The Keys to Lasting Business Success Online with Ben Greenfield

Transcription:

Hey guys! Welcome to episode 86 of the Healthpreneur podcast. I’m excited to bring you an amazing interview to finish off the week. I hope you’ve enjoyed the week and had a great time going out and doing more of your awesomeness.

Today we are talking with my good buddy, Ben Greenfield. He is another one of the original gangsters, as we call them. He’s been in the online game for at least 12 or 13 years now, and has done some amazing things. If you know Ben, you know what I’m talking about.

He’s an amazing and prolific content producer, a great writer, has written some amazing books, has a great podcast, and is an all-around awesome guy. We’ve spent a lot of time together, hung out, traveled and done some cool stuff. I’m excited to bring him to you, because he has a great wealth of knowledge; not just from a health and fitness perspective, but from the journey that he’s gone through as an entrepreneur.

In this episode, we’re going to focus on the keys to lasting business success. It’s very easy to start a business online, but it’s another to successfully keep it going for more than a decade. Ben has been there and done that, and continues to do so.

He’s going to share what he’s learned along the way, what it takes in terms of where he was when he started, and how he’s morphed to where he is now. A lot of the takeaways and insights will be of extreme value to you as well, no matter where you are in your business journey.

Let me give a slightly more formal introduction to Ben Greenfield.

He’s got a long bio, so I’m not going to read the whole thing. I’ll sprinkle in my own things here and there. He was raised in rural north Idaho. He was homeschooled from kindergarten until grade 12. He’s a self-declared complete nerd.

He was the president of the chess club, played violin for 13 years, wrote fantasy fiction, and spent most of his childhood years with his nose in a book. When he graduated from his high school, even though he was homeschooled, he went in to study anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, all that good stuff, and completed an internship at Duke University.

That led him down the path of going deep into health and human performance, and he later got into some extreme sports. When I first met him, I think 10 or 11 years ago, he was the guy for Ironman Triathlon training. He’s competed in many different events all around the world, and he’s done some amazing things.

He has experimented on himself. He has brought his own discoveries to the world and to his audience.

I’m super excited to have Ben on the podcast. With that said, without any further ado, let’s welcome him to the show and dig into it.

Ben Greenfield. What’s up, brother? Welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast.

Ben:                       Thank you for having me on the Healthpreneur podcast, Yuri.

Yuri:                      You’re very welcome. I’m sure most of our listeners know who you are. Let’s go back to day one. We met, I don’t even know, it seems like 10 years ago. A Ryan Lee event, I think. You were talking about going to the grocery store to get avocados. I think that’s what I remember from our initial conversation.

How did you go from training people in person to starting this whole online journey?

Ben:                       Well, first off, you left out the part about us crashing the wedding at the hotel. No, it was a high school prom.

Yuri:                      Yeah, that was awesome.

Ben:                       At the hotel, posing as high schoolers. And believe it or not, 10 years ago, either of us would have passed for a high schooler.

Yuri:                      Seriously.

Ben:                       That’s a segue though. Actually, that’s not a segue. It’s a rabbit hole. I get the two mixed up. It’s a rabbit hole.

 

How Ben moved online after winning Trainer of the Year in 2008

I was a personal trainer. I ran brick and mortar personal training studios here in Washington and Idaho for many years. I’ve always been one of those guys who wanted to differentiate himself from a business standpoint, in terms of doing things other people weren’t doing, melding my quirky, creative side with my techy, science side.

So, in this case, I outfitted a lot of my gyms with things like high-speed video cameras for biomechanical analysis, and I invested a lot of the money I made from personal training back into equipment like indirect calorimetry equipment for VO2 max and metabolic rate analyses, and platelet-rich plasma injections for joints, and all sorts of things other things personal trainers weren’t doing.

I also reached out to a ton of physicians in the community. I wanted to work with doctors so that I had that stamp of approval and would be well-respected in the community as the guy to go to when nothing else was working, and the guy who doctors would send their patients to because they trusted me. I went out of my way to show my technical expertise.

As a result of that, a few physicians nominated me for the National Strength & Conditioning Association’s Personal Trainer of the Year award back in 2008. When I was voted the Personal Trainer of the Year, I started getting inundated with requests to speak at a lot of these fitness and fitness business conferences, and began to travel a lot more, which left me without too much time to run the brick and mortar personal training studios.

But I kept doing it. While I travelled, I started getting into writing, and launched a website. I began a podcast, and I started doing a lot of these things that went outside the boundary of just counting dumbbells and helping the 40-year-old housewife look good in a bikini.

 

Launching his first successful online product

I remember one of the guys – a mutual acquaintance of ours, I believe – Vince Del Monte, was a big guy in the bodybuilding industry. He called himself the skinny guy’s savior back then. I remember listening to a talk he gave about eBooks, information products, and how to tie those into affiliate launches.

I didn’t know what an eBook or JV was. I wasn’t familiar with any of that stuff. But I took copious notes. This was just before my twin boys were about to be born, and I thought, “Well heck, if I can figure out a way to not have to be at the gym all the time…” I was putting in a ton of hours as a trainer, and I was making good money, but just putting in a lot of hours. I figured, why not try this? Why not write and start a website, brand some affiliates, and launch an information product?

So I did.

I spent six months, after sitting in that talk that Vince gave, creating one of my first products. It was a triathlon training product that allowed people to do an Ironman triathlon – which I was very into at the time – with minimal training so they could spend time with their friends and their family, their career, and their hobbies. It was a smashing success.

I released it during the Ironman World Championships week, when everybody was thinking about Ironman, and I sold a lot of copies. It was a $97 digital and $197 hard copy product, and that wound up bringing me in somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 over the course of about seven days.

Yuri:                      As you launched this, how did you build that audience to even launch it to in the first place? Was it through the podcast or blogging?

Ben:                       I used a lot of different mechanisms. I had my podcast then. Even though it was small, I had it, and because it was one of the first fitness podcasts in iTunes, there weren’t a lot of podcasts to choose from. So, I had a decent audience there.

I took my newsletter that I was already sending out to all the clients I’d personally trained for the past eight years at that point – there were several hundred people on that list – and by that time I had added an opt-in to a site that I had as a personal trainer.

Specifically, this site was tracking all my global adventures in triathlon, and it was just a rag-tag blog. But I did have an opt-in on it. I had, I think, close to about 3,000 people or so on an email list.

I hired my first virtual assistant as well, leading up to this launch. I had her hunt down the contact details of all the triathlon coaches in the U.S. and all the triathlon clubs in the U.S. She reached out to them, and offered them the opportunity to become affiliates of this product, which I had on Clickbank at the time.

That was one of the very first tasks I gave to a VA. I templated a letter and she sent it out to everyone and did follow-up emails. I wound up bringing on a lot of affiliates, and exponentially building a big audience in the triathlon community that way.

Those were the primary methods. I used my newsletter, I sent out emails. Those are some of the biggies. At that point, I wasn’t doing much on social media, so it was mostly affiliates reaching out to triathlon clubs and triathlon coaches, and just straight up newsletter emails from my website.

When I realized I could do that, I slowly began to phase out of personal training. I didn’t see myself having the bandwidth for both, and I didn’t have a desire to hire a bunch of employees and just have them run the company for me.

I shifted all my clients to other personal trainers in the local community, sold all the gym training equipment, and gradually moved into my house to begin the next chapter of my career.

This was essentially sitting at home in my underwear, writing books, working on products, shooting videos, podcasting, and traveling around the world to speak, which is the better part of what I do today.

 

Outsourcing and creating a team

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced early on? And what’d you learn from those challenges?

Ben:                       One big challenge was time. I couldn’t fabricate time. I’d get home from the gym as a personal trainer for those first several months, and be tapping away on the keyboard until 2 or 3 AM while my wife went to bed. I was programming my website, building opt-ins, and creating training programs. I did all the layout for the book, and all the graphics.

I was just a workhorse. One big mistake I made was working myself into the ground by refusing to outsource. In my case, I was just cheap. I didn’t want to pay somebody to do what I could do myself. I didn’t realize that you should stick to what it is you’re best at; the things that you’re good at. And even if you’re decent at other things, it doesn’t mean that that’s your best purpose.

I wasted a lot of time. I would have hired everything from a website designer, book layout and formatter, writer, and VA – to run more things than my VA was running at the time – much earlier than I wound up doing.

I’ve realized that what really moves the dial in business is doing what you’re good at. Take any big ideas or visions that you have, and surround yourself with an amazing team of people who can execute on that vision.

It’s just like Gary Keller’s book “The One Thing.” Crush it on the one thing that you’re good at, and then let an amazing team that you surround yourself with take care of the rest.

Yuri:                      Totally. How big is the team that you work with now? In your current role, what do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Ben:                       My current team is 14 individuals. They run everything from Facebook ads, to affiliate campaigns, podcast audio editing, tech website design, and all that type of thing. I travel around the world and I speak, so I’m like the talking head of the company. I get up on stage and give presentations on everything from biohacking to living more ancestrally to customizing your diet, et cetera.

I freelance write for magazines like Men’s Health and Men’s Journal; publications that wind up getting us a decent number of eyeballs. I also write books and eBooks, as well as our main featured blog article for the week.

I love to write. I know some entrepreneurs don’t, but I love to, and I’m good at it. I recognize that words just flow when I write, so that’s something that I do in addition to the speaking.

Ben’s role in the company: Big vision, the “face,” media, writing, and speaking

I do a lot of our media stuff, so the podcasting and the videos that help people trust the company. I’m still the trusted expert and face of the company, although I’m in the process of building out clones of myself who can eventually do the same thing I’m doing without me needing to be in front of a camera or podcast microphone all the time. But still, I’m doing media, in addition to speaking and writing.

Then, finally, I’m the big vision guy. I was recently in Finland, for example, and I spent several days foraging. I foraged for everything; mushrooms, pine needles, bilberries, lingonberries, sea buckthorn, and beyond.

When I’m doing something like that, I’m generating ideas of how those types of ancestral compounds can be blended with modern science – like ATP, ketones, HMB, and things along those lines – to bring new products and new solutions to the market.

And it’s not just supplements. Right now, I’m working on some essential oil mixes and a nice essential oil diffuser that I want to bring to our company. I just finished a gratitude journal. I’m the big vision product guy who either creates the products or creates the product formulations. Then, my team helps to make those a reality and make them available to people.

 Yuri:                      That’s awesome! That’s the ideal place to be; only doing what you want to do, and surrounded by farmers who can extract the milk… Dean Jackson talks about the whole self-milking cow analogy. Have you heard that before?

Ben:                       I haven’t heard that one. What is it?

Yuri:                      For those of you who don’t know who Dean Jackson is, I’d say one of the smartest marketers. He invented the squeeze page. He has the I Love Marketing podcast with Joe Polish.

He talks about cows have milk, but can’t self-milk because they have hooves. They don’t have opposable thumbs. We, the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, are like the cows. We can’t extract our own milk in a way that’s going to satisfy the marketplace’s demand, nor can we.

What we want to do is surround ourselves with farmers who can extract our milk. This could be a project manager or team members who can take your ideas, your milk, and make them a reality in the marketplace.

Something I’ve found is that we have way more milk than people can even extract and put out into the marketplace. How do you pull in the reins on these ideas? Does your team tell you to slow down when you say, “We’re going to have it happen by tomorrow”?

Ben:                       Exactly.

Yuri:                      How do you find that balance?

Ben:                       Well first of all, I don’t like to think of myself as having hooves. I cringe. I just love the opposable thumbs so much. And I can actually milk myself, Yuri. I don’t know if you’re aware of that.

Yuri:                      I bet you can.

Ben:                       “You milk yourself, Focker?” Anyways, the idea is that you need a dreamcatcher. And for me, it’s a very simple dreamcatcher. It’s a Slack channel, which is what we use for communication. We have one Slack channel devoted to product development and another Slack channel for product ideas.

I know that if I put something in product ideas, Kyler, who helps bring some of these ideas to fruition and hunts down sources, Matt, my manager, and Angelo, my COO, will see it. They’re all members of that Slack channel. They will add that to our product timeline, and identify how it could potentially be brought to market.

Then, once the time is right, other people on different channels will be brought in. For example, Ashley, our content manager, will see which product we’re launching next; after we work with formulators and sources. She’ll contact me and say, “On October 30 and November 14, you’re going to do this blog post. We want you to cover this topic in a podcast.”

It’s all relevant to that product we’ll be launching. It all starts with getting that out of your mind, like the “Getting Things Done” book. You just need to pass it out of your brain, and put it somewhere where it can live. Not where it can live and be hidden, but where it can live and be acted upon. And for me it’s just a Slack channel.

Yuri:                      Cool. That’s awesome. When people in our space come online, they’re a great technician; an amazing trainer, nutrition expert, or whatever it might be. Then they realize, “Wow, I actually have to build a business.” So, they must put on a different hat and become more of a business builder.

For you, what were some of the initial skills or traits you had to develop from being a personal trainer to being a CEO of your own business?

 

Sticking to it, saying no, and learning to trust, delegate, and stop micromanaging

Ben:                       The biggest is learning to trust and not micromanage, which I admittedly still struggle every day to do. To trust that the headline I see when I visit my own website is actually being split tested. Even though I cringe when I see it, I trust that the headline is actually attracting people to our product, or to our website, or serving people. And recognizing that I’m not necessarily my audience.

My audience might think differently than me. They might not be a crazy, self-experimenting, immersive, journalist, masochist who does endurance races. They might be a 60-year-old woman who has acne all of a sudden and wants to figure out what to do about estrogen dominance.

I must trust that the folks to whom I’m delegating tasks are doing their job with excellence, which they are, not micromanaging it, and trusting the process. That’s a big one. Just being able to trust.

The other one is just learning how to delegate. And when I say learning how to delegate, I don’t just mean being a slave driver and telling people, “Do this, do that,” but really learning how to take a vision and voice that vision in a thorough and educated manner that allows people to act upon it.

I do a great deal of my communication with my team via audio, rather than written text. It allows me to succinctly and precisely voice what it is that I need accomplished, or what it is that I envision. I use, for example, an app called Voxer, to engage with the team. And I use another app called Recordify, which allows me to record things and send them straight into a Slack channel.

I often reply to emails using voice memo on my phone, and then replying to the email with that. That allows me to delegate more quickly. If you know that you’ve delegated well, then that sets you up to be able to trust that what it is you envisioned is being interpreted correctly.

Yuri:                      Totally. That’s huge. As you evolve in business, you get to the point where you’re focusing on the what and the why. Other people figure out the how.

And as you mentioned, being able to clearly communicate that vision is so powerful. And your team loves you for it and are thankful for the clarity so they can go make it happen and let you do what you need to do.

Ben:                       Right.

Yuri:                      What do you think is the number one skill or trait entrepreneurs must have for lasting success?

Ben:                       I don’t know whether I’d call it “stick-to-it-iveness,” or focus. I don’t know if I have a sexy term to give to it, but the number one problem I see with entrepreneurs is one I’ve seen in my father and in my brother, who are hardwired to be entrepreneurs like I am.

But they do this: They bounce. They identify the shiny penny, and they pursue it without asking themselves, “Hey. Is this a hell yes? Is this something that’s really going to move the dial, make me happy, satisfy my core, and fulfill my true purpose, or is this just a really cool opportunity?

I think that the biggest trait an entrepreneur can have, or at least a very, very big one that leaps to my mind immediately, is just the ability to say no. The ability to focus on what it is that you need to do, and to be able to, like a horse with blinders, ignore the rest.

It’s an art and a science. You don’t want to miss very cool little opportunities that might come your way that are hell yeses, but you need to teach yourself to be able to identify those and ignore all the other little things.

That, “Oh hey, could I introduce you to such and such?” “Hey, you want to grab coffee?” “Hey, here’s a business idea.” “Hey, can you throw $10,000 into this startup?” Suddenly, you’re going 20 different directions and you don’t get any deep work done.

Yuri:                      It’s true. It’s a challenge, too, because most of us entrepreneurs are very creative by nature, which is very distractive. Was that something you’ve learned over time, or were you able to say no to a lot of things right out of the gates?

Ben:                       You learn it over time. I’ve said yes to so many things, found myself spread so thin, and shut down so many side businesses that I’ve started, it’s not even funny.

Yuri:                      I’m always amazed at how many things you have going on. But I guess it helps when you have a team that can manage a lot of the stuff for you.

Ben:                       Absolutely.

 

Content quality over quantity and setting priorities

Yuri:                      If you were to start all over again, in a completely different market or niche within the health industry, what would you do differently, if anything?

Ben:                       I would focus more on quality, and less on quantity, when it comes to content.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that to make great art, instead of just churning out a blog post that is SEO-friendly and allows you to meet your word count for the day, it’s better to do one absolutely kick ass piece of content once a month. It’s better to do an amazing podcast once every two weeks, versus one every day. This is to take great pride in well done, deep work, rather than just tick the boxes and check off what you identified as needing to be accomplished for that day.

My focus is this: When I sit down with a blank page and I’m going to write an article on, let’s say, the immune system, I want that to entertain and enchant people for 10 years. I don’t want it to just be a churned out, SEO fodder type of article that’s just there to drive traffic.

I want it to be something cool. Ryan Holiday talks about this in his relatively new book, “Perennial Best Seller.” You want to create something that you can be proud of, that’s not just another recipe cluster or basic ho-hum article. I want to create good, cutting edge, compelling content.

Yuri:                      I believe that there is a reversion happening, back to almost the Renaissance. This craftsman-like attention to products and detail, whether free or paid, is really creating an amazing experience. You just hit the nail on the head there with what you just said. And I think we’re seeing a lot more of that as well.

So, you’ve got two young boys. Well, young-ish. What has having kids taught you about business, marketing, et cetera?

Ben:                       That’s a great question. The thing that jumps to mind right away is to set your priorities.

When you have children, not only are you in charge of two little human beings who you can train to grow up to make this world a better place, but you also realize that dilly-dallying around in the afternoon, working from 6 PM to 10 PM to catch up on the stuff you dabbled in the rest of the day, doesn’t work when you have kids.

Then there’s family dinners, driving your twins to jiu-jitsu, and then you want to play Legos after dinner. You need to prioritize and structure your day when you have children. That’s one of the things that I found, if hanging out with your kids and being a family person is important to you.

The way I view it is this: If I were to wake up, and rather than it being an eight-hour workday I imagine it’s a four-hour workday, and I just want to compress as much productive activity into those four hours as possible, how would I structure this day?

There would be a lot of things that I don’t do because of that. I used to watch Hulu shows and Netflix shows during lunch time. Now I don’t do that. I eat a faster lunch, I Voxer with my team, I get some emails done, then I jump back into work. For me, I know that frees up an extra 45 minutes that I’ll have for my kids when they get home from school.

You make these little decisions to free up time here and there. I find myself becoming very, very good at fabricating time since I’ve had children.

Yuri:                      Yeah, I tell everyone: “If you want to be more productive, just have kids.” It forces you to not mess around anymore. There is your lesson for the day. Just have kids. It’s all good.

 

The Rapid Five

Are you ready for the Rapid Five?

Ben:                       Let’s do it.

Yuri:                      Let’s do it, buddy. All right. So, five rapid-fire questions. You have no idea what these bad boys are. Here we go. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Ben:                       Pride and arrogance.

Yuri:                      As in you have too much of it? Or too little?

Ben:                       My personality weakness is, if I’m not careful and I don’t ensure that I introduce lots of love and reminders to myself to be humble, I tend to be self-loving to too great an extent, and tend towards narcissism.

Yuri:                      Interesting. Other than being able to do handstands on the edge of the Waimea Canyon, what is your biggest strength?

Ben:                       I think it was a headstand. I don’t remember if it was a handstand.

Yuri:                      It’s close enough to death, so whatever it was.

Ben:                       My greatest strength? I am extremely persistent. I’ve done almost two decades of some of the most masochistic, hardcore endurance events on the face of the planet, and I think that’s lent itself well to success and persistence in the rest of my life.

Frankly, it’s also lent itself well to business. When I develop an endurance training formula, and people see that I’ve slogged out over 6,000 miles of adventure racing and triathlon and marathon, they put a little bit more trust in that product knowing that it’s been tested in the trenches.

Yuri:                      Nice. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Ben:                       Writing. I’ve been writing since I was six years old. Give me a topic – not saying this to sound arrogant or prideful – but I can churn out some damn good content on that one topic, within literally 45 minutes flat.

Yuri:                      Yeah totally. Well you’ve got some amazing content on your blog, so we’ll be sure to let our listeners know about that in a second. But first, number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Ben:                       Depends. As one of those guys who’s constantly experimenting, I guess the very, very first thing is I do gratitude journaling. I write down one truth that I discovered from the reading that I did that day, one thing that I’m grateful for, and then one person who I can pray for, or help, or serve that day. And that’s the entire basis of the journal that I just published; doing all three of those things. That’s it. Then, after that, it might be tai chi, yoga, or the sauna, whatever it is that I happen to be studying up on.

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

Ben:                       That’s a tough one.

I know I’m being successful when I wake up in the morning, and I feel as though someone has to hold me in bed so that I can do my breathing and my gratitude journaling. Because I so badly just want to jump up, rush downstairs, start making amazing content, talking to people, and getting things done. Not because I want to get work over with so quickly, but because I really, truly just freaking love all the opportunities that day has to offer.

Because if your work is your play and your passion, you’re gonna be pretty successful.

Yuri:                      Totally. That’s awesome, man. Good stuff, my friends. Ben, this has been awesome.

What is the best place for people to follow your work online and check out your stuff?

Ben:                       Just google “Ben Greenfield”. You’ll find my stuff. There’s not many Ben Greenfields out there, so that’s probably the best place to do it.

Yuri:                      Yep. Cool. And you’ve got a new site, getkion.com, and bengreenfieldfitnesscom. And your podcast is awesome.

Thank you for taking the time to be here and for being one of the original gangsters. You’ve been in this space for a long time doing some amazing work, and I value your friendship and all the awesome stuff you continue to contribute to our world.

Ben:                       To a fellow gang member, peace out.

Yuri:                      That’s right, bro.

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Yuri’s Take

So, there you have Mr. Ben Greenfield, coming to us live on the Healthpreneur podcast. I hope you enjoyed this interview. Lots of great nuggets of wisdom, especially if you’re further along in your journey, or starting out and thinking ahead at what’s coming down the road.

One of the thinking exercises or challenges I want to leave with you today, is: Are you doing only what you are great at doing? Now I know that the answer to that is probably no in most cases. The challenge, as we build our businesses, as we develop as entrepreneurs, is to constantly be thinking, “Is what I’m doing the best use of my time? Is there something I’m doing that somebody else could do for me, or could do better than I can?”

The whole idea is to eventually get to the point where you are only doing what you are good at. Like Ben mentioned in this interview and like I’ve mentioned before, you start off by wearing all the hats. And that’s fine, unless you’re a venture capital-backed company and you’ve got millions of dollars to play with to hire X number of people right out of the gate.

But for most of us mere mortals, we’re doing everything out of the gates. But we eventually want to get to the point where we can start to surround ourselves with great people who can do the stuff that we don’t want to do, so that all we’re left doing is what, I call, our “unique genius activities.”

That’s the holy grail, because if you can build a business where all you get to do is do what you love to do, that’s a good place to be. In Ben’s case, it’s travelling around the world, speaking on stage, doing some writing, and everything else is taken care of.

That’s what I’d like you to think about today. Are there one or two things that you’re doing that someone else could do better? If you’re in the place where you can hire that person, do it. It’ll make a big difference in your own fulfillment, energy, and how your business moves forward.

So, that’s the deal for today. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. If you haven’t yet subscribed, please do so. Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes. Go over there, click the little purple button that says subscribe, and you will be all set. We’ve got 80+ episodes with some amazing people in our space.

There are hundreds and hundreds more to come over the next months and years because I’m not going anywhere, guys. I will be here for the long haul. I don’t foresee myself stopping these amazing conversations and bringing them to you, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

That’s all from me for today’s episode. Again, thank you so much for joining me. Keep getting on out there and serving people. Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you on our next episode.

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Follow Ben Greenfield At:

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/

https://getkion.com/

Ben Greenfield Podcast

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