0352 | Sharwn Kourrami

Hi, this is Sean Korami from E. Playbooks and you are listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews, episode 352, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority effect interview. Expert Authority World. Do I have a treat for you? Sean Karami, on today's episode. There's people who start businesses and there's people who start and manage dozens of them to the tune of $100 million. There's people who go to college. I am not one of them. Well, I went there, but I never graduated. Conversely, Sean, I gotta look because I don't want to mess this up. But has obtained university diplomas in mathematics, economics, computers and earned a law degree. Now, I was gonna go to law school, but I didn't. So that alone is fascinating and impressive. The people he's helped is impressive. And he's going to be sharing with you how to grow your business, right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, Sean Karami. Sean, how are you feeling today?

Fantastic. And it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Oh, the pleasure is mine. Sometimes this is a little surreal for me. I really was gonna go to law school, but I just. School never agreed with me. And you have what seems like more degrees than a thermometer. And kudos to you. I mean, that takes a great skill set. And like I was saying, some people have a business and then you've started and managed dozens of them at a very, very high level. Where did this inspiration and entrepreneurial spirit stem from with you?

Well, you know, it's. It started pretty early. My father always had his own business and we immigrated to the U.S. he was from Iran right after the Iranian revolution, way back in 79. So I was in grade school at the time. But I always loved my father's business. He was building roads and government buildings and office buildings. And I loved being on construction sites. And you know, I kind of think, thinking back, I think a lot of people, probably a lot of kids probably do, especially little boys, because you get to go and hang out and look at those bulldozers and all this equip. And it was, it was just fantastic for me. I always thought I'd end up going to the, into that same business, follow my, in my father's footsteps. We moved over here and things were quite different at the time. It wasn't the most popular thing to be Iranian. I'm not sure it is now, but back then it definitely wasn't. And my father struggled quite a bit.

But, you know, in that time, what happened was he bought like a small income property that was not worth really engaging professionals in at the time. And he was having a lot of difficulty running it. And his friends were in the same boat. You know, we kind of all were in the same boat. And those years was when personal computers were first coming into houses. And so I used my little personal computer to put together database program to help my father. And I think you recently you had a, you had a guest who talked about how they started their businesses. It was, I think, Carolyn Saldo. And she, she talked about how she gave. It was about giving. It was about giving value and helping people, how she started businesses. And this was really, for me, the same way. I was trying to help my father and his friends because I saw this difficulty they were having. I was trying to solve their problem. And it became, as a teenager, my first business that I got into. And you know, and you mentioned, you know, you, you know, some people are into formal education, it works for them. Others, you know, it's, it's, it's not for you. Yeah. And you know, to me, I don't think it matters either way because it's how you learn ultimately. What are, what are you doing? How, you know, some people, people learn in different ways. And I just had this affinity for. Maybe it's because I was lazy, frankly, for, for ending up in class somewhere and that kind of life. Because I ended up. I sort of, I spun off that business, I went to college and I was into mathematics. I thought computer programming probably would be a big deal as I'd gotten a little taste of it helping my father. And then I liked being in school so much that I kind of backed into the economics degree. I took so many electives in economics that, you know, I really had to just get the degree. And that's, that's how I went into, into just having formal education, even after going through law. What I did was I have formal, formal training and education in marketing, sales, accounting, all because I thought they were important things to have. And, you know, marketing definitely is.

If you don't Know how to do those in a business?

Yeah. You know, I tell people this all the time. You could have the best product in the world. And I used to use the example of Mars, but that's, that's kind of reachable now. So I say if you put your store on Saturn, you know, you're, you're, no one's going to buy your product. And that, that's sort of what, what, what I kind of live by. But, but I mean, you know, after, as I was going through college.

All my friends were looking at, you know, how do I do this resume? What kind of job am I going to get? Those things were just not things that were in my DNA. I was, I was always set on, yeah, I'm going to go do kind of my own thing. So I've never, I didn't do it back then and I still haven't to this day. I've never actually done a resume for myself. I don't know, I don't know how to do one. I've, I've seen a lot of them, but I don't know what's a good one or a bad one, honestly. Similarly, I've never received a W2 from any company that I haven't had ownership interest in. So I've never actually had a boss in that way. And I noticed that, that, for example, is a big negative because when I was a boss, especially years ago when I first started, I was a terrible boss because I never was able to put myself in the shoes of those who were trying to help me, my, my team and my employees.

And it took, it took me a lot of time to actually be able to put myself in their shoes, to be able to treat them properly, to get them to be the best person they can be so that we all together can prosper and our, you know, the business we're running can prosper and we can actually provide value for people. So there's a lot of negatives that comes from never having to never having worked for someone or never having to put resumes in. And I always tell people, look, you know, everything is a gift and a curse, right? Everything has, has benefits and drawbacks and so that, that, you know, I always, as I, as I look through different things and different experiences that I have now, I look and try to see the other side, other perspectives, because it makes me a better person and it makes my team and what I'm trying to do have more value to people.

I'm glad you're sharing all this. And some of the vulnerabilities too, because for the longest time, I personally, I started my first business at 12. I never really had a corporate career, so to speak. And I'm trying to think of the resumes. I think I filled them out, but they. It wasn't like I had to create one. It was like, fill out the. It was no, an application or an application is not a resume. Okay? So I applied to places, and I always thought, since I didn't have this big corporate career because I was so young, that was a drawback. And now I'm hearing the exact opposite of, you know, I was on the ground floor, if you will. So when I did start doing stuff in business, it was pretty easy for me to connect with people, but in my own mind, it was like, well, I don't have 20 years experience. This, that, the other thing. Yeah, but what I'm also hearing is like, no matter how you start, it doesn't matter how you finish. And I want to ask you about the self image at some point, because if I start one way and you start another, and you're saying this is your negative, and to me, that's the pro. And I was thinking my negative was the real negative one. Really. Neither one was. We both had to grow in the process. Where's the tipping point for someone listening right now going, I'm with your side or I'm with Mario's as the background. But how do I have that tipping point to go, hey, now I have the confidence to do all these things without just taking 20, 30 years to do it, if that makes sense.

You know.

And it was something. Look, when I was. When I was younger, I was deathly shy. I mean, deathly shy. I would have trouble saying hi to people. I never asked questions in class. It was very difficult for me. Yeah, you know, shy.

Got picked on all kinds of stuff till ninth grade. And then I was like, I'm not doing the next four years like I did the last. Well, nine.

And. And there you, You. You pointed, pointed it out. It's. It's a decision you make. And I actually went at one point and had a speaking coach, you know, and the speaking coach had to get me used to speaking to, you know, crowds. It was very difficult for me. But he also told me this. He said, look, people sitting over there, they don't know any more than you. Probably they know less than you about the subject on which you're speaking.

So, you know, there has to be a decision you make that you're gonna, you know, take that step to. To Move forward. And the second thing is that everybody else is kind of in the same boat. These are. Not. Everybody's. Not sitting there as. As some. Some, you know, expert on. On absolutely everything. You have your advantages. You have to seek those advantages, figure out what they are, and then take that step. And I guarantee you, if once you start taking those steps, then you will. You will start seeing the benefits of them, and it'll. It'll change the way you are. One thing I. For, for example, you know, we talked about how we change over time, and one thing that I did in starting my own businesses, I. I never had the fear of starting my. My own business. I always say, let me come up with a. With a. A polite way of saying I have more guts than I have brains. So I. I would always, you know, be willing to step out there. And one thing I was very proud of is in all of my businesses, I started with zero employees. That means I learned every little piece of my business. And when I was a bad boss, what I would do with my employees is I would call them out on it. I would say, no, no, no. I know every piece of this business, and I know it better than you, and you're doing this and that wrong, rather than.

Approaching it this way by saying, hey, you know what? I know what you're feeling in doing this job because I had this job myself because I ran these parts of all this business. I know how you're feeling. Let me help you, and let's work at this together. Completely different approach with the very same knowledge and completely different results. But ultimately, you know, I'm with you. It's exactly what you pointed out at ninth grade. You said, okay, I'm not. I can't live like this anymore. I have to take that step. I have to just fight through this. And fighting through it is really what I recommend. You just got to take that first step.

Now, how important would you say. Did I just say how important. How important do you believe coaching and guidance is along the way? Because I am a firm believer in just do something. There was one year right when I started in business, I had no clue what I was doing. No clue. I just knew what I wanted the end result to be, and I knew I didn't want this, and I kind of closed the door. I was like, all right, now what? So my whole approach this year was, I'm gonna do the opposite of everything I think I should. Or I hesitated on last year. If I didn't want to do it, I'm going to. If I thought I should if I wanted to do it, I'm not going to. It probably wasn't the best, but I was like, I just need to shake things up. So I'm a firm believer in, like, do something, because at some point you'll figure it out or get frustrated enough where you seek out some help. But I do feel like there's a lot of people who just have this perfectionitis where it's like, well, I can't make a move until I know every single step along. It's like, when did we ever have that plan in life? Here's the 12 steps to get through high school and the four more for college if you graduated. When did someone tell you every single step of the way? All in year one, two, or three?

Well, several things. And you pointed out a few things right there. All of us, no matter how much we even fight this, sometimes we sit there and say, okay, I got to make sure I don't. Whatever I'm doing is perfect and that you're striving for perfection, and you ended up not taking that step. And this is a saying that years ago, someone told me that I've never forgotten. And I always say it to people. And I actually said it in a meeting this morning because we're trying to. I was meeting with my team, and I actually said it because they were stuck looking for perfection. And I said, no, no, no, we're not going to let perfection be the enemy of the good. And that's very important. Always, always, always strive for perfection, but never let that stop you from taking a step. Ultimately, not taking a step is the worst thing you can do because you're just not moving forward. Nothing is going to come of not moving.

That's a great expert authority insight that.

To me, is incredibly important. So always, always, always. And same thing with, like, documents someone sends you. Oh, I want to put up this content on the website. I want to put out this blog. I want to do this program. And they send you an outline. Oh, this and the other. And it's like, you know, I always say everything's always a draft because if you wait for the end product, you'll never get it. You know, and I've said it for many years, I'll never get the final draft. So everything's always a working draft. And please get it to me or please let me get it to you as a working draft. So let us move forward and let us do this project that we want to do.

Does that include humans and people?

Explain that. Let's See, in terms of how people are.

Yeah, the final draft, you know, I'm going to be perfect this year. Do you ever look back, like, two, three years later and. And just go, how did I function at this age? Even though at that age I thought I would, like, had it figured out, but then it's like you realize it was all a mess up until, you know, right now. And then five years from now, I'll be like, how did I even get by that in 2021?

I do that. I do that on a daily basis. And one of the things that I. That I also tell people is that, you know, yeah, I've grown my company, some of them, to eight, nine figures in revenues. But I have had catastrophic failures, too. Catastrophic. And I've learned plenty from those as well. And a lot of the ways that I can help people now is because of those bad experiences I've had and how to help them not have those bad experiences and avoid those pitfalls and how I made it past certain issues and things like that. Today I sit there and go, oh, my God, how did I do that one? You know, how. How did I get myself into that mess and how did I get myself out? And that's part of the. Part of the things that I actually write about myself to myself, Notes to myself that I go and review because of those things. So, yeah, I'm a working draft myself. I still am. And, you know, trying to be perfect, striving for it and never reaching it.

Well, you reminded me of all the things I used to do where it was like, okay, you're just so tired of working on something, you save the file as final version, send it out, great, now I'm done. But then there's final version 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So I wanted to bring that up because I find it humorous because most people, we're all works in progress. But I can confidently say in 300 some episodes now, I've never really focused on the negative, and I don't know if it's negative or, you know, you probably reframed it as a learning experience. But I feel like you're kind of offering a little bit. And I. If you don't want to get super specific, I can respect that. But when you're saying I had catastrophic failures, I want to ask you what are. I don't want to. I don't want to ask the specifics. You're welcome to say whatever you want, but I just want to respect that. But what would you say is the Biggest lesson you learned from it and for the audience, what is one way you could have prevented it so they don't have to go through it, if that makes sense. Lessons.

It's more lessons, but I'll give some examples. I've had a large business with large eight figure revenues, very healthy, hundreds of employees, completely implode.

Completely. What was that?

Implode? Oh, and it was a number of mistakes both in terms of management. In my capital source. One of the things that I talk to people about is where you get your capital from, what money are you using, for what purpose? Extremely important. That's a huge mistake that I made that caused one catastrophic failure is that I took the wrong type of money which was, which was lent money at a high interest rate. But, but at the time it provided me with great liquidity, obviously and the ability to expand. But later on I ended up paying for it because I was dealing with different, in different terms. And as, as those things came across and as the relationship changed with my, with my capital source, it just completely caused the business to become absolutely paralyzed. So I go through this all the time with clients right now. Where, where is that money? Who's giving it to you? What is, what is their business? What is their style of wanting businesses to run? Does that fit the kind of business you're running? Because at some point you guys may seem, everything is good and they want to, they want to do a deal right now. But does, does that fit their business model, what you're trying to do? And does it fit your business model? And what is it going to look like two years from now, three years from now? You know, and I've had, I've had several clients exactly in that situation where either they've, they've, they've had this, this, you know, this relationship with the capital source that was never a fit. But at the beginning everyone thought, oh, what a great thing. We're going to do great things together. They did horrible things together. It didn't work out and it was terrible for the capital source and for the business. So I always caution people in terms of where their capital is coming from, what it is, how they intend to use it, whether the business models fit on both sides and you know what that could result in because that could have years, long effects on you. You could have all kinds of things personally that you're dealing, um, you know, you could have lawsuits and things that carry on long, long afterwards. So, you know, these are things that, where you learn great, great lessons as I, as I tell people. But I have plenty of them. And, you know, that's part of the reason a lot of times, you know, what happens is family comes to me or friends of family come to me. And I actually set up a personal website specifically because of these people that get referred over to me, just friends of friends and things like that. Because of not just successes, but failures when they have. When they find themselves in a hole or when they find themselves in a hole because they're expanding so fast, things are going so well, they don't know how to handle it, how to create that infrastructure around them. All of these things can cause really big stresses in your personal life and in your professional life.

And trying to get through that is quite challenging.

Well, I appreciate you for elaborating on that because I think everyone wants a successful business. You know, seven, eight, nine figures like you're mentioning. And there's these points where it's like, oh, my gosh, we can. If we just do this, this and this. And it's like, okay, yeah. But at the same point, can your business support it? I remember asking, you know, some local businesses, even, you know, how, or any business, it doesn't matter if you ask. How would you like to double your business? Now, depending on the model and how it's structured, if it's a local restaurant or auto body or even a gym, doubling the business may mean you need double the building, double the lights, double the staff, double the everything. Now, if it's more of a virtual business, consulting, speaking in a myriad of others nowadays, you could quadruple the business and it would not make one iota of a difference because it's a different business model and structure.

Correct.

So it's. What I'm hearing is depending on who you're talking to, take a look at the funding source and the business model to see if they. They coalesce, basically. And, you know, let's take it out 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years and see where things are going. Because, I mean, how awesome is it to have the success, but having it implode, I've not had that happen. And it doesn't sound like it's too much fun and I don't want it to.

Yeah, well, those are. Those are lessons learned. And ultimately, you know, it's made me a more successful person because I've gotten around those. I know how to get around those things, and I also know how to. How to see those pitfalls, and I see them on behalf of my clients. I can look at a business and say, oh, geez, this is going to be. This issue is going to be a problem in two, three years from now. Start handling it now so it doesn't become a problem. Because the way you're proceeding in two, three years, I see a. I see a problem. One business, for example, I was consulting with, I get in and I say, oh. And as I look through everything, I said, okay, hang on, this thing in about 12 months is going to get really painful. And these are the things we need to do to. To sidestep that and avoid that. And ultimately, 12 months later, they saw exactly what could have happened had they not followed those steps. So that's. That's the advantage that I have now because I can talk to someone and help them out and help them avoid the pain that I had. I can avoid it myself. And so, you know, in some ways, I'm thankful for that. As I say, everything's a gift and a curse.

Yeah, and I'm glad you're bringing that up because, you know, you mentioned you learn from it and everything, and that's fantastic because we can even go back to the resume application. Everything is experience. And if you stay in the right mindset, even with the, let's say that not so fun stuff that you went through, now you're able to help more people.

Yeah.

Now, I never did it at your scale, but I remember early on When I was 18, 19, 20, I was starting a new business, another business, and I was just like. Well, the people they were speaking to.

It was just like, this isn't me. But I wanted to help people, and I couldn't relate to anything because I hadn't, you know, I didn't have a ton of experience in everything. But because of things I did later on, I look back now and I thought about it at the time, and it was not fun learning, let's say. But now I look back and, yeah, there's people. One of the things for me is I started my business young and I was helping people that. I remember one of my clients, I was 24, he had had his business over 30 years. I'm like, this guy has owned this thing longer than I've been alive. Why is he talking to me? But like you said, your area of expertise, mine was within the marketing side, and I could help them. And I was. And I've helped thousands of businesses now, but I just didn't realize it at that time. So no matter what that good thing is, the bad thing is if you can focus and find the good in it, I think you can package that and you Know that can be your product to serve people at a higher level. Because while I like to say there's probably a lot of businesses, well, statistically, I think most businesses go through a lot of turmoil at some point. The fact you're around five or ten years later tells me something happened, but that becomes the superpower. And I know that you say your product is not the business, but your business is the product. Tell me more about that.

So, yeah, you mentioned a client that you had that had the business longer than you were alive. One of the clients I have, they've been in business almost that long, longer than I've been alive almost. And, you know, I felt the same way as you. They came and they said, hey, look, we have wildly fantastic brand, but they have almost zero online presence. And they said, we want to build an online presence. We want to open up sales channels. We've been a B2B business. We want to go to be a, you know, direct to consumer. And at first they thought it was going to be real easy, so they tried it on their own and they fell flat on their face. Even though they've had this phenomenal success, they have all the capital they need to expand. So, you know, one of the things that they didn't realize was exactly this issue. They have this fantastic brand consumers love, ultimately gets to consumers. Consumers love the brand, but when they tried to change around and do this, they couldn't do it. And I had to explain this concept to them. So, yeah, you have great products, but your products aren't your business. You're so to be careful with that. And at the same time, your business is your product. And the way, the place that it makes a lot. When I want to give an example, it makes a lot of sense to people is when you look at professionals like a doctor, you go to a doctor and you say, what's your business? What? Well, my practice, I practice medicine. I. Healing people as my business. That's not your business. That's the product you're providing to people. That product is not your business. Your business, however, is your product. How your staff is, how you deal with your patients, how you deal with the phone calls that you get, how you keep their files, how you give them access to it, what kind of care you're providing, how you approach them, whether you're able to deal with all of the issues that they see, that's your business. Because you could be, you know, going back to the product that you're selling on Saturn, you could be the greatest doctor in the world. And a lot of people are, but they don't have that many patients and not that many people know about them because they're very good at what they do, but they're not good at all of the other things you need to do in order to have a business, right? So when, when you look at something, you say, okay, I got a, I have this wonderful product. And so this brand that we represent, fantastic product, great brand. But when, but they didn't look at their, their, their business as the product. They said, oh, we can just go right around and sell it directly to consumers. Because consumers love our brand already. No, because you don't have the customer service that you need to deal directly with consumers. So they're not going to be real happy when something goes wrong and you can't respond to them in the way they need to be responded to. Consumers right now, for example, they want to buy one jar of something, and they want it there today, they want it there tomorrow. They're not like your business clients that are putting in orders every month or every two weeks, and you, you have all this lead time and you're sending pallets and truckloads over to them. They are, they want one jar and they want it today. How are you going to pack that up at your warehouse? How are you going to get it over to that consumer without something breaking? And then, and then how are you going to deal with it when they say, oh, geez, this thing got here and it was spoiled, whatever it was, how are you going to deal with that? And that's just the beginning. You know, those, those logistics. You have a company that's selling all over the United States, all over Mexico, yet they can't sell, you know, to the very consumers that love their products directly. Think about that, right? And so that's because they didn't regard their business being the product. That's what the consumer is asking for. They want the whole kick and caboodle. And, and that's why you have to look at your business. This is the product you're providing everything, all of your people, all of your employees, all of your team members, all of the marketing and the customer relations along with the product. That's what you're offering to the world. And all of it better be as good as that product that you're selling, that, that, that widget that you're selling to them.

How long would you say it would take to turn someone around in that scenario? If it's even possible or they want to.

The first thing is understanding having the Leadership understand what the problem is is because a lot of times they don't. Once they understand what the problem is then then there's, there's other issues. For example, with this particular client, the logistics issue was, was a little bit of a big deal because they're, they said well we can just fix it up in our warehouse and send it out, you know, oh, we can just hire this kind of person. Well, do you have the equipment? Do you have this, do you have that? So for the time being, what we, what we convinced them to do and it made a lot of sense was to get a third party logistics operation which was able to put all of those things together. Bubble wrap, when it needs to be bubble, bubble wrapped, you know, individually do this, make sure that they get it that day, have the ordering system together, all of those things. We kind of contracted out for them and we said we can build this in house, that's no problem. Let's first get the consumer, get our customers to be happy with us and not have a whole lot of mess ups and we can in the back end create the experience that we want in house if that's what you want to do. The other thing was for example, you know, getting their website together to be more consumer friendly. You know, you, you would go try to order something and the order would be oh, that's not available. You know, tons of tons of SKUs that weren't available. You can't have that, you can't have that SKU on your website. And then you also need ways of feeding things into a card. So to put that together it takes depending on the size of the operation and the willingness of the team to put together a proper leadership for this. You know, you can do it as in as little as a period of months, maybe six months, but more likely you're looking at a 12 month, you know, minimum lead time.

Yeah, and that's, I kind of figured you'd say 12 to 24 months depending on the business and the factors and all that. Because especially you talk about web design and the E commerce. I mean when people say oh I'm looking to make an E commerce store that is vastly different than web design. Web design can inherently just be the design of it. Are you talking about web development and if so, how complex are you talking a 10 or even 50 page site or all those intricacies, all those SKUs, you know, are you using a Google product feed to feed into it? Are you trying to do API integrations with other things? And people just think well I'LL put a picture on there and they'll buy it and you click the thing. It's like I used to joke with people all the time when I was in 3D animation and video production and special effects. All the stuff I incorporated in the show now. But I go, there's no magic Shrek button. His face is composed of 50 to 100 to a thousand different keyframes that you're targeting to go.

To make all that happen in. Same thing with the E Commerce store. There's no magic make million dollar store cart button. Like you said, if the SKUs aren't working, that's a big problem. Especially if you're doing all the marketing and promo to line up for it.

Yeah, believe it or not, I've had this conversation with another client that was a platform that actually was trying to put together a product for E Commerce stores to. And their thing was, oh yeah, you know, what you can do is take this product and you can, you can program it, you know, encode it to do everything you needed to do. And I sat there and said, that's not where your market is. People, people are not sitting there trying to code their website into whatever they need. And I said, even the agencies that you go to, a lot of them don't have the skill set any, any longer. They used to maybe 20 years ago, but today there's, there's, it's a different market. The, the, the coding skill set is different. The, the expectations of that product are completely different. So you can't just sit there and say, oh yeah, you can do this any way you want as long as you can code all this stuff into it. Because that requires all kinds of issues. So you, some degree, there is some degree of plug and play, there is a lot of degrees of expertise. And, and now you need so many expertise in so many things that, you know, your contractors and the people you bring in to put together that E Commerce site, their skill set is vastly different and much broader than it used to be. And they have to do a lot more things. You have a lot more sales channels, you have all kinds of marketing channels. You have all of these things that you have to put together. And so, you know, it's you, you kind of have to talk to people a lot of times and say, have you looked at your market? Do you know exactly what their expectation is? Do you know what their pains are and do you know how to solve them? Because that's what they're looking for. They have these pains and they, you know, and those need to be solved. That's what you need to address. And so that's, That's a difficult conversation a lot of times to have with an organization.

Yeah, that's a great point. You bring it up because I built a site on my own back in 99 and HTML was fine, you know, then it was like css, then there's php, Ajax, Python and all Ruby, Ruby on Rails, all these different things. And my first business I started was web design. And I just knew there would be a better, more efficient way. So I developed a Software to build WordPress websites automatically. I had no clue, I still have no clue how to code php. I can replace like one or two words, you know, that my developers put in there. And it's like common sense. It's like, you know, let's change the value from 10 to 20. Nailed it. But coding that in is vastly different than even a WordPress site or doing a plugin or something. So I love that you're talking about this because so many people focus on the front of the house. When the back of the house and the foundation you're building your business on, they're usually in shambles. I mean, even flat out, they're usually in shambles one way, shape or form. And I love that you're sharing. Take a look holistically at everything because yeah, you might be great at selling it, but can you fulfill it? And if you're fulfilling it, is it the proper way and the most efficient, effective, profitable way to be doing it? So I appreciate you for sharing the front, the back, all the sides of it. Because whether if someone's listening with a small business, medium or extra large. I was thinking of ice cream right there. I'm sorry.

It doesn't really matter because I find also there's so many great people out there that have a business because they have the skill set. But having the skill set does not mean you have a business. They start the business. And it's why I like having people like you on the show to say, hey, here's some things you consider before you lose eight and nine figures, or even seven, six for that matter. Because if you're starting off, this might be as just as big of a hit to a medium company losing 100 mil. I mean, it's all relative. I mean, I would say even, I would actually feel confident in saying early on, even if you lost 100 grand, heck, 10 starting up the first couple of months, depending on the business. It's like putting those parking things under the car, you know, under the wheel, you're. You're not even going to get that. That room to coast, to get up to speed, to eat. You might not even continue on anymore. And that's a travesty. If you make 10 million a year and you lose one, it sucks. But you're still.

You'll still be around, you move on. But it's for a starting business, for a new business, Those are very difficult hits to take. And it's just important it goes into. You mentioned holist, and I actually use that word a lot. It's absolutely correct. And you want to make sure that what you're doing is, you know, you have all the pieces that you need in order to grow that business. You may be good at everything that business needs, but there's someone better at some piece of it. And also it's. To the extent you can. Look, every business has a budget, every business has its limits. But to the extent you can putting together the right people to handle all of the things that need to be handled and making sure that you have that.

In your quiver.

That is important. And you mentioned coaching before. I say to the extent you can get it, to the extent you can read those books, that is coaching, too. You talk about books a lot, and I agree with you. You have to get those fundamentals together. And you have to also, to the extent you're able to afford it, get someone to come in and say, oh, yeah, change this, fix that. And someone that may not be even interested, you know, a disinterested party, that they can look at it as a third party and help you get a different perspective. I know you and I had a brief conversation where we said, oh, you know, looking at things from different perspectives brought me a lot. And, you know, that may be, even if that's the benefit of a coach, where they give you a completely different perspective that you hadn't looked at, because whatever it takes to make that business work, to make your business work, that's. That's what's important. And I. I always sit there and say, all I want is for this business to go well for you, because I don't want to see it not go well because it just is really hard when it doesn't. No matter how little of a failure it is, it's hard to take. So it's always hard for me to take. When I see a client who I always consider as my friends, I want them. I want them to do well.

You and I are a lot alike, and I love this. So I used a word you use and you said quiver. I always use the example of having another arrow in the quiver. That's awesome.

So I got a couple more questions for you before we go to the imperfect action round. And not the first one. This is some. I'm sorry. The next thing I want to ask you. We're so, like, organic and nonchalant with this, and I'm enjoying it. I'm like, yes. Now the next one. Like, shut up. Like, who are you? I wanted to ask you about your client's success stories. Who would you say is their biggest transformation you've been able to give to a client? You've been talking about your clients, and I know you're helping a lot of them. Who would you say is your favorite transformation you're able to give?

Well, you know, it's one that I'm working on right now, and I briefly mentioned them, and I think they're going to be a phenomenal success. That's because they just have this beautiful thing that when I saw their business, I said, you know, I really want to help them. And it's. They have that consumer product. It's. It's a food products that they sell. They have a lot of skus. They're very successful at what they do. They have no online presence. And so helping them put together these other sales channels and create that online presence for them in a totally different market, meaning going directly to consumers so that it's not their B2B business, it's A. It's creating. It's like creating a new company really within their company. And that has been a phenomenal challenge. And it's been an absolute joy. And it's been. I mean, just watching them do it and they're wonderful people. And so, you know, for me, that, that I guess maybe it's the recency of it, but that's the thing that I would point to. That's the one I would point to.

Well, that sounds like it's going to be fantastic. And it already is. I kind of feel like it's an episode shark tank and we'll have to come back in a year or two, be like, all right, so tell us how it went.

And, yeah, you better hold it.

But I get it when you transfer. I've not done that with a company, started up a whole new division. But I have worked in a sense with the marketing where they're going, here's what we've been doing for 100 years. We need to do something vastly different. And it's like, all right, let's play because it is a lot of fun. It can be challenging. But when you know the, see, like right now, you pro, you know, the company has all the pieces they need. The leadership's in place, they have the team, they can do it. They just need a couple of steps along the way and some guidance. Right?

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's as much as it's like creating an entire new business, but you're dealing with people that know that business, they know how to make those, those products ultimately. And they, they've had a very good, they've done a very good job of selling them till now.

So it's not a complete shot in the dark. It's not even a shot in the dark. It's just a matter of we need to go through the steps to make it happen.

But it's the process of taking $100 million company into a billion dollar company. That's, that's, that's what they're going through right now. It's, it's just, it's fantastic to watch. I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, really glad to be a part of it.

And are you aiming for about 12 months from now? 18?

We actually, in our projections, we have, we have projections where it really takes off beginning in about 12 months. And we have, from there we have 12, 18, 24 months. Yeah, but that's what we looked at it and we said 12 to 18 months is where we can, that's the sweet spot.

Yeah. It reminds me of that quote that most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but underestimate what you can do in five. And it's fun to say, oh, I did this in three, six, nine months. But it's even more fun to say I'm still here, 5, 10, 20, 40 years later, 50, 60, whatever the case is, and go, you know, you said it starts at 12, but then at 18, 24, 36, it's just gonna keep growing.

Oh yeah. And you know, one thing I do with, with a lot of my clients is, you know, the way I go through it is I look at it as education, consultation and investment. And so what, what I do a lot of times is actually take the risk with a client is I don't get paid unless I bring this value to you and then I want a piece of that. That way, you know exactly what I'm bringing for you. And you know, you're, you're actually, you know, the, you're not just putting out money for some, you know, you've Got.

Skin in the game, too.

Yes.

So that's. That's important to me.

That's a good way to do it, I believe. And also I want to ask you, how do you judge?

How do you judge? They're going to be a good fit, that it's actually going to pan out. So you. You don't get, you know, they don't want to get screwed, essentially from putting up all the money. So you do the risk reversal, which is fantastic. I've done this also before in situations. But how do you judge? Well, I don't want to get screwed either in 12 or 24 months.

Yeah. I mean, part of it is what you contract, but, you know, so how you contract and what you have rights for. So that's. That's the legal part of it. But also I want to look at the people that I'm dealing with. I want to. I want to know that they're motivated and they want to take this journey with me, and they're excited about it and that they have value for it. That's kind of this nebulous thing that you. There's no metric for, really. But that's the thing that's the deciding factor for me. I look at everything. I look at all the metrics and whether this is possible. I give them all of those things and say, oh, yeah, we can do this. This can happen. But I really have to look into the eyes of the leadership and the founders, if those are the people in front of me or the investors, if those are the people in front of me, and understand that they have that passion and they have this drive and they want to take this journey. And once I feel that way, then I feel comfortable. You know, that's just, you know, as imperfect as that is.

You're bringing up a new question about the. You said one key word in there. What if everything looks good on paper and sounds good, you talk to them. You don't hear excitement.

If I don't hear, and I don't see what I need to see in those terms, I actually tell them about that. I actually say, look, we can do this, and if you want, you know, we can engage in it. But here's the problem. I see, and I've rarely seen, without this piece, the endeavor working. And I don't care whether you're paying me on an incentive pay or a monthly. You know, I probably refuse the monthly as well, because I would say, you know, I don't think that you guys are all there, and I don't think we're going to have a successful venture. And I don't want to be part of that. And I don't want you to be a part of that, frankly. Right. Because why, why would I want to take you.

Into something that I don't think is going to be successful? You're not going to be happy. I'm not going to be happy. So you got to look past the, you know, some of those metrics and say, okay, are we in this? Are we going to be see this through 12 and 24 months from now and probably 36 months from now? Are we going to see this through or not? And that's.

You want to see that they're committed. Yes, yes, I am very much the same way. And it's the reason I asked it, because you're dealing with a different.

You'Re.

Dealing with much larger businesses than I am in the past. But I've always, with my author clients, if there's no excitement, if they're just kind of like kicking it with a stick, I'm like, because they have to apply. I don't take everyone on. And same thing with guest on the show. If I get the slightest inkling this isn't going to be fun or exciting. It's like you might have all the best info in the world, but no one's going to listen to us for five minutes, let alone 25, 35, 45, you know what I mean? It's like it's an hour of both of our lives late, we can't get back. It's like this pep up, like I'm excited. Did you notify your face?

Yeah, you know, I mean, there has to be something there. And, and so, you know, I know, I know. I, like I said, I listen to your show so I, I hear some of your guests and, and I, I get inspired by them and I get inspired by the interview. So, you know, it is funny because I, I just thought of another one. You had a guy, he was a personal trainer, his name was Alex, Alex Nurney, I want to say. And he said all I wanted to do was I wanted to stop waking up at 4:30 in the morning. And then you asked him, you said, you said, but I mean, what time are you waking up now, now that you got your business going? And he didn't have that much of an answer. But his answer, I loved his answer. You know what I was trying to get to was no alarm clock. No alarm clock. And I don't have an alarm clock, by the way. But if I'm not mistaken, I Think.

He said something to the effect because he was another great guest. And I remember. I think he said something like 7:30 or 8. And I'm like, that's sleeping in. I thought it would be like 9, 10, or 11. Like, hey, Mario, before noon. It's fine. It's still morning.

I tell my wife when she first met me, she couldn't understand this about me. I have early morning flights and stuff. And my wife would say, oh, well, way back when. When do you want me to set an alarm clock? I said, I don't set alarm clocks. I don't set alarm clocks. And I don't. Part of it is because I'm up every morning, two to four in the morning. I just am. I'm weird that way. But part of it is that I'm just not gonna do that. That was one limitation. For my entire adult life, I haven't put myself put on myself. But that was something that Alex said that that's the reason it stuck in my head is that he said, oh, I want no alarm clock. And I was like, oh, wow. No alarm clock. Yeah, that's me. Yeah.

When you're rested, your body will wake you up. Nothing bad's gonna happen.

Yeah, that's. That was. That's me. So that's awesome. That was fun.

Well, I have one question before we thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. And. Well, actually, it's two. Yellow or black?

I'll go with the black.

Nice.

All right. You like that question you got there?

Where is it?

You know, when I came up with this, I was like, oh, I'll put all the questions and it'll be categories like business, personal, and that's what you're doing. I did a few episodes just for time, and there was nothing on there. And I was like, I'll add it next week. But now I'm like, this is awesome, because I get carte blanche to make up whatever nonsensical crap I want.

Oh, I thought you were hypnotizing me. No.

Well, it could be that, too. And it was funny because someone. I don't know what episode it was, but they made reference to. They felt like they were running on a hamster wheel. And I was like, oh, you're going to love what I have coming up.

Because there it is.

I.

That's what it is. I painted it.

So my question for you is, with all the businesses you've helped, would you ever consider going into, like, political organization or governmental? Like, would you ever try and help NASA or US Any political party or anything like that, or would you, are you strictly business? Like what would be a real big challenge for you. That would just be like a moonshot where you're just like, wow, this would be killer to do.

Well, I mean political. I, I like political stuff. Although I don't particularly agree with the way our government as a whole is functioning now. No matter what the party has, is, it's not functioning. I like those. But, but it's a, it's a different kind of approach. It's not a real business approach to, to politics. I probably, I, you know, would, would do that. I, I like it and, and I would do it, but it wouldn't be in the same way and I would love doing it. And I do, I do talk to and consult with a number of politicians and I have over the years only because I did a whole lot of fundraising. But you know, I probably, you know, I'd keep that limited in terms of governmental contracts if it's something that is like you mentioned NASA. I mean, I can't imagine what I could possibly do for NASA. I don't have a SpaceX or anything, but that would be phenomenal.

You would enjoy that.

I, I would, I would.

Is there any business and let me do a little cherry on top. Caveat. Is there any business right now that's on your radar currently that you would love to work with that you're just wondering how to approach or get to necessarily?

Lots of them? Jeez, geez.

Because I can tell you really love what you do and you're all you've already worked with. I mean, eight, nine figure businesses are no joke. But are there any in the 10, 10, 11 figures that you're just like, this would be awesome.

Oh, you know, you know, I, I actually would like to keep it to SMBs. So. So once you get into 10 figures, you're probably no longer even a medium sized business. I like the problems that small and medium sized businesses have and, and to, you know, get a handle on it because I like looking at the whole organization once it gets too big. You, you don't really get to look at the whole organization.

You're just dealing with the division of it.

Yeah. And so, you know, I kind of enjoy dealing with the whole organization.

So 200 million less probably.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. For all those small businesses out there only doing 50, 60 million.

Yeah. Only. Yeah.

No, I mean, I don't, I don't look at them as small in that way.

I know I'm making light of it because I know Statistically, any business under, I think it's 1 to 2 million or maybe 5. They're. They're tiny, depending on who you're talking to and what rating is in there. Like you said, the small, medium businesses. Yeah. You can go up to 100 million. You're still just. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge accomplishment. But I get what you're saying. It's not Apple or Microsoft or Dell or.

Yeah.

I'm just looking at a label. For example, when the government was giving, doing the PPP stuff, all businesses under 500 were considered small businesses. 500 employees. With 500 employees, you could be making boatloads of money, boatloads of revenues. And so, you know, it's not small in terms of revenues, it's small in terms of the organization, and small enough that you can get your hands around it, you know, and sort of look at the. As we talked about it, look at the organization holistically.

That's what I mean when I reference small and medium size, by no means is that a reflection of what kind of revenues they're having or how successful they are, because God knows there are plenty of those businesses that fall in those categories that are just phenomenally successful. So it is not at all a reflection like that.

And I'll put a disclaimer on it. I never once in this entire time thought you were saying anything down on them. I'm the one who made the joke, and it was just because I know there's people who would love to have a 5 or 10 million or $20 million business. Like that's a big business, too.

Absolutely.

I would say, statistically, 93 to 95% of them.

Yes.

And I think, you know, what I would love doing is I love helping exactly those, those 93% where they want to grow to 5 million, 10 million, 20 million and above. You know, that is really satisfying.

You can do that day in, day out without thinking too much, huh?

Well, it's. It's also really satisfying. It's also really satisfying because you get to know the founders and the business owners at a personal level. A lot of times you get to see their families and, and get to see how they live. And also as, as. As they prosper and get, you know, you give value to them, whatever you're.

Delivering, you can grow with them.

You grow with them, and, and you see the effects on them. They're happy, you know, that means something. Absolutely.

That's why I like the transformation. And what's your biggest success story? Because I had to basically Backpedal and say it twice. Because I've been training myself not to say your biggest success story. I've been saying your favorite because your biggest. Oh, we helped him go from 100 million to a billion. Okay, that's great. That's a success story. But I would say upwards of 80% of my guests, including you, they're like, let me tell you about this story. And I'm thinking of another personal trainer, Angelo Poli. He's worked with celebrities, movie stars, all kinds of people with health and fitness business execs, CEOs, and I. He goes, same thing. Who was your biggest transformation? He's like, oh man, let me tell you about. And I believe it was a woman. It was just, it changed her whole life, her whole attitude. You know what I mean? It was like it changed everything.

Yeah.

It wasn't, oh, I got to work with, you know, some well known celeb or this and that. I mean, they're there. But he was like, yeah, yeah, that's dime a dozen. Every, everyone expects that. But you know, he has hundreds of success stories of, you know, everyday people that it's like, you know, maybe they grew up with something for 10, 20 years and he was able to help them fix it. I love, I love doing the same thing. With business book publishing going, you have 30, 40, 50, even five years experience. We can now put you in front of 10,000, 100,000 people instead of just your local people. It's like you have a worldwide business. All I need is your expertise. It's fun. I agree 100%. So thank you for sharing that. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back to the imperfect action on but this has been great so far. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours, and it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori. I went from having an idea and.

A possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my.

Book launch.

Unmanageable John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to.

Go with promoting my books.

Rocio there's no way in the world.

I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me.

As a matter of fact, I ended.

Up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for.

Than to work with Mario Ficini.

He has been great for me, and right now I won't work with anybody.

Else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Sean, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I think I'm ready.

I think you are. After everything you've shared already and all the things you've overcome, this will be a walk in the park for you. First question, 60 second or less answers. The first one is, what is the fastest path to the cash?

Okay. If you're just starting as a business, I would say anything that actually you can sell your time, like consulting, that involves that. It doesn't have to be only that if you're an existing business. What I would do is I would look at two things. One is I would look at your costs and see what you can streamline because a lot of times there's inefficiency. Two, and along the same lines, I would look at your marketing and I would streamline that. And he's, you know anyone who's done any marketing, and I know you have.

Everyone knows that John Wanamaker's quote, half of my marketing dollars are wasted. I just don't know which half. That's somewhat true. But, you know, we do have metrics. And what you can do is see where there's some waste and actually increase your marketing spe. And then three is a lot of times you're underpricing yourself. A price increase of 5 to 10%. A lot of times is possible. And the next part of that, so I gave two cutting and two increasing. One is price increase. Two is go back to your customers, to your current customers. They're the easiest ones to market to.

Oh, that right there is the episode. Thank you so much. Fantastic. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Okay, well, one of them I mentioned already is what is the capital source? I mean, if you're starting a business and you're using credit card money, I would say no, do not do that. That's a primary example of something not to do. Don't max out your credit cards for it.

44 grand on payroll isn't good to put on the amex.

Yeah, that 25%.

As interest rate going to kill you, it's going to come back on you. And the other thing is something I always tell people is budget very, very tight, but don't be cheap. So when I said increase your marketing dollars, be very tight on your budget, be very careful about what you're spending, but also don't be cheap, that's something that they do. And a lot of times what they're doing is they're underpricing themselves. I mentioned that before because it's something that comes up. You're underpricing yourself, you're undervaluing yourself. I think that your customers are willing usually to go up 5 or 10% on the prices.

Love it, love it. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

So if you're going after ltv, which I think you should always be doing because using your current customers and selling to them is the cheapest marketing dollar you'll spend. And you should always do that and keep loyal customers. Go after a subscription. And that's if you don't have a subscription model. Figure it out. Because virtually every business can be, can be done on a subscription model. And in fact, I'll tell you one quick, very, very quick example. I, I helped a humidifier business. They were selling humidifiers and I was sitting there going, well, you just have a bunch of one off sales now. They had thousands of them. But, but, but guess what actually ended up being their biggest revenue source? The essential oils that you use inside those humidifiers. And they made that into a subscription business and that actually generated more revenues than their humidifier business. More, more.

I was going to say the filters.

Filters as well. They added those as well. Absolutely.

So those are two good upsells. Profit maximizers.

Absolutely. And if you do that, you turn your business into kind of a credit card machine where you're every month you're charging and it's just going on and it's just increasing.

I know Apple people. I just saw a recent breakdown and it's like how they make their money and it's like you have the computers, you have the iPhones, the iPads, the I, whatever devices you have the hardware, but then it shows the subscription for like itunes, imovie, I whatever, all the different services. And it was staggering. It's like, yeah, they made 300. Well, they didn't make 300 on the iPad when it first came out and I'm sure they were 500 anyhow. But they made it cost them something. But all those dollar downloads, that was unheard of until they came out.

And frankly, Amazon made an entire business out of it as well. What did they do? They said just pay us a yearly amount for this prime thing and then we'll just give you stuff. You know, it was just, we'll give you stuff, we'll give you free delivery, we'll give you this, we'll give you.

That free shipping, Right?

Yeah. And we'll just give you stuff and just pay us X number of dollars a year. And that's. That was incredibly smart because it, it created this reven and all they do is they just throw stuff into that bucket and they remove stuff from that bucket. But it's just this revenue stream that keeps growing.

Yeah. Whether you order anything or not, it's at least some sort of subscription. I know there's the videos on there now. There's other stuff, some audios, music you can listen to, Expert Authority Effect interviews through the podcast on there.

That's the best value there.

I'm glad you're bringing that up because so many businesses can benefit from a model like that instead of the up and down roller coaster sales here and there. You know, I actually I mentioned, I developed though I developed the Software to build WordPress websites automatically about a decade ago and I license that to companies instead of us building them for everyone. Here's access to do it way more efficient and faster. And the licensing is a very same model.

Yep, yep, absolutely. It's fantastic.

All right. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World?

Okay, business book, I would say Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

Okay.

Non business, I will say.

Okay, this is a civil action and they made a movie out of this, but with John Travolta. But the book actually shows you something. And specifically it shows the guy being so committed and ultimately getting so much tunnel vision that he basically lost everything in his life over this legal case. And so it teaches you a lesson about how to keep your wits about yourself and avoid getting that tunnel vision where you see nothing but this one end and you'll do anything to get there, ultimately ruining a lot of other things and, and really not getting to a good result even with what you.

Have tunnel vision on scorched earth is not always the best policy.

Yes. Yeah. So that's, that's another one I would say.

Where would you like people to learn more?

Well, if you want to connect with me personally, I have because my name is so hard to to spell, I have connectwithshawn.com connect with Sean S H A W N dot com or you can go to my latest startup, eplaybooks.com Excellent.

Well, I appreciate everything you've been sharing and I'll make sure those links are in the show notes on eainterviews.com Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Same here. Thank you for having me.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new link to. You can go to it directly@eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.