The Exchanges

Q It's an inspiring story, and people are going to watch in this interview step by step as you built this up, but I want them to know a little bit about you, starting with where you came from. Can you tell them about that story where, about the sneakers that you wanted your mom to buy for you?

A Well, absolutely. I grew up in the inner city of Long Beach, so I won't say it was a war zone, but I won't say we had green manicured grass either. And, uh, you know, we didn't have the luxuries that my other friends had, and one story that comes to mind was when I wanted these new Nike shoes by a football player named Rod Woodson. All my friends had, we went to Target, and we found a rip-off. I didn't know it was a rip-off. They looked just like those shoes. They were by Zoic. Some people don't know what I'm talking about. And I remember I put those shoes on, I was so proud, because I had to ride Woodson's, so to speak, and the next day I went to school, and I got, I got the experience of a lifetime. All my friends, they laughed, they poked fun at me. I, I don't know if I ran to the corner and cried, but I felt like crying, and that was a turning point for me. Um, there were many things like that, but that's something that, 15 years later, I still remember, like it was brand new. Got me fueled about changing things.

AI assessment note: “one story that comes to mind was when I wanted these new Nike shoes”

Q How did you get people in the early days? How'd you get customers?

A Okay, well, I figured there's a ratio between time and money, or, I didn't have money, so obviously it was time, so. I'd become a moderator, I remember, of every piano music form I could find, and I would go to work with the time that I had, answering questions and using my signature, um, to promote my site, you know, if you want free lessons, head over to hearandplay.com, but I'd make sure I really answer their questions. If, if I knew it was in my knowledge base to answer, I'd go for it, and I remember just having a bookmarked folder Um, of every site, and every week, like every Saturday morning, I would just call it, doing my dudes. Every Saturday morning, I would go one by one, and try to post at least five times in those message boards. Some of them just had straight out places that you could advertise. Other ones, I would just, you know, be that person in the forum, helping out, you know, giving, and Hoping that it would come back to me, and soon, you know, thousand visitors a month, you know. We did the Yahoo directory. I'm still paying for that. I don't even know if that still works. I'm still paying for that same listing. I think they get me for 70 bucks a month. I mean, I'm working. I mean, 10 years of that, you know, from day one, and every time my card expires, I go in, and I think it's just a, uh, ritual for me now, you know, and, um, we were in D Moz. I remember, …

AI assessment note: “answering questions and using my signature, um, to promote my site”

Q Was she inspired by, by these little businesses that you started? What was her reaction to them when you said, Hey, you know what? I think I'm gonna write a book and sell it about how to, um, how to play piano by ear. Or when you said something else, what was her reaction to all that?

A You know, surprisingly, she was very supportive because when, when you, when you're that innovative at that age and You know, family already had it set up for what I was supposed to do, right? I was supposed to be like the next Johnny Cochran. I had a knack for speaking, and I, I went to school, undergraduate for law and criminology, and this was the path everybody laid out for me. But here we were working on these books on how to play piano, and she was in the copy shops with me. Our dates consisted of going to copy shops, copying these 300 page books, binding them, Going to the post office, waiting in line with our little cards, I mean, those are the glory days, and then going to Mickey D's afterwards. And she, she doesn't cease to remind me of those days, you know, when, when, when I get a little, you know, You know, on her nerves. She'll remind me of those days. And, but she was very supportive and very inspired, and, um, she said my ambition, you know, even though I was like that little nerdy boy that didn't fit in, she said my ambition made me look very good to her. So, you know, ambition goes a long way.

AI assessment note: “surprisingly, she was very supportive because”

Q You gotta love it. Running is, is not for people who don't love it. Um, I said that you started the business with 70 bucks. Where did the 70 bucks come from, and what were you using the 70 bucks for?

A Well, as I retell the story in my head, the 70 dollars must have come from A church gig, because, you know, I'd get 50 dollars here, 25 dollars there. They call it the love offering. Let's, let's take up a collection for our musician, our young fifteen-year-old. So, you know, that's the only way the money would have come from, from a gig or a piano student or something like that, but 70 dollars was a big deal to me. Gave my mom it, and she gave me her debit card number, and I went to Network Solutions. Now it's all about GoDaddy and stuff like that, but it was 70 bucks in, uh, August. 2000. I registered that domain name. I asked myself, what is it that I do? And, uh, I had enough sense to have a very descriptive domain name. I'm sure I could have come up with some, you know, fanciful name, like Kaju or something, but it was just simply hear and play, and it was available, and that's been my, my thing ever since. Hear and play. That's what we do. I haven't done see and play, because I don't believe in see and play, You know, my niche is hear and play, and, um, and it opens itself to extensions, hear and play piano, hear and play guitar, hear and play organ, and we have moved that way, so that was my start.

AI assessment note: “the 70 dollars must have come from A church gig... I registered that domain name”

Q Well, thank you. Um, yeah, this, this interview means a whole lot to me all of a sudden. Um, what, what was next? So now you had this idea. You knew that you could play. How do you get started with that?

A Well, I kind of got pulled into it. Uh, parents were asking me to teach their kid. So you gotta imagine this little boy in churches. Playing the piano and, like, holding it down with, like, expertise and, and professionalism, so people would always come up to me and, who taught you how to play? How do you do that? And I, you know, I taught myself, you know, my grandma's piano. I didn't tell them she wanted them prices right, but she did, so Bob Barker. Bob Barker has a lot to do with this, too, so, you know, and, uh, and so I started teaching kids, and back then, I didn't know what leverage meant the way I know now. But I knew that if I documented what I was teaching these people, because I was teaching the same thing, like, how I learned how to play scales and chords and stuff, and so I started putting them in, in books, like these little pamphlets that I made, naturally, so that I'd have to do all this work over and over, you know. You, you already know the type of person I am, I, I'm just, I gotta be moving and doing stuff, so doing the same thing, you know, quickly, you know, I got disinterested in that. But those books would then go on to be The basis of my primary product of Hear and Play just two years later.

AI assessment note: “Well, I kind of got pulled into it. Uh, parents were asking me to teach”

Q you got traffic to this website, uh, because I know that you use guerrilla style marketing to do it. But first, what did that website look like? And Jeremy included on archive.org. Anyone who wants to go back in time can see it for themselves. I, I've got the link to it, but for people who don't, can you describe what your first version looked like, how you built it?

A Right, right. So, you know, I figured out I had to learn HTML. I didn't know anything, but You know, I figured out how to do three tables, so it was like this three table site, and it had these black bars all over the place, probably inspired from somewhere. I mean, really, web, probably not even one point, oh, .9, you know, and everybody knows Microsoft Word art, right? You know, back in the day, we used to do flyers and Word art, and it'd be like these rainbow-looking things. So I just made one in there, and learned how to print my screen, so just printed my screen, and used that logo I literally made in Microsoft as my website logo. It was purple. And, uh, it was a mess. When I look back at, way back in archives, I mean, I mean, the beauty of it just having gotten started was very powerful, but Yeah, I'm embarrassed by how it looked. It, it, it was nothing pretty. A lot of sites start today, I mean, yards above me, image-wise and design-wise, but it was a start, and that's all that mattered. It got better as I got smarter and more enlightened, and it got better, and, um, the power's in the starting.

AI assessment note: “it was like this three table site, and it had these black bars”

Q You know, Jermaine, I'm wondering why business? Why selling Avon, which really for a kid, you're going to get laughed at when you're becoming the Avon lady as a kid. Why did that grab you as opposed to say, taking up writing fiction, which will transport you to a new place versus taking up, I don't know, I don't know what else. It could be painting. Why business?

A Well, for me, sailing, it was something about sailing. Like, when I was seven, me and my next door neighbor in the projects, I later would learn that's what you call them, because I didn't know I was living in the projects, but, ah, we would tie rope to our bikes with a wagon and charge kids 25 cents to get from one part of the complex, that's a big complex, to the other. I mean, I just love to sail. I remember Olympia Sales Club in the back of National Geographic, It was like a kids selling organization. They give you two dollars an item. I signed up for that and went to work, knocking on doors. Avon would come at about 12 years old answering an ad in the penny saver, you know, and it said, I don't think it said Avon, but I think it said something like make 10,000 dollars a month selling, and you know, I had no, you know, reservations about selling, so I called the number. And, uh, I was one of the most popular reps in my local community, because I was like a wonder kid, right? And it was fun. So to answer your question, it, it wouldn't go into high school, because you're right, I did start getting teased by the brothers, you know. What do you want to do? You want to sell my mom some perfume? Well, you better get out of here. So, you know, obviously, hearing play was the natural next step, but, uh, You know, I can't take back those moments, because those made me what I am toda…

AI assessment note: “Well, for me, sailing, it was something about sailing. Like, when I was seven”

Q And you've come a long way. We're going to hear the whole story here, but as a sneak peek, can you tell people about the honeymoon that you took your, your wife on?

A Absolutely. So when you juxtapose that story of being in so much want and so naive as a twelve-year-old to, you know, I don't know, 1314 years later, now being on the honeymoon of our dreams, you know, on that small boat coming up to a private island in Fiji where only 15 couples are invited, and I remember my wife, who's my high school sweetheart, looking at me and saying, this is the life. And that was another moment on the other side of the tracks now, with blue, glistening water and Fishes and coral. I went on a swim, and they're talking snarky. And so you just compare that, that beginning to, and I won't say this is the end. My grandma said, we're not where we want to be, but we got to be thankful. We're not what we used to be. That story, you know, is what keeps me fueling and, and going for the prize.

AI assessment note: “now being on the honeymoon of our dreams, you know, on that small boat coming up to a private island in Fiji”

Q What's, what's the craziest thing, well, gotta watch my banging on the table. What's the craziest thing you sold as a kid?

A Well, um, Avon tops the list for sure. You know, because in that was like perfume and all kinds of stuff. Um, but, um, I don't know. That's a hard question. There's just so many things that I sold. Oh, ok, here's one. In the early days of the internet, this was when I was like 10, there's those letters and you have to put your name on the list and send it to like 5000. So I got my, my grandpa to give me like a thousand bucks. I told him we're gonna be rich. Just send this letter and put our name on the list and everybody's gonna be sending us a dollar. So I'm embarrassed by that one. That's like the beginning days.

AI assessment note: “Avon tops the list for sure... In the early days of the internet”

Q One month. How do you launch a training center for in one month? And I'm just going to go off camera to fix something here, but tell me how, how do you get that going in one month? A continuity service.

A Well, it's called seeing the light and it's causing it. We have a few more bad months like this, taking away cashflow and reserves. We're going to, you know, it won't be pretty. And, uh, we had seen, you know, nothing but growth from there, so it was born out of necessity. And the great thing is, I had assets. All of us, we all have, you know, most of us have assets that are untapped. So my assets was a group of customers, you know, into the hundreds of thousands, or subscribers at least, that like me, trust me, that have looked to me to learn gospel and Christian and jazz music, and for whatever reason, Wasn't coming, coming back to buy my DVDs, but I still have that trust there, and so I remember that as soon as I saw the balance sheet or whatever for that month, I said, we, we gotta start this recurring thing, and the, the month after that, I got on the phone with my designer, I said, I need a hub, uh, to be able to place these, these videos weekly in, and I want some social interaction, and he got to work, you know, and did it, and we got that together, and on the other end, I started an official launch. And, uh, my first video was, it didn't take long, because all I did was I said, uh, it's been a while since you guys have seen a product from mine. I, I think I, I last released my, uh, my latest product three years ago when I got something big brewing. Um, you're gonna be …

AI assessment note: “my assets was a group of customers... got on the phone with my designer”

Q Let's take a step back for a moment and talk about this girl that you met back when you were a teenager. How did you meet her?

A Well, I actually achieved my ability to play by ear because after, you know, I got all those bad grades, I really got myself together, started getting involved in school, and, um, I started this choir, uh, this high school gospel choir my freshman year or so, and these three girls walk in, and one of them has this long, beautiful Pocahontas hair, and my mom says I've always been attracted to those, those kind of girls, and, uh, Because I wasn't reading sheet music, I had the opportunity to be looking up, and I kept staring at her, because when you play by ear, you don't have to, you're just listening and playing. It's the best thing in the world. And, uh, our eyes met, and, you know, we started talking, and long story short, that was 1998, 19 99, 99 to be exact. And here we are, uh, 1212, 13 years later, married with three kids under six, And I've never had any other girlfriend. I was like my first, like, true, real girlfriend at 15, and yeah, and she's the same one that we had that realization at, wow, we kind of made it. Indeed. So it's been great to share that journey together.

AI assessment note: “I started this choir, uh, this high school gospel choir... and these three girls walk in”

Q Yeah. I feel like people like you are just deliberate about the way that they build their businesses about where someone else might see that and say it's 200 bucks for some guy who's got this long ass sales letter. I don't care. I'm just going to move on to something more fun. You just wanted to learn and just pick up on it. Who else did you learn from?

A Well, back then it was Corey Rudel. Um, I remember, uh, Think and Grow Rich. Um, I remember stumbling upon that, and it wasn't from selling, but that just really gave me the motivation to hold on to my dream, and he talked about burning desire. And I have to read that in that book because evidently I already had that. I had this burning desire where I don't know, but even to this day, I think about my business all the time. Sometimes I have to turn my brain off. It's not, I find a lot of people, they read my story or find out about me here or there or my buddies and, and they want to start something, but they don't really feel it or live it. Like they read the book because I tell them to read the book, but they don't really want to read the book. But for me, Marketing is fun. Everything I read, I enjoy. It's not what I have to do, it's what I live, and I think that makes the difference, that passion. So back then, to be honest, it was Corey, and, uh, it was Napoleon Hill to get me started on this path, and then obviously, since then, I have a number of books that I absolutely love and reread as much as I can.

AI assessment note: “Well, back then it was Corey Rudel. Um, I remember, uh, Think and Grow Rich.”

Q How do you justify creating a recurring membership program where people have to pay month after month after month after month to learn how to play when you've already created a program before that teaches them how to play? Why do they have to keep paying month after month for that?

A Great question. Great question. Um, well, first of all, I, I like to pick a market that has these four P's. Passion. I believe the market has to be passionate about what they're doing. Not just a quick fix and you never have to see your customer again. Um, uh, positivity. You know, I know you can make money in pain, but I prefer positivity. Progression. You know, golf. You know that you can work on your swing, but you'll always be working on your swing. It's not something that you ever get to a destination or a plateau. Somebody's already, Always better. And patience. Those are my four P's. So inside of this market, you think about learning music, you know, even if you're the great, they had insecurities, the greats that we hear, they didn't think they were so great. They kept practicing. They kept going. So I never sold it as a, this is the end all, be all. This will get, this one-on-one course will get you started in, in Christian music or jazz music. This will cover worship or slower music. So I always took compartments of the big goal, and I always, I don't know how I learned this, but I always broke it up. So whereas somebody had an all-comprehensive course and promised the world, I never had that. I used the college model of one-on-one, two-oh-one, three-oh-one, and I always made myself like that. So even when it came time to sell, you know, an ongoing training program, I…

AI assessment note: “I never sold it as a, this is the end all, be all.”

Q forgot about some of these crazy things that I did or would fantasize about. It was, it was fun. Those are the fun parts of childhood for me. The rest really stunk, and that's why I wanted to do really good, really well at sales, so that I could get out of the rest of it. What was it that stunk for you, beyond not being able to buy sneakers?

A Well, you know, I, I've always been a little different, so here I am in the inner city, and, ah, you know, the imagery that we see on TV, A lot of that is not far-fetched from where I grew up, and, but we had a very church-loving family that sheltered me and my sister, so here I am in the inner city, but I'm, like, church boy, so I, I didn't get along with, with my neighbors there, you know, I felt a little different. Barbershops didn't feel right to me, and then, you know, on the other side of the tracks, I can't relate to my friends with the white picketed fence, you know, in the suburbs. Uh, just so happened I was in a magnet program, so a lot of the kids from the suburbs Came to the inner city, because our school was just that good. So when I go over there, I felt like I didn't fit in the suburbs. I don't, you know, I'm so sheltered here, I don't fit in. So for me, it was this, you know, I'm not surprised that I had, I have a contrarian view, because I've always had to go against the grain, and I've always had to do the opposite, and I always, when the kids were partying in college, I was working on my first book 300 pages. The secret to playing piano by ear. Now he's partying now, you know.

AI assessment note: “here I am in the inner city, but I'm, like, church boy”