What should people do about their own safety in sales? - CIFC Episode 137
Matt Ryder and Pat discuss ethical sales practices and legal accountability in coaching and marketing. They cover FTC regulations, Facebook and YouTube advertising, and the responsibilities sellers face in high-ticket sales and online business coaching.
Do this for your own safety.
Okay, so we're back. Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. It's Matt and Pat. What should people do for their own safety?
Figure out more about their offers. Dive deep on the deliverabilities and the sustainability that offer. Because there are some things going on at the moment in the coaching consulting world where seems like people are possibly being held accountable for their marketing practices.
Okay, so explain that to me like, I'm an idiot. One, because I am. And two, because I'm not a sales guy. The offer that you are selling.
Yeah.
Even if you have no part in the deliverability or the deliverables, you're just the sales guy. Somebody else has to deliver the whole thing.
You are ultimately accountable for the words that you say.
If they don't deliver what you said, they will. That, that can come back to you.
Yeah.
You can never promise an outcome. Okay, so which is why, like, when I say things, it's very deliberate in the wording. What do you need to do to put yourself in the best position to be able to hit xyz?
Okay.
And like, I would never say, like, so when you hit, I would say, let's just say we are able to help you get into a position to where you can hit 30k a month. What would you do with that type of money coming in? I wouldn't say. So when you do the coaching and you get to 30k a month, like, that's a guarantee. Like, what are you going to do with that when that money hits your account? Like, what's that? You know, I mean, that, that's, that's like, that's an unlawful business practice. The FTC does not look friendly on that. So it's much easier to get away with on a sales side because, like, if the sales. I don't think there's a law that says you have to record sales calls.
Yeah, but they pretty much all are these.
They pretty much all are unless you turn recording off. But even then you can just erase it. Like, it'd be very hard to catch that. So, like, a lot of sales guys run fairly rogue in what they say. So we have like, we have like FTC guidelines and we tell them, hey, guys, just so you know, like, you're accountable for these things. It's up to you to do the research. Like, here's some, some basic, you know, information on this kind of stuff. But like, you're ultimately accountable. Like, if you go rogue and you tell a guy, hey, if you do this, you're guaranteed to make this much money and they don't, they're entitled to a 100% refund. And if they do decide to make a complaint that then they can make complaint against the business, they business can then pass it up to you because you're the one who made the claim. Now if they say it in marketing, that's a whole different thing. But then you have to not like mimic it.
Right. Okay.
So that's why like it's much easier to get away with it on the sales side. Like to oversell things. It's way easier to get away with because it's just harder to track.
Yeah, yeah.
But if people start doing it on marketing, that's when you're really going to get in trouble.
So it seems to me like the NEPQ stuff, obviously it's, there's a lot of questions and a lot of sort of leading people to visualize and that obviously protects from doing that. Like you'll never say exactly as you.
Said it was written specifically with like that type of sale in mind.
Yeah. So do you think that that, is that a chicken or the egg kind of thing?
Right.
Like is that written that way because it protect, like that's legally the way you have to do it or is it more effective?
I think probably a bit of both. I think Jeremy knew that you can't say those things because he's dealt with offers that were shut down by the SEC and stuff like that.
Okay.
Not that he had anything directly to do with them, but he was, you know, he was asked to write scripts and do all that kind of stuff. So like when you're writing scripts, all that stuff has to come into it, the guidelines of what you're allowed to do and say. I see a lot of scripts where people clearly haven't done that research and they don't know what they're supposed to, what they can do and say because they are very like upfront and bold. But if you tell a customer that you can get them a result and they don't get the result, regardless of whose fault it is, they are entitled to 100% refund. That's just the way that it works in in service based industries which is why like you can never guarantee an outcome ever. Back in the day you used to be able to go super rogue on Facebook and say things like lose 5k, lose 5kg and 28 days guaranteed and all that kind of stuff. But like then all that started to fall back potentially onto Facebook and so they kind of kiboshed all that because it's against SEC or ftc, whatever country you live in. It's against the regulations of like unfair business practices.
So when you say, because I've heard you say that before, that you can't get away with doing that on Facebook, it's not only just legally that's not allowed to happen, but also that Facebook won't allow it.
Right?
No, no, no, no. Facebook, their guidelines of what you can and can't say are probably more strict then now the problem is people that that's what you can say on Facebook. But like clickfunnels doesn't have that rule.
Right.
Which I do assume will have to come in at some point. Like you, at some point Clickfunnels has got to be, I guess, held. I don't know, like how much responsibility do they take for what's said in the VSLs that are on their platform? Yeah, you know, like it seems like, yeah, no, but Facebook is. Yeah, right. So I, and I get it. But it's like, it's almost like it's that those are there specific for marketing practices. So like, and I've seen VSLs that are totally against SEC practices where they make guarantees. Make guarantees and say stupid shit. And then I've seen subsequently those things be changed because lawyers have been like, no, like they've hired the lawyers to figure out like a lot of our accounts. When they start to get big, we go through it with them of like, okay, you need to produce us the FTC guidelines for this offer and you need to go through our script and you need to tell us what specific wording we have to change. Because like otherwise we're just doing what is within the guidelines of like what we think based on our research. But like if you have like specific lawyers that are going to come in and critique it. Like some of our really big accounts, we've had to do that, you know, because they're selling crazy amounts and it's like especially anything biz op or like making money related with seventh level. Like it's not that it's a coaching course. Right. So it's like all we're doing is coaching sales. And it's like it's a methodology. So we're not promising anything. It's like we promised you will learn the method.
Right?
That's it.
Or that we will deliver it. Yeah, we'll give you the opportunity to learn it.
Exactly. And that's all we're promising. So we're not out there doing Amazon Automation or any of these sort of biz op funnels which are really the ones that are going to start getting in trouble, which is what's happened recently.
Yeah.
So to be clear, Facebook stop you doing these sorts of things in your.
Marketing on their platform.
On their platform. But you can then have, yeah, whatever link that takes you off their platform to somebody else's platform. And it's the wild west. You're just accountable to the sec, not to the host of that platform. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like still that's probably a pretty good mix.
So do I. I think it's okay. It's just like, it's just how rogue it is getting at the moment. I think that there's. But again, I think as soon as like, you know, execute one, educate a million. Yeah, I think so. Like someone's got to go down.
Okay, so is anybody going, yeah, someone's.
Gonna get up my phone. So I was on Twitter. Twitter is the greatest thing of all sources. And, and very interesting is that. And again, this is all alleged. I don't know if any of this is true. I have no evidence to back up. But the FTC is going after Kevin David. So Kevin David, for those of you who don't know, is a very big coach. He was like, he's huge on YouTube. He's like kind of the first guy that really cracked YouTube, okay. As like a lead generation source.
And what does he coach people in.
Amazon, Automation, crypto, fucking, you name it.
Okay.
I mean, one of those things, all the money making, he's been done by Coffee Zillow a couple of times for like straight up ripping off people's videos. Okay. That's like undeniable. Yeah, Coffee Zillow tore that motherfucker to pieces when it comes to that stuff. Yeah, but it basically says FTC takes action to stop DK Automation and Kevin David Hulse and from pitching phony Amazon and crypto money making schemes. This is the FTC website, by the way. I'm just reading from it word for word.
Okay?
So to be clear, we don't, we're not. I don't know any of these people. I don't know anything about it.
I don't give a fuck what happens to Kevin, okay?
But we're not good or bad.
Like, yeah, he can go buy a private jet. He can fucking.
Yeah.
Dynafit affects me none. Yeah, well, this is the allegations from the ftc.
Sure, sure.
Right.
So defendants, defendants continued making false claims after receiving notices and penalty offenses of of over 2.6 million for deceptive marketing claims.
So stop there. So if he was just happy to pay the fines at 2.6 million, which he's like, oh yeah, you got me, guys. Slap on the wrist, $2.6 million fine, no worries, I'll pay that. What is he making? Like, what is the income that they're getting there where they're just like, oh no, that's fine, we'll pay the fine.
So the Federal Trade Commission is taking action against DK Automations and its owners for the using of unfounded claims of big returns to incis entice consumers into money making schemes involving Amazon business packages, business coaching and cryptocurrency. They basically promised consumers they could generate a passive income on autopilot when the truth was that very few consumers made money from these schemes. Ripped off consumers by manipulating reviews and making false promises. And. Or anyway, you can go to the FTC government website and just look up Kevin David and you can have, we might even link it. You can go and read it. Yeah, listen, I don't know about Kevin David. Never met him, probably will never meet him. But I think it brings up a really good point where, like, you know, I mean, I've known about claims like that against him and other people like that for a, for a long time. And I think one of the, one of the errors that I see in the business is people go, no, no, no, he's not scamming people. It's, you know, just clients or, you know, like mindset issues. Mindset. It's like, no, like there's maybe not in this case, because again, I have no idea. But like a lot of the time these guys just call themselves business coaches, you know, and they're just not. They couldn't put together a P L if their life depended on it. And I see this all the time. You know, I've had conversation with business coaches where they say they got a funding option and they're more profitable. We've talked about that before. It's like, no, you're not. You're just taking in more cash. If anything, you're less profitable.
Mm.
Because that funding company is taking 10. Yeah, there's just a problem. Like, you know, the old school coaches like Keith Cunningham, who was like a phenomenal business coach who is like, he's the rich dad from rich dad, poor dad.
Okay. Right.
It's written about two people.
Yeah.
I'm fairly sure that Keith is the. I'm sure the comment section will let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's a rich dad.
Right.
And, and so like, that guy's legit. He did all the business coaching for Tony Robbins and helped deliver a lot of his programs. The guy knows business back to front. He's a guru. We actually do his sales, right? He has a thing called the four day mba, right? Link it down below and go talk to one of the boys. But that guy is legit. But these days there's so many people calling themselves business coaches and all they're doing is like finding one little hook and then they're twisting that into something that is a marketing hook. And then they just kind of go off and do the sales and they get all these salespeople to essentially put themselves in the line. Because, like, if you don't think the sales guys for David, like, for Kevin, David, you feeling they're not getting fucking brought into this? Like, yeah, another thing coming because, like they're going to like, want to see every sales call, right? So like, listen, I'm sure that there might be a Hillary Clinton lost email situation, right? But like, everyone is going to get subpoenaed and everyone will be in trouble because like the, the FTC takes those super seriously. And if you get done, like, you can never do that job again. Like, you, you just can't.
Right?
And so usually the people at the top of it have squirreled away enough money to just off to a different country. Like old, you know, not so Friedman or whatever the his name is, looks like a crypto Bankman Freedom. Yeah, yeah, same bankrupt.
So do you see how much weirder that keeps getting?
Oh, it gets weirder every day.
So like, apparently ftx, I mean, I get this news from Twitter from Tick Tock, right?
So like, did you watch the Copyzilla breakdown of it? No, mate, it was in depth. That dude's super in depth.
Yeah, yeah, he does research. Not like us, we just.
Oh, tons of it. Yeah, tons of it. So I watched that and it was just like all the shady this and this and this and this and the fact that there's a back door built in. There's $2 billion missing.
Yeah, but no mates, just somewhere. But everyone that runs FTX lives in a mansion. They're all each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're like in a 10 person polygamous relationship.
Yeah.
And they're all super dorks as well. Like, good for them.
One chick became the CEO of something just because she was fucking him. Like, and then I saw the photo.
Good for them. I mean, they stole a ton of money off me, but them, yeah, I mean, they Had a good time doing it.
They did, yeah. Yeah. So they're in Argentina or something somewhere. There was a flight that was tracked that everyone thinks is his flight because no one can find him.
Yeah, this is, I think this is what I was talking about the other week. I think that, like you, when you start blanket over people like that, eventually you over someone with a particular skill set.
Yeah.
Like, he goes, I'll find you.
Well, the real problem, like, so one of the things that is mentioned in that FTC website report is Amazon Automation, which is a real problem at the moment. Like, the automation is like one of the IT things right now that people are selling. And don't get me wrong, there are some great guys. There's a guy called Ernest Epps who sells Amazon Automation. I've seen the back end of his program. It's really good. Like, it's really. He's really thought it through.
What is Amazon?
It's like a. Done for you. Amazon business business. Okay, so like we'll bring you in and we'll like, literally we'll shortlist the products for you. We'll find the suppliers for you. Because they have all of the. They have all that because the guys run his own stores. Like, and like Ernest, for example. Like, I've seen his stores and his stores are very, very successful. So he has like 10 highly successful Amazon stores that are his own. The brands, the whole box and die. So he's like systemized how to do that. And so he now teaches people how to do that. And he has. They just get to bolt on to all of his stuff. But 99% of them don't have that right. Just have a bunch of VAs that are getting together a bunch of shit products, you know what I mean? Or like, however they decide to do it. So there are always good people in the space. Another guy called Scott, Scott Cameron, I believe his name is, again, really good at what he does. Really dialed that in. Knows Amazon back to front. Probably could sell more than what Bezos of. Bezos went on there and started to do it. Like, the dudes figured it out. But like any of that automation stuff, like there's YouTube automation, which is like where someone starts a YouTube channel for you, does those like voiceover bullshit ones like that, they go viral and you know, I mean, you get the revenue from the ad revenue. It's all done for. You do nothing, right? You just pay the bill and then they do it. There's fucking Shopify Automation, Amazon Automation, like Facebook Marketplace automation. Yeah, you name it. Like They've someone's automating it for you and then kind of giving it to you. The problem that's happening is that that's the new high ticket. So those are 30, 60, $90,000.
Right.
Because you're buying a business but it's just not started yet. And so that's where a lot of the issues are coming because like that's a really enticing offer for a lot of people that don't have money and that do have money because if like if you're being told hey listen, the Average returns our XYZ cash flow per month, so you're putting in 60 grand, you're going to get $10,000 a month cash flow back and even if it's 5,000 or $4,000 a month profit, that's, that's a no brainer investment really as a good use of capital especially compared to like the stock market. And a lot of like Kevin David's like Sorry, marketing and YouTube videos are about destroying the stock market. Like our returns are way better than the stock market, way better than property. Now those might not still be up but I've seen them like they, they're.
Hanging around somewhere and I suppose though the, the, the problem with that is that he's indicating that like the stock market for the most part is set and forget you buy your shares, you put them there if assuming you're not day trading, whatever.
Yeah.
And they're intimating that the automations that they're going to set up for you are equally as no input from you.
Yeah, yeah but then you're gonna out, you're going to outbeat the market. Right. So these are like you know, for you get a successful guy that can drop $100,000 in the stuff it's like yeah, it seems like a good use of capital to me. The problem is like these things are difficult to set up and, and, and they're being charged difficult to set up. However they're a lot of the time from what I've seen they're doing it in the shortcut way or just not able to fulfill the volume of sale that they're getting period.
Yeah.
So do you think is it possible that in those spaces that like where you say that there are people that do it? Well, Earnest Epps, right. It because he probably charges more, provides a better product, has been at it and then provides cover and concealment for the people who do it shittily. Because there are people who will tell you yeah, I like real testimonials like yeah I did that and I did an Amazon automation thing. I'm killing it. I gave the guy 60 grand, set up my store. Now I've got this passive income. That really did happen, but it happens on a small scale because it's very expensive and they have a capacity. They only take so many people to do it because there's a limited capacity to be able to do it. But then somebody else then says, hey, well I'm as good and I can do it for 20.
Yeah.
And I'll take as many people as possible.
And the thing is like, these are all wires. They're all paid in full. And man, it's hard to get that money back.
Right.
Like, so when you say wires, what does that mean?
They're not credit card payments.
Right.
A lot of biz ops won't. Won't take credit card.
Is it that they won't take credit card or that they're not allowed to? Like they don't have a processor.
They just have a processor. They just won't because credit card just go refund.
Yeah.
You know, like, it's just too easy. And like people will refund a good product, but, but also like they have a stunt. There's an immediate sunk cost. Like if, let's say they're charging 30 grand, it will cost at least 10 in order to set that up.
Right.
Because they have to do, they have to do a bunch of stuff. So if they do it, it'll cost at least ten grand. So they're making 20,000 profit off it. Just my thing was always like, if you're that good at it, just, just start a shitload of stores. Like that was always like my sort of thing in my head was like, why not just do it yourself? I'll just do it.
Yeah.
You know, like I sell sales training. It's like, well, I do do a shitload of sales. Like there's only so many sales that I make, you know.
No, exactly.
We sell training for it.
Yeah, but that, that is an issue of capacity. Like, you have so many hours in the day, you can only sell so much.
Yeah.
But if it's a truly passive income automated thing, you can just set up thousands of them.
Yeah.
There's no, there's no limit to it. And you should be taking all that yourself instead of like, it just doesn't at stack up that someone would do it for someone else.
Yeah. And I get like, I never understood that. Obviously there are reasons why somebody would who has a shitload of stores and they want a diversified income, diversified risk but you'd want to have a shitload of stores. Like Ernest has a lot of stores and they're all really successful. I've seen them, I've seen the back end. He showed me the numbers. I was like, okay, you're, you are legit.
Okay, right.
I did that because we did the sales. But other people, it's like, how many stories do you have? I don't want to go into it. Oh, well then you don't have any. Like, you have to show me that you're, you can do the thing.
Yeah, yeah.
So, so yeah, it's really interesting. But I think like sales guys, you know, they hop on these hot offers and like, I think there's really, there's four types of offers that in the high ticket space. This is very specific to high ticket. There's the non starter, most common. Hey bro, I got so many leads, I don't know what to do with myself. Get in there. It's dry haul, right? It's, you know, it's nothing. Second thing is like a three month offer. So they got like, they got enough in the tank to keep you busy for three months and that's it.
So wait, you're talking about as a salesperson?
Yeah, yeah.
There's a nine month offer which are usually hot offers. So if something like a crypto offer a year ago, right. It's hot as fuck.
Snap a day, right? Been great.
I saw that and I was like, this is great. And I remember being in the offer and we were making a lot of money and I was like, this will die. Give it nine months. This is dead. We have to make sure we have a fallback position here. And then you've got your like two year plus, like just your long term. A quality business that has decent people in it where they can like run at a profit but deliver a good service. So they get testimonials, they get referrals and you can be in that offer for a couple years. Not many coaching businesses will last more than three or four years. Just in general, generally speaking, the person.
Was that a lot of the time.
The owner can make enough money.
So that's the reason is that they just like, I'm done. They cash out. Or do you think that they're, they get unstuck? Like people realize like this isn't very good. It becomes hard to sell. Or do you think maybe their product ages out?
Yeah, a lot of. So it's, it's all those reasons. So, so there's one type of guy that just like I Know a guy that was running a $600,000 a month business at a 65% net. Snap a do, snap a. Do you do that for four years like you do you really have to work anymore? You probably got 10, $12 million in the bank or you've invested it wisely. If you have $10 million invested with a good wealth manager, you'll make a million dollar a year salary.
Right.
Like you're done.
Why not?
You're done. It's for all essential purposes.
Right.
Second one is that they just don't product innovate. So if you're selling the same thing and it doesn't change, it's gonna die. Yeah, no doubt about it. Just as what it is like at seventh level, just in the two years that I've been running it, we've added on like four more products and then we've got a relaunch of 2.0, a complete revamp of 2.0 launching in January. It's taken us like seven months to develop it.
Tell me a little bit about that. Like as you revamp 2.0, do people who, people, existing people get the revamp? Like what's their, how long's their access to?
12 months. So if it's within their 12 months, they'll get it. If it's not, then they won't.
Right.
They'll have to repay.
And, and will you then market to people who've already done the old version and go hey, new version.
That's the first person we market to. Y. Yeah, try and get them to upsell and usually we cascade it down. So in terms of like access to new information to promote upsells internally. But yeah, so we've done that and then we've got like a new objection. It's called a mifge. It's like a subscription model opening up. So like we're diversifying our product range, evolving it going more niche specific. We're right now we're running specific car automotive ads.
Okay.
So the automotive industry for sales it's going really well. We're going to run specific insurance. We're going to have specific program for that over specific insurance program. There'll be a door to door program. There'll be a high ticket coaching program like they're all getting. It all gets segmented and do people.
Buy access to the different segments or.
Yeah, well the plan is like you'll buy access to, you'll get the whole lot but we'll have segments for each. But then from there like we may independently sell off One bits and pieces, bits and piece. Like if we like. Because we'll have a really good high tech. If we just get fucking sick of high ticket coaching, then we can sell that division that off.
Nice.
So. But yeah, so it's like constantly innovating products. So if you don't innovate the product like it's going to die.
Yeah.
No one's going to buy the same business coaching shit off you for 25 years. Unless you're like a Keith Cunningham, which is like this is how you run a business.
Yeah.
Because 90 of like the business coaching industry is just like a hook. It's.
Hey, get the latest trend.
Yeah. You know, learn how to go viral on Tick Tock or that won't be irrelevant in six months. You know, like learn how to like one of the big ones is like clients and community. They teach people how to monetize Facebook groups. Yeah. See in two years, dude.
Yeah.
Like that's not gonna be a thing.
Yeah.
You know, like Instagram's rolling out Facebook groups or Instagram groups. Really? In January.
Wow.
Yeah.
So how will that work?
What will that look?
I have no idea. But I've been told because.
Because you're in now.
I'm in the know now.
You are too. That's what you get.
YouTube is changing their algorithm to like an AI, but only the top spenders are getting access to it for the first like six months.
Yeah.
They're getting rid of the targeting, adding in the AI, but not for everybody.
Wow.
So they're going to, they're going to do their own consolidation.
Yeah.
What do you think YouTuber feeling a threat like YouTube's.
YouTube is. Almost everyone I know is like 80% of their ad spends YouTube.
Okay, let me rephrase. Do you think that. Not that they're feeling a threat, but do you think that they're going to reformat because of the like increase in vertical content? Like.
Well, I think, yeah. I mean they're monetizing shorts.
Yeah. Pushing shorts more. But do you think the way when you open YouTube Dragon, like on your phone Dragon, that they're going to change that to have more of a Instagram Tick Tock kind of feel where it immediately because like one of the things that you know, like when you open Tick Tock, you're it.
Boom.
Here's. Here's something for you to look at right away. Same as Instagram straight away. But when you open YouTube, you're forced to make a choice.
Yeah, well YouTube is a search engine and that's the big difference. It's active scrolling, not passive scrolling.
Yeah.
So, so, like, you. You are looking for things on YouTube, and I think that if they lean into that, that's better. Because essentially the way they make money is ad revenue. So the more effective their advertising is, like, I think the thing that Facebook is fucked up is they've made their advertising so difficult. Just it's so hard to make it work.
Yeah.
You have to be really good.
And so you said that Facebook have these, like, strict guidelines around their advertising.
Yeah.
Does YouTube have the same ones?
Yes, but they're different.
Okay.
It's the same as Google.
Right.
Like, so it's a little bit less strict, I would say. And their targeting is 10 times better because, like, it's Google.
Yeah, yeah, Google.
They got all the data.
They have all the data from everyone.
Yeah.
So, like, everything. So YouTube advertising in general, it has a much higher return of ad spend.
Really?
Much higher intent lead.
Wow. Okay. Yeah.
So. And you can spend faster. So the algorithmic, like the. The algorithm on Facebook, it's difficult to start spending lots of money.
Okay.
Like, if you want to spend that 10 grand a day, 20 grand a day mark, like, it's difficult to place the ads because there's only so many places you can go on Facebook.
Right.
Whereas in on YouTube, you just pay per view.
Yeah.
So you just, hey, I want 10 million views. Okay. Yeah, I have plenty of views. Not gonna run out of views. There's billions and billions of views a day.
Mm. You.
I can have 10,000. It's a drop in the ocean. And have a billion. Pay for a billion views. Still doesn't make a difference. There's still billions of other eyeballs that I haven't, you know, I haven't seen it yet. So it's just a much more like direct type of advertising. And because people are looking for stuff, you get much higher intent leads. And then it's like, hey, this person's searching for sales training. Okay, here's my ad.
Yeah.
You know, whereas, like, with Facebook, you're trying to put it in front of people based off some behavioral assumptions. And then from there, like, the way it works is it takes the responses that you get from the ad, and then it has a machine learning component where it learns and learns and gets more adult in however, you know, if you're off track at the beginning.
Yeah.
It gets very off track at the end.
Yeah.
So whereas I think you can pull that in a lot better on YouTube. So, like, a lot of the things that happens to a lot of people on Facebook is. They get categorized incorrectly.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, for sure. I've noticed that.
Yeah. So they just get the wrong leads and you can't target like you used to. I used to be able to go a five kilometer ring around this. Women between the age of 18 to 32 who, you know, like Jen Selter some. You just can't be as specific anymore.
Right.
You know, so like they're making it.
So they removed your capacity to be that.
They removed the targeting.
How come? No idea. Like everything they do as a construct. No, no, but like everything that's true. Benefit them.
I think that's true.
You don't think.
I mean, look at Twitter.
Yeah, right.
They had what they've lost now, 90 of their employees, but like 30 of that was just gender and diversity. So it's like they're not doing things in their best interest. They're doing things that make them feel. Feel good. So like, and I, I, like, it's an argument as to whether Zuckerberg is a genius or a, at this point, you know, like, like, like Apple's coming out with a new AR VR device. It'll probably be 10 times better than Meta. You know, is he, is it really going to be what he thinks it's going to be?
Yeah, that's what I think is interesting. Did you hear him on Rogan?
No, I haven't watched it.
Yeah, like, so he's convinced, like, and, and it is a convincing conversation that he's like, yeah, I'm dumping tons of money into the metaverse, but I, I, I have a plan. I see where it's going and that's just what it takes. Like, we're doing all the capital investment to, you know, we're, we're designing the first product, but we're also designing the second, third and fourth product. Assuming that technology will catch up, the batteries will get more efficient. The lens.
Yeah.
All the things are like, we're hard in the pain on this and the whole time, like, it's very convincing listening to him. But then the whole time I'm thinking like, you've never made a real thing before.
They tried. They've done a couple, yeah. Tablet, but none of it's worked.
No, that's right. So like Apple, who have, they just make real things and they'll wait till everybody else has a go. Exactly what Apple does with everything. They'll be like, you try and figure this shit out and then we'll like be aggregating what really works and what really doesn't. And then we'll Bring out the bulletproof version that won't have the fluff and it won't have. Yeah, it'll just work perfectly.
And I just don't know why Zuckerberg doesn't fuck. Focus on making his platform the best experience for users and advertisers.
It.
It certainly as a. Like Facebook for sure is dying. Like when you talk to people, like, very few people just doom scroll on Facebook anymore, you know, like, because that used to be.
Yeah.
That was the only place you could doom scroll before. Like.
Yeah.
Where you just like for. For an hour. Just like, what do you want to show?
The only place I do that is YouTube.
Yeah.
But see, that's interesting that you doom scroll on YouTube. Like, that's. That's one of the places that like, that's not really built to Short feed.
I love shorts.
So you do. So you're. So you are in the short space. This is what I think is going to happen with YouTube.
Right.
I reckon that when you open the YouTube app on your phone, you're going to be faced with this, like two versions. I think that'll be like a swipe left to be what you have currently.
Yeah.
And a swipe right. And it'll just be tik tok essentially. Like, it'll just be shorts that just.
That I like about the shorts is that I can then go and watch longer videos.
Yeah.
It's a gateway.
Yeah. It's. And I do exactly what YouTube wants me to. To do.
Yeah.
I go to people and then I just go, yep, subscribe. That person's great. And then I'll check out their thing and I'll watch a couple of videos, you know, and then now they're in my subscriptions feed.
Yeah. That's interesting because I don't like, I don't do that at all.
Like, because I don't ever look at Instagram. I've logged into Tick Tock maybe twice in my whole life.
Yeah.
I almost never look at Facebook.
Yep.
I. The only thing I look at is YouTube.
But I think for YouTube to take that market share of being able to do that, they're gonna need you to be able to use commercial music on. On there because that's where people like, for Tick Tock for Instagram, like, using real music that you don't have the rights to use on those platforms in, you know, in short form is, you know, very necessary. And it's hard to make content like that that doesn't have the trending music. Because if the music is trending and it's a real song, then you can't.
And that's the beauty of YouTube though, because it's not about the stupidity, it's about. Yeah, pure quality of content. Okay, I, I like that, I like that. This is, it's the hardest one. And the only way to make it go big is to do it right. There's no, there's no cheat codes on YouTube.
Yeah, no, I respect that.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, there is, but they're different. That's the thing.
Right.
So like, when you like. I feel like we've talked about this plenty of times, but looking at it now, I feel like for the most part you can get away with quite a lot of overlap of Instagram and tick tock content. Like at the moment it. You can. The trends are a little bit far, like change by a few weeks and they're a little bit different, but for the most part it's the same kind of thing. People just want to be entertained in the first few seconds and like, follow the trends they want. Like, do the right dance, use the right music.
Right? Yeah.
But YouTube is something else altogether in that, that regard. And so I think for anyone building on YouTube, like, you're right, there's an element of creativity, like authenticity and originality that doesn't exist anywhere else. There isn't really a trend to follow. But the, all those same rules still app of like grab people in the first 0.3 of a second because you.
See people head in a direction. The direction they want to head is YouTube. YouTube is still the only one that pays you. That pays you.
Yeah.
You know, and I actually, I actually paid someone on. On for the shorts the first time the other day.
You paid someone directly?
Yeah. What was it? You know Adrian Bliss? You ever heard of him? Really, really funny kid from the uk, has an extremely dyson dry sense of humor and does little comedy sketches.
Yeah.
And they're fucking brilliant.
Yeah.
And I was like, you know what, dude? I've been enjoying your content for a year. Here's three bucks. I just apple paint it straight away.
Yeah.
Boom. Three bucks. There you go.
Yeah.
Because it has that little, that little heart thing you press. And I was like, this is fucking great.
Yeah.
Do you remember that crazy guy that came to. I don't know if you remember, I won't say anyone's name, but like, I had a relative that had a fiance and then he came up with. They came up with this app idea which was, which was that I remember thinking like this whole app idea and it was like you become a Creator. And then basically every like. Or heart or whatever is like a different amount.
Right.
And I was like, that's so stupid.
It's a visionary. And you shut him down, dude.
I remember going like, this is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Because they were sort of comparing it. This is before TikTok. This is before Reels.
Yeah.
This is like when there was YouTube and Facebook. That's it.
Yeah.
And it was just like. It was like, no, no, no lighting. The creators can be paid by the people who watch. And you just, you know, you give them like. It was like. It gets converted. Now, listen, this guy was genuinely fucking crazy. So it was the cult leader dude.
Right.
But yeah, and he was like, so we convert it into like a weird. You know.
Yeah.
Like a Mickey Mouse does.
Yeah.
Like where it's like, the conversion is impossible to make in your head.
Yeah.
And then from there you just give them like 10 of those.
Yeah.
And I was like, this is stupid.
Yeah. Yeah.
But turns out that's the legit genius.
Legitimate genius.
The future.
That guy.
That guy would be sitting there screaming right now.
Yeah.
I mean, the amount of money required to get that off the ground would have been ungodly. And that's one of my arguments was like, this is a 400 million dollar project.
Yeah.
But, you know, whatever.
I've. I've seen plenty of people, you know, refer to that when people come to say, like, Rogan again, people go to him like, dude, I got the best idea. And he's like, fuck off with your idea. Ideas are easy. It's getting it going. That's the hard part.
The difficult part.
Yeah.
Jeez. We've strayed a fair way from coaches ripping people off. That's what podcasts are, though. Just talking around in circles.
Yeah.
And then hopefully someone edits works.
But let's try and steer back to that because it's very interesting that I didn't realize at all before I was here that salespeople are liable.
You just. You're held accountable for the words that you're saying. I think it's fair enough.
Yeah.
Like, if you're. If you. I hate overselling. I really hate it because I never did it. I've been accused of it before. And I was like, I'll show you the video. And I'm never, like, I've never oversold anything. It's like, no, no. Like, this isn't because people are asking, what's the guarantee? I got a guarantee is nothing.
Mm.
Nothing. What if you sign up and get hit by A bus?
Mm.
Like, is that my fault? No, it's not. All I can do is put the information in front of you and have a system of accountability that puts you in a position to where you're called a fucking idiot if you don't do it. That's about as far as I can take.
And I can introduce you to people that it has worked for. Yeah, like his testimonials. Yeah, his people. Real testimonials from real people who say it worked.
Yeah. And then when they go, oh, I don't talk to that guy. He's, you know, really successful. It's like, well, you want to talk to the fucktard that signed up and did nothing about it?
Yeah.
Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, you know, it's like, I used to say that and I would go. They would go, I want to speak to someone. I go, well, here's like five people. They go, oh, yeah, but those are the testimony people. I was like, who? You want to talk to the guy who, like, kind of applied it, but kind of didn't. He's a bit of a fuck bag. We did a right out of it. Like, you want to talk to that guy? You want to talk the guy who signed up and never did anything, or you want to talk to the guy that did it all properly and that's a testimonial? Which one? And they were like, oh, yeah, it's a stupid fucking thing to ask.
You really can't beat life testimonials. Right. Like, so, like, at the moment, my online course is on sale, and the post that I put up about, hey, the course is on sale. I also said if you've bought it and you liked it or just let people know in the comments. And so the comments is mostly people saying, like, yeah, I. I bought it. It was great. It's definitely worthwhile doing. So. Like, that's real. Because I, like, people are just noticing that it's for sale and commenting again that, like, in my opinion, I'm no sales guy, but that is.
That works.
That is as good as it gets because they're happening in real time. It's not something that are stored from ages ago and I can pull out. And it's like, no, these people are willing to make that comment. It's nothing in it for them. Yeah, that's a. Like, in my opinion, that's a pretty good testimonial.
Absolutely. The interesting thing is when people are given the opportunity to talk to current clients, it almost never relates to a sale.
Really? Yeah.
How Come.
I don't know, man. People are weird.
So drinking because they like, dude, I was giving my login.
Those people are looking for a reason to not do it and they'll find a way.
Okay.
Oh, no, that guy was in Wisconsin. It wouldn't work in Michigan.
Okay.
You know what I mean? Like, that's anyone who really kind of like, let me speak to three of your current clients. It's like, no. I had a guy asked me the other day and no. And he goes, why not? I was like, because they're super busy and it's not their job.
Yeah, well, that's the other thing. It's a big risk, right? Because you, you're saying like, exactly that there's nothing in it for them and so they might be like, off. I don't want to talk to you.
Yeah, fair enough. So like, I kind of, you know, it's just like. No, like, especially my clients. My clients are eight figure business owners.
Yeah.
Like, good luck, bro. Yeah, like, okay. Yeah, we can schedule in 15 minutes. Three weeks, you know, it's like three weeks from now.
Yeah.
At 4:00 clock in the morning, your time. I don't have that. All right, we'll fucking talk to you never then. Yeah, like, it's hard enough to get on my diary, let alone get on Ryan Serhan's diary. That's what I fucking told him. I go, you want me call it Ryan Sirhan and go, hey, would you mind spending 20 minutes on the phone with this fuck bag? You know, like, like, and it's just like, I was like, dude, I'm sorry. Like, I know it sounds sketch as fuck, but like, this is not gonna. It's just not gonna happen, man. Yeah, like, you're just gonna have to go off what I say and off the testimonies that I've sent you. Ryan Sirhant's testimonial that I've sent you. Like, you're gonna have to go off it because you're not meeting these people.
Yeah.
You know, it's why, like, like I've been asked a ton of times to like do a mastermind for my clients. I'm like, nah, I just don't think that makes any sense. Yeah, like, first of all, like, I just don't think it's ever really a good idea. Like when you have competitive people like that in a room together.
Yeah.
Like, you know, like, I don't think for our business it makes sense. Like, we're not a coaching business. Like, we're done for you. So, like I don't, you know, I don't think there's any benefit to putting them on a room together.
That is a funny one of like, when people want to talk to clients. I. I've had, you know, the other day I posted a thing about I was going to train some dogs and people like, oh, can we see like the dogs? And how come you don't talk about it? Whatever. And I'm like, well, the police typically don't like you filming them working their dog and like, helping them through problems. Like, that's typically not something that they want video of.
Yeah.
Out in the world.
That's total sense.
Yeah.
So like, marketing in that way can be kind of tricky. It is a case of like, hey, just have to take my word for this.
Apparently you can just say whatever you want.
Yeah.
See that? You brought it full circle.
Yeah, we can just say whatever we want.
Yeah.
So when you, when you are on an offer, go through the marketing funnels. If you, if you see some outrageous being said, chances are you should leave.
So what do you think can happen? Like, what is the, what's the worst case scenario there for those guys?
Jail.
Yeah.
And.
And what's most likely scenario?
Fines.
Big fine.
Yeah.
Most likely is nothing for the sales guy. I think, I think most likely is probably nothing. But there is a decent chance of fines or being caught up in the legal mess, which is just enough of an issue.
Slow down, be a pain in the ass.
You're gonna have to go to lawyers. Yeah, maybe you get told you can never sell, like, online programs ever again, so you have to change professions because, like, if you get done, like, you can never be the CEO of a company or director of a company if you get done with stuff like that. So you can never start your own business again.
Yeah, that would be a pain in the ass.
Which is, which is tough. Yeah, it's very difficult to get done for that. Like in Ireland, Australia, to get banned from being the director of a company is fucking tough. You have to trade and solvent the only way.
Right.
So. And even then, because, like, fuck, I was a part of a business where they traded after I left, you know, like rbt, they were done for trading and solvent.
Right. Yeah.
And like, you know, you can go on YouTube right now and see him still spurking most trading away.
You know what I mean?
Doing his thing. That was trading insolvent 100.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
I've got the creditors notices. Like, that's.
Yeah.
Definition. So like, even then, like, they kind of go, ah, you didn't mean to.
They're a good guy.
Yeah, you're all right.
You're a good guy.
They're all right. You're gonna pay your asset fee in the next one. Yeah, you'll be fine. You'll be fine.
You got to pay the right fees.
To the right people so you can be a dirtbag and get away with it. It looks like if old Katie has been fined 2.6 million in the past and still gone about his business. Yeah, it doesn't bode well, but hey, it's all alleged. I don't know what the fuck's going on. I have no opinion either way.
Yeah, yeah, well you did.
Just for 40 minutes or so.
Now everything I said was complete rubbish and you should listen to it. It's not financial advice and you should, you should not take this, but the.
Advice that you do give is the salespeople is understand the offer, know what you're actually selling. Don't make any guarantees.
So this is another one. There is a. We lost a few sales reps to a company that I will not name, but I 100 hope they get shut down by the FTC.
Right?
And we, we lost like five sales reps. It was fine.
What do you mean lost? Like they went and worked directly for them.
Yeah, okay.
They're gonna just get a greater commission, right?
So cut you out. Crazy money, right? It wasn't an account that we ever had. I would never work with them.
All right, okay, It's a scam, right?
And I saw it was a scam the moment I got told they were paying their guys like okay, 35 comms on a Done for you. I was like, that's a scam.
Okay, so let me paint the picture so if I understand totally. They came to you to sell the product, you looked into it said, nope, that's a scam.
No, they didn't come to us. They didn't come to us. So we, they were like recruiting our guys.
Oh, okay, so just poaching your guys straight?
Yeah, offering like 35% comms on a done for you, which is fucking crazy. It's like a syndicate selling done for you. Kind of like Amazon Automations type shit, right? Plus like some syndicate selling of like cash flowing businesses and stuff turns like a scam. Anyway, so one of the sales reps comes to one of our sales reps and it's like, I'm not feeling good about this. And our sales reps like, yeah man, cuz you're selling a scam, but he's making 150 grand a month, right. Commissions. So it's really good money. It's really good scam. And he's like, yeah, man. Like you're selling a scam. He's like, yeah, I think I am. He's like, you should probably stop. He's like, yeah, but the money's really good. It's like, well, selling scams is usually very lucrative.
Mm.
And so people do it. So what ended up happening was. And a few of them have walked away now. Some of them haven't. And I have absolutely no respect for those people. And they're probably listening to this now because I'm pretty sure they still listen. And I know who you are, and I think you're a piece of shit.
Wow. Okay.
Because if you knowingly sell a scam, I think, yes, you're a garbage human.
Right.
Like, you're.
You.
You either have your.
You are part of this game.
Yeah.
You're. You're the forefront. And the better you are at sales, the worse it is.
Yeah.
You know, so what ended up happening was what I've been told. And, like, because they saw like all the internal meetings and the internal slack channels, and one of the guys came to, everyone was like, hey, guys, like, this is the internal complaints channel. This is what's happening. What turned into a Ponzi scheme. Not intentionally, but that's what it turned into. So, like, they thought they could deliver the service, and they were for a while. And then what happened is they scaled up because they ended up getting really good sales rep that I fucking trained.
Right.
So they started making a lot of sales. And so what ended up happening was like, they couldn't fulfill on the actual. So they had their own cash flowing stores and they were selling off portions of them. Then the cash flow of the stores started getting worse, but they guaranteed the return.
Okay.
And so what ended up happening was. And they had to sell more to.
Get to pay those returns.
Exactly. So that's a definition of a Ponzi scheme to fucking. It's a. It's a. It's a circle where the money ends up here.
Yeah. Right.
So they figured out that was happening and some of the guys quit.
Right.
Like straight away, get on them. And then some of the guys still stayed. But like, that is a legit Ponzi scheme. And it's like, if you're getting paid too well, it's a scam. If it's like. Because if it's a legit business, like, sometimes we've had clients pay us 30%, but we are providing an incredible amount of services. Like, a lot of times we're helping out with ops, right? We're providing setters, we're providing sales reps, providing recruitment and sales management. Like, that's. You add in marketing to that, like with someone else, and you're looking at like a 40% cost of goods sold. Which isn't crazy when all that stuff is fucking done for you.
Yeah, Right.
So all you have to set and forget.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're in automation.
Right.
I'm glad you caught that alley. But.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, like, but if you're. If you have, like, if you're able to pay like a 35% commission to just a sales rep. Yeah. What are you not spending money on? Because, like, where is the rest of the money? Yeah, because at like 35% off the gross, not including ad spend, not including marketing, like, none of those associated costings, like, your gross profit will be no more than like, say 30%, 40%. And then you've got your operating expense of actually delivering it and running the business. So where is the money? So, like, having. Running. I've run multiple. I've run brick and mortar. Okay. I've run coaching and I've run agency. So I've run a few different types of businesses. And I cannot for the life of me figure out, like, it's so obvious to me, like, oh, that's too much money. The moment they're like, oh, they're getting paid this much, I was like, oh, it's a scam straight away. And it's just like, what do you mean? And I even told them, like, because some of them were leaving and I was like, I have done the due diligence. What you're about to sell is a scam. Now, you can believe me or you cannot, because obviously you can take what I say with a grain of salt because it benefits me for you to stay here.
Yeah.
However, I'm telling you this as an honest person.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, that's a fucking scam. And like, you can sell a scam, you can make a ton of money. There's no doubt about it. But, like, you have to be asleep at night.
Yeah.
But even I used to kill people for a job.
Yeah, that's true.
That's one of the funny things when you're like, I think that's unethical. And I used to. I used to break into people's homes and shoot them.
Like, and I didn't. Didn't bother me at all.
But, like, surely the risk of selling a Scam. Even if you're totally fine with it, you're dead inside.
You don't care.
Is that, like, you can pay that money back?
Like, dude, the problem is, like, you get the wrong person.
Yeah, well, but I mean, the first.
Person they come for.
Yeah, that's what I mean. So, like, the. But even, like, someone not coming for you in the. In the dead of night, just when people start demanding their refunds because it's. They've realized it's a scam, and the whole thing starts to fall apart.
Like, surely you better hope they didn't pay your comms on credit card.
Yeah, there you go.
I've had that happen.
And they just claw it back.
Yeah.
I've had a dude call back, like, four months with the comms.
Yeah.
The sales guys didn't even know, because you know what? I was like, well, I'll go ahead and eat that dick. Like, that's not something I need to borrow them with. I'll fight that battle.
Yeah.
You know, which is, again, one of the benefits of coming here is, like, I generally shield them from a lot of that.
Yeah.
You know, so. But yeah, like, it's a dangerous game, you know, selling scams. Like, if the money's too good to be true, it probably is.
Yeah.
And that feels like a good place to finish it.
All right, that's it for another episode of Coffees for Closers. If you like what you hear, just like it. Leave a comment. Do all that. Kind of. Tell us what you want to hear.
Share it with a friend.
Yeah.
Just post it somewhere.
Yeah. All right.
Goodbye.
Bye. Put that coffee down.
