The Exchanges

Q He did. Okay, so then you had, you had that first program. The more polished version I remember hearing people say had, like, an online message board on your site, and people would get to talk to each other, and talk about what worked for them, and egg each other on to keep, uh, to keep promoting it. Then the next version of it looked like what?

A Well, it's just patching holes in it, really. Like, you know, people would People would send these trash cans out, and then they'd, eventually they'd get a strike where someone would say, okay, well, when can we talk? And then the person would freak out. They're like, what do I say? And I had an, I was just like, I don't know, just, just talk to him, and find out what, you know, what his problems are, and then try and tell him how you'll solve that, and then, you know, make him an offer. But giving people who were Beginners that much, or being that vague, it has huge problems, because, you know, people really need something to follow for everything, because they're in total uncharted water, and so I started creating scripts for doing everything, like this is the structure of how we do. Yeah, I've even got it down to where to pause, like, where to raise your voice up at the end of, like, a sentence so it kind of looks, sounds like a question, but it isn't really, and, like, you know, lots of different things like that. It's, it's been polished, and I, because I've been actively doing it myself, I mean, I was getting better at the same time as the students were getting better, and it, it's just evolved from there.

AI assessment note: “so I started creating scripts for doing everything, like this is the structure”

Q So, in the past, I saw that people would build websites for their clients. They did a whole bunch of stuff. It seems like you found that that doesn't work, and you started to focus them. Am I right?

A Yeah, well, in the beginning, we, we were nowhere near as evolved as we are now. We, we didn't really know how to diagnose a, a true business issue. We would just find companies that had a really bad looking website, and we'd say, look, we can help you get a better looking website. That was how we knew how to create value. And, because truthfully, that's all we really knew how to do. But, over time, I learned how to really Dissect a company and figure out what its real problem is. And it's never really a website. Uh, I mean, websites are great, but it's, it's not going to make or break your company. You've, I mean, if you look at my website, it's, it's so bad. It, it's kind of funny. Um, but my, my revenues are completely different. You know, most people would look at them and they wouldn't even understand how that's possible. So it's not, It's not a mandatory thing, but I've found that the big, the biggest problem is people just kind of, they've lost touch with their core, ah, reason why they started the business in the first place. Like, that's the massive thing which everyone forgets, and it, the story is always pretty much the same. Someone sees a big problem in a marketplace, or they see a wrong which they want to right, And they feel like it's their duty to go in and do this thing, and it's very specific, and it's, it's very powerful in the beginning, but over time, they …

AI assessment note: “over time, I learned how to really Dissect a company and figure out what its real problem is”

Q Um, Kai Lopez, what's the deal with him? I'm going to interview him in a little bit, and the reason that I've held off on interviewing him for so long is I just didn't know what to make of the guy. But I think I've got an angle on him. What's, what are you working on with him? What did you do with him?

A It's quite interesting, because we're such opposites. Like, Ty's a very, uh, extroverted, and, you know, is very out there, and I'm extremely introverted. I mean, I do, like, one Facebook post every two months. He's on Facebook Live, like, for four hours a day. And what actually happened is my friend, Sean, uh, Works with Ty, and he knew my conversion numbers, and he knew my numbers were insanely high in terms of, ah, ROI and everything, and he was looking at Ty's numbers, and they, he was making a lot of money, but his conversion numbers weren't as good, and he thought, well, Ty's got so much volume, and he's got so much fame, and Sam has so much finesse, and so much, ah, His conversion numbers are so good, but he has nowhere near the fame, and he just thought, what if we just combine these two together? And it was really a very powerful partnership, because Ty could just throw volume into my system like nothing else I've ever seen, and I could provide those really optimal conversion rates, and so together the two things were really good.

AI assessment note: “Ty could just throw volume into my system... and I could provide those really optimal conversion rates”

Q I want to know how you're thinking about hiring people, because I think that hiring is really challenging, finding the right people, figuring out how to get them into a team where it's just been Sam, and you're the guy identified with the company so closely, it's hard. What's your process? How are you thinking about that? Or is it too early for you?

A Well, the first, the place where I got my first employees, we've got about 25 now, so I mean, it's, We do have them, and a lot of them are really good. The best place to start is in your, is in your customers, because you have a lot of people in your customer list who Who understand they're very early in their journey, and it would probably be a smart idea to go work for a company for a year, and to, because you're going to pick up a lot of skills, and they're happy to do that, and so just going out to your customer list and saying, hey, look, this is who I'm looking for, uh, if any of you are interested, then let me know. That's the best place to start, because these people care so much about the vision that they've paid money for it, Like, when you go out and you post on a job board, uh, like Indeed or something, people are coming to you, and they're asking for money. Like, if you, if you go from your customer list, these people have paid money to be a customer. They've, they know your product.

AI assessment note: “The best place to start is in your, is in your customers”

Q period of up to two weeks, if you want that, go to toptal.com slash Mixergy. The misspelling that this guy had was he typed in mixer and then the letter G. No, it's Mixergy. M-I-X-E-R-G-Y. So it's Top is in Top of the Mountain, Tal is in Talent, Talent, Toptal.com slash Mixergy. Sam, who are you becoming? Who, who is it that you envision yourself being two years from now?

A Yeah, well, it's important that this also is all, is, is not static. It changes all the time, right? Because I learn all that, that thing I was aiming for, it wasn't the best thing to aim for. I need to change that a little bit. Uh, so it's, it is forever changing. But right now, I, I like to see myself as, uh, Like the Henry Ford of consulting, because back in the day, motor vehicles were only for the elite. Like they were only for the top tier of society and normal people didn't have a motor vehicle. And Henry Ford looked at motor vehicles and thought, well, why can't they be for everybody? Why can't everyone own one of those and have the benefits of one of those? And that's what he did. He took something out of reach of most people and made it in reach of everyone. And with consulting, I like The word consulting, because it has this sort of, when, when people hear that word, they think it's, like, something reserved for only elite people. Like, you have to go to Harvard, you have to have an MBA, you have to wear a suit, and you go and work for a company like Boston Consulting Group. Like, that's, that's the, that's what people think consulting is. People think, I can't be a consultant. I'm, I don't have a degree. I don't, I'm not, From Harvard.

AI assessment note: “right now, I, I like to see myself as, uh, Like the Henry Ford of consulting”

Q What's the normal way of doing a consulting call?

A It's quite like high energy. Your talk, the person who's selling is talking a lot. They're just like, they're not just talking, talking, talking, talking, and, uh, the clothes is very much them pushing it, and it's kind of like, it kind of feels like, you know, the, the classic sort of, uh, high pressure telly sales person, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and so, when I created this script, I wanted to kind of Be, it's like an introvert sort of script, because that's what I was like. I ask a lot of carefully engineered questions to kind of lead the person down the path where they literally are in a corner themselves, they've put themselves in the corner, and they're thinking to themselves, I, uh, Well, to really explain it the best way possible, I, I like people understand things as one thing. They just see everything as a whole. They're like, this is me. This is my situation. Yeah. What I like to do is create like duality and play the sides off each other. So at first I have to create some sort of separation out of the one whole. So I have to pull out their current situation, which is where they are right now and get a very accurate understanding of that. And then I have to ask them about their desired situation, which is where they want to be in the future. Because this is really what makes the whole global economy tick, is people are just out there buying a better version of themselves e…

AI assessment note: “the person who's selling is talking a lot... classic sort of, uh, high pressure telly sales person”

Q You get, where did you even get this stuff? This is, I feel like this is a part of you I've never known before.

A Well, it would, it was always there. So much different stuff. It was nowhere near this good. Like, it, it's taken, like, Five or six years of me reading on mindset, trying to hack my own brain, and trying to do it with 10,000 other people to get it this clear, right? But in the beginning, it was a, it was nowhere near as, as clear as, or as, uh, articulate as, as how I'm saying it now, but I've always been trying to figure out that extra piece, and that's probably been the X factor that has made my course go so well. It's because it's not just Tactics and strategies. It's how to hack your own, your own brain so that you can, you can make progress, because once you identify who you want to be, now your daily choice of actions are going to be in line with that, instead of in line with who you currently are. And you do feel pretty awkward when you do those things, but that is a hundred percent mandatory in order to change.

AI assessment note: “Five or six years of me reading on mindset, trying to hack my own brain”

Q I see, that's when you'd have them call up their potential customers, the people who are yoga instructors, understand their problem, find a commonality, and then As a consultant, their job would be to solve that common problem. Is that right?

A Well, it's going to be the same as people are going to have their current situation, which is who they are right now and how they feel and everything. Then they're going to have their desired self, and they're, they've convinced themselves that yoga is the vehicle to bring themselves to that destination, and that's how all of business works. It's, they've just, people have just convinced themselves that this is the vehicle to bridge to that thing there, but we want to understand that Clearer than anyone else in the market. Because a lot of people think that people are buying yoga because they want yoga. No one buys yoga because they want yoga. No one buys Mixergy because they want Mixergy. They buy it to, to achieve something and to, to get a, to get a desired version of themselves which they've got in their mind. And so that's how I help my consultants differentiate themselves from everyone else. We just solve the problem better than anybody else.

AI assessment note: “That's how I help my consultants differentiate themselves from everyone else.”

Q I'll tell you more about later. The first will help you hire a great developer. It's called TopTal. The second will help you close more sales. It's called PipeDrive, and I'll tell you more about them later. Hey, Sam, how did it feel to hear me talk? Did you notice, by the way, that I was feeling like maybe you were... Snowing me, and telling me more than was there.

A Yeah, I mean, I, I'm not surprised at all that I've had that experience. I think every entrepreneur kind of has that experience for when they're starting a lot. Like, and most of it is to do with The fact that I was feeling like that a little bit as well, like, you know, I kind of always used to feel like a little bit of a, a fraud because you're pushing yourself so much. You're not really comfortable in your own skin. You know, you're, you're, you are doing some things well, but you're also reminding yourself, like, where you're, like, you know, of who you are. You've built such a strong self-image, and these two are constantly in conflict. And, you know, you, you feel like that, and when you feel like that, other people can smell it on you, and so I'm not surprised at all.

AI assessment note: “I'm not surprised at all that I've had that experience”

Q you've got to hear how he had the money to even to invest in the foundation, to learn how to do that and how he was able to do it. And they were telling me about this consulting thing that you did and mailings that you'd send out. Do you remember what that was? This is before snap inspect. How did you get customers and what were you selling then?

A Sure. So, uh, the foundation and Dane taught me a huge lesson, which was you don't come up with cool ideas. You go out and you look for problems instead, and then the solution to that problem is your idea, and that was a breakthrough moment for me, uh, and so I did that. I went out to the property management market. I found a problem they had, and then I, I knew that if I could create the solution, I'd have a viable business, but I ran into a massive obstacle, which was, how do I get the money to build this thing? You know, software is pretty expensive to build, and That was the massive obstacle, and I figured, well, you know, Dane's figured out how to do this thing in the software market, but, ah, who's to say this wouldn't work in a different market, this finding problems thing. So I went out to other businesses, and I looked for problems again, and I found that a massive problem they had was getting customers. And I figured, well, you know, I could provide a service because that doesn't cost as much money as developing software, and I could help solve that problem with a service and get some money that way, and then use that money to develop my, ah, software product. And so I took basically the same pattern of thinking and application and just applied it Slightly differently. And that's, with service businesses, they have, they don't have a trough in the cash flow model, but…

AI assessment note: “a massive problem they had was getting customers. And I figured... I could provide a service”

Q And so, if you find someone who can't get out of bed in the morning, what can you say to them that gets them to make a dozen phone calls, or a hundred phone calls?

A Well, you have to really just, you have to, like, rewire your whole brain, really. Because what I found is, it's just this conflict of, of self. Uh, so like, your whole life, people grow up, and they try and define, who am I? That's the question that everyone's kind of got all the time. They're like, who am I? They try something. They're like, oh, that's not me. This is me. These people are like me. I associate with this thing. I am this person, and this, this sense of self and the sense of character gets very strong and defined over time, and then As humans, it's just natural for us to, to desire something more than who we are, and so then you start thinking of this person who you want to be, and that's when all the conflict comes, because now you've got who you are, and now you've got who you want to be, and whenever you try and be this other person, those two selves are just at war, and this is why you picked up and thought maybe I had kind of, ah, Being like fraudulent or something when I first spoke to you is because that's how I felt. I was always torn all the time. I was like, I'm, I'm saying I'm this person, but I just know I'm this like kid from New Zealand. You know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm young and no one's probably going to believe me. Like there's these thoughts going through my mind all the time. So that's just what naturally I evoke from other people. And this…

AI assessment note: “you have to, like, rewire your whole brain, really. Because what I found is”