Shady Lawyers Use Legal Tactics to Bankrupt My Business - The DM Ep.8 w Vince Reed

I kid you not, the interface looked exactly like one of the companies that we were using currently. And I said I wanted you to make something that works similar to that. I didn't want you to make the exact same thing. And then I remember I wake up one morning and I get an email. And the subject line of this email says, cease and desist. Hi, my name is Vince Reed.

Hey, what's going on? Vince Reed here, and welcome back to the dm. I hope you guys are getting a lot of value. The feedback has been amazing. We have people messaging us telling us that these episodes are better than cable and that they're learning so much about digital marketing. And some people are saying they're not even in digital marketing and they're enjoying the show. So that's great news. So make sure you hit the like button and you subscribe so you don't miss a thing because it really helps the channel. And also be sure to check out the recap shows. There are a lot of fun. We dive into some of the information that I don't get to cover on the episodes and I get to mess around with Mike the producer and really embarrass him and just have a lot of fun. So make sure you check those out. And with that being said, let's get started.

Before I dive into the details of that, I want to rewind, like, way back. No, further back, further back, way back. Before the actual event because I failed to share with you guys the craziness of the whole buildup and lead into the event. I mean, this was my first event. I didn't even send emails out to verify to check if people were gonna show up. Now I remember when we got to the hotel, I was already nervous about this being my first event. I was nervous because I didn't see the software. And I was just like, I hope I don't trip going up on stage. And most importantly, I hope people actually show up. And I remember my right hand man, you know, he said, hey, we've got a meet and greet. You know, today people are registering for the event and you're supposed to go down there and meet people. That was part of them getting their ticket. And I remember being terrified and I literally refused to leave the room. I mean, this went on for well over 45 minutes. I was late. And finally my right hand man is like, man, you've got to go. He's like dragging me out and I finally leave. I'm so nervous because in my head, no one is going to be at this event. I'M going to be staying up there. There's going to be one person in there like that. Great, great talk, Vince. Great talk, Vince. I think if anyone has had a live event, you know that you thought about that as well. Like, I'm going to have this event and nobody actually shows up. Anyhow, we get down there and I remember I'm like walking and I'm already late and I don't see really anyone. And it's crazy because this is kind of a small to medium sized hotel. And finally, like all of these people kind of come around this corner at the hotel and you know, they're like, vince, what's going on? And. And they start coming up and they're like, man, it's so awesome. We love the company. We're so excited that you had this event. And it was like 30 or 40 people. And literally at that moment, my tension went from up here to down here. I was still in the middle because I still had to produce and deliver on an amazing event that I had promised. And also in the back of my mind was, man, is this software going to even be what I expect it to be? So the event went off. It was great. We had one of our biggest days in terms of sales with my company. Like, the system was running on all cylinders. It was crazy. And I remember sitting there like, here I am at this event and I took the VIP party's guy's advice and had this event, which I was terrified to do. I took his advice in terms of things I should do with the business, and that's something that I had failed to share with you guys. There was actually a secret meeting. There was a meeting that took place after I actually saw him in Vegas where he made me share the steak with him. He was actually speaking at a different event a few weeks later, and he's like, hey, come down and let's connect. So I went down to San Diego and it was crazy. We didn't do anything. We didn't go out. There was no party scene. There was no California version of Mr. X going down. We literally for the whole entire evening just talked business. And for whatever reason, he broke down his entire system step by step by step, because it was crazy. I remember I was thinking back, like the entire time, like when I got back from the Vegas trip where he. When I first saw him and all the numbers and all the money he was making, and in my mind I had an idea of what he was doing and it was crazy. Had I not went to meet him at that secret Meeting where we just talked about business and he, you know, shared all of his strategies and all of his secrets with me. I would have literally created the wrong thing. What I thought he was doing was not what he was doing at all. It took that meeting for me to really dial it in to make it work. And here I am about to have my first live event, having the biggest sales day of my life, and, you know, people actually there ready to learn from me. It was crazy. So if you're a person that, you know, you know, feels like, you know, things are too difficult and you don't believe in certain things and you're afraid to take certain actions, I can tell you, man, on the other side of fear, you know, there's a lot of amazing things that will happen in your life, because this entire process, even in this entire, you know, DM series, there's been a lot of fear, a lot of things that will. People even like this information. And you just keep breaking down those barriers. You keep just challenging yourself, and amazing things happen. But now it's time to take the stage and have the event. And now we can fast forward back to where we were, to the bad news.

So I get back home, and again, instead of celebrating this amazing event, you know, I get the email of, you know, cease and desist from this company that created the pages that said we basically were stealing their ip, and, you know, I'm boiling. I'm extremely hot. And I remember I call my legal team on the phone. They had me on speakerphone. We had to set up this crazy meeting. And, like, all of the, like, you know, partners in the company are there, and I'm hearing clapping in the background. Like, people are clapping, and they're like, congratulate. They're congratulating me. And I'm, like, getting more angry. Like, as every clap happens, I'm like, is this a joke? Like, what's funny? And why are you guys clapping? And to make, you know, a long story short, they're like, congratulations, you're now a real company. You're not a real business until someone tries to sue you. And I'm like, really? Really? That's why you guys are clapping? In the back of my mind, I'm like, they're clapping because they know they're about to get paid. And that's exactly what happened. So I remember I had to send over a bunch of money to send this letter. I had to go do all this discovery, and, you know, they had to get all this stuff for me to prove that, you know, I One never wanted to copy anyone because that's just not how I am. I think that's, you know, stupid. And something that I realized right then and there was you. You know, when you say something literally to a developer, they're going to take you literally, like they're going to create what you say. And for that, I do take full responsibility because I said, hey, I want something that operates like this. I just didn't know they were going to create an exact replica, right? So I'm sending all this information over and I'm contacting the developers and we're having talks. And I'm, you know, going from really upset, blaming them to calming down, you know, blaming me to blaming them. And they're swearing we did not steal anything from them. This is our own thing. You, you know, to build a page. Here's the code. Look at this page. It's the same code over in this company. They're building pages. It's just the way that you code these things. And I'm saying, well, that's not why they're upset. They're upset because it looks and functions the exact same. So, you know, what we're going to do right now is we're going to shut this thing down. I'm not going to play around with this one. I don't want to copy anyone. I paid you guys to build me software to build pages, not to copy someone. So we're going to start over. We're going to change this entire interface. Let's just shut it down. And, you know, the one thing that I was really upset about in terms of shutting it down was not the fact that I had to shut it down because I honestly kind of agreed we shouldn't look just like them. And I wanted to start over fresh. The one thing that I was disappointed about was that we had to shut down the name because part of the cease and desist was that we could not use the domain Internet trafficpages.com which I felt was going to be amazing. I mean, we were before, you know, a lot of the companies that we know and use today. So we could have been that. Who knows, you know, who knows what that company could have been had we not hit that roadblock. But anyhow, tens of thousands of dollars later to send simple replies to prove that we had shut it down. You know, they ended up not doing anything and we were great. So a few months go by and I get another email from the company suing me. And this time it's them shutting my account down that I was using with them. So I had an account, I was using their software and I was using it for my company. And all of the people that were promoting the system were using those pages. It was literally a part of our entire system. And somehow they found out that I was using it and they shut my account down. So now here I am thinking to myself, you've got to be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me. I got away from Apple, right, with the whole app situation. I got away from, with the last situation with the development of that other company that I started. And now here I am again, where a third party is trying to put a hammer to something that I'm trying to build. So I go into scramble mode and I'm like, what are we going to do now? We've got to find another company to host these pages to promote this product. And the system that we have, that's exploding and people are going crazy because all of a sudden all of their stuff is not working right. Because it's not just my business, we have other people promoting the system as well. I remember we were trying to rebuild the software, right? We were changing the interface and we were making it more our own. And I remember I bought the Domain Mix Pages and we were going to relaunch. New interface, clean code, all that good stuff. They assured me we're good, right? So MITS Pages was short for my Internet traffic system. So we just added the pages on the end, which was perfect mix between the company branding and an awesome tool that our users could leverage to generate more leads and sales. So I called them up. We've got to speed this process up. We got to get this page thing up, like in a week because we don't have a business right now and people can't promote. They go, okay, great, you can use it, but I don't feel comfortable letting other people use it. Well, fine, whatever, right? We get the Domain Mix Pages and I create the system, and it's fine, it's working. You know, it's a new, brand new interface. It's really cool. We have our own templates, everything's great and I'm excited. It's free. And, you know, people in our organization are seeing me use it, they're asking me when can they use it? And everyone's excited and everything's good. That is, until another few weeks go by where we get another email from the same exact company. And what does it say in the subject line? Cease and desist right now. They wanted us to shut down the new company. They're like, oh, we went and we searched through the code, and we see some similarities between what we're doing. You're still trying to take what it is that we have and duplicate it, all this stuff. And now I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So here it is. It's like, you know, Groundhog Day. Now I go back and I'm calling the team, the developers, like, what happened? They're saying this again. I thought you guys told me that everything was good. I don't know what they're saying. This makes no sense. And I called the lawyer team. They're clapping again. I want to go through the phone and slap them 10 times. I'm like, what the heck is going on? I mean, this is costing me literally tens of thousands of dollars. My business is, you know, going down. People are mad because they can't promote. We're losing partners, we're losing affiliates. This is supposed to be the greatest time of my life. We just had this awesome event. I have this system that I know works now. The software company that should have been the, you know, the next big thing is now just in turmoil, and I don't know what I'm going to do. So I'm fighting back and forth, you know, 10,000 to the, you know, legal team. It feels like every single week, and all they're doing is sending an email proving that it wasn't something that we stole. And every time we would do that, they'd be like, oh, okay, our bad. That's what the other company would say, okay, you're right. So I would have to pay money for them to send a notification to basically prove that we didn't do it. And they would just do this over and over and over again. And then finally, my legal team said, this is just a tactic. A lot of these companies, especially ones that raise money, they just keep just coming after you, even though they know that you didn't do anything. One, they want to eliminate their competitors, and two, they feel like that you don't have big enough or deep enough pockets to maintain and keep the company running. And at this point, I'm like, you know what? Like, this is just crazy. I mean, I don't want to keep battling this. The software is free. We're fighting on spending tens of thousands of dollars for a capture page system that's free, that's designed to be used as a lead magnet to capture new people that would want to essentially be part of our system. Shut it down. You know, it's over. Call the development teams, cut the site right now. And before I did that, I actually had to find some other companies that I could use to create pages. And. And it was perfect timing because I had heard a little rumor that my buddy Russell Brunson was coming out with some new software to build pages. It was this little company that you may have heard about called clickfunnels. I had a new person to partner with, so I created a ClickFunnels account, created all my pages in the software, and we were back up and running within 48, 72 hours.

So shortly thereafter, I get a call from a buddy of mine who is really big in the network marketing, home business space, and he hears about, you know, my Internet traffic system and all of the training, and he sees people making money and he wants to be part of it, and he gets started. And it was crazy. I remember, you know, I'm at the house one day and I'm just sitting there and it reminded me a lot of, you know, the days when we launched the app company where sales were just popping left and right. Every time I would hit refresh, sales were coming in. And, you know, I just start hearing my phone go off. I'm seeing all of these sales coming in, and it's from him. And, you know, what was crazy about it is I took a lot of the lessons that I learned from my mentor and his system in the members area. There was a leaderboard, and, you know, there was these individuals that were doing amazing. A lot of them had spoke at my event, but now we got this new heavy hitter that's in. And, I mean, within one day, he went from not being on the leaderboard to surpassing everybody. I mean, this guy was making a sale. It felt like, you know, every single five minutes, he just obliterated everyone, made multiple six figures with the system, and it was crazy. And he was so excited from the results because he had been part of other systems that were, I would say, kind of similar, but he had never seen that type of fast growth and the way the system was dialed in, you know, just like my buddy from the VIP party had told me, it was working on all cylinders and extremely smooth. People were getting results. It was amazing. Because of his success, he's like, hey, man, I'm having an event in Florida. You should come by and speak. You could talk about the system and obviously teach lead generation strategies and it'll be awesome. And I'm like, cool. And it was funny because, you know, up until that point, I only had spoke at a couple events and it really got me thinking about it. And it was like, you know, I remember being mad at the point where I would think there was something against me. Like people didn't want me to speak at these events for whatever reason. And then I realized when now I'm starting to get invited is that, you know, people love to connect with people that make them better, Especially people that make a lot of money, right? People that make a lot of money, they want to connect with people that are making it happen. So once I gave people the ability to speak at my event, and when they saw that I was able to put, you know, people in seats in a room, I think it opened up the door for one people to say, hey, I'd like to speak at his next event, so if I have one, maybe I should invite him. And that was when I started to get all these people asking me to speak at events. You know, I've never asked to speak at an event. I've never, like, filled out an application and said, hey, I'm a speaker. Typically it's the event host that's having an event has heard about me or bought one of my products and invites me. With that being said, if you're having an event and you need a speaker to talk about lead generation and marketing, call me. But anyhow, so I go, I get ready to go to this event, I accept to speak at his event, and it's in Florida. I tell my right hand man, this is perfect because now the system's up and running, we have everything up on click funnels and people are making money and it's good. This was the perfect getaway for what had been, you know, a past few months of just craziness. So what was crazy about this whole trip is that I had to have these order forms for people to fill out to purchase the product. And I remember we were totally last minute. We went to Kinko's and, you know, they were telling us they were going to be ready in time. It wasn't ready the day before. And I remember our flight was really early and we had to go down there and we ended up having to get like this cheaper version of the whole, like, form that we really didn't want. But I was desperate. I needed these in order to pitch from stage. And what was crazy is we finally got them just in time, got to the airport and barely made our flight because we were sitting here waiting for these crazy order forms to sell this product. So finally we get to our room and we're able to get settled. I Go down to the event, and it's amazing. There was a packed house. I would say it's probably like somewhere between four and 600 people there. And I remember just being extremely nervous because this was going to be the first event where I was going to sell from stage. So, you know, I was nervous. I remember I didn't really talk to a lot of people. I would just kind of, you know, sit in the back. And I was just really focused on the speakers because some of them were pitching as well, and I wanted to see, you know, what was going on when they would make a pitch or make an offer. And I remember one person made an offer, and I remember watching, and not a lot of people purchased. And I was like, oh, my gosh, how embarrassing to get up there and pitch a product and no one want to buy it. So now I'm having all these, you know, thoughts in my head. Oh, gosh, now I have to speak, and what if no one wants to purchase the product? But anyhow, it's about that time where I have to go up on stage and sell for the first time. I remember I went into that hallway and I start pacing. It was the same feeling I would get when I was about to go out the tunnel for a football game. Running out in front of, like, 70,000 people, depending on what stadium you were playing in. So anyhow, I'm walking, and I remember this lady, she comes up and she starts talking to me, and I'm pacing, and I have to go on stage in, like, 15 or 20 minutes. And, you know, I don't want to say, hey, you know, can you give me a few minutes? I'm about to go on stage. I'm trying to be nice. And I remember I was sweating like crazy because I didn't want to be mean to the lady and be like, you got to go. I got to get ready and be rude. Because I was like, maybe she'd be the only one that buys, so I better be nice, right? And time goes down, and she's talking to me, and I remember there's five minutes left, and finally they go, vince, are you ready? And then she walks. Oh, she's about. You're about to talk. You should have just told me. You probably were trying to get ready. And I'm like, yeah, lady. But anyhow, I go over and they get me mic'd up, and I go on stage and I start to deliver. And I remember I'm pacing back and forth, and I remember I just tell myself, slow down. Stop pacing. You look like you're running wind sprints up here on the stage. Because I'm so nervous that I have to make an offer, which is why I don't think I ever really make offers on any other. Any other event that I've spoke at. I just want to give value because I think it takes away, at least for me, my focus of delivering the content. But at the end of the day, I delivered the content. And I remember talking about all the newest and latest lead generation strategies. And a lot of the people in that audience, they had no idea about some of these strategies that I was using. Everything from, you know, running Twitter ads, you know, to literally running ads on movie theater screens, people were blown away. And I basically made this offer, which was cool because it wasn't like a physical product that had to be done. I was able to sell something that wasn't even created yet. And I planned it to where I would deliver this content if they purchased in such a fashion, to where it could be part of my existing system. So essentially, they were purchasing something that was going to help my existing company grow anyways. It was 10 webinars that they would get over 10 weeks. And each webinar was a different marketing strategy. And it was like an hour to like, you know, two hours long. And great detail, what it is, why it works, how to set it up. And I remember I started the offer, I was like, you know, it's not going to be $5,000. It's not going to be, you know, $3,000 today. You can get it right now, today, for, you know, like $1500, like $1497. And I just kept going on. And I remember my time was running out and they were like, you got your time's up. So I felt like I even got to the end without being able to really close the way that I truly wanted to. But people were blown away because the whole presentation, I was just giving examples of me generating leads using these strategies. So I come off the stage and immediately in the corner of the event, all these people kind of swarm me and they're asking questions. You know, the questions are coming at me like a million miles an hour, where I feel like a pitcher is throwing a fastball at me and I'm answering the questions. And I remember thinking, like, I wonder if anyone's even getting it, because everybody, it felt like everyone was talking to me, but nobody was getting it. I remember had all of the, you know, the little receipt, you know, paper things with all the information of what they Get. And I'm like, where is he? I didn't even see him. I didn't know where he was. But I just remember people coming up and asking me questions. And finally, once the crowd dwindled away and, you know, the next speaker was getting ready to start, I'm like, looking like I just played a football game. Drenched and sweat, nervous, kind of embarrassed. I don't know why I would be embarrassed. I guess I'm embarrassed because I don't know if anyone bought. I'm just having all kind of crazy emotions, right? I walk out of the. Of the room, and I see out there at this table, and he's, like, standing on the wall, and he's just kind of, like, looking at me, like, serious. And I remember saying, how did everything go? And he's like, it went pretty good. But right when he would start telling me something, somebody else would walk up and say something. So I'm like, we got to go to the room, right? So we start walking down the hall, and every three seconds, someone else from the event who was in the, you know, in there listening to me speak, keeps talking to me. So I can't figure out if we made any sale or not. So I remember I'm asking my right hand man, I'm like, dude, like, how did we do? He's like, we did all right. We did all right. He just keeps, like, not giving me really good answers. And finally we get to, like, the elevator, right? There's a few people from the event in the elevator, so I can't again talk to him that well. But I'm like, hey, how'd everything go? He's like, it went good. And he kind of has a smirk on his face, but, like, a weird look on his face. It's a look I've never seen before from him. So I'm just throwing off. And trust me, I've seen every look possible from this guy because, you know, all of the past stories that, you know, I don't want to get into, but I've seen it all. But this look I had never seen. So anyhow, the elevator opens. We're finally on our floor. I'm like, Carl Lewis trying to get out of the elevator, like, to get away from these people to find out, did I even make a sale, right? So we're walking down the hallway. He's like, man, everything was good. And we get to the room, and I'm like, dude, how did it go? Like, I want to grab the boy, like, look him in the face and be like, tell me what happened. And he just looks at me, and he's like, we did good. And he opens up his bag, right? And I'm telling you, there was a stack of, like, applications of credit card details of the receipts, like, this thick. And he just goes. And literally these things go everywhere, all over. Like, the bed, in the room, in the hotel room. And he's like, dude, you did awesome. And, like, we start counting them, I start picking it up, and I'm counting them, and it's getting thicker and thicker, and I start counting it, and I start adding up the money. I'm like, how much did we make, man? How much money did we actually do? And I look at him and he says.

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