Joey Xoto - The Story Behind A $30 Million "Simple" Software Empire

What happens is, is, like, we stack all the really cool features into the $67 price point. So we say, look, you can make unlimited videos with the $67 price point. You get resell rights with the $67 price point. You don't get any of that stuff on the 47. So really, nobody's going to buy the $47 price point.

Sure.

All that happens is, is you're just increasing your conversion rate by having the other price.

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

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

All?

Sup, Matt? Oh, yeah. And y' all listening? It's actually probably one person listening.

Just the one of you.

Typically, it's one person listening to a podcast at a time.

Welcome back. All one of you.

All one of you.

That's nice.

Is that how you address people? Yes. All one of you. How are you today?

Yeah, that's. That's what. When you come over to my house and we're sitting down to record our podcast, I'm like, welcome, all one of you.

Then I look over my shoulder both ways, but, oh, yeah, it's me. He's just kind of awkward.

It's okay. Yeah.

If you don't know that by now, then you haven't been listening to the show long enough.

Oh, man. It's true. And it is the end of the day. That's when we record our intros.

I just live in my awkwardness. I just embrace it.

You embody it very well.

I embody it and I spread my awkwardness. Like the.

I don't know.

I don't have a good analogy.

All over the podcast airwaves.

I'm sure if I was to keep going with an analogy, it would have just gotten dirty somehow.

That's why I was lifting my eyebrows, going like, what is he going to say next? I don't know. But right now I'm gonna transition to Joey Zotto.

Joey Zoto.

Not a Zodo, just Zoto.

Yeah, Joey Zoto.

He's got, like, the coolest spelling last name, by the way.

Yeah, Xoto.

It's badass. Yeah. It seems like. I don't know, Like.

Yeah, you can go around, be like, what's your name? I'm Joey X.

What up, dude? That's like a hacker name.

Yeah, Joey X. That's his real name, too.

Yeah, I think it is.

I don't know.

Did we ask him that? No, I'm pretty sure it is.

Okay.

Anyway, Joey's got a badass name. It's almost as badass as mine, but. Just kidding. Equals. Equals here. Okay, okay, okay. We all got cool ass names. Joey Zoto. He was very gracious with his time.

Yeah, this is. This is one of. This is on the longer spectrum of most of our shows because we were talking about really, really, really good stuff. We covered a lot of ground. We talked about the story of his software company Videos and how that came to be. They've done what, over $30 million.

They do 30 million bucks in as a SaaS product.

Yeah.

And they're doing something like, you know, he actually didn't say it on there, but they do killer mrr. I think it's almost to a half a mil.

Yeah, they're running about a half. That's what our notes say here. So if these notes are wrong, I'm sure Joey or somebody will call us out on them. But they're approaching the half a million dollars a month in recurring revenue.

Yeah, Monthly recurring. I mean, Joey's a badass in videos. So let me just spell out the name because it's not totally obvious. V I D D Y O Z E is the name of their company. Really cool tool. Check it out.

Let me give a quick rundown. So basically what this does. They're not a sponsor or anything like that, but I don't know if we really dove super deep into what the tool does on the episode. So I'm just gonna. Real quick. Basically what you do is you take your logo for your brand and you upload it into their tool and it makes really cool stinger front. What do you call the front of a video?

It's like a logo entry. Yeah, Bumper. Stinger logo.

Sting, bumper, whatever you want.

It makes those. That was kind of the original version of videos, but then over time they added more and more and more video templates. And now there's like, you can just do all sorts of crazy stuff with video with this tool.

Now it totally up levels your video production. You can use it for like Facebook ads, promo videos, whatever. So check it out. It's super cool and super cheap too.

Yeah. V I D D Y O Z E. And so we, we talked about the story behind videos, but then he's also a very prolific affiliate marketer as well. And you know, if you've been listening to our show for a while, you know that we. Affiliate marketing is our game. We love affiliate marketing. That's what we do. That's how we make most of our money. So we Wanted to go down that rabbit hole with him and talk a little bit about what he's doing to make. Make affiliate sales and the way they're doing it. It's simple, but it's brilliant and it's something that nobody else is doing.

Yeah.

And so he breaks down what they're doing to sell affiliate stuff.

Yeah, yeah, he breaks it down really deep. And he also broke down. He broke down the way he progressed to this point of videos. Like, he actually talks about the failures. Well, successful launches, a bunch of failed launches. And we broke down why they failed, what caused the successes. And especially with videos, he actually really dove deep into how they've grown this thing. And I thought what was really cool is one of his partners, David Chamberlain, actually is a guy that we go way, way, way back with. Yeah.

Almost 11 years now.

Yeah. It's crazy. So we're in the same coaching program with him, and he's a big pricing guy, I guess. And there's actually good pricing at the end of this, a pricing type book that he recommends. But pricing is so powerful in their growth, it seems like that was a big piece of everything they've done. And Joey lines out exactly what went into the pricing model and why. The psychology and how you can actually use that for scarcity and promotions, even with affiliates and ads. It's really fascinating. And just that alone, I think you can gather a lot, because pricing is such a common term or thing that people get stuck on.

Yeah.

But there's like a whole psychological thing. But there's also ways to use that for marketing strategy as well.

Yeah. So if you've, if you've got a product and you kind of struggle on pricing, we do have a pretty good discussion of that. And then kind of towards the end of this episode, we actually dug into a topic that I think has kind of become one of my and Joe's favorite topics to talk about on the show. And that's the topic of mental health and burnout. And how do you constantly stay, you know, excited about running a business and how do you, you know, how do you get up every day and keep doing the same business over and over again? And the, the. The mental toll that it takes on you and how to sort of counteract the mental tolls that it takes on you. And quite honestly, you're probably going to hear us talk about more and more of that kind of stuff on the podcast. Not as the main topic of every episode, but we just love diving into that topic because, you know, the tactical stuff we talk about the you know how to do the affiliate marketing stuff or the you know how to. How to price your products. The tactics are all great, and we love them. We love talking about them, we love sharing them with you. But at the end of the day, the stuff that's going to make the biggest impact on your business in your life is getting your head screwed on straight.

Yeah, that was like, the tail end of this conversation. And, you know, this podcast is a long one, but damn, we covered a lot. And they're all like. I feel like they're in, like, different chapters. That's how this podcast went in this episode. And, man, each chapter is like its own little masterclass. I feel like that you can gather a lot from.

I like that. Chapter one would be like the story of videos. Chapter two is how to be a ninja at affiliate marketing. And chapter three is how to get your mind right for the game of business.

Pretty much Chapter one, I would say that's like the story of creating a badass recurring $30 million company.

Yeah, it's okay, I guess.

Yeah, that's pretty sexy. But, yeah, man, that's how it was. And Joe is just such a cool guy. And.

Yeah, so we got the notes, too.

Yeah, there's a lot of notes. There's a lot of notes, and you're gonna love them notes. So the notes, you can get them one of two ways. You can pull up that phone and text to 38470 is the phone number. Just text the word comp. C O, M, P, P. That's 38470, comp. These notes are absolutely free.

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You can even use your old school dusty desktop.

Even use that old school dusty desktop.

And you can open up your Internet Explorer browser, Netscape.

Netscape. Open up your Netscape browser, CompuServe.

Browser, CompuServer. Yeah, I was trying to go Prodigy. Prodigy. There we go. Now we're going really deep. Yeah.

Open up your Prodigy browser.

Open that up. If you're old school like some people, that's okay. We do it occasionally. Go to hustleinfluidchart.com comp c o m p hustleflowchart.com comp notes. Same exact offer.

I hear if you're on America Online. Is that what it's called? AOL America Online?

Yeah.

Yeah. So if you're on America Online, the site loads perfect. So preferred browser is aol.

Aol, you mean that was the old thing? When could you get the.

That's the modem sound that wasn't AOL sound.

And then somebody picks up the phone to make a call and you're like, mom, I'm trying to get on the Internet.

Mom, I'm trying to play Counter Strike. I was going to say Wolfenstein, but that wasn't on there.

I thought you were going to say, I'm trying to load playboy.com.

You know me too well.

Yeah, Mom.

Although that's probably not something you'd admit to your mom, huh?

No, probably not now. So. Yes, but not then.

Yeah, not then now.

Yeah. All right. So, yeah, get the notes. And so they are free for two weeks for this episode. Basically. That's how it works. Every single episode that's free for two weeks. That's just a rolling thing. Let's just be honest. And after that, it goes into our Epic Vault. Our Epic vault is so cheap to unlock, it's only $15.

That's true.

It's super cheap. And you literally don't get just all the notes, but you literally get pretty much all the content that we ever produce anymore.

Yeah, it's the only gated content we have anymore.

So, yeah. And as you probably have heard from previous episodes, or if you've not, we have a shit ton of content. So every single note that has been taking on this podcast is.

We're approaching almost every single one, I think. I don't know what episode this is. 250 ish. I don't know.

So, yeah, you basically get an open vault to everything. So if there's like an episode from even last year that just piques your interest. Hey, it's in there.

This is episode 249, by the way.

There you go. You rounded up by one.

But yes, all of the notes from all of our podcasts. I mean, some of the early podcasts, like from episode 10 through episode, like maybe 50 or something, we're still working on.

We're working on that batch still. But we are going back.

We are going back through all the backlogs so that anybody who signs up has notes for every episode we've ever recorded. And then we even just made a traffic course. We were like, let's make a new traffic course on, like, some of our favorite, like, super cheap tactics. And we made that traffic course. And we originally were like, all right, let's go sell this traffic course. And we're like, actually, let's just give it to Epic members. So, like, we literally made a traffic course and then just decided to give it to the people who are paying the $15 a month.

Yeah.

So we, as you probably noticed, we just don't like to actually sell a bunch of courses. We like to talk on the podcast, but the outlet and this is more of a time saving slash. Like we know a lot of people will miss things. That's why we have this epic membership and that's why we are trying to make it super accessible. $15 a month, that's all. Go check it out. But go to us on flowchart.com/comp. That's how you get in there first.

Yes, just start there. Let's go talk to Joey.

Yeah, let's do that.

All right, before we jump over that episode, let's talk about LinkedIn real quick.

LinkedIn is awesome. So this is a new tool in our arsenal. Newish. It's. We've been on LinkedIn for a very long time actually.

Yeah.

But the engagement on LinkedIn is amazing right now.

Uh huh.

And we've talked a lot about it on the podcast. We've had experts on the show chat about, I mean, literally pure businesses on LinkedIn. Organic's great, paid stuff's great. I mean there's a lot of groups, there's just a lot of interaction there with a ton of small business owners. A lot of folks that actually find us for this podcast found us on LinkedIn too, which is rad. And there's some crazy stat actually. 62 million different decision makers are actually on LinkedIn. And what we have here, Matt will tell you in a second. But there's actually some ways to get our. There is a way, I'll tell you right now, is to get free credit for LinkedIn ads.

Yeah. So LinkedIn ads are gonna help you reach the right professionals at the right time. Because this is literally where all the busy professionals hang out. Like all of the people that are just at really high levels in their businesses, they're on LinkedIn. LinkedIn ads will let you get in front of those people. But you know what, we're gonna make it super easy for you to go try LinkedIn ads. You can try it for yourself. LinkedIn is offering a free hundred dollar LinkedIn ad credit. To launch your first campaign, simply visit LinkedIn.com flowchart and that is LinkedIn.

As Matt points at me, that's LinkedIn.com flowchart. To get that free one hundred dollars credit. Terms and conditions do apply, but definitely get over there. Go try it for yourself right now. Thank you.

Ready?

Yo, Joey, how you doing man?

Good man, how you doing?

Doing great. Yeah, I Know it's late over there in the uk. Thanks for a little bit.

Just a little bit.

Are you used to working late or.

Not really, not so much these days. Good for you.

You got a family and everything too, so you got to.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you and Matt, I think, go back a little further than you and I. Yeah.

I actually do not remember exactly how we got connected. I think you might have had a connection to Josh Bartlett, who I was partners with, you know, four or five years ago.

And I think that's how I connected.

Oh, yeah, we know David Chamberlain very well. We go back with David probably almost 11 years now.

Yeah, when I was first starting out, I was, I was making. I was basically trying to do stuff for all the top marketers at the time and I was just trying to like, kind of offer value wherever I could. And I remember at the time Josh Bartlett was releasing, I think it was Easy Video Suite at the time, which David actually worked on, I think as well. Or maybe the first one. It was one of them. And yeah, I said to Josh, look, I've got loads of video tutorials and stuff on how to make videos and if you want to use them, you can use them. And that's how I kind of got into Josh Bartlett and built kind of like a relationship with him. And then I think it crossed over at that point at some stage.

Yeah, at that time I actually ran his membership site for him. It was called the Elite Marketing foundation and it was whenever you bought you easy video suite, you got like a free 30 day trial to this members area thing. And I ran the members area side. So that's, that's probably how I initially got introduced to you was somehow you were connected with Josh and then you made some videos around how to make better videos and I put them in the members area and then I think somehow we ended up chatting and then you release videos and I was an affiliate of videos and.

Well, I was actually the one doing all the VSLs for that product. So we're all wrapped in there in some form. Form. You guys were in the back end. I was over there working with Josh on the front end.

Yeah, yeah.

That's interesting. We were all. All right. We all had a hand in it.

So that makes sense. All connected.

Yeah.

So we can, we could safely assume that the three of us are the reason for Josh's success.

Take that down.

Josh would agree. Right, Josh? I'm just kidding.

That's funny.

Well, cool.

Let's. Let's dive a little bit back into your backstory how did you actually get into the digital marketing world? What were you doing before you were doing videos? I know you're providing value in creating content. How did you, you know, what were you doing before this? And how did you kind of get into this stuff?

Yeah, I mean, basically I used to work as a, as like a part time kind of videographer back in the day. I used to shoot like weddings and birthday parties and, you know, pretty much all those, the basic kind of stuff. And what happened was I lost my job.

In about 2012. I was basically working in an accounts company. They told me they didn't want me anymore because I wasn't motivated to. Which I agreed like heavily. And yeah, then I was actually the crazy thing was, was like I was engaged at the time, so I think I got laid off in like October and I was getting married in May, so I had like six months ish. To kind of like make 30, $40,000. Because I'm of like, I'm like, I mean, I'm Indian and like in our culture. Yeah, yeah. Our weddings are like, you know, huge. Like they're massive. Like, buy a house. Yeah, yeah, they're like huge. And you know, like, which is all good, you know, whatever. So I was just kind of like I told my fiance, like, look, like, I know we gotta like kind of save all this money, but I just can't work for anybody else. Like, I'm gonna go and figure out how to do this thing. And I landed on the Warrior forum, which I'm sure a few people probably know what it is. Essentially just a forum full of digital entrepreneurs and they're all trying to figure out how to make money online. And I came across Alex Jeffries. Do you remember Alex? Oh yeah. Back in the day, Alex was basically the guy at that time in the IM world, he was probably one of the leading coaches. In fact, David was in his coaching. Josh Bartlett was in his coaching. Dean Holland was in his coaching.

That's literally how we know all those people. We went through Alex Jeffries coaching at the same time as Josh, David and Dean.

We were in, I guess the same class, if you want to call it.

We're in the same class of people with those people.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, there you go. So everybody was basically under Alex's kind of wing at some stage. And the only thing was I wanted to work with Alex kind of on a one to one basis. And at the time he was like, yeah, if you want to work with me one on one, it's going to cost like $20,000 or something. And I was like, yeah, I've got like 20 bucks in my pocket, so that's not going to work. So I basically messaged him on Facebook and just said, listen, I've got these whole kind of set of skills in terms of video. I can shoot some really cool content, and I would love it if you could give me an opportunity just to show you what I can do, if you like it, maybe offer me some kind of training and returns and consultation or whatever. He said. He basically said he wanted me to prove myself to him and kind of make a video to show what I could do. He didn't want to just like, kind of offer the offer, the coaching or whatever, because it was obviously a big deal. And I didn't even have a camera at the time because I'd sold everything. So I had to basically borrow a camera. And then I had like 24 hours to go and shoot this video, which I shot eventually in sent it to him, and he basically posted it into his inner circle, his inner circle group on Facebook. And all the students were basically like, ah, you got to take this guy on board. And, you know, he's. He's like, he's really kind of ambitious and whatever. And then one thing led to another, and Alex basically brought me out and I went and shot this video for him, which was the marketing with Alex video. Oh, yeah, that was yours, huh? Yeah, that was my video. Josh actually watched that video when and kind of like replicated the style and stuff. And a lot of marketers did kind of take the formula of that video and tried to recreate it because it was quite a powerful piece. Like, Alex has a really interesting story, and I just thought, like, it's such a good story to tell as a marketing video. It's really cool because, you know, Alex has got this really emotional story, and it's like, you know, people crying. And he was telling me, I met Alex just two weeks ago, actually.

Yeah.

The first time I've met him in seven years. In a long time.

Yeah, yeah. And he's out in San Diego now. Here.

Yeah, yeah. And he actually came down because we're shooting a documentary about me this time. And, you know, I want. I really wanted Alex to be a part of it because he's really kind of synergistic to kind of like, what's my story? And he's a big part of it. And, you know, he was telling me, look, we still use that video now two weeks ago, speaking on stage, and his children basically go on stage and when they introduce their dad, they play this video on a screen. And, you know, that made me feel really warm inside because I was like, that's so cool, man. We made this piece of content and he's still using it. And he was basically saying, look, he didn't know it at the time, but they use that video now and realize that that video really helped Alex propel into the guru kind of figure, because he didn't want to be a guru.

Right.

You know what I mean? Like, Alex was kind of like the. The unrelenting hero type.

Well, one of his books, I think the subtitle was Putting the Horse's Head in the Guru's Bed or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, he was the mobster. He was. He was very anti guru. And that video kind of changed that, I think, for the better. And now Alex is flying, you know, he's got an amazing kosher business. And it was all my fault, basically. I'm joking.

You're a monster.

No, it was. It was a good video. And then because of that, people really wanted to know how to make those kinds of videos. And at the time, I was completely broke. I didn't even know how to make a course or anything. But Alex kindly kind of gave me the guidance I needed to create my first course. So it was In March of 2013, it was literally two months before my wedding. I released my first course. And I sold, I think it was about two and a half thousand copies of the course. And it was like a crazy moment, really. It was just exciting and emotional and all these things. And I managed to pay for the wedding, pay for our honeymoon, and the rest is basically history.

That's cool. I'm curious really quick. How did you make that many sales at that period of time? Were you leveraging affiliates? Alex helping you out? How'd that look like?

It was just all affiliate recruitment, basically. In the launch community, one of the things that you do when you put a product out is you create an affiliate video, or a JV video, we call it. And I just thought, look, like I could make a JV video that's different to everybody else. I could do something really different. And that was the only thing I had in my mind. I just wanted to create something where, if any JV saw it, they were just like, whoa, like, this is cool. This is, like completely different. So that's what I did. And it got the attention of the top video guys at the time. Todd Gross was, even then, was pretty much one of the biggest video video affiliates. I think Mark Dulies was one of the big video guys at the time.

Todd Gross is the one that was like the weatherman or something.

Right.

Is that. Am I thinking of the same guy?

I think it's a different guy. Okay, maybe not.

Todd Gross is the. He was. It was like a news. It was like a weather. The weatherman.

Okay.

Yeah.

So same thing. I'm thinking the same guy.

Okay. Yeah. Weird, actually, because Todd. Todd was actually portrayed in a movie as a. Somebody played Todd Gross in a movie once, which is really quite weird.

It wasn't the movie an.

No. No.

I don't know if that's for the best.

Yeah. So even Josh Bartlett ended up promoting it and a few big guys picked it up and pushed it and it done quite well.

What was that first course? Do you remember the name of it? Of course. I'm sure you do.

Oh, God. It wasn't a good name. It was Get Ready. It was called the Video Marketing Guide.

That's way better than the name of the first launch I ever did.

Is it Affiliate Arno?

No, the first launch I ever. I made a product called the Autopilot Cash Formula.

That's right.

You don't get much more hypey spammy than that.

Autopilot. We've all done it. We've all got weird. We've all got weird ones. Like, my second one was the video induction system.

That's getting better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was like the whole premise of that one was, like, creating hypnosis video scripts that. Hypnotic video scripts. So that's what that one was about.

We definitely did something right, man. Like, we're starting with Alex's video way back when. And. And obviously, you know, Josh, he said he kind of modeled a similar approach. And just throughout all this, like, I think you were doing some really interesting storytelling and visuals in a new way that the industry wasn't familiar with. Do you think that was, like, a big part of this?

I mean, I don't know how much of an influence it had, but I would like to think it had some because I know. I know a lot of guys. I know a lot of guys have spoken to me about it and said it was because of that video that I decided to do this kind of video and that kind of video. So I think it had some impact. How much of an impact? I'm not sure.

Do you know if that video is still floating around somewhere? Like if I wanted to post it up in the show notes or something? Is there a place where we could share it?

Yeah, it's still on YouTube, if you just type in marketing with Alex, it's still there.

Marketing with Alex. Okay. Yeah, we'll look that up and we'll share it in the show notes. Just so anybody listening could kind of see what you're referring to when you say this style of video.

Good call.

Yeah, definitely.

So that kicked you off and what from there. So what have you been doing is just a bunch of product launches. And you did a lot of affiliate stuff, it sounds like, in the meantime as well.

Yeah, so I went and released. My second course was Video induction system. So I did that a year after the first one. A year was quite a long time to wait. But to be honest with you, like, after I did that first release, like, I'm going to be completely transparent. Like, I thought I was like a millionaire, basically. And I think every entrepreneur has to go through this moment where they're going to. They're going to basically just burn all their cash because, you know, at one stage, I couldn't even afford, like, you know, getting. Getting my lunch at work and that kind of thing. So I was super broke. I've been bankrupt before. Like, when I was 19 years old, I was bankrupt. So, like, I couldn't even, like, get a job for a couple of years. Like, I made a lot of bad decisions. Like I was trying to start a business and it failed. Short. Short story. But, you know, like, I got. I got a whole load of money after that first launch and then basically burnt through the cash really quick. And then I was, like, super depressed, mentally exhausted because I was like, well, I understood quickly that I can't just keep releasing courses. And I realized that after the first one.

Which, like, yeah, in. In hindsight, I think that was a good thing because I think I still see vendors who were releasing courses back then and they're still doing it now, which, you know, if that's your business, you know, who am I to say anything different? But I think it's not like a. It's just not a healthy business because I think it can. It can cause a lot of burnout, a lot of mental exhaustion, as it did for me.

Yeah.

And, yeah, you know, it got to a point where I was like, right, well, I need to make some more money. So I did a second one, and then I didn't want to wait for the third one because I didn't want to be in that situation again. So the second one I did actually sold like 4,000 copies. It was. It was quite big. So then I thought, all right, well, I may as well, do it again and just double up. So I did a third one that was called Ipocket Video. So that was about creating videos with your mobile device.

I think I remember that one.

I actually think I remember seeing some of the marketing around that one.

Yeah, I think that was probably the best one I did. It was like, probably the best named. Anyway.

Yeah, it is a good name.

And yeah, after that, I kind of fell into this weird.

Kind of between a rock and a hard place situation where it was like, I don't want to release any more courses because, like, I don't feel like this is what I want to do forever and I don't want to. I'm not sure what to do next. So I was like, I've learned a lot of skills here and one of the things I really enjoyed was kind of like personal development. So I thought, you know what? I'll create a personal development brand. So for like seven months, eight months, I started him this brand called Speaking Change, which nobody's heard of because I didn't ever do anything with it, but I spent a long time on it and it's crazy. I actually was about to start a podcast called Speak and Change. And I remember I got an intro made and everything. And, you know, I was in podcast's paradise, John Lee Dumas's program, and I was doing the whole thing. And then, yeah, I just ended up kind of not doing it because I just didn't feel like it was the right thing to do. And I felt very stuck. And then one day it kind of got to a stage where so much time had passed and I was like, I need to kind of teach another course. Like, I need to do another course because I'm going to run out of money here. So I started thinking, well, I need to teach something new, so why don't I teach video animation? And I didn't know. I didn't know video animation. So, like, I started to learn After Effects and I thought, I'll learn it and then I'll go and make a course about it kind of thing, you know, started learning it and I realized, this is going to take me a long time to learn. That's a beast.

Beast to learn.

I tried to do it and it's tough.

Yeah. And I was just kind of like, you know, this isn't going to. This isn't going to be a quick thing, so I better go and try and figure out what else I can sell. And I really like the idea of getting into software. Like, I didn't know anything about software, I can't code anything.

The most technical stuff I know is how to make a video. Like anything outside of that, I can't do it. So, you know, I started partnering up with a couple of people in the industry and I've done a few software launches and they all bombed, which was a new experience for me because none of my launches had bombed before. So it was a new thing. You know, I had one that only done like $10,000, which probably sounds like a lot for some people, but for a launch it kind of sucks. Especially when you have like $20,000. You got to pay in prizes, I.

Was going to say. And then probably all the overhead that went into developing whatever the software was.

I mean, if you're not a developer, you had to invest in developers. So, I mean, yeah, it's not, not a lot of money. All said and done. Yeah.

And then I done my second course, second software, and that also bombed. And it was around about that time where I was almost getting ready to kind of teach this software, this animation course thing. And before I really committed to it, I decided to kind of look online to see is there any software that can kind of create an animation like automatically? And at the time there wasn't. There literally wasn't anything close to what I was thinking in my head. Like I wanted to be able to just basically upload my logo to like an app and then the app just like animates the logo, basically. That was the whole concept that I had in my head. And it was like, right, well, there's nothing there that does that. What if we could kind of. Or what if we could kind of make this into the software? Like, how do we do that? And I spoke to a lot of different people in our industry. Actually one marketer actually helped me build a prototype, which turned out to be horrendous. It wasn't what I wanted. And he, you know, we didn't end up. It didn't end up working out with him. And I took the idea to a couple of people and then I came across David and Jamie, who at the time they had a business called Mobellio and Mobelia was like a software mobile website builder basically. And you know, those guys were doing really well. They weren't doing the affiliate thing so much. They were doing it a little bit, but not a lot. And I kind of like that about them. I like the fact that they were building software, but they weren't relying just on affiliate sales. So I was like, ah, well, maybe these guys are worth speaking to. They've already got a software company. They've had it for a couple of years and they're in the uk, so they're local to me and I can probably go and meet them and stuff. So I ended up kind of reaching out to those guys and just. I took the idea to them and, yeah, they basically loved the idea and just said, let's see if we can build, like an mvp. So they had one developer that worked with them, one designer, and they basically used the designer and the dev at the time to put together a very basic prototype. That would have been what, Matt, what you would have seen. Initially, it was just a really simple product, but it literally did what I had envisioned it to do. You upload a logo you choose from a template of. At the time, our Library was only 20 templates. You could choose a template and it would animate it. I was just blown away by it because there literally wasn't absolutely any other tool at the time online that was doing this. So I just thought, this is it. Like, we've got a really cool thing here. So I went to. Because I felt so passionate about it. It kind of reinvigorated my. My joy for launching a product. And my whole mindset for videos was like, I don't want to. I don't want to make this a product launch. Like, I want to make this the launch of our business, basically. Like, that was always the mindset with David and Jamie. And I remember us all talking about it together. Just like we need to find a way to consistently make sales where we're not relying on affiliates and not relying on launches and that kind of thing. We need to build a real thing here that's going to last. So we had a lot of ideas about how we were going to do that, and.

It all came down to the pricing model and how we basically funnel people through the product. Maybe I should explain how the different levels of the product work.

Essentially, when we launched the product, we had 20 templates, right? And we thought, right, if people buy videos for 20 templates, what's the perfect upsell? Well, if it was me, I would just want more templates. Because if you look at products like, at the time, if you look at products like Optimized Press, which was. That was the page builder back then.

Optimized Press basically had like a template house thing, I think it was called, and all they would do is just create new templates all the time, and it was really engaging for their audience. At the time, wasn't that like a.

Recurring upgrade or Something too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we pretty much thought, well, we can just do a similar thing to that. We just keep making templates and we wanted to be a low hanging fruit thing. It was $37 a month, so it's still $37 a month. It's not super expensive. And the front end of the product basically gave you access to the 20 templates that we already had. So the crazy thing is, I can say this now because it doesn't matter anymore, but we didn't have any upsell templates at the time. We basically had 20 templates on the front end. And then it was coming up to the launch and we were like, well, we're just going to have to create them whilst we launch. Like when we're just going to have to keep adding them as we're selling it.

It's a perfect way to put your back against the wall and get shit done, you know?

Yeah, man. Honestly, our mentality has always been, been like, sell first just to sell the thing. Because every other SaaS you see, well, not every other SaaS but all the SaaS companies in Silicon Valley, they all do the same thing. They build a product to perfection. They spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the product and then they do a free trial and it's like, well, when are you going to ever make any money?

That's why. The VC money.

Exactly. And it's like, well, let's take $10 million in funding and then we can sell, start actually maybe making some revenue. And we're like, well, no, like we don't want to do that. Like we, we want to make money now because we don't have any, we don't have anything else going here. Like this is our bread and butter and this is how we survive.

Yeah.

So we need to make some money now. So our thought was, well, let's just not do a free trial. Let's go sell the product for $67. It does what we say it's going to do, so it's not like we're lying. And then in the upsell we basically sell, we basically say, look, we're going to give you 20 templates a month. We don't say you're going to get 20 templates right now, but you're going.

To get 20 templates starting in 30 days.

Exactly. So that was our mentality. It was like, we've got 30 days to basically get the templates in. So that's how we approached it. And we'd done a four day launch, we didn't want to open up for like a week or anything. We wanted to keep it nice and short. Again, there was strategy behind that as well. Like what we find is like a lot of the time, the affiliates who basically will promote a product launch, right. They go really hard on the first day and then on the second, third and the fourth day and the fifth day and the sixth day, everybody's basically tapering off onto other products and so are your customers. Like all the customers are basically looking at 100 products a day. So we thought, you know what? We'll do a really short launch, four days. On the first day, everyone's going to go hard. On the second day, we'll raise the price so it gives everybody a reason to buy it again. On the third day we're going to accept that we're not going to make a lot of money. And then on the fourth day we're going to close it. So everybody has to buy it. So that way we only have one dud day. And all the other three days are really good. So if you look at the law, the big launches nowadays, like a lot of people do that now because they've kind of seen that that pattern works really well. And yeah, we did like $480,000 in the four days. And then in recurring, we had forecasted $1.2 million over the year in recurring sales. So basically like we just built a, we just built like a serious like six figure a month business over four days, I guess like of selling.

Yeah.

All we had to do now is just maintain the thing and basically find a way to keep it going.

Yeah. So I'm curious, how long did it take you from the very, very first, like, you know, just kind of messing around with the idea in the office to actually having something that you felt was ready for the consumer.

Yeah. So me and Jamie had our first Skype call in March 2015 and we released the product in September 2015.

Seven months.

Yeah, six months.

Damn.

So it wasn't a long time. It was to launch a business from scratch, like with absolutely nothing there. I think it's okay. Like six months is not bad.

It's pretty good.

No, that seems really fast to me.

So I'm curious about the two failures you had prior to videos doing well. So what do you know, like what the factors were for those things flopping? Because those were two software launches too.

Yeah, I think the marketing just wasn't there. The pricing was not well thought out. I was really desperate to create a recurring income basically. And we really Tried pushing the recurring pricing on the front end of the launch. So I was trying to get $27 a month or $37 a month, but it's right at the front end of the product launch. Right at the top of the funnel, basically.

Yeah.

And you know that I think sometimes, I mean, for me personally, it's not worked like, it's not the best way to siphon leads into your business. Because what happens is you're basically bringing somebody right to the top of your funnel and you're saying, right, pay me every month. If they say no, that's it. Like, they're gone. So you've not got a chance now to go and get them to pay you every month. Whereas what we did with videos is we had two price points on the front end. We had $47 and $67 one time. And what we did was there's a great book called.

It's called Something Irrational or something.

David's favorite book. It's about pricing and irrationality, basically. Okay, but basically, basically all it is is that the $47 price point is created as a decoy to the other price. So what happens is, is like we stack all the really cool features into the $67 price point. So we say, look, you can make unlimited videos with the $67 price point. You get resale rights with the $67 price point. You don't get any of that stuff on the 47. So really, nobody's going to buy the $47 price point.

Sure.

All that happens is, is you're just increasing your conversion rate by having the other price.

So, like, anchors. Anchors this price in their mind. That's, you know, that's still not that. It's only a $20 difference. You're like, well, shit, that's no brainer. Yeah.

Predict. Predictably, Irrational is the name of the book.

It's a fantastic read. If you want to look at the psychology of giving people the obvious choice but almost making it look like it's not so obvious at the same time, it's kind of like you, like, it's like tricking them into buying it, but it's not a trick, basically.

Yeah.

Well, before we hit record, you actually mentioned Convertory, and I noticed, like, Convertory has two pricing plans. One's like $63 a month, and one's like $69 a month. And like, everything you would want is in the $69 a month plan.

Interesting.

And it's only like a $6 difference.

Yeah. And like, honestly, if you look at a Lot of the software launches right now. You will see the 47, $67 price is very prevalent and it's, and I would like to think it's because we've, we've hit that price point literally for the last five years now. And it's such a perfect price point for the upsell. So you spend $67 and then it's a $37 upsell into a template club.

That's what I like is it's a lower price, obviously it's recurring so it will stack up to be more. But the 37 should be like, it's a no brainer. I want it all.

Yeah.

And the whole concept was like $67. And again, I think there's a misconception that you need to charge $7 or $10 to get all the leads, but I really don't think that's the case. Like we charge $67 on the front end and we, and we done, I think on the first launch we've done like 7,000 front end units. So I really don't think that the front end price has to be as low as people feel it has to be. It's all about just kind of stacking the value. And then what we do is we get those 7,000 people in and now we've got an opportunity because they're on our list to just keep pushing them into the template club. So that's all we did. Like as soon as we finished the launch, everyone got pushed onto a webinar and we say right now we've got an annual offer for the template club. You can get three months free if you buy it upfront right now. And we've done, I think we must have done like 150, 200k on that webinar too. So, you know, that's the system that we've done from the initial launch and we've literally done that every single time. We've put videos out with the affiliates and everybody gets paid very well. Our affiliates have been paid over 16, $17 million now over the last five years. So.

We'Ve done a good justice, I think for our affiliates. Definitely.

Yeah. No, I was just saying, I think I said it before I hit record was I promoted video. When did version 1.0 launch? Just so I have my timeline straight.

29Th of September, 2015.

2015. So that was five years ago. I mean almost five years ago. Four and a half years ago. So four and a half years ago I promoted videos. And to this day I still get commission notifications Gnarly man. That's pretty awesome.

And what I know, like what you wrote here, at least we have in our notes. It's up to what, 30 million now in sales videos?

Yeah, yeah, Just creeping up to 30 million now.

That's amazing, man. And you could hear like, thanks for breaking everything down too, and. And all the in. Actually, I want to go to the fact that. So you did a lot with affiliates, but also you do a lot with ads to drive new customers, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, as soon as we finished that first launch, like, literally the conversation was right, how do we now grow the business without having to get the affiliates on board?

Right?

Because, like, it's not that we don't use affiliates. Like, we still use affiliates. Like, we have a lot of affiliates that promote Evergreen all the time. But it's just that if we wanted to scale to a point where we've got VCs and the big guys, the banks and everybody else looking at us saying, maybe we want a slice of this thing, we're going to need to create a system that's completely hands off and not based on the affiliates. We need to create something that can be scaled up and process driven. That's where the thought was, right, well, we need to figure out Facebook ads, we need to figure out YouTube and all the rest of it and dial those things in. And it took us a long time. We went through different agencies, we went through a multitude of marketers, and it was a hard nut to crack. A very hard nut to crack. And it was in 2017 where we had one affiliate who started running Facebook ads and he did a million dollars of sales in 30 days as an affiliate.

In 30 days. Hold up. Yeah, need to re engineer that.

I mean, that takes balls to throw that kind of ad budget at it too.

That's true.

Absolutely. Like, honestly, he absolutely nailed the ads. And I spoke to him and said, I'm not going to say who it is, but most people that know me will know who it is. But I spoke to him and just said, like, do you want to kind of like work out a deal? You want to maybe, I don't know, come on board or work in the company or whatever? And it didn't ever transpire into anything. And he actually just ended up kind of disappearing, almost like a Dracula.

It was quite odd, really. He came in and made a significant impact and just disappeared.

Weird.

Interesting. All right, so that happened. And then we thought, well, if he was able to do that, then we've obviously got a funnel here that works We've proven that ads can work. We just need someone that can replicate what this guy's done. And it took a while. It took quite a lot of time. But eventually what I did was I reached out to a couple of people on ClickBank, because on ClickBank, it's a different world. We sell on JVZoo. We used to sell on JVZoo.

And ClickBank wasn't something that we ever really got involved with. And we ended up deciding to put the product on ClickBank and seeing what kind of affiliates we got. There was a group of affiliates who were doing very, very well, really good with ads and just so knowledgeable with how they were approaching everything. And I've done the same thing with these guys and just said, listen, like, we, we want someone that's going to work full time in our business and, you know, we'll. We'll cut you an amazing deal kind of. Kind of thing, and we'll give you all the resources you need. We'll give you a team, we'll give you designers, video creators, whatever you want.

Wow.

But we just want you working in our business pretty much seven days a week. And that's what we have now. So that's pretty much how we secured the guys to run our ads. We had to come in an amazing deal. And it's definitely worth it because right now, me, David and Jamie don't have to worry about running ads. We're just focused on right. How do we move the business forward, how do we look at scaling this thing from where we are now, new products and new services and that kind of stuff, and not putting our heads into things that we're not experts at, because we're not Facebook ads.

People.

Like, that's not what we do. And we're good at creatives. Like, we all the ads and everything, we get behind all the video creation and the adverts and all of that, because that's what. That's what we like doing. But in terms of actually running the traffic, that's all down to two guys that are kind of running the ads for us right now.

That's awesome.

Super smart.

I'm curious, with videos and the template club kind of concept, how are you guys actually coming up with, you know, 20 new ideas for video templates every single month? It seems like you'd kind of run out of ideas after a while.

Yeah, we have a. Our head animation guy lives out in Serbia and he has like six or seven animators. So we have about a team of eight or nine animators in the Business who all work all over the world, but the main guy works in Serbia, and then he manages all the other animators. And they manage. Essentially, they have a huddle every couple of weeks and they just go from there. They post inspiration in the Slack group and they just talk to each other and say, oh, I want to try this, I want to try that. And we just let them do it. To be honest, we just get out of the way. Relia is the name of the head anime. And we say to Relia, look, this is your thing. So you just run with it and do what you want to do. As long as you're doing 20amonth, just kind of create what you want to create. And he's been doing it perfectly for the last couple of years, and that doesn't look like it's going to change.

Really love it.

I like this whole thing. Like, what you just said is you trust in your old. For one, you built a team around the things that, you know, that you're just not great at, but you stick to your lane as best as possible. And then you trust. You're like, no, just let them have at it. They know their little bubble that they should play in and their expectations, which is 20amonth. Just let them go. Like, do you think that was a huge part of scaling up this thing as quick as you did?

Yeah, absolutely, man. Like, I think when I first started out, I'm a control freak. Like, I tried to control every facet of the business that I can, but I think as I'm just kind of like, getting more experience in business, like, you just have to get out of the way. Because even sometimes, even if you feel you could do a better job, like, I used to shoot all of the video content in our business. Like, that's my thing. But, you know, I brought on a video guy, and I'm just putting my faith in the video guy to basically just go and do his thing, you know, like, go and do your job, like. And he really enjoys it because I don't step on his toes. I collaborate with him, and I jump in with him now and again just because I love making videos. So it's like, I don't want to stop doing it, but I do it when. When I want to do it and I enjoy it. And, you know, it's okay. Like, I don't. I don't fret too much over the small details. And I think a big thing that me and Jamie talk about in our own podcast on the first episode is kind of like, you can't you can't, like, you can't look at things in such a granular way when, when you're starting a business. And I think even when you're scaling it, you just got to be very, you've got to be very kind of like hands off if you want to grow because it will just slow you down. It will completely drown your resource and your time and your energy. And all of a sudden, you know, when you, when your business gets really big, not really big even, just like a normal, like kind of like a medium sized business, I guess. Like once it gets to that stage, you basically sat in meetings all the time. Yeah. And it's boring. Like that's, I don't want to be in meetings all the time. It's, it's dull.

And even if meetings were your thing, like you, then you can't go run your ads or you can't send your emails or you can't write your, you know, like do everything else in the business that drives you forward. So it's exactly got to pick your lane.

That's it, man. So even our designer like Vlad, he's like an absolute incredible designer. And at the start I spent a lot of time with Vlad getting him to understand the landing page thing because the direct response thing wasn't where he came from. It was more like from a software UX thing. But Vlad really picked up the ability to create these incredible sales pages. And over the years, the amount of marketers that have messaged me just saying, oh Joey, like who's your sales guy? Like who, who are you using? And it's like, we're not using anybody. Like it's just a guy we have in our team who we've trained over the years and he's just become exceptional and we stay out of his way and he's never let us down. Like he always comes back and produces incredible stuff and he just gets better over time.

Yeah, I love that.

Well, I want to sort of, this is going to seem like a big shift, but I want to talk a little bit about affiliate marketing a bit as well because I know anybody who listens to our show regularly knows by now that our main source of income for Joe and I actually comes from affiliate marketing. Most of our money is because we promote affiliate products. And I know affiliate marketing has actually become sort of a big piece of your business too. So let's, let's just start with, you know, how are, how are you?

What's your philosophy on Internet market or affiliate marketing with your current business model?

Yeah, I think what we do is we're very, very selective about what we promote.

I know there's like a stigma in Internet marketing where it's like, if you promote for me, I'll promote for you. And this kind of thing happens a lot. And I used to be in that whole mindset too. And I think one thing that really shifted for me in my head was having an abundant mindset. And there's always going to be people that want to make money. So that's what I always think is like we don't have to promote everybody to get them to promote us. The reason that people will promote us is if we just make really good products. If we do that, people are going to promote because they want to make lots of money. And it's the same for us. Like we want to make lots of money on amazing products. So what we do is we wait, we sit around and we wait until something amazing crops up. And you know, some, some really, really good products have cropped up over the last couple of years and when they do, we just go all in on those promotions and we, and we'll promote them not once or twice, but occasionally multiple times through the year. Like every year.

Yeah, I mean that's, that's very similar to how we approach it is just, you know, we have a handful of products and we want to go deep on those products. We don't want to go wide and just, you know, do, you know, not put our full effort into products that we promote short term. And one of our sort of rules in our business is we pretty much never promote launches anymore. Like, we don't want that four day launch window. If we're going to put in a crap ton of work to promote your product, we're going to create content around it and landing pages around it and email sequences around it to really push your product. I don't want all of that effort to be dead five days from now, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Completely get that.

And I like that you brought up the whole reciprocation thing because that was, I think, like just so incestuous back then. And I think it turned a lot of people off from even just bringing affiliates in, you know, as like, well, shit, that means I gotta like carve out time to promote something that of theirs that I'm not really a big fan of.

Well, such a disservice to your audience. We spend all of this time focused on building up a customer list, building up an audience, building a brand, getting, you know, followers and people who enjoy listening to us. And it just, it just really sucks to go and say, hey everybody, you really, really need this product that I'm promoting today. And you know, trying to push people to get this product, even if you don't really believe in it, just because, you know, they promoted you, it's just, it's doing a huge disservice to your audience, you know, and, and I think over time your audience is going to realize, you know, they're just promoting these products because it's a reciprocation from the, you know, the people that promoted them. And if your audience starts to catch on to the fact that you're just kind of pushing peddling junk to them, you're going to lose that audience.

Absolutely. Like we, there was a time when it's pretty bad really, but like when we, when we were selling, there was a stage where we were selling just on JVZoo. And obviously, you know, when the leads are kind of flying into JVZoo, there's a JVZoo do like the product of the day promotion. And I've got nothing against it, like, it's not my business. So they can do what they want, you know what I mean? But like, at the end of the day, what ends up happening is we're funneling all these brand new customers into the JVZoo environment. Right. So we would, we, we sat on the top seller list for about seven months consecutively, every single day.

Dang.

So we were, we were literally sending hundreds of customers a day to the JVZoo platform. And the discussion that we were having was, look like we're basically putting these guys in an environment where they're going to get absolutely annihilated by all the other affiliates in this pool, basically. And that's not even our fault. It's just like, that's just where our product set up basically. And that's what ended up, that's why we actually ended up moving away and putting our product on stripe completely away from any affiliate platform because we wanted to have full control over what happens to the leads. Sure. And you know, there were times where we went to events and things like that and we'd have customers come up to us and say, hey guys, bought videos. Hey. By the way, you send a lot of emails. I get these really weird emails and I'm not sure why. And it's like, ah, well, it's not really our, it's not really our fault. Like, it's just, it's just the kind of environment you're in, basically.

Yeah.

And you know it's just like a really bad answer. It's like, I don't want to have to answer that question to our customers when we see them face to face.

Well, it seems comfortable. Yeah. It was a way to launch your business. A lot of people are doing the same thing, but yeah, there's a time and place to, you know, for, for the launch and then after you do a certain threshold, you're like, time to migrate to my own thing. It's like to a system you have full control over.

Yeah, I mean, if we were all doing what we did when we first started, we'd all be doing WSOs with four year plus and selling, you know, $27 ebooks that I made last night.

You know, that takes me back.

So, you know, eventually you got to evolve, but that, you know, you got to start with what you know.

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So for the affiliate side, so you're super selective. How do you typically promote offers when you are selective? Is it emails, ads? Do you have kind of like a system there?

Yes, like a bit of everything. You know, like what we normally do is we'll take the product away and if we can, we'll get the vendor to basically either fly to our office or we'll go to their office and we'll will actually do like an on camera video. So Jamie will basically sit with the vendor and kind of demo the product and stuff in like a really cool, kind of like just a really nice piece of video content. So if somebody was watching it, it's like, ah, this isn't, this isn't just a typical promo. It's like an actual, you know, thing.

I like that.

And we basically like Andy Fletcher and Neil at Convertory. They're a really great example. Every time we promote those guys, because they're in the uk, we get them to come up to our office in Manchester. So when they come over, we will sit down for a day, we'll film them and we'll interview them on camera and say, okay, well tell us about Convertory. What's new? Why should people buy it? And we do like this whole thing on. It's like a really valuable piece of content where our audience actually gets to see the vendors on camera so they can build some rapport and trust and that kind of thing. And then we basically mail that out to all of our customers. We'll run ads and all the rest of it and get everybody warmed up to the, to the vendors and to the idea of this product. And then we'll set up a short kind of promotional window in which we're going to basically run the campaign. So when I say short promo, I don't mean like two days, I mean more like two weeks, three weeks kind of thing. And then we'll basically run a really nice campaign to our list and, you know, set some bonuses up and that kind of stuff. And typically it's just emails. You know, like emails is pretty much the primary way we do it. And then we'll throw in some training, webinars.

Facebook ads, basically. So nothing super complex, to be honest. It's just the type of content we send. We just put our time into the content and make sure it's good. It's not like a super pitch fest. We try to make it in a way where what they're going to get is really valuable for our customers, specifically. So Convertory is like a page and funnel builder. So, you know, we're a video software. So on the surface, there isn't really any kind of crossover, really. But the way that we basically do it is, you know, we know our customers like making videos and they like selling video content. So what Andy does is he basically creates us like a video market funnel, a video marketplace funnel. So our customers can basically take this template and they can use it as a way to advertise all their videos on their. On their funnels and on their pages. So Andy does a really good job of basically giving us a reason to promote it, first of all, because it gives our customers a really nice, easy way to create websites, because that's a big problem every business owner probably has. So as long as the product has a good synergy with our audience and we can find an angle to promote it, then we're always going to basically put all of our effort into that. It's all about just finding the angle. It's not always going to be obvious, and it doesn't always have to be a video product. It's just about how do we kind of fit this with our audience and how can they make use of the tool?

I think that's super smart because people approach us all the time for, hey, how do I do affiliate marketing? In my business, I do this. And typically people don't see it as like, well, you can actually bolt on other services or tools or products out there. But I like how you're taking it a step further and you're finding that angle that looks really nice. You're working with the product owner where they're, you know, allowing you to kind of have that synergistic feel. There. And then the video being in person, I'm sure you have a nice relationship with your customer list. So they know, hey, this is one of the founders of videos. Like, oh, shit. He's with this guy. That's a really cool tool. He's saying, it's really good and it works really well with video. I need that. Okay, cool.

Yeah.

So you're bringing a really good relationship into the thing as well.

Yeah. Like you said, it's a simple concept, but it's still going above and beyond what 98% of affiliates are willing to even do.

Yeah. Like, I remember when I did it for the first time, it was Josh Rata, and he was selling a product called Video Motion Pro, which was a. It was like a video editor, basically. And this was like the biggest promo I ever done. Like, at the time, I did like $60,000 on that promo for at that time, I was like, whoa. Like, that's a. That's a lot of money for me. And what I did was. It was really, really simple. Like, I got my DSLR camera. At the time, it was a Canon 550D. It's like $600. And I told my wife that we're gonna travel into London and we're just gonna film me going to London, and then I'm gonna meet Josh and he's gonna show me the software. That's it. That's literally all it was. So all the video was was just some cool music. Me walking around a train station for, like, a minute. And people are probably watching it, saying, what am I watching? This guy's just walking around to some cool music. Okay, the music's cool. So I'm just gonna keep watching it for a little bit. And then I get into London and I say, right, guys, I'm gonna meet up with Josh. Josh RA is a really cool market and he's got an amazing tool for video. I wanna show you what it does. Then I hand it over to Josh and I interview him on camera for, like, two, three minutes. And that was literally it. That was the video. And I sent it out. And the video was so fresh and different that other affiliates were basically stealing the video for their promos. And it was like, what are you doing? But that's what I realized. Like, people aren't. People aren't doing the extra thing to. To convince people and persuade people. Like, if you just go the extra mile, you're always going to win against the other affiliate. Like, you're always going to end up being on top. And it's not about, like, again, I see it all the time, the bonus thing. Like, affiliates think that they need to add, like, hundreds of bonuses into their promotion. Like, like, a lot of the time we don't even do that. Like, we, we have like one bonus maybe, like, and that's. Occasionally we'll do that. Like, what we try and do is make it. Make it in a way where it's like, we know the product better than everybody else. So you need to listen to what we say, because we know the vendor. So the vendors given us backstage access to this thing. We know them really well. We trust them, you trust us, and that's kind of how we do it. Like, rather than, hey, I've got like $5,000 worth of bonuses here, so buy from me.

No, I mean, I think we have almost an identical philosophy on affiliate marketing and we approach it the same way as well. I'm curious how, if you do at all, how do you bake scarcity into your promotions? Because I feel like. And this actually could be answered with both videos or affiliate products, because I feel like one of the most difficult things about promoting things from an evergreen perspective is if you don't have scarcity, usually the sales don't happen or they're real slow. That's usually one of the things that we run into when we're trying to promote affiliate products on an evergreen basis, or even when we're trying to sell our own courses and we never plan on really shutting them down, is if we don't have a countdown or some sort of, like, takeaway that you're going to lose. If you don't get it by this point, then sales just kind of stay flat. So I'm curious if you bake in any scarcity to videos or to affiliate products, and if so, how are you doing that?

Yeah, so what we do is we call it like semi. We call it like a semi close, or like it's like semi scarcity. So we close it down, but then it's basically. We're going to basically open it back up. And the way we. We've done it a couple of different ways a few times. So with videos, what we typically will do is either we're going to do a price rise, so when the timer hits zero, the price is going to go up to the normal price. Now there's a few different ways that we've kind of done that. Sometimes we'll do it straight away. So right, midnight price has gone up, boom, and it's done.

That's like the clean scarcity. Thing and it's like it works and whatever. The one that's always worked really well is when we say the offer's not going to be available. So what we'll do is we'll basically close the offer down, get an opt in on the page and then we'll reopen it up in like two weeks time and hit everybody again. And we normally do it with like a raw link so all the affiliates are still getting attributed with those sales. So that's another way to do it.

The other way we've done it in the past is we will shut the product down and then we'll go out and do private deals with affiliates so publicly the offer is no longer available that we might come to you guys and say, hey guys, do you want to run this on a private basis on a special deal? Because right now if you went to videos.com you can't buy the product. But we're working with a few of our favorite affiliates to basically run an evergreen promo. Would you want to do it? And we done it like that for years, like years and years where if you went to videos.com it was just a landing, it was just like an opt in page. But all the affiliates that we had running the promo evergreen, they were selling it for ages and that worked absolutely fine.

Yeah, that's what ThriveCart and both and convert box two products that we promote as affiliates are still doing to this day.

That's right, yeah. I mean honestly like out of all the options, that's probably the best one because you'll still collect the leads on the landing page anyway on the homepage you'll still collect leads so you can still warm them up, you can still sell to them or whatever. But if your affiliates are making money, they're converting really well. The last thing you want to do is stop that.

You just want to find a way make a deal with the guys and just keep them promoting. Whether that means giving them a commission bump or whatever else, it doesn't really matter. We've given away 100% on the front end before and it's completely fine because we know what we're going to make on the back end. And that's what it comes down to is all about what you're going to make on the back, what you're going to make out of a lead, not what you're going to make straight away.

Right. But I like what you're doing there because it is very smart. I mean you can make custom landing pages with affiliates, you know your pricing model. And you've proven it out for so long now, so you can totally take a hit on the front end or. Yeah, yeah, because you know what your retention looks like. I mean, it's just smart business right there.

And another thing you can do as well is, like, on your. On your public page. So the what, the main dot com page. Just make the pricing really high. So if you go to videos.com.

Right.

Right now, like, it's $127 for a license, but if you just wait around for our Facebook ad, you can buy it for $67, so.

Or buy it from one of our partners for. Yeah, like, half off or something.

Exactly. So that way, you know, it's a much more. It's not. It's not so great. It's like a much more legitimate way to do it because it's like, look, the affiliate's got a special deal for real, and the pricing on the homepage for real is expensive, so you may as well just buy it off the affiliate. And that way, the scarcity is always kind of there. I guess it's not. It's not the same effect as, like, real scarcity, but in the buyer's head, it's like, well, I should just buy it from the affiliate now because it's on the homepage. It's so much more expensive, so why would I not buy it kind of thing.

Sure.

And all the affiliate has to say is, look, this offer is not going to last forever. There you go. There's a scarcity now. Forever could mean forever, or it could mean two hours. That's up to the viewers. It's up to the viewer's mind to decide that.

Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, there's one last topic that we did want to talk about, and I know we're already kind of getting sort of long on time.

What, him getting shredded while he's growing his business. Right. Wasn't that one of your things, Joey, that you're like, hey, I lost a ton of weight?

I did. Yeah. I lost. Lost 1£17.

No, that's awesome. Congrats on that. No, but what I really want to talk about, and it actually might fall right in line. It might be in the same vein. But I did want to talk about this sort of mindset and the burnout you felt and all that kind of stuff.

How.

How are you doing on time? Do you. Do you have the. The energy and alertness to. To hang out for another 15 minutes or so?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I've done. I've done very Long nights before. It's fine.

This is worth it. No, and that's what I was leading onto is like, I know that, you know, throughout all the ups and downs of business, you went through like a massive transformation physically. And like you just said what was 117 pounds.

So you said, that's it. Yeah.

Damn, that's good for you, man. So, and then, of course, yeah, the mental well being, health and all that stuff, I'm sure it's all wrapped up in that. I mean, for one.

Absolutely, it was.

I mean, that's, that's. I don't know, I don't even know how you lose 100. Like, how do you do that? I'm sure it's, I mean, like the stress of a business, it usually goes.

Opposite, you know, I mean, that's, that's what it did. That's what it did at the start, man. Like when I was, when I got married, I was like 85 kilos. So I don't know what that is in pounds. Like probably like 160, 165, something like that. Maybe 170.

And then by the time I was like kind of in at my heaviest, I was, I was tinkering like 280 pounds, like, and that was like over years and years of like stressing from business, worried about money, like, I was literally getting gray hairs and just. It's kind of mad. Like, if you listen to some of my old videos, you can just YouTube it. If you type in like Joey so O Branda, which is one of our old products, like B R A N D rr, if you Google that, you'll see a demo video of me, like in this gray hoodie and I'm absolutely huge. And the crazy thing about it is, like, it wasn't just my size, it was my voice. Like, even my voice sounded like really deep because of how big, heavy I was. I couldn't breathe. It was like intense. And it all came down to the amount of stress that I had just from building my business. Like, I was working 18, 19 hours a day, probably like going to sleep at like 4 or 5 in the morning, being awake at 9, 10 in the morning, because I just needed to hustle and make the business grow. And you know, like, I see it on Facebook all the time. Like, oh, you know, I'm hustling 24 hours a day. And it's like, well, that's sucks, doesn't it? Because that's not going to do anything good for you. Like, and I learned that over time where Where I basically just fell into this very, very difficult state where, you know, like, I think over the years I've had like three kind of like mental breakdowns, like full on nervous breakdowns. Like, you know, I've been to the doctor a number of times because my stress levels are too high. I've been on medication because I couldn't handle the amount of anxiety I was having. And I'm actually quite an anxious person. Like ever since I was a kid, I've suffered from generalized anxiety. Like I'm a worrier. That's one of my biggest issues. But it's also one of the reasons why I do okay at work. Because my propensity to think about the future and worry about the future is what makes me plan ahead in my business. So in work it's amazing. I can preempt a lot of problems and I can figure out an issue before it happens, but in my personal life, it's like I'm being tortured by my own mind, basically.

Sure.

So how that feels?

Yeah, man, it's very.

You and I are very similar in that way.

I think it's just a lot of entrepreneurs have that in them as well.

I think it's a very, very common thing amongst people who want to do well in life. And I think it's because we, we look at the future like anxiety and worry is about the future, depression is about the past. So those are the two things that you gotta, gotta look at. And honestly, the one thing that's really kind of settled my mind after many years of therapy and medication and everything else is understanding what it really means to be present is probably the best thing any entrepreneur could have. It doesn't mean you're not gonna have the same drive. It just means.

If any kind of unhappiness generally will come from things that have either happened in the past or things that are going to happen. And if you just actually just look around yourself in the present moment and you say, right, well, where am I right now? I'm in my living room right now. There's my kids toys on the floor, my dog sleeping in the corner. There's nothing here that's actually going to come and attack me right now. I'm fine. Like, I feel fine. I'm on a call with two cool guys and I feel all right. And that's all that really matters in this moment, because it's the only thing that's actually real. The only thing that's real is what's happening right now. Things that have happened in the past they're not really my reality anymore because it's happened. Right. And thing in the future, well, who knows what's going to happen? It's just like, it's one of those things where we can't control it. And I think another thing with entrepreneurs is, like, we're control freaks and we need to know what's going to happen, but because we always need to know in business, that's great. Honestly, it's like an amazing thing in business, but everywhere else it sucks because you're literally torturing yourself, like, and basically distressing yourself out. And that's all I did for years. And I became incredibly heavy and overweight. And one day I was just like. Again, it was my anxious state of mind where it was like, if I don't do something about this, I'm basically going to die. Like, look, I can't, I can't keep going like this because, like, I haven't even had a kid yet and I want to have a kid one day. Like, I've got a kid now. But like, at the time it was like, you know, if I ever have a kid, like, how am I supposed to chill out with my kid and play with him and, or her and, you know, have a good time and whatever. So, yeah, like, what ended up happening was my kid actually was born and it was like 11 days after my kid was born, and I don't know, something just ticked in my head and I was just like, I just need to do something about my body. And I started training and I really put my, my mindset into understanding how to actually lose weight. So, you know, I took a couple of courses, I read some books and really sunk my time into understanding what it takes. And honestly, the only reason that I was able to do that was because my business was flying. So my worry all of a sudden wasn't about my business anymore. And that's one of the things with anxiety and mental health. It's like your brain will focus on things until they're resolved. So once you resolve a problem, if you have an anxious mindset, you're going to find a problem to worry about. Your brain will just look just around. Yeah, literally. Yeah. Like, it's people who have, who are like, hypochondriac, like, so people who worry about their health. So one minute they're going to worry about a lump on the back of their head and they'll say, oh, shit, I've got cancer. And then when they realize they don't have cancer because they've gone to the doctor and realize they don't, then they're going to find another one on their leg. And then it's like, you know, what's next? Like, when does it stop? And the thing is, it doesn't ever stop because your mind is basically in this loop of looking for a problem. So what you have to do is, like, really self into this, like, present moment where, you know, nothing's really wrong in the moment. And that's what kind of keeps me grounded right now. Like, I'm not going to say I'm perfect right now because I'm not. Like, you know, there's times where I still take medication and there's times where I'm still, you know, having a really bad day. But that's just life. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's business. And the more you start to achieve in life, I'm sorry to say, like, it doesn't get better, it just gets harder. And you've got to find ways to manage that thing. And the way I do it is I work incredibly hard in the gym and I really watch what I eat. And that's literally all I do. I count my calories every single meal that I eat. I weigh it to make sure that I'm not eating more than I need to. And I keep my protein high and I work out. And now I've got a six pack.

So it's all about taking that anxiety and the energy that the anxiety creates, but sort of channeling it towards something beneficial.

Yeah, exactly. Like if you're doing it for a good thing. Like, I don't see. I don't think it's a problem. Like, a lot of people think it's compulsive, like the way that I eat, but it probably is. But it keeps me healthy and I think it's great. I'm doing all right. Like, I feel 10 years younger than I did 10 years ago.

So, yeah, if you could sustain that. And I think you said something very important is the, you know, depression is looking in the past, anxiety is looking the future. And it seems like the wider that gap goes, like if you're always looking way back into the past at some horrific thing, I don't know, whatever it might be, but whatever that, how far away from the balance is which is that present moment in the middle, which is never perfect, but at least we're aiming to be balanced in the middle. However wider it gets, it's just going to feel like you're a little off. You're not going to get in your flow Things aren't going to look right in life. So I think just knowing that balance and knowing that perspective is going to help a lot of folks here.

Honestly, just a little bit of headspace a day is all we need. The amount of time we spend staring at our phone, doing nothing, just scrolling through Facebook for 7 or 10, 11, 15 minutes a day. You could spend 10 minutes a day just doing a little bit of headspace, a bit of meditation, and it would do a world of wonder for the.

Mind, for sure, man.

I agree. Now, a lot of the. A lot of these realizations you mentioned, you did a whole bunch of therapy and stuff was a lot of this through. Through that. Did you go to therapy and therapy was sort of how you. You sort of fleshed all of this out, or was it something else or, you know, how. How did you sort of come to these conclusions that really sort of helped you and put you on this right track trajectory?

Like, I did a lot of things to just work on myself. Like, I realized the way that I was kind of operating in my mind wasn't optimal for my personal health. Like, my personal life business was fine, but, you know, like, as soon as your personal life kind of starts to deteriorate, it's going to bounce into your business anyway. So I started going to therapy kind of like twice a week to begin with, which is quite a lot. But, like, I just felt like I really needed it. And through my sessions, like, I discovered, like, a lot of different things that I feel were missing from my life. And ultimately it just came down to it sounds like it's got nothing to do with anything, but it was actually my ego. My ego was a big part of why I felt anxious and why I still feel anxious now. And I think a lot of people probably don't realize how much of an effect their ego can have on their life in weird ways that you probably don't even realize. But why real?

What's an example of that that you deal with still?

I guess.

Your expectations of yourself and where you think you should be, that all comes from your inner ego. And it's like, you know, we always kind of, like, want to be the best, and we always want to be at the top of the top of the mountain, and we got to be better than everybody else on all of this kind of thing. And I think it took me a while to just kind of, like, accept and be content with where I'm at right now. And again, it just comes back to this whole concept of being happy with where you're at right now. And, you know, I still aspire to be a billionaire, of course. Like, I'm gonna work to get to the billionaire level, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to fixate my mindset on that future thing that, that, that to the point where it's going to take control of my ego, my actions and my behavior.

I just want to be happy and content with where I'm at now and do things right now that are going to make me feel good. So a lot of the things that I do is just about focusing myself where I am now. So I meditate every day. I've just started doing yoga a couple of times a week. I invested in a life coach because I thought.

Everybody at a higher level has a coach or a guide or a mentor of some kind. And a really interesting thing I learned in therapy.

And I think anybody that's made money is going to have this thing where basically your life becomes boundless and there's no boundaries in your life right now. That sounds amazing. Sounds awesome. Like, if you could just be a kid in a candy shop and you can have every single sweet you want. It sounds really good, but actually it's totally fucked up. Because human beings, right, we need accountability and we need boundaries. Because without boundaries, we basically have too many options. And when a human being has too many options, we tend to do things that are going to basically ultimately implode on ourselves. I know this sounds kind of philosophical and whatever.

Totally makes sense. We're following along with you perfectly.

There's this really interesting story. I won't go more than this because I don't want to bore you guys, but there's a really interesting story that guy Ritchie talks about. And people have probably heard it before, but basically it's about this father who has two sons. And one of the kids is this younger kid who basically has all this money from the father. And he basically leaves home because he wants to go away and do his own thing. So the other son says, you know what, dad? I'm going to stay with you because I want to stay with you. I want to look after you and work with you and, you know, look after the house and stuff. So the young kid goes away and he goes crazy. He, you know, hangs out with women and alcohol, cocaine, whatever the hell else he could think of it. He went absolutely crazy, right? And then after a couple of years, the young kid comes back and the dad says to him, like, I'm really happy to have you back, and I'm going to throw a massive party for you. And then the older son is like, well, what about me? Like, I've stayed all this time, like, why don't you, why don't you want to throw a party for me? And the dad says, well, you're fine. Like you're fine where you are. Now, the moral of that story has never been told. Like, there's never actually been a full on analogy of what this story really means. And it was Guy Ritchie on Joe Rogan's podcast who basically explained it. And what it is, is the man, the father, is basically you. And the young kid is your wild mind when it goes into these crevices of life, when you've got all this money and you want to do all this crazy shit and then the older kid is basically the wise you. Now the actual kind of moral of this is that when the younger part of you goes away and it does all this crazy stuff, eventually it's going to want to come home and just be normal again. And it comes back to this simple idea that no matter how much money you make, no matter how far you go in life, right, it's always going to come back to you wanting just to have normal balance and having a normal life. And I know that sounds probably opposite to what people think they want, but speaking from my own experience and somebody who's gone and spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on things I probably shouldn't have spent money on, like, I can promise you that ultimately being, being in your, in the comfort of life, in your normal, and you're doing your normal things day to day are where you're going to have the most happiness at the end. And I think that's really important to understand as an entrepreneur, not to focus on, God, I want to go and buy my Lamborghini and I want to go buy this massive mansion. The things you've got right now are really precious. And ultimately those are the things that are actually going to keep you grounded long term anyway.

Yeah, we actually did an exercise. Remember it was at like AJ Roberts event and it was, it was, I don't remember the exact exercise, but it was something like, you know, write down the top, you know, five most impactful memories throughout your life where you remember being the happiest, right? And everybody in the room wrote down their five happiest moments. And then he sort of went around the room and asked people to kind of read off some of their stuff. Literally, not a single person in the room had anything to say about a time that they got a New toy or stuff, or like the day I bought my boat or the day I bought my. It was. It was nothing like that. It was always. It was always stuff like, I remember, you know, my. My wedding day or the day my child was born, or, you know, the day we had this amazing picnic with the family and everybody was just so happy. And it was an amazing day. It was. It was stuff like that. That was all the stuff that. When people looked back throughout their life, what was the stuff that had the most impact on them today? And it never, ever, ever had to do anything with material things. Nobody's responses did.

Yeah, I mean, I could totally relate, man. Like, I think every entrepreneur goes through this moment where you want to do those things, and I absolutely encourage it, because if you don't do it, you're going to eventually do it anyway, because it's just human nature. Like, and there's a reason why people, when they win, like, the lottery and they win the big jackpot, there's, like, such a high percentage of people that end up basically ruining their entire lives. And the reason it happens is because, like, there is a psychological maturity that you need to be able to progress past having money. And I think as an entrepreneur, you've got to be so conscious of that thing, because that thing that we're chasing, the money, the money and all of that, it doesn't really do anything in the end.

Well, the money has power over you if you let it. That's like those. Anybody comes into money fast, like lottery or business owner or anything, it's like you're saying, establish what are the things that are actually my values, what I really want out of life, maybe even list them out. Matt and I have done this with a coach as well before, and we looked at the total, like, all the things that we wanted, which were not really a lot of things. It was more like time, freedom. But we just attached dollar amounts to it. We're like, wow, that actually doesn't take that much money. We're like, pretty much right there.

What else do you need? That's pretty much what my year is about. This year is like, I've invested a lot of money into my own mental health. So I've got, like, a life coach, and I still go to my therapy sessions and. And I signed myself up for, like, martial arts yoga. And I'm just doing all these things that are basically there to help build up my character. And, you know, like, I used to drive a really nice. I used to drive a really nice car, man. Like, it Was. It was like a line. It was like a customized green Audi RS5. It was like the only one in the country that was made in this way. And I remember when I bought it and I was so excited. And then I remember the day that I sold it, too. And I sold it and basically just went and bought, like, a really normal car. And it was just funny because, like, my. A couple of the people, like, on my staff and stuff were just like, like, how come you got rid of the car? And I was like, why not? Like, I just don't need it. And I feel so. Yeah, I just felt content about the decision to basically downgrade my car and spend the money on things that are going to better my life.

That's what I was going to ask is like, how did it feel like letting that go? But, yeah, you're content. It was like, it must have been like, freedom. You're like, yeah, I didn't really need that after all. Like, I have a Tesla and I'm just like, I always thought like, oh, this is my dream car. I love it. I look at it. I'm like, yeah, it's cool car, but I could do without it. I don't really give a shit.

Almost every material thing you end up buying eventually, you take for granted.

And it doesn't take long.

Yeah, it doesn't. Doesn't really matter what it is.

Yeah.

You know, it's like when you buy.

A new phone, Right?

Exactly. Same thing.

Yeah. And I think. I think part of the key is just like realizing that that's. That's, you know, there's a lot of people that have, like, these rules. Like, when I'm about to buy something on Amazon, the 24 hour rule, put it in your wish list, come back 24 hours, see if you still want it. If you still want it in 24 hours, then buy it. Right. And. Or renting.

Go rent some stuff for a while. Yeah, yeah.

Just like, you know, when it comes to, like, making buying decisions for material things, give yourself some space to, you know, say, I really want that. Put some thought into it, debate about it a little bit, and then still, you know, after some time has passed, decide if you still want it or not. And I'd say nine out of ten times you find, yeah, I don't really need to order that thing right now. There was somebody that was on a Tim Ferriss podcast. He was interviewing somebody and he was saying that, like, he actually has a goal of, like, stringing together as many days as possible without buying stuff. And he Gets huge fulfillment when he, like, strings together, like, two weeks without, like, ordering something on Amazon or like. Like, he still gets, you know, food and gas and necessities and stuff, but, you know, buying, like, items off of Amazon and stuff, which, you know, I don't know how it is in the uk, in the Amazon, here in the us it's like I could order something and literally have it at my house in two hours. So it's very, very easy to just like, go buy stuff and have it here and have that almost instant gratification. And whoever I was listening to, it might have been Derek Sivers. Actually on. On Tim Ferriss. He was talking about how he actually tries to string together as many days as he can without buying things. And the fulfillment actually comes in his sort of, like, gratification of knowing how many days he's strung out of not buying stuff.

That's cool. I like that.

I like the idea.

Yeah, cool little, like, exercise or experiments you can do. Actually, I had one more question about the. The life coach, specifically. How did you actually find a life coach? Because I almost feel like when I hear the term life coach, I almost sort of think, like, part of me thinks there's, like, some predatory life coaches out there that are just like, hey, I'm a dude and I don't know what to do with my life, so I'm going to be a life coach. Like, I do think there is some of that in the life coach world. And so I'm kind of curious how you sort of found and vetted the person you're working with.

Honestly, I must have spoken to, like, 15 different people, because you're absolutely right. Like, the scary thing is, like, a lot of the life coaches are from the IM kind of communities, so you'll see them using, like, you know, like, sales funnels and things like that, which is fine. Like, which is totally fine. But the. There is definitely, like, a predatorial kind of kind of thing with life coaches online where they're charging extortionate money. There was a guy who wanted to charge me, like, $25,000 for six for six hours, which is, like, ridiculous, right? And, you know, it was just a case of getting on the phone, doing consultations. It took me, like, almost five or six weeks before I actually chose one, because I just wanted to make sure it was someone who. I think one of the big things is making sure that they're qualified in some sort of psychotherapy or psychological kind of study. Because I think having having a life coach who kind of understands some Some therapeutic method is important because they need to kind of get that. Like they need to understand why you think a certain way and be able to ask you questions in the right way.

I use both. I have a therapist and a life coach because I think they both do really different things. Like a therapist is like somebody who will help you to look at things from a different perspective without necessarily telling you what to do because they can't. Whereas a life coach will get you to focus more on. Right. What do you want to accomplish? Let's make a plan to make that happen. I'm going to help you do it. So they do two different things and when you put them together, they kind of work really nicely together. So that's worked really well for me.

Very cool.

Yeah. Therapy is something I've done in the online world that there's sites like BetterHelp and I think one of them's called 7 Cups and then there's another one.

Called There's a bunch of them.

Yeah, there's like three Talk Something. Talk space.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So better help Talk Space and seven Cups are the three that I know of and I've actually done two of those on like a trial basis. And I didn't really feel like I got a whole lot out of the sort of chat based therapy. So it's actually something that's on my, my list for this year to. To explore further.

Yeah, you really need to give therapy like, you know, five or six sessions for it to really start bedding it. Because the problem with therapy is like, it takes time for a therapist to really be able to understand you because they need to know so much about you before they could really start offering you insight. So like my therapist Dan, like I've been seeing him for almost a year or something and you know, it was about three months into it where he started saying stuff that was so profound to me. And it was like, it's incredible that you can see that about me because I've never noticed that about myself before. And it's because I spent so much time kind of telling him all these different things. And a lot of the time it's stuff that you say in such a casual, blase way where the therapist will pick up on it and say, well, did you do realize you said this last week and this could mean this? And you're like, oh shit, I didn't think about it like that. So it's really, really useful to do over a long period of time.

Yeah, I think more my issue was I don't think I was a fan of just like the text chatting back and forth where you're essentially on like a. A slack like system where you're. You're just having conversations through text. Because a lot of the, the sort of emotions and, you know, your tone when you're talking and stuff like that isn't conveyed in that way.

Well, a lot of people do it virtually. Right. Like over video as well.

Yeah. I mean, the one like Seven Cups doesn't do that. Seven.

Right. Is just purely text.

Yeah, that was the one that I actually spent some time on. My better help and talk space. I think actually you can do over the phone sessions as well.

Oh, phone. Okay.

I think seeing somebody in person is a lot more.

Yeah.

Effective because it's like, you know, you're right there and they can see how you. How you're acting. They can. I mean, my therapist looks at the way that I'm sitting. Do you know what I mean? Like, and he'll know when I'm kind of not feeling comfortable just based on my body language. And I think those kind of things are important. David, my David, my business partner, he goes to the same therapist, actually.

Nice.

David's also had quite a bit of experience with like, mental health stuff. Like, he. He actually wrote an article on. On LinkedIn just last week about. About his depression. Yeah. Which is quite, quite, quite a good read if you want to give it a read.

Do you mind sharing that? I'd be curious. And we can link it as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. Good. It's a good read.

I feel like, you know, I do think therapy would be valuable and I think a lot more people should be taking advantage of it, I think. I think therapy seems kind of intimidating to people, though. I know. At least for me, going in and the thought of going and sitting down in an office and just sort of unloading my vulnerabilities on somebody that I've just met for the first time. Sounds very sort of daunting and scary to me. There's definitely that. That barrier to. That mental barrier to entry that I think has held me back and probably has held a lot of other people back. So I'm curious, was there any specific catalyst or something that was. That finally got you to just go do it?

Yeah. I think there's quite a negative stigma with therapy because I think the initial thought people probably have to themselves. It definitely was. What I had was like, I'm seeing a therapist, which means I'm crazy. And that's kind of the way that I thought about it. But it really just isn't the case. Some of the people that my therapist sees are, you know, really high political figures, vicars and doctors and, you know, really high level people. So I don't think it's a case of being crazy. I think it's just a case of, you know, anxiety is anxiety, depression. These are in a way the diseases of intelligent people. And the more intellectual you are, the deeper of a thinker you are. And unfortunately, when you think really deep, you think about things probably to excess. And that's why therapy helps.

To answer your question, it was just the fact that my anxiety was that bad. It was to a point where I started getting a lot of physical symptoms from anxiety, where I started getting pains in my legs, migraines, heart palpitations and all these kinds of things which I thought were. I just thought I was just basically getting ill and dying. Basically.

Yeah.

And when I went to see my physiotherapist who was, who was basically giving me like a muscle massage, I told him about how I was feeling and I said, look, I'm getting all these pains and I need to figure out what it is. And then he checked my entire body and he was just like, do you suffer from anxiety? And I was like, I don't know, like I don't really know what anxiety is. And then after he explained it to me, like literally, as he explained it, all the pain literally left my body and I was like, this is weird. And what it was was like my mind was basically having this realization that I'm basically manifesting all this pain because, because of my worry. And like, it was really interesting to me that, that my mind had that much of a effect on my physical symptoms. Like it was, it was insane. So that's what pretty much set me off. And I think honestly, I couldn't recommend it enough. We're actually looking at rolling out an incentive plan on our work where we basically offer an allocated number of sessions to all our staff. It's not something we've rolled out yet, but we're going to basically allow staff members to tap into it every month. If they want to go, they can go.

I think that's super smart, man. Just imagine how much freedom people will feel and more energy they can bring to work. And also just in general.

Yeah, man. I think honestly this day and age, I think more people are probably anxious and not realize it. And I think that's pretty scary. Like, I know I've spoken to people. We've got a non executive director in our business his name's Ian and he basically is like, he acts like an advisor kind of thing and you know, he's a little bit older than us and stuff and he's quite hypochondriac. He goes to the doctor all the time. And I remember just saying to him like, I think you suffer from anxiety. And I don't think Ian really knew what it even was like. And until we started really talking about it, I think he kind of realized that he's. That a lot of the things that he's feeling and a lot of the symptoms he's getting is basically just a manifestation of his mind. And like we're talking about somebody who's, you know, in their 40s, really intelligent guy, he sold loads of businesses, he's a multi millionaire and he's not crazy, but it's just something that people don't realize that can happen. And I think until you kind of recognize that.

You got to go and just even have. It's just a conversation at the end of the day.

Yeah, I mean some, I've definitely battled with. I've had some pretty big bouts with anxiety, but just the thought of going to a therapist gives me anxiety.

Well, Matt, I mean you and I are in the same exact. I had a frickin rough year last year. But just like leading up, I know Matt and I, I mean everyone, like you said, it's like. I like what you said. It's a disease of intelligent people. I don't know if that's just like, hey, go us, we're, we're smart. But I think this helped me. I know this helped me because a lot of the objections like that you said like, oh, that's for crazy people. Like that's exactly what goes on in my mind. Even though I know it's like just conversations. Because my wife, even because my father actually like died from. Committed suicide last year and then I had a baby. So it's like douche, douche. And then business. And so my wife's constantly saying she's like, you need to go see a therapist. Like it would be really helpful to go see someone and just talk things out. And I think, Matt, you and I, man, I think you and I should actually both go see someone. I don't know, same person or different people. But at least like, I'm just thinking.

How that would get the therapist to share all your secrets with.

With me. You know them all.

I know that's true. There's. There is no secrets. No, but we actually know Hollis Carter and what's his business partner.

Lovage. Michael.

Oh, Michael Lovich.

Those two. They're business partners, and they actually. They hired a couples counselor, and they actually go to couples therapy together as business partners.

Well, I don't want to go. I don't think together is another one. Probably not separately. Separately.

I thought that's what made it. It's not unheard of. Like, I. I know. I know a couple of people who go together who are, like, best friends and things like that. And I think, honestly, like, sometimes, especially Joe, like, something as significant as that as what you've experienced, like, sometimes in the moment, you probably don't realize how much of effect that can have. Maybe not in the moment, but sometimes decades later. And it's really interesting how. I mean, what I've realized in myself is, like, I've had things happen to me when I was 15, 16 years old, and now I'm 31, and they're totally coming back to fuck me up. And it's like, oh, I didn't realize that was gonna. That was gonna cause this much of an issue, like, and it was such a small thing. But, you know, something as big as, like, an incident like that is, like, you know, it wouldn't hurt just having a conversation about it.

For sure, man.

Yeah.

No, you definitely. You said the right things, and, yeah, I'm gonna do it. And the more and more successful people.

We have on this podcast that we interview, the more of a recurring theme.

Of therapy is coming up all the time.

Mike Dillard talked about it. Justin Goff talked about it. We've talked about it with. Yeah, Theo talked about it. I mean, we've.

It's all the time. It's.

It's high.

High achievers, high successful people. It's just big thinking, like, whenever we're using our brain, and then you layer in just being human and different traumatic events that we all experience along the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems like a great.

I think it's almost 11pm where you're at, so we should probably start to wrap this session up.

Joey, thank you.

You're one of our longer episodes, but this flew by, man.

That's all good, man. I've really enjoyed it. I mean, I've enjoyed being on.

Do you have any. Any books that you find yourself recommending often or that you refer back to? Any. Any books that are just real impactful for you that we can share with our audience, man?

Like, there's a lot of books that I always go back to, but ones that I would really recommend. The Courage to Be Disliked is a profound book which you'll need to listen to a couple of times to really grasp. But it's basically a book on Japanese philosophy. And essentially all it is is a conversation between a young student who's a bit of a rebel and an older wise man. And basically the younger guy is basically trying to challenge the older guy who's a philosopher and saying, well, your philosophy sucks because xyz so you got. I really recommend getting the audio version because it's actually like a conversation between two people and it's quite cool.

Didn't Rich Sheffrin recommend that book?

I think, yeah. I think we literally. Because we were sitting with Rich Sheffrin the other day and he recommended that same book.

That's two people to say that book within a three day period for us. So two square dudes.

Yes. So the audiobook.

Very, very good book.

Got it.

Other than that, the Obstacle Is the Way is a great book by Ryan Holiday. I'm sure many people have said that one.

That's a good one. Yep.

I love that book.

That's one that I think you should probably listen to or read once a year because that's just great reminders every time you listen to it.

Yeah. He also sells the Stoic Diary.

Oh, which is really cool.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And it has like a daily thing in there, which is really cool. I bought that last year and. And I read it for a couple of months and I ended up putting it somewhere and forgot where.

But he's actually launching a daily calendar, like a tear off calendar, where every day you kind of tear off the page and it's got a new sort of stoic message on every day of the calendar.

I think there's even a daily email if you just wanted to get it that way. But yeah, actually I did the same thing, Joey. Last year I gave up like halfway through, but every day this year so far I've read My Kitchen Counter. So it's helpful. It's a good book.

Do you know what the last book I would recommend is? A journal, like for yourself. Because it's a remarkable way to. It's a remarkably therapeutic way to have your evening roll by. Even if you don't do it every day. I do it but like once every week or so.

And honestly, like, not just from a personal perspective, but from business. Like when you write shit down, it's just like it's so different to typing stuff and reading stuff on the Internet and your phone and that kind of thing. Because what Happens when you're journaling. Right. Is like when you write something down, you can't delete it. Like, you can't say, oh, that sounds. That doesn't sound good. So I'm just going to delete that line. I'm going to rewrite it. You can't do that. So you've got to really think about what you're going to put when you put pen to paper. And journaling has completely changed my mindset in a lot of ways. Like, I highly recommend it. And there's one particular journal called the Mind Journal. And it's basically a journal that's designed for men. Now, it doesn't have to be just for men. I actually bought three copies and I gave it to a couple of girls in our office. But Mind Journal is amazing. I think it's just mindjournal.com or something like that. If you Google it, you'll be able to see it. And that's a really cool journal for anybody who wants to get into journaling. And I really recommend doing that.

I love journaling. I'm very much a freeform journaler. I've tried like the five minute journal and then there's like these evo journals that we have. And I actually got one of John Lee Dumas's journals, like the Freedom Freedom Journal or something years and years ago. And any one that sort of restricts me on what I can write, I never stick with. The one journal that I've stuck with for seven years now is a spiral brown notebook that I just open up and write with pen and paper in.

Yeah, I like what you said about writing because I'll go back and forth and I always find myself looking back, I'm like, man, I really felt like I had a better formed idea. When I write, I hand write. And I like what you said. You can't delete what you wrote. So it's like, yep, you're right.

Or I'll sketch pictures in my journal and stuff too. I'll actually write stuff out and be like, you know what? This is better in visual. And I'll actually start drawing pictures in my journal to visualize my thoughts and stuff. And you can't really do that if you're using like some sort of text editor kind of thing.

You know, you're the modern day DaVinci, Matt.

Exactly. That's what I'm going for. Well, Joey, so where can people go? Learn about your software, learn more about you. Where, where do you want to send them? After listening to this episode?

Yeah, man, so you could check out our main software. It's just videos.com. videos is spelled V, I, double D, Y, O, Z E dot com. Cool. And, yeah, that's it, man. You could. You could add us on Instagram. It's just idios. You could add me, Obey Soto, if you want. I'm also on LinkedIn and wherever else, so reach out. I'm happy to have a chat if anybody wants to connect.

Sweet.

All right, we'll link all that stuff up in the show notes and appreciate.

You staying up late with us. And, yeah, man, we'll do it again. I'm sure we can have a round two, and it'll probably go just as long.

Yep.

Yeah, definitely.

All right, buddy.

Take care.

Good talking to you.

Thanks, man.

Hey, hey, hey. Thank you for listening to that episode. This is Joe Fear. I'm sure you probably already knew that. And Matt is not here right now, but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the episod just as much as you and I did, because, you know, he went into the production of kind of making that thing right along with me. So thank you very much. And I want to give a quick shout out to our buddies over at EZ Webinar. These guys have been supporting us for a while, a long time, and Casey Zieman is just a super good guy all around. He's actually been on the show before. He's the founder of EZ Webinar. So if you look up Casey Zieman on any podcast platform you're listening to, go check him out. Go check out his backstory, what he's all about. You can learn a lot about webinars as well. And right now, Easy Webinar, these guys are actually hooking you up with a great trial. It's a completely free trial to test out their software, Soup to nuts. Check it all out and see if it's a good fit for you. If you go to easywebinar.com hustle, that's H, U S T L, E. If you didn't know how to spell hustle, There you go. So if you go to easywebinar.com hustle you can go grab a free trial. And eas easy webinar literally lives up to its name. It's super simple. I mean, super easy. And it does all the stuff that you're looking for in any kind of thing with webinars, I mean, they literally cover every single type of webinar you possibly can do. So from live to automated to scheduled at specific times, and all these crazy features in between. Can't even list them all out. I'll be here way too long. They give you a ton of advanced analytics. What's working, what's not. During your webinar, based off all these actions, you'll see who attended, how long they stayed, if they clicked the offer or if they didn't. Basically, you're gonna make more money and you're gonna work less with this thing and you're gonna create better relationships with the folks that are listening. Cause it's a good experience. You wanna give that good experience along with some great content, of course. And a killer offer if that's what you got for them. So go try it out yourself. Go check out easywebinar.com hustle. That's easywebinar.com hustole.

Alrighty.

So that is the end of this episode. Thank you for so much for listening to this episode, enjoying it. Hopefully you did. I'm pretty sure you did, if you lasted this long. And go check out Easy Webinar when you get the chance. And we will talk to you next time. Bye Bye.

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