The Ups and Downs of Entrepreneurship with Trey Lewellen

there's always ups and downs, you know, no matter where you're at in the business life. Like, you know, if you're making sales or not making sales, you're making a lot of sales, making no sales, like those same ups and downs, kind of like a roller coaster, is like just the path of entrepreneurship, you know. Like, we all have it, we all have the stories, they're fun to hear about.

Um, but in the moment they were not fun.

In the moment they're never fun, but they're always fun to laugh at later because you survive, you know. And I think that's what kept me driven is, you know, like people ask all the time, it's like, well, how'd you get through it? Like, you, you faced so much just blah, and funny, like, how'd you get through it? And it was just like, I just kept telling myself, like, I get to live tomorrow. And that's a beautiful thing.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over $1 billion of my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Uh, today's interview is going to blow your mind. Uh, I brought somebody who who was one of our first ClickFunnels members ever. We think he was like in the top 10, like first people to join ClickFunnels. He also had the first funnel that broke 2 Comma Club and went from zero to over $30 million in like 2 months, I think. It was insane. And we're gonna tell that story, which is gonna be a lot of fun. But on top of that, we're not just gonna talk about the good stuff. He's gonna go deep into the dark side of things, the things you don't know about, the stress, the anxiety, the legal problems, the issues, the merchant accounts. Because he had a funnel, probably the fastest growing funnel I've ever seen. But with that came a lot of, a lot of other things. And so we're gonna go deep into that in this interview, which is really fascinating. We actually just finished up and it was really cool to hear that side of it. And then from that, most people who have big successes and they fail, they don't come back. And Trey then talks about how he came back and what he's doing now and all the funnels, e-com funnels he's doing. So if you ever been interested in like, how do you do e-commerce online? Not so much like how do we build a Shopify store, but like actual e-commerce funnels. Like, this is the guy who basically invented the blueprint. He's, uh, he invented it, he figured it out, and he's been the one who I've known who scaled it over and over and over again more than anybody. Uh, he's got more winning e-com funnels than, again, anyone I know. Do you know anyone better than you? Probably not.

I've looked.

Yeah, they're not there.

They're not there. At least they're hiding. Yeah.

So this interview is amazing. We just got done with it. I'm excited for you guys to jump in and meet our guest for today. His name is Trey Luel, ClickFunnels member number 5 or 6, whatever it was. And with that said, let's jump right into the podcast. All right, so I'm here today with Trey Lewellen. Trey, how you feeling today?

Doing good, man.

I'm so excited you're here in Boise again.

It's a trip. It's a trip, it's a quick trip.

Nobody wants to come to Boise, but when they're here, they love it.

I do love it, it's beautiful.

Yeah, so Trey came in today because we were working on a secret project for the ClickFunnels community. You were building out an entire training for our people, showing them how to sell e-commerce through funnels. And the story behind how you got here is fascinating, and so I wanna talk about that story for a second, but I also want to, on this interview, I wanna go deep, 'cause you've had some huge ups, some huge downs, back and forth, and I wanna share, I wanna talk about all those kind of things. I think a lot of times people just hear about the highlight reel, and I think I'm excited to talk about both sides of it, if you're cool with that?

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

But first, I wanna tell, I told this story earlier on Facebook Live, but this is really fun. So we launched ClickFunnels. You were customer number what? 3?

I think I'm 3. I've never officially said, Trey, you're a number this, but I'm pretty, I have to be 3 or 10 or I hope I'm in that number. Like single digits. Yeah.

Okay. So Trey's a single digit, one of the first people ever joined ClickFunnels. And, um, and I think, I don't know how far you were in the, in your career, but you were just kind of getting started, right? Like it wasn't something where your first funnel didn't just take off, right?

No name. No one knew me. I knew no one. And I was just fiddling in my insurance office. That's what I was doing.

And I remember you told me a story and I'll probably get the details wrong, but you talked about like, you heard me talk about like, just launch a funnel, do a funnel, like you're one funnel away. And then you started doing them. And then how many funnels did you do before you had the one that like popped?

Man.

Or what's the story? Give me like, what are some of the ones you tried? I'm just curious, like some of the funny stories behind it.

Jeez. What did we try? Like, I mean, we had like, we had some like, like little winners, you know, like we're good. So like before ClickFunnels, we sold t-shirts and I tried to build a t-shirt.

Just like on Shopify or something, or how were you selling them?

Teespring.

Oh yeah, of course. Do you remember that? Yep, I do.

Yeah, gone. That was the worst thing ever. But made, made good money. But then, uh, people came in our Facebook page. That's when you could actually reach people on Facebook. And they're like, hey, I bought all your t-shirts, give me something else to buy. That was what they were saying. So then that's when I was like, you know, I was messaging anybody I knew in my little circle of like, hey, what's like, how do you do this? WordPress? And they're like, no, ClickFunnels. I was like, what's that? They're like, Russell Brunson's building this huge thing. And so I went over clickfunnels.com, Signed up. I said, you know, sign me up for the free trial or whatever. And that was like when like things, the building blocks were coming in. And, um, you know, I think that it started with like webinars and then it moved in. Like I was just, I was just waiting for e-com. Like that's all I was just sitting there waiting for e-com. Cause I was like, I need this.

The way we first launched is we, we, um, weren't finished when we launched this. So we, uh, did a reverse launch. So we like, we launched like, you can create an opt-in funnel. Hey, you can create this funnel. Hey, we have order forms. Like, yeah, it was because we launched before we were ready. But that's like how entrepreneurs do it, right?

It's all good. Yeah. That's, I sell products before I launch them.

So you're like waiting for us to actually like—

Yes.

Really? That's crazy.

So it worked. Uh, we started doing our little pages, like it's great. Cause you can just, you know, build it. And I was a computer science major, so it came easy to me and there was no programming. You just, you know, you build it. And so I built— we, the first thing we built, I remember this is, was a tin sign. And it said, due to ammo shortages, there will be no warning shots. I bought that off of Amazon for $6 and I sold it on ClickFunnels for $12. And that made, I don't know, maybe a couple sales. Like we would post it to our Facebook page, which had 300,000 likes, which got comments. So you could monetize it a little bit, but it was nothing like, you know, we were about to do. And so, man, I'm trying to think of what some of the stuff we tried. We tried, we tried P52 can openers. We tried a deck of cards. We tried Solo Targets. We tried oil. Uh, we did all these like little things that—

I remember you tell me you like walk to Walmart or something and just find stuff and list it, right?

Yes. I would walk to Walmart and list it.

Uh, you just go find a product, you're like, maybe this will sell, let's see if it would sell.

You run out of ideas. Like, Amazon wasn't like huge yet, you know, Amazon wasn't full of ideas. So that you're still at the retail level of like, you know, what's selling. And I, and I kind of still do that today, but you go into stores and you look at what's depleted, like what inventory is depleted, and that's how I kind of guess that like, oh, that kind of, that kind of is probably selling. Like people are actually buying a lot of that, that they can't restock it fast enough. And so that's how I found, uh, what was, what you're referring to is the cleaning gun cleaning kit. I had like 42 items that You know, I close my eyes, I'm like, what would I pay for that? $50. Holy crap, Walmart's selling for $20. These guys are crazy. And I take that back, take photos of it, upload it to a, you know, page that looked like Trey built it, and then hope that something sells, you know. And that was the beginning, man.

What would you do if something sold? You bought it at Walmart, you bought one or two of them, I'm assuming, to sell.

If it did, you tried to source them, or, uh, well, yes, we would source them. But funny enough is, you know, we got that cleaning kit, I uploaded it, and it sold like bang Gangbusters. Like, I think we sold 30 or 50 within a week, and Walmart only had 5.

You're like, we need more Walmart, go order some more.

I had to go to Walmart. I had to go all the Walmarts in St. Louis. So I went to every single Walmart and bought out all the gun cleaning kits. It was a horrible day to come back and just be like, we got to ship these. Like, that was definitely not, uh, a good management of my time, you know.

Think about how many people like wait because they're trying to find the perfect product and try to source it, and they go and buy those inventory and it sits in their garage for the next 20 years of their life, versus you're just like Driving to Walmart, grabbing crap and selling it.

I was grabbing crap, selling it for more. I sold it for $50. Yeah. So I was making money on Walmart, right? Walmart's selling for $20, I was selling for $50. So I was definitely making $30, but then we would outsource it, get it for— I think we got it for like $4 landed. So I made even more margin, right? Yeah. But yeah, that was the idea. Like, I actually, uh, I mean, to this day we still sell products before we— yeah, we sell products before they land. Like we import it all, uh, from China, but even products I'm like, oh, is this going to work? We start trying to sell that product before we even have like the box created with our logo on it. And that way we know like, oh, it's selling great. Put out like a 4-email series like, hey, uh, your order's in production. Hey, your order's, uh, you know, being QA checked. Hey, your order is being shipped. So that kind of delays us. Or, you know, we'll be like, hey, due to XYZ, you know, uh, shortage in employees or whatever, like your order is delayed. Some will cancel, some will refund, but at least we know there's life in the product and we say, okay, this is a go. Like this is a green light offer. Let's hit it versus, oh, we didn't make any sales. No harm, fail because we didn't invest all this product. Cause like you said earlier, sitting inventory is bad inventory. Yeah.

So tell us about like when the first one hit, because I have my side of the story I'll tell later, but like for you, like what was that? Why'd you have to come up with the idea? Walk through that whole process again.

Flashlight? Yeah. Okay.

Oh yeah.

So the flashlight, um, what a story.

Uh, greatest story ever.

It'd be an 8-hour podcast, honestly. Um, so short version is the flashlight was, was an offer that we tried. We tried to sell it for $12.95. We bought it on Amazon for $5. So it was listed on Amazon for $5, tried to sell it for $12. Um, didn't sell.

So it's just a normal flashlight or a little— Yeah.

Yeah. A little flashlight, nothing different about it. And so I tossed a box of them of 100 in my closet, and we were working out of the house in the closet, and 4 or 5, 6 months goes by, and I go in there, that's where we had our airplanes, our remote control airplanes, and I tripped over these dang flashlights, and I was like, can we just get rid of these? Let's just dump these things. So I build another real quick funnel, and for whatever reason they sold, they all sold. I was like, huh, maybe we should buy more. I've never really said that about a product, maybe we should buy more. So we bought more and we kind of course corrected the funnel a little bit to where we actually make a little bit of money. And it's been a little bit, so I'm trying to kind of remember what kind of happened there. But we built the funnel and we started increasing the price. So we went from $12 to $26 to $36 to $46 to $56 to $66. And that's where it broke. So people stopped buying at $66. It was a $56 offer and the conversions were good, but they weren't great. And like, we couldn't, we were like breaking even on, on Facebook. And so I remember one of the key factors I teach everybody that ever comes into my life, like, if there's one thing that I can leave you with, it's to call your customers, you know? Um, and so call your customers and call your, call your leads of why they didn't buy. It's the easiest thing to fix your funnel. So I call this, I'm just making phone calls one day, and I was like, hey man, saw that you were interested in flashlight, uh, but you didn't buy.

Why not?

And this guy, you know, these guys are gunslinger guys, and he's like, he gets his little raspy voice, you know, like he just got done smoking a pack. And he's like, hey man, like, I, uh, I didn't buy your flashlight. I'm a flashlight guru, but you know, it just didn't seem like it was a fit. I was like, what are you talking about? Um, he's like, well, I'm looking for, you know, a manly, a masculine flashlight. I was like, oh, okay, what, what, like, what's that? Tell me more. Just kind of getting more out of them. Yeah, manly. Like, what's a manly? He's like, I'm looking for like one of those tactical flashlights. It was like, tactical? I was like, that's interesting. So I literally go to ClickFunnels, edit the page, and I type in tactical G700. So it was a G700 flashlight first, now it's a tactical G700. So all I did was add the word, I didn't change the flashlight, and I pressed save. And literally, I'm telling you, within minutes our conversions doubled. They were doubled. And I was like, which means your ad costs cut in half, right? Yeah, cut in half. And I was like, holy crap, that's amazing. Like, all they wanted was a tactical flashlight, and that's how I separated myself from from all these other flashlights.

From one dude who told you—

one guy. And that has happened more and more. Like, there's other examples of that, you know, that's happened through our— my career of just these one little word changes. Um, like, we— with the oil that we sold, we, we would buy a 50-pack of, uh, uh, what are those towels called? The, uh—

oh, uh, the white, um, you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Those towels, microfiber.

Yeah.

So microfiber towels, buy a 50-pack off Amazon for $10. So each one costs whatever that is, 25 cents. And we were selling those for $3.99. And so on the funnel, conversions were like 15% take rate on the order bump. Well, I called people like, hey, why don't you grab the microfiber towels? Like, oh, I can get those anywhere. They're like, well, what would make it better? Like, oh, well, if there's a premium microfiber towel, I'd buy more of them. Premium. Type in premium. Now, hey, grab a premium microfiber towel with your oil selection. Sales just rocketed. So now I wasn't investing money with towels from China. I was just going to Amazon, buying a pack of 50, sending it to my fulfillment center, and they were just hand— one single handling each one out of the pack. That's how I saved money. So that— those are like ways to do it, right? So Tactical Flashlight, uh, was how we kind of got our start. Did Facebook, scaled Facebook, went to a— went to an event called Traffic and Conversion. At that event, I was invited to go to a Survival Life meeting with Perry Belcher, and at that meeting was like these 100 affiliates that were like pushing Survival Life stuff. Sat down, this guy Justin Brooke is there, and I'm telling him, I'm like, hey man, like, you know, you're an ads guy. That's just his kind of name to fame. I was like, what would you do? He's like, I'd talk to this guy right here. I was like, oh, hello. And I was like, what's your name? He's like, my name is Brian Lippmann. I was like, what's up, Brian? What do you do? He goes, I send emails. I was like, oh, that's cool. He goes, what do you do? I said, I go, I sell flashlights. He's like, cool. Um, I told him the sales we were doing, which was decent. And, um, he's like, well, you should, you should call me after the meeting and we'll see if we can make something happen. I was like, okay. So I call him, here's the offer. Hey, you got an email that you've written? No, I just got some Facebook copy that says, you know, military-grade tactical flashlight. You know, I even, I was like talking a little bit about how, you know, we took this technology from the military and now it's, it's available to the public. Like just create a spin, a fun spin on the flashlight. He's like, ah, you know, let's test it out. I said, okay man, how much for, for a test? He's like, oh, uh, $10 grand. I was like, $10,000? Like, this was 10 years ago. $10 grand? He's like, yeah, $10 grand, like it's nothing, you know. I'm like, man, I wish I felt like $10 grand was nothing. And so I was like, maybe he's just, you know. So, uh, I was like, all right. I was like, Bryce, on my business partner, like, what do you think? He's like, well, let's try it, I guess. I was like, well, whatever. So we grab an Amex because we didn't have $10 grand, and, uh Here you go, Brian. And he's like, all right, let's send it out. He goes, I will not let you lose. And that was really confident for me. You know, he's like, I won't let you lose. Like, I'm going to win for you either way. Like, we're going to make it work. Okay. I believe in you. He goes, if it fails, I'll refund the 10 grand. Okay. Little risk. Here you go. So he sends out the email and we made sales. We made more than 10 grand back. We made, I think, 20. I think we made 20 grand profit was probably 2 to 3 grand. Hey, I like that. So I called Brian up. Brian, that was a success. Like we made some money. And I was like, now what? He's like, oh, we full send it. I was like, full send it? What's that mean? He's like, well, I'm going to send it to everybody, like all my emails. I was like, how many is that? I don't know if the time is like 20 million emails or 15 million emails. I was like, okay, let's do it. How much is that? $80 grand. I was like, Brian, like bro, you want me to hand you— I've never— I've only met this guy once, right? $80,000. I'm like, this dude is running with my money. So I, I, like, I even still get sweaty right now. Uh, He calls, he's like, so you doing it or not? And I was like, I guess, I guess we'll do it. And I'll have $80 grand. So I called Amex, I was like, hey, can I get a boost? And they're like, well, how much do you need? Like $20 grand, $20, you know, $22. I was like, $80.

Are you buying a house? What's happening?

We call them—

my first house was $90,000 we bought.

So there you go. Well, the Maserati I bought was $80 grand. Yeah. So we call them Maserati bombs. You know, when I, when I'm handing these, these— I would call them Maserati bombs. And I was like, all right, well, here's a Maserati bomb because if it explodes, like, I'm not getting it back. Yeah. And so I hand him this, this $80,000 $1,000 on an Amex. And I told Bryson, I was like, ah, we might not get this money back. Like, I guess we got a chargeback that we could do. So ironically enough, I'm headed to Hawaii for a mastermind. And why— whatever, I forgot why it was so late, but it was like 10 o'clock at night. And I knew, I knew that, um, the email was supposed to send at that time at like 10 o'clock. And so I'm watching our watch, he's watching his watch, we got our phone. This was back when like you could do It wasn't Zapier's, but it was like an email that goes to an app and that app makes a ka-ching sound. So it was like ka-ching, like when you got a sale. It's kinda cool. So it feels good. It's a good feeling when you hear that ka-ching. You're like, oh, I made money. And so I set it on loud and I'm trying to eat dinner. I'm nervous 'cause nothing's happening and it's 10 o'clock. The third hand, second hand's going past. I'm like, we got no sales. We got no sales. We are screwed.. And a minute goes by, 2 minutes go by, 3 minutes go by. And then I hear this ka-ching. I was like, oh, okay, okay. That was $50. Not bad. Closer to $80. And within like 5 minutes it went from ka-ching to here, ka-ching here. It was like, like the amount of sales, it was just like you could just roll through them. I'm like, oh my, what is happening? Dude, the dinner table. Was so loud and so boisterous, and like people were having so much fun, to where these kachings took it over. And the whole dinner table— I've said before— the whole dinner table goes silent, and everybody's just like staring at our phones because it's like just going nuts. And everybody's like, what, what's that? I said, that's a Maserati bomb. And they're like, holy smokes. And I go— we— me and Bryson, after dinner, we go back, and Bryson— I got a picture of him. He's standing up with his leg like this up, and he's holding his phone. And I was like taking a picture, and I was like That's a cool picture because you made $1,000 in that picture. Like, that was $1,000. Like, in the time that he raised his leg, we made $1,000. I was like, this is crazy. Like, this is insane. So we get home. I was like, Brian, super success.

Awesome.

What do we do? Like, how do we do more of those? Like, I'm ready. Like, my Amex burning for Brian. He's like, it's done.

That's everybody.

What do you mean that's done? He's like, that was everybody. I was like, full send it. No one's ever done that before. No one's ever done that before. Like, what are you talking about? And, uh, he's like, yeah, you're the first one. I couldn't believe it. I was like, holy smokes. So he's like, I don't got anything else because we sent the whole email list. Like, you'd have to come back in like 30 days, 40 days. That's when I joined Inner Circle.

Yeah.

And I was like, you know, everybody's always like, what do you ask Russell? And I had one question: what do you do after Facebook, after emails? Like, I was like, where's the next traffic? And you came to me and you go, I'm All right, this is risky and I don't trust this guy, but I'm going to tell you right now, he might do some favors for you. And, uh, that was Uncle Bernardo. And so, so I was like, I'll give you a call. I was like, so tell me about Uncle Bernardo. He's like, well, I had this supplement. It wasn't something, it was a supplement. Yeah, supplements. You go, uh, I got with Bernardo. I, on a Friday he called me. He goes, hey, I'm going to push my, this offer. You go, yeah, you push it.

What's your limits? What's your limits? Like, No, as long as you're profitable, I don't care.

Yeah, no cap, profitable, CPA, get after it. And I think you woke up on Sunday to notice that you were—

he'd sold like 8 months worth of inventory in one day. Yeah. And the supplements, it's like, to get new inventory is like 3-month process, right?

Yeah, gone, gone. And I remember, I think I told you this, I go, if he just does a quarter of that for us, I'd be forever grateful. Yeah. So I called him up, I was like, hey man, got a flashlight. Offer. Russell said that you know what to do. Here you go. He goes, he laughs. He goes, that's what he laughs like. That's joking.

Uh, he's gonna watch this.

He's gonna watch. So, uh, he's like laughing at me. He goes, what's so special about the flashlight? It's tactical. I don't know. Like, I, I honestly didn't know. I was like, it's tactical. He goes, okay. He goes, but he goes, I, I can't take this to my pubs. He worked for a network and he's like, I can't take this to my pubs because they'll just laugh at me. Like, we've never seen anything like this before. I was like, well, it's selling on Facebook, it's selling on email, like it should sell everywhere else. He's like, dude, you're gonna have to pay me. I was like, how much you want? He's like, I want $10 grand. I was like, what is it with you guys and needing $10 grand to like test this stuff? Like, you're killing me. So I was like, whatever. So I give him $10 grand, and I think it was like during the week or weekend, 3 days go by, we see some sales coming through, like, oh, okay, you know, Bernardo's up to his little games, like he's got, Sales coming in. And he calls me and he goes, Trey, this offer is gonna be huge. We want it on a CPA. And I was like, okay, what's that mean? And, uh, he's like, I just need you for every conversion, I need you to pay me X. You know, I think at that time it was like $80. So every time we get a conversion, no matter what the sale was, is $80 we pay him out. Okay, cool. Is there a cap? That means like basically you can only sell so many per day. I was like, no. And I was like, just do what you did for Russell.

Like, I warned you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't been speaking to you at that point. And so, uh, He's like, okay. And then, dude, we, we, we— it was just crazy. Like, he went to town. He took that offer and he just went to everywhere and everyone and blew us up. He scaled it, you know? And every day, every day, the Stripe account got bigger. As I mean, like, the sales we did yesterday, it was always like 25% more the next day, 25% more the next day, 25%. So we were doing $10,000 a day to $15,000 a day to $25 grand a day to $100 grand a day. We, we capped— I remember capping at like $475 or $500 grand in one day in just flashlight sales. We were 70,000 units— no, 70,000 orders in the hole by— with our ShipStation account. We could not keep up with the orders. Customer service, I was getting 15,000 phone calls a day. I had 20 people working the phones. You can't stop. Yeah, that's why I said, but we gotta slow the train down. He goes, we're on a freight train, bro. If we stop this train, it won't come back. So as an early entrepreneur, like, you don't know what you don't know. So I was like, scale it, send it. Like, I'll figure it out. And that's, you know, we were just in figure out mode. Like, we weren't on our business, we were definitely in our business and just picking up the crumbs, you know, picking up the messes.

Yeah, we'll go into that in a minute. I'm going to talk about some of the messes people can understand, but But it's crazy to think about that story. And my side of the story, I've told you this before, but it's crazy because we had just launched ClickFunnels. It was the first year and everyone plugs into Stripe, but we're able to see like the volume happening through Stripe, through all the merchants. We get paid a percentage on that, right? I remember looking in the back office one day and, you know, we had— I don't remember. We were— everyone on the platform combined was making $10 grand a day or something like that, which was cool. Also, when it's like $10 grand, to 30 to 50 to 100 to 300 to 500, right? And I'm freaking out and Todd's freaking out. We're like, everyone on our platform's making so much money. We were so excited that this was happening. I remember going like Facebook Lives and Periscope, like showing like the thing, like ClickFunnels members are blowing it. And it was crazy 'cause I didn't know it was you. I didn't know it was one person doing the majority of the volume, but it was crazy 'cause for me, it gave me so much belief in what we were doing. I'm like, funnels work. I've been telling everybody this. Like, I finally got proof it's actually working. And it was cool 'cause like that brought me into my business and my calling and my mission so much more 'cause I was like now like tell everybody like, 'cause I saw that and it's crazy because again, I didn't know it was all coming from you, but it gave me belief in what I was doing as well to come out. And like it's crazy 'cause now we do, you know, ClickFunnels platform processes I think like $3 billion a year now, which is not, that's not all your volume, is it? It might be. That is not my volume. But like that was the thing that gave me belief in what we were doing for me to triple down and just be so excited because of that. So it's kind of like this weird blessing happened for me watching your, you know, having your success happen. And then I found out, I can't remember, 5 or 6 months later when you're like, I saw that live and it was crazy. Cause like your numbers and mine were almost the same. I was like, oh yeah. So thank you for that. So first off, I want everyone to hear that part of the story because I think I tell the story like your one funnel way, your one funnel, I talk about it a lot. Right. And people hear me say that it's like, well, what does that look like? And, and the reality is always pros and cons with that. Right? Like the pros are just like, it hit, it worked. Like, oh, this is true. Like I can tell you, a dozen times in my life when I had the one funnel away moment. Like we are in ClickFunnels, like when ClickFunnels finally hit the same thing, like it was blowing up year one, we got 10,000 members and then the software crashed and everything's crashing and we couldn't keep up support or operations or everything. It was just like we almost lost our business year one because we had success because the funnel worked. And it's like that side of it, no one ever talks about that side of it. And, um, I want to talk about that and then we're gonna come back to more fun stuff and more all the stuff you're doing today and all the other funnels and offers. But I do want to share this part just because I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't know what happens when it hits. And again, there's the positive and the negative. They just— I'm sure they've just visualized the positive, but I'd love for you to dive into some of the other side of it, as much as you're willing to share. But just, you know, yeah, you get to the point where you're doing $500,000 in sales a day.

Like, that's okay.

You can't keep up with that.

That's impossible. It was impossible. We didn't have the systems in place. Uh, geez, I mean, the call center alone, like 15,000 calls. Like, people were leaving voicemails like, where's my flashlight? You know, and they're mad. Like, like for me, you know, I'm like, it's a flashlight. But for them it was a gift. It was a Christmas present. It was their only money they had at the time. And that's what they want, the one thing they bought. And they wanted their flashlight. They wanted their flashlight. Like it was, it was wild. Uh, geez, I don't know what, what is the most fun. I think, you know, I have fun stories, uh, which are, which are doomsday stories. I remember, I remember when the news showed up Um, and they, they, the local news had been doing an article on us, which they don't tell you until they show up with the video cameras and the spotlights, and you're just like deer in a dead headlight. And I remember the— it was funny because we went and watched it because I remember the call center guy, he's like, uh, we're on the news. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, they didn't come to our office yet. And he's like, check this out. So we pull it up. The call center was kind of like a room like this where everybody had their, their desktops. I had them all big 25-inch screens for the Apples, like nice stuff. So we pull it up, all 25 call reps are just like huddled around this TV watching this news article. And what you see is this grandma in her kitchen and she's like, yep, they just keep calling. They just keep calling. I can't call nobody. I pick up the phone and there's somebody there. They want no dial tone. And the lady's like, well, how's this affected your life? She goes, I can't make a call out. I can't receive calls. I can't talk to my grandchildren. I can't talk to my children. I can't talk to my friends. Nothing. All because of this flashlight company. And here in St.

Louis, and these guys are outbound calling them or what?

No, her number, her number was one digit off from the number of ours. And so people were just fat fingering her number. Just, we were getting 15,000 calls a day. 100 of those were shifting over to her. And so She, she would answer the phone. And so they, they really record her. You see the phone ring. Hello? Nope. This ain't, this ain't the, that's a scam. And I was like, and I'm watching this. I'm like, oh my gosh. Oh, I'm just going, oh my gosh. She goes, this, that's a scam. You need to call your bank and charge back. Just the words that we as entrepreneurs and CEOs hate to hear, you know, like charge back. Like, and I'm just like, wow. And she'd hang it up. I tell you, it was wild. Hang up, ring, hello. Like, I was like, she ain't lying. Like, that's the amount of calls she's getting.

That's crazy.

It's the same story, same story. And the news made it like, you know, dark invasion, stuff like that. So how that happened, that was a learning experience for us, right? Like, uh, Alex Sharfin, which was at Pirate's Cove, you know, I told these stories, right? And the one thing I remember from him, because I tell you the same thing, like, we did $30 million in like 2 and a half months. Like, oh, that's great. Uh, pretty much lost it all. And, you know, he, he said something to me that time, which I was like, I've taken it to heart and I've told other people that. He goes, you got a $30 million education. And I was like, wow, like, that's a really cool spin to understand. Like, I feel bad because I didn't take much home from that. And it was like, I was like a has-been, you know, like, oh, I had the success. And then like, what do you do after that? Crash. Yeah, it crashes. And like, can I do it again? Can I create the spark? Like, I don't know. You go through all these like psychological demons that, you know, come and try to capture you. And That was really cool for him to say, and I took that to heart because that was an education. Like, we go to college and pay— I mean, I don't know what my college was, maybe $120 grand now, but a $30 million education. I learned so much just by the law of, you know, getting in the dirt.

The thing about things like you learn about the systems, right? That inside there's the customer support stuff, there's probably shipping logistics you gotta figure out, there's importing stuff from, from China. I'm sure, uh, there's traffic, like how do you handle the relationship and the mass meet, like I can't even imagine all the different things you'd have to figure out and try to solve while all this is raining on you. Sales are still coming in, people are still like, you can't stop the train. And then as soon as you do stop the train, this happened to me at least, I'm sure, I'm assuming similar thing, like you stop the train, all the affiliates who were promoting it are like, wow, this offer converted. And 2 minutes later they've got a flashlight offer and now you got 500 competitors who were your partners, now your competitors, and it's just gone.

And you're like, everything I just created just got ripped off.

By the people who, who have supported you for a dollar.

Yeah. Usually a dollar difference. Yeah. That's what the CPA is. But to rewind just a second. So the, the lesson I learned from the grandma was not to have a local number for the company. That was the lesson. And so that cost me a lot. That cost the business a lot, but real quickly we got an 833 number and those numbers aren't grandma's numbers. Right. Those numbers are other businesses, like call them all you want. But the 833 number is now like validated to where we're not gonna harm someone's home and, and miss, you know, type. The other thing was, is I think we called somebody of the number and we had the wrong number on our, um, our label, our shipping label. We couldn't find it, couldn't figure out where it came from. Um, so that was, that was, that's, that's always an interesting story. Uh, you know, we also had the other stories where, uh, one time this guy calls and he's like, uh, hey, is the, is the owner there? That was never a good call. And I was like, ugh, I'm here. And I was like, what's he need? He's like, they're like, well, um, uh, his house burned down. I was like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, one of your flashlights caught his house on fire. Oh no. I was like, gosh darn it, like we're, we're out of business, like we're gone. So I put on the headset. Hey, this is, uh, Trey, and how can I help you? He goes, he goes, how you doing? I said, probably better than you. I said, how can I help you? He goes, well I gotta tell you, he goes, I bought one of your tactical flashlights. And I said, uh-huh. And he goes, I was, uh, I was sitting in my rocking chair and I was just, I was just sitting there and, you know, I can't hear well. And my kitty cat is sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I'm watching the ball game, I see my cat fling up in the air, run across the street, run across the, uh, uh, the living room, and I see Grandma just, just running with a towel. And I said, something must be wrong. So I looked over I said, Grandma, what's going on? She goes, honey, the bathroom's on fire. I said, oh no. So he got up, he goes over, sure enough, the battery, the lithium battery had blew up in their bathroom, caught the bathroom on fire. So now the bathroom is on fire in their house and they're swatting it with, with towels and they put it out. And I was like, oh my gosh, uh What do you want me to do? And because I'm like, I don't know, buy him a new house or something. Yeah. I don't got no money. And he's like, well, I've been thinking about it and I think it'd be okay if you sent me just 2 more flashlights. I was like, oh, praise Jesus. I could not believe he said that. I was like, I'll send you 5. So I was like, yes, sir. I will get those out to you right away. I said, boys, pack up 2 flashlights, overnight mail to this gentleman right here. And I was like, good Lord, like we are— I again, like touch of death, you know, like you just never know what's gonna happen. We had this, we had this, this, this, uh, uh, you know, the FBI showed up one time because it was a tactical flashlight. Uh, they got, they got a call in because they— we had a headline that was like, you know, TSA, uh, gets through TSA. I brought one into the airport and, uh, it had like a, like a ridge on it. And I took a picture in the airport like this with the planes outside. I was like, TSA approved. And that got us all in a dizzy. And so the FBI— great marketing, great marketing, great marketing. Uh, and then, but somebody reported us to the FBI. They showed up, we made friends, uh, and so you know how that goes. But, um, they asked a lot of questions and, you know, they, they said, uh, just don't, don't advertise it like that. I said, okay. So, you know, like All these things, you know, stir up and like, it's great and it's not. It's like you live through the ups and downs. Like there's always ups and downs, you know, no matter where you're at in the business life. Like, you know, if you're making sales or not making sales, you're making a lot of sales, making no sales, like those same ups and downs, kind of like a roller coaster is like just the path of entrepreneurship, you know? Like we all have it, we all have the stories. They're fun to hear about.

Um, but in the moment they were not fun.

In the moment they're never fun, but they're always fun to laugh at. Later because you survive, you know. And I think that's what kept me driven is, you know, like people ask all the time, like, well, how'd you get through it? Like, you, you faced so much just blah in front of you. Like, how'd you get through it? And it was just like, I just kept telling myself, like, I get to live tomorrow. And that's a beautiful thing. Like, I get to live tomorrow. Like, uh, we'll take care of whatever the issues are, but we'll get— we'll take care of it. We were getting 15,000 calls a day, you know, coming in like, where's my flashlight? Where's my flashlight? And I, I hire this, uh, Mexican, uh, call center. They had like 200 agents. I was like, let's plug and play. And I call them like, onboarding takes 30 to 45 days to plug you in, get you all set up. I said, I need it done in like 5 because we're just on a railroad that like nowhere, like we're gonna crash. And so they're like, cool, we'll do it. I said, I need you to like do overnight training get these people on. I need like 50 to 75 agents overnight ready to go. So they plug us up and they're like, we're ready. I said, okay, let's go. And so we plug in. Meanwhile, we are able to hear what's called barging the call. We can barge the call in St. Louis. I have me and two other guys barging the calls in like a back room so we can listen in, just make sure they're saying the right things, making sure everything's going good. So the first call comes in early, you know, open up 8 AM. I'm on the phones, I hear them, uh, First call center comes in, call comes in, where's my effing flashlight? Call center goes, be there tomorrow. Good. Click. I was like, huh, let me look up that order. Look up that order. It just got like ordered 2 weeks ago and it's 3 months out. Like we're 70,000 orders in the queue. We're getting out 5,000 orders a day and it's growing. We're not gonna make it. He's not getting that flashlight tomorrow. I was like, uh, that's weird. Bob over here, it's like, Bob, what are you hearing on your call? He's like, they're, they're telling them that they're gonna get the flashlight tomorrow. I said, okay, like all of them? All of the agents. So all the agents, the 50 or 75 that we brought on, it's just like, ring, where's my flashlight? Be there tomorrow. Great, click. Where's my flashlight? Be there tomorrow. Good, click. Like they got great answer rates, they got great— they're just putting it out, they're just putting it out. Well, the next day we went from 15,000 calls to 22,000 calls. Because it's like, my flashlight didn't come, you said it was gonna be here tomorrow, I'm gonna charge back. I'm gonna, you know, want a refund. And that's when we knew we were in trouble. Because, like, we can't keep up with phone calls, we can't control the customer service, I can't control my fulfillment center. So I had it all. Like, I had the call center I was overseeing in-house, I had the fulfillment center overseeing in-house, trying to do it all. Try to understand logistics, shipping, like all these different like 20 businesses. Yeah, I built 20 different businesses and I realized real quick I'm not a CEO, I'm not a manager, I suck at that. Like I suck at being all that. I'm not COO. Um, the best thing I'm at is building a funnel and, you know, striking gold. Everything else is, is there, you know, I create problems for everybody and then it's up to the team to kind of, uh, fix that. And so, you know, I learned, you know, all the dust settles kind of thing. Like one thing I learned was I can't, I don't do a good job at controlling it and managing it, so I need to outsource it. Somebody who does this already is AJ Kubani. AJ Kubani is the owner of As Seen on TV ads, and so does all those. So I talked to a few people that worked with him in the past. I was like, so how does AJ do it? Because he's in the same business as me, launches a product, has huge scale. He calls them blockbuster products, but then it might fall, like the next, you know, TV ad doesn't work, it dies off, like whatever. Like he's running that same cyclical business that I think I'm in. I'd love to structure my business around his. Come to find out, he has scales, he has levers, so he's able to increase call centers, he's able to decrease call centers, he's able to increase shipping, decrease shipping, all by just outsourcing. I was like, that is genius. So I fired everybody. I fired everybody. Um, I called Alex from Ose. I was like, hey bro, um, I got $10,000 square foot building I'm paying 10 grand a month for, plus, uh, uh, internet's $1,000. I sent him $11 grand of money just in debt just from the call center guys, like, leaving them. I was like, how do I— what do I do? And he had— he had the answer, you know. Lucky for me, he had the answer. And he goes, dude, I had the same issue with my gyms. He's like, I had 3 gyms. Just— just go down to the landlord and tell them that you're going bankrupt. If they want the bankruptcy lawyer's card, give it to them. But they're— they're in line, and, um, or you can leave peacefully. I said, did that work? He goes, it worked for all of them. I'll try it. So I go down there, I'm all teared up, and, uh, I was like, hey, bad news, um, we're going bankrupt. And they're like, oh. I said, yep, can't afford rent, so I can either leave peacefully or, um, you can like, you know, come after me and get in line for your money. Because I was in a 3-year contract. And they're like, oh. We'll just let you go. Signed off and out I went. There's something crazy, save me $300 grand.

Same thing happened to me, uh, when my, my call center crashed, everything fell apart. I had like 3 years on the lease, I had like $700-something thousand I owed the guy. Hired a bankruptcy lawyer, uh, he asked me, he's like, how much money can you afford? And I was like, I got $100 in my pocket. He took it, put in his pocket, he's like, I'll meet you tomorrow at the thing. So he showed up and went to the landlord and, uh, and walked in. I was like, this is my lawyer. And he's like, oh, got all postured like I'm trying to sue him. And then he's like I'm his bankruptcy lawyer. He's screwed. Like, he's in so much trouble. And same thing. He's like, he's going to like— went on and on and on. And the landlord, same thing, like, let me go. And we left, packed all stuff that night, left, and that was it. So that's crazy. I didn't know that story, but I did the exact same thing.

So there, if you know other value from this, like, that's how you have a lease.

That's how you get a lease if you need to. And it was true for me. I was like, it probably sounds the same to you. Like, we were at a spot where we were going to have to. And had that not happened, I would have had to go bankrupt. But because we got out of it, I was like, oh yeah.

Oh, I've been done.

I can breathe. Yeah. But now at like a small scale, there's 10 weeks.

We actually, um, you know, they, they, they asked me the same thing, like, how much can you afford? And I was like, well, I kind of still need an office. So they actually had a small room that we got for like $1,000. That's cool. So we downsized to that with them still. But then, you know, we were out after the 2 years, but like, so they still made money from us, but I told them like, I can't pay you what I'm paying you. And I'd rather leave peacefully, no holes in the wall. Like, don't get destructive. Like, just leave it as it is. They'd be better off. And they were totally agreeable that— so it worked out. And of course, in their position, like, that's what they would want anyways. Like, they don't want me to, like, not leave and then they go to, you know, jury and try to fight. Like, it's just easy to sign it off. So it worked for the better. But at the end of the day, like, that was just, like, one of those little things that you get from, you know, a soundboard or a board of advisors or your peers that you're like, hey, I'm in trouble, you know? Like, I think a lot of us, we don't want to expose ourselves and, like, say, hey, I'm in so much trouble, like I'm going in debt, like I'm losing money. Like, we don't look bad, like ego-wise, right? But when you do, when you become vulnerable and you have these, you know, real life talks, that's when the real help comes. You know, like, oh dude, like you just said, like, I've been there. Hey, it was— it's fun to laugh at now, but here's what you do. Here's, here's the game plan and you'll be great at it. And, um, that's exactly what it did and it worked. And so I was like thankful for him for that. Called him, I was like, dude, it worked. Uh, that was amazing. He's like, yeah, dude. But I'm like, okay, that's so cool.

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I'm curious for you after, so this whole thing happens, right? You have this, the success of like, I'm the genius. Like took this thing.

Yeah. I figured out internet marketing is really what I thought.

So you have that success and then crashes. I don't know about you, but like so much of your identity usually gets tied into the success of just like, I am successful. And then it crashes. Like I am a, it failed, therefore I'm a failure. And a lot of people never recover from that. I'm curious what you had to go through mentally. From that?

Because I—

because you have come back and have, you know, done a ton of amazing stuff we'll talk about next. But like, what was that like, that transition, like, just psychologically for you?

Dude, I, I crashed hard. And, um, I didn't want to tell myself I was crashing hard. Like, I get a little teary-eyed. Uh, so two things kind of happened like back to back, and it was just like, here's a gut punch, and then while you're down, here's another one, you know? So the first thing that happened was the affiliates. The affiliates went to a different offer. Uh, we had the G700 offer. The other ones are out there. And what they were doing was they were doing what's called black hat offers. So I mean, good for them, right? Like, whatever. What they did was if you bought 5 flashlights, the upsell— don't do this— the upsell said, uh, yes, I want, uh, 5 battery kits for, you know, let's say $20 each. So I was like $100, right? The no button No button goes no, so big letters no. I just want one. So it's still a yes button disguised as a no button. Oh, shady, shady. And I was like, that's genius. Like, that is amazing that they're doing that. But I was like, the chargeback they're gonna get is just, you know, uh, crazy. So I don't know how they survived, but they, they were growing. They were taking all of our traffic, so they're taking $500,000 a day of traffic and growing. So they— the chargebacks were never catching the growth, right? So they were, they were paying like $120 a conversion, just irrational, unimaginable, like how's that even possible numbers, but they're doing it through black hat offers, right? So we couldn't compete, and that's, that's what really hurt us is they took all of our traffic. Funny enough is I was at an event in Las Vegas called SHOT Show, and, uh, Maglite was there, you know, Maglite, like police Maglite, like, you know, knock you across the head, old Maglite. Stay at a booth, I have a little name tag on, I go over to him. I was like, Bryce, I'm just curious, like, you know, they're another— they're a massive flashlight company, huge brand. And I walk over to him, I was like, hey man, look at his flashlights. I was like, I don't see, uh, I don't see the G700 tactical flashlight anywhere. You got one of those? He goes, ha, the G700 tactical flashlight, that thing's a joke. I was like, oh, so you heard of it? Oh, have we heard of it? I was like, wow. Like, I got Maglite looking at us.

Like, that's—

that was pretty incredible. So I was like, just kind of a cool ego thing that I got to see. I was like, uh, bitch, you wish you would have done it. Yeah. So, um, so the first— there's actually 3 things. So the first thing that hit was the affiliates took our traffic, right? So now, now we're in this dissension, the descending, uh, ledger.

And then your chargebacks start passing. Chargebacks pass.

So the chargebacks catch to us, and we had no, like, metrics. Like, I don't know what I was doing. Like I was making money, right? I thought it was. But yeah, the chargebacks hit.

What happens, you don't understand, like you have to be below a certain chargeback ratio, like 1% or below, right? And so as you're growing, it's easy, but all of a sudden your sales cut in half and then you get what would have been 0.5 chargebacks pops to 1 because you have less volume for the— because it's always leading one month, right? Like that's how that can happen.

So yep, that's how it happens. 1% is threshold, right? You start getting looked at over 1.

And that's when they shut down your merchant accounts. They like all like, that's when you lose your business. If you're not careful, you can lose your ability to ever process money in the future. Like you get on TMF list, which means terminated merchant file, like that you can't get a merchant account. You can't sell stuff in the future. And like, you know, it's a scary— no, I'm not on the list.

I am. Oh yeah. Yeah. From this crazy— so I got on what's called MATCH TSF. I think I never heard of that. Uh, MATCH. So yeah. So basically what happened was this was before Stripe had a phone number. Now Stripe actually has people who you can call. Um, but this is before that. This is when they're kind of like starting, right? They became like that company. And so chargebacks surpass the, the sales, and it went from like 1% to 3% to 7% to 10%. We were at 10% chargebacks on our Stripe account. And I remember, I remember, uh, the phone rings and I answer. I was like, hello? Hey, go, this is Stripe. I was like, oh, you guys got a phone number? About time. About time. Well, it comes under whatever, unidentified. And that's all I was like, oh, okay. See how this goes. And they're like, yeah, well, uh, we've been reviewing your account and we're going to put a 100% hold on all your money. You can still transact, but we're keeping it. We're going to keep it all. Yeah. I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense. They're like, ah, so you can't go find mids that can scale like Stripe can overnight. So that was, so we went to Mauritius and we got one under Mauritius and they took a 20%, uh, reserve. So that was hard. So like all these things are happening, right? Like it's kind of hard to like, pinpoint each story, but they're all happening on top of each other. So basically Stripe's coming in, chargebacks are high. Uh, you go on what's called a watch list. So we're on the watch list for Visa and MasterCard. We surpassed 10% and Stripe's on the phone. We're all, we're on a Zoom call with Stripe. There's this girl, young girl, uh, hate you. And basically she's sitting there on the Zoom call and I was like, I'm like pleading. I'm like, we are like a young business. We have no idea what we're doing. And, uh, we're trying to sell. I'm like, we're doing everything we know. And so she's like, well, we gotta hold your money. I said, they're holding $1.6 million. Affiliates want their money, uh, brokers want their money. I was like, we gotta, we gotta whatever. She goes, I, I go, how are we gonna get out of this? How do we, when do we get our money back? She goes, when you fall under 10% or whatever. And she's like, we don't know what to do. This is what Stripe is saying. We don't know what to do. We have never seen metrics like yours. Okay. She goes, we have taken this to our aggregators, I think is what she called them. And we, we have 3 of them, best in the world, who have looked at your account and they can't figure out a calculation to figure out what to do. And I'm like, so you're saying that we broke the internet? So I was like, okay, so we're holding all your money. Okay, cool. We can still refund, right? No. I was like, oh, well, So if we can't refund, what happens when I press the refund button? It don't go nowhere. Okay, so then hold up. If I can't refund somebody and they don't get a refund, they charge back. What are they gonna do? Oh, charge back. But aren't I in trouble for chargebacks? Yeah, you're at like 10% right now, but you're not allowing me to refund. You're gonna have to send them a check. I'm gonna— you want me to send them a check? You know how many checks I'm gonna have to send out per day? To refund these people? And then what stops them from charging back once they get the check and they get double the money? She's like, not my problem. Hate you.

So you're the worst.

I'm doomed, bro. So then, then they call and I was like, hey, listen, like, we need to open up the refunds because we are going to keep getting chargebacks. Like, you're putting us in, in a bad situation. They're like, okay, wire us $100 grand. You got $1.6 million of my money. You want me to wire you another hundy? And they're like, yeah. I was like, what makes me want to trust that? Because you're already holding $1.6 million. They're like, well, that's the only way we're going to allow you to refund. We're going to keep a reserve.

So reserve on the reserve, reserve on the reserve.

So we start wiring them $100,000 twice, uh, twice a week. Start wiring them $100,000, $100,000, $100,000. It's just like, you— the accounts were just depleting and not fun. And so we're trying to, you know, pay Peter, Rob, Paul— like, we're robbing two Pauls to pay one Peter. And Stripes like, no, and doesn't know what to do. Call center comes in, guy goes, guy goes, hey, there's a lawyer on the phone, wants to know where his money's at. I was like, we got lawyers chasing money now for a flashlight? Like, what is this? Hello, this is Trey, CEO, proud owner of LumaTac, and, uh, how can I help you? I need to know right now where my money is at. My client needs their money. I was like, how much money are you talking about? They're like, $300 grand. I was like, man, what? We, we sell flashlights that are $56. Like, I don't think we collected $300 grand. She's like, is this not Stripe? This is, uh, this is Lumitac. We sell flashlights. We use Stripe, but, um, this ain't Stripe. Well, your number's on Stripe. That's funny because last I checked, Stripe don't got no phone number. So I Google— I'm like on the phone, I Google Stripe, uh, Google, and you know how it has the business thing that comes on the right-hand side? So Stripe California shows our number. So many people had charged back and complained and Googled Stripe that where it says suggest a phone number, so many people thought we were Stripe. So they put our phone number in Stripe. So now I'm getting lawyer calls of people demanding their money from Stripe as if I'm Stripe. So I call up Stripe, I'm like, hey, welcome back to the show.

I got you guys want their money.

Yeah. Oh, what a debacle, bro. Wow. And so, um, so this is how it must hate you. They like hated me, hated me. Uh, they didn't know what to do with me. That's crazy. I'm sure, I'm sure.

So they put us on Match, which is a big picture of you on the wall.

They do not— I guarantee I'm in their playbook. Like when they probably hire people, they're like, here's what we look—

it's like something calling a Ponzi scheme. It's like a Llewellyn scheme.

Yeah, yeah. I'm probably like a Llewellyn, you know, like here's what the Llewellyn— I'm a term of some sort. I would not be surprised. That would be fun to know. And so that's going on, kicking the butt, right? I'm getting kicked every which direction. I got call centers, I got, uh, uh, I got ShipStation at $70,000. I got this kid— like, we're hiring, dude, I'm hiring juvies, okay, to, to ship this stuff out. Like, I remember Saturday, I'm like, we're gonna kick 10,000 orders out today, we're gonna have a lot of fun doing it. And, um, we go there, I get pizza for everybody, We did 10,000 orders. I log into ShipStation and it shows 72,000 orders in the queue. So we sent 10, we grew 2. We can't— I can't keep up. I cannot keep up. And so now the affiliates are going away, new offers are coming out, people are moving. Stripe is charging us back. Visa and MasterCard are calling now, and when they call, they want money. Visa wanted $300 grand. MasterCard wanted $200,000, so $500,000 in fees. So what they do is for every chargeback that you get, Stripe makes that $30 or $15 or whatever it is now. That goes straight to Stripe. Like, that's money for Stripe. So they love chargebacks, but they don't like when you go over 1% because then Visa and MasterCard start asking questions to Stripe saying, hey, are you keeping track on these guys? We're at 10, okay? We're 10x. And so what happens then is They— Visa applies a chargeback to us, a fee, which is $100. MasterCard applies a fee to us, $100. So now instead of a chargeback costing me $30, it's $130. So now I'm having to send wires to Visa, I'm having to send wires to MasterCard, I would send wires to Stripe. I'm depleting.

Yeah, how do I just bankrupt this thing and run away and hide?

Dude, uh, I get to live tomorrow. Like, that's what I— that's what I lived on. And then the sheriff walked in. And the sheriff— that'd be a good headline for this— and then the sheriff walked in. Then the sheriff walks in, and I'm telling you, that packet was probably that thick, inch thick. Lays it on, on me, and I was like, what's this? And he's like, you're getting sued. I said, for what? And I just start to turn the pages, and it has everybody's name everybody's address. They did their research, and it's of this company that basically holds the rights to the light bulb we had in the flashlight, which is a— was a patented piece. And we showed it as if— we showed it accidentally as if we had that light, but it turned out we didn't. But the only place that we— ironically, we never— I didn't even know what this company was. Until they showed up on my desk. What happened was we took a video from China, China, that we used on our, on our sales page, and 2 seconds of that video it showed their logo on the light, and they took that as evidence of, hey, uh, you owe us money. So like, you aren't selling our product but you say you are, so we're going to take— I forgot what they call it— infringement of some sort. So we're going to see, we're going to sue you for $2 million is what they wanted. So Trace, Come to Daddy. Like, I got this tree that grows money and it just, it just plows. So I got Visa, I got MasterCard, I got Stripe, I got refunds, I got now this lawsuit for $2 million. And that's, that's, I think, was the breaking point for me because I'm looking at this $2 million check that I'm gonna have to write to this company because we accidentally used their logo. They didn't even write a cease and desist. Like, we didn't know they existed until they wrote they thought that we were everybody. They thought we were all the affiliate offers. So everybody who copied us, they thought we were them too. So they thought they had a big fish, right? Which we were none of that. We were the opposite. Like, little did they know, like, our books were just like on fire. And so, um, so all the next year, the next year I was depressed because all I could think is I'm working for them now. I'm working for them. Like, I owe these people $2 million. I don't have $2 million, um, don't even have half of that. And like, how am I— how am I supposed to pay them? I'm gonna go work for them. Like, they're gonna seize my checks. I don't know, you know, maybe they're gonna seize my house. They're gonna take— they're gonna take something. And so I couldn't get out of my head where I'm working for them now, and I got these new handcuffs that I didn't know existed. And it was It was demoralizing, you know? Like, the spark wasn't there anymore. The fun wasn't there anymore. It was totally gone just because of this freaking, you know, huge monumental success to where it all came crashing down. Yeah.

I'm curious then, because like I've seen people who had success and lose it, like they're like subconsciously so scared to succeed again because of the pain that would cause. Like Yeah, like, how did you get to the other side of that?

I'm trying to think of why— how did I come out of it? Like, it was 2 years, maybe 3, um, because then, because then I got in my head and, you know, I'm trying to build offers, but I'm not excited about it. I'm, I'm scared, you know, like, again, $30 million, uh, education, right? Which is great. Like, I still use that to this day. Like, all the principles, all the theories, all the things that we learned, we use and utilize, and we've become so much of a better company Like, we don't— you know, it's old company, new company now, but we— I've carried those through and we run so more— so, so efficient. It's fun, energetic. We're not doing anything illegal. Like, all the stuff is a lot of fun. Yeah. And so that's the change. But that's— I mean, that's 10 years past, right? So for 3 years, I was definitely down in my roots. Um, you know, I think, I think a good thing for me was when we settled the lawsuit. Like, that was kind of like the end weight off. That was definitely a weight. Getting rid of the office was a weight lifted. Um, getting rid of the call center from, from, uh, was a weight lifted. And so like all these anchors, I guess, were getting cut. Like my boat was sinking, or I guess it was sunk, and these anchors— I probably had like 12 anchors holding me down. And little by little, I guess, those anchors were being cut and released. And then I kind of came up and like breathed some air and then started to set sail. You know, I didn't catch much wind for a couple years Because what started to get into my head again was, am I just a has-been? You know, is this something that got lucky, kind of hit it on the— you know, I built a funnel, a funnel week, a funnel week, and like one exploded. Was that, was that just a fluke? Yeah, was that a fluke? Was, was Trey really smart? Did Trey really figure out the world of, of e-com, or just luck? You know, and because you get a— I got a little fame from it. Like, I got a little fame, I got some, you know, some, some some good old boys and like stuff like that. But, um, I definitely got down about it, you know. And I'm trying to think like what was like— what was the big like turn of events for me? I think, I think mainly was, you know, finding a new market that I could sell to, um, because we were selling in the gun space and We were mentoring with Jay Abraham and I paid him $10,000 a month for 3 hours of his time each month. And we flew to California every month. We flew in and flew out same day. And we did 12 sessions with Jay and they were great sessions. And I took each session by heart. I went back to the office, I did a month of work, went back and like, Jay, can't get to work. Like nothing was working for the gun space. No one wanted to run gun ads, newspaper, stuff like that. Yeah. So I talked to Jay on the 12th week, or 12th month with him, and I was like, Jay, like, dude, I've been doing everything you've told me. I've done everything. He goes, Trey, you're a great marketer. You know exactly what to do. You know how to do it. You're just in the wrong space. He goes, you're trying to go up current when you could just go down. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. And so on that flight home You know, I was like, wow, that's incredible. Like, that's an internet— like, how do I, how do I, yeah, how do I stop what was called the NGOA? And this was the second call. Alex has had some pivotal moments for me, I guess. So second call I made to Alex from Mosey. Probably talked to him twice in my life, and these are the two times. But I called him up and I was like— I was— I think we're just talking and I was talking about his business, and I think he could hear just my— me being down, or I was like, just like, dude, like, ah, nothing's working. Like, what do I do? He's like, throw it, toss it, it's not working, let go of it. I was like, easy for you to say. Like, I got systems, I got, you know, subscriptions, I got softwares, I got employees. Like, he's like, just— I mean, he's like, you can kill it or you can die with it. And I was like, ooh. And, uh, I was like, I guess we're going to kill. And so the next weeks are when I went and had tough meetings and had to fire. I gave Bryson the other half, so I was— I only had so much guts to do, but I, I only— I, I fired, um, the call center and Bryson fired, uh, the warehouse. And I remember we, you know, we were already paying out of our personal accounts. Like we were depleting our business account, depleted. Now we're paying out of our personal accounts of what our savings was. And so they don't know that, right? Which is, that's fine. But when I went to fire the call center, you know, obviously they see you as a success. Like you're the one who's making all the money. You're get all, you drive the nice car, but they don't see the actual realness of what's actually happening.

And so I was like, for your team, you have to like hold it together.

Yeah.

That's great. You gotta motivate them.

Yeah. That's what you're there for. You're a leader. And so I remember this one guy, you know, he's like, you know, it must be nice to be you because you get to be here and stay here and make your money. But I have to now go find a new job. And that hurt because I knew like I was paying him out of my own personal account and we gave them like 2 weeks severance. Like we didn't have to do that. There's no Missouri law that says, hey, when you fire someone, give them 2 weeks severance. Like we did that outta the kindness of our heart, out of our personal bank accounts because I was looking after them more than myself. Yeah. And that's what— that's like, that was the dagger, right? Like, oh, good for you. Like, but you don't even realize, bro, like, I'm, I'm whole. Like, I, I don't have anything. Like, I'm giving you all that I have. I'm emptying my pockets for you, and that's what you treat me with? Hurts, you know? So like, letting all that go and then just really kind of getting close with, as you call them, the inner circle, talking to people who are successful in another business and just hearing their excitement and being motivated through them, you know, through vicariously through them, I think really, um, helped me is just reconnecting, being re-energized, hearing the success they're having, and being like, dang, like, all right, it's time to go back to work. And so it's really cool in the last 4 years, you know, I've gone back to work again.

So let's talk about last 4 years. I don't want to give all the specific offers, but I've been watching a lot of the offers you're rolling out post-Flashlight, post-all this kind of stuff.

Can Trey do it again?

Yeah, so I'm curious, one of them I think was the funniest one, 'cause Heath is the copywriter that works on my team now, but you worked with him a long time, and he was like, Monday, he was like, yeah, you know, Trey's butter knife offer or something. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, the butter offer's killing it. I'm like, a butter knife? I'm like, what are you talking about? He showed me the funnel and I was like, what the crap is Trey doing? So, can you talk about some of the offers you're doing, just to give people a glimpse of like, the kind of e-commerce stuff that you're doing now that's been fun, that's exciting, that you kind of, playing with today?

So, um, a mastermind client of ours, uh, Wes, was like, you know, you're the king of gadgets, of widgets. And I was like, that's kind of cool title, you know, like, uh, somebody used to call me Mr. Onnit, lost that title, uh, because I got sued by everybody. Uh, so then I became the king of widgets. So I just— something about me, like, I just love the art of selling, and I don't want to be stuck to one product. Like, I don't want to be stuck to, you know, fishing or a certain niche. Like, I want to be like, oh, I can sell whatever. So that way as a company, we can be a speedboat. So I can make a quick change versus a, a cruise ship that takes 3 miles to make a turn. Right? So I always look at our business as like, how do we be a speedboat, make changes? So that's with going with whatever product is working now that's sellable, and then we can scale it. That's our business is we now have the infrastructure in place to take on a scalable product at large and have it do great, but also take care of the customers, take care of the mids, make sure chargebacks are under 1%, and make sure everybody's getting taken care of. Like, we've built all that now because of the last 6 years, you know, previous to the 4. And, um, so yeah, one of the, one of the, uh, you know, products was the Better Butter Spreader.

Butter—

Better Butter Spreader. The Better Butter Spreader, because it spreads better butter better. And so, uh, we did that one. That was, that one's a good one. Still live, uh, that one's still cooking.

Oh, and scrape. 2020, I did the, uh, ornament one. Christmas, my entire family, every year we put up on a tree.

We still have them to this day. So, so right now this podcast is in 2024. Yeah. And I, uh, I wear— I, you know, I'm dressed up today, but I'm wearing short shirts and shorts and t-shirt every day. Yeah. And Jen, my wife, is like, hey, we need to take your jackets down and get them hemmed down at this really nice high-end, uh, uh, seamstress. So I'll take a nap. So I take him down, I'm walking through their back hallway. This is midsummer, walking back through the hallway. And you know, like when you see like a ClickFunnels logo, like you got that rim, like, oh, it's the Christmas ornament. It's a freaking Christmas ornament. These are, these are like 2021, right? Like, yeah, 2020. No, 2020. Yep. Because the, uh, yeah, the year. So I'm like, where'd you get that? He's like, huh, you know, I can't remember. I was like, I am pretty certain that I sold you that and you bought it from me. That is wild. Like Like you would never think that the person buying those Christmas ornaments is the guy who owns a seamstress, you know, like a big company. Like people just got a kick out of it.

Like it was a gag gift. Those who don't know, it was really cool. It's like you'd sign up for the Christmas ornament 2020 and have like, it had toilet paper rolls and masks and stuff. And you could say like, how many kids do you have in your family? How many dogs? How many cats? And it was like, anyway, you did a whole interview on ClickFunnels Radio walking through it with Dave. That was insane. But yeah, we bought that whole thing. So my entire family's got one. So on the Christmas tree, my wife hoards ornaments every year. We collect them, then we keep adding. So these trees are just covered in— Oh wow. Last 20 years of ornaments. So all those are on our tree every year till we die. So yeah, we've got them still, which is amazing. It's a cool ornament.

So cool. It's a cool ornament. That hit that we did 3.5 million with that ornament. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. And I think, you know, like we were lost for sure before that. We were doing masks. So we brought in KN95 masks. But of course, like, you know, with that art of like new products, like masks are a different product, there's always the cons that come with the product, like the things you never think about. So when we brought in KN95s, we were the first, like we were the first to land masks. And to kind of rewind that, to like bring your brain back, like masks weren't available. We were bringing in almost like, you know, Uh, I don't even like— I don't know how to like describe it, but like masks that were saving lives, you know, that people needed these. And I remember delivering them to the EOS Emergency Operating Center in St. Louis, and they go, how did you get masks in St. Louis before our government got masks in? And I was like, that's a good question, connections. And she's like, what's impressive? And we took these masks in, they paid us $30 grand out of the, you know, EOS company. Like, we made We made good money on it. And, um, 2 days later I get a call and she's like, hey, we took your mask down to the fire department and they got this like ventilator and they tested your mask and it leaks. It doesn't work. We need a refund. Like, that sucks. And so we had this huge business plan. Like, people were calling me from companies you and I don't know exist, like military operational companies. Like, it was wild. Like, who you with? Where are you from? Where are you located? Can I come? Like, wild. And, uh, and then of course their number is gone now. But now I have masks that I can't sell to the government, and we brought over 200,000 of them. Wow. So what I do, I go back to my roots. Your, your route is, you know, build a webinar, make a million before you make another one. My route is build a funnel. And so I built a KN95 model, and you know who I called? Uncle Bernard. I called Uncle B, and I said, hey bro, I got an offer. And he's like, what's the offer? I was like, KN95 mask. He's like, holy cow. He goes, yes, let's go. It was the worst looking funnel I've ever built in my life because it was made so fast, dude. It sold like bananas because it was— people were in need, you know. Um, who's the guy who always talks about like, I don't want Uh, you know, the one thing I want of an audience is I want a starving audience. Oh, Gary Halbert. Gary Halbert says that, right? I wanna— I want a starving audience. And dude, that's what I had. K95s, that I just— hey, you want a K95? People knew. The news was selling my product for me. And then on Fox News, I'm on CNN News, I'm on MSNBC, I'm on Yahoo News. Like, anywhere you went was like, you need masks, want to buy a mask from Trey Llewellyn? Yep, buy 10. And I got people on renewals. Like, people were like— I was like, you want, you want 10, 10 masks a month, 20 months a month? Yes. And we sold through 200,000 so fast to where we flew to California and where this guy bought 6 million masks, couldn't give them to the dentist offices that he was going to sell them to. I bought them for pennies on the dollar. And so he had a supply. So I was like, hey, I'll take 100,000 at a time. So he became my supplier. So now no longer have to get them from China and worry about all this stuff. From flying, he just supplied me and I sent him through the funnel. So it was KN95 masks and then we made a mockery of it with the Christmas ornaments. And then, uh, yeah, then we started doing kitchen gadgets, which is the Better Butter Spreader.

That's crazy. So man, we're, we're probably close to time, but this has been insanely cool. And I want to talk about, so you came to Boise today because, um, well, first off, like of all the people in our community, like you're the person who's had the most success with e-commerce funnels. You have a unique way you do it. You're a great teacher. You're fascinating. And, uh, you've been here this week, uh, filming, uh, an entire course for all of our ClickFunnels members, uh, One Funnel Away, which a lot of you guys know we've done the One Funnel Away where I've taught people how to like, how to be experts and how to sell. And this is like One Funnel Away, uh, e-commerce edition, uh, showing people how to do that. And, um, I'm pumped to see, I've been kind of like, uh, spying as you've been filming stuff. I'm just, I'm so excited to see the end thing. But, uh, this is a course that people can get for free when they're trying to ClickFunnels, which is a big, gift for everybody that you're doing for the community and helping them. But we talked about just— and don't go deep into just explaining kind of the, the things you're talking about in this course. I know, like, how to find products, stuff like that. Just people have an idea of, like, everything that they're gonna get when they, when they plug into the ClickFunnels, into the training.

So when we started, you know, when you called me and said, hey, will you do this? You know, I put a lot of thought into, you know, what is it that we can give people that will create I want, you know, quote unquote overnight success, right? Like how do we get them to where they need to be to sell a product online? So I went through, you know, this stuff comes easy to me now. So it's hard for me to be like, oh, this is what people are struggling through. So it really took a lot of time to kind of go back to my old ways and say, okay, what brought me here? And what were the anchors that, you know, led me to where I'm at today? And so I came to you and I was like, you know, I think the easiest way we do this is very simple. Is we create and show them how to do one product, one offer, one traffic source. We keep it super simple, super concise, super tight, and that way there's no distractions. You know, life's not gonna get in the way, opportunity's not gonna get in the way, confusion's not gonna get in the way. They're gonna know exactly what to do from start to finish, step by step, templates, tutorials. Napoleon— Napoleon, uh, he comes in clutch. Amazing.

He's amazing.

You'll find out soon. And, uh, Dude, like within 10 days you got market selected. You know what, you know, guaranteed, you know what product to sell. Okay. Third is you have the offer written beautifully, by the way, for you in every market. And then you have the order form done for you, converted the best order form we got. And lastly, traffic, like all that punched into a 10-day, you know, video series where You know, from every day you're celebrating small wins to get to those big wins. And that big win is, you know, one, selling your first product maybe, or maybe you're selling products now and you're selling more of them, to then, uh, building a business over the next 90 days and then building wealth, generational wealth, over the next year. Yeah. And that's really what encompasses, I think, in the— in that training.

So cool. Um, you've re-inspired me. I'm going to be re-filming The One Funnel Away, like the expert side of things. And then my goal is compete. So we're gonna find out the e-commerce side of ClickFunnels members versus the experts, see who can, who can have the most fun, which would be fun. But then on top of that, not only do you get this 10-day training program to help them figure out all those kind of things, uh, you've also committed, I've committed, we're gonna start going live once a week, uh, just to do open Q&A for all the members to help figure out their stuff. So if they're stuck, I can't figure out a product, Trey, they can jump on, ask you a question, right? My funnel's not converting or whatever. And like, we're gonna have the ability to like literally do one-on-ones with me and you me on the extra side, you on the e-com side, working with people, which I'm first off so grateful you're willing to do that. Second off, it's going to be so helpful for people because I think a lot of times that's the thing is like they see people need like, it's like one little thing that gets them from like, you know, it's like you had the call with Hermosi or whatever it is that like gets you unstuck and now they have a chance every single week to have that with you, which is really cool.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not alone, right? Like I think a lot of people go through e-commerce alone because they don't get support from the spouse. They don't get support from the family. Like, oh, that's a great idea. Jimmy's going to create his job. Like, there's no support. And I think that's the beautiful thing that's happening here. And this is the only software company I've ever seen it done with, is somebody who actually cares more about their students and their clients than they do themselves. You know, I think that's a beautiful thing where you now know and understand that when you join and you commit and you're all in is not only are we building an e-com business together, but we're building a business together. We're building a foundation together. We're building wealth together. And yeah, like you said, you know, you get to show up to these calls, ask questions, uh, overcome hurdles, overcome roadblocks. And you know, sometimes it is, it is that like one little thing, one little sentence that changes the trajectory of your life. Um, you know, one example I was given was, you know, when, when, uh, SpaceX, you know, launches their rocket, they point at the moon and let's say they're going to go, you know, launch a satellite on the moon or something. They point to the moon, but in between the launch and the landing, that rocket makes over 3,000 micro-corrections.

3,000.

If it misses one, it's off by 2 miles. And I think that's the same thing with e-com. You know, like, we know what to do. We know to build the offer, we know to build the order form, we know to do the product. And it's like, if you're off by one correction, that one micro, you might be off a lot. So you need, you need guidance. You know, don't do it by yourself. You know, you're not buying, they're not building a SpaceX by themselves and neither, neither are we, you know, we're not, we're building, we're building funnels together. So it's gonna be a lot of fun.

I'm really excited about it.

I'm pumped, man. Like, yeah.

When we started talking about it and it came together, I'm like, this is, this is amazing. So there's no one better to teach this than you and have, have you part of that. We're doing ClickFunnels and I'm excited because it's interesting. ClickFunnels right now, you look at, you know, last, the first decade of ClickFunnels, I'd say it was like, it was like 15% people were e-commerce, 90 or 85% were on the expert side. And now we're like, we're probably 70% 30% e-com. And my, my bet is in the next year, year and a half, we're going to be 50/50. And I think e-com will actually overtake the expert side because as we're growing and scaling, that's where the masses are coming from. People want to learn to understand this part and they've only seen like here's how to sell stuff on Shopify or things like that, which is good, but it's not great, right? What you're showing is like you don't need to have this huge store and all this kind of stuff. It's like one product, one traffic source, one offer, and you do it in your one funnel way. You do the first one, second one, then You know, who knows when your flashlight offer hits. And this time, hopefully do it with the stuff Trey's gonna teach you so you don't have to stress out about like, yeah, all the things, the sheriff and the $30 million education for free.

Like, that's what you're getting, you know, and that's incredible. Like, all the things that I've learned, I teach and show you how to do and what not to do, and you get it, you get it for free. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. That's awesome. Not many people are doing that, bro.

That's insane. Well, by the time this interview is live, uh, my guess is this will be inside of ClickFunnels. So if you're an existing ClickFunnels member, log in and then click on, um, One Funnel Away eCom Edition, click the button and boom, you'll be put into the, into the track and you can start going through everything with Trey. And in 10 days from now you could be done. You can have your first funnel done and launched and live. And then, and then yeah, do what you did. Like if the first doesn't work, do a second one, a third one, and then eventually one hits and then it's like, yeah, it's off to the races.

Yeah, it's easy.

So I appreciate you. Thanks for, thanks for coming, boys. Thanks for creating this. Thanks for being on the interview. Uh, thanks for being vulnerable and willing to share that side of it. Most people don't. And so I'm grateful for that as well. So You're awesome, man, thanks for hanging out, and hope you guys enjoyed this interview. Go hang out with Trey every single week here inside of ClickFunnels, and yeah, we'll see you guys soon.