Episode 4: The Power of Asking with Danny Walsh

Welcome to Escape Artist, the podcast where we celebrate the bold souls who have dared to break free from the confines of the corporate 9 to 5 grind to pursue their passions and create a life of personal and financial freedom. Each week, we'll uncover the stories of extraordinary individuals who have embarked on their own entrepreneurial adventures. Our guests will share their personal tales of liberation, resilience, and triumph. Together, we'll explore the pivotal moments, the challenges, and the lessons learned along the way. So join me as we embark on a journey of discovery, courage, and boundless potential. Let's design the life you've always dreamed of, where the only boss is you. Here's your host, Laura Demetrius.

Today's interview is with my good friend.

Danny Walsh, and he is a wealth of knowledge in the digital marketing space, and he knows a ton about fishbowl funnels and how to create an offer. But he also really touches on the power of asking today, which is really profound and powerful, and I gained a lot from it, and I know that you will, too.

So here's my interview with Danny Walsh.

All right. Hey, friends. Today I'm with Danny Walsh. Danny's such a good friend of mine. We've known each other for, I don't know, the last year and a half.

Ish.

It's been a while, but he's been a dear friend of mine, and he is very experienced in the online business space. He's been in this for over 25 years. He's an author, speaker. He has really cool frameworks. But more importantly, he's just. He's a lot like me in the fact that he will always put people first. In fact, I'm reading your hat right now, Danny. It says wealth is of the heart and mind, not the pocket. Which, like, I would love to get to that, too, because I feel like that just kind of embodies exactly the type of person you are. But thank you for being with me today and being on the show, and I can't wait for people to hear from you because you just have so much inspiration to share that I think people will really love.

Hi, Laura. I'm glad to be here and a pleasure, and it's great to see this. This moving. And I've seen other people saying, hey, I've been on Laura's podcast, so, yeah, I'm here and I will give you as much inspiration as I possibly can.

Thank you so much, and thanks for being such a great supporter. I want to start, and I know we were chatting before this, and there's just so much that we could Talk about that. I think people would love to hear from you, but let's go back a little bit, let people know a little bit about yourself and kind of transitioning to where you are now. Like, it can be a brief history, like the types of jobs you've held. I know you've done a lot of different things, so just give us a little bit of background.

I always want to help people and it's weird. So we can go right back to, like, the early days of school. I would do the homework for kids. When we was 18, we ran a music business because we wanted to give back to music. Yeah. We wanted to make money. We wanted to be rappers and stuff as well. That opened up the world of entrepreneurship from an early age. But my mom was always like, you need to get a real job and you need to turn down that music. Right. So there was always this battle with family. But I guess, you know, we. We grew up in a. A terrible area. We're in deprivation in the area. My mum wasn't too bad. But the actual place where we grew up is in the top 6% of the most deprived areas of England. Wow. So there's drugs and low life expectancy and all these social problems that often people manifest into barriers that stop them being successful in life. If I looked at the class photograph from my, like, primary school, the early school, think a lot of the folks in there are either dead in jail or they don't have much going for them. Right. Or so you could say life was hard. But I guess there's the thing about it's as hard as you make it or as hard as you want it to be. I've always tried to look at things optimistically, and it was pretty cool when the community center said, hey, crazy rapper kids, would you like to come and teach some other kids how to do this DJing and this rapping and stuff? And from there we. We developed a charity and we had funding and we really gave back to the community. We engaged with thousands and thousands of kids. And then we kind of got, like, shafted in the process. And the directors of that charity, they employed the family and they threw us out and they changed the locks and they used the idea and the plan and my reputation was ruined because they told lies. And it's like, oh, gosh, I'm gonna do need. To. Need to pick myself up again. So I've been through that now, what.

Many times, like, the loss of something. It's also like the discouragement that comes with it. Right. Like you feel because like, there's just negative feelings. How do you bounce back from that?

It's like, again, it's the. It's that desire to. To help people because people who are damaging others. Right. Or people who say bad things about others or people who try and ruin reputations or people who steal.

Yeah, right.

They go out and they steal somebody's idea or they ruin something for you, or they're jealous or whatever these negative things are in life that people seem to do to others. Their values are never rooted, if you think about it. They can't possibly be. They're never rooted in helping.

Yeah.

They're always rooted in destruction or removal of a privilege or whatever it is. Right. So if somebody's doing that, if you can maintain that desire to help, you'll always shine through and you'll always come. It's hard at the time. You don't know what to do. Right. But you build resilience, and resilience builds experience. And that's why, I guess, the resilient experience people are doing podcasts or building businesses and living a life that they want to do, whereas the. The damages and the. The badmin people and the people who want to take, or they just want money, they don't care about people. They never seem to progress. It's an interesting, weird phenomenon, but I've experienced that, obviously, working with charities and children's companies and all of this crazy stuff. And look, I've had the corporate jobs. I work for the council. I brought policy. I've quit corporate jobs because they just don't make me happy. And you, sometimes you can't help people because you. You bound by a system that just won't move fast enough. That's. That's important to help people. You need to move fast, and you need to be able to achieve a vision or achieve a goal. If somebody is shackling you down by policy or procedure, that just doesn't work for me. So.

And it's got to be so hard when you're full of ideas and you know that those ideas can make a difference and it's just red tape everywhere or, you know, moving things. I can't imagine how it is with actual policy. But when you have good ideas and you know that they're going to make a difference and you're not seeing them budge. It's like, how can I take things into my own hands because I know that I've got something more. And. And that's something I've always known about you, too, is like, you are an idea generator. And Some people just cannot keep up with that. And, like, where did you get to a point? Like, what was the pivotal moment when you're like, I have good ideas. I'm going to start serving myself and doing things for others in my own business. Like, I'm sure there's a big transitional period where you've done lots of different things, but, like, to me, that's a big one. It's like, when you can start making change and doing things for yourself without the red tape, without waiting for approval.

See, that red tape and approval doesn't just sit at a corporate level. I've worked a lot with friends. So your friend has got an opposing force in your partnership.

Yeah.

So the friend doesn't want to do what you want to do.

Yeah.

Your friend wants to do it their way. And this is true. Like, if you set up a family business as well. This is why people have blazing arguments. I think the time that I was actually able to truly help people and live a life where I felt actually fulfilled is the time when I stopped working with the friends. I stopped creating partnerships. Now, look, I fall follow this all the time. I set up a crazy partnership with somebody and I'm like, oh, why did I do that?

Yeah.

So there's. If anybody takes anything from this, be very, very careful about who you. You create something with, even if it's your sister or your brother or whatever. Right. But the. The time that I was truly able to help folks and make a real difference to others is when I freed myself of people who didn't share the vision. Because, let's have it right. You can join a team or a company or form a partnership. The key to this is a shared vision and shared values.

Yeah.

And when you get that alignment and you understand that, you fly.

Yeah.

But if you don't understand your own values, how could you possibly align with somebody else's? A big realization that you've got to have and literally write this stuff down. What are my values?

We did a. I want to. I want to get into that a little bit just because of. As you know and some others know about my experience in communications. And that is something that I think goes so unnoticed or underappreciated is like, when you're trying to drive home the point of, like, what's our mission? What are our core values? It's simple. Like, what are. What do we value? And it could be 1, 2, 3 things that are so obvious, but you need to actually talk about those, bring them up, communicate them, advertise them, showcase them. And apply them. Right. And if you don't know your vision, your mission statement, your core values, how is anybody going to. Going to get on board and row in the same direction you're trying to row? Like, it seems so minute, but it's so important.

It's. What is the biggest thing? Because, man, we did a thing. When I was working in corporate work for the local government, for council, writing this policy, and the executives, four of them, they went off into a meeting room and after a couple of hours, they re emerged in the conference and said, hey, everybody, we've just had a meeting. Here are our new values. And the whole room erupted into, like, ridicule because how can four of you go away.

Yep.

And come back and dictate what the.

Values decide in a meeting?

Yeah, we. This is it. This is your values. Stick to these values.

Yeah.

And it was about the time they were doing this equal pay, equal pay review. Right. So some of the people on 30, 000 a year would then drop down to 24, 000. And some of the people who were on 20, 000 were pushed up to 24, 000. So the pair was equalized. So it's great if you get the raise.

Yeah.

Those people are like, hey, this is the best day ever. You're on 30 grand and you just dropped six grand or whatever.

Yeah.

It's murder, right? And they kind of asked me to do these conferences where we'd stand there and we have a screen and add this little voting device, kind of like a calculator. So we put it on the screen and we say, on a scale to 1 to 10, how do you feel right now? 1 being the worst and 10 being ecstatic. And they'd vote on these things. You could see people like, pressing this.

Like, running people off the island.

Yeah. So the. The result would appear on the screen and I'd be like, well, raise your hand if you press 1. Put the right. And then I'd pick a few folks from the audience and say, can you tell us why? And they'd swear and they'd shout and they'd kick the chair over. And people were walking out crying and stuff. It wasn't the nicest thing. If they've lost money, you know, the families are at stake and the executives would be sitting there writing this crap down. That is not how you manage your workforce and instill a sense of pride and get people rolling in the right direction.

It sounds like a reality show.

It was interesting, but it was about that time that I thought, look, I've always done what I loved. I've always done fishing and music and stuff with kids and, you know, football club or whatever. Right. So I thought, you know what? Me and my friend, we're gonna go and set up an Internet radio station, and while the radio station runs at night and we can have DJs and do music again in the day, I'm gonna focus on building a web design company for me and use the same office space. And that's how really my Walsh marketing thing was born. In the day in this crappy unit with freezing cold, no heating.

Yeah.

Cracking away at the laptop because I knew I could help people there. And you know what? What are these corporate people ever going to do? It's like, you. You're dictating values. Your vision is skewed. You're treating people with no respect. You're just imposing.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, how daunting.

But your values will dictate your direction. Right. So I'm looking at that, thinking, you can't treat people like that. You can't enforce this. You can't ask people to lose money overnight or lose a job overnight without any notice just because policies changed or somebody's had a bright idea.

And those also can't just be rooted in, like, a revenue goal. Like, oh, we determined this is our revenue goal, so it makes sense that our core values are this. And this is going to be our mission. It's like, when did we stop looking to people and community and culture and analyze that as, like, what's working for us, like, what's making us happy, what are we excited about? Like, what it really just boils down to what's working. How can we continue to do that?

Yeah.

And.

And there's people outcomes, and there's money outcomes. Right. And if you focus on the people, you'll be there in many, many years to come. You focus on the money, and you probably go out of business or things keep changing or the funding runs out or whatever. You often find the companies focused on the money have the worst results on trustpilot.

Yep.

The ones focus on the people have got excellent customer service. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So I want to tell people a little bit about my background with you and the things that I've witnessed from you. And a lot of that is about putting people first. And I remember the very first time we had a conversation, it was an interview. And the first thing I recognized was this guy. He's got a giant heart. He puts people first, he adds value. He gives, gives, gives. You've done that in communities. I've seen you as a community manager, you've run ambassador programs, and you're just constantly giving value. And I think that's amazing. I think everybody needs to start with that. At what point can you start to monetize?

Monetizing? Look, I can't invest in your dream if you don't invest in mine. Right? So there's always a transaction that needs to take place at some point. Just being simple in your approach with people and saying, look, I think it comes to start, Laura is often in the art, especially in entrepreneurial worlds, people say, just give value. What does that even mean? Right. So just, just give value, Laura, you'll be fine. Where do I go?

What do I do?

I don't know. I don't know what that means. So, for example, if you turn up in. I did a training on this the other day for free, because I just want to give value. Right? But if you turn up in Facebook groups and answer questions, Right, So you turn up in Facebook groups and just answer people's questions in a niche that you understand. So if it's business, you go in some business group, people are going to be asking questions. Yeah, my website's broken. What do I do? Instead of just saying, I can help you, which offers zero value and implies that you want them on a call to sell them some stuff.

Right.

Literally go out there and give them step one, check to see if this works. Step two, go to this thing. Step three, step four, step five, there's a loom video, there's a screenshot. Give them the whole solution there.

And then so you have a framework that you're able to provide to people. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

So literally, as I'm saying, go into a group and just help. If somebody rings you up and they say, danny, you know, I'm worried about this thing, or my. I'm trying to write a proposal or I'm doing a presentation or I need to be able to speak on stage with confidence. If you can help with it confidently and you think you know the answer that can get them the result. You're in a good position to be able to give a step by step. This is what you should do. If you can say that with confidence, you're giving value. Because at the end of that message or conversation or comment or whatever it is, that person goes, thank you so much. That's an indicator that you've given value because somebody said, thank you.

Yeah.

If you get like 10 likes on your comment You've probably given value.

Yeah. And what does that mean for that reciprocation? Like, do you, you hear, I imagine you hear from these people again?

Well, this is, this is the beauty. Right, so you can monetize quite quickly on the back of giving value by adding somebody as a friend. Hey, buddy, you know, I'm so pleased that you got results with what I've just showed you. Is there anything else I can do? Yeah, well, actually, Danny, I'm really struggling with. Would you like to jump on a call real quick and we'll fix that as well? Oh my gosh, I can't believe how generous you are. Danny, is there anything I can do for you? Well, look, I can help you a little bit more, but I can't always do it for free. But if you can, you know, make a donation or invest in my cause or just bear me in mind or give me a testimonial, I'd be cool with that. Who do you think they're going to call next time rather than going in the group?

The person they're established with.

Yeah, yeah, of course. So giving value based on values that you want to actually help people, you're not doing it for the money. You don't care about red tape and bureaucracy and being forced into a, a lane where you've got to play small. All entrepreneurs will go out of their way to help somebody, but they'll only usually do it if they know that person's willing to listen and actually do the work. Right.

Some people, that does matter. Yeah, yeah.

You see them asking the same question in a different group two days later and you're like, oh yeah, that's. It's got to be reciprocal like you say.

Yeah.

The art of giving value is to show up and help, but not just give them a little help, give them every step.

Yeah.

This is what you do because guaranteed they will want you again for sure.

Hello, my fellow digital entrepreneurs. It's Laura here and I'm absolutely thrilled to introduce you to something truly transformative.

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Tell, tell me a little bit more about what you're currently doing.

Currently. Right now I'm actually, I've got a book where I've interviewed a hundred entrepreneurs from around the world, which is super cool. And we've interviewed people at different stages of business. Some people you might recognize, some people are brand new to this. Some people are just about to quit the jobs, some people just quit the jobs, Some people are just about to launch. Some people have been speaking on stage, doing this for years. There's a common theme that runs through all of that like a golden thread. And it's interesting to see that this, the folks who are most successful actually ask for what they want.

Interesting.

They will go and ask is that like there's a big barrier in life where. Tell a story. I used to have this, this, this buddy Anthony and we all used to go when we were younger to like football or swimming or go karts or whatever, right? And we'd all run to, to houses and be like, mom, Mom, I need, you know, five pounds or whatever it was, yeah, a few bucks to go and, and do the activity on a Saturday. Now everybody's mum knew, yeah, that they didn't want the kid under the, the damn feet on a Saturday, right? So they would pay to get rid of the child, right? So if it's like, mom, I need three pounds, we're going all day to this thing and you're not going to see me all day.

They will give you three pounds.

Mommy's throwing this money at you, right? Get out. But Anthony never developed the art of asking. And Anthony would go into the house, we'd all run off and get our money. And then we all kind of knew that we'd have to go around to try and find where is Anthony. And we'd all go back around and he'd still be in there after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40. Like, dude, the Bus is leaving. Yeah, the, the, the event's starting, you know it's gonna be over. Swimming starts at 12. And often you would have to leave Anthony. And a few times he would say, come in while I get the money off my mum. And I kind of watched the process from a young age of Anthony trying to ask. And he would, like, sit at the end of the sofa, he'd go and make his mum a drink, bring her the drink, and she'd go, oh, thanks, Anthony, that's kind. Are you not doing anything today? And he couldn't answer that. But instead of saying, mum, yes, I want to do this, please can I have the money? He never quite mastered it. And this went on and on and quite often Anthony was left behind. It was, it was a shame he.

Never came out and asked, even when the opportunity presented itself.

Even when the opportunity. Opportunity presented himself. Now, he was younger than me, few years ago, we were all fishing and my other buddy Ricky rang, said, have you heard about Anthony? I said, no, said, he's dead. They found him, passed away. And they found him in a. Literally in a pool of water in his apartment. And he didn't really have much in his life. He'd lost his relationship with his, with his wife, didn't see his kid. He was in some abusive problem with this other girl. And it struck me, if he had learned how to ask sooner, would he have had that, like, shitty life or would he have had a better chance? Would he have had a job that he wanted? Would he have had the family that he wanted? Would he have had the success that he probably deserved?

Right?

Would he still be alive? Because he would never ask for help, it would never ask for support. And he would try and do everything himself. And I guess there's no bigger, like, what a disaster.

Real life takeaway. And I, I feel like that's usually how I like to end conversations like this. It's like, you know, takeaway or piece of advice. And I mean, it doesn't get more real than that, right? Like, especially when the opportunity is there. Like, take control, don't be afraid of someone saying no. Because that's not even the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is you never asking.

You never ask. And if he'd have asked, it was like we sat with his old mom and she didn't recognize us, bless her. She was frail. And, you know, seeing your buddy led in a box who's younger than you in the, in the front room of the house with the statue of Jesus next to him and the. And the. The somber music playing is. Is not good. And when the realization hits you because you've got a crazy mind like me. If only he would have asked.

Yeah.

That is not the. If only I could have been there. If only I could have done more. I probably couldn't. But it's that one thing that always strikes me. So before you're in the box, which we're all at some point, unfortunately, unless the AI. Yeah, yeah. And I hope we get longer than. Than poor Anthony. But ask. It's like, you want the job, ask for it. You want the relationship, ask for it. You want the. The money, you want the partnership, you want the jv, you want the. To promote somebody's stuff. You want the access to a thing. What. What is it?

Ask.

And if you don't want something, get out. Go.

That is one of the best pieces of advice I've heard in a while. And it's always the ones that feel. Feel obvious and simple, but you don't actually spend the time thinking about. And when it really boils down to it, it's not, you know, it's not following the framework, it's not working harder, it's not being more consistent. Like, those things, of course they matter in business.

Yeah, of course.

Like the simple thing of you want it, you're saying you want it, ask for it. Like, it's not just about, like, working hard. Like, there are people out there that can help you. Especially when you are in a network of people who put people first, who pour into others. Like, the opportunity is there. Ask.

Yeah. And here's the thing. For some strange reason, 99% of other people are not asking. 99.9%. So if you're the only fraction of a percent that is actually prepared to ask, the person receiving that ask has never been asked. So there's actually more chance of them saying yes, of course. Because this is actually a good idea.

Because nobody else is doing it.

Nobody's ever going to ask me because they're all in the lane, they're playing small, they hate what they're doing. They've been told what the values are. They're clinging on to a job that they don't like. They're living in a shit relationship or whatever it is, and they don't want to do this. And it's like, but I've got to continue to pay my bills. Quit.

Yeah.

And go and ask the people who can help pull you out of this, because they're already doing it form those relationships and just give Value.

I love that. I am, actually. I'm gonna, I'm gonna truly take that as a takeaway personally. And for the next month, during my own business growth, make sure that I'm asking for something that I need every single day.

Ask. God, do it as soon as you finish this, like, make a list of people, you know. If you ask them this question and they say, yes, what will that mean for you both? You've got to give value, right? So it's not just, hey, buddy, give me a million dollars. They're like, laura, you're crazy, right?

No. You're going to be asking the people that you can help as well. Yeah.

My buddy Frank, he runs a big gardening business, right? He's. He's retiring now. And Frank's one of the wisest business people in the world. Dead simple in his approach to business. Makes a big bunch of money. And we were sat in the office one day and the telephone rang. And the guy rang and said, hey, Matt, have you got any jobs? And Frank said, no, not at the moment. However, I'm more than happy to give you some advice on setting up your own business. I started with a lawnmower, knocking on people's doors, cutting the grass. Charged them 10 pound 15. And before I knew it, I had regular customers and I was making £80,000amonth. And the guy said, I have no time for that, mate. You're wasting my time. And put the phone down. Who knows, the guy's still ringing for jobs. Right?

Right.

A millionaire business owner with years of experience has given you a fundamental piece of advice. You asked for one thing, you didn't get it. That doesn't mean it's the end.

Yeah.

He's then turned around and said, I can't give you what you want right now. It's impossible. But I can give you this. Yeah, that was the golden ticket for that kid.

Wow.

And he threw it back and said, you're wasting my time.

I had a thought about this very recently that so many people are getting the exact advice, not just that they want, but what they need. And so often it falls on deaf ears when the person listening to it is not ready to receive it or is not at the right. It's not the right timing for them. And it's like, there, there is no right timing. I mean, granted, you can listen to the advice when it feels right for you and when you're properly aligned with that and then you can take action. But like, there's so much quality information being delivered to us, we just need to Be able to mentally break down those barriers to receive it, because people genuinely want to help you.

Of course, you know, and. And if you can get into the circles of people who want to help and you can ask those people for something that gives them a benefit in return, and your values are geared up to help people, do you think you've got more chance of moving forward in your life than what you had before you started this podcast?

Yeah.

My work here is done.

Yeah. So eye opening. Danny, I could talk to you forever. And I know that a lot of times we've had conversations where we could go on and on and on, because again, I. I feel like I identify so much with the values that you. You hold close in your heart. And thank you for being on this. Well, I mean, I will definitely have to have you back because people want to hear more. There's so much that you can share. But before we go, can you let people know where they can go to follow you and learn more about what you're doing?

Yeah. Find me on Facebook. It's facebook.com forward slash. Danny WalshMarketing. You'll recognize the beard if you're watching this holding the baby. I actually got the Facebook verified, so you're not allowed to change your profile picture without being verified. Again, it's an older photograph on there, but you'll see the marketing stuff. You see the free training. You see all the crazy stuff I'm in into. And look, reach out and ask me something. Don't just say hi. It's like, hey, Danny, I'm doing this. Can you help? Maybe I can. Maybe I know someone who can. Maybe I give you something that you might need at that time. I'm. This is what I do. Happy to help.

Awesome. Can you close us out with explaining what's on your hat?

The. The wealth is. Is of the. A heart and mind, not of the. Not of the pocket. It just comes back to focusing on the people. Tony Robbins talks about the fulfillment. Science of fulfillment. Right. If I'm helping people, I feel fulfilled and feel happy, and I know if I can get paid in the process, that's magnificent. But if. Even if I can't, the fact that I've done somebody and helped somebody and move somebody on the journey is what matters. So think about where your values are and use those to move you forward in life.

Thanks so much, Danny.

Keep moving.

It's been a pleasure.

I really appreciate you. We'll chat soon.

Will do, indeed. Thanks a lot.

Take care.