Die 471k Youtube-Strategie, die nicht funktionieren solte

I'm excited for a new interview. Will is today here and I'm really excited. Looking forward to this interview. Great that you take the time.

Yeah, my pleasure, mate. Thank you so much for having me on.

Yeah, you already saw I got your book. I started reading it and I was like, I have to get this guy on a podcast and talk about the strategies and the insights of this book. So the title is how to 10 million. Love the title. Great job. And maybe we start right there. So who are you and what are you doing?

For sure. Well, my name is William Brown. Thank you so much for grabbing the book, by the way, man. I really appreciate that.

Sure.

It took me a year and a half to make that book. You know, people always ask me, like, what ghostwriter did you use or did you use AI? And when I say to people I wrote every single word myself, they always can't believe it. But that is the truth. I worked with a great editor and a great proofreader, but. But nonetheless, dude, really appreciate you grabbing the book. And yeah, I mean the thing that people know me best for really is building two eight figure e learning companies back to back. So that the first one I grew from 0 to 16.4 million and then sold last year to a private equity firm in America and then off the back of that started the new company build, grow and exit.com people to build or grow or exit online course and coaching businesses, which is really fun. Yeah, we've grown pretty fast. So we're already doing about half a million a month net profit now with the company driven by organic, not much paid ads, very lean team, very simple and fun and yeah, that's, that's, that's about it. That brings us up to present day.

Yeah, love to. There is so much I think to extract, especially what you've learned from the first company. I think that you change a lot of stuff. With the second company I heard way more stuff about like organic marketing and stuff like that. And I think it's still the dream of like most of the founders or entrepreneurs to exit their company at some point. And I remember, I think that was one of your first like YouTube videos that went viral was sitting like with your coffee and I just exited my company and I think it completely blew up and I was like, who's that guy? And really completely saw the video and I was like, that's something new. That's refreshing. Love it. Yeah. Yeah, maybe we start right there.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, it's, it's so funny because when I sold the last company I had a pretty simple goal. So my goal was to have a one person business, no ads, no team and just make a few YouTube videos for fun. Get, get a few clients on a monthly retainer and just help after selling.

That was your goal?

That was the goal. Basically I just wanted peace and profit and a sense of purpose really. And I uploaded a few videos. They didn't really do very well. You know the first few just got thrown 3k views, 5k views, you know, that, that kind of thing. And then it was that, that was the first ever video. When I'd. The day that I sold the company it was in the afternoon and I got the wire at about 4pm ish, 3:34pm and I thought I'd better make a video today and just, and just sit down and just talk about how I feel and what's on my mind. So that's what I did. I ordered a coffee and when it arrived I came and sat down in the office. I used the imac built in camera, press record and just talked and then uploaded it. And man that video it like immediately it got like 15k views in a day, 25k views, nice days. And so many people started reaching out. Some, some massive names, you know, huge entrepreneurs especially in this space started reaching out to me and, and saying you know, how did you did it? So you know, how did you actually do it? What's the process? You know and everyone was like we didn't know that you could sell these businesses. And then when I sold the business I think it was a big eye opener for a lot of people that you can sell these businesses and Alex Somolzi is proof of that and I'm proof of that as well.

Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah people, yeah got a feeling in this video that you're really like brought this day of achievement into this video and everybody was like yeah, he did it, congratulations. And it was really refreshing in the way that Most of the YouTube videos these days are like this TikTok hyper fast style and to see someone who sits down and just talks his mind, it's really rare. I have the feeling. Yeah. And I really like it.

Yeah, well it actually wasn't a big thing back then. You know everyone was doing the very high production value studio like multiple cameras and stuff and I don't think anyone, I might be wrong but I don't think anyone was just pressing the cord, talking, stopping, uploading, no fancy title, no fancy thumbnail. No thumbnail at all. And I think that was one of the reasons that it kind of cut through the market as well because I think it stood out to people and they were like, like what is that? You know.

Yeah. And you didn't even have had a thumbnail. Right. And I think this is something that I really picked up on you and learned from you, that you're always trying to do the opposite of the market. And this is something. Yeah. That you always have to, I think you have to trust yourself to do it because I think if you do something very similar to the rest of the market, you're always like, okay, it's going to work because all the people are doing it. But if you're doing like no thumbnail, no editing, 45 minutes, just talking, what happened? And then you like could work, could not work. But I think the result and the exit was that that really attracted the right people.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And also I was in a very lucky position because I could just mess around and do, do whatever I wanted to do for fun. And if it didn't work, I, I would have been okay because I was in a great financial position. So I think that gave me a bit of an edge where I could just mess around, have fun, do, do whatever I wanted. And it just so happened that that worked really well. You know, still, that's to this day.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it went very fast since then. But I would love to go back a little bit to your first like company. How did you get started and how did you grow it to this point? I would love to hear that story.

You know what, it's funny because the last company, and also this company actually started by accident. Right. So the last company when, when it started I was trading financial markets really, really part time. I was doing music semi full time and I was trading semi full time and I had a Twitter account with about 200 followers. A tiny, tiny Twitter. And I would talk on there all day, share my trades, chat with other traders. And I didn't even know what an elearning business was. I didn't really, I'd never done any coaching, I'd never made any products or anything. And a guy messaged me one day and he just said, look, Will, I've been following you for a while. I can see that you're doing very well. Is there any way that you could please give me some help because I'm struggling with what I'm doing. And he ended up paying me $50. And he came to my parents house where I lived back then. He came upstairs to my Bedroom for like, two. Two. And he sat next to me and he watched what I was doing, and he made notes, right? Yeah. And that was my really, my first ever consulting client, actually, way back in, like, 2018 or something like that. And then he took the Word document away that he'd made, and I kept a copy of it. And I just thought, I wonder if anybody else would pay for this same knowledge that helped him. So I messaged a few other Twitter followers that I had, and just two or three other people also paid me $50 for the word document. Right?

Yeah.

And that was where the first company started. Right. Right there.

Easy, you know? Yeah.

And then I just learned. I was like, my God, like, people will just. Will give me money, and I just give them some information, right?

Yeah.

And it's. It was. It just blew my mind. It. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could get free money without doing anything because it was already done. So I slowly started doing that, and then they started asking me questions. They were like, oh, well, this is not in the Word doc. This is not in the word doc. Oh, I've had this problem. How do I solve this? And I slowly made the Word document better. It evolved into a PDF and then an ebook with a Dropbox folder of videos. Then it evolved into a course. Then I started doing some consulting with it as well. I slowly raised the price, you know, so one minute it was 50, then it was maybe 250 for a coaching call and the videos and a PDF, and it just grew and grew and grew. And I'll never forget year one, from about April to the end of the year, I made about 24k ish from. From. From. From what I was doing.

Yeah, not bad.

Yeah, not bad. And it really made me realize I have something going on here. You know, this could be a real thing. And I didn't really think of it as a business either at the time. In year two, I started to have different packages. I would have, like, a bronze package, a gold, a silver, platinum, all this stuff with different levels of coaching and stuff. And that second year, I made about a quarter of a million pounds. And then in year three, at the start of year three, I saw an ad from a guy called Alex Becker, and I bought. His coaching program is the first one that I ever bought. I think it's like $8,000.

Yeah.

And he taught me about paid ads and webinars and stuff. Like that year three we did. I think it was 1.2 million if. Or 1.1 million pounds. Something like that. And then everything changed, you know, like it really started to just grow faster than I could have ever imagined. And the rest is history.

Really, really interesting and really exciting. Never heard this story of that. Yeah, that it was like a trading. Yeah. Elearning company and I think there's like a huge market. I think a lot of people are looking to do something with their money or to earn some money. How did you get started with like trading or like self teaching or how did you do it?

Yeah, so the way that I started trading was so I used to be a full time musician when I was younger, from the age of about 20 to about 26. But the money was not very good. I was making, if you average it out, probably about two and a half K a month. If, if that some months zero someone's nine K someone's one.

What kind of instrument did you play?

Oh, I, I made electronic music and DJ'd.

Oh nice by then.

And it was very fun. I toured all over the world which was really cool. Yeah. As I got older, money became more important, you know, like one of my friends bought a house and I was like, wow, like how the hell did you afford to buy like a big family house, you know? Yeah, because he was working for a big company like with a proper job and you know, one of my buddies got married. One of my buddies bought this really nice car and, and money just became more of a problem and I was like, oh, I can't afford a nice car. I can barely afford to go on a nice holiday. All my money goes on bills and rent and my car loan and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And I came from, I came home from a show one day and I was having dinner and there was a trading documentary on television. Right. And it was very glamorized, as you'd expect from television. It showed them buying Lamborghinis, buying mansions, making all this money. So it was very fake really thinking back, but nonetheless it really inspired me. And that was.

You were hooked. Yeah.

That was the first ever time in my entire life that I learned that you could make money from the computer.

Ah, got it.

I never ever knew before that that you could actually make money from a, from a computer, from home. Yeah. And it just, it just set something off in my head. I was like, wow, if I could trade and make a bit extra money, maybe an extra thousand or two a month, I could move out of my parents, I could get a nice car, I could get a nice watch and I could start to do well in life, you know. Yeah, So I went straight on Google, I opened a trading account, I put £500 in. And over the next few months, for three, four, five months, I grew that up to about 7 or 8K.

Impressive.

Yeah, well, yeah, through no strategy, no edge. Pure, pure beginner's luck, as many, many traders do. And then I wiped almost all of it in a single day, in a trading day. And I remember the trade distinctly. I was long the DAX without a stop and it just crawled against me and I wiped like 70% of the account. And that was a tough time. That was a very tough time because I'd lost like that was me. That to me was a massive amount of money back then that I lost. But nonetheless, I made one of the smartest decisions of my life, I think. And I took all of the money out. I left 500 in and I took maybe the other 2k that was left out or whatever it was like them. And I bought a course from a guy called Chris and I bought a mentorship with this trader called, called Tom, who was a prop firm trader. And between both of those educators, they were what made me profitable in the end and taught me to build my own strategies. And then, long story short, I was able to slowly begin trading profitably. And it wasn't long after that that this guy Wissam messaged me. And then the education business kind of accidentally became a thing as well. That's the story of how it all happened.

Crazy. I think everybody got hooked with a strategy like that. I remember there was a time in Germany where like this Amazon affiliate programs. What was this thing you were building like websites for? I don't know, a product, a fancy product that is like very pricey. And then you always get like, or the idea that you always get a commission when somebody like buys the product. And I saw that, that the guy was making like I don't know, 10, 20k a month just from Amazon affiliates. And I was like, I got to do that. I bought his course for I don't know, €300 and sat like the next few weeks and months just programming like websites and stuff like that. I think at the end I made like, I don't know, €11 or something from it. But I was so hooked on doing that. And then started with like Amazon fba, I don't know, importing like pepper grinders from China and made the first time like quarter of a million. And I was like, what the hell? You're really like calling in China. I want to have some products here for €20,000. And next week they're like coming with a cargo plane to Germany. But I was also really hooked. And then at some point I got this into this elearning space because I did some consulting before in my studies. I was like, that's way easier, this business model and way more fun. Yeah. So what were like the milestones in terms of marketing the first education company and maybe what you're doing today, like differently? I think you said at the beginning it was a lot of like paid ads and then you had like a VSL funnel or what was your main. Main funnel at the beginning?

Yeah, for sure. Well, for the first couple of years it was purely organic. Right. So at first it was Twitter. And then when I learned, I learned pretty quickly that if I make content on Twitter, people find me and follow me and then they get nurtured by the content and eventually they'll buy from me. And when I started to realize that, I then started a YouTube channel and then I got more traffic over there, pushed it to the Twitter so that they would follow me, get nurtured and buy. Right?

Yeah.

So then I kind of realized, right, if I just get enough people there, eventually those people will convert into customers. So the first couple of years were just realizing stuff like that and slowly tweaking it and bringing it together and making it happen. And then the first quantum leap happened when Alex Becker taught me about ads and a fake live webinar. Right. Yeah, that just, that just, I mean we like 5x the business, you know, we went from crazy, you know, like a quarter of a million one year to almost 1.2. I think it was in year three. So massive, massive jump. And then even more like almost 3 million in year four. And it just blew up. So the funnel back then was YouTube ads to a fake live webinar with a $2,000 program at the end. And that's what got us up to about 300k a month by year four. And then we were making so much money I got a massive tax bill and that's why I moved to Dubai as well, because we were just making so much friggin money. I. Yeah, you know, some. Something had to give there. And eventually the webinar burned out. And then we moved to a VSL funnel with a sales call, a sales team. And you know, the webinar was doing big numbers, but the profit was just going down, down, down, down, down, down. And towards the end, you know, we were doing like 1.8. So we spend 100k on ads, make about 180 back about say 50, 60 net profit. Ish. Maybe, maybe slightly more. So then we were like right, let's move to a vsl. We raised the price and again that just crushed like immediately. We were right back up at like 4 or 5x cash. We sc to closer to half a million a month and it was, it was just wild really. Yeah.

Did you had more offers or did you have like this one front end offer? Like I don't know how much was it at the end? Like 5k or something? With a phone call.

Yeah. So towards the end of that company we had eight and a half thousand dollar main program that, that we sold.

Got it.

We had a $350 a month software that we sold on the back end and we had a $5,000 online mastermind as well where you got like some extra themed coaching calls and courses and just extras basically to help you along.

That's smart. So the upsell was like cheaper like the than the main offer. So a few people always grabbed it and said okay, I want extra services and oh, that's smart. Yeah, yeah.

So, so that's what we were doing back then. What we're doing now is that the last company was pretty much 90 paid ads driven, you know. So when I sold the company the profit margin was around 35ish.

Not too bad.

Yeah, so not, not bad but, but not good in my opinion. And the team was massive. We had like 16 people working for us all, all paid ads driven. And it was just a bit of a. I kind of built a Frankenstein that started to control me, you know, rather than me controlling the business. And in this new business I just wanted to do the opposite of everything. So instead of having a massive team, I wanted to have no team. But even now it's only a small team of like three people. Yeah, I wanted to have a bigger profit margin because the old profit margin was about 35. Now the profit margin is about 87 ish. 88. Instead of all paid ads now it's pretty much all organic as well. It's pretty much all YouTube organic and Instagram organic now which is amazing with a tiny bit of paid ads to the book funnel. And instead of one time high ticket now we sell recurring high ticket for the three programs that we offer as well.

Yeah.

And we have a Mastermind which is $10,000 per ticket for the three days as well and a software as well.

Got it.

So there's just a bigger product suite recurring, a lot more options for people to buy. Yeah. You know, no ads, barely so the profit margin is very high. So it's very simple and lean and fun now.

Yeah, you know, I would love to dive into that because I think a lot of people always have this idea to build everything on organic content. I would include myself with doing YouTube for a couple of years already, but I always have the feeling that it's really hard or I'm lacking the skills to get it to a point where we get so many book calls on a daily basis that it really can grow your company like exponentially. So in, in terms, when you started it, did you look at all the platforms and were like, I don't know, it's going to be YouTube and it's going to be Instagram. Like what was your thought process to go all in on these both plot platforms?

Yeah, for sure. Well, I've learned from the last company that YouTube is the only platform where when you upload, when you upload a piece of content, it gets views forever. You know, YouTube is the only platform where if you put something out there today, it will get views forever. It could still be getting views in 10 years. Right?

That's a strong argument. Yeah.

You know, every other platform, when you post something, it's pretty much disappeared in a day, if, if not a few hours. Right?

Yeah.

So when I started this new business for that reason, I thought, right, let me just do YouTube and only YouTube with 100 focus. And that's what I did for about a year and a half. I had no other social media at all, just YouTube. Right. Which worked really well. So all my time and energy and focus went into YouTube. When YouTube was working well, we then went to Instagram and we started, you know, just taking it a bit more seriously and doing short form and doing setting and stuff. And that's really the two platforms we use today. Primarily we do a little bit of LinkedIn now as well. That's where we're going next to try and build over there. But man, we book about, from, from organic. We book about 12 calls a day now.

That's really impressive. Yeah, yeah. And I would love to hear, to see your approach on, on YouTube because I think so many people are doing YouTube on a side, not maybe their, their focus platform. But I really would love to hear from you. In the last years that you've been doing like YouTube, what is your, what would be like your success criteria to, to make it work on YouTube? How do you see it? How do you come up with your ideas? Do you have any advice on that?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, one thing that I've learned is. And this is going to sound weird, but the video, in a way, it doesn't matter because if the packaging is not good, no one is going to see the video anyway. Right? Yeah. So I put about, I would say about 90 of my thoughts into the title, then the thumbnail, then the video. Right. And sometimes when I think of titles and thumbnails, I. I screenshot the YouTube homepage with all the videos on, I put it in Photoshop and I Photoshop in my thumbnail and my title. And I just try and get a feel for, like, does this stand out? Is it. Is. Does it look and sound unique? Is this going to grab people? Right.

That's smart.

You know, a lot of people that come to me with very small channels, if you did that for their titles and thumbnails, it would just blend in. It's the same. Same style of thumbnail. Looks no different. Same shitty titles. Look, look, looks no different. Right? Yeah. So I always try and think, how can I visually stand out? And how can I make a title that is so intriguing that you've kind of got to click it because you kind of want to know, like, what is this about? What is he going to say? What am I going to learn? You know? And whenever I get that, right, I always get a massive video, you know, so packaging comes first. And then of course, the video has to be good, the video has to be valuable, right? Yeah. And I just get straight into my videos. I usually lead with a bit of a hook to kind of build intrigue and just get people to understand that it is about what they are expecting. So that there's kind of congruency.

Yeah.

And I just try and make the best videos that I can, the most valuable, unique videos that I possibly can with the best packaging that I can as well. And then when you get it all right, you get a big video.

I think that is really nice about YouTube at this point, that it's not so much about subscribers anymore, but they have a look at the packaging and at the content. And no matter how many subscribers you have, I think everyone can now get a viral YouTube video when everything is right, right?

Dude, 100% like, yeah, anybody out there with a YouTube channel that is struggling, you've just got to think, you know, you've got to talk about if. If you wanted to get a lot of views, right, you would have to talk about a topic that a lot of people are interested in, number one, because there has to be the market for it. Right. And then you've Just got to package it in a way that it's unique, it stands out, it looks new and interesting. And if you can do those things and also just give people a video that that is unique, that is remarkable, then people are going to watch it and you're going to get a lot of views. That's just a fact, you know, so people talk to me about the algorithm and they say, like, how do you get big videos? But that's really the wrong way to think about it. The way to get big videos is it's not a secret, it's actually common sense. Make a really good video about something that people are interested in and package it so that they would want to frigging click it. And that's the secret to YouTube.

Yeah, but I really like this approach that you're saying that you are thinking more about the packaging and the title. Because I think most of the people, they do a video, they have a great idea, they do the video, and after, like recording the video, they're like, okay, oh, I have to do. I have to come up with a title and a thumbnail sale. And then it's like, mediocre. And then we all know that it's not working. Do you have a feeling for your, like, market? I think entrepreneurs and founders and stuff like that, like, which angles from, from your YouTube experience work very well. Because over the time I have the feeling in my markets always, if I talk about how to get leads on LinkedIn, how the LinkedIn algorithm works, or new AI tools and stuff like that, if I have these topics, no matter what, like, with a good thumbnail, it always works. Do you have a feeling other people more interested, how to get started, how to scale their business, to exit their business, or was. What is it, What's. What's in your mind really working?

Yeah, there's three things that come to mind. So people tend to like the live Mastermind recordings. You know, when it's like an hour to two hours taken from the Mastermind and it's shot well, multiple cameras, good audio, especially when there's famous people in the room. You know, people really love this because it's kind of a secret, you know, because Masterminds are so expensive, they can cost 5, 10k more to get in that room. So people really love to see in that room because it's almost like a secret room, you know, to get into.

Yeah.

So that always tends to do well. Another thing is, like, when I make videos about how I would make, let's say, 8k per month in 2025 or you know, how I'd make 10k per month if I had to start again from scratch. People really like those strategic, you know, videos, especially when they're like whiteboard, they're 30, 40, 50 minutes long with no cuts, no edits. People really like those kinds of videos and, and also very raw, real unique story videos as well, you know. So I, I went on YouTube yesterday and on the home feed there was a video titled something like I lost 1.3 million. What I'm gonna do now. And I was like, wow, like you lost 1.3 mil? Like who are you? Like, how did it happen? Like what, what are you gonna do next? Yeah. And I just thought, what a remarkable video. Yeah.

And there was like, that's a good title. Yeah.

And I couldn't help but click it. I was like, I've got to see this video right now. You know, it was just a reminder to me that those are the videos that do well. And surprise, surprise, it's got like 30k views in a day now. I checked it earlier to see how many views it got and it's, it's pretty simple, man. You've just got to make those raw, real emotional story based videos about special, unique things.

Yeah.

So you can't make a video that's raw and real about how you go to the gym. That's just, you know. But if you can, if you can think of something like, you know, I just sold my business to a private equity firm for millions. Yeah, cool. I just lost 1.3 million. What I'm going to do now. It's like, wow. So those long unedited story videos always do well as well. So those are the three main ones that I see.

I love it. And also have like, I think over time you get more and more the eyes for these stories and I think you get like, yeah, you recognize, ah, that could be a great story for YouTube. And I think the point that you made is so important, like how to stand out. Because I think most of the people are just looking like, monkey see, monkey do. Yeah, I will do. I don't know. Eamon is talking about five things that every millionaire needs at in their home and then you see like 20 videos of that and surprise, surprise, it's not working really well.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think long form content has like a comeback. I have the feeling, especially on my challenge, like interviews and stuff like that people really enjoy that. And these, I don't know, 10 to 12 minute videos that been very popular for a couple of years. I Think people really enjoyed listening more in depth content.

Yeah, I, I feel like that as well. I mean one thing that I do sometimes is, and I know this sounds simple, but I think what would I want and what would I want to see and what, what videos do I watch? Right.

Yeah.

And often, you know, like, man, I, I used to love SAM Oven's like 40 minute just talking videos, you know.

Yeah.

And I would sit and watch those whole videos and I really love like whiteboard teaching explainer videos with no edits, you know, where the teacher or the person doing it really gets into it and it's very deep and tactical. I friggin love those videos. So I thought, well, if I like that, there's probably people similar to me that would also like that. So let me make that, you know.

And that's really smart.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of thinking a bit outside the box. And also I love very long podcasts like this. Well, so I know that people like us are going to really like watching this and they're going to watch the whole thing and probably be making notes and stuff. Like, like I would, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I think this is something that you don't fall into this trap of what is going on right now. What does the algorithm love? What are people doing, other people doing? I have the same approach because I was listening to, I don't know, Sam's content or Joe Rogan podcast and stuff like that. That is always the content that I love the most. And this clicky, shiny tik tok stuff, I'm like, yeah, I'm out of here. And you're absolutely right. So I tried always to do the same in my content. What do I like to consume? So I put it out there to attract the right people.

Yeah, dude, what? 100%. I even do it with what we sell as well. So for me, I hate it when you have to pay for an entire year of a mastermind. Yeah, I like, I wished, I used to wish. I wish I could just pay for it at one event and go to one event and that's fine. But I couldn't. Yeah. So that's why I do that now. I don't have annual. I just sell by the event because that's what I would want, right? Yeah. And I also hate it when someone's program is like say 10k for 6 months or something and I'm like, dude, I don't need six months. I just want like, just give me like one month with you. Give me some Calls with you and stuff. So that's what I do for my customers. I, you know, all my programs are monthly. Cancel any time, you know, and there's the group coaching option, the one to one coaching option, the done for you coaching option. So there's kind of something for everyone. Low commitment and very kind of hands on, very high touch, which again is what I would want. So I just do what I would want. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, that's really smart. I never thought in terms of like delivery and products to do it like the same way, but it's. Yeah, I have this feeling, yeah, this low commitment. People would love, enjoy it until they're like, I don't know, into a contract for one year and stuff like that. Yeah, just give me like one or two months. I do everything and I'm happy with it. Yeah, yeah. How did you, how did you set it up? Like I would love to hear like what are you like marketing assets in your new company? So what kind of websites or funnels did you set up? Because like 12, 12 calls a day, like organic. I think that is like the sweet dreams for most of the people that listening. So. Yeah, well give us the good juice for, for them. How you do it.

Yeah, okay, man. Okay, I'll, I'll, I'll give you some secrets. Well, number one, right. One thing that I've learned about YouTube again, you know, we talked earlier about the videos get views forever and YouTube compounds on itself, you know. So if you keep making one video a week for a long time, it starts, your views just slowly go up per, per month and they go up and open up. Obviously your booked calls go up and up and up and up and up as well over time. Right. So I've been uploading one video a week for I think about a year and a half now. So that is one secret is just consistency, right?

Yeah.

Another kind of a secret, so to speak. So a lot of people, they have like loads of text and links and in, in their YouTube descriptions.

Right.

But if you go on my, my videos, right at the top is a link to the VSL to book a call. And again there's a link to the VSL to book a call. In the YouTube bio, there's one link to the VSL to book a call. So I'm sending all the traffic to the one place that matters. Yeah, to the VSL to book a call. Right. So that's that. Also one little hack that's worked quite well for us was I made a VSL, I uploaded it as a YouTube video, I call it like a hidden VSL.

Yeah.

And then I ran that as a YouTube discovery ad so it would show on the home page and in the. Up next. So you can see it's an ad, but it kind of looks organic because it's not a skippable one. And that was booking us a few extra calls for about 170 per call. Which is pretty decent, right?

No, it's decent, yeah.

Not, not amazing, but, but pretty damn good, especially for our price points. Yeah, we run a bit of retargeting ads on, on YouTube as well, which helps, but I'm talking a few thousand a month dollars, not a lot at all. And also one thing that works really well for us is on Instagram. So every single person that follows me, my setter will send them a selfie video of me. Right. It's me here in the office. And the video says like, hey, thank you so much for following me. If you're following me, you're probably interested in like the course and coaching space. Let me know where you're at with your business or starting or growing your business and I'll send you some resources, speak to you soon. Right. And it's like a conversation starter and we send it to every single follower. Right.

Smart. Yeah.

To start a conversation and then we have a conversation and if they're a good fit, we will set them for a call. Right?

Yeah.

And also we post two short form reels every day with many chat, you know, where people comment the word whatever and then it sends them a free training video and again then we talk to them and we, we see if they'd be a good fit for the, for the program, essentially. So that's an extra. That's an extra 60, 70 calls a month just, just from Instagram, you know.

Sounds pretty lean.

Yeah, yeah, quite. Quite honestly. So that's what we do on YouTube. That's what we do on, on Instagram. LinkedIn is booking us some extra calls as well. LinkedIn is actually working really well. We just do a few value posts per week, pretty much the same as Instagram. And then we, you know, send some training videos that I've made, start the conversations, nurture people, book them in if they're a good fit. And that is primarily what we do. And we spend a little bit of money on cold ads as well. Spend about 12k a month on cold ads. So not, not a lot.

Yeah, that sounds fair. Crazy. But this is really nice to hear because most people, I don't know, they have such a sophisticated email Marketing sequence and I don't know, four, four reels per day on Instagram with this crazy many chat automations and I have the feeling that your infrastructure lean. Yeah. That you get a couple of things like. Right. And this is really nice that it ends always into these many like booked calls. I would be interesting. I, I was never a guy so really for like vsl, I never had put my head around it. So I'm more like a live webinar guy. We always do like once a month we do organic and paid like I don't know, two or three thousand people book like I don't know, 60 to 80 calls for three days and then most of the time we, we sell the stuff. And I'm really happy with it because I don't know, two hours. I do great presentation, everybody's happy, they know the price, they book a call and if it's a fit, they buy. But vsl, I was always like, I have the feeling, I don't know, I haven't found the right concept for it. Do you have like some advice how to, how to do it like in terms of content and pitch and how do you approach like a good vsl? I would love to, to learn.

Yeah. Well, dude, I don't think we're gonna have time to go, go deep on full on VSL structure today. But you know, just to share a bit of value with you. Now you've got to remember the point of a VSL is not to sell your offer, it's to sell the call. So the whole point of a VSL is to get someone on a call. Right. So sometimes people come to me with a VSL and the VSL talks about their offer, sometimes the price.

Yeah.

And they wonder why it's not converting. Well, it's not converting because that's just not for the vsl, that's for the sales call, that's for the pitch, you know. So when you're writing a vsl, just keep in mind why you're writing it. And you're writing it to talk to the right person, repel the wrong person, you know, show them that you understand where they're at, where they want to go, demonstrate that you can help them. Right. And essentially sell them on the call, on booking the call and then the call is there to sell them on the program. Right. So that's, that's kind of one way that I think about it. And also you, you've read my book, right? And in the book I break down all the components of a VSL, right? So there's like. I think there's about 17 components, and it's all about, like, you know, future pacing. The outcome is one of them. Calling out the ideal person, repelling the wrong person is one of them. You know, creating urgency and scarcity in. In what you're saying is another one of them. So there's all these building blocks, and if anybody is watching this podcast and you want the whole list, just grab the book and they're all in the book. I don't hold anything back. So, yeah, whenever I'm writing a vsl, I just get that list of components and just arrange them in a way that fits. Really?

Yeah. But this helps a lot because I don't know from live webinar, I'm always used to demonstrate the offer and the price and stuff like that. And then I always try to put it into, like, 15 minutes or something. And now I get the point that it's really about the sales call and that you try to sell that. And I think the most important point, you already said, like, you try to call out your perfect ICP and get the other people gone and show them that you really have, like, social proof and testimonials to back it up that you know your stuff. Right.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, there's. There's so many things that you can do in. In a vsl. I've seen short ones that convert well. I've seen long ones that convert well. Also, you've got to think about, like, how you produce it, how you come across, what. What's your background, what clothes are you wearing? You know, there's so many little. Little elements that go into making a really great bsl. It's really a work of art, making a good vehicle. But I remember when I made the VSL is on my Work with Me page right now, my current bsl. I just looked at what everybody else was doing, and everybody else was doing, you know, like podcast studios and like, B roll and. Yeah, and I was like, I'm just gonna literally write it right now. In a word doc, Record my imac camera, put it on at the side, and it. Let's just see what happens, you know? And it's one of the highest converting VSLs I've ever seen. It converts at, like, 13, 14. It's insane.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I think this is really. It's really nice to hear because everybody is so, like, I need the newest camera. I need the fancy background. I need the fancy video editor and to really, like, focus on the right. Because I think this is something you really put a lot of effort into and not like the 10% of editing and being fancy, but that the content was really good. Yeah, exactly. How do you come up with like, I think one of your main conversion points is also like the testimonials and the people that you already worked with. I think you told me the story when we had our like one to one session how you met like guys in Dubai and they, I think, was it like Mike Thurston or someone who, who, who overheard like your, your plans for the Mastermind? And he was like, can I, can I come by? Can you, can you tell me something about that?

Yeah, well, this is where, look, this is kind of where luck comes into play. So I remember once when I was, I think I was still running my old company. I think I was in the sale process. I, I can't remember, but one of my friends invited me to dinner and there was just four of us and I got there and Mike Thurston was, was there, he, he'd been invited and you know, we just got, got talking and I was talking to my friend James and I was, Mike was stood next to us at this dinner and I was talking to James about a mastermind. And I would say, oh, when's your next mastermind? And it's like, yeah, I'm gonna do another one soon and stuff. And Mike's like, what, what's the mastermind? And I was like, oh, it's the thing where you like get people together and usually it's a few days and stuff. And he was like, could I do one? I was like, yeah, I'll coach you and show you how to do it if you want. And then he joined my one to one coaching program and, and that went really well. Like we, we sold it out in a day. He made six figures cash and he was just super, super happy. So I got a great testimonial from, from Mike. And also when, when I first moved to Dubai the first week, I was in Samovan's Mastermind at the time, right? And also my friend James was in the Mastermind. Iman Gadzi was in the Mastermind and some other buddies that we know. And one of my clients also knew Iman and he put us in a WhatsApp group and he was like, oh, you know, Will, Iman has just moved to Dubai this week. You just moved to Dubai this week? We were moving into the same building together as well.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. So we ended up going out for coffee and then that's how I got to know Iman and how me and James got to know Iman and everyone liked that. So a lot of high level guys just moved to Dubai in the same few months and we were all in Sam Oven's mastermind as well. So straight away I had a few very high level friends, you know. Right. That, which really helped, man, really, really count.

I can imagine.

And then, you know, I go for dinner with one of them and I meet three more people and then he invites me for dinner and I meet four more people and before you know it, you know, all, all the big guys out here and because of that, you know, other big guys have seen that I've worked with other big guys and then all of a sudden, you know, they, they all kind of want to work with you, you know, like. Yeah, I've been really lucky to work with some massive people. I'm working with this guy Jordan Welch at the moment, big YouTube guy, which is really cool. So yeah, that's kind of how it happened.

Cool. Yeah, that's really interesting because I would love to. It's a little bit beside like business topics. How's life in Dubai? Because I don't know. Yeah, I have like mixed feelings. Never been there. But I'm thinking always like it looks really hot. At some point I saw it like, I don't know, for trash reasons or on the weekends I saw with my wife, like Dubai bling. And I was like, it's, it's a different world. Yeah, but how do you, how do you like it so far? How is like daily life and stuff like that?

Yeah, well, dude, I love Dubai so much for, for a handful of reasons. I mean, number one, everybody that comes to Dubai, especially people that move here, they're very on a mission. You know, people here are very focused. They care about business, they care about their health, they care about kind of building long term futures and building wealth as well. So it's a very focused place.

Yeah, ambitious people are moving to Dubai, right?

Yeah, exactly. And also to move to Dubai you need to be doing quite well because it's very expensive here, you know, so anyone that moves here, they're already generally pretty damn successful, you know. So everybody in Dubai, by nature of that usually, not, not always is, is pretty damn successful and worth listening to and meeting up with that kind of thing. Also, you know, the weather really, really helps. There's nothing better than, you know, every day you wake up, you open the curtains, blue skies, you can see the ocean, you can see the yachts, you know, and you just feel. You just feel so good, you know, from, From. From the minute that you see the sun. For me, coming from England, where it's mainly rainy and gray. Right. Yeah. To see every day is a phenomenal thing. And I live in a great area, the. The marina, so you've got the ocean and the yachts and stuff. So it's really great. And it's just a city really built for entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

You know, so it's just. For me, for people like us, it's the perfect place to live.

Yeah. Yeah. Really. This is a strong argument for Dubai. I already planned, like, at least this or next year I'm going to take my wife for a trip to Dubai. She's been there and she was really impressed. And I think maybe at some point we tried for a couple of months or something, because this is really, like. I have always the feeling. We moved in winter times now to Spain, and I really enjoy it here because you have, like, sunshine and nice weather and stuff like that, but you're sitting here, like, in. In a place where you don't have, like, any people around with the same topics, with the same, like, ambition and stuff like that. And a lot of stuff is digital. Digital. But still, going out and meeting people in the same industry is always valuable, right?

Definitely. Definitely. Dubai. It's. It's not. I think the only downside is, is it's a very transactional place. You know, everybody's here to do something, to build something, to achieve something, to get somewhere. So it's a very intense and quite transactional place. And it's a very intense energy. You know, whenever I'm in Dubai, I have this energy of I've got to build, I've got to grow, I've got. I've got to scale, I've got to do things. You know, I find it very hard to relax here, but. But whenever I get almost burned out, I just go to Bali for a few months and chill.

This is something I would love to dig a little bit deeper because I also have the feeling that working with your brain and stuff like that, it's quite exhausting. I think people always see you in videos and stuff like that and everything looks chill. But in the last couple of weeks, I've worked quite a lot because, I don't know, it makes a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, I'm always so exhausted and I'm always, like, laying down on the couch and I'm like. I don't know how other people are doing it, but if you give it every day, your everything. It's really exhausting. Is it the same for you or am I the only one with that problem?

No, you're not the only one. Well, for me, I either do very long, intense work days or I have days where I don't do anything. Like, today is my do nothing day. Obviously, what we're doing is podcast, but outside of this, I've had nothing to. To do at all today.

That's smart, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm. I'm either all in and I'll work from like 10 to 10.

Yeah.

Or I'm completely off and I'll just wake up whenever I want, chill, have a. Have a cigar, you know, just relax.

And do you schedule that on, like, a weekly basis or based on your feeling? If there are, like, topics to tackle or. How do you come up with a system? I love that idea to do. Yeah. Like these. I don't know if you know, these days, like, like Saturdays, on Sundays, and I don't know, no one is at home and you can sit on your computer and just do whatever you want. I have a feeling that I like the best days. And then you do some stuff here, then you take break, then you do some stuff here. And I have the feeling, like, with a team and stuff like that. I don't know. With the work week, everybody wants something from you and you're trying to cover everything. You can always take your time, but you're always like. Yeah, a little bit more consumed. Like on a weekend when no one is working.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I kind of. I usually work Monday, Tuesday, then I have a full day off on Wednesday. I usually do a workday Thursday day off, Friday work day, Saturday day off, Sunday usually. So I usually do about three to four really intense days of work, and then about three just fully days off per week.

That's nice.

Yeah, it's good.

I like the system. Yeah. Because like, to do it every day. Yeah. Then on the weekends, you're like. And next week again. But when you're like, on Wednesday, a little bit more chill. That sounds great.

It's really good, man. And honestly, I think my favorite place in the world is this office. I love being in this office, man. It's so nice, you know, Like, I've got my computer, I've got my microphone, I've got my journal, I've got my books. I've got a nice view, you know, it's just the best place in the world. I just love chilling in this office and just building stuff.

You Know, Yeah, yeah, same here. I set it up so even this chair, I don't know how it's called this brand, but it's not like, the cheapest brand for this chair. And a friend of mine, he came here and worked for a couple of hours in my chair, and he was like, what the hell is this chair? It's so comfortable. I don't want to leave this place. And I was like, yeah, that's the reason why I'm working so much, because I really like sitting here and building stuff like that. What I really would love to hear from you, like, your perspective on. On team and operations at some point. So you have a couple of guys for sales and someone for delivery, or how did you set it up so that it stays, like. Very lean.

Very lean. Yeah. Well, dude, this is one big lesson that I've learned. So in my last company, I had a mix of A players and B players and C players. Right. And I think that's one of the reasons why it was quite a challenge. Because, man, so many team meetings, so many points of failure, so many trainings and, you know, things. Things always going wrong. And I've learned that A players, they won't even talk to you. They'll just do amazing work, and if something goes wrong, they'll just fix it. Or if they need something, they'll figure it out. Or if they need to get something, they'll just get it on their own. And it's really phenomenal, man. Man. Then B players and C players, they're always asking questions, they're always talking. They always need a meeting. They're always like, give me a pay rise, blah, blah, blah. They're just a nightmare. And I'm really, really, really lucky because my team right now is all A players, you know, Cool. It's a very small, lean team. So we've got two closers. One setter, copywriter, media buyer, assistant. Cool.

That sounds really lean.

Yeah, Very, very simple. And that keeps the profit margin very high. My copywriter and media buyer are contractors, so that, I mean, really, the entire team, apart from my assistant, are commission only as well. So they only get paid for the work that they do.

So nice going.

Going into a new month, excluding ad spend, my only cost is 1 8k for my assistant and some softwares. So it's so lean.

Nice. Yeah. That's really so. Yeah. I think there's always the lesson at some point, I think as a founder, entrepreneur, that you realize that revenue is just not the metric that you should focus on that it's Profit. What at the end. Yeah. Is the money that you take home. I would love to dive into this topic because you just brought it up. Like, I have some friends of mine who have like personal assistants and I never asked them what they are doing, but I was like, I wouldn't even know what he would, what he or she would do. Do you have like, what kind of topics is he or she doing for you? And is it worth it? Because the people that they have it, they're like, I couldn't never do it without them. But I never got sold on this idea. I would love to hear your approach on it.

Yeah, I actually agree. I never had a personal assistant for a very long time.

Yeah.

And also it's not a personal assistant, it's a business assistant. Yeah, right.

That's good.

Yeah. So for example, let's take the closers. So every day they've got to post all of their calls in Slack. So if it's a no show or a cancel or a missed or a taken call, they've got to post it in the right channel. They've got to update the tracking sheet and that kind of thing.

Right.

And my assistant makes sure that that's done. So at the end of the day, my assistant will look at the calendar, look at Slack, and if anything is wrong, he will say, right, you know, name of rep. You haven't put your calls in Slack, or there's a few missing from Slack, Please can you get that done right for us? And if they don't fill out their tracking sheet for two days, you'll say, oh, dude, you haven't filled out your tracking sheet. Get that done today. Right. Or you didn't put this call recording in the drive. Put it in the drive, please, when you get a second. Or you know, they track all the data. So for example, if the show rate goes down, he'll be like, will, just to let you know, the show rate is down over the last two weeks. Do you think we should fix this or is it okay, you know, or like, you know, oh, we haven't closed a cold ad call in 10 days now. Should it, you know, has something gone wrong? We'll just take a look at it just in case. So he basically just watches everything. And he also looks after my inbox as well. So he looks after that stuff. And he will watch the closes, he'll watch my setter, he'll watch the data, he'll watch the ads. He also helps me a bit with YouTube as well. He like uploads the videos Writes the copy for the email newsletter, that kind of thing. And he's just like my. He's just like a clone of me to just make sure everything's good. Really?

That's really. That's a nice angle. Because all these little tasks, if you do it, like one of them, it's maybe five minutes or 10 minutes, but if you all sum it up, it's a lot of hours every week. Especially, like tracking stuff and have everything, like, covered. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. Because you always get lost into this five minute task and then. Yeah. But after, in one week, you're like, okay, that's a lot of time.

Yeah, exactly.

How did you set up, like, your. I really like when we talked. I really liked your offers that you have, like in different variations from do it yourself to done with you to done for you. How did you come up with it? Was it really like, yeah, maybe you can walk us through the process. Because some people are saying, I don't know, I just do. Done for you. Some people are like, I just do. You do it. You have to do it for yourself. How did you come up with the structure?

For sure, I'll. I'll tell you. I'll tell you two stories. All right, so way back when I owned the old company before I sold it, and this is. Honestly, this is about three years ago now, I think something like that. I got a message one day on Instagram and this guy said to me, will, I'm at a mastermind. The person whose mastermind it is is talking about you. And he's, you know, it sounds like we do similar things. I have a coaching business. You have a coaching business. Please, could you help me? And I was like, right, give me $4,000 a month and I'll do 45 minutes with you once a week, right? And that's my first ever business consulting client that I ever had, right? And that guy was with me for nine months.

Okay?

So. So he paid me four grand a month for nine months, right? And I was first ever customer. And I was like, what? It's so easy. Just so easy, you know? And then sometimes he didn't even use the calls. And I was like, God, this is just so good. It's just so easy and fun, you know? So then I got another one of those clients, and then another, then another, then another. And I had about five or six or seven. And then towards the end of selling my last business, I thought, man, I'm just gonna go and do this. I'm just gonna get like 10 of these clients pay me 4 or 5k a month. Month. And I'm, I'm just gonna chill. No ads, no team. And it's gonna be the easiest thing ever. So that was my plan, right? Yeah. So that's what happened. And then over time I slowly raised the price. So I went from four to five, then I went from five to six and I went from six to seven. Right. And when I sold the last company, it was 7k a month for the, the done with you program. Now things have changed a little bit now. So that, that program now is anytime one to one calls with me and my entire team, I copyright to my media buyer. Have a call with us whenever you need. Right. And you get the group calls as well. And a training program that I've built over the last two years now as well. Right. So it's, it, it's evolved a lot. That was the one and only offer that I had when I started my YouTube channel for this business. Yeah. Now I had my first ever big viral video that how I'd make 10k per month 1. It's got about half a million views. When that video blew up, we got loads of people on the calls that either weren't right for that offer or couldn't afford that offer. So I had a decision to make. Do I serve these people or do I not serve these people? And I decided to serve those people. That's when I made the group program which back then was only 3k per month. So still high enough to keep people out that aren't serious, but a lot lower than the one to one. Right. So then we made that and that worked really, really well. Then one day we got someone on a call and he was a very famous like church pastor from America. Very, very wealthy guy. And he said to my rep, listen, I don't care what it costs, just do it all for me, please. So my rep whatsapped me, he was like, well I've got this guy on a call and he says that money is no problem and can we do it for, for do it for him. So I said what was the price? It was 50, I think it was $55,000. We said we'll do everything for you over three months. So three months of coaching, we'll build everything for you. And he wired the $55,000 immediately. Right. And then we had a done for you offer. I, I actually think it was 60k but I can't quite remember but nonetheless. And then, then we had a group program, a one to one Program now a done for you program as well. Right. And that's how those things happened. And then I'd always dreamed of doing a mastermind, so I started my mastermind as well. Yeah, right. Which went really well. Then we did the software, then I did the book and. And it just kind of happened like that.

Yeah.

Right. So that, that's the first story about how this came to be. And I want to just share one more quick story with you. Okay. Now, about five months ago, we had a guy on a call and he was a decently successful entrepreneur, had a little recruitment business doing pretty, you know, maybe 20, 30k a month, so something like that. But he was very skeptical and he was worried that it wouldn't work. He was scared about starting a coaching business. Never done it before. Heard all the bad stories about scams and gurus and stuff like that. And it took us four sales calls to close this guy and God knows how many WhatsApp messages over about, about five to six weeks to close this guy. Right. I almost told this guy to off. I was this close to saying to the guy, listen, I don't, don't want to work with you. I'm not doing any more freaking calls with you before you come on board, buy or just off and leave me alone. Right?

Yeah.

And I'm so happy that I didn't because he bought on the, the fifth call that he had. He finally bought and he's one of our biggest ever success stories that, that guy. Now there's a whole case study about him on, on YouTube and he made like something like 120k cash month one. And the reason I tell you that story is because it's taught me not to judge people. You know, if someone is scared, they're nervous, they're, you know, they need a bit more time and help and nurturing before they come on board. So be it. If someone is brand new, they've never done it before and maybe they even don't have that much money and this is a big risk for them. I've also had clients like that that I was a bit worried to take on and they come in and they do amazingly well and just it changes their life. So I've learned anyone that has ambition and drive and the capital to work with me, I should work with and I should not judge them at all. Right.

Love it.

Yeah. I'm so happy that those things have happened because it's taught me, don't choose who you work with. Just provide massive value to anyone that is serious and often they will get really amazing results.

Yeah, Yeah. I have the feeling too, especially when you're at the beginning and the first time you're doing a big investment like that, people are really like a very anxious and not sure if they should do it or not. And this is something that I really enjoy because I don't know, we have a lot of people in our sales call also that they're like their first investment to, I don't know, invest into LinkedIn consulting and stuff like that. But when they're then in the product and see what they're all getting and they're so happy, like, I don't know, a few days later and they're like, it was really nice that you pushed us a little bit in the sales call because I know we're doing a really amazing job and I know what we are doing together will get your results and make you more money and way more happy. But yeah, it's really. That's a nice, nice story that you told that you can't like forecast how people behave in the working together, how they act like in the sales call.

Yeah.

And I think we all had these sales calls where you're like, come on. Yeah, just let's get it over with. Yeah, yeah. What would be your advice? I think there are a lot of people and also I think that would be interesting to hear from you because your book is like how to 10 million. And I think there are a lot of people out there who aim for this goal, but still maintaining somehow the lifestyle I think that you are having. Like, and this is something that I also try to achieve, like get the margins up, do every day how I like to work, have a small team and stuff like that for. What are you optimizing? Because I think there is always this, this like danger that you start optimizing for the wrong things, going to, I don't know, we, we try to get to a million profit per month, but then you need more people and start hiring again, like B or C players. What is like your metric at the moment or metrics?

No, it's, it's, it's a really good question, man. And it is very easy to get lost as well. You know, like, life is. Life is. Life can be very complex. You know, you've got health, money, relationships, friends, dating, you know, fulfillment, learning. So life can get a bit complex if, if you let it. And this is why I always keep my journal next to me, because whenever my head gets too busy and too overwhelmed or I feel lost, I write it out. Pen on paper in my journal. And that really empties my head and clears my head. Right. But to answer the question more directly, I'm really optimizing for two things. Number one is peace, profit and purpose. Okay. And number two is achieving the goals that I set for myself, which is a mix of egotistical goals and non egotistical goals. I, I would say so. One goal that I'm pursuing at the moment is to buy my dream penthouse in, in Dubai, which I will almost certainly have done this year. And that's an egotistical goal. I'm well aware it is an egotistical goal, but it is a goal nonetheless that I want to achieve. And a non egotistical goal is more things like one of my goals is immensely optimum health and sleep and diet, body fat, you know, and focus and that kind of thing. Because I love, I love like tracking my sleep tracking. I track my calories every day, my workout every day, my weight every day, that kind of thing. And it's a mix of those kinds of goals really. So it's, it's, it's those things. Peace, profit and purpose in the business sense and goals in, in the kind of life itself sense.

Yeah. I think that's so important even with this penthouse and like this egotistical goal, because I think you need something to work for. I have the feeling even if you're like making money, if you don't have something in your life that you're like saving your money or making the money for. It was also like buying a house here in Spain. It was such a huge motivation for me because I was like, yeah, what's otherwise the purpose of making the money in my company if I can't like buy something nice for myself or for my family? And that was, I think a lot of people get lost, as you said. They don't really know what they are doing it for and don't have any like goals. They're like maybe like an amount of money, but if you don't know what to spend it on, I think there is not really a purpose on this. Right.

Yeah, this is really funny. I was thinking about this a few days ago and I was talking to one of my friends who has a similar, similar coaching business. He'd saved up, I can tell you the number because you don't know who this is, but he'd saved up $3.7 million in, in cash. And we were talking about what do we do with the money? Do we put it in stocks, do we put it in bonds? Do we buy more real estate? Should we buy a fancy home? Should we buy, you know, he was like, maybe I should just buy like a Patek Philippe for 200 grand or some. Yeah. And he just made me laugh because I was like, man, it's so funny that, you know, half of the journey is getting the money. Like, what the fuck do I do with it? You know? And one thing that I've been spending money on recently is I've been working with a phenomenal brand designer from over in Australia and a phenomenal web designer and web rebranding the whole company and rebuilding the whole program and God, the new website just looks like a work of art. It's just phenomenal.

Yeah.

And I've just been investing in the fun of just. I'm just like, how good can I make this company? How good can I make it look? How good can I make it feel? You know, I give the, the team little bonuses and rewards and stuff just to make them feel good about, you know, what we do together. So that's been a nice way to, to spend money. But I remember I was saying to my mindset coach a couple of weeks ago, I said to him, you know, I'm getting pretty close to finding a penthouse that I like. And I said to him, you know, am I being stupid here to waste this much money on a big fancy home I don't even need? And he was like, well, no, because where you live makes you feel a certain way. So if you live in like a very small house in a cold rainy country in a shit place with shit views, you kind of feel worse, you know, and if you lived in a 10 million dollar mansion overlooking the ocean, you would feel pretty good, you know, so, so where you live impacts how you feel, how you work, your level of. It kind of raises your identity, you know, because the person that lives in that 10 million dollar home overlooking the ocean in Dubai, for example, they would.

Feel a way that it would do something with you.

Yeah, yeah. It changes who you are for the better, in my opinion, that is.

Yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely with you. I would love to hear and build the bridge a little bit. I think you've come a long way and I think you reached goals some people will maybe, or hopefully reach in their lifetime, but not most of them. But how about you? How would you, what kind of advice would you give people that are just starting out with this topic? What would you tell people even to have a look for this education, business part? So how, how would you tell someone to get Started what are like the first steps and stuff like that?

Yeah, well, I think fundamentally, right, business is about solving problems. And if you want to start a successful business, you've got to pick a big, painful, hairy problem. And ideally a problem that rich people have or wealthy people have or people with money have. And the more painful the problem and the more wealthy the audience is, the faster and easier it's going to be to make money, you know. So that is kind of part one in my mind of starting a business that's the foundation. And then on top of that, you've got different industries and niches, because all different industries and niches have different profit margins. Right. Some of them you can grow organically, some you can't, some you need to unpaid ads, some you don't. Some industries, they just have low profit margins. Some industries like ours just have very, very, very high profit margins. Some businesses you can run from home, some you can't, you know, some you can run remotely, some you can't run remotely. So when you're picking a problem and an industry and a niche, just think about these things ahead of time so that you don't accidentally choose a small problem that people won't pay much money for that's in a very hard, low profit margin niche, because then you're kind of fucked. All right? Equally, you know, in an ideal scenario, pick a massive problem that people will pay loads of money to solve that's so big a problem that people want to solve it now, like not, not later. And in an industry or a niche, that's very high profit margin and ideally where you can work remote and just set it up so it's easier to succeed because some businesses are a lot easier than others. This is why so many people want to come into the E learning space, because they see how profitable it is, they see how fast and easy it is. They see how just it's. It's just so fast and easy and high profit to do.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

And these businesses, after all, they are cash flow businesses. So, yeah, cash is the lifeblood of a business. It's what we really want. So that is what I would say. That's kind of how I would think about it.

Yeah. I think, yeah. Going back maybe to the times of Sam Owens, I think still these graphics of like actual problem and the desired situation, like putting it into one graphic, I will never forget it. And I saw these like graphics in his course and the YouTube videos, and I was like, no one teaches you that. I studied like five and a half Years business administration, like the classical way. And I never saw something like that and was like, like, ah, this is how it works. And really it helps so much. What you said, take, take a big problem that there is in a market and it makes everything easier. And most of the people are just thinking about their topics or what they would love to do and never think about, like big problems in the market that they can solve. And if you just have a look for that, everything gets easier.

Exactly.

I think the big question in the room is still like, how did you manage to sell the last company? Because you always have this problem in my mind, especially like face problem, that the company is like attached to your personality and to your face and to you, maybe to your skills. How did you. Can you walk us through how, like an audit and stuff like that? What like investors are looking at and how you made this transition?

Yeah, for, for sure, man. Well, to, to tell you the story, right. I remember I was in a guy called Dan Bradbury's mastermind. And this was a financial literacy mastermind that I was in maybe 2020, I think, something like that. And I was having lunch one day in, in the cafeteria. And I remember I was sat here, Dan was sat there, and Dan said to me off the cuff, so when do you think you'll sell your business? And I was like, oh, I can't. I can't sell it. It's a coaching business. It's like my name and it's like me and, and, and stuff. And he was like, no, no, you can sell the business. It just depends the buyer and the price. So if you've got a very high key man risk business tied to your face in your name.

Yeah.

You might sell it for a very low amount to a not very good buyer. Right?

Yeah.

Or if you, you know, systemize everything, you remove the key man risk. You have a very good product, very good track record of profitability, happy customers, good brand. You'll probably sell to a better buyer for way more money. Right. And that really planted the seed. And then, man, I went away from that day thinking, I can sell my business one day.

What a coincidence, right? That someone really asked you, like, so, well, when are you gonna sell? And then you're like, I can sell it.

Yeah, yeah.

Crazy.

I mean, Dan's background is in mergers and acquisitions, so that's what he got. He. He buys a lot of companies, he sells a lot of companies. So to him it's second nature. No, he thinks every business will either be bought or sold. That's just what he believes. And a lot of people in this industry, they believe, wrongly, it's not possible, that it's not possible. So think about it like this, right? Imagine that you truly believed that no girl would ever think you're attractive or ever want to talk to you or ever want to date you. Well, you are not going to talk to girls because you believe that. Right. But if you believe, oh, you know, if I go out and speak to 20 girls, one or two or three or four or five of them are gonna talk to me and want my number and we'll go on a date and I'll probably get a girlfriend. You're gonna go out and speak to 20 girls and do it, you know?

Yeah.

So for me, I fully believed that I would sell my business one day. It wasn't. It wasn't will I sell it? It was like, when and who to and for how much, you know, and because I had that belief 100, I made it happen, you know.

And what were the steps that you were doing then to. I don't know. It didn't detach it from your face and from your personality. So what were the steps you had to take to sell it at the end?

Yeah. So I started preparing the business for sale in. When was it now? 2023. I think it was November 2023. 3. I think I might have been September. But nonetheless, I called up Dan Bradbury, right? And I said, right, I'm ready to sell. Please can you help me get it ready for sale? So he started paying his monthly retainer to help me. We did our best to remove all the key man risk that we possibly could. We got all the financials in order. We created what's called an im, which is an investor memorandum. He helped me find a M and A advisor, so Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor. And then we went out to market. So I started. So I learned from Dan that the three most likely buyers of a business are your team members, your customers, your competitors. Those are the three most likely buyers for a business. Right. And outside of that is obviously VC firms, PE firms, private buyers, so on and so forth.

Right.

So I started going out to my customers, going out to my team, going out to my competitors. I had a few pretty good conversations with competitors, but in the end, nothing materialized. I then started working with my M and A advisor. We made the IM and started sending it out to, to all his contacts. Then we had a VC firm from Canada that were interested and we spent about two months with them. Then it fell through and they bought a different company. And then along came the private equity firm that ended up buying us. And we signed the loi, which stands for a letter of intent. We signed that in April 2023. 4. I think it was 2025. I can't remember whenever it was. And then we went into due diligence, and basically, I mean, fast forward to September. And then we closed on September 30th.

Yeah.

And. And the. The rest was history. But the due diligence period was one of the most stressful times of my entire life. Not because it was April, May, June, July, August, September. It was six months. And I was constantly getting documents, having calls. You know, they were interviewing the customers, they were interviewing the team. They were going through the program. Other members of the PE firm were going through the program. Another guy wants to interview the. The team members. Now they're looking at the data. Oh, this data is wrong. Why is it wrong? Or now I've got to pay my accountants to rebuild it. It was just like, very long, very tiring, very complex. But in the end, we closed, and it was a very happy day.

And how. How was it, the feeling like, to get it done and to get the paycheck and.

Yeah, it. Well, put it this way, I think.

Is it. Is it, like, surreal? Is that the word? Like, that. You can't even.

Like, I'm. I'm gonna say something weird, but this is how I feel. Right. So my mind was like a trash can, right?

Yeah.

And. And over the years, it just got filled up and filled up and filled up and filled up. More stressful, more difficult, lower profit margin, more complexity, bigger team, more meetings, more stress. And by the end of that company, I wanted to just empty the trash.

Got it.

And the day that I sold that company, yeah, the trash was emptied.

That's. That's a good picture. So you. You've felt a lot of relief, I guess.

Yeah, dude. I just felt like. I just felt like. Just a sense of, like, I just wiped the whiteboard clean, and it's clean, and I can start again now. Yeah, I can go. Go and build something because. Because I love building. You know, I love figuring it all out and, you know, making it happen. And so, yeah, it just felt like a fresh start. Really?

Yeah. Because I have the feeling really, like, I don't know if anyone told you that before, but every video from you and. Or when I talk to you, it feels really light. And I think you really can feel this joy that you have of doing everything. I remember when we talked and I said, like, will, why do you have a mastermind? And you had, like, shining eyes? Because I love it. I love having people over, and I love this discussions. I love this product. And I was like. Like, he's really excited about it. Yeah. Because most of the people do stuff like that just to make money. And I really had the feeling, like, you would do it for free, I think, but still would be so happy about it because you can help these people. And I think people really recognize that in your videos and talking to you.

Yeah. I try my hardest to keep it fun. You know, we have a mission statement at the company. Make money, have fun, and help people. And that's really. When I'm doing those three things, I feel awesome, you know, when I'm making money. Right. But I'm also having fun. But I also know that I'm actually helping people as well. Yeah. And when I'm doing those three things, I really feel 100 great. And sometimes. Sometimes if I don't feel a hundred percent, one of those three things is. Is wrong. Usually, you know, I had to take.

It down and like. Yeah. Put it down on my notepad here, because I love it. Especially the combination, because I think people get really lost in having no fun anymore. I remember, like, I don't know, two or three years ago, we were really struggling with the company, and I didn't even want to go to my computer. And that was like. Yeah. Like, really a sign. Even my wife back then said, robert, you're not excited anymore to go to your computer, and that's not a good sign. So change something. And then really changed a lot. Even fired a few people. And since then, I'm every morning excited again. Yeah. I go over into my room and I'm like, let's go. And I think the other two ones are. Yeah. Very important too. You have to make your money. And. Yeah. Clients have to be happy. Yeah. Love it.

Love it, man. Yeah. If you can do those three things, it's just the best thing in the world, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Got it. What else is there? Let me have a look. We just talked about selling the company, and that's really exciting. Was there some kind of fear, like, to fall into, like, I don't know, a hole or something? There are always these people, like, training for a marathon, running a marathon, and then they're like, what am I doing? Or was it really, like, the trash can? And I'm happy to have, like, a fresh start because it was so exhausting.

Yeah. You know what? So my mentor Dan, actually said to me in the beginning he said, make sure you've got something to do next.

He said it.

Yeah, because he said, you know, a lot of people, they sell a business, they've got nothing to do, and then they get depressed and waste their money. But I remember saying to Dan, I was like, listen, the reason. Well, one of the reasons that, that I want to sell is because I've really fallen in love with the business coaching, you know, and I. I want to go all in on the. The business coaching. So I was, I was ready to go and I was getting it ready as well, because in the meantime, I was getting a few more clients. You know, I was getting ready to do it. I was getting ready to launch my YouTube channel. So I was ready to go.

Yeah, okay, that's nice to. And even as the, the amount that you sold the company for, is that that public or is it something that you had to sign, an NDA or something? Because what interests me, is there like a multiple on an elearning company or is it, like, what is like, the metric? Are they looking for profit or for revenue or what's the key metric?

Yeah, so I can't tell you the number itself that we solve for because I could get in a lot of freaking trouble for that. But I can tell you the multiple. The multiple was 2.6x EBITDA. So if you take our annual net profit times it by 2.6, that's what we sold for.

Yeah. And is there something like, I'm curious, is this company still around and are you checking sometimes how they're doing? Is there, like some intrigue, like, and what's up, guys? What are you doing? And are you still in touch with, like, the team and stuff? Like, are there still people that you know?

Oh, yeah, dude, absolutely. And it's funny because all of the key team members that were there when I sold, like, got my old assistant Tom and the media guy, Paul, one of our coaches, Azri, they're all still there and still working for that company today or all this time on as well. I don't hear from them much anymore. Every two, three months, they'll get in touch and say, oh, will, we're thinking of changing the funnel. What, you know, what do you think about this? Or we're going to do a webinar. Could you look at the script? You know, can you check the ads, stuff like that. But aside from that, they pretty much leave me alone now. Yeah.

Crazy. Yeah, but that's really nice to see. I think it's someone, like, someone moving out from home and then, yeah, you always want to check on him. Is everything fine and stuff like that. Yeah. Really happy to hear that. Well, I think we got a lot of stuff covered in this interview. Thank you so much for taking the time and I'm really excited. I think this or next year I'm going to come around for your next mastermind. Let me know when the next days are available. And thank you so much for your time today.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, man. It's been a big pleasure.