Episode 165: Create Your Own ELF with Dan Kuschell

We finished last week. And Kelsey's like, oh, my God, the noises at gyms. What were you talking about? What do you mean?

Like, the grunting. Weird noises that people feel the need to make when they're lifting, or not even lifting, but doing regular things in the gym.

I agree it can get obnoxious. But I will say, as I've started lifting, sometimes you really can't, like, help it. Like, I'm not. I've never gotten loud, but, like, I've made, like, a struggle noise. But the more those guys are like, pumped up, Alex, you. And then when we switched gyms, he taught. He dialed it back, because in him, he's like, yeah, I gotta get myself, like, pumped up because I'm gonna lift like 500 pounds. Like, he's like, I gotta get the testosterone power lift. Yeah, it is a little obnoxious to get the test. Yeah. Like, he used to literally, like, he'd get angry. Like, he'd, like, hit his. His fist to his palm, be like, oh. And then he'd go and he'd do it. Like, he would give him the energy to do it. But when you do it in, like, a planet Fitness or like, it's at.

5Am in the morning when I go to the gym, that's a lie. And he's making those noises, and I'm.

Like, but you said when he's not even working out, he's like, yeah, like.

And I think it's that. I think it's because it's like, you're not lifting right now. Why are you grunting like that? And not even just grunting. It's like weird noises.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so I just listen to music to get pumped up. I actually have a recording from my last workout.

I work on something like Careless Whispers.

Very, very lightweight. You know, feathers flying around the fe. Yeah.

Oh, man. Well, welcome to the Profit first podcast.

Yeah, this is a nice one. It's episode one six five. Oh, I had the wrong button. I scrolled quickly. Yes.

165.

Getting your first.

Yeah, he is getting pumped. Welcome to the Profit first podcast. I'm Christina, your co host.

Yep. And I'm Mike Michalowicz. I. I don't know if I'm a co host or host or whatever. I'm the host. Okay, so I'm the host. I prefer to go by Fat Daddy Fat Back. My rapper name or my offstage name. Mike Michalowicz. And I'm the author of Profit First. I'm author of Surge the Pumpkin Plan, Toy Ranch Runner And I got a brand new book coming out. I can't share the title yet. It's been approved. It just has to go through the machinations of being made public by the publisher first. Have I told you two what it is yet?

No, no.

I'll sit down. Do this episode.

You might have hinted at it.

I may have hinted at it. It's called Fat Daddy, Fat Back. Okay, it's out. It's out. Go to that website.

By the way, is it tough having two identities?

It kind of is. Because when I go down the street for you, when I go down the street, people will just yell out, fat Daddy. And, you know, I'm a skinny guy. And people are like, they're clearly not talking to him. I mean, if they said like, you know, skinny boy or awkwardly large Adam's apple like that, that would catch me.

The irony is funny.

The irony. It's the irony.

Can you give us a little taste your music? I'm dying for a little sample.

So one of the hits is Green Sleeves. My own remake of it. Do you know Green Sleeves? A Christmas favorite. So I. I can't play it through the microphone, but it's. It's on there. You can play it when the. When you go to the website. Fat Daddy, Fatback. Scroll down. I did a remake of iced teas. Nice teas of Vanilla Ice.

Vanilla Ice.

Yeah, yeah. My own versions up there of iced teas. Yeah, yeah. Mine's Ice, Ice, Ice, baby. Because I didn't want to rip him off, of course. And there's one. It's a beat different. You know what I'm talking about? That. Oh, it lands at the good joke. Yeah, it's one beat different. So that's funny. That was a dig at a thing he said. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Yes. Holy cow, you're good. That's exactly. Yeah, There's a little at the end that's so funny that you knew that. All right, where can people learn more about our wonderful show here, Kristen?

You can, of course, go to profitfirstpodcast.com that's my favorite. But you can also listen to us on itunes, Tune in, radio, Google Play, Stitcher, and anywhere else you podcast.

Did you say the private first podcast.com?

Of course.

Okay, that's. That's the place where. It's out there. I wonder if we're on any other podcasters.

If we are, let us know.

For God's sake, tell us. We need help with that. All right, and what are you two been up to? Let's just do that. We haven't caught up in a while. You want to go first, Kelsey or you? No, she's got to think first. She's always got to think first.

She is a thinker.

What have you been up to?

I'm so happy. I'm actually speaking of Jim. I've gotten back into my gym workflow. I kind of stopped for a while going through some personal stuff. It just kind of got in my head and I wasn't motivated. But now I'm like back on the bandwagon. I got Alex to join. So we're like in the gym pretty much every day after work. And it feels so good.

Feels so good.

So good.

I think with the gym, I seriously think it's a six month new habit. Like literally it took me about six months. Then one day I said I wasn't excited about going, but I was like, this is just part of who I am. And for a while it was like about two months I'd be into it and I fade out. And three months for me it's a six month hump.

We went on my birthday, which I never would do, but I was like, you know, I was feeling good. I was like, let's go. And then we sat by the pool and it was like, it set the tone for the day.

Yeah. And if you don't have an excuse like your birthday, then you have no excuse.

Right.

Oh, it's raining and I gotta go. I went on my birthday for God's sake. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. What have you been up to? Fireball.

So in Sussex county we have a annual fair and fair in New Jersey.

Oh, that's this week? Well, not anymore when you hear this. But yeah.

Yeah. So I went to the fair with my sister and her one year old. So it's the first time where he saw like large animals. And I was anticipating it'd be like this great experience because he loves dogs and he gets so excited and he literally did nothing. Really stared at them and nothing. And there was these giant oxen, like 1900 pounds. I've never seen an oxen in life. And I was mesmerized replacement by it. And he was like, really?

He made on oxen?

Yeah. And then like the oxen snot at us and my sister flipped out, but he did nothing.

That's so funny.

Really. He's like, whatever.

Yeah. Weird.

Sometimes they get more intrigued by oxen snot than oxen themselves.

Clearly it didn't phase him at all.

I took the funniest picture. I made my Facebook profile. I went to the turtle back zoo.

Yeah.

And they had the sheep with. With four horns, like the two curly hammer. And it had the worst teeth ever. Ever. It looked like Austin Powers, quite frankly. And so I took a picture of it. It made my Facebook profile for a while. Did you guys not see it?

I think I vaguely remember.

Very funny, I thought. And not a single person commented. I didn't even notice. I thought it was going to be time. Mike, for God's sake, stop smiling.

Oh, my God.

Did you see the size of the gong?

Yes.

Out there.

Yes, we did.

I just said, you see the size of Ron's gong.

Oh, wow.

So I went out and bought a gong for the office because we used to have. This is my update. We used to have. We play thunderstruck.

Yeah.

Once a new member would join on board. Like we have so much activity going on that cranking thunderstorm. People like, turn it down. I'm trying to talk. So now we have this gong and it is. It's just as loud, it's just even louder. But at least it's a one time guy. And I put these pads behind now because it's right next to the glass wall. You can hit as hard as you want, no problem.

I haven't hit it yet. I want to hit it next time.

You do something of significance, like you sell a ticket or something. I shouldn't say everything you do is of significance, but I'm not yet. That sounded kind of bad.

Well, maybe one day when you do something significant.

Exactly. If you ever do something important, then sure. Otherwise, don't touch the gong.

You know, there's at least one person that loves me, and that's Tanya Woods. So shout out, Tanya. Actually, she sent us a little message about our podcast and she said that we do such a great job of making it fun. She says our interactions are a joy to listen to. The energy flows through the speakers to her little office in South Australia. And she says it impacts her immediately, giving her the motivation lift that she needs. So shout out to Tanya. I love you, Tanya.

And when this broadcast. I'm already back from Australia. Tanya and her husband Alex invited me to an Australian rules football game.

Awesome.

So I'm just gonna assume it was amazing, but I assume it was. I was talking about this yesterday. They do that dance. They stick their tongues out and they bounce around. What's that called, that dance?

Well, it was. It's a Maori tradition. So the Maori are the indigenous folks of New Zealand. And so I think the football league adopted it.

Yeah. So in Australia, they do it now too. Before a game starts, the teams face each other. They're maybe 10 yards apart and they do this very intimidating dance at each other.

What's the sound they make again?

Seriously?

Just checking.

And the drums are playing. So that's actually how I naturally dance.

You know what, that's going on the board. I have to replace the thing in the spin wheel that's going on it.

Oh, do the dance. That is genius. Yeah, the next, the next. What's it called again? Maori dance. So the next person at our office who spins a wheel, we do it after our huddle. Every day there's one person who wins based upon their productivity at the office. Sometimes you get an insulting thing like that. But the point is getting to is I do that. That's my natural dance technique. So I now feel you used to.

Do it with other stuff.

Yeah. If you ever get invited to a.

Wedding, I'm not sure a robot is your natural dance.

I am kind of a robot. So next wedding I go to, just watch me do my Maori dance. Let me thank our corporate partners. Make the show a reality.

Yep.

I want to thank Fund a box. Nextiva receipt bank and a big new one. It's Right Network. Do you know who they are?

No. Please tell me.

Right Network helps you securely transition your accounting based desktop applications into the cloud, regardless of what version you are using. Listen, every business out there is using software that you love.

Yeah.

But not all of it is necessarily on the cloud. Maybe use QuickBooks Desktop. It's still very popular. You know you can only run that on your PC and then you think of these awkward kind of remote setups. If you're from home, you got to dial into your PC, not dial in, but use the PC anywhere. Something like that. And then what if someone's using that PC when you dial in? It doesn't work. It's just a nightmare. Do you know what Right Networks does? They take that old software that's amazing. They put it on the cloud so you can work on it from anywhere without those problems you need to dial in. So they make even the most antiquated software modern. Love it so you don't lose that functionality. I can't tell you how many times I said, oh, I gotta go in the cloud, I gotta replace the software. I had. I did it with a CRM. I'm not gonna tell you the brand, but there was a CRM that had a great desktop thing. I tried to put on the cloud or user cloud version, it sucked. So I went back to the desktop, which I love, but I couldn't use it when I traveled. And that's the whole idea of CRMs. When you're traveling, you can pull stuff up.

Yeah.

So right Networks finally has the solution.

Thank you.

Here. How do you learn more? Real Easy? You dial 888-41-74448, extension 1. You don't even have to go to a website. That's how. That's how old school cool they are.

Yeah.

You dial a number, they have live people that answer the phone.

Cool school.

So they're cool school. Right now works at 888-417-4448. Then dial extension one, say that Mike sent you and they'll do nothing for you. But just say that. Okay. Now you know it's time for Christina the shadow. Yes, I do. What's our 800 number?

844-876-7221. Don't know what to do. That's easy because there's a recording. We tell you exactly what to do. Record your 22nd testimonial and you may hear yourself on the air.

That's right. That's our. Our shout out hotline on profitability. His name.

You got that?

His name. There it is. His name is Dan Kushow and he started and built 11 companies. His first back in 1992.

Wow.

After selling two of his companies in the late 2000s following a health scare, Dan has now spent his time working with fun projects including Famous Joe Polish and the Genius Network. Dan's company is called Champion Biz training. And he's going to teach us today about ELF which is building an easy, lucrative fun company versus the half companies which are hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. And I don't know if you knew this about Dan. You too, but he played college and semi pro baseball.

Oh, nice.

That's like the Savannah Bananas kind of level stuff.

Yeah.

And he coached a college summer baseball team.

Rock on.

So, Dan, welcome to the show.

Welcome, Dan.

Dan.

Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you guys. I have to say, Fat daddy fat back, drinking iced tea, going to the gym, grunting. Australian rules football.

All kinds of all the stuff you learned. Yeah.

Fat Daddy Fatback.

Yeah, that's my Fat Daddy Fatback. That's my rapper name.

So, Dan, well, first I need to hit it. I need to hit a bong. I mean, I hit a gong to start my day. Come on, man.

So that was funny. So tell me, what's the difference between an Elf and a half. I just wanted to lay out this acronym.

Well, size matters, number one. And number two.

Here we go.

Yeah, so half is, you know, this comes from Joe Polish. Half is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. So you can have a business that's hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating, or you can have an elf business, which is easy, lucrative, and fun. Right. And, you know, for me, you know, you talked about my health scare. You know, I was a part of Genius Network. I was the third member in the community. And after my health scare, Mike, what ended up happening is I, you know, I had a real transformation of really what I wanted to do. You know, I remember sitting in one of the meetings, I think it was Tim Ferriss at one of the Genius Network meetings, who said, you know, in order to have a breakthrough, you've got to be willing to break something. Then I think Joe said, be willing to destroy anything that isn't excellent. Right? And I looked at. I looked at my life. I looked at what I was doing in business, and I was proud of all that. We had over 150 employees. We got a lot of momentum. But after this health scare, it wasn't what I wanted. As you're listening right now, imagine your son is born, and two weeks after your son is born, you wake up with chest pains, and yet you end up going to a hospital.

And.

And you go in precautionary. You go in the doctor, you say, why are you here? I've got some tightness. Because, of course, you don't use the word chest pain. Going to a hospital say, I've got some tightness. They run some tests. Immediately, all hell breaks loose. They throw you on a gurney. Then you're in the hospital emergency for four days. They do a surgery procedure. You sign a disclaimer, it says you have a 1 in x chance of dying on the table. It'll certainly take your temperature. And it freaked me the hell out, to be candid with you. So when I came out of that experience, Mike, I was committed to destroy anything that wasn't excellent. And I started making some shifts. I set the stage finally to apply principles like what you teach and profit first. Right? You know, to get selfish a little bit, to be selfless because a drowning person can't save a drowning person. You deserve to profit first. You deserve to, you know, have a lifestyle that you. You deserve, too. So for me, I hired another coach. I've always had coaching over the last few decades. And one of the coaches I hired, her name's Christy Lopez. She said, you know, she got me to focus in on three key questions. Dan, what do you want? And for me, that was. That was a real defining point, Mike, because, you know, I don't know about you, but for me and building companies, usually entrepreneurs are selfless in many ways. They come from contribution. They're always looking for how to take things from a lower place to a higher place, which is what entrepreneurship is about. Innovation, adding value to others in the market, and also building teams. And I had done that, and I kind of lost sight of what I really wanted. And so that was a real defining question. Another one was, who am I? Not all the titles and labels and all that garbage, but like the human being side of it versus the human doing side of it. Number three is what do I stand for? Quality or values wise? We talk about building values in companies. Well, what about building values at home? And I had lost sight of that. And for me, that was a real turning point, Mike. And since that time, I've made some shifts. I sold those companies about two years later. It was really when I got serious about a lot of what you teach and profit first and setting up better structures so that you are profitable at the end of the day. And was very fortunate and blessed to sell my companies. It gave me some freedom to really look around and like, what do I really want to do when I grow up? And for me, I decided, number one is to be a dad, number two, to be a husband and a great one. And then number three, all the other business stuff will take care of itself. And yes, I'm fortunate. And I've been working as a strategic growth partner with Joe Polish and Genius Network, having a lot of fun doing that. And also working with other great clients too.

Well, I want to know about these other questions you said. So there was three key questions. What do you want? What were the other two?

Who am I? And then what do I stand for?

What do I stand for? Okay, gotcha. So let's go to the ELF. So it almost sounds counterintuitive if I want to build a profitable business for it to be easy. The lucrative part I get, but the easy, lucrative and fun, that doesn't necessarily translate to profitable. Maybe I'm having a good time for myself, but I don't see that necessarily tying into profit. Does an ELF business tie into profitability? And if it does, I want to know how.

That's great. So a lot of it comes down. How many of us meet people running businesses, Mike, that are operating one to one. So an ELF business is more about applying One to many principles. The easy, the lucrative part, because you can have a half business, hard, annoying, lame, and also sometimes lucrative and fun. But it's the half where you're working, you're toiling away, working in the business instead of on the business using Michael Gerber's terminology, or you're the one wearing 12 hats in the company. So an elf business is more about systematizing, replicating things that matter. And we believe, I believe I got my start back in the late 80s in direct response marketing. I got fascinated how you could take a piece of paper, put print on it, send it out, and people would respond and send money like it was amazing to me. And so an ELF is applying the idea of a one to many principle. And that applies in marketing, it applies in sales, it applies in, you know, finance, it applies in productivity, in a company mindset, and so on. So it's really about the idea of one to many practices, one to many principles in the critical areas of running a business like sales, marketing, leadership, productivity, mindset and hiring and recruiting.

You said ask that question, what do you want? Does that have an impact in determining how you develop your business to be an elf?

Oh, absolutely. Because as an entrepreneur, like what are we really good at? We're great at solving problems, right? And being able to go out and disrupt and innovate and find the gaps. And our to do list is one thing. But more importantly, when we get really clear about what do we want, what do I want? The not to do list becomes far more important, right? Because how many times do we put ourselves in a pickle as an entrepreneur because we just say yes to too many damn things, right? So an ELF business is having the discernment to be able to go out there and identify what are, you know, using the 80, 20 ideas, 20% of things produce, 80% of the activities. What are those three to five really critical things that we can get done? And more importantly, what are the things not to do? Or adding another list, which is the not now list. Because as an entrepreneur we're constantly, I don't know, I don't want to stereotype, but I'll just speak to myself. My brain is always spinning on an idea. I wake up at four in the morning and I'm running to my notebook to jot down new ideas. And in the past I used to have so much baggage around the idea of like this isn't getting done. Oh my God, this idea, this concept just isn't driving and making hay, so to speak, or getting any leverage or Getting any momentum, and it used to frustrate the hell out of me. So for me, the not now list and the not to do list have become saving grace to create just healthier boundaries. Because I know. I don't know about you, Mike, but we probably know a lot of people who run very successful businesses, but they don't have very successful lives. And I believe you can have it both ways. So an elf construct, the elf mindset is really about a healthy and successful business instead of just a successful. Because I know a lot of people who work 100 hours a week who talk about the hustle and talk about grinding it until literally work. You know, you can sleep when you're dead. You know, that whole mentality, I bought that years ago and it put me in a hospital.

Do you find it to get people to switch to that mentality? Like, do you get pushback on it?

I would say yes and no. So what I would say is, was that Kelsey who asked the question?

That was Christina.

Christina. Awesome. So, Christina, what I would say, yeah, I have seen pushback. Because when you, you know, if you only know one way to go about it or our false beliefs say, you know, I've just got to outwork everybody. A lot of it is just a false belief. Well, what if. What if you had to build success in, you know, four hours a day?

Yeah.

Isn't it. Isn't it amazing that, you know, we get most of the things done in the last 20% of time? Right. If we have to prepare a seminar or we have to prepare a webinar or we have to prepare a report or we have to prepare a presentation or when do we usually get in the last 20%? It's like final exams in many ways. So at the end of the day, why not create those boundaries up front so you can condense time frames to then have the ability to collapse the timeframes to then create the freedom. Dan Sullivan has a great model around it, which is. He calls it the entrepreneurial time system, which I've come to really love and enjoy myself integrating this because I need these kind of boundaries because left to my own devices, here's the reality. I'm a workaholic that works 100 plus hours a week. I'd spend more time on my businesses than I would my family. That's just being real. Thankfully, I have incredible family support today, and I've stumbled across some of these tools to create more of an elf lifestyle, an elf business. The entrepreneurial time system says free days are days that you just don't work. Dan Sullivan is a great. He leads by example. He takes over 165 days off a year. And when he says off, no business at all. Now, I'm not that good, but I've gotten much better today than I was, say, a decade ago. So free days, and then he calls it buffer days. These are the days that you're crossing between free and what he calls focus days. Focus days are that, Mike, when you're doing what you're doing right now, I mean, you have a gift. You and your team have a gift to be able to go out and inspire and be able to impact people with the great strategies that you bring. So these are like, this is a focus time for you, where you're at your best. It's the thing you would do for free. It's the thing you love, the thing you enjoy, right? So that's focus time. The buffer time is that bridge, maybe administrative type work, the meetings, that sort of stuff. And then free days are just totally taking that dedicated time off. So I still meet with resistance myself, Christina. So to say that I meet resistance, yes. I look in the mirror first. Entrepreneurs. Because if you've done it a certain way or you've been trained or you have. More importantly, like, for me, it's. I have found, for me and others, it's mostly false beliefs. But what if we just shifted it and we just said I had to do it in four hours instead of eight or 10 or 50 in a day? Right. So anyway, but here's what I do know. When people start to shift. Like for me today, the idea of growing to freedom, which is why one of my big constructs is the idea of your constantly stretching boundaries. To grow, to create freedom. Right? To be able to do the things that matter. To do the things in our sweet spot. Dan Sullivan calls them unique ability. I know in your work, Mike, from what I have noticed is that you get people to focus on doing the things that are the things they're excellent at and they're the most productive at and that they enjoy. How great is it when you can do the things that you love, that you're great at and delegate the rest of it. That's what great teamwork will allow you to do, too. In creating an ELF business, I want.

To dig in deeper to that not to do list. Is that a physical list like you put on the wall?

I put it in my notebook. I have to remind my. Everybody has their version, but starts number one with awareness. Awareness is the answer. It determines the difference between Freedom and being constrained. So I have it in my notebook, I have my journal sitting here right next to me and I've got not to do things in my journal. I know other people who put it on their wall. I know other people for the company's sake. They have like the key, you know, you know, different people have different terminology. But like your five key focuses or five key rocks for the quarter, that's the big to do list for the company. Then there's the not to do list. You know, these are things that right now we're not doing, although they're an idea. And then there's the not now list. These are the things that are coming up the pipeline. And I know people that we have done this, I've done this in my companies where we've made it for the company transparent for people to see so that people could see the ideas that we're going for eventually and capturing. So it creates a good limbo place again for a busy minded entrepreneur like me or others that I've met. Seeing it that way visually just gives another level of freedom. Again feeding into the idea of this elf elf framework. Easy, lucrative and fun instead of being constrained and having a half hard, annoying, lame and frustrating business.

Well, I want to go back to the concept of those free days too. To me it sounds counterintuitive to profitability because the mentality is I just need to work harder, I need to outwork everyone else. I think that's the terms you use, that's the belief. But doesn't that result in more profit? And is it really true we could work less and be more profitable. It sounds like the, the golden chalice we're all looking to achieve. But it does sound almost like mythology to me.

Well, let's go to the belief system and Mike, I have had a hard time with this over the years and again, I'm still not even perfect with it today. I've certainly just. I have far more freedom today. And here's why. Think about it like most people are upbringing. When we think of taking time off, let's go to the core route. Why do we take time off? Is it because we feel that we're doing it to rejuvenate or because we somehow earned some award? I have found that most people feel it's like they finally earned it. Right? But if you look at great athletes, right, if you look at great athletes, you look at the current athletes of today or the past athletes of the last couple decades, what do athletes do? They rejuvenate ahead of Time. Right. You know, you wouldn't have a world class athlete that burn the candle for 20 straight hours and then go ask them to play a championship game. Right, right, right.

That's true.

So why not treat ourselves that way? I've heard Joe Polish describe it as, how would you treat yourself if you were a top ranked racehorse? You'd get massages in advance, you'd be taken care of, you'd be pampered, you'd create free time, you'd have the proper sleep, by the way. Right. You'd have the proper rest, you'd have the proper people around you to make sure you had all the tools that you needed to be. So why not treat ourselves like a top ranked racehorse or a top ranked athlete, a world class athlete, Olympic athletes in business. And that's the idea, first of all, we have to break through to go, yeah, I've got to look at myself that way and not this grinder who has to grind and hustle my way to full profit. It's the idea of you create the free time in advance to be your very best. It's not about earning it, it's about setting yourself up so you're at your very best when you're performing.

If I was a racehorse, my name, my racehorse name would be Fat Daddy Fat Pack. And I would be in the Kentucky Derry. There's that fat pack.

Yeah.

Make everyone eat bacon because that's from pigs, not from horses. I'm just saying.

So you've got big dreams.

That's my dream. I do tell stories in my head, instantly I can see myself running down. So Dan, what about those buffer days? I understand the difference between focus and buffer.

So focus days are essentially where you're doing the things that are producing revenue momentum and advancing momentum in the company. The buffer days are a lot of the setup. Right. So for a guy like me, I don't really like meetings that much or administrative type things personally. So for me, my buffer days are around administrative type things and meetings that are, you know, orchestrated team energy type thing. Whereas my focus days are more like doing an interview like this. I love doing something like this when I do my show. That's a focus time. Being in a sales environment where I'm doing a webinar where I'm, you know, performing to generate revenue, momentum, add momentum, add value. Those are the, the focus time. And everybody has their whatever, their sweet spot, someone who specializes in, you know, like a support role, their focus time is going to be a little bit different than say your focus time. Mike. Or my focus time or Kelsey's focus time or Christina. So everybody is a little bit different. So we self define it based on what it is that we do and how we add value and contribute. But it comes back to this. Here's the other part. You asked earlier and I gave you an incomplete answer to a degree. The elf business. So one of the best ways to build an elf business for all of us is to do the things that give us an elf business. Like what would have to happen for us to duplicate ourselves. Well, one of the best ways is to be able to get better at direct response marketing. Like how great would it be to put one message out in the world? And instead of it being a one to one message as in traditional selling, it was one to many using good marketing, effective marketing. You know, if Kelsey had the ability to can and clone, using a Gary Halbert term, can and clone herself and be able to get that message out to tens of thousands. And by the way, you're already doing that because you're doing this podcast. Literally tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people per month are going to hear this. That's canning and cloning. You can do that in print, you can do it on audio, you can do it in video. You can do it in a very strategic method of selling to get people to respond. And so it's about creating effective messaging with a product or service to ultimately create results, create revenue, grow the company, grow leads, grow sales, all those sorts of things which ultimately lead to the bottom line, which is profit.

Let's talk about Kelsey's business. Kelsey's an entrepreneur. She owns a jewelry manufacturing business. You have some distributors, where I say distributors, you some retailers. You sell wholesale to retailers. Can you still do the one to many? I can see how I can make a video, training video and speak to a community, but I don't know if Kelsey could make a video saying, hey everyone, buy my products. Or maybe she can. How would you work with a more traditional business like Kelsey has Dan and do that one to many relationship?

Well, yeah, it shows up in a couple different ways. So canning and cloning, what are the things that Kelsey is doing that could be replicated, you know, and create, you know, so there's five Ps, you know, overall, there's the plan. You have positioning, you have packaging, you have the ability to promote and then you have your profitability. So five P's. So in Kelsey's business it would be okay, how can we package and position Kelsey so she's not having to go do the one to one grind. But instead she can use a one to many type of technology. So a simple version could be creating and packaging a bio video for her or the company to represent her. Right. So like a two minute like sizzle reel or video reel.

That's a good idea.

Right. And now when someone says, well what do you do like or how could you help us? So, you know, yeah, Kelsey could go ahead and she could personally answer that question which gives a certain level of engagement. But on the other end, if one of the teams said, oh, here's some information on Kelsey and what our company does, it sets up positioning and packaging of her in a unique way. So that's one way. I mean there's dozens, but that's one way.

I even think when it comes to once you get a retail store, Kelsey could do a video explaining how to market, you know, where to position it. Because with jewelry, the story behind the jewelry is a massive component. Yeah, that's a great idea, Dan. I love it. But what about the naysayers?

By the way, here's another one for Kelsey. Right?

Here he goes.

I could do this all day long. So let's say for that jewelry store who engages Kelsey, you know, she has probably some kind of a welcome package that she gets to them and if not, maybe she creates one. And basically what it does is it trains that client on how to behave and how to continue to engage and buy from her in the future. Right. So one way it could be this nice welcome package and then it might say start here before or warning before you open this package. Call this free recorded message to hear an important message and how to get the most out of this. Right now it's 1-800-555-1212. And now it's Kelsey doing a two to three minute message coaching them. Congratulations, you made a great decision. And here's how to engage. Here's the first step. Here's the so that's a canon clone message that creates engagement and then she could give a call to action of what to do next. Could be go to this website to see this next thing or it could be, you know, engage with this product a certain way. So it's education based. It's packaging education based marketing using automation type tools to leverage to create more of an elf easy, lucrative and fun business. One to many instead of one to one.

Great idea. That's true. It's because once you have a customer, you have one customer, Kelsey in the northeast that keeps coming back to you again and again you can position people with that message. Actually, Dan, we have a recording. She does have that one, 800-number. So if you call Kelsey's business. What's the name of the company again? Kelsey?

Matter of love Jewelry.

Matter of love Jewelry. They go, you know, you dial. There's actually, here's the welcome kit. You open it up. There's a small video of Kelsey in there. She's like, thank you for. For using Matter of Love. And we want to do more business with us, please dial our 1-800-number. And when you dial it, here's the recording.

Do it. Just do it.

It's a total juxtaposition. You think it's gonna be like this wonderful, embracing thing, and then she hits you in the face with her hologram. With her hologram. Yeah.

That would actually be really great.

That would be awesome. And then at the end, you're like, but I love you. So it's all okay. Dan, what about the people who resist your brand? Because you said number two in. In the three questions is, who am I? And me, I like to joke around my sense of humor. At least I think it's humor to some people is totally not humor. And people will slam me. Like, I got one guy on the Internet was awesome in a book review, he says, this guy thinks he's a comedian, and he's worse than the worst comedian ever. Wow. So, yeah, yeah. Which is. I get it. Like, I don't connect with everyone. But you feel the biting pain when someone slams you like that. Because I'm really trying to put my best foot forward. What about people that don't connect with the who I am? How can we fix that?

Send them a get well card. No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, There you go.

Yeah. Now that naysayer is going to be attacking me, by the way.

Yeah, I know. No, they're not listening to the show, I hope.

Okay. So what I would say to that is, you know, for me, you know, there's always going to be naysayers. Years ago, I had someone who, you know, shared an idea, and I still have to work at this because, you know, I take all this feedback really seriously. And so if I have somebody who's got an issue, I actually am the type that will reach out and go, hey, what's the issue? Like, what do we need to fix here? Right. And I get the feeling you're that way, too. Your whole team, your organization, who you are, what you stand for. However, there are just people you're not going to be able to help support and you know, in that type of case, I take the feedback in look at how we can make things better. Ideally, the right people understand it. We can't be all things to all people. And I know that, you know, this isn't advice that is new or, like, atypical out there, but at the end of the day, you know, I imagine you wake up, Mike, knowing that you're serving a better good, you're adding value in the marketplace. And at the end of the day, you know, that's what entrepreneurship get. We create jobs, we create opportunity, we move the dial. We handle more in a handful of hours on a Monday than most people do. And that doesn't make us better. It's just we're going out to do something different, to do something better, to have a bigger impact, a bigger reach and contribution. So a big part of it is being able to sleep at night knowing that we're offering that value in the marketplace. So, yeah, that's how I look at it today.

I love that.

Yeah. Not that it's easy, because at the end of the day, it's not. Because sometimes we want to. I'll just speak to me. I won't speak to you or anybody else, but I've had a tendency to almost tailor more to the critic. And the mentor I had years ago said, you know, there was never a statue erected for a critic. They only erect statues for great people. And he says, you know, you can tell the size of the person or the true leader by the arrows in their back. Right.

Oh, that's a wow, wow, wow.

Yeah. And if you're not doing anything, they're not talking about you. So, you know, I think part of it goes with the game and the course that we've chosen to play. But we just, you know, we do our best, and then when we have a situation, we do our best to resolve it and work to make a client happy. But I found that many times, some of the biggest complainers are people who've never even bought products from a company or client.

That's so true. That is so true.

I make it real easy. You can get a refund on our product today. Oh, this is free. So get a refund on that.

There you go. Yeah, that's funny. Dan, this has been some phenomenal insights, unfortunately. We gotta rock and roll. Before I let you go, where can our listeners get more information about Champion Biz training and all the stuff you're doing?

Yeah, I would say the easiest way is, you know, we host regular masterclass and trainings to help you grow your business 2, 5, 10 times implementing a lot of the practices we're talking about, which are one to many instead of one to one or what Joe Polish calls elf easy, lucrative, and fun instead of half. So you can do that@champion businessblueprint.com championbusinessblueprint.com you can also check out our show at growthtofreedom.com growthtofreedom.com and if you want to learn more about what Joe and genius network stand for as well, make sure to go check out geniusnetworkevents.com as well. Genius network events.

Okay, Dan, it's been a joy having you. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Dan.

Thank you, Dan.

Guys, thank you. Enjoy your day.

All right, we'll see you. Christina. Time for a good punch to the face.

You felt that one.

Yeah, you felt that. That shook the studio. Well, here's the deal, yo, Christina.

Yes.

What we're going to do is I bet you. You know what? I bet you our guests that listen to binge this show know what we're going to do. We're going to do two things that or three things you're used to. We're going to do a recap of summary of what we heard. We're going to thank our corporate partners, and then we're going to tell you about profit first professionals. But I got one extra bonus that neither of you know that's coming.

What is it?

I'm not going to tell you.

Tell me now.

I'm going to do it during the music.

Okay?

Okay. I want to tell you. I want to tell you, but no, I'm going to hold it till the music. Holds the music. So first let's thank our corporate partners.

Of course.

Who are they?

Right. Networks.

Yeah, right. Networks is awesome. So you know that software you're using that you love but you wish it was on the web? You wish it was in the cloud. They literally do it for you, everything. So write networks. It's r I g h t. So check out writenetworks.com and you can also give them a call. I don't know where I put the number.

And you can call them.

Here it is. 844-876. No, Jesus, that's our phone.

844-417-4448, extension one. And you can call them on your next diva phone.

Yes.

You can call us, too.

Yeah, you can call us. That's funny. I had my own phone number there and I didn't recognize it. Bazinga. So, yeah. So nextiva why not use an Extiva phone system? It's N-X-T-I V a.com voiceover IP. We love them. We use them now for, I think all of eternity. That's our first voice over IP phone system and we've been with them ever since. We love them. Fund Box Cash flow Accelerator. You know that money that's due to you that the clients is not paying for whatever reason, right or wrong? FundBox will send the money to you right away. They'll give it to you on the spot, 100%. Then when the money comes in from the client, you just return it to Fundbox. It's that simple. Plus their service fee. I'm listening. They're not a charity business. They're in for profit too, just like you. But man, they provide a critical service we all need.

Oh, and receipt pay, of course.

God, they're going to be at profitcon.

I can't wait.

You know what? And you can still sign for ProfitCon. That means we're down to the wire now. But if you haven't signed to profitcon, go to profitcon us. That's P R o R I o F I T Profit. The word profit con C o N Google M I C K e Y M O u S e. Go to ProfitCon US and you can still get your ticket today. Receipt bank is going to be there. They are a ultimate, ultimate efficiency maximizer because they scan in all those receipts you have right into your phone, sync up with your accounting system and you're ready to go.

Wow.

Okay, that's the spiel. Let's talk about what we learned today, guys. Kelsey, you want to go first? You up for it? Sure.

Well, the first thing that I loved is when he said, who am I? Evaluate, you know, the human being rather than the human doing. And I think it's important to continually reevaluate who you are and what you want. And I love that. I sort of love and hate that. It took a near death experience.

That's why I think it too for.

Him to realize who he really was and what he really wanted. But I'm glad that it happened. But I think it's a good reminder for all of us to check in.

But why is that? So I forgot to ask him that. He knew he has a heart attack and that's his turning point. I have the financial calamity of the century for myself. That was my turning point. Does it have to be that way?

No. This is a reminder.

Yeah. Okay. There you go.

That's the natural Unfortunate. The unfortunate natural way that that happens. But it doesn't have to.

Yeah.

Do you hear my chair right now? I'm sorry.

There's nothing like those trucks outside. What's up with those trucks?

Honestly, I don't know.

Are they taking down our buildings? Probably. They're probably explosives around. They're going to implode the building while we're working here.

It's that guy who doesn't think you're a comedian.

I know. He's like, I'm going to implode your building.

Sabotage.

That didn't shut you up.

This will.

Yeah. That's funny. What'd you learn today?

Sorry, I'm actually getting a little emotional about this.

Good.

So my top takeaway was when he said, be willing to destroy anything that isn't excellent. And that's something that I've always struggled with because I don't know, like, you just get into a feeling that you don't deserve to have what you want, and you do. So the other thing that hit me that ties directly into that is awareness of that. Knowing that you do deserve that is the difference between freedom and constraint.

Boom. Thank you. Thank you. I'm. Thanks for getting emotional because it. It connects. And I'm a co crier too, so I literally. No, I can't look at you because I'll start going. But I remember we did that exercise here.

Yeah.

We boiled down to what matters in our family. And you. I've never seen you cry before. You were crying.

I don't cry.

Christine and I are criers. We're crying. Aaron. Aaron, I mean, shook the room. Mike Scaly, the Hawaiian lumberjack. We were all crying except for Ron. And I noticed Ron, he couldn't look at us and he starts fumbling with his phone. He got so uncomfortable.

Yeah.

But I think uncomfort crying, that type of emotion means we're landing on something that's really hitting home. We got to boil that down to it. So there's an exercise out there. If you guys want to know what the exercise is, email christinarophyfirstprofessionals.com and we'll gladly email you the exercise. Actually, I'm including in the new book too. But I won't tell you what the exercise is now. It takes too long. So my takeaways is I just need to. Let's see. To work everyone. Wrong. Oh, build. Oh, God. I came from my own handwriting here. Building Not. Oh, build. A not to do list. That was. Yeah, that was huge for me. And do a one to many business. And we all have the opportunity. And it reminded me of a story of Sam Walton, purportedly Sam Walton. You know who Sam Walton is?

Is that from the founder of Walmart?

So Sam Walton was the founder of Walmart. He's a kind of a Ray Kroc type of idolized person. True story. As he's dying, his family's around him. Final words is I blew it. His final words were, I blew it. And what purportedly he was indicating was not his business acumen but his family acumen. He blew off his family, and he's sitting there, he's looking the people that around him, and they didn't know really who he was, and he said he blew it. So I love that Sam Walton from the story that I hear, had to figure out his turning moment on his deathbed. Dan found it out at a heart attack or whatever his challenges were there and had an opportunity to turn around. So I agree with you, Kelsey. Like, let's not screw around. Today's the day. Be who you feel called to be.

Yeah.

Oh, that was a powerful episode. Thank you for your candidate, your candidness. All right, are you up for giving us the outro?

Of course I am. So leave your comment. Tell me how I made you feel uncomfortable. But go to profitfirstpodcast.com iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. Anywhere you listen to us, there's a little comment button I want to hear from you. And of course, you have to visit us at profit first Professionals. Calm.

Jinx, jinx. Yo me up there. Proffersprofessionals.com we help businesses become profitable. We part of our membership. Our members help you also get in touch with your core purpose, too, in your business, because that's actually where profitability resonates from. When you serve people out of the goodness of your heart, money will come to you. You can see this as a universal kind of influence, or you can see it as a. As an internal influence. But that money will flow to you because you're doing good, which helps you perpetuate more good profit First Professionals, our members help you drive profitability in your business. So go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on the find button, fill out the form. We'll hook you up with someone that's gonna drive profitably in your business, regardless of the business type. Okay, here's the juicy part. Okay, so I've been listening to our past episodes, and I make so many mistakes. It's time I own up to it. You ever see, like, an article and then in the Newspaper. It'll come out a month later and say, here's the corrections.

Yeah, all right.

Here's my corrections. First one. Many episodes ago. This is just a comment. Kelsey talked about the Hands Made tale, that book you were reading.

Oh, the Handmaid style.

Yeah, yeah. Hands. Handmade. Handmade tale. Handmaid's tale.

The Handmaid tail.

Okay. Handmaid's. You know what I'm talking about. It's now a TV show, and I.

Watched the TV show.

Yeah, it's a TV show. My wife is addicted to that show and really is very reflective on kind of sexism and stuff. So very, very powerful. That was just one thing I wanted to point out. So thanks for sharing that. I had no idea what you're talking about. Here's mistakes. I said, it's time we pay homage. Kelsey speaks up and says, I think it's homage. I go, no, it's not. It's homage. I got interface. It is homage. You are 100% correct. So correction one, Kelsey zero, Mike, next one. I say in one episode, the flag that says don't tread on me is the New Jersey state flag. Kelsey goes, no, I think that's not the New Jersey flag. I said, you're wrong.

Oh, my God.

It's military, right?

No, I think it's just was the US Flag for a period of time. So two for Kelsey, zero for Mike. So I want to make those two corrections and own up to it.

Well, thank you for keeping him, you know. Yeah.

So it's homage, and Don't Tread on Me is country, not New Jersey. You rock.

Oh.

All right. Thanks for candor today. You rocked out, Christina. Thanks, Kelsey. Thanks for your time today. All right, guys, let's get out here with some incredible build up to the music. Here we go. Okay, you love this part.

Now turn it up for A.J.

There we go. We're going all the way to the end.

Sam.