From Bankrupt to 7-Figures in 4 Years With Laura Meyers

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. What is the secret to having long term sustainable success in business? What are the things that actually will elevate your profitability, your notoriety, and your wealth? Well, in this episode, I'm talking to a special friend, Laura Meyer, about just that. She has gone from bankrupt to seven figures in four years. And it's based on a simple concept that most people are missing today. All right. But we're going to dig deep in this episode. Enjoy this episode. I'll see you on the other side. Welcome to the Affluent Entrepreneur Show.

This is the Affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Hey there, Laura. So great to have you on the Affluent Entrepreneur Show. This has been a long time coming.

It has been. I'm so excited for this conversation. I'm so excited that I'm having with you.

Well, it's so cool because we got. I'm trying to remember, I mean, because we got introduced just a little while back and you, you were so gracious. You knew nothing of me. You knew nothing. And this is part of the conversation that I think we're going to have today is that you knew nothing of me, but yet you welcomed me with open arms and you were so gracious to bring me on a show to introduce me to other people and to do those things. And finally, it seems like we finally got a chance to bring you on my show and to share you and your genius and your beauty to my audience. So this is going to be cool.

I'm so excited. I'm so grateful for your generosity in introducing me to your Audience and, and most of all, I'm just really excited about this conversation because you and I have very different business and life experiences, but we have very similar philosophies. And I think this is going to be really, really helpful to other people who are listening, who maybe just need to hear some encouragement right now because we have both been through a lot of challenging things in business. And I think immediately when I met you, I was like, oh my gosh, like, he's so smart, he knows what he's talking about and he's so credible. And I think that comes with going through hard things. Right?

Yeah.

And we recognize it when we see it and it's very much appreciated.

Thank you so much. I mean, you have had such a ride.

And that ride comes with ups and downs just like mine. But it is, I think that they're character building and they become the springboard of our future. Too often, I think today especially, and maybe we'll touch on this, is that too often we start blaming our past, we start beating ourselves up and we sit and languish in the hell of the past because we wish we would have done something different, but we didn't. We're here.

And that's the thing that we need to think about. And so for the viewers and listeners that maybe just don't know who and where and how you got here, because you're not this online maven that came through the online space, you actually have a similar kind of routing that I did. Can we just start with a little bit of your backstory and how you, you ended up doing what you're doing and how we ended up here?

Yeah, I'm super excited to share that. So in the last 20 years, I keep saying 20 years and I keep getting older, but keep saying 20 years. So I think it's more than 20 years at this point. You know, I started a business pretty much out of college. I a wedding photographer. First 10 years of my career, I built a wedding photography business that was very much the top wedding photography brand in the northeast within that 10 year period. So I went from like, you know, having no idea what I was doing photographing weddings at what in our area we call fire halls, which is basically like, you know, just a room on the back end of a fire department and then, and then photographing celebrity weddings, working with celebrity planners within that 10 year period. And so, you know, at that point in my career, my 20s, that first decade, I really thought that, you know, most things that I would touch would turn to gold. You know, I Had like a very naive worldview on entrepreneurship.

That idealistic view of everything.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I mean, first had ups and downs and had challenges and hard clients and things like that, but I really hadn't experienced experience the fire of entrepreneurship at that time. And so. And I think there's probably a lot of people in the industry who have had a similar experience. It's like they got into the influencer space when it was new or they got into course creation or online entrepreneurship at an early stage. And it was, you know, as the finance people like to say, a ride up and to the right, you know, with no, no, not too many ups and downs. Relative. Right? Yeah, relative ups and downs. Maybe they had a bad launch and that was about it. And then when I started to realize I didn't want to, I wanted a family. I didn't want to be away from my family on the weekends, in the evenings, I got into family portraiture and I started a studio. And the first studio did half a million dollars in the first year and I was like, great. 18 months later, open another one. Half a million dollars in the first year again. I was like, great. I own a multi location, multimillion dollar business and people were coming up to me and saying, you know, Laura, you should franchise. And I always said, oh, I don't know if I want to franchise. And they're like, no, you should franchise. You have two concepts that are doing really well and, you know, running like an 18% Prof. Which in brick and mortar is considered good, in our, you know, in online entrepreneurship it's considered poor, but in brick and mortar, it's considered good. And I franchised it and I grew it to about 12 locations and that's when things started to really fall apart. So about four years ago, four and a half years ago, I exited that franchise system and shut things down and released my franchisees into license agreements. And that was a combination of a variety of different challenges.

Between the external environment of photography and the changes in technology and things that were taking place in that time. And also me realizing I'm not a very good franchisor. I'm a very collaborative, relationship oriented person. And being a franchisor is a lot about compliance and regulation and, you know, my way or the highway and getting people to do what it is that you're telling them to do or else there's severe consequences. And it just wasn't a good fit for me and my personality. And as I watched my franchisees struggle and as I watched my own life kind of be taken over by the business. And I had two young kids at the time. I now have three. I just decided I had climbed the wrong mountain and I shut it all down. And it was a very difficult, very harrowing time for me as an entrepreneur. Hard on others, too. My family, the people that I was in business with, which was a difficult. Probably the most difficult part of it is letting those people down. But I ended up walking away from that business and filing for bankruptcy and then starting over. Today, four years later, at the time of this recording, it's almost four years on the dot. I serve some of the top influencers and business owners, most recognizable names in business, as a growth strategist and a consultant. And I have a consulting certification program and a mastermind for consultants. And, you know, just going from where I was to where I am today is. Has been amazing, amazing, huge blessing, and kind of unbelievable. You know, when I say it out loud, like, the lifestyle and the business that I have today compared to four years ago, and wondering, like, if I would ever be an entrepreneur again.

So it's interesting. I don't love that you went through it okay, But I do. But on the. I do, in a sense, because on the other side of it is this. This beautiful soul that is serving so many, you know, but at the same time, the realization, because I was an adjunct professor for a little while at the University of San Diego Law School, and literally on the last day of class, I would bring in pizzas for the class and they would bring in the beverages because I wanted nothing to do with the beverages, because I get in trouble. But if they brought it in, it's on them. But I used to have the conversation with him. I said, you've been through all the schooling, you've got your law degree, you're getting your LLM. You're now going. I said, there might come a day, they might come a day where.

You dread what you do and you feel that it's a drag. And it doesn't mean that every day is going to be a wonderful day. But when you are feeling it so deep that you dread every day waking up, doing it and it's causing effects to your health, to your life, to your family, all that stuff, as much as you paid for the education, as much as the expectations of society and your family and the culture and all of that stuff, is there putting pressure on you? It's time to walk.

It was time to walk.

And that's a hard choice.

It was a hard choice. And every time I looked for a Door, I thought it was open, and it was like, nope, that door's closed. And I just knew it was time. And it took me. I stopped selling franchises for about a year. I thought, maybe I just need to fix the model. Maybe I need to change our response to how the industry is shifting. But ultimately.

I didn't believe it was a fixable problem. And four years later, I still don't believe it was a fixable problem. And the decision to walk or try harder is always a challenging choice in business. And I am somebody who will just try harder, right? I am somebody who, you know, much like all of us who are entrepreneurs, I want the A. In fact, when I was in college, I graduated valedictorian. Like, I want the A plus, right? And walking away from a business that I started that I sold other people on because I did not think that it was a viable path anymore, and I was really hurting myself and those around me by continuing to push forward was one of the most humbling and challenging decisions I've ever made. And it was interesting because I was running Facebook ads last spring, and I hadn't run him on that account in a long time. And it was an account that I had used previously. It was a personal brand account I had used previously and immediately started seeing a few comments from people who probably just had my old targeting in place. One person wrote fraud in all capital letters, and I didn't even know that person. And for me, that cut so deep because I see myself as having incredibly high integrity, and I see myself as somebody who operates, you know, that takes the harder path, you know, even if nobody's looking, you know, I'm very, very much about integrity, and that cut deep. Um, but the truth is, people who know me know that, and people who know me know that I spent a year fulfilling photography services that were pre sold in that business on my own time, in my own backyard, for no payment, when I could have easily said, you know, I could have easily said, I'm sorry, you know, we went out of business and I filed for bankruptcy. And in fact, the only reason why I filed is because of the personal guarantee on my commercial lease. And they told me that I had to. And I was so ready to pay everybody and anybody back, and that did me in. So, you know, word to the why stay away from personal guarantees. But it was such a good experience in a lot of ways. I mean, I can sit here and a lot of my clients will just. I'll give them wisdom and guidance, you know, along with growth strategy, and they'll say, like, how do you know this? Like, how do you.

You see these scars?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yes. I'm like, I know where the minefields are. You know, I've grown multi seven figure businesses at this point multiple. You know, I'm on my seventh business. I've grown multiple six and seven figure businesses. The one we're talking about right now was in a moment in time where it didn't go well, but there was times where it went exceptionally well. And that's there that. Well, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I just don't know that you can create wisdom any other way. I'm just not sure.

So here's a question for you because I totally agree with you. I tell. Tell people like my whole affluence blueprint and some of the stuff that I do I said was born out of my screw ups, born out of my mistakes and the scars. And it's like, look, I lost over a million dollars in a Ponzi scheme, all right? I paid for like 3 PhDs. Y' all should learn from this. Okay, but, but you know.

When you start to, to do this, how did you navigate? Because then I think that we're gonna see, unfortunately, I think we're gonna see some more people struggling because of the economics that we might be going into or that we're in and everything. Which means that part of what they're gonna struggle with and then I want to get to some of the things that you're doing now because it's really important for them as they navigate out of this though, is to understand that how did you navigate the blame, the I'm not the imposter syndrome, the all that stuff that come, that baggage that comes along with this didn't go the way I wanted, this didn't go the way I planned. And making good on it.

Is great for integrity and it is the right thing to do. But you still are saddled with the psychology behind it, all the emotions of it.

Yeah, you know, it's a good question. It was very, very challenging. And I think first of all, I think for anybody who's in those kinds of situations.

Counseled several people what you want to do first. And I, this, this was something I did intuitively and in retrospect, I didn't see how valuable it was. Is that you want to be proud of how you handle yourself. Like you want to have your own back on how you like if you're going down, it's very easy to be like, forget like, I'm just Worrying about myself right now, I'm not worrying about anyone else, but I was very cautious to be thoughtful about how I closed down that business. And I think how you finish something is how you start something else that's really important. Like finishing things well is very, very important. And so I sent out an email to our entire email list for my brick and mortar business had 5,000, 6,000 people on it. And the subject was genius for hire. And I posted every single one of my employees and their LinkedIn profiles. So by the time I closed that business, they all had a job. Then, you know, I ran refunds for everybody I could. I gave them the option of refunds or I would personally fulfill on the service. Let me tell you how much I did not want to personally fulfill on that service.

I had not picked up a camera as the CEO of that company.

The only people that got me were, you know, celebrity level clients. And I personally picked up a camera for a year and fulfilled on those gift certificates and those memberships for people. So it's like, did I want to do any of that? No. But I honestly think my ability to get back on my feet was, had a lot to do with how I shut down that business. Like, I could go into other stories and, you know, while I wasn't proud of what happened, right. Like, I don't, I don't love sitting here being like, wow, I had a business and I, you know, basically had to close it down and file for bankruptcy. I'm proud of the mood, you know, I'm proud of how I did it. And I think that's always really important. It's like, what is the story that you want to tell when this is all over? What is that story that you want to tell other people about how things went down? And I think that has to do with life. I think it has to do with marriage. I think it has to do with our family. I spent a lot of time listening to personal development experts and just absorbing as much as I could and trying to make as many decisions as I could. There's a really awesome pastor named Andy Stanley and he talks a lot about decisions and impacts on decisions. And I just absorbed everything that he had to say about it and took as much advice as I could. And today, you know, it's interesting about a. You'll appreciate this. A few months ago, I was in a room with some pretty high level entrepreneurs, maybe about 30, 40 people in the room. And the person who was facilitating the conversation said, how many people in this room are struggling for cash flow or having cash flow problems. And almost everyone raised their hand and this was a very expensive mastermind group. And somebody turned around and said, whoa, drinks on Laura.

And I laughed. But I said, you guys, once you've been through what I've been through, you stay very far away from the edge. Oh, yeah, like I say, very far away from the edge. I run a minimum 50% profit margin. If I'm not running a 50% profit margin, I'm cutting costs. You know, I don't. I don't. I have credit. I don't use credit. I'm fortunate enough to buy everything that I need with cash. And, you know, fortunately I was married. So, you know, when I filed for bankruptcy, my husband still had credit, so we had the ability to buy a home, but we moved. We had to move for cash flow. And, you know, now I don't ever want to feel that way again, and I don't want other people to feel that way. And I think that if you have to go into debt to grow a business, it's really important to think about what's your exit plan if that business plan does not go the way that you're thinking or hoping. And up until five years ago, I never really thought that it wouldn't go the way that I had planned because it always went really well for 15 years. So I think these are things that we want to be talking about and thinking about as we go into so much uncertainty in the next few years is, you know, how close are you from the edge? How you can get as far away from the edge as possible, how you can leave a lot of margin for error in your business. Because it's not a matter of when things go wrong or if things go wrong. It's a matter of when and ensuring that you have enough in place that you can afford for things to go wrong.

This is so. God, so important. It's the things that. That I'm constantly talking about, and I use the term margin. I want margin of error. I want margin for volatility. I want margin. In my life.

We are used to living on the edge. We came used to living on the edge. And I think that we are in a situation that those that are living on the edge need to. This is hard. I mean, I'm speaking very direct to those that are listening and everything. If you're living on the edge, if you feel like you're living on the edge, it's time to pull back. It's time to get real. It's time to go and make some Hard choices. And find that margin, find that liquidity, find that peace. Find that area where you can navigate if things don't go your way for a period of time, because we all go through it. Laura's gone through it, and she's navigated. Now, the interesting thing is that she went from. You went from bankrupt to.

What people would call pretty much a. A very steep curve line to success in a new business in four years. Yeah, but you look at this just like you looked at the closing of the business very differently. You look at business differently, you look at. At how to do things. And I want everyone to think about this. I want to frame this in the construct of. Of the affluent entrepreneur, which is what we're talking about is this idea. One of the critical outcomes is a richer lifestyle, which has to do with money, but has more to do with how we experience life. And what you're talking about is how you experience life. But what allowed you to, one, accelerate your rebirth, if you will, your new endeavor and the things that you're doing and what has allowed you to navigate through it with some peace and lots of integrity and come through it with dignity is. I'm going to throw the word out. Is relationships. Is this idea of relationships, but not. And I'd love to get your definition of it, because it's not. Oh, I have acquaintances. I mean, these are like deep, real relationships. So let's start on this path, because I know this is. So it's instrumental in your journey, but it is monumental in your heart, too.

Totally, totally. Because I think for those of us who have been in entrepreneurship for a long time. Right. We were developing relationships to grow our business before Zuckerberg even filled out his Harvard application like we were. You know, this is. This was survival, you know, 15 years ago. And when I got into the online space, which I love, I love the online course and coaching industry, it is fantastic. But I was so surprised how little people relied on relationships to grow their business. I mean, everybody was just, you know, throwing money at Facebook like it was an ATM machine. And quite honestly, at the time, it probably was. I'm not sure that that's still the case. But for me, you know, looking back.

More of a slot machine, you put it in and it doesn't come back.

Right, right, right. And lots of other people are getting rich off of it. Right. And that's not always the case. There's some really awesome, you know, cold traffic funnels out there. And I'm. I'm honored to work with several clients that are doing Extremely well with them. But they're a gamble like anything else. And I think we have to look at it like that. So. And it's, you know, how much money, how much money can you afford to lose? Right. And so before I even let clients get too far down in paid traffic, I'm always wanting to see them make sure that they're maximizing their relationship capital, the relational capital. And, you know, when I realized I was going to have to shut down my business and file for bankruptcy, I texted a group of CEOs that I happened to know through the franchise industry. And these were CEOs of pretty, pretty big brands, you know, Massage Heights, painting with a twist. People that I had just developed a connection with without necessarily wanting anything from them, but just happy to know them, want, you know, work to create value for them. Whenever I spoke with them, even if it was just photography advice and was really just enjoying our relationship, and I texted them and I let them know my decision because they helped me make that decision. And one by one they said, laura, I'm so sorry. And I'm, I really feel terrible that you're going through this. And like, once you get over this hump that you are in right now, I was wondering if you could help us with our branding. I was wondering if you could help us with our CRM setup. I've always admired your marketing. I think you're so good at it. And would you be willing to take a look at our messaging? Can you fly to our headquarters and do a two day market positioning workshop? I know that you probably learned how to do that in business school and I trust you and, you know, I just feel like you would really get our brand. And that started happening and within a few months, you know, bankruptcy. Kind of funny, you actually can't work when you're in bankruptcy. But as soon as it was cleared, you know, I started taking on clients and my consulting business absolutely took off. And then I started meeting people in the online space. By the way, in the middle of this, I also had a baby, third baby in the middle of all of this, you know, so that slows you down a little bit. But, but it was really amazing because I look at that moment in time and I think when you go through something incredibly difficult, people either run towards you or run away from you. And that is a gift to know who truly, deeply cares about you. And listen, those women have very powerful brands. They didn't just throw me work because they felt bad. They threw me work because they thought that I would give them A good price, given what I was going through for really high quality work did. That's exactly what happened. And I ended up meeting more and more clients and I ended up getting connected with one of them that had just sold half of their company to private equity. And the leader, the managing partner of the private equity firm was like, oh my gosh, your work is great. Probably, you know, otherwise I normally would pay a, you know, an agency five times this rate for the quality of work. And he, I still work with him today. We partner together on some really powerful projects through the think tank that he co founded. So it's been really amazing. And then when I got into the online space, I realized not a lot of people had great strategies, right? They kind of had a block and tackle approach to business growth, but they didn't have a very strategic approach. Even looking at like addressable market size and looking at classic business principles and how they apply to online business was something that a lot of people just don't know and don't know how to do. They don't know how to have a good, you know, brand essence platform. They are, you know, struggling with the consistency of messaging because they don't have those types of tools in place. So I ended up utilizing a lot of the relationships that I had built to get more clients than additional clients. And now I have a scaled consultancy with multiple consultants and a certification program and a mastermind. So that has been.

Just an incredible blessing. That's the best way I can put it. I think one thing I want to share when I share this story is helpful to know is that I don't think you can know what your next thing is until you release what you're currently holding onto. I think that's really important to know.

Say that again because I think it's. I think people need to hear this.

Yeah, I don't think that what your next thing is becomes available until you release what you're gripping onto. And I was white knuckling so hard that last year of my brick and mortar business, I wanted it to work so badly. I was feeling so guilty and about letting down my franchisees who ultimately really did just want out of their contract. They didn't want to pay me royalties anymore given the uncertainty of the industry. And I understood, I didn't want, I had investors, I didn't want to let down those investors. I was so unhealthy in just the way in which I was even just taking care of myself or not taking care of myself that I couldn't see what was possible on the other side of the mess. And so by releasing it and finally letting it go, that's when all of these opportunities opened up. And I think for some of us, we know that what we're doing right now isn't the path we're supposed to be on, but we're waiting for the next thing to show up. And as I like to say, you know, miracles show up in the margins. You have to create the margin for the miracles to appear. And that's been my journey. And, you know, God gave me a girl and that doesn't. As our third and our. And our last. My first two are boys. And I think that was a really amazing opportunity just for our family and for me to be able to help our kids, and particularly my daughter, our daughter.

Learn some of these hard lessons. I think.

That I endured and that I'm happy I did, but again, hoping to teach our next generation some of those challenges.

So your primary focus now is, I mean, you're consulting, but it's growth consulting, but you're trying to bring back, if you will.

Things that I think we've lost.

Yes.

You know, because we we got in putting the pandemic aside, because the pandemic certainly changed the dynamics of our. Of our relationships for a period of time.

But as we were even going into the pandemic, we as a society, as a community, as. As individuals, I think started to confuse contacts and likes and thumbs up as if they were meaningful relationships. But yes, you're looking at it and saying, oh, no, no, no. I mean, like real relationship. Like the idea of relationships is that we're relating. We are in it with people.

Yes. Yeah. You know, I think we're so conditioned to. To chase fans, followers and likes. Right. Like we are. We are so trained for this. We're so conditioned for this. And while that is helpful, I guess if you're an influencer making affiliate dollars, that's not. The majority of the businesses that are your listeners are building. The majority of those businesses are people who are really looking more of an impact and fulfill their mission. And with that, we make connections. And I think for many people, they think that relationship marketing is networking. You know, it's the slap of the hands, it's the force of the business card, it's the Rolodex. But what really grows our businesses is the connections that we have, the reciprocal connections. And a lot of people want to show up only to learn how they can long enough to learn how they can extract from the other person and then head out as soon as they assess the situation. But that's not how great businesses are built. You know, how great businesses are built are on having mutually beneficial relationships where, you know, somebody in your audience, Mel, might not be a great fit for your offer, but might love what I'm, you know, saying and might buy my book or be interested in becoming a consultant. And somebody in my audience might just like what I'm saying because they enjoy my perspective or set of values, but really need your affluent entrepreneur program.

So we can leverage these. But it's really. It's a matter of not just coming in, taking and leaving. It's a matter of nurturing and developing deep care and concern and being willing to give first. And despite everything I've been through, right, Many people would think that I would just shrink and hide and just. And not go out and make new connections. Because certainly as I was going through these trials, there was a lot of heartbreak from some of the people that I thought that I had my back. But I still believe, even having gone through what I went through, I still believe deeply in the human experience. And I think that when we, for example, create a funnel, not every person who clicks on that funnel is going to be a good fit for our business. Just like every time that we give to a relationship, it may not come back. It may not come back in our timeframe, it may not come back ever. But when you are consistent with giving, when you are consistent with sharing to other people, creating value for other people, wanting to make sure that those around you are having a positive experience, irregardless of whether or not it benefits you, that's when your business grows. And it's like this invisible hand that pushes your business forward that you can't necessarily put your finger on any specific activity, but the collective force creates this remarkable effect in your company.

So it's interesting. I remember having a conversation with a dear, dear friend. It had to do with relationships, but it wasn't business relationship. It was personal relationships. And that is because I was having. I was not in a good place with my personal relationship, not with my wife, with the gal before my wife. And he was telling me a story, and he said, mel, you know, he says, I was. He was in college and he was having his issues. And the girlfriend that he was with, her girlfriend said, you know, what do you think the issue goes? I don't know what the issue is. She knows I love her and why should this be a problem? And she goes, oh, that's what the issue is. And she goes. And he Goes, what do you mean? He said, it's not whether or not she knows that she's love that matters. It's whether or not she feels loved. It matters. And I think it's the same thing with our business. When's the last time y' all that are listening or watching, when's the last time you questioned? Do my customers, does my team, do the vendors, the people I work with, do they feel loved in the midst of the transaction, in the midst of doing these things? Do they feel cared for? Because if they don't, then it is purely transactional and price is probably the only thing that matters. And that's a scary place to be.

It is. It's a very scary place to be. And I mean, I'm proof positive that you can lose your website, you can lose your Instagram, you can lose your, you know, pretty much all of your assets, all of your branding, but you can. And you can leave that behind, right? But you can always take your relationships with you to the next thing that you create. And that's the big message that I am just so excited to share with the world, is that everything that you need is probably right in front of you. And for many people I know in my consulting certification program, we go through a lead generation module. And many of them will say, well, I don't have anybody to even do a test project with. And I'm like, export your LinkedIn contacts, put them in a spreadsheet, and bring them back to the next session. And they're always like, oh, my gosh, I totally forgot that I know this person or I'm connected to this person, or I didn't, you know, I didn't even. I just totally flaked on, like, that my college roommate, like, would be the perfect person to have. Have. Be my test project. And what happens is we. We forget, right? We want more. We want more leads, we want more connections, we want more relationships, we want more followers. But we forget to actually love on the people that we already know that are waiting to hear from us, that would love to hear from us. And a lot of times what happens, it ends up being like a bit of a booty call, right? Like, they. They only hear from us when we want something, and nobody wants that friend, right? Like, so just what I like to do is just keep a list of my contacts. And this is something I've always done. I did naturally. And when I started teaching and coaching more in the online space, people were so surprised, like, oh, my gosh, it was, you know, revolutionary. But I was like, no, this is business. This is business. Before social media. You keep a list of the people that you know and you check in with them time, from time to time. Hey, how are, how's it going? How's your launch going? I saw you were launching. You look great. Hope you're well. Like you've even heard from me over the years, Mel, with those messages. Because it's true. It's like you see somebody and something looks great. You don't even think to tell them. You don't even think to encourage them or edify them. You just think like, oh, look, Mel's launching. That's cool. Instead of being like, oh my gosh, your ads look really good. I just want to let you know, like, keep up the great work. And people just don't. It doesn't. Like, once you get into the habit of doing this, it really does start becoming intuitive. Right. And then whenever you need something, like, so, for example, I'm launching this book. I reached out to a lot of my connections that I haven't been on their platform yet. And I just said, hey, you know, I just want to let you know, I'm launching this book. Would you mind if we did an interview? And it was so easy. Everybody said yes. Everybody was so happy to have me. And this is what happens when we build this bank of goodwill in our businesses and in our lives. I mean, this is true with friendships. Right? Too. And this is just, this is old school business. I don't like to think that I'm old enough to be teaching old school business, but I totally am. And it's, and it's the things that we, that many people aren't doing that is the reason why their business isn't growing.

For me, it's. I think it's the pathway to sustainable business and wealth.

Yeah.

Because. Because.

There are things that just don't go out of style. There are things. And if you're the only one doing it, it's actually something that catches their attention. I mean, we set up our system when. And I don't get a chance to do it as often as I'd like. But when someone purchases online from me, certain products, it automatically emails me. Name, city, phone number, email, you know, and so I get them. So I can not. Because I'm tracking them. So then I have a phone that I use for my business. I have a personal phone too. But I will be on my walk with Budo or I will be driving and I'll grab one of those. I'll dial a phone and I'll call just to say thank you for being in my world. Thank you for trusting us. Thank you for being a customer, a client, and being on this journey and that the amount of, like, them going, no, this is Mel. I go, yeah, yeah, it is, it is, it is, it is. And they go, really? Huh? You know, and they're just so blown away that you would actually pick up the phone. And I go, well, you trusted in me. Why shouldn't I say thank you?

Right, right. And that spreads like, again, when you are the unique person doing that, it is like wildfire for your business. And you don't have to be somebody who has a gazillion fans, followers and likes. You just need a small group of true fans, and that is what creates it. And most people would have the business of our dreams if we just did these simple things. And I think if we just focused more on the relationships that we have available to us and less on strangers on the Internet, we would have everything that we wanted and more.

Now, this is such an important message and it's important to you. It is instrumental, like I said, in your journey and where you are today and how you got through the things that you got through. And you have something that's coming out. It's a book. It's a brand new book called Win Win.

And tell us a little bit about the book, because I think this is one of those books you all going to need to get on your shelf. All right. And not just on your shelf. You're going to need to read it because it will shift and change the way you do business, the way you relate with people and. And the depth of what you can do.

Yes. You know, it was really.

The culmination of everybody asking me, how did you do that? Like, how did you grow? How did you go from bankruptcy to growing such a successful and lucrative business in such a short period of time? And when I really look back on it, you know how sometimes things come natural to you and it's hard to explain it.

Yeah.

I spent a lot of time asking even my friends and colleagues questions on how exactly I go about relationship marketing that works well for them. And I unpacked it in this book. And so you can pre order the book by going to createyourwinwin.com and that is where you'll be able to just learn more. I could have made this a coaching program. I could have made it a course, but I wanted to get it into as many hands as possible because I think it is going to be the most relevant way for us to grow our business in the next decade.

Yeah. I think that.

When we start to look at how to do business, it's, we've lost our ability to relate, to socialize, to connect at a deeper level. And those that can create, I believe that we're moving back to an experience economy.

Yes.

And when we have the opportunity to create meaningful experiences for the people we serve, those are the businesses that are going to rise to the top. Those are the businesses that are going to flourish in this new economy. Those are the businesses that you'll sit back and say, what are they doing differently? They're caring about their people from the inside out. I mean, I just read a study where they were studying and said, would you leave your company if you found a company that made you feel cared about, more, cared for? And, and the majority of employees said, heck yeah, I'm out. If I can find a company that, that makes me feel cared for more, I'm out. Yep. And I think that that's, that's the thing that we need to be thinking about. It isn't about the next funnel or the next ad or the next kind of meme or trend that we're going to do, but going back to the old fashioned. And it's not old. The tried and true.

Relating to people, making a difference, creating relationships and living with integrity and dignity and bringing that back to business.

The subtitle of the book is how to create mutually beneficial relationships that grow your business. And I'm telling you, too often, transactions are one sided.

Yep.

And they shouldn't be. They can't be.

They can't be. And I think even if, you know, there was times where even I look back, right, and there's maybe somebody that I wished I had said thank you to or somebody that I wished I had done better for. And you can always go back. You can always go back. You can always go back and say, like, I just hope that if that is you, you don't feel discouraged. There was a mentor that really helped me. He sat with me and he helped me sort of look at my cash flow and realize, you know, some of the hard decisions I had to make. About a year ago, I reached out to him, he's a business leader in the area. And I said, chris, I want to buy you lunch. Because I don't, I don't want you to remember me as that last conversation, you know, So I took him out to lunch for that only reason. Right. And so we can, we might look back on somebody and Say, oh, I wish I had, you know, been more reciprocal with them. But we can do that. And this book will give you a lot of ideas. It's not just philosophical, but it'll give you tangible, tactical ways in which you can leverage relationship marketing to grow your business. So I hope you all pick it up and use it.

We'll make sure that we put all the links in the show notes because I think this is important for all of you that are out there sitting back saying, you know, I want that financial freedom, I want to create wealth, I want to build a business. This is the grassroots stuff that matter, okay? We can talk about all kinds of other newfangled technologies, but those are to elevate your relationships, to be able to create that connection. They're not to replace them. And I hope that you start to get that message and start to look at things in a more collaborative kind of way and saying, how do I do business differently? If you just took this and said, if you just sat down with your business today and started to look at and say, what are two or three? And when you get the book, you can pull the ideas from the book and say, what are two or three things we can implement right now or within the next 10 days that can up our game where our team and our people and our customers and those we serve feel more cared about, feel more loved, and feel deeper thought of.

Aside from the kind of person you are and your message, I believe wholeheartedly in what you're doing as the pathway to.

Long term sustainable success. And we're often chasing the next funnel, hack or the next other thing. I think we ought to be inviting instead of chasing. We ought to be relating instead of transacting and have conversations that truly, truly matter. Where someone sits back and says they walk away from you and they go, that actually felt good.

Yes, Yes. I think we're going back there, Mel. I think we are. I'm optimistic. I think that we are realizing clicks are not connections. I think we are realizing that social media is a good thing, but we shouldn't be replacing it with real relationship.

I totally agree. And I think that I had a conversation with a dear friend you probably know, Chris Harder, and he says, you talk, Mel, a lot about legacy. Tell me a little bit about what you think that is. Is. I said, ah. I said, I'll tell you what it isn't. It's not what I leave behind because I don't want to die to create legacy. I want to know that in the moment I connect with someone I create a legacy. I want to know in the moment that I did something that their life is better for it. And that is as simple as a smile. It's as simple as a handshake. It's as simple as I'm proud of you. It's as simple as a heartfelt thank you. And I think that's what this book is about. It's truly about creating legacy in each moment that you have a connection point with the people you serve. And Laura, I mean, this, this is so needed in our society. I'm so glad you're, you're, you're kind of the champion of this.

And whatever we can do to get this out, you, you tell me and we'll make it. We'll make it happen. So for those that want to again go to create createyourwinwin.com not those who want to, all of you should go to createyourwinwin.com and get and pre order the book. The other thing is that for those that want to be and connect deeper with you, Laura, where do they need to go?

Yeah, you know what? I, I check all my inboxes so you can message me on your preferred platform. I'm on Instagram, which is Laura Emyer, and If you like LinkedIn, it's Laura Novak Meyer. And you just say hello, I would love to hear from you. I really appreciate it.

So good, so good to have you here and I can't wait to have more conversations like this. Laura, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your wisdom, your heart, your soul with my audience. And for the rest of you all out there, as I always say right now, go out and always strive to live a life that outlives you. I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers.

Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melaram.comgroup and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright. And I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.