How To Use Leverage To Find Bigger Opportunities with Roland Frasier

Okay, so I think we are live here on Facebook Live and bacon Wrapped business. This is Brad Costanzo and I am. This is a first for me. I'm going to do a Facebook Live interview with my friend Roland Frazier and we are going to put this on itunes later on. So if you're not a subscriber to the Bacon Wrap business podcast, you can go to baconratbusiness.com but in just a moment I'm going to bring on Roland and use this fun little BE live switching technology. So let me see if.

We'Re doing this correctly. This is the fun of live video. Actually, before I bring on Roland, let me tell you a little bit about him and what we're doing. So Roland Frazier is a. He's been a friend of mine for several years. He's one of the most impressive businessmen that I've ever met. Much beyond just a marketer and people who sell things online like myself and other folks. Roland, however, is, I'm reading over here a little bit of his bio, but he's the co founder of Native Commerce, All Channels Media Boost, Equity Boost Events. He's one of the managing partners of DigitalMarketer.com with Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher these or the managing partners of the War Room. I could go on and on with Roland's.

It sounds like Roland doesn't know what the heck he's doing.

I know it sounds like he's doing a lot. I'm just gonna go ahead and bring you in, Roland.

So.

I am, I'm at a kind of a loss on how to just introduce you because you are kind of got your hands in everything. You've got your hands on all these pots. And many times people have said, so Brad, what do you want to do when you grow up? I go, I want to be Roland Frazier because he was having so much damn fun in this world of marketing and business and you're always involved in some really, really cool stuff. So it's a real honor to have you on the show and to get to kind of dive in and talk about all the cool stuff we talk about offline.

Thank you. I see comments coming up but I can't read them well because they're really super tiny on my screen. So I don't know if you see them or not.

I do. So let me show you. We are going to use. Do you know Aaron Brabham? Aaron says the smartest man in doctor actually stopped everything for this.

Nice. Hey Aaron, how are you?

I love it. Thank you, Aaron, for tuning in. We got Alexis, Just saying hi, and I'm sure we'll have some more people stop by. By the way, guys, because we are live, feel free to ask any questions that you want of myself or Roland, and we'll try to answer them here. This is going to be a really fun, different kind of podcast that I'm used to putting out, but we're gonna dive in. So this is what's really cool. Roland, earlier, I'm giving you props here on air because for anybody else listening who's like, man, I'd love to do podcasts. I'd love to be a guest on the show. I've had well over 100 guests in the past year and a half that I've been doing this. And I'm reading over here the email you sent me, and I'll even put a link to this in the show notes where you said, hey, look, I was checking out your show, finding out what would be the most interesting things to discuss. And, you know, you took a look at all of the, you know, the popularity of the various shows. What are some of the hot topics? And I think you came up with a list of, like, 20 different things that we can talk about, and every single one of them would be fascinating.

I didn't. I just didn't want you to sit there and say, so, what's up? Not that you would, because you're an amazing interviewer, but I was just like, I don't know what you guys, you know, what you talk about on Bacon Ralph, Because I haven't had that as much chance to listen to everything. I've listened to a few. I listened to Tommy Powers and a few of the ones that you've done, and they've all been great. So I appreciate getting the chance to come up.

That's awesome. Well, you know, it's so funny, too, because the fact that you said on the, like, here's some things we could talk about. Like, number one, how to be so happy that everyone you meet asks you, why the heck are you so happy? Like, you know that you've got that reputation, right? Like, obviously, like I do. Everybody who describes Roland Frazier's like, he's just always smiling. He's just always happy. So why is that? Why are you so happy, Roland?

You know, it's really funny because it is something a lot of people say, and I don't realize that I'm walking around like the joker with this big smile on my face all the time, but.

I think it's just designing. It's a lot of the Things that I put in there for other questions. But it's really designing your life around the things that make you happy.

Making hard decisions really fast to cut out the things that take away from your happiness, and then thinking about, like, I want to design this reality for myself. This is what I want my life to look at. I don't like doing this, this, and this. So I'm going to. But I need to do these three things. So I'm going to figure out a reality for myself that has me not doing those things, and then I'm going to do everything I can to move towards that. And I'm not going to accept anything in my life that. That leads me in the direction of those things I don't like. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. So how do you.

Is that obviously easier to do the more successful you get? Because you can say no to things a lot easier. What advice do you have for people out there who are starting off, they're hustling, they're trying to. They're just doing absolutely anything they can to make ends meet, and they have to do some stuff they absolutely hate for right now. I mean, is there a kind of a way around that, or do you have to get real successful before that happens?

Yeah, and so I will be.

I'll sound harsher than I want to sound on this, but I just. I don't believe it's true. Right. I think.

There is always a way that is only limited by our ability to see it at the time. And we're frequently blinded by thinking that we have to do this thing that I hate. But doing the thing you hate is killing you. So. And it's gonna never open up the ability for you to do what you want to do. So I think you say if I am. Money, I guess, is the easiest thing. Right. So you and I both know it's really easy to create money by connecting two people who need each other. So if I was in a job, let's say. Let's say I am. Let's say I'm doing a webinar every day, which to me is my idea of the horrible, most horrible ring of Dante's Hell. Right. I wouldn't want to come on every day and do a webinar. So if. If my job was that I have to do that right now, then I'd find a partner that would do that for me. I helped my son do this recently. So my son did a product launch, and he had a deal that he was doing all the technical side of the Stuff for the folks that were the influencers, right? So he then part of that was doing customer service with the emails. And I said, well, if you hate doing customer service with email and responding to people, why don't you hire somebody to do that? And he said, but that's part of my job. I said, well, it's part of your job, but what if you bifurcate your job and you carve out off that one little bit and say, I'm going to take part of the money that I receive with my job and I'm going to pay my buddy who needs money really badly to do that part of it. Me for like my first, my first job was as an assistant pro at a tennis court, right? Assistant pro means you do all the crap that the other people there don't want to do, most of which is sweeping the courts and things like that. So my job was to sweep the courts. It was my least favorite thing to do. I hated it because I really wanted to play tennis. But there was no solution to that, right? Except I went to the equipment rental store and I rented a leaf blower. And this is before you had leaf blowers all over the place. I rented a leaf blower for like 15 bucks for half a day and I went and blew all the courts dry. And then I had all the rest of the time to do that. Now my job that I had to do to earn that money was to sweep the tennis courts and do all the other crap that they had me do. But I looked for the leverage, which is to me the whole theme in life is where's the leverage, right? So I looked and I said, how can I not do this thing that I want to do? And clearly there's this resource over here. But you might say, well, but those guys aren't going to pay for it. I'm like, so frickin what? I'm going to pay for it and I'm going to make it happen there. So I think that even in the lowest, lowest level, minimum wage job, which is what that was, you can find leverage that gets you past the things that cause you to be unhappy and then you're way more productive, right? So I'll give you one more example. So my second job was a runner for a law firm where runners are the people who gather all the stuff that the attorneys need to get across town to different places really fast for closings of real estate deals and bank transactions and stuff like that. So I would go into the office and they would, this is, I got fired from the tennis job. And I got fired from this job, too. So this is why. This is advice you have to take as is. But the problem was, is that I wasn't happy there. So I made the decision, like, guys, I'm gonna make this a better job that works for me, and it's gonna be more efficient. But they couldn't. They couldn't think outside the lines that. That I wanted them to think out of. So just take. Take that as part of. But to me, that's a blessing. So if you get fired from a job where people won't do that, that's causing you to not be able to grow and be happy. Then, you know, there's lots of other jobs. But so with the law firm, it was. It was okay, so here's this thing. It needs to go to the bank right now and then come back as soon as you can, because you need to pick up this other thing, and then you need to take this thing across to the real estate place. And so what I learned was that none of the attorneys talk to each other. So I went and talked to all of the paralegals and said, okay, what do you got going out today? And then I would write it all down, and I would go and get. I would wait until all of the ones that needed to be delivered within a certain period of time were ready, and then I would make a run and just go to all the places in sequence and then come back. And they never could figure out how I was able to do everything so fast because nobody else had been able to do it before. It's super simple, right? It's just, where's the leverage? And then the other thing was, I learned when I was parking legally, that it took me an extra, on average, 20 to 25 minutes to find a parking place miles away from where I needed to be, and then go and walk and then get the thing and go back. So I just started parking illegally in alleyways and things like that, and I could get in and out. I think I got maybe two tickets the whole time that I was working for those guys. And so again, it's like, where can I cut off the time? Where can I make it go faster? Who are the centers of influence that I can connect with? Which in that case were the paralegals and the legal secretaries that had this information that apparently the system didn't share with itself. So that's. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, 100%. The funny part, like when you said, where's the leverage? And that's one of the things I always think about you when I think, like, well, how, you know, what would Roland do? Wwrd? Where's the. I'm gonna get a bracelet. What would Roland do? But where's the leverage? Because you always seem to think bigger. Look for the most highly leveraged opportunities. I naturally do this as well. In the past, it's been on a smaller scale than the stuff that you've done, but I've always kind of thought, yeah, how is this? Am I looking too small? Is there something much bigger that I'm missing? Like, right under my nose? You seem to see that quite often. And I think of you as a deal maker more than anything else.

Right.

Like, you have an immense knowledge of marketing, you have an immense knowledge of business, but you seem to be involved in a lot of deals. You've done some really big deals. What are some of the deals just in your history? Like, some of your big favorite business wins and deals that you're. You're most proud of. And not even just most proud of the most fun, because we've always got those ones we kind of pat ourselves on the back on.

That was.

That was a great experience.

I think the thing that I'm doing right now, I got involved with, I got to come on and be a part of Digital Marketer and native commerce in 2013. And that came in the same way that your deal with Jesse that we talked about. Right. That came about the same thing. I just was there adding value because I knew that I wanted to get to know these guys. I wanted to get to know Perry and Ryan Dice.

And I thought that they would be good people to do something with because they had skills that were complementary to mine. They like to do things that I either wasn't good at or hated doing. And I could bring that into the world that I know, which is finance, investment banking, private equity, that kind of stuff. So I really decided that I wanted to get to know those guys. And I always look for the channel of access. So the channel of access to them at the time was Traffic and Conversion Summit. And then at Traffic and Conversion Summit, I saw that they had this thing, this mastermind called War Room. So I joined it, and I joined it with the specific intent of getting to know them and going into business with them, because it seemed to me like that made sense. Now I'm in there, I have to distinguish myself. So I'm like, okay, how does one distinguish oneself in this situation? And that one, it was win wicked smart. So I was like, okay, I got to win this wicked smart thing where everybody votes on it. I have no idea how to do that. So I just was like, I researched the crap out of everything at the time, and I found a couple of really cool little things that I knew would appeal to them. And I went in and I presented three, not one, because I figured that give me more chance to.

Everybody voted on it, and I managed to win it. And then Perry came over and said, hey, man, hey, let's go have dinner after this. I want you to come and talk with me. And we got to know each other and hit it off and became really good friends. And then I just helped those guys for, I don't know, a year, 18 months maybe, maybe even two years, just giving them any kind of help, saying, if there's anything I can do to help support you, which is kind of my standard sign off anytime I'm talking to somebody and they had some things that I was able to help them with. And so when that resolved itself to open up an opportunity to have a partner in the company, I remember sitting down with Ryan, who's calling me on the phone right now and sitting down with him and saying, you know, let's. Let's do this. And so that, to me, was a really exciting deal.

My first deal with Prudential securities, which was a leverage buyout deal. That was. That was one I really remember. What did you do there?

I actually used to work for prudential securities from 96 till 2007.

Nice. That. Were you in New York now?

I was in Dallas.

Okay. Yeah.

You ever read the book by Michael Lewis, Liars Poker?

Yeah.

So I don't know if you remember this, but the worst job in finance was equities in Dallas because he's a bond guy. He's like, oh, no, I don't want to get, you know, like those guys doing equities in Dallas. And I was like, I was an equities in Dallas guy, and I had read that book before getting the job, and I don't know, the irony was not lost on me.

But anyway, that's pretty cool.

I love the concept of, like, LBOs and whatnot. Tell me a little more about that.

So it was just. I found it's the same thing. It's like.

It'S being too stupid to know that you can't do something. So in my. I started out selling real estate and then insurance for the real estate deals and then secure. I got my securities license to put together syndications for that stuff for real estate developments. And in the process of That I was like, I need to up this game. So I'm like, how do I get bigger? I need to go to New York. I got to find the guys in New York. So I just started reaching out through anybody that I could. Any, any mentor, any attorney, anybody that I met in my dealings and said, I want to connect with the investment banking houses because they've got the capital to do the deals that, that I don't. And that absolutely seems like the way to be. And just through a couple of steps of networking, I hooked up with one of the, one of the higher end guys at Prudential securities in New York. They're on Water street, not Wall street, unfortunately. So I can't say I did a bunch of Wall street deals, but I did a bunch of. Just on Wall Street.

I'm going to Water street deals. Yeah, Water street deals.

And so I had a company that was a machine manufacturing company and that was. I just took it to him and said, this seems to me like something that would, that would be a good deal for you guys. And I mean, I got. I don't know how many times I got turned down by different people before I ran across this one, but it's kind of like a book deal, right? You just keep going and pitching it. Or a record deal, you keep going and pitching it until you find the right ears for it. And I did. And then we ended up. He ended up becoming a mentor to me and introduced me to that whole world of things and told me I needed to dress a little different for the, for that crowd, which was kind of interesting as well. We all have these costumes that seem to help us perform better in different situations. So that was a really cool thing. And that was the leverage buyout phase of my life. The other one was running across.

When I first started practicing law with a couple of friends of mine from law school, we went and opened up the practice and ended up meeting a couple of people who had been around a little bit longer, but we were really good marketers.

And so we merged with them. And that was how I picked up Tony Robbins as a client and Brian Tracy and Dennis Waitley and all these other guys that were kind of in the author world and through Tony's deal, met Bill Guthey and Greg Rinker of Guthy Rinker and ended up talking to them and saying, listen, they were talking about. Well, actually only typically 2 and 5 1, you know, 2 and 5, lucky 1 in 5 on average of these infomercials that we put together. And they're the Best, Right. They're the best at that. And it's still a 20 to 40% success rate. Right. So 60% failure rate. I said, well, so basically you have significant risk. What if I could take that risk off your hands? I'll. I'll ep, I'll executive produce the infomercials, I'll raise the money, and. And you give me your best deals that you think are going to be the most successful. And they were like, all right, so 14 infomercials later, with three or four that actually took off, that was a super amazing deal. And all that stuff came out of just being too stupid and too stubborn. Right. To know that I couldn't do it or to know that I should stop doing it because I was failing. And I think that's the, that's the thing. It's. It's most people. It's that Napoleon Hill, three foot from gold thing. You know, it's like most people are digging and pursuing and they've all got fantastic ideas and they're going at it, but you just stop a little bit too soon and you're. And you're too smart because you know it's not going to work, or your friends are so help, you know, ready to help. Help you not make a fool of yourself. I'm just like, screw it all. I don't care. I know I can make this happen. And I think that that stubborn creation of your own reality is a key to success.

Absolutely.

The areas that I want to explore even more involve a lot of the stuff that you just talked about. And I'll go back to a conversation that we had at lunch. What was it? Back in maybe late November. And one of the things you said.

Was.

In getting access, and this was actually one of the topics you even talked about here, which is, oh, where was it?

Well, one of the things I definitely want to talk to you about.

Where.

Was it about getting ownership, owning a business without paying for it, getting in. You're able to open a lot of big doors.

And figure out what to do when you get there. Sometimes you may have it figured out prior to it, but one of the pieces of advice you gave me was.

Like, you even said, stop consulting. And I was like, well, wait a minute. That's like kind of my bread and butter. But one of the ways you phrased it, and this, I haven't forgotten this, was that you've got a lot of skills that much bigger companies and bigger fish.

Would value and pay for and go after them. And I was like, well, like, as A consultant. And you're like, no. And I'll let you explain this in your words a little bit more. But some of your advice was to find ways that you can add value to companies, to people, and.

Make yourself indispensable so that you can create a relationship to where they ask you to stay on board. Much like you just talking about with Digital Marketer, which happened to be your favorite deal. Explain that a little bit more because I've got some more follow up questions. But for the, for the audience out there who may want to hear this, I think, and I guarantee if there's a lot of consultants and people out there who are doing this as well, I want them to hear kind of the same advice that I want to hear again.

Sure. So, number one, you have to, you have to be in a position where you want to do more than be a consultant. Because if you're happy being a consultant and that's what you like, then you should do it. Right. So none of this is. Being a consultant is bad or anything like that. It's just for me. And we had a conversation. I ended up at dinner last night with nine people. I was supposed to have dinner by myself. I ended up at the dinner with nine people at a table talking about all this kind of stuff, which is funny how things work. But Hot Topic. But the first thing is, is that, that if you, if you don't want to own your own business, that's totally okay. The next thing is, if you own your own business but it's not where you want, you're not where you want to be in it, then this is good advice for you, I think. But if you own your own business and you're totally happy, then it's just important to me to say that. So there's no, there's no pressure. When you and I were talking, you were saying, you know, man, I just, I, you, you've got all these skills and all this knowledge and all this experience and all these contacts and this great show and everything else. And, and you're like, I want to level up. Right? So to me, the thing that helps you do that first is just the mindset of leveling up is only about finding leverage and finding bigger.

Finding a bigger pond to be in. Right. With bigger fish. Because what you're going to do for those people, like what you're doing in the deal that you've got now is basically the same thing that you were doing for next to nothing for some other people. Right. It's like, it's the Same amount of effort. And you learn this when you're doing investment banking type deals like buying and selling companies. The effort that it takes to buy a hundred thousand dollar deal is the same effort basically as it takes to buy a $10 million deal. Right. Which is why when you're looking for money and people to buy your business, most of the real players are only interested when you get up into the tens of millions of dollars because it's the same amount of work. Right. So they spend their time knowing that the reward for that is much greater. They say no to a lot of smaller deals, which could be fantastic. Like all of those smaller deals that they're saying no to could be fantastic. And it's because if they don't, and Steve Jobs was like, it's easy to drown an opportunity, right? So the thing is, if you take all those smaller deals, then you're stuck in the muck of that and you're not able to direct your efforts towards the thing that's going to give you the greatest amount of leverage, which is invest that time in finding the bigger deals and you won't need 10 smaller deals. Right.

And you also said another thing there. Before I get to the next question, you had a great analogy, something about you about waves and the waves converging. And you even said you're not going to catch the big wave. Like when you're on the seashore picking up seashells or something like that.

Yeah.

When the waves come together, I forget what they call it, but it's like a convergence thing when they come together for the big wave. If you've taken the small one in and you're kind of kicking up the sand on the shore, watching, you've made a mistake, I think. So it definitely makes sense to wait for the right thing.

Cool. So one of the things then you're like, alright. And I remember leaving with like, okay, that sounded great, roland, and I'm 100% on board. But.

Where do you find those big waves? Like, where do you go out and wait? And you started to give me some advice for that. But for people like me, people who do wanna level up and who realize that it takes as much if not more effort to deal with the smaller clients than it does the big ones, where do you go to start to find those?

To me, it's all about your network. So for most of us that are in the digital world, it's very easy to sit behind your computer.

And learn new tactics and things like that, but not know what's not know really Anybody that's going to help you move. But I've watched and all the big deals are always done outside of the computer. They're not done on, you know, job boards or discussion boards or Facebook groups or things like that. They're done because you meet in person. So to me, it's. You have to consciously, everything can be designed. And so you have to design your, Your, your moving around and your time in a way that connects you with the people that can make that happen. So if you. To me, like in your deal that you did, and I don't know if you've talked about it, so I'm not saying names, but in your deal, you got that connection by being out.

And meeting the people that you're doing the deal with in person and having the chance to say, to not be smart enough to know that you can't do a deal with a billionaire. You know, that's. Everybody knows you can't. You can't just walk up and end up with a deal with a billionaire, but you can. Can't yet. Right?

So to me, it's to put yourself in the. In the position to have contact either directly or indirectly, with the people that you ultimately want to do business with. And you have to decide who are those people? You know, you have to make that list. This is my hit list of the top 10 people that I want to be working with. And then you reverse engineer. Okay, well, if I can't get to them directly, and sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't. If I can't get them to directly, then how can I get to them indirectly? So for us, for example, we want to get to.

Aston Kutcher because he's doing a deal, or Arnold Schwarzenegger or somebody like that. So I've got offers out to those guys right now, both of those guys, to appear at an event that we're doing so that I can have. And my contract is you'll present at the event and you'll have dinner with us for an hour and a half, meaning our partners. Right. So. And I didn't do it with my money or our money. I did it with the money of the people who are coming to the event. And it gives them a wonderful experience. But then I'm leveraging the asset of the event to meet the person and making that a condition of the deal. And some of those deals turn in, like with Daymond John, that, then Kevin Harrington, those turned into deals with some people. They don't. With William Shatner, it turned into deals, right? So that that would be the way to get the top people is like, okay, what can I create? Joe Polish, I think, and Yannick Silver have done a great job of doing that through charities. JT Fox has done a good job of that by, by going through charities. So even if you just go to the person that's higher up and say, I want to help you raise money for this thing that you're interested in. Right. That, that, that cause that they have affinity to, that would be, that would be a way to meet the top people. But what you might do and, and again, JT Fox to me is a great example of how to do this is like he wants to meet Donald Trump. So he goes two levels down and meets a couple people that work for Trump and hires them to come out. And then they say, oh, that was a great experience. And then he's like, well, can you refer me me? And then he meets the kids and then he meets the guy. Right. Super smart. I just think you can reverse engineer that strategy to meet anybody you want. But unless you've got that list of the 10 people that you want to meet and then you know what you're planning to do to add value for them to get towards the end that you want to achieve, then you're just kind of floundering. But if you make that list and you have that very intentional conscious design of the specifics of what you want to happen, then I think you can stair. Step your way up and give value all the way around.

Yeah, and I think that's the thing that's missing with a lot of people is that.

They don't go in or where can I give the value? Or they're just expecting to be paid or to get something right away. These days with social media, especially with social media, most of us are like two degrees of separation from really anybody we want to know.

And.

It'S not always easy to get that if you just come in, you know, hey, can you introduce me to so and so? Well, you know, why, what's the benefit for all parties, etc. And there's kind of an art to doing that. I think it's one of the things I'm pretty adept at. I've had some good success with it. I like it. In awe of your ability to do it. I love that. I remember when we were talking about how you use one of the ways you use the Traffic and Conversion Summit. They've got a big audience.

We're going to bring in the biggest.

People and yeah, they're going to speak but we really want the time in the green room with them. Ultimately, it's just such a genius move that a lot of people, they don't see that that's below the surface. That's the stuff that's kind of happening. And they wonder, well, how did you guys leapfrog and get so darn big so quickly because of smart deals like that? Is there anybody out there you're really trying to meet right now that you're trying to get, you know, add value to and get a hold of?

Yeah, we're still a little bit away, but I'm hoping, I'm hoping so I'll publicly state my goal within the next three years. I'd really like to have Oprah at our thing at our traffic and Conversion Summit. She's yet, and I think she's absolute brilliant, genius person in what she's been able to do with media and creating her own network and. And everything. So she's. She's super high on my list. And we're going about it through a affinity charity channel, so it'll be fun to see if we succeed now. We fail way more than we succeed. Right. So that's the other thing. But I'm not daunted by the fact that I've been turned down by hundreds of people to come to our thing. I'm totally cool with that. I only need one each time, right?

Absolutely. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about.

Not too much, just a shift. Several years ago, I came out to an event that Digital Marketer hosted. I know you were very instrumental in this called Equity Investors Network. And it was really about consulting for equity and. Or buying a company, getting a piece of it. Sometimes with, you know, with no money or owning it without having to do anything. There was just so many things to it.

It was.

It was an amazing event and program, and it was something that had been in my mind, and I think I had just. I may have just sold my business at the time. So it was kind of fresh on my mind, and I want to go into this concept just a little bit more. I recently have done. I've done a few podcasts on this. I recently had a mutual friend, Luke Havert, on the show. And for anybody who wants to listen to that episode, you can find it on baconratbusiness.com with Luke Habard about equity consulting. But you've done a lot of these deals, and not just equity consulting, but getting a business.

How did you phrase it in the email that you said owning a business without Paying for it, which I love. Let's explore that a little bit more. I think a lot of people know the what and the why, but let's talk more about the either the how, how you've done it in the past, or how you advise people to do it. You and I were just talking about this offline little bit. But let's explore that because I think it's an amazing topic.

Yeah. So specifically, my experience has been that, number one, there are a lot of people out there who are sitting on money who don't know what to do with it. Right. So let's say. So that's number one. You have to understand and agree with that. And if you don't or you want to talk about, like, how do you access that? We can do that. So that's. You have to understand that to start with. So then to me, it's. I always want to know. So again, it's intentionality. You always have to have your hit list. So what is it that I want to go after? Because chances are there might be six businesses that are relatively comparable. Maybe I've got one that I would prefer because it has more profitability or a better team or something like that in. But let's just say.

There are always other candidates in the beauty pageant, right? So you're looking for the one. You're looking to know.

What is the field first so that you have more than one. Because if you're only after one, you're going to make desperate decisions to get it and make it happen. Because that's just human nature, and that will be a mistake. So that's number one. Then you've got to set your criteria and say, what can I.

What can I reasonably expect to get this for? That makes sense for me. What can I reasonably expect to pay? And then to me, like, I've had conversations. I remember one deal in particular. I was just talking with my wife about it the other day. I remember sitting down to the negotiation, and I did not have any money. I did not have any money. But I was sitting down at the negotiation, and I agreed to pay $2 million for this business knowing that I didn't have the money because, again, I'm too stupid and stubborn to know that I shouldn't do that and I can't make it happen. But I knew that. I knew I could make it happen. You know, I just was like, I'm gonna make it happen. So I'm sitting there negotiating the deal, and then as the deal evolves, it turns out that I don't really need 200. Excuse me, $2 million. I need 400,000 for a down payment, and they're willing to finance the rest over a period of time at no interest. I'm like, okay, well, that's fantastic. So now I can buy this business not for 2 million, but for 400,000. So all I got to do is go get 400,000. And that may sound, again, daunting, but if you believe that first part, there's a lot of people out there. There's certainly. I can find four people that have $100,000 that would like to make money on that at maybe 10%, maybe 15%. Right. Or maybe I need to include them in the deal. In this case, I was just like, okay, that's fantastic. I agree. I didn't have the money. I agree. I'm going to pay you the $400,000. Now. It's going to take some time to move things around, so I need about 30 days to set for the closing date. And obviously, you know, we all know that everything that you're telling me is accurate, but due diligence and all that, I'd be kind of stupid if I do that. My lawyers yell at me and my wife does, so I can't. I gotta do that. So they're like, okay. And then I just hit every possible person that I knew and got them excited about the business. And here's to me, something that I think is really key is I don't sell funding by selling funding. I sell funding by conversations that I have with people who I'm having dinner with or I'm know, playing tennis or golf with or something like that. And the conversation is how damned excited I am about this business that I'm going into. And almost every time, Brad, they're like, well, is that. Is it. I mean, is that something I could. Is that something I could get involved with?

Yeah. And then it's like.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, it's. It's like, well, I don't know, because there's risk with everything. And I'm being honest. I'm saying this is a risky deal. It's not like buying Coke. It's not like buying Coca Cola stock or UPS stock. It's a private deal. So I don't know if that would fit. Oh, yeah, no, that sounds really cool. I want what you've got, right? I want the. They see. They see Midas touch. And my touch is more like Typhoid Mary, I feel like, sometimes.

But you sell success by coming across that Being happy, being fired up about the deal, and being super excited without ever having to say, hey, you know, I was just wondering, you know, you got. You're kind of rich. Could you. Could you give me some money? You know.

You'Re in. Your positioning is all off. But if your positioning is, I'm so, you know, what are you doing? Oh, man, I'm so excited. We just. I just found this company. It does this, this and this, and they're the leader in this. And, man, I think it's really ready to blow up. I can't even believe how lucky I am to be involved with that. They're like, that's really great. You know, is that something I could get involved with? Look at the positioning difference that that makes. Right. So there's a long way of answering that, but I think that's helpful information for people to have. It's the easiest way to raise money is just to be excited about whatever it is you're doing. So I went and I ended up with one person that wanted to put all of money in, and they wanted 10% a year, and they were. They agreed to loan it for three years. And I. So now I'm in this business with a million six in financing from the seller at no interest and 400,000 in financing from somebody else. I have paid zero dollars and I own 100% of the business. Own a hundred percent of the business. Right.

So the 400,000 was debt.

Just debt, Straight debt. Right. So now what's cool? And of course, I tell him, I said, now here's the deal. I said, I don't take equity investors on in deals like this. That's what I tell them. Right. And it's because I want you to know that you're going to get your money back no matter what. I will never let my investor lose money. If I have to go and sweep tennis courts, I will pay the take on money back if it's a bad deal. So they know that, and I say it positions you better because you're going to get a return on your money instead of being stuck as a minority investor in this business that might or might not ultimately be successful. But obviously I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was going to be. And so now you're protected. Right. So I got you. And I'm not. I don't personally guarantee, by the way, but there's no way I would let my investor lose money. Yeah. So now I've got my 400,000 as my down and my million six is financing. I own $2 million business. I own 100% of it, and I don't have to do any funding. So then I go out and. And I've always got people who are like, you know, if you ever get into it, find a cool deal, let me know. So then I go. And now I explain to those people, I'm like, yeah, I just bought this business, and it's super exciting, and I'm all fired up about it. And they're like, how can I get involved with it? And I'm like, and now these are people I know a lot better than the funding people, right? Because I don't like doing business with people that I don't kind of know how they're gonna, you know, behave. So to them, I go. And I said. I said, well, I can. I would consider letting you come in if you're willing to do the thing that you're good at, but I need to you to have skin in the game. So now I'm getting key people to play in my business who are gonna run it because I don't want to. And I'm getting them to buy into the business. So I'm selling back equity that I've not paid for, right? And I am, and I end up selling $800,000. I sold 20% of the business for $800,000, and now I pay my $400,000 guy back early, plus I give him an extra 40 grand. So he's super happy and he's out of the deal, but he's got 40 grand in a really short period of time. And now I've got two people who are paying to run the company so I don't have to. And I get to keep $360,000 myself.

And I can't tell you how many times I've done deals like that. It's just super, super fun. And everybody wins, right? In that deal. Everybody got what they wanted, and I never had to go dog and pony, you know, please give me money, right?

So I think people, hopefully my listeners out there, are understanding why I've said in the past, I want to be Roland Frazier when I grow up.

I love that.

It'S been a fascination of mine. I was just talking about buying businesses and whatnot, and I'm potentially looking at another business out there to do something very similar with.

And as I said, a mutual friend, Ace Chapman, even said.

Why, you know, why do we think we need to build a business ourselves? Nothing wrong with it, right? Except that it's freaking hard but why do we need to build a business ourselves? When we need clothes, we buy clothes. And we need car, we buy a car. When we need a house, we go buy a house. Why do we feel as though we need to build our cash flow when we can go out and buy it, especially using hyper creative methods? And this is the kind of stuff I can talk about absolutely all day. And so this.

So this goes back to like, to kind of complete that circle of where you started is like the ein, the Equity Investor Network concept was you can buy a business with sweat equity. So if you've got a skill and most of the people, I think they're listening to your thing, have some digital marketing chops, right? So you and I were just talking about.

By the way, I got to show you this real quick. Got a comment from my buddy Az.

What?

I have a feeling he was impressed.

Thanks, Az.

Anyway, sorry not to interrupt you. I just thought that was.

Nah, not at all. That's cool. So, yeah, so it's just like over and over and over this happens. And it's really funny that we're having this conversation because I've had multiple conversations in the last 24 hours with folks in war room that are buying businesses right now. So it seems like it's a really timely thing to talk about. There's so many ways to do it. You and I were talking about that. Okay, so you've got an opportunity and there's somebody that's got a business and it's making money. And you know that you can add value because you've got digital chops, right? Or you've got marketing chops, or, you know, you have product sourcing or a celebrity access or whatever, you find that thing that you can bring to that business that adds value. Now the next thing is, is, okay, well, so how do I turn this from a, like contractor or middle person introducing people or consultant into actual equity in the company? And the answer to that is, okay, so now you have to figure out where does the value lie and what is the person that you're approaching? What do they want? So what you and I talked about was, if you've got somebody that's got a business and it's doing great and they're not really eager to sell, then your option probably isn't. Unless you're too stupid to know that you can. Your option probably isn't to buy the company. So what you might do with that person is start out by talking about, okay, well, here's the deal. You're in all these Channels, but you're not over here. So let's start a new company and let's provide. Let's have the existing company provide the new company with the product or service or whatever at cost, and we'll build this new company together. Well, all that really is is an affiliate deal. But the difference is that by starting the new company and having that exclusive relationship on that channel, you're creating all the equity in that new company. And what you're really doing is you're the camel that gets his nose under the tent. Right? They say if the camel gets his nose under the tent, the rest of the camel soon follows. If you get that deal, then a, you have the chance to prove yourself. You're starting that first transaction. Perry Belcher introduced the idea of Tripwire, right? Let's get a transaction done, any transaction. Because now we're business partners. No matter what, we're business partners. Even though I'm not in the good thing, right? I'm in this new thing. We're business partners. I get a chance to prove myself and I'm the most likely candidate to then be able to come in and be your partner in the other thing, right? So that's something to think about. But here's the deal is then if they go to sell the other thing, whoever's buying it doesn't want just the thing that's in the. That channel. They want the. The other channel that's being built or has been built as well. So if your partners with the original owner in Newco on new channel, then whoever's buying the company when they buy it, is going to buy that out as well, which means you get to ride on the multiple that is going to be higher on the existing company than you would if you went and started this other company by yourself and just became a wholesaler. Does that make sense?

110%. And it's, I mean, in realistic. In the world of, you know, marketing and Internet marketing especially, we band around the word joint venture. And that's a real joint venture. That's like, it's not a. Hey, will you mail for me? That's a real.

Yeah, that's, that's what I would call. I would actually, I would call that a straight equity deal. There's. To me, there, there, there's a meter, right? There's, there's full equity. Then there's kind of channel equity, which is what I would call that. That's a channel equity deal. There's. Because you're splitting off a marketing channel and you're Getting equity in that. Then there's strategic relationship, which is a deeper deal than a joint venture. Strategic relationship is an ongoing, continuing.

Give and take between people. And then there's joint venture, which is, hey, there's this one opportunistic thing that we can do together for this finite period of time. Let's do that. And then there's affiliate, which is, hey, if you sell some of my stuff, I'll give you a commission. Right? So I think that's kind of the scale. And you want to be over here in the equity or channel equity deal, not back here on the affiliate or joint venture deal.

I agree totally.

I don't know if you're seeing some of the comments are coming in. This is my buddy, John Cornick. I like this guy.

Hey, John.

He's one of Jesse Itzler's right hand man. He's there in the office. He's over in Atlanta. Give a shout out to Cornick and I want to take a couple questions right now just as my. I'm gonna let my brain kind of, you know, decompress because I mean, amazing, amazing. Do you know Shiraz Khan? He's in Austin.

Shiraz is an amazing copywriter, folks. So if you need a copywriter, Shiraz, hit me up if you need him. But question starting from scratch, where can someone find people with not only the capital but eager to give you money for a business or venture? So you were talking a little bit about the how, which is be excited about it. But yeah, if you're starting from scratch, where do you go? Where do you find those folks with money?

So I think it's really important that you become a connector of people to give them value. Right? So anytime I can connect people without, without any expectation of receiving anything, I do. Last night I reached out, I was watching the, the traffic and conversion live stream recordings because I don't get to see the sessions of traffic and conversion. So I was watching them at triple speed last night at like three in the morning or night before last at three in the morning. And I saw there was a guy, Sean Patrick Simpson, who came out in the middle of Molly and Marcus's presentation and did this really cool thing on Facebook Messenger. And so I just reached out to Sean. This is going to answer your question. Shiraz was going to be kind of roundabout. I reached out and said, I just sent him an email and said a message, excuse me. And said, hey, that was really cool. Way to go. You knocked it out of the park. And if you would ever like to connect, let Me know, And then he reaches out and it turns out he lives, it lives in Vegas. So he and his wife come out last night and they were two of the nine people that I ended up at dinner with. And we're talking and they're in. They've started. Just last year they started a business. They did seven figures their first year in the personal development space. And he was like, but I'm trying to think about places that I can go to, you know, to form these strategic relationships and other people who are really successful in this. And I'm like, well, Glenn, my buddy Glenn Ledwell has this mastermind for personal development stuff. Let me connect you guys. And right there on the spot I texted him. Him together with Glenn Ledwell. I accidentally texted Sean Stephenson first who said, roland, what are you doing? But I got right Sean, eventually.

Speaker Sean, huh?

Yeah, yeah.

He literally texted me two seconds ago. It was just kind of funny because it just popped up in my window, said, you're just saying thanks, bro for something else. And you just mentioned his name.

I was like, so to me. So to me that's the answer to the question is if you position yourself by doing that consistently. And this is. It doesn't have to be like a super long term play because I think if you aren't doing that right now, within 90 days of starting to do that, everybody that you talk to, it's like, hey, is there any. I end every conversation with, is there anything I can do for you? And then I really mean it. I'm actually listen, it's not, it's not like a, hey, how are you doing? And you're supposed to say, good, how are you doing? And nobody cares.

A lot of people do that exact same thing. They say, how can I support you? And they really aren't listening to the answer. They just think that they have to say it.

But.

So now you've given value. I've given value to both of those people and I don't know what will come from it, but they're part of my network and they are going to want to do good things for me because I've done good things for them. So to get more specific, in business, if you're looking to do that, then you need to start working with bankers and lawyers and accountants and financial people, because those people will be connected to or will themselves want to invest in your business. They are the people. Like, that's, it's so funny because.

If you're talking to them about what you're doing, they do not probably have access to the deals that you do. And so they're like, oh, my God, that's great. And if they can pass a good deal onto one of their people and do good things for them, then they're going to do that. So I find that accessing capital is super easy. If you just again, intentionally say, I'm going to do my best to create a little mini network of people who are service providers as centers of influence to the people that I would want to have as investors. And I'm going to just send business to them. I'm obviously got to go. You go to lunch with them and you connect and you, you, you know, you develop a relationship. But then it's going to be, I'm going to connect them every chance I can. And then when I'm talking to them, not asking for money, but I'm talking to them about this new business thing, and they're like, okay, that's cool. What are you going to do? It's like, oh, well, I probably, you know, I'm probably going to need to raise about $400,000 for that. And then I'm going to do this and this and this. And they're like, well, you know, I could introduce you to so and so and so and so and so and so. That's how it happens. And that's how, I mean, that's how I see it happen. Like in New York and in San Francisco in the venture deals, everything's an inside deal. So what you got to do is you've got to be the inside person who is in that network that those deals get passed around in. You don't want to be the person.

You got to get your camel nose under that tent.

Yeah, you really do. Does that. I don't know if that answers this question.

No, it's huge. It's huge. And I'll add one thing to it just because, I mean, as I said this is earlier, this is one of my strengths is access, influence, getting, building relationships with people in multiple areas. That has created a lot of opportunities. But there's a lot of folks out there who are like, yeah, but I'm not a great connector. And I'm not, I don't see myself, like, I'm not a great network. I'm not a great connector. And they just, and I'm kind of talking to my audience here. They just see themselves as having to go out and learn how to be a Networker and meet 100 new people. You really don't, if you're smart about it, because you Only have to know one or two connectors.

Correct.

A lot of value to them. Like I am naturally a connector and connected and smart people and there are some out there, they're probably listening to the show, have been really smart in building a good relationship with me because they know that they don't have to go do the connecting if they know the connector.

Exactly.

Kent Clothier, one of your business partners and one of my close friends and former partners, you know, he used to say, look, I don't have to know everybody if I know the people who do. And that made a big impact. And I know you operate a lot like that. I operate like that. I like to think, listen, get me in the game, I can figure it out.

I'm going to actually take that. That's really good. I haven't heard him say that. I totally agree. And I'm going to add that to my Ryan Dice one, which is it's automated if I don't have to do it, which means it's automated if I don't have to do it and I don't have to be connected if I know the people who do. Really makes your life a lot easier. Which goes back to the how can you be happy, never do anything you don't want to do. How can you never do anything you want to do? Get partners to do the stuff you hate, automate everything that you can and get to know people who know lots of people, Right?

Absolutely. Jason Anderson just said, man, this is a high level conversation about digging your well. And Shiraz replied, thanks for the breakthrough, Roland. I always knew the concept of giving value and being a connector, but you made me realize who to focus on. Centers of influence. Thanks Shiraz. Fantastic listening. I want to just a couple others before we got a couple other things to hit actually before I get back to az, you did bring up another point about something that I literally just forgot. So I'll come back to it like it was in my head and then it disappeared.

Why don't I saw somebody put something about a biography up? So why don't I answer that while.

You think AZ says what person's biography or life inspired your thinking the most in this direction? The way you think or see reality now?

Yeah.

The most influential autobiography that I have ever read was Benjamin Franklin's and that leads me into one of the things that people tell me that I'm really good at, which is persuasion and negotiation. And I got totally got that from Ben Franklin. I totally ripped off Ben. So were you and I talking about.

This the Other day or did this just come up in a conversation where. Because we talked the other day but somebody else said, yeah, you got to read the bio. Is it by Neal Stephenson?

No, it's by Benjamin Franklin.

Oh, the autobiography?

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

The autobiography that was by Neil was not nearly as authentic.

Okay, I'm giving you a hard time.

I'm just kidding.

Because it's not nearly as authentic.

I get it. So here's the deal. You know what he said there? And this has been critical. So critical to me in everything that I've done, every interaction that I have, which is you don't win ever by having someone.

Adopt your idea. So by having someone agree that your idea was good or by you suggesting something that they say, yes, I'll do that. You win by having them by leading them through a series of questions to the inescapable conclusion that the best thing that they can do in their own self interest is the thing that you want them to do. Now you can say that's manipulative. But. But truly the most manipulative thing that you can ever do, the most self interested thing you can ever do, is do things that are in the interests of other people. Right? So when I go into anything, I take this idea from Ben Franklin that you have to make the other person think this and in any deal. So I'm not afraid to walk like this. My partners and most people will tell you I'm never afraid to walk in the fire. I actually love it. I love conflict. Not because I'm a contentious person, because I'm not, but because I know that most people are reasonable and most people are not doing what you want them to do. If what you really want them to do is in their interest, they're not doing it because they don't understand. And they might act out by, you know, yelling and screaming and calling you names and all kinds of other stuff. I've been through all of kinds of that. But if you really go and say.

What is it that I want that can align with their interests and then what questions can I ask them that will lead them to have the idea themselves that this thing that I want is the way they should go? And I can't tell you, I mean, it's amazing. It just works over and over and over and over. But it's not manipulative. Other than that you're helping them get what they want too.

Yeah.

So yes, it's.

You just said it. I'm gonna have to rewind and listen to this once we go off Air. But what is it that repeat like that they want. How did you phrase that again? What is your, the thought pattern there?

Just, it's just you, you have to say, what. What is it that they want that aligns with my interests? Right.

What is it that they want that aligns with my interests?

And that's your responsibility as a persuader, negotiator, business person, is to figure out how can you give. It's true with customers, it's true with suppliers, it's true with your business partners, it's true with everything. You have to know what they want. You have to dig that out. And when you and I were talking about acquiring this company that we were talking about that you were looking at, my first question to you is, you got to find out what they want. And if you know what they want, then in that deal, in that very deal, you can say, well, I know that if they need a half a million dollars to go do this project that they want to do, I know I've got to find them that half a million dollars. And so when I'm negotiating with them to buy that 2 or 3 million dollar company, I know I got to get them that money. So when I'm talking with them to cut the deal, the very first thing that I'm going to say is, well, I want to get you some money down. And I know that you want to do this thing with this project, so I'm definitely going to get you that half a million. But the rest of it, it sounds like it would be okay, right? And I'm leading off in the direction that is going to take them to the deal that I want. But I'm also addressing, I'm not just saying, well, I'd really like to not give you any money and have your business now. So how about if we just do that, right? I don't even start there. I start by looking at the thing that they want the most and that I'm going to figure out how to get them that and then the rest of it is going to be flexible. Does that make sense?

Yes, on some of those where.

That'S.

Where I would love maybe to drill down a little bit more on.

Because obviously everybody's like, well, especially in this situation or a situation like this where somebody's selling their business, well, what.

Do you really want?

I mean, they want the most they can get, right? Ultimately, I want all cash. I want this.

That's not the answer. That's the answer.

Is there a way that you kind of figure that out? You Just take money off the table. You talk more situation is it.

It's easy.

To me, it's always, so what are you going to do after this? What does life look like after this?

That's right.

Well, I'm going to probably do this, this and this. I'm like, is that, like, ideal, like, what's the ideal thing that you do when this deal is done? And they'll tell you because they're excited about that, because that's the whole reason they're trying to do the deal anyway. Right. So it's, it personalizes the thing and it helps, it helps you to see what they want. And then you got to figure out how to go get it for them. Now, if they say, well, I want all cash at six times the value that I ought to get for the company, that's not a deal you're going to do. You need, you have to realize that you've got to find the deal where somebody's going to be honest with you and reasonable and say, this is what I want. Now, I can't tell you how many times I've come in significantly under what I thought a deal would do because I had identified the thing they wanted. And so, like, let's say in that deal they need $700,000 to do the deal. And you think the business is probably worth. You're probably willing to pay a million four for it. Well, I'm going to probably offer them 700 because I know that it's going to get them what they want. And I'm going to say, I'll give you 700 100% right now. And I'll do that even if I don't have the 700, because I know I'm going to go out and get it right. So I'll offer them the 700 flat. And I can't tell you how many times people are just like, okay, and you just saved yourself $700,000. You bought the business for half what you were willing to pay for it. Right. Wow. The other thing that I think is really helpful when you're. If we're going to talk about negotiating businesses is that you use their projections in selling them on the deal that they're going to take. So in the business, in this example, let's say that the business is doing a million dollars a year in profit, because I can do math on that. So it's doing a million dollars a year in profit and it's headed towards. It's been increasing relatively steady. So that next year it'll probably Do a million two, the next year, a million four, the next million six, then I'll tell them. I'll say, I will give you the valuation that you want based on where things are going, but you need to take the risk with me. So I accept your numbers, and I'm going to give you 100% of that future money that is coming in. So next year, when it does a million two, I'm going to give you that million two, I'm going to GIVE you that 200,000. And next year after that, when it does the 400, a million four, I'm going to give YOU that 400,000. Because as long as it does that, I will give it to you. I'll give you 100% of that. So I'm going to give you a million four. I'm going to give you $700,000 now, and I'm going to give you 200 next year and 400 the year after that. And that's going to come out relatively close, Right? I'm just saying. I guess the gist of it is offer them like it's judo, right? It's taking the. The negotiating force that they're saying of, well, you should pay more because it's growing. And I'm like, you're absolutely right, I should. And you should take the risk because you believe those numbers, right? Because you just told them to me. So I'll give you 100% of that money. Well, now I can shave that off my purchase price. And I'm telling them. I mean, you're not lying, right? You're. It's gonna make that right. So that works out really well frequently as well.

I love that.

You'Re making me laugh. My head blowing up. Anybody else's head blown up? Corey Boatwright just texted me. Corey, live or recorded right now? Cory, you got a question on here? I've got so many questions coming in.

I don't see him.

I think he does.

I have to talk to him separately because he'll. He'll keep us here for hours.

I know, right? You get one quick question.

Corey, with 72 subparts.

I love it. We're busting your balls.

Switching gears because we're kind of getting close to the end of our time here, and this has been just really amazing and quite literally do this all.

Day.

In the world of business, in marketing and digital marketing and all this stuff. I mean, you just were just like a week or two off of Traffic and Conversion Summit, which was amazing. Is there any things that you're really excited about right now. New developments, new trends you mentioned. And this is true. I've been looking into this as well. Just the whole idea of the Facebook messenger is growing from bots to whatnot. I know diem is taking advantage of some of that. Is there any other. Whether it's that, whether it's any other technology trend, anything else that's kind of really exciting that's piqued your interest right now?

Yeah, absolutely. So I did a session. Did you get to see the session I did at TNC on Trends?

No, I missed that. But I do know this. I do know that Adam Lyons came back. Or he was texting me.

He goes, I've been here for 10 minutes and already Roland has blown my mind. Something like that.

So.

Yeah, I think there are several. So messenger is definitely one. There are a few things that are happening. So iab, who defines ad units and things like that, switched ads to. They're rolling it out in 2017. So they've switched from the. I think it was 23. I'm not sure if it was 23 different ad sizes that you had to do to basically responsive ads that are done in aspect ratio instead of absolute pixels. So that's a trend that will allow you to take all of your advertising everywhere and not worry about having to spend so much time being sure that all the different sizes are correct. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's one. The other is that if people want.

To look into that more, what should they look at?

It'd be probably new ad sizes from iab.

Okay, cool.

You could get my deck on trends also, because I cover all this stuff and it's on slideshare.com Roland Frazier.

Yeah, by the way, anybody who's not following your slideshare is crazy. I love that.

That's.

I love the stuff you put out.

Yeah, I put all my slides on SlideShare, so it's a good resource. So the other thing would be the challenge that you have with ad blocking. Ad blocking has tens of millions of people and growing strong who are just blocking out all display ads, as many places as they can. So if you are not creating branded content that is native to the platforms that you want to be on, then then you're missing out on all of the people who are blocking the ads, and they ought to be blocking the ads unless it's something that is of interest to them. So I don't think people should have to suffer through ads they're not interested in. And so if you can create branded content and there's A lot of examples that I gave of it and resources for finding out what other people are doing and kind of emulating that. In the deck that's on SlideShare and it's the one that says Trends.

What's one like just for folks who don't quite understand, like what's one example of native branded content?

Yeah, so an example would be any of the partnerships that I think Geico did one with a gaming team. So one of the gaming teams, tsm, I think from League of Legends, did this branded thing where it was a video with the team kind of behind the scenes and some guy that moves in and I'm pretty sure it was Geico. That would be an example of it. There was in my deck I did a video.

Embed that was, I think it's may have been Smith and Smith and Forester. It was a, like a beer company. And they did this, they went out and got this kind of famous weightlifter and went to Venice beach and had him dressed up like an old, old, old guy. And so he walks in, he's like, you know, lift in my day, you know, that, that kind of thing. Those are branded content deals where you're taking an influencer that an audience is going to be interested in and putting them in an entertaining situation of some sort, which could be behind the scenes. It could be a fake jackass stunt like that was. It could be something that they're interested in like doing sports or something like that. And then you bring the brand in and the brand in isn't buy my stuff, buy my stuff. It's just the brand is involved in the actual production of the content. So that's a huge thing. That's for taking care of the ad blocking issue. Non viewable ads is a big trend that's challenged. There's a lot of bad bot traffic. So Richard Seppola and.

What'S the company's Name? Siphon Cloud. SiphonCloud.com for identifying bad bot traffic and then going back to Facebook and Google and saying this traffic that I've been charged for wasn't actually human, so I don't want to pay for that. And they basically say, okay, here's your money back. So that could cut your ad costs in half.

Yeah, the whole half. Because it's so such a, it's such a problem.

Yeah, Emojis are becoming huge. So actual actually bringing emojis into.

The things that you do and integrate them into branded campaigns. And in that deck there's lots of examples, examples of people that have done it. Disney did it. You can, you can go to emoticode.com E M O T I C O D E and you can generate emojis that people can enter in to buy stuff to do. E Com. That's absolutely happening. There's another company called emojiem o g I.com that they're only on Kik right now, But Kik has 300 million users. It's a messaging service like Messenger. So that.

Is basically ads within emojis. So when you're typing in, when you're sending emojis in your code, the ads that you'll send will be similar to the language that you're saying with emojis. So, like, I just texted my son this morning, I got a call from Lexus and they said the lease on his car is up. And so I texted him, I'm like, you know, the lease on your. And then I did the emoji of the car is about to expire, blah, blah, blah. So it would look at that car and say lease and car and expire. And it would know that I want to do that. So the ads that it would then show me would be related to new cars. Right? That's pretty slick.

That's.

That's going to layer in on top of the messaging applications and be a big, big deal. I think that's going to be a huge, huge deal now.

I'm now.

Telling you. And then two other quick things. Two other quick things, and then I'll stop. Auto follow drones. So auto follow drones are huge, huge, huge. So how can you integrate that into your campaigns? It could be lifestyle, so you're showing people. And you could do a contest where, where you ask your people to submit auto follow drone shots of them doing wakeboarding or at their favorite vacation spot or whatever. Or it could be of them using a product like a wakeboard or a skateboard or a boat. Or if you're a travel company, it could be of a destination you're selling. Like, how do you take these things that people are super into right now and, and integrate them? And then the second thing, there would probably be Snapchat spectacles. So Snapchat spectacles are the Bluetooth glasses that Snapchat released to allow people to connect directly to Snapchat for their kind of point of view experiences. So again, what contest could you do? Maybe in giveaways, like at War Room, we give away auto follow drones. We're going to give away spectacles next time, you know, for promotions, looking at these things that.

You'Re giving away auto follow drones in drone room?

Oh, hell yeah. We've given away drones for years.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, man. Wicked smart. You win wicked smart. You get cool stuff.

Oh, no kidding. That's so cool.

That's really cool.

So you can.

So people can find out more about some of this stuff on your slideshare.

Yeah, or message me. I've got. I'm on Facebook at Roland Fraser and Roland Frazier page is my Facebook page, which.

If you text. Actually, if you go to my page on Facebook and you message TCS 2017 slides, then you'll see my bot come up and it will offer you. It'll take you directly to the link.

Okay, so say that again. I go to your page and I. And I just.

You go to Facebook, talk Facebook facebook.com Roland Fraserpage and message the page with TCS 2017 slides. Then it'll give you the option of getting either of the 225.

Freakishly effective marketing hacks, slide decks or the trends deck. Nice.

So are you.

Are you digging the messenger bots and all that?

Oh, man. It's the future. It is everything. Everything that AdWords was when AdWords came out and Facebook ads was when Facebook came out and retargeting was when retargeting came out. That is. It's the new email. It won't do away with email, but it is. It's the place to be.

I'm just. Oh, I just got it. There we go. I just did. So I went to roland facebook.com Roland Frazierpage and I clicked the message and I typed in TCS 2017 slides and you're hooking me up.

I appreciate it. If you click on that, it'll open it straight to that page. Pretty cool, huh?

Now, are you using ManyChat, Chatfuel? Anything else?

Right now I'm using a combination of TrustMessage and ManyChat. I have played with Chatfuel. I find it a little bit more technical. There's another one. I think it's called IBOT AI, which is. I've got beta access to right now, but that's got contests and quizzes and everything built into it. I was talking to you about it earlier. That's pretty cool. Chatmatic is pretty cool for. For that. They all do a little bit of the same and a little bit of different things. So I'll kind of stack them on top of each other and it's. It's pretty cool. I'm gonna do, I think, a video here in the next couple Weeks. I've got three or four case studies that I'm running right now and I'm gonna do a video that kind of explains how you can use all these different tools because I haven't seen lot of them out there in the public.

I just, I just tried out. Have you seen Feel Social? Feel Social, F E E L Social Co?

No, I haven't.

Check that out. I don't have an affiliate link or anything but one of the things it allows you to do for instance, besides you know, a lot of the sending chats and etc and doing like funnels and like, like a lot of the things that these do.

So for instance, if somebody comments on your, on a page, on a post and you put a certain one out there, like you delegate it. So if you, all you do is comment on a post, it sends you an email and it basically brings you in and you can even put a delay on there.

Such as wait five minutes, wait 10 minutes or an hour or whatever and then, then send an email to the person. So yeah, Cory Boatwright is, he's texting with me. He's not commenting on the other thing, but he says what about Social Panda? So Corey, Social Panda makes Feel Social and Message hero and all those. So I've been playing with him recently. I wasn't the earliest adopter like I saw you guys and Frank and some other folks were. But I'm glad to hear that you think it's such a big, big thing. Of course. Leave it to a bunch of marketers to ruin it for everybody.

Yeah, I think, you know, lots of people will do it wrong. But that's, that's cool because that's all part of that means they're doing it right. So it's, it's definitely all the things that we've done across all the different industries so far and I did in actually, I think it's in that trends deck. There's like five case studies on, on how we're using it and how other people are using it too. So that's one to go get.

I love it. So I've been hogging your time here. We've been, we are actually talking for the past almost couple hours now, some of it offline. So I'll kind of wrap up and I'm gonna wrap up and ask you the same question. You mentioned this about saying how can I support you here on bacon wrap business. I phrase it slightly different which is, you know, what's a nut you're trying to crack right now? Whether it's, whether It's a person you're trying to meet like Oprah. Whether it is a resource you're trying to get.

A person you're trying to hire, a skill you're trying to learn. Anything. Anything.

Yep. There are two things that would be super helpful to me. One is I really am about evangelizing the use of the messenger platform. Not just messenger, but Also Kik and WhatsApp and other messaging platforms and how people are using automation within those. So anybody that's got case studies or stories that they're willing to share with everybody, I really want to put together just a really fantastic resource and make it available to our community because I think everybody wins as this gets popularized. So I would love, love, love that. And the same thing with influencer marketing. I think that that's a big area that.

People, a lot of folks that are indirect response don't really appreciate the value of until they see it. And so again, same thing I really like. I'd like to see some case studies of that and hear what's working for other people. And then the last thing is a trend that I forgot to mention which is a huge trend that just blows me away. How big it is and how fast it's eclipsing every professional sport except NFL and it's on its way to eclipse NFL and that's esports. I watched, I went to the first Twitch. Yeah I went to the first Twitch convention two years ago and how many people were there in San Francisco just was amazing. And.

The fact that there's endemic brands, which means brands that are related to gaming that advertise but now non endemic brands like. Like. Like Geico and other companies like that are coming in and it's. It's second run FL in terms of gross revenues that that esports are giving me. Yeah. And. And the prior and so that the people are. Are edging up on the sur like that these star. You know that are. They filled out. I think the last League of Legends thing that I bought, tickets.

Sold out staples.

Like 11 minutes. It's. It is a really important place to be and that's in that deck also. And that deck's free by the way, if anybody's listening. I'm not. Yeah.

Actually think. Yeah. Corey said he posted a link to your slideshare on.

No, don't do that Corey. Send them to the messenger and have them enter that because then they.

Yeah, Corey. Damn it, Corey.

That's cool. Thank you, Corey.

So anything that people have that they can check that is a big.

I will share Everybody else, you know who you may. Because I know. I don't know how expert he is at this, but I know he's been on the cutting edge. He's the one who told me about Twitch like a year and a half ago is Adam Lyons.

Yes.

He's really tied in with the nerd community. He is the king.

Adam is very plugged in. Absolutely.

But.

He said he turned me on. Well, he didn't turn me on to Twitch, but he showed me what he was doing like a year and a half ago. And he's like, watch me and my girlfriends and friends and all this. We're playing Dungeons and Dragons with multiple cameras on just here.

Just having fun with my friends. And I made like $500 or 1000 or whatever. Whatever he made, he made a bunch of money because you can donate. And people are sitting there like, if. If listeners don't understand this. People are sitting around on Twitch watching other people play video games. And it's almost as big as the NFL is what we're saying.

And that's what they're doing.

Filled up Staples center sold out.

Is on one side and five dudes on the other side in chair.

With on the big. That's happening in the game and everybody's there in the stadium watching. So that's a big deal that I think has slipped past a whole lot of marketers. There's a lot of opportunities to reach your audience and especially your digital native and millennial audiences in those venues.

Absolutely. Man, this is amazing. Probably by far my. My favorite interview so far, and it's like right down the pipe for the stuff that I'm the most interested in. I always value any time that I get to spend with you, whether it's in a Mastermind or dinner or lunch or just here. I cannot thank you enough for being on it. There's a whole bunch of questions I didn't really get to. Jim Howes says Adam Lyons up levels the nerd community.

Nice.

But sorry for anybody that I didn't get to answer your questions. By the way, Roland, if you go to my Facebook page after this and you look at the live video that was posted, you'll see a couple of the other questions that you can just reach out and answer there, like one on one if you'd like.

I will.

Do my best to make any of the connections there. I've got a couple potential contacts for influencer marketing for you and then maybe some ones on the messenger one as well. Yassin Shop Jar even mentions, I saw this somebody Else talk about it. A guy named Scott Olford. We're Facebook friends. I don't know him that well, but he's running some cool experiments around Facebook bots. So Scott Oldford, I can try to make that intro for you, but so for everybody else listening, we are going to wrap up the show. This episode. I'm doing this currently on Facebook Live. We're putting it out there. This is the first podcast episode I've done that. If you want to listen to it on the audio along with all of the other awesome content that I've done patting myself on the back, you can subscribe to the show. It's on itunes. Bacon wrapped business. Baconrappedbusiness.com is my homepage. And then you can get it on Android, you can get it on the web. I'm going to type that right in here for anybody who doesn't see it. And if you are listening on itunes, do me a favor, give me a review. Go on the thing, Let us know how much you like it. I read every single one of them and it helps us with the show. And if there's anybody out there that thinks that a you have some tremendous value that you could bring to me or you have any suggestions of people or topics that you'd like us to cover, you can email me directly at ask bradaconwrappedbusiness.com I do get a lot of requests for content and for interviews. I have to be pretty selective. But if you get my attention, I will be more than happy to invite you on the show. I know I've got a guest coming up here pretty soon. He owns a company that does account based marketing. Are you familiar with that? Abm.

It's the hot buzzword right now. Absolutely. That'll be a good one.

Exactly. Yeah. Dan Martell, who was telling me about this at a lunch the other day, like, yeah, this is what's going on right now. I only know a fraction about it, but I'm dying to get on there and pick the brain of somebody who owns a big business in that area. I think he owns Terminus. But anyway, Roland, thanks again for this. Thanks to all my viewers for tuning in and I'll see you guys on the next episode. And Rowan, you have fun in Las Vegas. All right, thanks.

And.

We are ending. Let's see, ending.