Steven Pemberton : TRAUMA TO TRIUMPH | The Tyler Wagner Show #1089

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Steven Pemberton with us. So welcome to the show, man.

Thank you so much, Tyler Wagner, for having me today.

Of course, grateful to have you and love the poster in the background there. If you can just start us off a little bit more about you and what you do.

So for those of you who just said it, Steven Pemberton is my name and virtual events is my game. And the way that we got there is a long story. I'm sure we'll dive into it. The, I'm most known for having created two different e-commerce stores that did $1 million in revenue apiece. That's what I'm known for nowadays. It's the virtual event side, building out the infrastructure for our clients to be able to put on their events. And that means we are everything and anything when it comes to events. We do it all to make sure a client can just stand up on their stage. Whether it's virtually in a Zoom room or in person, and be able to put on their virtual events. But that's the quick synopsis.

Okay, that's awesome. And so how did you— like, what were you doing before this? How did you like— I guess, did you stumble across this or like, how did you do your— what was it like doing your first million? Like, how did you have success with that one?

So that is— man, that's a— there's so much backstory.

We got time. Answer, guy.

Yeah. Well, the reason why I say that is because it wasn't as if I grew up in this household where it was a household of entrepreneurs and I was just like the next generation down. There's some people that I've talked to that that's their story, where it was their great-grandfather had a business and it was successful, so then their grandfather had one and then their dad had one, and then so they had one. For me, it was not that way. Both my parents were in a job for over 30 years. They actually both just retired. My dad finally retired last year. It's been beautiful. For me is that was what I grew up in. It was that go to college, go get a degree, go work a job until you're like 95 and then retire. And if you can make $100K a year, you are making it. And that just never resonated with me. That was not really the path for me. I mean, there's so many things that I did, I guess, against the grain. I got married really young. I was married at 20. My wife was 19. We had a kid 6 months later. I mean, I went into business with her. We lost everything really quick. And because we had no skills, no finances, ended up in a basement. Like there's so many different parts that lead up to that million that it's because the million in short form was we did it on Amazon. We were selling stuff on Amazon and doing different e-commerce techniques, doing Amazon. And then it went from at the end of 2019, made $1 million in top line sales, but the margins were terrible. I was still working in a corporate job. I was in a corporate job for like 5 and a half years. But that's the first million was interesting because I didn't play as big a part. For me, I was in the supply chain logistics, so I was able to give my two cents and kind of help her, help and direct her. But my wife was really the main, the main one who did that. Now, the second million, that was the one where I was fully involved, and that one was where our margins were closer to like 30, 34%, if I remember correctly. That one was a lot better. And so that one, we actually got to live the life we wanted to instead of $100,000 with 6 employees and 19,000 transactions. That's wild.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what was it? Okay, so it was Amazon and just kind of like, I guess not that it's normal, but in some regard I think it is like the first one's complete failure. You lose everything. You learn a lot though from it and then it all turns around. But what, um, is it a particular product that you're selling, or, uh, what, or what are they? What are some of the products that you are selling?

Yeah, so we actually don't sell anymore now. We just help other people be able to do their stuff. But when we were selling, it was for Amazon. It was actually beauty. So that's one niche that most people don't think of when they go on Amazon. I just talked to a gentleman the— I think it was last, last week, and he got on Amazon and he contacted me and was asking me some questions about His stuff, because he spent $5,000, he's made one sale, and that was to his mom. And so he's trying to figure out, what do I do now? I've got $5,000 worth of inventory. I didn't know how to do market research. I didn't know how to do product research. Now I'm just kind of stuck with it. What do I do? And one of the big things that we did was in the beauty market was being different. And what I mean by that is we didn't create a product. Most people are like, they, most people think I'm going to either wholesale it. I'm gonna buy a bazillion of this one thing that I know sells really well and sell it, or I'm gonna make my own. And both of those are very expensive options. And I don't know about— I like, for that guy, he was working a 9-to-5 and had saved up $5,000 to be able to make his product, and he didn't have a good strategy to sell it. So for us, as we did retail arbitrage, but in a way that was scalable, and we would actually go look on, let's say Macy's. I'll use Macy's. This is a good example. And there would be a certain type of face wash that was a high seller on Amazon and it'd be on sale. So we would buy a certain amount of those, we'll say 10, but then that same brand would be running sales on other things that would go really well with it. And what we would do is we would buy the other products that would go well with it, the complementary products, and then we would bundle it all together, put it on Amazon at a higher price than all 3 of them together. And that's how we were able to make sales and higher margins. But that was the one space that most people don't look at because they think it's really hard to break into, or you got to buy a whole bunch of them. But it's just about how you market and it's just about the strategy that you use. But that was that one. When we pivoted away from Amazon onto Facebook, Instagram, and Shopify, that was the one where we did all home decor. So that was rugs, pillowcases, that was couches, shelves, all that kind of stuff. And that one was more So that one was more like private label dropshipping. We did more dropshipping with that one, and that was much easier for us because we did not have to do as much inventory, as much putting it all together, putting it in boxes, sending it in. And that one, that was the one where it was again just about the right strategy and the right time and speaking to the right who. But that was the, the second store.

Gotcha. Interesting. So I, I have never heard of that strategy. I like that. So you guys were literally Finding things because, you know, and for people that are listening, it's like on Amazon, and most, most people that use Amazon probably are aware of this, but when you buy something on the bottom somewhere, like, I'll show you other products that go with it. Um, and so you were finding those and then you're actually creating your own, your own product in a sense that it just included all of those. That's actually, wow. I haven't heard of that strategy. I mean, in a sense it's so basic, but a lot of times the most basic things are the most profound, you know, like they, they work the best. So, okay. And then because it, I guess you were almost charging like a convenience charge, that's how you were able to charge more and kind of get away with it because it's a, it, it kind of is a convenience charge. Like even though Amazon's recommending those things, you know, people don't necessarily know that they want them before and it's multiple different purchases. Whereas with yours it's just, it's in a basket or whatever. It's just one. Interesting. Okay. And then you get— how do you decide? I understand that formula, but then like the rugs and stuff like that, like how do you decide which products to sell or which, like which ones are good and which ones aren't good?

So the way that that happened, so when we went away from Amazon, because Amazon had shut us down at a certain point in time, and with Amazon they were holding $58,000 of our money, plus we had another $35K of inventory sitting in the garage. And when that happens, that with Amazon, for people who don't understand what that means is that they actually hold your money forever and ever. It's not after a certain amount of time or after, in just in case there's a return window. And then once that's covered, you get your money back. Amazon doesn't play that game. They just keep your money. And that is very detrimental when you are a small business owner and that's basically all your capital. And the only way to get it back is to hire a legal team to go and fight on your behalf to get it back. So in that time and place, after we had hired that team, we were trying to do anything and everything. We were trying to liquidate, we were trying to do— we're just trying to find someone to buy our stuff for the most part. And we weren't able to find anybody. And the people that we did find, there was things that we bought for $40, they would give us $5. And so we wouldn't have made back our cost anyways. And what we ended up doing was with Facebook, Facebook was first, and then we added on Instagram and Shopify later. But Facebook was different than Amazon. It's not the same thing just because you can sell the same products. And what we found was we put on those beauty bundles and things like that on Facebook. People did not register that it was new to them, so they didn't want to take the chance. I don't know, it just didn't do as well. So when we started posting home decor, that got, that got almost immediate traction. And, and what I mean by almost immediate is within the first 30 days, we were able to make $5,000 profit selling home decor. And once we saw, oh wait, this is something that works, it's evergreen because all you have to do is keep selling those things all year round and you got your seasonal things you can sprinkle in there. That's when what we would do, because we didn't have to hold the inventory, is we were able to list different things just for a certain amount of time and see, okay, how many views is this getting? How many sales is it getting? Is it worth it? Is it not worth it? Then we're able to either take the listing down Or if it was gaining sales, we could just keep the listing up because we didn't have to keep the physical inventory.

Gotcha. Okay. So it is kind of like, I mean, there is some research involved, but it is trial and error in a sense too. Got it. And then, so now you are, you've stopped doing it yourself and you're helping others do it. I think, you know, and just like you've shared with your own stories and maybe you can't name these people or maybe you can, it's up to you, but Can you share like maybe 2 stories of people that you've helped, like where they were before and then, you know, you help them and then where they are currently with their stores?

Yeah. So it was very interesting as these are kind of 2 simultaneous verticals at the same time. And the vertical with the e-commerce stuff was actually not the one that we expected to go into because we have been running virtual events for coaches, consultants, authors for the last year. So that one has had a lot. I'll give you an example is we have a client right now who's, he's about to run a 1,000-person event. So, so that would be, and that's gonna be his first one. So he went from no event to a 1,000-person event. That's a big deal. And that is really cool. Now with the e-commerce stuff, these are people who the, especially there's one gentleman, he came along and I was not planning on doing it. And he said, hey, I heard that you did this in the past. Can you help me? And I said, this is— I just came up with a number. I said, this is what it would cost. And he said, hey, I'll pay it. And I said, oh, I was surprised. I was like, okay. And that's when I started working with him. And it's been a learning curve to say the least, going from doing it yourself to showing somebody else to do it because there's that variable of somebody else. And with, and so with him, And with that gentleman is there for a moment, we were working together. I was sitting there and I was working with him, consulting him, looking over his store, making sure everything was working really well. We get to the point where he wants to start running Facebook ads. Great. We sit down, I help him integrate his pixels. I help him do all of his campaigns, everything to start launching. I'm sitting there and he goes radio silent for a couple of weeks. I started looking at his stuff. He's not running anything. I asked him what he's doing. He said he's still working on the ads when I can see he's not. And I'm just like, dude, you paid me and I'm trying to help you. And so with that one, is that one still up in the air? We're trying to see where that's going. There's another gentleman, his is, we are just getting started with him. So I haven't had too many clients when it comes to that. That's why it's not widely advertised. The main thing is the virtual event side. But with him is he already has a flourishing storefront. And that one I'm very interested because I think we can scale that one really quickly. Another one is there's actually a local ministry here who they They are so widely known that they were able to make $500,000 in 3 days and off of selling apparel. So with us is we're actually coming in to consult them on how to set up, because they're really great at launching, but they're just not great at sustaining. So with us, we're going to come in, help them flesh out their storefront. We're going to come in and help build out their entire warehousing structure so that way they can sustain after the launch. And that's probably the most exciting project on that side that we have going on.

Gotcha. So, and for the virtual events, and apologies if I missed this, 'cause the e-commerce thing, that makes sense. Like that's like natural progression. Yeah. But the virtual events, how did you, like, how'd you find yourself in that space again?

Yeah. So we didn't talk about that. So, good, good.

Okay.

You didn't miss it. No, you're good. You didn't miss it because it, for most people they say, okay, I'm tracking with you, but now I'm not tracking with you because it is. It's something that it doesn't make a ton of sense. It's like, how do you have success and then you decide to go way over here? In March of last year, we were doing really well. It was something that had taken me out of a corporate job. I was sitting there able to travel to Disney World and Disneyland in 2021. I was able to help. We were able to help 170 underprivileged kids have Christmas, all these things that were beautiful and we loved it, but we felt like that wasn't the space we were supposed to be in. And which sounds wild, but it was. And the reason why I say that is, for me, is integrity and character is a big thing for me. And one of the things when you're sitting there and you in e-commerce, it just wasn't the business that I loved. I didn't love it. Uh, there we were making money and we were able to help people with it, but I did not feel fulfilled by it. It was something that I didn't feel like I was helping anybody by selling them pillowcases and rugs and stuff. I just wasn't like, I don't know about you, but it's like if I sent you a pillowcase, you would be like, Stephen, you changed my life by sending me this pillow. It's like, well, I don't think—

if it was, you know, the MyPillow ads.

Yes.

If it was, apparently those do change your life. But other than that, I agree with you.

And I think that that's where— so for us is we ended up saying, okay, what have we done? So we had already been running challenges for ourselves. We'd already done some virtual events for ourselves. We had a mastermind that was teaching people how to do what we did. And that's when we just decided, all right, the mastermind that we were running, the people weren't— the people were getting good results. But the thing was, is because a lot of their success was due to the same thing as Amazon. Facebook has this crazy algorithm that could get you a lot of sales if you know how to utilize it, but you're also at the mercy of the platform. So for some reason that platform says, hey, we're just going to look over your stuff today and then we'll let you start selling again tomorrow. It doesn't seem like a big deal to most people to get a security check done on your profile to make sure everything's good. But when you're doing 200 to 300 orders a day, that's a lot of money that you lose. So I— that happened to us more than once, and I was seeing that happen to our students where they had tied up money in inventory as far as like they had sales that they had to fulfill, but then now they were shut down for a day. And I just saw them getting so stressed and getting so worried that I just thought, I don't think I want to keep doing that. And that's why even, even now, the stuff that we teach people is strictly on Shopify and using the other branches, Facebook, Instagram, Google, as just that, as branches instead of just use Amazon, just use Facebook, because those platforms, you're at the mercy of that platform. And that's a very detrimental place to be if they ever make a change, because you have no say. And in that time and place, once we decided to pivot away, we did start with some e-commerce stuff. We were going to do brick and mortar stores, brick and mortar chains, and help them come online and build out their storefront and all that stuff. But when we got our first client, pretty much immediately after, that was A, didn't charge enough, and B, B was it was a ton of work because we were doing everything, building the store, putting all the products on, building all the graphics, taking all the pictures. We are doing everything, building all the ads, running all the ads, spending the ads. We ate the ad spends. It just wasn't enough. It wasn't enough money. We were cannibalizing ourselves. And in that space where it's like, are we gonna keep doing this? Because you had to have an irresistible offer. So we had an irresistible offer that was so irresistible that I didn't even want it. And that's when I hated it. I hated that offer. So I said, I'm not doing this. And there was a lady came to us and she said, hey, I know that you don't run events for anybody. I know you guys specialize in e-commerce, but I've spent $10,000 with a consultant. And I'm no further along than I was when I started. I know that you've done some events in the past. Can you just help me? Can you just help me put my first one on? And so we did. We helped her and we watched her. In a matter of about a week, we were able to build all of her stuff that she needed. She was able to get 10 people in her first event, and out of those 10 people, she was able to find some strategic partnerships to help teachers in classrooms. And I thought, cool. So she got some success that she was looking for. It wasn't crazy difficult. The margins were much higher. We didn't eat ad spend. So I thought we might have something. And so that's when, that's when we started get down that track and down that path. And that's when we started finding more clients to do that. And now this is that full transition of how we got to this point. And yeah, for most people, they, they hear it's like, why would you not just stay on the e-commerce path? I think that there's been One is B2C. So you have that direct-to-consumer, and then you have B2B, which is the space I'm in now. It's two radically different things. And B2C is great, but unless you have the right strategy and are ready to weather the storms once you start scaling those kind of brands, if you're ready to weather highs, lows, a gentleman who's a friend of mine, he did $10 million in a year. He spent $3 million in ad spend. So the thing is, is $3 million in ad spend, are you willing to spend that? Like, are you actually willing? That's not including his actual shipping costs in any of that. Are you, are you able to stomach that kind of movement, that kind of volatility? And so for us being in the B2B space, you get a sale, your margins are so much higher. And for me is I'm able to actually expedite how much impact a person can make. So now this is somebody that I can work with. They're already helping people and I can help them help more people. Instead of just help them make more money. And I think that that's a big shift for me just because that's, that's more along the, of the same alignment of who I am.

Yeah, man, I, um, I agree. It's so interesting with the, the ad spend stuff. You really do— it's such a tricky thing because it's not— there's so many variables. Like with the B2B stuff, you know, it's a lot of partnerships and referrals and stuff. It's just, it's it's way cleaner and just easier. And really there's not many variables. It's just like, do you have what my client wants? And if so, I will refer you my client or I'll promote your stuff to my list or whatever. Whereas with the ads, I even like, most of our business is B2B too. Um, and I tried the funnels, the ads when I was younger, I tried all that stuff and I obviously it can work. I mean, your friend is a testament of that. There's many people that are testaments of it, But I always just found it so unbelievably difficult because if one thing was off, then the whole thing was off. Meaning it could be, you know, the funnel's 3 pages. It's a very short 3-page funnel.

Yeah.

The Facebook ad creative, you have the targeting you have, and there's, so there's like, let's say realistically 20, 30 different variables. If one variable is off, then the whole thing's broken. Yep. And it's like, dude, and then, you know, you have like heat maps, you have tracking to find like what is the thing that's off? And I'm like, dude, I don't want to freaking do this, man. Like, it's such a— it really takes a certain type of brain to like, actually, like, some people enjoy it. They're like, oh, it's like a puzzle. Like, where— I'm not one of those people. I just want to create good products and services, talk to people, you know, sell things and have a good time. Just— but so regardless, getting— the reason I bring all that up is the $3 million spend, the— and I don't know for sure, but maybe you can give more detail. My guess is like, you know, the first million was not a testing budget, but some of it was, right? So the stomaching of the storm, if you will, is like you need to be willing to spend, let's just say in that scenario, $300,000 to $500,000 without actually making a return really. Like you're probably in the red and just having this knowing or hope that later you'll figure it out and then it will be in the green. And most people, are not willing to risk that much money to like have a chance later on, you know.

Yeah, and that's one of those things that— so when we first pivoted away from doing e-commerce ourselves and we were helping brick and mortar stores, there was a lady who came along and this is, you know, I'll bring it all together, is this lady came to us and she was selling designer handbags. She had a great supplier in Japan and she had paid somebody $30,000 and they had made her one sale because, and the thing is, is if somebody hearing that's like, well, she got scammed, obviously that was a ripoff, but it wasn't because she, she got what she paid for. And what I mean by that is she wanted to be branded. She wanted brand awareness. So with everyone here is, oh, you gotta be a brand. You gotta build a personal brand. You gotta build a brand. And the thing is, is if you're gonna build a brand and you're gonna try to compete with Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola has a multimillion, if not a billion-dollar ad spend. So the thing is, is when you're sitting there trying to brand yourself against Louis Vuitton, against Chanel, you are going to spend astronomical amount of money to just try to compete. And that's what this lady had done. And she didn't understand why she had only made one sale. It's like, because your strategy was to just get in front of as many people as possible. And that's what brand awareness is, is just people understand. Oh yeah, because Coca-Cola pays just for you to know that they're there. Not for you to actually buy it. Like, I know Coca-Cola exists just because I see them on the TV or I'll see an ad on YouTube. And that's, that's one of those big things, especially with that gentleman that I was just talking about. You're right. It's like the first couple hundred thousand, if not up to a half a million, is spent just to get his brand in front of people. Just to, and for most people, if you can't stomach the stock market going up and down, you are not going to be able to stomach ad spend where your return on ad spend is like negative. And you've spent, for most people, even once you spend the first $1,000, if the first $1,000 doesn't equate to sales, they're thinking, oh, now I obviously messed up somewhere. This, yeah, turn everything off. Everything sucks. Then you're sitting there trying to figure out what part of it sucked. Was it my, was it my campaign? Like you said, was it the targeting? Was it that creative? And then you've got like 12 creatives. So you're trying to figure out which one of them sucked. And it's like, oh man, it's a lot. Now for me, I love it. Like I love the game. Like you said, that's my thing. But at the same time, for most people it's not. And this is where you get into some murky waters. There's people, there's a company that when we decided to be in virtual events that they were talking to us about helping us in the beginning. And because they were a friend of ours and they were talking about how they could help with ads. And I was sitting there because I'd already run thousands of dollars worth of ads. So I knew what I was looking at. And they said, we can help you for $300 a month, get in front of 14,000 people. And I was, and I thought, interesting. The thing is, is that, that is possible to get in front of 14,000 people for $300. You can do that with a brand awareness campaign, but how many of those actually convert? If the answer is, well, we can't tell you that it's based on blah, blah, blah. It's like, so it does not matter how many impressions I get if you're just putting it in front of everyone to get good vanity metrics that look good. And that's where, again, if you're spending the money, The, when you spend that kind of money up front, even if it's $300 a month, if you get 100,000 views in a year, if it does, if it converted to 10 sales and you spent $3,000, $4,000 to not actually reach anybody when you could have niched in more, found the right targeting, spent the time and save some money and just found the 3 or 4. And especially if you do it, if it's B2B, especially like you said, referrals, partnerships, joint ventures, that's the better way to go. It's a better way to spend your time. It's a better way to spend your money.

Yeah, I, um, it's so, it's just wild. I, I remember my first time I tried to, cause I was one of those people, like, I don't even know, 9, 10 years ago with the Facebook ads. Like I, I started a campaign and it wasn't converting. I spent around $1,000 and then I was like, stop everything. It's not working. It's broke. And in reality, The truth is, like, maybe that was true, but I also think back and I'm like, maybe if I let it run to $5,000, maybe it isn't true. You know, like, you don't, you don't know. But I do know for sure most people cut off their ad campaigns way too soon, and that's because they can't stomach it like we're getting at here. So, but I don't want to necessarily, like, advocate for keeping it on for too long either, because then you can just burn all your money.

Exactly. You're in such murky waters when it comes to ads. That's why, for the people listening, Go see what can you do organically. Even for our clients, when it comes to virtual events, is how do we fill their events organically? Because the thing is, is you may be able to form partnerships, form joint ventures to get those people into the events where that's something you can do even further down the road too. And it's not gonna cost you an arm and a leg. And with ads, there's so many different pieces that you can't listen to a snippet of this podcast and say, well, they said that I just need to let my ads run. I only got $5,000 to my name, so I'm just gonna let my $5,000 go out the window. And if you're, if your tech isn't set up right, like my tech on our, on my first event ever, I spent $1,100 and got 9 people into it because my pixel wasn't set up right. And every time somebody clicked on the link, it would send them to a funnel page that was broken, but I didn't know how to check any of that. So I wasted $1,100. So I'm just gonna let it run. And so I was letting it run and all this stuff was broken. So you can't just take one snippet and say, hey, I'm gonna do it this way. You have to do— if that's something that interests you, do your research, actually dive in, figure it out. But understand that if it is B2B, there's better methods than the ones that a lot of the gurus are talking about right now with advertising. You can do it organically and it actually be a thing where if you're a good person and can just genuinely help the other person and their clients, you're gonna go further faster.

Yeah, I, I agree with everything, man. Uh, I'm curious too, what else, um, Or what's like the longer term vision here? Like, so I mean, you're doing these two types of consulting, e-com and these virtual events. Is there anything else? And are you still, I'm assuming so, but like you and your wife are still together?

Oh yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I wasn't quite just cuz you guys obviously went through some, some tough times there, I guess in the beginning, but it ended up working out. Yeah. So, okay. But what's, do you got, what's your guys' longer vision or is it just scaling this or is there other things you guys are gonna go after? Like business-wise, I mean.

Yeah, yeah. So great question. I know that with this business, what's very interesting, especially for us being a done-for-you service— so for us, we build every single thing, we build every single piece and manage it— was especially in the beginning, in the first few months, I was sitting there thinking, and even for a few months ago, I could never find competition that did the same thing. Anytime that I would sit there and try to do market research on who's my competition, I couldn't find them because most people, they've built a SaaS company or they've built some kind of platform and they do AI or whatever it may be. And then what's very funny is there's a gentleman who is doing it at a high level in my own city. I didn't know that. And I actually know his brother and I thought hilarious. So I'm sitting there looking through his stuff and this is, and this is, this is completely transparent for everyone listening is I'm sitting there and I'm looking at him and he's got the Two Comma Club Award from ClickFunnels. He's making a lot of money. But behind the scenes, I'm talking to his brother and his brother's talking about how he really hates how much he has to travel. He really hates having to fly out to every single one of these events, help these, these coaches put on their events. He doesn't like it because he, he has to be tied to something. And when I sit there and I think for us, because the reason why he is tied to it is he has audiovisual, so he has to fly out and put up all the speakers, screens, all that stuff. We don't do that. So for me is how do we scale this? In a way that is sustainable and I can duplicate myself so that way I don't have to be in it. I can overview it and make sure everything's running efficiently. And that's what the future looks like is right now. The immediate future is just, as you said, signing more joint ventures, finding more partnerships. That way we can have a steady flow of lead generation coming in and then narrowing it down to where I can duplicate myself. So I'm not having to stretch thin and then I can look forward into the future. Because I think that a lot of times people in the B2B will start constructing strategic plans on where they want to be in a 3-year run, 5-year run, whatever it is, 10 years down the road. And the thing is, is you don't actually know that there's anything could happen. We could hit the debt ceiling tomorrow and everything change. So with that being said, is how do you plan 10 years down the road? You don't know. Like if you would ask me this question 2 years ago, I'd say, oh, well, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to be scaling this e-commerce store to $10 million and This is where I'll be and be doing that. It's like, but I'm not there anymore. So for me is what can I do in the immediate? And yeah, I would, I have vision for down the road, but I want to have vision for right now. What am I doing right now to move me towards that vision? And I think that that's the main thing is joint ventures, partnerships, and then duplication. So I don't have to like from, because we're, we're down to a two-man team where, because I can do it, I can do it. My wife can do it. We can do it together instead of having. 4 employees like we did with the last store. And then it's about hiring the right people, duplicating it out so that way we can scale. Because right now it's still more in that startup phase because it's a year, year and some change in. But once you duplicate, then there's the scalability. What does it look like? What do the margins look like? But that's the immediate future.

Yeah, I agree. And I think with like technology and stuff, it's like really, it's hard to predict anything past like a year or two because you just don't, I mean, AI could advance 100x in a year and then who the hell knows what that even is. You know? So, but yeah, man, here, last thing I wanna do and actually, and I'll, I'll send this to you after the fact. But so I run two companies, one's in the author space, but the other one's literally called Infinite Partnership System. So, It's just so funny because our mindsets are so similar and like the way we've grown our companies, like literally that what that other company does is we go into businesses and we help find them partners to scale their company. Like that's what it is. So just odd that that's your exact strategy. And, and it, and again, going back kind of full circle, it's the most basic str— like practical strategy. But I feel like— and I'm not saying anything bad because I, I think these guys are great— but I think with the whole like ClickFunnels, Facebook, like all that stuff, what it— it did a lot of amazing things, but it also I think took a lot of people off track in the sense of like they forgot about basic business. Just like, like referral, just pick up the phone, talk to people, like, like door hangers, flyers. Like, I know it's like old school, but like Shit works. Like it still works. So again, I love, I, I'm a ClickFunnels user. I think all of it's great. It's just, it's not a substitute in my opinion.

Yeah.

It, it's just an addition. And I think the sh— the, what's a shame is people I think are, think of it as a substitute. So yeah, regardless.

Absolutely. I think that, that, like, I would love to, to jump in on that part just real quick because the, I see it all the time with people around me, especially when they're getting into businesses. They're like, I need a website. I need, I need all these different things. I need all these technological pieces to be able to have a successful business. And those are pieces that you should have, but do you need it in the beginning? No. And the one thing— I actually have a friend who lives in town who, they are very successful. The business has been around for 13 years, done really, really well. And their main source of lead generation is door knocking. They knock on doors. Love it. And they have commission-based salespeople that knock on doors. Still to this day. So the thing is, is back in the day, I'm talking about back in the day, sales used to be closed over a handshake. If you used to say, hey, I'm gonna buy this piece of land. Okay, great. Shake on it. When you shake on it, that means that you're giving your word that you're gonna do it. And we've gone away from that instead of having that human to human where it's like, go through my 18-step funnel and this is gonna push everybody and then everyone's gonna buy. But that personal touch of being able to talk to someone, being able to interact with them, being able to listen to their story, get to know them. Them get to know you. That's because at the end of the day, this is something for people who are looking for venture capital, because I know some big-time investors, is they, they don't bet on the business. They actually will bet on the person. And because they are going to buy into the person, buy into the story. There's a gentleman who he's helped raise over $1 billion in venture capital for his 61 startups, helped one exit for $400 million, the lowest for $15 million. He said it himself. He said, I invested on a project whenever the owner came up and he said that he, him and his wife sold their house and put all their money into the business. He said, as soon as they said that part, he stopped the entire meeting and said, you've got my money because they were willing to go all in. And going all in sometimes is just building that personal relationship. And yeah, I love what you're saying. I 100% agree. Partnerships is that way. All those things, joint ventures is, hey, We're agreeing to do business and this is what the terms of the agreement look like. And for the people that are just like, well, yeah, but I need the tech stuff. I need the ads. It's like, then that's fine. You can find all that stuff and that stuff is great, but it should not be a substitute. It should be a supplement. And again, I love what you're saying.

Yeah, dude, I agree in that. It's so, dude, I love hearing that the door knocker stuff, because like, dude, it's still, it's just still works. Like we're actually, Next week we're starting a campaign of door hangers and door knockers. And this is for like people, if they want to write books, you know what I mean? Like it's not about like painting a hat. Like, so what do I think? Like conversions are going to be like through the roof? Like probably not. But at the end of the day, we're target— like we're starting in Dallas, Texas. We're targeting like wealthy neighborhoods, like $1 million homes plus. Yep. It's 40,000 of them. You can, you can find all this data. And then we have a whole field team going out, leaving door hangers saying like, do you, have you ever thought about becoming an author? Like we can guarantee you bestseller. Like, and it's worded better, but it's, you know, I'm like, dude, and it's gonna, it won't cost it. Like if we get one client from the 40,000 homes, it pays for itself. Cause we're like high ticket. So I'm like, and there's no other book publishing company out there I know that's doing that type of marketing. No. So I'm like, dude, we're gonna, it's going, I, I, if it doesn't work, then something is seriously wrong. I don't know.

Yeah, I agree. Because I mean, especially if you're looking in Dallas, you've got like Keller, Texas right there, which is a big one. You've got Southlake, which is a big one. Southlake is very affluent. And the thing is, is that people want to tell their story and just being able to sit there and give them an avenue, give them a venue to do that. I couldn't— I cannot see a reason why you do not do really well with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, And sometimes I think people, uh, especially with like book stuff, for— because it's like a big deal for people. Yeah, like writing a book is— it takes— sometimes it takes years, you know? It's like a big part of somebody's life. So my thought is like, for some people, I think they'll see it as like literally a sign. Like, they'll be like, oh, I've been wanting to write a book, this is on my door now, I'm gonna do it with this company. Like, this is the time to do it. So I don't know, I just think you gotta find ways to market that it's not even like competition. Like, so I'm I'm not even trying to compete. I'm just trying to find an avenue actually that there is no competition. Yeah. Door hangers, oddly enough, is the avenue. So yeah, let's—

yeah. And I know multiple publishers, some of them big, been in business for, for decades. They don't do that. They don't. And that's, that's a big— again, I love what you're saying because so often it's like, how do, how can I beat out the competition? It's like, why not just look for an ocean where there isn't any? And, and the— exactly, a blue ocean. And most of the time people want to jump in the red ocean because they can see a million people doing the same thing, getting the, getting results, and they're like, yeah, I got to do that. But the thing is, is that there is a market in the blue ocean, and if you can find that space— and typically you find it, which you can correct me if I'm wrong, but typically you look at other industries and see how they do things instead of just your industry, and that's what gives you ideas for things to just try in your own. And that's where the biggest breakthroughs can come through, come from.

Yeah, oddly enough, and I didn't really realize it until you said that, but when I— my first business I ran was like 13 years ago, was before this current business, um, and it was a, uh, a painting company, right? So it was actually— yeah, it was like a franchise. It was called Student Painters. It was like pitched to me at my college, and it was like own your own company, and it— you kind of do, but they kind of manage it with you. Regardless, it's, it's a good kind of like step forward into entrepreneurial land or whatever. So, but what the way we marketed is you hired college students to go door to door and leave door hangers, and then, uh, people would call for a free estimate, and then you'd go, and then you, you would go around, like, point out all, like, the flaws in the painting on the exterior of the house, give them a quote, and then sometimes you close a deal, right? And, like, I think I was, like, 18, 19, or something like that, and we did $70 grand in a summer. And to me, that was mind-blowing, um, at the time. And like, so either way, it's like, okay, like you were saying, you look at other industries, so it's like you wouldn't think book publishing, door hanger, door knock, but for painting a house, that's more obvious. Yeah, that's— that is, thinking back now, that is where I got the idea. I just didn't really— I didn't connect it till now, but that is how I even thought of it, because if not, I wouldn't have probably even considered it, you know, because I— but I've literally done it before and I know that it worked for that. So You know, I don't know. Either way, I wanna leave the floor to you, brother. We could riff on, I think marketing mindset-wise, we're very on the same page. So that, that's awesome. So I wanna leave the floor to you though. If there's anything we didn't cover that you wanna share, please do. And then also let people know like websites, social medias, like how can they stay in contact with you?

Yeah. So thank you. And I, I've loved this conversation cuz every single conversation that I'm a part of is radically different because people are all different. And I mean, there's so many things we can go so many different directions. For me, I'm very open book. I talk about anything and everything just because the main reason why I get on these is to help somebody. There's somebody that's either walking through it or has walked through it that if I can just speak into that situation, that can help them move further faster. And that's why I'm here. So thank you for giving me the opportunity. To be able to find me, stephenpemberton.com, that has pretty much all the stuff. If you're looking for socials, Instagram is Stephen K Pemberton. Facebook is Stephen Pemberton. LinkedIn is Stephen Pemberton. And you're just— and you can just— if you look for the dude who kind of looks like Aquaman or Jason Momoa and his name is Stephen Pemberton, that's, that's most likely me. If it's not, please get a screenshot and send it to me, and I think that'd be hilarious. But that— those are the best ways to find me: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or my website.

Perfect, bro. Thank you again for coming on. I really enjoy it, man.

Yeah, man, thank you so much for having me.