Transcription

Happy New Year and welcome to 2018! Yuri Elkaim here, and welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast, 2018 edition. It is Monday, January 1st. It might be freezing cold and full of snow where you are, or maybe you’re in sunshine and warm—I don’t know. But I’m in Toronto. A little bit chilly, but it’s been a great holiday season.

I hope you had an amazing holiday and a great New Years. Hopefully you’re not too hungover and you’re ready to kick things off on the right foot.

So, on Saturday we did a bonus session, which was called “The Year Ahead.” We planned out your year in 2018, to make it as fruitful and focused as possible.

And today, I want to walk you through how negative goal setting can actually save your business.

Yeah, it’s kind of weird, right? We talked about how to properly set goals on the bonus session and today I’m going to show you how negative goal setting can actually help you as well.

The Solution Before the Problem

So, what the heck is negative goal setting? Well, it’s kind of an unknown term. I don’t know if many people think about this, but this is something I learned as an athlete. I think the first time I really started to think about this was when I was 17 and I was playing with a great soccer team in Toronto.

We were one of the best teams in Canada. We traveled to Italy and played some amazing teams over there and we always did really, really well. And our coach—other than being a tyrant and throwing garbage cans around at us half time, yelling and screaming from the sidelines, which is always fun—one of the things he used to say was, “Solution before the problem.”

“Solution before the problem.”

What does that even mean? Well, that’s where negative goal setting comes in. In the context of soccer, “solution before the problem” means that when someone passes you the ball, you need to know what you’re gonna do with the ball before you even receive it.

It’s another level of thinking, right? And that’s one of the biggest differences between the different divisions in soccer. So every country—mostly in Europe, I guess—has divisions. In England they have the Premiership, the top flight of football. Then there’s the Championship, which is the second division, then there’s a third division, fourth division, and each of those divisions gets weaker and weaker, right?

The major difference between those divisions is usually the speed of thinking and execution of those players. So yes, there are players that are talented. You’ve got guys like Leo Messi and Neymar, who are just freaks of nature when it comes to talent—but on average, those who are able to think quickly and make fast decisions are usually more successful than those who are slower. And that’s a big difference between the different levels of play.

So, in terms of business, how we can we think more quickly on our feet so that we’re not caught off-guard when things don’t go as planned? That’s where having a solution before the problem comes in.

So negative goal setting is this: Negative goal setting is essentially … and it’s kind of counter intuitive because I’m a huge believer in focusing on what you want and visualizing what you want.

Because when you focus, you get what you focus on. I’m totally for that.

However, I’m also a big fan of this idea of visualizing plan B and C, so they don’t surprise you if they do happen.

Mike Tyson has one of the best quotes of all time, I think: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

And that is so true at so many levels—in business and in life. And that’s why I can’t stand when people go on “Shark Tank” and they’re like, “What are your projections for the next year?” “Oh, we project we’re gonna go from $135,000 to $540,000 in revenue.”

How on earth are you projecting that? I can’t even project what’s going to happen next month in my business—and that’s not quite true, but it’s very tough to make an accurate projection like that. It’s ridiculous, right? Unless you have recurring members at a specific price and their fixed in for a year.

It’s great to have a plan, it’s great to walk into the bank with a neat, tidy business plan … But then when none of that actually comes to fruition, you’re like, “What the hell did we do? Okay, that didn’t work out, what do we do instead?”

So what negative goal setting does is help you focus on, “Okay, this is the ideal scenario, this is the ideal visualized path we want to go from here to here, but what happens if something goes wrong.”

Let’s just use the example of climbing a mountain. So we’re climbing a mountain. We know we want to get to the summit, we know we have to get to base camp one, base camp two and so forth.

But what happens if we’re going from base camp one to base camp two and all of a sudden there’s a full-on whiteout? The weather comes in, the clouds come in—you can’t see anything.

What do you do in that scenario? Most people just freak out on the spot, because they haven’t thought of plan B.

So, what I want you to think about with your goals, the things you’re working on—your product launch, live event, book, whatever it is—think of the things that can go wrong and solve them before they do.

I’m telling you, if you do this on a consistent basis, with any aspect of your business, you will have a frictionless ride to the goal.

Nine different upsell flows?

I’ll give you an example. One of the recent launches we had was for our free cookbook. This is on the health and fitness business. We have a free-plus-shipping offer for our cookbook, and it did really, really well.

We did the product launch two years ago. At this time I kind of figured out this whole thing—I’d made a lot of mistakes, I kind of had things figured out a bit more by this point. So I said, “Our number one goal is to maximize cart value, so that our affiliates and joint venture partners continue promoting this because it just makes sense for them.”

Now, instead of waiting for a bunch of traffic to come through and look at the upsell flow, look at how the cart value is doing and then try something new … We predetermined nine different upsell flows.

Yeah, nine different upsell flows.

Normally, you have an upsell flow—which is, you buy the product, upsell one, upsell two, upsell three if you want, thank you pitch. That’s what normally happens, right?

But we decided to say, “Well, we know that might not be the winner. This upsell might not perform well and this one might not perform well, this one might. So, let’s craft nine other variations.”

We crafted those nine other upsell flows. All the pages were done. What that allowed us to do was, ahead of time, set up the split test so that when traffic came to the site, everything was ready to go.

So we had planned for specific upsells not working. We had planned for the cart value not being as high as we wanted. And this is so funny, because people freak out when they do product launches.

They’re up all day—26 hours a day, they don’t sleep. I’m like, “Why?”

I don’t know. We just have things ready. I walk my kids to school, I pick them up, the product launch is going great. There may have been a couple hiccups. Our team supported people where they needed to and it’s just kind of business as usual.

And the only reason that’s possible is because we had negative goal setting built into that launch. We just said, “Okay, well what happens if this doesn’t happen? What happens if this doesn’t go to plan? Let’s build in contingencies.”

I love flying, as I’ve mentioned before. Airplanes are a great example of this. Most airplanes have three to four redundancies—which means if the hydraulic system fails, the electrical system will take over. If the electrical system fails, then the manual system will take over.

So the pilot and crew are never in a situation where it’s like, “Oh my God, the electrical system failed, the plane is gonna crash!” Planes are a great example of multiple redundancies. If one thing fails, something else kicks in to take its spot.

That is what negative goal setting can do for your business.

I’m telling you, this is one of the most powerful things you can get into doing. Whatever you’re thinking of doing—if it’s a launch, a specific program you’re releasing, a Facebook ad campaign, this is especially important.

And it is very important if you’re spending money to acquire traffic, because here’s the thing: I can give you the funnel. I can give you the ad, the funnel, the landing pages, but guess what? I guarantee there’s gonna be some discrepancy between my results and your results.

And that’s because you have a different offer, a different way of presenting it. You might be different on camera if you’re doing video stuff, you might be talking to a different demographic or audience.

So the framework is solid, but there’s little nuances that we have to account for.

If you can go into, let’s say, a Facebook ad campaign—and before you even hit submit, you’re thinking in your mind, “What happens if this ad doesn’t convert the way we want it to? What happens if the cost per click is too high? What happens if the cost per lead is too high? Where are the potential leaks in the funnel?”

Well, if the cost per lead is too high, maybe the ad copy is not as strong. Well, let’s have a look at the ad copy. Is the click-through rate too high or is the click-through rate too low? If it’s too low, then we know that’s one thing we can work on, but work on that ahead of time.

Create multiple angles of copy so that if low click-through rate is the issue, then you just swap that out or split test that against another ad variation.

If the click-through is high, but the cost per lead is high—then you know that the issue is most likely on the landing page. In this case, before you launch, have one, two, maybe three variations of a landing page. Maybe a slightly different layout, different headline, so that you can split test on the fly or ahead of time before being caught off guard when you go live.

Because this is money, right? Time is money. You don’t want to be wasting your money for days and then trying to figure things out after.

Think of the things that could go wrong, have a solution before the problem and you’ll be so much farther ahead.

You will thank me for this one. I’m telling you, this is a big one. That’s why I’m sharing it with you at the beginning of this year.

The Nine Business Accelerators Webinar

So, if you’ve enjoyed this, I’ve got something else for you. We’ve got a brand new webinar called, “The Nine Business Accelerators.” This is an online training, totally free, and the reason I put this together is because over the years I’ve noticed that, in business, there are a lot of possible things we can be doing.

All sorts of different business models, different things we can focus on. And what I love to do is simplify life, simplify business, simplify health. What I’ve done over the past couple years is, I’ve looked at businesses from a 30,000 foot view and said, “Okay. This person is doing coaching, this person is selling supplements, this person is selling eBooks and courses. What are the commonalities? What are the things that they all have in common?”

What I’ve discovered is that there are nine power moves, nine categories, if you will, that have to take place in your business for it to thrive. You might be able to get away with one or two, maybe—but if you’re missing three, four, five of them, your business is gonna suffer. If you don’t have some of those dialed in, you’re gonna suffer.

So, I believe I’ve done a really good job at identifying, “Okay, well, if your problem is you want more customers, that’s fine because that falls into this particular business accelerator and here’s how we fix that problem.”

What I’d like to share with you in this webinar are these nine business accelerators and how you can, first and foremost, become aware of them and see how they overlap on your business. And no matter what your business model is, no matter what product or service you’re selling, it will fit in your business. This is just a time-tested and true framework.

I’m gonna walk you through what these nine are in the webinar. I’m gonna show you how to deploy them in your business. And once you have these figured out, they will give you more clarity, more customers and more profit.

Think of it like this. It’s like having a roadmap to the treasure—like in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” You have a map that shows you exactly how to get the gold treasure. That’s what these nine business accelerators do—they show you how to scale your business and how to go from where you are to where you want to be. They help you identify where you are in your business, what might be lacking and how to really fill those gaps.

So, if you’d like to go through this free training, then head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/9, and you can register for the webinar there. It’s my free gift to you, but here’s the thing; I’m only running this online webinar during the first two-and-a-half weeks of this month.

So this is not something that’s gonna be around till the end of time, at least I don’t believe so. Okay, so if you want to register for this webinar, go over to healthpreneurgroup.com/9. I’ll walk you through the nine business accelerators. You’ll have more clarity, more customers, and more profit as a result. And if you’ve enjoyed this negative goal setting thing, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So register for that today. It’s awesome.

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Healthpreneur podcast. We’ve got a really cool episode for you on Wednesday with Scott Rewick, who’s gonna show you how to grow your business 10 times with Facebook ads.

Scott is a colleague and friend of mine. I’ve known him for a number of years. He is crushing it online—he has one of the biggest paleo followings in the business, and it’s amazing what they’ve done in the past couple years.

He’s going to share some of his secrets, so do not miss that one. That’s coming on Wednesday and once again, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, then please do so today. Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes—just click the subscribe button so you don’t miss any of our awesome episodes coming your way.

So that’s all for today, but again, thank you so much for joining in. I hope this gets you on the right foot to start making 2018 your best year ever. Join me for our “Nine Business Accelerators” workshop over at healthpreneurgroup.com/9, completely free to attend. I guarantee it’ll be worth your time and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode on Wednesday.

In the meantime, continue to be great, do great and we’ll see you then.

Transcription

Hey, Yuri Elkaim here. Welcome to this special bonus edition of the Healthpreneur Podcast. We’re literally a day or two away from New Year’s, depending on when you’re listening to this—hopefully you’re listening on December 30th itself, because I want to take you through an exercise today that will bring a lot of value to your business and your life.

Now , we’ve been running a four week master class called The Best Year Blueprints over these past couple weeks. It was a free class, and I decided to offer it for free because it’s extremely valuable. It’s a process that I’ve gone through myself and with my team over the past couple years, when we’re planning for the upcoming year.

I’ve done it this past week in both our Healthpreneur business and my health and fitness business. And what this exercise does is it just gives you super, super clear focus on … What the heck is going on? What is something you’re doing? What do you want to accomplish? And how can we get there?

Yuri’s overview

One of the biggest challenges that I’ve found as an entrepreneur is—how do you stay focused in a world of overwhelm? Where there is a thousand things you can be doing, people are pulling you in all sorts of different directions, new technology is coming out … You’re on one path and all of sudden you’re like, “Oh my god, I should be doing this other thing!”

And then you go off on a tangent and you’re like, “Hold on, maybe I should go down this way.” You go off on another tangent and then you’re so far off that initial path that you’re like, “What just happened?”

Can you relate to that? I know I can.

I tell people I’m very structured and systematized because I’m very disorganized.  Our inspiration comes from desperation, right? We often teach what we need the most help with.

Historically, I would say I’m organized but not unbelievably organized. I like to hire people who are organized. There are some people that are just super organized from birth. Those are the people I love working with, because they get it.

I’m not naturally that type of person, so I’ve been forced to really structure my life and organize my life in ways that I use processes, systems and frameworks to simplify a lot of the scatteredness in my head. And having worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, there really is a similar type of mindset that we all have, which is very creative—high, quick start, but we don’t like to follow through and finish things up.

What I want to walk you through here is a really cool exercise. I call it the One Year Plan and The Focus Four, to help you make 2018 and beyond your best year yet.

Just on a side note, came across a cool recommendation from Tim Ferris that I thought was really powerful for me, which is a supplement called My Host Defense, MyCommunity. It’s the worst possible name as a brand, as a product. My Host Defense is the brand and then the product name is called MyCommunity, I believe.

It’s a mushroom complex. If you don’t know much about mushrooms, they are very closely related to our evolutionary beginnings as an organism. There is a very close relationship between these types of mushrooms—like reishi and so forth—with our gut.

So, it came across my desk as something I may want to consider because I’ve noticed that with kids, they contract all sorts of stuff at school and sometimes when you’re pushing hard, it’s easier to get sick, especially during flu season.

I ordered some of this, I’ve been taking it the last two weeks and it’s been really helpful. For me, I know that if I’m doing live workshops or live events—I’m really going places, traveling—I need to boost my immune system with the right type of support.

Just started using this recently and it’s something I look forward to continuing to use. And we’re going to get our kids on this ASAP—they actually have the capsule forms which I’ve used and we grabbed the tincture as well which we can obviously give to our kids, since they don’t want to swallow capsules and stuff.

That’s the deal. That’s what’s going on, and that’s a nice little talk about tangents. There we go, there’s one of them.

Let’s come back onto planet Earth, and if you want what I’m about to share with you, you can actually grab the worksheets over at healthpreneurgroup.com/byb2018. You can actually purchase these worksheets I don’t give them away for free because they are proprietary technologies that we have developed but honestly they’re less than the cost of going to see Star Wars.

In addition, there’s three other lessons of worksheets that you’re going to get in addition to what I’m talking about here. You’ll get the Year in Review, you’ll get the 90 Day Sprint, you’ll also get my weekly planner. And you can get all that over at healthpreneurgroup.com/byb2018.

Today, we’re going to focus on The One Year Plan and The Focus Four. This will give you some really good momentum moving into 2018. If you don’t have the worksheets that’s cool, you can actually write this stuff out. So you may want to take out a blank sheet of paper.

And if you’re walking your dog or driving your car, what I would suggest is listen to this episode and then listen to it again when you’re sitting down, with a pen and paper handy. You actually want to go through these exercises with me.

Clarity of Vision

The first thing we’re going to do is plan out the year ahead. And in order for us to plan this out, we have to know where we’re going. Everything I do, everything I teach—whether it’s in my workshops or with our mastermind members or anything else—it always starts with clarity of vision.

The number one thing we’re going to start with here is writing down on your page, VISION. That’s it. What’s your vision? What are you working towards, and why is this so important?

Write down what your vision is. I’m going to narrow the vision to one year. We can talk about five, ten, 500 year visions—but for the sake of this exercise, I want you to answer the vision within this context.

If we were having this conversations 12 months from now, looking back over the previous year (2018), what has to happen in your business for you to feel happy with your progress? What we’re doing here is going to the end of next year and then just turning back and looking at the previous year.

What happened? What was great? How was this year just awesome? What is the vision? What are you working towards? What are the things you want to have happen? What are the things you want to do? What are the things you want to experience? Personally, as well as business.

Fill this in. As much as you can possibly get down on paper—the more the merrier. And today is Saturday so it’s a great day for this. You really don’t have any other obligations, I don’t think. Take your time. Really give this gift to yourself. Pause the recording now and really clarify what your vision is for the next year.

Okay, if you’re back with me, I’m assuming you completed that exercise and you’ve now hit the play button and we’re back. What we’re going to do next is move over to your core values. The core values are really the guiding principles of how you make decisions and how you operate your company.

Core values

Core values are something that are not created, they’re literally discovered.

Culture is not something that you can falsely create. It just happens as a byproduct of you as a leader and the people that work with you. Whatever your culture is—that’s your culture, that’s just the way it is. If you want to change it or morph it, you can do that, but your core values are really going to help shape that culture.

Core values for your business are most likely going to be the exact same as they are for you as an individual, because you are the individual who started the business! The core values are literally a reflection of you, because your business is a reflection of you.

And if you can narrow these core values down to a maximum of eight, that’s going to be best. You want to have more than one, for sure. You don’t just want one core value.

Typically, you should think about what matters to you and your business most? What’s really important? These are the things that you will be imparting to your kids. These are the types of core values you live by, that you would die by. And that you really live philosophically through.

Let me give you a couple examples.

Some of our core values with Healthpreneur—which by the way, are very similar to our health and fitness business … Why would that be? Well, because I founded both of those companies so they’re a reflection of me. What I’m sharing with you as core values of our company are pretty much the core values that I hold as an individual.

First and foremost, creating “WOW” is a core value of ours. It’s not that we hit this out of the ballpark all the time, but creating wow is something that’s a really important guiding principle for us. Whether it’s a customer service interaction, or whatever. If I notice one of our team members taking two days to respond to someone, for me that is unacceptable because that’s the complete opposite of creating wow. If creating wow is an important component for us, we have to craft everything we do through that filter.

If you were at Healthpreneur Live, which is our big annual event in September, you’ll have experienced that first hand. We had 110 attendees, and the vast majority of them said, “This was the best event I’ve ever been to.” These are people that have been to a lot of events and very high level events, very curated events.

They said this was the most unbelievable experience they had ever had, because our team looked at—“What is every single touchpoint that we can impact and create a wow experience for each person?” That’s the level of detail that we go into, especially for our live experiences.

If you want to join us at the next Healthpreneur Live events, I would strongly recommend you do so. It’s by application now. You can go over to healthpreneurgroup.com/live and learn more about our 2018 event, which is in Scottsdale, AZ in September.

Creating “WOW” is really important for us.

I’ll give another example: Profits help us prosper.

We strongly believe that being profitable is great. There’s nothing wrong with being excessively profitable. I don’t want you to feel that making money is bad, because it’s not.  Making money is the fuel of your business. If you don’t have money coming in, then you pretty much don’t have a business.

Whether you’re using that money personally, to contribute back to your team in terms of hiring more people or advancing the business or giving to charity … Whatever it is, you have to have retained earnings or profits in your business in order to do that. If you don’t you can’t move forward to impact more people.

The way I look at it, is the more we make—and more specifically, the more money we keep, hence profits—the more we can prosper.

Which basically means, we can grow as a company and our growth is predicated by the number of people that we impact. If we don’t make money, we can’t impact a lot of people. But if we make a lot of money, we can impact a lot of people.

And that’s why for us, everything filters through profit.

Whether we’re using a technology that costs us $100 per month and really investigating, asking ourselves, “Do we really need to be using this? Is this really making our lives better, easier, faster, more efficient?”

If the answer isn’t yes to all of those, then it’s gonzo. That’s $100 per month back into profit.

Now I know this seems like really nitty gritty, but it’s important—at least for us. What I’d like you to do now is identify what the core values are that matter to you and your business. I’ll give you one more example, before I let you work on this yourself.

Another one for us is, Grow or Go.

If you’re not growth oriented—if you’re not willing to grow and learn as a person—you’re not a good fit for our company. That’s just because I believe that personal growth is a mandatory prerequisite for being a great person.

Those are some of the core values that we have, and without boring you anymore about them, I will let you hit pause right now and write some things down. You might already know these. This may take you five minutes, it might take you an hour, I don’t know.

You may want to do a Google search and look for some examples from other companies, of their core values. Your core values don’t have to be a very long statement. It’s just a couple of words.

Create wow. Customer first. Whatever it is you want to do.

But the thing you have to remember is that these really have to mean something to you at a visceral level. Don’t just write stuff down and then be like, “Okay, let’s do our best to make this happen.” Your core values are the way you currently live in your business. Look and discover what you’re currently doing, what your secret sauce is and what kind of filters you run your decisions through, instead of trying to create stuff out of thin air.

Take as long as you need to come up with anywhere from three to eight core values that will serve as the decision making filters for everything you do moving forward.

Okay, awesome. I assume that you’ve finished that and if you haven’t, then hit pause again and get back it. Make sure you finish this off.

I know this tedious stuff, this hurts the brain. It’s not stuff we do on a regular basis and that’s why I’m really forcing you to do this now. Are you really going to have time to do this when you hit the ground running on Monday or Tuesday? Probably not.

Take the time now to get this done. Okay?

This is why my workshops, like our Health Business Accelerator—which we actually have one coming up at the end of February—are so focused on implementation. I don’t really care if you want to do the work or not. It’s two days, me and you. We’re going to get the work done because I know that once you leave the workshop, that stuff is not going to get done. It’s going to take a lot longer, if at all.

It’s important to just block this time off to get stuff done and implement, because we’re always busy with so much other stuff. Give this time to yourself because this is very important stuff.

Brand promise

Okay, next, we’re going to move to Brand Promise.

We’ve talked about the vision—you’ve clarified that, you’ve clarified your core values and now we’re going to really clarify what your brand promise is. Which is basically, “What’s the promise you make to your customers?”

This is something that might take a little bit of thinking because it’s not as simple as, “Well, I help people lose weight.”

It might be, but for instance—with my health and fitness business, my brand promise is essentially making healthy and fit simple and delicious again. That’s our brand promise. We clarify and we simplify all the complexity. We make it very simple for people to understand health, nutrition and fitness. Plus, we also allow them to enjoy delicious food that doesn’t take forever to make and is actually good for them.

That’s our brand promise on the health and fitness business.

For Healthpreneur, our brand promise is the training you need and the personal touch you deserve. We provide the training in terms of, “here’s exactly how to achieve this specific thing,” and the personal touch—which is very important for us. And again, coming back to that ‘high touch in a high attack world’ type of perspective, that’s what we do in our live in-person workshops.

That is not a high volume type of business, it’s a high touch type of business. That’s why we have our Luminaries Mastermind, where I work closely with some amazing entrepreneurs.

Our health and fitness business is very different. It’s high volume, lower touch. Healthpreneur is lower volume, higher touch. For us, it’s the training you need and the personal touch you deserve. That’s our brand promise.

For you, what is your promise? What is the promise you are making your customers? And this is important, because this goes on your website. It can. This should be overtly communicated to the world but it also is the underlying tone through which you do things.

So, let’s just use an example here. Let’s say  your brand promise is fast weight loss without any gimmicks. Let’s just say that is your brand promise.

You help people lose weight very fast, without the gimmicks. And we’ll just say that means no supplements, no fad diets, no stuff like that. So, everything you do—the content you produce, the products you create, all that stuff you do—should fall into that category. Here’s a fast result with no nonsense. No supplements, no gimmicks, nothing.

Not that supplements are gimmicks, but we’re just using an example here. But whatever your brand promise is, that’s what you really want to focus on.

Just as a side note here; your brand promise is very similar to your unique selling proposition or unique value proposition, if you want to think of it that way. These are all synonymous terms in a lot of cases.

Let’s use Realdose Nutrition as another example. They are a great company—really, really, big supplement company—and the CEO is a good friend of mine. Their brand promise is “Real results at the right dose.” Something like that.

They’re producing real results, they use tons of case studies and testimonials—real people’s success stories—and they offer their supplements at the right dose. They’re using the science-based real dose type of formulation. That’s their brand promise. And I apologize if I didn’t get that bang on with that one.

Anyway, I want you to hit pause and think about what your brand promise is. What is the promise you’re making your customers? Again, this is something that is an umbrella under which all of your content and all of your products will fall. Hit pause, think of what this is.

This is literally a one sentence statement, or a couple words. Do that now and then press play when you’re ready to keep on going.

Alright. You are back. You’ve got your brand promise. You’re good to go.

So, these are the overarching guiding principles—vision, core values, brand promise. One of the things that I didn’t really touch upon here—and you may want to include this under brand promise—is, who do you serve? Who’s your niche? Who’s your target market?

That is really important too. That might fall under brand promise. Brand promise might be, “We help menopausal women lose weight without the gimmicks,” or something like that.

Metrics that matter

Anyway, we’re going to move onto metrics that matter. This is the final piece of our first page.  This is all on one page. If you want the worksheet, again, you go to healtpreneurgroup.com/byb2018.

At the bottom of the page we’re going to write down three metrics. We’re going to identify the three numbers that matter most to your business and the targets for each one. Every business is different. What you deem is important in your business might be different from what someone else deems important in their business.

This might change. You might identify one metric and you might think that’s the thing … And then a couple months in you’re like, “You know what? That’s actually not a meaningful metric, so let me change that up.”

That’s totally fine. That’s the process of learning as an entrepreneur, right? We tried this, wasn’t that meaningful, we’re going to move on to something else.

Before we identify these, let’s just talk about metrics for a second. Metrics are really important—and we’ve talked about this with a couple people on the show already—because what gets measured gets managed.  And it’s very tough to improve upon something you’re not really measuring.

Creating a simple dashboard. Even using a Google sheet, which is what we do. We track these metrics on a weekly basis. On our Monday meetings as a team, we look at the scorecard, we look at where we are on these metrics. I’ll give you my metrics, or a few of mine, and maybe that will get the wheels turning for you.

First and foremost, we look at revenue—but not just revenue. We look at money deposited into the bank account, that’s one of our metrics. If revenue’s a thing, that doesn’t account for merchant fees and stuff like that. If $100,000 came in, once we take off the merchant fees, let’s call that another $2,500 – $5,000, the deposit into the bank account is $95,000.

All that matters to us is cash, because revenue is a fictitious number.  What’s in the bank is what matters most. We look at what is in the bank on a weekly basis. What was deposited into the bank the previous week?

Another metric we look at is, how many members do we have in our Luminaries Mastermind? Because we know that’s the main driver of our recurring revenue, but it’s also the way that we impact businesses most deeply.

By using that number we can predictably forecast what next month’s revenue is going to be, because we know if we have X number of people in the mastermind, they’re paying X number of dollars, it’s a recurring thing—that just gives us more predictable revenue and forecasting for the future.

So, we look at how many members are in the mastermind. Obviously, one of our intentions is to continue growing that while keeping it small and intimate and familial.

Another metric we look at—and this is kind of like a test metric, if you will—is podcast downloads. We want to look at, does the number of podcast downloads impact other markers in our business? Whether it’s the number of Health Profit Secrets books that were sold or revenue or anything else.

It’s tough to make a cause and effect relationship with a lot of this stuff because there are other moving parts to the business, but if we can start to see some cool trends that’s always good. At the very minimum, we just want to see that our podcast is growing in popularity. On a weekly basis we look at how many downloads occurred in the previous week.

And the reason we do this weekly is because if we notice a spike in downloads on any given week, we can look back at those dates and say, “Okay, what were the podcast episodes that were released in that week?”

Because if there was a certain guest that shared it or there was a certain episode that really resonated with people, that’s good to know. That’s good intel to know for us. That gives us more of a narrow focus on that stuff.

So, you want to identify three metrics. And I’m going to challenge you to just focus on three. Maybe it’s how many people are on your email list. How much traffic you get to your website. Whatever is most meaningful to you.

And then you want to identify what your targets are for the end of 2018. Let’s say revenue is your number one metric and your target is $1 million in revenue by the end of 2018—you would put down revenue as your metric, with a target of $1 million in revenue by the end of 2018. If list size is another metric for you, you would put down email list size, with a target of, let’s say, 100,000 people by 2018.

Now, do those metrics really matter? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. It’s really up to you. You could look at how many Facebook page likes you have, how many Instagram followers, how many YouTube subscribers. Stuff like that.

But what you’ll find is that after doing this on a week to week basis (because you want to keep track of these numbers in a scorecard that you’ll set up in Google sheets) is that you’re simply looking at, “Okay, do these metrics really matter for us? Does it really matter how many YouTube subscribers I have?”

I’ll tell you, it doesn’t. I have 183,000 as of this recording and I can tell you from a revenue perspective, it hasn’t made a difference from when we were at 170,000.

If, initially, subscribers on YouTube was our big metric—well, maybe that doesn’t move the needle as much as I thought it would, so we’re going to shift that metric to video views or something a little more meaningful. Because we know that if more people view the videos, they’re going to go down a specific funnel into a specific offer, and that’s going to yield specific revenue for our business.

Three metrics, identify what those targets are for the end of 2018. Pause the recording now, fill those in and we’ll keep going.

The Focus Four

Alight, you are back and I am back with you. Now we’re going to shift to The Focus Four. The Focus Four is the most challenging part of this. Not because there’s a lot of thinking to do, it’s challenging because it’s all about trimming away the fat.

The Focus Four is essentially this. You’re going to take out a new sheet of paper and you’re just going to chop it into a grid—four quadrants. At the top you can call it Focus Four.

We’re going to identify the four most important outcomes you want to achieve in the coming year. These are the projects or goals that will allow you to hit your key metrics. So, those metrics that we identified previously are the outcomes here. They are not directly controllable.

If you want to hit a million dollars in revenue, you have no control over that. You don’t actually control how much money you make. What you do control are the actions you take to get you there. You see the difference?

Think of it as scaling a mountain. If we assume the top of the mountain is the outcome—the metric—what are the projects or goals we need to make happen in order to accomplish that? What are the milestones we need to hit along the way to make that a reality? The summit of the mountain is that outcome goal, that metric you want to hit.

Let’s say you want to hit 100,000 people on your email list. Let’s just use that as one of our metrics—the top of the mountain. You’d have three different mountains if you will, three different metrics.

If we want to hit 100,000 people on our email list, what are the projects or things that we can do to help make that happen? If we think about, we’re at the base of the mountain. If we get to base camp number one, which is at 10,000 feet, it’s going to move us closer to the summit. Let’s say base camp number one is our first project—so if we make that project happen we are now closer to the summit. If we get to base camp number two, which is another project or goal, we’re going to move closer to the summit as well.

You might be saying, “Okay, Yuri, I’ve got three metrics. Does that mean I have to have four things for each metric?” No, because there’s going to be some overlap.

Here’s where it gets challenging. The challenge is identifying, if you have three major metrics, what are the four things that are collectively going to move all three of those needles? As you build the email list, the email list should spill over into increasing revenue (if revenue was another outcome metric for you).

You want to think about, what are the big things here? Maybe it’s a big product launch. Maybe it’s releasing a new book. Maybe it’s releasing a new supplement line or optimizing a Facebook ad funnel so you actually have positive ROI on that. Maybe it’s launching a YouTube channel and getting X number of views or subscribers that will lead into a specific path.

I’ve given you the whole page, you’ll see these quadrants are pretty big. I would suggest that you write down as many ideas as you possibly can. “Okay, well we could do this. We could do this. We could do this. We could do this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this.”

Just brainstorm. Get all the stuff out. You can put them in whatever quadrants you want, it doesn’t really matter.

This might take you half a day, this might take you an hour, this might take you a whole day, I don’t know. Once you’ve identified all the things that you could do, the challenge now is to focus.

You are only going to focus on four of them.

I’ll give you an example from my health and fitness business. We’re focused on primarily two things. One is to continue focusing on optimizing our YouTube channel and going after keyword phrases that can be big wins for us—because we know when people watch our videos, they’re going to go to a specific landing page and opt-in; and after that we’re going to make them a specific offer.

We know that if we get more views on certain videos, that leads to nice revenue for us. Not only that, but each of those first sale offers are tied in with our continuity or membership programs.

So, because we’ve got great congruence between the video and the offer, we know that if more people watch the videos, more people will click on the link, they’re go to the landing page, they’ll opt in. More people will buy.

If we know we’re going to get more views on those videos, we can predictably forecast more recurring revenue. So, one of our big goals is to just continue going after great keyword content topics for YouTube because we know that all of our funnels are now ready to go and they’re just waiting for more traffic to come to them. That’s one of our Focus Four for 2018.

Another goal is to focus on our green. We’ve got an amazing green supplement called Energy Greens. We are hellbent on making that a big, big win for our business because for years—we’ve actually had it for about four or five years now—it’s always been a backend profit maximizer for us. It’s never really been a front-facing product that we’ve run cold traffic to, or really opened up to joint venture partners.

That’s going to change this year. We’re really going to open this up and make it a big thing for us. I don’t need to share specific numbers, but those are the two big things we’re focusing on as a company.

Last year, our big focus was turning our blog into a well-oiled machine. We created this amazing asset of awesome content on a regular basis and now—full disclosure—we haven’t actually produced a new piece of content on our blog for five months. And our traffic has increased two and a half times, just based on what we’re doing SEO wise.

The cool thing is that we know that that traffic converts to leads and customers. Again, very much like what we’re doing with YouTube—the more traffic we get to our blog, the better. And now we’ve built that machine, it’s doing its thing and we’ve shifted our focus to YouTube, just because for us it’s a lot easier to produce YouTube content without having to have a whole editorial team to clean it up into blog content. And that’s just a little bit of a shift that we made for 2018.

So, we’re actually just focusing on two big things. It’s not even four things. And the reason I’ve created this is because there’s some really good resources out there book wise. Rockefeller Habits, Scaling Up and Traction are three of the best books you could read on this type of stuff.

The dilemma is that each of those presents planning tools that are similar to this, but very complicated for small businesses. They’ll typically recommend that you focus on three to five rocks, big projects in any given quarter.

And I’ve done that—at the height, we had a team of 14 people, and trying to do three to five big projects per quarter is very tough. It’s very, very tough.

What I recognized is, what if we just did one thing? What if we just focused on one thing per quarter? One big project that we’re working on and everyone was focused on the same thing.

Now, obviously there’s different people in different departments doing different things. But if all roads lead back to those Focus Four projects, you’re going to have a lot more power. It’s like taking the sun’s rays with a magnifying glass and focusing on that one little ant who’s about to get fried. … I don’t know why kids do that. It’s crazy.

But the power of that is much more focused and you can see the energy and power that comes out of that focused sunbeam, as opposed to if we just scattered the sun’s rays all over the place. It’s the same thing in businesses.

Write down all the things you can be working on, the big goals you have for this year, the projects you want to see come to fruition … And then, choose four of them. 

Choose. Four. Of. Them.

I know it’s going to be tough. It’s almost like, “Which kid do I save? I’ve got a family of 12 and I’ve got to let a couple of them drown, which ones do I save?”

Okay, maybe it’s not that devastating, let’s be honest. But it’s kind of like that. You want to do all these things, but you have to focus on just a few.

We always overestimate what we can do in one year and greatly underestimate what we can do in ten.

Yes, there’s always going to be time to do stuff in the future. Yes, stuff changes very rapidly and maybe that becomes obsolete next year. But if you could only do four things that are going to make the biggest difference in your business this year, what are they going to be? Identify those and they become the focus four.

I’m going to say something on this before we finish off. If you have four projects or four big goals—let’s say a product launch, a live workshop, etc.—each one of those doesn’t have to be one quarter. Because sometimes there’s overlap.

One of our Focus Four projects is Healthpreneur Live 2018, which is in September—that’s Q3. I can’t just start working on that in Q3, though. It takes a lot of buildup in terms of the marketing, the planning.

We start that right away—we’ve already started it. But we know that’s one of the major focus projects for us for this year. We just know it’s going to creep from one quarter to the next.

Other things like a specific promotion or a specific launch, that doesn’t have to take nine months. That might just be a three month endeavor in terms of the buildup to it, a one or two week launch, and then it’s done. Then, it’s obviously fulfilling on the backend for your customers and clients.

So, it really depends on the type of project you’ve decided upon, whether it’s going to be a short term one quarter deal or a longer term project. And that’s something you may want to write down beside them—is this something that’s going to trickle from one quarter to the next? Or is this going to be done by the end of a specific quarter?

You want to identify the rough time frame for those projects so that you guys know that well in advance.

There we go. I want you hit pause right now and take as much time as you need to figure out your Focus Four. Write down all the projects you want to do. Identify four of them and that’s it. Hit pause, do that and I’ll see you on the flip side.

Final thoughts from Yuri

Alright, welcome back. You should have completed all the goodies.

So, we’ve done The One Year Plan and The Focus Four. The One Year Plan, again, is the vision and purpose, the thing you’re working towards. Your core values, your brand promise.

Then we identified three metrics—these are three things that you want to achieve, outcome-wise. They’re very often numerical, but they’re not things that we can control 100%, they’re indirect.

What we can control are the Focus Four projects. Those are the four projects that we have control over, and if we accomplish these, they will move us closer to that outcome goal.

What I’m not going to go into here are the 90 day sprints, which take the Focus Four projects and break them down into, “What are we going to do in the next two weeks to move this thing forward?” Again, we’re skipping that just for the sake of time, but that is something you can go through on your own if you’d like. If you want to grab the worksheets that will walk you through all that, you get them at healthpreneurgroup.com/byb2018. Along with that you’ll also get the weekly planner.

The whole idea here is to take the year plan and break it down into Focus Four projects. Get a very clear plan on how we’re going to accomplish these projects in the next 90 days/two weeks, and then work backwards to the weekly planner.

We literally sit down and say, “Okay, what am I going to start doing tomorrow to move this thing forward?” We start at the top and work our way all the back to today. We take this ethereal, indirect outcome that we can’t really control to the next possible action. Something we can take action on today or tomorrow to move us closer to that.

There we go, I hope you’ve enjoyed this bonus session. This is something that I’ve found to be extremely valuable, and if you’ve done this properly—you’ve hit pause and done the exercises—great job.

If you haven’t, well, you should probably go through this again, hit pause and do the exercises. Because I’m telling you, this is stuff that we don’t do in the regular run of play. We need to take the time out to do this stuff. That’s why I wanted to release this on a Saturday, when you don’t really have much going on. You’re not working, typically.

Take the time to do this today, if you haven’t already. Go through it again, give yourself a couple hours to really dial this stuff in because I’m telling you, if you put the time in now, you’ll save yourself hundreds—I’m serious—of hours in 2018.

You’ll be focused instead of scattered. You’ll be clear instead of overwhelmed. You’ll get results instead of a lack of results.

Once again, thank you so much for joining me this past year. Actually, it hasn’t even been a year since we launched the podcast. It’s only been about three and half months. I want to thank you for being a subscriber.

And if you are just tuning in for the first time today, well, welcome! And be sure to subscribe to the Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, remember to give it a rating and review on iTunes, because that means a lot in terms of helping more people find the podcast.

I want to take a moment to wish you the most amazing 2018, but I also want you to reflect on this past year and think about all the amazing things that you did, created, experienced over this past twelve months.

As we talked about in the business G-spot episode last week, it’s very easy to just move forward. Just like, “Okay, move forward, let’s focus on the next year.” Without really recapping all the wins from the previous year.

What worked? What didn’t? What are you happy about? What are you stoked about? Just take an inventory of the awesomeness that was 2017 and focus on all the wins. Obviously, focus on the things that didn’t work out as well as we had wanted.

But if you can move forward with that type of momentum and really move into 2018 to make it better, that’s awesome. I want to wish you the most amazing year ahead.

I will be with you three times per week, right here on this podcast. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Monday we do the solo rounds, Wednesday and Friday we’ve got amazing interviews. And we’re in this for the long haul. I’ve got a lot of amazing stuff to bring you over the coming months and years.

I’m not going anywhere, I’m in this for life. This is what I love to do.

I love helping entrepreneurs like yourself take their business to the next level, because I believe that if I can help you in your business then you can help more people and collectively we can help a lot more people.

Our mission is to help a billion people on the planet by 2040, and the only way I can do that is by helping influencers like yourself.

I want to thank you so much for doing what you do. For being who you are and for tuning into the podcast. It means a lot to me, I enjoy bringing this to you on a weekly basis.

Happy New Year and I will see you in 2018.

Transcription

Guys and girls, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast—Yuri here. In the last episode, we had a great conversation with James Swanwick, who’s the man behind the famous Swannies, those blue light blocking glasses. If you haven’t listened to that episode be sure to go over and listen to that today, because there’s a lot of great insights on how to come up with a great idea your audience is gonna love, and that just kind of catches like wildfire. Plus a lot of other cool things you’ll get from that episode.

Today, we’ve got an amazing conversation. I’m telling you, you’re gonna want to listen to this one on half speed because there’s so many golden nuggets of wisdom here, you’re gonna want to take notes.

My guest today is Peter Camiolo. Just let me give you a quick rundown of who he is and his background, and then I’ll just segway into our interview.

He is a chiropractor by trade and, out of the gate, he built one of the fastest growing practices in the history of the chiropractic profession. You’re going to see how he did that in this interview.

Also, most importantly, what he talks about is … It’s not that he got this amazing amount of growth very quickly, but he sustained it. He’s had a high volume, high profit practice in the chiropractic profession for a decade. Seven figures a year, 100% cash practice—so no insurance, no third party stuff.

He was actually classified as one of the top one percent of all health and wellness practices in the world.

He’s going to share some really important lessons of what he did to get there and some of the mistakes he made on route. And right now he’s launched a company to coach other physicians to become CEOs of their business, because of some of the big pot holes and shortcomings a lot of doctors and chiros are dealing with. They might be great practitioners, but not necessarily great CEOs. And he’s going to share his philosophy and what they’re doing with serving that.

He also served as the Team USA chiropractor for the 2012 London Olympics Team, which is pretty cool. I’m telling you, you’re gonna go through this interview and you’re gonna just listen to Peter speak … Very well spoken, he knows his stuff, he’s been in the trenches, he’s put in the work, and he figures out a way to save himself, save some important relationships, and now help a lot of other doctors do the same—to impact more people, make more money, but also run a business instead of being a slave to their business.

Even if you’re not a chiropractor or a physician … If you’re a trainer running your own gym, if you have any kind of physical establishment, even if you have an online presence—what you’re about to discover in this interview will be greatly valuable. So with that said, let’s jump in to the interview.

Peter, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going man?

Peter:              Going great. It’s going great, Yuri, thanks for having me on.

Yuri:                Yeah, for sure. I’m excited to talk with you because you’ve done some pretty amazing things as a chiropractor. You were the Team U.S.A. chiropractor at the 2012 London Olympics, which is no small feat. You’ve built a massively successful, 100% cash-based chiropractic practice, now you’re helping other physicians become CEOs of their business, which I think is much needed.

Let’s talk about that for a second. Why do you feel that other physicians are … Why are you serving other physicians? Let’s just put it that way.

Peter:              The thing that happened to me, Yuri, was I went through the pain of discovering the fact that I felt like I was being trapped in my practice and my business. I looked around at all my colleagues after I discovered this idea of becoming the CEO, and actually took the steps that were necessary to put myself in that position.

I realized that all of my colleagues around me—people that I know, that are my friends, but many who I don’t know—feel the exact way that I do. Because I’ve been sharing with them the pain, the struggle, and the journey that I’ve been on, and many of them have been sharing with me that this is the exact position that they’re in, they’re feeling trapped in their practice.

I think the answer is that we’ve never been trained how to become CEOs. We’ve never really been trained in business, we’re trained as technicians, to be physicians—but nobody really trains you on how to become a business owner.

That’s, I think, a major problem in my profession.

My brother went to business school, graduated business school at the top of his class. And I asked him, “How many people that graduated your business school actually went out and started businesses?” He said, “None.”

And here you have doctors who don’t learn anything about business, and they get out of doctor school and they go and open businesses. It’s a real problem that we have right now, and we’re hoping to be able to help, come alongside doctors and solve some of these problems.

Yuri:                It’s amazing. I’m happy you guys are doing that, because it’s much needed. As you said, health and fitness professionals in general—not even just doctors—are great technicians.

I remember when I started my business online, I was an amazing trainer and a great nutritionist, but I had no clue how to run a business. And it’s not taught in school. The only way to learn is just do it.

So I think what you guys are doing is great, by helping people just get in the fast lane and doing things properly.

So, you built one of the fastest growing practices in the history of the chiropractic profession. That’s a pretty bold statement.

How did that happen? How did you do that?

Peter’s initial journey

Peter:              I think it was … Grind would be one word, hustle would be another word, if I was to summarize it.

I think I was just unwilling to settle for anything less. I had this standard set in front of me of reaching this volume of visits and this dollar mark. And I just was relentless at making sure I hit that. And to be honest with you, Yuri, it almost cost me my marriage and my family life. I’m not necessarily proud of the way that I did, I’m proud of the fact that I was able to accomplish it.

What I’m more proud of is the fact that I was able to recover all my relationships, but also I was able to maintain that level of performance year after year.

So what I see a lot of people go after this big number, this big goal. Let’s say it’s a seven figure income, a certain volume of people, whatever it may be. But then they hit it and they collapse afterwards. Everything falls apart and they go back to their “normal status.”

For me it was … Not only do I want to go there and hit it, but I want to be able to then grow from there and maintain it, even grow to the next level. So, yeah, we were able to get there fast—within a year we were seeing over 1,000 patient visits a week, collecting a million dollars a year, 100% cash. Those are numbers that, in the chiropractic space, one percent or less maybe ever get to. I was able to do it in 10 and a half months, and then maintain it for almost a decade.

The reality was, yeah, I got there—but what I’m really proud of is that I was able to figure out how to stay there.

And that’s what my journey is—when I’m out working with doctors, my mission is to help them reach whatever level of success is … You don’t have to call it a volume or even a money thing, whatever your definition of success is. I think financially is important. I think how many people you’re helping is important.

But are you satisfied and fulfilled in your life?

A lot of chiropractors are doing good, helping people, but many of them are unsatisfied and feel burnt out, stressed out. They can’t take a break without their business falling apart.

That was the thing I had experienced. And then I had a journey through that.

So yeah, I guess it’s bold to say that. But I was told that, Yuri. I’m not telling you this, people told me and said, “I don’t know anybody in the history of the the profession who grew a practice this size as fast as you did.” That’s what was being told to me at the time.

Yeah, it’s something to be proud of, but I’ll tell you, it wasn’t all pretty, that’s for sure.

Yuri:                Sure. So, out of curiosity, because I don’t know this and there’s probably a lot of chiropractors listening to this … What is the average yearly revenue for a chiropractic clinic? Is there a data center that collects this type of information?

Peter:              I think there is. I think the average chiropractic office volume is probably around 80 to 100 visits per week, and probably about a quarter of a million dollars in revenue. Probably about there, maybe 300 thousand.

So yeah, I was seeing 100 people in the morning on Monday. So to be at 1,000 visits per week and then a million dollars a year in the first year … And doing it all cash … So many chiropractors actually depend on third party reimbursement.

With that being said, they don’t have to sell anything. For me, I had to sell myself. I had to sell my product.

I had to convince people who had insurance to say, “I’m not gonna go to the guy down the street, but I’m gonna actually come to you and I’m gonna give you my money because I believe what you’re saying and I actually want you.”

And then, we built our office on referrals. So, not only did I have to sell them but I had to resell them every single time I saw them. Because for them to directly refer their family and friends to me they had to be loving what they were getting.

That’s the model that we worked.

Yuri:                Let’s talk about that. How did you initially get the people into the office, into the clinic? And then, what did that referral orchestration side look like?

Marketing and referrals

Peter:              Initially, it was doing these health screenings. We would go out to events in the town, set up our 10 by 10 E-Z Up tent if it was outside, with my spine if I had power, we’d use the scanner, I’d have my little nerve chart, I’d have a little questionnaire.

That was it. We did a lot of that.

If I could speak anywhere, I would go speak. I spoke at the library, I spoke at churches, I spoke at small businesses, I did lunches, I bought lunch, I would go to any business and speak. I had a radio show in my town where I was doing a live show every weekend.

And that’s what I did. I was going seven days a week. If I wasn’t in my office I was out marketing. So, that’s what I did. It was seven days a week, just go, go, go.

Yuri:                Can I stop you there for a second? Because that is so valuable. Not necessarily the 24/7 part, but I think what you talked about is so immensely valuable.

Essentially, what you were doing was you were putting yourself out there. Which is essentially marketing—you’re adding value, you’re giving people a free sampling of your awesomeness. And then, just saying, “Hey, if you wanna go deeper, you can come to the clinic and we’ll take you to the next step.”

That is something so many people fail to do.

I say that because I recently went to seek out a chiropractor where I live, in Toronto, and I basically based my decision on who was the closest chiropractor to my house. Which was a terrible way of making a decision.

And, obviously, I realized that after a few treatments. But had there been someone like yourself who was proactive in getting out there, putting out content online for instance, or going to events and being of service …  I would have surely done business with them.

I just want all the listeners—no matter if you’re a chiropractor, trainer, nutritionist, whatever you’re doing—that is such a valuable lesson that Peter just shared. So, thank you.

So, you got them coming in, you’re doing all that great stuff, then you’re in the clinic doing the treatments and adjustments, taking care of the patients … Once they’re satisfied, once they’re getting results, what is the next step? How do you get them to refer their family and friends?

Peter:              It’s interesting, Yuri, so we have our onboarding process for new clients or perspective clients, before they actually became a payment client—because they would basically buy some sort of a membership plan to our facility, because the cash model enables you to do that pretty simply.

I would actually seed two ideas from the first visit. Number one, that we are a lifestyle chiropractor—so yeah, we’re gonna help you with your acute pain or chronic pain, but ultimately we want you to be a part of our lifestyle culture, which is including chiropractic as part of your regimen in staying well.

So we would seed that, but we’d also seed, through our communication, the fact that everyone could probably benefit from this. And the words are “could probably,” because you want them to think that for themselves.

So you want them to say, “Wow, it sounds like this could help with this and this. And wow, I know people like that.” So seeding the idea.

And then for part of my initial conversion process I do what’s called a doctor’s report, where I would actually take them through a class, and I would actually teach them, basically, what I learned in school, eight years of school.

I taught them a 40 minute class. Basically on the science, the art, and the philosophy of what we do in chiropractic, and then I actually invited them to partner with me in helping more people, reach more people.

Before they even signed up I asked them if they would be willing to do that.

And I was kind of bold about this. But literally, the day that they signed up, I would ask them that day when they checked out, I would say, “If you have any family members or friends that haven’t been checked, my staff is going to go ahead and talk to you about getting them scheduled.”

And then, on their next visit we would just ask them flat out, “Who do you know?” That question is so powerful, just, “Who do you know that might be able to be helped by a chiropractor that lives in the area? And if they don’t live in the area let us know because I’ll try to find them somebody outside of the area.”

We weren’t just looking to build our practice … And what’s the objection? “Well, doc I’m not gonna help you build your practice until you’ve helped me first. I wanna get results before I tell anybody about it.”

How do you bypass that? Well, it’s simply saying, “Is this true or not?” And if it’s true for you now, when you’re feeling terrible, it was true for you two days ago when you weren’t.

Therefore, it’s also true for the people who aren’t feeling bad yet. And it will help them prevent feeling like you feel now, which is terrible.

So it’s actually helping people have a bigger view—a holistic view—of the world and also humanity. And truly just saying, “Hey, I’m willing to help pay forward, help other people with their health as well, and be a contributor to them.”

So I would say, “You’re gonna be one of the people they’re never gonna forget because you’re gonna help them change their life.”

Yuri:                Absolutely. Makes them a hero.

 Peter:              Yeah, they’re a hero.

 Yuri:                That’s great. That’s super smart. Completely out of left field question here, that I’m hopefully gonna tie back in. What did you wanna be when you were growing up?

 Peter:              Me? Early, I wanted to be a professional athlete, football player.

 Yuri:                Okay, cool.

 Peter:              That was early, early. Then I wanted to be a pilot. Then I considered being a pastor.

And then, I always loved working with my hands and I was intimidated by going to school for a long time—just academics intimidated me. But it was that challenge that motivated me at the same time. That’s where I gravitated more, getting into the chiropractic space.

So it was athletics, flying planes, then it was pastoring, which was more like working with people, helping people heal and moving forward in their lives.

And then, combining all that was chiropractic.

 Yuri:                That’s very cool. That’s actually a very similar path as me. I wanted to play pro soccer when I was growing up and I was able to do that. I’ve always been obsessed with flying, so I’ll happily go to an airport and just watch planes all day.

And, obviously, being in the health field is serving other people. So it’s pretty funny.

During your teenage years, when you were younger, did you ever have your own business? I remember shining shoes at people’s doors or stuff like that. Did you ever have any of those entrepreneurial ventures?

The transition from employee to CEO

Peter:              I wish I did. I didn’t. I just started working early.

I found jobs early, started making money, bought my own car, paid my way through college, undergrad. Early on, I grew up early. But no, I wasn’t an entrepreneur, I was a hard worker.

And actually, Yuri, if I may say this, that’s actually part of my discovery that I had—I was actually working out one morning and I had this revelation that came to me, I literally had this voice that I heard, it says, “You’re a great employee.”

And I was like, “Hell yeah, I’m a great employee.” I was doing burpees or something and I was crushing it that morning.

And I was delirious, but I heard this voice and when I finished working out I actually started writing—which is pretty typical, I do a lot of writing after working out.

It was almost like this voice came and says, “Yeah, but you’re not an employee. You own a business and you’re acting like an employee.” It was this conflict that had to be resolved in me.

I realized, every business that I had worked for up to that point, Yuri, whether it was landscaping—I do a lot of landscaping, construction, a lot of manual labor stuff—or even as an associate chiropractor in another chiropractor’s office … Every person I’ve ever worked for asked me to be a partner or buy into their business, from the age of 15 all the way up.

And here I am in my own business acting like an employee still. In a business that I own.

And the problem was that I never actually bought into this idea that I was an owner, that I was a CEO, that I was this person. And because of that, I never behaved like one. And that’s where a lot of the personal issues come in, life stuff kind of goes off.

Yuri:                That’s amazing. So it’s like this internal punch in the guts, being like, “Hey, you’re not really the owner of this company if you’re a slave to it!” And then obviously taking the action to change that around.

So, you had the revelation, just in speaking with you I can tell you’re someone who has been in the trenches, you’ve practiced this, you’re very persuasive—because you’re passionate about what you do—and that translates into higher conversions.

It doesn’t really matter what it is you’re doing. If it’s patients or online or anything else, that’s a skillset that takes time to develop.

How did you build that? How did you develop that? Was that something you had innately, growing up? Is that something that you started going to courses for? Or learning from different people? Or just practicing in the trenches?

Peter:              I always say, Yuri, a lot of it is just from being in the trenches.

I have an amazing wife as well. I’m gonna give her a shout-out, too, because she pushes back all the time on things that I’m doing or not doing. She really helps me vet a lot of the things that I’m walking through, a lot of my emotions, a lot of my behavior.

And she is one of the people that’s just been saying, “You can do better than this. We could be doing better. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

She always helps me question what I’m doing, what I’m believing, and how things are going. And she’s really helped me to actually dive into it, ask the questions and find out for myself,  like, “What is this? Why am I feeling this way? Is this the way that it has to be?”

So yeah, I think a lot of it came through working hard in the trenches and getting to that place of being burned.

Here’s the conflict—”I love what I do, but I don’t wanna do it anymore.” That’s not a good place to be. So it was that feeling of, “I love what I do and I’m really good at it, but I don’t wanna do it anymore. But what else am I gonna do?”

And so it was like, “How do I do this?” And I looked around at my colleagues, thinking, “Well, everybody’s doing the same thing. Everybody’s feeling the same way.” Or, they’re bailing out or selling out—which it felt like in many ways.

So I was like, “How do we do this well? How do we maintain integrity? How do we maintain excellence? How do we maintain some level of a standard for ourselves or even as a profession, and still rise to that next level? How do we go to that level and stay fulfilled and satisfied?”

For me, that’s what it was. And I’ve always had a compassion for my fellow colleagues. I’ve always wanted to help them do better. And that’s something that’s been inside of me since my young days—I did a lot of youth work, a lot of retreats, a of sports camps, other things. And I realized that my passion was always pouring into people and raising them up.

And so, for me personally, that’s where I started to discover this calling or this desire to work with chiropractors and help them succeed at a higher level in their practice. Not saying I have arrived and figured it all out, but just saying, “If you could partner with somebody and we could do this together, I would love to be a part of that.”

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s great, man.

So, you talked about a lot of your relationships almost falling apart as you were growing your practice. What is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced in growing your business? Would that be the biggest? And what was the lesson you learned from that?

Peter:              The biggest challenge, honestly, was … Well, the relationship thing was the hardest, because it hit the closest to my heart, it hit the closest to home. When your wife is saying, “Take it or leave it. You either change the way this is or …”

Because here’s the deal, man. I would leave my house at 4:45 in the morning, I would go to my gym. I built a gym, which ended up not being a successful business. That’s a whole other story.

But I built a gym and I would go and I work out there, and then I’d go and see patients, and then I’d be training teams, meeting with people at lunch. I’d be doing talks, work all afternoon, work into the evening.

I would come home exhausted. I didn’t know my kids. My wife was feeling disconnected.

Yeah, there was food on the table, the money was there and all that. But the relationship piece was gone. And deep in my soul, I was so numb. I didn’t even realize that I was doing that. I thought I was doing the right thing. Like, “Don’t you appreciate me and what I’m doing? And can’t you see we’re helping people?” Right?

Yuri:                Sure.

Peter:              But it’s like, “No, you don’t see me. You’re not meeting me where I’m at.”

So, the relationship aspect was probably the biggest thing in my heart that really needed to be resolved. Not everybody can relate with that, but that was my journey.

But the other side, professionally, was … I realized how fickle everyone in my office was. Because when I stepped out of my practice, at one specific time when my wife was really sick, my practice dropped by a third in 90 days.

And it was that moment that I realized this was so unsustainable. This thing was so dependent on me. I had all these amazing staff and I was paying them well, but this thing will literally be gone in six months if I don’t do something about it.

So, there was a professional moment where I realized I was not doing a good job.

I thought, “Oh, I have this great practice, and I’ve been on stages speaking.” But it’s like, “Dude, you know what? At the end of the day if he doesn’t show up, it’s over.”

And that’s not a business, that’s a job.

Yuri:                Absolutely. So, how did you turn that around?

If you were to sit down with an up-and-coming chiropractor who is starting their own practice or working in a clinic, what can you share with them from that experience to help them avoid those same mistakes?

Sustainability, scalability and long-term success

Peter:              I would say you have to have a vision and a plan in place pre-opening for hiring specific technical help. Whether you’re coming up with a business plan and you want to get money, however you’re doing it—you’re getting investments from your family or somebody.

You need to lay it out for them. If you’re gonna own a practice, you already need to be looking to hire another doctor to help you right out of the gate, because the only way to build a sustainable model and a scalable model is actually to get other technical help.

In the industry that we’re in—because it’s so hands-on, the transactions are so individual, and it can become so dependent onyou as the transaction person—you will literally trap yourself by the fact of what you do. So you build that into your initial model, pre-opening.

Now, this is also great for doctors who don’t want to be owners. They want to be associates and they want to be working in offices. Because I’ll tell you, if you actually work for a doctor who has a great business mind and business plan and they’re thinking like a CEO—they’re going to enable you to have a great career. They’re going to be able to pay you more than any of the other doctors who hire as an associate—because in those other cases, you’re only going to be there for 6, 12, 18, 24 months, and you’ll be out of there. Because you realize this is a terrible business and you can’t do this anymore.

And that’s what happens in our profession. We abuse young doctors who are coming out of school for their labor. We pay them barely anything—they can barely pay their student loans, they can’t start a family, they can’t move forward with their life. And the owner is trying to take home as much as possible.

And so, there’s no business plan, there’s no business model for a professional. It’s 77,000 doctors.

What I would say to a young doctor coming out of school is, “If you’re going to own and you want to open a practice, you’ve got to be a CEO from day one.” You might say, “Well, Camiolo, I’m going to follow the path you did. I’m gonna grind, crush it, do it myself, and then I’ll build a team.”

I would caution against that. Because I don’t think that’s the wisest path for sustainability, scalability, and long-term success. And you build a lot of bad habits, too.

So that’s what I would say. Come up with a business plan, present it to the bank, to whoever is giving you the financing, wherever the money is coming from, and say, “This is where we’re going to go.”

Within 6 to 12 months you’ve built a team, a manager of the business and a technician who can deliver the services that people are paying you for, so it doesn’t have to be all on you.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. What do you think the role of the CEO should be in a chiropractic office?

Peter:              Great question. And that is the question that everybody wants to know. I’d say the first thing is you cast vision. If you’re an owner of a business, you have a vision! Otherwise you wouldn’t have birthed it! One of the things you have to do is you have to keep casting it.

I always tell my staff, I’m like, “If you go fishing you don’t just throw the line out once. You throw it out, you reel it in, you throw it out, you reel it in. You’ve got to keep casting, casting, casting.”

The bottom line is, visions are caught not taught. So if you want somebody to catch your vision, your team is the first person that needs to catch it.

You want your patients to catch it, they’re following. But they’re not gonna catch it if your team is not on board. So casting vision and recasting it. Coming up with ways to do that, building it into your weekly or monthly rhythms.

Equipping the team, making sure that they’re being trained. Equipping, for me, is training my team on all of the best practices for everything that you’re doing— rom how to respond to an email, how to pick up a phone call, how to check out a person if they ask this question, whatever the thing is. Equipping my team to succeed, to win.

Coming up with strategies. I don’t necessarily expect my team to come up with strategies to optimize a system in my practice. I would say that’s part of my role, working with my office manager and collaborating with my team, but ultimately it’s my job to lead the conversation and say, “Hey, we wanna come up with a better strategy for this.” Whatever that may be.

I would say that scaling your systems is the role of a CEO. Figuring out what systems you have and how you can scale it. It’s easy to say, “Well, I love our system for collecting new emails.” Well, great, but is it scalable? Is it the best possible system? It’s always asking that question.

I always tell my team, “Is this the most excellent way?” That’s the question I always ask. Because if it’s not, then there has to be a better one, so let’s go find it.

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

Peter:              Three more things.

Building culture. Culture absolutely comes from the CEO.

Measuring performance. You’ve got to be measuring it, you’ve gotta be getting your metrics and statistics daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. You got to be able to look at those things and make decisions on them.

And the final one is managing key partnerships. Building relationships, partnerships within your profession and outside your profession, in your community, whatever that looks like.

So I would say that’s really the CEO’s role.

Yuri:                That’s wicked. I love that statement, “Vision is caught not taught.” That’s a good one. What if you’ve got the chiropractor who just wants to see patients?

Peter:              Great question. This was me, Yuri! I thought that was me.

I could absolutely relate with that doctor. I would say to them, “Absolutely. If that’s your vision and that’s what you want, do it.” Here’s my catch though. “Tell me what your ideal schedule is. Yes, you want to see patients, but how many patients? And how often? And how regularly? What does that look like?”

Here’s the feedback I get from them. “I do want to see patients, but I want to see them on my own schedule. I want to make the schedule. I want to do it around what’s best for me.” Great. So we say to them, “What’s your vision? What’s your ideal life, work life, look like?”

So we have them write out their vision. “Oh well, ideally I would see patients twice a week,” or, “I only want to see these types of patients—weight-loss patients.” or, “I just want to see chiro patients.” Or whatever it may be. “I just want to speak at the events.”

It’s saying, what’s your ideal schedule? Because whatever it is, you need to build it into your model. It just has to be built into your model.

It’s absolutely still CEO. You’re still CEO, but it’s not completely dependent on you.

Yuri:                That’s great. Great wisdom there. So, if you were to go into a completely different market, let’s say selling tomatoes at a farmer’s market. Anything. Knowing what you know now about business, would you do anything differently if you started again? And, if so, what?

 Peter:              Yes. The answer is yes. One thing I would do is I would first start with a plan, a real plan. A plan to scale from day one. That would be number one.

I would look at building a team earlier, right away. Starting with a team. I actually started with just myself, and my wife was part-time at the front desk with a baby in tow. And that was great, because from a budgeting standpoint it’s the smartest way to do it, we were lean.

I would still stay lean, but discover who the key people are that you need. I would also say, if you could partner and outsource any of the work—consider that as an option. Like hiring people to do more consulting for your business.

For example, I hired a nutritionist in my practice who I don’t pay, she’s not on payroll. But she gets paid per service and so do I. So, she’s incentivized to help get more people in her books. I’m incentivized to get more people on her books, but I’m not responsible to pay her to sit around and wait for her to get people.

Setting it up where you’re hiring people almost as contract laborers, considering that as an option. Things that drive revenue add value to your current clients and add profitability to you in the bottom line. I would look at ways to do that right away.

I would also look at marketing. Marketing is so big, so I would look at automating marketing for the tomatoes. I’d be like, “Well, everybody needs tomatoes. Can’t you tell? Life is better with tomatoes!”

Yuri:                That’s right. Good with pasta sauce.

Peter:              We’ll figure this out. I’m Italian, so we gotta have pizzas and pasta sauce. It’s always better with a little red sauce.

We’d just start coming up with a clear vision statement, mission statement, and core values. I would look at developing those earlier in the game. I know I’m kind of all over the place answering your question here, but yeah, those are some of the things I would do.

 Yuri:                That’s super valuable. And hopefully what our listeners are getting at is, it’s not about being the technician. You can be a technician and you’ll grind yourself into the ground working 24 hours a day. But if you really want to create freedom and a scalable business that impacts more people, creates more freedom and money for yourself, you have to think about this stuff.

Because if you don’t, you’re never going to even have time to think about this stuff.

So I think it’s really, really good advice. If you’re listening to this and you’re a chiro or a physician or a trainer—it’s all the same stuff. It’s a very similar approach. Peter, this has been awesome, man. Thank you for sharing all this stuff.

Peter:              Absolutely.

The Rapid Five Questions

Yuri:                So, are you ready for the Rapid Five?

 Peter:              Bring it on, I’m ready.

 Yuri:                All right, so you’ve got no prior knowledge of these questions, there’s no phone-a-friend, nothing like that. Whatever comes to the top of your mind, just go with that.

Number one. Your biggest weakness?

Peter:              Listening. 

Yuri:                Cool. Your biggest strength?

 Peter:              Taking action.

Yuri:                One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Peter:              Adjusting.

Yuri:                Like chiropractic adjusting?

Peter:              Yeah. That business. I would say the other one would be influencing through speaking.

Yuri:                Cool. What do you do first thing in the morning?

Peter:              I drink a glass of water, immediately go to my prayer room, and I pray and workout.

Yuri:                Awesome. And complete this sentence. I know I’m being successful when ____?

Peter:              My wife is happy and my family is fulfilled and I have joy and peace in my soul.

Yuri:                Awesome, man. Good for you.

Peter, this has been a pleasure. Just so many nuggets of wisdom that have been shared. For those of you listening, if you want to go back and listen to this, just listen to it at .5 speed and take a bunch of notes if you missed any of the stuff that we talked about, that Peter has shared.

Peter, what’s the best place for our listeners to stay in touch with you, follow your work, what is the best place?

Peter:              Probably two places, you can go to chiro-ceo.com. Also the10xdoctor.com is another website, where we host our live events. And then, Facebook as well—you can just look up Chiro CEO, and follow us on Facebook.

Yuri:                Beautiful. Peter, once again, thank you so much. I appreciate all the work you’ve done, that you continue to do, and for going through your own journey so that you can come out on the flip side to help others who are hopefully not going to go down the same path you went down.

Peter:              Absolutely. Thanks, Yuri. Thanks for having me on and letting me share.

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Yuri’s Take

Pretty fascinating stuff, wasn’t that? What Peter was able to do just through hustle and grind was amazing. And eventually he realized that maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But, nonetheless, he has built an amazing practice, learned the hard lessons, learned them the hard way.

And as he said and I’ve said before, the whole “ready, fire, aim” approach needs to be taken with a bit of caution. Because as he talked about, if he were to do things all over again he would really strategize and think with a plan to scale right from day one.

Because if you don’t, you’re essentially ending up as an employee—a slave in your own business.

And that’s why I like to use the analogy of “strategize, then strike.” Take the time to think. Take the time to map out your vision. Get clear on where you want to go 5 years, 10 years, 25 years down the road—and then work on the immediate 90 day plan to get the cart moving.

Don’t worry about what’s going to happen six months or a year from now, because there’s so many things that can change. But if you have a clear vision, you have your North Star, you know everything comes back to keeping you on path for that.

You focus on that, you focus on what’s the plan to help us move in that direction that we can implement over the next 90 days—and that’s how you create magic in your business.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Once again, if you’re not subscribed yet on iTunes, be sure to subscribe today because I’ve got a bonus episode for you coming tomorrow, before the new year kicks around—which is called The Year Ahead.

And it’s a bonus. Literally, it’s an audio training—I’m going to walk you through and show you how to create an amazingly productive and focused 2018. This is an exercise you can repeat every single year if you want to.

So, if you want access to that episode, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. And all you have to do is go to iTunes, go to Healthpreneur Podcast, and subscribe today. While you’re there, it would be great if you could leave a rating review. It would mean a lot.

And once again, I hope you’ve had an amazing year. I hope you’ve enjoyed these episodes, enjoyed these conversations, that you’ve taken notes, that you’ve been inspired, and you’ve been awakened to what’s possible, but also a lot of mistakes that you can hopefully avoid.

It’s been my pleasure bringing this episode to you. Thanks for taking the time out of your life—I know it’s the holiday season, but you’re with me still, which means a lot. So, thank you so much.

Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our bonus episode coming up tomorrow.

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Follow Dr. Peter Camiolo At:

https://chiro-ceo.com/

https://the10xdoctor.com/

Facebook

 

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Free Healthpreneur Health Profit Secrets Book

Transcription

Healthpreneurs, how’s it going? Yuri here, I hope you had an amazing Christmas. I hope you had a great time with your family. If you didn’t celebrate Christmas, whatever it is you’re celebrating—Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, I hope you had a great time. I know that I had a good time with my family. Lots of great food to the point of comatose. But it’s all good once a year, you know? It’s something to look forward to.

Anyway, I’m excited because we’re just a couple days from the New Year and we’ve got some big things happening in Healthpreneur. If you’re not currently part of the tribe, you can head on over to the blog at Healthpreneurgroup.com/podcast. That’s where we have all the show notes for all the episodes. While you’re there, be sure to get a copy of my book, Health Profit Secrets.

Not only will you get a great free copy (you just cover the cost of shipping) you’ll also be put into our email list. I don’t even know why I like calling it an email list. It’s the way I communicate with our audience on an ongoing basis, because that’s where I let you guys know about all the cool stuff we’ve got coming up. The workshops, the events, the different ways that we can help you and specifically work with you to take your business to the next level.

Lots of great stuff coming up in 2018. We’ve got a number of workshops. We’ve got our Healthpreneur Live Event happening later in the year and I’m excited to make this year an amazing one. I hope you are as well.

We’ve got some really cool stuff happening that I think will move the needle for you and we’re going to be doing a podcast episode in the coming days on how to set goals and structure your business and your life to be more productive and more focused in the coming years. So stay tuned.

Today, I’ve got an amazing guest. He’s a good friend of mine—his name’s James Swanwick and I’ve known him for a number of years. He really is kind of a renaissance man because he’s very agile. He’s Australian, but he’s been in the states for a long time now, and he’s basically an investor, an entrepreneur, and a speaker. He was a former Sportscenter anchor on ESPN and he also hosts his own podcast called The James Swanwick Show.

What I love about James and what he’s going to share in this episode is that he’s got this great company called Swanwick Sleep. One of their products are these really cool blue light blocking sunglasses, called Swannies. And he’s going to share exactly how he came up with the idea to create those. And if you get nothing else from this conversation, just the one tip he’s going to share with you about how he came up with that idea … It will be worth a lot of money and saved time in your life. You don’t want to miss that.

Besides that, a couple years ago he created a challenge called the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge, and the reason he created that was the exact same reason he created the Swannies Sunglasses. There’s a similarity and you’re going to discover what that is in our interview.

Another thing, is that Forbes magazine voted him as one of the top 25 networking experts. I’m not even sure what that means. I didn’t ask him about this, but I wish I had in retrospect. He’s interviewed celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Kobe Bryant, David Beckham, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. So, if you want to learn more about James Swanwick and what he’s up to, you can go over to JamesSwanwick.com.

Without any further ado, let’s bring James onto the show.

 

Yuri:                James Swanwick, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast, how’s it going buddy

James:            It’s great to be here Yuri, thanks for having me.

Yuri:                I am pumped because we actually did a podcast interview, I don’t even know, like a year and a half ago for another one of the podcasts that I was running at the time and it was such a great interview. We’re literally gonna just use that same episode. We’re gonna put it up in the coming weeks because I think everyone listening will really get a lot of value out of that.

So, James is the man and I’m excited because you’re kind of like a renaissance man to some degree. You’re a former ESPN news anchor, you’ve interviewed people like Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie. Now you’ve got this amazing company that creates amazing blue light blocking glasses that you can wear anytime of the day and that actually look good, so you don’t look like a freak.

What are you most excited about these days? What are you working on? What’s really jazzing you up?

Reinventing the wheel, and James’ ski goggle story

James:            Yeah. So, I have a sleep company called Swanwick Sleep and we help people sleep better, so that’s really exciting. It came about almost two years ago when a friend of mine told me about the benefits of blocking artificial blue light from our electronics.

Your listeners are probably listening to this on their cell phone right now and there’s an artificial light that’s being emitted from that cell phone. That stimulates our pineal and pituitary glands, which prevents our body from creating melatonin and messes up our circadian rhythm, which is our internal body clock.

Basically, if you’re using your electronics too much at night, you’re destroying your sleep.

I created a stylish pair of blue light blocking glasses, which you wear an hour before you want to sleep each night. People who wear them report falling asleep quicker, sleeping deeper, and ultimately waking up feeling refreshed.

As a health entrepreneur, it’s really exciting because I get to help people and I get to run a business and be kind of virtual and travel around while doing it, so it’s pretty awesome.

Yuri:                Yeah, no, it is good. I mean I haven’t even used your glasses yet, but I need to because I actually use the blue blocking glasses from True Dark glasses. But I would never be caught dead in public with those.

I wear them at home in front of the TV. Even my wife, she ends up laying kind of further away from me when I wear them. But I think you’ve really filled the gap. When you decided to create these glasses, was the thinking like, “Man, everything out there just looks like crap, I want to create something stylish.” Was that the thinking?

James:            Yes. I’ll tell you what it was. I was sitting at home in my Los Angeles apartment on a Friday night and I was wearing a pair of ski goggles, which had sort of like a yellow lens to it. I was watching the TV show Mad Men, you know that show on AMC?

Yuri:                Yeah.

 James:            Yeah, it was a great show. I was watching it, I was literally sitting in my bedroom in Los Angeles on a Friday night, wearing ski goggles while watching Mad Men because I wanted to make sure I got a good night’s sleep and a friend of mine texted me and said, hey James, we’re at the Laurel Hardware restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard, come on out and meet up with us.

And I was thinking, “I don’t want to go out wearing a pair of ski goggles. I’m gonna look ridiculous on a Friday night in Los Angeles,” and that was when the idea hit me. I was like, “You know what? I’ve got to find a stylish pair or I’ve got to make a pair stylish enough that I would feel comfortable being able to go out in public and wear them.” Because half the battle Yuri, is getting people to wear these glasses consistently.

So, I basically found like a Ray Ban style frame—kind of like a cool modern frame—and I stuck that orange lens that blocks the blue light into a stylish frame. And then I launched it on Black Friday, just after Thanksgiving in 2015 and it just took off from there.

There are other blue light blocking glasses on the market. I think they’re ugly as sin. I think ours are kind of stylish enough that you can wear them out and feel pretty cool and have other people go, “Wow, they’re cool, tell me about those.”

Yuri:                Yeah, totally, and you’re connect with a lot of the same people that I know, who are very influential in the health space and they’ve basically become influencers and ambassadors for the product. That helps other people because it’s like, “Hey, where’d you get those?” and then they say “Oh, well you can get these ugly ones over here or you can grab James’s Swannies over here.”

So, I think it’s smart. I think it’s a really important lesson that seems to continuously come up\ with a lot of these conversations I have—“How do you create something you unique where you’re not reinventing the wheel?” But you found a product that the right people kind of understand. You’ve just made it better, more convenient, more classy, more stylish, so that people would actually enjoy wearing them and it’s a really, really smart play. So, well done on those.

James:            You’re absolutely right there, Yuri. I didn’t reinvent the wheel. I just took an existing product and I made it a little bit better … and I think entrepreneurs make this mistake repeatedly—they’re always thinking about, “What can I invent? What’s something new? What’s something that I can create from scratch?” Rather than just look at an existing product and figuring out how can you make it just a little bit better.

That’s what I did. I just took an existing product, which was ugly blue light blocking glasses, or in my case a pair of ski goggles, and I just tried to make it stylish and fashionable. That was it. It’s just a little shift.

Just to use another example, a mutual friend of ours, a guy called Ryan Moran—he took a yoga mat and just added an extra foot to it and called them extra long yoga mats. He crushed it, he dominated. He didn’t reinvent the wheel, he just made the yoga mat manufacturer add an extra foot and people loved it.

Yuri:                I mean, I can tell you from having done yoga a lot, it’s so frustrating when I’m going through a flow and I’m thinking, “I wish this damn yoga mat was a little bit longer.” It’s such a simple idea and as you said, it obviously just took off like wildfire.

James:            It’s so simple, yeah. So, when people are trying to come up with a product idea, what I tell them to do is for three days, just write down every problem that you have in your life. Whether it’s like … There’s not enough toothpaste in the toothpaste tube, or your alarm has an annoying sound or you can’t brush your hair properly because you’ve got some ailment. Whatever it is, just write down all of your problems and then figure out how you can make those problems either go away or reduce the pain around those problems.

Yuri:                Yeah.

James:            A lot of times it just starts to stimulate the creativity in your brain and you get that “a-ha” moment. Then you go, “Alright, okay cool. Let’s go.”

 Yuri:                Yeah. What I love about this approach is that it’s not about the potential customer. I think a lot of times the potential best customer is ourselves.

So you’re saying, “What do I want to solve for myself? Because I have this problem,” I guarantee a bunch of other people must feel the same way.

James:            Yeah. If anyone listening wants to be successful entrepreneur in business, this is it. This is essentially it. It is, solve a problem that you have yourself and then solve that problem for someone else and then someone else, and then another person and then another person and then 10 people, then 20, then 50, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 … And now you have a massive successful business.

That’s it. It’s just solving problems for people.

I like to just start with solving a problem for myself. I used to drink alcohol socially. I was never an alcoholic, but I drank enough that it was kind of slowing me down and I put on a little bit of weight. So I just quit alcohol for 30 days and I felt amazing.

And then afterwards I started telling people about it, “Hey, you should quit alcohol for 30 days because you’ll feel amazing.” And then a few years later, I actually created a program called The 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge, which has now helped thousands of people around the world quit alcohol for 30 days and ultimately better their relationship with alcohol in general.

I didn’t start off to help thousands of people. I just started off by helping myself and then that just turned into helping thousands of people, so yeah.

Yuri:                Yeah, I think it’s a really good starting point for a thought exercise because a lot of people—especially when they’re starting out—are trying to think of, “Okay, who am I trying to serve? What are their wants? What do they need help with?” And it can be confusing sometimes going down that rabbit hole.

But as you said, if you just sit down and think about what your own problems are and solve one of those, everything else becomes a little bit easier. So that’s a really good piece of advice.

So, this is different than an information product. There’s obviously capital involved, it’s not like an e-book that you can download. What did that look like in terms of getting the business started, the capital outlay? What are some things that you learned in this process? That if you were to start over again, you’d be like, “Okay, I’m not gonna make this mistake, now that I’ve kind of gone down this route.”

Starting small, the creation of Swanwick Sleep

James:            Yeah. So in the beginning, obviously we had to get the glasses made, right? So we had to find a Chinese manufacturer. That process took about eight months and in hindsight, it probably should have only taken one month. But, because I didn’t know what I was doing and was kind of fumbling around, it’s a whole new experience, it took longer than it should.

Ultimately, the manufacturer that we did the deal with wanted a minimum order of 1,000 units and that was gonna cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. But I’ll tell you what I did right. I managed to negotiate with them and only had to buy 300 units so I bought 300 pairs of these blue light blocking glasses before I knew whether anyone was going to buy them.

So, I would just encourage your listener, always, always, always try to just start small. Don’t put in a whole lot of money, because you might spend thousands of dollars buying inventory and then nobody wants your product.

I just started very, very, very small. I had 300 of these glasses sent over to the US. We put them into the Amazon FBA and we launched them on Amazon. On the first day we made three sales and I was thrilled with that. Then the next day we made four, the next day we made six and then we kind of hovered underneath ten for a while. We ultimately sold out of the 300 by Christmas 2015. So in about five weeks or so we sold out.

Big mistake. Well, maybe it wasn’t a big mistake in hindsight—but when we sold out, now I don’t have anymore glasses to sell right? So now I actually have to place an order with the same manufacturer, but the time from placing the order to receiving the next order is like eight weeks. So in the history of our company, you can see our sales revenue, for November and December there’s the upward line, and then all of a sudden January and February, zero. Nothing.

So, that was a challenge. And then, of course, when you relaunch again in March on Amazon, you have to do all that hard work again because the Amazon algorithm really rewards you if you’re consistent with your sales, which we weren’t. So it’s a little bit of a horse before the carriage, but what I would say is when you’re starting out, always, always try to get as minimum of an order as possible and just test it. Then, try to figure out, like if at two or three weeks into it, you can see oh, this is working, see if you can place another minimum order so you’re not having that kind of like, dead space of two months afterwards.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s a problem that we deal with, with our consumables, because we have an eight week turnaround on pretty much all of our stuff. It’s the same thing, it’s a very different business than just producing information.

I want to ask you something. When I first heard about the Swannies, I’m like, this is an amazing Kickstarter idea! Why did you decide to launch it on Amazon directly as opposed to raising funds, maybe testing the concept through Kickstarter first?

Amazon, tips and tricks, the pros and cons

James:            Honestly, because I didn’t really know what Kickstarter was and I didn’t understand it. I guess I thought—me being 40 years old at the time—“Ah, Kickstarter, that’s for young kids in their teens or early 20s.”

This is my naivete, right? Like, all I had to do was just google Kickstarter. Maybe I would have started that way.

That was literally the reason. It was just like, “You know what? I’m gonna just launch it on Amazon. I’ve heard some people talk about launching on Amazon. That’s the way I’m gonna do it.”

Ironically, a few weeks ago I was at a conference in Austin, Texas and I ran into some guys who have a sunglass company and they’ve built their entire business on Kickstarter, and have had huge success with it.

So, I’ve had a couple of conversations in the last few weeks about trying to launch a different version of our Swannies glasses on Kickstarter. I can’t actually go out and do the same product now because it has to be an original new product.

Now, two years later Yuri, I am actually going down that route of trying to find like a very unique style of sunglass and launching that on Kickstarter.

Yuri:                Nice. Yeah, full disclosure, I’ve never launched anything myself on Kickstarter, mostly because I’ve never really launched anything remarkable—like a new pair of sunglasses. It’s all been books, courses, you know, supplements that are really not Kickstarter type of products. But it’s cool to see. I mean it’s interesting, it’s not to say that every unique product has to go on Kickstarter, but it’s nice to see that you did well on Amazon right out of the gate.

Is Amazon now the primary distribution method or do you have your own site that a lot of traffic comes to. What does that look like now?

James:            Yeah. So, we were on Amazon for eight months before I launched Swanwicksleep.com, which is our main site, which is a Shopify platform. I think, in hindsight, I would have launched on our site, on Shopify, maybe four months earlier.

So, my strategy now if I’m talking to people who want to hear launches—definitely launch on Amazon first because, just get it up there, test it, get some sales, it’ll teach you to like, you know, try to sell on your Amazon landing page.

Just get some sales in the door and then about the three or four month mark, I would definitely launch on a Shopify site, your own website, and then start trying to drive sales that way.

Now, it’s probably 40/60, so 40% of our sales are now on our Shopify site, 60% are still on Amazon, which I’m thrilled with. I want to get it to the point where our Shopify sales are 90% of our sales and Amazon only represents 10%.

The reason is because while Amazon is great, and it’s a marketplace and you get sales in the door, Amazon ultimately captures the customer’s email address and I can’t really resell to them. I can’t really have an ongoing communication with them to try to sell my other products, whereas on Shopify, I can collect their email address, I can speak to them, and I can sell them a lot of other products.

My strategy if you’re starting out is to start off on Amazon, and then about three or four months in, really try your best to not make Amazon sales the core part of your business.

Yuri:                Sure.

James:            Yeah. Yeah, definitely do off-Amazon.

Yuri:                Yeah, I want to talk about Amazon in a second, but I want to share a quick little story first. One of our Healthpreneur community members approached me at an event a couple months ago, and he’s doing tens of thousands of dollars in sales from a couple different supplements that he sells on Amazon. And he said, “I want to start my own e-commerce, my own domain, my own site, because I feel like I’m becoming a stupider marketer and business owner.”

And it was because he was just getting all these sales on Amazon without doing anything. It’s just a buyer’s marketplace. They go and search for creatine or protein supplements or whatever, and it’s there, right? You don’t have to convince people as much as you do if they’re on Facebook or wherever else. But I just thought that was an interesting comment that he made.

With your experience on Amazon, what are some tips that people need to consider if they’re gonna launch a page or product on Amazon? In terms of the messaging, the listing, and maybe a couple important things to have on their page or mistakes to avoid.

James:            Yeah, so on your Amazon page I would definitely talk about the benefits of your product, not the features, okay. So, a feature of my Swannies blue light blocking glasses is that they have acetate frames, they’re sturdy, they have an orange lens. They’re features, right?

But the benefits are they help you sleep better. You’ll be able to fall asleep quicker, you’ll sleep deeper, you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, you’ll be happier … So, a lot of people make this mistake between features and benefits—and it’s a huge one. You are not selling a pair of glasses. You are selling better sleep.

All through your page and your listing, I would encourage you to just talk about benefits, benefits, benefits. No one’s really buying gym equipment, right? They’re buying a better body. They’re buying wanting to have six pack abs, they’re buying wanting to be more attractive to the opposite sex. Nobody’s buying an in-home workout kit, they’re buying a better feeling. So, talk about those benefits rather than the features.

Also on Amazon, it’s really important that you get as many testimonials and reviews as possible. In the first three months when you’re launching, do whatever you can to get reviews, reviews, reviews, because what we’ve found is that the more reviews that we put on our page, the more conversions that we make.

In fact, we’ve actually put a heat map on our off-Amazon site, on Swanwick Sleep, where you can actually track what the users are doing and get a recording and see where they’re moving around your site. It is amazing how many of them, after they’ve looked at your product, will skip all of the beautiful copy that you’ve written, you spent months writing … And they just go straight to the reviews. They just go straight to the reviews and the testimonials. It’s so powerful, so double down on getting reviews and testimonials.

Yuri:                Yeah, I think we’re at a day and age where social proof has become even more important than it’s ever been. I think the web has trained us to look for stuff like that. When we look at Amazon, we look at the five star reviews or the one star reviews, we go to Trip Advisor, we go to Yelp, even Uber now, right?

So, everything is rating based and I think even if you’re not an amazing copywriter, as you said James, just focus on … Here are the benefits, here’s what it’s going to do for you, and then just litter the page with social proof.

That’s something that we’re really focusing on in our business because we realize that people just want to see that this can work for them. And they want to know that they’re not gonna be taken advantage of, so that’s a really good point.

James:            The other thing I would do is count how many times you have the word “you” on your page listing and then triple it. Don’t talk to a group of people, talk to one person—and that’s the person looking at your page. So, use the word “you” as many times as you can. Talk about pain—talk about their pain—talk about the benefits. Yeah, you can mention the features, but just go on and on and on about the pain, and then the benefits that YOU will get when you buy this product.

Yuri:                Yep. That’s great advice. So, shifting gears a little bit—kind of from a meta level, what do you think is the number one skill entrepreneurs must possess for lasting success?

Surrounding yourself with the right people and asking yourself the right questions

James:            I mean, I think it’s a couple things.

Number one is getting around the right people, and by that I mean going to business conferences. Surrounding yourself with people who are at least ten years more advanced than you, surrounding yourself with people who have already done what it is that you’re trying to do.

That, for me, has been a huge, huge instigator in my business success. It’s basically getting a mentor. I had a mentor who has been in online marketing now for about 12 or 13 years. I’ve only been in it for three years.

My learning, and the speed with which I did things, increased exponentially simply because I was around a business mentor like that. You learn by osmosis, right? So, get around people who are more successful, or who are already doing what you want to do and feel that discomfort. Embrace the discomfort of being the dumbest person in the room, because that’s how you grow.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s great advice.

James:            Then second to that Yuri, I would say understand the cognitive biases of the human brain. What that means is, understand why customers buy. Why do people buy?

Understand that—because when you can understand that, then you can put it through all of your marketing so you can talk about pain and benefits, you’ll understand the difference between benefits and features. You’ll understand why people want social proof. You’ll understand why they want to see you on a TV show or in a magazine or on a podcast. You’ll understand why it’s important to give them a discount and guarantee and a warranty.

If you can understand all of those things, as to why the human brain functions that way, then you will be able to convert prospects into customers for the rest of your business life.

Yuri:                Absolutely. Two great resources for you guys on that note. One of my favorite books of all time is Influence by Robert Cialdini. For me, it’s one of the must-reads if you have a business, even if you’re not interested in copywriting, just understanding the stuff that you’re talking about James. And second is, it’s a thicker book. I’m trying to remember, it’s by Charlie Munger …

James:            Poor Charlie’s Almanack.

Yuri:                Yeah, exactly. That’s another great book.

James:            Yeah.

Yuri:                We’ll be sure to link up to those in the show notes as well because I think those are two great references and I’m sure you’ve gone through those as well.

James:            Yeah, I’ve read both of those. Poor Charlie’s Almanack is my bible, essentially. That, more than Cialdini’s book, really made me understand why people buy.

Yuri:                Yep. It’s huge. You know, I have this discussion quite a bit with people that I work with—I can give you the framework, you can have the exact formula ready … Like, let’s say you follow the product launch formula style type of launch, right? You’ve got the three content videos, you have the sales video, you have all the emails done properly.

But why is it that some people just hit a home run out of the park and make millions, while other people barely make any sales? It’s not that the mechanics are any different. It’s the little nuances, the cognitive biases, the understanding of human psychology that a lot of people are not aware of.

How do you influence someone to take action? That’s one of the most important skills and I completely agree with you that everybody should learn this to be successful in business and I think in life in general.

I mean, I’ve got kids. Influencing kids is not easy, you know? But you have to kind of understand what’s gonna motivate them, and it’s very similar with potential customers. So, great two points. Find a mentor and then understand those cognitive biases, which is great.

I’m gonna ask you this—and it’s funny, because I think everyone on the podcast so far has said, get a mentor. Every single episode it’s been like, “Get a mentor, get a mentor, have a coach.” What advice do you give to someone or what do you say to someone who says, “I don’t have the money, I don’t have the time, I don’t want to travel.”

What do you say to that person?

James:            I say, do whatever you can to get a mentor anyway because when you pay, you pay attention. So one of the things that happened to me was, I was always the person who would go to seminars for free. I’d find a way to get a free ticket. I’d befriend one of the speakers and hope that they would offer me a free ticket, which they did.

So I would go to conferences and seminars, and I would go for free.

Someone would send me a pirated copy of a program and I would go “Yes, I’ve got it for free.” But guess what? I didn’t do anything, because I didn’t value it. So I was getting all this knowledge, but then I wasn’t applying the knowledge because I wasn’t paying attention to it.

The moment that I made myself super uncomfortable and I invested in paying a coach to mentor me, and I paid to go to a conference, and I paid to get on a plane, and I paid for the hotel to go and learn from a mentor … Was the moment that I started paying attention.

Then straight away, because I had paid attention, because I had focused—I started a business, I started another business. I made my first million dollars in that business. I created a coaching program. I paid more mentors. I flew to more places. I bought more plane tickets. I just found a way to do it.

And it’s really hard in the beginning when you feel like you don’t have the money and you’re counting your pennies. I know it’s hard, but anything you can do to pay will make you pay attention.

That is the secret sauce that will inspire you to success.

Yuri:                Yep, that’s great advice. I don’t think there’s ever been a single interaction with another human at an event, coaching group, mastermind that has not paid dividends—for me, personally, and I’m sure the same for you.

Even in one of the brotherhood trips, right? Even if there’s no intention of getting a joint venture partner or whatever, there’s just these offshoots of magical things that happen. Things that you could never even foresee happening. You put yourself in those environments and magic happens.

James:            Exactly right. I couldn’t have said it any better. I was trying to say it more eloquently but you just did it right, Yuri. I was going, “How can I say the same thing but better? No, I won’t. Yuri just nailed it on the head.”

Yuri:                I will give you full credit for that. I’m just paraphrasing what James is about to say so.

James:            Yeah. Definitely just put yourself in an environment where there are people who are more advanced than you and it is amazing what can happen.

But here’s the other thing. Don’t just be a taker, where you put yourself in that environment and you just take, take, take, take, take. You go, “Great, I’ve got all this intel, then I’m gonna go and implement on it.”

You have to be a giver also.

You have to give value, because people want to give value to someone who’s already given value to them. It’s one of Charlie Munger’s cognitive biases, right? The rule of reciprocity. If you give something to someone, on a subconscious level they feel an obligation to give back to you.

So, it’s not just, go there and learn. It’s also, go there and teach. Coach what you know. Just because someone’s 10 years ahead of you in business doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to offer them. Whatever your history is, whatever your background, whatever your experiences—give that to someone. Share that with someone. Help someone else and then they, in turn, will want to help you.

Yuri:                Absolutely. Great advice, my friend. All right, are you ready for the rapid five? 

James:            I’m ready, let’s do it.

The Rapid Five Questions

Yuri:                See how I kind of emerged rapid fire and five questions together? I call it the rapid five.

James:            Very clever. I feel like I’m on Who Wants to be a Millionaire right now.

Yuri:                Is that your final answer? All right. So you have no idea what these questions are. There was no pre-warning so you’re just gonna get them as they come.

All right. Your biggest weakness?

James:            Oh that’s a good one. My biggest weakness is I’m too self critical. I probably compare myself to other people a little bit too much. I’m very aware of it, but I don’t like that about my personality.

Yuri:                Cool. Your biggest strength?

James:            Social skills. I’m pretty good at people—I like people, so it’s easy for me to be likable and connect other people to other people, and I have a reputation for that.

Yuri:                Yeah, I’d say you’ve got a pretty high EQ, for sure.

James:            Okay, thank you.

Yuri:                Yeah. Okay number three, one skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

James:            I’ve been become dangerously good at marketing in general, which is understanding those cognitive biases we talked about and ensuring that I put all of them on my websites and when I’m selling something over the phone. I’ve become dangerously good at sales.

Yuri:                Awesome. What do you do first thing in the morning?

James:            First thing in the morning, after I use the bathroom, is I write in a journal called five minute journal. It asks me a question like, “What are you grateful for?” and so I force myself even if I’m having depressive thoughts to come up with things that I’m grateful for. And that gets rid of any depressive thoughts that I may have had in the first couple minutes of the day. Gets me thinking about positivity, which then gets me up and moving.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Speaking of the five minute journal, our buddies Alex and UJ who created that. I’m just thinking of another Kickstarter campaign for them. They should just come out with a seven minute journal, beause a little more gratitude will go a little bit longer. It’ll just do more good for you, right?

James:            I love that, that’s great.

 Yuri:                Then the nine minutes. Anyway, that’s enough of my nonsense. Final one, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

 James:            I know I’m being successful when I feel content in my life, in my health, in my relationships, in my business. When I have good friends around me—not necessarily lots of friends, but good friends. When my family is healthy and I’m traveling the world, making my own choices along the way.

Yuri:                Awesome. Great stuff buddy. I’ve got one more question, which is not part of the rapid fire. Just out of curiosity, what did you want to be when you were growing up?

James:            I wanted to be a lawyer. What a disaster that would have been, huh?

Yuri:                Oh, dear. 

James:            I’m so glad I didn’t go down that route. Man, everything I’ve ever heard about being a lawyer just sounds awful. I much prefer this version, where I’m an online business owner and I can travel and be anywhere I want, whenever I want. I prefer that for sure.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Good stuff buddy. Well this has been tremendous James, thank you so much. What’s the best place for people to stay up to do date with what you’re up to and check out the Swannies?

James:            Well if you want to check out the Swannies, you can go to Swanwicksleep.com. It’s pronounced “Swanick” but it’s spelled Swanwick. My main website is Jamesswanwick.com and you can find me on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, at James Swanwick.

Yuri:                Awesome. James, it’s been a pleasure to reconnect with you and just kind of extract your awesomeness—which is obviously very evident—so thank you for taking the time to join us on the Healthpreneur Podcast.

James:            Yuri, it’s been a great pleasure, thank you so much for having me.

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Yuri’s Take

There you have it guys, the man himself, James Swanwick. Awesome dude. You know, we talked about the traits of a successful business owner or entrepreneur, and one of the things I can say about James is that I’ve seen him through two or three different businesses in completely different niches, and he’s done well in all of them.

That’s because he understands those fundamentals that we talked about—which is getting around a mentor, someone who can show you the way to really take your business to the next level.

Again, if that’s something you’re interested in—which I think it should be for everyone listening—we have an amazing group called The Luminaries Mastermind. If you’re interested in learning more about it, be sure to drop me a message over on Facebook. All that stuff is linked from our website over at Healthpreneurgroup.com/podcast.

We work very closely with visionary health and fitness entrepreneurs who want to take their business to the next level and if that’s someone like yourself, who sees the value in what you have to offer, and you want someone like myself to help you see around the corners, show you your blind spots, expedite and accelerate your progress forward … Check it out. Because guys, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been doing this for 12 years, and I have built several multimillion dollar product brands in the health and fitness space.

That’s why I love sharing what I know, with people like yourself, because if I can help you impact more people and change more lives, then collectively, everybody wins.

That’s my selfish reason for creating healthpreneurs—really helping influencers become more influential, because you have a message, you have a gift, you have expertise that we mostly take for granted.

We go through school, we go through years of experience working with clients and patients and all sorts of stuff … And we think that what we know is common knowledge. But here’s the thing, it’s not.

What you know is like an eighth language to most people you serve, and that’s why it’s always important to bring things back to basics and understand that you have so much knowledge and so much expertise. You have a way to connect with people and serve them, and you’ll have enough fuel for the rest of your life in terms of being able to serve the people you want to serve.

My real superpower is helping you extract that, package that, leverage that, and position that in ways that gets in front of the right people to help you build a business that you love. One that is very profitable, that creates more free time in your life, and then also impacts 10 times, 100 times more people in the process.

Anyway, that’s all for today. If you want to learn more about that head on over to the blog. And again, the new year is upon us so now is the time to start thinking about what is going to be different.

What does 2018 look like for you? If you want different results, you’re gonna have to start doing different things. You’re gonna have to start thinking differently. You’re gonna have to take different actions.

I want to finish off with one question.

You set a goal and you say your goal is X. But, are you taking actions that are in line with X? Or are they moving you towards Y?

You see, a lot of times the reason we don’t hit our goals is because we don’t really care about them at an emotional, visceral level. But let’s assume that we do. We’re simply not congruent in our actions to accomplish that goal.

So I want to walk you through something related to this in one of the upcoming episodes. The next episode is actually going to be with Dr. Peter Camiolo, who is a co-founder of Chiro CEO, a really cool company where he works with Josh Axe.

But along with that episode, we’re probably going to throw in a bonus episode before the first of the year where I’m going to walk you through a very specific process that I do with my team, with my clients, that’s going to give you more focus, more structure, and help you stay on track to really go after what matters to you in 2018 and beyond.

And it does all this in a way that is not overwhelming, in a way that gives you super focused clarity. And when you have that clarity along with your capabilities, you can move forward with confidence to go after what it is that matters most to you.

But, in order to get that episode, you have to be subscribed to the podcast. So, head on over to iTunes if you haven’t already. On your phone, you can just search it or go to my podcasts, be sure to hit subscribe—that little purple button top right of the screen—and you’ll be able to download all the episodes right onto your phone.

While you’re on iTunes, I would really appreciate if you could leave a review or rating. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, if you’ve been listening to my voice for the past couple episodes or months, and you haven’t left a rating or review … I want to call you out here—and I’m actually gonna call myself out too, because I’m one of those guys that will listen to a podcast from start to finish, like 500 episodes, but I’ll never leave a review.

I’m going to challenge myself to actually do that. And I understand that you might be listening and you’re not a “review-leaver,” but I will say this. Be the client you want to attract.

For instance, in my case, if I want people like yourself to leave a review, I’m gonna go out and leave more reviews. If I want to attract more clients into our mastermind, I need to be somebody who’s currently engaged in other masterminding coaching groups.

If you want to attract a certain client or a certain customer, are you that type of person, or are you incongruent with that in the first place? If you’re incongruent, that could be part of the reason you’re not getting the results you want.

I know this is a long drawn out story here, but, at the end of the day, the more ratings and reviews we have for this podcast, the more entrepreneurs we’re able to influence, the higher up on iTunes we’ll get. And I’ll just be very honest with you, I have no egotistical reason for being at the top of iTunes with this podcast—other than the fact that we want to serve a lot of entrepreneurs in the fitness and health base.

As I’ve said a thousand times, and I’ll say it again—I firmly believe that there is no other profession in this world other than health, wellness, and fitness entrepreneurs that can transform people’s lives like we can, like you can. And it’s my goal, it’s our goal to help get these conversations, this information out to those entrepreneurs who need the help, who need that extra step, who need that extra little bit of inspiration to get them to the next level.

Because they might help one more person or write that book that’s been sitting on the back burner. Okay? That’s why I’m asking you to leave a rating or review.

So, that’s all for today. I’m once again very grateful for your time, for listening to me, for joining in on these conversations. Again, we’re wrapping up 2017. I’m super grateful for all the amazing listeners we’ve had throughout the year and this is a show that, for me, is at the center of my Healthpreneur universe.

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Transcription

Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Today is a very special day because, if you were a good girl little boy or girl, Santa probably came down your chimney last night and left some goodies underneath your Christmas tree. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you had an amazing Hanukkah or holiday season, whatever it is that you celebrate.

Hope you had a great time with friends and family, loved ones. I know that we did, we had a great time with our kids and our family. Lots of snow, which was really nice. So, this episode is not going to be a very long one, but I think the timing of this is perfect because you will see that this is the time of year to really focus on what I am talking about.

It’s about the fulfilled entrepreneur. And most specifically, your business G spots.

The gap—what is it? And why should you stay away from it?

That’s right. I know it’s a little bit taboo and controversial, but here’s the thing. As entrepreneurs, we tend to be very go-getter, A-type, nonstop type of individuals, right? And that’s all great. That’s part of our superpower. But the dilemma is that a lot of times we end up living in this thing called the gap.

Now, I first heard this term from my coach Dan Sullivan, from My Strategic Coach. The gap is essentially the distance, the difference, the space between where you are and where you want to be.

So, you’re currently at $1 million and you are seeing somebody else in your circle of friends who’s making $10 million. Now there’s this comparison. You’re living in what you don’t have. A phrase like, “Oh, my God. I’ve gotta be there. What I have isn’t good enough. I need to be there.”

If you go on Instagram or Facebook, you look at other people’s highlight reels, you often feel slightly worse about your life or your business as a result of doing that. And in this day and age where social media is constantly in our face, it’s very easy to live in the gap. Social media is constantly showing us what we “should” have in our lives. And a lot of times, we don’t really recognize or understand that the people who are showing us these images or these videos of their life … They are small little snippets, snapshots, or highlight reels that don’t really reflect the trueness of what the person actually goes through, right?

And then in some cases, maybe they rent a Lamborghini or they pay a certain amount of money to have a picture taken with a private jet instead of actually owning it. These are all stupid, ridiculous, superficial things that are going on in this day and age.

But it leads a lot of people to think, “Oh, that is what success is.” And it leads a lot of us to believe that, that’s what we should want. So, instead of all that, I want to challenge you to really focus on your business G spot, which is gratitude.

So, instead of living in the gap between where you are and where you want to be, focus on gratitude. And there’s nothing wrong with setting goals and intentions. I’m a massive goal setter!

But you have to learn—if you haven’t already—to focus on what you’ve accomplished instead of what you don’t have yet.

The small wins

That’s why I call this the business G spot. In your business, whether you’re a solopreneur or you’ve got a team of individuals, one of the most important things you can do on a daily basis as an individual is recap the small and big wins that you’ve had during the day.

And one of the easiest ways to do this is at night, simply write down a couple of wins that you had during the day. If you have a journal or if you use any kind of apps like WinStreak—which is one of Strategic Coach’s apps—do that.

This focuses our minds on the good instead of the gap. And this is so important, because remember, our mind can only fixate itself on one thing at a time. You are either seeing the gold or the dirt. If you use the analogy of that miner’s cap with the flashlight on it—you can’t focus on two things at the same time.

So, we want to habitually train ourselves to focus on all of the great things that we’ve done. And I’m talking about the smallest little things that most of us don’t recognize as wins. And the challenge is that we only focus on the big things as potential wins. Like, “Oh, my God, I struck this huge deal,” that’s a win.

But we often fail to recognize the small wins. A couple of examples might be … I woke up a little bit earlier today. I got in that work-out. I made myself a healthy breakfast. I sent that email, even though I was a little bit scared to. I recorded that podcast even though I didn’t feel like doing it.

There’s micro-moments in your day. Every single day, there are hundreds if not thousands of little moments that we can recognize as wins, appreciate them, and be grateful for them. And doing that makes us feel a lot more fulfilled. Because when we focus on what we’ve got and what we’ve accomplished, we feel so much more full than if we focus on the gap, right?

If we are looking at the cup and it’s half empty all the time, well obviously, we are going to feel deprived, we are going to feel that there’s a void that needs to be filled—instead of being grateful for the liquid or the water that’s already in the cup. And that’s what this exercise is all about.

So, this time of year is always an interesting challenge for me, because we have three boys who are fairly young—3 to 7 years old at the time of this recording. And I’ve always looked at Christmas time as first and foremost, all about being with loved ones.

It’s never been about the gifts for me. It’s never been about more toys and more junk and more shit like that, pardon my French. But as kids, that stuff really lights them up. So, it’s this balance.

If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably experienced this as well. It’s finding that balance between letting kids be kids and having their presents, doing all that stuff … but also helping them recognize that it’s not about just getting new stuff all the time.

Because again, if you’ve got kids, I’m sure you’ve recognized this at some point. The kids open up a present. Cool, a toy car. They open up the next present, cool, little fighter jet, whatever. Next present. And it’s on, and on, and on.

So, I’ve always had this struggle in my household because my wife Amy has a slightly different perspective on this than I do. But it’s about finding the happy medium between not going crazy overboard with these toys, but also giving the kids enough so they feel like, “Oh, this is amazing.” And it’s just really Festivus time.

So, it’s finding that balance between—since we’re talking about Christmas here—how do we just let the kids enjoy the gifts and do all that cool stuff, but also remind them that it’s not about just that stuff.

And one of the things that I really want to do, and this is something I’ve been saying for years, and I feel terrible for not having done it yet … Is actually exposing them to people who are less fortunate. And maybe this is not as accessible as I think it is, or maybe it’s just an excuse I’m making. But exposing them to people who are homeless, and who don’t have anything on Christmas. Helping them understand that what they have is absolutely amazing.

Because there’s a lot of people that don’t have this stuff. Whether it’s food, toys, or shelter.

So, in your business it’s the same. It’s recognizing that, no matter what you’re going through, no matter what challenges you’re up against, you are so much better off than so many people in this world. And I’ll actually just lay it out for you right here.

1. You are most likely doing something you love.
2. You’re helping transform people’s lives.
3. You’re either making great income or you’re in the process of developing assets that are going to yield great revenue for you.

And it’s very, very easy to get off that path. To be thinking, “Oh, I’m not here yet,” or, “I should have this,” or, “I should be making this much money.”

And I get it. I’ve been there. Believe me.

So, I’m sharing this from the depth of my own experience and heart here. I want to really encourage you, especially starting today, on Christmas Day. And I want to thank you for listening in, if you’re listening in on Christmas day.

Focus on the good, not the gap

But I am really encouraging you to start focusing on the win. Start focusing on the good instead of the gap. Because when you do, you’re going to feel so much happier, you’re going to feel so much more grateful.

And here’s the cool thing—what you focus on, you get more of.

So, if you focus on lack, you will get more lack. If you focus on abundance, and what you have, and appreciation, well, guess what? You’re going to get more things in life that you’re going to be able to appreciate.

Call it law of attraction, call it whatever you want. It’s just the way it works. Why do so many successful people meditate first thing in the morning? Why do so many people talk about the power of gratitude as being the biggest thing that’s been the needle mover for them in their lives, their mentality, their mindset and their business?

And that’s because we feel so much happier simply by focusing on different things. And it’s not that life is doing stuff to us, it’s how we respond to life. Two people experiencing the same situation might have very different responses to that—it’s yourresponse that determines how you feel about that situation.

So, I want to leave you with this little encouraging message today. If you want to feel a whole lot better as an entrepreneur and you want to have a business that continues to thrive—focus on the good. Recap the wins—individually, on a daily basis. With your team—if you’ve got team calls or a team meeting every week, start off the meeting with recapping, “What was a big win for everyone from the previous week?”

Just get the momentum moving in the right direction. Because when you focus on everything that’s not working right, it’s not the right energy. Yes, we have to resolve issues, but if everything is focused on the pessimistic, gloomy view, “These customers were idiots, and they did this,” and all that kind of stuff … it just isn’t the right energy.

Focus on the good, not the gap.

So, that’s what I’m going to leave you with today. And with that said, I want to thank you for being with me for the past several months. This has been an amazing journey for me. This is something I really love doing—bringing these types of lessons to you and interviewing amazing people in our space.

We are doing great things in their businesses, because I really believe that highlighting these conversations, highlighting these individuals can give you perspective, can remind you that there are a lot of different ways to scale the mountain, if you will. And to really remind and inspire you that no matter where you are in your journey, there’s always a brighter day.

If you are at the depths of despair and you can’t figure out how things are supposed to work out—this thing fell through and nothing seems to be working out for you—I want you to understand that it’s never too late.

There are times where it’s going to be really tough. And I’ll be very honest with you, there are probably more challenging times than there are rewarding, easy times. And that’s just the way it goes.

As an entrepreneur, we signed up for this journey. And it’s about becoming a better version of ourselves so we can handle these bigger problems. Because problems don’t go away. The bigger your business gets, potentially, the bigger those problems get.

And it’s not that they are bigger problems, they might just be bigger in scope, right? Initially, when hiring one person was, “Holy cow, how can I hire one person?” Maybe eventually, hiring 100 people becomes your challenge. And how do you manage that?

So, what’s really cool about what we are on in this journey of building a business, is that we have to grow personally, to become better leaders, become better examples for those around us. So that we can lead others, lead ourselves, and really leave a lasting impact in this world.

So, I want to thank you so much for being a subscriber to the Healthpreneur Podcast. If you have not subscribed, be sure to do so today. We’ve got a lot of amazing episodes coming your way in 2018, including a special bonus session. I’m going to do a bonus round with you, which will be available next Saturday, actually, December 30.

This will be a really nice pre-New Year’s type of session. We are going to look at how to really get clear and focused on the year ahead. I think this session will give you some nice perspective on how to get focused and clear, and really get on the right path to going after your biggest goals in 2018, instead of being scattered with 1,000 little things that you think you should be doing.

So, That’s coming up for you next Saturday. In the meantime, I’ve got two amazing interviews for you this week—one with James Swanwick, who’s a good buddy of mine, coming to us Wednesday. And then, Dr. Peter Camiolo, who built the world’s fastest-growing chiropractic clinic. He’s gonna share how that almost cost him everything and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

So, that’s coming your way this week. Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already. We’ll have both of these interviews, with a bonus session on Saturday, and tons of amazing stuff coming in 2018—right on your iPod, or your iPad, your iPhone, whatever you’re listening to us from.

I want to thank you so much. I hope you have an amazing rest of your holidays. And I will have our great James Swanwick interview for you in just a few days.

Until then, Merry Christmas, hope you enjoy the day, and I will see you then.

Transcription

Yuri:                Today, we’ve got another great interview with Neil Cannon. Now, Neil Cannon is the bestselling author of The Vitality Secret, creator of an award-winning inflammation solution program, and he is a podcast host and health coach. He specializes in helping people reverse inflammation, which is, as you know, a root of almost every common illness we know of in the modern world.

Earlier this year, he received the Southern California Sustainable Business Award for his program called the Inflammation Solution, and now with all the amazing work he’s done in the field of inflammation, he has a new diabetes program that he will let us know about during this interview.

But what’s cool about what we’re going to talk about is that Neil comes from—very much like a lot of us—a background of pain and suffering that he wanted to solve for those he cared about, and as a result, he has been able to help a lot of other people in the process.

We talk about, how do we get people that are so ingrained in the medical model to consider safer, healthier alternatives?

It’s a struggle that a lot of people in our space deal with, and it’s a tough one. It’s an uphill battle, but I think some of the things that we’re about to share in this interview will find you well.

If you want all the show notes to this episode, you can head on over to the blog at healthpreneurgroup.com/podcast, that’s where you can get all the goodies. Without any further ado, let’s bring Neil onto the show.

Hey Neil, how’s it going? Welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast.

Neil:                Thank you very much, Yuri. It’s an honor being on your show, thank you.

 Yuri:                Thank you very much. I’m excited to dive in and talk about the journey and extract some awesomeness from yourself. What’s new and exciting? What is getting you jazzed up these days? What are you focused on? What are you looking to take over the world with this fine day?

Diabetes and Neil’s motivations

Neil:                That’s a great question. Right now, I have steered most of my attention into helping people reverse Type-2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, and insulin resistance—which leads to both of them.

It’s something that is affecting so many people these days, and something that conventional medicine is very quick to use drugs for and not really provide the solution… So it’s a pretty shocking situation.

You’ve probably heard of the “diabesity epidemic” as it is now called. That really is a result of inflammation, which is what led me to this focus. So that’s what I’m doing now, helping people reverse those conditions.

Yuri:                That’s great. What was the moment where you said, “Wow, maybe I should do this diabetes thing, there’s a huge opportunity here.”?

Was there a pivotal moment there, or was it just constantly like… the universe beating down on your door? What did that look like?

Neil:                It’s so interesting. I think it’s the latter, what you just mentioned, the universe knocking down my door—because more and more people were sending me testimonials saying, “Hey Neil, thank you so much. I’ve just reversed my Type-2 diabetes,” or they read my book or I’ve coached them.

It’s just one of those conditions that seem to be the most common, and I just thought, “Why not focus on that?” Because it’s such a huge problem.

It’s something like seventy odd thousand amputations a year or something. It’s pretty crazy. Drugs don’t prevent it, or help it.

Yuri:                Yeah, no kidding, and I tell people … because we talk about diabetes too, and I tell people, “Listen, if you’ve got Type-2 diabetes, it’s actually …” I consider that kind of an optimistic condition, because it’s not like stage 4 cancer.

Diabetes, in a lot of our cases, is very reversible through lifestyle, and I think it’s a great message to share with people, to be like, “Listen, you don’t have to have your feet chopped off. There’s a way to get back to normal without Metformin and other drugs that cause more damage than good.”

Neil:                Precisely, yes, and I’m on a bit of a personal mission to get people off medications, because really I’m a strong believer that for any inflammatory condition or autoimmune disease, drugs are not only ineffective but they actually cause further harm.

And they cause additional problems, which often require another medication—so yeah, I’m on a personal mission to get people off drugs and really empower people to take their health into their own hands.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s great. When you say “personal mission,” is that like, you’ve kinda gone down that journey of medicated routes and had some issues? Is there a story there?

Neil:                There is a story, as is often the case with people who do health and wellness.

The inspiration for my recent book—The Vitality Secret—came from my father actually suffering a stroke unnecessarily. I say “unnecessarily” because I realized through my investigation that the chronic inflammation he was diagnosed with many years prior to that led to high blood pressure and then a stroke—and as you know, the inflammation is ultimately a result of toxicity in the body.

It’s your immune system turning into defense-mode consistently, and there are so many ways we can get rid of inflammation in the body—by changing what we eat, how we move and by managing emotions like stress.

When he was diagnosed with chronic inflammation, he wasn’t given the right nutritional advice or, let’s be honest, anynutritional advice by his doctor, and the inflammation got worse and worse and worse, and he suffered a stroke unnecessarily.

So there is an emotional kind of attachment to why I have pursued this journey and why I wrote that book, and I’ve seen so many people that have been over-medicated.

I mean, I understand that medications do have their place, and I really believe they’re very short-term only—unless you have something like Type-1 diabetes—but in most cases I really believe that they don’t have a place long-term, and I’ve seen a lot of people suffer from taking medications because it never heals the root cause.

It just suppresses it, or it doesn’t even suppress it. It hides it, allowing it to get worse and worse and worse, and then people become kind of … not addicted to, but reliant on one medication, then another one, then another one, and you know … stories like people having their intestines removed and stuff because they’ve never fixed the ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s crazy. Again, I’m sorry to hear about your father, and I can relate because-

Neil:                He’s around, by the way.

Yuri:                My grandmother actually had a stroke when I was really young. She was a smoker, drinker, just lover of life and all that stuff and she suffered a stroke…

She actually moved to Australia a few weeks before she had a stroke and I, again, woke up one morning and half her body was paralyzed and she lived like that for the next 20-some odd years, and what I really enjoy about our space—the health wellness space—is not that stuff obviously, but it’s the fact that people like yourself are coming from a position, from an origin of wanting to save someone else, right?

Whether that’s themselves or a family member or someone close to them. And it’s very rare in a lot of other industries that you find that.

I think there’s a kind of nobility that we have in this industry to really care about people, and that’s why I think it’s just such a great time and space we live in to be able to take, “Here is this shitty condition and it really prompted me to create this solution and as a result of that I’ve been able to save tons of people now.”

It’s amazing, and that’s why I’m so pumped about speaking with people like yourself and really serving this community, because I think that what we do is really unique.

Neil:                Yeah, I totally agree, and it’s a really rewarding industry to be in. Very much so. Being in it to serve and to make a living from it is pretty incredible.

Yuri:                Yeah, totally. So tell the listeners—talk to us a little bit about your business model. What does it look like?

You have The Vitality Secret, you have The Inflammation Solution, you’ve got this new diabetes program. Are they, for the most part, all accessible online? How do people buy these?

Neil:                Yes, they are all accessible online. The link for The Vitality Secret, which is vitalitysecretbook.com, then there’s The Inflammation Solution, which is theinflammationsolution.org, and then I’ve got Diabetes Defence—which is defence with a “C” because I’m English—diabetesdefence.com.

I have not been able to get the “S,” but yes, they’re the main domain names, and I’ve got my blog which is mojomultiplier.com—which is actually a result of my first book called Mojo Multiplier, which is all about raising testosterone naturally for guys.

That was another personal story, back in 2012. And then I have a podcast called the Mojo Fit podcast. That’s where I’m sharing empowering stories of self-healing, people healing their bodies.

I’ve come to realize, through all my obsessions with health and wellness, that all of us have this body which is designed to heal. It actually wants to heal all the time, and we just need to figure out how to do it—which course of action is best for us—and once we realize the western approach typically doesn’t work, a lot of these people I’m interviewing on the podcast realize they have this power to heal their own bodies, and they come off the medications and they come out the other side feeling incredible and empowered and transformed.

I’ve interviewed all these people who’ve healed these so-called “incurable” conditions like multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease, and psoriasis and chronic pain, depression, cancer.

I’m sharing all these stories so people can hear them and go, “Ah, if that’s possible, I can do that too.” I think it’s just pretty powerful sharing these messages with people, because we can all heal.

Podcasts, better than the news

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s very inspiring. So you’ve got these different programs, different domains. Is the podcast the main means through which people find those, or how else do you get the word out?

Neil:                Those particular stories, yes, on my podcast and I obviously blog about them on my blog, Mojo Multiplier. So yeah, that’s the main means through which I share those.

Yuri:                Cool, awesome. Yeah, and I find one of the reasons I love doing a podcast is that it’s a very intimate experience.

People listening to this might be in their car, they might be going for a walk. It’s a very distraction-free type of environment and I find that it’s a great way to really connect with people at a deeper level than if they’re just scrolling through their Facebook news feed, right?

Neil:                Exactly, yeah. I love them. Whenever I’m in my car, I listen to podcasts and it’s just a really good way of using that time and when you’re traveling or whatever, as you say.

Yuri:                It’s better than the news, that’s for sure. Actually it’s funny, I was working out … I’ve got my garage turned into a gym, so I was outside my garage the other day, and my neighbor was sitting on her porch, and I was like, “Hey Sandra, how’s it going?”

She’s like, “Oh you know, I’m just reading the news, feeling more depressed now so I think I’m gonna go inside and vacuum.”

I’m like, “Yeah, that’s pretty much why I don’t read the news.”

Neil:                Yeah, absolutely. I’m totally with you on that. I think about 95% of it is completely utter, you know …

Yuri:                Well, if you think about your podcast, what you’re doing is … it’s kind of positive news, right? It’s like, “Hey, here are these inspiring stories.”

Instead of saying, “Hey, woman shot dead with a shotgun,” how about, “Woman saved by doing this cool protocol”? But again for the news, if it doesn’t bleed it doesn’t lead. We know that pain motivates more than pleasure does, so that’s another story, but what I love about what you’re doing is you’re really leading with possibility.

It’s like, hey— you go to the doctor, you read the news, and it’s all doom and gloom. “Take this drug, side effects may include death.”

Or you can hear about these positive stories of people like yourself, who have done this, this and this, and now they’re back to normal.

I think we need more of this. We need more of your type of stuff, because people need to hear that message more and more. So I just want to commend you on that, because I think it’s well-needed and I think you’re doing a great job with that.

Our current medical model—Problems & Solutions

Neil:                Thank you. Yeah, I’m so with you on the news thing, and I could go off on a complete tangent but I won’t.

What I will say is there is so much misinformation in the news about health, and it really makes my blood boil. There was an article I read in January, from the Guardian newspaper—which most people regard as a reputable source—and it completely slammed every natural approach to reversing cancer.

Rather, it broke down five “myths,” and it was written by this Oxford researcher, so you’d think, “Oh, he’s got credibility because he’s come from this prestigious university in England.” And I read it, and I just thought, “This is complete and utter rubbish. Who financed this?”

So I wrote a whole article about it, and it’s just one example. It was slamming, for example, the ketogenic diet, which is one of the most effective ways to reverse cancer and starve cancer cells to death.

It’s not effective in every single case but it has been proven to be very effective on multiple types-

Yuri:                Sure. Take away the sugar.

Neil:                Exactly, and then the plant-based diet. They categorically said, “There is no diet that can cure cancer.” And I thought, “People are gonna read this, and people do read this.”

There’s a meme that says people only understand the truth once they see it in the media, or something along those lines, but it’s … Yeah, I’m really with you and if we can share stories, really empowering stuff through the medium of podcasts and such, people will start to not be so conditioned by the fake news that we have out there.

Yuri:                I hope so, and I think it’s … I find this really troubling for people of our parents’ age.

My dad is approaching 70. My mom is around the same age, late 60s, and they’re of a generation where the doctor is the number-one trusted person on the totem pole, right?

Whatever the doctor says, that’s what you do. And my dad obviously respects what I do and comes to me for advice—he called me a few weeks ago because he started getting sciatica, sciatic pain down the back of legs.

I was just like, “Okay, is it back of the legs? Is it front of the legs?” Just trying to get an idea of what’s going on, and I’m like, “Dad. The number-one thing you can do right now is first and foremost, get assessed. See a physiotherapist or get an MRI to see what’s going on, but I’m telling you right now, your doctor is gonna have zero solutions for this. What they’re gonna give you are painkillers and that’s it, and that’s the last thing you want to be stuck on.”

Next week I call him. He’s on the painkillers, from his doctor obviously. So for him, his first route is, “Go to the doctor, do what the doctor says,” even if the doctor has no expertise in exercise rehabilitative type stuff for sciatica.

And there’s a lot of people like my dad. I’m sure a lot of the people you serve as well, who are so ingrained in that old paradigm of, “the doctor is the be-all and end-all,” how do we start to change the conversation? How do we get a message that is a little bit different, to get these people to think outside the box, if it’s even considered outside the box?

Neil:                That’s an interesting question, that, because it’s a very common thing I hear. I’m sorry to hear about that, by the way.

It’s a conditioning, isn’t it? We’ve all become conditioned by the hypnosis of society and it’s because we choose to listen to the news, and we choose to just kind of do what the status quo tells us to do, and often it takes kind of a wake-up call to go, “Hang on, hang on. What’s really going on here? Why have I got this pain in my back? Why have I got sciatica?”

It’s a really tough question because I think, when we’re so conditioned, after many years, 60-70 years, to actually take a step back and go, “Right, what have I done to create this in my body?”

Rather than go, “Let’s go and take a medication and hide the pain.”

It takes … I hate using this word, but it takes someone to be kind of more conscious or to have that wake-up call to go, “Hang on. What’s happened here? What have I done to create this?” And it’s much easier to just go to the doctor because we do trust them.

As you said, we pretty much put them on a pedestal and we seek them for advice for our health. I have huge admiration for doctors, they’ve gone through so much training—to serve, to give.

The sad thing is, they are not trained in nutrition. They are not trained to heal, and we do seek their opinion when we really should be fixing it ourselves.

One of the biggest things is, like I said earlier, we can all fix ourselves. We can heal our own body. We just need to understand that doctors are not trained in nutrition.

In The Vitality Secret, I actually go through the history of why doctors are not trained in nutrition, and it’s quite staggering how this has all happened. It goes back to 1910, Carnegie and Rockefeller medicine, they completely reshaped the entire medical industry as you know it today.

And when I found this out I thought, “Wow, that’s why. That’s why, whenever I’ve gone to the doctors growing up, ever since I can remember, always expecting to be given a drug when I had anything wrong with me. That’s why it is.”

One of my messages to get out there is to just educate people about this, so they realize doctors are not trained. Once you realize that you can go, “Okay, it really is up to me to look after my own health.”

Coming back to your initial question, “How do we change that?” I think the more stories that we share, and the more this kind of “alternative” approach gets out there …  The more there’s a huge movement that becomes apparent, and people start looking at other sources for information.

There’s plenty of books out there online that will teach you how to reverse any inflammatory condition, any autoimmune disease, any form of cancer. It’s all there.

It’s just that we have been so trained to go to doctors, to go to oncologists, to go to psychiatrists.

The sad thing is, they’re not trained in nutrition. So once we understand that, we can go, “Right, how can I heal my body?”

Yuri:                Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think we all realize we’re facing an uphill battle, and that’s why I’m so committed to helping entrepreneurs in our space really get their message out to more people.

Because the more people know about this, the more they can start to question the old paradigm.

It’s funny because if you were to think about it from a business perspective, if you had a business and you kept referring to an advisor or a business coach and they kept giving you the wrong advice, would you keep going back to that business coach? No, you wouldn’t continue doing that, but we do that with doctors all the time.

I’m not saying all doctors are like this. I just think it’s the medical model we’re brought up in, as you mentioned—but I think that’s why it’s so important why I bring people like yourself onto this show, to highlight what people like yourself are doing to take matters into your own hands and step away from the traditional model.

To be like, “You know what? I’m willing to take a risk. I don’t know how this is gonna work out, but I’m gonna start my own business. I’m gonna write a book. I’m gonna share my message, and if I just keep doing it enough, over and over again, it’s probably gonna work out.”

That’s why it’s so important that all of us continue to really push forward no matter what life throws our way, because what each and every one of us does—what you’re doing, Neil, what the listener is doing—it all makes a difference.

Even if it’s one more person that we help, right? If it’s a million, awesome, but even if it’s just one more, it’s still worthwhile.

Neil:                Exactly. I really believe that, and there’s the ripple effect as well, and I’ve experienced firsthand the ripple effect.

Someone will read my book and they’ll say, “I’ll just share this with all of my work colleagues.”

One person reverses diabetes and burns 40 pounds of fat in like two months and then he’ll share it, or someone will go through my program and then they’ll sign someone else up.

It is a ripple effect, and just like you’re saying, one by one is enough. It’s gonna slowly expand, and if enough people do this, and enough of our healthpreneurs share each other’s stuff, it really works.

I’m forever sharing other people’s podcasts. When I really love what they’re doing, I’ll share it with the world. I sometimes want to scream it from the rooftop. I’ll hear an amazing interview and I just have to tell people about it …

There’s one, for example, in the Bulletproof one recently, where it talked about the contraceptive pill and how this causes leaky gut, inflammation, and further problems with infertility.

I was like, “I want every single woman on the planet to listen to this. And man. If you’re a woman, listen to this. If you know a woman, listen to this.” I think it’s really important that we know this stuff.

Yuri:                Speaking of sharing, kind of getting the message out, in your journey in business, what’s been the biggest challenge that you’ve ever faced, and what did you learn from that experience?

Creative Types, Entrepreneurial ADD

Neil:                Wanting to do everything is my biggest challenge. Typical kind of entrepreneurial ADD. It’s wanting to do everything and until recently, not focusing on one thing.

I’ve already given you a list of four domain names. Really my focus now is the diabetes solution, which is the diabetesdefence.com. Another little plug.

But it’s really kind of honing in on that one thing. That’s been my biggest challenge for so many years, and I think it comes from a place of being mission-driven and just constantly being pulled in different directions—you might say it’s a bright shiny object syndrome.

But it’s not being focused on that one thing for long enough to make a success of it, and then going, “Right, now I can go and create more things.” It’s wanting to do too many things.

Yuri:                Sure, sure. What if you’re a creative type? I consider myself to be extremely creative.

I don’t know if you’ve ever done a Kolbe test or a Kolbe score. If the listeners have, if you haven’t, it’s really insightful.

On the Kolbe, I’m a very high quick-start, which means I just want to start new ideas and get them going and then move on to the next thing. I would imagine a lot of entrepreneurs listening are very similar, as you probably are if you’ve created a bunch of things and you always have new ideas.

How do you nourish that kind of inner creativity while still trying to stay focused on one objective?

Neil:                Such a great question. I would say … How do I nourish the creativity? Through taking time out, for a start.

Disconnecting, getting into nature, meditating—which is a more recent thing—but knowing that once you hold a solid focus for a decent amount of time, that creates creativity. It creates flow.

If we’re jumping from one thing to the next all the time, that actually kind of suppresses creativity, and we can’t establish that flow. We can’t establish that creativity unless you uni-task, so I’ve realized that actually sitting down and doing it is harder than the process itself …

Once you sit down and do one thing, and turn off all distractions, just kind of get into the flow, that’s when the creativity becomes nourished, and I think that’s one way I get stuff done.

And I’ve really recently started to outsource the stuff that I don’t want to be doing, and it takes the weight off your shoulders when you can really think, “Hang on, what must I do in my business, and what can I outsource?”

Yuri:                That’s a great perspective. I like that. Sorry to cut you off there. We were talking about, getting into the flow allows you to be more creative, and you can’t get into the flow if you’re distracted by a thousand different things. That’s a great perspective.

Neil:                Yeah, thank you. I’ve always kind of known this but it’s something that really came to mind more recently, and I just thought, “Wow, that’s it.”

A lot of entrepreneurs do have entrepreneurial ADD. It’s part of our personality. You mentioned Kolbe. Do you know Myers-Briggs?

Yuri:                Yup.

Neil:                Yeah. I don’t know how that compares, but we can certainly see how our personalities serve us or don’t.

When we can focus on the stuff that we’re good at, and outsource the stuff that we’re not, just get into the flow as much as we can—I think that’s when we can optimize our fulfillment with what we’re doing.

Yuri:                I completely agree. It’s funny, I can’t remember who I was telling this to … I’ve started and stopped four different podcasts in the health space, and they were all really successful podcasts.

But I just got to the point where I did one and I was like, “I’m tired of doing this.” I start up another one a year later and I’m like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

So I started to think back, I’m like, “What’s going on here?” This is something I don’t want to have happen with the Healthpreneur podcast, and I realized I was doing too much stuff in the entire process.

Back in the day, I was recording it in GarageBand. I would edit it in GarageBand myself, and then upload it. I was basically doing all the technical stuff which I should never have even done, and I said, “That’s the problem.”

In a perfect world, the best podcast for me is one where I show up, I have an amazing conversation with someone like yourself, and I’m done. That’s how I’ve built this whole podcast process now, so I can just show up, have an amazing conversation, and I can step away.

It’s going back to what you said—recognizing, what are your strengths? What’s your zone of genius? And how do you set things up, whether it’s outsourcing or shutting things down, to only focus on those few activities?

Because I really believe there’s only a few—two to three, at the most—things that we’re really really amazing at doing. Everything else is just like, something someone else could do.

Neil:                Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, four podcasts. Good work.

Yuri:                Well, I don’t know if that’s an acclaim or if that’s like, a failure, to start and stop four of them.

Neil:                No, no. You’re constantly creating, and seeing what’s working, seeing what’s not and then pivoting. Yeah, I really believe we should focus on what we’re good at.

Yuri:                So with that said, talking of creating and so forth, do you believe that taking more action is better than the quality of action? If you only had to choose one, which would you have to choose, if you had a gun to your head?

Neil:                Choose one? Quality. 100%, quality of the action.

Yuri:                So why quality?

 Neil:                Why quality? Because you can do lots of one thing and do it not very well. And when you do that, it doesn’t really yield results.

In the past, I have found myself doing a big quantity of action—like 12, 14, 16 hours days, and not really yielding the results, whereas if I had channeled all of that energy into doing one thing at a high quality, then that would have yielded me way better results in all that time.

 Yuri:                Awesome. Good insight. Neil, this has been great. I’ve got the rapid fire questions coming up in just a second, but I want to ask you one more question before we get to that, which is: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

 Neil:                A racing car driver.

 Yuri:                Oh, really? Like F1, or …

Neil:                Yes, F1.

Yuri:                Awesome. Did you realize that or are you still a fan of F1?

Neil:                I am, and fast driving. It’s just the adrenaline rush. I’m an adrenaline junkie and kite-surf, wind-surf, snowboard. Yeah.

 Yuri:                I ask this because, did you find there’s any kind of correlation between what you’re doing now, in some capacity with that initial desire when you were young?

Neil:                I would say … Answering quickly, I can’t see a correlation. I’m sure if I looked into it, I could probably find commonalities between the two things.

There’s gotta be an adrenaline rush in what I’m doing somehow. There’s gotta be, when I get that testimonial or case study, that’s an adrenaline rush in a way.

It’s like a boost of adrenaline that makes you feel good, so I guess that’s a relation. I’ve never really thought about that.

 Yuri:                Yeah, because I’ve asked this to a few entrepreneurs, and those who are the adrenaline junkies or who like fast cars and stuff like that, I find that, based on our conversation, they end up feeling most satisfied and fulfilled when in flow, when in the zone.

When I was growing up, I wanted to play professional soccer and part of that was because I wanted to perform.

When I look at what I do now with live events, this is kind of performing, but I also know that when I was playing soccer or when I’m doing my stuff for my business it’s like … If I’m in the zone, that’s all that matters.

It doesn’t really matter what the outcome is.

It’s like, if I can get into the flow and into the zone, that’s when I feel most alive. So it’s always interesting to see if there’s like this primitive commonality from when we’re really young to what it is we end up doing when we’re older.

Neil:                I love that. That’s really interesting.

 Yuri:                Yeah, it is. So that’s enough about me and just random stuff, but I want to get to the rapid fire, which are five rapid-fire questions. Are you ready, Neil?

Rapid-fire questions

Neil:                I am ready.

Yuri:                Alright, so you have no prior knowledge of these questions. Whatever comes to mind, just go with that. Okay, number one: Your biggest weakness?

Neil:                Focusing on one thing long enough to make a success of it.

Yuri:                Cool. I’m sure a lot of us can relate to that. Number two: Your biggest strength?

 Neil:                I’m mission-driven.

Yuri:                Nice. One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Neil:                Presenting in front of camera and an audience.

Yuri:                Nice. What do you do first thing in the morning?

Neil:                Meditate.

Yuri:                Do you do a guided or your own or …?

Neil:                I switch between them.

Yuri:                Nice. And finally, complete this sentence: “I know I’m being successful when …”

Neil:                I am in flow and I get results for people.

Yuri:                Awesome. Very nice, very nice. There you have it, guys. Mr. Neil Cannon himself. Neil, it’s been an honor to have this 30-minute conversation with you. Before we finish, can you just remind our listeners of the best place to follow your work online, and we’ll obviously link up to this in the show notes on the blog as well.

Neil:                Absolutely, and thank you so much again for interviewing me. It’s been an honor. The best place to find my stuff is diabetesdefence.com. My other stuff can be found on that web link as well.

Yuri:                Perfect. Well Neil, once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join me. Thank you for all the amazing work you continue to do. Keep at it, keep growing, keep inspiring others, and hope to see you soon.

Neil:                Thank you so much, Yuri.

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Yuri’s Wrap Up

So there you have it, guys. Hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and Christmas is just around the corner, so I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a very merry Christmas, merry Kwanzaa, happy Hanukkah, whatever celebration you are celebrating, whatever holidays you’re celebrating. Doesn’t really matter to me.

What matters is that you take the time to enjoy it, to be with those you love, friends and family, and to just let loose and have some great food. It’s all good, right? So yeah, hope you have a great holiday season.

I will be back with you on Christmas day. I’m not going anywhere. I will be under your Christmas tree, just like Santa’s presents, on Monday December 25th. I’ve got a special solo round session for you. You don’t want to miss it because it’s gonna be a special episode for Christmas, and I’ve got some cool stuff to share with you.

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Follow Neil Cannon At:

https://diabetesdefence.com

https://vitalitysecretbook.com

https://theinflammationsolution.org

https://mojomultiplier.com/

Facebook

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Transcription

Yuri:                Hey everyone! Last time, I talked about the nonsense about winning the lottery and how winning the lottery is really for suckers, and I hope that message really found you well. If you didn’t listen to that episode, be sure to go back and listen to it because I think it’s really important, and it will make you think twice about some of the things that you’re doing in life and in your business.

But today, we’ve got a great episode with an amazing guest who has been on Shark Tank! She actually secured a deal with Daymond John, acquiring $120,000 of his money in exchange for a portion of her company.

Now, let me tell you about our guest and who she is. Her name is Ashley Drummonds, and as I mentioned, she appeared on season 7 of Shark Tank. She’s the creator of the ABS Protein Pancakes—which was the product that she brought on to pitch to the sharks—and she’s also the creator of the ABS Fit Life TV. Other than Shark Tank, she’s been on HSN (The Home Shopping Network), ABC Action News, Oxygen Magazine, Forbes.com, and so much more.

She’s also written multiple e-books, such as Flat Abs for Women, ABS Protein Pancake Recipe Book, and a bunch of other awesome stuff. She’s a country music lover, food and wine enthusiast, fitness model, and weight-lifting fanatic

Now, if you haven’t watched her episode on Shark Tank, turn on Netflix if you have Netflix, go check it out. Season 7, episode 12. Listen to this episode, then go watch the Shark Tank episode and you’ll have more context for what it’s about.

But the cool thing is that Ashley opens up and shares the behind-the-scenes of what it took to get on the show. The logistical stuff, the paperwork, how she got on Shark Tank, and the process of what happened after she shook hands with Daymond John on that actual live episode.

And then you’ll find out whether or not things worked out afterwards. If you guys want to check out her website, you can do so at abspancakes.com, or ashleydrummonds.com.

Without any further ado, let’s bring Ashley onto the show!

Yuri:                Ashley, how’s it going? Welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast.

Ashley:           Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to talk with you.

Yuri:                Yes, likewise! It’s funny because I recently got my kids hooked on Shark Tank. They actually thought we were watching a shark movie because they saw the fin, and then they were like, “Whoa, where are the sharks? Who are these five business dudes?”

They’ve been really enjoying Shark Tank and I think it’s a great learning tool for kids, just getting that entrepreneurial spirit all revved up and stuff. And the cool thing is that one of the episodes we were watching … You were on one of the episodes with your ABS pancakes!

And I’m like, “How funny is this, that this is all serendipitous.” I want to jump into that because I think for the people listening, most aren’t going to end up on Shark Tank … But I think understanding the behind-the-scenes of how you got on the show in the first place would be really really exciting for people to know about.

So, why don’t we start at square one. How did you even come up with the idea of getting on Shark Tank?

ABS Protein Pancakes and the Shark Tank story

Ashley:           Oh man. So, I’ll give you a really quick timeline.

Around January of 2014, I was doing digital fitness products. I had my own personal training fitness business here in Tampa, and I don’t know why, but I had always wanted an actual physical product that people could use—something where I could see it and they were getting it in the mail and super excited about it.

So, I kind of did some soul-searching, just really trying to figure out, what I could do that I was super passionate about, that I loved—that wasn’t either re-inventing the wheel or just creating another ab wheel/fitness guru type product. And the funny thing about it is—and this goes so deep into things with life—is that I was already eating the protein pancakes every day for myself.

It was just a quick recipe, because I love breakfast and I wanted something that actually tasted good and wasn’t your typical egg whites breakfast— the typical, “you have to eat egg whites and plain oatmeal” kind of thing. I woke up one morning and while I was putting together my baking soda and all the ingredients that go into it, I kind of had that light-bulb moment of, “You know what? I wonder if I package this, if anybody else would eat it. Am I the only one that’s that obsessed with pancakes?”

And I started with a little bit of word of mouth—selling it to clients, selling it to friends. I’m talking like, maybe one or two containers a month, no big deal. But then right around July, after a few months of doing that, I kinda up and decided I wanted to move to California. Try out something different.

And when I moved out there, people would always ask, “What do you eat for breakfast that’s healthy that doesn’t taste like cardboard?” And I was always like, “Oh, I eat this protein pancake recipe.” I think in one day I had three or four people that were like, “You should go on Shark Tank. You should try and be on Shark Tank.”

It’s kind of one of those things in life where you’re like, “Okay, I heard it. After the fourth time, I’m gonna listen and I’m just gonna apply.” So, I was in California and I just googled, “How to apply to be on Shark Tank.” Like, super basic, had no idea … and there’s a whole process, of course. ABC does this casting call process, but I just filled out the application.

This is only three or four months into having this protein pancake line, so I didn’t have numbers. I didn’t have conversion rates. I didn’t have anything. It was just, “Hey, here’s my idea.” And so I applied.

I think I finished the application process in August of 2014, and what I tell everybody is—I did that application process not expecting anything. Honest to God. There’s something like 250,000 applicants every season.

Yuri:                Wow.

Ashley:           Yeah. So I was like, whatever, this is just a concept. They’re probably not gonna call me back.

Yuri:                It’s more competitive than Harvard!

Ashley:           Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. Well, real quick, the numbers are … It’s 250,000 applicants. Out of the 250,000, only 120 get a callback to film. Out of the 120 that get the callback, only 70 of them actually air episodes.

So it’s like a .001% chance of actually having your episode show up on ABC. So, I am super grateful for that small opportunity. But yeah, after applying in August, I didn’t even get a callback until the following March. And the funny thing about that is that I was at the fitness business summit with the pancakes as a vendor in Costa Mesa at the time—so Orange County, California.

I took a break from cooking up pancakes and I had this call from Culver City. I’m like, “Who’s calling me from LA?” I listened to it, and it was the producers. So, it was almost seven to eight months from when I sent in that application until I even got a call back.

From there, even after the callback, the filming didn’t happen until June of 2015, and then the episode didn’t actually air until January of 2016, so the whole process from application to actually showing up on ABC was almost a year and a half.

Yuri:                And in that whole time, you’re like, “What am I even selling again? What are these pancakes?” Like, forgot the whole business.

 Ashley:           Yeah!

 Yuri:                That’s awesome.

 Ashley:           Oh my gosh. Well, at that point, the stressful part about it is that they never give you a guarantee. You would get a phone call from the producer and you end up going through more paperwork than you would go through when you’re buying a house. I’m talking like, stacks and stacks of papers.

You send it in and they’re like, “Okay, if we’re still interested we’ll call you back.” And that’s it. So then you’re just waiting around like, “Call me back when? Or … Can you give me something to go on?”

So it was a very stressful 2015. But then at the same time, you’re stressing out because you realize that if they do call you back, you do go and film. You are standing in front of five sharks. You better have your numbers so perfect and ready for their questions, that you can just fire off, “Oh, here’s conversion rate, and this is how much the product sells for, this is the cost.”

There’s a lot of prep work that goes into it and you’re just solely running off faith, hoping that you get chosen.

Yuri:                So you get chosen. They say, “Okay, you’re gonna come out to the studio and shoot.”

What did that day look like? What was going through your mind? I know you had your business partner with you as well. What did the shoot look like? Was the final episode that aired on TV different, or very abbreviated from what it was like in studio? Walk us through that.

Ashley:           Okay, so June 29, 2016—I don’t think I’ll forget that date—is the day that we filmed, I walked in front of the investors, everything.

They don’t call you and you give you your call time—the time that you need to be at the studio—until the night before. The crazy thing is, the call time was around 7:00 am, and they called the night before around 8:30 or 9:00 pm, saying, “Hey, you need to be at Sony Studios by 7:15 am tomorrow morning.” And you’re running around till like 12:00, 1:00 in the morning trying to get everything ready!

And also, during this whole year and a half process, you sign confidentiality agreements. So you’re not allowed to even tell your family members that you’re going through this process because if they find out, you get eliminated.

So that morning, I think I got up at like 4:00 am and I just had to go outside and walk for 20-30 minutes just to calm myself down because I was stressing out, rightfully so. You show up at Sony with maybe 20-30 other entrepreneurs that are also going to be filming that day, except you all have sat through legal meetings and are instructed that you’re not allowed to talk to each other.

You can’t talk to each other because you can’t share the process of how you got on. You’re not allowed to talk about your business, who your producers are, because each category has a different producer.

It’s just super awkward because you’re sitting back in these green rooms and dressing rooms, just kind of staring at each other, not really able to say much about anything.

We got there I think at like 7:00am and you have your own private dressing room, so you’re back there and the producers are communicating with you a lot. It’s just like you imagine. You have hair and makeup, you have wardrobes, you’re getting mic’d. Somebody was in the back cooking up the pancakes and setting up everything up—they call it the hero shot, so basically what you see on Shark Tank, the display? Somebody’s cooking that up, and prepping it.

You’re kind of waiting around, and I think that’s the most stressful, anxiety-producing part because each pitch is different. Some pitches only last 15-20 minutes. Some pitches have gone for two hours, so there’s no set time.

And the hard part is, while you’re backstage, they warn you. They’re like, “Hey, we have no guarantee that you’re actually gonna step in front of the sharks and pitch your business because it depends on how long the other entrepreneurs take, so if they go over their time, we’re sorry but you get sent home.”

So I mean … You’ve spent a year and a half of your life doing everything you can trying to prepare for this moment, and then they keep reminding you, you might not pitch. You’re like, “Oh my god, I can’t even believe you’re saying that.”

Yuri:                Do the producers give you guidance on how to pitch right off the bat? Because I notice a lot of the entrepreneurs that come on, they have a very similar type of script. Do they give you guidance at all, or kind of a script to help that initial pitch?

 Ashley:           So, they don’t give you a script—which I’m kind of glad they didn’t—but what they do is, once it seems like you’re going to be going all the way, every week you have a phone call with them and they’re just like, “Alright, 3-2-1 go—say your pitch.”

You’re constantly repeating the pitch every single week, practicing it, but you are the one that’s responsible for writing it, and they tell you, “It needs to be 90 seconds or less. Keep it super short and exciting. Make sure you have a lot of energy.”

I mean, that’s the only real guidance they give you. So other than that, everything you see on the show is very real. When somebody comes in your dressing room and they say, “Alright guys, it’s time to go,” you walk out there, you are behind set. You don’t see the sharks or anything until those doors open.

When you see on the show where they’re counting it down and then those two big double doors open, entrepreneurs are walking out? That is the first time those entrepreneurs have walked through that door and made eye contact with the sharks, so it’s super intimidating.

And then when you walk out, you have to stand there for about 30-45 seconds and you can’t say anything. You’re kind of just staring at each other because they have to get all the camera angles and everything right, and you’re just so ready to fire off your pitch and get it over with.

Seriously, you’re like, “I’ve got it repeated, I’m ready to go. Just let me say it, get it done and breathe.”

So when you walk off set, when you’re in there—just like anything that’s super adrenaline-producing—it feels like it’s 30 seconds, but I think they told us it was 45 minutes in total that we pitched and were back and forth with the sharks. And then what aired was only seven minutes, so there’s a huge amount that gets cut out of that.

Yuri:                It’s amazing, the production that goes into these shows is incredible. Let’s talk about the episode. I find it funny because you build a, let’s say a personality-based business or an info product-based business. The world we live in is very different from the sharks and investors, so it’s funny when you’re talking about the price point for the pancakes. I think it was 45-ish dollars or so?

Ashley:           Yeah. At the time it was $42.95, yeah.

Yuri:                And I remember Mr. Wonderful being like, “Are you crazy? People would never pay that.” And you’re like, “Well, in the fitness space, people will pay for that,” and they just didn’t understand that, you know? Initially.

Ashley:           Yeah.

Yuri:                So anyways, correct me if I’m wrong. You ended up signing with Daymond, is that correct?

Ashley:           Yes. Yeah, Daymond John.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. And everything worked out smoothly on the back end of all that? It was a done deal, it’s all good?

The aftermath—puttin’ in the reps

Ashley:           Yeah. So I think it’s hard because you watch it and, I even thought this until I went through the process … I think we agreed to $120,000 for 42%, is what aired on the show.

So I thought, “Awesome, I’m walking off set, we’re signing a contract. I’m getting a check for $120,000.” And that’s not really how it works.

You walk off set, you sign a “no shop” agreement … which, if anybody doesn’t know what that is, that just means that you won’t take any other investors at the point of signing that. From then, you start a whole other due diligence process, where his people are headfirst into all of your finances, your books, making sure your business is legitimate.

It’s almost like repeating the entire process of Shark Tank all over again, except for with the actual investment group, because they have to make sure everything is accurate. Like, if you said you had $120,000 in sales, we need to make sure that that was real and you weren’t just making all of this up over the last year.

That was another long process, but yeah, since working with him and even now, I have some stuff that’s coming up that I’m super excited about that he’s done a lot for. But immediately from Shark Tank … You know, Shark Tank’s the biggest PR exposure that every business kind of hopes they get … But we’ve done Home Shopping Network, Zulily, Forbes has done a couple articles, Shop.com, Jet.com … a lot of big things that are super exciting.

It’s kind of had more ups and downs than you would think, but it’s been a huge blessing and I mean, I would never change anything, but you definitely learn a lot about your business when you kinda get thrown into the Shark Tank like that.

 

Yuri:                I bet. I was gonna ask you, what’s the biggest lesson that you’ve learned from that experience?

 Ashley:           If I’m being honest … and a lot of other health and fitness entrepreneurs and CEOs (I think it was the CEO of Facebook) have said, “Don’t look for one moment to define your success.”

I went into that thinking, “This is it. This is my big break. It’s smooth sailing from here, I’m just gonna sit back and let Daymond take over everything, and I can kind of breathe because I’ve been hustling non-stop for the last year and a half.”

The biggest lesson I learned is that there truly is no such thing as an overnight success.

Success is definitely small incremental victories that eventually accumulate to huge success, but don’t think that all of your hopes and dreams lie in one moment and one opportunity. That’s my ongoing lesson, is like keep at it. Keep doing what you’ve been doing day in and day out, and it’ll pay off. But don’t think that like, “Oh, in a year I’m just gonna work my butt off and then all of a sudden, there we go. Now I’m making my seven figures and doing everything I want to do with my life.”

Yuri:                Yeah, sure. That was great advice. A lot of people on this show have already said the same thing, which is like, “There’s no overnight success. There’s no magic pill. You have to put in the reps, you have to do the work and just give it time.”

Ashley:           I definitely agree with that, and it’s so interesting and awesome because when you go on something like Shark Tank, you’re immediately connected to so many other Shark Tank businesses.

And when you get to kind of connect and talk to them and hear their story as well, it’s the same. We all say the same thing, everybody sees Shark Tank and people think, “Oh, now it’s just easy. Somebody came and took over everything,” and absolutely not. You still are day in and day out operating, running, growing your business. They’re kind of just like a bonus connection for you.

That’s one of the biggest misconceptions, I think everybody assumes with Shark Tank businesses, once you walk off set and you have a deal, that the shark comes in and they fix everything. They throw all their people into your business and solve all the problems you’ve had up to this point … And it’s actually the exact opposite.

It’s more of, they’re there if you need a connection somewhere. But everything else from the business side and the back end—it’s still all you, unfortunately. That’s what we all joke and talk about, because I think a lot of people go into it with the opposite mindset, thinking that they won’t have to still be involved.

But no, we are still putting in hard work every single day, still hustling. We just have a very good PR exposure.

Yuri:                Sure, so would you say the biggest thing you got out of the show was that exposure, as opposed to anything else you may have been looking for?

Ashley:           I would say yes, the exposure was huge, but I think a lot of it is just learning how to stay true to what your overall goal is in business. Because what happens is that you get a ton of sales from the exposure, which is just expected. But aside from that, what’s not really expected is you’re not thinking that other businesses are watching the show, wanting to do a different type of business with you.

For example, people reaching out wanting to do licensing or Costco reaching out and wanting to do this huge purchase order for you, so the most overwhelming thing is really staying focused and not getting caught up in the shiny new objects, trying to do anything and everything.

Because what also happens with a lot of people is, you get all these connections and it’s almost like you’re growing way faster than you should have. And now you’re stuck against this wall because you can’t keep up or you’re not able to keep promises and fulfill all the stuff that you said you were gonna do.

So, I mean, the exposure is good, but I think it’s more just the connections, the social proof. For me I think it just makes it seem like so much more is possible and it is so much easier. We always have this mindset that all these different things are out of reach, or it’s meant for somebody else other than us, but sometimes all it really is is just taking a chance.

 

Yuri:                Sure, sure. Knowing what you know now, you’ve been through the Shark Tank, you’ve gone down that whole route, you’ve done a deal with Daymond John … If you were to do things all over again, like even before Shark Tank, and you said, “Here’s the outcome we want,” would you go through Shark Tank again?

Or would you maybe hire a coach or be part of some other organization or mastermind that could put you in front of the right people with the same kind of guidance? What would you do differently, if anything, the next time around?

Ashley:           I would still go through Shark Tank again. I have been a part of masterminds and I have been with coaches and done that route prior to Shark Tank, and none of it ever really felt like it was launching me in the direction that I wanted to go.

The best way I can explain it is, it’s almost like you have your building built, you have everything in place, and hiring a coach isn’t really gonna help that. You’re more at the place like, “No, I just need the customers to walk in,” if that makes sense.

I was kind of at the place where I had manufacturing lined up, I had email marketing lined up, I had fulfillment. I had everything so automated. I did so much prep work that for me, Shark Tank was exactly what I needed to launch things forward. I think it would have been totally different if I was still in the conceptual phase or somebody who just had an idea.

If you just have an idea, Shark Tank is not for you. You definitely do need a coach or a mastermind of people who have been there, who can help guide you through it—but where I was at, I definitely would do Shark Tank all over again. And if I ever create another awesome product that I think would be good for Shark Tank, I’ll probably apply again.

The ABS vision and… wine?

Yuri:                That’s cool. What’s the vision with ABS Pancakes? Is this just one product of many within this kind of investment umbrella, or is it exclusive to just the pancakes?

Ashley:           When it started, I had this vision of creating protein pancakes and then creating cookies and all these different things that allowed people to enjoy all these different foods without having the sugar and crazy processed issues that’s in a lot of those foods.

Now that I’m in it—and it’s been three years now—I think it’s gonna be just pancakes under what it is right now. The only reason is because now that I see the back end of the business, and I know how much goes into all of it … I’m trying to think of how to say this without offending anybody else …

Basically, I see too many companies that start out as the “it” of whatever category they’re in. And then they start expanding the product line, expanding, expanding, and they get so caught up in following trends and fads that people forget, “No, you are the people who do this.”

I think it’s important that you just stick with what you know best. It’s the whole, “stay in your lane.” I think you can expand and you can do really well with that, but for me that’s not the direction that I’m going anymore.

So right now, the pancakes. There are three flavors: Cinnamon roll, chocolate chip, and vanilla cake batter. I’ve been working on and have a buttermilk flavor, which I’m actually considering with two other companies to license out the formula—just because there’s a lot of restaurants that have reached out, trying to find a healthier pancake line.

But so I actually did that because, on our digital marketing side and info product side, I sent out some emails just surveying the people who are eating these pancakes all the time—asking if that’s what they wanted. I mean, I think that’s the most important thing, is to ask your customers what they want. “Do you guys want new products and new flavors?”

And of course, they all just wanted more of, “Help me with my fitness and nutrition goals. I want to see more workouts. I want to see more nutrition stuff. Teach me how to even understand what proteins and macros and carbs and fats and things like that are.”

So this will probably be launching within the next two weeks. Through the ABS Protein Pancake brand, we are launching ABS Fit Life TV, so that’ll be done soon. I tell everybody, it’s like the Netflix of health, fitness, nutrition, everything that you guys said you wanted. That’s what’s starting there.

And then ironically—everybody thinks it’s so random that I want to do this—but I am going to be working more on the wine side of things, especially over the fall. I’ve always had a passion and wanted to create products out of wine, so similar to Dry Farm wines or the natural wines. That is more of where I’m headed in the next direction.

Because that’s the other thing, I ask my customers, “What do you guys want?” This is what they say, so I mean it makes sense to move in the direction that your customers want.

Yuri:                So your customers are telling you they want more wine?

Ashley:           Yeah, that’s the funny thing.

Yuri:                Pretty cool.

Ashley:           I know. I know it sounds so funny, but there’s this whole trend in … I don’t want to call it a fad, but there’s this whole thing of people who want to find a lifestyle and even bigger brands. I had met with Weight Watchers, at their headquarters, and they’re completely rebranding because the new market is, people don’t want to diet anymore.

Everybody’s tired of dieting. They’re tired of feeling like they have no social life or going out to eat, feeling like it’s water and salad and chicken or whatever they’re eating. And so all these bigger brands, the more I talk to them, they’re finding ways to help people feel like they’re still socializing and having a well-rounded lifestyle without having to sacrifice their whole fitness and nutrition goals.

So that’s why you’re seeing a lot of FitVine wine, the Dry Farm wines, the other paleo wines.

It’s this whole movement because people are understanding the positive health benefits of wine; but also, it makes them feel a little more like, “Oh, I’m not quite so deprived anymore. I feel like now, I’m able to actually have a social life…” Especially women, like, “I can go have one or two glasses of wine and still fit to my nutrition and workout plans!”

So yeah, I know … Everybody I tell that to, they’re like, “Wait, what? Fitness, nutrition, wine?” I’m like, “I swear. It sounds crazy, but everybody thought my protein pancakes were crazy too, so trust me.”

Yuri:                That’s a good sign, when people think you’re crazy. I mean, I’m a health and fitness person, but I love wine. But I don’t like how wine makes me feel, which is why I’m attracted to things like Dry Farm wines and other biodynamic organic wineries.

So I think there’s a great fit there—just because people are into health and fitness doesn’t mean that they don’t have other things that are in their wheelhouse as well. I think it’s a smart move, because if you’re catering to your audience, you’re always gonna be pivoting and shifting, versus saying, “Okay, this is only what we do.” So I think that’s a smart move.

Ashley:           Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I’m excited about it.

Yuri:                Yeah, for sure. I’ve got the famous rapid five coming your way in just a second, but before we get there, honestly, who is your favorite shark?

Ashley:           I wanted Daymond going into it. Hands down. And if you saw the episode, you know that he went out and completely broke my heart in the middle of the filming, and Robert came in. But Daymond was who I had my eye on when I went in there, just because he has such a huge reach in the Crossfit space and the fitness space. A lot of people don’t know that.

So, Daymond’s definitely my favorite, and I was so glad when he came back in and pitched, and that’s why when he was like, “Yes or no, right now, 42%?” I was like, “Done. Done deal, you were the one I wanted.”

Yuri:                That’s awesome. And who is your least favorite?

Ashley:           I mean, I think nobody really likes Kevin O’Leary, you know? I haven’t met anybody that says Mr. Wonderful’s their favorite.

Yuri:                Yeah. That’s funny, I was actually on an airplane to Ottawa a couple weeks ago, and he was sitting on the plane there with his headphones on, meditating or something. I’m like, “Why are you on a commercial plane here?” Maybe the rate didn’t make sense for his private plane, but anyway, he is what he is.

Ashley:           I think that all the time. I see celebrities flying just economy and I’m like, “What are you … Why aren’t you in first class or on your private jet?”

The funny thing about Mr. Wonderful—the only thing I do love about him—is that he has started his own wine thing as well. That’s all he gets, though. Other than that, you didn’t like my pancakes, so you don’t get to be my favorite.

 Yuri:                I know, I know. I think sometimes he’s so abrasive just for the effect, right? For the TV side of things.

Ashley:           Oh, for sure.

Yuri:                But, you know.

Ashley:           He’s like the Simon. The Simon of American Idol, but for Shark Tank.

Yuri:                Yeah, totally. I totally agree with that.

Alright, so Ashley, this has been very insightful, pretty awesome. You ready for the rapid five?

The Rapid-Five Questions

Ashley:           I’m nervous, but I’m ready.

Yuri:                Alright, well you thought Shark Tank was tough? Get ready for these bad boys.

Ashley:           These five, I can’t handle it.

Yuri:                Okay. Here we go, number one. Whatever comes to mind, okay? Your biggest weakness?

 Ashley:           Oh, I’m a perfectionist.

 Yuri:                Your biggest strength?

 Ashley:           I’m an implementer.

 Yuri:                Yes you are. One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

 Ashley:           Automation. Outsourcing, basically.

Yuri:                Nice, nice. What do you do first thing in the morning?

 Ashley:           Drink coffee.

 Yuri:                No ABS Pancakes?

 Ashley:           Well I mean, I drink coffee and eat pancakes and meditate, but I thought I had to answer in like three seconds.

 Yuri:                So you don’t eat pancakes all day long? No, I’m just kidding. Okay, cool. Final one. Complete this sentence: “I know I’m being successful when …”

 Ashley:           When I can lie in bed at night and sleep well knowing I did everything that I did possible in that day to move towards my goals and dreams.

 Yuri:                Love it. That is good. Ashley, this has been tremendous. I know our listeners are going to get a lot of value out of this. What is the best place for people to check out the ABS Pancakes and stay up to date with what you’re working on?

Ashley:           Yeah, it’s just abspancakes.com, and then ashleydrummonds.com. Those both have a little bit of everything and that’s where all the new information comes out. So, thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.

 Yuri:                Yeah. It’s been a pleasure, Ashley. I want to just thank you and appreciate you for all the amazing work you’ve done, for taking the risk and putting in all that freaking hard work of 18 months or so, getting on a show and then all that uncertainty. A lot of people would just flake out, so I want to commend you for staying on the path and coming out with something amazing at the end of it. That’s tremendous.

Ashley:           Thank you, thank you.

Yuri:                You’re welcome. Once again thank you so much, Ashley. It’s been a lot of fun. For all of you guys listening, hope you’ve enjoyed this as well.

Ashley:           Alright. Thanks, Yuri. Have an awesome day.

Yuri:                You too.

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I hope you enjoyed that interview. I found it very fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes perspective based on Ashley’s experience on Shark Tank. It’s a show that I’ve really enjoyed for a long time.

As I mentioned in the interview, I watch it with my kids. I think it’s a great learning tool for building entrepreneurial spirit and really having them think about what it takes to build a business or a product that is successful. I think there’s a lot of things that go into that, whether it’s understanding how to value your company or how to create a product that is very unique and that no one else has. These are all really valuable lessons, and I think Ashley touched upon many of those in our discussion.

So, once again, while you’re here be sure to pick up a copy of the Health Profit Secrets book. It’s free. Just pay for shipping, that’s all I’m asking, and you’ll discover four secrets that all successful online health businesses have in common and how you can really maximize those in what you’re doing for lasting success.

We’ve got a great show coming up in just a few days with Neil Cannon, who is coming to us live from … Well, he’s actually British, but he’s not living in the UK. But he’s doing some pretty cool stuff online. He’s gonna share what he’s up to, his journey, and some pretty cool inspiring messages as always.

And we’re getting close to Christmas, so I don’t know if it’s snowing where you’re at or if you have all your Christmas shopping done, or if you even celebrate Christmas—but whatever it is you celebrate, I hope you are pumped for a great holiday season.

Just to let you know, we will be publishing a solo episode on December 25th, so when you wake up bright and early in the morning to open up your gifts, there will be another gift on your iPhone waiting for you from yours truly, Yuri Elkaim, with another great episode of the Healthpreneur podcast.

But you have to subscribe in order to get that episode, so be sure to head on over to iTunes, hit the “subscribe” button on the Healthpreneur podcast page, and if you have a chance, leave a rating and review. It really means a lot to me. It helps me sleep better at night and lets me know that I’m doing good work. I need all this external gratification because that’s really what matters in life.

Obviously I’m just joking, but I do appreciate any rating or review you can leave.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed the episode, and as always: Be great, do great, and I will see you in the next episode.

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Follow Ashley Drummonds At:

https://abspancakes.com/

https://www.ashleydrummonds.com/

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Free Healthpreneur Health Profit Secrets Book

If you would like a free copy of the Health Profits Secrets book,  you can get that over at healthpreneurbook.com.

It will show you the four secrets that really are the fundamental components to building a successful online health or fitness business.

 

Transcription

Did you know that there are three types of traffic? And that each one of those sources of traffic needs to be converted in a slightly different manner? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Healthpreneur Podcast, this is Yuri Elkaim here for episode 32, and it is fast approaching Christmas time, can you believe that? Just a week away from Christmas, I hope you have everything done—the Christmas shopping and whatnot. Hopefully you’ve got some cool plans.

The Power of Bringing People Together

We just had a great hang out at the house on Saturday. I brought some great entrepreneurs in the health and fitness base that live in Toronto, over to my place. We call it the “Ho-ho-ho hang out,” and I do this a few times a year because I really find it extremely valuable to connect with people. I like connecting with people in general, but also Toronto is just littered with amazing entrepreneurs, especially in the health space.

So I’m like, “You know what? I live in Toronto, they live in Toronto, some of them I know, some of them I don’t know. Let’s all come together, have some drinks, some hors d’oeuvres, and have some great conversations.”

And one the things I’ve prided myself on for a long time is connecting people in the health space—even outside the health space—who may not have known each other before. So what I mean by that is … We typically tend to stay in our own little bubbles.

When I started online in 2006, I was very much in the online fitness space—a lot of people producing e-books and programs online, that was kind of my tribe. Then as I evolved into publishing books and so forth, I started to expand. And I started to meet new people in the alternative health space—naturopathic doctors, bestselling authors—and I just started doing workshops and Masterminds. I would bring these two separate groups of people together—the online fitness guys and girls who are super smart marketers, and then these amazing healers, alternative doctors and so forth, that weren’t as savvy in the marketing.

I brought them together and it was just like fireworks. Like, “Oh my god, this person’s so amazing. They just told me this thing!”

So that’s what I love to do, and that’s what we did this past weekend at my house—just lots of great people to hang out with. And I really encourage you to do something like that. It actually is a really cool way of growing good will in your marketplace, of being a go-to curator if you will, and you might actually be surprised at how it can lead to some really cool business for you.

So, never discount the power of meeting in person with people. It really is the most powerful way of growing your influence, growing your business, and just feeling much more fulfilled in what you do. I do these a couple times a year, so if you’re ever in Toronto, let me know. Maybe we can hang out at one of them.

So that was this past Saturday.

Today, we’re talking about three different types of traffic. Now, when I say traffic, I’m talking about the three different “pools” of people that will come to your website, come to your offers. And based on where people are at, they’re going to interact very differently with you, so you’re going to have to approach each one of those in a slightly different manner.

Updates from Yuri

Now, before we get into that—just in case you’re not aware of this—I’m hosting a really cool, live training called Best Year Blueprint. This will be a completely free training. I’m going to walk you through how to create the most amazing year for 2018, and it’s a very specific process that I go through every single year for myself, my team, my mastermind members. I’m going to show you how to focus on your big goals for 2018, how to remove distractions, and how to put a plan of action in place for the first 90 days to help you get toward your bigger vision.

So if you want to join us for that, you can go to healthpreneurgroup.com/BYB (BYB = Best Year Blueprint). That is just a quick registration page—go ahead and leave your name and email there, just so that I know you’re interested and I can follow up with you about when those trainings are going live.

So that’s going to be awesome, because it’s the time of year where you should be thinking ahead, looking back at what worked and what didn’t and figuring out how you can make the next 12 months even better.

With that said, let’s jump into the three types of traffic and how to convert them.

Cold traffic

Let’s look at first and foremost, the coldest form of traffic, which would be “cold traffic.” Now a lot of people talk about this in the form of advertising. But even advertising doesn’t just mean cold traffic, because you can advertise to your customers, right? So, let me distinguish this.

Cold traffic are people who don’t know you. They don’t even know you exist. They’re as cold as ice on a January morning in Toronto. That’s cold, okay?

So, you have to understand that the way to bring cold prospects into your world and have them do business with you is very different than if you’re already reaching out to an existing customer.

So, what I would suggest for cold traffic, and what we’ve seen work for years, is you have to warm them up. Right? You have to warm up the cold traffic so that the ice melts and it turns into slightly warmer water.

And the best way to do that is by sharing content.

By actually producing a result for them in advance. By helping them with a problem, or giving them great suggestions to move from where they are to where they want to be. And that’s why this podcast is a great way of warming up cold people who may not have known who I am. Over the weeks, episode after episode—they hear my shenanigans, they hear my voice, they hear the stuff I’m bringing to the guests, the interviews, the insights, the “a-ha’s.”

That starts to warm them up. If you don’t know who I am, that starts to warm you up, right?

Just in case you’re wondering, I’m the same person in real life as I am on this podcast. So if you meet me in person, there’s no difference. Just letting you know.

So, content is the platform. You have to have that as a foundation. This is something I teach in my workshops, I call it the value vehicle. What is the value vehicle you’re going to use in your business to warm up to cold prospects? You have a couple different options.

You have YouTube, if you like doing video. You’ve got blogging, if you like writing. And you’ve got a podcast, which is what we’re doing here. But you can also use social media. I would strongly recommend you have one of these three platforms as your bigger value vehicle …  But if we go a little more granular, you can still use social media. You can use Facebook, in terms of Facebook lives or just posting valuable stuff—although organic reach on Facebook now is kind of dead, but it’s still not a bad idea.

Instagram! I’m very excited about Instagram because I recently recognized that posting pictures of my ass is not going to add value to anyone’s life. Instagram is the most narcissistic, egotistical social platform that has ever been created and I’m on a mission to do the complete opposite.

So while people are posting pictures of their butt in the mirror, I’m actually going to be adding value with every single post that I put out on Instagram. And that’s just my philosophy, because I’m like, “I don’t understand how your picture of you standing by a wall smiling into the sun, is adding any value to my life, other than the fact that you might be depicting your perfect life,”—which by the way, it is not.

So, whatever you’re going to do, the key word is value. How are you adding value to someone else’s life? If someone doesn’t know who you are but they stumble upon an infographic you created, or a video that answers a solution they were looking for … All of a sudden, they’re like, “Wow, this is actually really helpful. Let me find out more about this person.”

That’s how you start to warm things up.

Now, let’s say you’re driving Facebook ads to a cold audience. They have no idea who you are, they’re on Facebook, they’re scrolling through their newsfeed, wasting their day, all of a sudden your ad pops up. How is your ad adding value to their life?

The way I teach things—in anything I do—is, “How do you add value at each step of the journey?” If someone reads or watches your ad, the ad in and of itself should make their day or their life better. Even if they don’t click on the link.

This is something a lot of people don’t think about. But one of the reasons why video ads are so powerful is because the video in and of itself adds value. So, as an example, we have an ad that was running for one of our blog posts. It was about sugar detox, and this ad had almost two million views, over one million of those views were free. And by that I mean the ad was shared two and half times more than it was liked.

That is almost unheard of, because usually if you get a two to one ratio of likes to shares, that’s golden. 1,000 people like it, 500 shares, that’s great. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but we had something like 2500 shares and 1000 likes. So for people to share an ad to that level, the ad in and of itself has to be extremely valuable.

So, now we’re paying less per customer or lead acquisition because we’re getting so much organic reach, right? The ad cost was lower, but we’re also adding value. We’re getting people to become aware of the brand and just get on their radar. So if they click on that, they would go to a blog post, read the blog post, consume our content, get familiar with who I am, our brand and so forth …

And now, we have pixeled them. We have a pixel, and I know I’m getting a little bit technical here, but we’re creating a custom audience. Because people who have visited the website, we’ve told Facebook, “In the future, if people have visited this website, I want to be able to get back in front of them.”

And you can do this with video ads, you can do this with specific pages people go to, but the key is, if people don’t know you you’re going to find better results by going to content first.

And yes, you can still go Facebook ad direct to lead magnet—we still do that, for sure—or you can go Facebook ad to offer … But it needs to be pre-framed with some type of value. Because if you go, “Hey, get this new thing!” and then you link to thing, but people don’t know you … Good luck. Right?

That’s the same thing as approaching a girl in a bar—if you’re a guy—and being like, “Wow, you’re hot, let’s jump into bed.” That’s how most people run their businesses online. But that’s not going to work.

So if you’re talking to a cold audience—people who don’t know you—you have to warm them up. And the best way to warm them up is by adding value to their life through content. Video, written text, it doesn’t really matter.

Warm traffic

Next is warm traffic. People who have seen your stuff, maybe they’re a lead on your list, they’ve been receiving your emails and so forth, and they’re not quite a customer yet. So, how do we get them to become a customer? Well, I’m going to give you two scenarios.

One scenario is—I actually teach this in one of our webinars—is called the 10x Multiplier. And the analogy I use in this webinar is that if you think about a business as an airport, most people have airports with one runway. This means that if they’ve got one product, they have one runway.

But what I really encourage you to do is to create multiple runways for your airport, for your business. And again, this is based on your bandwidth and what you have access to. But a major airport has between six and eight runways so they can factor for different wind patterns and landing patterns …  It also allows them to accommodate more planes from different directions, as opposed to having one runway that’s going to back all the planes up.

So in your business, let’s say you have a sales page for your product. That is one marketing asset. The only way you can sell that product is through that one sales page. Well, is everyone going to resonate with that one sales page? No!

But what if you had another runway, which was a webinar? A different way of getting the same product in front of them. So now you have people that are registering for a webinar and they are hearing the same information that is on your sales page, but in a different format.

Now they’re engaged, they’ve committed to spending time on a webinar, and you’re teaching them. They’re much more likely to buy something, especially if it’s a higher price point. We’ve seen this time and time again. If I only did webinars in my business, it’d be the best use of my time. I’m telling you, it’s huge.

So, when you’re looking to convert warm traffic … If you’ve got a supplement, if you’ve got an e-book, a course, whatever it may be—you should be thinking, “How can I create a couple different angles of approach, a couple different runways, into the same product? So I can get in front of more people, or the same people more often.”

But first, you should be doing it by adding value. And by maybe solving a problem that they have in a different way than they were first exposed to. So that’s one of the ways we can start to look at this.

Going off of that, I ask myself this question all the time—“If my business was in a box, and I could not open that box and allow new customers or leads to come into the box, what would have to be true in order for me to keep growing the business?”

So if I couldn’t open the doors, there was no new leads coming in, how do I convert? How do I squeeze more juice out of my lemon? It’s all about creating new assets, new runways into your existing products.

And yes, you can create more products if you want, but just work with what you have, create a different angle into the same product and watch what happens. So that’s one of the ways you can convert warm traffic.

The other way is using a simple email. If you’re offering a higher end service or a workshop, this is something I love doing. This could be a broadcast message to your leads list. I’ll give you the real example that I’ve used. I sent out a broadcast a little while ago for a four week YouTube masterclass that’s actually going on right now.

——————————————————

Hey [first name],

Are you interested in learning how to use YouTube to create more content that’s going to get in front of the right people, attract more customers and incur business?

-Yuri

——————————————————

That’s it. “Hey, are you interested in [X] to help you achieve [an outcome]?” And then I just signed off, Yuri. That’s all!

I call this the PEAR email. Personal, Expecting A Reply—P.E.A.R.

If you’ve got something a little higher value than, say, a $10 e-book, it makes a lot of sense for your list. Because now, people are going to respond to you saying, “Yeah. I’m interested, tell me more.”

Then you send them a follow up email with more information, price point, details, and then they can just go back and forth with an individual conversation. That conversation is going to be much more effective than sending them to a video sales letter or even a sales page.

And this is great for anything over $500. If you’re selling workshops, Masterminds, anything like that, this is an amazing way to turn leads into customers—or warm traffic into much warmer traffic—because now you’re engaging in a back and forth conversation via email. It’s really powerful.

Hot traffic

The final source of traffic is hot traffic. So, this is your existing customers. And the more often they’ve bought from you, the more recently they’ve purchased from you, the more money they’ve spent with you—the hotter they are.

So how do you convert hot customers into even hotter customers? How do you get them to buy more often and go deeper with you?

Well, it’s pretty simple. You personally reach out to them, again, if you’re selling something of higher value. You say, “Hey Joe, how’s it going? I want to thank you so much for being a customer of ours for so long, and I’ve got this thing. Would you be interested in it?”

Literally, just that. Super simple conversation. Another thing I use is a really cool Gmail plugin called BombBomb. It’s a video based integration, and that will send people emails with the video embedded in the email, and I’ll be on the video saying, “Hey [name], I really appreciate your business, it means a lot to me. I really believe in connecting with my customers and clients, so I wanted to shoot this video for you.”

And I’ll do things like that on a regular basis. So, if you want to reach out to them with a special offer, you can shoot them a video—personally, not a broadcast email—send them from Gmail to Gmail for instance, and they will be blown away.

Because again, it’s 80-20. So many people are focused on, “How do I convert more leads?” Focus on the 20% of people who are yielding 80% of the revenue in your business. And those are going to be your best customers.

So if you just focus on the customers and going deeper with them, seeing what else you can provide for them, how you can add more value, you will get much better results. And the easiest way to do that is just direct communication.

And when you do this type of stuff, you don’t really need to fuss about sales pages, split testing button colors and all that stuff. That is fine if you’re doing massive amounts of cold traffic or trying to convert warm traffic into customers … But at a higher level—especially if you’re offering anything that’s of slightly higher value—this back and forth direct communication, these PEAR emails, are awesome.

Yuri’s Traffic Wrap Up

So, those are the three types of traffic—cold, warm, and hot—and the best way to convert them. Again, we’re starting with content, always adding value at every step of the process, always adding value as the foundation. YouTube videos, Instagram, Facebook, podcasts, blog posts, whatever you want. I would obviously focus on one and going deep with that.

Get your momentum going, get in front of people often enough, engage in individual conversations with them over time, and that’s how you’re going to elevate people.

And obviously the understanding is that you need to be producing results, right? Actually producing a result that people can be ecstatic about, because if you’re not producing a result for someone, none of this stuff really matters.

So, always focus on, “How do I produce results that will give this person what they want? How do I move them from where they are to where they want to be with less stress? How do I do it faster and get more done for them?” Plus, how do you get more done for you?

So there you go. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If it resonates with you, I would love to hear from you. You know, it’s funny, I actually haven’t told you that I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook … don’t search Yuri Elkaim, because you’ll actually find my nutrition and health business which I don’t even update that much on social (on Instagram specifically).

But if you search the handle @healthpreneur1, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. Join me over there, join in the conversation, let me know what you think of these episodes. I’d just love to connect with you because I really, really believe in going deeper not wider. So if you’ve experienced that from me, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t, then you’ll see.

So, that’s it for today. Once again, thank you so much for joining me. If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, please do so today. Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes, hit the subscribe button, you’ll be all set.

Thank you for your loyalty, for your attention, and once again, if you want to join me for The Best Year Blueprint, we are starting up in a couple weeks, just before the new year. So register for free at Healthpreneurgroup.com/byb. Simply leave your name and email there so that I can follow up with you, unless you already know when and where we’re doing it.

Obviously it’s all online, it’s all virtual, but it will be a lot of fun. So that is all for today, and guess what? I’m actually going to be back with you on December 25th. So, even if Santa Claus is coming and dropping off some presents, I will be back with you for another solo round next Monday and I’ll be talking about the fulfilled entrepreneur and your business G-Spots. Yes, it’s a very controversial episode. Stay tuned for that.

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Transcription

Today, we’re going to continue on the path of speaking with amazing online fitness professionals. We’ve got none other than AJ Mihrzad, who is the owner of Online Super Coach.

You can check his work out at onlinesupercoach.com. I’ve known AJ for a number of years, we’re actually in a genius network together. Probably four, five, six years ago, I can’t remember the first time we met—but right away he was just a genuine, great guy, we connected, and it was just cool that we were in the same space doing similar things.

I’m excited to have AJ on the podcast today because AJ’s very unique in the sense that he goes deep. He really introspects. He’s a reflective person who is very committed to his own growth, which is I think a very important value for most entrepreneurs, and most entrepreneurs share that.

But what I love about AJ is that he’s always evolving. He’s constantly learning and growing. In our conversation today, you’re going to learn how he really puts himself in situations where he’s forced to grow.

He’s willing to take a step off the ledge and see what happens and make things work no matter what. He’s very much sink-or-swim, and he believes that if he can put himself in a situation where he either sinks or swims he will do whatever he needs to in order to swim.

And he’s going to share exactly what he’s been able to do to help make that happen.

We’re going to talk specifically about live events in this episode. We’ll talk about the power of live events, how to fill them, how to conduct them, and also some really important segues into the best ways to share information in today’s day and age.

Then we’ll talk about being authentic and being real, and we’re going to share some interesting stories about that and how it’s really opened up our businesses to some pretty amazing growth.

Anyway, before we bring AJ on, let me formally introduce him. He’s the author of the bestselling book, The Mind Body Solution: Train your Brain for Permanent Weight Loss. He studied exercise science and nutrition because of his passion for health, and earned a master’s degree in psychology due to his fascination with the mindset of weight loss.

His cutting-edge approach to permanent weight loss insists that the key to a healthy body is a healthy brain, and his clients are walking proof that this is true, and he’s got many, many of them.

He’s also been inducted into the Personal Trainer Hall of Fame. His writings have been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, the Huffington Post, Men’s Fitness, and Bodybuilding.com. He’s also a keynote speaker at high-end entrepreneurial and personal development events, and he’s also the host of the popular podcast—which I’ve been fortunate enough to be a guest on—called The Online Super Coach Podcast, which is available on iTunes.

So, are you ready to bring AJ onto the show? If you are, let’s make it happen.

Yuri:              AJ, what is up, my friend? Welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast.

AJ:                  Hey. Thanks, Yuri. I appreciate it. Honored to be on here.

Yuri:                Awesome, buddy. So, what’s new and exciting in the world of Online Super Coach?

 AJ:                  What’s new and exciting is really having a lot more live events. That’s really my passion.

I find that it’s great to have an online business and to connect with people on an international level through technology, but there’s something powerful when you have people in your presence.

I do seminars or hold retreats at my house, and I’ve been doing a lot more of those. Just the connection that comes out of it is really lighting me up. Sometimes people come for this in-person event, they have this immersion, this powerful transformation.

But I realized when I’m teaching them I get transformed myself.

Yuri:                It’s funny, because I have definitely moved in that direction as well, because I’m very much like you. I love connecting with people in person and just find there’s an amazing synergy and energy that happens that you can’t really replicate online—even though the online space is tremendous.

Let’s talk about these live events and these seminars that you’re doing. What does that look like? You have your bigger events that you do, is it once or twice a year?

AJ:                  So, I have my major event twice a year. I typically have it in April and October. But I’m going to add a third, most likely in the summertime.

Yuri:                Nice. So is this for all coaches? Or is it just for fitness trainers who want to do their online thing?

AJ:                  Yeah. This is actually a seminar that I’ve done about eight times already. It’s evolved.

It really started for fitness professionals who wanted to build an online personal training business. But then I realized, every seminar that I had, I would have just regular people showing up—real estate agents, coaches, people that were just sick and tired of their nine-to-five. Then, it just evolved to online coaching in general.

I just found a lot of people have these amazing skills and gifts, and they want to provide a service for people but they don’t know where to start. The seminar now came to really helping people understand, number one, what is their superpower?

What is their gift that they could turn into a service-based online business? We go into the marketing systems, the sales process, and then how to deliver that gift through technology and virtual infrastructure.

Yuri:                Nice. That’s awesome. If you’re okay with it, I want to dig a little bit deeper on these offline events, because I think there’s a lot of cool value to be had from this.

We had Keith Norris on a couple weeks ago, who is the co-founder of Paleo FX. He walked us through his journey from day zero to one of the most successful health events in the world, where they are now.

Why did you start? Going back to the first event, what was your decision behind doing that first event?

How AJ stepped off a ledge and started doing live events

AJ:                  The first decision came from just challenging myself.

People that know me, I’m a big introvert. I have this fear of public speaking, and I tend to be kind of secluded.

I said to myself, “You know what? I always have to face my fears.” Intuitively, I knew that I had to put on this big seminar, and by doing that I would get a new superpower. So I said, “You know what? I’m just going to do the opposite of what is safe for me,” so I set off to do my first seminar.

Believe me, it was scary as hell, because one of the reasons why people don’t do a seminar, why I hesitated for so long is the public embarrassment of nobody showing up.

You put on this seminar and then your biggest fear is that three people show up, and you’re putting yourself out there. I was like, “You know what? I’ll do whatever it takes to fill this room up.” That was the first step.

Then, it was more of, “Okay, now I’m going to be performing for two days straight.” Prior to that, I spoke at other seminars, and maybe it’d be 45 minutes to an hour. But this is two days of me performing nonstop. It was really learning, “Okay, now how can I develop this skillset of not just teaching information for two days but engaging the crowd?”

My biggest fear, again, was if people showed up and they were like, “Man, this sucks,” or they’re bored. It was more so, “Okay, now I set out this goal of, one, having the seminar, two, speaking nonstop for two days. Now I have to build the skillsets.”

Like any entrepreneur, we have the ability of jumping off a cliff and building wings on the way down. For me, this seminar was that. It was just a big fear that I had to overcome. I knew by publicly announcing it, I would do whatever it takes to follow through on that specific date.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. How many people did you have at the first seminar?

AJ:                  At the first seminar, I had about 80 people.

Yuri:                Nice.

AJ:                  Yeah. Because it was literally that. The first month of marketing it—I put it out, I put it on my Facebook, I blasted out some e-mail lists. It was all organic, and four people got tickets.

I was like, “Oh my god. This is going to be a failure. I screwed up. Why did I do this? I put so much time into this. No one’s going to show up.”

That’s when I learned that seminars tend to get filled up in the last six weeks. In fact, even to the last minute. I didn’t really know that, because this was my first time promoting a major seminar. It was a fear of, no one’s going to show up. Then, slowly and surely, more and more people showed up by the end of it.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. How did you market it? What were the big needle-movers for getting people to attend the live events?

 AJ:                  I’ve never ran a pay-traffic for a seminar, for all the ones that I’ve done. I’ve just relied on organic.

For me, it’s social media, e-mail list, and then I have a few people that attend seminars that have influential audiences. They would make some posts about it. Really, those are my simple strategies, just doing it through the e-mail list, social media, and a few of the influencers that attend. They helped out by promoting it to their lists.

Yuri:                Awesome. Just so our listeners know, what was the price point for the tickets to attend the event?

AJ:                  I basically do two tiers of price points. Knowing that a majority of people are going to sign up last-minute, I have early-bird pricing. I make it pretty drastic.

I have early-bird pricing at $97 per ticket. Then, when you do it the six weeks prior to the seminar or after the early-bird tickets are sold out, it goes to $597.

Yuri:                That’s a good jump, a good reason to jump in early.

AJ:                  I want to really reward people that take the initiative, because then I can fill the seats and I know what I’m looking at with the hotel, food, and accommodations.

Yuri:                Totally. It’s a whole animal in and of itself, just logistically on that end. How have the seminars evolved over time? You’ve done eight of them now.

What have been some of the improvements, the things you’ve learned, new things that you’ve implemented that are rocking people’s worlds at the live events now?

AJ’s three keys to seminar success

AJ:                  Absolutely. Great question. When I look at seminars, I look at three main areas. Let’s say if you’re doing a lower-price seminar, one of your main objectives is to basically enroll people at the seminar. You want to give people this amazing experience but also give them a chance to have ongoing support.

The way that I looked at it, I looked at three main phases to have a successful seminar. This will really be for any business. Whether you’re an online business, an in-person business, obviously you want to get people to have this incredible experience.

Of course, number one, the most important aspect of the seminar process and why most people don’t do it, is filling up the seats, the marketing element of it. This happens prior to the seminar. This is the element where most people have this innate fear that no one will show up.

Now, I’m at a place where—even if 10 people show up, I’ll give a great seminar. Now it’s basically making sure that that front end is figured out, how you’re going to market it and how you’re going to create the urgency to get people to enroll into buying the tickets.

Number two is the seminar itself, the experience. Whether it’s two or three days, how can you give such a powerful experience that, just by being there, transformations are occurring? While people are there, the person that walks in is going to be different than the person that walks out. To me, that’s the most important element of the seminar process.

Then, three is the ongoing support. Whether you decide to make an offer at the seminar or you just want to create a community. I know a lot of people—I’m you sure you do as well—they don’t make any money on a seminar, meaning that sometimes they’ll break even or lose money. But they want to create good will in the market for a group of people, so theycreate a community.

A person that comes to mind is my friend, Khaled Elmasri. He runs the Nor-Cal Fitness Summit. I think he’s been doing this seminar for about six years now. He’s very open about this—he doesn’t make any money off of it. He literally just breaks even and doesn’t really pitch anything. He basically has a seminar so he creates community.

But every year, this seminar doubles in size. I think they’re having about 400 people this year. He just brings together people and creates good will and just has this ongoing event. It’s really, like I said, having the end in mind. Whether it’s going to be a seminar where you want to enroll people into ongoing support with you, or you want to just enroll people into a vision where it grows a community over time.

So, I think it’s simply those three areas. Again, to quickly review: Number one, filling out the seminar. Number two, a transformative experience. And then number three, going into, “Am I going to offer ongoing support, or do I want to build a community of good will over time?”

Yuri:                Nice. That’s awesome. Out of the years you’ve done these, what’s the biggest challenge? Let’s say other than filling the seats, what’s the biggest challenge you’ve run into that you’ve been able to overcome?

Infotainment

 AJ:                  To me, I’m a perfectionist. I often look at the greats—the great speakers and entertainers. I’m a huge fan of standup comedy. I look at people that could just engage an audience for long periods of time and have them in a very inspired, entertained, just informative space.

So, I guess it’s being my own harsh critic. Every seminar I do better, in terms of connecting with the audience, giving them both the information but also the transformation, have them walk away like, “I feel different. When I walked into AJ’s seminar, I was kind of insecure about these areas. Now I’m super confident about these areas. I feel like I could do anything. It’s possible.”

I guess it’s just seminar by seminar, getting 10% better at giving the attendees a powerful experience.

Actually, I really work hard between my seminars. I take improv classes, I take acting classes. And this time around, two weeks prior to my seminar this year, I’m doing a night of standup comedy.

I’m really stepping out of my comfort zone to be a better entertainer.

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

AJ:                  Earlier this year, I made a distinction between a teacher and an entertainer. Especially in the States here, the entertainers are the highest-paid industry, whereas teachers are the lowest-paid industry.

A lot of times, when we’re putting on a seminar or teaching on a webinar or even teaching our students online, we could take on a teacher role. And although information is great, it’s a dime a dozen. We’re the information age.

So, I’m really looking at myself to fuse entertainment and information to create really powerful infotainment. And that’s why I’m working really hard on myself to be a better entertainer, so when I do my seminars I have a better experience not just for myself but for the attendees as well.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s what I love about you. You’re so committed to your own growth, that you’re always looking to challenge yourself, step on the edge, and be like, “Okay, well, is this going to work?”

Then you make it happen. I think this continual, non-stop improvement, like taking acting classes and improv, is just a testament to that, which is great. Then it better serves your audience, which is what it’s all about, which is awesome.

AJ:                  I appreciate it, Yuri.

Yuri:                Yeah, for sure. So, I want to talk about this infotainment idea for a second, because there’s a lot of people in our space who have an amazing amount of knowledge—doctors, trainers, nutritionists, and so forth—but they’re dry as hell in front of the camera or on a podcast or even live in person.

What advice do you give them to … Do you steer them in the direction, “Hey, maybe you should just write.”? What kind of advice would you give that person to make what they do a bit less dry, a little bit more entertaining and captivating?

AJ:                  Great question. I would start off in the most foundational aspect of the communication—which modality are you the best at?

I just found in myself and coaching my students, people are really good at three of the modalities, whether it’s audio, text, or video, meaning that if you’re very charismatic on video, then do Facebook videos and go on YouTube. If you’re great at writing, start a blog or do e-mails or long Facebook posts. If you’re just amazing at audio, do a podcast. See which modality you shine the most.

I think sometimes one of the biggest mistakes people make is they try to be amazing on every single modality but they have a strong suit in one of them. My personal opinion is focus on one and become the best in the world at that.

Let’s say you’re great on video. What can you do in your videos to be more entertaining, to be more engaging? Because, as we know, the marketplace, it never lies. They show us. When you put out a video, you get to see very quickly the amount of views it gets, shares it gets, engagement.

Then look at, when you are getting really high engagement, when you’re getting people to share your videos or comment on them, what are the things that you’re doing? Are you telling stories? Are you sharing personal aspects of your life? Are you telling jokes? Are you going into character impersonations?

Stuff like this will allow you to break people’s patterns but also get them ultra-engaged. As we know, this world is very attention-deprived. There’s so many things competing for our attention, and as technology exponentially improves, people will have lower and lower attention spans.

That’s why I believe in the power of infotainment, whether it’s in your writing, in your audio, in your video. How can you make it so engaging that the person is super-focused on your content and they’re not allowing anything else to distract them?

Yuri:                Yeah, I think you should just take your shirt off and do videos like that. That will keep people’s attention.

 AJ:                  That works for a lot of people! [laughing]

Yuri:                Totally. So, you do a lot of Facebook Live videos, a lot of Facebook videos. I think a lot of them are awesome, at least the ones that I’ve seen. They’re very inspiring, they’re more than how to build a business. There’s a lot of personal growth type of stuff you touch on, which is awesome.

Out of all the videos that you’ve done, what are some of the trends you’ve noticed in terms of which ones get the better engagement, at least for your audience?

Vulnerability: How does it apply to videos and social media?

AJ:                  Yes, well I’ve noticed this in myself, and a lot of people, as well. It’s actually the ultra-vulnerable videos. This is where you share a secret or something in your life that maybe no one else knows.

It’s a traumatic incident that you went through, or a pain that you overcame, or even in the present moment if you’re not feeling 100%, and you’re fully authentic and transparent about it.

I feel like they do the absolute best just because many times you could have a coach or a professional and they’re looked at like this person who’s flawless and they have so much discipline and they could do anything. They could follow a diet, follow a workout. They’re great with their business and their family.

But the moment you share vulnerability and you open up your heart and say, “You know what? I’m not perfect. This is what I’m going through in the moment. This is what actually got me to where I am today. You might think that I have my stuff together, but this is what I’m dealing with.”

This really connects you in a very deep way, and this is where people say, “Wow. I thought you were superhuman, but you’re just like me.” That level of connection becomes so deep when you’re vulnerable.

Yuri:                You’re not superhuman, you’re just a super coach.

AJ:                  Yes! [laughing] There you go.

Yuri:                How do you get people to open up? How do you get people to overcome that fear of, “I don’t want to reveal this story. I don’t want to share this truth.” Any tips or advice there?

 AJ:                  Yeah. Actually, when my students start my program, this is the first thing that they do.

I know that whenever someone starts a program they’re just so excited and they’ll do whatever it takes. I’m like, “Great. Great. Let’s just create the most vulnerable video ever.”

The first thing I do is say, “Listen, write down the most challenging things that you’ve overcame, make a list of those, and out of those what is the worst? What is the thing that you’re scared to talk about?”

They typically find the one thing that stands out, and number one, it’s just authentically sharing that. In the beginning of the video, jump right into the worst thing that happened to you, talk about it in a very authentic way, and then always end off at an inspirational note.

Here’s where sometimes people could get it wrong. They could talk about a horrible incident. God forbid, something happened in their childhood, maybe it was abuse, and they just end it at that. But it’s really, “What did I learn from this? I don’t have this level of a grudge against what happened. I learned this from it. You know what? If I could overcome this, then you could overcome anything.”

It’s just essentially finding the worst thing that happened to you, being able to talk about it openly and authentically, ending off at an inspirational note, and then you’re good to go.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. You’ve just got to do it. I think that doing what you just said is a great framework to just jot down those events, those learnings, and then you just have to hit the record button and hope for the best.

 AJ:                  Totally. I just found that this type of videos work remarkably well. Once a month I do them.

I’ve been through a lot, and so has everyone else. The more people know what you’ve been through to be where you are today, it’s so much more inspiring, because, like I said, a lot of times people see the end result, what you’re doing now.

They see you’ve been through all this amazing work and you are the person you are today. But the question is, what made you who you are today? That’s what people are fascinated with.

Yuri:                Totally. I had this realization about four years ago. As you know, I have alopecia, so I lost my hair when I was 17. I regrew it, and then it fell out again a couple years ago. I was painting on my eyebrows for two years with my wife’s makeup because I was shameful of what was going on.

At some point I was like, “You know what? This is ridiculous. I’m going to stop doing this.” I shot a video on YouTube to explain the situation. That was the scariest moment of my life.

I’m happy that I did that video because what I realized on the flip side of it was that it gave people permission to just be okay with who they were. That was something I never really thought of before that.

I was like, “What are people going to think of me? What are they going to think of me?” It was all very egotistically self-focused.

But I think the flip side of being authentic and being real is that you give people permission to not just connect with you more deeply, but you allow them to really open themselves up to what’s truly possible in their lives.

I don’t know if that’s something you’ve recognized. That’s something I definitely realized almost immediately upon publishing that video.

AJ:                  I saw that video. I’ll tell you a personal story that I’ve never actually told you. I’ve known you for quite some time. I remember the first time I met you was at a 25K annual event. It was in New York.

I just remember being in your presence. You were so well-spoken, so put together. I was like, “Wow. This guy’s like … he’s got his shit together.” Then, from really getting to know you, I just sensed you had this really humble heart and, even though you were very well-spoken, articulate, and intelligent, you cared about people. You had this sense of, “You know what? This is who I am, but it doesn’t define me.”

Then I just remember … I really didn’t know that you had alopecia. Then, when I saw that video, and you were very vulnerable about it, I felt this connection with you that I’ve never felt before.

Yuri:                Thank you.

AJ:                  I was like, “Wow. Yuri’s really down to earth, and he’s a human, just like me,” because people just put you on a higher pedestal. Then, when you connect with them in a very empathetic type of way, you’re like, “Wow. We’re on the same level.”

 Yuri:                Cool, man. Thank you for letting me know about that. I didn’t realize that. That’s really cool.

I think that’s important. It’s important to remember this, because we position ourselves as the expert. I think sometimes we create this distance between us and the people we’re trying to serve.

But, as you mentioned, you just bond with that “expert” so much more effectively when you recognize that they’re more like you, you’re more like them. I think that as a coach, as an expert, you deprive yourself of that relationship if you’re not opening up and truly sharing who you are.

Because if it’s all just bling-bling and the best things in your life, that’s great, it’s all superficial. It’s like an Instagram feed. But you have to show the true you, because that’s really where people open up and really connect with you.

 AJ:                  I agree with you 100%. Just like you said, in the world of Instagram, Facebook, and social media—it’s really the highlights of people’s lives. We show our best sides, our loving families and, “I love my career,” and “I’m having the greatest day.”

When you’re real, raw, and authentic, it’s this connection that you have because it’s very rare. When you go through your newsfeed, it’s rare to see people just being fully honest.

When you see that honesty, you’re enthralled to it.

Yuri:                The other thing I realize too, and this is not a shot at women, but most people’s Facebook pictures are the best they’re going to look. Most often, we’re not going to put up the worst picture of ourselves as our profile picture.

What I’ve also noticed is, in a lot of women’s feeds, a lot of women’s pages that I’ve been to, they’ve spent a lot of time taking pictures of themselves or pictures in front of the mirror—and they’re always showing the same side of their face.

They know exactly which is their better side and which is their not-so-great side. I just found that interesting.

I’m like, “Wow. This is really calculated,” because they’ve been doing this for so long. It’s like, “Hey, let’s just be real. Be you. Don’t worry about your imperfections. Don’t worry about your flaws.”

Renee Airya talks about flipping your flaws, and that’s such a great thing to remember for everyone. We’re not perfect. We all have flaws. We have imperfections, and those are the things that really help us stand out.

AJ:                  I agree with you. I agree. That’s the thing—when you have all these manipulations and filters people use online, then when you meet them in person you’re like, “Wait, wait, wait. You’re not the same person.” That’s the drawback to that. But I agree with you.

I think people are pretty savvy nowadays. People can tell that if you’re putting on a façade or showing your best side. They want the real side. They want the authentic side of you. How do you look when you wake up first thing in the morning? That’s what I want to see.

Conversions at live events

Yuri:                And going back to what we were talking about with these seminars and live events—I think that’s where the real power is. People get to see you raw, on stage, off stage, hanging out over food, whatever.

There’s power to that. It’s easier to sell people one-on-one, but it’s also easier to sell people in a group setting like that. (I’m just going to use “selling” as influencing people.)

Because there’s a level of connection, people see you as you, as real. There’s less filters. There’s no shining stuff around you like there is online.

For you, you talked about at the seminars and live events, elevating people into a higher-level program or ongoing support. Have you found that to be easier from a live event than through a strategy call or some other online strategy?

AJ:                  Oh, without a doubt. It’s so fascinating, because I get so many people that come to my seminars and when they come up and talk to me in an intimate level, many of them say, “Wow. You’re the real deal. I had to come here to really see that you’re honest and you’re very genuine. I really didn’t trust you online. That’s why I came in person to really meet you.”

I was like, “Wow.” There’s a large majority of people who, you could do the best marketing, use the best copy and persuasion online, but they’re going to have to meet you in person to have that full connection.

When you’re up there, you can’t fake it. When you’re up there speaking and someone asks you a really tough question or you’re going to have to improv, you’re being fully exposed. You’re being fully authentic.

When you’re able to just show your expertise or display your superpowers in the most challenging situations, people really admire that. There’s something very special about meeting in person. Even though we live in a digital world, I feel like the world is starving for these intimate connections.

Yuri:                Just before we get to the rapid five, what advice would you give to somebody who is looking to start up their own series or even just one-off live events? Maybe one mistake to avoid and one important thing to consider.

AJ:                  Sure. Let’s start with the one important thing to consider.

The hardest live event is going to be your first live event, just because you’re going to go through a lot of uncertainty and a lot of human emotion. You’re going to basically learn how to do it step-by-step.

But just remember that it’s going to get so much easier, because once you do that first one you create the framework for the next ones. This is my eighth major seminar, and it is so much easier than the first one. In fact, it gets easier and easier. That’s why I’m doing them two to three times a year.

Just know that. The first one’s going to be tough. After that, it’s smooth sailing.

The biggest mistake that you want to avoid is, especially for the first one, giving enough time to market it and fill it out. I would recommend a minimum of 12 weeks. I’ve seen a lot of friends who crashed and burned because they waited literally 30 days before a live event to market it.

go, “No, no, no. Don’t do this. This is a terrible mistake.” But they just say, “You know what? I’m going to jump off the cliff.” It’s the wrong cliff to jump off because you don’t have enough time to market it. Making sure you give enough time, especially for your first one, even six months to a year out, that’s the way to go.

Yuri:                That’s great advice. Plus, you’re on the hook. You’re paying hotels, event space. It’s not chump change.

 AJ:                  Exactly.

Rapid five questions

Yuri:                That’s really good stuff. AJ, this has been awesome. We talked about live events, infotainment. We’ve gone down the road of authenticity, being you. Now it’s time for the rapid five. Are you ready?

 AJ:                  Let’s do it.

 Yuri:                All right. You have no idea what these questions are. I haven’t given them to you ahead of time, so it’s on the fly, on your toes. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

 AJ:                  My biggest weakness is the fact that I sometimes get into overwhelm.

Like I said, being a perfectionist. I can overthink. Many times, it’s like Occam’s razor—the simplest solution always works. But I can tend to make things a bit complicated.

I myself, I’m now learning to trust my gut and go with my intuition. “Okay, what does my intuition want to do? Okay, that’s the right answer. I was overthinking it and making it way too complex.”

Yuri:                I agree. Intuition is usually the best coach, for sure. Number two, your biggest strength?

AJ:                  My biggest strength is just persistence. Whatever it takes.

I’ll stay up nights and nights and nights to get something done. I will face failure, after failure, after failure. If my heart is set on something, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. I’m not the smartest person, not the most talented, but I will persist until I succeed.

Yuri:                I love it. Awesome. One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

AJ:                  One skill that I’ve become dangerously good at is really connecting with people. I feel like just the element of being able to be on video and to have live events in person, over time I’ve been able to really just have the understanding of what a person wants. I can connect with them in a very deep way, especially at a live event.

I think I’ve created this amazing calibration that, when I’m in front of a crowd, I can know exactly what they want. Do they want a break? Do they want to jump up and move around? Do they want more learning?

That connection, I feel, is something that I just want to cultivate over time.

Yuri:                That’s great. What do you do first thing in the morning?

AJ:                  First thing in the morning, I write in my journal. This journal has been with me for about 11 years now. I have not missed a day.

I had a weird near-death experience. Long story about that, but it happened in 2006. And then, from that moment on, I said, “You know what? I’m not promised every day, so I’m going to keep a journal.” I just write my entire day, the previous day, from morning to night. I’ve just been doing it every single day.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Good for you. Number five is, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when …

AJ:                  I know I’m being successful when I’m in a flow state, when I lose track of time and space, when I’m just sharing from my heart, and I just go on and on and on, and I just feel the chills, I get more energy, I get more creativity. I’m in the zone.

Like right now! I know I’m being successful because I’m in a flow state talking to you.

Yuri:                Awesome, buddy. I love it. You know what’s funny about this question is that a lot of people answer stuff they control. You talking about being in a flow state is something you control. A lot of other people answer it based on other people’s feedback.

I find that interesting. “I know I’m being successful when other people tell me I’m doing a good job.” It’s interesting just to see the dichotomy of these responses, so that’s why I throw that in there.

Dude, it’s so great to connect with you. Again, you’re the real deal. For everyone listening, AJ is … Just follow him on Facebook. Just check out his videos, check out the stuff he’s doing. He’s the real deal.

I’ve known him for years. We’ve hung out in person, and who he is in person is the same person he is online. That’s why I wanted to have you on the show.

Plus, you’ve built an amazing business, helping a lot of people in the process. Dude, I just want to express my gratitude for who you are as a person and everything you’ve been able to do and all the people you’ve been able to positively impact. It really, really does make a difference. Thank you for taking the time to be with us.

AJ:                  Thank you, Yuri. I just want to acknowledge you, because you’re someone I look up to. You’re literally a pioneer in this world of online fitness.

What you’re doing is always being one step ahead. You have this amazing intelligence and this way of always evolving yourself. But the one thing I admire the most is your humbleness. Just for how big your business is and how many people you’re serving, your level of being so down-to-earth, being a family man, being a good friend.

Whenever I call on you, you’re always there for me. I really appreciate you for that.

Yuri:                Awesome, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much, AJ. I appreciate the kind words and obviously for taking the time. Before we finish off, what is the best place for people to follow your work online and maybe attend one of your events?

AJ:                  Yeah, I would love that! Super simple. My main website, onlinesupercoach.com. There’s a tab at the top, it’ll say “live events.” It will have all my seminars and retreats and other one-off speaking gigs that I have, so come meet me in person.

Yuri:                Awesome. AJ, this has been great. Thank you so much, my friends. Look forward to chatting with you soon. Hope you guys enjoyed this.

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It’s always great catching up with AJ, and I was happy to be able to bring this conversation to you because he’s just such a great guy, full of great insights. A very reflective, introspective person, as you can probably tell from our conversation.

We’ve got an amazing episode coming up. It’s actually a solo round that’s happening in the next episode. I’m going to be talking about why winning the lottery is for suckers.

That’s right. If you want to hear my perspective on winning the lottery and then some interesting things I have to say about that, that is coming up in the next episode. I think it’ll really make a big difference to the way you see your business and how you communicate what you do with your clients. Stay tuned for that.

In order to not miss that episode, be sure to subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes. You can head over there, hit the subscribe button. All these amazing episodes will download to your phone, or computer and you can just enjoy it like that.

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Follow AJ Mihrzad At:

https://onlinesupercoach.com/

Facebook

Instagram

YouTube

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Free Healthpreneur Health Profit Secrets Book

If you would like a free copy of the Health Profits Secrets book,  you can get that over at healthpreneurbook.com.

It will show you the four secrets that really are the fundamental components to building a successful online health or fitness business.

Transcription

Yo, what’s up guys? Welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast! I’m Yuri, here with you again. Hope you’re having a great day.

In the last episode, we talked about the truth about hustle. If you haven’t listened to that one, you’ll definitely want to listen to it today, because I reveal some shocking truths about hustle and grind. If you find yourself working a little bit too much, thinking that’s the only way, be sure to listen in to that.

Now, today, I’ve got a great interview with a trainer from down under, a.k.a Australia, obviously. His name is Aidan D’arcy, and he helps busy professionals look better, feel amazing, and move without pain.

He basically wants to be known, and he’s building his business to become the go-to transformation expert in his little segment of Australia, but also using his online business to disseminate amazing information, transformations, and inspiration to attract the right people into his world.

The other thing about Aidan is, like a lot of other people in our space who’ve gone into training or health …  He’s someone who’s gone through his own journey. He overcame binge eating and a history of yo-yo dieting—and his goal is to help others take control of their health by tailoring programs to their lifestyle.

He’s an established personal trainer, fitness model, and online coach over at darcyonlinecoaching.com. He’s based out of Sydney, Australia.

I think you’re going to get a lot out of this episode. There’s a lot of really good nuggets from his journey, from the truth about what it’s taken him to transition from training clients in person to building his online business … The process he went through, the steps he’s taken, how he overcame a lot of the internal battles that we all go through—a lot of really great nuggets to take out of our conversation.

As always, if you want the show notes, head on over to the blog after you’ve listened to this, over at healthpreneurgroup.com/podcast. Without any further ado, let’s bring Aidan onto the show.

 

Yuri:                Aidan, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going, mate?

Aidan:             I am very well. Thank you, Yuri. Thank you very much. How are you doing?

Yuri:                I’m doing very well. I’m calling you “mate” because that’s the terminology down in Aussie land, Australia. Is that correct?

Aidan:             That is correct. Even if you are a stranger, you are still our mate, so yes.

Yuri:                Awesome. What are some other common terms that other English speaking countries wouldn’t know of, that are only kind of native to Australia?

Aidan:             I guess, g’day is a pretty common one. Further north to Queensland you kind of get a more thicker Australian accent. But if you’re down here around Sydney, even down around Melbourne it’s a little bit different.

The culture’s a little bit different, but I guess the main one is, yeah we call each other mate even if we don’t know each other.

Yuri:                Sure.

Aidan:             It’s, “How you going mate? How’s everything doing?” Yeah.

Yuri:                Nice and it’s “Throw another shrimp on the barbie,” is that a myth or is that an actual phrase?

Aidan:             Honestly it is a complete myth. [laughing]

Yuri:                Yeah I bet

Aidan:             It is never said over here, I don’t know even know where it came from.

Yuri:                Oh that’s hilarious.

Aidan:             It’s sort of a stereotypical Aussie thing, but no, we almost never say it.

Yuri:                That’s good to know. Well there you go guys, now you know the real deal with the Australian version of English.

I’m pumped to have you here because we’re all about focusing on having great conversations with remarkable entrepreneurs in the health and fitness space. You’re a trainer, you have an online training business—talk to us about how you went from training clients one on one to the moment where you said, “You know what? Maybe I should do this online thing.” What did that look like?

Transitioning into the world of online training

Aidan:                      It’s kind of a long story, but honestly, as a face to face personal trainer, I was doing 35, 40 sessions a week—absolutely burnt out. I was away in Bali, funny story, my brother’s buck party, and my brother runs a business—not in fitness, but he runs his own business.

Everyone that was on this holiday, we’re all business owners as well. I’d been following John Goodman for a long time, I’d been reading a lot of his stuff about online training. It was one of those things where it was still fairly new. It was a fairly new concept.

I was literally just lying there on a sun bed in Bali and just went, “You know what—I can’t run myself into the ground anymore, there’s got to be a better way to leverage my time and be able to reach out to more people and not be so burnt out week in and week out.”

Get up at you know, 4:00 in the morning. You’ve got your clients before they go to work and then you have your break in the day and then you get your afternoon clients coming in after they’ve finished work—so you’re always working the opposite ends of the day, right?

I had to figure out, “How can I leverage myself? And even if I do a mixture of both, still keep that face to face personal training, but can I also do it in a way where I’m not getting up at 4:00 AM every single morning?”

That’s kind of how I came to it, I had that epiphany, that light bulb moment. And I guess we all do, we all get to that stage where we kind of have that breakdown moment and go, “I can’t keep doing it this way anymore. There’s got to be a better way.”

Yeah, I literally took out a pen and paper and just put my thoughts on the pages. I wrote down how I feel, how am I going to do this, how can I systemize what I’m doing face to face—because I’ve been very successful with face to face, had some pretty awesome results. “How can I take this and transform people all over the world?”

And I just got to work.

Then about 12 to 14 months later, I’ve got clients all over the world. I still do face to face personal training, I have my own business in that now. But my time is much better leveraged, much more balanced.

I don’t get up at 4:00 AM every morning. I only get up at 4:00 AM I think once a week now, which is great. Yeah, that’s kind of how I had the epiphany to get into online training and where I am right now.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. So you had that kind of time away—that trip to Bali, with those beautiful surroundings and other entrepreneurs and you had this epiphany.

It’s so funny, all big breakthroughs happen when you’re outside of the business, right?

Aidan:             That’s it.

 Yuri:                When you’re laying on the beach, taking a shower, going for a walk—so it’s cool to see you went through a similar experience.

So as you made the decision and said, “Okay I’m going to do this online training thing,” what were some of the roadblocks? What were some of the unknowns or the obstacles that you had to overcome in that transition?

Aidan:             Oh yeah, I had many, and you know, I still reach barriers even today. I’m still learning and I will never stop learning , but the biggest mistake that I actually made was, I started marketing to people who relied on a trainer face-to-face.

I thought, “Cool, okay. Well if I’m really good at face-to-face, I’m going to market to these people and get them to do online training.”

I realized very quickly that … These people see me face-to-face for a reason—because they can’t do it by themselves, they need to have that accountability. So that kind of made me think, “How can I bring in some sort of accountability into online training that will be appealing to a large demographic?”

The biggest thing that I found with that was, you start marketing and you start flogging the whole online training business—and a lot people go, “What’s online training? And how’s it work?”

Then all of a sudden I’m saying, “Yeah. Good question, how does it work?” It was almost a case of … I didn’t really know how it’s going to work, but I just know it can work.

I just had to kind of listen to my clients and figure out what they wanted and how I could make it work for them.

And one of the biggest things I’ve learned so far as well—when you run a business you want to create a business that can run without you in it.  I think one of the biggest things I’ve found with personal training—both face to face and online—is that it’s a very hard industry to step out of.

People buy you, they don’t really buy what you’re selling—they buy you.

Because they buy into the relationship you have and all that kind of thing. So one of the biggest ongoing things that I need to overcome with online training—and also face to face—is, “How can I create a system where I am not relied upon as much as face-to-face?”

So far, I’ve found that doing a Skype call once every other week as opposed to once a week (I used to do once a week when I first started online training). I found that once I did get to a point where I had 10 to 15 online clients in addition to the face-to-face clients … I was getting that overwhelming feeling and going, “Oh my God, how can I keep doing this,” same sort of epiphany.

But eventually I got to the stage where I realized “Well okay, instead of making this call once a week, can I make it once a fortnight?”

And that’s definitely been a beneficial thing for me because it means I’m not demanded all the time, and I’ve kind of leveraged my time a little bit better.

But yeah, honestly, in terms of barriers, getting back to your original question—they come up all the time.

I guess as a coach and as a business owner, entrepreneur you’ve got to be able to adapt to those barriers and be able to listen to your audience and figure out what they really want and how you can serve that pain and that problem and then go from there.

Yuri:                That’s awesome, that’s good.

That’s what I love about having a business—it really forces you to become a more enlightened person, because you’re forced to kind of figure this stuff out. Whereas, a lot of trainers in a gym they’re just like, “Okay, people come in for a consult, I’ll get them as a client and then it’s a done deal.”

But now you venture out on your own, now you’re forced to kind of become the CEO of a business and actually acquire customers on your own and clients on your own … And you have to develop a whole new skill set.

Part of that is, obviously, overcoming a lot of these obstacles and barriers that you’d never consider beforehand. So you talked about marketing to people who were already working with a trainer. Then obviously the realization that, maybe that wasn’t the smartest move at the time.

How did you go about getting your name out? Getting your services in front of people that didn’t know you. Was it Facebook ads? Was it content? Was it relationships that you had? What did that look like to acquire those first couple clients online?

Showin’ up every single day

Aidan:             Absolutely. You hear about it all the time and you hear it from all the guru’s and people we follow online, but … The biggest thing was, you’ve got to show up every single day. And that was one thing I committed to doing.

I got my own website launched and I relentlessly put out content. I’m going to sound like a broken record here amongst a lot of the fit pro’s, but yeah, it is literally that—just showing up every single day and putting out.

I put out a lot of blogs on the website, I think I launched at least fifty blogs in first six months. I also put out multiple ebooks for free. I put out a lot of free content.

The first thing I did was essentially, I looked at, “Okay, well who am I marketing to? What problem am I looking to solve and what am I really good at?”

Straight away, what I’m really good at is body transformations and helping people find better balance in losing weight for the last time.

So I put out a lot of ebooks and blogs about essentially how to do that. I just put it out on my personal Facebook. I put it out on my business page. I’ve created a Facebook group about April last year, so April 2016.

I just showed up in that every day. I put out posts every day and I haven’t stopped.  Every single day since April 2016 I’ve put out just one post a day. It’ll be either a live video, a meme, it’ll be sharing my own struggles, my own background.

Once a month I’ll ask the current guys in the group to share with their friends or add somebody who they think will benefit, and it’s kind of grown organically from there.

Then over time, with your blogs you always have a call to action at the bottom and over time it’s just starting to pick up. I think it’s only now after I guess, 18 months, where it’s kind of started to get a bit of ground and a few people know who I am now.

I guess there are ways you can fast track it. I mean the slower game is I’ve done it very organically, I haven’t put too much money into marketing.

But there are ways to do it quickly. Like, for example, you can take on 10 people for free and get them to write you a testimonial, get your before and after photos with that. So then you’ve already got your testimonials and a bit of a base happening.

But yeah, now after a bit over a year since doing it, I’ve got a fair few testimonials. I’ve got a lot of transformation photos, and that sells itself, you know? People see those pictures of a client that you’ve helped lose 20, 30 kilos halfway around the world. That’s awesome.

Even as a coach, you know, whilst you’re doing these things you kind of forget to look back and see how far you’ve come. Then when you put a photo together with one of your clients, and they’re halfway around the world and you’ve just helped them lose 30 kilos you’re like … “Oh wow that’s really cool.”

Over time when you get your audience, they do start to see your passion and they do start to see that you’re that, sort of, leading authority figure in your industry. They kind of go, “Well wait a minute. When Aidan first asked me six months ago about doing online personal training, I thought it was a bit out there and a bit stupid, and he couldn’t actually help me. But now I’ve seen him do this with another client, maybe he is pretty good. Maybe he can actually do it.”

And I think over time, just by showing up every day, putting out super valuable content for free and just being there to support people and doing it because you love doing it. A lot of people go out there and go, “I want to earn a lot of money in personal training.”

You kind of think, “Well actually if you have that attitude you probably won’t.”

But if you go out there just with, “I actually genuinely want to help people,” and you’re just genuinely there to support them—it’s going to happen. It will grow organically and you will take on clients eventually and it will grow.

Yuri:                That’s awesome, that’s a really good insight.

If you’re listening to this, that’s such a great reminder that … this is the long term sustainable game. I don’t really think there’s a magic pill to overnight success. Unless you’re spending a ton of money and you crack the code in a very short period of time.

But I think what you’ve done is remarkably smart.

I think, and maybe you’ve seen this too, a lot of people coming into the online space … It’s very different from the offline space. I think when you’re dealing with people in person there’s more of an instant connection that can happen than if you’re online, and I think as you’ve mentioned it takes time.

You’ve been doing this for 18 months now just putting out daily content, and now it’s starting to really kind of steamroll and pick up traction. I think that’s a great reminder for everyone to just be like, “Listen you guys, you have to show up every day, you’ve got to put in the time, you’ve got to put in the work, and then it becomes a bit easier for you over time.”

Aidan:             Absolutely and I 100% agree with that. And I guess you could say a big mistake I made when I first started was, I was looking up to people and seeing their success.

Think of the whole iceberg analogy, I was looking at the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people, a lot of idols. Again John Goodman was probably one of the first people in this industry who made online training what it was.

When we’re looking up to him and you’re comparing yourself to him going, “How are these guys earning all this kind of money and how do they have all this freedom?”

But we’re looking at the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t seen the years of grinding and dedication to get to where they are right now, and it’s only now that we’re seeing their success from the years of groundwork they have done.

You hear all these things and you read them in blogs and all the personal development books, you read this kind of stuff but until you actually go through it yourself, and you really truly understand that it does take time, it does take a lot of consistency and hard work … I think you can only read so much before you have to actually go through it yourself.

Even if you can read stuff you can take it on board and go, “Yeah, okay. That’s cool, I understand that.” But then you may not take it into action.

Until you actually put it into action and you experience that real hard work and that grind and the days you doubt yourself and the high highs and super low lows—until you go through those things, it’s going to be very tough for you to go through the long game and to avoid looking at those shiny objects, always looking at the new thing.

Relating it back to how are clients come to us—they always come to us with, they’ve tried multiple diets, they’ve tried all these strategies. They’ve failed time and time again, and they’re just wanting the next quick fix, where it’s up to us to educate on, “Look, it takes time and it takes balance, it takes consistency. You can’t do just a few things.”

Business is exactly the same.

Growing an online fitness business or a face-to-face personal training business is exactly the same. We can’t keep looking for a quick fix. It’s a marathon not a sprint. It takes time, it takes consistency, hard work and grinding.

All the things we say to our clients, those same principles apply in business  and that was one of the biggest things I’ve learned over time as well, in the last sort of 18 months.

 Yuri:                Yeah, that’s really good.

That’s one of the reasons I put this podcast together is to really highlight the journey, to remind our listeners that the people you look up to—what did they go through? What did that journey look like? What are the challenges and ups and downs and things that they learned?

Because if we continue to hear this stuff, it becomes a little bit more realistic about, “Okay, here’s what’s involved.” As opposed to just looking at someone’s Facebook feed and being like, “Oh my God, they’re hanging out in Bali or they’re traveling the world. And that’s the life that they’re living.”

Which it’s not, right? It’s a moment in their life and I think it’s important to remember that there’s a huge process involved. And I think that’s a great analogy for fitness professionals—the advice we give our clients is the same advice we should take ourselves for business, because it’s the same thing.

Aidan:             Absolutely.

Yuri:                It absolutely is the same thing. I liken it to professional athletes. You don’t go from a little bit of talent to pro athlete overnight. It takes a decade at least of consistent training, repetitions, it’s the same thing in business.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up and just reminding us once again that it’s so important to do the thing every single day. Put in the reps and it takes time.

Aidan:             Absolutely, 100%.

Yuri:                So you talked about mistakes, you talked about comparing yourself to other people, and kind of going through the highs and lows—when you had those moments of doubt, like, “Can I do this? Am I going to be this person?” … What was the mindset that helped you get through those moments of doubt and struggle?

Aidan:             You know what, it’s a funny one—I’m glad you asked that. I don’t want to come across as a woo-woo motivator or whatever-

Yuri:                It’s all good, it’s all good.

The mission

Aidan:             But you’ve got to remember why you started this journey in the first place, and I guess it’s the same sort of thing we say clients when they hit their roadblocks—we always remind them of, “It’s okay. Remember why we’re doing this in the first place. We know these mistakes are going to happen and you’re going to have those doubts, 100%.”

It’s the same I guess with this, there are days when you do doubt yourself and it’s just reminding yourself of, “Okay, remember why you’re doing this in the first place.”

Of course we want to help our clients and it can be a bit of a grind, but we also have our own personal goals of that financial freedom. Have a business where you can have more time off as opposed to time on, and you can go away for the weekend with your fiance or your girlfriend or boyfriend—you can go away with them on the weekend and not worry about dropping sessions or not meeting session targets. Or worry about how you’re not going to get paid this week because you haven’t been in there.

But the days when you are struggling—and believe me, I’ve had many of them, I’m far from a success, yet. I’m closer than I was 12 months ago, but it does take time.

And the days that you do struggle, you’ve got to remember why you’re doing this in the first place. What’s helped me is I have my mission and my ‘why’ and I have a big whiteboard here right in front of me with notes written all over it.

It’s messy, it’s not neat, but it just has little post-it notes. It has little bullet points, just little things that I see every single day when I wake up. I have little positive affirmations.

I do journaling, I do meditations, just little things like that which help to remind me that you’re not going to be able to have a good day every day but it’s about riding the bad days and enjoying the good days.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. So what is your reason why? What is the mission?

Aidan:             My mission at this point in time, because I do have bigger missions but my small mission right now is to be the best body transformation studio on the northern beaches of Sydney.

That’s going to tie in with my online business in terms of … I want to be known globally for being able to help people lose body fat for the last time.

For example, I got sick of hearing people coming into me and saying, “Aidan I’ve tried absolutely every single diet in the world and I can’t lose weight, why not?” It shouldn’t be that way.

I want to help people find balance in their life, because I’ve been able to do that myself. I’ve been through binge eating, I’ve had disorder eating for a long time.

I went through the same thing of yo-yo dieting and I want to be able to help people achieve that same balance and understand that you can have a life. You don’t have to go another diet to lose body fat. You can do it sustainably. You can do it with balance and you can do it without sacrificing meals out with your family, so to speak.

On that note, my mission is to be the best body transformation studio in Sydney, to start with. That’s the immediate goal. Eventually I want to be known worldwide through online and face-to-face.

Yuri:                Nice that’s awesome. I like how you mentioned that it relates back to your own challenges.

You talked about how you’ve struggled with your own eating and body image stuff—I think it’s really important for people to remember that. As health and fitness professionals, most of us got into this space because they went through their own challenge, health wise.

Aidan:             Absolutely.

Yuri:                They wanted to kind of figure it out for themselves and they wanted to help others not go through that as well, which I think is so awesome.

It’s really important, if you’re listening to this, to always, always share that story because it’s very, very important for being able connect with people.

And if you don’t share that story, you’re missing a huge component of your ability to attract the right people, and obviously market in a way that’s very authentic and genuine that people connect with.

So yeah, great point, thank you for bringing that up—that’s really really important to remember.

Being open and honest on social media

Aidan:             I’m glad you said that as well. I was just going to point that out as well.

If you are nervous about revealing your own inner struggles on social media, don’t be scared. Seriously, I was so nervous about revealing my true thoughts and my true feelings, but this is an industry where people are being lied to and being authentic in this industry is very rare.

So if you’re going to show your true self and be completely genuine, you will set yourself apart from the rest  because there are a lot of people in this industry who hide behind Instagram and Facebook and they’ll only share the highlights. You only see the highlights reel and you only see the ups, you never see the downs, never see the struggles.

Whereas if you share your behind the scenes emotions … You know, share that you don’t feel great every day. Share that there are days that you hate training. Share the times when you eat too much, or you do slip up … Because we’re all human, and when you show your human side on social media to your demographic, wow—you’re going to be a lot more respected.

Yuri:                Yup totally. That’s tough for a lot of people to do because they’re like, “Well, I want to be seen as this expert and if people see me sharing this stuff, are they going to think otherwise of me?”

As you said it’s really kind of showing the kinks in the chain. Showing the cracks that really allow the light to come in and expose who you truly are. So I think your story, the stuff you shared to really kind of relate with people is one of the ways you can connect with the right people—but how else have you been able to think about, “How do I stand out from what everyone else is doing?”

You said you wanted to become the body transformation expert for the people who want to lose weight for the last time—how do you do that? How do you share that? What’s the thought that goes into trying to position yourself in a way that people can quickly identify Aidan as this person as opposed to every other online trainer?

Aidan:             Show that you can get a result for your clients. I think that was one of the biggest things that stood out for me from listening to all the people who are doing what I’m doing.

It’s showing that you can do what you’re preaching. Show that you can actually help someone get from A to B, and you can do that through your transformation photos and that sort of thing, which is cool … but there are other ways …

Like, for example, get one of your clients to share their story and attach that story to the photos. That was one of the really cool things that really helped take off our vision, and what made us different was the fact that we actually showed the real human side to our clients.

We showed other people that were just like them. Because a lot of people, when they are going through pain, they feel like they’re the only person going through that.

A lot of our demographics are busy professionals. We have a lot of CEO’s, CFO’s, CIO’s we also have a fair few business owners as well, and they’re incredibly time poor. They miss a lot of family time. They work huge hours, long long hours, and they’re tired, they’re stressed. They sit down all day in board rooms, all that kind of stuff.

So when we had those kind of people transforming their bodies and being able to say, “When I went into work I was more productive, I gave a better presentation because I had worked out in the morning with Aidan.”

When they’d share that in their testimonial and other CEO’s and business owners went, “Oh, this guys has got the same pains that I do, and Aidan was able to fix that, awesome—I’ll send him a message.”

Honestly, I’ve got a list, and I would say at least 80 to 90% of my leads have been through referrals. “Oh I saw John’s transformation on your PT page, that was phenomenal. Can you help me do the same?”

It’s not just one single thing, don’t get me wrong, because there’s a lot of other little things like showing my human self and showing my own struggles … But yeah, when people see that you can actually do what you say you do, that’s what makes you different to others.

Yuri:                The proof is in the pudding. That’s great.

Aidan:             Absolutely.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Aidan this has been tremendous, extremely valuable. Are you ready for the rapid five?

Aidan:             Oh, go on then. I’ll see how I go. 

Rapid-five questions

Yuri:                The five rapid fire questions I always ask all my guests. Again, you have no idea what these questions are I’m just going to fire them at you. Whatever comes top of mind, just shout it out. There’s no right or wrong answer. Nothing too incriminating here. You ready?

 Aidan:             Bring it on, let’s do it.

Yuri:                Your biggest weakness?

Aidan:             Biggest weakness, food. I love my food.

Yuri:                Your biggest strength? 

Aidan:             Biggest strength, commitment to my clients, listening.

Yuri:                One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Aidan:             I’d say, honestly, listening is very powerful. Very powerful.

Yuri:                What do you do first thing in the morning?

Aidan:             Meditate, 10 minutes.

Yuri:                Nice, do you do guided or kind of just on your own?

Aidan:             I do guided. I have an app called Headspace and I go through all those series and every morning before I even open my laptop or respond to any messages, emails, I do a meditation and I download my thoughts onto a page so I start the day right. Get a clear head.

Yuri:                Beautiful. That’s great.

Yuri:                Alright, complete this sentence, I know I’m being successful when?

Aidan:             When people remind me that I’m being successful. When I have clients provide me feedback, when I have people saying, “Aidan you’re doing a good job.” That’s how I know I’m being successful.

Because if you don’t get that feedback, man it feels like a lonely road.

Yuri:                Sure, that’s great. Awesome man, this has been a lot of fun. Aidan, what’s the best place for people to follow your work online and maybe even hire you for some online coaching?

Aidan:             Awesome, yeah—so you can find me on Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook I am Aidan D’Arcy. Our Facebook page is D’Arcy Online Coaching, we also have a website, www.darcyonlinecoaching.com.

We have a Facebook group as well which is for people who want to have all that support and accountability, which is Healthy Living With D’Arcy Online Coaching, but if you have any questions, seriously reach out.

I want to help out as many people as I can, not just with health and fitness, but also in business as well. I’d love to share the same struggles because believe me—we all go through the same emotions, the same barriers and I would literally just love to help out anybody that I can.

Yuri:                Awesome man, and we’ll be sure to link up to all that stuff in the show notes guys. So head on over to the blog after you’ve listened to this. Aidan once again, thank you for taking the time—I know it’s late where you are in this beautiful world.

Thank you so much for taking the time, I hope you guys have enjoyed this interview and talk to you later Aidan.

Aidan:             Cheers, thanks Yuri. Cheers man, I appreciate it.

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Yuri’s take

See the reason I love speaking with remarkable entrepreneurs in the health and fitness space is because of stories like Aidan’s. Very similar to mine, very similar to yours perhaps, where you’re working 16 hours a day training clients, seeing patients, whatever it might be … You just get to a point where you’re burnt out, you want to serve more people and you just know there’s got to be a better way.

That’s what Aidan experienced, he transitioned online and what I loved about our conversation was understanding that he’s in this for the long term. This is the long game he’s playing—he’s putting out daily content, daily inspiration, just showing up every single day as he mentioned.

I think that’s such an important reminder for all of us to remember, because if you’re thinking you’re going to start a business and make a lot of money overnight, even the first month, good luck. Right?

The reality is that it takes time, it takes time. Be realistic about that. Just like we tell our clients, “Hey it’s going to take time to lose weight,” it’s going to take time to build a profitable sustainable business. So never forget that.

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Follow Aidan D’Arcy At:

https://www.darcyonlinecoaching.com/

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