Amanda Abella: Make Money Your Honey | The Tyler Wagner Show #1026

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Amanda Abello with us, so welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here and super stoked to find out we live in the same city.

I know, that's what I was just gonna say. Literally, this is real time for the audience. We just found out we're like almost neighbors. Like, if I was really strong, I could throw a rock and it wouldn't reach where you are, but it would, it would be in the direction.

It would get close. It would be close.

So to start us off though, can you tell us just a little bit more about you and what you do?

Yeah. So Amanda Obeya, and I have been pretty much a writer since 2010. So I actually built a business, my first business. I did Basically, I was a financial writer. I was a freelance writer. I did a lot of marketing for financial companies. I wrote for a lot of financial media. I wrote a book that I self-published and then it was an Amazon bestseller in two categories. But then somewhere around 2016, it kind of wasn't working for me anymore for a few reasons. But the main reason was, man, I can't scale this thing, right? So for me, it became more about like, I'm not meeting my full potential right now. And I know I can make more money and I know I can have a bigger impact. And I guess what I was doing, which was the financial writing, was no longer allowing for that. So I made some very big shifts, ended up creating training programs. And now basically I am known as one of the top female sales trainers online. And basically what we do is we help people. Usually they need— it's usually business owners, sometimes it's authors, sometimes it's influencers. And we kind of help them create, okay, what is the scalable high-ticket offer? We teach them marketing. I actually have a call all about marketing psychology when we're done here, and then we teach sales, right? So we're all about like, okay, what are the hard skills that actually get money in the bank? And we ended up working, we end up working with a lot of like writers who basically are going through the same transition I went through, which is like, okay, the writing was great for a while. It's not working. I got to make a shift. What is it?

Okay, I love this. So, um, let's start even before the writing. So before you started, and because I was reading your bio too, so you wrote like basically blogs for like multiple banks and like financial institutions and stuff?

Pretty much, yeah, that's what I did. I also had a column at Inc., you know. I also worked for fintech companies doing some of their marketing, Credit Karma being one of them. Most people recognize Credit Karma. Sometimes it was Investopedia, GoBankingRates, all those guys.

Okay. So now before that, and maybe we go to like high school, college, like did you like have any vision that you'd be doing that? And what was your plan? What was your plan before?

So I did always want to be a writer. So in high school, actually I went to high school like 5 minutes from where I am right now. I was in the journalism program, or it wasn't really a program. It was more like you had to apply for the school newspaper. I had a boyfriend at the time who was like, you got to do it. And I was so nervous, but I got in and it was great. Learned a lot. Then I went to college and I basically went to this really tiny Catholic school in Southwest Florida. And it was all about traditional liberal arts. And I got my ass handed to me in my first paper. Like, I flunked it. I failed it because I was looking at it from a journalistic standpoint. Right. And they're like, no, we're doing academic writing now. Totally different. And I didn't know. I was like, y'all are boring. But anyway, I ended up getting a bachelor's in English literature. And then, which most people find really surprising because I worked in recruiting for a while before doing what I do now, or simultaneously with the first business. I teach sales now. You know, I wrote about finance and people are like, what did you study? Finance? Did you study HR? Nope, English lit major.

That's awesome.

That's That's what I have my bachelor's in. And basically, it just be— everything I've done now has basically been bred out of necessity because I graduated in 2010. And now that we're in 2020 and I see all these interesting economic things going on in the last couple years, I'm really fascinated by a lot of what's happening. But basically, you know, the world was on fire. You couldn't find a job. Very different situation than now, which is like people quitting their jobs and not wanting to go back. Back then it was like there literally were no jobs. There was nothing, especially in South Florida, which I think the unemployment rate was even higher than the national average at the time. So I was like, okay, well, I've always wanted to be a writer. Maybe I can make something happen. And a friend handed me a book called The Art of Nonconformity by Chris Guillebeau, which I think was his first book. And in it, he's like, yeah, I just want to travel all over the world and I make money on the internet. And who said you have to like go to school and get a job? And I was like, Why is this the first time I'm ever hearing this? This, this just makes sense. I can't find a job, so why don't I just make a job? And I Googled how to make money writing, and that ended up turning into an 8-year career as a financial writer.

That is awesome. One Google search. Well, obviously there was other things leading up to that, but yeah. Um, okay, now unless I missed it there, how did it How did it end up being that you were writing about finance? Like, where did that interest come from?

Yeah, so that interest came from the fact that I was broke, and one of the— that usually does it for people. Um, and then the interest came because one of my clients— I'm doing air quotes if you can't see it— because there used to be these things called content mills. That's how long I've been around making money on the internet. There used to be these things called content mills, and basically you would write all these articles and then you would get paid add revenue based on the traffic that was generated, but they also had these assignments available and it was between like finance, home improvement, and health. I did dabble in all three, but the finance came about because I was like, I don't know anything about money. Seems like kind of an important thing I got to figure out. What if I get paid to learn about it? I'm a good researcher. I could do that. I went to a liberal arts school. Let me just figure it out. And that's That was the first one. Yeah.

That's awesome. So then what occurred was essentially you, it was going well, but you knew that you could like expand further and you do hit a cap or a limit of how much you can write before you just fall.

Yeah. I was definitely getting close to that cap and that limit. And I was like, this is not how I want to live my life. I actually posted about this yesterday on Instagram. I pretty much torched that business. About 3 years ago.

How did you—

I completely torched it. How did you do that? So it started off as a transition at first. So I created a training program because everybody had been like, well, how did you build this? And I was like, okay, well, I'll just like teach it to you. But I knew it had to be number 1, expensive, and number 2, something that was going to be easier on my time because I was already experiencing what it's like when you don't have time. So I had to figure out something scalable and that I could charge a decent amount of money for. So at the time, it was like a $2,000, 6-week program. I think it had like 2 calls a week. I called it Persuade to Profit. I put it together. I did a bunch of sales calls. I kicked it old school. I did sales calls and I made 10 grand in 2 weeks.

Nice.

Cash. I made 10 grand cash in 2 weeks. And I went, that's actually right when I moved to Brickell. At the same time that this was going on, I had moved into a condo in Brickell literally the same month that this was happening, right? It was already in the works. It just all happened at the same time. And I was like, oh, shit. Oh my God, I think I found the thing. It would be another year before I fully transitioned out of the freelance writing because quite frankly, I just wasn't checking my numbers and I didn't realize I I could have done it sooner. Very important, check your numbers. That's the CEO mindset thing. Now I look at numbers every day, but back then I wasn't doing that. And basically what happened was I was in a situation with an editor. I knew the editor was dead-ass wrong 'cause I'd been doing this for a long time. And at the same time, I had someone in my Facebook DMs wanting to pay me 10 grand for consulting. So I was like, what am I doing with my life? And I quit all my freelance writing clients that day. All the ones I had left, which apparently was not very many. I had been kind of trickling them off, you know.

Yeah, no, it's that what's in my mind. And for some, it's crazy because it's one of my favorite movies and I'm blanking on the name, but it's when, um, it's an older movie and the guy with the stapler and they basically want to— they, they kill the printer and they, they just like—

is it Office Space?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know why. Yeah, that's what it is. And like, I don't know why, just remind— when you said you torched it, I was just like, she legitimately just fired all her clients, broke the printer, and was like, I'm not writing anymore, I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore.

I did do a couple more campaigns, some big deal campaigns that agents had gotten for me, but I stopped doing that earlier this year. I'm like, I'm done. I make like more money in a month 3 times more money than what this entire contract is worth. I'm done. So that was, that was like the real last one. And that was earlier this year. And I'm a really big believer in energetics. I've noticed that when you get rid of stuff that's not serving you, you end up making more money.

100%. 100%. Yeah, you know, it's, um, people, I think it's become like cliché. But when you look at it, it just, it makes a lot more sense if you go more detail. So people will be like, Oh, like, do what you love and the money will follow. It's like, okay, yes, kinda, but like, if you go a little bit deeper, it's more like you're saying, like, removing all the junk that like you don't want to be doing that sucks your energy. And it's also like a restructuring of a business. And that leads me to my next question is like, so you started out, you know, making some decent money, but it was a lot of writing and it was all dependent on you. So Now to scale further, like $10,000 in 2 weeks, and I'm sure now you're even doing more than that.

Like, we just had our first— we're in the middle of our first 6-figure month, actually.

Congratulations, that's huge.

Thank you.

So how did you—

what—

how is your business structured now to even be able to handle that type of revenue, right? Because as a freelance writer, you'd have to write like 1,000 blog articles or something to get there, right? Right. Yeah.

I mean, let's say that was like a year's worth of work and I just did it in 3 weeks. Right. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So really great question because the last 3 years have been spent on 3 things and this is what we teach in Persuade to Profit because what was a 6-week program is now a 90-day program. And basically system is number 1. And when I say system, I mean 2 things. Number 1, what is the thing that you can sell that you don't really have to trade money, time for money for, right? How do we structure that? And it has to be something that's extremely valuable and that you can spend a lot of money, that you can charge a lot of money for. And the thing is, knowledge is expensive. It's very expensive. Like if I tell you guys how much money I have spent in the last 3 years, just me seeking out knowledge to get to where I am, it's definitely over 6 figures. Easily, right? Maybe multiple six figures if I look at the whole three years. Knowledge is expensive and a lot of people don't realize that because they think that because something is basic to them, that it's basic to everybody else. The second thing is that it has to really solve some serious problems. We can charge a lot of money for what we offer because it solves a big fucking problem. That problem being particularly, we work with a lot of women specifically. They've taken a bunch of business training programs and all they've gotten is a bunch of marketing and manifesting, but nobody taught them how to put a solid offer together, based on data and then taught them sales skills. Mm-hmm. So we, we fix that need. It's a really big problem that we're fixing and it's a pretty unique offer proposition. So that's number one. The second thing with systems, and we spent 3 years building this out, is I automated every fricking thing I could think of in this business. I automated or put into a process or documented every single freaking thing. That occurred to me. And that was, that was a long process that took like 2 and a half years. Right. And it was a 2 and a half very expensive years, because you're like paying for all this stuff that you were using before and paying for the new stuff while you're building it, then you got to build and take some time away from sales. And I'm being very transparent, because a lot of people don't realize what this stuff actually takes. Right. And I want to be very clear, like it was work. Right. But as one of my mentors says, work hard once. So you work hard once. That's it. Just work hard once so you don't have to work so hard forever. And I kept saying that in my head. So that's the other thing, like what systems and processes do we have in place? Sales, customer service, you know, all those marketing. What are all these systems and processes? Number 3, I started hiring employees. I did it before I was ready. Right. My first employee is about to have her 3-year anniversary and she's helped me build a lot of this.

That's incredible. That's awesome.

Yeah.

She's been with you like since the beginning, basically.

She's been with me since like literally 6 months after I torched the first business. I hired her.

That's awesome.

Very cool. She's also in Miami. We were just hanging out on Miami Beach all over the weekend celebrating our first 6-figure month. And she has the potential to, you know, be future COO, you know, because she really understands What's going on? So that was another thing that I did. And then basically once I got that figured out, I just spend all my time doing marketing and sales. That's it. And now I'm training up my team on how to do sales themselves. So then I don't have to do all of that.

Exactly. Yeah. So it's kind of like you keep moving up the, the ring, but then at the same time as you do that, then you see what you're doing. Like you're almost like taking a tab of like, what am I working on? And how can I automate it or hire it out once you've mastered. So what is the, the structure of your offerings? Is it like courses and then group coaching, or—

Yeah, so it's, it's, it started off with just, um, like a high-ticket course, and then we added in a live component of it. So I'm just going to do really easy math for people, right? And we give this example to our clients all the time. You can start with something that's a video training for $2,000 like I did, Maybe you run it live. Great. That's a $5,000 price tag. And then if someone wants to work with you privately, that's 5 figures easily. And we have clients who get 5 figures for private coaching because they are positioned in that way.

100%.

Positioning is important. Positioning is really important when it comes to this stuff. Now it's a little bit different, right? That got us to multiple 6s. Now we're going for 7s. So you got to change some things around, right? And also we have a lot more cash flow. Coming in now. So now it's like, okay, I can spend some money on paid ads. Okay, we can figure that part out. So what we have now is we actually have what's called a tiny offer funnel, which is a self-liquidating offer. We run ads to a $27 product. Then there's an order, a one-time order option of like $37, I think. And then there's a, no, an order bump of $37 and a one-time offer of like $70 something, right? So that pays for all our ad spend and then people get dumped into a funnel and then that whole process is systematized to do sales calls. Now where we take, kick it up a notch and take it to another level, which is a really missed opportunity for people, is my sales team is calling everybody who bought anything.

Hmm. Okay.

Yeah. Oh, because who, who gets a phone call for a $27 product? Nobody. Right. But the thing is, part of the reason why we have a 6-figure sales month is because we called people who bought a $27 product.

Yeah, I absolutely love that.

No launch, no, no craziness, none of that stuff. And then we just add on to the sales next month and add on next month and add on next month. Because, because I spent 8 years as a financial writer, I could not do— I did not want to have a cash flow roller coaster, right? I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I need to— we need to have something that we can have new payments hitting this bank account every day. That's what I want. I want. And I was really, really clear about that. So from the $27, from the low point offers, which basically just pay for all our ads, a lot of times we either upsell them into the on-demand version of Persuade to Profit or the live version, which I now just said is 90 days and it has a lot more shit than it did back then and a lot more hands-on support. And then from there, oh great, you want to keep going? Now we've got a mastermind and that's stuff that people can renew. So essentially what we've done is we've built in passive income, We've built in high-ticket scalable offers for cash flow that other people can teach. I had an associate coach earlier this year. She was teaching that program. I wasn't teaching it right. And then from there we've got an upsell into more support and then that's monthly cash flow and that's things that can be renewed.

I love it. Okay. And I have to—

I've never broken it down like that before. Good question.

I have to close this, this loop in my head because I have to— how did you celebrate the 6-figure month?

Um, um, I bought a pair of Hermès shoes that I've been looking at for a while. Um, and then we actually went out to Miami Beach. Have you been to the Local House on Miami Beach?

Local House? How have I— I lived at South Point for 5 years. This is my first year in Brickell.

So like, if you lived in South Point, like, Local House is right there.

Well, how have I not been to Local House? Maybe I'm—

that's okay. I've lived here my whole life and apparently it's been around for years and I just discovered it. And my friend who I lived in Brickell with was like, she's been here from New York like or 7 years. And she's like, I love that place. It was one of the first places I found when I moved here. I was like, I live here and I didn't know this place existed. Because locals don't go to the beach.

Gotcha. Okay. So it was more—

unless it's a special occasion, you know, then— or we got friends in town, then we'll go to Miami Beach.

Oh yeah, that's what's so funny is like when you, when you live here, that— I, you know, I stayed south of Fifth typically when I lived there, like And I love South Point Park. You can't— I don't know, it's my spot. But, but yeah, the actual Ocean Drive, that's more like the first week you get.

Well, it's like on Ocean and 4th, right? It's like 400 Ocean Drive or something like that. It's this cute little boutique hotel and they have really good brunch. Like, the food is phenomenal.

Oh, I have to try it. Yeah, I definitely have not been because I used to always hang like near the pier, right? So like Smith Wollensky, right? The health place. I'm blanking on what it's called, but there's, I don't know, health place near Pura Vida.

So that's what we did. Yeah, my first employee who lives in Miami, I said, we got to go do something. So we, we did brunch there and we had quite a few mimosas and some good food and some good company.

That's great. Um, so another thing I want to talk to you about, because I think you're in a unique position, having written for the past, you know, 8 years that you did that, and now it's evolving into where we are today. I guess to start, and then we can dive deeper, like overall, where do you see us at from a financial point of view? Like, and I'm talking like the—

in like the world.

Yeah, like I'm talking like, it's a huge question, but like inflation, cryptocurrency, like I don't know how much you are.

Yeah, there's a lot. I'm so fascinated. There's so much interesting stuff going on right now, and I do geek out because I am a financial nerd on these things. Like literally while all the coronavirus stuff was happening last year, I'm like watching interviews with economists and like being like, ooh. Oh yeah. Right? Because I think it's amusing. I think it's interesting. Man, there's so much going on right now worth talking about. The great resignation being one of them. And we didn't go deep into this, but in the first business I did have jobs. Well, I was building it up and I was a recruiter and I'm like, this great resignation situation of 4 million people quitting their jobs. Oh yeah, this has been coming. Like COVID, COVID just like exposed stuff, but like this has been coming. And I could say that as a former recruiter. And it's good for the great resignation is great for people like me. I got 2 employees out of the great resignation that you have like something that's very mission-driven. That's flexible in terms of people can work from home and you just treat your people well. That's really all you need to do as a company and you'll attract people. So that's really interesting. I think people had a lot of time to evaluate, is this really how I want to be spending my life at this job? Inflation is going to be a problem. I think the United States alone, something like a quarter of the money in circulation right now was just printed last year.

Yeah, freaky. What does that— can we like highlight that even more though? Like, because I feel like when, when you say inflation or anybody says it, I don't think the average person like really understands.

Yeah, so basically what that means is that the cost of everything starts going up, but part of the reason why the cost of everything starts going up is because the value of the dollar went down. So if there's more currency in circulation, then the value goes down, whereas crypto like Bitcoin Now we're— when I were getting to crypto, I do have a small portion of my portfolio in crypto, right? So I'm like, I'm like, I'm not sure if this is like a speculative thing or a hedge, but I'm still going to do it, right? And it's like fucking crazy how it's outperforming like all the stocks and bonds and things. It's— oh yeah, right? I know, right? Um, and I like look at it every day, but I'm able to do it without getting emotionally attached because I have an understanding of what's going on. And even the swings it does in a day is like insane to watch. Very interesting. So I do have a small portion of my portfolio in crypto. And I think that's a real— So whereas Bitcoin keeps going up in value, a big part of that is because of the scarcity, right? There's only so much of it in circulation. So the idea is the value is going to continue to go up. That's why some people say it's hedging your bets. It's like gold almost, like you get gold to hedge your bets. right? Like some sort of store of value. It's probably more speculative than store of value at this point because we just don't know enough, but that's one of the conversations that's going on, um, in comparison to fiat currency, which is, you know, US dollar, euro, where they just printed so much of it last year because of the situation that we were in, and then all that printing, the value came down.

Got it. Yeah, so you would say like What's interesting to me, and I got into crypto like 2016, so that my— this is now like my second cycle that I've like—

I talked so much shit about crypto, I'm not gonna lie. Financial writers talked a lot of shit about crypto back in the day. Yeah, right. But it's because, um, but it's also because you have to understand, like, for what we were seeing on Twitter is like people taking out second mortgages to get into crypto back then, right? We're like, wait a second, guys, you got to look up the history of it. Like, people weren't investing properly. Like, there was no education. Around it. So that was part of the reason why, you know.

Yeah, and I agree. And I have to say, like, that the first experience of like watching my crypto portfolio, like Bitcoin hitting $20 grand and then going to $3K, like, that was pretty shocking, you know what I mean? Like, I, I was like, wow. But now, just like you're saying, now that I, now that I'm in this second cycle, I'm just like, oh, it's $60K today, $40K tomorrow.

That's exactly— yeah, I mean, I didn't get into it recently because I'm more of like a long-term dollar cost averager type of investor. I'm like, I don't have the time, the patience, or the capacity to do trading. Like, trading real estate makes way more sense to me than trading does. And I've tried to learn trading, it's just as soon as the fucking graphs come out, like, I'm out. No, the candles and shit, like, I can't, right?

I look at that too, I'm like, it might as well be Chinese. Like, I just, I can't. I can't read it is what I'm saying.

Yeah. So I'm more of like a long-term dollar cost averager kind of investor. And what's interesting is I used to give myself shit about spending so much time in personal finance because personal finance will give you a good solid foundation where I can understand the terminology going on with crypto and investing and inflation and all that kind of stuff. I know what to do with the salary that I pay myself. But that's about as far as it goes. It's not necessarily great for really building wealth. You hear that more in the entrepreneurial spaces. And a lot of what you hear in the entrepreneurial spaces, a lot of the time sounds like the polar opposite of what you hear in the personal finance spaces. And they're actually supposed to work together. It's supposed to be like an evolution.

Interesting. Okay.

Yeah.

I never thought about it that way. So are you— and then I want to Really, the last topic I want to talk to you about is the sales and persuasion stuff and tactics, because I know my audience would like that. But so, if you were to give recommendation, and obviously, you know, nobody has an 8-ball or anything, so it's not like you would know, but like, what are your thoughts? Like, obviously, you wouldn't want to be holding a lot of cash right now. It doesn't seem— or maybe you would?

Like, how are you seeing it unfold? I mean, I'm gonna tell you what I do. Yeah, right, guys. I'm not a financial planner, right? I just wrote about finance for 8 years and I'm a financial nerd, but I'm not a financial planner, right? I don't want to hear later, I did what Amanda said and like I lost all my money.

Yeah.

Also, context matters, right? I have a company, it's doing well, I'm paying myself a salary, and I kind of know what to do with money. So like context also matters depending on what stage you're on. In this journey. I hate having cash in the bank. It drives me nuts. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And the personal finances, I hate it because it's there basically doing nothing, right? So literally earlier this year, I just took all the money that was sitting there that I was saving for emergencies or whatever, which I changed. A friend was like, change the name to Opportunity Fund. So I had just all this cash sitting there and I'm like, this is fucking stupid. And I just like dumped it all. Into investments. I'm like, we're starting over. So like now whatever extra cash I have, it just goes into investments. And then in terms of the business, obviously that's a little bit different type of a situation. You know, you do have savings, you do have runway because things happen, but I fucking hate looking at that cash sitting in the bank account too. I'm like, I'm like, I really just want to go put it somewhere else so I don't look at it because number one, I don't want to get comfortable. And number two, I want to use it so I could make more money.

100%. So last question on that. So when you say investments, like what are you putting it like real estate? Is that—

Yeah. So I'm in a couple of real estate syndications and syndications basically means you go in with a group of people. My family does own a couple of properties. So that's the thing that's in the net worth. And then I have an IRA that I've had since I was like 22. Oh, so here's an example where like personal finance. Might work, but then not transfer over very well. So I was always told max out your IRA. So I get to a point finally where I'm maxing out the IRA. I'm about to dump this thing, max it out by March or April of this year. And my accountant's like, "Stop." And I'm like, "What do you mean stop? I thought I was supposed to max this thing out." He goes, "You're going to make too much money and you're going to get penalized. I need you to stop putting money in that account right now. And I need you to go open up another brokerage account and go put it over there." Okay. Got you. Right? And I'm like, this is fucking insanity. It's like they don't even make it easy to build. It makes no sense to me that you would get penalized just for investing money, but I digress. That's a whole other thing. We could go into conspiracy theories. I will spare you. I have plenty of them when it comes to financial education in the United States and the financial system. So anyway, I have two retirement accounts actually, one that's an individual and one that was for self-employed. And actually that one now my first employee is going to qualify for because she's been around long enough because I have it. So now she has to have it. So that's very exciting. So I have two retirement accounts for different reasons. And then I have like a regular brokerage account. That one's like the opportunity fund. So it's not super aggressive, because if something happens, I want to be able to access it. But it's doing better than just sitting in the bank. Yeah, let's just put it that way, right? And then more recently is when I started putting like 5-ish into crypto.

Okay, got it.

Because that's like this— that's the speculative one, you know what I mean? That's like the hedge your bet speculative one.

No, no, I feel you. Um, So, so then kind of last topic is if you were to, because I saw one of the things that really stuck out, um, on your, I think it was in your bio on your website, is like, uh, yeah, it says right here, uh, her clients go from hating sales and marketing to achieving 90% close rates.

So like, crazy.

Yeah, 90% is like, so can you, what's the sales process or the persuasion, as much as you can provide? It's not like the simple—

Well, honestly, it starts with a really solid offer. You'd be surprised, like we could even work with established business owners and we have to go back and repackage and rework offers and we have to help them with their pricing for profits. That's usually a really— that's something like people don't really think about when it comes to sales. But like, if you know it's going to be a pain in the ass and you're not making enough money, you're probably not going to want to sell it.

Mm-hmm.

So we got to do that. Right? If it's not really solving problems and you're feeling unsure or unclear of how you help people and what problems you solve, which is most people, then you're not going to feel comfortable doing sales. So we really got to get clear. I do it all based on data, right? I'm like, what obstacles are in the way? Like, what problems are they having? Why haven't they fixed a problem that they know they have? What potential problems could get in the way of them investing with you? Let's figure those things out first. Right? Then let's create an offer. Let's price it the right way for profits. I do talk a lot about influence and authority because I was a writer for so long and I did do marketing for a long time. And then from there it's sales and it's everything. It's from like, how do I pre-qualify someone with an application? How do I pre-qualify them if they're in my DMs and I don't have an application or I'm at a networking event or something, right? How do we do the sales calls? How do we do closes? How do we do follow-up? And then the thing that really sets us apart from what we're hearing, number one, we go this in-depth in sales and offer creation. But number 2, a lot of people are getting training, especially in the online spaces. Like I will literally see ads where people are like, you don't have to talk to anybody to make money online. It's bullshit, complete bullshit. Especially if you're like me and you're selling things at like $15,000 price tags. Like, yeah, it's bullshit. You're going to have to talk to somebody, right? You know, or like you don't need a website. Yeah, you do. Because if a journalist, for example, is looking for you, they're going to Google you. Or if you're doing business-to-business sales, they're not going through a funnel. Like, they're going to Google you, right? So we share the different elements. And then a lot of what's going on is a lot of people are being taught inbound sales, meaning the leads are coming to them. Okay, well, if you don't have clout and you don't have authority and you're trying to figure this out for the first time and you haven't been all over the internet for 8 years like Amanda was, that's a little bit more difficult. right? So we also teach outbound sales. How do we go out and strike up conversations with people who could be potential buyers? How do we target them? How do we find them? And how do we start moving them through a sales process?

Got it. Okay. And then how do those calls— so it's a psychological thing. So it's not just the call, like there's other things that are happening before that call that like—

Oh yeah.

But how does—

Typical offer, the offer, the positioning, the authority building like that. The call I have it for, it's going to be all about authority building. So there's a lot of shit that needs to happen before I can even get you selling. Because at that point, the two biggest things that you need for sales are confidence and conviction. So we got to work through that stuff first.

Yeah, I agree. That's one of the things I learned from Grant Cardone the most. I forget—

I love Grant. Yeah, I stand, I stand for Grant. I stand for Grant. People give me so much shit about it. I'm like, listen, I have worked closely with their team. They're training my whole team right now.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, yeah. Because I do like the micro sales training with my team. Here's our particular audience, here's their blocks, here's what's in the way. But the macro is such a massive topic, right, that I was like, Grant's people just need to do this, right? And so that's kind of how we're mixing it up. And my team is loving it. And they had this idea of Grant when they see him online, like most people do. Ooh, that guy, right? And I'm like, nope, we're doing this because this guy's solid, right? He's, he's the real deal. Like, he changed my fucking life. Real deal. Like, I went from making $9,000 a month, I think, to $25,000 or something the next month from one class he did about handling objections.

Oh yeah. And like the closers back in the day.

Yeah, back— oh, I have it right here. I have a bunch of copies that they sent me, right? Yes, I literally— 1, 2, I think I have like 3 or 4 copies. They sent one for everybody. I have Seller Be Sold, another 3 or 4 copies over there that they just sent me. I've read all of them, right? But the thing is, I was kind of just doing it on my own for a while with grant stuff, like through YouTube and, and the books and that stuff, and I was doing great actually just doing that. So I'm like, if this is the cheap stuff and it's gotten me this much results, like imagine if we actually go in there and go in there as a team. So that's what we started doing this year and it's been fucking phenomenal.

And I love literally what you just said. I think we like, that should be clipped because I tell people this all the time. Like, so Grant, what he did, and he does a lot of other things, but it's like what you just said I think happens to a lot of people. If you overdeliver, like on your $27 item, whatever that exactly is, if it overdelivers to the person and they go from a $9,000 to $25,000 month just from that, the next natural thought is like, holy shit, what if I actually work one-on-one with this person? Where can I do a million a month? Like what's the—

Yeah. So we actually got, my team had been begging me for more training. I'm like, I only have so much capacity. So we actually just got the corporate version of Cardone U for the whole team. They train every day. This morning I'm like eating breakfast and like training and they're role-playing.

Nice.

With each other, right? So, and then I'll go in and work with them one-on-one on like their specific issues and then throw in my stuff into it because they're not going to work with you on your product. Like there's, there's nuances, right? A lot of the stuff they teach doesn't necessarily apply to the audience. So the idea is like they will train your team on the macro of it all and then you train your team on the micro of it all. That's how I'm using it, right? It's like meant to complement the trainings you're already doing with your team internally. But yeah, my, my, my 3-year employee, we went to their offices earlier this year for a sales execution workshop. She's like, my boss is crazy. Like, she did not like this guy from like the little bit that she had seen. She walked out a whole new woman with a completely different perspective on this whole thing.

Yeah, that's sick. Yeah.

No, it happens a lot with Grant. It happens a lot with Grant. People have like one idea and then they go in and they're like, shit.

Yeah, it just works. Yeah, so funny, I'm actually having Elena on in 2 days on the podcast.

Yeah, I'm working on her. I was just at 10X Ladies. It was one of the best events I've ever been to.

Oh, that— were you on like the, uh, the seafair?

I was on— I was on the yacht. Yep, I was on the yacht.

Yeah, that's sick. I think I saw you guys go by because my view here, I could— I see that thing go by.

Probably. You probably did. Because we passed by my old building, so we definitely passed by yours.

Yeah, like it goes down this whole coast here. Um, and one last thing I just wanted to mention, have you ever heard of— because it seems to me, so there's like sales tactics and like objections and all that, but at the core of it all, like if the offer isn't right, it's just not work.

And it's not gonna work.

That chain, like for me, it's called $100 Million Offers, Alex Hormozy. Have you seen that one floating around?

Uh, no, but I'm writing that down.

Okay, right. Yeah, yeah, this could be pretty—

I got my attention.

Yeah, read that book because what it, what it does, it teaches you like how to create like irresistible offers. And what I did after reading it, I like looked at my business and I was like, oh my God, I was like, this is why these offers like excel and why these offers don't as much. And then I just restructured all my offers. But it was like, I didn't even realize like, oh, that's why this sells like hotcakes and this one doesn't. So check it out. It'll probably help even, you know, your business and anything. So I think you'll like the book. But last thing. So this is what I'd like to do. I love the conversation. I think we hit a lot of great topics. If there's anything we didn't cover that you want to share, please do. And then last thing, just let people know, like, where can they find your website, book, socials, all that stuff?

I think the one thing, and I think you'll agree with me on this one, is one of the things I'm really seeing online lately is people like, they think there's some sort of a silver bullet, right? They're like, oh, you had your first 6-figure month. Yes, I did. And then I did a whole post on how long it's taken me to get here and all the mistakes I made and all the failures and all the pivots and like all the times I was scared to make decisions and did it anyway. So I went on this whole thing about right? And people are like, oh, there's going to be a silver bullet. There is no fucking silver bullet. Like, you just have to put in the work. Like, you have to decide what you want and then you have to put in the work to make it happen. I see a lot of people getting stuck in indecision and wishy-washiness and then not getting results, and then they wonder why they're not getting results. Or a lot of people investing in a lot of shit and then not doing what they're supposed to do.

Yeah, I agree.

Cardo, you being a great example, they told us my team, like, we did— God, I think it was something insane, like 100-something training videos in the first couple of weeks because we were just following instructions. We're like, they're going to tell us to do it, we're going to do it. Like, we're not questioning it. Like, obviously this shit works. We're diving in, right? And they're like, we've never seen that, like, ever. We've never seen a team do 120 training videos, like, before even their onboarding call. And we're like, we were just following directions. They're like, what do you mean? Like this shit costs a lot of money. Like we're diving right in. And they're like, yeah, we're lucky if we see teams do like 4 training calls before they do their first 4, yeah, 4 training videos. I'm like, that's complete fucking insanity to me. Like it doesn't make any sense, right? You know, I invested a lot of money into training programs last year, some with very specific things, like one specifically the funnel, one specifically the Facebook group, one specifically my mindset, Grant, we're probably in Grant's Kool-Aid forever. Like I told my team, we don't need anything else. Like everything we need, they already got. So we're just going to move up, right? Like we don't need to work with anybody else for where we're going. Not anymore. We got it all. And like, I immediately like dove in and started executing. And I think the secret is I don't get stuck in my fucking head about stuff. Like I just decide and go.

Yeah. And then you can pivot. Right. And that's—

and then I can pivot fast, you know.

Indecision is, I think, the biggest thing. And also what I tell people when I'm on like a sales call or if I'm just helping people, like, because similar to you, we have like high-end done-for-you services, and I'm just like, look, it's either time or money, you know what I mean? Like, look, we figured this out, so it's like, you can pay us, we can do it for you. Um, and I'm talking like, we launch books and stuff for people. That's one of the things we do. Or, you know, you can attempt to do it yourself, but you could waste years. You know, like I've been doing it for 11 years. I've been doing this since I was 19 years old. So it's like, yeah, and it's up to you. And what's crazy is like, you know, a lot of people will choose to try to save money, but in reality, in the long term, they're actually losing money.

And that's the personal finance shit that doesn't work in business, right? You have to know, you have to know which one to apply where, right? Which brings me to the second thing I want to say, discernment is important, people, right? Discernment matters, right? I hear stories every fucking day from people who spent— women mostly, because we mostly work with women— who spent tens of thousands of dollars and nobody taught them how to sell, right? And I'm like, what the fuck is going on out here? It's either like really slick marketing, but sometimes— not always, but sometimes— it's kind of like a— there's like a little bit of lack of discernment going on online. Fine as well. And I'm not— again, that's not any of my clients. They're fine. They know what they need to do. But I— these are just the stories that I hear all the time. And I'm like, if people were a little bit more discerning about the decisions that— if they commit to a decision and then back it up with action, and they're more discerning about the decisions that they make, that's how you get to a 6-figure month, guys. Like, exactly. I've only been burned like once, I think, right, on a service provider that didn't come through. And I don't really fucking care because I know how to sell and replenish the income. I was mad about it for 2 minutes.

You know what, and totally just to kind of highlight this even more, the way I view things, and like, it's funny, my, my contracts or agreements, they're like 5 sentences long. Really? I actually paid a lawyer to write me one up and it was like 17 pages. And And why I don't use it is because I'm like, I wouldn't sign this myself. So like, if I don't believe in it, then, you know, so either way, but in today's world, we're all so connected that like, even at 5, 6 figures, if the deal is that big, and I understand you want to have something in writing, totally get all that. But at the same time, I always just think to myself, I'm like, if this person screws me over, like, not that I would do this necessarily, but I'm like, I'm like, dude, we all know so many people. Like, I've interviewed almost 2,000 people. Like, you do realize if you screw me over, if I wanted to, I could press one button and like 5,000 people, you know, clients and pod— would all know about it.

Would all know about it. Yeah.

Do we even need agreements anymore? Like, in my opinion, I almost think we don't because it's like you'd be shooting yourself in the foot.

I don't know. I mean, there's, there was this really interesting, actually it's going on this week. There's a really interesting thing going on online where like everybody's canceling everybody. And then there's a very well-known internet marketer who's like one of the OGs and people tried to cancel her this week. But, but this is what I mean about discernment, right? It's both. It's like, it's, it's multiple skills we're talking about here, right? Trust your gut, people, right? Trust your gut, commit and do the action. And, but there's, they tried to cancel her this week. She had an ad in the beginning of the ad. I'm just going to say who it is. It's already out there. Public. It's Amy Porterfield. And I didn't hear about this.

I know.

Oh yeah. So there's this whole thing going on right now. And this would be an example of people jumping the gun because she had an ad that said, oh, I made an extra 6 figures with 2 emails. And that's how the ad started, of course, to grab your attention. Anybody who knows copy knows that, right? So I guess it started circulating because this person was like, this is so unethical. Here's like the list size that you need for that. They don't fucking talk about that, blah, blah, blah. Whereas if you just clicked on read more, They did actually talk about all that.

Yeah, right.

So that would be an example. Discernment, y'all. Read, right? Um, and because, you know, and so there's— it's just there's a lot going on, and people— there's astrological shit going on too that could have something to do with all that. But we— that's a whole other podcast.

Well, I'll have to have you on again. I'm unsure about that stuff, but some, some people believe it. It's so—

oh no, it's fucking real, man. It's fucking real. Yeah.

All right, we're gonna have to—

oh, I'm starting to check that shit like I check the weather. I'm like, man, everyone's real fucking aggressive this last week. And then, but like, they're aggro— some of the things they're aggressive about aren't even real, right? And like, that situation, I'm like, oh, so Mars is in Libra, which is all about justice, and Mars is the planet of fighting, and Neptune is in Pisces, which is all about deception and dream world and people not thinking logically. There you go. Like No, I literally—

so there's actually this girl that I follow on Instagram and YouTube, and she like predicts the Bitcoin price by like a chart, like what you're talking about. And like, I'm not even kidding, like historically she's been like correct like almost every time. Like, it's so—

she's like, Bitcoin in 2020. Yeah, no, in 2020 I started checking that shit like I checked the weather.

Yeah, so it seems, it seems accurate is all I can say. So But yeah, and everybody's interesting to it, like, really believes it. And that's when I think to myself, I'm like, if you're that confident, going back to Cardone, like, if you have that conviction, that sells me, that, like, it makes me curious, you know? Like, why are you so convinced? And if you are, tell me why. I'm curious.

Oh man, I started really following it in 2020. There's this guy called the Leo King. Holy shit, that guy's crazy accurate. He's— you can go back to old videos and he called everything. That was happening last year, this year. Like, it's insane. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, they say the White House still has— they say the White House still has, you know, astrologers.

Yo, this is amazing. All right, we're gonna have to have you back on.

We're gonna have to actually meet in person because we're practically neighbors.

Oh yeah, you have to do that. That's a given. Um, and hey, maybe we keep that to ourselves. The audience doesn't get, uh—

yeah, the audience doesn't need to know that one. That's too valuable. We're not giving that up. Maybe we'll do Maybe.

But, um, but so tell the website and everything. How can people—

Yeah, so you could go to amandabea.com. It's spelled A-B as in boy, E-L-L-A dot com. You could also go to makemoneyyourhoney.com. It goes to the same place. We have a podcast. It's pretty dope. Trying to get Grandelena on, working on it, right? I have a plan. I have a strategy, right, to make that happen. And yeah, you can find everything there. If you want to learn more about our sales training program, persuade2profit.com. And, uh, go find me on Instagram. I'm there all day long, @amandabea.

Perfect. Thank you again so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me.