How Shaqir has built multiple 8 figure businesses using Funnels | The Nikhil Sai Show 58

What's going on? What's going on everyone who's listening to this podcast right now? First of all, welcome to the Dheenikil Sai Show, which is hosted by me, Dheenikil Sai. And guess what's going on today? We are back with another amazing 2Kama Club interview. Again guys, this is going to be a crazy podcast for sure, so make sure to grab a note and listen to this journey and like unleash the full potential of how you can scale your business with funnels. Now we're having a guest who have already done over multiple experience sales. Like, he did over $30 million before he even turned 30, which is just crazy. One of his businesses have done over $10 million in sales within the first 18 months with no venture capital. He's spoken on every stage you can almost imagine, directly interacted with over 20,000 people live on stages, right? He's— he has email subscribers of over 1 million people in his list and does crazy marketing and helps people to build amazing stuff online using effective sales funnel. And guess what? This guy actually worked with thousands of entrepreneurs, you know, like the top class Russell Brunson, Mark Bonner, Akbar Sheikh, like you name it. I work with all of them and help them to scale, right? He runs a private mastermind and it's already sold out. So let's not talk about that. But just mention he is a 3x2CC X winner and he is none other than the Backpack Millionaire. Let's not waste any time and actually welcome Shakir Hussain, CEO at Funnels.com.

Hey man, how's it going?

Hey Shaq, doing great. Thanks so much for making out time for this quick podcast today.

Yeah, absolutely. We can, let's just rap for the next 30, 40 minutes, see what you have in store.

Absolutely, Shaq. Shaq, like your journey is so crazy. Like, you know, being one of the first guys in the internet space to actually making it to the roof and on a way to 9 figures, like helping thousands of clients to scale. It's just crazy. So Shaq, can you please tell us your backstory? Like, how did all of this crazy journey started?

Yeah, I mean, I'm now 33, so I feel really old saying that. I got started when I was about 21 in internet marketing. But prior to that, I was selling stuff on eBay when I was about 15, 16 years old. And I just always had a knack to sell stuff. You know, I would always— ever since I was in school, I'd always want to just sell stuff. I don't know why, but it's just like I never was interested in sports or video games or any of the normal stuff. I was always wanting to just trade. And so I got my start maybe 15, 16 years old selling on eBay. And then by the time I was 21, I discovered you can sell information products. And I was like, oh my God, so I don't have to go to the post office, I don't have to pack stuff, I don't have to knock on neighbors' doors to sell their trash. I could literally just sit at home and sell information products. And, uh, that was the start. That was the start of how I got— came into this industry. And I was very lucky, uh, because I had gone to one of these, uh, live events all over the world, many live events. But one of them that I went to was in London, and there was a guy who was actually from India, um, funnily, and he was making around $100,000 per day. And back then You know, it still is a lot of money now, but back then that was a huge amount of money. And I couldn't even comprehend how does someone make $100,000 a day? Because I thought if I made $100 grand a year, that was a lot of money. And this guy was the most humble, down-to-earth guy. And I remember he just took me under his wing and slowly, you know, started mentoring me, showing me the ropes. And I went from absolutely not knowing what like AWeber or how to build a list or anything like that. To making my first million dollars profit by the time I was just around 23. So in less than 3 years, 21, 22, 23, by the time I was 23, I hit it. And then I went and told my dad and he said, son, don't tell no one. And he said, you know, I don't know if you can ever do it again, but you got lucky or something along those lines. And I thought to myself, well, I don't think I got lucky. I just followed a system. And I literally just been using that system to now generate over $30 million before I turned 30. Um, and, and now I've kind of dedicated myself to, um, investing and, um, you know, basically buying and selling other companies and doing the odd podcast here and there. So that's, that's basically how I got started.

Absolutely, Shaq. Oh, that's a crazy journey. And absolutely, like, you know, people should really understand the power of having a mentor You really have someone taking you under their wings and can help you to cut short of the learning curve. Like, that's how you can become like Shaq, right? So down the line, right? That's awesome, Shaq. And Shaq, like, you've been the CEO at Funnels.com. Like, Funnels.com, like, what a name, right? So, you know, as, as the owner of this company, you really understand, like, how funnels can really impact business owners, right? Even in 2021, not a lot of businesses can really see the power of funnels and how, or how funnels are transforming the online marketing space. So can you please talk about, like, how actually funnels can impact owners in 2021?

So, sure. So funnels is— the way I look at it is right now, and I think it is, has been, funnel— the difference between a website, typical website that looks like a pretty brochure with a funnel, uh, funnels are essentially the most efficient way to turn attention into customers, right? Like, the name of the game, the holy grail of marketing online The secrets to building a business to, to 7, 8, 9 figures is how do you turn attention that's on the internet and how do you turn that into paying customers over and over again? That's basically what it comes down to. And with funnels, I see this as the biggest opportunity because, look, every single business relies on two things: cash flow and customers. The best, most efficient, profitable way to get customers and cash flow is to have funnels. And funnels allows people, allows businesses to attract leads, attract customers, convert those customers without them being there in person, doing one-on-one, doing networking stuff, doing organic outreach, stuff like that that takes a lot of time and effort. It's funny because yesterday I was speaking, I was consulting a company that's, that has basically 9 figures a year. And the guy spent like an hour teaching their company. They have like 250,000 customers in the investment space. And so I'm speaking to them, there was like, I don't know, 6 or 8 of them on a Zoom call. And I'm doing this, uh, consultation with them and showing them the most basic funnels, like, what is a book funnel? How does a challenge funnel work? What is a call funnel, a webinar funnel? And they had absolutely like no clue whatsoever. You know, they, they go to their first 250,000 customers through brand advertising and spending a lot of money from venture, uh, venture capital. So they didn't really build a customer acquisition system that could predictably, systematically, consistently bring in customers like clockwork. And that's what a funnel does. So You know, in my own company, in Funnels.com, we actually teach people how to become a highly paid growth consultant that offers funnels, that offers marketing services to business owners, whether they're just starting off or they have, you know, they're doing 9 figures already. So what I find is that the businesses that can spend the most amount of money to acquire customers they win the game. This is something that I learned early on in my online career, and it's just been the kind of the backbone of how I scaled multiple businesses.

Yeah, 100%, Shaq. I think this is the best explanation of what a funnel means actually throughout the entire podcast episodes I've ever had. So guys, rather than seeing the hype and say, oh, like everyone is trying funnels, understand why important it is, like why this is the time to actually get into funnels, because now you're literally replacing the best salesperson which is you with the automated funnel, and now you have free time to work on your business. And Shaq, we have seen in your company, Funnels.com and Wealth Academy and whatnot, like you've been helping tens of thousands of coaches get to a level of actually selling high ticket. Like people who are trying to sell this $37 course, you transition them into these people who are selling now $5,000, $10,000, $30,000 packages, right? So you have been consulting thousands of people. So we'd love to know like what it takes, like the mindset shift which needs to be happening when you're trying to sell high ticket.

Yeah. So, you know, I've sold everything from, you know, offer that, that's $100,000 to over even $1 million. So I've grasped this concept, I think, somewhat well. But essentially, you know, it starts off with the target market. It's like finding and identifying a group of prospects and people that have a pain and problem and that are willing to pay for the solution. You know, I'm a big fan of, you know, a company called Montblanc, right? And it's like, it's like one of those things where it's, it sounds really silly, but to someone who's a Montblanc customer or a Montblanc collector. So for example, you know, I have notepad and these pens. And I have quite a few of them actually now. My collection seems to be growing really fast. Maybe it's an unhealthy addiction. But the point is, you know, you could get a pen for a dollar, right? Or you could get a pen for $500 to $1,000. And like, what's the main difference? It has, you know, a status symbol, which is tiny, you can hardly see, you know, it writes decent, but So does a pen that you can get for $0.50 or $1. And there are groups of people in the world that will happily pay $500, $1,000, $20,000 for a really good pen. Right. And so when, when you want to sell a high-ticket offer, it's not that, oh, I want to sell a high-ticket offer. It's in a marketplace. In any marketplace, there's always a group of people that are underserved. Okay, when they're underserved, in that group of people, there's also a group of people that are known as what's called hyper-responsive buyers. Okay, these hyper-responsive buyers, people are— they have a lot of pain and they're willing to pay a premium price point. Okay, uh, yesterday, actually last week when I was in— I was in Dubai last week and I had a client, I had a guy who off of one phone call came and purchased the $100,000 program from me. Okay. And he doesn't— he doesn't even want the done-for-you funnels, the done-for-you emails, the ads. He couldn't care less about that. What he wanted was just direct access on a week-to-week basis. And I said, well, you know, I only take on a handful of clients like that. And you can have access to my cell, uh, which, you know, basically 5 days a week because I'm not going to work on, on Fridays and on Sundays, and it's $100,000. And off of one phone call, he came and bought. And here's the thing, he didn't go through my 10K program, he didn't go through my, you know, $47 challenge, or he didn't read my book. He just came in and went straight to the top. So there's a group of people that are always willing and able to pay a premium price for for the highest-priced offering that you have. So that should pre-frame some of the, basically, the high-ticket pricing psychology. Okay, that's number one. Number two is people connect and they buy because of the end transformation. So they're looking for a result. This guy has been stuck for, I don't know, he said to me, I think, about nearly 2 years now he's been stuck at a certain income level. Okay, and he really wants to hit, you know, a couple hundred K a month, then to a million dollars a month and beyond. And so he's now very— he's now in a place where he has a pain, and for him to solve that pain, he's willing to pay a very high premium amount of money, right? To some people, they're going to be like, wow, what's he going to pay $100 grand for? To someone else, it's He's paying $100 grand because he just wants one type of help. And I've spent now probably 2 hours with him over the last maybe 1 or 2 weeks, just like getting to really know him and all of that stuff. You know, he doesn't have an issue with marketing, with traffic or any of that. What he wants is he wants to identify and develop the right mindset so that he can scale his business for the long term. And so, you know, when you, when you can encapsulate your offer, you have to have a, you have to have the right target market. Then you have to have the right offer that appeals to your dream prospects. Okay. You know, I call it a mafia offer. In my programs, we teach our clients how to do this. We call it how do you create a million-dollar mafia offer. So It's like, you know, what are the concepts? What are the components needed so someone can look at it and say, wow, I'm getting a deal on this? You know, and so, you know, those are key concepts. One of the biggest things I learned from Dan Kennedy many years ago when it comes to high-ticket selling is people will pay a premium if your values are aligned. And this guy that got on, okay, this guy that got on, Zach is his name. He literally said to me, he said, because I've been seeing you be consistent in the marketplace, I've been getting your daily emails for about 8 to 10 years, which is a very long time. Okay, so he used to follow me since I was maybe 21 or 22 years old. So this guy has literally followed me for 10 years, and the first product he buys, the first ever thing that he buys as far as I know, is a $100,000 program. Okay, and the $100K program is for $100K per year, right? And like, he's, he's already committed that he wants to spend at least the next 3 years and make me his partner in the business as well. And so the reason why I say this is because something that Dan Kennedy taught me many, many years ago was people will buy, and premium buyers will buy based on values. So, you know, if you're trying to sell high-ticket products and stuff, share your values and what you stand for and what you stand against. So, you know, in my emails, I have a list of, I think, about 1.5 million subscribers now, 1.4, 1.5, depending on how many we clean out and all of that stuff. And, you know, I am very open with the fact that I'm Muslim. I pray 5 times a day. I try to be a good Muslim. You know, I basically just tell people straight up what I stand for, what I don't stand for. And what that does, it somewhat polarizes people and it attracts people. Like this guy, um, I think he's— I, I think he's a Christian, um, and he literally said, he said, I love the fact that you're talking about your family and God and, you know, you're very unapologetically you. And it just draws me to that. And he said, and that's why I wanted to buy from you. And I was like, that's cool, man. The previous guy, he was from Canada. He runs— he was also a $100,000 client. And he came in, he literally said he made a list of like almost, you know, say the top 5 or 10 biggest guys in our space that run 8 and 9-figure companies. And he said, I had phone calls with all of them and then I, my values won't align with them. And I was like, okay, cool, man. I mean, and then he was telling me their names and I was like, wow, you know, you chose me over those guys. And so values is very important when helping people decide. And another thing that I would say, probably the final point is absolute confidence, right? Like when someone gets on the phone with you, How do you come across, or when someone finds you on a webinar or a teleseminar, you know, I was going to say teleseminar or one of those like this, a Zoom call or whatever.

Okay.

How do you come across? If you come across with certainty, with confidence and conviction that you can help someone, then it goes a long way. Anyway, that's the mindsets that I have when it comes to high-ticket selling.

Absolutely, Shaq. And thank you so much for like taking us really behind the scenes on how you're actually selling products worth over 6 figures. Now people can actually get off that mindset of, okay, my people can't pay more. That's just a misconception you have for yourself. Like, Shaq is selling to like random audience who never bought, who are in his email list, to a direct 6-figure offer. So you can do that too. It's about the mindset shift you need to take. That's awesome, Shaq. Excited for the next value. So now, Shaq, there's a lot of people who are launching and scaling funnels, right? As you already know, like, most funnels actually fail because if you look at the success rate of people who try to get into funnels and people who are actually making it to the top, it's pretty low, right? Because people make a lot of mistakes. So what do you think is the— like, why do you think most people, most funnels fail, and how do you think it could be actually fixed?

Yeah, it's funny because people think that if I just buy the next software or the next tool, I'm gonna automatically be successful, right? And so, um, when you get one of these awards— I don't know if you can see those awards here, I was going to show you, um These ones. Okay, basically, so this is from, you know, ClickFunnels, which probably most people watching this, they know. And so when you get one of these awards, you're invited to this, uh, really prestigious, exclusive-looking lounge at the ClickFunnels event. Okay, and so I go in and, um, you know, they say, oh, uh, this is you. Okay, please come over here. This is the VIP lounge. And I go there and you have all of the top ClickFunnels guys And it's literally a room of no more than probably about 100 people, if that. Okay. And they have their own private stuff going on. There's snacks. It just, it's a very, they look after you. I'm sure they look after you in the normal space, but it's like the difference between flying economy and then flying business class and even first class. Right. So it's like a first class experience. And I remember sitting there And, um, basically they were calling out our names to get on stage and get these awards. And as I was getting up on stage and getting these awards, when I came back, I was like, wow, there's like 4,000— there was like 5,000 people at that conference that I went to, um, the Final Acting Live. There must be like 4,800 people in the main hall, and there was like 100 or 200 people in the room with the awards. and I was like, look at the tiny amount of people that are in this room. And why is that? Right? So it's like, so it's not the tool in itself. The tool is just one aspect, right? I think the reason most people, their funnels don't work is because they don't understand the psychology, the marketing, the, the conversion aspect. And so for me, You know, what I did when I was getting started about 10 years ago, I would always look for the next hack, right? I was always looking for the next shortcut, the next loophole. And I spent a lot of time with that. And probably I spent about 6 to 8 months wasting my life away trying to find those shortcuts. And then I came to a realization, and I think it was mainly from Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy, which was, you know, if you focus on the fundamentals, and the principles, everything else kind of takes care of itself. So I learned how to scale businesses using, you know, numbers, using data, not how— even now, you know, if you go to Funnels.com or any of my sites, any of my funnels, they're actually not the most prettiest or well-designed looking, but the message is strong, the webinar is strong, the offer is strong. And when someone goes through that funnel, you know, they end up buying. I have people that would go to funnels.com, watch a 45-minute presentation, and then they're ready to spend $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 after maybe one, maybe two phone calls. Right. And so there's a lot more that goes through. Some of the stuff that I found that really helps is if you have social proof, if you have testimonials that you've helped other people too, if you have testimonials from top people in your field, right? So like, I, I set out many years ago to go and get as many testimonials as possible. I have people like Russell Brunson, who's a super high, high paying client of mine, Russell Brunson, ClickFunnels, and so many other different gurus, 7, 8, even some 9-figure entrepreneurs as well. And so I leverage that in my funnel, right? So if you're just starting off, ask yourself, hey, How can you go and add value to someone else that you can then turn around and use them as social proof? Okay, so social proof, authority, authority by association. You know, if you see some of my stuff, you know, I have pictures with lots of famous people from Tony Robbins and Richard Branson and a bunch of the Shark Tank guys and whatever. But the point is, you know, when people see a familiar face like they see on TV, almost, you know, every day or every week, and then they see that person next to you, you know, it just does something to their mind where they're like, wow, okay, he's with this person. There's association. I've literally had people say, you know, one guy I remember paying maybe £12,500, she's like $15,000 or something. And I remember him saying, oh yeah, I saw you with a picture with Richard Branson, so I knew you, you made it, or something like that. And I was just thinking to myself, wow, So, you know, all of these things really help. Obviously, having a good memorable brand, like for me, it's obviously funnels.com. I've had people go through, you know, like my domains, marketingfunnels.com or funnels.com or whatever, and then they would go and literally, you know, come into my funnel and some of them will just go, literally type in the domain and then they just become a high-ticket client. And so Branding, positioning, authority, social proof, credibility, engineering a sense of trust in the marketplace, it just goes a long way. And that can be done through consistency, consistency in content creation, in marketing. And you know, what really fuels all of that is paid traffic. So I recommend, you know, as soon as you have an offer that's validated, where you have 3 paying clients, you need to start investing a little bit of money into paid traffic. That way you can have, you know, whilst I'm talking to you, I have Google Ads set up. I think I have like YouTube ads running. I've got Facebook, I've got retargeting, I've got Instagram ads. So it's like multiple sources of traffic that are coming my way.

So 100%, 100%. Wow, Shaq, I think it was definitely on point for a lot of people. Now they can really understand that the reason their funnel is is failing is because of off-point messaging and psychology and all of this. Like, really, you should take your customer journey, which is already happening, which is working out, and take that into a funnel, and there is no way it's not going to work. That's amazing, Shaq. So let's quickly go over, like, the shiny objects on most business owners, because when we see these young entrepreneurs who are getting into some business space, or someone who's just seeing success— let's say 3 months, their business is doing well, they make some money, they have some cash left over— then they try to get into this next new thing, right? So what will be your number one suggestion for them, like, to avoid shiny objects?

Uh, you know, the biggest shiny object right now in the marketplace is cryptos, NFTs, uh, you know, trying to learn how to day trade, uh, all sorts of crazy stuff. And yeah, for me it's, it's kind of simple, you know. If you see, I, I've been investing in crypto for many years. I was early into, uh, Bitcoin and many of the other top cryptos, uh, primarily because actually one of my friends happens to be from India um, he had acquired close to 1,000 Bitcoins, okay, at an average price of about $100. And, um, you know, we became really good friends because I used to mentor him in online marketing. And then when he became a, you know, crypto multi-millionaire, you know, he came back to me and he's like, Shaq, you need to get into all of this and stuff. And so I did, and I got in in a good way. Um, what I find though sometimes When I'm, you know, I'm in the marketplace and I look and I see some sometimes what people are doing, especially even my own prospects, and they get— they see someone else making money with NFTs or buying this coin early. You know, the biggest distinction between all of those things and your own business is you have no control over the markets. Like, you have no control over the markets unless you have a billion dollars. And even a billion dollars is not that much money these days. Unless you have a billion dollars that you can move the market, like, you can't— you are not in control of that. So I always tell my students and my clients, um, get, get in a business where you're in control of, right? Like, where you can control the skills that you can develop, the skills that you can learn, the traffic that you can get. Like, today I can get 100 leads, or I can get 1,000 leads, or I can even get 10,000 leads, uh, or I can, you know, if I do the do the things right, which I've done in the past, I can generate over 100,000 leads in a single day. All I have to do is just either merge or buy another company, which I've done a couple of times now, and I've generated literally hundreds of thousands of leads, uh, like overnight, in less than 24 hours. And so, you know, that's— I'm in control of these things. When you're doing stuff like, you know, chasing different shiny objects, most of the time you're not in control. And what I find is most people aren't committed to basically having long-term success. They just, they're looking for the quick win here, and then they think, okay, I can take this quick win, I can turn it over there. And, and most of the time, you know, for anything good to happen— this is my own opinion and theory, and I've proven it myself and my students— um, is you need at least solid 90 days of, like, for you to even get momentum and kickstart something. And then you need like 1 to 3 years to ride that out, right? It's like when you launch a podcast, you know, the first 10 podcasts suck, you know, but then after your first 50 podcasts, now you can get really high-level guests on, right? Like I did my podcast, the first 100 podcasts was just me just talking inside. But once I had maybe 100, 120 episodes on there, I had people like Jay Abraham come on And it was primarily, I was like, hey, I did 120 episodes on my podcast. Do you want to be one of my guests? Right. And so, you know, it becomes much more easier. But most people, they miss that, that golden streak, right? Because, you know, they want this without realizing, you know, you have to actually start off like this and then go up like that. And they just quit way too quickly. So If you're— if you find yourself doing chasing shiny objects, one of the main things which I've done many years ago is I just stopped consuming everyone's stuff. So for example, you know, if I log into Facebook, I actually don't see anyone's Facebook feed because I have something called the Facebook feed killer. So I don't ever see anyone's Facebook. I don't know what anyone's doing on Facebook. Because I don't see it, right? Because I have the thing on my computer that kills everyone's— my— their Facebook feed. So, you know, I have like 4 tabs on my bookmark. I can see them now, 4 or 5 of them, and they just go to my different Facebook groups. One is a free Facebook group, the other one is a group where they've paid up to like $50,000. Uh, the other one is, you know, uh, my core client group, which is like, you know, they paid like $10,000 to $30,000. Um, and so and then one goes directly to my Facebook profile. So I don't have any time, or I don't see what anyone else is doing on Facebook. If I do go to YouTube or Instagram, I can have the same thing there where it's called Instagram Feed Killer or YouTube, um, Feed Killer, right? And it just kills all your YouTube feed. And so now when I wake up, I don't have any distractions as to what this and that person is doing because I can think clearly because, you know, and then my emails, I don't really check my emails because my assistant manages that. And so, you know, maybe once a week or something rare, maybe once every 2 weeks or something, I'll check my email and I'll go through different emails and stuff that she, you know, stars and stuff. But I'm, you know, that's when you can do that, then when you can reduce and eliminate, remove the the frictions and the distractions, your natural state becomes focus. And then that way you can work on a webinar, you can work on doing deep work that really matters. 100%.

Yeah, Shaq, I think that was really helpful for a lot of people. And they scroll 24/7 on social media, they wonder why they're getting into the shiny object. The reason is they're looking at other people every day and they try to get into new stuff. That's awesome, Shaq. So let's quickly go over a couple of questions here, Shaq. So we would love to know more about like having these six-figure clients, to people who are paying as low as $10,000 to people who are even paying you a million dollars, right? And you manage your time productively with you just what you mentioned, like doing deep work. So we'd love to know more about like what kind of tools you use inside your business to manage your projects and clients for productivity.

I'm a simple guy, man. I use a simple little notepad. I try to get 3 things done each day, nothing more. I use Trello primarily as my project management. So I have like a gazillion things to do. but I break it down in 15 moves, as in 15 steps, and then I only do 1 to 3 things. That's it. Nothing else. So, you know, I also advise my, you know, when we have clients that come into our premium programs, we tell them, hey, you know, do a big brain dump, get everything out of your head, and identify your next 15 moves. Right. And so from your next 15 moves, just pick the 3 that will matter and then just focus on the next 3 to 5. So at any given time, you know, I'm not working on more than 3 things, maybe sometimes 5, but ideally those 3. And then one of the things I learned early on, which is, you know, if I have a huge to-do list to do, I'll do the huge to-do list, but then I'll ask myself, who can come in and do all of this? So the problem is not a what problem, it's a who problem, right? And as soon as you can shift from who do I need to bring on that can get this done, then you have that mental clarity and that space for— you can push it out of your to-do list, right? And so those are the two things. And I really try to focus on, you know, $10,000 per hour activities, you know, coming up with offers, creating new programs. Like right now I'm creating a certification program, I'm creating an automated webinar offer, um, stuff that's really going to move the needle. So You know, I don't try— I try not to entertain or pay attention to $10 per hour thinking or $10 per hour even talking. You know, if someone asks me a stupid question, I'm just not going to respond to it. If someone just wants a quick call, no. You know, I try to say no all the time. You know, I just, you know, that's probably my main tool that I use is just like, no. Otherwise, what happens is everything becomes important, right? And if everything's important, then nothing's important. And so for me, I want to focus on my health, my marriage, my religion, you know, getting better at my craft, investing. That's like 5 things already. And I come from a family of 6, you know, 6 kids. I want to spend lots of time with my brothers and sisters, right? And I have a dad who's really young, he's into investing and just being cool. And I got to spend time with my mom and my dad. And so I'm like, I'm like already busy. I don't have time for, you know, low, low-end, low-leverage activities. Anything that I can outsource, it's outsourced. If I need to eat, I try to order food, salad boxes or whatever, as fast as possible. Just so that I'm not wasting time on the menial things. I don't like driving. I think it's a big waste of time. So I always have a driver or an Uber or something. Um, you know, just a few things like that. I try to keep, keep life minimal.

Um, yeah, absolutely, Shaq. I think that was really on point. A lot of people should understand like what to say no to so that they can get themselves focused on their business. It was really cool, brother. So let's get to the next question, Shaq. Let's get into more about like your routines. Like, you travel a lot, you hang out in Dubai yesterday and you're in London today, maybe New York tomorrow. So I'd love to know, like, do you have any routines? Do you follow them?

Yeah, I do, uh, which has not been good the last few months because I've been traveling non-stop. Um, but I just came back off like, I don't know, I was in New York, Chicago, Dubai, Portugal, South Africa. So like a whole bunch of different countries. And I just came back. Even when I'm on the go, I do the core things, you know, emailing my list every day because that's, you know, I can have mass leverage on that. Number 2, I'll take on calls, some sales calls only if they've gone through like, you know, my team and stuff and the person is ready to spend $50,000 or $100,000. I'll do those— excuse me— I'll do those calls. And then I'm always looking to hire good people, you know, professional, high integrity, lots of good energy, lots of experience and expertise. I'm looking for people that I can always hire. So like just a few of those things and working on new offers, you know, the lifeblood of a business comes down to the offers you create the traffic you get and the funnels that you have in place that make all of this stuff work. So I'm always working on new offers where I can launch and create new customers, right? Like, that's, you know, so I'm always thinking, okay, how do I get a new client acquisition system that can generate 100, 1,000 new clients coming in? And so that's my daily routine. I try to get at least 2 to 3 hours of focused work done each day. Which means like unplugging from getting distracted all the time. Other than that, you know, the rest of my time is actually spent on investing. Absolutely.

Yeah, that was super cool, brother. Hopefully this, you know, routine which Shaq follows can really help you understand that you should be focusing on your business and get systems in place. And Shaq, you started young and you made it quick, you know, with multiple 8 figures in sales, right? And having great success immediately, almost, right? So what will be the number 1 suggestion to someone who's 20-year-old you or someone who's just getting started in your business? Like, if you can go and talk to—

yeah, um, you know, it sounds like a cliché, but it's a cliché, but it's true. You know, you, you do become the average of the 5 people that you surround yourself with. Um, you know, who you hang out with is way more important for your mindset than you trying to be, you know, locked up in a room and trying to figure this out yourself or whatever it is that you're trying to figure out. There's, you know, making more money, creating wealth, whatever the case is. Right. And so, yeah, my biggest advice and honestly what I've spent, you know, $600,000 on is get— find a coach, a mentor, someone that can take you under the wing, pay the price, pay the price. Because if you pay the price now, down the line it's just going to help you. And you've got to figure out, you know, like one of my friends, he reads books and he can just go and implement. Okay. For me, that doesn't always work because I read a book and then I get distracted by the next book. And so for me, what works is when I have a coach who I'm holding myself accountable to, they're holding me accountable. I'm in a part of one, two masterminds where I'm the dumbest person in the room. Everyone's smarter than me, richer than me, wealthier than me. I'm like, okay, that's the room I want to be in. And so I'd say put yourself in those situations where you're not the hotshot. But I've always tried to— a lot of the rooms I've belonged to in the past, last 10 years, usually I'd be one of the youngest, if not the youngest, in the room. Um, so everyone around me is usually way more successful than me at most things.

100%, bro. Like, I think that was just on point. A lot of people, like, they should make sure that they're the dumbest person in the room so they're hanging out with the, the sharks and they attract that energy from them and trying to be much more successful. That was awesome, Shaq. So let's get to the next question, but also your life's biggest achievement so far and next bigger goals?

Ah, biggest achievements, man. Sometimes I feel like I haven't achieved anything, um, but then I have to, uh, ground myself. No, I, I think, you know, it's just like who I've become more than any of the, any of the stuff that I've, um, acquired. So I think that's, that's important. Um, and, you know, my, my next big goal is, um, really to dedicate my 30s um, to learn as much as I can about investing and, um, spirituality. That's my two, two things.

Absolutely, bro. That was lovely. So let's get to the next question, Shaq. I think this will be amazing. So your biggest mistake in business terms, especially— so your biggest mistakes happen—

probably hiring the wrong people. Uh, in my early days, I didn't really know or learn about hiring. Uh, there's a good book called Top Grading you can read that book. It's going to teach you really how to hire A-players and stuff. So that was probably a big mistake.

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, people need to make sure that they hire the right people because your team is what you represent. That's awesome, Shaq. So your main inspiration for success and keep people involved?

Usually my dad. Yeah.

Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, and Shaq, like what an amazing podcast, brother. So much value. You know, in a very young age, you're making it to the roof and it was so amazing helping thousands of people. So maybe people who listen to this podcast might need your help. So where can our audience find you mentoring, brother?

I'm easy. Funnels.com is probably the best way to join my email list and come from there.

Absolutely, Shaq. So everyone who need, if you're a coach, consultant, or someone trying to create high-ticket offers and scale, go check out funnels.com. You'll have a great time with Shaq. So Shaq, it was just amazing podcast. Any last word before we conclude the entire podcast session today?

You know, uh, create more than you consume. So listen to podcasts, reading books, those kind of things are good, but make sure you're focused on creating. Uh, that's where you're going to get the biggest, biggest buck, um, biggest growth. Um, it's pretty much it.

Absolutely. Again, Shaq, thank you so much for this amazing opportunity, brother. It was really great having you for for 40 minutes on this quick podcast. And hopefully everyone who's listening to this far so far, make sure to take notes and really listen to this podcast. Like, Shakir literally nailed down on the entire journey of how we actually acquired 6-figure clients just using funnels, you know, having the optimized psychology inside your sales process. So really listen to this and start implementing as just mentioned. So hopefully you enjoyed the podcast so far. Stay tuned for the next interviews, guys. I'm gonna get back with another 2 Comma Club Award winner back again. So this is me, Nikhil Sai, as well as Shakir Hussain signing off for today. Peace.

See you guys.