The 1% Difference: How to Create a Breakthrough Health Product with James Swanwick

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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Follow James Swanwick At:

https://www.swanwicksleep.com

https://jamesswanwick.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.

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