How To Grow A Low Margin Business, And Why Capitalism Is NOT Evil | #FFLTV Ep 14

Gotta get Jesus jazzered up. Gotta put on our baker's pants.

Put on your baker's pants. Capitalism this is freedom. Fastlane TV Episode 14.

What's up fastlaners? I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and today we're going to be looking at your responses to to why you don't like capitalism. We'll look at how you promote a business with low profit margins, analyze how health and fitness play into being an entrepreneur, and we'll analyze a business about baby makers. You'll see what I mean. Let's do it.

A few weeks ago I Posted on the Capitalism.com Facebook page a video inviting people to simply say why they don't like capitalism. Here@the capitalism.com office, we believe that there's not a fixed pie. We believe that capitalism is the one place in the world where it pretty much violates the law of thermodynamics because it brings new value into the marketplace and it makes everyone better off. If you have a value driven business, meaning you're creating value for people, then your customers are better off, you are better off, all investors, stakeholders and employees are all better off than if your business did not exist. We think that is fairly self evident. So we put it out into the Facebook world. How dangerous. I know we asked people to say why don't you like capitalism? And we're gonna respond to some of the comments that we received.

Kevin Carney says capitalism is good. Capitalism has run amok these past 50 years. This crony capitalism where legislation itself is for sale is not good. Adam Smith himself believed in regulated markets and appropriate government spending.

Adam Smith and pretty much all free market economists would believe in regulated markets. We just believe that regulated markets belong to customers, that customers are the fiercest regulators in the world, that customers are the most awful bosses in the world. They're the most fickle bosses in the world because you as an entrepreneur could literally go out of business at any time and everything that you have built could crumble if your customers decide that someone else does it better than you. You know what the one exception of that is? When government is involved in it is only government that can go into an industry and say, ah, this isn't gonna crumble or we're gonna keep it the same way because too many people are dependent upon it. That's what happens when government gets involved with business, when you keep government out of business, that is when consumers have all the control. So yes, we all believe that things should be regulated. We just believe that they should be regulated by customers. And we believe that they should be regulated in the event of fraud. That is the role of government. That is where we need policing or a judicial system. Because if there's not a fulfillment of contracts, that is where fraud has been created. And that's when you don't have a free market. To say that capitalism has run amok is a confusion of what capitalism is with crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is when business gets in bed with government and that indeed has run amok. That is not because of the free market. That is because government has expanded. If you don't like government in business, if you don't like people telling you what to do, if you don't like bailouts or too big to fail, if you don't like money being involved in politics, your argument is not with the free market or capitalism. It is with the ever expansion of government that we have seen in the last 50 years.

Timothy Trost says capitalism is the exploitation and disregard of the working class.

Nay, Timothy, on the contrary, capitalism is the best shot that the working class has to get ahead for a couple reasons. One, because it's the one system in which people are actually paid for the value that they bring to the marketplace. And second, because it is the beautiful combination of the value that a business brings to the marketplace and what an individual brings. And when they bring those assets together, both are better off. There is a ridiculous argument that Karl Marx made that socialists love to spew today, which is the idea that capitalism has to be degrading to the working class because it assumes that they're profiting more than the value that you are bringing. And it completely ignores the idea that the business itself brings customers, products, positioning, branding, capital, all to the marketplace. Together they produce. Together the business itself and the employee bring more value than either of them could have done on their own. That is the idea that together we are better off. Not that we are taking from one another, but by together we create more than ever existed before. That is the beauty of capitalism. So no, capitalism is not the exploitation and disregard of the working class. It is the best shot the working class has. And the partnership between private business and and the working class is how we bring new value to the marketplace and make everyone better off.

Jack Ski says capitalism is a slave master relationship. Those with resources, money exploit those without. It's that simple.

Oh Jack, it sounds like you need a hug buddy. Consider this a hug from capitalism.com. what would you propose instead, Jack? Would you propose that government make all decisions as if government is not a slave master relationship? When you turn over decision making, power to people in Washington D.C. or wherever decisions are made. That is a slave master relationship. Giving up control, giving up power to people who have the authority to directly impact your life, that is slavery. Capitalism is choice and choice is how we influence change. It is that simple. And guess who has the choice in capitalism?

You do, Jack. That is the beauty of capitalism. Because you literally have control over what businesses succeed and who fails. If you and all of your friends stop buying from people that don't provide value to your life, that they go away and the people who do provide value to your life stay in business and you get to decide. That is not a slave master relationship. That is not giving your power to someone else. Capitalism is where you are the most emboldened and the most at choice. And therefore you decide what happens in the world. Not out of touch politicians.

This is the part of the show where we take questions from our viewers. We believe that the best way to have personal and financial freedom is to start a business and invest the profits. So today we're doing something a little bit different. We are taking questions live from Facebook as we are recording this on Facebook Live. So make sure you are subscribed over@facebook.com freedomfastlane so, so when we go live, you can ask questions and you might just see your question on the next show.

Tobias Wines asks my customer value is $6 from a slowly selling brand on Amazon. How can I grow my business?

Tobias, you don't grow a business when it's only got $6 in customer value. So the first question is, is this the business that you want to be in? If it is, let's just assume that it is. This is a business that you want to be in the that adds value to someone's life. If that's not the case, then we have a different question we gotta ask. Do you need to be in this business or should we go into a different direction? But assuming this is the business that you want to be in, there's a couple flaws in your question that we need to address. First of all, you are asking a question assuming that your business is price driven. So if you are selling something that is a commodity, this would be absolutely the case. I don't want to be in commodity driven businesses. That's why our training is called the Brand Builder Bootcamp, because we believe in brands, that is entire product lines, that is brands of products or brands that have three to five products minimum that address a specific person with specific needs. So if you're just looking at your product saying I've got $6 in customer value or $6 in profit. You are assuming that your prices are fixed, that you have no control over your prices. And, and that's not the case. You have absolute control over your pricing strategy depending on how you target your customer. If you are only selling on Amazon or your entire strategy is to put something on Amazon and rank for keywords and hope that you take sales, yeah, you're probably going to be very price sensitive. But if you are building a brand, if you are serving a specific target market, then you can charge whatever it is that you want. One of my friends and mentors, Kevin nations, likes to say, find out the value your product provides and charge a little bit less. So what is it worth for the person to experience the value that your product creates in their life and charge a little bit less and you reflect that in your marketing. Now, you won't do that just by having a well optimized Amazon listing that ranks for a few keywords. You will only do that in your brand messaging. That looks like your Facebook ads, it looks like your packaging. It looks like the way that you talk about your customer. It looks like when you have a podcast interview or a blog post that talks about your product, how you position it, that is where your pricing strategy is really made. In those other areas of how you advertise your business, it doesn't happen on Amazon. But the second piece of this is you can do fine with a product that has a $6 price profit margin if you've got other products in the line that have higher profits or sell a lot of value. The way you're asking this question makes it seem like you're very dependent on this one product and that is just not going to happen. So what are the other three to five products that your audience wants? And then we can look at this as a business and be able to develop this as a profitable brand rather than trying to be completely dependent on one product with low profit margins.

Jonathan Bode asked, how does health affect your performance as an entrepreneur?

I believe that everything is an investment. Every place that you put your attention, your time, your energy, these all have an roi. A good night's sleep has an ROI on it, right? I mean, if we look at how we feel after four hours of sleep versus eight hours of sleep, are you more or less productive the next day? That's gonna be different for everybody. So based on that, does sleep have a financial roi? Well, of course, now sometimes you have to weigh that ROI against. You know what, I really need these Extra two hours to get this thing done that has an even higher ROI than the sleep. Or we could say that our relationships have a financial roi. How productive are you after you are fighting with your significant other or fighting with your best friend or you are alone in the corner with no strategic contacts? Now compare that to when your personal life is the best it's ever been and you are connected with people who are helping you grow. So your personal relationships have a financial roi and we would always weigh them against one another is time off. Does that have a financial roi when you come back from time off, are you sharper and do you think clearer and are you more productive? So there's a financial ROI to that as well. And we are constantly weighing where our best ROI is. Now, your ROI on your life or your business is really low when you're sick and dead. So I believe that health and energy and fitness all have financial roi, especially when it comes to today, not just in the 10 years at the end of your life when you finally get to enjoy things. I mean now, like when you are really healthy and dialed in and fit and sleeping well and drinking plenty of water and you are full of energy, do you provide more value to the world or less? And does that result in you making more money or less? Jim Rohn used to say minimum wage is eight bucks or whatever it was when he was alive. We'll say four bucks. And if you go into, if you're working at McDonald's making $4 an hour but you whistle to work, that is enough to get a raise from four to five dollars an hour. So if you come in energized, do people respond differently to you? Do people want to do more business with you? People buy confidence, happiness, they buy health. So when you reflect the person that somebody else wants to be, they're more likely to do business with you. And so health does not just have an ROI at the end of your life, it has an ROI on how you show up every single day and how your clients and customers are want to do business with you.

This is the part of the show where we look at one of our students businesses and look at how they could make more money and also what they're doing really well right now. Today's submission comes from naturalfertility.com and their products are called Baby Makers. That's an anchorman reference. Good work, Stacey Roberts. So naturalfertility.com has a slew of products to help people become fertile, I assume, and also conceive naturally. And they also do some speaking and blogging and have an audience of over 10,000, which is pretty impressive. Stacy. So this would be my recommendation. Your question specifically was about raising capital to be able to promote your products. And this is going to come from two sources. In my opinion. The way that you are going to grow this business is in leveraging your audience. And also I think you can leverage your website and your personal brand a lot stronger by creating an info product. There are info products about natural fertility that do extremely well. Six and seven figure businesses. And with your authority and your ability to deliver a message, you've got a product already sitting around in your brain. If you just sat down for a couple hours and had someone interview you about how a couple could conceive naturally and all the misconceptions. Before somebody goes and spends $50,000 doing IVF or some sort of expensive treatment, would they be willing to spend $47 or $97 for your info product that helps them cut that curve and save thousands of dollars? Well, it's already been proven in the marketplace that they, they will because there are lots of info products that do very, very well with your list, your audience and your connections. You'll have no problem getting affiliates to promote a product like that. So I'd recommend that you put a product on ClickBank and create a sales video to promote that info product and that will be your funding for the physical products that you sell on the back end. My recommendation, once that is cash flowing, once you have people buying that product and you really only need a couple sales a day to have a six or seven figure business, depending on your price point, of course. But you can use that cash flow to go buy the inventory for the physical products that you want to sell. You'll be able to pay for those from the business. But also the customers who are buying your info product are going to be the people who buy your natural fertility products. This is going to do a bunch for you. It's going to give you cash flow. It's you going to give, it's gonna give you an audience to promote your physical products. It's also going to expand your influence because this will make you go out and make other connections for people who want to promote your information product. It will open up opportunities for you to be on podcasts or YouTube videos and you have something to promote now. So it's profitable and worth your time to go out to these different channels and to give up your time giving these talks. Because, because these people will come back and buy your product who also buy your supplements or whatever products it is that you're promoting. So I think that is the best way that you can really grow this business quickly to get that capital going and to give you a way to monetize the audience you've already built. At the same time, you have an audience of over 10,000 people that can be leveraged to either pre sell your physical products or to launch your physical products right right now, either through a Kickstarter or by doing a small inventory purchase that you can put on Amazon. Go to your audience, promote those products and you are already ahead of most of the people who are trying to compete with you because they're just trying to give away a bunch of products on Amazon. But you already have the audience of people who want these products. So you are way ahead of most people. You are inches away from a six or a seven figure business. This is something I would even invest in if you were willing to show that it was already cash flowing. And I think that's going to come from either creating an info product and promoting that, or using your audience to promote physical products either on Kickstarter or Amazon.com that case study was a beautiful example of what happens when you create value in the world. Somebody who has knowledge in their head that wants to provide value for somebody else, they come in for 50 or $100, will provide some knowledge that could save someone years and thousands of dollars of struggle and frustration. Both parties are better off of that type of capitalism. This is why I reject the idea that capitalism is good for some people and bad for others. It is entrepreneurs that drive all of the change in this world, because it is entrepreneurs who find gaps in the marketplace, close that and make everyone better off as a result. And that's why I believe it's so important for us to have a conversation of how you maximize your value in the marketplace by either being an entrepreneur or succeeding at work or being the best that you can possibly be. Because I believe it's empowered free individuals that change this world. Thank you for being one of those people. We'll see you on the next episode.

Sam.