Turn your passions into profits following a proven road map - ft. Ross Williams | TNS 28

you today. Sorry for that. So hey, once again, every single person on this group, amazing, amazing, excited for another interview with another great entrepreneur, 2 Comma Club Award winner today. First of all, everyone who's watching this live and replay, welcome to the Internet Entrepreneurs Show where we're actually interviewing high-end entrepreneurs who are literally helping their clients, scale their businesses, and creating great impact in a positive way. So guess who is on the show today? I'm pretty sure Ross is one of the well-known networkers in the complete ClickFunnels community. Been networking with multiple 2-comma club owners, helped multiple of his clients to scale to 7 figures and beyond. So let's not waste any time and actually welcome Ross Williams, who is the founder at Modern Profits. Hey Ross, excited to have you.

Hey, how's it going, man? Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. We're excited to listen to your high-end stories of how you started and built your high-end network of these high-worth individuals who are hungry, have that hunger and drive to succeed. And everyone who's watching this show, first of all, thanks for joining in. And Russ is with us for 40 minutes. So if you have any questions, please make sure to comment down below and put #live if you're watching this live and #replay if you're watching this on replay. So Russ, let's not waste any time and can you please start with the backstory? Like, how did this all get started? Excited to hear about that.

Yeah, so it's kind of interesting. So I actually started in outside sales, which is a little different than most digital marketers experience because I was in face-to-face sales. So I actually hopped in my car every morning. I sold products for hair salons and I drove and visited about 10 to 20 salons a day. And, you know, face-to-face, you know, sweating, hitting the pavement, grinding, and really getting out there in sales. But what I learned from that was how to connect with people and the sales process and basically just building a business. And we didn't even have a website at the time. My company didn't even have a website, so it was 100% face-to-face. And I built a huge business here in Orlando. Just had a massive amount of growth. We were doing about $4 million a year in sales face-to-face without the internet right here in Orlando. And so then what I had moved on actually and well technically I started a side hustle first of throwing parties. And so I started throwing these parties. It started off with some happy hours at different bars and restaurants and the bars loved it and it was just a way for me to make some extra spending money and and get free bar tabs and restaurant tabs and stuff like that. So next thing I know, a couple years into that, my New Year's Eve party was doing about $250,000 in ticket sales in one night. And that's when I decided I felt like I could leave my job and become an entrepreneur. And so my whole journey just changed into this entrepreneurial space, literally when my side hustle just became big enough to jump ship. And it was never actually the plan. It just kind of grew into that.

Absolutely, man. That's really, really, really awesome. Like to see you where you're actually working on a job to actually hosting parties, making $250,000 in just one night. That's one of the best feelings ever. Like you can be so confident that the stuff you're into is perfect for your life and you just go all in with that, right? And that's where you started and now you're all in and there you go, right? You're running big business right now. So that's awesome, Ross. We really have great learning from your story. So how about getting into some decent stuff? Like actually I see like you host a lot of parties, you know, freaking awesome parties and all these cool masterminds, personal events to network with entrepreneurs. Like actually I know that you already had experience networking at multiple masterminds, building your own masterminds as well. You know, all these guys, like what's actually happening in the internet right now is the hype of, you know, building out actual mastermind, right? Because a lot of people don't know how to do it in the right way. Would you mind giving us like an outro of how to actually start a mastermind and scale it up?

Yeah, so what's interesting is, I'm kind of literally, again, I'm backwards from most digital marketers. I knew how to throw a party and an event, right? So my biggest party had 10,000 people at it. And we, so when you're talking about logistics, organization, the marketing, the structure, I had all that at the time What I didn't have was a product per se in the marketing world. So I kind of was backwards. Most of the time you had a guru who decides he wants to throw an event. I wanted to throw an event but wasn't the guru yet, right? So it was kind of, it was really interesting and I knew, I actually got the idea when I went to ClickFunnels event. And since I'm an event guy and I love the logistics, I basically saw that and I'm like, oh my God, I could duplicate this experience because to me, it's networking, meeting people in person. That's what changes. Like the people that I met in person are the people that kind of, they became friends, but they also held my hand through this journey of becoming an entrepreneur. So it was really cool. So when I saw this vision, I was like, I could do this on a cruise ship, right? So I'm like, I'm going to do a mastermind on a cruise because I knew I had been hosting party cruises for 10 years. So I knew how to do it. And so what for me, and there's maybe a lot of other people out here who at the time didn't have a digital info product or whatever, but I knew I had that knowledge and experience of hosting events. So I planned this whole cruise, and because I kept going to the Funnel Hacking Lives, these other networking parties, doing podcasts like this, I got to meet some of the world's best marketers that became friends of mine, and I asked them, hey, will you speak on our cruise? And of course they're all excited they get to go on a cruise and speak. So we hosted this mastermind cruise and I loved it. We had about 50 entrepreneurs come and the intimacy of it was just beautiful. So not only did we learn every day from each of our speakers, but we had, I mean, just the connections. So everybody that got on there, because we did, you know, we went sailing, we went snorkeling, we went to the cabanas. We also had our mastermind. We had dinners every night where different, you got to sit with a different speaker at the dinner table each night. Experience created these memories and friendships, not just learning. And that was my goal. So my goals at a mastermind and hosting a mastermind is creating an experience that someone's going to remember forever, that someone's going to talk about forever while you're teaching them. So if you just go in and teach them and they go home without making the friendships, that excitement is going to wear out. But if you create that environment of memories and the friendships, it'll last forever. So that's super important, I believe, when creating a mastermind. And, um, another thing I learned in doing this is Bigger is not always better when it comes to this. Like, that small intimate group of people, A, they'll pay more for it. They'll pay more for it to be small and intimate because they get that more one-on-one time. I mean, everyone on my cruise got to have dinner with two different speakers every night. You don't get that anywhere else. So creating that intimate experience, having a smaller event, the big ones are great too, but, but I used to go into this because I came from the party world. The more people the better. And transitioning into this world, I learned that, you know, it's great to have the big events, but it's also the small events can be actually just as powerful or more powerful.

100%. But, and that's super exciting. And like everyone who's listening can really understand that your kind of mastermind is really opposite of what's really happening in the actual market. And you know, like when we hear out about your mastermind, it's more exciting because, you know, having dinners with actually speakers, because see, like, On a usual mastermind, maybe people will have 3 to 4 minutes to speak to the actual author or speaker who is on the stage. But your network is completely in a different ballgame and that's going to really motivate people. And yeah, it's going to provide another level of value. And the one thing which I really love what you just mentioned is networking, right? And if you're just having that kind of personal connections with every single person on a small level mastermind and where the mind is huge and you're just networking about the right stuff, with a small crew, that's gonna really— and like having that cruise trip and, you know, having that adventurous experience with all of them.

I mean, you're literally getting to have a beer in a cabana with multi-million dollar speakers. Like, I mean, it's just the opportunity is incredible. And I truly believe in creating that experience. And I intentionally invite speakers that like to connect with people because there are some really great speakers out there and they get on stage, they do their presentation, and they're gone. You never see them again. Um, I want, I want the people and the speakers that literally will sit down, have a beer with you, that will, you know, go on the boat with you, hang out. They don't disappear. So, um, to me, that's super important when creating a successful mastermind, is, is giving people that opportunity to connect where maybe they, they wouldn't, especially in this world, because there's a lot of introverts in the marketing world. So, um, I come from the ex— the extroverted world and outside sales and events. So I like to bring that and help people kind of break out of their shell and really connect with people, and I want to make it easy for them.

100%, and that's what really separates the mastermind from the whole market which is happening, and that's really exciting. And when I think about it, it's like, like exploding my emotions that, oh, you know, I'm gonna network with these people, and that really excites, and that really creates a great vibe in the mastermind, and which is definitely going to help the people who are joining it as well. That's amazing answer, Ross. We definitely appreciate your inputs of Exactly showing how the actual mastermind should look like, not like the conventional way. Thank you so much for your input. So let's get to the next question, Ross. Yeah, like what do you think is the right strategy to launch and scale a new offer? Because like being a party guy who was just holding parties to where you're actually networking with these high-end entrepreneurs, creating your own mastermind, selling your digital product, selling your 3-day events and stuff like that. So you created multiple offers and you launched them, scaled them successfully. So would you mind giving us an input of how you did that, like how to launch it and scale it, a new offer which was never in the marketplace?

Right. So the biggest thing to do is first you got to figure out what do people want and what do they need. So you can do that by asking questions, whether you send out emails. A lot of times everybody, you know, when they send out their email blast, they're always trying to sell something. But it's always good to just sometimes just connect and say, hey, you know, I need your help. What do you guys think about this? What interests you? Would this benefit you? What would make your life easier? So find out what they're— and you can do that in an email, you can do that literally a simple Facebook post. I've made a post on Facebook before asking a simple question like, what do you need to become comfortable speaking on stage? And I'll have 100 comments by the end of 2 days that literally helps me to build my product, right? Or determine they don't want to speak on stage, right? So you don't, you know, you got to figure out what they want and what they need. And so I was actually putting together my current mastermind, which is, I called it Taking the Stage Live, and I'll tell you, I learned from this. So I actually, my whole goal was to teach people how to speak from stage, put them on a stage in front of a live audience, and then get them the video recordings and photography of them speaking, and this was the concept of the whole event. So we hosted one, so this kind of goes back to A, find out what they want, B, create it but launch it organically so that you're not wasting money on ads and you're, you're correcting issues as you go. So that way when you do run ads, you can scale it. And then you also have that initial batch of people that are going to give you testimonials, credibility. You're going to have video, photography, assets that you can use when you start to scale it. So first thing is find out from your people what do they need and what do they want, what do they don't want, right? Then we take that and we market it organically. And we build it out, get people to use it, get your credibility and your proof, then you can take it to ads and scale. But here's what I did after that event. I actually asked, and this was super small, but it was very, very hands-on. It was intense 4-day event, 'cause we literally helped them learn how to speak from stage, from body language to how to interact with the audience, how to pre-close, how to make their PowerPoint presentation, what to talk about, what to speak on. And we did a lot of fun stuff too. Like I made them all sing a karaoke song where they had to draw a song out of a hat. I made them give a toast at dinner. So again, I like to involve these experiences that brings them out of their shell. And my whole concept of the weekend was get comfortable being uncomfortable. So it was about building that confidence and letting them know, hey, you can do anything. What I discovered at the end of this event though, was when I started asking them questions, every one of them said, we had no idea this is what we were going to get. This was mind-blowing. It was light years more than what we wanted. This was just unreal. Everyone should be here. But that got me thinking, why did you not think you were going to get this? And so this is where my— and I don't want to say it was a mistake, but this is why you launch beta first. I interviewed all of them afterwards and asked them, what could I have done different? What did you like? What did you not like? What would you add to this program? And what I learned from these interviews was none of them wanted to be professional speakers, but the way I named the program, Taking the Stage Live, they all were like, they were confused because they don't wanna be pro speakers. Well, and I actually wasn't teaching them to be a pro speaker. I was teaching them how to market your business by speaking on stage, which is different than being a paid speaker. So I learned that the name of my product was attracting the wrong person and scaring away the right one. So after interviewing those people, I changed the name of my product to Authority Marketing Live, which has a totally different take, and we're still getting them on stage, we're still teaching them, I'm still getting them video assets, photography assets, but now they're like, oh, authority marketing, I can market my business this way, right? So literally those two words of changing that name has a whole different vibe. So that's where to really scale it and launch it, interview your people because you don't know like that one word that's making them think your product is something it's not, it's going to change everything.

Absolutely, Ross. And that's a great learning curve for everyone who's watching this, right? Like a lot of people actually just directly create, like take a lot of time and create the products and they try to launch it. They feel that it's not working. They spend more money, they be more aggressive. But they don't look at the actual product or the need of the marketplace of that specific audience. They really lack it. And you did it in a brilliant way. You actually launched a beta, which is the right way to do it. And you actually took inputs of what was good, what was wrong. And then you actually realized that you had a wrong name, then you changed it. Now the Authority product you have is literally killing it with all the people who wants to be authorities with their own business, selling their stuff on stages, which is really appropriate. That's awesome, my friend. Really makes a lot of sense. That's right there, a single strategy in a nutshell of how you can launch and scale your 7-figure offer. That's what you need to do it right there. Absolutely. Yes. So let's get into the next question, Ross. I really wonder, in this short period of time, within a couple of years, you started networking with all these huge people, right? From Timothy Lee to actually having Design Hacker Community, every single person who's already well-known authority in the ClickFunnels group, and other places as well. Like, what do you think is the best way where you actually network these high-level entrepreneurs? Like, how did you actually connect with everyone? How did you dream 100 there?

So first of all, go to live events. Whether if you can't afford to travel and do the big ones, find some local events. There's networking, there's Chamber of Commerce, go shake hands. You know, when I had my job and I knew that I wanted to get out of my job, become an entrepreneur, I actually, people think I'm crazy, or they did back then, I took my vacation days and I spent a lot of money, I took my vacation and I went to San Diego and I went to ClickFunnels Funnel Hacking Live. And it literally was my vacation days from work, like all of them. Like I only had a week's vacation, I had to take all of them and spent a lot of money that I really wasn't comfortable spending. But when I, and I even didn't even know what I was doing. Usually you go there and you meet people and they're like, "Oh, what do you do?" And I'm like, "I don't know yet. That's why I'm here, right? I'm here to learn what I wanna do or what to do or what you can do." I knew nothing except face-to-face sales and having a job was what I knew. So first thing is go out there and just get in front of people and you don't have to sell them something. Just ask them, learn from them, ask them questions, find out what they're doing, get inspired, go shake their hands and hang out with them. So from there it kind of just grew. Like, I met a few core people who really actually helped me. Like, to be able to get on the phone with a, with a 7-figure earner and be like, hey, what's up, man? How's it going? And I'm like, I'm really struggling with this. They're like, oh, well, you should change this or tweak that. That was life-changing for me. And because I got to shake their hand at a live event, I literally could just call them on the phone. And I know that other people were paying them $1,000 an hour to talk to them. but we were friends. So we would just hang out and I'd get the same type of coaching from them that they were literally charging people thousands of dollars an hour. So to me, definitely a live event, shake hands, get in front of people, and you can start locally if you need to. They're, they're everywhere. I know they're, they're a little smaller now than they used to be, and maybe not quite as many, but they're still available. And here's the other thing is when I went to this these events, a lot of people would go to the event and then go to their room and get on their laptop. I did not do that. I don't recommend doing that. You're at a live event to me to meet people, to learn and to meet people. So I went to the lobby afterwards. I went to the hotel lobby bar. I had drinks. I met most of these people at the hotel lobby bar, um, hanging out.

I, you know, that's a cool hack.

Yeah, and we'd meet them and then you'd round up like 6 or 8 of them and go to dinner somewhere where you actually really get to sit down and get to know them. But to me, I can get on my laptop when I get home, right? I have one opportunity to meet as many people as possible at that live event, and it's not going to be in my hotel room. So rule number 1, just stay out of your hotel room, go meet as many people as possible, and just keep the fun happening.

That's awesome, my friend. Yeah, that really makes complete sense. Like, I really see a lot of people who even go to networking events just be busy with their phones and the laptop, do their own business, literally the event itself, right? But you did it completely different way. Of course they can do their business while they're home or while they're at office, but you are at a networking event, like you should make the most out of it. And the right way to do it is what you exactly mentioned, go start the conversation. Like I believe like that, that's going to really make a lot of people uncomfortable, but that's where you grow, I believe, right? You just need to keep yourself out there, go, go into the lobby and talk to them. Start the conversation to kick in some like good golden nuggets from them and exchange the value. And like, as you just mentioned, network with high-end entrepreneurs, it's gonna— which really changes our mindset and takes us to the next level. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome, Ross. Again, another amazing answer. I'm loving the vibe and I really like honestly love your answer. So let's get to the next strategy actually. So like, what is the right strategy to acquire clients, uh, especially your go-to strategy to acquire high-ticket clients? Stuff like that.

Um, you know what, the, the first thing you have to do is you— people have to know what you do, right? So there's so many people out there that have a business and their best friend doesn't even know what they do for a living, right? Like, you just— because social media has connected people, it's, it's crazy that it's connected so many people in so many ways and disconnected them in so many ways, right? Because it's so easy to see what John and Mary are up to that that it's also easier to not ask them what they're up to, right? So the first thing you gotta do is let everybody know what you do for a living. And, you know, I can typically go to someone's personal Facebook profile and know instantly kind of if they're successful or not, 'cause you can see it in their profile. Whether you own a local business, a digital marketing, or whatever, if your profile doesn't let people know what you do. If you're a realtor, if you sell refrigerators, it doesn't matter. Like, people want to work with people they know. So your personal profile has to have what's called the profile funnel. You need your bumper sticker, which is your cover photo, your bio, your featured photo, and your link all need to speak the same language and tell people what you do, how you can help them, for two reasons. A, if they don't know what you can do, they can't buy your stuff. B, they may not need your stuff, but their friends might. And if they don't know what you do, they can't refer you. So like I said, if you sell refrigerators and nobody knows you sell refrigerators and your buddy Bob doesn't need a refrigerator, but his friend Cindy does, guess where Cindy would be if Bob knew you sold refrigerators? You'd be selling refrigerators. So the biggest thing to do is let everyone know what you do, not just your potential clients. Um, right now in my agency, 100% of my clients have come from referrals through this method.

Wow.

And I get new clients on the weekly from referrals, and it's not necessarily my clients referring them, it's my friends and my network who said, oh, you need someone to run your ads for your high-ticket coaching offers? Ross is the dude. You got to call Ross. And it's because I've let them know what I'm doing. And, um, you probably saw my my— some of my most recent posts on Facebook where I got a client, you know, up to 36 appointments a day, and now he has to hire more salespeople. So I post stuff like that. I, you know, I spell it out, and then people see that and they're like, oh, Ross helps people get more closing calls, right?

Yeah.

So that's the biggest, you know, way. And then once you do that, then you're— you can, you can start scaling and running ads, you know. You can put improve the conversions. Um, everyone, you know, but it's so simple when your network knows what you do. Your network can refer you people.

100%, and that's the right answer. And I literally believe a lot of people just tease that profile funnel stuff. They charge a couple of thousand bucks to just give you the strategy of how to do it, and you literally nailed it with the simple, quick 5-second answer, right? Just optimizing the profile is going to literally show you who you are and resonate with your audience. And that really makes sense, like If someone doesn't know that you're selling some stuff, how can they buy from you? That makes zero sense. Like, if they don't know, how can they buy, right? So you should be putting out yourself as a salesperson, showing what you do.

Absolutely. And people, a lot of times, they're always worried about, oh, that person's not a potential client of mine, so they blow right past them. I see it happen all the time. And that person may not be your client, but their friends, their family, their neighbors might be. So don't ever take anybody for granted. Your biggest referral could be not even close to being your right client.

There you go. That's the secret mantra of how you can actually acquire a lot of clients on a long-term basis. That's awesome, my friend. And like, Ross, like, I really do wonder, like, you're running, you're popping up these huge events, you're doing networking with high-end entrepreneurs, building out some masterminds, launching your boot camps and all that cool stuff, also running your marketing agency successfully. Spending millions of dollars on ads for your clients. Like, I wonder, like, what kind of tools do you use to manage all of your clients and make sure that it's going in a productive way? Because I saw your post where you were mentioning that your clients are literally feeling that he's the only one working with you. So like, you're providing that level of support with your clients. So how are you able to manage all this stuff together in a nutshell?

So the biggest thing is, A, it's— I'm going to tell you a couple of the softwares first. But it's really not about the software. So I use ClickFunnels, obviously. I love ClickFunnels. I use them for all my landing pages and funnels. I've been using, and I use Facebook Ads Manager. Most of my ads are through Facebook, but we do do some cold email campaigns and some banner ad targeting as well. But really, then I use Acuity for the calendar. It's, it's literally simplifies the breakdown. Don't take your clients for granted. Um, don't, like, get on the phone with them. I tell my clients what makes me different. Um, I get on the phone with my clients at least once a week, all of them. Um, and I, I want to be not only their ads guy, but I want to be their coach too, right? Like, I want them to know the ins and outs, because for me, I need to know their business so that I can, A, make their ads better, but B, I can find other holes. That it's not my fault if the salesperson dropped the ball, but if I can teach the owner of the company why their salesperson dropped the ball, that makes me more successful because they're closing more deals, right? So for me, it's really about that, that phone. This right here is probably the best tool I have because I use it. I get on the phone and I talk to my clients and that is the biggest thing and that's why they feel like I'm their only, they're my only customer, right? So because I actually talk to them and treat them like a person and again, when you do that, you build that relationship, comes kind of back down to networking, you build that relationship, they actually kind of become, they become a friend, right? They really trust you. You're talking about their business, you're not just running, they're not like just invisible ads out there that are running, right? 'Cause a lot of, I see a lot of agencies doing that where they run the ads and the owner doesn't even know what's going on. You know, maybe they get a report emailed to them weekly, but I get on the phone with them and I talk to them from A to Z about their business, what their struggles are, how I can help them. And I don't just run ads for them. I actually give them homework. I say, hey, here's 3 things you need to do this week to make your business better. And then I give myself homework. Here's the 3 things I'm going to do to make your business better. And then when we talk next week, let's see how we did. So I give them homework, I give me homework, and this is the number one tool to success. Pick it up and talk to people. Talk to them. Don't just text them.

Yeah, 100%. Like, a lot of people who really manage clients, they'd be skeptical to start conversations. They'll be like, oh, I don't want my client to message me, I'll just ignore them. Like, they'll be in that mindset. But you are in a stage where you are actually trying to network more. And you talk more, like, that's where you can actually know the data which is actually happening and what you're currently working. And I really love the exercises you just mentioned, you know, giving them the 3 words, 3 stuff they need to work on, and you assigning yourself for the 3 stuff which you need to get done for the week and check what's going on. I think that can really bump up the results which you're actually delivering to the clients because you're being more focused on the end result.

And what happens is you actually can charge more, so you need less clients. Like for me, I'd rather have fewer high-end clients than tons of small clients, and they're less of a problem. They'll pay sometimes 3 times as much money because of that extra service you're providing.

100%. Yeah, like, and when it comes to agencies, it's not about quantity, it's about definitely quality of the, you know, audience who you are selling to and what kind of results are you delivering to them. If you just keep on delivering them results, they stick to us. And that's how you are scaling your business through referrals and acquiring one weekend client easily. So let's get into the next question, Ross, and you're literally killing it with all the answers. So like all of this stuff which is going around in your day-to-day life, like how does your daily routine look like for your success? Are you an early bird? Are you a night owl? How does that look like?

You know, it's kind of crazy. I, in this, I've all, I'm trying to break this habit and just kind of being transparent. I was in the job world for so long. I still act like I'm in a 9 to 5 job sometimes and I'm not. So I wake up early and I like to go to the gym before I start my workday. But I also have my goal that I need to be working by 9 AM. And I know it's so weird because I really don't have to be because I'm, you know, my own boss. But I— it's just, it's habit, right? So I like to wake up, you know, 7 AM, hit the gym. Relax. This is kind of funny too. I live in a high-rise downtown. Every morning I walk downstairs to Publix, say hi to the concierge at my front desk, and I buy a drink from Publix. I come back upstairs and the lady at Publix is like, why don't you just buy like 6 of these at one time? And I'm like, I like to walk downstairs and say hi to my concierge lady. You know, Wanda's a sweetheart. I'm like, good morning, Wanda. And she says, it's a beautiful day, Ross. And I said, it sure is. Then I buy my drink from Publix. I say hi to Beverly. She's like, thanks for coming in. And I come back up, I have my drink, pop open my laptop and start my workday. And I know that like, as crazy as that is, but that movement and that connection with people, because when I work, it's sometimes it's lonely working from home, right? So to me, like, if you work in an office, you get to say hi to your receptionist and, you know, hi to your neighbor, and then you go get on the laptop. So for me, That's walking through my lobby of my condo and walking into Publix and coming back upstairs. And I know it sounds crazy and weird, but I do it. And other than that, I mostly work. I'm not like the super night owl. I'm more of a daytime worker when it comes to that. And then I also like to, because I like to connect with people, I like to take my laptop and go down to the coffee shop and work from there a lot. You know, my client, if I have local clients, they'll come in and we'll hang out and talk. Most of my clients are not abroad, but not local, but I do have a few that are local that we come in there and open both our laptops and kind of work together. So that's fun. But yeah, basically I like to wake up, hit the gym, walk downstairs to Publix, and then start my day.

Amazing. And that's a beautiful routine to have. You know, like a lot of people actually currently are sitting with their computers more than they ever do. And the one thing which is happening very wrong is they really are lacking the personal connection with real people who they really hang out, right? Like, I don't remember myself speaking to 20 people in a single day, uh, from a couple of months from now. Maybe I need to take exercise to do that tomorrow. So like, I really had a great takeaway that I should actually connect in person because I do have a lot of meetings. But yeah, like, that's what it's all about, right? I love it. But, and that's a great routine to have. So like, I believe like, as you're already at this huge journey, like, where you are, you your day job to actually popping up parties, building up masterminds, having your clients where you're running ads and stuff like that. Maybe you made like a great transition with your mindset, right? Like what will be your suggestion for a 20-year-old you or someone who's just getting started right now?

So, you know, probably the biggest thing is just, it kind of goes back to what I teach at my Authority Marketing event, right? Get comfortable being uncomfortable. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If it was comfortable, everyone would do it. Like, but if you don't take imperfect action, like just start doing something to move you forward. It could be as simple as reading a book. If you don't like to read, maybe it's an audiobook. I'm an audiobook kind of guy, but do something to move your life forward, right? And then just keep doing something else. It's just think of it as little steps. Um, unfortunately, you know, I know we hear a lot of stories of these people that made a million dollars in 6 months, and it's— they make it sound so easy. And I'm going to tell you right now, those guys work 24 hours a day. They— it's not easy. They, they— if they did in 6 months, they are hustling. Um, and, and that's okay. And they might have failed for 6 years before they found the 6 months that worked. And, um, you know, I like to be transparent with people and know that, like, let people know, um, that it's, it's gonna be a long journey. But if you have that vision and you have that dream, go for it and take— but take the first step to get there. And it doesn't have to be perfect. Um, you, you're gonna tweak it and turn it and change it along the way. Just like my event, you know, Taking the Stage Live, that I changed the name now to Authority Marketing Live because I learned by doing it that people were misunderstanding what I was teaching. So that was a learning curve. We tweak it, we twist it. Now if I would have said, oh, I don't know what to call it, and just not done it, it never would have happened. So you have to launch it, you have to do it, and you can fix it and perfect it later. It's so funny 'cause I kind of teach it back to, it's like learning to ride a bike, right? So you're, first you got your training wheels, and then eventually you get comfortable and dad takes off the training wheels and he's holding the back of your seat, right? And then he's running up and down the street with you behind your seat, and eventually he can't keep up and he lets go and you're riding that bike by yourself, right? So no one remembers that stage where they barely could ride with training wheels and then they were terrified to ride that bike unless their dad was holding their seat. And then finally their dad lets go of that seat and what happens? They make it about 30 feet, they realize dad's not holding the seat anymore and they fall over 'cause they lose their confidence. But then they get back up and they do it again. Everyone just remembers the last ride on that bike where you're cruising down the beach on your cruiser and the wind's blowing in your hair. That's what they remember. They don't remember the beginning stages where you had the training wheels, where you had someone holding your seat, where you took those steps. Just do it. Just take the steps and take a new step every day and you'll get there.

100%. And that's the right way to do it. And like the one sentence answer was amazing. You know, like, like learn to be uncomfortable, you know, like just get comfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah. There you go. Getting uncomfortable to actually scale the business and actually push ourselves to the actual stages where we need to be. And everyone deserves that, right? It's not like if we don't put ourselves in the shell, then how can we be there, right? That really makes sense. And but like, as you're already at this amazing level of having good impact with income in your life, like I believe you at least have like good achievements in your life which you are proud of. Would you mind naming like your biggest achievements and any bigger next goals which you have?

So, you know, you asked that question and I, um, it's hard to pinpoint it down to like one thing. Because every achievement is the growth to the next one, right? So, oh sorry, we buzzed here, but there's been so many great achievements that started off as these just little dreams, and as you move through them, obviously winning the ClickFunnels award was, 2 Comma Club award was a great achievement, and what's crazy is I did that throwing parties. It's a million-dollar funnel throwing parties. Like, it's nuts. But here, actually, to me, my bigger achievement is actually where I'm at right now. Because when quarantine hit, I was in the event business. I was out of business. Um, so that business has not come back yet. Like, we are not— cities aren't permitting for block parties. They're not doing any of that. So what did I do is I, I put in a lot of— and I did marketing for local businesses. So a lot of those local businesses, they were closed. They weren't open. Obviously, if they're not open, they're not doing marketing. My events, done. Like, there was no New Year's Eve party this year. There was no St. Patrick's Day. Cruises were canceled. Like, everything on my calendar was canceled for the whole year. So what did I do? I hired a business coach. He helped me to look at my experience and my stuff from the outside looking in. 'Cause sometimes we have these superpowers, but we don't know we have superpowers because it comes so naturally for us, we think everyone can do it, right? So he helped me to really look back in on myself and discover what my abilities were and reposition myself. So I retooled my entire business. I shifted my niches from working with local business owners to working with high-level entrepreneurs and coaches. And what I learned is like, I actually, I really love it more. It's growing. And then I also shifted my parties to intimate masterminds of, you know, 10 to 20 people. And that is a whole, 'cause I still have that knowledge and experience. So for me being able to take this shift of, oh my God, my Two Comma Club business is now out of business like that. Out of my control, and in a matter of months shift it into another business that's even more profitable.

That's a great shift, and like, that's amazing, you know, like seeing a great stage in your business and then seeing the downfall of your real business, which is falling off. And the best part is you never give up. You're like, oh, let's tweak it, let's reverse engineer and what to do. And then you figure it out, and now you're mentioning that it's more profitable than what you're doing earlier, which is I believe like now you're doing much more less work because you're not hosting parties of 10,000 people, right?

Oh, the stress level is way down, way down. Yeah, the stress level, the workload is way down. But yeah, it's, um, the logistics for running events like that was, was just, um, it's— we need a whole nother podcast to tell you the stories about running those kind of events. Yeah, I'm enjoying it, and I really enjoy connecting with clients and the people that come to my masterminds. We're like-minded. It's building friendships, like true friendships. So it's a whole different level of connecting and building relationships. And yeah, I'm really, really digging it. But just, you know, to give people hope, like, you know, this, especially with the pandemic and, and businesses being shut down, like, I know everyone's gotten hit hard, but you can come back. You just have to make shifts and changes. And, you know, I'm living proof of that. And, you know, we shifted and built a whole new business in a matter of months. And don't be afraid to ask for help and reach out to people.

Yeah, like, definitely, that's where they can actually grow, because you don't know what you don't know. You should hire someone who can actually show you what you don't know, where you can actually do the right fix.

Or you don't know what you do know, right?

Yeah, a lot of people take it for granted.

You take your own knowledge for granted. Because it's so easy for you and it's not easy for everybody.

Everyone's got a different superpower, 100%, and they need to learn the right way to discover it and actually monetize it in the right way. And you did it successfully, and I'm glad that you did. And let's get into the next question, Ross. Like, this huge journey, like, very long, long story short, what was your biggest mistake in your life so far?

Um, you know, I, I kind of don't Believe in mistakes.

Learn and move on.

Mistakes are learning, learning phases, right? Mistakes are steps. And sometimes they might be a step backwards. But I actually believe that all the mistakes you make, if you, you pay attention to them and make changes, they actually move you forward, right? So if making a mistake would actually be not making mistakes, Right? So if— look at like a pro skateboarder. Do you think he never fell down? You don't become a pro skateboarder without crashing. Like, you don't. They have more broken bones and surgeries than anybody, right? But you— we just see them doing their triple backflips and jumping these high ramps, but they made a lot of mistakes around the way, and they got back up and they tried again. Why they made that mistake. So it's the same thing. I feel like the biggest mistake would be not making any. So And then the second biggest mistake would be not learning from your mistakes. So if we actually pay attention to the mistakes we make and learn what caused it, what could we have done different, and how are we going to do it different moving forward, you will always be a bigger, better person with a bigger, better business moving forward.

Whoa, and that's one of the best analogies I've ever heard when it comes to setting the mistakes in the right way. We definitely appreciate that. That's a golden nugget right there. Thank you so much for that answer. And it really kicks in, you know, the psychology and, you know, the persuasion which we really need to do the things. And, you know, like a lot of people will actually be afraid to do mistakes, but now they get the courage like, okay, no matter if I fail, I just get to know what's going wrong and you can fix it and move on, right? So there you go. And Ross, like my audience are super excited, maybe because you're providing a ton of value. Like where can our audience find your mentoring?

Um, so you can connect me with at, uh, rossbwilliams.com. Um, that's rossbwilliams.com.

I'll actually drop that in comments.

Awesome, that'll connect you to all my social. You can join my free group from there, um, all my funnels, um, everything you need is going to be right there.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for the information. Hopefully whoever need help, it actually— the man which you see on the screen, amazing cute looking guy who actually has the right knowledge which can help you scale your business, just go connect with Ross and he'll definitely help you. And Ross, that was amazing, awesome interview. Any last words before we conclude the whole session?

Yeah, I'm going to go back to my favorite quote: get comfortable being uncomfortable.

There you go. Get uncomfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah, that's what you exactly need to do to grow yourself to the next level. And again, thanks for amazing opportunity, Ross, and appreciate you being on time here and spending, you know, providing quality content for our audience. And we definitely appreciate your time and the value you provided. And guys, hopefully you enjoyed it. Please make sure to connect with Ross if you need any kind of help. And, uh, just stay tuned for the next interview. We are going to kick in with another 2 Comma Club Award winner. Thank you so much, Ross. Meet you. Peace out.

Thank you for having me.

Bye.