What Separates 8-Figure Entrepreneurs From Those Who Give Up w/ Jason Franciosa

Before we dive in today, I want to draw your attention to our new podcast called the road to 1 million. For those of you who have asked that we document the process of building a seven figure business by following the playbook that I share in my book, 12 months to 1 million. This podcast is for you. In this show, we are documenting every step of the process from some of our students, from our own businesses inside of capitalism.com and also the businesses that I'm investing in. I'm working with these entrepreneurs one on one to document and to help them grow towards a seven figure brand. My one regret in my entrepreneurial career is that I didn't document the hundreds of seven figure case studies that I played a part in over the years. So better late than never. And on this podcast, we're going to document the highs, the lows, the wins and the losses and all the steps that these brands take to build a seven figure business. So if you want to see behind the scenes of what it takes to build a seven figure business, make sure you're subscribed to the road to 1 million on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And when you do, I hope you enjoy.

This is the road to 1 million and I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. Hi everyone. Welcome to capitalism.com today I'm going to be joined again by my friend, Jason Franciosa. Jason and I try to do a podcast about once a year because Jason is one of my favorite success stories. Jason got into our world when he saw a Facebook ad for us selling a $3,000 course and he spent his last $3,000 to go through the course. And the other side of that is he now has a multimillion dollar business. Of course, it didn't start that way. He started very small. He was actually the active guy in the Facebook group asking a bunch of questions. He was the student in the room. He was willing to be humble enough to, to learn. And he went through the grind, he went through the growth. And then our first podcast together was right when he was about to cross a million dollars. You might have heard that podcast. It was about two years ago, right before the pandemic. We recorded our second podcast a year ago, right after Jason got punched in the mouth from COVID His business dropped dramatically. And then he worked for months to get it back up to where it was. And then it started to grow again. He was pacing about $2 million. Well, one year later, he is now pacing $5 million. This year he's passed that in terms of run rate and his projection is that he's going to do $8 million in the next year. This is an awesome story. Obviously, I love it when somebody just takes a chance on this business model and they come out the other side really successful. And thankfully, Jason's one of the few people that was in touch with me the entire journey. So many of my success stories only come to me after they've broken 2 million bucks or sold for 10 million bucks. It happens all the time that people reach out and say, hey, I started a business because of your podcast, because your book, and I've now got a multimillion dollar business. And I think, why didn't you reach out to me when you started? Why didn't you reach out to me when you had your first sale? Why didn't you get plugged into the community when you were pacing your first $10,000 a month? So I really appreciate that Jason was involved at the ground floor. And if you are listening to this and you're like, okay, I'm finally convinced and I want to be part of this community, there's two ways that I can serve you. One is inside of the 1%. This is where we help people build a seven figure net worth. First we help them build a business, then invest the profits and we run them through our 12 month process for having a seven figure business so they.

Can invest the profits.

And the second way, if you want to dive into starting your own business in the same alignment that Jason did when he spent his last few bucks to go really aggressive into following the 12 month plan, having a vision and executing that vision. Jason is one of our head coaches alongside myself and a few other entrepreneurs who are successful and building brands or who have had exits in the past. Inside of our capitalism incubator, you can find out what we do. You can get plugged in over@Capitalism.com Inc. In this podcast episode, Jason and I are going to go through a very, very practical guide to how he grew from that $2 million run rate to now an $8 million run rate, how he projects $8 million for next year, how he has started building a team, what tactics and strategies he is using that are providing the most roi, what platforms and what marketing tactics he is using, how he's working with influencers, and a bunch of other very helpful, strategic, tactical stuff that you can use in your business. I hope you enjoy this chat with Jason Franciosa.

Jason Franciosa, welcome back to capitalism.com? how are you, my friend?

Hey, Ryan. Doing well. How about yourself?

Doing great, man. I Love our yearly check ins because it seems like yesterday that you were on the podcast right about to hit the first million and 1 2, skip a few. You've had a couple great years since then and last we spoke you were just on the other side of having a really hard time post Covid because your business had gotten just smacked across the face. You had just started to recover and were sort of back on top. What's happened since then?

Yeah, so Covid hit like you said and then it was that big steep die off and then a bunch of supply chain issues and like every, all the nightmares that you wake up in the middle of night worrying about was happening. And then it was just a rocket ship and that ship is still flying. So we last year, we ended the year actually listen to our podcast a little before this. We ended the year when we spoke. We were just about to break a quarter million dollars a month in sales. And right now we're about to break half a million dollars a month in sales.

Amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. So you've, you've doubled yet again in the last year, which is a common trajectory for e commerce businesses. When they follow kind of our methodology is it takes them a year to go from zero to a million and then a year to go from 1 to 2, a year for it to go from 2 to 4, a year to go from 4 to 8 and then it starts to round off like 8 to 12 or 8 to 10 and then 10 to 14, 10 to 16 starts to round off at that part. But that is common for a lot of e commerce entrepreneurs. What do you think is the reason why you have doubled yet again and are on pace for that would be a $6 million run rate if nothing changed.

Staying focused on what was working, doubling down on that, which is essentially build a strong brand, take care of our customers, speak to them, and then point all that traffic to Amazon and there's double, triple, quadruple down on that. And when you're seeing these faster growth rates and you literally scaling becomes the problem more than growth.

It doesn't make sense to try and start going after all the shiny objects.

So we're kind of at that point now where we look at our growth trajectory and we can continue down this path. But I think we also have to start transitioning into.

What you always talk about is the owner's model. Right. So expanding that further and finding the people to now take over the current things or the experts in other areas that can start scaling the business wider. Last year when we spoke about, we Talked a lot about going deep instead of wide. Well, I think we've gone very deep now, and it's time to start going wider. So that's new sales channels, larger product lines, new marketing opportunities, business partnerships, all that kind of stuff. And that's where we're starting to look now. And I think that's what's going to help us double next year.

And when you say you're utilizing the owner's model to do that, that means that you're looking for partnerships with people who will do that for you. Correct.

It's transitioning from the doer to the leader and becoming a actual leader of a organization where my purpose is to find the best people that I can and delegate the tasks to them so that I can get the most value out of the time that I spend on the business.

Yeah. At the beginning, you and your partner are doing everything. You're running around wearing a bunch of different hats until you find what is working. Then you double down on that, and then it's okay. This pays for us to invest in the best people or the best agencies or the best partners to be able to bolt on these other opportunities for growth. That's what Jason is referencing when he's talking about the owner's model. I believe very strongly that the role of the entrepreneur is to stay in vision mode. It's not to get into the weeds and the details of every piece of the business. Business. The job of the founder is to cast the overall vision and then to bring in the right people to be able to execute upon that vision and make sure that the company has enough money to be able to ensure that you can continue to operate. This is what we call the owner's model. The owner's model is our process for keeping the entrepreneur in the owner's seat. You cast a vision, you recruit the right people, and you ensure ensure that the company has enough money to execute. And this is what we help people do inside of the capitalism incubator. We help them get clear on their vision, help them launch profitably, connect them with the people that they need to know. And we have an investment fund to invest in the businesses that are coming from our little incubator. So if you're an entrepreneur that wants to build something great, wants to build something that you can see, scale, and even sell, you can find out more about what we do and who we've helped@capitalism.com Inc. That's capitalism.com Inc. Now, Jason, you said that you're focusing a lot on brand and sending that over to Amazon. What does that mean from a tactical focus perspective?

It means I am feeding the Amazon machine because right now there is no marketplace that is as accessible with as large of a audience and as high of a conversion rate as sending traffic to Amazon. So instead of fighting against that, trying to be in this essential, fearful mindset of, oh, they control things, I don't have this, I don't have that, we say, look, this is where people want to be right now. Let's be there.

And when you say you're sending people there, how are you doing that?

Every every way possible. So all of our email.

If we have any sort of promotion in an email, it goes directly to Amazon. We don't send stuff to our website. When we run ads through everything from Google to, you know, subscription newsletters to different, like, events, we go to a lot of events or we sponsor different competitions. We'll have like inserts, we'll have cards, we give out, we'll have free gear, we'll have all that eventually directs to Amazon. So just Amazon is our shopping cart. We build our brand, we build a connection, build a relationship. We have influencers, we have a great social media presence, we have amazing email lists, great customer service. And then when that person's ready to buy, we just say, hey, no problem, go to Amazon, buy it.

Yeah. So all of your efforts are on feeding the Amazon machine, which has also rewarded you in the form of reviews and high organic rankings. How much of your attention is put onto Amazon tactics like trying to bully the system?

Ironically, last week, a big manipulation site that I believe at least Rebatekey, got a letter from Amazon saying this is against our terms of service. They disconnected them from their platform. And a bunch of sellers got emails saying a reminder of their code of conduct. We did not get that. It did not affect ourselves. It did not affect our trajectory. It didn't affect anything that we do. And no service or black hat tactic ever will because we don't need to do that and we don't want to. That's not fun. It's not fun having to give away a bunch of stuff because you have no other way to get traffic. It's no fun to have to incentivize people to leave a positive review because you have a crap product that you don't believe in. You don't have a customer base that really cares about you or your brand.

So you do none of that.

No.

So your sales are coming from pay per click, they're coming from cold ads on Google, they're coming from Pounding the pavement to build a little bit of an audience, some influencer relationships. Sounds like a lot of different things that are all going over to Amazon.

Exactly. And we do spend a lot on Amazon advertising. That, that is no doubt. I think we're over 60,000amonth in Amazon ads right now. But.

But yes, we send everything there now, as we scale more and as we look into different opportunities and different sales channels, that will change. But right now the ROI is there. The analogy I always use with our students and in our own business is the low hanging fruit analogy. The idea is go after the easiest wins in terms of the most leverage I can get on the capital, energy and effort I have to spend out of that investment first. So for us, Facebook is way up there. We don't do any Facebook advertising. I think maybe 10 bucks a day on a retargeting ad.

But for us, we're still not at the point where we'll start spending money on Facebook because it's so high in terms of the amount of investment, time, effort and refinement needed.

It's a brand new channel that's starting from zero for you. Right? So this is such a common thing where entrepreneurs will take their focus away from something that's making them $6 million a year, Jason, and put it into something that's making zero. And you have thankfully avoided that trap. Jason is one of our coaches inside of the incubator. And this comes up, up a lot. It's easy for entrepreneurs to chase after new untried things and going in a bunch of different directions with crazy gains. They think. Right. But so much of business is just staying centered and focusing on the next logical step in front of you, responding to what actually works and make sales. For example, Jason mentioned that he's spending $60,000 per month in Amazon advertising. Did you catch that? But that didn't happen overnight. That grew as his company grew and it grew as he started getting consistent results. Jason got to that point by focusing exclusively on Amazon and building relationships. Relationships with his customers, relationships with other influencers. In fact, if you were to look up his company on Instagram, you'd see that they have about 9,000 followers, which isn't bad, it's not huge. But he has strategic relationships with other athletes that are featured there and they have much, much bigger audiences. Jason puts his time and energy into those two areas because that's what's working for him. And that's what we tell people to focus on inside the incubator. By following the owner's model, it is casting the vision and building relationships and making sure that the company has enough capital to execute upon that vision. That usually comes down to managing one primary sales channel and building relationships with other people who can help spread the word. Would you tell me a little bit about the influencer relationships that you've built up to this point? Because that's a big nut that people try to crack.

Yeah, so we've tried a lot with influencers. Influencers are the stereotype of the fitness industry.

If you're a brand in the fitness industry, it's just the assumption that you need influencers. What I found is influencers work much better when they're people that you really enjoy hanging out with and being around and people who truly love your brand and your product. So we partnered a lot of influencers, but we haven't really gone heavy doing outreach. Last year we secured a relationship with a high level athlete in the CrossFit space. But not only was he high level athlete, he's also an awesome guy who we talk to all the time we hang out with and he's been great for us. But I've seen a much higher ROI of Win Win relationships in businesses. So complementary businesses within our space.

That.

Already know how to sell, they already understand marketing, they already own an audience. And not only they own an audience, the expectation with the audience is a business relationship as opposed to just a. A free kind of interaction, which is, which is what most influencers have. So I think we kind of idolize influencers. And influencers can be great. But there's also the other businesses that might be a perfect complement to your business who already have a developed relationship with the customer on a transactional and emotional level where the influencer might just be that I just want to see what he's doing. I don't really care about what he's pushing.

So your influencers are actual audiences of other businesses, Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, those to me are the highest ROI because they're already trained to be a customer. I don't have to train them. I don't have to try and figure it out. Right.

And what do those relationships look like? Are you sponsoring their email lists? Are you sponsoring content? Are you doing Cross promotions? What do those look like?

All the above. So for us, Cross promotions is a great way to do it. One thing we started doing recently is actually I bought an airline ticket to go to Capcom and I noticed when I went to check out, they offered me a hotel and a rental car. I'm sitting there like I Would love to sell supplements, but I don't want to get into supplement industry. Super competitive. You got to deal with a bunch of inventory issues, product development, differentiation, holding yards. Why don't I just partner with a supplement company and be an affiliate for them? I have hundreds of new customers per day. They're already buying this stuff. I can put an offer in front of them, get the profit. Maybe not 100% of profit, but even 20% off the top is a pretty good chunk of change and probably more profit than I would make starting up new. I can now capitalize on the things that that customer's already buying without ever having to launch a new product.

That's right.

I don't have to worry about development. I don't worry about anything.

So it's a profit stream for you, but it's also a ton of exposure in the other person's packaging. This is one thing that Travis Sago told me to me when we first started Sheer Strength, he was like, dude, if you're getting product into people's homes, make relationships with other businesses and create cross promotions, just inserts and packaging for each other's businesses. It's free advertising, right? Or you pay $0.09 for the insert or whatever it costs for exposure to thousands of people who are in your space that just bought money for the result that you're trying to get them. It's really good cheap advertising that a lot of people aren't doing. So those are your most profitable relationships. How did you meet those other businesses?

Events.

Events.

So I'm still a big believer that in person is where the best business relationships happen. And we do a lot of events in every time we go to big event, guess who else is there? A bunch of other vendors. So you just go around, meet people, talk to them, discuss. You know, you'll find out that most other business owners are in a very similar position as you and they're always looking for opportunities. And you know, very rarely do you like, meet a business owner that's not like even if they're a direct competitor. You know, at Capcom, one of my direct competitors there, we had a great, great conversation and.

It'S very cool to meet each other and see the faces behind the scene and hear the stories. And then you find those win win things because you just talk, right? It's weird in a digital age, but it works.

Jason, you have, from what I know about your business, you have one hero skew that has really been the leader in the business. In fact, my personal trainer recommends your belt, your workout belt, to his clients. So you're, you're a bit of a celebrity to my trainer, which is pretty cool. What, what, what is your SKU count at this point?

Uh, it's still pretty low. So like our parent skew, I think we're at about 9. Um, and we've intentionally kept it low for a couple of reasons. One, just staying in stock has been a nightmare when you're growing. You know, we'd spend 300% year over year for us because, I mean, I guess this quarter will be 200%, but the actual 12 month trailing is 300%. When you have literally monthly growth and you're just trying to keep up with it, trying to get more products and new products to the market. Again, low hanging fruit, right? That's a higher up than just not running out of stock, which is where all of your resources are going. And then the other thing is we believe in all of our other products and they've all at least tripled since last year as well. So while we still have our hero product, of course all of our other products are growing rapidly and we know we have really good products which we got to see in person A few months ago. We went to the CrossFit Games, we got a booth there, we had to meet a lot of our customers and a lot of people who never heard of us in person and get that first initial reaction, show them in person. And a lot of them had purchased our competitors stuff, came to our booth, saw our stuff, ended up returning the stuff they just bought from our competitors to buy ours at a better price and higher quality. So that was really cool. And it was very, very confirming that we're on the right path. And just trying to get a bunch of white label junk out is not how we want to build a brand.

Yeah, at the very least, long term, I mean, I have white labeled things to start, like to get sales off the ground, but then I go back and reformulate or remold or come up with a process that actually makes my product unique and different in the marketplace. I know you've also started to build a team. I think your team is small, but you've started, which is a big pivot from where you were, I think, even when we last spoke. So how have you had to change as a person, as a leader, to go from a seven figure low seven figure business to now high seven figures, knocking on the door of eight figures in the next year or two?

The biggest thing is it's really just a personal growth story. It's being able to give up your tasks and understand that you need to.

And again, it's that transition that I was talking about from the doer to the leader.

I guess I come from an advantaged background and I was in the military and I was an officer in the military. So at 22 years old, I was put in charge of 40 soldiers and I was the second youngest person there. So I had to learn how to be a leader very quickly and there was no option otherwise. So I've been on this path before. I've seen it. So to me, it's not super difficult. There is always that temptation that, like, hey, you know, I gotta fulfill some orders. Why don't I just knock it out quick? Because I got nothing going on. But I'm like, wait a minute, now I'm taking a time away from my person that I hired to do this. I'm, you know, making confusion for them. So to me, that was the biggest kind of thing, is because I like to just get stuff done. I'm not the kind of person likes to procrastinate on those things. I'm just like, oh, just do it. So that's been a shift. But yeah, it's all part of the process.

Jason, you sent me a message a few months ago where you said, I think this is the first time that I feel rich or I feel successful. I don't remember the word you used, but would you tell me what you meant by that?

I think it was when we started paying ourselves.

I think it was like $30,000 a month.

And it was the first month that we hit that. And that's like my goal when we started this was to be able to pull out 10,000amonth. So having all this extra cash and literally not knowing what to do with it, it was a weird feeling. And I haven't changed my lifestyle. I'm still in the same house from when we were at just breaking the million dollar mark. I still drive a 2013 Prius, and literally all this money is just getting dumped into investments.

I have no cash right now. My bank account is smaller than it was probably six months ago, but my asset value is much higher. It's a weird feeling because it's completely internal. And that's the weird part because just knowing that these things are there, even though nothing in my reality has changed, is just a huge perspective change.

Yeah, there's an elimination of scarcity at that point because now you have excess. And so there's a realization that you can play with this, you can invest in this, you can you don't have to worry about what is coming. Have you, have you acknowledged the fact that you are a millionaire?

Yes.

That's a no.

Well, at a theoretical yes, but at an emotional no.

Because it's almost all like I'm almost. When I break a million outside the business, which would probably be pretty soon, that's when I think I'll feel like a millionaire. Because the business doesn't seem like it's a asset right now. That makes sense.

Yeah, because all of your net worth is tied up in that right now. Sure, you're pulling out a few hundred GS from it, but all of your real wealth is still tied up in the value of that business, which hasn't gone on the market yet. Oh, this is a good one. It's so hard to pause and give ourselves permission to celebrate what we've already accomplished. It's so hard to make entrepreneurs truly appreciate how valuable the asset that they've built is. It's kind of like Zucks and Bezos and Branson. They aren't just sitting on billions of dollars in cash in a checking account so they, they can just look at it and feel rich. Did you know that Mark Zuckerberg financed his $6 million home on a 30 year mortgage because it would be silly to waste that much cash when your money can be working for you. But the real reason I asked this question to Jason is because he said that his biggest shift was his mindset in leveling up to $500,000 a month. And if he wants to scale to a million or $2 million a month and beyond, it'll have to to come from another mindset level up. The scrappy guy who built this thing so far with blood, sweat and tears and elbow grease will have to continue down this route of being even more of an owner. Entrepreneurship is the best self development game in the world. And what you can hear Jason saying is that his business changed as his mindset changed. I wish that wasn't the case, but as you change, so does your business. However, I know that you've had a couple conversations about people who want to invest in or acquire your business. I know you've turned like you turned down me when I said, do you need money? So tell me about some of the conversations that you've had with people who want to value that business.

Yeah, again, this came out of Capcom, which if you didn't go to Capcom, you missed out going to throw it out there.

Thank you.

So I was talking to Travis Zigler, mutual friend of ours and he did a deal essentially where he sold a portion of his business and was able for him to extract chips off the table. When I looked at the numbers where we're at, and I'm like, look, let's just ask for a high valuation if anyone wants to bite. We can pull a lot of chips off the table, essentially have an exit, but then still keep doing what we're doing, doing. So that was really appealing to me because. Exactly. It's that kind of like, idea of, then I'll be in a millionaire because I'll have cash, but then I'm gonna have to go invest the cash anyway. So it all goes away, but the weird aspect. So I started going down the rabbit hole. I spoke to. We literally get an email, one to two emails a week from different aggregators right now trying to buy our business. It's pretty insane. The marketplace, if you want to sell E commerce business right now, it is nuts. You can probably sell within 24 hours if you put yourself out there. So I wrote back to a few of them, set up some meetings, and to be honest, I was really disappointed with what they were looking for. All they care about, at least the ones that I spoke to, and this is aggregators, Amazon aggregators, reaching out to Amazon winners, essentially, like number one in your marketplace kind of stuff. All they care about is the listing and they'll pay ridiculous valuations for it, which is great. But there's no value beyond their pitch as to why they should invest in you is that they're going to make your operations more efficient, they're going to plug you into their team and that their guys know your business better than you do, which, sorry, they don't.

No, they don't.

No, definitely don't.

And so that didn't get me excited, so I changed my mentality as to what we look for in an investor. And the only reason that we would sell a portion of our business right now is if the investor is bringing much more to the table than just cash or efficiencies. I'm looking for someone that's like a strategic investor, like a big company coming in saying, hey, we love what you're doing. We're trying to break into the space. All we have to do is plug you into our system so we could 10x your business in two months. Are you ready for it? Right. That's the kind of investor that I would gladly give up equity tomorrow for.

Yeah, because you're not thinking as much about taking chips off the table as much as you are thinking about Growing the enterprise value of the business, which is how you get rich by growing that enterprise value of the business. So now that you have said no to a seven figure valuation.

How does it was an eight figure valuation?

That's what we were asking. Yes.

And you said no.

Yes.

Nice work. So now that you have said no to an eight figure valuation, how does that change your mindset about where you're going to go next?

Ironically, we've turned the tables. So I just had a meeting recently with another brand that's perfectly complementary to our business and they're interested in selling, so we're interested in buying.

So actually going through the process of looking at what would make us want to sell to somebody, it actually allowed us to view like, okay, well, what would we want if we were to invest in another brand? And we see massive potential in this potential brand that we could invest into. And the cool part is, yeah, we take on some debt because we'd probably finance it through one way or another. But our revenues would go up by.

30 to 50% instantly.

Our SKU count would extremely go up quite a bit. Because the way the company is structured, a lot of the things that we plan to do anyway would happen overnight, as opposed to taking years to do just through an acquisition, which a lender would be paying for. So there's almost no risk on our end.

That's right.

Which is pretty crazy. So that was a really big mindset set shift for me. And it's actually really recent. Like two big mindset shifts recently is like, okay. And both really from Capcom. One was.

The idea that build the team for the business you want, don't build the business you want, and then build the team. So I think that's the mindset shift that had in terms of hiring and growing, and then in terms of leveraging other people's money to expand our business.

You can really hit the accelerator fast.

Jason, this is a far cry from where you were a few years ago. When you were at my house. You flew in as a guest of mine to a meeting that we had and you said that you felt like you must be the poorest guy in the room. I think you might have been doing 40,000 or $50,000 a month in sales at that point. I don't know what you were profiting, but it wasn't a whole lot. And you were like, I'm the poorest guy here. And you kind of kept hedging and now you're saying no to eight figure valuations. What has changed and what would you say to that guy three years ago who was in my house saying, I'm the poorest guy here.

I mean, the thing that changed is I now have a very successful business. Right?

Well, of course.

So going through the process and actually.

It'S a confidence thing. Like, once you've done something, your confidence gets boosted and to the point where some people get overconfident, they sell their business and think they can do it again overnight. It ends up being a lot harder than they realize.

I can't relate to that at all.

You know, and to be fair, I think I'm good at taming that overconfidence instinct and understanding that we've been very fortunate in a lot of different areas. And, you know, I love what I do. So how to get rid of this?

But what would I say to myself three years ago? And I think it would go back to, like, what Brooke Castillo says all the time. And it's just like, believe in yourself. And if you have complete conviction, it will happen because you're going to take that belief, make the actions that you need to do in order to make it true. And then if for some reason it doesn't happen, who cares? You felt great doing it the whole time.

You had a really meaningful exchange with Brooke Castillo at capcon where you were asking her a question and she dug in really deep. Would you tell that story from your perspective?

I don't want to call it dug in. She just like, chopped my head off and said, don't do that.

Yes, she did.

So the biggest pushback I always have with Brooke is she makes it sound so simple to just.

Think different, to just change, just change. Like, why would you not? Right? And you can come up with a laundry list of excuses as to why not. But at the end of the day, the point that she always brings up, and it's absolutely true, is you choose what you think. And yes, you can choose to look at all those restrictions and in, you know, negative beliefs and problems that you had and your story that you tell yourself, or you can just simply choose not to. And what is the consequence of not doing it?

And when you think about it, it's really hard to push against that because.

It'S so true. Like, you choose what you believe and if. Even if the belief is completely devoid of what you tell yourself in your story or what society says about you or whatever, who cares?

So that was really.

Humbling.

How did that impact your business? How did that impact what you did and focused on when you went home?

It helped a ton with that scarcity mindset, that fear based mindset of what if this goes away? Because I'm sitting there thinking, well, I can think that a lot and I could be right, this could go away tomorrow.

A lot of businesses got affected greatly with the iOS change on Facebook. I mean, something simple like that cut their business in half. That can happen. But if I sit here just worrying about that all the time, it's probably going to happen. I'm going to make it happen, right?

Yeah. So if I just kind of like your point at the beginning of this conversation was you've gone all in on the channel that was working. Whereas a lot of people try to diversify because they're afraid of Amazon cutting them off at the knees. And so what do they do in response to that? They cheat the system and then they spread themselves thin and Amazon comes out with a crackdown and eliminates them and they're out of business. Whereas you have said Amazon's working, Amazon's the best platform that we have as a business and the best opportunity we have to grow. So let's double down now. You're the number one competitor in your space, right? So you have made that thought true in your actions. And it sounds like your interaction with Brooke has given you permission to be intentional about what you think and your actions have followed in response to that. Is that a fair summary?

Wraps it up Perfectly perfect.

So, Jason.

A few years ago you crossed a million dollars and it was a big milestone for you. Now you're pulling out more money than you ever wanted to make out of this and you're turning down offers for an eight figure exit. You're now mentoring people inside the incubator. And so you've seen people who are in the early stages struggling with the same mindset shifts, the same ideas, the same challenges that you had three years ago or four years ago when you started this thing and you bought one of our courses with your last three grand. So what do you see come up as a recurring challenge or mindset holdup for people who are still grinding their way to the first million?

I think the biggest challenge is the lack of momentum because as soon as you start seeing momentum, that excitement comes and then a lot of the fears, the frustrations, the things that holding them back go away.

I really do think that act quick and get something out there as quickly as possible, even if it's not perfect. Perfect is so important because once you get that first sale and you see, hey, this is real, your mindset instantly shifts.

And the understanding that the ability to build A million dollar business in 12 months or 24 months or even 36 months is so incredible.

Compared to any other time in history when you're trying to build a business. Like our grandfathers would laugh at this. Oh, yeah, you build a million dollar business in 12 months. That's not possible.

Yeah. Even Robert Kiyosaki says, like you Amazon sellers, you got a maid.

What used to take me 10 years, you can do in six months.

But when they don't see a million dollars, that $83,000 a month in two months, they start doubting themselves. And I'm sitting like, this is just a perspective problem.

And then the other big problem, of course, is not focusing on the low hanging fruit. They try to do everything or reach way too high things that just because you don't do it today doesn't mean you can't do it right. And a lot of times they see like the potential of Facebook ads or the potential of a partnership with, I don't know, Jessica Alba. The potential. Right. That's great. But right now, based on your current.

Resources, you don't have the, you're not gonna have the ROI or the connections or the scale or the recognition or the attractiveness of your brand.

Yes.

Get those things. And that's perfectly fine. Start really niche. Start with one person, solve their problem, and then go to two, and then go to four, and then go to eight and you'll get there.

Yes.

That's probably the most common reoccurring themes.

I just want to pause and say yes. And to this I want to just emphasize this point that Jason made. The importance is on progress. The importance is on taking the next step forward. Because I, I hear so many people tell me their wild ideas or think about building a million dollar business, and I bring them back to, okay, where's your first prototype? All right, why don't you look into what it's going to cost to get made? You've got to take a damn self, like, you gotta take that first micro step. It's like the step that is so small that you feel like you're cheating. But that's kind of a metaphor for life beyond business as well. It's that next step forward is that incremental thing that you don't want to do because you are thinking four steps ahead. And Jason is a really good example of somebody who started with nothing and just scraped it together and just took the next step and the next step. Step and the next step. Jason's 100% right on point here. Jason, the first time we did a podcast together. We had this great line that you've quoted several times, which is that your job is not to convince the customer that you are Yoda. It's to convince the customer that they are Luke Skywalker. That seemed to be a really big mindset shift for you, and I noticed that in your behavior, you started making the customer the hero of the story. How did that. Aha. Adjust how you built the business after that interview?

One correction. You actually said that.

Yes, I said it to you.

Yeah. No, that was huge. It really. Because the Yoda analogy is used all the time, like you're the guide for the business, but it never clicked that it's not my job to convince them that I'm Yoda. It's my job to convince them that they're Luke Skywalker. And once you understand that, you understand that the whole purpose of the business is to serve the customer, because your job is to get them to. You're basically trying to convince them that the $50 that they have in their hand is worth less than what you provide them. And the bigger the discrepancy between what they're giving you and what they believe they're getting, the quicker and easier they're going to give it to you. Right. You know, if you're looking at it from a selfish standpoint, I guess that would be the way you put it. But once you understand that, it really just becomes your entire job to focus on trying to help the customer achieve their goals and reach their end state. And then everything's easy once you understand, like, because then you go deep with the customer, then you start to ask them questions, you start to talk to your customers, sort of show up where they're at, you start to interact with them, start to hang out with them. And then when you want to find out, oh, what's my product? Well, they probably already told you. You just launched the stuff they tell you to launch. Like, okay, well, where should I be marketing? Oh, where do they. Where do they read every day? Where do they, you know, where do they watch? Where do they read? Or what brands they follow? Or, you know, who do they listen to? And if they're going to buy a product in your space, where do they go to research about it and choose which one? You know, all that they'll tell you? And all you have to do is just do what they tell you to do.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And this is a bit of a mind warp, but it is true what you said. As soon as you Realize that your job is to serve the customer. It gets really easy. There's no more burden of you trying to figure it out. You're now just in service to them. There's no more trying to hack the system. You are trying to serve a person. And it's way more fun too. Right. And it is so much easier to get something off the ground when you are just willing to be in the trenches and serve somebody. But when you are focused on what can I extract from this person? You're always going to be repelling the marketplace away from you. It is just like a law of reciprocity. What you are putting in is what you are getting back. So it seemed like that freed you up to make decisions that were more from a place of what is going to legitimately grow the business versus how do I make more money from this? Is that correct?

Absolutely. Well, and they go hand in hand. Right? Growing the business and making more money from the business. If you're making a hundred grand a year in revenue, you can't make more than 100 grand a year in profit. Right. So growing the business means more money for you.

But most people will see the business as a route to make money, so they are extracting as much as possible. Whereas it seemed like that conversation gave you permission to just think about serving the customer and growing the business, and that's what allowed everything to grow.

Absolutely. And your customers realize it quickly. The decisions you make and the interactions you have with your customer, they will instantly know if you truly care about them or if you don't give a crap about them. And then you'll have either a Reiki customer who goes and tells all their friends about your brand and your products and promotes you for them for free, or you have someone's going to go bash your company and tell all their friends never to do business with you. So kind of, it's just smart business. Take care of your customers.

How have you built your audience and your following since having that? Aha. Because most people, they hear me talk about the necessity of building an audience, so they're just trying to hack the system. How do I extract the data from Amazon so I can spam the hell out of my people? You've built an actual following, an actual audience, without doing any of the manipulation stuff. So how have you built the following since having that?

Aha. First thing you have to do is get over numbers. Way too many people get way too obsessed with I need to have 100,000 emails or I need to have 5,000 new emails per week with this ad and they're trying to optimize for that. And I think that's the wrong way to look at it. The way you have to look at it is I want customers, I want people who love my brand. I want that thousand true followers. Once you understand that, then you're not so worried about I have to do a giveaway to get emails or I have to do this.

Click ad. So that the coolest title to get this. You want to reframe that title to be the one that connects most with your customer, that speaks most to your ideal customer, to your avatar. And yes, you might pay more per customer, but your net profit on that is going to be much greater because that person is actually going to buy from you and not just unsubscribe to something. Click. So that was a huge shift. And then in terms of where we spend our dollars, again, low hanging fruit, you know, where is the highest concentration of my customer going to be? And in the mindset of the thing that I serve them for. For us, we're into fitness. I'm not going to. I could have all my customers on Facebook watching cat videos. They're probably not in the mindset of getting ready to buy a lifting belt. They're watching cat videos. Right. But if they're reading a article specifically on the best weightlifting belts for CrossFit athletes or something like that and I show up in that article now is a very high chance that a they're gonna be mindset ready to purchase or buy or at least interact my brand from the mentality that I want them to. So finding out where they hang out and when in not only where, but when they're in the mentality or the mindset of wanting to improve the aspect of the life that you serve them in, I think is much higher ROI than just going after Facebook ads.

And are you pulling them into an email list and then sending them over to Amazon? What is that process for how you're aligning that traffic behind an audience?

Yeah, so our goal is collect email addresses in terms of customer interaction because that's where we have the deepest relationship. My business partner's done an incredible job building out our sequences as pure value gives. We don't have any sales actual pushes in any of our sequences. We do sales pushes, but not automated. We don't have any automated sales pushes. And it's all value give. And it's for like almost a year now. And it takes a lot of work to do that. Anyone who thinks you're gonna be good at email marketing without putting work or effort into learning, copywriting, learning, you know, sequence flows, learning, like all that kind of stuff. I hate to say it, but here at E commerce or a digital marketing.

Entrepreneur, you need to learn how to write, you need to learn how to understand visuals, and you have to understand email. At the end of the day, your entire brand's interaction as an E commerce entrepreneur is the content that you put out.

And I don't think enough of us understand that and really understand how important it is in terms of the perception of your brand and your interaction with customer. Because you don't get the luxury of having customers come into your store every day. If I had a local shop, I get to have a personal connection with every customer, which is much easier to build a relationship.

Right.

If my only interaction is the ads they see from me, the emails they get from me, the videos they see, and then the people who are pushing my or promoting my brand has to make sure that all of them are in line with what I'm trying to portray.

Yeah, I actually really like that analogy of thinking about all the people who see your content as window shoppers and they're coming in to have an interaction with your store. And that store is engaging in comments, in DMs, in emails, showing up in their inbox. Those are all of the ways that they are in your store. And whether or not they make a purchase is determined by how you treat them when they're in the store. And if you are trying to sell them, it is easier than ever for them to click off. But if they feel like you actually care, if you're actually in service to them, they will buy and they will tell everybody else. And it is much easier to scale.

Absolutely. I actually had a great interaction yesterday. I'm signing up to learn to take my scuba diving certification. I went to the scuba shop and the owner was showing me all the different gear that they had there. He did an incredible job of not only showing the gear, but educating me and offering even options outside of his store that he didn't sell and just really building that relationship in a matter of like five minutes. I'm like, this is brilliant. Like, this is the same stuff that I try to optimize for online. He can do it in five minutes in person. So we're at a disadvantage when it comes to that. But our job is to replicate that experience.

That's right. Jason, you're now one of the head coaches inside of the incubator, which is amazing, seeing as how you started this Process. Buying something from me on a Facebook ad three years ago and coming through the process organically hit crossing the first million. Being a guest on the podcast, being active in the community, and now being one of our head coaches. Why do you think you've made it when so many people give up in the first year?

That's a pretty good question.

I really think it comes down to that analogy of low hanging fruit. Again, I've said like multiple times in this podcast, but I think the one thing that I've done very well is focusing our efforts on the.

Whenever there was a shiny object that spoke to me and.

Was working. So when you're first starting out, you throw a bunch of stuff out there and say, okay, well what sticks? Once it sticks, double down on it and then go up the tree very carefully and allocate the few resources that you have as you're growing to the highest ROI investments. Your business is essentially an investment vehicle right when it comes from. When you're looking at it from a tactical standpoint, it's like, okay, I have cash coming in and I have to reallocate that cash to get more cash back out. So it has to go to inventory and some of it has to go to growth. When you're looking where I'm going to put that, where can I get the most dollars back from what I put in? I think Clement would love this kind of conversation, but you can almost start seeing it like levers. And you know, by pulling the different levers, essentially you look at the ROI on those things. So if you go up that scale and you follow that low hanging fruit methodology, I think that's what we've done very well. We haven't tried to launch a bunch of products too quickly. We haven't tried to expand off into different sorts of sales channels too quickly. You know, I have an incredible team, which helps a ton.

And then really focus on great products. I mean, that's been a huge key to our success too. So having differentiated products, like we didn't come up with anything brand new to the marketplace, nothing. Like we didn't invent the first way of doing. We made some minor changes and we make minor changes almost every few months in terms of refinement of that product. I don't think it's been the same for more than three months ever.

Which makes our products better. Like every year if you buy a new belt from us, it's not the same as when you previously bought. It's improved and better and that's how we maintain getting more Reviews and higher quality reviews and we get feedback, we listen to our customers. So all the answers are there. You just listen to your customers.

You've just been doubling down on being in service to the customer. Good work, my friend. Well, it is an honor to be part of your journey. Honor to have you in the incubator. If you had one request of the capitalism.com audience, what would it be?

Believe in yourself. I think that's what it would be.

Do you care to clarify?

I think a lot of actually it's interesting. I saw a Facebook post you posted or your team posted recently.

It was about your book and it was talking about how for 25 bucks you could turn this investment like 40,000x return. There was a bunch of people commenting just like, oh, well, I couldn't do that. If I was already at this much per day, then yes, I could do that. And it's just that lack of belief. But if instead they flip that coin and said, look, I don't have this today, I can do a very low investment of $25 or whatever.

And believe that I can do this. I guarantee they would get there if they truly believed it. It might not be in 12 months, it might not be in 24 months, but they would get there.

Yeah.

So we hear all the concept of if you believe that you can, you will find evidence to support it and you will stay in action. That matches that, that. And if you believe that you can't, you will find evidence for that and you'll find the actions to support that. But it starts with if you believe you can or if you can't.

That's it.

Good summary, my friend. Jason, it's great to see you. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you next year.

Yeah, see you.

I hope after listening to this episode, you're like, okay, I'm going to get off the sidelines and I'm going to start doing this thing. I'm going to work with Ryan, I'm going to work with Jason, I'm going to work with the rest of the team on getting clear on what my vision is for my seven figure business that I can scale and sell. And I really hope that in a few years you're turning down eight figure offers just like Jason is. When you're ready to get off the sidelines, you can come join us inside of the incubator. By the way, it's application only, so there's no hard pitch, but you can go download our free resources, find out how we structure these businesses, how we structure the owner's model so that you are free to be in the owner's seat of your business. And then you can decide if you want to hop into the incubator. You can Download that@Capitalism.com Inc.

All right. Hope you enjoyed today. I'll see you guys on the next episode.

Take care.