TOP Tips for Entrepreneurs from Andy Paul & Evan Carmichael

All right, everybody, welcome to another Blab that's gonna go on YouTube as well. Super excited to be joined by Andy Paul from andypaul.com. Andy, welcome aboard.

Evan, thank you very much.

Andy has his website andypaul.com and runs a podcast called the Accelerate Podcast talking about how you can grow your business through the lens of sales. I'll let him do a quick intro on that. And Andy reached out to me and said, hey, I wanna have you on the podcast. I said, sure, happy to. Why don't we also turn that into a Blab, a YouTube video for my audience to kind of learn about what Andy's up to. So, and before kind of getting into the podcast, maybe a quick intro for the audience.

Sure. I'm an author, speaker. I've got 2 books published, both Amazon bestsellers, one called Zero Time Selling, one called Amp Up Your Sales, and all about how do you accelerate sales, how do you sell with value, how do you become a service provider to your customer? And, um, blog and author. You said you find my, my blog at andypaul.com, also LinkedIn. I have a large following on LinkedIn. That's, uh, my content there. And then the podcast is relatively recent, started in October, and it's growing really nicely and being recognized as one of the top sales blogs already. It's 5 days a week, 30-minute unscripted interviews, sort of like we're going to do here today, and all about sales, sales management, leadership, marketing. Yeah, because Sales doesn't happen without marketing, branding, like we'll talk about today, anything that helps companies get a better perspective on how to grow their revenues quickly.

Cool. Well, that's an awesome intro, and take it away. Let's do it.

All right. Well, hey, thanks for joining me here today. As everybody knows, you're Evan Carmichael. For the people that are listening after the fact, my guest Evan Carmichael, blogger, entrepreneur, supporter of entrepreneurs in a great way, creates and curates a ton of valuable information every day. It's practical, it's useful, it's inspirational, motivational, and I think his particular genius is how he presents this information for the reader to make it easy to consume. So Evan, welcome to the show.

Thanks, man. I appreciate that intro. I want to bring you everywhere with me now.

Okay. Yeah, for a small fee, we can arrange that. So take a minute and sort of fill out the introduction. Where'd you come from? What do you—

where'd you start?

How'd you get to where you are today?

Sure. Growing up, I thought I wanted to be a banker. My high school yearbook says, where are you going to be in 10 years? It was a VP at a bank. That's where I thought I was going to be. Didn't have any entrepreneurial kind of influences in my life. And in university, connected with two entrepreneurs and had one of the toughest decisions ever in my life, basically deciding between taking the $80,000 to $100,000 jobs at the investment banks I thought I always wanted to do versus starting the business. And making $300 a month and eating beans for lunch every day and struggling. Um, so I made that tough choice and became an entrepreneur and had some success with that company.

What was that company doing?

It was biotech software. Um, there were two partners who had started the company. I joined as a third owner, and my job was to do the business side of things. They wanted to cut code and put out great software. They had the company for a little while and just wasn't taking off and I joined to help, help sell, help get biz dev going, help get in the media, help build a brand. And in 3 years we went from, you know, living below the poverty line to having NASA and Johnson Johnson and customers in 30 countries and, and being acquired. And then I left that, went into venture capital for a bit. Sure.

So before we go on though, I mean, what, what did you do? How did you help them get, get customers so quickly?

So at the start, I sucked.

Hey, we all do. No one's a natural.

Sure, I didn't have a plan. It just felt like I'm in business, so I was studying business at school, I can do this. And I tried everything I could think of and just basically failed and told my partner I quit, and that was maybe the worst day of my life. And then I realized that I had to find a different way to do it, and that I wasn't the first guy to try to figure this out. And the one thing that really saved me was modeling success. And you talk to some of the videos and stuff that I do now, it's still the same theme of modeling people who've done, uh, greater things than I have. And I mean, I guess for your show too, having people on and sharing their success, right? And for me, my first model was Bill Gates, and he sold a software company. I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before. Somebody's figured this out. I gotta stop beating my head against the wall. And so I looked at Bill Gates and how he got Microsoft from 0 to 1 million. You know, I didn't care about how he makes an extra million now, but like 0 to 1, how do I do that? That's what I want to do.

Right.

And through, uh, it was for him, it was through partnerships. And their big deal was with IBM where every IBM sold had Microsoft software on it. But I, uh, Microsoft was already a $7 million company when that deal happened. So that's not a huge company, but it's still 7 million more than I was. So like, how do I get to that? So that first 7 million. And, and it was again through partnerships. And so they would always find ways to partner. And even as they entered in new markets, you know, Expedia was a partnership with American Express. They kept partnering up. And so I thought, okay, well, how can I apply that to my business? And I started looking for partners that represent us first in international countries, because, you know, somebody wanted to download our software in Japan. I don't speak Japanese. I don't understand the business culture. The time zone's all messed up. So let's let's partner with somebody to sell it for us. Right. The first deal that I closed was in Europe and it brought me $13,500 upfront. And that may not sound like a lot of money, but I'm making $300 a month. You know, that was like, that was, I was cheering, man. That was, I was crying. I was so happy. And more importantly, it gave me a recipe to then follow again and again and again. Replicate it.

Yeah. Learning, learning to build your business off your customer's money is a good way to do it.

Right. And so I kept, I kept partnering up with different people, forming an international distributor network to represent our brand and our software. Then at the same time, establishing my partner as a thought leader and getting him recognized in the media, getting him interviews, getting him exposure. Science was my worst subject, you know, so I dropped science in high school as soon as I could. So I didn't really understand at a technical level what our software did. I could explain it like high level, but not I couldn't get into the science of it. And so my job was partly to then expose my partner as this leader, this expert, and get him featured because you can get a lot more sales out of, you know, being, having a cover story talking about you as opposed to taking out an ad. And so those two things were the main things that I focused on. How do I get media? How do I raise awareness? How do we, how do we get people to know us and the people behind it? I know we're talking personal branding, so that might help. And then also establishing the distribution network, getting partners, realize we don't have to do this one, one, one, one at a time. You know, media's not like, it's finding ways, how can we reach thousands of people at a time instead of one-offs all the time? And that helped explode the business. And yeah, in a few years, you know, got acquired and moved on to other things.

So how'd you get from there to where you are today?

So we sold the business. My two partners went with the business. They were the, technical, you know, backend, and they needed to integrate with the company. Plus they had a personal ambition to move to the US, and the company buying us in California, so they, they took off. Um, I wanted to stay here.

I feel that need to go to California from Canada.

No, man, I love Toronto. Toronto's my home. This is where I am, you know. I, I wanted to stay, and, and there also wasn't a major need for me because they— the company that bought us wasn't— they were going to use everything internally. They didn't need this dev anymore, um, which is great. So it matched up for everybody. I was in a fortunate position of, you know, I didn't have to go— I didn't make like stupid money, but I made enough that I didn't have to worry about things for a while. And, um, for a while I was a little depressed and that I don't know what to do next.

That always happens.

Yeah, I ended up hooking up with a venture capital company here in Toronto. I was always curious about raising capital. We thought about it in our venture. We never had to. We got it— we kind of got acquired before we needed to go raise money. But it was interesting for me and I wanted to learn how that worked. So I connected with a venture capital company here in Toronto and the, the 3 founding partners were all in their 60s or 70s, uh, had an insane amount of experience that, um, they imparted on me. My role for them was to help bring in the same role, basically help bring in new business, right? They, they knew the investors but they weren't in tune maybe that they were older, maybe that they just didn't care as much. They weren't into the younger, right? So that was my role is to do biz dev, strike up conversations, get people interested in us as a venture capital opportunity. And that was interesting for a while. At the same time, I started my website, evancarmichael.com. I used it as a platform to share my story as well as raise awareness for venture capital. As a result of selling my company, I was 22 when I sold my company, so I had a lot of people ask me to come do speaking engagements and a bunch of this stuff. So the website was more of a personal site at the start, just, hey, I'm speaking in Malaysia, and hey, I'm speaking in wherever, and then started using it as a way to build up content around the venture capital business. As my website started taking off and getting more, I realized, hey, this could be a business opportunity in itself. I felt like I had learned what I wanted to learn about the venture capital business, and it wasn't something that I wanted to be in full-time. And so I started doing my website of helping entrepreneurs and taking that idea of modeling success, what really helped me learn from Bill Gates that saved my business, even though I never met Bill, um, to apply that to my company. I wanted to then do that again and again and again and learn from lots of different famous entrepreneurs. And built up the site that then have the largest collection of famous entrepreneur stories anywhere online. And then that has transitioned to my YouTube channel where you've mentioned the videos and every day we release content. That's a mix of my thoughts as well as lessons from famous entrepreneurs where instead of having to watch, you know, 40 hours of Elon Musk videos to pull out nuggets, uh, here will be like a 15-minute video of all of his best stuff. and to release content. Right, his top 10, top 10 rules, his best advice that at least it's seen through my filter. So seen through my eyes of what I think is helpful and relevant and valuable. And I've kind of become a curator of content as well as sharing my own opinions and thoughts to help entrepreneurs grow.

Perfect. Well, I said, visit your site and read the content, you know, the top 10 list. I love, I love that, the inspirational quotes. I think that's great. You've got this great mix of things in there. But it made me think about a particular challenge for salespeople these days, which is personal branding, right? Because customers are being inundated with these undifferentiated messages coming from automated sales emails that they're sending out using all the latest tools. And so branding really becomes an important topic because once the customer gets something and maybe if they're intrigued by the email, they're going to go to somebody's LinkedIn profile or Twitter profile or something and see, okay, who is this person? What do they stand for? What do they do? So, you know, if you're a sales rep, you've been in business for a while, so what are the steps you need to take to start building this trusted advisor status?

Yeah, I think it's super important for salespeople because the salesperson has to, has to evolve or will die. You know, the salesperson has to understand how to build a brand, how to add value, beyond just trying to sell your product and meet a quota.

Just like everyone else.

I think it's— what's that? Like everybody else, absolutely.

So what do you do to stand out? Every business.

And so— Yeah, so it starts with understanding what you stand for as a human being. Forget about what you're selling at the moment. What do you stand for as a human being? What's the most important thing to you in your life? What's the biggest impact that you want to have on the world? And that might sound kind of airy-fairy, fluffy, soft, You know, but it's important, you know, what motivates you to get up every day and go make a contribution? Because if you're the kind of salesperson who's just working for a paycheck, you're never going to be a super successful salesperson. You have to want to do something bigger.

Yeah. So let's break that down for a second, because this is certainly— people talk about it, but it seems like a step people really have a hard time with. So, I mean, how did you go through that? And then what were the steps you'd recommend somebody do to not just get it down on paper, but then, you know, bounce it off people and make sure it's real?

Right, so for me, I believe everybody has one word that identifies who they are and their core message. For me, it's believe. You know, it's on my walls, it's in all the videos. It's the core message that I send through every piece of content that I create. It's the way in which I see the world. I believe in people and specifically entrepreneurs because I have the skillset to be able to help entrepreneurs. I could believe in you as a person, And you know, you could go off and be a great horse racer, but I don't know anything about horses, so I can't give you tactical advice to help you get to where you are. So it comes down to what your core value is as a human being, as a person. Like, forget about your business right now. And a lot of businesses talk about values, but how many, you know, even CEOs of a business could list off the 20 core values that they have? People aren't living their values. So as a human being, what is most important to you, you know? Maybe trust is really important. Maybe trust is your thing. Like, trust is what I stand for as a human being. Then when you get into the tactical, how do I sell, you're selling trust. You know, whoever you are, depends on what product you're selling. If you're selling insurance, as an example, right, trust plays a huge role in that. If you're selling cars, then you're the trusted guy to work with in the car industry, right?

It doesn't— everything you sell, trust is a component.

It could be, but believe is too. I could be the believe car sales guy. I could be the the comms car sales guy, right? You know, whatever the value is that you hold most dear to you, that's what you wanna funnel through all of your sales and marketing and strategies. And often that can fit within a typical sales structure, like you're off selling whatever product, it can typically fit. Sometimes it doesn't, and that may be a situation where you're in the wrong company and you have to move to one where you're selling stuff that does fit more congruently with who you are as a human being.

Yeah, and I think that one of the things I would recommend when people do that is to, you know, take some time by themselves, turn off the TV, turn off the cell phone, turn off the distractions, really think about this in terms of, you know, write down 5 things you think that really motivate you, that you really believe in, to use your, your word. But then bounce it off a couple of people, right? Ask so many people, does this fit with what you think I'm doing. Because I find people really have a hard time understanding who they are and how they come across and how people perceive them, which is part of this, you know, part of this whole struggle.

Yeah, so for me, my take on that is I think a lot of people aren't very self-aware. I think some people are. When I ask people to come up with the one core value that represents who you are, some people like, bang, they know it, they got it, no problem. I wasn't like that. It took me a long time to kind of narrow it down. And I would suggest spending more time with yourself as opposed to other people. I think often we show one side of ourselves to people. You show a side of yourself to your wife, a side of yourself to your friends, a side of yourself to your boss, and we play into their expectations. Your boss wants you to be a certain way, so you act like that. Your wife wants you to be a certain way, so you act like that. And there are very few people who actually know you for who you are, where you're truly naked in front of them? Very few people. And so when you're coming up with what is core to you, you wanna look inwards much more than living up to somebody else's expectation of you, 'cause that's never gonna be the right thing, right? And so how I find it easy to explain people and guide people through the process is think about not just who you are now, but who you've always been and who you always will be. Think about what your favorite book is, your favorite movie. Think about your favorite professor in school. If you're married, think about why you're married you love your husband or wife. Like, what— there's a common theme connecting everything together. For me, my favorite movie is Seabiscuit. I don't know if you know it. It's about this racehorse.

Absolutely.

I've seen it like 30 times. It's a super cheesy movie. I cried during it.

Uh, you were supposed to both believe, right?

The, you know, there's a racehorse that nobody believes in, the jockey nobody believes in, an owner nobody believes in. They all band together and somehow make this thing happen. And that I just love. And, you know, when I was growing up, my parents always told me I was a Castrilli Carmichael, my mom's last name is Castrilli, and I could do anything. And I try to continue that tradition to my son to say, Hayden, you know, you're Hayden Carmichael, you can do anything. And, you know, they've never been able to give me kind of practical information on how to grow a business because entrepreneurship is not their skill. They made me believe in myself. So this is something that it's a constant in your life. It's not a New Year's resolution that this year I want to be more grateful or whatever it is. It's something who you actually are and always have been and always will be. That's why it's a core value. And the more you can tie into that, right? You know, I attract people who love belief and the people who hate it, like, ah, stupid belief, you know, and that's great. They self-eliminate, right? If you're selling, you're like, you can't sell to everybody, but you need a way to differentiate yourself and stand out. Okay, you know, so as an example, I run a salsa dance company here. It's an investment that I made and recently acquired this business. It's a half-million-dollar business selling salsa classes, right? Uh, we don't sell salsa, we don't sell dancing, we sell family, right? The community, we sell fun. So it's not about learning how to be the best dancer, it's about coming and this is the best part of your week because you have a life that you hate and you have no friends and you're coming out and this is like You hate your boss, this is the best day of your week. And so understanding that is why it's the biggest salsa dancing school in North America, because most people are selling the steps and here, you know, you could be a great dancer. Most people come in, don't want to be a great dancer. They're just looking for an escape from their life. Having fun, right? And that's what we sell. We sell the community, we sell the family. And so understanding that lets us become the biggest in the industry. So not everybody wants to be part of a family. Great, like those people will never sign up for our school. And so it's understanding who you are as a person and then bringing that through in all of your messaging so that if somebody does value the same thing that you do, if somebody does value trust as their number one thing and that's who you are, then they're gonna come to you by default. And so you're gonna work with clients who get what you're all about, who you're gonna have a great connection with 'cause you have the same core value, who's gonna buy more from you, refer more from you. You know, you move on to something else, they're gonna follow you to that too. Because they believe in what you're doing. Where if you're just another guy trying to sell car insurance or whatever it is, you're one of many and you're not standing out. And so I'm just gonna compete on price. It's like, if I can't tell the difference between you and somebody else, I'm just, okay, who's cheaper? Yeah. Give me a reason to care.

Or if you can't give me a reason to care, we're not gonna buy anything right now. We'll come back when we meet somebody who does give us a reason to care. So, which is, you know, in sales, the study's coming out saying that 60% of qualified opportunities in the pipeline, the business to business world, go to no decision, right? Because no one's given them a reason to care. So once you've got that core belief, then how do you start translating that into a public persona, you know, that you're going to use so people— so it's, you know, on your LinkedIn profile, Twitter profile, wherever. What's the first steps you recommend people take?

The first step is coming up with your foundation story. So tell me why this is so important to you. Tell me why you care so much about this. On your website, there needs to be your story, your picture, I mean, ideally a video if you can get in front of a camera. Salespeople, you know, have a higher ability to be able to do that than maybe more introverted people who aren't great at sales. But tell me your story because so many people hide behind a corporate website, and then again, you're vanilla, you're boring, I don't care about you. This especially is relevant to the more entrepreneurial kinds or the more kinds of salespeople where you have some control. You can create your own website, you can create your own presence, you can decide what goes on the flyers that get sent out. But even in— think about what's, what's on your voicemail. You know, what's the message when people call you up? What's on the voicemail? What's on your LinkedIn profile? What's on your Twitter profile? What kind of content are you producing and sharing? You know, if I'm, if I'm a salesperson selling trust, my content should be about Trust. And I should be attracting people who like a trusted message, even if it has nothing to do with buying whatever product that you're selling. And when they're ready to buy, you're going to be the first guy to come to because they're already liking your stuff and coming to you anyway. A lot of people who follow my stuff aren't entrepreneurs and they don't want to be entrepreneurs. They just love the message of belief. And if they ever do decide to become entrepreneurs or they know friends who are entrepreneurs, they're going to share my stuff. And that's what you want. You want to be producing stuff through your bio, through videos, through social media, through websites, through interviews with the media that appeals to people who aren't just potential customers, but could refer customers onto you because they love your message.

Right, so the basic salesperson though isn't gonna sit down and write a blog probably, right? So how do they, you know, what do you recommend for them in terms of how they go out and begin, as you did, to curate really interesting content? Okay, they've identified what their core belief is, How are they gonna do that?

I mean, the thought that a salesperson isn't just gonna write down and sit down a blog, well, maybe they should. Everybody should be in the—

I'm not saying they shouldn't, but I'm just telling you what the reality is, right?

Right, well, I mean, and the reality is the guys who don't may not have a sales job. If you are not producing content or curating or sharing, it's gonna be hard to stand out, right? So if you are, whether it's sitting down and writing a blog, like some guys may not be great at writing. If you're not great at writing, don't start writing blog posts, right? Get on video. If you're much better off the cuff and talking to people and like, I love being on video, so I suggested doing this as a video. You know, I love being on video. It matches both where my audience is and also what I'm naturally good at and want to get better at. And so it's picking the medium that fits best for you. So if you're, you know, if you're, If you're a salesperson, again, selling trust, whatever product it is that you're selling, I would love to see you come out and create a foundational video that tells your story, why trust is so important to you. Like, what does it mean to you really? And not some like, trust is really important and it's the backbone of our, you know, like the BS stuff, like deep, like get emotional, right? Does it come from your mom? Does it come from your kids? Like, I wanna feel the passion and the deep connection to that word because if I feel the same way, man, you got me sold. I don't even care how much you're charging. I'll pay more to go with you. Right. Here's an example. A guy called into my radio show selling landscaping services.

Mm-hmm.

And he's like, I'm being undercut by kids who can mow lawns for $5. Like, I'm not gonna do that. How do I stand out and compete? I said, well, you haven't given people a reason. Like, if I compare you to the high school kid, why am I gonna go with you? How are you different? If I can't understand that, a high school kid every day of the week, it's $5 versus your $50, right? Easy decision. And I asked him why he started this business, and he said it was because when he grew up, his mom really cared about lawns and taking care of the garden. He would help her every day, and that was his connection to her. And every time he goes to a customer's house, he treats their lawn like it's his mother's lawn. And him telling that story makes me feel like this guy cares, right? And it's not, you know, the high school kid might make a mess and might step on my flowers and might, you know, not really care, but this guy feels like he's gonna care, and I will pay more to work with him because he told me his story. And it's much more than just the features that you're selling and the price points, right? Those are important, but if you can sell at the core level, if you connect with me on an emotional level first, then I'm much more likely to buy from you and be less sensitive to pricing, because price is always going to be an issue, but if you can't make me feel emotional, then it's going to be the most important issue, which you never want to get to.

Okay, so let me ask you a question in the context of really one of the toughest challenges sales reps have today, increasingly in such the technology business, you know, sales is being specialized, there's inside sales reps whose job is purely just to get somebody to agree for the next meeting, So they're the ones sending out these emails and making phone calls, 50 phone calls a day and so on. How do they do that? Okay, they work their LinkedIn profile and so on and so forth, but when they get that person, that first person on the phone the first time, or what's in that email message that they need to be able to say to capture the attention of somebody based around their core value?

And you're talking about like I'm just given this list of people that I need to call up on coming from corporate headquarters? Yeah, I would, if we don't have anything tied to that individual, like obviously the more you can customize it based on knowledge about that person, if they have kids, interests, whatever, the better. If you can't do that, then I would tie it to what I feel is a match between my core value and the company's core value, like what this business is trying to accomplish and leading with that. So I wanna lead with something that I can feel personally connected to and attached to. But I need to put it in the context of the company as well, 'cause they have some kind of interest in the company 'cause they've expressed an interest, right? They signed up to download something or whatever, they're on my list somehow. And so I try to tie that to the business somehow. And it's, as in all sales, it's gonna be a numbers game where you're not gonna be able to hit everybody with a message that, if you try to hit everybody, it's gonna be a vanilla boring message that won't connect with anybody.

Right, right, right.

So you could give— it is a problem, but it's also not. Like, you know, the message that I put out is appealing to some people and it's not appealing to others, and it's fine. And so, like, you could give that same list to 3 different salespeople and we could each attack it in different ways and each get different customers based on how we're attacking it. If we all attack it in the same way, it's going to be boring vanilla, and the only people we're going to get are the ones who, you just really need a solution and we happen to be there at the right time. And that sales is about timing. There has to be a need, there has to be a project, you know, they have to have the budget and you just being there magically at the right moment, that's a lot of the sales too. And so anybody can pick those up just by being persistent and being there at the right time. The other ones, the more value-based relationship-based, like my goal is I wanna get a customer to then wants to stay with me for life, who loves what I represent and I'm all about, who then will refer tons of clients to me too. 'Cause those guys who just have a need on that spot moment, they're often not the best long-term clients 'cause you still need to build a relationship with them and you may not share similar values. And there are clients that you get that you connect really well with and others that like you struggle with them and they just don't get it. And they may be a great fit for another salesperson who does fit them really well. So I would be infusing, so if it were me, I would be infusing my message with believe. So I'd be talking about how much I believe in them and what they're trying to do, or if I don't have that information, how much I believe in what my company's trying to do, or whatever better promise or better future I can create for my client. That's what I would try to do, choose to do with belief. You might put it with trust and the other guy might put it with, 'Peace of mind,' or the other guy put it with 'calm,' and the other guy, you know, like, just infuse it with your own style, provided that you have, uh, the freedom, because a lot of times you don't even have the ability to edit those emails. It just goes out and somebody is calling in, you know. Well, they want to know how much—

they want you to personalize them, but you have to have the time and you have to know what you're going to personalize it with, as you said.

So, right. And so, like, you could have it out— you can include a link. Can you include a link out to your website? That shows why you care so much about this, like why this really means something, because especially for us, it was good on video. An email can be hard to get your message across. So a link out to a video where you are passionately talking about what you're doing and why it means so much to you is awesome, right? Like put that in, send it off, and that helps build a personal connection. I have a lot of people who write into me or who recognize me on the street or send me messages and they feel like they know me even though I have no idea who they are. Zero clue, but they're reciting stories that I'm telling. They feel like they know me and that's sharing authentically and talking about my stories. I've shared a lot on the YouTube channel about personal struggles and what I'm going through at the moment, what I've had to go through, and by sharing that it builds trust and people feel like they know me, like me, wanna do business with me. And so that's what ideally any salesperson is doing as well. You know, you start with your foundation story, whether it's a video or a blog post or however you wanna put it up, and then you're creating consistent content that you can lead people to. And ideally, ideally get to a point where you are attracting people to your business or to your, to call you so that you don't need a Rolodex coming from head office, right? Because you're producing so much gold. Content is the new marketing that people come in and they wanna work with you.

Yep. Okay, perfect. So great information, great information for the audience or people listening to the show, sales reps, sales managers, entrepreneurs. So now we're gonna go on the last segment of my show where I've got some standard questions I ask all my guests.

Let's do it.

Let's do it. So first question is, Hypothetical scenario: you've just been hired as the new sales leader at a company whose sales are completely stalled out, and senior management really wants to get unstuck in a hurry. So what 2 things would you do your first week on the job that could have the biggest impact?

I would come back to figure out what we stand for as a company, and then I would create an epic piece of content that people want to share. That, that wasn't just advertising, but that I got value by looking at that piece of marketing, whether it's my video or an ad or a story that promotes my business, but I get value by looking at it and reading it.

Excellent. A great answer. I love it. All right, some rapid-fire questions. You give me one-word answers, or you can elaborate if you wish. First one is, when you personally are selling, what's your strongest sales asset? I think I know the answer, but Give it to me anyway.

Belief, man. Belief, passion, fire.

I said that.

Spit fire.

All right, so who's your business role model?

I have a number of them. I think my parents started me off, and more so in terms of just values, how to treat people, being nice, how to be a human being. Bill Gates became my first business role model. My favorite entrepreneur is E.P. Giannini. Who was the founder of Bank of America. Most people would think a banker, how is a banker your favorite entrepreneur? But, you know, he bet on Walt Disney when nobody believed in it. He bet on the little guy. He gave out loans based on a handshake and a look in somebody's eye. You know, who— imagine a banker saying, hey, give me a loan based on a look in my eye and a handshake. That's not happening. So he was the belief banker. And from there, lots of people like I look up to, I think you can pull from everybody. I think you can pull from Donald Trump. You can pull from Kanye West. You can pull from Bill Gates. And you may not like everything that they stand for as a human being, but there's one thing in them that can help you. And the goal is not to be Donald Trump, but to be the best version of yourself. And you can learn something from him to get there. Okay.

So along the same lines, what's the one book every entrepreneur should read?

Uh, my favorite book. Well, my favorite book is probably The 4-Hour Workweek. Tim Ferriss. That shaped a lot of my thoughts on time management and delegating, and that helped me at a certain point in my business. My second favorite book is called "Radicals and Visionaries," and it's not in print anymore, but you may be able to find that old copy of it. It's basically, it was put up by Entrepreneur Press, and it shows the stories of famous entrepreneurs in like 3 or 4 pages. Every morning I would just read a different story. This is kind of before YouTube days. I just read a story and just get inspired. To have an environment where I felt like these people were around me and I'm like, I'm sitting in the room with Martha Stewart for 10 minutes and it just made me break out of my comfort zone to try new things and have more confidence.

All right, here's a tough question. What's your favorite music on your playlist these days?

Favorite music on my playlist. I should look, I have a Believe playlist. The song that I just added was super old school, was Back of the Bus. Pete Seeger.

Pete Seeger, yeah.

Yeah, it's— and I got in a fight with somebody because they said it sounded like Raffi. I'm like, this is a revolutionary song, man. Raffi, you're killing me, man. This— I don't have to explain the lyrics. That's what all this meant. Like, you have this white guy standing up for Black people, uh, in an era where that was not cool. And, and man, just— I have mad respect for Pete Seeger. Uh, Eminem and a bunch of, a bunch of songs, but that was one of the most recent ones that I added.

All right, we've got kids, so maybe you have Raffi on there as well.

No, no hate on Raffi, no hate on Raffi, but it's not Pete Seeger level. Come on, man.

Oh, when my kids were young, there was a Raffi song that was stuck in my head for months, Eight Little Piggies or Eight Piggies in a Row, whatever it was.

Don't, don't get stuck in my head, Andy.

So what's the first sales activity you do every day?

I, I review the comments on my YouTube video because my community is my sales tool. I respond. I'm the only YouTuber of my size that I know of that still has a response to every single comment. Myself, my team. I've scaled the people who work on my team to respond to YouTube comments.

Right.

Because the community helps foster growth, right? And just by saying thank you and acknowledging them and listening to them, that creates activity and buzz momentum and word of mouth and referrals. So it's not the sales, isn't, hey, can you please share this or buy from me now? And for the salespeople kind of listening to this, all of those interactions, those should be daily. We should be reaching out to the people who you've helped and the people in your community and just being an asset without trying to sell anything. Because if they see you as that asset, then they're gonna come back when they have an opportunity for you and refer you and always be thinking, like you always wanna stay top of mind. That's how you get the sales. So every day you should start by doing things to help somebody else.

Excellent. All right, well, I wanna thank you for being on my show, Evan. And for people who wanna find out more about you, I know your audience, again, they're watching, but for people in my audience, how can they find out more about you?

Uh, no, I just Google Evan Carmichael. My website will show up, YouTube channel, Twitter, whatever, whatever your fancy is, I'm there.

All right, excellent. Okay, remember friends who are listening on this, my show, make sure, make it part of your day every day to deliberately learn something new to help you accelerate your success. And don't miss great conversations like I've had one with my guest today, Evan Carmichael, who gave us his expertise about how to grow your business more quickly. So Evan, thank you very much. And everybody else, have a great day.

Thanks, Andy. All right, that was good, man.

Hey, that's fun. I loved it.

Yeah, so is this a daily podcast that you put out?

5 days a week.

Wow, that's a lot of work.

It is, but a lot of fun. Yeah, I am learning so much.

I love it, I love it. Cool. And then I guess everybody watching, um, I'll put the link in the description, but you can go check out andypaul.com. Called the Accelerate Podcast, and this is going to air when, Andy?

Probably about 60 days.

Oh wow, 60 days! That's a long production schedule.

Well, we, yeah, we record quite a ways in advance, so we're, yeah, we're basically filling out second quarter as we speak.

Wow, okay, cool. Well, you know what, let me know when it's out, and then I'll also, I'll share it too and let people know because they may not remember to check their calendar in 60 days for Well, likewise with this, and we'll share this in advance and we'll get that out there and promote the heck out of it. Perfect. Well, I know we're a little bit over, but thanks for the time, Andy. Hopefully that helped, and really appreciate it.

Thank you. Yeah, we'll talk to you soon.

Cool. Cheers.

Take care.

Bye.