The Secret To Growing Your Network (And Your Business) FAST

Hey, guys, Ryan here. I'm going to share with you the story about how I met Gary Vaynerchuk, almost got into a fight with Grant Cardone, was asked by a billionaire to advise him, and almost went bankrupt in the entire process. It all goes back to 2013. I had just started a business with my business partner and we were starting to see some success. We had just crossed the million dollar run rate and it was my first ever million dollar business and I didn't know how to grow it. From that point, I had seen some success. I was seeing an opportunity to grow more than I'd ever grown before. But I didn't know what to do from there. I didn't know how I was going to go from 1 million to 10 million, and I didn't know what mindsets and I didn't know what strategies to follow in order to go beyond the $1 million point. Around that time, I signed up for Strategic Coach, which is a program designed by Dan Sullivan. And Dan Sullivan invited me to do an exercise where I wrote down all of my favorite moments from my career and all of the biggest breakthroughs that I had had. And I started to make a list of all of the big things that happened in my career that took me from one point and Rocket shipped me up to to a different level. And the interesting thing was all of them had one thing in common. I did not expect this going into the exercise. I expected to have some big piece of knowledge that I learned or the day that I made X amount of money. But the biggest breakthroughs in my business over my career had all come from going to events. I had met my business partner at an event. I. I had met my biggest promoter at an event. I had built my audience. The faster as the result of speaking at an event or going to an event and meeting somebody who asked me to be on their podcast. And I went, huh? If all my greatest breakthroughs came from being at events, I should probably prioritize this more. So I decided that I was gonna make that more of a priority. But the truth is, I didn't wanna go to a bunch of events. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to put a bunch of travel on my schedule just to meet people and hope that it led somewhere. I wanted to have the opportunity to be in the room at the exact event that I wanted to go to. So I was faced with a dilemma. I could either keep going to a bunch of events, or I could take the risk and create the exact event that I wanted to go to and risk losing a bunch of money and taking up a bunch of time in the process. At that time, I had about $500,000 in retained earnings from my years of being in business, from all of my operations, all my entrepreneurial ventures. I had $500,000 in retained earnings. And when I ran the numbers for what it would cost to put on an event, speaker fees, food, the venue, travel for some people, the team I would need to hire, it cost $500,000. So I had to decide if I was willing to lose everything and maybe go bankrupt in the process in order to put myself in the position to be at the event that I wanted to attend, which was my own. So I decided to push all my chips and into the center of the table, and I went all in and put on my first event. Now, I knew that there was a chance that I could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, but I rationalized it in this way. I thought, if the only thing that happens is I get to spend three days with the people that I want to network with, then there's a chance that one of these relationships leads to that next breakthrough. Leads like I had written down on my biggest breakthroughs ever in business. And that alone could be worth $500,000 or more over the long term. So if I can put my attention on creating that next breakthrough by surrounding myself with those people, then even if I lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and maybe go bankrupt in the process, I could still come out of this ahead. And so I decided to go all in. I'm creating my own event. That year, the first person that I booked to speak was Gary Vaynerchuk. This was back in 2015, when Gary was prominent, but not the industry leader that he is today. And I booked him because I knew he had a goal of owning the New York Jets. My goal has always been to own a major league baseball team. And so I asked Gary to come give the keynote about how he plans to buy the New York Jets. The second person that I asked to speak was Grant Cardone, who I had just heard of and was not a big player in the Internet marketing or online business space. In fact, I said to a partner of mine that I was thinking about bringing this guy that not a lot of people knew, and I wasn't sure if he was worth his $20,000 speaking fee. And my partner said, be the guy that finds the talent as they're coming up. Be the guy that once somebody has their big breakthrough, they can point back and say, Hey, I got a big breakthrough from Ryan Daniel Moran. That's how we were talking about Grant Cardone. Because he did not have a big following at the time. He was not the guy that he is today. The third person that I asked to speak was Robert Herjavec from Shark Tank. I asked Robert to speak because he sees so much deal flow, especially in the physical product space by being on tv, that I wanted to know what he looks for in the breakthrough companies. So Gary had a plan to buy the New York Jets, Grant Cardone had $100 million net worth, and Robert Herjavec saw a bunch of deal flow. These were all things that I wanted to learn about because I want to see how I can build a nine figure net worth, how I can buy a baseball team, and how I can be in front of a lot of deal flow. That excites me. I also added to the lineup some of my personal friends, mentors, and people that I knew could add value to both me and the people who would come to the event. And then we sold tickets that became what is now the Capitalism Conference. As a result of having five capcons in the books and and now our sixth coming up in April 2023, I've learned a few things about how really successful people think and what it takes to get into the room with the people that you want to be like. The first thing I learned is that relationships take time, but they're worth it. I've now met with Gary Vaynerchuk five or six times in person. But in order to get on his radar, I paid him, paid him $50,000 to come keynote our event because I wanted to build a relationship with him. Over the last several years, I've paid more money to get into his network by buying his NFTs or by sponsoring charities that he supports. These are things that I did just to build the relationship. And it's hard to say if that produced an ROI or not. I don't care if it produced an roi. He's someone who I want to learn from and, and whose mindset I admire and respect. There have been some tangible results from that relationship. For example, I have his name on my book because he gave me a quote to use for it. I've been on his podcast several times, which has helped build my audience and I've met potential team members and partners at the dinners, or I've met up with him or just being around his circle. Relationships take time, and when you're trying to build a relationship with someone of that caliber, it takes time, it takes energy, and it requires you producing value however you can, even if that means that the value you bring to the table is booking them to speak on your stage. The second thing that I learned is how fast people can grow. I watched Grant Cardone give a keynote that caused some friction in our relationship and with my audience because I booked him for a very specific topic and that we talked about multiple times. And then he went on stage and completely went off script. I tried to bring him back on script in our Q and A and it just didn't go anywhere. And honestly, I was angry with Grant because we had a very clear agreement about what we were going to do together, and I didn't feel like he honored that contract. In retrospect, I wish that I had tried to address it with Grant. I wish that I had gone to him and tried to have a follow up podcast or to do some way to get what I wanted to ultimately get out of that transaction. The truth is, I thought I was doing Grant a favor by putting him on my stage because he did not have the level of reach that he has today. So I didn't pursue that relationship because I felt let down by my interaction with him. In retrospect, that was a bad move on my part because over the next several years, Grant would go on to become Grant Cardone. He would go on to publish a bunch of books, have millions of followers, have a ton of clout in the industry. But because of the resentment that I carried about our exchange, I compromised my relationship with Grant. He knows that I was upset with him. He knows that I was not happy with the talk that he gave. And as the customer, I was disappointed in the experience and because he knows that we don't have a relationship, but I could have if I had tried to make it right. And so when you know that anybody can go on to become something great, you approach every relationship with a little bit more grace and a little bit more kindness. So my interaction with Grant could have led to something amazing, but instead, I treated it like a bad transaction and I lost a lot of opportunities as a result of how I showed up in that relationship. And the third is that there is no replacement for an in person interaction. One of the people who inspired me most on our stage was Brian Lee. Brian Lee was the founder of LegalZoom, the Honest Company. He started Art of Sport with the late Kobe Bryant. He started Shoedazzle with Kim Kardashian. He was the principal investor in Honey, the app that was acquired by PayPal for 4 billion doll. And we had a great conversation on and off stage. And he asked me to advise him on a new business project that he was working on. And me contributing to that relationship has led to what is now a friendship. I can call Brian and he'll answer. Brian has called me for advice and I've done the same. Every time I'm in la, I text Brian and let him know I'm in town and we usually get together. I really like and admire Brian as a person, as an entrepreneur. I'm actually getting like my heart feels warm. I really have a lot of kinship for the guy and to be able to call someone of that caliber could have never happened if we did a zoom call or if we texted. That only came from a face to face interaction. Over the years, I've seen partnerships get made. I've seen investment capital get flown to people in our community. I've seen friendships get born. I've even seen relationships. But every 12 to 18 months, when we put on this event, it takes six months of work, booking speakers, booking venues, selling tickets, my team going in and making sure that everything is flawless. It's a very resource intensive thing to do. But we've seen the transformations and the breakthroughs that happen as a result of putting on this event. And I can point to many shifts in my career coming as the result of putting on an event like this. So what I've decided to do on the YouTube channel and on the podcast is share some of the best keynotes from our events over the last five to six years. You're gonna hear from Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, Brian Lee, Peter Diamandis, Mickey Agrawal, Sam Parr, and many of the other people who spoke on our stage that now have really big audiences. I like to think that I have a knack for spotting the people who are gonna break out. And one of the things that we focus on at our events is getting those people who are early so you build a relationship with them and I build a relationship with them before they have their meteoric rise. Because once they've already hit it big, it's harder to get on their radar to build opportunities with them or friendships with them. So I like to bring together the speakers who have done amazing things but are not yet big in terms of their speaking career or in their audience growth. So here on the channel, I'll be sharing some of the best keynotes and big takeaways and breakthroughs that have come from putting on the Capitalism Conference all of these years. And if you feel compelled to come to our next event. It's in April of 2023 and you can grab a ticket if there still are Some available@Capitalism.com Capcom 6 this year we're doing something a little bit different. We're keeping the lowest capacity that we have ever had. Usually our events are five to 600 people, sometimes more. This time we have no more than 200 spots available. I made that decision because, honestly, it's less stress and it feels more intimate. We did an event right after COVID 19 in which we kept capacity really small for obvious reasons. And it was so rewarding, so much fun and so rejuvenating. Whereas usually the event is so much work and so exhausting that I can't think about anything else for months leading up to it. So if you'd like to grab one of the remaining spots if they're available, go to capitalism.com Capcom6 I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with capitalism.com make sure you're subscribed to the channel so that you see all of our best keynotes and I will see you on the next one. Thanks for watching. And now a quick word from Beatrice, one of our community members in the Capitalism incubator.

It's very lonely being an entrepreneur. Like, I sit in my office every day and it's just me. And then I look forward to our meetings because it's actually pretty, like, entertaining. I laugh a lot, everybody makes funny comments. And then I always leave there with like an aha moment or something that it was so not obvious. They make it so they're like, how come you didn't see this? It's so obvious. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe it. So I think the more we talk about things and the more we hear other people going through things, it helps you sort of apply that to your business or you're able to help other people too. So it's. I like that. Yeah. Don't wait until tomorrow because the longer you wait, the more competition there's going to be. You're never going to get it off the ground. And there's no reason why you can't. You could even either. If you don't have a product to sell, sell a core. It creates something, you know, So I think 100% because what that means, it means freedom. For me, you being an entrepreneur and having your own business means freedom to do wherever you're at, from wherever you're at. And it's funny because with, with this my told my husband, like, I want to make money while I'm sleeping. Like, that is my goal, you know. And then with the Shopify app, I don't know, you know, every time Excel comes in, you hear the little cha ching, cha ching. So I had it. He tells me that it was in the middle of the night. I had my phone like as soon as I officially opened on June 12, 2019. And then I had the phone next to my bed and I'm sleeping and then all of a sudden we hear the noise, cha ching. And then he goes on, he's like, she did it. She's making money while she's sleeping. And then he wakes me up, he's like, you just made money while you're asleep. And I'm like, yes, too many more.

If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go Deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. One, you can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits. You can get plugged in@capitalism.com 1. And third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell, you can work closely with us inside the Capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do over at capitalism.com Inc. That's capitalism.com Inc.