Dan Kuschell — 3 Questions To Base All Your Decisions Around

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear.

Kicking it off.

Kicking it. Old school.

Old school. All right. You're in for a treat today. I know we were when we spoke to this fine gentleman out of Phoenix, Dan Kushel. This guy's amazing.

He.

I don't even know where to start, but essentially, if you want to think deeper about your business and systemize a lot of this stuff, we're not just talking, like, tools and tactics and blah, blah, blah, but, like, real deep thinking and ways to, like, reframe what you're doing in business. You are in for a treat for sure.

Absolutely. So this. This guy that we're talking to, Dan Kushel, he's started over 11 businesses, exited a bunch of them, some of them for eight figures. He goes and helps tons of other business owners do very similar things in their business and helps build systems and helps grow these other businesses. He's got a podcast, a K podcast called Growth to Freedom. This guy is just on top of it and doing some really enormous stuff in the world.

Yeah, I mean, he's just amazing, and we just go down a lot of paths, but really the impact is, at least for us in our experience, is the three questions he brings up. And these are three questions that Dan uses when he's approaching things in life, essentially. But there are three key things that he pretty much lives by. And hint, it's not make more money.

So those questions are going to be asked. Not really of you, but I highly recommend you jot those questions down. They'll be in the show notes, and we'll have, you know, ways that you can. You can basically dive into this, but essentially do the work. And he actually challenged Matt and I. He's going to follow up with us in 10 days. So our butts on the line. But these three questions are super powerful. And actually do them and spend some time, because, trust me, I feel like this is going to reverberate into a better business for yourself. You'll work a lot less and you'll be happier.

Speaking of working less.

Yeah.

There's a tool called GenM.

Your segues are beautiful.

I know. I suck at these segues, huh? No, there's a. There's a tool called GenM that we really, really like. If you go to evergreenprofits.com GenM, you get a nice little discount. But basically what GenM does is they help you find apprentices. They're kind of like interns to come and work on marketing tactics in your business. Things like creating content, running your ads, doing SEO, things like that. They will come and basically do them in their business, do them in your business. And genm sort of pre trains them on these skills. And it's just a really, really cool service. We're using it in multiple areas of our business and we've recommended it to tons of people who are now using it in their business. And you definitely got to go check it out. Evergreenprofits.com GenM.

You'll dig it.

You'll dig it. And let's go talk to Dan because this is just an awesome conversation.

Just get ready and get that notebook ready. Hey, Dan, we're live. How you doing?

Doing awesome, guys. Thank you.

Yeah, for sure. No, it's. Let's see. We met back in New Media Summit in Austin, Texas a few months back.

Yes. Yeah. What a blast that was, right?

It was cool. And I love the Mastermind at the end. That's kind of where what, the 40 of us gathered and, and just kind of talk shop, set some cool goals. And yeah, just, it was just a good event. It was a whole week, so it was like immersion, you know.

Yeah, you actually said something at that Mastermind after the event that actually had a pretty big impact on Joe and I. But we'll get to that later in the show.

It was just like a brief moment on the way out of the door. I think when you're leaving, I was like, ah, we need to get him on the show.

That's cool. So are you going to be at the next New Media Summit?

Yeah, in February.

I expect to be there, God willing. And, you know, it's a great group of people. Steve puts a great audience together and I think there's a great way we can help contribute.

Right?

100%.

Yeah. Unfortunately, we're gonna miss the February one, but when he does the San Diego one a few months after that, we'll be back at that one.

It will happen.

Yeah. Tough life you guys have in San Diego. You guys are beach dwellers. You get to hang out with guys like Roland and guys like Steve regularly, bimonthly. I mean, what a crazy world you.

Live in the horrible life we live. These crystal blue skies.

Oh, man.

Phoenix isn't that bad.

Yeah, it's not terrible either.

You're good. You're good.

Nice.

Well, catch us up because we don't know. We know kind of on the fringes of what you do and what you have done, but catch Us all up. And what brought you to this point where you're at now?

Yeah, well, you know how a lot of business owners, guys, entrepreneurs, kind of struggle with getting a steady flow of new clients, right? Especially as it relates to running paid ads, either online or offline. What we do, what our superpower, is helping business owners and entrepreneurs implement to be able to get a steady flow of predictable leads or sales or clients coming in, leveraging paid media referrals and creating systems so that the business owner can work more on the business and do it actually without more staff, without more stress, and definitely in a place where it's predictable. And so we have a lot of fun. My very first business, I got started in the early 90s, so I've been doing this a while. And I got started because I got introduced to direct response marketing. Direct mail is what it was back then. And I got so fascinated, guys, about, you know, how you could put like message on a piece of paper or put it in a radio ad or.

Put it on a TV ad, which.

Is what we were doing back in the late 80s, and put that message out and people would respond and literally respond fairly quickly directly was why they call it direct responding, direct response marketing and actually buy your stuff. And I got obsessed with it and I started learning. I got several coaches and mentors way back then. And then I started my first company in 1992. And since that time I've had 11 companies. And today we get to work with all kinds of experts and influencers and thought leaders or whatever and help them grow and scale with less stress. So it's a lot of fun.

Wow, so 11 companies. So is that, did you purchase some of those companies or did you actually found 11 companies?

I founded 11. I've also bought companies and then also been fortunate and blessed to sell a few companies along the way. Out of the 11 that I founded and started, I crashed three of them. So I had to bury three, three of them in the backyard, if you will. So I've been fortunate to learn from some of those mistakes. And then we've had a few of those that were high seven figure companies, couple eight figure companies and have bought and sold companies along the way too.

Very cool. Was there any sort of.

Trend among them? Was there any sort of theme among all these companies or were they just completely different industries and testing out different things?

Well, I'm fascinated to test new things, but there are a couple industries that a lot has carried like some similarities. So in the coaching industry, the publishing industry, consulting. Right. These are Some of the niches that we've been able to grow, scale, and then help our clients really expand. Fitness, nutrition companies.

Those are kind of what I would describe as our sweet spot, because most people in those areas struggle to a degree with their messaging or being positioned, for example. One of the greatest lies, I think, that misleads a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs is this old way of looking at communicating this idea that you must get people to like you and what, trust you. And people following that old way, I think it causes problems because, you know, the reality is people don't buy from us per se, because they like us. They buy from us in the new way of really adapting. This is they must trust us and respect us.

Right. So in other.

What does that mean? It means that we have trust and we have authority at the same time. Right. And it's that new way of really, you know, creating assets or branding, or you could even call it direct response branding. To position ourself in the marketplace, to package ourselves in the marketplace, to then promote ourselves in the marketplace, to create our following, to create our impact, to have a bigger reach and a bigger contribution.

That makes sense. So how would you then approach that? How would you create that authority and that trust?

Well, there are all kinds of ways to create authority and trust, Right. One, it's just being a good human being that is also a big help.

So there's trust there, having a good product or good service. And then how do you position yourself unique? You know, I love this quote from Sally Hogshead, and I'll paraphrase it, which is it's better to be different than better right now. If you can be better, great. But here's the problem with shooting to be better. How many companies in your niche, as you're listening right now, say they're better? Like everybody, right? So by going at it from the perspective of trying to be better, you're actually putting yourselves at risk of being commoditized. So instead, why not position yourself to be unique or different? And then if you can say you're unique and better, it gives you that double right, left, cross, right, left combination that creates power. So that's a start. The other thing is really getting clear on your irresistible offer. And again, there's a lot of depth to this. I mean, we could spend days in an event together and not scratch the surface on this. But, you know, if you're going to. If you're brand new and you're listening to Matt and these guys and their show, I would encourage you one how do you position yourself to be unique? Number two is how do you create your irresistible first your irresistible message, then your irresistible offer? So, guys, would it be all right if I gave an example of, like, how I got my first company started?

100% go for it.

Yep.

So, like, if you guys were business owners, right, Or a health club owner specifically, you know, again, this is all the way back in 1992. So if you guys had a health club and it was independent, wasn't franchise owned, and you guys were kind of a mom and pop in that area, we'd come to you and go, hey, hey, Matt.

If I could guarantee you that we'd help you add 200 to 300 new clients in the next 90 days or less, and it won't cost you anything up front. My company will risk. And we'll run direct mail for you, we'll run TV ads for you, and we'll run radio ads for you.

And then when we profit from the.

Sales, then we'll split the profits on the back end. Would you want to learn more?

Absolutely. Sounds sexy to me.

I would love to see some case studies, maybe see how you're going to do it roughly, and then go forward.

Yeah. Right. And so what that is is an example of an irresistible offer and an irresistible message. Right. So, you know, as you're listening right now, what could you do to package up or position an irresistible message or an irresistible offer that essentially gets seven or eight out of 10 people that are your potential, perfect, ideal clients to go, yes, I want to learn more.

Right.

Doesn't mean that you're going to work with them. It just means they want to learn more. And now you have to go through. That's the next phase, which is client selection.

Right.

Here's another common mistake that we see people having a misunderstanding around marketing and selling. Right. And I've learned this combination from two guys who I've. One has been a client and another has been a mentor, which is Gary Halbert, the late, great Gary Halbert, copywriter, and Joe Polish, who runs Genius Network. And so they're framing around the difference between sales and marketing.

Right?

So as you're listening right now, like, what would your definition of selling be? Right.

Or let's start with marketing.

What would your definition of marketing be? And there's all kinds of definition. Years ago, when I first got started, marketing was simply putting a message out to get people ready to buy from you.

It was that simple. Right.

It's a little different today.

Right.

See, back then in the 80s and early 90s when I got my first business started, you literally, if you could look at your market, you could strike a match, call that your irresistible offer and message, throw it in the fireplace where there are logs, and you literally could catch a fire. In other words, people would buy your stuff in droves, right? And you'd make have an immediate ROI many times very quickly today because buyer culture has changed, behavior has changed, more educated consumers. Now, when you strike a match and throw that match in the fireplace, many times, you get crickets, you don't get a fire. So what is the approach? Does that mean marketing doesn't work? No, it means what you've got to do is you strike a match, you light a piece of paper, you get a flame going, then you put some kindling on that flame, then you get some sticks and put on top of that kindling. Now you got some heat, you got a little bit of fire brewing. Now what you do is now you walk over and put your log right? So what is marketing today? And this is adapted from Gary Halbert and Joe, which is marketing is what you do to get somebody pre qualified, pre motivated, pre interested and ready to do business with you when they're on the phone or face to face with you. Here's another way you could look at it. It's like field position in football, right? So like my son, guys, he's now 12 or 11. My daughter just turned 13, so my son is now 11. And so let's say there was a kickoff to my son and he catches.

It at the goal line.

And of course a traditional field is 100 yard field and he returns it 5 yards and then he gets smacked and hammered and tackled, right? So he went five yards, now he has 95 yards to go. So let's put it in context of business. So in this example, his marketing got him five yards. So then what has to happen to take it the other 95 yards in the business model? Selling.

Right?

And today's business climate really frowns heavily on a selling culture. What would happen if you would shift your model to become more of a buyer's culture and how you can do.

That is effective marketing.

So another way to look at marketing.

Is marketing is storytelling.

Those companies, those brands, if you will.

That tell a better story about their business or about their founders or about their people, about the buying experience, the breakthroughs, the outcomes, the transformation, the experience.

Are the ones who compel more people and build a bigger following, build a bigger impact, reach and contribution, right?

So now let's flip it to sales. What is Sales. So years ago, selling, I learned from.

One of my early coaches what is.

Selling is simply helping people. I still believe that to be true today. But if we tie back into Gary and Joe's definition, the context of it is it's what you do when someone is face to face with you or.

On the phone with you and they're.

Pre qualified, pre motivated, pre interested and ready to do business with the. You now go back to that football field position. So imagine like Matt, let's say you catch the ball at the goal line instead of my son, right? You're a little bigger and stronger than him.

You make a cut, you take it.

Down the sideline, you make a juke, you take it 35, 40 more yards and you get tackled at the opposition's 20 yard line. So in other words, you took that kickoff 80 yards. That's your marketing. You've taken it 80 yards, now you.

Only have 20 more yards to go.

What does that mean?

You have less selling to do because.

The marketing created that field position, that authority, that respect and trust, Right? And so today, how can you go out and shift from the risk of.

A selling culture and have the reward of a buying culture? The great companies like Apple and, and.

Starbucks, if you think of those two companies, they're not selling us their stuff. They've created a buyer's culture. Well, every business today can create their own version of a buyer's culture by effectively using the new strategies of what.

We'Re talking about with marketing and selling combined.

And that's what we help people do.

I like, would you say that's almost like creating a little ecosystem, like building a moat around your stuff, like your media, your content, your products, your offerings and all that marketing is just bringing them into that fold, over the moat and giving them a little bridge to bring them into this thing where you can then do the selling.

Absolutely.

Great, Great way to be thinking of. I might borrow that one as well.

It's all yours, my man.

Yeah, that's a great way to view it.

And you know, and there's, you know, not to get too far into tacky, here's another mistake we see a lot.

Of people make in their business.

They fall in love with tactics. Oh, let me go run Facebook ads and let me go run Instagram ads and those things all work. But if you focus on the strategy.

First and what the purpose of the.

Strategy is and why and what you're looking, things come and go right today there's a lot of people complaining at the time. We're doing this interview that Facebook costs.

Have increased quite a bit and more.

Than doubled in the last year.

Compared to generating a client a year ago. I predict that it's going to more.

Than double in the next six to 12 months.

Right.

So the people who focus on strategy.

Can adapt with that.

They're flexible, they're innovative, they can move to other platforms and still maximize that opportunity. Right?

And talk about creating a great moat around the thing.

Basically, it eliminates your competition. When you really, really get the strategy of this, then the tactics just become an arsenal, right?

And when one tool in the toolbox.

Is no longer valid, you just shift to another tool in the toolbox. Or you have a series of tools working and as one become obsolete, you can double down on the others that are working.

Yeah, no, I love that so much. I mean, basically, once you have the fundamentals and you totally understand the why of everything you're doing, why you're running Facebook ads the way you're doing it, why you're running Google Ads, then the, the tool doesn't matter as much because you can move from tool to tool and use the same, apply the same philosophies, essentially.

Exactly. And hey, let's give a quick example of like even just a simple applicable way that this probably shows up for.

Almost anybody every week of every year, right?

How many times have we gone to an event, guys, where, you know, someone asks you or me, like, what do you do, right? Or you ask somebody, right?

And you go, hey, what do you do?

And then the person on the other end, they like fire hose us with.

Like a five minute overview of what they do, right?

And how they help you, which is great, right?

Well, one little like.

And again, it's not inaccurate to take that approach.

Like, you know, even give like the.

Traditional, the old style elevator pitch, right? And you can do that in like 15 seconds.

Valid. But what if there was a better way?

And this is a simple strategic move.

That allows the tactic of an elevator.

Pitch to work better. And then you can extrapolate this to 40 or 50 other strategic and tactical.

Moves you can make in marketing and selling.

So instead of the next time someone asks you, as you're listening right now, well, what do you do? And you go off into your well prepared. You probably have it well thought out. You probably follow these guys approach and some of the other experts have, and give a great elevator, but by just making one little three degree turn. And here's an example too.

How big of an impact does 3.

Degrees or 4 degrees make? Well, when I was A kid. Guys, my very first car was a used Plymouth Horizon stick shift.

Oh, wow.

And it was, you know, this was a car in the 80s. So, you know, when I'm talking about a stick shift, it also meant your timing belt had to be manually adjusted.

Right. And if that timing belt in a.

Stick shift was off BY Even like 1 or 2 degrees, the car would stall. Right.

If it was off 4 degrees, it.

Actually wouldn't even run.

Right.

So. So similarly here, this 3 degree to 4 degree turn in how you might approach someone even with an elevator pitch once, the next time someone asks you.

Well, what do you do instead of.

Fire hosing them with your. Again, well thought out, probably by the book, elevator pitch, add a question instead of an answer. In other words, whatever it is that you do, think of your client. What is the big problem? That is the big problem that your clients face. Now, for my clients, my clients face the big problem of getting a steady FL of clients coming in every day. Right. So whenever I'm asked today, and I'm going to use my example, not because I'm beating on my chest, but I want you to, as you're listening, view how you can turn this into your method the next time someone asks you. So here goes. So someone says, well, Dan, what do you do?

Well, you know how a lot of.

People struggle to get a steady flow of leads coming in every day. What I do is and then give your 20 seconds. So instead of answering with an answer, ask a question.

And what will happen is if you.

Position the problem the right way, they'll.

Lean in and go, oh yeah.

And either they're saying, oh yeah, that's me, or B, they're going, oh yeah, I know somebody who struggles with that. And that, oh yeah, connects you to the audience versus them. Putting armor up and.

Or they're nodding their head but not really listening.

Right.

It's a total connection. Yeah. And you open the door that way.

And you open the door. Right.

So that's a simple way that almost everybody could experience today or tomorrow because most business owners are going to have somebody say, well, what do you guys do? Right. And I would train your team this method. Ask the question first and then go into what it is that you do. It has a huge impact in responsiveness.

I love that. Now, I actually want to go back to something you said actually towards the beginning of this call because my brain for some reason has been spinning on it and I want to get your take on it. But you mentioned you're talking about the know like and Trust thing. Everybody says you got to get customers to know like and trust you. But one of the pitfalls is they put a little too much focus on the like. So I'm curious, what sort of pitfalls come from focusing on getting people to like you versus getting people to respect you?

Sure. Have you ever known somebody to be a people pleaser?

Yes, quite a few people. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'll speak to me, because I had a tendency in the past to.

Be a people pleaser.

And what does a people pleaser do in most small businesses? They create a lot of customized options.

And what do customized options do?

It means you as the business owner are wearing 12 hats all the time. You're basically a slave to your business. You can't duplicate it. You can't scale it typically. Right. So behaviorally it creates. We'll call it the success traps.

Now, do I agree to some degree.

About the idea of know, like and trust? I believe it's a half truth. I just think it needs a broader range. And that's where the trust, respect comes in. Right.

To have the authority.

Because, you know, think about it this way.

Like, have you guys ever been out.

At a restaurant, right.

And you're with somebody that, you know, maybe it's a, you know, a partner, a friend or whatever, and maybe you.

Got into a little bit of a heated exchange. Maybe you could even say it's an argument. Right. And you're in the restaurant, you're in that table and you're kind of heated in the moment, you're talking, and then the waitress walks up, what do you do?

You stop.

You stop out of respect.

Yeah.

Right.

Because you don't know them. Right.

And you don't want to look like.

A douche tart or whatever.

True.

So you have respect for someone you.

Haven'T quite met yet, or you don't.

Know their status or that sort of thing. But there's high trust between you and the person at the table. And when they walk away, you might dive right back into that heated exchange, Right?

Yes. Yeah.

So as trust increases, comfort also goes up.

Right. But what happens with respect?

People trust people. Or I'm sorry, they respect people they don't completely know. It's like, I'll speak about my wife. And this is just a sad truth about most relationships. As time goes on, respect can decrease a bit.

Right. Think about.

I've been known to leave the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste. Right? So my wife, God bless her, she doesn't get upset about it. She just makes sure she has her own toothpaste and I have my own toothpaste. Right. So she doesn't argue about it at all. But there's that trust, respect. So when you can have the magic of trust and respect in a potential business or influence relationship, that's where you get magnified results. Right. And so it's creating both. Now, does likability or knowing somebody have some something to do with trust? I do think it does. I think reputation can play into that too. But give me trust and respect in a potential business relationship and I'll show you how the results grow. There's something called edification. Right. You know, as you're listening right now, you know, have you ever gone into a conversation and felt like the person on the other end of the line was just expecting you to go into a big sales pitch and they had.

Their armor up and they had their.

Guard up and they had like all this baggage and they really weren't listening or connecting to what you had to say?

Right.

Maybe we've all had that.

Sure.

Yeah. Well, if you had a, like let's say theoretically, depending on the size of your. But you had an assistant just send out a preface message, a pre framing.

Message to that person coming onto an.

Appointment with you and it said something.

Like, hey, you're going to be meeting.

With Matt and, and I just want to let you know your time is at such and such. Matt is a definitive expert and he probably won't even say something like this, but he's helped grow multiple businesses and helped interview hundreds, if not thousands of.

People from world leaders to.

Athletes to celebrities.

I imagine you guys are going to.

Really hit it off when you get.

A chance to speak.

Right. So Matt, in that example, getting that.

Third party endorsement, and I made some of that up, of course, but getting that third party endorsement about something. True.

Right. And edifying what it does is it.

Positions Matt in that example as a trusted expert. Right. He's got trust and respect from the.

Other party, ideally creating a little bit.

Less friction in the conversation.

From my experience, we've tested this in companies where we went into some companies and we actually helped them implement this edification strategy for their account executives and it boosted results two, three, four and five times.

We've had companies where they took people.

Who are customer service people, they created this, we call it the edification breakthrough method. Put this in place for even customer service people to follow up with their potential client candidates or prospects and they started making sales hand over fist. Non salespeople becoming salespeople and Creating, optimizing the growth and so on. Just on this idea of the trust and respect being framed. Here's another way to think about it. Maybe the tactics I'm sharing are a little too fast, too quick. And maybe as you're listening, you're like, oh, I kind of get it, but I don't. Here's another way to think about it. If you get a painting, right? And let's just say it's a Picasso, right? Whether you're into art or not, just bear with this example. If we get a Picasso and it comes in a tube and I unroll it and then I go, basically put duct tape in the corner of that Picasso on my wall. That's one way of framing.

On the other hand, if I go.

Out and I get a professional framer and I don't know what it would.

Cost to do it, but let's say.

Put a beautiful frame, the lighting around it, maybe I spend a couple grand to set it up, right? The lighting, the place, the location and so on. And now we put that Picasso on the wall. It's received a whole lot different, right? So the trust respect is really an authentic, genuine framing strategy to help open people's hearts and minds, to connect with who we are, to give us both the best chance to help each other.

I think that's amazing. And you talked about the likability factor, People pleaser. I know I have been guilty of that in the past. Especially.

When you said the multiple options for offers when you're selling someone on the phone. I know a lot of people that have slipped into this, but it's almost too easy to just create an offer on the fly that is outstanding side of the systems that are in place. Yes. And definitely I want to say we got screwed by that, but we definitely caused a lot more stress in our lives.

I'll say that in the past, when.

I've made that mistake, I will say I've gotten screwed.

We have. I guess we have occasionally, but usually we spin it around. Yeah, but you're right. I mean, it's. And if it wasn't for Matt, he's a lot more of the systems guy. I am more of the, you know, kind of let's chat, let's figure things out. And the trust is a big piece because I feel like what I have been told by others that know me pretty dang well is you have the likability. But the thing is, there's trust because there's follow through and a lot of folks who are the likability or they're throwing options out there. Don't really do what they say. I think that's a huge part right there. Without that. Yeah. You could be likable and I could see that being even worse than not likable.

Yeah.

So it's. That follow through is huge.

Yeah. I like my volleyball analogy. I'm the setter, you're the spiker.

I'm basically doing all the systems to get people aware of us. And then you go and close the deal once people are already aware and they have that respect and trust factor in the business.

Yeah.

But I love that.

It's great. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. And so, I mean, what you're doing there is just building all these systems. It seems like you're spotting these. These almost like blind spots that folks can't see themselves. You know, maybe with your clients. Is that something that you're kind of looking out for?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I would say, you know, one of my gifts and superpowers. And then we've got a team that helps implement a lot of these things is we help connect the dots, see the blind spots. And really, you know, a simple framing is get unstuck around some of these areas because so many people are just that like it's 2 degrees off, 3 degrees off. You build a. An edification model or you have a whole sequence of strategies and tactics. Like we just went through, like another popular one right now that we're helping with is like, we call it the mini series breakthrough traffic strategy. Right. And you know, you can really duplicate what Amazon has done and duplicate what Netflix is doing in your own small business. Right. And create a mini series method inside it to create trust and respect and authority. For example, literally you could go in and create a one minute video. You don't even have to be on camera, right. And you could create a message. Consider it like a one minute educational entertainment video and provides value and it could drive to, say, a short article. But you create this one minute video. It could be what's called a kinetic video. What that means is just like text on the page, kind of flashing in, flashing out. You can find a lot of different freelance sites to do this for you. But create this one minute video and then go into Facebook and target certain audiences, certain behavior, certain interest groups that are your perfect clients, age demographics, etc. And in your area locally, or you.

Could even do this nationwide. We've done this with multiple clients.

Like one of our H Vac, we have a H Vac client right now, very large company on the East Coast. And we're driving hundreds of leads a month for them for appointments for their team to go out to. But one of the strategy is this mini series video method. And for literally less than 10 cents a view, actually it's closer to 2.

To 3 cents a view.

We're building up like in a few weeks we can build up an audience of perfect potential clients based on income, based on interest, based on behavior, based on location of tens of thousands of people.

And you can put one video and then based on how much they've watched of that video, you could put another video to kind of move them down the path of trust and respect with you.

And then after they viewed, let's say.

50% of the video or 50% of two videos, now you put your irresistible offer. And because your trust and respect, they.

Feel like you're everywhere.

Oh my gosh, Matt.

Oh my God, Joe.

I see you guys everywhere.

Right?

Yep.

That's a simple literally for pennies on the dollar for your perfect clients. So that's a way that you can also apply some of this in real terms using the technology that's there right now.

Yeah, no, it's super smart. That's actually. You pretty much kind of described our main marketing strategy right there, using short Facebook videos and bringing people deeper and deeper down the funnel based on percentages of the videos they watch and things like that. We actually have a really great podcast episode with a guy named Kurt Molly who sort of breaks that process down step by step for anybody who wants to go figure out how to actually build that. But it's really, really, really powerful.

So when you're working with your clients, I'm just kind of curious. So the H Vac company, are you doing that kind of setup like you described back in your direct marketing days with Paper? Are you going in there and kind of essentially getting a piece of the company?

Each company or depending on which program they're in, we have a different path. So that particular company, they're private clients. So not only do we have a fee based model per month, but we also get a performance bonus based on the results of what we actually create. And then after we've hit certain criteria, then there is a ability to have like either an equity ownership or like a profit sharing opportunity in the companies. And that's typically the way we like with, with the private clients. And these are typically clients that are doing in excess of a million a year and in business already. And we can help them double, triple, quadruple their top line revenue and many times exponentially grow their bottom line. So that's the kind of what I would describe as our perfect client scenario company that's looking to grow in scale. They're at a million or more a year, they want to grow upwards of 10. Part of our criteria is like a question we'd ask, do you really have the drive and desire to grow your company at least $10 million in the next two to right from where you are right now? And if they say no? Well then for that program they're not really. And we have other things that we can suit them for, but for the private client relationship where we were working with them as an advisor, almost like they're outsourced marketing team.

Right.

We help drive the implementation and we'll actually script the videos, we'll create the video campaigns, we'll run the traffic and different things like that. Again, because we do have a high upside of interest, the performance, bonuses, et cetera.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, thanks for breaking that down. I always like to kind of dig into a business model just for the listeners to kind of get some ideas of what to try. Yeah.

And then our other model that we sued for companies under a million in revenue, which, let's face it, that's the majority. Right. We have a small group program that we work with that allows us to scale, we maximize it where it's high touch and highly personalized. We limit it to 4, 14 companies each session that we do. But we literally walk them through our eight step formula of how to be able to attract clients, how to be able to convert clients, how to be able to maximize it with paid traffic and then how to optimize it, optimize profits in the company, which of course, truth is, it also creates the opportunity, correctly that they can transition to become more of one of our potential private clients. Right. So it can be looked at as a feeder system. But that model, we even, you know, write their video sales letter for them. Right. Which you guys know what a lot of the experts are charging. And that program is geared again for the small business at a million or under and, or you know, they're still stuck with, you know, their digital marketing and things like that. What we do is we allow people our full fee for that program is, you know, right around $12,000. But I'm so confident in our methods that we allow people to start with a small deposit of 25% and then only after they've increased the results eight times of that deposit, then they pay the rest and only then.

That's, that's really cool. Wow. Okay.

So I have a question for you that's totally stolen from Steve Woelscher and the beyond eight Figure podcast.

Yeah.

But I'm going to give him a shout out, so it's okay. So one of the bullets on there was that you talked about the three key questions that you use to base decisions on. And I'm curious if you'd be willing to dive into that for us as well.

Totally.

This came at a place where I, you know, I ended up in a hospital a couple weeks after my son Kyler was born with chest pains. I had built up a company that had done a lot of business and we had 175 employees through three offices, plus a bunch of outsourced people. And we were doing well from the business side. But I woke up with these chest pains. Ended up in the hospital. Came out of that experience and what I would say. I couldn't tell if it was Joe or Matt who asked the question.

Cool.

I was at a place of really making a decision of where I wanted to go next. So I hired another coach. I've always had coaching. I believe in coaching and consulting. I've probably invested close to a million dollars in my education over the years. Since 1990. Something.

My coach got me to really focus in on three critical questions that now ultimately every decision I make has filtered through these three questions. It's so critical as a framing and a starting. And why it's important is because I don't know. I don't know about you guys. Joe, Matt. I've at times made poor decisions based on how I felt about things versus making reality based decisions.

Sometimes being an entrepreneur, it's a gift and a curse because we can take opportunities and make even a bad opportunity, get some kind of momentum out of it. But our time is best spent with opportunities that are on an 8 to a 10, on a 10 scale and then taking them to the next level.

I was at a crossroads.

I was in this health crisis. My coach sat down and said, hey, what do you want? And she had me write this on.

A piece of paper.

And this is the first question is identifying what do you want?

Not what do your kids want, not what your spouse want or your best friends if you have hundreds of employees or it's just you or anywhere in between. But like, what do you.

And maybe even add the word really, really want.

Right.

And you know, get clarity around that. And I, and I, you know, I.

Shared this at Steve's event. I think, guys. Right. And when I, when she got me to ask that question. I sat there, I wrote one answer on the piece of paper and I stared at it for the rest of our session together.

And then I went home and she.

Said, work on it. And I went home and I was supposed to come back the next week. And I was so embarrassed because I hadn't gotten past one.

I didn't go back the next week.

And I didn't go back the following week and I didn't go back the following. It took almost a month for me to kind of get unstuck here and.

Really get clear on what did I really want, right? And I came back and I had.

A list and we talked through it and we, you know, isolated then what was important, what was most important, right?

We put a hierarchy of those items.

Of from least important to most important. Then she had me go to the second question, which is.

Who are you? And it got me to look like, give her a blank.

Imagine sitting in this office with your coach and she says, well, who are you?

And you look at her like.

I don't even know that's how.

That's where I was like 12 or so years ago. And I sat there and it didn't take me four weeks on this one, but it took me half the session to kind of get unstuck on this one. But what she got me to understand.

Don'T look at the labels, don't look at the titles, don't look at all.

Those false.

Things that you've named yourself by or known yourself for.

Rather think of it, who are you.

As a human being, not the human doing stuff. That was the first time I'd ever heard that term before, which she shared with me about 12 years ago or so at the time we're doing this.

And I got a lot of clarity on who am I?

And then the third question is, what do you stand for?

These are your core values as a human being. So we hear all the time as.

A company, have great core values. Narrow it down to your three to five core values.

My company, we have a set of.

Core values based on this acronym called champion. Or I should say my family. Core values are based on this acronym called Champion. If you ask my 13 year old and 11 year old and said, hey, Kyra, what are the kushal values? They would go choose Health, action, Mastery, purpose, invest in yourself, be an opportunity seeker and never quit on you. Which is the acronym for being a champion. C H A M P I O.

N. In our company, we have three core values.

The first value is related to growth. The second is related to teamwork. The third is related to contribution. When you get clear on your values, then what's most important is not what you do, but it's what you say. No to. The no list or the not to do list becomes way more important than the yes list or the not to do list or the to do list. And so those three questions now, like even being on your guys show, right. Is filtered through these three questions and how it fits. And you know, for me this was like a total easy yes. The impact you guys are making.

What you guys stand for, right.

In alignment. Right? And so, you know, as you're listening or hearing this, what would happen for you if you sat down and got.

Really crystal clear on like, what do you want? Right?

That's power.

This is probably some of the best work.

Having 175 employees is awesome. Having the ability to impact a lot.

Of people is great, but I don't want 175 employees.

So like two years later, I actually set the stage and it's really a big part of the choice of what led me to sell my companies and exit.

Well, that's what's fascinating is I remember you mentioned that in the Mastermind and I think that is what really triggered to us. Matt and I weren't even sitting by each other, not even talking. But you were leaving the room and I think you were saying that you sold your companies and you talked briefly about your time in the hospital, the health scare there and the wake up call, really. And then that was your shift. And then it was basically simplicity, but big impact still.

Yeah. Well, to sort of set the scene a little bit, we were sitting in this Mastermind and we did this little exercise where we sort of went around the room and everybody said, okay, this is my goal. This is my earnings goal for 2019. This is what I want to make in the year 2019. And we went around the table, everybody threw out their numbers. The numbers aren't important, but the number that you threw out. Somebody asked you a question as you were walking out the door. You had to leave early to catch a plane or something. And somebody said, you know, I noticed you've had so much success. You've exited these businesses, you've. You've just been wildly successful in your career. Why is your goal number lower than what you've managed to achieve in the past? And the. And I believe you pretty much ran us through that, that same concept that you just explained, but that that message was super impactful for us after that event.

Well, I'm glad. I am glad to hear that. You know, a lot of people are.

Chasing I and I won't speak for anybody. I'll speak to me at times I've chased growth just out of the desire.

To grow versus the impact of it.

My focus right now is I want to have a great business and continue to build a great business while also.

Being incredibly available and present with my kids. I don't want to be one of.

Those dads that when they ask their kid, oh my God, what was your dad like? Well, he was great at business but.

He was never there for me. Right.

I'm fortunate and blessed.

I have all this.

I'm fortunate to have all this background and some results. I was blessed to be able to exit and sell my companies and these sorts of things. The relationship capital, which is the most important capital any of us can have.

It gives me some leverage and flexibility and I get to coach my son's football team. I'm able to be at all of his practices, three, four days a week.

Attend all of his games.

Right.

Because of the way I've structured my businesses and still run a very high profit, high impact business. So everybody's going to be a little. The biggest thing I'll share the trap that I was in that kind of led to this. So I forget which one of you guys mentioned it, Joe or Matt, about simplicity. If I had to narrow it down to like what's one word of why its simplicity.

Right. And it's also what I want, right.

It's not what the outside wants. It's not like, you know, I've had many of my friends ask me the same thing, like very close friends that if I mentioned the names most of you would know these people and they'd be like, so like why are you like you had built this $25 million a year company and expanded over time.

And done over $100 million and you're.

Essentially compared to that running a small business. Well, don't let the small business confuse you with us being small minded about impact because the small business is having a huge impact through the different businesses we're able to impact. Their reach is in the tens of thousands, right?

Hundreds of thousands. If you really calculate probably close to.

Millions with the different companies that we're.

Working with to help them grow in.

Scale and have a bigger impact too. So but the key is what do you want? Like what is it for you? What will you say yes to but what do you want to say no to that's non negotiable Right. If I have, you know, of course there's no such thing as an absolute. Like I'll never do this or I only do that. But the guide, these are guard. And part of this is me knowing me. Like I'm an addict by nature, guys.

I left my own devices.

I'm a workaholic that would easily and can easily work 20 plus hours a day for years straight.

Preaching to the choir, right?

And I think that's a DNA trait of most entrepreneurs. Right.

It can be a gift and it.

Can be a curse and there's a time that it can be used, but.

It also can be something that can hurt us.

So for me it's like, how do you create? I don't believe in balance either. Like a lot of people that, well, you must like really strive for balance. No, I think balance is bullsh.

You know, I believe integration is critical.

So like when I'm able to be.

With my son in practice, like literally, I'm not just showing up as like an assistant, like volunteer coach. I'm practicing with my son. Like I'm on the field running routes, I'm on defense when he's playing quarterback, trying to knock passes down for him. Right. Like I am there and I'm engaged. Like it's being active and you know, there's all kinds of abilities either as the business owner, entrepreneur, or that we look for in our team. And one that rarely gets discussed is.

This ability called availability. Right.

What is your availability?

But again, it comes back to being clear on these three.

What do you want?

Who are you?

And then what do you stand for? And then it just allows you to make decisions in your heart that are.

The right things and not comparing yourself to others.

Right. Which is also a gift and a curse of many entrepreneurs. That's huge. And allow you to stay true to you your values and the impact that you're meant to have. And that gift that you're taking out to the world.

Love it. I can't think of a better note to go ahead and wrap this discussion up on.

Oh yeah.

So we really, really thank you for the time you've spent. I do have a couple super quick questions, the first one being do you have any books that you tend to recommend often or you find yourself revisiting often?

Oh, yeah, I've got several.

So one that I love recently is.

Written by a friend, Chris Voss.

Never split the difference. Not only is it about negotiating and how this ex FBI agent negotiated high stakes and techniques and strategies, but it's really about just better communication. Right. Better communication flow.

Even for me it helped being a better dad, communicating with my, my now.

13 and 11 year old kids, my wife and spouse. Right. So that's one that I highly recommend if you haven't checked it out.

Another book that I reference regularly is Tested Advertising Methods, which I love going back to that one because it's got some of the basics, but yet some of the basics are still very advanced fundamentals today, strategies that just work.

And so you can find both of.

Those, I imagine on Amazon, but those are two. And then another one I would throw out there is Think and Grow Rich, which is a classic by Napoleon Hill.

It's like a solid foundation right there. Where should folks go and check all your stuff out? I know you're doing a lot and we didn't even touch on your podcast, which we normally do, but I know you have a great podcast as well.

Well, thanks.

Short version.

If you want to check out our.

Podcast, We've got over 200 hours of insights, wisdom, strategies from a lot of experts on a variety of business topics to help grow and scale with less stress.

And that's@growthtofreedom.com growthtofreedom.com we have 100% free on demand training that we rotate that you can go get the latest version.

Of that on helping you generate more leads or a steady flow of clients. Some of the strategies and techniques that that we're using right now in real time. You can check that out@championbusinessblueprint.com perfect.

And we'll link everything in the show notes@evergreenprofits.com you'll find it all there. Cool. Dan, this has been awesome and I am definitely going to think on those questions for a while and they probably will take some time, but it's super impactful. So thank you for sharing.

I would love to hold you accountable. So please, how about if I check.

In with you in like 10 days or so?

Deal.

And I'd love to hear how you've.

Progressed or if you were stuck somewhere.

I'd love to help you make sure.

That you're not stuck because I know.

What a difference this can really make and I'd love to be there for you.

Let's do it.

Yeah. Joe and I are both big journalers, so we've got, you know, we've got the medium.

All right, well, we'll expect that 10 day email. Thank you, dad. Putting us on the fire.

All right, dad.

All right, take care, man.

All right, thanks, guys.

You got it.

All right.