Evan Carmichael Radio Show - Episode #3

Hello everyone and welcome to The Evan Carmichael Show. I am your host Evan Carmichael. I believe that hungry entrepreneurs deserve help. So I'm here to talk to you today about your business. I want to know what is keeping you up at night. I want to know what your challenges are and I want to try to help you out today. Now it's been a frustrating week for me. There's been a lot of people who've tried to waste my time and I hate wasting my time. So I'm going to share some of those stories. That's why they give guys like me a talk show, so I can get things off my chest and talk to you about it. Today we're going to talk about how to stay away from negative people, how to get the frustrating tasks off your plate, how when you hire people most of them will waste your time, and how to raise your standards and think bigger. Let's talk about staying away from negative people. Okay, we have enough negativity in our lives as business owners. There's enough problems that we have to deal with on a daily basis. You guys know what I'm talking about. That you don't need any more negativity to bring you down. You want to surround yourself with people and news and information and resources that pull you up and uplift you and motivate you and don't bring you down. A friend of mine last week sent me a story about this Norwegian woman who went to Dubai on a business trip. I don't know if you guys have heard this story or not. She goes to Dubai and, and she gets raped in a hotel. And if that wasn't bad enough, she goes to the authorities trying to do the right thing. Result: she gets thrown in jail because in Dubai it's illegal to have sex outside of marriage. And the only way to prove rape is if either the rapist comes forward and said, hey, I did this, or 4 Muslim men who witness it and report it. Like that was going to happen in this case. And I felt so bad for this woman. You know, I have no connection to her whatsoever, but I felt so bad. Can you imagine that happening to you? As if, as if the rape wasn't bad enough, to then you be the one thrown in jail? Like she did something wrong here? It blew my mind and it frustrated me. And the rest of my, the rest of my afternoon was distracted and ruined by this. And I told my friend, "Don't send me this stuff anymore. I don't want to know." And it's also the same reason why I don't watch the nightly news anymore. I haven't for maybe 10 years because most of the information is depressing, right? It's all the bad stuff that's happening in the world. As an entrepreneur, at least for me, I choose to surround myself with people, with uplift me, who give me motivation, who make me feel good, because there's so much negativity around us that it's hard, right? It's hard to run a business already. I don't want any more negativity in my life that I can't control. Now, this doesn't mean you turn a complete blind eye, okay? There's going to be bad stuff that happens in your business. There's going to be bad stuff that happens in your life and to the friends and people around you. You have to pay attention to that, okay? I'm not saying, oh, let's imagine that the world is one big happy place. You have to respond to things that impact you. But the things that are outside your control, the people who you have no relation to, at least for me, I don't pay attention to it. I try to surround myself with resources and news and information that motivate me and lift me up and make me want to be better. Not the ones that make me depressed and get distracted and don't allow me to focus on my business. So I hope you guys will do the same. We have our first caller on the line, Courtney. Courtney is with us. Courtney, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi Evan, how are you? This is Courtney Boych. I am from Torrance, California. How are you doing this morning?

Good, welcome to the program. What's going on? Thank you.

Okay, well here it is. I own a company called Licky Loo Lashes. And it's basically backyard beauty. I started about 3 years ago and it's the eyelash extension fad that's going on right now. But my question is, is that how do I turn a backyard beauty into basically the best hidden secret in Torrance, California? I want to expand my company. I want people to know that I'm pretty much the best out there. I mean, there are eyelash extension businesses all around the place right now.

These nail shops, places in Beverly Hills, you know, that are all doing this so-called big fat extensions, but they all do horrible jobs.

And, um, everyone's doing like this application designing type of, uh, work— application but not designing. And I'm constantly fixing people. And my business, besides doing lashes, we do other service— other services. But I want to expand. I have seriously a knit of girls that are beyond talented and hot and gorgeous. We are this little nook that we're so talented, but we're just in this one little backyard, but we blast out amazing business.

And it's okay.

So what's your pitch? What is your pitch? Why are you so great?

Why am I so great? Yeah, great at my work, my photographs, I even took all the verbiage off of my cards and I put a mini portfolio on the back because when it comes to beauty and when it comes to eyelash extensions and when it comes to anything that's a visual, you can talk all you want, people want to see pictures, people want to see, okay, well, that's really great, but what is it, let me see this. And my work straight out shows amazing, amazing how, what I do.

For someone like me who's never heard of this business, Well, I know a little bit, but pretend I don't know anything. Why should I be interested? How do you turn this, right? You got to convince the people who don't know about this that this is something special. They need to get, they need to know about it.

Okay.

So what's the pitch to me who has no idea about this?

Okay. Well, the pitch is to you, eyelash extensions, what exactly eyelash extensions are. They are semi-permanent synthetic silk hairs that go on each individual lash. And you basically have these amazing eyelashes that women will spend hours in front of a mirror just to try to make their eyes beautiful, and you don't have to use mascara, you don't have to use any kind of makeup on the eyes and just have beautiful eyes 24 hours a day. They're waterproof, you can go into a lake, you can swim, you can do anything and you still have these fantastic eyes.

So with your pitch, you want to start with something painful. What's the pain that you're helping solve?

The pain that I'm helping solve is people going into these little nail shops and putting this crap on their eyes and gluing their lashes together, and then these women are losing their eyelashes, they're itching, they're frustrated, they're being told that, "Oh, this is the way it is, it's perfect, it's wonderful," and then in 3 days they're actually in pain with crap on their eyes.

This is what you want to start with.

Right.

Okay, this is a message that speaks better to people than just saying what it is that you do.

Okay.

And I want you to think bigger. Like, Torrance, California is great, but you should be known beyond just Torrance, California, right?

Oh, exactly. Well, I'm not done with my pitch. Wait a second here. What I want to know is— we're not done. I'm just giving you a little basic of what's going on right now. My thing is, eventually I want to be Looky Lou Mobile because I am so good. I'm this little hidden secret, but what I want to do is I want to roll up in some sort of big big, say, motorhome or minibus with my, um, looky-loo lash butterfly gorgeous face girl wrapped all the way around. And then I'm traveling to other people's places, and basically this mobile salon, eyelash salon, which eyelashes, we do massages, we do, um, uh, body tans. Basically what you do is you step out of your house, you come into my mobile home, we rock you, we get you ready, you look hot, you look gorgeous. And then you just go inside and go get dressed. And I want to be able to roll up on a place here, have my own private place too, you know, for, um, you know, my private customers. And I want to be everywhere. I want to, I want to mobile it, and I want to also have, you know, a, a hidden place.

And then, okay, so the first thing, the first thing you got to do is focus, okay? Because there's a lot of stuff happening with that mobile unit. Focus just on the lashes. There's a pain there, right? People need this service.

Right.

Start talking to people who have businesses, who can relate customers on to you, who've gone through those and experienced that pain.

Well, Evan, check it out.

Who've had that happen to them, right? Where their lashes are falling out.

Exactly, I fix it. But the thing is too, is that I started in my kitchen. I started with maybe 2 customers a month. I have now 37 a week.

That's great.

I have done over 450 clients and I want, I have my 5-year plan that, you know, to be incredibly successful. Successful, and at 2.5 years, I'm past my goals and I want to get even bigger. My reputation of my talent has— and it's been straight word of mouth. I have not done one ounce of advertising besides Facebook and my webpage and just talking and talking and talking and talking.

Hey, and that's the best way to build your business. If people are talking and saying good things about you, that's the best way to do it. I would still Try to focus in though, focus just on the lashes, do one thing, be amazing at it, and start reaching out now, 'cause now you gotta grow. Start reaching out to people who can potentially refer new customers to you. Instead of going after individuals, which are one sale at a time, now you're talking to businesses that can refer clients to you on an ongoing basis.

Okay, so great, so now I started that. It is word of mouth right now. I have salons that like me and then that promote me that don't do eyelash extensions and they send their clients over to me. How do we get bigger? How do I get bigger?

A little small piece.

Just talk about—

I'm already in the midst of all that. I'm ready.

We got us paid out, paid out for right now, but you got to keep going after the businesses. Introduce yourself, get them to help promote. It's not just you going out after individuals one at a time. We are talking about your business now. We're talking about getting the frustrating off your plate. We all have tasks that we're doing on a regular basis that we should not be doing. You know what I'm talking about. And every time I've seen a big leap forward in my business, it's been because I've taken a look at my schedule, seen what I have left on my plate, and eliminated the stuff that I shouldn't be doing. You either get rid of it completely, you eliminate it, or you automate it, or you delegate it off to somebody else. And that frees up your time to focus on the big picture items to grow your business, and also gives you more energy, makes you happier because you're doing the things that you want to do. I recently found myself writing my worksheets. So this is last week, I was writing some worksheets to help entrepreneurs, you know, fill out these worksheets, grow your business, and I found myself doing the writing and the designing. And the designing started to get on me. It started to get frustrating. And as a result that day, I didn't get any writing done because I was too busy adjusting the font and making things look nice, moving pictures around. and I didn't get any writing done. And for that business, nobody can do the writing but me, but other people can do the designing. And I got frustrated that I was doing this work, and I knew it was time for a change. When I'm getting frustrated with doing a task, it means I have to give it up to somebody else. And so I called a buddy of mine, Jason, who's a great designer, and asked him if he would take that over for me. He gave me a quote. And we agreed. Now he's doing the design, which is awesome, and I get to focus in on where I add the most value to my business, which is actually creating the content. And so for your own business, you have to think the same way. You've got to think about where you're spending your time and is it the best fit for your business or not. Most of the stuff that you're doing should not be done. Again, you should either eliminate it completely automate it through some software or web tools, or delegate it away to somebody else who can do it better than you. Take that frustration off your plate and make you feel happier. And again, it's not only about doing what you do best, it's about giving you the energy. Once you get the crap off your plate, it makes you feel so much better and gives you more positive energy to go out and build your business and do the things that you need to do to get your company up to the next step. We have Christina on the line. Christina, where are you from and how can I help?

I am from Toccoa, West Virginia, and I have a question. I run a charity organization called Ladies of Liberty, Inc. In the last 6 months that we've been together, we've raised over $800 worth of veterans, and we've hosted many charity events, went down to the veteran homes, visited, um, done a lot of things with the veterans. However, I cannot get the community involved whatsoever here. I have tried, I've done PR work, I've put us in the paper about 4 times in 6 months. No one seems to be taking interest, and I just need help on how would you go about getting the community involved?

So why should the community be involved?

It's not just a charity organization, it's really about me and my husband, and we do everything, we pay for everything, we do everything, however we need volunteers, we need people to you know, get involved with the charity events that we're doing. Like, we had a 1K high hill walk, and everyone that was signed up was in my group. Like, everybody actually came out of their pockets because no one in the community wanted to do anything.

And it's like, what's the pitch to the community? Like, everybody in the community, they have busy lives too, right? They all have their jobs, they all have their stresses and family life. Why should they work with your organization?

Well, right now, it's everything 100% goes to veterans. Everything we do is for the veterans, the veterans only. And I just really I really would like to push this to get the veterans, you know, as much help as possible. My husband's a veteran, I'm a military wife, and you know, everything we do is for the veterans, and I would like to maximize whatever we do. We could take it to the next level if we had more help and the community more involved, and it's just like the community here, they really don't care.

And I mean, that's gonna happen, right? People have busy lives. They don't care about a lot of things. So you have to make them care. You have to give me a story that makes me care and say, "I really want to help this organization." So what is it about helping veterans, especially in your community, that should make me care?

Like I said, 100% goes to the— we've, um, as of June, we have gave Wounded Warrior Project over $800. And we're doing good deeds. Like everything we do is strictly for the veterans and we'd like to get more people involved. I just don't know how to do that because like I said, people really don't seem to be taking interest.

So what's missing— I think you have a great mission. This is awesome and it's shameful that more people aren't getting involved in this. What's missing is the passionate element. So I know you love what you're doing and you can tell that in your voice, but to make me care, you have to tell me a story that has an impact. So tell me about somebody who you've helped and how much your involvement, your organization has helped that person build a better life for themselves.

Well, it's not just one person in general. We actually volunteer, we did a lot of volunteer work at the veterans home in Barbourville, West Virginia, and we actually were going to host them a Valentine's party soon and everything, but we went down there a couple months ago and just seeing— and my children are small, they range from 7 to 3. And they're very, very involved in what we do, my children, and that's one thing that I, you know, I'm blessed to have the opportunity to show my children, you know, the positive things you can do in your community. Anyway, just seeing the veterans' faces light up when we came in with the, you know, baked goods and the thank you cards and the drawings the children—

Okay, now we're getting started. This is good. And this is like—

Yeah, and we've done that.

We've actually had an article written— well, actually, we've had several articles written about us. We've actually had newspapers go down to the veterans' homes and take pictures.

So what can you do to better tell your story and get the message out?

Yeah, that's like what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get us more out there. Like, I've plugged everywhere I go. I have flyers in my car. I put like, you know, flyers, you know, the brochures in my car and everywhere I go I'm just like plugging and it's like I've papered the town. I've spent hundreds of dollars worth of printer ink just like papering the town and it's like no one really, you know, cares.

I feel the desperation in your voice and you really want this thing to take off and you're a worker, which is great. That means you have the chance to be successful. But really look at the what message you're putting out because that marketing will work. Sending flyers out and going to newspapers and getting stories will work, but it depends on what the message is. You have to clearly have your message defined and show how you're having an impact and why you need people's help.

Okay.

So starting off, there's pieces there. You know it. It's just taken a while to kind of get to, right?

Yeah, and it's like this is my first business and it's It's the first 6 months, so it's kind of like kicking off too. We've done pretty good for the first 6 months, so I can't complain. It's just like I'm trying to just get it going, and it's like, you know, I'm a stay-at-home mom, I have 3 kids, plus summer comes and they're all home. I'm trying to do this, my husband's actually gone with the military right now, so it's like all me.

You're really close. You just need to get that story down better. Think about what the headline is on all the flyers that you're putting out, and see, is that something that's really moving people? Because if it's not moving people— That's a very big statement.

You have to move people, otherwise you're not going to get them to take action.

But you're close, you're close. Keep working on it. I think you can do it.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

No problem. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. We are talking about all things entrepreneurship. I want to talk about hiring people. When you hire people, most of the people applying will waste your time and it's frustrating. If you want to grow your business, you have to get it beyond yourself. You can only do so much yourself, right? There's only so many hours in the day. I don't know any entrepreneur who can work 26 hours a day. So it's all going to come from being able to get people on your team to help support you. Now when you're hiring, it's frustrating. And you often hire the wrong person and it's very time-consuming. And as a result, a lot of business owners say, "Forget this, I'm just going to do it all myself." And you'll never get to that next level if you keep doing everything yourself. So here's how I hire. I'm recently, I put up a new job for video editor. EvanCarmichael.com is growing, we need more people. I hired a video editor and from the application I had 86 people who applied for it. Now when I put an application, I make it one big, ugly, nasty paragraph. Everything is in one huge paragraph. It's terrible to read. And the reason is, I want people who are detail-oriented and can pick out the information that they need. I'm not always the most detail-oriented person, so I need people around me who are. And so it's one big ugly paragraph. The people who read that and they can't pull out the information, they don't apply, and that's great. You know, I've just saved time. I don't want you to apply if you're not going to read that paragraph and be detail-oriented. The next thing I do quickly is I'll ask a question in the middle of that paragraph. For the video one, I wrote, "How many YouTube subscribers do I have on my channel?" Please include this with your application. If you do not include the answer to that question, I will not read your application. And it's buried in the middle of that huge paragraph, so it's not obvious. Of the 86 people who applied for my job, only 36 actually included that answer. That means 50 people applied for the job without reading the job description. And it's so easy to apply for a job. Right, you just change the name on the COVID letter, you click send, attach your resume, you're good to go. It takes no time for them, but it takes time for you as a business owner. 50 people would have wasted my time if I didn't ask that question. And it took me 5 minutes to read each resume quickly, that would have been almost 5 hours of my time gone. Hey, I value my time. I hope you do too. So you want people to self-eliminate. Gotta focus on getting people in who are going to help you, read the description, and want to be an active part of your business. And I don't care if you have the best resume, the best experience, great references, went to a good school. If you didn't answer that question because you didn't read my ugly job description, then I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to let you waste my time because you are not a hard-working hustler. And that's what I want, that's what you should want in your business. You need people who are going to work, who are going to grind it out, who are going to be detail-oriented and read everything that you put out. Don't allow people to waste your time. You need hungry people who are going to work hard and help you grow your business. Okay, from there what I do is I have people on a trial job and I'll hire almost anybody on my trial job. I'll give them 5 hours and say, "See what you can do." I don't care where they came from, I don't care about their experience, I'll hire them for 5 hours for the video one. I give them a test project, a sample video, "Here, edit this," and I see what comes back. And I've hired some people who look terrible on paper, but they are hardworking, they are hustling, they want that job, and they often get it. So don't be fooled by what a resume says, because anybody can write something down. You want people who are going to work hard for you. From that trial job, I end up hiring the person who I want to work with. And I usually don't waste my time reading the COVID letter or reading the resume because it's mostly BS. You cannot let people chew your time up, especially when you're hiring, because you need to make good hiring decisions to help you grow your business and not keep training through people, person after person after person, and you're stuck, not able to do anything to get you to the next step. We have Vadim on the line. Vadim, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, how are you, Evan?

We are from—

well, I am from Staten Island, New York, and I currently have a health food store/juice bar, and we've been open there for about a year and a half now. We were doing really well, but since we live in Staten Island, New York, we got hit really badly with Sandy. Now, put this phone back in, but we didn't get flooded out of our business around the way because we're actually by the water. A lot of homes got destroyed and all that. So a lot of our customers basically either left the area, didn't come back, or just simply don't have money to come in and spend on things that they used to spend it on in our store, like juices, etc. But one of my main questions is, what's the most effective way for us to re-advertise our store that is not too costly? Because at this point in the game, we really don't have a lot of money to work with because of slowdown.

What is special about your store? Um, well, we sell a lot of vitamins, but the store is—

we have a full juice bar and we do a lot of juicing, do a lot of juice cleanses for customers. So we really appeal to, uh, that side of the customer base.

Okay, so what I would love for you to do is be able to turn your store into a destination site And not just rely on the people in your immediate area, but for people to say, "Hey, have you heard about this store? They do this." And they'd be willing to travel half an hour, an hour to get to you if it's so great. So what can you do to make it that great? Because if you say, you know, "We sell vitamins and we do juices," that's not going to make me travel.

Well, uh, I mean, what we do that's great, I mean, I think the juice cleansing is the main part, not just like a cup of juice. We do specific juice cleanses for customers. Versus detoxes that we prepare in store. They're all organic and all natural, and we have our own formulas that we use in our own proprietary blends. So that actually has been really popular. And we've actually just recently opened up a website called Rooted.com, and that's— that kind of ties into the first one. How do we advertise both? Because what we would like to do is, what you said, make it a destination site and also start shipping to people and delivering. In the local area and to other states possibly as well.

I love it. You move online, you take over the world. That's right. It starts with communicating your message, right? So I gotta know why your juices, your juice cleansing system, is the best in the world. What is it about this system that makes it— and you already know, like, people love this stuff, right? They do, they do.

We've had a strong base, customer base, in the year and 3 months or 4 months we've been open. And, uh, I think the people like the fact that we Everything on site to see physically what we're doing, ingredients that we're using, and the fact that it's not just juice, a lot of supplements and a bottle that just goes beyond a regular cup of juice. So if you look at other juice cleanses that, or the websites that offer the same kind of concept that we do, they don't offer that. A lot of them are so diluted with alkalized water, you know, just basically fill out the ounces in the bottle. 100% juice, every single— I think people can, you know, really feel that, and that's why we had a strong turnout prior to that kind of hit the area.

Did you have online sales before then too, or this is something new you're trying to do?

No, we did not, because business started going so poorly, we actually, uh, we were looking to create a website for us, but people were charging thousands of money, you know, we're talking about $10,000, $15,000 to do it properly. And we actually found somebody who's done further, basically, you know, course and done a pretty good job at it. So we're kind of just rolling it out over the last couple of weeks, like 3 weeks we just rolled it out.

I think it's a great idea. I think it's something that will help build you word of mouth, and I think if you approach media organizations with this pitch, with the right pitch, then they'll talk about you. Oh, but it's honing that message, right? You got to educate people as to what a cleanse, juice cleanse is. Like, I have no idea, I've never done a juice cleanse. So what's the benefit and why should I go to you? And you got to hone that into like 3 sentences.

Got it, got it. Okay, I understand.

So give me your best shot, 3 seconds.

Honing them to sell on the spot like that?

Okay, uh, on the spot, live radio, here we go.

Alright, in front of, uh, God knows how many people listening, uh, 3 sentences on the spot. Uh, I think a juice cleanse, the best way to describe it is cleanse the body, take back your health, uh, and basically remove the toxins. That's pretty much the way I recommend it to any client that comes into my door.

Okay, and why a juice cleanse over anything else?

Uh, it gives the body a break from actual digesting food, solid foods, no matter how good or bad they are. Um, gives the digestive system a whole Kang Sabich, lets the juice in a sense power wash everything that's been accumulating in the body for a long, long time or over whatever period of time you've not done it.

Right.

And, uh—

It sounds like you really know what you're talking about. I think you could play really well in the media, but it's working on that message. We started it, but you gotta go home and make it better. Your 3 sentences so that when you go talk to the media and you're talking to customers, they understand it and it's easy for them. To go talk about it as well. When you tell me about your product, it should be easy for me to remember what you said and pass it on to somebody else. Got it. Okay.

All right. I appreciate it.

Good luck. No problem. Thank you very much. For everybody who's listening, it's so important to get your message down. It has to be clearly communicable, not only to the person you're talking to, but allow them to be able to spread the word. We're talking about all things entrepreneurship, and I want to talk about raising your standards and thinking bigger. Okay, too many entrepreneurs, you know who you are, think small. And you're constantly running on that treadmill, running, running, running, you're not getting anywhere. You have to start thinking bigger. You have to start raising your standards and going after those bigger deals. Now if you're just getting started, if you're in startup phase, you know, you don't have enough money yet to pay for your electricity bills, then fine. Think small, right? Get money in, pay your bills, take care of your family. But if you're not, if you're past that point of survival, You know, you're not making a huge, you're not living a glamorous life, but you're not worried about your electricity bill. You have to start upping your game if you want to grow your business. I went to the Blue Jays game on the weekend with a buddy of mine, John. The Jays lost again, unfortunately. What a season. Anyway, talk about negative news. So John asked me halfway through the game, Evan, I want your advice on this business problem I'm having. I want to do a deal with this angel investor who came to me and he's done tons of huge deals and I want to get in with him. And he asked me for some help on a project he's working on, and I don't know if I should go in as an equity partner or as a commission or a straight-up consulting fee. And he asked what I would do. I told him, John, I hate doing consulting work. It's such a small game because you're trading your time for money, and it's okay to start to build up your business, but to get beyond, to get to that next step, you have to move beyond consulting. If you want to do a deal with this guy, if you want him to think of you as a partner then you have to go in as a partner. If you go in saying you're going to trade your time for money, then he's hiring you. You work for him. He's never going to think of you as that next level partner for him. I would go in and say, hey, Mr. Angel Investor, you know, this deal is a little small for me, but I'll help you out. I'll give you some advice to help you get here. And either offer him to do some kind of equity stake or just give him the free advice. I get free advice all the time, and it always comes back to help me some way. You have to position yourself as an expert and as willing to do bigger deals and not constantly beat yourself down and do, you know, time for money deals and you're not charging enough. Okay, I want you to start thinking about the bigger game. Again, if you're just starting out, then fine, you gotta pay your bills. But as you get to that survival point, now you gotta amp up your game. You got to think about the bigger picture. Instead of making a couple thousand, you're making hundreds of thousands and beyond. I want to get to your calls. We have time for one more caller. I've got Lucy on the line. Lucy, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, um, I'm from Florida.

Welcome to the program. What's going on, Lucy?

Okay, I have the problem that I just opened a dancing school and I need more customers. And it's not just, uh, general dancing, it is actually pole dancing.

So pole dancing, all right. What got you into pole dancing?

Uh, it was always like, I always did that when I was younger, and it's just, I don't know, it's just, I think I, it's awesome when women do that. It's hard.

So what's your story? What got you interested in it? So you did it when you were younger, what else? Like, why, why do you keep doing it now?

Why am I doing it now?

Yes. Why did you want to start this business?

Oh, I want to have other girls to learn how to do that. And, um, it's art and it's, you know, they can also like for their boyfriend, if they, you know, for surprises.

So, and your problem now is you need to get more business into your, into your company.

Alright.

So I'm an investor in a dance company here in Toronto. They dance salsa. We have now 5,000 people every year learn to dance salsa through our school. So I know a little bit about your business, maybe not the pole dancing part of it. I've never done pole dancing, but hey, might want to try. If you come to Toronto, let me know. Oh, cool. These types of classes work great, but you have to get somebody in at the beginning. Right, if somebody comes once and they love it, people get hooked and they come back and back and back and back, right?

Exactly.

So the key is how do I get them just to experience it the first time? Because if they do that, then they'll feel empowered. Right at the beginning they're kind of nervous, they don't know what they're doing, they feel a little scared, but you help them feel empowered, they have fun, you know, they're staying active. So the key is getting somebody to experience that first class.

Exactly.

How do you get somebody to come to that one class?

What are you doing now? I'm advertising fitness, pole dance with a troll. So for those who want to lose weight and just get in shape and have fun with it.

Do you offer any kind of discount on the first class if they come in or free first class?

Yes, I do. I have packages.

And so what's that first class? What's the offer for the first class?

Okay, either one class for $10 to try it out, or, um, like a 4-classes coupon for $50. So, and you know, the more classes they want to come, obviously they get a better deal.

Something's out there. One class is $10, but 4 classes is $50?

Yes.

It doesn't make sense. I'm paying more for 4 classes than for one.

For the beginning, just for, you know, oh, it's a trial.

Okay, so that's the deal going in.

Yes.

I try to make it free, you know. If you have— the thing with your business is there's no There's no marginal cost. All your costs are fixed.

Mm-hmm.

So you just need to get somebody in the door.

Right.

If they come in and experience your first class and have a great experience, they're going to sign up and do more with you.

How many? It's like 3 out of 10.

3 out of 10?

Yes.

You got to bump that rate up.

Yeah.

We'll get 6 to 7 out of 10. You have to make them, make that first class super fun. Not worry so much about the technique, but make them have a great time and want to come back. So as an example, in our school, salsa dancing is really hard to learn. It takes a lot of time. So what we do is we teach them another dance in the first class called merengue, which is super easy to learn. And people come, they get confident, they learn some moves, and then they want to sign up and do more. So think about your own class, what you can do to make it super easy and fun and not worry so much about the technique that they go home and say, "This is awesome, I gotta go do this again." Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay, is there something you think of that can help there?

Yeah, I see the problem right there, yes.

Okay, good luck. I'm on every 2 weeks. If you want to call back and let me know how you're doing, I'd love to hear from you.

Yeah, sure, sure, thank you so much.

No problem. So for any kind of business, if you have this repeat business opportunities like you do in dance classes, then you need to make that first experience super low risk, either free or really low cost, or you need to find a way to make that first experience so much fun and so great and have so much overwhelming value that they want to come back over and over and over and over again.

I see. Yeah.

We're already up at our hour. It's been so much fun. Thank you, everybody. If you want to learn more, you can find me on my website. I'm www.EvanCarmichael.com. We'll be back here in 2 weeks. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Have a great couple of weeks, guys, and we'll see you in 2 weeks.