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Episode 215 - How to Launch a Million $ Business in 48 hrs
780 Plays9 months ago
In this episode, we discuss his recent book launch, Million Dollar Weekend: How to Launch a 7-figure Business in 48 Hours. We jump into how to create a viable business idea and find your first customers WITHOUT having to create anything at all.
Check links and resources in the show notes to enter the giveaway! Those can be found at https://daveyandkrista.com/how-to-launch-million-business-48-hrs. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction and Finding Joy in Work
00:00:00
Speaker
I like the phrase, it should be fun. And if it's not fun, you're probably doing work or you have a job and you can actually change that. And then thinking about differently like, oh my God, I get to do these things. Like I get to promote stuff for me, or I get to take photos of people and like that could be my career. Isaac, who's the videographer for a lot of our content, we get to travel around the world making videos about people like how cool is that? And so thinking about what do you have within your network or within your abilities to make it easier and enjoyable for yourself to be successful.
00:00:29
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
Interview with Noah Kagan, AppSumo CEO
00:00:51
Speaker
All right, I am really excited about this week's episode because it features founder and CEO of AppSumo, Noah Kagan. And Noah is somebody that I've probably been following for about a decade now. And I've been on his email list for a long, long time. And his newsletter is one of the few newsletters that I still read on a weekly basis.
00:01:12
Speaker
But Noah is joining me on the podcast today to discuss his upcoming book, Million Dollar Weekend, how to launch a seven-figure business in 48 hours. So that should give you a good idea of what we're chatting about in today's episode. And if you're interested in that,
00:01:27
Speaker
you should check out Million Dollar Weekend. It should be available on Amazon around the same time this episode airs. But before you do that, head on over to the show notes and look for a link to enter our giveaway where we'll be giving away at least two copies of Noah's book, Million Dollar Weekend. So check out the show notes for how to enter.
Creating a Viable Business Idea
00:01:47
Speaker
It's simple and it's free to enter. So head on over there.
00:01:51
Speaker
But today I've really enjoyed chatting with Noah about how to create a viable business idea and find your first customers without having to create anything at all. One thing that we do mention in the episode, and I'm not sure if we fully explained it, but I actually recently became the CEO of a software company that acquired Sumomi. Sumomi is a lead generation tool. It does things like forms and popups, and it's actually a tool that Noah and his team developed.
00:02:17
Speaker
So, to learn more about Sumimi and its new direction, head on over to sumimi.com or again, go to the show notes and I've included a couple links that will fill you in on all of the details there, but I won't spend any more time in the introduction going over that. But needless to say, I had a lot of fun interviewing Noah and chatting with him about building a seven-figure business in 48 hours.
Noah's Career: From Zuckerberg to AppSumo
00:02:41
Speaker
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at daveyandchrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. Now, onto the episode.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I read the book. I thought it was awesome. I feel like along the lines of all your content, super tactical, you know, stuff that you can just really walk away with and implement. So I loved it. I'm excited to share the book with our community. And if you're listening to this, we're going to do a giveaway. I've already preordered three copies that will be given away. So we'll be doing that.
00:03:15
Speaker
Thank you so much. That's awesome. Yeah, the book is. It's 20 years in the making. You know a lot Zuckerberg working for Zuckerberg working helping start mint.com and then trying so many different things over the years to finally be able to get app sumo.com and.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about it this morning. There's so many books that are very fluffy, like Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I read that a long time ago and I was like, I want a Rich Dad and a Rich Mom. Then I was like, what do I do? It's like, buy real estate. I was like, well, that sucks. Yeah, right. Then there's some of these books that are like, here's how to run Facebook ads. I'm like, well, that's outdated and it's too recipe-based. Yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
Honestly, years of putting this together. It's like, well, what's really holding people back and how to help them very tactively in a really short amount of time with no extra money? Yeah, I think we did that.
00:03:59
Speaker
The examples that you go into in the book, I guess one thing you just posted on social media, right? You just posted about how you're going to start a business in the next 48 hours. And you were sourcing ideas on what business you're going to start just to prove that this stuff works. And you talk about some of these examples in the book as well.
Overcoming Business Fears and Taking Action
00:04:15
Speaker
And I thought it was just fascinating. But the templates that you give to go out and find your first customers, they were just eye-opening, especially as I think about Sumo.
00:04:24
Speaker
You know, the stage we're in right now with this transition. We'll talk a little bit more about that. I'm sure in the interview, but yeah, I mean, I just thought just spurred ideas. Yeah. Million dollar weekend is exciting. I mean, sumo me, which you guys now own started that way was going out and like solving our own problem, which we wanted more emails for app sumo. And then it was like, well, do other people really want this? And then going to Tim Ferriss and Pat Flynn and other friends and be like, Hey, we're going to build this stuff. You guys going to give us money? You guys going to use it? Like, yeah, we'll use it.
00:04:51
Speaker
All right. Yeah. And I think most people though, they do the opposite. They're like, I want to build a software business. It's like, well, I need a developer and then I need funding and I need to go research SaaS development software. And then I need to buy more tools on AppSumo. When you could really go and find three customers within a weekend to see if they'll actually buy email collection, which is kind of the approach that we took similarly with SumoMe. And then you realize you can apply that on a lot of different things. Yeah. And how do you do it for free? So if you want to build a photography business, all right, how did I get three clients this weekend?
00:05:20
Speaker
Or if I want to do software specifically, let's say in the software example, could I use free tools to deliver the solution someone actually needs and see if I can really get customers for
Starting a Business with Existing Networks
00:05:28
Speaker
it? Whereas most people are like, I need to build it and spend six months and then beta test it. And in 48 hours, you could have actually found if people wanted it or not. I've definitely made that mistake. So I'm hoping to save people a lot of time, money and frustration.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest mistakes. I look back at the different businesses I've started and the ones that I think failed or didn't do well were just because I was scared to share about it or I thought I had to wait to share about it until the idea was fully formed or it got to this magical place where everything was perfect. Whereas the businesses that I started that have done really well are just businesses that literally, the ad agency for instance, it's like I sent
00:06:04
Speaker
probably 50 emails to friends of mine being like, hey, you know, I'm doing this now. I've had success doing it, doing it for myself for a while. Let me know if you know anybody's interested in this. And most of my responders like, oh, I'm interested in this. That's how it started. Again, and similar to what you put forth in the book, it took zero dollars to do that. Just emails. Two questions there. How did the agency do? How did you end up getting six, seven figures? Where did it end up going to?
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I'm getting some figures. And as you know, I just exited to take on this new role with sumo me. And I think what's interesting is just another example. I know you're involved with with Todd and show it. You know, people are doing photography, if they're doing weddings, if they're doing any of these types of
00:06:45
Speaker
agency-related businesses. I got an email similarly two weeks ago where it was my friend saying, hey, my friend is a photographer. If you need anything for weddings, for maternity, for engagements, for headshots, please reply to her. She sent it out to 10 people. I replied, and now we're booking a session with her.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, Oh, huh, I guess there is another way. But the thing that's also fascinating, a million dollar weekend from doing it myself and from seeing so many other people is a lot of people can understand that, but then they're still afraid. Yeah, I think that was definitely one of the key biggest pieces in the book that like, how do we help people take action right away and overcome the fears, not even they're aware of, but are subconsciously holding them back? Yeah. What are some of those fears you feel like? Like, what are the typical fears that are holding people back?
00:07:26
Speaker
It's interesting because there's two levels of fears. There's the levels that people identify. And those we actually literally it's the beginning of the book called frequently made excuses. And it's like, I don't have money. I don't have ideas. I'm not technical. I don't have time. I have too many ideas. I need help as a founder.
00:07:43
Speaker
Co-founder, I don't have any social media. I don't have the network for it. And these are all solved. Those are all solvable. But the real fears, those are just the surface level excuses that are really able to be crushed pretty quickly. But the real fears are the ability to get going. So I want to do an agency you just like just yourself, David, you did the awesome idea of you just went and sent the email. Yeah. And so there are other ways of doing it other other validation approaches. And then so how do people get going in the starting the fear of getting going in the fear of potentially getting rejected?
00:08:11
Speaker
and finding out that it's not so bad to get that ego hit. Now, the second one, though, is the fear of asking. So it's the fear of asking someone like yourself did to be an agency, the fear of asking someone to be a customer for Sumomi, the fear of asking someone to be a customer at AppSumo.com.
00:08:26
Speaker
Or, you know, my YouTube videos, you know, it's asking people that I
Validating Business Ideas and Practical Examples
00:08:29
Speaker
knock on their doors to be a customer to what they do for a living, which is kind of embarrassing. And it's uncomfortable, but it's a skill that everyone can practice. And in the book, we have a lot of, you know, the coffee challenge where you ask for a discount, or even recently, I was that we were talking this weekend, I was in Sarasota, Florida, Siesta Key Beach.
00:08:45
Speaker
And I love doing it. It's a practice. It's not that it's, it's something that, uh, you get fearless, you just do it over and over enough. And you realize this is all business is the fear of asking. It's something to get better at. And so I was at a store. It was called continental or something like that over at Siesta key. And I was buying blankets, blanket towels for the beach.
00:09:04
Speaker
I was like, just do it. Don't give yourself that excuse. The three second excuse, you're like, well, I don't need to. Don't negotiate with yourself. And I like the three second rule. I think it makes it a lot easier. As I was going up the counter, I was like, do I have to ask for a discount? I'm like, yeah, just do it. And I just did it. I said, hey, can I get a discount on these towels? And he's like, yeah, I'll give you 30% off one of them. Really?
00:09:27
Speaker
It's silly. It's silly. It's kind of goofy, right? Who cares about a discount on a towel? But you realize, as you become stronger at asking, that a lot of the business stuff is pretty trivial. But all business and really life is, is asks. And if you ask for things, you can start getting the things you actually want versus getting the things you're getting. And so yeah, I got a discount. But also, a few days before that, I asked for a room upgrade. I was like, can I have a free one? She's like, why? I was like, I don't know, because I'm visiting. And they said, no.
00:09:52
Speaker
And then I smiled. I said, all right, well, thanks for trying. Yeah. And there's no real downside, but the upside is I got a cool room for free. The downside is like a moment of discomfort. And really, as you can start applying that to your other aspects of business specifically, start realizing there's a lot of other ways how your salary can be, who your customers can be, who your employees can be. And really, all businesses is that. And so those are the two things that, on the deeper level, hold people back from really getting going and success in these businesses.
00:10:19
Speaker
And I think this is one of those things where, you know, even when you get rejected, a lot of times you just learn a lot along the way. I started listening to your podcast, I mean, I don't know. I actually went back and looked at the first email that I ever received from you. It was back in 2017. And I think, you know, I was actually kind of surprised. You know, I thought it was actually, I thought I started subscribing before that, but that's the earliest I could find. I remember mowing the lawn, listening to your podcast, but for a long time, you know, that's been one of your things, right?
00:10:47
Speaker
getting over this fear of rejection. And so that's something that I found that to be one of the more beneficial practices is this practice of asking for a discount. Going to just coffee shop, getting a coffee, asking for a discount. And you realize, just flexing that little muscle right there, you just realize at the end of the day, it's like,
00:11:05
Speaker
You know, they're just going to say no a lot of the time. And that's the worst. That's the worst of it right there. I feel like that has helped me so much over the course of the last five plus years as an entrepreneur. It's one of these people don't realize how powerful it is. I interview a lot of billionaires on the YouTube channel.
00:11:20
Speaker
I've worked for billionaires, Zuckerberg and Moskowitz and all these guys. Again, this is something that no one's actually saying, but what they're all saying is that selling, which is really asking, has been one of the most powerful reasons they've been successful. John Paul DeGioria, who did Paul Mitchell Hair Care and Patron, he's like, I'm a master salesman. Let me show you. I was like, oh, that's good. Just getting better and practicing it in silly ways. I even do it compliments
00:11:45
Speaker
I saw this person with nice shoes recently. I was like, oh, where'd you get the shoes from? She's like, JC Penney's. I was like, nice. This is great. I want to get them for my girlfriend. And you do that. And then you also get in the first fear of just getting going.
00:11:58
Speaker
And just getting going, you're like, Oh my God, I've been like, I was talking to this guy, Jake, who read the book and Jake's got a day job with three kids and he's busy. I don't know how he's doing life. And he's like, man, I've been thinking about this business idea, golf business for two years. And the fact that I said, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to try to get customers and follow some of your framework in 48
Principles of Successful Businesses
00:12:16
Speaker
hours. Let me see what can happen. And so he was telling me today how he's got like more than five customers. He's got his golf business going. He's got a trip coming up in April for his customers.
00:12:24
Speaker
He's like, yeah, but just didn't I never just got going. Yeah. So it's like, how does he get in that now, not how mindset, which is the idea of like, even for myself at home, I'll think about it like, if there's stuff on the ground, I was like, I'll get it later. Just like, just do right now. Yeah. And then when you start doing that, you realize like, oh, man, I've been waiting too long to get going on things I want.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, maybe you could speak to that a little bit. And maybe at the same time, you could share a little bit about how AppSumo got started. And yeah, just give us a little background on how you validated that idea. And that's something you talk a little bit about in the book as well.
00:12:56
Speaker
Definitely. I mean, AppSumo today will do somewhere around 80 plus million dollars a year in revenue just to give people like where we are today, which is insane. I think it's insane. Yeah, that's amazing. But it started with me in a basement in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco identifying a problem that I had. And in the book and so forth, we have different ways that we break out how you can find businesses to start. And I think the best way is to solve your own problems.
00:13:19
Speaker
And everyone has a lot more problems. They realize just literally take out your phone and look at breakfast, lunch and dinner and write down two things that were either annoying you or opportunities in each of those categories. And you have six different business opportunities right there. I wanted software deals at good prices. I like a good deal. Like if I ever got a yacht, I would name a good price and probably got a good deal on the yacht with absolutely. I was in this basement thinking, man, I want to have deals on software.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I saw Mac heist, which was like this deal software business. And I was like, maybe I could try it out. And let me see if I could do it this weekend. So I hired a guy named Muhammad for 12 bucks an hour. And I can refer him to people who need a developer still, maybe it's $13 an hour now with inflation. It's been 13, 14 years since we worked together. I mean, him put a PayPal button on a website, app sumo.com. And then the problem I was trying to solve, and this is where most people get wrong in starting a business. They're like, what's the solution I have? Let me go find a problem.
00:14:10
Speaker
I built this cool AI thing. Let me go find customers. It's like, no, no, no, start with the customer, start with the problem, then find the solution. And most people just do that backwards. And that's why they're not having success.
00:14:20
Speaker
It's software as a service, right? So the service is really the thing. And so you have to serve a customer regardless of the business. And so with AppSumo, I was like, well, customers are on Reddit. I'm a Redditor. What's a problem they have? Like maybe they too want discounts on software. Like is the problem I'm trying to solve? What's the software that they want? And it was Imgur, which is not as popular today, but back then it was like everybody used Imgur for photos.
00:14:41
Speaker
And so I just cold emailed imger asked for to see if I could do discounts on software. I told him I pay him $7 for everyone I sold of his premium service normally there was $24. And then I cold emailed the founders of Reddit and I asked if they would give me free ad space. And they said sure, because they're starting up their new ad service.
00:14:59
Speaker
And so then I basically within a very short amount of time had a website that was built for $48. The domain was 12. I posted on Reddit. Hey, I have this imager for $12, which is normally 24 half off. And then we sold within about a week, 200 copies. I sold it at $12 and I gave Alan seven.
00:15:17
Speaker
and I made $5 for every sale. And so
Growing a Service-Based Business through Referrals
00:15:20
Speaker
very quickly I was able to understand, wow, there's something here that people want. And just to give you the complexity of our business at that time, people would hit the PayPal button, send me $12, and through my Gmail, I would email them their premium code to get Imgur Premium. And then I would email them again and say, hey, what's the next software tool you would like? And there was no backend, there was no real website, there was no CRM, there was no ads, there was no other complexities. But you know, you fast forward that today, that $12 now turned into
00:15:47
Speaker
maybe two days ago, I think we did $453,000 in one day in sales. And this is every major business like Google, Airbnb, Facebook, they all started as weekend hobbies or side hustles with one sale. And so most people don't ever get to the million because they're never getting one. And so you mentioned at the beginning of the show, I'm going to prove it again tomorrow doing the same thing.
00:16:09
Speaker
Right. So a million dollar weekend is finding out if it's a million dollar opportunity, which there's market research and how you can do that in a very quick amount of time, but then also validating if it's something that eventually can be to where app Sumo is or beyond. So tomorrow we're going to pick one of the ideas from the customers. I think the three so far that we're excited to try out is a lawn care business.
00:16:28
Speaker
And again, I'm not going to use my email list. I'm not going to post on Twitter. I'm only going to use mostly outreach and validation methods that are available to anyone worldwide for free. But lawn care business, another one suggested maybe some AI thing just to see if I can do something with that. And then a software business just kind of like AppSumo. I think we're going to do a DocuSign alternative because that's a problem that I hate paying for DocuSign.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah.
Balancing Fun and Success in Entrepreneurship
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah. I hate monthly subscriptions in general. It's really a sumo, but I want to see if I can sell it and get validation without building anything, which is what we teach in the book.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah. I think that would be really interesting to watch, especially since it is software. So I think a lot of people would assume you have to build something, some sort of MVP before you sell it. One of the things that's so interesting about the AppSumo origin story and you cold emailing Reddit and getting a response, was that a calculated move knowing that they were trying to start their ad service and so that it might be beneficial for them? I guess really the question I'm getting at is like, how did you develop the skill of being able to cold email people and yet?
00:17:26
Speaker
positive responses. I'm sure there's rejection along the way, but it seems like you've had some success there. That's why the book starts out with asking, so how do you practice asking and getting better at asking? At milliondollarweekend.com for free, we have all the scripts and templates that are included in the book, so people want to see exactly the emails I sent. They can copy that, but I'll break it down for anyone that they could use it, whatever business you're doing. If you're doing an agency business, if you're doing a website that's using Sumomi or whatever you guys are going to be calling it, a lot of the people listening are agencies, right?
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, I would say we have a lot of, we started as a podcast for service-based businesses. A lot of people in the wedding industry, a lot of photographers. Yeah, yeah. So let me give you a few exact scripts that everyone can use. That's in the service business that I would copy. So let me share the one I use and how you can use it in your own service business. So with Alan, he was a college student.
00:18:14
Speaker
So specifically I emailed him and I said, promoting you to thousands of people. I said, Hey, Alan. So again, think about it. I always think about the acronym with what's in it for them. So with Alan, I was like, I'm promoting you to thousands of people. He's like, well, that sounds cool. So if you're a photographer, here's an easy way to get a lot of clients do free photos to begin with. I know you may not want to do it, but if, especially if you're just getting going.
00:18:35
Speaker
Then I said, Alan, I'm an imger, so compliment them. I'm an imger user. I love your stuff. I'd like to promote you on Reddit. I will pay you at zero cost to you. There's no work to you. $7 for every license. And for software, there's no cost to him. So it's a no brainer. How does that sound? Can we talk on AIM? This was 13, 14 years ago. Amazing. And I put my phone number in there. So a few things to take away from that is that
00:18:55
Speaker
If you're doing a service business, what's in it for them right away from the title or subject line? How do you kind of compliment or give someone something that recognizes what you appreciate? Make it a clear call to action. So I said, I want to promote you on Reddit at no cost. I'll pay you to do this. Can we talk at this time?
00:19:12
Speaker
And so you want to make it a very clear call to action versus people are like, this is the worst thing you can say, let me know. All right. So for a service
The 'Law of 100' and Content Creation
00:19:20
Speaker
business, another way you could think about this is who have you taken photos of? Who have you done in the past? And now for service business, the two issues that they're facing is how do you ask for a referral in this business or how do you make your business more consistent?
00:19:32
Speaker
So what I would do if I was service, I would look at anyone I've taken videos in the past of and I'd say, Hey, I loved working together with you. Here's one of the photos. I remember this experience that we had. Who is one person that you think is going to need this specific service, maternity, headshots, wedding specifically. And so making it a one very clear request.
00:19:50
Speaker
The other thing I would say for these service businesses, how do you make it recurring? Like I just hired a photographer off Snapper, snapper.co. So I would go and look, how do you get lead gen? But then how do you turn it into recurring revenue, especially the service business? So specifically, when do people need photos more often? So for me, I do YouTube videos. So you can get business from Snapper or whatever it is, like thumbtack. And then this photographer, I just hired from that. Once you got the client, be like, Hey, try to think about what is something every month or every quarter I can now sell to this person.
00:20:20
Speaker
Hey, do you do videos? Hey, can I do real estate? Hey, do you need family photos? And you're sort of thinking like, oh wow, like I can create more consistent revenue from doing that. On the other side of that, just to quickly add, I then emailed Reddit and I said, Hey, referred by. So if you're doing service businesses, say who you're referred by. So I just said, Hey, I'm friends with Chris Smoke. He seems like he knows you or he knows you. Can we have breakfast to talk about me working with Reddit?
00:20:48
Speaker
And so when you're messaging someone, you can also just say referred by this person. And then people pretty much 100% open and perhaps 70 to 80% reply to you if you're referred by someone else. I almost never do cold. But if I'm doing cold, I make it such an outlandish offer that they just can't, like for Alan, to get a bunch of money and customers at no cost, no work for him, it's a no-brainer for him to respond.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. And I think the brilliant part about the email, right, is because you're asking a specific question that's either a yes or no, I think people feel more of a responsibility to reply yes or no versus, you know, the let me know, or if that sounds good to you, reach out, you know, whatever it is where it's like, well, nobody comes to mind maybe right now, so I won't let you know. Like I won't even respond, right? Whereas if you ask, Hey, give me the name of one person that might be interested in this, right? I think people just naturally maybe go through the brainstorming process a little bit more intentionally that way.
00:21:41
Speaker
100%. Here's an easy example. If you're a photographer, you have a lot of photographers. Yeah, I think it's still a lot of photographers. Hell yeah. What up, I love you guys. I've bought a photography stuff here. I love photography. I'm not great at it. But I like it. Now. So just to give you a thing. So my girlfriend's pregnant, which is amazing. And we're super excited about that. And we just hired that photographer off snapper. So if I were him, he over delivered, which is most important, like you over deliver on what you're promising.
00:22:06
Speaker
And if I were him, I would do two things. I would say one, Noah, you seem like you really love my service, which I do. Who was one other person that's having a baby you think I could take photos for today? And then, like, I'll give him a discount because you referred me. We're like crazy now in these mom and dad groups. I'm talking to so many different parents. It's like there's so many new customers. I can literally start referring him. And one, he can give him a discount because it's for me. I'm like, I even want to literally send stuff to my buddy Adam Gilbert from my body tutor dot com out in Connecticut to get him photos.
00:22:36
Speaker
with his family, the photographers in Florida. But you can start seeing by just doing the one referral, he can start getting more and more. The other thing that he could do is like, hey, no, if you love these photos, I'll give you 10% off. If you post one or two online, you can use my watermark, right? So it's like his name is Taruk. He was awesome out of Orlando. This guy was Sarasota. The guy was fire. I love him.
00:22:55
Speaker
hey, just if you want to give a little discount, I'll have my watermark in there. And so you start realizing, how do I build a growth into the business itself? So it's more consistent. Yeah, I noticed for a lot of companies, it's like, how do you have more consistency? So you're not always hunting your food. And that's something we noticed, I think a lot of maternity photographers doing is that if you're thinking about the whole maternity process, it's like, you want pictures, you know, while you're pregnant, and then your baby is going to be born, and you're going to want pictures. And then the changes that happen between newborn
00:23:24
Speaker
and the first two years are just incredible. And so you want, yeah, six months, a year, and that's what people do. They're selling these two-year, it's typically a two-year package, and you get photos at certain intervals. And it's such a genius way of just like, I love, oh, this is a great dude. I'm going to start this business. Yeah, right. And it's just a genius way to create some recurring revenue. And like you said, not feeling like you have to constantly be hunting for new leads.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, you want to be farming, right? So because you've worked with some person, especially if you're just getting going and you got nothing, do what you did literally, you know, which is sending a message out to your friends and family and people in your church or synagogue and your network. Do it for free if you have to, but you may not even need to. Then you kind of start doing a great service and you build up your experience and your confidence. Then you're going to be like, oh, like this can lead to different sizes of companies to, and it may not be to be a millionaire. It could be also just have grocery money or could just to be, have a creative outlet like an app, sumo.com.
00:24:21
Speaker
We have this woman, Amy. Amy is our head customer support. She also has a flower shop.
00:24:28
Speaker
And then she just bought a hair salon business. It's like, great. It's whatever kind of life you want to create. And that's why it's exciting about entrepreneurship, is that it creates the opportunity for if you want to live in different places, if you want to make as much money as you want to make, if you want to spend your day how you'd like to spend it. That's the beauty of it, that I think people can keep their day jobs or change it. I do believe you have to get going today so you have that option.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah. And one of the things that I really, I've really respected about you, something that's that you've been kind of upfront about and you kind of poke fun at this on your YouTube channel. So if you go to Noah's YouTube channel, the first video that plays like your trailer video, right, poking fun at I wake up at 239 every morning or 259 every morning, right? Just this idea of like what people maybe think entrepreneurship has to be, you know, this big thing where you're making
00:25:15
Speaker
loads and loads and loads of money, yada, yada, yada. But really, you talk a lot about those things that you value and then trying to create a business that allows you to enjoy those things. One of them being flexibility so that you can travel. So maybe you could speak to that a little bit. Yeah. Specifically with the service business, this is one of the first blockers that a lot of people will do. Oh, well, I always have to be the one taking the photos. It's like, so too.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, who says that, you know, I have a guy on retainer and more or less once to three times a month, we make videos. And then he's like, do I always have to be here? I'm like, no, I don't care. I just need the quality high. I mean, sure. It's approved by you. Go do whatever you want. One thing I've noticed from service people, though, is that they're, they're not as good at business stuff. Yeah. Right. And so they're like, he never sends me invoices.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, because it's all about the craft. You know, you get into it because you like doing whatever it is that you're doing. You like taking photos. So I do think it's how do you automate or find a bookkeeper or find a business person to support you. And you could find these people and like hire my mom.com or hire a mom.com. That's one of my favorite sites. I've hired some executive assistants off that.
00:26:19
Speaker
for creatives, number one, get going, right, especially on the weekends, and that's what we all have available to us, we have 52 available to us, it won't magically be a million dollars instantly. But you take a photo one weekend, and then a second weekend and third, and then eventually you're like, Oh, let me find someone else who I can then have them do this. And then I can just find new customers or just do the customers you want.
00:26:38
Speaker
Now, in terms of flexibility, I'll just work backwards from where I am today. I spend half my year living in Spain and Barcelona, half the year living in Austin, Texas. One of the best parts of being an entrepreneur is being able to have the choice to how you want to spend your time. I was just offline all week in Orlando, and then now I get to come and talk to you about business and marketing and promoting and services in a million dollar weekend. This is awesome.
00:27:02
Speaker
And to me, it's the freedom is really the having the choice of how I want to spend my day. And I don't have to go to meetings like I don't do meetings before noon. So, absolutely. We have no meetings for noon for me. And it's like, guess what? Everyone else can do that too. It's not exclusive. And most people don't realize like where they are and where they want to be or who they are and who they want to be is closer than they think. But the only way you get there is you get going.
00:27:24
Speaker
And I think most people think they're not ready and the only way to get ready is to start. The best way to start is to start right now. So yeah, I think the freedom is what most people aspire to and it doesn't mean quit your day job. I never took a risk and quit my day job. I thought it was riskier to have the day job. That sucked.
00:27:39
Speaker
I hated my day jobs or I kept getting fired. I love how you lean into that part of your story. I was embarrassed. I was really ashamed and then I was even real estate recently. I've lost so much money in real estate. I really suck at it. I'm only really good at starting and running businesses. That's what I've realized. I think this year probably lost like 120, 150,000.
00:28:00
Speaker
Last year, that was last year. This year just started, so we'll see how much I'll lose in real estate this year. All the people in my Instagram feed, though, make it sound so easy. These people are selling you a course. That's the problem.
00:28:10
Speaker
I don't trust anyone who is getting rich from a book or a course. That's my role. I'm already rich from AppSumo and from doing that for the past tons of years, this book doesn't get me rich. I think you got to be selective. I know I'm not supposed to say shit like that, but I'd be selective who you learn from. I've shared a lot of the things that have not worked. What I realized is when I was sharing that I got fired by Facebook and I didn't get rich at Mint.com,
00:28:36
Speaker
And then even on the YouTube channel, getting rejected all day long, I realized that people appreciated seeing the realness and the struggle just as much as they like seeing the success. So in our videos, it's me failing. I'm doing the 48 hour challenge in about 10 hours, or it starts in 10 hours. I'm going to go knock on doors and see if I can sell lawn care business to people.
00:28:57
Speaker
I think a lot of gurus or experts will talk to you about it and they'll tell you about it, but I'm going to go show you and, you know, find, see what we can find out. Yeah. And you're going to release a video on this at the end of the month. So we're actually right around the time this episode airs, that video is probably coming out. Give us like a high level overview first steps. So you're going to start this long care business or AI, you know, whatever, whatever ID you end up choosing. Give us kind of the high level plan on what you're going to do in those 48 hours.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. So if we zoom out, I break things down to basically starting it, building it and growing it. I don't think I'll have time to make a million dollars this weekend, but the idea is how do I get started? Right? That's the whole premise that everyone has 52 weekends available to get things going worldwide. So starting it really is around fear of starting and the fear of asking. So the fear of starting is the coffee challenge and that's fear starting and fear of asking. And then also the dollar challenge. So the dollar challenge, can I get a dollar from someone in my network? So I'll probably call my brother.
00:29:53
Speaker
And I'll just be like, yo, give me a dollar. And he's like, why? I was like, well, I'm doing a million dollar weekend. And there's scripts and all this stuff in the book that'll help a lot of other people. But it's just more practicing the now mindset. Let's just get going. But I just want to show people it. I think people are going to be excited. And I think my brother will say no. And I think I'll do my mom as well, and maybe one other person. But I think my mom will say yes, but she won't know how to do Venmo or PayPal. I might not get any money. But the point is, it's just getting going and then doing the coffee challenge. So I'll go out.
00:30:17
Speaker
to different places locally and probably get rejected, but just see what happens by asking for a discount. And again, these are things that are silly and they're supposed to be fun, like making money and having a business shouldn't be hard work. It should be work that you enjoy.
00:30:30
Speaker
And is it gonna be challenging yeah i don't want this book to be a nagging book that's never been exciting for me or others to get motivated. So part one really is just a mindset but starting and asking part two is now about building it so how do i find the idea so lawn care is just one i think people are it's different i want to show how to do a service business like that.
00:30:48
Speaker
AI or something else, maybe it'll be even like an agency business. I think that'll be interesting. Like maybe photography, maybe this maternity one. I kind of like that. And the third one will be the DocuSign alternative because I just hate paying for the subscription. Now, what you have to do next is really two things. One, you check if it's a million dollar opportunity. How do you do that?
00:31:07
Speaker
You can look at Google Trends and I break it down really detailed in the book as well as you can get the free resource at milliondollarweekend.com. You can go Google Trends just to see how things are going, but really what I'm looking for, frankly, is how many people have this problem and how much are they spending on it or something tangential. And what I'm trying to understand is, is there at least a million dollars in profit
00:31:25
Speaker
that I could make in this market over some period of time. How long that time period is, I actually think it takes people around five to 10 years to make a million dollars in profit. Not your house is worth a million, but after you sell it, how much money do you have? And that, to me, is a million dollars. So making sure that you're working on something that people actually want, like Christmas lights, million dollar opportunity. I don't think it's a billion, but definitely a million dollar opportunity worldwide.
00:31:47
Speaker
Now, second thing that you need to do is a business model. And I call it the one minute business model, which is if I'm selling Christmas lights or if I'm selling, let's take lawn care. How much is the lawn care? Let's say it's 50 bucks a week. How much does that cost me? Maybe I have to pay someone 10, $20. I make $30. All right. Now, how much do I have to sell to make a million? I have to sell 10,000 lawn cares. Okay. That's a lot. Whatever that is.
00:32:08
Speaker
Now how do I have to change it so I can actually make it? And I think what you said earlier, Davey, is really smart for the maternity one. Maybe you sell them two year projects. So for lawn care, hey, can I sell you a three month package, six month package, 12 month package? All right, let's go back to the one minute business bottle. If now it's instead of weekly, it's monthly and it's 200 or it's quarterly and it's 600.
00:32:27
Speaker
How many do I have to sell? Well, you only have to sell 30 to make a million or let's just call it a hundred to make a million. And so again, everything is really quick and people like it's really simple and like, yeah, I'm making it intentionally simple. I only have a weekend. I only have 48 hours available.
00:32:41
Speaker
And so for me, I already have the problems, but as well in the book, we break down a lot of how you come up with ideas and opportunities, but you have to make sure once you have them. And again, people are like, I don't have any ideas. We'll help you. If you have too many ideas, don't worry. Let's just do the first one. But it's about the practice and experimenting. People put so much pressure. Like I have to make this to work. Like guess what? Most things don't work and use an experiment or mindset because if it doesn't work great, what do we learn? As you said, Davey, and what do we move on to? So let's take lawn care.
00:33:09
Speaker
Again, made sure it's a million dollar business. Great. Check the business model. I have to sell it quarterly. Great.
00:33:14
Speaker
Now I have to go validate it and then potentially grow it. So how do I validate? There's three ways you can validate it. With lawn care, one, you could post it on local marketplaces. So Facebook, Nextdoor, Craigslist, maybe you have like a mom's group locally or maybe there's other groups locally in people's neighborhoods. So I would say, hey, I'm doing a lawn care. My friend is like, you could post in a WhatsApp group. Most people have local WhatsApp groups. Doing this lawn care thing. Does anyone have a house that they want or anyone else have a friend that has a house that I can do lawn for?
00:33:43
Speaker
Posting marketplace is one, pre-selling to people within your network is two, so posting to WhatsApp groups, email groups, text groups, or knocking on doors, which I don't think people should do, but that's something that I'm going to go do just to make it a little bit more interesting. Lastly, what I would not do for the lawn care one is do ads or landing pages, but that is another alternative for people. Really, what I'm trying to find out in this phase is, can I get three customers in 48 hours?
00:34:08
Speaker
because if you cannot get three in 48 hours, it's just gonna get harder. It's not gonna get easier. People are like, well, you know, maybe, no, it's only gonna get harder. And then the last part, which I'm not gonna touch on too much in the 48 hour challenge is how do I take it now from, I have some validation, I've made it maybe $100 or $500. Now, how do I start making that consistent and grow the business? But I think that's gonna be,
00:34:27
Speaker
Part two, and that's really not, not what I'm focusing on. What I'm focusing on is how do I prove to people and show that with a lawn care business, I'm going to knock on doors. I'm going to ask my neighbors. I'm going to see if I can do that. And the same thing, pretty much same format, same framework applies for a service business. And the same thing will apply for the same thing on the DocuSign alternative. And to be clear, it might fail. And guess what? That's great. I didn't build a website. I don't have a Shopify store. I didn't get a domain. And I could see if this is actually businesses people really want. And then if they do want, great, now I can deliver and scale that out.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah. I think it's so smart. I especially think, you know, I know you don't love the knocking on doors idea. I think especially for the lawn care business idea, that's a great, I've hired quite a few people actually that just come and knock on the door and been like, Hey, you're a guy. What stuff did you buy from the door? Lawn care. So just like mowing, trimming, weed whacking, that sort of thing. But then also people who come and spray for like mosquitoes. We used to live in Annapolis on an Island off Annapolis.
00:35:22
Speaker
Oh, you lived in Annapolis? Dude, that place is super cool. Oh, yeah, we loved it. That's where my wife and I, we both grew up there. And we lived on this island called Ken Island. And so, you know, as you can imagine, in the summer, mosquitoes got bad. But yeah, I mean, people were just coming up to the door and saying, Hey, can I help you with this? I mean, like, I almost never responded to, you know, I get a million flyers for the same thing. But I think there's something about somebody showing up on your door. I guess I just respect that kind of hustle, you know? Yeah, I think part of it is, when I start business, I've done these challenges over the years and shown people it.
00:35:52
Speaker
They're always so, oh, why didn't you do something super hard for yourself? And it's like, why? Why not try to start a business that you're interested in and you have access or called the zone of influences of people that you could actually help, right? Like if you want to be a photographer for weddings, like you should probably have, you've been to a few weddings or you have people getting married, but if you're not within that network, like what else could you do photography for to make it easier on yourself?
00:36:15
Speaker
So starting a lawn care business, I'm just going to go to my neighbors. They know me. And guess what? I can ask them, who else has a lawn? You could look on Google Maps and see who else has lawns. Or you can just walk around your neighborhood and ask them, hey, do you know that other person across the street? Can you introduce me? Sure. It's a lot easier than trying to make something much harder on yourself, which I think what I've observed is people make it harder on themselves. Like, all right, I'm going to do this business. I have no expertise and no network in. Because when they fail, they're not embarrassed. When they fail, there's no challenge. There's no learning.
00:36:43
Speaker
I think they have an advantage in that place. Yeah. One of my friends, he owns a wedding venue, also an entrepreneur. He once said something that I thought was pretty insightful, and he talked about how he feels like everybody has a competitive advantage somewhere, and a lot of entrepreneurship is figuring out that intersection of your competitive advantage, that leg up that you just naturally have, maybe because you're interested in something like long care, and that's just something that
00:37:06
Speaker
you do as a hobby for yourself that you really get a lot of energy from or whatever, and finding that intersection with the intersection of, you know, I'm really interested in this as well. So, yeah, I mean, I just I agree. I don't think you have to make things harder than they have to be. I like the phrase, it should be fun. And if it's not fun, you're probably doing work or you have a job and you can actually change that.
00:37:28
Speaker
And then thinking about differently, like, Oh my God, I get to do these things. Like I get to promote stuff for me, or I get to take photos of people. And like, that could be my career. Isaac, who's the videographer for a lot of our content. We get to travel around the world making videos about people. Like how cool is that? And so thinking about what do you have within your network or within your abilities?
00:37:46
Speaker
to make it easier and enjoyable for yourself to be successful. So yeah, totally agree with you. Yeah. Well, I'd love to chat just kind of about a few random things. I know we only have a few minutes left here. Let's do it. Do you? Let's do it. Because again, I've been following you for what, like seven, eight years now at least. So I have a lot of questions that have kind of built up along the way. One of the things that you talk about that I love and something that again, I've tried to apply is the law of 100, doing something a hundred times before maybe even giving up on it. Maybe you could speak to that.
00:38:15
Speaker
is the law of 100, why do you think it's valuable? Everyone listening or watching has quit too soon. You have, I have, it's in all of us. And so it's something that I've observed about how do we not quit too soon? How do we quit at the right time? And so what I've noticed is that if you can commit to 100,
00:38:35
Speaker
So what the law of 100 is for me, it's like, if I'm doing content, could be a hundred videos. If I'm doing, let's just say photography business, could I ask a hundred people to be my customer? Then you quit. And just having a little bit of a light framework makes it much easier to keep going and then realizing, okay, this is not working. I'm trying these things and it's just not working. Right? So let's say you want to do the 48 hour validation and you just need three customers, talk to at least a hundred, then you quit.
00:39:00
Speaker
And I quit, I've definitely quit too soon. Like on my podcast, I quit too soon. On my YouTube channel, in the past, I quit too soon. For me, with the YouTube channel, I stuck with it. And we did, at our 148th video, was the one that finally worked. It was me knocking on doors in Austin. That finally worked. And I was like, okay, thank God I didn't quit too soon.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah. And now if you go to that series, right, it's like 4 million views, 2.8 million views, you know, it's like everything in that series is in the millions. Yeah. And I've seen it again. There's a guy named Trent Dressel. He wanted to do YouTube and he was doing all these types of videos. And I said, Trent, two things. One, what's your unique advantage? What is your unfair advantage that only you can do? He's like, well, I do sales as a junior sales guy and no one's really doing a lot of content about that. I'm like, okay, just do content about that.
00:39:44
Speaker
So who's your customer? What's the problem? Sales and things that you can help them with. Secondly, just do 100 videos, then you can quit. And now I think he's at 40 or 50,000 subscribers. He started almost at zero. Yeah, amazing. And so this doesn't just apply to content. I think it can really apply in everything in business with AppSumo.com. If you think about it, I did the first deal and it did well, but really, I only got rich. And this really applies to a lot of 100. I only got actually rich, like millionaire, cash millionaire after about seven years.
00:40:09
Speaker
Seven years. It wasn't in 24 hours like all the, again, my Instagram tells me something different about how you're supposed to get rich. I do think if it's easy, I hate all these crypto people because they make getting rich too easy sometimes, but also they get poor too easy. Sure. Is that I do think you can start a successful business, but it takes time though to actually get rich with it. And the point of the million dollar we can, and generally the reason I encourage this stuff is that I've tried some businesses that didn't work right away and that's the reality.
00:40:35
Speaker
And then I found AppSumo, and I was like, oh, this one worked right away. Great. Let's run with this one. But I've tried reward level. No one really used it. I can't even explain what we did. I tried softwaretaco.com. It was a software review site. No one used that. And it was trying and trying and trying to experiment and experimenting, kept going, got one that worked at AppSumo. And now that it worked, it's like, all right, how do I stick with these things better?
00:40:55
Speaker
And only through being able to, you know, the law of 100, I think has been a great framework for a lot of people. It's been one of the biggest breakthroughs. I've seen others, whether they're doing content, whether they're doing a service business, whatever that is to stick with it. Cause it does take time and consistency for success.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we're trying to double down on YouTube this year, but I was talking with my team about the Law of 100. Like, we're going to try putting out 100 videos and see where it goes. Because I think we've suffered from sort of that same thing. This is a start-stop and not being consistent there. But with the podcast, we're 200 plus episodes deep. One of the things that's really stuck with me is something Seth Godin I think once said where he was like,
00:41:30
Speaker
I pretty much say yes to every single podcast interview as long as that person has. And I forget the exact number, but I want to say it was like 100 episodes. He's like, because people typically don't make it past like episode six. So he's like, I'm not going to commit my time to being like episode number five on this podcast when that person's probably not going to make it past episode six.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's great. Again, even, you know, I've quit too soon. Like my podcast, I quit at episode 30. And it's like, man, if I just would have stuck with it, it would have been so much bigger than it is today. Like I ended up restarting it and now I'm sticking with it. I think the question that people wonder though is like, how do you know whether to stick with something or quit? And that's why for me, it's okay. Can I see if there's any validation? That's what I, what works for me. And it's working. Like I started my whole YouTube channel shirtless in my house.
00:42:18
Speaker
And it worked, meaning I got a few hundred views and I was like, okay, I like this. Now I can stick with it. It makes it, you know, but if you're doing something and you get zero results in a weekend, it's like, okay, let me do a lot of it. It's like, why don't you find something that you like and others like? And that's really a lot of what this Venn diagram of business is, is like things you want to do, things the world wants. Yeah. Balancing that intersection, which is out there. I think people need that optimism.
00:42:42
Speaker
Oh, man, there's never gonna be something I can do. It's like 100%. Go try a bunch of things that don't work. And then you'll find when that works. You're like, Holy shit, this is kind of working. It's like, Great. Now let's make sure we stick with it. Because it's not going to instantly get a million views. Like my first video got 300 views. And then we got excited about videos that did like 1000 views or 5000 views. And now if a video does like 100,000 views, I'm like, Oh, that failed. It does fail. And it's annoying. But it's like, Okay, well, what do we learn from? What do we learn for the future?
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah. And now I'm like, I'm on a 10 year plan for content. So as you find that you can now decide after 100, do you want to quit with it or stick with it? For me, it's more about longevity and sustainability. So how do you create systems or content or business where you're like, I just want to keep doing this for the rest of my life? Yeah. How do you create so much content? I mean, you pretty much share it seems like almost everywhere. It seems at least weekly, if not daily. So how do you do that?
00:43:34
Speaker
So coming back for everyone who's getting going, I just started with one channel and I only focused on YouTube. So what I'd recommend for everyone out there is just pick one channel. If you are just getting started and you're doing more than one channel, that's too much. That's number one. Yeah. Right. And then get good at making that channel your best. So if it's YouTube, like try figuring out for me, I found I was doing three videos a week for a year.
00:43:57
Speaker
And then only at the end of the year when basically nothing was really working, we did the knocking on doors and we didn't, we stopped doing all the other channels. We didn't do Instagram. We didn't do LinkedIn. We didn't do Twitter. Didn't do face. We didn't do anything. So pick one channel. And then over time we've built that up, right? So now there's, there's a whole team just on YouTube. And then we have a two person team on the other channels and then we have a dedicated team for just shorts.
00:44:18
Speaker
So I probably spend somewhere around half a million dollars creating content around myself, not even around myself, but just around the things I like. I think we end up losing around 250,000 of it, but it's an investment. And then frankly, I like it. I really liked doing this stuff, but it started with just me and Mitchell.
00:44:36
Speaker
doing YouTube stuff shirtless, like you can go see those videos and see how it then two years later, then it was like, okay, I think we have this system dialed in on YouTube that we can now hire someone to help us on LinkedIn and Twitter. All right, this YouTube stuff is working. Now I feel comfortable we can hire an agency to do our short stuff. That was only after a few years, because in the beginning, I did try to do what everyone's doing, like, I'll do a YouTube video, and I'll tweet about it, and I'll put a shorts about it. No, just one thing exceptionally well. How much of that like sharing across the different platforms is repurposing content that already exists?
00:45:04
Speaker
Almost a hundred percent. Yeah. And here's an easy one. I literally just repurpose the same things over and over. So we're tweeting the same stuff we tweeted six months ago, but just tweeting it brand new. Yeah. Most people don't realize in business that most people haven't seen their stuff nor do people care about your stuff. So you do have to kind of post it over and over. And what we aim for, who's your customer? So we call them the underdogs. And then what's the materials you, you are creating content around. People call it content buckets.
00:45:30
Speaker
So for me, it's basically ultimately doing challenges, right? Where I ask people on the streets or on their doors, or I'm asking billionaires for advice about how they got to where they are. And that's pretty much exclusively the two types of content we're posting around. That's what we found worked for us. So I think people should be aiming like what's the messaging you can just keep doing on repeat over and over. I think people try to be too broad.
00:45:52
Speaker
versus like have two buckets that you're just like, these are the messages that people like that I post and I'm just going to post it over and over. And then for instance, I posted a tweet about law of 100 people love it. All right, that's great. Then I post about Drake. Only 10% of the songs get popular or hit over a certain amount of views.
00:46:07
Speaker
And it's like, oh, the Beatles have the same thing. And then you just kind of find these areas and just keep hammering it over and over. Yeah. And what most people do is they're like, well, I should be innovative and novel. It's like, no, you know how you can do be successful? Just keep doing what works. Yeah. And I think it builds trust too, because like, if someone were to ask me like, Hey, what's no kegging about? I could rattle all three or four things that I've heard from you over and over again, from the coffee discount challenge to your cycling and tacos, tacos, we have a lot.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just all these different things. I would say in my 20s, Davey, I was chasing and trying to do too many things. Ultimately, as I figured all this out in my 40s, and I figure out more out going as I get older, I think it's find the things that are working and then just really stick with those. Because too often, I see it so many times with entrepreneurs like, hey, I was doing this business at work. It's like, what are you doing? I just, you know, I'm gonna do something new. It's like, you know, the best way to do something new is just do the thing that works and keep innovating on that. And I've actually found that to be the most rewarding.
00:46:59
Speaker
I have so many more questions for you, but I want to respect your time. No, I got three minutes. Let's do power minute questions. Do we got it? Yeah. Okay. So how do you decide what content you'll consume? I imagine you also watch YouTube. You know, it sounds like you're on Reddit, that sort of thing. Like how do you balance that by being a creator versus being a consumer of content? I spend about just what's crazy. I probably spend about five, 10% of my week making content.
00:47:22
Speaker
just to give people an idea. So it's really, in most businesses and any, you build a team around you. So there's Jay and Sylvie who help create content for me on the social media that are amazing. I consume a lot of YouTube. I probably consume give or take around five to 10 hours at least a week. It's probably my number one source. And so I follow poker vlogs, chess vlogs.
00:47:42
Speaker
Squash, camping, outdoors. I don't consume anybody else in business because I don't really respect a lot of them in the sense that they haven't done businesses I admire. I like learning from people that have done businesses that I admire, not necessarily people that are selling books or courses about that stuff. On Instagram, I just find it too distracting, so I only follow my girlfriend and a few other people that are inspiring, like cycling stuff. I don't use TikTok, I find that trash.
00:48:06
Speaker
I find Twitter pretty good. I'm pretty obsessed with Twitter, but I don't really spend a lot of time creating as much on that. I don't find that the audience is growing as actively as it is on YouTube. Sure, sure. Anytime on threads or something like that?
00:48:17
Speaker
I wouldn't second-guess Facebook, though. Don't count them out with the distribution power they have. I think one of the things that most people don't do enough is that anytime you're annoyed on these platforms, I just block people all the time. I probably block a person a day. On Twitter, it's just like, I'll mute. You see someone, I won't even put shade on people, but you see them and they're like, oh, this person's so annoying.
00:48:37
Speaker
And it's like they're posting about their business or they're posting how I don't work hard enough. Just mute them. And I just try to have more people that make me feel good about myself or feel inspired. They'll go mute someone's ass. And if I'm annoying you, mute my ass. It's fine. Yeah. Of all the billionaires and millionaires that you've talked to, what's the one biggest takeaway or just the one thing, one idea that just stuck with you that you've been ruminating on?
00:48:59
Speaker
It's not just one, I would say a few things. One, none of them set out to be billionaires. I think that's surprising. Most people are like, I need to get rich. The richest people on earth didn't try to get rich, but you are. So that might be something to think about. I think the other two things that are interesting is they all got rich just on one way. So in business and entrepreneurship, you only need to have one hit, just one.
00:49:18
Speaker
And I think people think, ah, no, but guess what? A lot of the billionaires have tried so many things. They swung a lot of times. It didn't work. And they finally found one thing. And I'd say the last thing kind of coming back to the law of 100, most of them did not become billionaires for 20 years.
00:49:34
Speaker
They didn't try to become a billionaire, they swung a lot, they found one thing, and then they stuck with it for a very long period of time. And most of them seem to enjoy it, but I think those are really key takeaways is just keep swinging, find a thing, stick with it for an extended period of time, and who knows where you'll be. I thank myself every day.
00:49:51
Speaker
Almost every single day, I think, thank God I did it started 13 years ago, so I could be where I am now. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that I've walked away with is just the importance of sales. I thought in your latest video too, that distinction between sales and marketing, not treating them necessarily as the same thing. So that's been something I think that's been sitting with me for the last few months, is whether I've taken enough intentional time to really learn about sales. I like to think that I'm good at sales, just the stuff that I picked up along the way being an entrepreneur, but really looking at that again.
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's a misconception that people have that selling is bad and rejection is bad. It's like, no, it's learning. And if you believe you're doing, like, if you believe your service is good, like your photography or your agency or your software or your lawn care is good, I get excited to go tell people about it. It's interesting. Find the thing that you're actually excited to tell people and don't think of it as a sale. Think of it as like you're actually giving them a benefit. And if they say no to it, be like, oh, it seems like this would benefit you. I'd love to learn why not.
00:50:46
Speaker
I also think it's disorienting to talk to somebody that's not selling you. The CarMax experience, I don't know if you've ever bought a car at CarMax. I love that. But it's like, hey, this is what I'm looking for. Tell me about these vehicles. And they're just kind of like, yeah, they're good. I like all of them. And that's what you get from them. And you're like, what? I'd much rather go to a dealership where someone wants to sell me on my car. I think there's a time. There's times I just want to get my thing versus be sold. But I think there's times, and when I did say, my first sales job was at Macy's in bedsheets.
00:51:15
Speaker
And one of the things they did that was teaching, and I do have to go, this is a cool example, they taught us sales by showing us a waiter. And there was one waiter that came and said, hey, what do you want for dinner? And they're like, I'd like the pizza, I'd like the pasta, you know, I'd like to give me the salad. It's like, okay, thanks. Then they showed this example of this other way. And this is how we did my own sales stream at Macy's.
00:51:34
Speaker
They showed this other example of a waiter and said, Oh my God, welcome to the restaurant. How are you guys doing today? Oh, okay. I've just got to tell you. So I recently ate the pasta parmigiana. Probably one of the best I've ever had. And I would get that with this one wine. It is phenomenal. Do you want me to put that on the menu for you or put that on your order for you?
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah, great. Oh, and do you like cakes and stuff? Oh, my God, you've got and so you're not even selling them. But that's that's literally say it. Yeah, right. You're selling them. And then Oh, do you want to upgrade that to a large you might actually need it and then you could share it or take it home. Trust me, it'll probably be better for you.
00:52:07
Speaker
And you can start seeing like, oh wow, that is a sale too. And you start doing it in a way, but they're not selling you. They think it's actually good for you if it really is and it's really more doing a service. Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Like I said, I've been following you for a long time. So it's been great over the past few months to have a few conversations with you. It's always nice to when you're following somebody for a long time.
00:52:28
Speaker
and then you meet them in person, and the person that you meet, it matches up with the person that you follow for a long time, so. Thank you. Really respect a lot of the content that you've put out over the years. I know it's been important to just my growth as an entrepreneur in the way that we run our businesses. Wow. And yeah, I'm excited to share this episode with others.
00:52:45
Speaker
Thank you for having me on that. It's good to see you. I look forward to pointing at you guys. I'm excited for you guys to have success with Sumo.me. I don't know if it's Formalytics, if that's the name that's going to be coming out. Formalytics is just the company that we had to form in order to acquire the company. We will rebrand it at some point just because the Sumo brand is so closely tied to what you all do.
00:53:07
Speaker
But we'll do that in the future, so I'll help you guys out. We already talked about this before the show, but yeah, we're definitely excited to promote you guys and help you as well, getting that going. Awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks for tuning in to the Brancet Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.