Omari Broussard — The “Who You Know” Lead Gen. System

Welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast.

With your hosts, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear.

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. My name is Matt Wolf and I'm here with my partner, Matt.

Forgot my name.

Wolf.

Joseph Fear. Joe Fear. Joe Fear. Yeah.

And we've got an awesome show for you today. We've actually got a fellow Evergreen profits letter subscriber on the show today. His name is Omari. He's a father of six. He's a husband, a retired Navy chief. Turned. He started his first business at 13 cutting lawns, and now he runs a very successful firearms training business called 10X Defense. He's learned about direct response marketing. He's done a bunch of copywriting. He's done copywriting for me in the past. He's done copywriting for a lot of really well respected marketers. So we couldn't be more excited to just dive into all of this stuff that Omari's done in his very long and successful career. So thanks so much for joining us. Omari, how are you doing today, man?

I'm good. I'm trying to contain myself. I am so excited. As you both know, I've been a fan for years now, so to actually get the invite to be on a live podcast with you, I'm stoked right now, so I'm going to try to contain myself.

Don't. Don't contain it, man. Just let it out. It's cool. No, man, I've always been. Matt and I both have been with you. In terms of the Hustle, I think you've known Matt maybe a little longer than me, but. But either way, man, like, yeah. So for everyone who's listening here, Amari just moved to Texas, but since then, or before then, you know, he's done, just like you said, copywriting, firearms training. I mean, he did the Navy stuff for a long time. You got kids, you got a big family.

You're always hustling, man.

So there's a lot of balance there. And I imagine there's a lot of systems and things that you've put in place to. To make sure you're balancing all that stuff that you're going on. So we're gonna dive into a lot of that kind of stuff today. But let's start off by talking about what your main business is right now, your 10x defense, your firearms training business. Let's talk about that. Can you kind of tell us about that and how you got into that and what led you down that path? Of doing that.

Yeah. So right now that's not the main business. It is the business that got me started in marketing. So I'll kinda talk about that. I'm doing that more on the side, more private courses, stuff like that. But I got into it and I started 10x defense in 2012, but before that I was teaching firearms outside the military. But I got certified while I was in the military. So through a guy named Rob Pincus, a very good friend of mine, dear, dear friend, mentor got me in the firearms training game. So I got certified in his program, which is called the combat focused shooting program, and it's primarily a defensive shooting program. And I got certified back in 2007. And the reason why I got certified was because.

My military unit at the time, we needed some extra training, we needed to think outside the box. So I took it on upon myself to go do so, Made a couple phone calls and got connected with Rob through another good friend of mine.

And I just started. I didn't necessarily, when I started, I didn't necessarily think about teaching in the public sector. Right. So. Or in the private sector. So the public sector would be government, state, federal, local. Right. And then the private sector is with civilians. So in the beginning, I didn't really think that's what it was going to be. I was just training my guys at a captive audience. But I got very good at teaching very fast because I had a captive audience. Right. So Rob had invited me to.

What happened. He was talking to me about possibly teaching civilians. So I just got with some friends and started teaching my close friends. And everybody got excited. And eventually about 2011, 2009-2011, I had partnered with another guy, buddy of mine, who actually runs another company in Texas area. He, he and I started teaching the civilian market together two year about 2011, he was like, hey man, if you want to start your thing, you need to go learn marketing. And I was like, oh, okay. So he had recommended we were teaching a course because I was also contracting with another company teaching unarmed firearms combatives. And we did a course in Maryland. And I got a chance to meet a gentleman by the name of Lloyd Irvin. And when I met Lloyd, I was watching him teach class. I'm also a big Brazilian jiu jitsu fan, so I was able to see him watch him coach his guys and I just got so excited. So anyway, we get back and coach like, hey, Lloyd Irvin's coming to LA and he's doing a marketing seminar. And I didn't know marketing other than flyers. Business cards does about it. So at the time I didn't have a very big budget, so I went up to L. A from San Diego, stayed in a little hotel and went to the. It was held at the Westin. And he did. It was a three day event for, for mixed martial arts instructors and Brazilian jiu jitsu business owners. And that's how I learned about direct response marketing.

So from then I just kind of took. I think I still have my notes. I guarantee you I do.

From that first time.

From that first time, I called it a black book. And I remember I did a video. I think I still have the video of the brainstorming session I did with my buddies as we built 10x defense. My partner Eli and my good friend Josh. And I remember recording the whole thing. And I just got fired up about direct response marketing. Like, I was like, this is like unreal.

So that's, that's how I got my start. Then I started 10x defense. You know, I've taught in conjunction with the, with ICE training company, which basically developed the combat focused shooting program through Rob. I've taught all over the country, man. I've been all over the country. I've taught civilian, military, law enforcement. It was just a great ride. And like I said, I still do it from time to time now, but marketing has kind of consumed me. That's great. In a good way.

No, it's, it's, it's interesting because if that's not. Because I knew that wasn't the main business, but you do a lot of stuff. I mean, like, you're a hustler at heart, you know, But I feel like with that marketing, you know, that, that whole conference you went to there in L. A that totally put you on a whole path that you probably didn't even see coming, you know?

No, no, I didn't see it. You know, my, I'd like. I decided I wanted to join the navy at the age of 13, right? I had already knew at 13. At 16, I raised my hand for delayed entry. At 17, I left three weeks after graduating from high school. And so my, my path, my original path was to become a Navy seal. Like that was my deal. And I actually got a chance to go to SEAL training. I got medically disenrolled and I tried to go back and you know, I have asthma, so that disqualified me. So I had to find something else to do. And with some help of some buddies, eventually it led me to direct response marketing. And it's, you know, like I said, if I'd have thought 10, 20 years ago that I would be where I am right now, doing what I do right now, getting to know the people that I know. I'd have told you, you're crazy.

Right?

Yeah, man. I mean, it seems like you got the hustler at heart, but you do have a vision for yourself, too. And so you must have found you must have some way that you kind of balance the two to not make yourself too insane.

You know, I think it's a balance by imbalancing, you know, a lot of the biggest. The best reference I can give myself is to give kind of people give people a reference of my life. If you look at Gary Vaynerchuk's life, right? That's mine, right? So when. And that's what kind of attracted me to Gary was like, he publicly says it, but I have been doing it. People know me. I'm everywhere. You know, my wife tells people, hey, if you want to find Omari, just check out on Facebook. You know, I have people that follow me, you know, on Facebook to see where I am. But I think the just now am I starting to trying to get the balance. But I understand. And my, you know, my wife, she's been with me since, you know, since we were kids, off and on. And I think having permission and having an agreement with your partner, whoever you're with, is huge. Right. So having to deal with me going through deployments, I mean, I've deployed, I've traveled all my life. So she's kind of used to, you know, me getting out there and getting it.

Yeah.

And that's important. Like, I need that room because I don't really know. As a business owner, you have a goal, but you don't really know where the opportunity is going to come from. So you got to be able to go where you need to go and do what you need to do and put the work in as long as you need to to get the overall goal accomplished.

Dude, that's so true. Because I feel like it's not for the weak of heart, the one that's going to gag at the slightest of a mistake or a shitty thing that you launched or marketing campaign that failed. But you got to push through, man. I mean, it's like the content. You never know when a blog post is going to hit or a video or whatever you put out there.

No, it gets. I'd like to say there's a cool song that I like by Meek Mill called Levels, and there truly is levels to entrepreneurship, which is why I call myself A hustler. Because I think there's a distinct difference between entrepreneur and hustler. Right. So the hustler, depending on who they are. I'm trying to graduate to entrepreneur. Right. So an entrepreneur, I want to have a team and have people working for me and have an office and be able to come and go as I please. But before you get there, you gotta hustle. Right. So I understand that in order for me to get to the true entrepreneur level, that I just gotta hustle till, you know, I either fall out, and I figure if I pass out from it, I'll get street cred. So, you know, that's true. It's kind of like, you know, that's how I think.

Interesting, man. Yeah. So, I mean, is there a way, like, is there a system that keeps that hustle strong so you don't burn out, or. Or you have some kind of thing that you can. I mean, like, I guess, what's your process when it comes to hustling? Smart. Cause I feel like you have. You're not a dumb hustler.

There's a difference.

You could just be an idiot doing everything on Craigslist or something. You're not doing that.

No, no, no. So one is. I think, for me, it's just.

You gotta know where you're going first, and then you gotta look at the things that are going to accomplish that. And that's where people get stuck, because there's a thousand ways to accomplish the goal. And then you kind of pick, you know, after some trial and error, you kind of get the top three, and then you manage. You know, you can either manage your work around your life or your life around your work. And I've done both. And I find that when I manage my work around my life, it works better. Right? So what that means is when I wake up in the morning, it's not okay. I got to get stuff done. It's okay. The first two, three hours of my day is mine. Right. And then the next two, three hours, I have two working blocks. So I have a block of work in the morning with an afternoon break, and then I'll have a block of work in the evening. Now, what's dangerous for me is because of my military background, I have no concept of the clock. Right. So in civilian life, you go from nine to five. Well, in the military, you go from nine, and you may not stop until nine, two days later.

Right, right.

I've done that. So my ability to work is a lot different than people who aren't conditioned that way. Right. So I try to block everything out, but you have to understand that like, if I'm in crunch time, I'll push through. Right. So the last, you know, last three days, I haven't got to bed till like 2 in the morning, right. I get up, you know, 9 o', clock, I'm done at 2, you know, and at 2 I'm at that point where, okay, everything's good, Right. So it's a constant ebb and flow of finding that. But going back to that system, it's your time. First get your head together, then it's work, then it's break, then it's work and then push on.

Yeah, yeah, Very cool. Now, in our sort of pre interview questions, you know, we always, whenever we bring somebody onto this show, there's, there's a couple questions that we have them fill out before they come on. You talked about your the who, you know, system for lead generation. Do you want to, do you want to speak into that for a minute? We've got a couple different places we want to go with this podcast, but I want to make sure that we have a chance to share this who, you know, system for lead generation. Because, you know, who, who doesn't want to learn more ways to drive leads, Right?

Yeah.

So it's actually nothing new. It's just I kind of put it in simple terms, right? So I try to put it in simple terms. So it's, the premise is a lot of people, every business owner, pretty much one of the things they'll say is, hey, how do I get leads? Right? So that's a big problem. And having a good flow of leads is important. Now, most people, right? I'd say let's take the 80, 20 rule, 80% of people, or let's start with the 20 to 20% have the tools or the knowledge of the tools and tactics and strategies. You know, they're the subscribers, the newsletters, they belong to Masterminds, whatever. The 80% is still trying to figure it out. Right. So this is more of a strategy for the most of the people. The 80% and the who, you know, strategy starts with who do you know? So when I built 10x defense, I started with the people that I knew first and then I delivered the best, you know, courses or best service I could. And then of course, they told people, who told people. So that it reached a point that, you know, two, three years after I got started, I started getting Facebook messages about, hey, my buddy took this course, man, I want to take it. Like, how do I get involved Right. So that's the whole premise. Start with who you know and do it in a way that your.

And it's tricky. Right. You don't want to do it in a way that says, hey, I'm trying this out. You want to do it in a way that you are where you need to be.

Right.

So when I was teaching people that, I knew it wasn't, hey, I'm just getting started. I need to test this out. It's like, hey, I know what I'm doing. Let me put you through it. And then the second part of that is actually collecting the feedback and.

Getting actual feedback, not just from the service or the product, but the experience and actually documenting that feedback. Well, what does that do? Well, that gives you the information you need for the marketing message that you need to put out as you start expanding outside the people you know.

So those are like case studies and testimonials, like, but in depth ones, like you said.

Yeah.

Use cases.

Yeah. So case studies, testimonials, video of them actually using the product or experiencing the service. Because all that is from a copywriting standpoint, you're getting the words. You're getting the.

The. The true emotional experience that the people are having. The people that you know. So now you can translate into the written word or video or a sales letter or whatever and put that out to the market. You're 60, 70% ahead of the game. Because the hardest thing about marketing is trying to figure out what words to use in order to attract the masses.

And that's an opportunity there to squash the objections that potential customers have, you know?

Yes, yes. And. And that's. For example, I got a great example that. So I taught a course in Utah. It was a. All women's course. And one of the ladies there was, like, afraid of ammo. Let alone afraid of a gun, but just afraid.

Just the ammo. Yeah.

Just see a bullet, and it would trigger something.

She's afraid somebody's gonna throw it at her really hard.

Say again?

She's afraid somebody's gonna throw it at her really hard.

Yeah. So it was crazy, right? But she was a cool. She was a great lady. And what happened was through her experience, after the day of training, she was like, she felt more confident. She wasn't afraid because she was familiar with the tool and understood its limitations. She wasn't as afraid. So now, what that did for me, as I collected that information, whenever I had someone that would say, oh, well, I'm afraid of X, Y, Z. Well, I had the words and whatever I Needed to say in order to attract that person, because I had somebody that had that experience. So I was able to leverage that information, the testimony of the case study for someone else who may have had the same objections, the same fears, you know.

That makes sense. Yeah.

It made marketing process, you know, when I was marketing my firearms company, it made it easier to overcome objections, easier to write the message because I had already had people that have gone through it and I was just able to recycle that information.

Yes.

And then boom. You can even just like slap their video in there and be like, oh, you got that question. Check this out right here. Yeah.

Cool, man. Well, yeah, let's continue to what Number three.

On your little who you know system.

Oh, so number three. Oh, sorry for a second.

That's all good.

I thought you were talking to Matt. We need like prompts.

The third part. So we got. Start with who you know, we got collective feedback, right. And then as you move forward through it, you got to look at the tools and automation to expand or expand reach with feedback is number three. So let's go back. So number one, present the offer to those, you know, Number two, get the feedback and stories, which is going to be important for copy. Number three is to expand your reach through feedb back influence and the stories, right? So now you have a problem. Every solution opens up a new problem. The solution for you, right now start with people you know, well, now you gotta. How are you gonna translate that into people that you don't know? Right? And what I'd like to do is tap into people's influence, right? So everybody knows somebody that has the same similar goals, objectives, fears, concerns, challenges, problems, Right, Right. So now what I did was through collecting the feedback and stories, what that did was made that person kind of a celebrity in their circle, right? So you ever had, you ever did a testimonial for somebody and they post it and then somebody else will see it and go, man, I saw you on xyz.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Right. So using that to expand the reach, right? Use the, even the, the use the success and the failures to expand your reach to get to those outside of your market. But what's outside of your circle of influence, but what's good about that is when you use the feedback and success stories of those that you already know, you automatically get kind of an endorsement from them when you start expanding out into that next ring, right? So you're not coming in cold, you're kind of.

Coming in a little bit warm. Because now the person that you don't know. Knows somebody that you know.

Yeah.

A lot easier to move around.

Well, they're gonna, they're gonna probably share it with their friends. Now you're gonna, you're gonna infiltrate maybe a new niche that you never even thought of, that this person could be like a doctor. And like, you're like, why do I get a swarm of doctors wanting to learn how to shoot guns? You're like, I don't know. Because that testimonial.

Exactly. And I, and, and I've had that happen. Right. There's so many different niches within the training arena or any business. You know, there's so many different niches wrapped around a product or service. Those that you don't even know about. Right. So as you start sharing the feedback, sharing the stories, you'll get the, those opportunities will pop up, right?

Oh, yeah.

So then number four is, I think kind of the toughest part is the use of tools and automation to expand reach. Right. And that's, you know, everything that you guys write in the EGP newsletter is all about the tools, the automation to kind of expand your reach and kind of scale what you're doing. Yeah. The hang up there is the learning curve. Right. So most people and I, in the last six months, I've been doing a lot of consulting and you know, I've had, you know, students all over the country. And what I find is we may be computer savvy, we may understand, but there's a lot of people that don't know how to use, you know, for example, Facebook for business purposes.

Sure.

Right. They either get in soon as you get to the ad platform, you get intimidated. Right. So what I like to tell people is. And then I learned this, I'm just giving this from when Lloyd explained it way back in the day. I'll never forget this. He said, either you do it or somebody else does it, but it can't not, not get done. Right. Negatives. Right. So as a business owner, either you got to figure it out or you got to get somebody to figure it out for you.

Yep.

Delegation, simple, bottom line. Right. So there are different tools that people need to be aware of. The main one that I always tell people about is an email list and an email service provider. That's kind of like number one.

And who do you use for that?

Say again?

Who do you use for that?

I've experienced couple. I have Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign. I've been playing around with Actionetics on ClickFunnels a lot lately. Yeah, yeah. For people starting out, I mean, I don't think you can go wrong. If you have less than a thousand people, you can pretty much try any of them and then find out. The big thing is find out the one that works for you and how you work.

Yeah.

And what you're trying to accomplish. So Todd Brown, I've been following Todd Brown for a while and what he says is don't let the tool dictate your strategy. Let your strategy dictate the tool.

Yeah. So smart.

Right? So that's with any tool. So. But email service provider, if you don't have one, you're not in the game. Hang it up.

And that goes for every business online. Brick and mortar, anything. If you're not building a list, what are you thinking?

Don't hang it up. Just go sign up, you know, and then you'll be cool.

Yeah, yeah, sign up for one. I mean, some of them start for free and there's plenty of training out there on emails, on email service provider. So that's the main tool. And then you have the ones that. This is also very important about this step is when you look at. I should have also included platforms there. When you look at platforms for reaching Your Market, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat.

A lot of. A lot of information out there because it's so, you know, vast. A lot of people get stuck with which one or they try to attempt to. Do everyone do the one where your market is, period. Start there. If your market's on Facebook, do Facebook. If your market's on Instagram, do Instagram. You know, I mean. Yeah, pick the one where your market is. Because at the end of the day, you can be awesome at Twitter, you can be awesome at LinkedIn, but if your market isn't there, then you're in the wrong place. Right. Same thing with Facebook. So in the firearms training industry.

A lot of people converse on Facebook, but Facebook has an adverse outlook on firearms. Right. It's one of those things. Right. So. And this is something that. This is like brand new stuff. So if you're in the firearms niche, you're gonna benefit from this. But there's other places where you can advertise your business other than Facebook, Right?

Yeah, a lot of them.

There's. There's a lot of places. So you got to get out of the. You know, just because everybody. I'll take this from Ryan Chapman, one of my mentors. Just because everybody's somewhere doesn't mean you need to be in the same place.

It's so true.

Sometimes you'll. You'll crush your competition just by being contrarian to what everything's going on, Right?

Yeah. Do you have a couple places where you'd suggest that outside of the normal channels, where you advertise?

Yeah, so I've been looking at, you know, directories. So like in the firearms area, I kind of poke around the, the directories that list, you know, different gun shops, different instructors across the country, stuff like that. I've also, you know, I. I did a lot of. I probably made most of my connections through networking. Right. So this is completely off the range, especially when you start talking about online marketing is actually getting in front of people. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Mind blowing, huh?

You know, if you're a business owner, and this is what I try to tell firearms instructors, if you're, if you're a fire instructor and you're doing your training for profit, then you're a business owner, which means you, there's avenues within your own community, whether it's a networking group, chamber of commerce, wherever. You know, I got a lot of, you know, being part of Henry's group. Mutual friend Henry being a part of that group. I got so much business from that group. Just meeting people and, and helping people out and solving problems face to face, which led me to other people, which led me to interviews and writing articles and all the other stuff, you know.

We met you.

Yeah, yeah, that's how we met.

That's right.

I can't stress enough the fact that you need to get out and go meet people. So Dan Kennedy would tell his guys back in the day, I think he was in chiropractor niche at the time. And what he would tell those guys was one day a week, get out of the office and go do something. Right. Get out of the office and go meet some people. That's still a thing.

Love it.

And with the automation part. Right. So that's also important because especially if you're a one person, two person, three person operation, you're. You're gonna need automation. You're gonna be able to. You're gonna need to be able to take those things that you do over and over and over again manually and find a tool that will help you automate that.

Hey, I'm gonna recommend something really quick here to automate. So if we go back to getting feedback, stories and video testimonials from people, there's a new tool that we're starting to use called Boast IO Boast IO And Omar, I don't know if you use this, but I would Check it out. But you can, you can automate these video testimonials. So you pair this sucker up with your email system, you know, your follow up. So you get someone on a list, you get your customers on a list, send them an email with some kind of incentive to record a video for you, and you can automate that whole process. And obviously if you have more people, this gets a little easier. But that's something that works really well for us.

And our favorite way to get testimonials is go to events like Traffic and Conversion Summit, find customers of ours and hold a camera in front of their face and say, talk about our product. Yeah, I think Omari knows that one well.

He does.

Oh yes, yes. Very well, very well. Yeah, I, I, however you can get them, you know, testimonials and case studies. Like if you're not doing those, and this is for any business, if you're not doing those, I mean, that what, 40, 50, 60% of your marketing message is done. It's gone. Like, because, you know, you got to look at psychology. Right. So I forgot where I think I heard this from Henry. Right. It was 20% of the people will believe what you say about you and your business. Right. 80% will believe what others say about you and your business, both good and bad.

Yeah, totally true. It's, it's, it's word of mouth, man. Of other people sell your business. It's, yeah, you can't. Yeah. I mean, that's how I grew my Idaho agency, animation agency. Never spent money on, you know, paid traffic and all that stuff. But I, I just hit the payment hard, made a bunch of connections and it was all referrals and yeah, it, it brought me to here. It's great. You can start any business that way.

And when you, and when you add the tools and the automation to that word of mouth, I mean, do you can scale so fast? You know, yeah, there, there's just so much power and, and, but the, the core point of it is you got to get in front of people. Right. And it's better if, you know, I, like, I was just reading the email by Brian Kurtz of the Titans fame. Right. Old school cat. And he said there has to be, your marketing has to be online and offline and it needs to be able to integrate between the two. So you need to be able to take those people that you meet face to face and put them in an online system. And you need to be able to take those that are online and get them offline.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's through. You know, I'm a big fan of direct mail on the back end. You know, that's still a thing, you know.

No doubt, man. And no one's really doing it except for us.

I know a couple.

That's one tactic I hate, like, saying publicly, because nobody's really doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it doesn't work, though. Just don't know.

Doesn't work.

It doesn't work. Yeah.

But to wrap up your little process here, you basically say, yeah, step five, rinse and repeat, right?

So you can do it over and over again.

That's it. Yeah. If you take $1, make it 2, you got a business. And then just do that over and over and over again.

Yeah, yeah. That's kind of one of the things that, you know, one of the statements I was thinking about, and I was watching a video Steve Harvey did about making a million dollars. And the concept is the same, right? So a lot of people get stuck. I mean, firearms instructors, even other small business owners or potential small business owners that I've consulted over the last few years. It's, you know, if you can make one sale, you can make 10. So just focus on making 10 sales. If you can do 10, you can do 100. If you can do 100, you can do a thousand, right? And then once you hit about. I think 100 is the magic number in my mind. If you sell to 100 people, I think you got something.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So now you can make a decision whether you want to go through, you know, the rest of it, or if you go, I don't want to cap that, and then pull it to another industry or product, because that's kind of what happened to me with firearms training and marketing, right? So I had hit a level in firearms training where I had taught, you know, a bunch of people. And when I hit, you know, well over 100, I think I've probably trained thousands by now over the last 10 years, because I've been teaching for 10 years. Wow.

And I reached a point to. That's where I was able to make a decent or a critical business decision, right? Where am I going? How. How is the money being made? You know, if I'm showing up, what's the opportunity cost? Right. I can only make money if I'm in front of people. How do I, you know, make money doing other things? But I think that was a good point to make that decision versus, you know, only did 10 people. And then I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go jump to Something else.

Well, just think if you had what those 100 people, for instance, if you had them, had them on something like $100 a month for some kind of training, you got yourself a $10,000 per month business right there. That's life changing. I mean, you could just charge them 50 bucks. Life changing. That's huge.

Let's actually shift focus here. Cause we're actually already beyond what we normally do for our podcast as far as timing goes. But we want to talk for a second. We know that you're an EGP letter subscriber. You actually subscribe to the EGP letter. So we're actually curious before we wrap this up, what have been some of your biggest takeaways and what are your thoughts on the letter?

I'm going to try to keep this short. It's probably one of the most powerful tools in my library. And I have a very extensive library. Right. I look at the EGP letter is.

Like a strategy book, right? So let's take it from a military sense, right? If I'm hitting a target, I have certain strategies in place, right. I can artillery, I can send air in and they can bomb it. I can send, you know, the Navy SEALs in. They can be all sneaky. I can send the Marines in and they'll just decimate everything, Right. But I have these courses of action available to me as a military leader, right. And I also have kind of the, hey, this worked this way, or this could cause certain amount of collateral damage. And I think that's what you guys do very well in the Evergreen Profits letter is you give the strategies, you give how to do it, you give your experience with a particular strategy. You'll say, hey, this is something we're just testing. Or you'll say, hey, this is something that's tried and true. So as a business owner, it's cool to be able to have a doc, and I have mine, you know, three hole punched in a binder.

Yeah.

But I can look at what's the goal, what am I trying to accomplish? And I can kind of go through the letters. You know, I got the last five issues right? And I can go through and go, okay, that strategy would work for this situation. All right? Now I just got to follow step by step and do it. Or even better, hand it off to my VA and go, hey, go do this right? So I think that's the power of the Evergreen Profits Letter.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of what we were going for. I mean, we actually started calling them playbooks in a Lot of our emails, like, are you gonna sign up for this month's playbook? So that's kind of what we were going for. Now, is there any sort of big takeaway that you've actually implemented in your business and seen results on?

Has there been one aha moment or one specific strategy that you used and had some really good results with?

I was just thumbing through, and there was one in the first issue. You talk about the keystep tutorial example.

Yeah, the KSTs.

Yep.

So having a KST. So I've done that via video and kind of doing, you know, it kind of gave me that framework for any time I'm doing a how to session.

Yep.

Right. So if I'm doing how to do this or how to do that, then I'll use kind of that framework. Right. One thing that you guys are doing, and this is not.

Wait, it is so the affiliate marketing. Right? That's one. Oh, man. I got to tell you, if there's one thing that I've lost money on over the years that now I'm kicking myself in the butt for is affiliate marketing, dude. Yes. And it man, whoever's listening to this, if you are not doing affiliate marketing, you are leaving thousands and thousands of dollars a month on the table, just as I have. Right. And I've been picking it up. I'm just letting y' all know I've been picking up my affiliate marketing skills.

Yeah. Good job.

Getting better at that. And not from a standpoint, you know, from really doing it the way you guys do it. As far as, like, the latest one you just did, I saw was the piece on LeadPages vs ClickFunnels. You guys are doing that one. What you've done with, you know, email service providers, comparison. So that comparison deal or even Matt, I think you sent an email on a Facebook tool and I bought it just because you said, get it right. You know, Matt, Matt, Matt said he got it. You know, it can help you find audiences. I'm like, oh, well, I checked it out. And I'm like, you know, there wasn't much of a buying decision because Matt endorsed it. So I bought it. You know, there you go. So affiliate marketing, the way you guys explain that, I think that's in. I want to say it's an issue too.

We kind of interweave it in everything because we see it as a just a way that it. And this is great because I tell local business owners brick and mortar, like, you realize affiliate marketing is an easy bolt on income stream that you could put under your business, sell to your current customers, Just recommend something, even if it's Amazon, Sign up to Amazon, get a little cut. That's easy. Just recommend a book or something.

Well, to this day, our business Evergreen profits. We make more money from our affiliate promotions than we make from selling our own products and services. Now we've gotten, we've gotten to the point where most of the strategies we're teaching in the letter are because we've implemented these strategies to promote affiliate products, not even our own products. So that's actually become more of an income stream than selling our own products. So if you've already got an existing business, you can just attach affiliate marketing to that business and add a new revenue stream. And over time, that could potentially be an even bigger revenue stream than the business that you're currently running.

Absolutely. And it doesn't matter what business you're in. You know, I think now as I walk around or as I live life and I start looking at businesses as I always do, I always look at, you know, what would be a good affiliate for that, for that business, you know, and it's something myself, as I'm working on a pretty time intensive project right now. But in the time that I'm not working on that project, I'm always thinking like, hey, how can I recommend something? How can I, you know, gain more from affiliate marketing? Because it's there and it's something that businesses want, you know, I mean, totally. Businesses want you to recommend their stuff and pay you for it. Like, it's cool.

And here's something that a lot of people don't realize you can do either. Just because a business doesn't have an affiliate program doesn't mean you can't be an affiliate of that business, you know?

Exactly.

So if you find a product that you're really excited about, really passionate about, know you can help spread the word about, know you can evangelize, reach out to that business owner. There's a very good chance there they'll be willing to give you a little kickback or a little commission or whatever. Even though they don't have a systemized affiliate program built in. We do that with quite a few different companies right now. We, you know, we used to have our agency where we did page building for people and branding for people and stuff like that. Now we have partners that do that probably better than we did when we had an agency that we, we refer them to and get kickbacks on, you know, so just because they don't have an affiliate program doesn't mean you can't be an affiliate of them. Just reach out and work out a deal.

Exactly. And one more thing about affiliate because I just had this conversation with my son. My son tells me, he's like, dad, you know, he's about to turn 16. He's like, Dad, I need to make some money but I don't want to get a job.

I love it.

So the first thing I told him to do was because he can sell, he's already done it a little bit. I said, son, start studying affiliate marketing.

Yeah.

And he will mass where if he gets, I mean because you know kids, these teenagers these days, dude, I'm almost willing to bet you don't need to get a job at McDonald's when you have the opportunity to promote other people's products and get paid.

I know you could just make, you don't even have to make that much affiliate marketing and you'll blow McDonald's out of the water.

And they're going to be so much more advanced with technology than we are. My 2 year old knows how to use my iPhone.

You know, it's like, and think of it, I'm just thinking if it's your son Omari, he's probably scrappier than you. I don't know if he's scrappier because you have a lot of cred, you know, but he's, he's probably scrappy. He's going to do well if he stays with it, you know.

Oh yeah, he got hustler tendencies. I say he got hustler tendencies.

There you go. He's learning.

So we've got a couple last minute wrap up questions that we like to ask everybody. And the first one is do you have a book that you recommend that you, that you try to reread frequently? It could be on topics we've talked about or you know, anything. Just. Are there any books that you find yourself rereading once a year or that you highly recommend people check out?

I'm going to give you three. So number one is Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

Yep.

I'm getting down to reading this book probably about every week now. Short read and it's free. So that's number one.

Number two would be.

The. Oh man. It's kind of a toss up.

Oh.com Secrets by Russell Brunson.

Yeah, dude, that's a good one.

That's a new staple in my library. I'm constantly going through Russell stuff anyway.

And I get it for like what? Oh, it's up there. Matt. Matt's Trying to find another bookshelf. Oh, yeah, it's far away, but no, I think you can get it for like six bucks. Bucks or something.

Yeah, it's like six bucks. It's. I mean, it's a free plus shipping thing. Yeah, it's free plus shipping. I got like, three of them because I keep hacking the funnel, so, you know, I keep ordering the book.

And number three is one that.

Great Leads by Michael Masterson and John Ford.

Great Leads. Okay, I haven't heard of that one.

Oh, man, that's a. It's. It's a classic. Right. So from a copywriter standpoint, I kind of focus on all the old books, but Great Leads is damn near a master's education in copy. Right. So if the headline is 80% of the sales letter, you also got to look at the lead that supports the headline. So the way you lead into a marketing message is very important. And one of the best parts in this book, it talks about market awareness levels. Right? So whether you're, you know, you're gonna have a harder time competing in a market that's most aware. Right?

Right.

Just as you'll have a hard time competing in a market that's completely unaware. Right. But there's a sweet spot where people are either problem or solution aware. That's the sweet spot. But the most money is made in the unaware market. That's where all the masses are. Right?

That's true.

Your marketing message. Every target market that you have will have variations of those awareness levels. So when you're doing your marketing, you got to be aware of that and you got to be able to write to each of those awareness levels because you don't know where everybody is.

So buying that book, Great Leads.

Yeah. I've got it on Kindle, but I actually haven't read it yet. It's one that I've purchased but haven't managed to sit down and read yet. And then when we were at Traffic and Conversion Summit, we were talking to you, and we asked for a recommendation for a book on copywriting, and you told us one. And Joe and I both went and bought copies of it and actually told people in our most recent letter that they all need to go pick it up, too.

I'm showing it on camera right now. So what's it called?

Flip it around so I can read it. It's called the Advertising Solution by Chris. Chris Simpson and Brian Kurtz.

Yeah. Craig Simpson and Brian Kerr. So this book, you know, I've read, if you look at the Lessons from the Legend, so I have books from all the legends sitting in my upper left hand corner of my bookcase so I can pull it out whenever I need a smack upside the head.

Nice.

The advertising solution is a collection of all the legends, greatest teaching points. Right. So you don't have to go through the Robert Collier letter book, which is. I just pulled out the copy. Which is 466 pages. Yeah, right. Or let's see. Eugene Swartz, Breakthrough Advertising, which isn't even in print anymore. Right. It gives you all the big picture principles. Right. So this book, I call it like the principal bible of marketing because it has all the legends and all their principles in one book.

Yeah, dude, copywriting. I mean, one of the. Matt just found the Robert Collier.

I have the Robert Collier letter book sitting on my bookshelf. It's a fat book, it's freaking A.

And it's written in different language, so it's a hard read, but true.

But I mean, if you think it's.

Easy, everybody would do it.

The two things, I mean, Matt and I, we for ourselves, but also just in general for any business owner. I think if you got really, really good at copywriting, really persuasive messaging, it's amazing. You need that skill. You need to study up on that. And that's exactly what Amari is recommending here with the books. The other one's traffic. How do you get those targeted eyeballs, those people, to your page or to your business? Talk to them, whatever, marketing groups, those two things. If you master the traffic and the messaging, you're copywriting. You're already 80% ahead of the.

Yep. Yeah. You can sell anything you want. Doesn't matter what business you become. Business agnostic.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter what business.

Yep.

Right. And that's. That's kind of the big thing I got out, out of marketing was if you look at what I'm doing now, so far removed from where I started, it's because, you know, I've started focusing on the principles of marketing. So now I can apply it to any business. I've consulted people, and I think I've consulted in like eight different industries now.

Damn, dude.

Yeah, the principles are the same. They don't. You know.

You'Re getting called out right now on Facebook. Actually, I'm just gonna say it right now. Chelsea Wilson said leave it to Amare not to give a shout out to his own book.

Humble. What's your book, Man, I didn't even know you had a book.

So I wrote a book in 2016. It's on Amazon. It's called Immediate Action Marketing. Tactical Marketing System.

Okay.

And that book was written.

Specifically for firearms instructors. So I took the marketing principles that I used over the last five years and put it all in a book, and I made it nice and short. It's 110 pages. But for anybody thinking about getting the book, if you go to immediateactionmarketing.com.

Click the button right on the front page, and you can get the book.

Got it.

Sweet. Awesome, man.

We'll link it up in there. All right. So what's that?

I said with some bonuses.

Oh, sweet, man. Yeah. I had no clue. Even had a book. So thanks, Chelsea, for calling them out. She's. She's what?

I said she's adorable. I love Chelsea.

She's watching live.

All right, last question here, so.

Oh, you can.

Do you want to ask the last question, Joe?

Go ahead. It makes me feel important. Okay, Mari, what's one question that.

Well, that's not the last question, but.

Okay, go ahead and ask that one. So we're just gonna go along. What's one question that someone should ask you? Maybe it's about copywriting. Maybe it's firearms. That's cool. Cause I wanna know about this, too. But people don't ask you for some reason. It's just like something that you should teach, you should answer, but no one's asking the question. You got something that comes to mind.

It's kind of a tough.

It's a weird. The should ask question is the same should I ask. Question I ask. Everybody that I meet is, you know, how did you overcome the challenge for xyz? So let's say for firearms, right? How did you. Like, people will always ask, you know, what gun I should buy. Right. The better question is, for that particular situation is, what gun I should buy for my particular situation.

Right. How did. How did I, you know, Amari, how did you figure out what firearm to buy for your lifestyle? Right. Because the. What I had for the military is completely different than what I have for home defense.

Yep.

There's. There's a. There's a slight difference in tool choices there when it comes to marketing or business. Right. The should ask question is.

Where did. Where. What book are you reading?

That's the number one question, either what book are you reading? Or how did you overcome this situation, whatever that situation with me, be? Right. So the prefix of the business question should be how did you overcome? Or what book are you reading?

I love it.

That's cool.

Yeah. Because those things, I bet that would clear the Path clear the worries out of a lot of people if they're starting a business or just hung up on something. You just ask those simple questions.

And yeah, man, the book question's a good one too, because, I mean, pretty much any problem you can come up with. I could probably think of a book that I've read that at least addresses it.

Yeah, well, I got that from listening to Dan Kennedy. That was his thing. He was to speak on the. He was on the speaking circuit and he was speaking with Donald Trump. Yeah. Which is kind of timely. And. And he said the one thing about Donald Trump, he said. He asked everybody in there, what book are you reading?

Yeah, yeah, No, I actually remember that story from Dan Kennedy. And I think when I. When I remember hearing that story from Dan Kennedy, the question was actually, what three books are you reading right now? He doesn't go to you and say, what one book are you reading? He says, what three books are you reading right now?

Interesting.

Almost sort of like pre. Assuming that you're reading multiple books and trying to really educate yourself.

Yes, Self education is important.

Love it, man. All right, Matt, what's that other question that you're.

The final question that we always ask people is where can people go learn more about you and find your stuff?

So the best place to find me is on Facebook right now. I'm working on a lot of top secret projects, so not promoting a whole lot of things, but Facebook, you can find me Omari Broussard. Connect with me there. And also immediateactionmarketing.com is the website that I've been playing with for teaching and giving out marketing information specifically for firearms instructors. If you're just. If you're out of the firearms instructing industry and you're just a small business owner and you know you have a question, just reach out to me on Facebook, Omari Broussard. You'll see my picture and I'll be, you know, more than happy to help you out.

Yeah, right on, man. And I love your. Your. I want a headshot like yours, man. I just need to hold a big ass rifle out there with some badass shades.

I got it. I got to see what this.

I got to thank Cheryl. Marie. Cheryl. That goes to.

Oh, yeah.

Photo Bakery. Picture Bakery.

Sorry.

She. She took all my stunning photos. I can't thank her enough.

Oh, she did all mine too. She's. She's amazing.

Yeah, see, I'm lacking. I need to hire her, man.

Yeah, you gotta get Cheryl on board. She's phenomenal.

I'm just gonna bring a random gun for some reason, and she's like, why do you have a gun? You. You market online. I don't care. That's fun.

Wait. Hey, wait till I get back home and. And take you out there so we can do it safely. I don't want any shenanigans.

Good call.

My reputation's online.

Hey, let's make it happen. I'm open.

All right.

Omari, it's been real, man. It's been fun. Thank you.

Awesome, man. Good talking to you.

I really appreciate the time. And you guys know how to reach me, so anytime you need me, just let me know.

You got it, man.

Absolutely, man.

Cool. We'll talk soon.

All right, later.

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Now, if you don't know already, myself and my partner, Joe Fear, every single week, we put together this killer weekly newsletter that's completely free. If you go to theweeklyprophet.com, you can get on this weekly newsletter. And what we do with this newsletter is we scour the Internet. We read every piece of content, listen to blog posts, check out new software and tools, and we distill down the best of the best into a weekly newsletter and deliver it directly to your inbox every single week. So head over to theweeklyprophet.com and make sure you're signed up to receive that weekly newsletter. You're going to love it. Thanks so much again for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. We'll see you in the next one.