We’re Scaling Jefferson Fisher’s Business To $10M (Here’s How) | 086

I get about 2,500 to 3,000 DMs like a day.

Jefferson Fisher is sitting on a powerful set of assets: a successful law firm, a course, a newsletter, a podcast, a membership, and even an AI product.

So I like to kind of look at it as how many lines can I put in the water and how many do I draw away from?

In this episode, we ask the big question: what's the smartest path to $10 million while still enjoying life and having time for family?

If you look at the bigger creators, they choose one and they push it all the way. And this is a recurring theme in my life is, does it fit my world?

What would have to be true to make $1 million a year off of your podcast? Um, well, I think that would be really, really powerful.

I like that a lot.

Let's say you sold an additional 100 memberships a day. We're making an extra $10,000 every single day. And so when you have That automation flow can really drive a lot of sales on autopilot.

You're changing it all, man. Thanks, Nathan. This has been amazing. Do I get to take this with me?

You went from basically zero followers on Instagram to 6 million in 2 years, right? Give me the quick version. What was that story?

Oh, it was— it felt like I was on a rocket ship just hanging on. By my fingertips, Nathan. Um, when I first started making videos, it was— Reels were brand new. Like, Instagram, I think at the time, was competing with TikTok because the Instagram we grew up with was you take a picture of your, your latte, right, your latte art, put an X-Pro filter on it, and call it a day. Like, that, that was your post. And so I had to Google, how do you make a Reel? What, what does that mean? What's a call to action? How— What's a hook? I don't really know. And so I started experimenting, just making videos to figure out how it actually worked, taking time to research how does it work? What does it mean to take a video, crop it, add a caption, post it? What does that feel like? When I posted to my 800 followers that were all friends from college and law school, I mean, my heart was beating out of my chest. I felt so nervous. And now I don't even think about it. It's just a different dynamic. So I had to figure out what worked. And what worked for me was I was sharing what was true to my expertise, and that was communication, because I'm a trial attorney and I use my concepts of what I teach my clients, how I prepare them for depositions and cross-examination and closing arguments, and put that into bite-sized pieces that I could share with them to help their next conversation. And over time, it just developed into a lot of followers. That just means that that stuff really resonated with them.

Uh, I mean, that's fantastic. And what I want to dive in in this episode is just talking about this part: now what? You have all kinds of, of reach. Uh, in a second we'll map out the different channels that you have and all of that, but just talking about where do we go next?

That, that is the question. That is always the question. I've been so excited to, uh, come on with you to discuss exactly what this question is. So I'm hopefully— hope—

hopefully we'll get some answers.

I'm hoping that you just tell me what, what that is, what that next is.

I like it. Well, let's Well, let's start. Where— what are the main channels that you have? We'll make note of them and then dive in from there.

Yeah, let's just put number— in terms of channels, I have, uh, let's just say content, like my daily content. Then I have, uh, those are the videos that I make every day. And then I have a podcast. Yeah, daily content are just my tip— that's what's gotten me to the 6 million on Instagram. Podcast, 15-minute episodes. I now do speaking, so I have a whole line of— so I speak for companies, conferences, all on how to handle difficult conversations. And then— and that's a whole lot of fun for me. I have a book now that's got— yeah, the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we're 4 or 5 weeks now on the New York Times bestseller list, and out of that will be workbooks and other books and journals and all that stuff. And then I have a membership.

Yeah.

Which I have not pushed very hard on, but I do have a membership. And then I don't know if we would consider this part of the membership or not, but I have an AI.

Yeah.

That I can be sold outside of the membership. So that's— there's that. Like, I haven't done this yet, but I could do merch. Like, that's really any kind of brand. They have people, uh, I'm looking to hopefully finish up doing conversation cards. So by the end of the year, do well. Yeah, conversation cards.

So what if we—

I don't know where under there.

Yeah, you tell me. Do we put like physical products in? Yeah, merch and conversation cards.

Yeah, uh, just products maybe.

Products.

Yeah, whatever that is.

I mean, this conversation cards would do fantastic, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of people are asking for those flashcards, that kind of thing. But that's, that's generally— you go, what is the world of a creator, right, who's doing this? And by the way, I am learning as I go. Like, I— you could get rid of all these cameras. I am so very interested in like, how do I do this, Nathan? Um, and I guess I'm not sure where you would put this, but I have a newsletter. Yep, right through a company that's Pretty good at newsletters. Pretty good at newsletters, yeah.

Let's put some numbers to it just to map this out. Okay. So daily content, that's the 6 million followers. We've been talking about Instagram. It's more than that.

We have about 12 million overall. Okay.

Between TikTok, Instagram.

LinkedIn.

LinkedIn.

Oh, YouTube.

12 million followers. What numbers would you put to the podcast?

Ooh, that's hard. I probably get 1.5, I think, million impressions.

Do you think it's over 100,000 downloads an episode?

Yes.

Okay.

I'd say that's a good number to use.

All right, so over 100K per episode.

Yeah. Of course, some of them do better, some of them are 90, some of them are whatever, but it's starting to certainly increase.

You up for sharing speaking fees? Any numbers there that you're willing to share?

Sure. So right now it depends what I'm doing, but it ranges anywhere anywhere from let's say $15,000 to $45,000. Yeah. And then some opportunities are larger than that.

What would you say, $15,000 to $50,000 plus? And then you have a limitation on this.

Yeah.

Where you're saying you will do up to 3 speaking gigs a month. Is that right?

Yeah, I try to really for travel.

Yeah.

And I don't want to be gone all the time, so I try to say up to 3 speaking engagements. That's it. And keep it there.

3 per month. That sounds good. Uh, all right, the book. How many copies have we sold?

Uh, I think overall up to this point, all formats is about 200,000.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it's been cool.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time this episode comes out that number is double.

Maybe. Maybe.

All right, the membership. Yeah, you were telling me you're on track for a huge amount this year. What's the You wanna talk number of members? What are the numbers there for sharing?

You can say that we'll be close to 7 figures. Okay. At end of year.

Okay. We'll just say 7 figure.

Yeah. And all of these are ranges.

Oh yeah.

So like even with the speaking, it's sometimes it's much more, sometimes it's 100%.

Yeah. And then the AI, As you've got that on Delphi.

Yeah, that's correct. And I think I have, we have that at $5.99 a month per user.

And then they were saying that it's one of their most popular.

Yeah, they told me yesterday, I think I'm like in the top 3 of their users and I'm, that's awesome. And then also that AI is also included for those that are in the membership. In the membership. So some people don't want the membership, they just want the AI.

Yeah, what's the price point on the membership?

So it's $97 a month or $1,000 a year.

Sounds good. Products are still coming. Yeah. The newsletter, how many subscribers you have?

You tell me. I think I have 350 or so.

That sounds good. I'll look it up later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't— something like that.

All right, this is the Jefferson Fisher.

I don't think I've ever done this, by the way. So this is all looking, looking great to me.

There's one other thing that we have in here that we haven't mentioned outside of the creator world, but I think it's important to call out. You have this like, you know, little law firm with—

Oh, that thing.

With 20 employees.

Yeah, exactly.

And like all these partners in it and everything else.

Right. Yeah, I also have an entire law firm. And what I don't think anybody knows is I also own a restaurant and a coffee shop But I'm selling those at the end of this month.

Okay, so we'll leave them off.

Leave them off. Yeah, yeah. Too many things. Too many things. I'm looking to reduce it.

Okay, so in all of this, first, as you see it all mapped out, is there anything that stands out to you where you're like, ooh, that's, you know, I hadn't thought about it that way, or like any reactions as you see it mapped out in front of you?

You know, I, One, I look at it and go, okay, that's a lot to me. Like, I don't know what else I'm missing. I don't know what else I could do with it. I feel like the people, the creators that, let's say that kind of in my space, maybe the top of the top, and that would be like a Mel or an Andrew.

So these are people that you text with and hang out, but we mean Mel Robbins, Andrew Huberman, and Stephen Bartlett.

Yes. All wonderful, cool people. It's this weird space where, you know, like because of what you do, you're able to be in touch with—

Oh yeah.

Huge, way, way bigger than any of these people. And so these are people that were able to encourage each other. Like the more numbers you get, it's like the air gets thinner.

Right.

And you kind of all start to know each other. And because you don't really have any friends in this space. I mean, I came into it not knowing anybody.

Right. When we first hung out, I don't know, 6 months ago or something like that. Yeah. You told me, oh, have a question about Mighty Networks for a membership, I, I just ask Mel.

Yeah.

And then you said, but when I have a question about podcasting, I, I just ask Andrew. These are the biggest names and all that.

I never thought about it that way, but I guess that's true. Yeah.

So you noticing that it's a lot of different things?

Yeah, I notice a lot of different things. So I look at it as, okay, what requires Jefferson's time? Um, daily content requires my time the most. Um, that's because I don't batch it. It's daily. And it's not like I can get it— I don't get my stuff from the internet. I don't read it from a book. It's not AI.

It's your life.

It is my just— okay. Podcast, that takes my time. Uh, speaking of course takes my time.

Yep.

Uh, membership, I do 2 Q&As, do like 2 coaching calls and a master class a month. And so that is, that's as much of me time. And I do that live with—

Yeah.

Oh, one thing we could put on there is course.

Okay.

Courses. That's like a click-to-buy course.

You know what I mean?

Like you have a— I could, I could take a month and say, okay, I'm going to record a The Next Conversation video. Yeah, exactly. And you, you buy it and you have it like that.

What would the difference be between that and the membership?

Yeah, membership is something that is recurring, uh, subscription model kind of thing where they get to have build a community. I have members that share a conversation they don't know what to do with and other people will chime in. Or maybe, well, my favorite is when they have conversation wins, when they're able to say, hey, I just had this handle covered I just had this conversation. Here's how I handled it. It went so well. And everybody says, great job, you know, and encourages people. And, and then they— I answer their questions live, and I'll bring them live on the Zoom, live on stage, and that gives a lot of value that way. And then I also, on my master classes, I bring a professor from the University of Texas, the McCombs School of Business, and I people who attend that class get continuing education credit, continuing education units towards whatever they have. So that helps a lot of professionals. Course is something that is you buy it once and you have the download. It might be 12 videos on how to be a more confident communicator or something.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I'm going to underline things that take a lot of your time. And so the podcast takes time speaking.

Yeah. Jeff, like actual Jefferson time.

On an ongoing basis. Yeah. Book was a huge amount of time, but if you like didn't spend any time on it going forward, it would continue to do.

Yeah, no, I have to do it with podcasts, promo. So promo's part of it, but yeah. Yeah, a little different.

Membership takes your time.

Yep.

Newsletter takes your time or do you have that pre-dialed in with the team?

Dialed in with the team.

Okay.

Yeah.

'Cause you're basically the content that you're creating in other places.

Exactly.

Then, yep.

So they take a video or a content I already have, repurpose it. I might add a little, little seasoned salt on it, add in a picture, and then they have that. So it's good to go. Fantastic.

I like that. Uh, and then the law firm, how much time do you spend on, on that old day job?

Um, it's gotten less and less now with the book coming out and everything. I've been on the book tour the last 4 weeks. And so law firms probably maybe 10%, but that doesn't mean even though I'm not actually doing the technical side of handling the hearings, the mediations, the depositions, I'm still managing it. So I'm being brought questions of what should we do with this issue or somebody's computer just died. We get like we need some AC work or whatever. It's like different little things like that.

Okay.

Making decisions on. So It's, I would say it does take my time, but a small percentage.

I'm just going to say there's a 20+ person team there.

Yep.

That makes sense. Okay. I like that math. Okay. So the products in the course don't exist yet.

No.

But these are, you know, potential next ideas. Yeah.

So I like to kind of look at it as what, how many lines can I put in the water and how many do I draw away from? I mean, if you look at the, bigger creators, it's like they choose one and they push it all the way, right? So they choose the podcast. What's going to be the best, biggest source for them, or they're right, uh, what they— is the most creative outlet for them. And I feel like that's what they push on. And so they'll increase their speaking fee. Like right now, my speaking fee is where it's at, so I can have like a very solid foundation, right? Um, and just get used to making sure— to me, and this is a recurring theme in my life— is does it fit my world? The same thing with my podcast, why I started it in my car. Like, I just want to see, is it going to fit my life or not? Do I like this? Do I not? Same thing with the speaking. So, um, as you have a better solid footing, better foundation, that will continue to grow. Um, the daily content, that takes the most amount of time the membership can grow. I mean, podcasts require sponsors. Another thing we don't have on here is just, uh, partnerships like brand deals, brand partnerships. Yep, that's become more in conversation. Um, you know, I have lots of meetings with, let's say, agents or managers who have different things in their mind of what I need to be doing, whether it's a docuseries, it's a show on Netflix, it's, uh, you ought to do this with, you know, so like, um, you know how like Andrew Heuermann has like his, uh, it's like Roka, their glasses, like the colored glasses. Like, okay, I can have something like that where I partner with a brand to help promote a product.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, let's set this aside for a second.

Okay.

And what I want to most know is what are we optimizing for? If we go forward 2 years from now.

Yeah.

Let's double the amount of time you spend as a creator. You know, 4 or 5 years. What is like, what's the thing that you want most? Are we talking revenue? Obviously there's going to be a factor of things, right?

Sure. I am optimizing for a very healthy balance at home.

Okay.

So I am definitely the type that I would much rather have more time with my kids. Like my goal, if you were to ask me, Jefferson, what's your goal? It's I could show my kids the world. Like I never really traveled growing up at all. I travel now more than I ever have in my entire life. My kids, 5 and 7, already travel more than I did until the age of like 24. So, um, I wanna— I wanna see the world, and I wanna show it to them too. I wanna take them with me. So that, that to me is like a lifelong goal and dream. Um, and I feel like I'm doing that. So I'm, I'm going to London here in a few weeks for the book tour, uh, and I'm taking the whole family. So really excited about that. I think I'll be going to Australia in the fall and take the family to do that if we can survive the flight. Um, yeah, so it's optimizing for a lot of balance. You say, okay, you want to put a number on that. I mean, if, if I can— a million dollars a year is an incredible number for anybody. It's more of how do I make this work without me having to give so much of my time to it? Because the day is just like, all of a sudden it's— yep, it's time to pick up the kids, it's time to take my son to jiu-jitsu, time to take my daughter to dance. You got T-ball practice, bath, you got to find a way to eat, feed them, and then it's bedtime. And then you, you're zonked. It's 8:30 and you're ready to do—

like, it's, it's—

I'm just— yeah, I'm crashing. I'm physically crashing. And so how do I make the most out of I dropped— we dropped them off by 8 AM and then picked them up at 4. Like, that's, that's my time. That's the window. That's all I got right there. It's like, what do I do within those— what is that, 8 hours? So how do I make the most out of that? A lot of it is this stuff, the daily content, the podcast. Yeah, that, that's a lot of my stuff. You know how there's some creators who they go, hey, I post all of my thoughts on Twitter. Whatever does well, that's what we're going to turn into a reel. We're going to break that up and use each thread as a whatever, and you can like optimize that whole system. Exactly. And they already know what they're going to say and blah blah blah. That's just not how I've ever been able to do it. I've never batched any of my content. I probably should. In terms of— you want to talk about more of the balance? There should probably be a day that all I do is make content. Just whip out, I don't know, 10 of these videos that I make a day and do that. And that way that would at least free up because here's what happens is by 3 o'clock, 2 o'clock, all I'm thinking about is the video. When am I gonna make a video?

When am I gonna make a video? So it might even be hard to be present in some of—

Exactly.

In that tail end of the day.

Exactly. So I even have it to where after 2 o'clock, don't, text me because I am trying at that moment to think, how can I deliver the most amount of value to the people that—

Why don't we just— here, why don't you write ideas?

Okay, write ideas.

Yeah, and just say ideas. And then below that, let's just in a bullet, let's say, uh, batch or batch content. Yep, I like it.

Yeah.

Okay, because that— I mean, that's an interesting thing that would allow you to be more present and have better balance.

There's a good side and a bad side. Bad side is it might feel a little less authentic, creative, and authentic and spur of the moment. So you lose that spontaneity. At the same time, imagine just for 2 weeks all my videos are done, right? Incredible. Or same for my podcasts. I mean, that would, that would take a lot of time because this is once a week. Yes. And of course, I mean, you just find time to do it, right? And I'm, I'm just now incorporating guests. I find that a lot of my audience really prefers it just me. Because they want to hear my tips on X, Y, and Z. They don't want—

You're like, I brought in the biggest expert on this. They're like, whatever.

Exactly. They're like, we're here for communication advice.

What do you got?

I mean, but it's— everybody takes a little bit of everything. So yeah, that's— if we're looking for less time that uses less of Jefferson time, batching is definitely something.

I think it's— I think it's worth trying. It might not be something that you stick with, or you might find that the batching the podcast works really well and batching the daily content is a terrible idea. But we won't know until we try it.

Right. That's fair. That's fair. What about speaking?

Well, so what I liked about what we're optimizing for is speaking and travel go hand in hand. Because when are you ever going to do an Australia trip and all of this? It's like, well, if I'm getting paid $50,000 to speak in Australia, then I should definitely bring the family.

Right, right, right.

And like, it's an excuse to do the thing that you wanted to do anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

Like that matches really well.

I agree. And you go, okay, I know that as I, like, this is me just starting out in the last year. So as I continue to do it, that will continue to grow. Your fee will go up. I mean, that's the argument at least. And then you can be much more selective of when you do it. Like our friends that we know, we talk about how much they charge, which is in the six figures range. It's not like they're speaking every week. It's like, it's much, much shorter. It might be through a year, you know what I mean? But it's—

Or they're saying this is now where the bar is at. And they're just like, look, this is what it takes to get me there, to get me on the plane. And it's not anything about like, I think I'm better than you or anything. It's just like, You know, here's my world.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm doing one a month or three a month and, you know, it's $50,000 minimum.

Yeah. And, you know, one part of this I also want to highlight, I mean, I'm married to an incredibly smart woman who's much smarter than me, and she's also an attorney and wonderful in her own right. And so she also has the balance of her work world and kid world and how do you balance that? And does she take, you know, does she step back away from her law practice to help with the kids or help with this? And it's like the more money, you know, we're able to, I'm able to supplant her income, but at the same time she actually likes doing it. So we're having all that same conversation. So I bring that up to say, ain't nobody got it all figured out. Like we're just, yeah, you know what I mean? We're still just working this.

Yeah, that's how I feel on so much of this. I want to go back to the money side of it, of like what we're optimizing for. Because if the goal was $1 million a year, not top line revenue, but $1 million take home, right after the team and all these other costs, we could actually simplify this quite a bit and get to $1 million. Really daily content and the membership, those two things by themselves, you could, you could do $1 million a year just off of that pretty easily.

Right.

Because you have such high numbers. And so if the goal is $1 million a year, we can actually simplify like crazy. Yeah. If the goal is $10 million a year, let's make it harder.

Let's just, let's try it. Let's try it. I mean, I don't even, those numbers just seem so foreign to me. So like, yeah, if you go, okay, if you want, what does $10 million a year look like? Lord, I don't know. So, I don't know how I would even get there. What I find, I just find so much fun out of this. Like, I find so much creative of being able to play with it. I like the branding. That's what I like, Nathan. I like the branding element. I'm less about the details.

Okay.

I think you already have picked up on this about me.

I ask you a number and you're like, I don't know, man.

Exactly. So it's like, how many? I don't know.

What else is fun that, like, in this world where you're just like, oh, this lights me up when I spend time on it?

Ooh, um, anytime I'm thinking of, um, like, when I think of products, creating something, I get a lot of joy out of that. I had a lot of fun, um, kind of creating what the book was going to look like, uh, you know, feel of the membership. I liked a lot of— I like graphic design. I like, I like, um, Anything that kind of has an artistic flair to it. I like making videos. I mean, that's, that's my, that's my wheelhouse where I just like feeling like I'm creating.

Okay. I think what might be interesting is to map this out and say, what would this look like at $1 million, $5 million, and $10 million in revenue? Like, just as a thought exercise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, as long as everybody understands I don't have anywhere close to that. Yeah, that sounds great. Let's write it down though.

But I mean, So if we, like, 'cause you're saying let's make this hard, let's make this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's play with it.

And so in this.

If I say Nathan Barry, I wanna build a communication empire.

Okay.

Like that could be fun. That just sounds fun. That sounds like a fun thing to say.

I think that's the $10 million, right? 'Cause it's, and then it's scaling from there.

Right.

So let's start at either end. So the one, or start at, The two extremes. The little barbell right here. The two ends. The 1 million, I think you can simplify. So here we can go simple. You know, I think it's like, we'll say daily for the daily content and the membership. So this is a million a year. I've seen it 100 times.

You've seen it, yeah. Tons of creators.

And it's just, it's very, very clear and you're almost there, right? You can see, you could trend this forward. And that's even probably before you bring the book into it. And really, if you stopped speaking, that you're there, I think you just haven't had these out for long enough to feel like you're there.

Or that I've been able to put as much focus. It's hard to be, looking at all of this because where's my head at?

There. The daily content.

Yeah, that's, that's what eats up the 8 hours of my day.

But if you could— I mean, there's a world of $1 million a year where you're spending 40 minutes a day making the daily content and you're spending, let's say, a total of 6 hours a month on the membership because you're planning things, you're teaching live and all of that. And we're like, okay, we're 30, I don't know, 30 hours, 20, 30 hours a month.

Yeah, total.

Uh, 50 hours a month maybe if we're getting crazy. And like, that's all it would take. You would have to say no to additional products.

Yeah.

Um, there might be occasionally things you're like, oh, the AI thing is cool, let's layer that on a little bit.

Right.

Maybe once a year you're toying with one of these other things.

Right.

Uh, one thing, when I was building Kit, I first did a, like, the whole, I was in the creative world, so I was doing, creating books and courses on product design. And so in 2013, I got to $250,000 a year in revenue off of that. And then I like set that aside, went all in on building Kit, and it took me 5 years to again make $250,000 a year. And then it had accelerated so much, right? Kit was making, you know, $5 million a year, 10, 20, up from there. But it was interesting, like, because it was growing so fast, my personal income was really lagging behind it. And I think some of that is what's happening here where so many of these numbers are brand new.

Yes.

And so it's like they actually trend out to $1 million a year. They just, they've only been going for 2 months.

They don't, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say they haven't now. You know, I can promise you.

The money is not in the bank account yet.

Yeah, exactly.

But if we just play it forward, it is. So all that's to say, I think $1 million a year is very clear and relatively easy. Any reactions or disagreements to that?

No, I, that actually, it's in some way a relief to know of just simply the content that I put out. Even you could say the podcast, because I really spend about 15 minutes a week, 20 minutes a week on a podcast. And then showing up in the membership, that could lead to just as simple as I could do no speaking if I wanted or none of this other stuff and not worry about any of it and still do something like that eventually.

Right, there's a world where you could say, you know, I want to— my wife's career is really taking off. I want her to focus on that and us collectively to focus on the kids. And so I'm going to make a really meaningful amount of money in the least amount of time possible, only focusing on the parts that I love.

Right.

And that's one option. Now, the thing is, I think that you're such a person who's like me and you're like, oh, but I want to make new products. I want new things to brand. I want— Yeah, I want to learn and try and all that.

My personality is definitely— I, I don't feel like I'm useful if I'm not running. Like I need— I like to have a goal. I like to be chasing after something that gets my interest. And that's how I feel. We're probably like Type 3s on the Enneagram is my guess. Like I'm always having to go. Now I do wanna say, mind you, the 8 hours that I have, which is, I've never actually put it in that term. I have 8 to 4 to really get something done, is right now I'm full of podcasts that I am on promoting the book.

Right.

Which is all good because this, it feeds all of this stuff. And so that takes up time. Then I have meetings. I have a very, very, very, very, very small team, like less than 2 people. Meeting on where the fires are, what's going on. I'm getting asked about, do you want to go to that speaking engagement or whatever? And then by the time we're doing daily content. So that's— I wanted you to at least have an insight of that's what my 8 hours a day looks like.

Where that time is going. Yeah. So as we go to trying on a crazy idea of $10 million a year and we start to brainstorm what that would be, The first thing I want you to know is like, do it from the place of security, knowing that you've already done this. It just hasn't played out yet. So we, like, you—

You're talking about like to me in the present right now?

For you in the present.

Okay.

Right? And so it's not like, basically you have this amazing foundation that you can build on. And in a very risk-free way. So now with that, let's go to the $10 million.

Okay.

And if we wanted to make $10 million a year, how do we do it?

Well, speaking fee could go up or just do way more speaking fees or more speaking engagements.

Well, you can't do way more because you gotta keep the balance. So the fee has to increase.

Oh, okay, I hear you. So we're saying how do you reach that while still getting these?

Oh yeah.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

This has to be $10 million and Jefferson is showing up thoroughly enjoying life, challenged in the right ways.

That's possible? Okay, that sounds great.

All right, so why don't you write down $50K minimum speaking? Or do we have to go higher than that?

Ideally, let's just say $100K.

$100K minimum speaking. Jefferson does that right now. Oh, 100%. Jefferson doesn't get on a plane for less than $100K.

If only.

But we know, like sometimes we say these things like, okay, that would be amazing, or that's far-fetched. But you and I both know a lot of people who don't really have bigger followings than you. In fact, many of them have the same size or smaller following.

Significantly less.

Who this is 100% true for. And they're at 125, 150, 200K.

Yeah, but they've had, they're on their 5th book. They've had, you know, however many masterminds, they've been in the space.

Right, but did their first book sell 200,000 copies in the first 4 weeks?

No, probably not, no, no.

So like, this is the level that we're playing on.

Yeah.

Okay, so first speaking has to be $100K.

I should have written that bigger, my bad.

You're good, people know what it is. If we're doing 3 per month, we're making $300K. Let's say for $100K, it has to drop down to 2. Let's say in the supply and demand balance.

Yeah, or 1. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, let's just even, let's say averaging like 1.5 a month. So now we're $1.5 million a year in speaking revenue. You got an agent some of that has to go to.

Correct.

I'm thinking math. Let's say you're doing 2 a month and $100K a piece after the agent.

Roughly $1 million.

$1 million for the year. What's the agent fee? People are going to be curious.

Any agent's going to say about 20%. About 20%.

I think you could say you could be at a, your take being $1.5 million a year from speaking.

Okay, I'm gonna just put $1.5.

Yep, I like that. We're 15% of the way to the goal right now. You know, we're making progress.

Love it, I love it.

Okay, what do you think the next leverage point to focus on?

Podcast sponsors.

Okay.

Sponsors. Can do really well. I mean, that's how your bigger creators are making a lot of money on podcasts. But the thing is, what they do is they sell themselves to a network, and whether it's iHeartMedia, Spotify, whatever, and their episodes have to be 45 minutes and at least 4 sponsor spots. And that's why they buy the podcast for X amount, a million, guarantee that money.

So we could I mean, we know people who are making $5 million a year plus just on podcast sponsorships.

Just it. That's exactly right.

Yeah. And their show is more popular. For sure. But like, we can play this forward.

Yeah, well, they started it in 2011. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I think that's absolutely. So in terms of if you're looking for a lot of places to make more money, podcast is a big space.

Well, it would have to be true to make $1 million a year off of your podcast?

Well, let's look at, right now I do one podcast a week. So how much money would I have to make in sponsorships per episode?

So you'd have to make $20,000 per—

Yeah, my thing is words, not numbers, saying that, yeah. Yeah.

$20,000 per episode in sponsorships.

Correct.

If you want multiple sponsors per episode, you'd have to go longer than 15 minutes. For sure, probably, you know, you know, if you're at 2. But, but $20,000 per episode, uh, I don't know the numbers on CPMs and all that to know how many views we'd have to do.

Um, about what I'm doing.

Okay, you think you do $20,000 an episode now?

Probably. Um, yeah, because that's still a really high number. Um, and but the whole— the thing is, when you add more podcast sponsors, it takes a number, it takes the average down. Yeah, yeah, because they're like, I don't want to hear all these sponsors, right? Or I could sell my podcast to a network for a year under a million-dollar contract or something like that.

Okay, so it feels like there's a pretty clear path to a million dollars a year from the podcast.

Yeah, well, if we're looking at this crazy number, that the podcast could be a big The one thing that I'm wondering is, first, is this the best channel to do it?

Of all the options that we have, is this the best one? The things that tell me yes, it is, would be it's tried and true, right? Yeah. You know, there's a bunch of ways we can do it. If we talk to anyone with a high-level podcast, they'd be like, yeah, of course. And all of that. The reasons I say no, it's not, the path is the best practice in this would be longer episodes and more ads.

Right.

And you either need your own sales team or you need to be a part of a network.

Correct.

So if those things are fine or you're okay with the constraint of like, yes, I'll be a part of the network, but like, guys, it's never gonna be longer than 20 minutes.

Yeah, yeah.

Like these are my constraints.

Exactly. You'd have to have the parameters of the creative of what that's, that's going to be. Yeah, I mean, podcasts could certainly be a really big part of it. I mean, if there's a channel I need to do better on, it's YouTube because my stuff is always really short, right? And it's not until now that I'm trying to do more longer-form content, but even 15 minutes can do really well on YouTube. Yeah, and it has. I mean, that's why my YouTube is growing as fast as it is right now because of the long-form stuff.

How many do you have on YouTube?

I only have like, I don't know, 4, 5, no, no, I have almost 600,000.

That's a giant YouTube channel.

Oh, okay, oh, okay. I thought you have to have a million for it to be—

Pretty soon you're gonna get this play button in the mail that's like really big.

You got the little one.

I got the little one, yeah.

That's what I'm wanting, that's what I'm wanting, so.

So I mean, between that YouTube channel and all of that, like it's pretty clear you get to a million. Yeah. So let's write that down. Let's say podcast, Uh, million. Okay, we're a quarter of the way there now. 2.5 million out of 10.

Now mind you, um, the AI can do well in the membership for sure. I haven't pushed on that membership.

They're very scalable.

Yeah, and I just don't know a lot about that world, Nathan. I, I, I started it in the end of January, beginning of February. And I'm still just figuring it out because we had two tiers. We're going to push it to one tier.

Yeah, because you found that the churn is so much better and the engagement is so much better on the higher tier.

You just have people who are more serious.

Yeah.

And so my whole thought is, what's the point of doing it if they're not going to take it seriously? I want people that are going to show up to class that I'm truly investing it in. So I take it very serious.

What was the price point on the two tiers? And then what are you consolidating to?

Yeah, so it was $97 for— of course, and this is all the advice of other people who know more than me. Um, the $97 for the Pro, $37 for the Core, and it's like $1,000 a year for the Pro. Okay, that's been the number one buyer right there because it's just like a quick and they're done for the year. Uh, and we're going to change it all to just one, one tier, and that's the the pro tier.

Okay.

Meaning the live classes. That's what people are really after.

Do you know people, so this is already on track for a million a year for the membership. Close to it. Do you know people who have memberships that are doing say $3 million plus?

If they are, I don't know them. Okay. I mean like haven't talked to 'em about it.

This is one of the reasons that I love doing this type of business breakdown. Oh, yeah.

I guess I know, yes, I do know somebody. Okay. She's on a different— she has her own custom platform.

Okay. That's what she does.

But I don't know how much she makes, but I know she has a huge number of followers.

You're always doing— you know, they'll say something like, oh yeah, join our 10,000 members. You're like, $10,000, $50 a month. You know, I'm always—

Exactly. And I always wonder how much they're overstating it. You know, I don't—

you never know. You never know. Yeah. So this is one of the reasons that I love doing this podcast and the breakdowns in this way. Because often we come across things where another creator is like, wait a second, that's possible? I didn't know that. So I've done a bunch of these breakdowns and I know a lot of people that are making $1.5 to $3 million a year off of their membership. And they don't have audiences as big as you.

What are they doing? Oh yeah, that's fair enough.

They've run it for longer.

Yeah.

They have really good conversion flows from their newsletter to their membership. Where the automations that they have in the newsletter where they're drawing people in and delivering great content, but then they're saying, hey, you know, would you like to learn more about this? Click this link if you're interested. And it takes them down a separate flow and really talks about the pain points and the membership solves and then gets them to buy. And so then you constantly have, leads coming in and then people going to the newsletter and then getting promoted to membership on autopilot. And it's all in a very value-driven, how do I help you, right? 'Cause you know your daily content helps them, you know your newsletter, like long-form stuff that you can write helps them, and you know that your membership helps them. And being in community with other people is going to help. And so when you have that, that automation flow can, really drive a lot of sales on autopilot.

Yeah.

Do you have anything like that now? Is there anything automated from newsletter to promoting the membership?

No.

Okay, so let's write that down as an idea.

Automations?

Yes, let's go automations. 'Cause then when we're thinking about, you know, everything underlined of what takes Jefferson's time, newsletter's not underlined and we love that, right? 'Cause you have a great system for it.

Yes, yeah.

And so with automations, you can have the newsletter driving a lot of revenue for the membership.

Right.

Where you're gonna spend some one-time effort to get that set up, but then it's gonna work for you.

Right.

So this is, you're gonna spend 10 hours with your team, you're doing a deep dive, you know, you're gonna bring in someone, a consultant to help you do it, then it'll just work for you and it'll fit with your balance and everything else.

Awesome. I'll just set up a meeting with somebody at Kit.

100%. This is what we'll do. This is what we're gonna do. We'll show you the blueprints of like, Here's how other people do it. Here's exactly how I'd pitch it. Here's the follow-ups.

The AI, I have no clue. I don't even know what numbers I have right now, but I do know it's very popular, which is crazy. I have not looked at any numbers. Another big driver could be a course.

Yeah. Before we go to the course, let's put a number down for the membership.

Oh, okay.

So I believe that with the audience sizes that you have and the price point, the other thing is I like your price point on the membership. That it's more expensive. You know, you're not doing like these $9 a month memberships. It's just like, don't waste any time with that.

Yeah. Well, also, like, I'm an attorney. Like, I'm— what I'm teaching you is like legit stuff. It's not like I'm teaching you basket weaving.

Yeah.

Which is also legit. So. Okay.

Just to be clear, it just doesn't make money.

Yeah. This is different.

You know, I think you should write down $2.5 million.

Okay.

For the membership. And I say that because of the progress we already have, the audience size that you have, and then what we've seen in the community, right? The examples that I've seen firsthand of putting up those numbers on much smaller audiences.

Well, it's, and it's very hopeful for me to know too of like I can make this, what, a 5-year plan? Like it's all things that don't have to happen right now.

Yep.

Because You're probably like me, like I have the urge for it to be done tomorrow. Instead—

How'd you know?

Plan this out a little bit. Plan this out a little bit.

Yeah, we got time.

Yeah.

Okay, so you were talking about the AI. I don't know enough about it. You don't know enough about it. We're not gonna speculate on what it could be.

Yeah, who knows?

But it's this thing that's out there and— It's not losing me money. Exactly.

Yeah.

We'll see where it goes. It could be a good cross-sell. It could be maybe the AI is good at helping you sell into the membership as well, right? The team at Delphi knows what they're doing.

Yeah.

And all of that. And so it could be another really good source.

Yeah, I'm working with them to have like this, I'm gonna put it on my Instagram where they can text it. And then on like 5 free texts, then it'll say, hey, you can each have AI, or if you'd like, free classes, go to my membership. Like, try to build it that way. But yeah, these are all things pointing to the membership. I'm with you. And the book does. So that's all good stuff.

Yeah, I, when I just finished listening to the book on Audible, right at the end it says, hey, if you want to take this a little further.

You like that?

You know, you can join the membership.

I need Nathan to like that.

And so you're gonna keep going from there. I mean, a lot of things point to the membership. One thing I'll say, and this is a little bit different of model, But I had Dan Martell on the podcast and he is a software founder who has had a few exits, done a lot of things, and he's gone all in on content. That's cool. And his business model is a membership and group coaching. So he's now, he's at a higher price point. He's like $5,000 to $7,000 a year to join versus the $1,000 a year. But he is doing $7 to $10 million a year from what I can see from public numbers. Off of just his group coaching program. And it is entirely sold through, or 80% sold through Instagram DMs, which is pretty wild.

What? How does that happen?

So he has conversations with people and he'll just say like, hey, what are you working on? You know, and they'll talk about what goals do you have and that sort of thing. And if it's a fit, he'll talk to them and say like, hey, I have this program, like a ways into it. And then if you're interested, sign up. Here's what it looks like. And a lot of people will join. He actually has a whole inside sales team.

I was to say, I was like, there's no way. Yeah, you'd have to have a ton of people.

I think the whole inside sales team is 3 people.

I would need a lot more. Like, that's a lot. That's— I get, I get about 2,500 to 3,000 DMs like a day. Like, there's no, there's no You know that story I showed y'all a minute ago? Yeah. I got like 400,000 views on my story. Like that— there's no possible way I could, I could do that.

Yeah, I'm gonna say 2,000.

Yeah, at least.

That is wild.

Yeah, yeah, I can't manage it.

So you could, if you wanted this membership to be the only thing and you wanted to figure out ways to promote it through the DMs, again, only in a way or to the right people, all of that, you could blow this past the $2.5 million. You could easily hit $5 million if you got a really good sales system. Now, I don't know that you want to do that.

And I don't know, as soon as you said sales system, my brain just turns to static. So.

'Cause it's not quite as, like, this is putting a team on it. Yeah, but I think that it's one of those things that I want to plant the seed so, you know, it's available because I feel like part of my job in our friendship, right, is to just like give you these little windows into these other business models and all of that. So you can look at that and go, oh, that's fascinating. Not for me, right? Or that's fascinating. It's not for me now.

Mm-hmm.

But then later you'll think about it. And I imagine a month from now you'll have a day where you get 4,000 DMs in a day and you'll be like, all right, it's time to do something with this.

Yeah, and see, this is— and truthfully too, Nathan, what I— when like this kind of stuff is what like gets you going, right? You love this kind of stuff. This stuff just looks draining to me. Like, I, I like this stuff, the Daily Cut stuff and the podcast. That's the stuff that I like. If I could just hire someone to go, hey, do all this. That's what I, that's what I need.

Yeah. Well, the good news is there's a lot of amazing people out there who want to work for content creators who are having an impact in the world.

There we go.

We've already established that you're having an impact in the world.

I thought you were about to tell me you're rolling out Kit Platinum and we started doing this for you.

Doing this live right here. I wish.

Yeah, well, I definitely could see how, um, pushing the— like what you're telling me with your friend, the using the DMs, pushing the membership can increase that significantly.

Because if you think about it, I mean, these are totally made-up numbers, but let's say you sold an additional 100 memberships a day. 2,000 converting to 100, that's not that much of a conversion rate. And then we're talking, we're making an extra $10,000 of annual recurring revenue every single day in the membership. And there's gonna be churn, there's going to be all of those things, but that's a crazy amount. So if you had 100 people from your DMs buying the membership, $10,000 a day, worth $3.6 million, in annual revenue driven from Instagram DMs to the membership. Like nothing about that is crazy. Like you would just have to make the content.

I'd have to make the content. I mean like they, these DMs come from stories. They come from something.

You're making the stories anyway.

I know, that's what I mean. And so like as long as I have to make a story that converts, that pushes people to that in some way. It's not, I'm not saying it's not doable. I'm just saying that that requires some time for me to sell that aspect to them.

Yeah, you need a good system for that. Similar to how we need the system for automating from the newsletter that we can build that. Using Dan Martell as an example again, 'cause I get to watch the system that he has. Every Wednesday he has a series of stories that he posts about his group coaching program. And all it is is he has usually 3 of his students, members post, like they're just sharing a video of the impact that—

Oh, that's cool.

That they had, like that the program had on them. I joined, this is the problem that I was trying to solve. Dan helped me unlock it in this way. Here's the impact that I had. And so we know from your membership, right? People are already sharing stories of how it helped them, the conversation they had, that they're telling each other. They would love to be featured in some way.

Oh, I'm sure.

So if you were like, hey, send me a 30-second video explaining this, the impact that it had, and then every Wednesday, every Friday, whatever day you choose, you're going to say, hey, I have this membership. And it has a big impact on people. It's my favorite thing because I get to hear the stories back of the impact. The next 3 stories I'm gonna show are just from this week's. Thing. If you're interested, DM me the word membership and I'll send you the link to join.

Right.

And then you're going to have those 3 stories go next. The last story.

That's smart, dedicating it to a day. I do like that.

Yeah. And then you and your followers understand, oh, this is gonna come every week.

Yeah. And then they're just, yeah.

And the other thing is it's valuable content. You're selling through somebody else. Through someone else coming in and saying, this is why the membership was impactful. This is, And it's the kind of content that I want to consume, right? Because I'm hearing how they unlocked the conversation.

Right. I'm with you.

And so I think that that, I think that would be really, really powerful.

I like that a lot.

Okay. Two things I'm thinking about. First, we need another category. I'm just going to put this here. I'm just going to say team. Okay. So I wrote down team and the reason is because there's amazing people who would love to work in a business like this where they're having an impact on millions of people every single day, working for someone they believe in.

Yeah.

And you said you've got— I think you said almost 2 people now.

Yeah. Yeah. So I have 2 people that are employees. One is like my go-to, Mara. She's amazing.

What does she do?

She wears a lot of hats is what she does. So probably too much is what she does. She handles She is like looking out for me and everything. So she helps with all brand management. She helps with all operations. She is helping with coordinating between me and my speaker's agent, what's on my to-do list. She handles meetings that I don't have to be on.

Is she like a chief of staff? Executive assistant?

That would be— yeah, exactly. Yeah. If there was a way to say even a cooler title than that, I would give it because she's amazing. Okay, and then, uh, somebody, uh, is— her name's Kelly, who's on my team, who helps almost exclusively with the membership, and she's, uh, she's kind of the liaison between us and Mighty. And then I have somebody who helps with my graphics, somebody who, um, I use. Her name is Lauren Kinney. She does fantastic stuff with newsletters, so she helps there. And, uh, that's it. I guess I have a guy who helps. I do have a guy who helps with landing pages and websites. I think he's Brennan. He's the best. But yeah, but the rest of them, everybody outside of Mara and Kelly are just contractors.

Right. What role could you hire that would unlock, let's say, doubling the growth rate of the membership. This is like a sales conversion type role.

This is your lane, not mine. All right, all right. Yeah, I like, Kelly, who helps with the membership, is solely focused on daily membership content, what's going right, what's going wrong.

She's all about making sure that once someone's inside, they have an amazing experience.

Exactly. She's a wonderful community manager part of that. We do have a manager with Mighty, but I would say, Kelly's even more hands-on than that.

So you need someone who— you need a head of marketing.

I need somebody who's above that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just going to write down marketing here. You need to hire someone for that, and that's the first role that I would hire. Because if someone's whole job and they're comped on it, right, you say your job is to take this membership from $1 million a year to $2.5 million a year. When you hit that, here's how, uh, the bonus that I'm going to give you Also, here are the non-negotiables for me. This is what it means to show up on brand, you know, all those things, right? And you're gonna hire someone who thinks in those same ways anyway.

But this is somebody who would report to Mara?

Report to Mara or to you.

Okay.

There is an option, a world for this where you hire a general manager or a CEO for this entire business. And that's where, I think you told me that when you hired, was it a COO for your law firm?

Yeah.

Like your world changed.

Oh yeah, overnight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, I went from doing everything to delegating a lot to him and it just was a game changer. Totally.

So I think that the marketing person should report directly to you or you should, and that's probably where I would start so that they can learn all of that. That I feel like I'm getting a sense of where you're like, uh, no, not a sense of loving that.

No, no, I was trying to think, like, my mind goes to like, okay, what, how would that look like? Daily conversations is what my mind goes to of that. But that's, you know, I've never asked that question, Nathan, like, um, what role do I need? I don't think I've ever asked myself that simple question of like, what would I have? Because we just make it work. Like Mara wears a whole lot of hats. She's somebody like me who likes to go, go, go. And we think a lot on brand-wise and she's just really, really talented. So is Kelly. And, but I know that it's like we need somebody because we're just in it like daily in it, but we don't have somebody working on the business.

Yeah.

I am working. I am both the product and working in the business.

Have you read the E-Myth?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So if you go back to that, It's exactly right. I mean, it's a great call out.

I'm not only baking the pies, I am the pie. Like, I'm not just baking the cake, I am the cake.

So under ideas, I want you to write down team.

Team, that's good.

Because even 1 or 2 hires I think would change your world. Like, I just think about what I was doing when I was trying to run Kit and run my personal brand.

Yeah.

And I, I was not doing it nearly as well as you're doing now. And it just consumed so much time. And I always saw, I knew all the potential and all that, and I captured like 10% of it. And then hiring Kara, who now leads marketing for my whole personal brand, she's unlocked so many things. And then I'm able to get out of a lot of these weeds.

It's hard when I'm the product for all the videos and podcasts. Because like everybody's answer is, well, just get Jefferson, make a video. Like, that's, that's the whole book promotion. That's with a membership over, uh, like, that's anybody I've dealt with marketing, that's usually their plan. I have this plan, we're gonna do a video about X. And I'm like, when you say we, you mean me, right? You don't have a mouse in your pocket. Like, you're gonna— you want me to make a video? And they're like, yes.

And that's where I think that they, they have to be focused on capturing what you already have. Like, these 2,000 DMs a day is an insane asset. And so I would even, marketers come in a lot of different forms. You get the brand marketers, someone who's gonna put together a huge campaign. You get the copywriters who are gonna nail the messaging. And then you get the conversion marketers who are really thinking about, they're watching the metrics and they're saying, okay, what all do we have? We have this amazing top of funnel. How are we going to build the right systems to convert reliably in a way that's on brand? And so I think that conversion marketer is going to be really the right hire. And I think that your chief of staff can hire that person and like do a lot of those interviews and check that. That's something that we can talk about afterwards of like, here's what the job description should look like, here's the type of person that you're hiring. And then they can run that process.

[Speaker] Yeah, by the way, for any, So, you know, like all of this that I like, none of this has made my family a dime. Like, I just live on law firm stuff. This is all everything I have. I just run it right back to feed into the whole machine. The business is paying for the contractors, the— for this, the other stuff for my team. So it's like it's a whole— it's— but it's now I feel like it's starting to start to grow.

I mean, so many of these revenue streams are brand new.

Exactly. And so we're talking like 2 months.

And there's a lot of things where you're spending money on things like a new website or these things that are big upfront investments.

Yeah. And you don't— Buying a fancy camera. Yeah. You know what I mean? It takes money.

And those expenses don't continue on at the same level.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're right.

Right.

So that makes sense. Okay, so with understanding the conversion mechanisms that we have and the marketing hire, I think that our 2.5 million a year membership number is too low.

Yeah.

I would bump it to 3.5 million.

Let's just change it.

Let's change the number. And the reason is because you have the most insane pent-up demand that I think every creator watching this is going like, he does not realize how valuable. I don't. Every piece of that.

That's the first thing when you and I first met and you're like, what are you doing? I was like, nope. And you're like, are you doing this? I'm like, nope. You're like, dude, you are losing your mind right now. I could tell it was making your head explode. The things that—

they're amazing problems to have.

Yeah.

Okay, so now we're looking at—

yes, of course. So I have a friend of mine who also does communication stuff, and he really doesn't do— he's working on a book, doesn't have a membership, but he has a course. You and I both know this guy, and his course just absolutely— what they call it— slays. Um, and so it's like $1,000 just to buy the course. And so what he does is he will go on his DMs and say, I'm doing a free masterclass, whatever. At the end of the masterclass is the pitch for this course. And so he sells a whole lot of courses. So we could certainly do that, a 12-step whatever. I've thought about doing like a 2-week summer thing of just pay. That's like a mini membership, and I guess in a closed little thing, or I could just do this on your own time, here's 12 videos. But we can definitely do that.

Yeah, so the course is interesting to me, and it's the most common way that creators are making money. So the course and membership, like, those are— they're very similar. Like, you get to similar price points, you know, maybe the $250 to $2,500 price point. The membership can have challenges 'cause it has churn.

Right. You have to keep up with it.

You gotta keep up with it. The course is one time. I think honestly you have, because the membership is going, I would really focus on making this amazing and driving that, building up the membership. I wouldn't touch a course for probably 6 months to a year.

That's fair.

And I think that I would choose a number for the membership and I would say when we get to $2.5 million of ARR, annual recurring revenue, then I'm gonna evaluate the landscape and figure out what does the course look like? How does it fit in my product ecosystem? Is it gonna be at $500, $1,000? Is it weird that I have two products at $1,000? Right, those are some of the questions that I would answer. But you're already doing the membership. It's already working well. And so I would dial in that and set that revenue target. And so the course is something that you put on the shelf.

I could easily do something based on that.

Based on the book, exactly. Yep. But you already have the upsell for the book, from the book to the membership.

Yeah.

It's already written into the book.

Push that off. Yeah.

Yeah. And so choose the number where we unlock that.

Okay.

If we're at about, you know, trending towards a million a year here. Let's say revisit the course at 2 million a year. Let's talk for a minute about products, the merch, the cards, right? All of that. Why do you want to do these?

Um, because I have a lot of followers who are just like, just fans. They just want something tangible that they can wear, they put on. Like, there are so many people at the book signings who like made shirts and like did their own thing.

That is such a great, such a great sign.

Yeah. And so there are people who just want to feel like I could create whatever, whether it's a clothing brand or whatever, encapsulate that feeling that they get. Cards is just another valuable tool. Like, I have a lot of people asking for flashcards, conversation cards. I think especially the conversation cards would do really, really, really well.

So normally in this conversation, like, my first thought is I'm like, don't do the products because you have so much potential in other places. But for two reasons, I think it could be good. One, because of the pent-up demand. Like, it's the product audience fit is there so well. And then two, because you love making new products.

Yeah, it's so much fun.

And like, the last thing that we want is two years from now, you're like, man, I'm making $5, $6 million a year, but this isn't very fun anymore. Like, Nathan made me focus on the things that make money, but—

Takes a lot.

Yeah, exactly. You're like, that was the worst trip to Boise ever.

Well, and the thing is with cards, they're— it's so much of a lighter lift when it's based on things I already have.

Right.

And things that I do in the membership. So part of the membership is I give a weekly flashcard. So the plan is to use those.

You're already making it. I like that. And so I think that finding the right partner for making the cards and making the merch, who's really gonna handle it, who's not gonna put a lot on your plate is gonna be really important.

I agree.

'Cause this could turn into, it could turn into a problem. I would not make a core team hire for this. I would probably find a third party that that's their—

Absolutely.

That's their expertise.

Who knows what they're doing.

Yeah, exactly.

I agree.

We can talk offline. There are two people that come to mind that do that. And I'm sure you have plenty of other connections. Going back to the team, I think that you need, You need another hire. I'm just trying to decide which it is. I think your chief of staff is playing two roles right now.

At a minimum. At a minimum.

But like at a high level, they're running the entire operation and they're your assistant.

Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.

And so you need to split those. So either this person is promoted to running your entire system and you hire an amazing executive assistant who works for them and for you, or they continue in their role and you hire a GM or a COO or someone like that.

Is that somebody higher than them?

Yep, exactly. So you need to be in, like you're asking this person to do too much.

No doubt.

And so—

And I just don't know what to do now.

And so you need to decide, now what?

Yeah, now what, yeah.

You need to decide and have that conversation. Say, hey, I'm asking you, you're absolutely crushing it and you will do even better if I can give you an area to go to focus and go deeper. And so what I'm trying to decide, and let's just have an open conversation about it, is would you be able to, you know, should I hire a GM for this business who will really take on a lot of these things and free you up to do the work that you love, whatever that is? Or should I hire an assistant because that GM work is what you want to do? And what you're amazing at. And I would just talk through that. And then I would also go and interview and just have conversations with the GMs of other creator businesses to get a sense of does the—

And where do you find those?

Well, you text your friends.

Oh, okay.

And say, hey, can I spend time with your head of ops?

Yeah.

Can I have an hour call? I think of Angus, who is the GM for Ali Abdaal's business, right? So he's a YouTuber with, I don't know, 6, 7 million followers. Massive audience, really successful business. And Angus runs that whole business and allows Ollie to really focus on creating the content and all of that. So these people are out there and you can meet them really to calibrate. So this person, your chief of staff, you're calibrating, are they the GM that's gonna take me to $10 million if I free up their time with an assistant? Or do I need to hire someone who's that person, and I get to free up this, you know, the chief staff for what they really want to do.

My gut tells me, because she is— I cannot say enough good things about this human. She does not have the high-level experience of having taken somebody there. She's just as much on this journey as I am. Yeah.

You both could jump on the roller coaster. But here we go.

Exactly. And now she has experience in marketing and ads, uh, digital ads. And she's just, um, uh, we, we match our brains so well on what's good for the brand, but she does not have that super high-level experience of seeing what it looks like on the other side of the very, like, premium— whatever that word is. I mean, just have seen it before. So if my thought is hiring somebody that's even higher— yeah, that's what my gut says.

Yeah, and that's worth listening to.

Yeah, because if I made that her, if I made that her to be, you know, let's look at the revenue and do all that, like she hasn't done it before. It's not saying she can't. It would just be, that would be a lot of pressure.

It might be, yeah, so much pressure and such a steep learning curve that you're setting someone up to fail, which is not what you wanna do. So you have that conversation, but then I bet collectively you'll come to the idea of hiring a GM.

You call 'em a GM?

I call 'em a bunch of CEO, COO, general manager. I try to size it to like hiring a CEO or COO for a 3 to 5 person business feels weird.

And seeing a GM sounds weird.

Yeah, it just—

play with whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

You'll see, yeah, chief of staff, GM, a lot of those, pretty commonly in their creative businesses. COL. Yeah, yeah.

Also, the name of my company is Civility. That's the name of my company.

Civility? Yeah, that's the name of my company.

I like it.

Yeah. I like it.

One thing, one thing.

Okay, so we're at $6 million a year in revenue that we've mapped out. I see a very clear path to that. I think when we started this, I was thinking, okay, there's such a clear path that we're gonna map out all the way to 10. I actually think that doesn't make a lot of sense.

That's perfect.

Because we don't know.

We're so early, man.

We are. But the course could easily pick up a million or two, but it's not worth diving into until we really optimize the membership. I agree. The products, you know, you need that test to see. I could easily see a few million dollars from products.

I agree.

Because like I have a good friend who runs a business selling journals and conversation cards. And those packs and they're doing $2, $3 million.

And I don't make this money here.

You don't make any money there. And if you're spending time on the podcast for sponsorships, well, guess what? If someone listens on the podcast and then later read the newsletter, they can actually click the link in the newsletter. Even better. So you could pretty easily do another $500,000 to potentially $1 million off of the sponsorships there. So that last $4 million, it's gonna be a blend of more sponsorships, the AI.

I agree.

The book's going to keep selling.

Honestly, that, that, uh, that number sounds a lot more comfortable. It's a lot more comfortable out of the gate.

Tell me about that. Why?

Uh, because it's, um, I mean, we're looking at a lot of this stuff is just so early. I mean, my book is barely a month. I know, we're really a month old, man.

We're 4 weeks out.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, You know, I have no doubt that it can get there. This kind of number I know is doable in my life, and I know it's probably sooner than later, but understanding that spending the time hiring the right team, focusing on what's going to drive the right things for the right reasons. Yeah, I think it's going to be awesome, man. So you're changing it all, man. Thanks, Nathan. This is— Yeah, this has been amazing.

There's 3, like, words of warning. That I wanna leave you with in this.

Ready?

First, on the team, I've seen a lot of creators hire too big, too fast.

Mm-hmm.

Where they get to these revenue numbers, right? $3, $5 million a year can absolutely support a 10, 12-person team.

Mm-hmm.

And I've seen that where as they hire up these big teams, maybe even get to 20 people or more.

Mm-hmm.

The business is still profitable, it's doing well, but the stress of that ends up weighing really heavily on the creator. And so I'd encourage you to hire at least twice as many people as you have now, but like, run for as long as possible on a team of 5.

Oh yeah, I'm super slow to hire.

Yeah, so I think that's going to be just fine. The second one is really be clear about what the balance and the fun means to you and continually look at How am I doing on that? Am I spending the time on the things that I love? Did I hire someone to take off the thing that I really don't want to do? Or did I actually hire someone to do the thing that was really fun and like, hey, actually, like, that's mine.

Yeah, yeah.

Give me that back. And then I think the last thing is to just, as you think of this question of now what, like just hold it really loosely. Like this is such a fun game that we get to play. I don't know if you were like me and you enjoyed games like Risk or Settlers of Catan or— Right. I played computer games where, you know, like Age of Empires where you have like this world building, all this stuff.

I played like Minesweeper and Snake. I don't know what you're talking about. That's what I played.

But you get like, you get to just play.

Right.

And I think that people get in this world where they're like, I was a creator and this did so well that now I have like serious business and I go to someone else's and I see the 20-person team that they have running every detail of the podcast and like, how this is perfectly dialed in and I have to do that.

Yeah.

And you just don't.

Yeah, I very much agree with that. I, that is for sure the point I jive the most with. If it's the moment it starts not being fun, it's the, that's really my compass of like what I'm not doing right. Yeah. And where I need to go back to. But this is, this is awesome. So if I had to break it down to like my top takeaways, of everything we've talked about is there is absolutely a place where I can optimize for the travel, the fun, the balance with the family that I want to have and with my kids, and a place I can absolutely be on the higher end of a very rewarding, fulfilling, you're good lifestyle. Mind you, I live in a town that has a Chili's and 2 stoplights.

All right.

All right. To You— for me to understand that there's real value in this membership and condensing and pointing more things to it. And we're going to use that word optimize again, the funnels and optimization, um, automation to get the membership going. Focus on that. Don't, don't keep trying to do as many things. And what is really taking up my time? 3 is the team. I just have not asked myself that question.

I—

my head has been so— just like we talked about the E-Myth, I am making cakes constantly. That is all I do. And then you know what, when I get hired to speak, I go out and they see me make a cake. Like, it's all I feel like I'm doing. So having somebody is working on the business side of things, I think it's going to be such a, um, an awesome part of it, man. So this is Now What? I think we got a— I think I know. We think we got a path. I get to take this with me.

Yeah, you can absolutely take it with you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Awesome.

Thanks for having me. Well, yeah, people should go check out the book, The Next Conversation. It's fantastic.

I got a book. Yeah. Thanks, man.

It's only sold 200,000 copies in 4 weeks. No big deal. Exactly. It's quite good. People should follow you on Instagram. Jefferson Fisher.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they can find me Jefferson Fisher on any social media channel. Instagram's my favorite. Nextconversation.com or jeffersonfisher.com, and they can find the book wherever they like to buy books. I saw it in the, uh, in the airport. There you go. I love it.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks, dude.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.