Episode #543 - Put In The Work. Embrace The Grind with Matt Shoup

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Well, I think, don't you think that's where the grinding comes in a new business? Because I don't know of successful long term business leaders or high achievers that don't have a story of a lot of grinding, you know, with no glory in the early days to kind of work their way in. It's like even comedians do the same thing. I mean, they work forever to find, you know, jokes that actually work. When they find one that works, that's where 20, 30 or 40, that didn't work, you know, and that's.

Yes.

And so, yeah, you can't find them until you tell them, you know, until you think of them, work on them, try them out and if it bombs.

Okay, yeah, no, totally. I mean, and that's, I've tried marketing methods that haven't, that haven't worked. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's interesting because in 2005, you know, like there was, there was some social media, but I wasn't really into it or following it or anything like that. But, you know, right, right now, you know, we're in 20, 20, 22. You look online anywhere and it's like, oh, look at this. You know, successful, whatever. You know, so and so they're, they're so successful. It's like you didn't, you didn't see what they did 10 years ago and the countless hours of rejection and hard work and energy they spent. It's, you know, so many people go out and paint a picture of perfection, right? That's, that's a lot of what social media is and a lot of a facade. But yeah, you've got to put in the work and grind. And I wish more people would show and share and talk about that more, you know, than just go on a podcast and say, here's why I'm so successful.

And that's again, Matt, the purpose behind this is so you can actually hear from people because if you talk that actually have done it and live through that phase and they will not minimize or, you know, they're not afraid to tell you the real world because they've, they've seen it pay off. You know, if you like, you have the patience to keep grinding away, you can get to the glory, you know, and, but there's, you know, they do, they do Some good, God bless them. But you know the, the life coaches and the life coach institutes and the professors that write books on winning because they've interviewed winners and studied winners. They can come up with some good basic ABC type stuff, but they tend to sell their books. It's like the guys who sell their formula for winning in the stock market. They gloss over the fact that most of the time their little formulas just don't work. Or when they do work, they work for short period of time. And the real reason is that life is so insanely complex and people, people are so insanely complex and infuriating. You know, in terms of try, if you try and work with individuals. Individuals are highly unpredictable. But yes, they are masses. Masses are highly predictable. Hence you have grocery stores. They don't know whoever walks in that door is going to buy a hundred dollar cart of groceries. But they know of 100 people to walk in there. X amount of people will buy 100, 200, $300 worth. And they know how much per person who walks through that because they've done the math like you're talking about casinos. They know if they get people to walk through that door, you know, a lot of people never, you know, pull a lever, put a quarter, anything in, but they know they're going to what those revenues are going to be based off the people walk in the door. And so what we're trying to do when we get started and you can't begrudge yourself, this is where you speak to the patients. You have to give yourself a chance to work to the numbers of trying different things so you can find out for yourself. Because a lot of times what works for you won't work for anybody else, you know. Absolutely not all the time. You know, you pick up techniques from winners and everything. But you may have a niche, you may have a personality where you could say things to people and they respond. Where someone else tries to come in and you know, kid around with people or whatever and they'll take it the wrong way, they'll be highly offended. Where the other people laugh, you know. And I've got a friend like that. He's, he's always, you know everybody, he lives in a locker room. You know, you're in sports where you're busting everybody's chops and you're pulling tricks on everybody and you're ragging them and stuff like that and you know, just the standard jock talk, you know. Well, he lives his life like that and putting you down. But you know, he's kidding and doing in a good natured way. Now his oldest son tries it and he comes off as a bum. You know, he alienates everybody. He tries to do it like dad, but he's not dad. And, you know, he hadn't really accomplished anything in his life, you know, so when he tries to do this braggadocio thing and, you know, like, anyway, it just doesn't work. He didn't have the credentials that had another personality. And so the way you find out what works for you is you work and you follow your instincts. And that's also the way you work through a whole lot of things and you find out they don't work for you. And that's a lot of times the early part of your career. But then you could take that into other areas. Why did you go into roofing and what did you really want to tell me about the roofing business we were talking about?

Yeah, I'll share, I'll share a fun story. So, you know, in the painting industry, so northern Colorado, we get hit with a lot of hail storms. So 2008, Windsor had a really big tornado that came through. And then we ended up, you know, doing a lot of painting. But we were painting for these bigger contractors that came in, you know, roof contractors and general contractors. So that was our first exposure into, you know, working with insurance claims and just seeing the potential of business that was there. So, you know, over the years, we were just a little scared to go up that high, you know, to go up on the roofs and have to deal with that. We didn't understand a lot of the, the labor side. Yeah. But we finally, in 2020, we, we made the jump. You know, we said, hey, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna jump in and we're gonna, we're gonna learn the business. We, we connected with a really great crew. They've done this for, for decades. And. Yeah, so the, the roofing side is relatively new. But I'll share kind of a fun story. So when there's a hail storm here, and it's usually every couple of years, you'll get a, you'll get a really big hail storm. The roofers, they flock from all over from, you know, Denver, the other big Colorado cities, Colorado Springs, they come in from Texas. They come in from everywhere. And literally 7:00am the morning after the storm, these guys just pounding on people's doors, you know, in residential neighborhoods. And it's, it's high pressure.

It's.

They're, they're lying. I mean, everything. So that's, that's where that initial, you know, on the initial bell curve, there's a good chunk of money right there. So we go out and that's just like, we knock on doors, right? But we have a totally different approach. But we go out this next day, it's 2pm and they, they'd already had 30 people knock on their door. So we're knocking on doors and just, you know, I'm getting very frustrated and disheartened because I'm knocking on a door and some, some guy that looks like he just got out of prison, he's standing, you know, two feet behind me, getting ready to knock on the door. And this homeowner is just wide eyed, like, holy cow, what's going on? So I came back to the office and I'm like, guys, we gotta do something different. You know, what is everybody doing? They're knocking on doors. And we said, you know, what if we're the roofer that doesn't knock on doors? And we kind of thought about that. And I love, I love Spanish coffee, right? So I bring back coffee from Spain. We have a little coffee bar at our office. And I said, hey, what if we knock on doors and we offer people these, these Spanish coffee kits, right? Because we sell them online and everything. And one of my team members, they go even one step further, they're like, well, why don't we just reach out to a local coffee shop and see if we can go there every Friday morning and for two hours just pay for everybody's coffee that comes in. So we have this light bulb moment. So check this out, like 20, 30 roofers knocking on the door. And these homeowners, they're just flying the middle finger. Get off my doorstep. Like, leave me alone, leave me alone. So then we come out, we made these little postcards, knocked on the door, hey, I'm Matt, I'm with M D Roofing, but not here to talk to you about your roof. And they kind of look at me, right? So like, that's my, my hook. They go, what do you mean? So just wanted to invite you to free coffee. We're buying coffee for all the neighbors over at the, you know, Ziggy's. Eight, 8 to 10am and they kind of look at me and they're like, what? Said, yeah, come on over, get some coffee. And then I, I take off. Yeah, like I, I don't want, I don't want to climb on your roof. I don't need your insurance papers, any of that. And they're like, well, can you look at My roof. So all of a sudden, just this, you know, this little shift, you know, we landed close to, I think we last checked about $400,000 worth of work over, let's see, we spent eight weeks and probably $10,000 on coffee at a local coffee shop. So we're giving money to the local business community. We're meeting with people and we literally would just sit at the coffee shop and hey, have a nice day. Enjoy your coffee. Of course we want business, right? Like we're in business to feed our family. But, you know, we're not sitting here just, just pounding their door with the same BS that all these other guys are. Really refreshing. I mean, it was fun for us. We really enjoyed it. And again, $10,000 lands us 400,000 and.

You hit all there. And the first signal was again, goes back to think. We want to interrupt the conversation. You can't interrupt the conversation if you're doing the same thing everybody else is doing. And you had to have, you had. It's like we always have to sell ourselves first on what we're doing. And if we get an initial positive, fun reaction in our response, say to ourselves, it's like, yeah, that'll work. And it's just like, Matt, in doing these podcast interviews, I browbeat the staff to get the right people in front of me. Because when I get people who've never done the God blessed thing, right, when it's over, I have a migraine because I've tried, you know, because I want to try and make people look great, you know, and.

Right.

But when you're trying to squeeze blood out of a stone, you know, some kind of really wisdom or knowledge out of people that are just dumb clucks who came up with some gimmicky thing, they just wrote a book on something that they've never really proven works, and they're out trying to market, you know, get on the podcast circuit. And then when you ask them anything below the surface, you find out there's nothing there. And so, yeah, not a lot there. You kind of have to make it up. And you're. When you get through with it, your head's just throbbing. And so it's a matter of setting yourself up for success. So I do the same thing you're talking about when I line up guests, because if I get myself, I see what has this person done? You know, don't know them from a lot of times I do know them. You know, a lot of times I do know them. But when I get people like yourself, we've never met before?

No first meeting.

Yeah, I'm trying to get familiar, you know, I'll just drill. You know, it's like, what, what about this? What are they doing? And then all of a sudden it's like I can tell if some, you know, they know what they're talking about they've accomplished. Because if you haven't accomplished a God blessed thing, with all respect, you don't know that. You know, you know, because you're an intelligent person, you're looking out for yourself and your family. You know how to get things done. You're going to get things done so you can get things for yourself and your family. You could be independent, you could have the highest income. You have a great quality of life. You know, you can enjoy life. You know, you do fun things. But if you haven't done any of those things, guess what? You don't know nothing. And there's no reason for me to talk to you because I'm not going to be able to get anything usable that I could pass on to other people. Because one thing about winners and high achievers and people like yourself, you could spot a phony. You know, most people can spot a phony a mile away. Winners can spot a phony on the other side of town. You know, they can like instinctively like uh, no, no. It's because we've been exposed to so many situations and people, you know, for.

Those of you who are sick and tired of fooling around and are dead serious about wanting to move up fast, I've got something especially for you. I've combined the best insights from over 40 years in business and making $70 million in income and compressed them into a free webinar. That's right. It's a free resource. If you want to find out exactly what the concepts are that I use in coaching million dollar earners, Register now@widelonwinning.com you'll discover the five part framework used by so many to reach their financial, personal and professional goals. You can find that link in this episode's show Notes.

Along the highway, you decided you succumbed to the desire to write a book. And so tell me about that.

Yeah, you know, it's been. The authorship journey has been really cool. So in 2000 and 20,000, like late 2010, early 2011, was getting asked to speak a lot about marketing and business success. So I had, how does that happen?

You said, you know, because we don't get awards. You don't get awards unless you apply for awards. How do all of a sudden these requests Start falling out of the sky because you've won these awards or whatever that you've. You've become on the radar screen. Where people say, is that a natural progression?

There is, yeah. So what, you know, where it started? It was really interesting. Where the speed, where the speaking started was. It was. Somebody would call me and say, hey, Matt, can I. Can we. Can we go to coffee? It's really fun. Can we go to coffee? And can I pick your brain about marketing? I say, sure, we go to coffee, but I've got to buy my own coffee, right? The next call, hey, can I buy you coffee? And then pick your brain about marketing? So I'm like, hey, I get. I get free coffee. I love coffee. And then that goes to, hey, buy you lunch? To, can I buy you dinner? And it was one on one, right? And then, you know what? I'm just. I'm sharing the same stuff I'm talking with you about now. I'm talking about, you know, 15 years ago. And then it said, hey, hey, can you come speak to my Rotary club? So it's just a natural progression, right? There's. There's also, you know, as a speaker, like, you want to go out and land speaking gigs. There's a business side to that, but it was just a natural progression. And then when the biggest lesson I learned in speaking, and then I'll talk about the book, was he said, hey, how much would you charge to come out and speak at this entrepreneur's conference? And I go, oh, well. And I start fumbling. I go, I don't know. Well. And it's like, well, that was the key where that guy knew I really wasn't a professional speaker. I tell speakers now, like, you need to know your fee. It's $10,000. Boom. Like, you let them know, here's my requirements. But. So people were asking me to come out and speak. And there was a Denver Entrepreneurs Conference. And gal reached out to me, the event organizer, and she said, I need two options of what you could speak about. And I said, well, I only have one talk that I do. And she goes, well, if you want to talk with us, you need to give me two. And I said, okay, well, you know, I've been winning a lot of awards lately, so I could put together something about winning awards, not thinking that she would pick it. And she says, yeah, we'd love. We'd love to hear about that. And I'm like, shit. Like, you know, I kind of. I don't have. I don't have. So I put it I put it together, I go down and I present. I said here's, here's the misconceptions, here's the, the truth about the business. Here's the seven simple steps. And it was, it was a hit. And a gal had come up and she said, you know, would you, would you want to come talk to my company about this? And oh my gosh, you should write a book about this. And I'm a very, you know, highly driven, you know, bucket list kind of a guy. And I said, you know, I'd love to write a book one day. So this was back in the self publishing days when it was. There's really a very low barrier to entry.

Right.

You know, I sat down over about a 10 month period and wrote become an award winning company. So it was those seven steps to really unlock that, that strategy for people but knew nothing about authorship and, and writing a really good book. You know, there was, there was a, a selfishness in the approach to me of like Matt's writing a book and Matt's sharing what he knows and why he's so important and why he won these awards. It's like, no, you write the book for the reader and every word you put in. And I didn't know that. You know, there was a certain degree of a little bit of boastfulness and you know, I had accomplished some things and it brought value but, but I didn't realize, I thought the book would just sell itself. Right. I'm like, Larry, I'm going to write it and everybody will buy it. No, you have to go then sell it and market it. So I'm actually working on. This is, this is my, my book coming out in probably January. It's painted, baby. So this is book number two. It's connect with clients through brave and vulnerable Storytel. You know, this one, this one, I've, I've learned so much more. It's, you know, it's a decade later and really, really excited about how this one's turning out.

You've already got the COVID so when is it coming out?

Yes, I actually just locked the manuscript earlier this week. We did cover design, you know, months ago. So we're in, we're in the copy editing and layout phase and everything. So it's about three to four months out. We'll have it out.

Who's the publisher?

So I'm actually working with a company called Scribe or Lion Crest Publishing. So they're, they're a company where they actually will work with authors all the way through the process of you know, the developmental idea, collecting all of. All of the information. I'm a better speaker, technically, my, I would say, than a writer. So they interviewed me and we transcribed everything. And then I grabbed.

That's the best way to do it. Because when I did mine, you know, I did what you did, you know, it's like, okay, I'm gonna write a book. And I sent it to all of my friends, and they basically, what they said was, this really sounds good. Why don't you write a book about it? Yeah, I thought that's what I did. Right. They said, why don't you get a real writer to help you with this? And so, you know, we redid the whole thing over two years and, you know, a bloodbath with a ghostwriter and everything. But I like the idea. I know that a lot of celebrities have written their books the way you're talking about. They, you know, they get with a company and they do interviews and. Yeah, you know, from people that were like, Steve, watch out, Wojahowski, that with Jobs, you know, started with Jobs, you know, with Wojahowski's book, which is a monster book, was all done with interviews with him over coffee because he was. He's such a wild character. But so many athlete books, you know, like, when they went with Charles Barkley and his book came out, they said, why did you say this in your book? He said, I never said that. And they said, it's in your book. He said, I never read my book.

No. Well, no. And that's. And see, this is kind of the cool process about. About this. So with Scribe is they, you know, so there's. There's ghost writing where you literally, like. Like, you know, Michelle Obama didn't write that. Right. Somebody wrote that for her. She shows up to the book. Simon.

Right.

The. The cool thing with Scribe was we. We transcribed about 20 hours worth of just me sharing the ideas and the concept, and then I get this manuscript back, and then, you know, every word is my word. I get a chance to get in there and really work with it. And I'm like, did I really say that? That sounds really stupid.

That's precise.

That's not reader. You know, reader focused. And, ooh, this was really good. Let' So, I mean, I've gone through that so many times, but, yeah, I'm super, super excited about it. You know, the concept behind the book is that in marketing and in messaging, we are conditioned as humans to paint a picture of perfection, thinking that, you know, people are going to eat that up and gobble that up, right? So I'm here on your podcast, like, hey, here's all the success stories and awards, but we actually had a moment in our painting company after the Windsor tornado where we were on a job site and a paint sprayer exploded while the crew was, was painting and the homeowner was standing right within a 20 foot radius holding her nine month old, her nine month old baby, right? So like we literally painted, painted a baby and the baby ended up being okay. We made everything right. But you know, my book opens up sharing the story of like, I'm about to close a really big contract and this is years later, 2011 12. And you know, I'm a, I'm a sales guy, right? And I go, this guy's not signing, like Larry's not signing my contract. I've tried the, you know, the Benjamin Franklin clothes, the over under clothes, all the, all the traditional, you know, stuff out there. And he goes, matt, I want to know about a time that you screwed up and what you did about it because, you know, that's, that's what you're made of is in those moments when it matters. And I said, well, we painted a baby. And he goes, what? Share the story. And he goes, what did you do about it? I said, well, here's how we handled it. And he goes, you know, you're the kind of guy I want to do business with. You're honest, you're vulnerable. You told me the truth and you painted a picture of imperfection. And you took me there and you showed me like, crap, this could go really bad, but if it does, here's what you're going to do about it. And he signed the contract. So, you know, the thesis I came up with and I spent a lot of time researching it, is by being real vulnerable and just plain telling the truth, exposing our imperfections with people, that's where you actually build trust and relationship and connection. So yeah, and then I started telling that story and we did a whole marketing campaign that, that was amazing. We painted my daughter, this is my daughter when she was 3. Brought her to the shop, you know, threw paint all over her and plastered bus stops, bus benches, you know, flyers all over town. It was one of our biggest marketing campaigns. But, you know, it's just encourages businesses to lean into their imperfections and share those with people and stop trying to, you know, follow the masses in terms of, of trying to pretend to be something that you're not. Like, for years, I constantly set an expectation that I knew I couldn't attain and then was wondering why I was so damn stressed out.

Yeah. And so talk. The great thing about writing a book is it does cause you to get specific and think. And also when they're transcribing your words, you're having to read your own words. I do that all the time. Because it's like, who said that? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard of. We just transcribed what you said. I said, okay, we'll change it.

Change that. Please change that. I didn't say that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not what I meant. You should have known what I meant to say. I didn't mean that. But it allows you to get more precise and organized with your expressing yourself. And I never get past the point with a staff, especially with the staff. One thing we should lecture ourselves on, by the way, as leaders, is clarity and communication with staff. Good Lord.

Yeah.

You know, to me, I'm always clear, you know, but things get misunderstood. And I said, I'm just a lousy communicator. They go, you know, they never say yes, but it's like, it's like I thought that was. I said that as simply as I could say it, you know, and, and, you know, you think it from an employee standpoint, they're not going to deliberately misunderstand you and spend time doing something wrong, you know, so they could get, get a. The boss, you know, all pissed off and everything. So it's like, yeah, it's like, well, where did. How did that go wrong? Oh, with me, I guess. Yeah, with me. Yeah.

Thanks for listening to the Million Dollar Mastermind. If you felt there were any valuable takeaways from this episode, please take a minute. Leave us a five star review. Your feedback is important and really helps us get the word out to a wider audience. Remember, we have a valuable webinar that is absolutely free. Register for it right now@whiteallonwinning.com thanks for listening.