SFZ 004: Family Man In Comfortable Job, Badly Wants To Break Free

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Show Summary
Walt is a successful tech consultant with a happy family life and 4 children. Learn the two skills he must have to pull off a business in one hour of free time per day.
Show Notes
There are only two skills an entrepreneur needs to be successful. Just two. Most people don’t have them. In fact, most people avoid them. Those that master them earn their own freedom. Listen to see what they are!
Resources

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Dane: [00:00:00] So I’ve got Walt with me. Walt, where are you at in the world?

[00:00:05] Guest: [00:00:05] Hey, what’s going on, Dane? So I’m in, uh, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia area.

[00:00:12] Dane: [00:00:12] right? Do you happen to know the company? A Weber.

[00:00:15] Guest: [00:00:15] Yeah.

[00:00:16] A Weber is a pretty popular company. They’ve got trucks all over the place with the, they give out cars for Christmas, like toy cars. So yeah, I’ve seen them,

[00:00:26]

[00:00:26] if that’s the one you’re talking about. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:00:28] Dane: [00:00:28] Tom. Tom’s, Tom’s a friend.

[00:00:31]

[00:00:31] Yeah.

[00:00:32] Guest: [00:00:32] Awesome. Awesome.

[00:00:33] okay.

[00:00:33] Dane: [00:00:33] yeah. You know, he, we were, we were in a mastermind together

[00:00:37]

[00:00:37] and, um. I was so curious about how email marketing works, like how do you get emails delivered? Like how do you get all this stuff set up? And I asked so many questions like he got, he’s like, why are you asking me?

[00:00:48] What are you trying to launch an email marketing company?

[00:00:51]

[00:00:51] And I was like, no, man, I’m just really curious about how

[00:00:54] Guest: [00:00:54] Oh, I’m with you now. I know the company, there’s, there’s another company that’s more office supplies, but you’re talking about at the email marketing and a mailing list. Yeah. They’re, they’re not too far from us. I know who you’re talking about. That’s really cool. gotcha.

[00:01:15] Dane: [00:01:15] he’s got a movie room where like eight people can play smash brothers over lunch, you know? But a Weber is the, is the perf is one of the perfect models for how to successfully launch a software product. Because in some instances, um, he built a lot of the initial version himself.

[00:01:35] Um, which is not generally what I recommend, but, but it’s, it’s still works. Um, and if it works, but you know, what he did is he’s, he, he, um, saw a principle that worked really well in the offline world. People sending letters every week and this and that. And so he put it into email for multilevel marketers.

[00:01:55] So you had a very specific customer. You know, MLM guys that wanted to [00:02:00] do auto, uh, email followup. And so he built his first version, did it in his house, built his company up till I had maybe like 20 employees, I think give or take working from his home. Then as he kept scaling revenue and growing, he ended up getting his first location and ended up buying an $18 million building or something.

[00:02:20] I don’t know what it was, but it was in the millions and. It was just, uh, that, that’s, that’s how I think the best biz, the best, the best paths tend to go that way. Um, it’s, uh, let’s see what happens

[00:02:40]

[00:02:40] as opposed to, I know what’s going to happen and. Yeah. So if you go with, let’s see what happens then you’ve got like maybe five software, because right now, if we’ve got written down, you for your, your big goal is, well, I’ll ask you, um, what is your big goal for this call?

[00:03:21] Guest: [00:03:21] models. I have a background in tech, but I’m also wise enough to know that I don’t want to leverage those skills directly for.

[00:03:33] build that out. I want to, I want to be able to build a team. I run a team now for my full time, so I I’m good at running teams. I’m good at tech, really good at it. Mmm. Super humble. But I’ve not been able to launch successfully any kind of a, I’ll say, right. Scalable SAS style offering. And, and that’s [00:04:00] where, uh, I wanted to just jump in and need, need a little bit of motivation cause there’s so much in life that can distract you from those things.

[00:04:11] And, uh.

[00:04:12] Dane: [00:04:12] You’re

[00:04:12] comfortable.

[00:04:12] Oh,

[00:04:24] Guest: [00:04:24] know that there’s more out there. I know that there’s a a brighter, more freeing. Future for me and my family versus kind of the grind, I’ll call it, which I’m sure most of the foundation and a lot of your listeners understand.

[00:04:42] I mean, this, this is what, I’m not trapped, but I’m sort of trapped, you know, I have a family of, of with four kids, successful career. But if I, if I stopped going in to work tomorrow, then you our, our future as a family is just going to be, you’re taking a pretty different trajectory. So I w I want to have, I want to be in the driver’s seat.

[00:05:07] I want to build something that’s significant, that’s scalable and solves problems. And, uh. You know, that’s kind of why I jumped on an opportunity to talk to you. Cause I know that’s what you preach and okay. I’ve always enjoyed you’re a emails and the different programs that you put on

[00:05:31] Dane: [00:05:31] have you here. So right now you have written down the hit 18 month goal of 20,000 MRR

[00:05:40]

[00:05:40] So MRR is monthly recurring revenue for those folks that haven’t been to in this space yet. So, um, is that 20,000 in profit or revenue?

[00:05:50]

[00:05:50] Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, and so let’s just test this. Let’s test test how strong the desire for sasses. So I’m [00:06:00] gonna give you three different business models that would do that and you tell me which ones you like and don’t like.

[00:06:06]

[00:06:06] So the first is you’ve got a business where you’ve got 20 different companies, they’re all paying you $1,000 a month for paper click marketing,

[00:06:19]

[00:06:19] and you have that paper click marketing outsource to a white label, and you charge a thousand.

[00:06:27] The white label company charges you $300 to fulfill the digital marketing service, and you don’t even have to build software, but you’ve got 2020 grand a month

[00:06:40] Guest: [00:06:40] Yup.

[00:06:41] Yes.

[00:06:42] Dane: [00:06:42] scale of one to 10 how much do you like that

[00:06:47] Guest: [00:06:47] That’s a $700 profit times 1000 bucks or times a thousand clients.

[00:06:52] Dane: [00:06:52] times 20 clients.

[00:06:53] Guest: [00:06:53] sorry, times. That’s awesome. Uh, I don’t have control of the overall product, but to yield a $14,000 uh, MRR on something that. I’m controlling the account and the relationship and the customer. I’d give that a probably a five.

[00:07:14] Dane: [00:07:14] out of

[00:07:14] Guest: [00:07:14] It’s great.

[00:07:15] Five to 10. Yup.

[00:07:17] Dane: [00:07:17] what would make it a 10.

[00:07:46] Guest: [00:07:46] your revenue’s going to be coming in and hopefully growing.

[00:07:49] Okay. And as long as you’re doing your job, as long as I would be doing my job of maintaining relationships, keeping the lights on, the whole workflow. [00:08:00] things are good. But, uh. I would need more control and,

[00:08:07]

[00:08:07] uh, really to get that from a five to even a seven. Okay.

[00:08:12] Dane: [00:08:12] Okay. Um, since we have an hour, um, would you mind if I just asked you to talk like 20% of what you’re talking and say that more succinctly so we get more out of our hour?

[00:08:23] Guest: [00:08:23] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:24] Dane: [00:08:24] Cool. So in short, five out of 10, cause you want more control over the product.

[00:08:28] Guest: [00:08:28] There you go. Yup.

[00:08:29] Dane: [00:08:29] Okay. So, um, what if you had, does this help us go fast?

[00:08:34] So what if you had, um, control over the white label? Like you found one that was just perfect.

[00:08:45]

[00:08:45]

[00:08:45] Guest: [00:08:45] I would say, uh, stay still. I’d be concerned about scalability. Ah,

[00:08:53] Dane: [00:08:53] So you have also have a desire to scale past 20.

[00:08:56] Guest: [00:08:56] absolutely.

[00:08:57] Dane: [00:08:57] Okay. So, um, what if you could scale that to 100,000 a month

[00:09:07] Guest: [00:09:07] in revenue or 100,000 accounts,

[00:09:10] Dane: [00:09:10] revenue 100,000 in

[00:09:11] Guest: [00:09:11] I think. I think now you’re at a point where you’re, it’s exciting. Yeah. generating more. Yeah. Revenue and if it’s scaling better than awesome.

[00:09:25] Dane: [00:09:25] Cause see that business, you could start tomorrow and you don’t have to build any tech.

[00:09:31] I’ve

[00:09:39] Guest: [00:09:39] Very true.

[00:09:39] yes. Okay.

[00:09:40] Yeah.

[00:09:40] yeah.

[00:09:46] Dane: [00:09:46] on Facebook ads. Those Facebook ads go to a value video. They watch that video and they opt in, they watch a 15 minute value video, which delivers value, and then they can book a call. So he [00:10:00] spends 1500 bucks a month and he adds $5,000 every month.

[00:10:03] He does that to his revenue and he has, uh, invisible ppc.com fulfill all the paper quick.

[00:10:13] Guest: [00:10:13] That’s awesome. So what is, what is the value? The business? What is the value prop there? You’re basically in that business model.

[00:10:25] Dane: [00:10:25] Get more customers selling to businesses who want more customers.

[00:10:35]

[00:10:35]

[00:10:35] Guest: [00:10:35] that’s really cool.

[00:10:36] I

[00:10:38] Dane: [00:10:38] one of the more attractive things. Cause you know, all you need to do is sell.

[00:10:46] And it turns out like I’ve, in terms of skills that I’ve kind of reflected on and identified of like if there’s only two skills that you would need to be successful entrepreneur, if you could die whittle them down to two, I’d call it sales and outsourcing. And most of the people that come to me are technicians.

[00:11:05] They don’t know how to sell and they don’t know how to outsource their technicians of something. Web developer, um, software developer. Expert at X, Y, Zed therapist, chemical engineer, the approach semi-pro or pro video game player. Like they’re all, they’re all technically gifted. No sales and outsourcing skills.

[00:11:28] Guest: [00:11:28] Gotcha.

[00:11:28] Okay?

[00:11:32] Dane: [00:11:32] so now let’s talk about, you have a SAS business you have to build. Realistically, if you, if you do everything right, you find your idea and under a month you find and build your product in four months, you’ve got your first customers onboarded at month four or five and this is if you’re doing everything right, which you probably do because you’ve got some experience in the field [00:12:00] so that you’ve got four or five months, you’re rolling out your software to your first paying users at about month five from your start point.

[00:12:08] Um, from month five to month nine, for the next four months, you’re rolling out like one user every other day or week and slowly tweaking the user experience. You’re, you’re, you’re on zoom. You, you, you joined zoom, a zoom call with them. You share screens, you watch them sign up for the product. So you see the sticky points, you, you, you slowly tweak the product after each person signs up until you can watch someone sign up without asking any questions.

[00:12:36] To you on zoom. Now you’ve rolled your software product out safely. This is, by the way, this is how you roll out a great software product, and then then you have a machine. This, this asset that you can just put someone to, and as long as you have a solid developer, a solid customer support, and a solid marketing system.

[00:13:06] That it just kind of, it works.

[00:13:09] Guest: [00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:13] Dane: [00:13:13] But then to get to a hundred grand a month, I mean, my best products took me eight weeks to develop, not 12. Um, I had my first paying customer after eight weeks of development because I knew how to strip down the MVP. I know how to strip down the features to just get what he needed.

[00:13:34] But then after that, it was seven more months of slowly onboarding one user at a time. Hearing how the product was still inadequate, having to add a feature, but then at month eight or nine we launched and 10 years later, that makes $2 million a year in revenue.

[00:13:57] But that was my, that was my seventh software product. [00:14:00] And you know, that’s why the foundation’s been so attractive for people because they can get all the things that I learned in starting and failing seven software products and et cetera, et cetera. But that’s, um, you, if you’re, if you’re wanting to go the software route, you need to have a very solid seed of an idea.

[00:14:19] So, um, how does let, let’s just talk software for like 10 minutes. If you could.

[00:14:26] Guest: [00:14:26] Okay.

[00:14:26] Dane: [00:14:26] Um, so I, there’s two software products that are very effective. So in terms of, so, okay. And a lot of these interviews I teach people a very fundamental business principle, and it seems to be very useful. Uh, well, I F it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really useful, basically.

[00:14:47] So you have, the customer uses a mechanism to get a result. That’s what you whittled business down to. A nutshell. Customer uses a widget or maximum mechanism to get a result. So a woman wants to lose 20 pounds. She uses weight Watchers, she uses curves, she uses yoga. She uses the Y YMCA mechanism could be 15 to a hundred mechanisms.

[00:15:08] The woman cares about losing 20 pounds. As entrepreneurs, what we do is we, we focus and obsess about the mechanism, not the customer, not the result they want. So the big shift is to start looking at customers first and what they want and, and then for, and then leave mechanism until the last step. It’s a whole different ballgame.

[00:15:33] And I think it’s one you’d be very good at because you just sit with people and like, you know, if you’re talking to, uh, do you have a niche market that you like.

[00:15:42] Okay,

[00:15:44] Guest: [00:15:44] Um, yeah, so one of the things we’ve, that I’ve started is Mmm. The contracting market. So, you know, the plumbers, electricians, roofers, there’s probably about three dozen [00:16:00] categories. That one, that one’s been a bit of a sweet spot.

[00:16:07]

[00:16:07] I guess you’d call it blue collar.

[00:16:08] I

[00:16:09] Dane: [00:16:09] cool. Blue collar contracting.

[00:16:12]

[00:16:12] Mmm.

[00:16:14]

[00:16:14] Do you mind that I’m asked, how does it feel for you? Um, what I’m asking you to speak a little bit more succinctly. How is that

[00:16:21] Guest: [00:16:21] appreciate you saying that because, no, I mean, I

[00:16:26] Dane: [00:16:26] Let’s just go with you. Appreciate it

[00:16:30] Guest: [00:16:30] Okay.

[00:16:30] Dane: [00:16:30] going. So let’s have you say, so I’ll ask you the niche market you thinking about, and you just tell me blue co to say, just say out loud, blue collar contractors.

[00:16:39] Guest: [00:16:39] Blue collar contractors

[00:16:47]

[00:16:47]

[00:16:47] Dane: [00:16:47] You’ll probably get to move at like 500% the speed that you usually do. If you speak succinctly like this because you have what? Like I would want to hire you to think through my ideas just based on how you speak. I would be like, Hey man. Can you talk through this idea, cause I know you’d probably talk for two hours on it or you or you talk for a half hour on it or an hour cause you would just like, you’d be thinking through all the pieces out loud.

[00:17:20]

[00:17:20] And that’s a really, that’s a really valuable skill.

[00:17:23]

[00:17:23] Does it sound, does that sound accurate or am I totally off base?

[00:17:27] Guest: [00:17:27] no. . Yes.

[00:17:28] Okay. Okay, cool. Okay.

[00:17:28] okay. Yes. Right.

[00:17:28] Hello? Super accurate.

[00:17:29] Dane: [00:17:29] Okay. Yeah. So I mean this is a skill you have. So we’re just building a new skill called succinctly speaking. I guess. So. Okay, great. I’m happy to. I’m happy to hear that was on point. So let’s, um, so in terms of blue collar contractors a great, so now you have a niche market. So now in terms of figuring out the results they want, you can ask them, Hey, what do you want more of as a plumber and what do you want less of as a plumber?

[00:18:00] [00:18:00] And you could go pretty deep with those two things. Like, and you know, the first answer is going to be like, Oh, you know, no asshole clients.

[00:18:12] Great. Yes. Yes. That makes so much sense. No asshole clients. Perfect. Perfect. How about, um, like what, what, so what, what makes a client a pain in the butt? You know, they’re like, wow, they just don’t pay me on time. And you know, so what does, what does that client, what does that mean. We’ll try and keep the, the, the language is kid friendly as possible.

[00:18:32] Um, so what, what, what kind of, what is a pain in the butt client? What does that mean to you? Oh, they don’t pay your bills for like 90 days. Well, how often? How fast do you want someone to pay your bill? I want someone to pay my bill within a week. Okay, great. So you want clients that will pay your invoices within one week of you sending them?

[00:18:49] Yes. There’s a lot. You could do it with just that.

[00:18:54] Guest: [00:18:54] Sure.

[00:18:54] okay,

[00:18:54] cool.

[00:18:54] okay? Okay. No.

[00:18:54] Yeah.

[00:18:55] Dane: [00:18:55] Now all of a sudden. You go out to every blue collar contractor and you’re like, Hey, would you like to have your clients all pay you within one week of you sending an invoice? If that’s actually what? Like if maybe they do pay week, maybe it’s three days, right?

[00:19:09] But if the standard is like 60 days, then they’re going to hear one week and say, Holy crap, how do you do that? Well, there’s probably a lot of ways you could do it. You don’t, you know, like the software engineers gonna be like, well, great, we can send text reminders and email reminders and we can, Oh, all this.

[00:19:27] No, that’s not, no, no. Yes. You and every Tom, Dick, and Harry, he’s probably going to think of that as a software developer. Oh yeah. This is easy. We can send all these reminders. Okay. Is remind, is a reminder, really the reason they’re not paying? We don’t know. We don’t know. Maybe the reason they don’t pay is because there’s not enough penalty.

[00:19:51] If they don’t, right? Maybe that maybe the cost goes up, maybe the cost goes up 5% every week. You don’t pay. [00:20:00] So maybe you teach, maybe you teach these blue collar workers. It’s like, listen, I have this project. Great, so here’s my price. My price is 25,000 for the job, but by the way, I’ll quote you $20,000 if you pay me within a week of the invoice.

[00:20:15] But now the plumber was always only over wanting 20 in the first place. So 25,000 is premium. And with that one distinction, they’re probably going to get paid in a week. Now you share it if this works cause you, but we’re, we’re finding out what they want more of. Right. And then they say this, so tell me what you’re thinking about.

[00:20:41]

[00:20:41] Well before buffet. So before that, so like we don’t really make money off this, right? Like maybe we do, maybe you have a $10 $20 book that really walks into the mechanics of pulling this off, but it’s a pretty straight forward idea. So you go, you go out to the blue collar world and you just share this.

[00:20:57] It’s like a one or two page PDF and you literally just share this with people free and they do it and they start getting paid on time. Do you think they love you. All right? You got a lot of trust and that’s your first door, and now if you’re looking at an 18 month runway to a $20,000 per month business and you lead off with that foot, you’re going to slaughter all of your competitors, you’ll slaughter them because none of them are giving them a result like that for free.

[00:21:28] So, I mean, this is, I mean, I’m getting so jazzed about this over here. I mean, but this is how, this is how business becomes easy. This is how business becomes like just the most, one of the most exciting things you could do because, yeah, because you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re obsessed about. Hmm. Well, I dunno what it is.

[00:21:50] It’s, but it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s, well, you’re, you’re being of service, right? But you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re asking them what they want. Moro. But no, you know what it is. It’s a, it’s a real quest for what, [00:22:00] what, what will make a change and what, what, what like for truth, right? Like, um, so in our obsession about mechanism, customer mechanism result, we, we, that’s just one mechanism, right?

[00:22:12] That might help them get paid on time. And that’s a free tip.

[00:22:18] Now, let’s say you look at invoicing, but you see that you know the invoicing software, it needs to connect with their inventory, and there’s 15 different inventory products, and before you know what you’re like, I don’t want to build that software, but if you’re obsessed with mechanism, then you think your success relies on your product.

[00:22:37] You think your success relies on the widget, and then this creates a sh a ton, a ton of a ton of insecurity. A ton of insecurity, and it still happens to me because they’re like, Oh, this doesn’t work. I’m a failure. It’s steeped there in the unconscious. Until you notice it, you’re like, wait a second. No, wait, that’s not right.

[00:22:58] The customer wants a result. There’s a hundred ways you could do it. This is just one of those. So yeah. So as we, as we talked to blue collar, and I, and I, I want to just to give you a few more things before I had you kind of paint a picture of what you’ve been thinking about. So this is, this is how we do this.

[00:23:14] Right now. Um, if you’re like a, so if you’re a software developer and you say, um, you know, we could do text reminders and email reminders and this, so what happens is we like one of the, so there’s a couple of things that I do that I think have made me remarkably successful. One of those is anytime I hear information I’ve heard before, most of the time I hear information I’ve heard before, I try to listen to it as if it’s the first time I heard it.

[00:23:41] so someone’s reading think and grow rich, right? I studied that book I studied while I studied law of success, and they talked to me about that book and I can say, Oh yeah, yeah, I’ve read that. Oh yeah, I know that. But instead I’m like, tell me everything. And I listened to it like the first time I [00:24:00] heard it, so I knew him for new information or information I’ve heard before.

[00:24:05] I treat his new. The second thing that I like to do is I like to exit my belief system and exit what I know and exit my own world and try and experiment and prove myself wrong. Like I will actually go out and be like, I wonder if I can break this idea that I have. And most folks won’t, won’t do that. So like I’m like, okay, I know I’m told everywhere not to do this thing.

[00:24:35] Let me try it and see what happens.

[00:24:39] You know? And that could be as simple as, you know, selling on results is a very tried and true way to sell something. You’re going to lose 20 pounds in a week. So by results, I’m like, can I sell by values? Can I sell by process to the right people who like process. And so, you know, I try, I’ll try and do these things just, just, just to experiment, whereas most won’t.

[00:25:02] So, um, with, uh, with a software developer, you know, they’re like, Oh, you have trouble with your bills. Well let’s sit a software together that automates it and you know, gets you the reminders. Cause that’s what a software developer knows. But they’re not committed to best outcome. They’re unconsciously committed to using their skills to solve a problem.

[00:25:24] So

[00:25:24] Guest: [00:25:24] Yeah.

[00:25:28] Okay.

[00:25:31] Okay. okay.

[00:25:39] Dane: [00:25:39] what’s, so what’s, what’s going on for you right [00:26:00] now?

[00:26:15] Guest: [00:26:15] a payment solution for blue collar contractors, also a lead gen solution for blue collar contractors. And I’m just, I’m thinking about why it really hasn’t in much of a success. There’s been a few, some good results there, but, uh, I like what you said about, okay. Providing that value okay.

[00:26:42]

[00:26:42] Offering a, here’s a new process. This is a one page PDF that’s going to help you today get paid on time

[00:26:53]

[00:26:53] and continue to provide the same value and at the same cost. never really thought of it from that perspective, and I think that’s it. Great idea.

[00:27:07] Okay.

[00:27:11] okay.

[00:27:15] Dane: [00:27:15] coming out. Um, next year, March 31st, 2020 and that book’s called start from zero. And in that book, it will contain a comprehensive

[00:27:34] methodology to start businesses when you have absolutely nothing.

[00:27:38] Guest: [00:27:38] all

[00:27:42] Dane: [00:27:42] 15 different examples. Like very thorough, thorough examples. So like, you just can’t miss it. Can’t mistake how it works. And in that book, there’s, um, [00:28:00] and I haven’t talked much about the details of the book. I usually just mentioned there’s a book coming.

[00:28:03] Um, but there are four different brains that you can build to really ensure your success as an entrepreneur. I called him for personalities at first, cause I feel like they’re kind of four different individuals. But I’ve really landed on those four different brains that you can build within to become like a superhuman, a creator.

[00:28:27] And if you, most entrepreneurs that I meet actually only have two, maybe three of these. Every once in a while you’ll meet an entrepreneur that has all four of them and. They like just walk with wealth, whereas other people just kind of reach for it. You know, that relaxed person that’s like, yeah, everything works.

[00:28:51] And, and you know, there’s some days it can be filled with frustration, but for the most part, they’re just like chilling out. Hundreds of thousands of dollars come into them all the time. And there they’re just walking with it. And these four brains are, um. Uh, metaphors for gardening. So you’ve got the, the tiller tills, the land, the planter who plants the seeds.

[00:29:15] You’ve got the, um, or, sorry, the, the, we have to tell the surveyor, actually, sorry, I got this written down. Um, so the surveyor, so you survey the land for where you want to put your garden. And this is like your niche market and this is things like what’s the customer, what’s the pain, what’s the solution, and what’s the offer?

[00:29:36] CPSO customer pain solution offer. He said, what’s my customer? What’s my pain was my solution? What’s my offer? And this is succinct, right? So it’s like my customer is small entrepreneurs. The pain is manual invoicing. The solution is automated invoicing. My offers $50 a month and in like 15 seconds. You’re now in like the top 5% of entrepreneur [00:30:00] in terms of articulation, customer pain, solution offer CPSO and that’s the surveyor looking around for the land.

[00:30:08] Then you have the tiller. They prepare the land that they, they, they ground it up, make it fertile, and they also find the seeds, the tiller, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll just ground up this land and they’ll know how to treat the land to really make it its best. Other people just walk over the land and they have no idea how to treat it.

[00:30:26] So they don’t get to find any of the good stuff. But by knowing how to, till the land, and you do this by asking, uh, well, there’s, there’s a bunch of ways, but you’re essentially looking for a deep pain. Um, and, and if the deeper the pain, the better. Like someone that can’t hear, they need a hearing aid, you know, that’s painful.

[00:30:44] Like if I’m talking to you, you can’t hear me or like sucks that, that level of pain. And that’s, that’s primal type pain. That’s like the highest level. Right? But, um, there’s other pain, like, you know, software companies having to deal with duplicate data entry. So they’ve got five employees that they’re paying by the hour, which is thousands of dollars a month just to do duplicate data entry.

[00:31:07] That’s very painful. So you’re looking for pain. Um, and then within that, there’s five questions that you ask. There is, you know, what’s your most present problem with blank. Or you say, what’s your most consistent and present problem with blank? And then you walk them through the rest of these five questions into like, well, how do you solve it right now?

[00:31:29] What happens if you don’t solve it? Well, what would your dream solution be to this problem? And then would you pay for that? If so, how much? And these five questions you can, you can get what they’re, they’re not like two’s top secret. You can, you can find them at, start from zero.com.

[00:31:45] Guest: [00:31:45] sure.

[00:31:45] Dane: [00:31:45] Um, but just to keep the interview going, then you have.

[00:31:49] You have the planter, and then you have the gardener. So you’ve got surveyor surveying, land tiller, tilling the land planter, planting the seeds and planting the products and the [00:32:00] gardener that grows the product revenue. Now, if you build all four of these individuals and combine them into one, you start to see the world differently.

[00:32:11] Creation becomes more automatic. You start to consider things you wouldn’t consider before. And so I, you know, I wrote this book to, you know, my 21 year old self. Cause like if I had this book at 21 my gosh. And to know and to know my worth was not on the line either with business, then I could have just had fun and served.

[00:32:32] So you mentioned that with motivation. And so what also also wanted to touch on, cause I’ll come back to. Um, something with your, your invoicing thing in a second. But, um, you mentioned the do with motivation. So as a, as a species, we’re generally motivated to avoid threats, seek safety, find convenient rewards, you know, threats, threats, rewards and safety and fair and threats, rewards, a fairness, threat, reward safety, where we seem to be.

[00:33:07] Very averse to threats, very prime towards rewards, and very cautious of what’s fair and what’s safe, and this is a good deal. And, um, it’s like, it’s hardwired in. Um, and that information comes from a great book called flip the script by Oren Klaff, K, L, E, F, F, or flip the script as if I were highly recommend the book.

[00:33:28] Um, I read that, I read that book out loud to my parents. I had such a

[00:33:31] Guest: [00:33:31] okay.

[00:33:33] Dane: [00:33:33] and I’m 36.

[00:33:34] Guest: [00:33:34] Nice.

[00:33:35] Dane: [00:33:35] So, um, but it, yeah, it was, uh, it was a great time. My parents, like, why you’re so animated about this. I’m like, you have to listen to these stories. Stories are great in this book. So, um, in terms of the threats towards fairness, so I want you to consider building a new motivation muscle, and the motivation will no longer be about, um, protection or [00:34:00] self-preservation.

[00:34:01] Um, it will be about joy. So the reason for you to do something is because it brings you joy. And now that’ll be, that’s a foreign for a lot of people because you’re doing something because it feels really good. You’re doing something because the act of it, the very act of it nourishes you. Okay? And you’re doing something for the reason of joy.

[00:34:27] You’re not doing something for their reason to survive. So this takes time. And I even recommend like finding a coach that you maybe meet with for like 12 weeks to say, I want to build my capacity to receive joy. I want to build my capacity to work from and receive joy. And as you do that, the motivations that got you to where you were, are you usually self-preservation.

[00:34:58] Um, survival and getting things up, all the eyes dotted and T’s crossed and things like that. But now he did, especially for your kids, like with our society being around your 20, 20, we’re not in medieval times anymore. We don’t need to necessarily look for threats, but it’s, but it’s in our, it’s like in our ancestral, it’s pretty good run stuff.

[00:35:18] Sucker run, run pretty deep. You know, like they will, they will breed, they will breed rats and mice. To not like eat a certain thing in a, in a cage. And by the third or fourth generation of mouse, the mouse won’t even go by that thing anymore. And they’ve never seen it before. It’s like encoded in their DNA not to go there.

[00:35:42] So that’s fascinating. So we want to build your joy, your ability to, cause you’re doing, you’re doing it for joy.

[00:35:53] Boy will you, if you, if you live from joy when a client doesn’t pay your [00:36:00] product, pay for your product, you’ll probably be very curious. The, Oh, well, I’m just, I’m so curious, what had you not see the value in this? Um, can you tell me more about your experience? Tell me more about what you were thinking and why had you not purchase when you come from joy, there’s like this.

[00:36:18] Appreciation of all human life. And when you’re not enjoy, people don’t buy your product. You’re like, you mother, you stupid son of him. Why aren’t you buying my cause? You’re well listen, you’re not enjoy. And that person buying your product is going to be a temporary fix in the first place. So you might as well shift to joy.

[00:36:38] So you live from joy. You’ll attract a lot of really, really nice experiences to you because the world will just give you what you’re feeling.

[00:36:50] Guest: [00:36:50] cool. Dang.

[00:36:52]

[00:36:52] I liked that. I, and I think I embraced that today,

[00:36:56]

[00:36:56] but what I relate with is, especially with a family

[00:37:03]

[00:37:03] This being this adverse to threats, seeking safety, find rewards. I relate to that very strongly because you know, as, as a father and as a provider to your family, you want to protect them and, and keep bread on the table as they say.

[00:37:23] So the challenges too. Okay. Like you said, a different motivation muscle, because joy may be there and it may even be really strong, but you’re still being out muscled. Bye. Let me do what I do every day. Keep things going.

[00:37:46]

[00:37:46] So I like, like how you said that.

[00:37:55] Dane: [00:37:55] and outsourcing. That way you can start a business an hour [00:38:00] every morning. Like if you work for an hour every morning and you just focus on sales and outsourcing, then you have people working for you during the day.

[00:38:09] Like when you know what to focus on and the only thing that really matters is sales and the beginning is selling and you just spend your hour doing that and then you outsource the rest. That’s how you can do that when you’re busy. You know, I’m experimenting right now. You know how we have the idea extraction process.

[00:38:27] So you go out and do a niche market and you call people and you talk to them and find your problems. Well, as soon as I realized that generally people want something for nothing. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And, and cause, you know, it’s just sometimes as hard as, you know, like it’s wrought with this, this is it.

[00:38:48] Just for some reason, as I’ve, I’ve shifted the, I’m S I’m currently in the shifting place of like, you know, okay, people want something for nothing. And this is not this, this is not a bad thing. Like, I’ve got a guy who wrote me and he said, Hey man, do you have any, um, clients for me? I’m an iPhone app developer.

[00:39:07] And as like, Oh great, you want me to give, you just want me to give you customers. Are you kidding me? But like if I was listening as like, Oh, I wonder how many iPhone app developers need more customers. Like a, probably put up a landing page talking about how to build a successful app for people considering it.

[00:39:26] And then on the back end, refer people to developers, you know, and then take a cut.

[00:39:33] Guest: [00:39:33] Okay.

[00:39:33] Lead gen.

[00:39:34] Okay.

[00:39:34] Dane: [00:39:34] yeah. Lead gen cause, but that’s cause that’s what they’re wanting. So, um, I, I wanted to say so yeah. In terms of starting your business, it’s very possible to start a business in an hour in a day if you’re using sales and outsourcing.

[00:39:47] It’s like you want to, and that’s why it’s also important when you’re starting a business with a family that if, um, that you’re not the one fulfilling the mechanism.

[00:39:59]

[00:39:59]

[00:39:59]

[00:39:59]

[00:39:59] Guest: [00:39:59] Okay. Yeah. Okay. [00:40:00] Hello?

[00:40:00] Sure. I even have an advantage in that my business partner is old enough to be my father and in sales full time and dedicated to selling. So there’s no excuse from that perspective. It really just leaves off sales and then it’s focused on outsourcing.

[00:40:20] Dane: [00:40:20] well, you know that a, it makes the framer more simple. The number one skill of an entrepreneur could just. If you had to pick one, you’d pick out sourcing possibly. But you need sales to sit, to sell a salesman to, to come in. So it does work. But it’s like if you wanted to get away with it, yeah, you could.

[00:40:35] Like a lot of entrepreneurs don’t even sell their own products. They have sales teams. So outsourcing. So you start thinking about, Oh man, it’s just whittled down to outsourcing. Well, I don’t trust people. Oh, I had this issue. Well then you’re screwed. You better figure out real quick how to do that. Okay, so now let’s go to, um, so motivation is now to feel joy and to build joy.

[00:40:59] The other thing is that how to do it an hour a day with a family of four is a really focused on not feeling, not fulfilling mechanism and outsourcing. And you’re, you’ll even be able to outsource sales as well. Um, now I want to go to your invoicing, um, product. And my guess with that product not working as with most software products is it’s too great of a behavior change for someone to use,

[00:41:22] Guest: [00:41:22] yeah,

[00:41:25] Dane: [00:41:25] wild guess based on when other people don’t adopt software products.

[00:41:28] What, what you tell me?

[00:41:30] Guest: [00:41:30] yeah. The biggest challenge was client ability, blue collar client ability and white collar embrace an ACH style payment. Where they had to keep money’s in reserve versus more of a credit card style process where there’s never any money’s in reserve. You just, their clients to just swipe.

[00:41:56] They pay commission and they’re done. so we were challenged a [00:42:00] little on that one in terms of adoption. People didn’t want to have, okay, a reserve account in our system. They’re like, why? Why are you holding our money? It’s like, well, that’s what our partner requires. So that was one challenge.

[00:42:16] Dane: [00:42:16] well, why were you holding the money? What do you mean? Why not just have it deposit in their account?

[00:42:21] Guest: [00:42:21] th so the. The white label merchant services provider in order in order to to transact ACH to help contractors get paid near instantly or within a day without paying a ton of credit card commission. Okay. They were like, that’s great. . We need to have a little bit of a buffer in your account at all times.

[00:42:47] hedge against , you know, fraud and ACH is much different than credit cards.

[00:42:54] Dane: [00:42:54] okay.

[00:42:55] Guest: [00:42:55] So the business premise was built off of, of an ACH style transaction, and people are kind of adverse to that right now.

[00:43:06]

[00:43:06] They want their money quick, but, and they don’t want to pay a big commission, but they don’t want to give anything in return.

[00:43:15] Dane: [00:43:15] something for nothing. It’s everywhere.

[00:43:18]

[00:43:18] If you, if now, if you, if you can not a bad thing, like we want to relate to something for nothing with joy.

[00:43:25] Guest: [00:43:25] sure.

[00:43:27] Dane: [00:43:27] you know. If you can figure out something for nothing, then you can get very rich. So like I’ve got, um, the idea extraction. I was saying earlier, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve hired someone to do cold call idea extraction for me

[00:43:42]

[00:43:42] as an experiment and I’m collecting, I’m collecting how to hire the person, the scripts to use, how to receive the answers, how to document the answers.

[00:43:51] And at the end of a few weeks, I’m going to get a report with all the best ideas I could build.

[00:43:59] Guest: [00:43:59] Sweet. And is there a [00:44:00] human being involved there? Can we have it completely, uh, artificial intelligence?

[00:44:06] Dane: [00:44:06] No, you hire someone.

[00:44:07] Guest: [00:44:07] Yup. You need a person

[00:44:10] Dane: [00:44:10] Yup. You want to, you definitely want a human being, but you could, you could take it to that next level. So it truly is fully automated, but there is like Uber for cold calling where you can literally just. It’s very easy to hire someone. It takes less than a day to, to get someone to do calls for you. It takes less than one day.

[00:44:36]

[00:44:36]

[00:44:36]

[00:44:36] So you know, as people listening to like, well, I would love that, could pay someone to find my ideas for me and give me a report on which idea to build. Of course you would. I would, because it’s something for nothing. Oh, you got to pay us. So you gotta pay a cold color, but

[00:44:54]

[00:44:54] when you’ve got a busy, you’ve got an income and a busy family.

[00:44:57] That’s how outsourcing can work.

[00:45:02]

[00:45:02] what, what, um, what, what do you think would happen if you, if you drop the idea you had yeah. And just kind of kept it in pause and just sort of talking to these blue collar people about what they want more of and what they want less of.

[00:45:18]

[00:45:18]

[00:45:18] Guest: [00:45:18] Well, it’s, it’s an easy next step because there, there’s a good batch of, I’d say, over a hundred clients to pull from a F from my business partners business, which is a wide open. He wants me to take that over some day. I’m like, yeah, I dunno, but I loved it. I loved the base. It’s a base to farm and people who are willing to come in and.

[00:45:47] Have that or just have that cold call or, or a personal call to do some idea extraction.

[00:45:56]

[00:45:56] That’s a great next step.

[00:45:57] Dane: [00:45:57] perfect. And did I, I think the wa you want [00:46:00] more of, and what do you want less of? Would be a real easy way to go. Just go as deep as you can. They’ll probably feel really good at the end of that call.

[00:46:08] Guest: [00:46:08] Almost like a therapy session.

[00:46:09] Dane: [00:46:09] Yeah. Really, truly. Cause a lot of times, you know the way I’ve taught this in the past, for whatever reason, people get on a call and they’re like, I must extract an idea. I must get something for myself on this call. I was like, no. You show up to help that person and if idea emerges, great, if not, it will eventually,

[00:46:32] you know, your confidence. Can really change. If you talk to like 12 people in an industry for like a half an hour,

[00:46:42] Guest: [00:46:42] okay.

[00:46:46] Dane: [00:46:46] for 30 minutes, what do you want more of and less of? You will become like a trusted advisor to most of those folks, or you’ll go towards that realm and

[00:47:03] Well, you know, I’ve done this like my 15 episode or something recorded, and it’s transformed in my confidence to do this because I thought I was having to come up with more special tricks and dazzle,

[00:47:20] Guest: [00:47:20] sure. Okay.

[00:47:26] Dane: [00:47:26] very simple.

[00:47:27] That profounds that provides a very profound breakthrough. But as I’m like, thinking about this, you know, and I talked, I talked to people on this podcast and I say, I asked him, I really liked this question. I said, what would make this irresistible for you to buy?

[00:47:41] And the person’s like, well, you know, if I could just quit my job, I like, is that it? And they’re like, yeah. I’m like, wait, are you sure? It’s like 100% absolutely. I just want to quit my job. [00:48:00] And I was like, Oh my God, I have never used that language directly. So the email we sent out last night had it in it.

[00:48:10] Quit your job as a pretty easy thing to do. If you focus on customer, you focus on, it’s easy. Once you’re trained, you know you’ve focused on customer. So yeah, customer mechanism result, right? If you want to write out next to that or close to it or somewhere so you can see both of them, switch it to customer.

[00:48:31] So customer the first, the first, well, the first fundamental, the business explanation that’s very transformative of course, is what we talked about. Customer uses a mechanism to get a result, switch that around to customer wants a result. So we use a mechanism,

[00:48:51] and with that. You’ll know accelerate yourself past all the, the fearful, the fearful chickens and hens and animals that are running businesses. Cause they’re like, Oh, that’s the tech, the tech, the tech, the tech, the Tech’s gonna die, the Tech’s gonna die. Oh, what? What’s our tech, our ticket deck? A deck. And you’re like, hold on.

[00:49:11] Our commissioner is not to our tech. Our commitment is to delivering a result.

[00:49:20] Guest: [00:49:20] Yeah. Okay.

[00:49:21] Absolutely that experience an outcome.

[00:49:25] Dane: [00:49:25] and outcome. Yes. So yeah, that’d behavior change, you know, like I can imagine that’d be frustrating. They’re like, come on, so how much does it pay? How much slower did it pay him out? Like they pay a credit card, they get it like the next two days. And how much, how long does it take with this one?

[00:49:38] Yeah, man.

[00:49:48] Guest: [00:49:48] and negotiate with the backing bank. Sometimes it would be a week plus because they wouldn’t release the funds until . There are accounts uh, a certain minimum. [00:50:00] So it was, it was not very scalable. Right. Taking sometimes five to 10 days.

[00:50:06] Dane: [00:50:06] just use credit card and tell him dad, the 3% of their clients, bill,

[00:50:15] give me one second.

[00:50:27] There you go. Close my door. So, um, in terms, I think, you know, in some instances I like to go into a lot of process and, and share things, but my, my, my hunches, you can carry yourself that distance. What I wanted to give you was a start point and an end point that made sense.

[00:50:49]

[00:50:49] The middle is the middle is where I think you’ll be fine.

[00:50:53] Guest: [00:50:53] Yeah.

[00:50:54] Dane: [00:50:54] Does that sound right?

[00:51:21] That’s

[00:51:48] Guest: [00:51:48] So you would rather talk really fast and have it mean nothing or very little versus low down and actually hit a home run with, [00:52:00] you know,

[00:52:01] Okay. A quarter of the language. Okay. So I, I love that. Took some notes on that cause you could certainly use some help there.

[00:52:11] Okay.

[00:52:14] Dane: [00:52:14] why I really, really had a lot of pleasure hearing you share all that. Yeah. The two acts and man, you know, they had the, uh. If I told one other person like, listen, if you can speak this to your kids, it’s probably good.

[00:52:29] Guest: [00:52:29] Yes.

[00:52:36] Dane: [00:52:36] You know? I just had my daughter four weeks ago.

[00:52:39] Guest: [00:52:39] I didn’t realize that. Congrats

[00:52:42] Dane: [00:52:42] Yeah, thank you.

[00:52:42] Guest: [00:52:42] changes everything.

[00:52:44] Dane: [00:52:44] Yeah. And. You know, I’m pretty like on the extreme, on the extreme side of like intuition and all these things. And I’ll look at her and I’ll actually like pretend that I can hear her speaking to me

[00:52:59]

[00:52:59] and like, but it’s like her older, wiser self kind of thing. And the stuff that she says is usually less than six words,

[00:53:10] Guest: [00:53:10] Okay. Okay.

[00:53:16] Dane: [00:53:16] inside my body, just chill out, dad.

[00:53:19]

[00:53:19] I’m like, Oh,

[00:53:21] that actually makes way more sense than any of the things I was thinking.

[00:53:29] Like I do some weird, I do some weird, I think it’s pretty normal to be honest, but by seeing weird other people.

[00:53:43] Huh?

[00:53:50] Guest: [00:53:50] the perspective and the, the irony of it all is yes. As you. Kind of draw a parallel between business and family and [00:54:00] life.

[00:54:03] your children, just one your presence. They don’t necessarily want, you know, dad to come home with some profound

[00:54:13] Dane: [00:54:13] that reminder.

[00:54:29] Guest: [00:54:29] with 12 accounts for 30 minutes, you’ll be a trusted advisor. That’s, that’s already a kind of the mojo that I, Gary, when I talk to clients. So, but I haven’t done that in a proactive way to say, Hey, let’s talk about some of your struggles.

[00:54:44] Dane: [00:54:44] you, where you’re on attached to the idea.

[00:54:47] Guest: [00:54:47] sure.

[00:54:47] Dane: [00:54:47] it’s like it’s gotta be this cause this is the only thing I know how to solve.

[00:54:51] Guest: [00:54:51] Exactly. I’ve no allegiance to any idea.

[00:54:54] Dane: [00:54:54] Yes. Holy crap. Can you imagine that is so much freedom?

[00:55:02]

[00:55:02] What would you say your allegiance is to?

[00:55:07] Guest: [00:55:07] faith, my family.

[00:55:09] Dane: [00:55:09] Well, I mean, in terms of talking to customers,

[00:55:11] Guest: [00:55:11] Oh, okay. Helping them solve a problem, connecting with them.

[00:55:18] Dane: [00:55:18] the result they

[00:55:19] Guest: [00:55:19] them, giving them hope that actually there’s a solution out there. Two, and maybe it’s not delivered by me, but you know what? There’s actually a solution out there that’ll solve that problem right now. And you don’t even need me for it.

[00:55:36] Just go here. Okay.

[00:55:38]

[00:55:38] Doesn’t always need to end with a business idea for me to consume and ponder and. It takes six months to chew on and then not do anything. Maybe it’s just a referral to, to help that person and give them, um, some relief in whatever that or going [00:56:00] through . Okay.

[00:56:05] Okay.

[00:56:09] Dane: [00:56:09] I would add to that if I may, is. Just of the conquer, the concreteness of the allegiance is to really committed to delivering them a result that they’re happy with.

[00:56:20] Guest: [00:56:20] Okay. Right.

[00:56:28] Dane: [00:56:28] and those, the reason I say that is because I often forget about, it’s really about delivering a result because to me it’s often, it’s like, just get connected with me.

[00:56:36] Just spend time with me. Just learn these things. You’ll go along on your way. You’ll do really great things, but if I’m like, no, this is about a result that I kind of show up with a different level of accountability for the person,

[00:56:47] Guest: [00:56:47] yeah.

[00:56:50] okay.

[00:56:54] Dane: [00:56:54] the allegiance being, if you, if you, if it fits for you and I recommend it, but it’s up to you, the result you’ll be even, I think you’ll be even more in the trusted advisor category.

[00:57:09] Because it’s so easy for people to get lost and detail and lost. If they wait a second, what result do we want here?

[00:57:20] And it’s just, it’s just lost on folks. I think I have it as one of the, I’ve got like seven different skills that I’ve identified as a super critical. If you have these sort of seven skills, you can get away with a lot less. One of those skills is developing outcome thinking. How to do, how to develop outcome thinking.

[00:57:39] Because if you have outcome thinking, then you can, you can juxtapose every decision that you have against it. So I’m going to do this, does this help me do my outcome? Well, if you don’t know what your outcome is because you haven’t developed outcome thinking, then it’s really hard. But like once you have the outcome in mind, every different, like if you have a PowerPoint presentation and you’re like, what’s the outcome of the PowerPoint [00:58:00] presentation?

[00:58:00] The outcome is that people will give me money at the end of it. Okay, great. Does this slide aid that outcome?

[00:58:06] Guest: [00:58:06] Yes.

[00:58:10] Dane: [00:58:10] So that’s good. I think cause solve a problem is, is good. It’s kind of process ish. Um, and if you, if you can shift over to the, the land of transformed by results and bring that in. And like, you’re like, you’re sitting there and in your heart you’re talking to people like, I’m going to blow this person away.

[00:58:32] We’re going to deliver an amazing result of this person. How’s all that sound?

[00:58:40] Guest: [00:58:40] cool. I love it.

[00:58:42] Dane: [00:58:42] well, good job. Um, what do you think your next steps are.

[00:58:46]

[00:58:46] We’ve talked to 12 to 12 people. 30 minutes.

[00:58:49] Guest: [00:58:49] Yeah. Coming out of here, it’s going to be a. Pretty simple scheduling exercise. Okay. Just connect with a few accounts, 12 of them, and have a conversation. Happy new year. What’s going on? What are some of your problems.

[00:59:07] Dane: [00:59:07] very good. Great work.

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