how we're going to systematize getting better, is taking that and plugging it back into how we operate. And then we use the tools like um quarterly performance reviews, right? Making sure that we're we're not just on the post-mission or post-objective piece, but also as an individual. How are you performing? How can you be performing better? What do you need to keep doing? And let's systematize your improvement and process in that regard. So for me, using those tools, it's easier for me to be pretty hands-off. I mean, as far as like I can hire somebody, I can trust them, knowing that what we're going to assess, even if I don't know their vocabulary and I don't know how they're at what they're actually doing, how it works, what I do know is are we progressing towards the objective? Is the business healthier as a result? If it's not, then that's where we maybe need to reassess and get a little bit more into the weeds on what you're doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it. But until you've given me a reason that I need to get more into that, I'm gonna trust you and we're gonna watch the trend line.

unknown 2:35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:32

That's my take. I love it. I think that's really, really powerful and super important, right? Because you're making it about a system that has guardrails and a goal and specific points where you take your temperature. Yes. Right? Like, which is so, so, so, so, so smart. For me, where I was getting caught up was I was like, well, how can I know if he's actually doing a good job? How can I communicate to my clients that I can do this when I can't actually do this? Like it's reliant on this other entity. How do I what what what if he leaves? You know, all of these things, like for a long time, like like in in the I I should say like like the pre-travel agency era, because I've really had like two agency eras, that stopped me from providing services that I didn't master myself. Whereas like now I'm like, Yeah, let's give it a shot. Let's try, let's, let's, let's experiment, let's find someone that has the expertise. And um and and so yeah, that was something that came from travel, I think, with like broadening my horizons and and trusting more in not feeling like I have to know everything myself, which I think is a very common early entrepreneur trap.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:53

Yes. Well, we talked before the show, that was largely the trap that I fell into. Um, to share my own story a little bit. It took me two to three years before I got paid, before I made any money. I worked for free for two to three years on my business. And it was, you know, me locking myself in a room, tunnel visioned on the work in front of me, trying to fit like I was doing cold outreach, I was trying to experiment with paid ads, I was building funnels, I was testing offers, but it was just me. And I didn't get help. I mean, the extent of me getting outside help was I read expert secrets, and I was going to um Utah Valley University for business management. So I'm like, I was trying to get the formal education and things like that. Ugh. It's a long road. A long road.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:42

It's a lot of pressure too.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:44

Yeah, absolutely. So that was my my mistake. And really, if I if I could go back and rework it, I would seek help and mentorship. I would trust people that had other experiences and expertise. I would send, like you said, we're we're gonna figure it out. Let's just try it, you know? But I would have done more of all of that. And I think that's the most important lesson that I've learned so far. I would have invested in myself sooner, earlier, faster to get me to a higher level of results quicker.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:19

So what what was it for you that was stopping you from doing that? Because I I my my bet is that's probably a lot of where are the people that you want to work with are.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:26

I think it was an awareness piece. And no, that's not the people I want to work with. Those people are broke. You're like, 'cause I was broke. I was broke. Um well, okay. So at that stage of my life, I had left the active duty army. So I was going to school and I was in the National Guard. My income was National Guard pay and student loans. I was broke.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:53

And um my wife, she was my fiance at the time, she was a school teacher. She made thirty thousand dollars a year pre-tax, and that was the money we lived on. So it was like she took me on dates. She was the sugar mama, but that allowed me to reinvest everything back into me. Now, I didn't do that in the most effective or efficient way at first. What I did was lock myself in the room, tunnel vision on the work, just spent the time. I was in the lab learning how to do everything myself. And I I was just so focused on I have to figure out how to do this, I have to figure out how to get rich, I have to figure out how to how to hit it out of the park. I don't know why I was so self-focused. Because it it should have been very obvious to me in hindsight, like there are tons of people that have more success than me, that have done this already, that have learned these paths. I think part of it for me personally was that I I was trying to prove myself. I was in an un unproven area of my life, and I was trying to become the proof. I was trying to make something that was undeniable. And in the long run, I achieved that. I could have shortcutted that if I would have been more aware that there was help out there.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:28

Do you feel like you're you're able to go like even more the distance now because you wore all the hats for a while?

SPEAKER_05 2:40:38

Yes. Absolutely. So however, that's not the most efficient way to do it. Right? And and that's I think what you've you've been touching on here. I wore all the hats. I I, you know, was staying late, talking to distributors and manufacturers. I was the one who was ordering the product. I was the one who was packaging it and shipping it. I was the one who was trying to do the ads. I was the one who was trying to do the cold outreach and the messaging. I was running the social media campaigns. I did everything for almost three years.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:09

It's a long time.

SPEAKER_05 2:41:10

And then we started making some money. And I hired a friend to come in and help me. And then I started making a little bit more money because I hired a friend and that freed up some of my time to do other stuff. And so then I could hire another friend, and then the business was able to grow. The business's growth came from me building the team and then having the systems to manage the team. So by 2020, then, you know, COVID's kicked off. We had a, I think before that, you know, those businesses doing, you know, a million and a half dollars a year type thing. So it was successful enough that we, you know, had a handful of employees, could start taking some paychecks. Um, COVID hit, stimulus checks come in, business explodes. We had a good system in place. Good system allowed the team to grow very quickly, maintain the systematization, and then be efficient, more efficient, more effective, right, over time. So that was the I guess the story in a nutshell. Um, but knowing how to do everything because I was the person who did everything helped me get those first people into place and established.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:42:27

But the beauty of what allowed us to grow then was that I could be hands-off of them and let them become the expert in that field or that position. Right? Mandy teaches the Rainmaker Triad now, which is similar to the business triumvirate. I'm a rainmaker, rainmakers sell, rainmakers have conversations, rainmakers build rapport and are the charismatic faces of the company, that kind of thing, right? That's me. I'm not an engineer. So the way that I was doing things at the time was I take a bunch of orders and click funnels, I would export them to a CSV, I would literally copy and paste line by line into ShipStan to print my labels to ship my packages. I hire an engineer. Engineer takes that over. Engineer says, Ah, well, this can be automated. And he goes and writes the program and makes the thing and automates it. Game changer for the company. Only was able to do that because one, I was focused on building the team. Two, I had the system in place that allowed me to let them operate within their guardrails, but give them autonomy to take ownership of what that was, what it needed to look like, and then tr letting them and trusting them to go and achieve it.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:46

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It's it's something that I'm I'm I'm like in I love I love how you like talked about like the the trajectory of the lesson learned because I feel like that's something that that's been my lesson that I've learned in the in this this year in particular. And it's been like, wow.

SPEAKER_05 2:44:04

Building the team expedites the growth. Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent. So when you were talking about, you know, well, we got to get the money in place to get the get the first hire. I very routinely now show my clients the mathematic equation of why they're losing money because they haven't hired people.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:23

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 2:44:24

And I that has ended up just being maybe I should be working more on that space because like that is the most common problem with my current customers. Now, I love my current customers. They're not inherently the people that I set out to work with initially. So the problem, sorry, now I'm making this about me and I'm not trying to, but I think it's good.

SPEAKER_03 2:44:48

It's good.

SPEAKER_05 2:44:48

Um, the problem that I've run into, and I I was just talking to Braden Thomasick about it on a previous episode, is that my messaging attracts people that I can help, but not the people I intended to reach out to.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:03

Isn't that funny how that happens?

SPEAKER_05 2:45:04

That's like it's I'm in a similar boat to what you mentioned, Adam Ivy had brought up. We're like, these are people I can help, and I'm happy to help them. I'm gonna I want to get paid helping them, not the people I was trying to reach.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:16

Yeah. It's so interesting to figure out how is it the Red Cross?

SPEAKER_05 2:45:22

No, that one was not the Red Cross. It's another city councilman, but I told him I wasn't gonna be available until after 3 p.m. So he's calling early. Shame on him.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:30

Um, but it it's Shout out to Jake Holdaway. It's always fascinating to see what uh what actually comes of the words we we we put out, right? Because what we say is not always what's heard, right? And and so people it's it's it's always fascinating. It it's the same case, and I don't think there's any business. It's one of the reasons why so many culture coaching and consulting businesses are like, well it's why it's all I think it's one of the reasons why they all feel industry agnostic is because they're like, well, I work over here, but like we also like have this vein in manufacturing, but like we have like this like little like fintech bubble of people that we work with. You know, and I think some of that is the is the effect of network, right? It's like where their network is. But I also think that it's an effect of the messaging and like what they're putting out there.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:21

It's an effect of how they built their business, is what I'm seeing now as you're saying that. So let's think about a good coach. What makes a good coach a good coach? In my opinion, there's a very low barrier to entry. Anyone could just say they're a coach, jump online, hey, I'm a coach, pay me.

SPEAKER_03 2:46:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:38

The best coaches are the ones who have accomplished what you want to achieve already. They've already built the success that you want to build. Now, we were just talking about our journeys and learning how to do everything and stuff like that. Okay. That inherently meant that I was familiar with the marketing. I was familiar with the messaging. I was the one coordinating the manufacturing and the shipping and the distribution, right? So I learned all of those things. So of course I'm a little bit more comfortable working in all of those things, and that's why the strong coaches feel like they can be industry agnostic because they've had to navigate all of the industries. Anyways, realization I just had as you were sharing that.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:25

No, I love that. I love that. Super powerful.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:28

But it's not the best way to market. You got to niche down to market. I know it. I know it. I know it's.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:32

Oh, it's hard.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:33

Okay. We've already had to do a battery change twice, and we've had to uh now swap out the SIM cards, so we probably need to start drawing this to a close, but we should definitely do another episode, and this has been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:46

I agree.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:47

You've provided a ton of value to me, to my audience today. Is there anything that I can do to provide value to you and your audience or your community?

SPEAKER_04 2:47:55

Oh, you're so you're so kind to ask. First of all, honestly, our conversation today has done it because the the way that you've structured your podcast, where it's very freeform, um, has allowed me to be honest in a way. And also the fact that you didn't position me as like this is what you are. You're like, let's just talk about your journey and your story. Um and so this was really important for me to be able to just share more. Like I shared more about me on this podcast than I have probably in any other podcast that I've that I've been on, which has been, which has been good. And it's something that I'm trying to do more of is to be is is you know, be a be a more holistic human being and and create more of that personal brand. So I think this whole conversation has accomplished that.

SPEAKER_05 2:48:40

I love to hear that. Where can the audience find you if they want to find you?

SPEAKER_04 2:48:45

Yeah, I love it. So I am most active on LinkedIn right now, is is my primary platform, but I have handles on on all the major platforms. So and they're all under my name. So Lissanne Murphy. So whether you find me on Substack, YouTube, Instagram, uh, LinkedIn is my name. And luckily, my name is fairly unique. And so it's not like Emily Jones or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 2:49:05

We'll put it in the comments below. Now, quick elevator pitch, maybe 30 seconds, because you said, Oh, I appreciate that you didn't, you know, box me in as what I am. Tell the people how you can most help them and why they should choose to work with you.

SPEAKER_04 2:49:22

I love it. I appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_05 2:49:24

Yeah, give them a quick pitch.

SPEAKER_04 2:49:25

Yeah. So I like I mentioned, like I work with people in two capacities, either in an advisory capacity or a done-for-you capacity. And it's typically around the growth in a business in the marketing realm. Um and so those are the areas where I have the team and the support with. Um, and really it's the same thing. What I do with my friends is what I do with business is help identify the patterns, things that are keeping people stuck and what can help them grow. And and typically it's always around, it's honestly so much of the conversation we've had in terms of like, how do I reach my desired customer? Right? And and so we I talk in depth about that with my with the people that I work with. And so um, whether it's a marketing channel or it's an automation that we create, you know, the it can be a little bit variant because I'm testing a lot right now. Um, but if if you are wanting to to grow and you're wanting someone to do it your way and not just, well, this is the way that it's done because this is my system or it's this guru, then that I'm an interesting person to talk to.

SPEAKER_05 2:50:27

I actually I I know we're drawn to an end, but story time was just talking to a guy, he runs an agency-styled law firm. He's looking for a coach, but he's like angry that you know, coaches don't want to pay attention to my uniqueness. They want to tell me their way. I told him, I said, you know, a good a coach is like think about your high school football team, and that coach taught you his offense, but that doesn't mean that's the only offense in the world, right? Everybody has their own frameworks, what worked for them, what didn't work for them, and that's what they teach, right? There's uh variety here. Some people just need more of a consultant. They need somebody who will work with them, like you said earlier, identify the revenue leaks. They can tell you the bad news because they're that's what they're there to do. They're not, you know, an employee worried about that being their job or their sole source of income. So they can have the harder conversations with you. I think there's a lot of value there and in what you're sharing. If you have questions, comments, concerns, gripes, I even accept bitches and complaints, drop a comment below and we will handle them. Thanks so much for listening. Uh it's been an absolute pleasure. I appreciate you coming.

SPEAKER_04 2:51:39

Thanks so much, Parker. Finish with a handshake on camera. I love it.