How He Turned a $67 Offer into an 8-Figure Business

I'm 45 years old, seriously considering going bankrupt, facing, you know, probably close to a million dollars debt. And I'm living with my dad, James Swanik.

He started as an ESPN broadcaster. Fast forward a few years. He now has an extremely profitable eight figure business that is creating a difference in people's lives that he wakes up charged and excited to build. What the heck changed in the last couple of years?

I suddenly changed the price point from $67 to $6,500. And I remember I was on the phone with a prospect and he asked me what the price was and I said, It's $6,500. And I just stayed quiet.

I was like waiting.

I said, okay, is that like one payment or can I break it up? And in that moment, whole belief system changed. Now $6,500.

This is an in the trenches entrepreneur who had to find fight for it for more than a decade in order to hit real pay dirt. It sounds like you got drunk on the excitement of this fast growing ego.

Boosting company and the consequence of that was it just kind of drifted.

How did you start the climb out of a million dollars worth of debt?

What's interesting to me is that it seems like you spent the last 10 years trying so hard and now things are just sprouting and it, it's the things that you thought would take you where you wanted to go, didn't take you where you wanted to go. And now you got an eight figure company and a beautiful wife and you know, getting all this attention on the Internet and, and it seems like you let it go and now things are sprouting.

Yeah.

Why don't you start by telling us.

How you made your first million.

Swanee's blue blocking glasses? Yeah.

You put blue blockers on the map.

Yes, for my stylish blue blockers on the map. I think blue blockers were on the map certainly in the biohacking community. But our point of difference was cool, stylish, fun blue blockers. And that was 2015, 2016. We came out like so fast. We did a million dollar sales in the first 11 months. And for me, that was really my first business. Yeah, I mean, I tried a few little things here, but I was always the guy who had a job, you know, had a career as a journalist. I was a sportscaster at espn. I'd never really started a business and in fact, I actually started the business because I was in Crunch Gym on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, listening to a podcast episode that you did. And I remember very clearly I was doing like a chest push kind of thing listening to you. And you were talking about making your first million from e commerce business. And I went, if Ryan can do it, I can do it. And I literally got out of the gym and I phoned my brother Tristan, who was in Brisbane, Australia at the time, and I said, I got this idea for business and I want to know if you want to be involved with it. It might give you something to do and, like, if you can source the product, I'll do the marketing. What do you think? And over a week or so, we talked about it and then we started the business. So I guess I have you to thank and for you to, like, be angry at in many. In many ways as well, because you're really the catalyst for putting the idea of that blue blocking business, which turned out to be Swanick Sleep, in my mind in the first place.

And it became $1 million business. And then it seemed like you beat your head against the wall for a long time. And recently there's been this brand new breakout success that I want to talk about that I just need to dissect. But it does seem like you were beating your head against the wall. Is that. That's not quite an outsider's view, because I was an advisor and we're friendly, but. But that was my perspective. Is that how it felt?

Yeah. The first two or three years were amazing. It gave me a lot of credibility in the e commerce world, in the marketing world. I'd never had a business or a significant business before.

And you had people talking about you that were influencers, and Dave Asprey's wearing your sunglasses, and you've got all kinds of people who are sporting them, not even knowing that it's you. They were really popular.

Yes. And I was living in Hollywood, California at the time, so I was going to a lot of parties where there were celebrities. And I would strategically bring two pairs of the Swannies, one for me. So they would, like, ask me, what are those glasses? And then I go, oh, I just happen to have another pair here. Put these on. And then I get a photo and use that in the marketing. I remember I went to Arnold Schwarzenegger's home up in Bel Air for his annual charity event, and I took two pairs of swannies, found myself in his kitchen about 10:30 at night at this party, and I was like, wearing these glasses thinking, please ask me about the glasses, please ask me about the glasses. He goes, what are those glasses? I go, well, they're blue blockers. And you Wear these and oh, I just happen to have another pair. Try them on. And then he would try them on. He's smoking a cigar. And then I would go and strategically stand next to him, get the photo and then put that on Instagram and social media on the website. It was cool.

It was really good pr. It's a good strategy.

You know, it was great. For the first two or three years my brother and I were working on it. And because we hadn't had success like this before, it was fun, you know, the challenges. But there was. But mostly it was fun. Then I think my brother and I had a few little family issues, you know, like big brother, little brother. And we kind of started to butt heads a bit and it became less fun and I started to. I simultaneously had started a stop drinking business. I had this little program called the 30 Day no Alcohol Challenge. I had stopped drinking alcohol myself in 2010. So at the same time as starting the Swanee's blue blocking business, almost exactly the same month I started this 30 day no alcohol challenge business. Now what happened was, is that the Suwannee's business took off and the stop drinking business did modestly well, maybe made $15,000 in sales in its first year. Nothing. Right. But as the three year mark came and Tristan and I started to butt heads a little bit, I was kind of. I started to pay a little bit more attention to the stop drinking business, less to the Swanee's. And then we kind of had a, I guess you could say a brotherly energetic break. Whereas before we were in alignment as partners, now we weren't as much at the beginning.

Sometimes it can be so fueled by just the excitement of the growth that it aligns all parties. Whereas when you start need to make strategic decisions and look at if we're in alignment on vision, all of a sudden personalities can come out. When you're too busy to focus on that stuff. We're just scrambling to keep up. But when you need to make strategic decisions, that's where there can be friction. It sounds like that is what you're describing.

Yeah. And I don't think either of us did a great job at knowing what the vision was because for years we were like, well, are we a blue blocking company? Are we a light company, A sleep company?

I remember you wrestling with that.

Yeah. So we didn't really have an identity. It was all well and good for two or three years being cool and making some good cash flow and like, this is great and giving me some recognition in marketing circles. But then it Kind of got to the point, well, okay, now are we going to be an enterprise and move forward and expand and grow? And at that point, I kind of just started to focus on other things and kind of. I wouldn't say I abandoned Tristan, but he started to take control of it and run it his way. And I kind of got distracted with other things. And the consequence of that was it just kind of drifted. And then we got into some really dire financial trouble around the pandemic. We overextended ourselves. We bought way too much inventory. It coincided with the time where sales dropped and it tied up most of our cash flow. And for about six to eight months there, I thought, wow, we're going to go bankrupt. Like, this is really tough.

Was the debt in financing inventory, financing debt, or were you in debt?

We had an SBA loan, definitely, and credit cards were maxed out, and the revenue that was coming in wasn't enough to pay off the debt, at least quickly enough. And we were just scrambling. And I remember, I remember I was back in Brisbane, Australia, where I'm from, and I was staying at my dad's place because I live over. I've been living over in the US But I was visiting. I remember waking up one morning at 5:30 facing, you know, probably close to a million dollars debt. It was a lot. And seriously considering going bankrupt and what am I going to do? And I remember I Woke up about 5:30. I'm like, how did my life end up like this? I'm 45 years old, facing bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. And I'm living with my dad. I'm like, how did life bring me here?

Thought I had a multimillion dollar business. I thought Arnold Schwarzenegger used my products.

Yeah. And I remember scrambling. I was phoning people. You were one of the folks that we phoned. And I really appreciated you giving us some support and guidance. And you made yourself available to us. So thank you, Ryan. And I phoned a lot of people. What was surprising is that a lot of the people I thought might give me time didn't. And people that I never in a million years thought would give me time actually reached out and said, hey, you want to jump on a call? So that was an interesting study of human beings and psychology and creating stories in my mind as to who were allies and maybe who weren't, and surprising allies shining through. But we just scraped, like, we just, you know, that movie and Any Given Sunday with Al Pacino, and he's doing that talk at the halftime in the final game, and he's saying football is a game, is a game of inches on this team. We scrape and we grind and we crawl for that inch. That was what my brother and I did to get out of that debt. We literally looked at the books and we scraped and we crawled and we like reached and we cut a little bit of savings here and we cut some overhead here and we made some sales here and we phoned a few people here and little by little, inch by inch, yard by yard, we made a lot of profit and we paid off the debt and we did that over the next two and a half years. It was a grind, but we got out of it. And not only did we get out of it, we're now an incredibly profitable, beautiful business. I mean, it's not making millions and millions and tens of millions and it's not buying us fancy houses, but it's a very good cash flow producing business. And now we've actually brought on strategic partners. It's somewhat of an, somewhat of an exit, I guess you could say. But my brother and I are retaining minority ownership in it and now we're really excited that someone else has seen the immense value of the business and they're coming in and they're going to take it to the, to the next phase.

It sounds like you got drunk, forgive the pun, since of your second business, but you got drunk on the, the excitement of this fast growing, ego boosting company. And then you had the hangover which is you, you made those decisions when you're drunk. You're like, we're gonna be amazing. I'm gonna be famous. We're gonna do. And so you leverage debt and SBA financing to try and go bigger because it's what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to grow. And you sobered up and were a million dollars in debt. But on the other side of earning your profitability, you now have a healthy business. The business is now appropriately positioned. It's now in a position where it can be what the community and the customer base needs it to be, not what James Ego needs it to be. Yes, that, that to me seems like the transformation of this brand. But how are you paying for your life when you were a million dollars in debt?

I mean, I still had my other business going on, which was my stop drinking coaching business, which is now like taken off into the stratosphere. So that was still paying me some cash flow. But at that, at that stage during the pandemic three or four years ago, that business wasn't in the stratosphere.

It was an inside thing, basically, Right? Yes. Yeah.

And so it's only been the last 18 months, two years, that that business has really taken off. So, yeah, I mean, I was making enough money to, you know, live. It wasn't like I was destitute or anything, but it was scary to have that much debt. And also, all the credit cards were in my name. The SBA loan was on in my name. Everything was in my name. And, you know, we did go for it, to use a baseball analogy, just before the pandemic, we swung for the fences and we said, let's grow. We're going to do this. And we really struck out. And then after that, it was like, okay, how do we play catch up here?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to hear about the 18 months, because you've gone from this struggling business that is fighting to get back just to neutrality to now having an eight figure business in, like, 18 months, which I know nothing about. But before we go there, tell me about the climb out of the million dollar hole. Were there changes in the business that caused it to grow again? Did you just need to reduce all growth expenditures so that you maintained regular sales? How did you start the climb out of a million dollars worth of debt?

We looked at the books.

It's a good start, James. Yeah.

It's ridiculous how we didn't look at the books with any regularity. We were just like, are we making profit?

Yeah.

Are we not making profit? I think we may have lost some money last month or the last couple of months, but we'll be okay. Do we make something? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fine. We're in the black. All right, cool. We just stopped looking at the books, at least in detail. And then when all of a sudden you're faced with this, oh, my goodness, we're in a bit of strife here now. You really look at the books. And so we did that for like, five straight days. I'm looking at it, and the more I looked, the more I didn't like what I saw. But that gave us strategic insight. It's like, okay, here's where we're bleeding. Here's where we're making some money. How profitable is Amazon compared to our Facebook advertising on Shopify? Are we actually getting organic sales from me, talking about the product on the podcast, our wholesale accounts, what percentage of revenue does that account for? I didn't know any of that stuff. I mean, I just kind of drifted away from the business. Tristan's putting out fires everywhere, running the business, so he kind of dropped the ball in terms of looking at the numbers with the same intent that we, in hindsight now, should have. So getting out of it was simply looking at. At the business.

That is fascinating to me because I thankfully have an executive assistant who lives and breathes the numbers and is very protective of the capital allocations we use. And. And she has helped pull me out of looking at the cash in the bank as a measure of success and looking at the P and L and the trends. And now I can look at things month by month and then quarter to quarter and year by year. And it brings this sense of calm that I didn't have before when it was just, I think we're doing good, I think we're growing. This number's moving forward. Let's pull some cash over here to support that number. So it sounds like you were starting to make more educated decisions based on the numbers. What did you conclude from those numbers? Was Amazon as profitable as you thought? Was the PR tour that you were doing as successful as you had hoped? What did you decide and change based on the numbers?

Amazon wasn't doing nearly as well as we thought it was, especially when we were spending money on Amazon. So the profit that we were generating was negligible. In fact, in for many of the campaigns.

We realized that Facebook actually was profitable. Like spending money on Facebook to drive people to the Shopify page actually was profitable. We also looked at it as that, interestingly, when we drove people from a Facebook ad to the main website, swanicksleep.com, that wasn't nearly as profitable as if we just drove them from swanicksleep.com to the products page. That was a big insight, which we changed overnight and just kept driving them to the product page. That made us increasingly profitable.

Wholesale. We realized that.

That was the most profitable for us if we could get a wholesale order. Now, Tristan did a fantastic job for two to three months of reaching out to anyone who we thought might place a wholesale order during that time. And Tristan and I are both former newspaper reporters and journalists. So we would literally, when we were journalists, have, say, 20 people that we'd try to phone and talk to, potentially interview, and maybe we'd get one or two people who'd actually pick up the phone and we could interview. So he used that same process that was ingrained in him from the journalism world in terms of reaching out to potential wholesalers. He did that for about two months. We had this little lead from a company called Sleep Number and the Bed. The mattress company, Right, the mattress company, yeah. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. But you know, it's like, oh, they're going to put in an order and they're not going to put in an order. But he reached out to them, made contact there and about five, six months after we were like, doom and gloom. This is horrendous. Sleep number put in a multi six figure order for the Swanees and just went bang. Here's a whole bunch of cash. We'll take this. We're going to put them in our stores, we're going to sell them as accessories to our mattresses, etc. And just like that, we knocked out a huge amount of the debt.

One relationship.

One relationship, One order. One order.

But it took seven months to mature.

Yes, yes. And I remember he told me, I was walking in Manhattan in New York at the time and he called me and he said I was Sleep number, just put in this order. I'm like, what? Because yeah, he just put in. They just put in this order. I'm like, oh my God. So what's the financial significance of that? And then we talked about it and we're like, wow, we're going to knock out like a massive chunk of that debt in one hit. Now that wasn't the only thing that saved us. Right. It was these little things like, okay, now we're actually going to focus on making Amazon profitable. It was a little things like understanding that a Facebook ad to the Shopify store, to the products page was much more profitable than sending it to the website. It was cutting costs here. It was ending relationships with expensive digital advertisers.

Yeah.

And actually bringing someone in inhouse. I actually brought in a guy named Felix Miller who's a great friend of mine. He lives in Bali. He was very cost effective for us in terms of charging us a very nominal amount to run the Facebook advertising. I'm so appreciative. Appreciative of him for doing that because what I was paying him is quite good for living in Bali, Indonesia. But that kept the cost down. We had a 10k a month digital advertiser. Then we brought it down to like 1500, 2000amonth. That helped the overhead.

Yeah.

So one big relationship. Cutting costs, getting rid of expensive people, getting lean, looking at the books. And also one great hire, I have to say. There was a wonderful woman named Michelle Hurley and out of Canada, and we hired her at the recommendation of a mutual friend of ours, Chad, who's in a mastermind group of ours. She had experience of running lean e commerce businesses. She really put structure into the day to day as well. And she was a profound hire. So I would just say the little things. Looking at the books, one big relationship and one amazing strategic hire.

Was climbing out of that hole fun?

No, it was horrendous. I mean, coming out of the hole, I wouldn't say that it was fun. It was completely relieving, though. It was like. The sense of relief was amazing once you got out. You thought, once we got out. But no, it wasn't fun. No. I guess I could have looked at it as fun, but I didn't. I chose to look at it as probably a not preferable way, which is, this is a nightmare. This could be horrible. This is horrendous. My ego is just being destroyed.

Interesting, because my experience has been when you. When you swallow the. The humility pill and you realize you're. Unless you change, that hurts so bad. And then every little inch forward gets a little bit more and more exciting. It's like I've. I've carved out a path, and if I'm making progress, it feels energizing. Maybe fun isn't the right word, but energizing, focusing, clarifying, purposeful. I feel those things. The thing that I avoid is swallowing the humble pill because nobody wants to admit that they up and they've got to go back to zero and start carving out the path. But as soon as I do it, as soon as gets bad enough that I accept where I'm at, the climb out is miserable and then clarifying and then energizing and then purposeful. And I. That momentum really fuels me. Does that describe your experience or is it pain, Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain relief.

Tony Robbins says progress equals happiness. The progress for me, during, let's call it those eight months where we're really struggling was relief. So it wasn't joy, it wasn't fun. It wasn't like, oh, great, we're going into battle together, Justin. It was. We gotta get out of this. This sucks. Like, I didn't want to be doing. I didn't want to be dragged back into that business. And candidly, I hadn't been in that business really with any great level of attention for some time. I was really focusing on this other business. So I kind of had this resentment that I was back, having to crawl my way out of this debt. So, no, I didn't experience joy. I experienced relief. But I can say now, four years later, sitting here.

I love the fact that we went through that because I've got the battle scars and I ain't gonna do what I did then. You know, now in my other business, the stop drinking business, we look at the books. We have a cfo, I've hired a mentor who used to be the CEO of a billion dollar business, who he himself was mentored by, the former CEO of Disneyland and the former CEO of Taco. And he is so thorough about books and making data driven strategic decisions. We weren't making data driven strategic decisions when we got ourselves into the shit. So I don't look back on it fondly, but I look back on it and go, wow, it's really shaped the entrepreneur I am now and who I'm going to be later and where, you know, who I'm embodying now, which is far superior than what that version of James was.

So once you're out of that dark pit of debt, what position is the business in at that point? Profitable. Growing. Yeah, Steady profitable.

In actual fact, because we were in that debt, it forced us to be profitable.

Yeah.

So literally, we have had almost four years of every single month being profitable. It's an amazing business. Because it was a shit business.

Yes.

It's crazy, like, and we resisted the urge. There were so many people during the last four years. He's like, oh, you should scale this. You should scale your ads. You should do this. Hire us. We'll like take you to the moon. We'll do all this kind of stuff. I was like, nope, nope, nope. We're just going to stick on this formula. We're just going to grind it out and just be a profitable lean company. We're going to pay down the debt. Pay down the debt. Pay down the debt. Pay down the debt. And then when we paid down the debt, and now all of a sudden we're building up the cash reserves, the cash reserves, the cash reserves. And people are like, oh, you should spend that money on this. And this is like, right? No, we're just going to have a war chest. Would literally just like, we are sitting on cash in that business.

And that's a new experience for you.

Completely new experience. And the strategic acquirer, let's say, of the business loves that because when he came in and looked at the books, he's like, oh, gee, you guys have been, you guys have been great for the past, like two or three years. Just a question, why haven't you ever scaled? And we're like, well, because we've been just like paying down, paying down, paying down debt, wanted to stay lean. And they're like, okay, got it. That's exciting.

Yeah, that's fantastic. At what point did your attention start to go into the new business? Because you've got your attention on this thing that is getting profitable and making progress and getting out of debt. And at that time, the stop drinking business is still not scaling to the moon. But at some point, it seems like that just got lit on fire in a positive way. So where did that fall into the story?

There were two big inflection points in the stop drinking coaching business. One of them was in the end of 2018, and I joined a mastermind. This mastermind was $7,500 a month to be in. It was like 90 grand a year. I'm thinking, am I really gonna do this? But it was filled with people who are running coaching businesses and they were scaling high ticket offers. And when I joined, the only program I had was this $67, 30 day no alcohol challenge program. And when I joined it, they kind of opened my eyes.

Why did you spend $7,500 a month on a coaching program when all you had was A$67 a month quit drinking challenge?

Because I knew that to hold me accountable, to level up and to create a high ticket coaching program, I needed to spend that money. It was kind of like the price of admission. And I knew that as soon as I let that Amex gold card get charged the $7,500, my focus was going to go here. Because when you pay, you pay attention. So I'd had the business at that stage almost four years, and it was, you know, it was okay. It was doing modestly well, but I knew it was capable of a lot more. That's why I spent the money. And when I was in that, sure enough, within three or four weeks of me being in that program, I suddenly changed the price point from $67 to $6,500. And I added a weekly zoom coaching call. That was the only difference. So selling a 30 day program for $67. Then I changed it to a $6,500 program. I'm sorry, there were two changes and change it to a 90 day program. So. So a weekly call, 12 zoom calls group. And I remember I was on the phone with a prospect and I got went through the whole sort of sales talk, et cetera, et cetera. And he asked me what the price was. And I said, It's $6,500. And I just stayed quiet.

I was like waiting.

He said, okay, is that like one payment or can I break it up? I was thinking, oh my God, this guy's Gonna pay me $6,500 for this thing. Anyway, I took his credit card and I processed it. And in that moment, my belief system went from, why would anyone pay me to help them stop drinking? They can go to AA, it's free. Why would anyone pay me more than $67 when I've been selling a program for $67 for three years? Whole belief system changed. Now $6,500. And then over the next two years, I just price tested it, tried 20 grand, tried 3,500, tried 10, tried 12, tried 12 and a half, settled on the price that it's been now for at least two years, and then just kind of polished it, polished it, polished it. And then when I introduced paid advertising, because I was just doing organic, then we really found a sweet spot.

In.

Terms of lead generation. Building a sales team.

Yes. Yeah. So we did Facebook ads, started doing hooks around stopping drinking alcohol. One big shift, in addition to raising the price and making it a 90 day program as opposed to a 30 day program, was getting very clear on the avatar that I wanted to serve. So for the first four or five years, I was trying to help everyone stop drinking.

It was about the problem you were solving.

Yes. But then I changed it to we help high achievers to stop drinking. And a high achiever is a CEO, an executive, a business owner, a physician, a pilot, a chiropractor, an attorney, a lawyer.

For two reasons. One, I just wanted to hang out with other business owners and entrepreneurs like I wanted to support them. And two, candidly, that demographic has more money to invest in their personal development. I got tired of people who were paying $67, who were complaining about customer service and doing refunds and cancellations. And I decided I wanted to support a more, let's say better educated, more articulate demographic.

Well, I mean, to be fair, you paid $7,500 a month. That's what it took to get your attention to focus on something. In the same way a high achiever has to pay a certain amount of money to prioritize something.

Yes.

And so in a way, you are doing them a service by having a high price point because it gets them to focus on the transformation that they want to go through anyway, that they are not going to get by attending a free AA meeting. Not because it doesn't work, not because it's not helpful, but because it won't get them to focus on the transformation versus if they've got ten grand on the line or whatever they paid. Now they are forced to focus on the transformation and get the most out of the program. And so by giving that higher ticket offer to the people who can pay it, you give them an option that they didn't previously have. This is the beauty of having high margin businesses is you get the customers who are willing to pay a premium to go through the same transformation.

When you pay, you pay attention. And so when someone's paying 10 grand, 15 grand, 25 grand to get stop drinking services for a year, they pay attention, they show up. As opposed to the argument from AA, which is why wouldn't you just go to AA? It's free. Well, that's why AA has a less than 10% success rate. It does. It's helped millions of people, but it hasn't helped 10 times as many people who've tried it. Yeah, AA is free. And studies suggest it has less than a 10% success rate. My stop drinking process, it's called Project 90. It's a 90 day stop drinking process. The University of Washington out of Seattle did a scientific study on it. In the first quarter of 2022, they found a 98% reduction in drinking amongst the participants. Now why is that? Well, part of the reason is that those participants actually paid to participate. So they did pay a nominal fee to be in it. And because they paid, they paid attention. But also because we bring in neuroscience and we're very uplifting as opposed to aa, which is, which can be lamenting the past, focusing on shame, making amends, having to say you're an alcoholic when most people I would submit, are not alcoholics. So for a combination of having folks pay, putting them in a like minded community of high achievers, not a community, but a like minded community, plus introducing some empowering and neuroscience based beliefs and rewiring some mindsets. That's why I would submit it has such a high success rate.

Hey everyone, I hope that you are enjoying this conversation so far. This is normally where I would put a call to action or an ad read for somebody else's business. But instead, my only ask in this podcast is that you like the video and you subscribe to the channel. You might be able to tell that we're trying to up the game here@capitalism.com and we're trying to bring you the most helpful guests on your road to building a multi seven figure, even an eight figure net worth. We're here to support in the trenches entrepreneurs and you can help us serve you and the rest of the community by taking two seconds to like this video and subscribe to the channel. And my promise to you is that when you do that we'll use that to leverage our audience to bring the most helpful people on your journey to success. All right, back to the episode with James. You mentioned that when you took the first transaction of $6,500, there were some beliefs that were broken. What changed about how you viewed business overall when you saw that you could charge that amount of money for the same thing that you had been selling for $67?

The belief, the new belief was, is that people will invest in the outcome. They won't invest in features. They'll invest in the benefits and the outcome. So if I can get you the.

I'm paying $6,500 to stop drinking, correct. I'm not paying $6,500 for the nine videos.

Correct.

I'm paying $6, 500 to make this problem go away.

Yes, heard. And a lot of salesmen.

I need that reminder, like, every 90 days. It's bizarre.

Well, I'll tell you what. Just pay me $10,000, and I'll remind you every 90 days. Ryan. No problems at all. I'll take your money.

Thanks, Coach. When I pay, I pay attention.

I see a lot of marketers selling features. I see and hear recordings of salesmen selling features. Nobody cares about how many videos you got or even how long it takes. In most cases, they just care about the outcome. And in my case, in this business, the outcome is stop drinking alcohol. But more than that, the outcome. The outcome is I save my marriage. I'm more present with my children. I reverse health challenges. I feel better about myself. Another big thing I'm noticing as well in the marketing is that helping people.

Escape their pain, get away from their pain, stop their pain, is so much more powerful than selling all of the benefits that you're going to get from being alcohol free. So in our marketing, 90% of it, 90% of our marketing is, do you have marital strain? Do you hate who you see in the mirror? Are your kids drifting away from you because you're not present with them? Do you have high blood pressure? Do you have trouble sleeping in the night? And that leads to irritability and fogginess and distractedness? Do you make poor decisions? Is your business suffering? Are you in the drift? Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. And when a prospect no longer wants that pain, that's when they'll reach into their pocket, pull out their credit card, and they'll pay you $6,500, $10,000, $25,000, because they don't want that pain anymore. What I used to do in an earlier version of the stop drinking business was, hey, do you want to stop drinking and feel clarity and focus and energy and get the body of your dreams and do all these kind of amazing things? That's what an alcohol free lifestyle is. That resonated with some people. We made some sales, we transformed some lives with that as the perceived benefits. But not nearly as much as when you say, do you want to avoid this pain? Are you sick of the pain? Are you sick and tired? Are feeling sick and tired and the person who's watching that ad or listening to the salesperson is like, yes, yes, yes, yes, take my money. I don't want this pain anymore.

Is this the biggest business that you've ever built? Yes, in 18 months?

Yes. Well, I've had the business for 10 years, but in 18 months it's gone from a seven figure business to a seven figure a month business.

Wow.

Walk me through that a little bit more because that's a transformation I'm wanting to go through. Right. And I've been, we've been growing incrementally.

You know, from 1 million to 2 to 4, which is great. But that jump to a million dollars a month in 18 months is wild. So was it cracking in the lead acquisition and the messaging that gave you the fuel to be able to close the number of new customers you needed? Or like, what levers did you pull here?

I know you want the thing.

Yeah, of course, of course. Not only that, I want the pill that I can swallow so that I don't have to do any work. James, I'll pay 10 grand for that. Yes, of course, Yes. I know that it's, it's a process and there's lots of things. But what's different about your business today than 18 months ago?

For the first eight years of the business, I treated it as a lifestyle business. It did modestly well, created some good cash flow. I went and lived in Bali. I went and lived in New York and L. A and I traveled the world and had a great lifestyle. And then about 18 months, two years ago, I started taking it very seriously. I made one really great hire. A friend of mine who came into the business, had a look and said, what do you want to do with the business? And I said, well, I'd like to just keep growing it. And he said, well, I think that I can come in and put some systems and processes in place and really help you with that. And I went, okay. So that one hire has been profound. Certainly.

I wouldn't say I got rid of. But we parted ways with some People in the business who were really solid, sevens out of ten, they did good work, sometimes very good work, sometimes mediocre work, good work. And it was very challenging for me to have to part ways with that type of energy because that person's been with me for two, three years and they've been doing good work. There's an argument to say, well, just keep that person. But I decided that from this point on, we were going to be a players with a player mindset, and we were going to hire and attract the best people and we were going to level up our game. So I had to have painful conversations with at least two people who'd been with me and supporting that lifestyle business for a couple of years, and we parted ways.

So that, that, to me sounds like what changed is that something changed in your mindset, in your. The way that you viewed business business. Did that come from the mastermind you were paying for, the coach that you hired? What gave you that confidence to say, I'm now going to look at my business from the perspective of operating like an A player?

What comes to my mind is I'm going to be 50 this year. All right? So at the time when I was thinking that I was 47 and time started to become a real factor in my life, I'm like, okay, I've had this great lifestyle business from 37 to 47. I'm going to be 50 in a couple of years. This is it. Like, go for it. You've got the foundation here of a great business. Just change your thinking. Just level up. This is it. It's not go and chase a shiny new rabbit. It's not like, this has been fun. I'm going to go start a new business. I'm like, I'm going to be 50 in three years. I've already got this great foundation. Just bring in a players, polish, raise the prices, deliver a great product. You already know everyone that you need to know to get support from. You don't need to go and join a new mastermind. You don't need to go and hire all these new people and get this new insight and this new funnel and listen to all these podcasts and watch more YouTube videos. You already know everything. You've been doing this for 10 years. Just shift slightly from lifestyle business to, let's take this seriously. Let's focus. And then thinking about time, you know, I was like, okay, let's go for it. So then it was easy to hire the friend who came in who was clearly an A player, and then it was Challenging to part ways with those, let's call them, B players. But then I brought in A players and now we only bring in who I perceive to be A players. And just that personnel change and that mindset shift from near enough is good enough or good enough is good enough to let's push each other. How much further can we go? But do it really in a really fun, energetic way. That's been a huge change.

At what point in this process was the other business getting paid off? When did you. You said it was about two or three years ago that you made the mental shift to go all in on the business. That is now eight figures. When did the debt get paid off?

Around that same time.

Okay. Do you think there's a relationship there?

Yes. Yeah.

Tell me, Tell me why.

Well, it's an energy drip. When you're worried about the debt and you're focused over here, it's distracting you from this. Right. So then if my nervous system can calm down because the debt's been paid off and now whatever we do from this point on is profit and we can just grow it. And yes, I've got to come back and look at the business and make some strategic choices. But now that negative dire energy is gone. Now I can feel really energized about this stop drinking business and put 95% of my attention here. So, yeah, I can see that correlation for sure.

I can relate to a lot of that because I bought a business eight years ago that I was servicing the debt on for a long time. And once that was paid off, it took about a year for me to adjust to, oh, I'm not paying off debt. Now I'm saving money and now I'm investing. And then some investments didn't go so well, and then it's now I'm investing wisely. Now I'm starting to get that energy again where I can say, oh, there's excess. And with that excess, if I'm in a fearful state, I want to hold onto it or put it in something safe. But when I'm in a calm state, I think, how can I deploy this to make the business better? How can I deploy this to do excellent work? That's a better word. How can I invest this to do to create more energy for myself and my customers? And that's a different way of thinking about it than what has the highest return or what is going to make me feel safe. One is an extractive energy and one is more of a creative, playful, also wise energy to it. And it sounds like that that is what happened for you when you paid off the debt.

Yes.

And. And started to put your focus into growing the thing that had the most energy.

Yeah. I mean, I say this with our stop drinking clients all the time. Think about all the time that you're thinking about drinking, preparing for drinking, drinking, recovering from drinking, lamenting the drinking, and then thinking about drinking, preparing for drinking, drinking, and you're in that cycle. Same thing with business. If you're thinking about the debt, you're thinking about the pain, you're thinking about the suffering, you're thinking about it, you're preparing. How do I get out of this? That energy is preventing you from being freed up to actually go. How do I create magic in the world? Like, how do I make this be simple and fun and lucrative and really get the clients having tremendous breakthroughs? So a lot of times it's the removal of the bad which lets the energetic and the strategic thinking shine through. Another thing that was interesting as well, I love my stop drinking business. Like, I love it and I love the client transformations. And so that has really propelled the business forward as well. Because I was guilty in the past of looking at my clients as a number. What's the cost per acquisition? Yeah. What's the conversion rate?

Data. It's numbers on a screen and data.

Is important and we are a data driven company. But I have now let in the clients. I get to know them, I know them on a first name basis. Not all of them, admittedly, because there's so many of them now. But previously when clients would say, thank you so much, James, you've helped save my life, I'd go, oh, you're welcome, that's nice. And I just kind of like get on with my day and go, right, what's the cost per acquisition? What's the click through rate on the Facebook ads? How many people do we need? How much of the coach is going to cost?

Who's next? What's the next transaction that's going to come in the door?

Yes, that's important. I'm not saying that it isn't, but when I have allowed myself to really connect to the clients and the client shares their pain and then three months later they share their breakthrough and they say things like, james, I'm now speaking to my teenage daughter again. She wouldn't talk to me. And now I am. Thank you so much. There's a gentleman called Robert. He's been in our program now for a year. He's a year alcohol free. And he came up to me at our Annual retreat recently. And he showed me a photo of his daughter, who's about 19. And he's just like, james, I want to show you something. I said, okay, Robert. Yeah. He goes, look at that. I'm looking at that. I'm going, okay, I'm looking at a quite attractive, you know, late teenage woman. And he was just silent. I looked up at him and there were tears in his eyes. And he said, you gave me this back. You gave me my relationship with my daughter back. Thank you so much. And that. That hit me. And previously, it maybe would not have hit me, but now I'm letting it in. And because of that, you know how that shows up? It shows up that I can now share that story. Excuse me. On Facebook ads. I can share that story on a podcast. I can share that now in a conversation with you. And hopefully the listener or the viewer resonates with that and goes, oh, okay, this isn't about.

But only if you let it hit you.

Only if you let it hit you.

See, because I used to do the same thing where I would be listening, but I'd also be crafting the ad in my mind based on what they were saying. And so now I'm creating a logical communication about this person's transformation. But when I really let that hit me and I write or speak from that place, that is what brings in more of that type of energy.

Yes.

That's the weird, you know, woo, woo. Part of this is when. When I. When I infuse what I create with the energy that I'm feeling, We always are. That's what we get more of. And so before I would get those types of testimonials, and it wouldn't. First of all, it wouldn't make me feel good. I would just be like, yeah, thank you very much. And then I didn't know how to channel that into getting more of that. So once it hits and you allow that to hit now, that gives you a charge of wanting to get more people like Robert, you realize that there are many more other people like Robert that need your help.

Yes.

And that. That's when you really start caring and loving your clients.

That's the difference when you start really caring and loving your clients. And I was out to dinner with some mutual friends of ours last night, a business mastermind, and one of the guys was talking about how he had a coffee business. He was selling coffee, and it was doing particularly well, but he was sharing how he felt a little hollow, a little dead, because he never interacted with the customers. He Was seeing sales, it was profitable, but there wasn't like that emotional connection. I feel like I have reached entrepreneurial utopia with this stop drinking business. Because I don't know of many other businesses or people or organizations in the world that can create generational positive impact in people's lives than helping them get off drugs, including alcohol. I didn't coin that term. A mutual friend of ours, Ryder, Ryder Sloat, who's over in Ibiza, he's in a business mastermind of ours, also an.

Investor in Falcon Fulfillment.

Amazing. Yeah. He was saying to me in Ibiza last August, he said, james, do you realize what you've just achieved? And I said, what entrepreneurial utopia? I'm like, what are you talking about? And he said, well, you think about it. Why do entrepreneurs start a business? Well, they want to make money, they want to make an impact, they want to change the world, et cetera. But if you can create transformative change in a customer or a client and they thank you profusely from the bottom of their heart, and you have positively impacted them and you get paid and you make a profit, you have reached entrepreneurial utopia. And I was sitting there and the reason he brought it up was because I was showing him the sales figures of our stop drinking. And he was flabbergasted because, like you, he's known me for 10 years. And when I was kind of doing little lifestyle businesses and things, he was like, james, that's the most incredible thing that I think I've ever seen. You are saving people's lives, saving people's marriages, reconnecting with their children, reversing health challenges, and you get paid to do it. That's entrepreneurial utopia. And so when you're talking about that, any entrepreneur watching this, my invitation would be whatever you can, irrespective of the business. Try your best to connect to the customer and the client, hear their stories, pick up the phone, speak with them, get to know them on an emotional level, because that will drive your business, that will fuel your energy.

Yes, you fall in love with the customer.

Yes.

The products just become a vehicle for their transformation. And this is what is so hard for those of us who cut our teeth in the e commerce world, because it's all about the product and how the product stands out and what is the cost per click and the conversion rate. And I think it's why my message has sort of stood the test of time, because you choose the person first, you fall in love with their transformation. And the products are the things that they purchase to make Their transformation easier and faster. That to me is the soul of a business. And without it, you're just hawking products on the Internet. And what I'm hearing you say is that you went from not hawking products but selling things to falling in love with your customer. And that was a gradual process. But when you made the full decision to go all in on that transformation, the business also transformed.

Yes, that's exactly right. Well put. That was probably the single biggest factor in the transformation. And of course, there's funnels, there's Facebook ads, there's cost per click, there's cost per acquisition position. You got to know all that stuff.

But it changes your copy. Right. It changes the way that you structure your ads.

Yes.

When I'm thinking about just how do I maximize my dollars per customer in a funnel, I'm not thinking about how much love I have for the customer, I'm thinking about the numbers. But when I think about getting the perfect customer that I can create the most value for, I write differently. And it might be a sacrifice of short term economics for long term transformation, but it is that long term transformation that brings the economics over the long term too. So I cut you off. I'm sorry. There are funnels and there are P. Ls and there's all this stuff.

Yeah. Another great tool I've used is just candidly, chatgpt. And so what I'll.

What's that?

What I've done recently is I've got the notes from sales calls from the last hundred clients, and that will detail the name, age, the profession, their pain, the perceived benefits from stopping drinking, whether they're married, whether they've got kids. So we have all of that in notes. Right. Because we have these enrollment calls. I take all of that Data, the last 100 clients, and I put it in a chat GBT. And I say.

Review our last hundred clients and then write me a summary of what their pain points are, what are the patterns of their pain, what's the pattern of their profession? Where do they live in the US how much money do they make? What's the benefit they'll get from not drinking alcohol? Give me a review of that and within seconds, ChatGPT will literally listen. Our dream avatar, their pains, their wants, their desires, their financial capabilities, their professions. And I look at that and I go, that's my dream avatar. That's who I support. And then that shows up in Facebook advertising. It shows up on podcast interviews. It shows up when I'm talking to the clients. They understand, they think, James Gets me like James really understands me. Well, absolutely I do because I've been reading about you and I've been talking to you and I've been engaging you. That's a great way to get to know your dream customer and client.

It's beautiful. So you have a book coming out? Yeah.

Yes.

And you wrote it for this ideal customer, I assume?

I did.

Tell me about it.

It's called Clear, the only neuroscience based approach to help high achievers finally break free from alcohol. So high achievers can be business owner, entrepreneur, executive, a parent, someone who's well educated, articulate, very successful in their profession or in many areas of their life. They've been able to solve basically all or many of life's problems except alcohol.

This is for alcoholics or people who want to stop drinking, I should say. But do the same rules apply for other addictions too?

So to be clear, I submit most people who are referring to themselves as alcoholics are not alcoholics. And a lot of the book is aimed at rewiring that mindset. In fact, in modern medicine, the term alcoholic and alcoholism doesn't even exist anymore. It's alcohol use disorder. When people are walking around saying, I'm an alcoholic, they're basically taking on an identity. I'm stuck, I'm powerless over this disease. It runs in my family. This is just who I am. No. From what we understand now from neuroscience and understanding positive psychology, alcohol use disorder is temporary. Yes, you're experiencing something, but it's a temporary disorder that we can remove. I would submit the best ways, the way that we do it through neuroscience and focusing on choosing an alcohol free lifestyle as opposed to saying no to alcohol and white knuckling it over here, that is completely ineffective. And I've been doing this now for 10 years. I've thoroughly researched this for the book and my submission is that.

Most people are mistakenly believing that they have an alcohol problem when really they just have a temporary, temporary challenge with alcohol. With some neuroscience and some positive mindset shifts, they can remove that and love living an alcohol free lifestyle.

I'm glad you went down this, this direction because I would have, I would never, never thought that recovering addict would be on my resume. And I've never had a problem with alcohol, never. But I had a real problem with a substance called Kratom and I had long Covid.

Well, after I had Covid in, in 21, I had real bad and Kratom popped me right out. You know, oh my God. I thought I had my energy back, I had my clarity back. But at some point it became more harmful than it was helpful. And I think there are people who have positive relationships with that. You know, you can get addicted, addicted to anything. Right. And in this case I realized I was, I was addicted to, and trying to stop meant nothing. Choosing a different life gave me the vision for me to be able to go through the withdrawal period. That was awful. But short of three days of choosing, I'm going to have three to seven days of pain. Choosing it, almost viewing it like pulling yourself out of a million dollars worth of debt and saying.

I will earn this battle scar. It's the same idea of taking the humble pill and realizing you're fucked and then making that steady climb out and wasn't fun or easy. But I can tell I've never been more proud of myself as the three months after I kicked a two year long habit of use, it's been two years since I've touched that. And once again, it's one of those things where.

I think you can have a very healthy relationship with something like that. I think I have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I might have a glass of wine once or twice a month. I couldn't have that with that substance. And so that's why I ask if this is the same for other substances. And it sounds like that tweak of not stopping something, but creating a different vision for your life, a better vision, and realizing that this substance or this addiction or even this person is in the way of that vision that I want to create makes it a problem to solve or manage rather than an identity that needs to be undone.

Well said. Most people are focusing on what they don't want to happen. Don't drink, I need to stop. I have to be sober. I can't drink. I got to stop this. And so of course what happens is the reticular activating system, which is a bundle of nerves in our brain, doesn't hear the don't part, it just hears the drinking.

Yeah.

So the analogy is if you're skiing and you're going down the hill, you might be saying to yourself, don't go towards the trees, don't fall over. And then you invariably go towards the trees and fall over. But why? Because you just told yourself, don't do that. The mind doesn't understand that. Whereas over here instead, well, let me go back here, instead of don't drink, I shouldn't drink, I need to stop. You just do what I call the flipperoonie, which is.

I get to be alcohol free, I'm going To drink soda water, ice and a piece of lime tonight.

Wow.

I'm going to go straight up to the bar and I'm going to go, give me a soda water with a splash of cranberry. I'm going to be alcohol free tonight and I'm going to choose this lifestyle. I'm going to sleep so great tonight. I'm going to have the most fun at this party tonight being alcohol free.

That's funny you bring up that example because when I'm not sure if I'm going to drink, sometimes I play this, what do I want more? Do I want to drink and have a good night or do I want to sleep really well? And it is a choice and sometimes I choose one and sometimes I choose the other. But it is a choice to sleep really good that night and it's a neutral choice. I don't feel as though I'm giving up anything. It's like choosing chocolate or vanilla.

What's interesting about the way you said that was that one of the choices was I'm going to drink tonight and have really sorry, I'm going to drink tonight and have fun or I'm going to choose to sleep well tonight.

So there's assumption of no fun in that. Yeah, not drinking.

And most people do it. Don't be down on yourself about that. Most people associate not drinking with being dull, boring, pain and drinking with fun and entertainment and bonding and relationship and romance and celebration. I say we have it all backwards. The fun is being alcohol free. The fun is being present and having deep, meaningful conversations and having the energy to dance on tables if that's what you're into, without having to drink attractively packaged poison.

But cultural conditioning is the way it is and there are smiling assassins everywhere. And a smiling assassin is the waiter or the waitress who's saying, hello, Mr. Moran, can I get you a drink? They're effectively saying, hello, Mr. Moran, can I get you a glass of regret and shame? Oh, hello, Mr. Swanick, can I get you 10 pounds of unwanted body fat? That's essentially what they're inviting you to consume. And hosts of party, they're being very hospitable. They're being polite, they're courteous, like, hey, Ryan, can I get you a drink? James, can I get you a drink? We've got beer, wine, what can I get you? And they're smiling as they do it. And so the association is, alcohol equals good times and bonding and pleasure and not drinking equals dull and boring and pain.

I mean, I think a good night's Sleep is pretty awesome. I mean it's a luxurious thing that I get to choose. But irrespective of the choice, what I'm hearing you say is that you're painting a different future and a more positive outcome. And then the thing in the way is just a problem to manage. It's kind of like when I was trying to lose weight, trying to cut, all I could think about was fricking food. But when I am choosing fitness or I'm choosing a good night's sleep or I'm choosing six pack abs, all of a sudden the hunger craving or the late night munchies, all this is ah, problem to manage. I chew, choose this higher energy outcome that I want and it becomes a temporary annoying problem. Not this thing that has been this debilitating thing that sops up all my energy. That that's, that's what I am processing. I'm hearing you say that the name.

Of our organization is Alcohol free Lifestyle. You are choosing a lifestyle. Let's break down the word lifestyle, a style of life. And that choice is I'm going to consider myself a professional sleeper. I'm going to make good nutritional choices. When I wake up in the morning, I'm not going to reach for the phone. First thing I'm going to go outside and get some sunlight. I'm going to write down what I call the Daily 20 which is 20 things that you're grateful for each day. Not three, not five, that's cute, but 20. I'm going to live a life of appreciation instead of expectation. I'm going to surround myself with like minded, uplifting people like Ryan, you are to me. I'm going to choose conscious communication. I'm going to go to a Tony Robbins seminar, for example. I'm going to invest in personal development. I'm going to invest in my growth that is a lifestyle. And when you are alcohol free, you are choosing an alcohol free lifestyle. And for me I've had a life with alcohol and a life without. And without has given me clarity, focus, energy and amazing romantic relationship. Great connections. Yes, I still get stress and anxiety from time to time. It wasn't particularly pleasant when I was going through the swanic sleep debt challenges. But I tell you what, it would have been a lot worse if I was drinking. So I invite you and invite anyone who's interested to really look into what will an alcohol free lifestyle look for you. Because I tell you it is far superior than one with alcohol.

The book's called Clear.

Clear.

James, I just gotta tell you this is Weird for me to say to another man, but I'm super proud of you. I have known you for over a decade and I have seen you start a business that becomes a million dollar business. I have seen you beat your head against the wall trying to make it work. I have seen you wrestle with purpose. And to see you at. Are you almost 53?

50 this September.

To see you almost 50 and what appears to me to be entering the best stage of your life ever, that's inspiring. For me at 37, who still has ups and downs and we all do. But to look ahead and say, man, if I can be like James In 13 years, I'm going to be hitting my best years ever. It's really inspiring. So I'm proud of you as a friend and I'm inspired by this new chapter of growth that you've deliberately chosen and earned. So congratulations, my friend.

Thank you, Ryan. I really appreciate that. You've been a great ally of mine and my brothers now for many years and so I really appreciate you. And I will just end by saying this. I never thought that I'd be super happy about approaching 50, but I tell you, I am so excited by it. Like this is actually the best phase of life. It really is. And I never believed that before. And I think if you just consistently commit to being around great people and being growth minded and for me it's been alcohol free, man, all the joys of life gets to keep on happening and I'm excited for the 50s.

It's beautiful. Good to see you, James. Good to see you. Go buy his book. That's a wrap.

Cool.

That was fantastic.

Good. Thanks, man. Alex.

Oh, he's there. We're wrecked. That was fantastic. If this is your first time interacting with James, then what you see is a cool story from a well spoken dude who's now making a lot of money. What you don't see see is the 10 years that I saw of James, of him trying and pressing and beating his head against the wall until finally things started to work. He finally started to have a mindset shift and that shift put him on a different trajectory. I saw that because I knew James for a long time. Most of you didn't get to see that. So if you're going through one of those periods in which you are beating your head against the wall wondering if anything is ever going to work, I just want you to know that that is normal for the people like James and people like me and most of the successful entrepreneurs that I know. And I also hope that by listening to James and hearing my story and being surrounded by the community of entrepreneurs that we attempt to bring you@capitalism.com that it will save you a few years of that blood, sweat, tears and strife and stress and sleepless nights. And we can bring you that breakthrough much earlier in your journey. Because I believe that entrepreneurs and capitalists create change better than governments, better than politicians. It's entrepreneurs and capitalists who who move society forward. If you agree with that, my ask from you is that you subscribe to the channel and that you like this video. Because it's my attempt to bring you more people like James who can support you on your journey and save you years of stress so that you can have the same type of success that James has enjoyed now, but that you get to enjoy it without a decade and a half of stress beforehand. My name is Ryan Daniel Moran. I run capitalism. Com and we help entrepreneurs build seven figure businesses and have multimillion dollar exits. Thank you for being here and I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.