The Power of Leads: Call the Damn Leads | Drewbie Wilson

What's hard for most entrepreneurs when they start this journey is they have to wear every hat. So it's hard for them to figure out, hey, where is my skill set and how do I get that off of my plate to do like the things that I shouldn't be doing so that I can do more of the thing that I'm best at? What's often what I run into too is the thing is that they're best at are the things that they don't necessarily want to keep doing.

Hey creative, are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now. It's time for profit.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will find out how to turn Your Passion into Profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Drew B. Wilson of Call the Damn Leads.

Welcome, Drew B. Thank you for having me, Christian. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

I'm excited to have you here. So I'm going to start with the name Call the Damn Leads. What does that mean?

Well, it is the too long didn't read version is it's just a mantra for doing the work. Uh, because doing the work is ultimately what gets the results in all areas of life. But the more fun version is, as I was progressing through sales and entrepreneurship, I got really good at sales. I realized I needed one thing in order to do that more. I needed leads. So I went online and I learned marketing and I got really good at marketing and I got so many leads that people ended up paying me to help them get leads for them too. And Christian, funny enough, the one thing that I can get for people is leads, but I could not get them to pick up the phone and call the damn things. And so, uh, as a marketing agency that was dealing with constant churn of people who said this doesn't work, but the truth is they wouldn't do the work. And, uh, that's kind of where Call the Damn Leads started as a joke between me and the guys in the marketing company. And then I put it on a t-shirt and said, I'm going to sell this to the world and remind everybody that This is the only way to get real results is to pick up the phone, call the damn leads, do the work.

I love it. They're not going to sell themselves, as they would say. I love that insight because I find that when somebody comes to us or, you know, and they're like, well, we're not growing the way we want to do. The reality is that is a multifaceted question. It could be any number of things, and you might get one part right, but if you don't get the other part right, it doesn't matter. So like, if you, if you get— if you generate leads but no one follows up with them, it doesn't produce anything. So it speaks to the complexity of growing revenue. So you— who, who do you work with? Who's your target customer?

That's a great question. I work with sales professionals, small business owners, and entrepreneurs that are typically making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year and want to exceed to that mid-six figures range, or the business owner that's in that mid to set, you know, mid-six to seven figures that's trying to go into that $5 to $10 million range. Because as you mentioned, there are so many nuances and little levers that you have to start pulling within the bigger business machine. As you progress through those levels. And so we focus in on helping figure out, A, which parts of the machine are working, which ones need to be dialed in, and then how can we pull those specific levers to make sure we're optimizing. Because you mentioned, hey, you might get a lot of leads, but if you have no sales process, well, that's not any good. But here's the other thing: most business owners think that if they could just get the leads, they'd sell them and that would change everything. But the truth is If I handed you 99 clients with their credit card out ready to buy your product or service, your business would crumble because you don't have the backend to fulfill on that many clients either. So there's a balance there that is really important to understand. And that's where— I don't wanna say most people, but many that I've met along the way, you don't know what you don't know until you're, you know, listening to a podcast like this or having conversations with other business owners who have made that mistake. Who have spent way too much on marketing to not realize that they didn't have the revenue to back end to fulfill on it, vice versa. And, and that's what I really love about business, is like pulling all the wires out of that box, untangling them, and then putting together a machine that looks good, works well, and gets you your time back. Because we all know how to make more money, but time, energy, and effort are the only resources we can't get more of.

Yeah, it reminds me of what the founder of Boston Market, uh, said. He said, uh, Business comes down to one of two problems. It's either getting business or doing the business, getting the work or doing the work. And you raise a very valid point that you can grow yourself into problems.

So, you know, if, if, if Boston Market's a great example of this, because if you remember, they were Boston Chicken until they consistently ran into the issue that they couldn't keep enough chicken in stock. So they had to change it to Boston Market. That's business. It's crazy.

100%. So how did you land on this target market? I'm sure you didn't start out with that clear of intent.

No, Christian, I sure as heck didn't. I grew up in the streets selling dope as a kid, and as I got older, I met a beautiful young lady who became my wife. She got pregnant, we had a son. I realized, hey, I don't want to end up dead in prison or set a bad example for this young family that I'm creating. And so I got into more legitimate sales. An in-law who had started an insurance agency. So I went to selling home and auto insurance and, you know, I didn't know anything about it, but I figured, hey, if I just show up and call the damn leads enough times, I'll figure it out. And that's kind of the story of my life is I'll just figure it out. And most entrepreneurs, but I got good at insurance sales, realized, hey, I need more leads. So I went and learned marketing, had success in marketing, ended up building a marketing company, realized very quickly that I did not like working with that clientele because again, I can only do so much, and if you won't fulfill on your portion of what's necessary to get the result, it's hard to create that unity there. So I ended up selling that part of the business off to a partner I had at the time, and I went to work at a startup company out of Texas that was building a software, uh, for essentially landing pages. So, you know, this is kind of a creative agency podcast, so if you've ever built landing pages, websites, sales funnels, I went to work for a startup that essentially was trying to compete against some of the bigger platforms that existed. I ended up being kind of good there and leaning into doing some consulting with that company on one of its sister companies, became the VP of the company for sales, was employee number 3 in the startup. We ended up going up to doing, you know, 10 figures a year, not 10 figures, but 8 figures a year in business, a little over $10 million a year in business. I built a big team. We did a lot of cool things together. And so essentially the longer story short is I went into it for freedom. That's what most people build their agencies and, and start these opportunities for is they want the freedom to control their time. They want to be able to make enough money to live their life. And we had so much success in that company. It put me into a position where I wasn't going to have that freedom. I wasn't going to be able to travel as much. I was kind of going to be stuck in the office more so managing a team. And, you know, I had to have that hard conversation with myself of what is success to me? Because it's very much a perspective-based thing. My version of Christian Brim is probably a little different than yours. And if you asked our parents what it was supposed to be, it's probably a wildly different story. And so I made the decision to walk away from the big 6-figure salary and the corporate position and the comfort of what we had built to going back to my roots of working with small business owners and entrepreneurs and helping those guys really build to that level that they want to be on. Because one of the things that I get the most joy out of, and this is going to sound weird, but it's, it's exactly what I said, going into the box of tangled wires and pulling it all apart and un, unmessing it. And then putting it back together in a way that's more effective and efficient. Because a lot of the times you already have all the tools and resources that you need to be successful. You're just not putting it together in the right order. And if you get that dialed in, most of the other stuff starts to kind of work itself out.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yes, you touched on something that I think is important, and that is defining success for yourself, because I think it is very personal and I think might change over your stages of life, like when, when you don't have kids or when you have younger kids or when your kids leave home. I mean, all, all of those stages of life, what you want from the business might be different. And I think the idea of creating the business to be what you want to serve you, as opposed to you serving the business, is a very key concept to grab hold of. To, to your point, I think a lot of times we define success in terms of what others think, you know, others think is success, or this image that we have in our head of what success looks like. For, for me, the struggle was comparing myself to other entrepreneurs. So you think you've had success and then you go and you see somebody that's doing it 10 times better and a little bit of envy. But at the end of the day, it has to be what you want and what nobody else wants, or you'll never achieve it, right? If you're just chasing someone else's dream or you're not clear on what your dream is, you're not going to achieve it. And the last thing I'd say on that is that time freedom is, I think, probably more important than financial freedom. I mean, I don't know if it's one is more important than the other, but they're both equally important in my mind. Obviously, you don't want to have time freedom with no money because then what are you going to do? You know, being locked into a business that requires all of your time and effort and doesn't give you time to enjoy that money is not good either.

I have a formula for this. I typically only share with my paying clients that pay me like a lot of money, but I'll share it with your audience if you'd be open to it, Christian. It takes me a minute to explain, but I'll be willing to share if you're open. So it's a two-part process. And anytime I go to consult with anybody that I meet for any level of our programs, the first conversation that we have is very much that like, hey, success is a perspective and my version is going to be different than yours. But what we need to get very clear on is And being a Profit First podcast, this is going to be so good because I love the way that I line this out for you. You're going to love this. If we know that money is a tool or a resource that we use to invest, and the idea is to generate a profit from that investment so that we can continue to reinvest it, that's logical and it makes sense. Is that fair, Christian Brim? Okay, wonderful. So Here's what I look at. We all know how to make more money. Like, we can go and borrow money, we can find money, we can, you know, swing a hammer, we can do a deal, whatever. What we can't get more of: time, energy, and effort. We can't buy our time. We can't buy time. We can't win it in a poker tournament. We don't get a box of it for Christmas. We can't go back in time and put more energy or effort into a project than what we did in that moment. And so to me, those are our true finite resources and assets that we have to invest. And the issue that I run into is most people are investing them in wild places with absolutely no way to measure what kind of return they're getting. Yes. And so here's how I start breaking this down for people. If you were to think about all of the money that you've made in the last 12 months, your main job, maybe you have a side hustle. I know some people might be kind of starting their agency because they're trying to get into not having a main job, right? So you've got your side hustle. There might be some pictures of your feet on the internet that you get paid for. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, you know, if you're putting your time and energy into it and it's generating an income, add all of that up. And once you have that total, I want you to divide that number by 2,000. Because if you were an average person, which if they're here with us today, Christian, they're definitely not average because they're trying to learn, they're trying to better themselves. But if they were average, they'd work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year with a 2-week vacation, 9 to 5. That's your, you know, your, your standard job. So that's 2,000 hours per year. If you made $50,000 last year, your time is worth $25 an hour. If you made $100,000 last year, your time's worth $50 an hour. This is just basic math. Now, we also will agree that the majority of us here today probably worked a lot more than 40 hours a week last year, so that number starts to vary a little bit. But here's the scariest thing to ask yourself, Christian. If I put on a hood and I carried a little knife with me and I was like, hey, congratulations, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but my name is Death you have 24 hours left to live. Here's $50, $100, $25, whatever that number is that you just came up with in your head to define what your number is actual hourly worth. Would you still come with me to work for that hour to get paid that amount of money? Abso-friggin-lutely not. Now, we probably all will admit that at some level of money, we would start tiptoeing past what we're willing to do, knowing that that money is a tool or a resource that someone we love or care about could use it to their benefit. So that is why we still all exchange time for money, because it is a tool and a resource that we know we need in our lives. So knowing now what our time is worth, we have the option of, if we want to make more money, we can either work twice as much Or we can develop ourselves to make our skill set and our time more valuable, which is why people are here with us listening to the podcast, trying to better themselves because they're investing their time to grow their skill set so that then when they go back out into the market, their time is more valuable. Does that make sense so far? Yes. Okay. And does it— do you feel like if you knew you only had 24 hours left to live, you would be more intentional with that time? Absolutely. All right, so if we just look at any given day as 24 hours in a day set, and to me there's a couple areas of life that are really, really important to invest into to make sure I'm getting a return. Number one is sleep, because as much as I hate to admit it, I've been on a bender before. Again, I grew up in the streets, and I know that after 48 hours if you don't sleep, you're basically useless.

Yes.

Uh-huh. So, we gotta sleep, we gotta recover. And then, most of us have our family because that's like our legacy, our relationships, our why, that's very important. Then, we have our business because we don't have that F.U. money just yet, we still have to work and earn. And then, we put ourselves at the bottom of that list, which is why so many people end up burnout, unhappy, dissatisfied, out of shape, not genuinely feeling fulfilled. Right. So what if you just made the decision that, hey, if these are all areas of my life that are important, and I know my one true resource and asset to invest every day is time, energy, and effort, okay, well, if I spend 6 hours sleeping, 6 hours on me, 6 hours on my family, and 6 hours on my business, that's, quote, a balanced life. And anybody who's ever spent 6 hours on a project that they really cared about, or spent 6 hours in bed with their spouse with no responsibilities, knows that you can you can have a lot of fun, you can do a lot of amazing things, and you can make a major impact. Yes. So what if that's how you lived your day every day?

I love it for a couple of reasons. The first is this, this intent, which is the foundation, I, I believe, of Profit First. I mean, Profit First is a tool, but at the end of the day, it's, it's more important that you have the intent of profit than it is the tool to make the profit, right? You have to want to and prioritize making money. The other thing I like about it is this, and I, and I talk about this in the book too, the, uh, the Pareto principle, 80/20 principle. So for those of you who haven't read the book or don't know, Pareto was an Italian economist in the 19th century, and he did this study of land ownership and population. And what he came to the conclusion was that 20% of the The top 20% of the population owned 80% of the real estate. And that, that paradigm is— shows up everywhere in human endeavor. The way you apply it in your business is that 20% of the things that you do produce 80% of the results. And there's even a line of thought that goes further to say that there's some percentage that's actually counterproductive. But we, we won't go into that. We'll just sit with the 80/20, right?

Read the book.

Yeah. So the question is, what is that 20% and focusing on that and doing more of that? And it's a never-ending fractal. So the 20% can be broken down to 4%. So 20% of 20% is 4%. There's 4% of the things that you do that produce 90% of your effort. And what that challenges you to do is get out of this headspace of busyness, right? And the busyness is, is a deceptive trap because the brain is hardwired for predictability. Right? It wants to know, if I do this, this is what's going to happen. It doesn't like unpredictability. But what happens with that 80% of your work is that it's predictable, right? You know, when you sit down and do this, you're going to get Y. And so your brain gravitates to it. And so it's like a barnacle on a ship. It just slows you down. It's just— it's sucking the energy out of you. And I think the key as an entrepreneur is as quickly as possible identifying what is your 20%, what are you most valuable at doing in the business and do more of it.

What's hard for most entrepreneurs when they start this journey is they have to wear every hat. So, it's hard for them to figure out, hey, where is my skill set and how do I get that off of my plate to do like the things that I shouldn't be doing so that I can do more of the thing that I'm best at. What's often what I run into too is the thing is that they're best at are the things that they don't necessarily want to keep doing.

Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

That's another factor. Yes, absolutely.

It's like, you know, if you want to get fit, you have to go to the gym and you got to do the reps. Do you have to go to the gym? No, but you still have to do the reps. One of the best lessons I was ever given was a quote from my mentor, and he said this, he said, hey man, methods are many, principles are few. Methods may vary, but principles never do. So there's, there's a million ways to make a million dollars. But anyone who's ever made a million dollars will tell you a few core principles that they lived by. And what I've learned from all of those individuals who I've met that have made incredible amounts of money, they all said, the most valuable thing that I have right now, young man, is my time. And I would trade anything in the world to be your age right now. And to me, that was such a, like, impactful lesson because here's guys that literally have more money than they know what to do with. Like, they're donating to things and they're buying cars and they're traveling and, like, They reinvest into themselves constantly. And all they cared about most was their time and the memories that they made with the people that mattered to them most. And for me, as I started the journey, when I got into entrepreneurship, I was making $30,000 a year, grew up a drug dealer, thought, man, as a college dropout, this is probably as good as it's gonna get. So be grateful. And as I started to make more money and continue to lean in on the gratitude of like, this is freaking amazing. This abundance is awesome. How can I share this with the people around me? It was that continue of reinvesting those profits into a systematic way of continuing to build more profit. And when you take that learning in a way that you can then teach the next person, that's when your profit becomes exponential. Because now all of the abundance, everything that you are gaining is just continuing to spill over into these extra buckets and those buckets start to fill up and then they stack up and need more buckets.. But so many people give up on the, hey, you have to be willing to do the work even when it's not fun, even when it's not sexy, because all the guys that are doing the fun and sexy stuff, they can only do that because they did the work or because they scam the shit out of people. And like, nobody here wants to be a scammer. So like, we're gonna have to do the work, guys. I'm sorry to say.

Yeah. And, and, you know, I think there is this false image that's out there. Unfortunately, there are unethical people out there and they promote systems or programs or consulting that, you know, is going to make you wealthy, you know, the get rich quick, simple solve. And the reality of that is that the solution may be simple, oftentimes is simple, that doesn't mean it's easy, and it does require work. I mean, you might, um, might get lucky, but it's kind of like buying a lottery ticket, right? So, uh, or, or as I call it, it's a— the lottery is a tax on people who don't understand statistics. But, um, it, you know, you're gonna have to You're gonna have to do the work.

There's two parts to that that I wanna kind of expand on, Christian, 'cause you make a good point. It's like, okay, yes, on rare occasion you might hit the lottery and get lucky. But if you look statistically, let's just say statistically of all the lottery winners of all time, the majority of them, like overwhelming majority, end up worse off later than before when they won the money. Because like they got the money, they didn't have the principles, they didn't understand, they didn't have the strength, to maintain where they were. And that's why it's so important to understand that all the, the people that say fast money don't last, honey, they joke about it, but it's a reality. Because if it comes fast, it will go fast, because that is how momentum works. It maintains that same amount of energy. So the slow and steady isn't always the most fun, but it is the most predictable. And that's the funniest thing to me about the paradox of entrepreneurship is people, they want predictability, but they won't do the things that create predictable results, like calling the damn leads. It's like, it's so interesting, but that's why I'm so grateful that I get the opportunity. And I've been blessed with the skillset to share my stories and to go out and to have these conversations with amazing people like yourself, because I didn't know what I didn't know until I did. And then once I did, I was able to make different decisions and choices in my life. And that's why I, again, I just want to thank you for, you know, we're almost 30 minutes into this show, giving me a platform where I can spend some of my time and invest in knowing that if, hey, one person hears us today and they get something of value out of it and they go and make a difference in their life, man, the trickle effect of that could be that at some point down the line, my future generations get to live a better life because of that. That's the kind of like seeds that I want to plant and the kind of profit that I'm trying to expect long-term versus the— again, a lot of people, they come in thinking that they're going to get into this and money bags are going to fall on their head, but that's not how it typically works. And if it does, you're going to end up with a concussion and a huge medical bill that you don't want to deal with, I promise.

Yeah, 100%. So let's pivot for a minute. You, you mentioned Profit First, Do you use Profit First in your business?

I use a version of it. I haven't had the chance. I ordered your book. It's on its way from Amazon. I haven't had the chance to read through it just yet, but a lot of what I do is focusing on A, profit is very important. B, being a startup, being in a young up-and-coming business, I'm also heavy on reinvesting into myself. So while the profits are important, it's also important for me to know my numbers so that I can predictively put in a certain amount of marketing expense and reinvest those profits so that I can continue to grow them down the line.

Yeah, pre-Profit First, you know, you'd think as an accountant, I would've figured this shit out on my own, but—

The hardest advice to take is your own, Christian. You should know that.

Yeah, no, no, you're 100% right. What I did was I, I was never not profitable, but there were several years where I didn't make the money I should. And I used the excuse that I was growing the business, right? And I did spend a lot of money on marketing and advertising over the years. And the reality is that you can make a lot of excuses for why you're not making the profit that you are. But don't believe them. Because the— if you're going to invest into your business, then you should have an expectation of what that investment should yield. And if you're not getting it, then you're just wasting it, right? I mean, I remember when my CFO, uh, had a difficult conversation with me a couple of years ago, and he's like, Man, this money you're spending on marketing and sales, it's just not producing what it needs. And it's— his statement was like, I'd rather you have that money and go do something else with it.

That's a good CFO, right?

Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. And if it isn't, then I will, because that's— there's no reason to just keep spending money if it's not producing something.

And that's where it's so important to work with people who have been down that path to find, you know, someone who understands the end goal that you're trying to reach. Because again, there's a lot of different ways to reach wealth. What I, I often work with a lot of financial advisors and, and insurance brokers and things like that, of that nature. And what I try to explain to them is like, you got to analyze the fact that, hey, when you start at 16 years old, you get your first cheap vehicle that you can get and you drive the wheels off of that freaking thing. And that's kind of how it looks when you're starting your investing world too. You, you get, you know, like a couple dollars in stocks, or then you go and you invest in a small life insurance policy or whatever. But the problem I run into further on down the line is, you ever hear that song that I think it's Johnny Cash and he's talking about stealing parts from the Cadillac factory and all of a sudden he's got a '59 bumper and a '76 headlight and none of it fits together right and it's just a big freaking mess. Well, that's your business. If you're starting your business and you're trying to build a Honda Civic and then you decide 2 years later that you want to put Lambo doors on it and then you want to put a Lambo wing on it and then you're going to get a big old loud exhaust and you're going to do all these things, it's all of a sudden not going to look very well and it's not going to make a lot of sense and it's not going to run the way it's supposed to. And that's the same thing that I watch people do to their business. They start in one vehicle and then they get shiny object syndrome and jump to another vehicle and then jump to another vehicle. But the problem is they never just finish and use the one that they started with, which is why they can't ever get the momentum that they need. And they constantly feel like they're starting over because they're trying to build a new vehicle. They're trying to start over from the beginning, and it's not actually getting them any closer to their goal. Hopefully, I explained that well.

You cut out on us there. Go back to you don't ever get the momentum.

I might be back. If you don't finish the project, you don't complete the loop, you never get the momentum. And that's the thing that most people get stuck on is they're like, "Oh, okay." And then, they start over. And then, instead of being at the top and keeping on the gas, they see something over there in the distance and they're like, "Hey, I'm going to go get that instead." just keep focused, just maintain that momentum and stick with one vehicle until you have ridden the absolute wheels off of it and then move into the next if it's necessary. A lot of times people are chasing something that's not necessary in their business because that distraction is the thing that's allowing them to make excuses about why they're not getting the result that they want.

I, I couldn't agree with you more. Druby, what, um, are some of the financial challenges that you've had to overcome as an entrepreneur?

Well, first and foremost, I had to overcome the challenges that were ingrained upon me as a young man because I grew up in a relatively— I'm not going to say we were poor, uh, but there was a point where my family had to get food from the Salvation Army. And, you know, my mom was a single mom. My dad was in and out, abusive, drugs, all the things, you know, that we could make excuses on, but the The biggest thing is I had to overcome the mindset of, hey, we only ever have just enough to get by. And that is so hard for me. Even still every day, it's a challenge to think like when I have that come up, I have to stop and go, no, abundance is okay. It is okay to have more than you need because at some point you may not have it. So when you can continue to be abundant, it always flows back around. That's that continuous momentum. The other side of that is, you know, um, I at one point made the mistake of making good money and spending good money and not putting enough aside and getting to a point where when I had to make the decision to walk away from that big six-figure salary, I had a lot of expenses that I had to quickly go and make up for. And you know, when you're used to making a certain amount of money every month and it goes to zero without any amount of work that you put in, It's scary. And you start to think about all those things that you bought or spent money on or did and think, was that the best use of my resources at the time? And you start to really question, hey, okay, well, in the future, I probably, instead of spending a few thousand dollars on this crypto coin that went to shit, I probably could have put that into something a little more profitable or a little wiser of an investment. But hindsight's 20/20, and school is expensive. So we can't learn those lessons without going through them. The important part is to learn from them and make different decisions as we go forward.

Yeah, I've learned, uh, I, I guess I was an okay student, but I, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are like this, um, they, they don't like to be told what to do, um, you know, they're highly independent, right, and self-reliant. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people give me advice or give me experience share where, uh, I didn't listen and I had to go pay the price for my own lesson, which, you know, I'm, I'm just stubborn sometimes. And I, I, I think, yeah, uh, but, but yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna pay a price for that lesson, um, and you're gonna keep repeating the lesson until you get it right. I've done that too. Maybe I just did it wrong. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, uh, no, you didn't learn your lesson, so we're going to teach you again. I like what you said about going back to what I call a scarcity mentality and overcoming that. I think a lot of entrepreneurs start a business to overcome or in reaction to some trauma in their youth, it might just be as simple as proving the teacher wrong that said that you were stupid, and, and might be that simple, right? But the, the baggage we bring financially, uh, comes into the business. You can't help it. Like, you can't have a certain set of values and beliefs about money personally and that be different in your business. It's identical because you're the same person. I remember reading when I had just finished school, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. It was the first time that I really started to think about what I thought I knew about money. And I was, you know, at this point I'd studied accounting. I was trained as a financial professional, but the reality is that there are a lot of emotions deeply tied to what you think about money. And I'd never really thought about it or questioned it. And so that started that journey of me really thinking about that. Where was that light bulb moment for you that you realized maybe what I thought was wrong, what I knew was wrong?

There wasn't one particular moment. There's always a series of things that kind of lead up to these scenarios that we're in. Uh, but there was one in particular that I, I talk about often in my keynote presentations because it was very enlightening to me, and it kind of comes back to why I do that formula that I shared earlier. I was in the insurance industry selling my butt off, had been there for, I don't know, maybe 4 years, was just starting to learn the marketing, had had a little bit of success, was kind of in some public Facebook communities and was sharing it and chatting and a woman named Nancy reached out to me, wonderful woman. We spent several years working together after this, but when she reached out initially, she's like, hey, I see that you're in this group. You're using this software that I am also a user of, and that you're seemingly having some success because the owner of the company gave you a big shout out. And I see you're in the group all the time. And, you know, I was just wondering how much for an hour of your time to hop on a call and help me with a few things., and it, it really was like the shining down moment. And it was like, okay, calculations, you make $350 a week plus commissions. So your average month's about 3 grand. So if you break that down by 40 hours, and then if you were to work double time or time and a half. So I'm like doing this calculation as quickly in my head as I can, trying to figure out what I'm going to ask this lady. And I was like, so proud. I was like, how about 50 bucks? And she kind of chuckled and she's like, uh, I was going to pay you $75. And I said, yeah, that sounds pretty good. I'll take that. And she was like, okay, cool. And you know, it was that moment going like, what am I? Damn it. I should have asked for $100, you know, like you just don't know until you know, but I got on the call. We had the conversation. It generally felt like this Christian, like it was just very conversational sharing what I knew, just some, some insights, some things that I had learned. At the end, she sends me the Venmo for $75. I called my wife and I was like, hey, I don't know what I got to do yet, but I'm going to figure out how I do this like 3 times a day and we'll have made so like twice as much money and I could work twice as often. How cool would that be? And I was working like Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. It wasn't even like I had a bad schedule, but just, you know, and it was that moment where I kind of went, I've been underselling myself and there's no one else in the world who can sell me except for me because I need to go out and show and prove to myself more than anyone at first that I have worth and that I'm worth significantly more than all of the counselors and all of the people who didn't hire me for jobs and all of the people who told me that growing up covered in tattoos and being the kid that I was was going to end up, you know, leading me to a place I didn't deserve. And they weren't wrong, but the truth is I had to learn that for myself. And in that moment when she asked me what my time was worth, it really made me start thinking about, dang, if this is the one thing that, like, I can't get back, why am I not getting a better return on that investment?

I love that story, and I think it is ubiquitous that we all all have some diminishing of our, our self-worth. And I recall the first time I, I did some fractional CFO work, and I remember the first time I got comfortable with saying that, uh, well, my rate is $5,000 a day. And you know, the reality is now I wouldn't work for $5,000 a day. And it's not that I wouldn't like $5,000, but I mean, like, I don't want— I mean, 8 hours, that's, that's a, that's a lot of time. And like, but the reality is, here's the reality for whether it's $75 an hour or, uh, $5,000 a day, whatever the number is, it has nothing to do with what you think you're worth. It has all to do with what value you bring and what that person receiving the value perceives. So, you know, she said $75 an hour, she would have paid you $100 because it was worth it to her. And so like, who are you to tell her that you're not?

And that's the, the, the craziest part, and where I find that it's— you have to just try. So many people are afraid to say, "Well, I couldn't ask you for $5,000 for a day. That sounds crazy." Like, yeah, right now it does. But here's what I know. Someone who can pay you $5,000 to come and help them for a day, if you can solve a problem for them that's big enough, $5,000 is a drop in the bucket because they'll take whatever you give them and turn that into $50,000, $100,000, $1 million. That's the value, the perception. And you know, it's those silly meme stories that you see where it's like, oh, the guy gave the daughter a dirty watch and she took it to the watch dealer and he laughed and sent her on her way and took it to another place and they laughed and sent her on her way. And then she went to the pawn shop and the pawn shop's like, ma'am, I could take advantage of you, but I'm not gonna because this thing's worth tens of thousands of dollars to the right collector because it's a vintage Rolex. It just needs to be cleaned off. Who are you talking to? They're gonna see the value in what you bring to the table. And the right people are gonna be very honest with you and say, cool, I see your value. And also maybe you're a little new, so I'm gonna leverage my ability to say, hey, I'll pay you what you're worth minus a little, just 'cause I know where I'm at because I have the ability to have that. Or the best ones are just gonna be like, cool, I sent you the money. What do we do next? 'Cause they don't care. They just wanna solve their problem. And if you can help people solve their problem, which most of the time is they just want their time back to do the things that they wanna be doing instead of dealing with this solve this problem, man, life gets real good.

I love it. Drew B., how do our listeners find you if they want to learn more about Call the Damn Leads?

The best thing that they could do if they enjoyed this show and they want to come and find me is they need to take this episode and share it on the social media platform of their choice and then tag me @CallTheDamnLeads. Because, A, Christian, you were kind enough to give me this platform to share some of my story and some of my wisdom, so I be remorse if I didn't give you the opportunity to get more viewers as well. Because if they enjoyed this show, there's probably other episodes of your show that they're gonna like too. And then they can come and find both of us and continue to learn. And if they tag me on social media, it's going to notify me and I'm going to do what I do by calling the damn leads. And I'm going to follow up and I'm going to ask, hey, what did you get most out of this show? And where do you want to go from here? Because there are tools, resources, all sorts of things that are available. I have them, Christian has them, we all have them. It's just a matter of getting clear on what's the biggest roadblock you have right now so that we can build a ramp over that thing and just move towards the next thing. Pick up the phone, call those damn leads, crush the damn day, and live a good life.

I love it. Drewbie, thank you very much for your time and being a guest. Listeners, if you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Uh, if you don't like it or you just want to comment, uh, there's a link. Please text us and let us know what you think. Until next time, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon. Link below.