Ask Ryan #2

Foreign.

Hey, fastlaners, welcome to Freedom Fastlane. This is Ryan Danger and today's episode is Ask Ryan. This is where I filter through dozens, sometimes hundreds of questions that were submitted. Over@freedomfastlane.com there's a banner that says, got a question for Ryan? Ask it here. You click on it, you submit a question to Ask me, and I might just answer it. And I filter through all of them and pick the either the best ones or the ones I actually want to answer and answer them on the show. So there were well over a hundred submissions since our last time during Ask Ryan, and I have filtered out my favorites of them and we'll dive right in. So thank you to all of you who have submitted a question to Ask Ryan. And if you have a question for me, you can head over to freedomfastlane.com click on the banner and submit your question to possibly be answered on the next show. Alright, so our first question today comes from Kelly. And Kelly asked, how do you find friends that are successful and willing to share? I've tried going to networking events, but always end up attracting people just like me. I understand that pain, Kelly, and I think that is probably a common, a common concern for people who are upgrading their network. So there's a couple things that I would recommend. First of all, if you haven't listened to the podcast episode about building a success network, go look it up and follow what it says. It will teach you how to start getting around people who are at a higher level and elevate that network and nurture those relationships. Also, when I was 21 years old, I plucked down $20,000 to be part of a mastermind that I had no business being in. I was the smallest person, I had the smallest business in the room. And I went there because I wanted to upgrade my thoughts. And it was long term, some of the best money I ever spent. So sometimes you have to do things differently and get completely out of your comfort zone to be around people that will stretch you and elevate your thinking. I would look for groups and masterminds where you are the most ignorant person in the room. I'm going to an event in a couple of weeks and its tagline is, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. And I agree with that sentiment. So I regularly go to meetings and masterminds where I am the dumbest person in the room because I want to be stretched and have my thinking elevated. My buddy Tai Lopez says that you should spend 30% of your time with people who just scare the pants off of you because they speak in language that you can barely understand, 30% of your time with people like you're doing right now, your peers who are just like you, and 30% of your time mentoring other people. That's, I think, a really good rule of thumb. I don't usually hit that perfectly, but I think that is a good rule of thumb to live by. Our next question comes from Joe Williams. And Joe asks, how can you monetize a skill or service in a sustainable way? Let's say, for example, you're an HR or finance or sales guru and you know everything about the subject. How could he turn that into a sustainable business without doing consulting? Now that's an empowering question because you've identified what you don't want to do. I probably would have suggested that you do consulting as a way to transition out of a job or out of a career that you no longer want to be in. But if you don't want to do it without consulting, there's a couple ways that you can do it. You can teach it public, kind of like I teach entrepreneurship publicly. I run a podcast and a blog and I share that via social media and some paid advertising. And then sometimes I market some products or some masterminds on the back end for someone like you. If you want to have a personal brand, that's a viable model that you can follow. If you have a skill set that will benefit other businesses, share some of that insight publicly and then charge to either be an equity partner in people's businesses or have some sort of training that will help those businesses. However, there's one other way that you can do this, and I've seen this done in a really cool, creative way by There's a company called fullyacountable.com. they're basically a team of accountants and CFOs that for a fee will look at your books and will basically serve as your freelanced or outsourced cfo. So even medium sized businesses can benefit from that level of exposure. So if you're a sales guru or if you're an HR guru, you could have a business and run the business. And the business is basically a service that fulfills a need that an employee would normally would normally fulfill. I heard once that if you can turn a business into a service before releasing products, that's where fastest cash flow comes from. And I found that to be true. So if you can either bring in other people who will be implementing work for you, or turn your business into a service. Even if you're not doing the consulting. That can be a highly cash flowing business for you. Our next question comes from Chris. Chris says, I saw a YouTube video of you the other day and you showed that you were selling 200 to 300 orders a day. How the hell do you do that? Well, thank you Chris for being impressed by that video. I actually do a lot more than 300 orders a day on Amazon now. But that comes down to running a real business, not just releasing a product, but releasing a business that serves a very targeted audience, a very targeted market, having really good customer service and being really aggressive and really strategic with your marketing. I teach this inside of the tribe and I teach this for people who are already seeing some success at my next level events, which you can find out about at event.freedomfastlane.com? from Orey I really like this question. Orey says, I have an Amazon business that's currently doing about $25,000 a month. There are a lot of temptations around us on a daily basis. There are lots of different ways to promote our products and we think we can manage them all without losing focus. My question is how do we focus on only one thing at a time? How do we choose what is best to focus on and how to come up with a strategic plan to make it happen? Well, first of all, there's a book that you should read, Orey. You should go out and you should get the One Thing by Gary Keller. This is a game changer for anybody who has struggled with this question. And he basically argues that there is a strategic question of that goes like this. What one thing can I accomplish that by accomplishing it will make everything else either easier or unnecessary. That's how you identify what is most important. You're right though that there is a competition for our attention constantly going on. That's what marketing is. It is treating attention as currency. So I make a daily practice of journaling and meditating in order to recapture my focus and direct it towards my one thing. Towards that one thing that is really going to move the needle. What is going to put cash in the bank account or what is going to make everything else easier or unnecessary? That's my daily practice. But I would highly recommend that you go out and get the One Thing by Gary Keller Question from Rusty. I'm going to summarize Rusty's question, but Rusty says that he's going to turn down an apprenticeship job. That would be a set career for life. It would take years to complete and I Don't want to wait years just to work for the next 30 years. I come from a struggling family financially, and we don't have much to our name. They're all proud of me for getting into this program, but that's their dream, not mine. I want more than that. I don't even know what I'm asking, but I know that I want to be free. Rusty this is a very honest and fantastic question, and it reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is considering going into medical school. She does not want to be a doctor. I can kind of tell, because she is struggling with the path that it will take to become a doctor. She thinks she wants this thing at the end, but there's this big path in the middle. And I told her this. I said, someone gave me the advice when I was college thinking about going to be a pastor, and they said, if you can do anything else, please do that. If you could do anything else, please do that. Because the road ahead is hard Now. I knew at a gut level that what I really wanted to be was an entrepreneur. I could not fathom the idea of spending 30 years of my life on staff somewhere at a church.

So I gave up that path, thankfully, and I became an entrepreneur because I knew there was something else that I could do and be happy. And I'm not even really religious anymore. So I guess it's a good thing I didn't become a pastor. So I would tell you that you have identified the problem, because you have identified that you're living someone else's dream, not yours. Now, the only experience that is real to you is your own. So if you are living according to someone else's story, you are doing yourself a disservice because you are taking someone else's experience and you are trying to make it your own. I would say you live and create the life that you want to live. You let everyone else adjust to that. You set the rules for your life because there are no rules. You let everybody else adjust to what it is that they think about that. And what they think about it is their business.

Question from a buddy of mine, Harry McLegzie. Harry asks, but what if it were made of barbecue spare ribs? Would you eat it then? And I would say, yes. And then I'd wash it down with a tall, cool Budweiser. Heck, I'd even have seconds. Thanks for the question, Harry. Question from Darren Danielson. Hi, Ryan. I recently heard your podcast, and I've been hooked ever since. My question is, if you Were starting out building a cash flow business right now, assuming you were in a completely new space, what would you concentrate on building? Would you still sell on Amazon or something else? Well, now, Darren, this is an interesting question because this, the answer to this is going to be different for everybody. Your question assumes that there is a best opportunity out there right now. Now, if I were to answer your question directly, I would probably still say I would go on Amazon because there are still opportunities there. And obviously I have a certain network and I have certain experience that would allow me to be pretty successful in that. But to somebody who has a completely different set of experiences, I would probably recommend something else. If somebody was an investment gu guru, I would tell them to start a personal brand and sell investment courses. If somebody had executive consulting experience, I would probably have them have a brand about business and to take equity positions in people's businesses and systemize them and grow them. So it all depends on your skill set. There isn't a best way. There is not a certain opportunity that I'm recommending more than others. Assuming that everyone has different skills. If you have different skills, different experiences, then you're going to have different decisions and different business models that will attract you. If I had no skills, if I had no experience, well, you have to start from scratch. We have to start from somewhere. Amazon is a good vehicle for that as long as you're following the advice that I'm providing inside of previous podcasts. But starting an information products business is perfectly viable too. It all comes down to your skill set and where you want to be.

Alright, this is a question from Christopher. Michael and Christopher asks a really fantastic question. Thank you for this, Chris. He says, ryan, what is one thing that you would like from your audience? Appreciate that, Chris. Thank you for offering value. The one thing that I would like for my audience is to subscribe to Freedom Fastlane and to tell others to do so. If you've been listening for a little while but you haven't officially subscribed, let's make this official. Head over to itunes, search for Freedom Fast Lane and actually subscribe and review the podcast. Doing so helps me spread the word. It also helps me rank higher in itunes. And if I could add one more thing that you could do for me as an audience would be to go to other major thought leaders and recommend the show to them or recommend that I be on their show so we can continue to spread the message of freedom. Thank you so much for asking that, Kris. I appreciate that. A question from Casey. Casey asks Ryan, I Discovered your website just recently after listening to your interview on the Art of charm that you did some time ago. I have one question based on that interview. That was an interview about investing.

How do retirement accounts like iras and Roth iras factor into your three rule cash flow formula? Does the tax free interest growth in a Roth IRA make it worth it to max out the allowable interest in a Roth IRA before moving on to other forms of investments? That's a meaty question. If you haven't listened to my previous podcast on investing, you'll probably want to. But to answer your question, Casey, I treat my IRAs as a separate entity. So I max out my IRA contributions in order to get the tax benefit from that. Then I use that money as my aggressive growth fund. So if you're familiar with my investment strategy, I am interested in long term growth and I am interested in cash flow. I'm not really concerned with investing in whatever is hot or growing really quickly or.

Tech stuff or new businesses. I'm not really interested in investing in those businesses in my existing plan, but I am interested in that in my ira. Because if it's a Roth, that is tax free growth. So if you have aggressive growth, it's tax free. And for me it is kind of I'm really doing it for the tax benefit of it all. So I'm cool using that almost as play money. Now that is my strategy. Not everybody's strategy. By all means, please have your own custom strategy that is well advised and you can customize the strategy however you'd like. But I use that money for my aggressive growth purchases in stocks.

Question this is a great question from Rob. How the heck are you so handsome? Rob, I'll tell you this, it's not an accident. I mean this is very strategic. How handsome this is. This is daily trips to the gym, a regular nurturing of having the perfect length of beard and haircuts about every two weeks. It's. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't recommend everybody try to be this handsome. It's. It's a long path, but it is certainly not an accident. I would. If you're looking to be as handsome as this, I would suggest getting around other people who are at a higher level of handsomeness who can raise your idea of how handsome one can be. Thanks for the question, Rob.

A question from Zach. Zach asks how can I have you as a mentor? This question comes up a lot, so briefly at the risk of sounding all self pitchy and promotional as if answering a question about how handsome you are isn't self promotional enough, but there are a couple ways you can have me as a mentor. One if you're at a certain level, you can either apply for my the Next Level event@event freedomfastlane.com or you can apply for my Intimate mastermind for people who have a million dollar plus businesses@tribe of25.com or if you're not at that level, I would recommend joining the Tribe the next time that it's open. And it'll be open in spring actually in April of 2015.

From Ray Ray asks I question the portion of your investment strategy when you say that there are low risk investments that produce 12% a year consistently. The REIT AGNC for instance, drops in value very often. How can you rely on that fund for a 1% a month returns if the underlying value of the stock is so volatile? Great question Ray. And the answer is that on that specific stock agnc, it's actually not volatile stock at all. It has very little ebbs and flows. It has been in a downward trend in the last year or two because the stock market is so high that cash flow investments, they get lower in value. So when the market can make more money in appreciating assets, buying tech stocks, or buying really almost anything in the stock market because it's gone up so much in the last two years that.

Cash flowing stocks go down in value because something that's paying 8 or 12% is not making as much of a return as something that is growing aggressively. So cash flow stocks are the most attractive. They go up the most in value during bear markets because at least the investor can capture the return. But the best time to buy.

Cash flowing investments is when their value is low because the return on your original money is going to be highest. So even at a when a stock like AGNC is going down in value, its dividend readjusts for the pricing changes. So I'm still buying that stock. I just see it as cash flow that's on sale. But you don't have to be invested in something like a real estate investment trust in order to see 12% returns. You can still see them in real estate. That is a low risk, high yield investment. You can still invest in investment funds like the fund that I had on the show. That's the interview with Tom Shea. So there are still other places where you can get them. You can get them at Lending Club or other crowdsourced lending places. So there are still plenty of places that you can get that high yield, low risk return. It doesn't necessarily have to be in real estate investment trusts or stocks like agnc. I had a question that I accidentally deleted, so forgive me, I don't have your name, but I got a question that said I would like to start a business selling ebooks. How would you go about starting this business? And I want to answer that by saying, you're asking the wrong question. A business that sells ebooks is not a business. If you are saying I want to sell ebooks, that is not a specific enough question or specific enough vision on what you want your business to be. Who do you want to serve? Is a much better question to ask. What market do you want to be in? If you want to be in health and fitness and the way that you connect and serve those customers is through ebooks, then that is a question that we can answer. But if it's just I want to sell ebooks, that is not a specific enough question to know where we need to go next. So the first question when you're starting any business is what market do I want to be in? What customers do I want to serve and how do I want to serve them? What is the end result that I want my customers to have? Ebooks are a vehicle in which you can connect with your customers and bring them toward an end result. It is not a business in and of itself. Now, there are people who have cash flow streams where they just have random ebooks made and they put them on Amazon. That's a cash flow source, but that's not a business. A business is one that targets a specific market and adds unique value to the marketplace. When you answer those questions, then the type of ebook or how you might market the ebook becomes a much clearer path. Two more questions. The second to last question is from Ken Kobrick. And Ken asks, hi, Ryan. Thank you for sharing such amazing, doable information to be successful in all areas of life. You're welcome, Ken. Do you think it's too late to start an Amazon business and be successful starting now? And my answer to that is, no, it's not too late to start a business. Saying an Amazon business is a bit of a misnomer because your business is not Amazon. Amazon is your channel. Amazon is where your source of sales might be, but your business is not an Amazon business. There will always be room for good businesses on channels. Amazon is a channel, of course. And there will always be room for good products and good businesses on a channel like Amazon. Just like there will always be room for good websites on Google, there will always be room for Good social media personalities on sites like YouTube and Facebook. It's not too late to start a YouTube business or to start a Facebook business, because Facebook businesses and YouTube businesses don't exist. There is simply a product or there is a personality that is being marketed via that channel. Just like there is no such thing as an Amazon business. Amazon is simply the channel that connects your product to the customers. So, of course there is room to have a successful business right now using Amazon as a channel. But it all comes down to the products that you're creating and the people that you're targeting. Now, there is a consolidation happening right now among people who are doing things inefficiently. But if you do things in a, if you do things efficiently now, you can be well ahead of those people and now there is less competition for them. I covered this in detail in my last podcast, which is called the Consolidation. I'd highly recommend you listen to it. And if you're thinking about starting a business, you can join the tribe in April of 2015. Which leads me to the final question. And this was the most popular question. It's always interesting when I get this, but the question is from Ahmed and it is, I would like to know if your tribe membership is still open. I love this question because it's kind of nice to be in a point in your career where people write in and they say, how do I give you money? I want to give you money. Well, we are doing the Tribe Mastermind again in April and we are going to be doing it a little bit differently and we're doing it along with the launch of Amazing Selling Machine. We weren't originally going to participate because there are. I want to make some changes to the tribe and those are in process. But I had a. Well, I have a baby on the way and so not, not all of those changes got made. So we are going to do another round while we are transitioning to the. The new platform. So that will be going live at the end of April. Stay tuned to the newsletter at Freedom Fast Lane and the posts over@freedomfastlane.com it'll be at that time that I'll be announcing exactly how you can join. So rather than do a big pitch on the podcast, stay tuned on the newsletter@freedomfastlane.com and I will let you know when the tribe officially opens at the end of April. If you are listening to this podcast after April of 2015, then head over to freedomfastlane.com There's a chance that we might be opening spots toward the end of the year under a new platform that we will likely be launching sometime this year or next year. So thank you so much for listening to Ask Ryan Again. If you've got a question you want to be answered on the show, head over to freedomfastlane.com click on the banner that says got a question for Ryan? Ask it here and I may just answer your question on an upcoming show. Thanks for listening to Freedom of Fast Lane. I'll see you on the next show.