Playing to Win - 006 - How To Get Free PR

00:00:00.620 All right, guys, what's up? We're live on episode number six of the Playing to Win series.

00:00:05.120 I'm joined today by my buddy Adrian. What's up, man?

00:00:08.780 How you doing?

00:00:09.900 Doing good. I have a hard time pronouncing your last name. Give it to me. It's like Hrvatsky sort of last name, right?

00:00:15.700 Yeah, it's worse. It's Salomonovic.

00:00:18.740 Salomonovic.

00:00:19.280 Yeah, you're not the only one. Don't worry.

00:00:21.320 Yeah, so a little bit of a background story because I don't think we've ever talked face-to-face like we are right now,

00:00:28.540 but I met you about 10 years ago through Cameron Harreld.

00:00:31.300 Yeah.

00:00:31.880 And he was coaching both of us.

00:00:34.520 So, you know, like I always encourage guys, if you're stuck on something, you know,

00:00:39.060 one of the most efficient ways to move past it is to find somebody that's an expert at it and hire them as a coach.

00:00:45.600 And both you and I were getting coached separately for several months at the time.

00:00:50.180 And I was in the debt business still, and you were running something called Canvas Pop, right?

00:00:54.680 That's right. That's right.

00:00:55.820 And were you just getting started up with the DNA canvas prints?

00:01:02.160 What was that called, DNA?

00:01:03.560 DNA 11.

00:01:04.400 DNA 11, that was it.

00:01:05.220 DNA 11 was first.

00:01:06.580 DNA 11, I mean, we're going back almost 12 years ago, started making DNA prints from people's DNA, right?

00:01:12.740 So we take a sample of your DNA and make it into a piece of art.

00:01:15.280 It was supposed to be just a fun side project.

00:01:17.880 As you can see by my background, I'm really into art.

00:01:20.360 I love collecting art, making art.

00:01:21.820 I've been into art all my life, and I decided to turn it into a business, turn that passion for art into a business called DNA11.com.

00:01:29.180 And, yeah, we built it up to about a million in revenue in the first year with no advertising or anything.

00:01:34.760 And the problem was we were stuck at a million bucks a year.

00:01:37.260 Like, you know, a long time ago, we didn't know how to break out of it.

00:01:40.420 So we hired Cameron to kind of show us, to tell us what we didn't know and sort of break our mold and break our systems.

00:01:47.060 And that's, yeah, that's us on, on, on CSI New York.

00:01:51.400 There was an episode.

00:01:52.860 Yeah.

00:01:53.100 So here, I'll, here, I'll kind of pause it because we're kind of skipping up ahead a little bit.

00:01:57.820 But this is, this is the thing that fascinated me about, um, Cameron's introduction to you because, um, you were a pretty early on startup.

00:02:08.480 And one of the most efficient ways to market and sell is to get free PR.

00:02:13.240 Yes.

00:02:13.800 And he used to, so let's just kind of rewind it a little bit more.

00:02:18.020 He used to be the COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

00:02:21.260 And that was a really fast growing company.

00:02:22.900 They sold tons of franchises.

00:02:24.660 Um, you see their trucks everywhere.

00:02:26.340 I mean, when you start to see them, then you see them everywhere.

00:02:29.240 That's right.

00:02:29.840 Uh, before that, you hardly ever notice them unless you need to get junk removed from your house.

00:02:33.140 But anyway, so they became really, really good at getting free PR placements in the media for their product.

00:02:40.660 And Adrian had a ton of success doing it himself.

00:02:44.160 And with an early startup, you got DNA 11 on CSI, right?

00:02:48.700 That's right.

00:02:48.960 It took a little while.

00:02:49.680 It took a lot of hustle.

00:02:50.860 A lot of kind of, uh, doing stupid stuff.

00:02:53.620 I used to call it like, or naive stuff for, for, you know, to use a better term.

00:02:57.780 So I'm not going to play the audio because it screws up the, um, uh, channel, the monetization,

00:03:02.000 but, but maybe like walk me through the clip over here.

00:03:04.640 Cause I just saw it on the wall back over there in the corner, but this is the actual clip

00:03:08.080 from the scene where they had your canvas on the wall.

00:03:10.460 Yeah.

00:03:10.780 It's in the background.

00:03:11.420 You can see it there.

00:03:12.080 But the cool thing was the entire episode.

00:03:13.560 It was written around our art, the thing we invented called DNA 11.

00:03:16.800 And so we actually helped them catch a criminal.

00:03:18.940 So they turn it over and you can see they're kind of, um, seeing that this realtor,

00:03:23.460 has her DNA portrait on the wall.

00:03:25.360 So they start, you know, adding up one plus one and saying, well, we want her DNA.

00:03:29.600 She's not giving it up.

00:03:30.540 She's like, I'm not going to give you my DNA.

00:03:32.060 So they get, they use one of our portraits to catch her.

00:03:34.960 And that's how they ultimately catch her as a criminal.

00:03:37.520 Um, the funny thing is I was on set.

00:03:39.740 I got to go visit on set and be, you know, just off camera for this.

00:03:43.880 It's pretty cool experience to be on the, uh, on the, on the set of this.

00:03:48.340 And, uh, we didn't know how the episode, they, they wouldn't tell us how they wrote

00:03:51.440 us in.

00:03:51.780 They could have done whatever they wanted.

00:03:53.760 And we had no recourse right there.

00:03:55.280 Yeah.

00:03:55.540 Yeah.

00:03:56.100 Of course you can't catch a criminal through a DNA portrait because there's not enough

00:03:58.960 DNA, uh, uh, data works great for Hollywood though.

00:04:01.940 Right?

00:04:02.520 Yes.

00:04:02.920 Hollywood.

00:04:03.280 I mean, CSI was known for, uh, exaggerating the abilities of science a little bit forensic

00:04:09.520 science, but there they are, they're connecting the dots.

00:04:11.300 They're kind of saying, you know, so it was really a cool moment to be sitting in a, you

00:04:15.940 know, small apartment in Ottawa with friends and family watching your idea.

00:04:20.260 The thing that was in your brain just a couple of years previously now on the most watched

00:04:24.240 television show at the time in the world is over 8 million viewers.

00:04:27.300 So that was a pretty surreal moment.

00:04:28.760 Pretty cool.

00:04:31.260 Oops.

00:04:31.660 Hold on a second.

00:04:33.000 I pulled you out of the stream.

00:04:34.140 Sorry.

00:04:34.340 Back up about five seconds.

00:04:37.420 You still there?

00:04:38.440 Yep.

00:04:38.760 There it is.

00:04:39.280 So it was pulled you out by accident instead of the video stream.

00:04:43.180 No worries.

00:04:44.480 So, um, so how did you convince them to place your portrait on the set?

00:04:50.620 Like what was the pitch?

00:04:52.160 Yeah.

00:04:52.480 The, so the pitch, um, it wasn't really a pitch.

00:04:55.680 What it was, was a pretty naive move.

00:04:57.620 I sent a letter, an actual handwritten letter to Anthony Zucker.

00:05:01.240 Who's the executive producer of, uh, CSI, New York.

00:05:04.960 And, uh, I just said, I'm a fan.

00:05:07.080 I love the show.

00:05:07.980 I love what you're doing for DNA.

00:05:10.060 Uh, you know, you're, you're making forensics part of the, uh, mainstream.

00:05:13.500 And as a, as a gift, I'd like to make you a free portrait and, uh, let me know, love to

00:05:19.120 make you one.

00:05:19.640 I'm a big fan.

00:05:20.300 That was it.

00:05:21.180 I didn't hear back from him and, uh, forgot about it.

00:05:24.940 And a couple of months go by and I was living in Miami at the time and my phone rings and

00:05:30.140 it's this lady, she says, my name is Patty.

00:05:32.780 I'm with the show CSI, New York.

00:05:34.380 We've actually created an episode about your company.

00:05:37.120 And we were wondering if we could get some samples.

00:05:39.560 And, uh, you didn't pitch them on placing it for an episode.

00:05:42.240 You're just like, I'm a big fan.

00:05:44.420 Here's the portrait sort of thing.

00:05:46.180 Right?

00:05:46.540 Yeah.

00:05:47.280 Yeah.

00:05:47.940 And you got a call shortly after that.

00:05:49.580 I did.

00:05:50.260 And I thought it was a joke.

00:05:51.260 I really did.

00:05:52.280 And, uh, we ended up flying down.

00:05:53.940 I ended up flying down to LA to watch the filming of the episode.

00:05:56.860 We sent the samples.

00:05:57.580 Of course, uh, this was so early in the company that it was like a big deal to send a thousand

00:06:02.140 dollar portrait.

00:06:02.960 We're like, I hope this pays off.

00:06:04.380 Like, of course it pays off, you know?

00:06:06.200 So it was kind of funny, you know?

00:06:08.080 Um, but the lesson learned there is kind of do things, you know, when others zig, you have

00:06:14.480 to zag sometimes, like not having any startup capital, not being venture back at the beginning,

00:06:18.860 really made us do crazy things and be creative.

00:06:21.620 And, and kind of, I guess as we get older, some people get afraid of rejection, right?

00:06:25.960 They're, they're, you know, what's the worst thing that could happen?

00:06:29.020 You get ignored and you say no.

00:06:30.280 So we took a risk and, you know, something I, that's part of my mantra to this day is,

00:06:34.620 uh, if you don't ask, you don't get, and sometimes you have to do a hundred asks to

00:06:38.100 get one.

00:06:38.600 Yes.

00:06:39.040 But that one yes can change everything.

00:06:40.640 And that was a huge moment in the history of that company.

00:06:43.300 How many employees did you have at the time when you got that place?

00:06:45.720 So that was about 12 people or 12 or only 12 people, uh, in this, we were in this kind

00:06:52.140 of second story above a cellular shop.

00:06:54.660 It was a cool space.

00:06:55.520 Don't get me wrong, but it was, you know, we eventually grew to over a hundred people.

00:06:58.880 So, um, it started as an idea between two friends.

00:07:02.720 We hired five, six people.

00:07:04.340 And then we got to 10 people were like, what's going on?

00:07:06.140 This is spinning out of control.

00:07:07.220 It's supposed to be a side hobby.

00:07:08.960 And then we spun out canvas pop from DNA 11 and without taking venture capital, we grew

00:07:15.180 the company to a one time.

00:07:16.940 Yeah.

00:07:17.500 Yeah.

00:07:17.740 That's crazy.

00:07:18.660 I want to talk about the whole bootstrapping thing in a bit, but, um, so how did that free

00:07:23.720 PR placement affect the business revenue growth and all that?

00:07:27.180 Like, was it like, was it noticeable or did it, was it just like a little blip?

00:07:32.020 Yeah.

00:07:32.380 I mean, we weren't mentioned by brand.

00:07:34.300 We were mentioned by concept.

00:07:35.740 So she says in the episode, if you go watch it on YouTube, she says, you haven't heard

00:07:39.640 of this.

00:07:39.940 It's called DNA art.

00:07:41.040 It's the latest thing, right?

00:07:42.700 So of course, did you own the keyword for DNA art?

00:07:45.140 Absolutely.

00:07:45.760 So that's another important thing.

00:07:47.160 I own the cop, the trademark own DNA art.com, even though we were trading as DNA 11.com.

00:07:53.840 So our marketing address is DNA 11.

00:07:55.500 I own DNA art.com and I had a background in SEO.

00:07:58.740 I had one of the top search engine people in the world teach me SEO, which was, ended up

00:08:03.540 getting a huge benefit, but, uh, our sales went up, you know, tens of thousands, uh, that

00:08:08.160 month, but it kept happening.

00:08:09.540 Cause every time they play the episode around the world, you know, there's another 10, there's

00:08:12.880 another 20, there's another 30, but PR isn't about one thing.

00:08:16.580 It's about creating momentum, right?

00:08:18.100 You've got to, it's many, many, it's just like the show that you created and you get

00:08:21.860 tens of thousands of views per episode and more.

00:08:25.420 You're probably your first episode.

00:08:27.100 But I imagine you only had a couple of hundred views, so you have to build momentum and it's

00:08:31.840 about making a lot of small incremental moves that eventually add up to you being on CSI

00:08:36.000 New York or being on the today show or good morning America or whatever.

00:08:39.260 And then you have to ride that momentum.

00:08:40.980 So it's, there's no silver bullets, you know, um, this was, this didn't just happen overnight.

00:08:46.960 Had to do a hundred mini moves to get to that level.

00:08:50.500 What did you end up doing before the canvas printing company?

00:08:53.980 Like, were you always an entrepreneur or did you work in the corporate world?

00:08:56.520 Like, how did you, like, what's the Batman origin story for you?

00:09:00.020 The Batman origin story is, uh, a broke kid, uh, living in a middle-class small house.

00:09:06.940 Um, my mom would buy me two things, any book that I wanted and, um, basically food.

00:09:13.740 Everything else was on me to hustle and to figure out how to, how to make money.

00:09:17.140 So, um, I started as a paper boy, as many, many entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson.

00:09:22.060 Did you have a paper route?

00:09:23.560 Yeah, I had two of them actually.

00:09:24.920 There you go.

00:09:25.600 So, you know, that's, I believe what, what, what, what spawned many, many entrepreneurs

00:09:30.500 is the paper route.

00:09:31.360 So, um, unlike most paper boys, what I ended up doing is I ended up buying other people's

00:09:36.000 routes and then getting other people to do the work for me eventually.

00:09:39.720 So I ended up having a little network of, uh, of, I remember doing this because I wanted

00:09:44.400 to make more money and I couldn't do it with just one route.

00:09:46.600 So yeah.

00:09:47.260 You know what I figured out the money was in the tips with paper routes.

00:09:49.640 Like I remember collecting the tips, you didn't make any money off the route itself.

00:09:52.820 I used to have a couple of friends help me.

00:09:54.080 Like I kind of subcontracted out my stuff as well.

00:09:56.720 Yeah.

00:09:57.120 But I would always collect the tips because that's where the money was.

00:10:00.040 It's true.

00:10:00.840 So that teaches you that when you do that 5% extra, you, you get, you get rewarded for

00:10:06.700 that and you, you know, deliver on time, you get rewarded for that.

00:10:09.360 So that's where it started, but I won't go too far back and bore you, but essentially I

00:10:14.400 started my first business, real business in high school, selling varsity shirts for my

00:10:19.320 school with my own brand.

00:10:20.300 Nobody else was selling it.

00:10:21.320 So I sold about eight or 900 shirts made, you know, five or 10,000, I think $5,000, which

00:10:27.220 back then in 1995 was a lot of money for a, for a 16 year old kid to have.

00:10:32.320 And I realized like, this is the way to do it.

00:10:34.620 So I, I, I never had a real job.

00:10:36.560 I sold my first company at the age of 21.

00:10:39.260 What was that?

00:10:40.240 It was called media wave and it was a web development company.

00:10:42.900 I was one of the first guys to develop a web development company in the mid nineties.

00:10:47.040 There was the web barely existed and sold it to a company called Nova networks.

00:10:51.380 It was an acquisition.

00:10:52.160 And that was my only corporate job.

00:10:53.480 I became the president of that division at 21, 22 years of age and quickly learned that

00:10:58.700 I hated the corporate world.

00:10:59.800 I mean, I was miserable being inside of a glass building and the real corporation quit that

00:11:04.520 became a consultant for several years, hired gun, uh, love the freedom, but, but missed

00:11:11.280 having my own baby, you know, missed having something that was truly mine.

00:11:14.540 So it's making great monies, you know, six figures, um, at the age of now 25, 26 and money

00:11:21.380 didn't, wasn't what was making me happy.

00:11:23.000 I was kind of miserable because I was, didn't have a venture to call my own.

00:11:27.240 Started a mobile, uh, mobile app company before mobile apps were a thing, believe it or

00:11:31.600 not, back in the Blackberry days.

00:11:32.860 Did you ever go to school, like college university or anything?

00:11:35.220 Yeah.

00:11:35.380 I went to Galkin for marketing, which is nothing to be, was that a waste of time?

00:11:39.880 Sorry.

00:11:40.580 Was that a waste of time?

00:11:41.420 Like, did you learn anything?

00:11:42.780 Uh, you know what?

00:11:43.660 Uh, I am pretty anti academia in general.

00:11:46.440 Like I, I think you learn the most from mentors and books and just doing, especially in the

00:11:49.960 world of entrepreneurs.

00:11:50.740 I'm not talking about being a doctor or a lawyer.

00:11:52.360 I'm talking about the stuff we do.

00:11:54.000 You learn from doing, but I have to say that, you know, as much as I knock a Galkin, sometimes

00:11:58.200 it's jokingly because I learned the fundamentals, right?

00:12:01.860 Um, a good boxing gym, as an example, will teach you how to jab and right hook and how

00:12:06.420 to your stance, but it's not going to make you a good street fighter.

00:12:09.140 You've got to go out and do, you know, you've got to go out and get some, some black eyes

00:12:12.660 to learn.

00:12:13.140 It's the same thing with business.

00:12:13.940 Like I learned product positioning.

00:12:15.980 I learned, uh, which I still use to this day.

00:12:18.580 I learned about the four P's of marketing, you know, product pricing, all that kind of

00:12:22.420 stuff.

00:12:23.000 But then where I really did my learning is I was actually running this company that I

00:12:26.660 ended up selling moonlighting.

00:12:28.380 I was building a company while everybody else was just going to school and doing homework.

00:12:31.540 I was actually building a real company and that made things more real in academia.

00:12:35.100 When I was doing accounting class, I was actually listening twice as hard because I was,

00:12:38.840 I needed to learn how to do accounting.

00:12:40.500 And so, you know what though?

00:12:41.440 Like one of the things that blew me when I was thinking about this earlier today, college,

00:12:45.340 right?

00:12:45.620 Like I went to college and they would teach you accounting, like bookkeeping skills and

00:12:50.740 reconcile columns where they all go, how the government wants, you know, generally, uh,

00:12:55.040 what do they call it?

00:12:55.580 Gap generally accepted accounting principles.

00:12:58.040 And after the fact, when you get out of it and you run a business, you don't do the

00:13:01.640 accounting, you hire an accountant.

00:13:03.200 That's right.

00:13:03.920 You don't want to do that shit.

00:13:05.600 You want like, like that's tedious plebeian work sort of thing, right?

00:13:08.540 Like you hire it out to either a bookkeeper or to an account to reconcile and do the CRA stuff,

00:13:13.620 right?

00:13:14.680 Yes.

00:13:15.040 And if you're doing your own bookkeeping, you're, you're, you're, you're screwing up.

00:13:18.440 You're wasting your time.

00:13:18.720 Yeah.

00:13:18.840 You're wasting your time.

00:13:19.540 You're wasting your time.

00:13:20.240 But the best race car drivers, the best 401 drivers understand how motors work, engines

00:13:26.000 work, spark motors work, brakes work.

00:13:28.300 And so it's about really understanding your craft.

00:13:32.120 Yeah.

00:13:32.800 I've forgotten half of what I learned in accounting in school, but I know enough to be able to

00:13:37.100 look at a profit loss statement.

00:13:38.300 Like there are, there are business owners that do not understand how a profit loss statement

00:13:42.060 works.

00:13:42.340 So you can get a profit loss statement or, um, you know, how basic cashflow works.

00:13:46.580 So you need those fundamentals, but you've got, you've got to learn it from doing real

00:13:50.560 quick or else your, your business isn't going to work.

00:13:52.400 Right.

00:13:52.720 So by 25, it sounds like you had about three different businesses.

00:13:55.900 Yeah, I did.

00:13:57.520 Um, I had multiple cashflow, um, you know, situations also, but yeah, I had been on my

00:14:03.320 third company, uh, failed, I raised venture capital, you know, uh, in my twenties failed

00:14:09.400 miserably at it.

00:14:10.980 Uh, during nine 11, actually, we were trying to go for our, our, our major a round that fell

00:14:16.160 apart.

00:14:16.520 And I, I felt the pain of what it's like to have to, uh, you know, fire 12 employees

00:14:21.200 and close a shop.

00:14:22.180 I mean, I never wanted to feel that again.

00:14:24.880 And I carried that, those lessons to the rest of my career up until today.

00:14:29.680 Um, why didn't you ever like subscribe to the standard, go get a corporate job, you know,

00:14:35.760 get a degree, frame it in mahogany, stick it on the wall and, you know, go work for somebody

00:14:40.620 else in line, their pocket with gold.

00:14:41.940 Like, why didn't you ever do that?

00:14:43.380 Well, part need, part necessity, part experience.

00:14:46.480 Like one, I don't think I'm very employable.

00:14:48.400 I don't know who would hire me full time.

00:14:50.000 I don't make a great employee at all.

00:14:51.620 I doubt you would either.

00:14:53.160 Um, the, the fun, the thing that it came down to is I, I looked at, you know, who's stuck

00:14:58.920 on the highway at 5 PM every day.

00:15:01.100 Right.

00:15:01.500 And, uh, and I didn't want to be one of them.

00:15:04.260 And so I started emulating people that I admired in town.

00:15:08.360 It was a guy named Mike Copeland who started Corral.

00:15:10.700 Uh, there was Terry Matthews.

00:15:12.560 There was, uh, you know, Richard Branson, somebody I admired.

00:15:15.620 I said, what do these guys have in common?

00:15:16.960 And then what they had in common is that they were titans of their industry.

00:15:19.620 They were developing their own markets and they were working for themselves.

00:15:22.660 They weren't working for somebody.

00:15:23.960 And, um, I just figure, you know, for me, it comes down to freedom and control.

00:15:29.560 Uh, when you own your own business, you have no one to blame, right?

00:15:32.020 You're in full control.

00:15:33.100 If you get fired, you did it to yourself.

00:15:35.280 And if you become a multimillionaire, you did that to yourself as well.

00:15:38.880 You do need a team, but not to ramble on with it, but I, I don't think I had a choice.

00:15:43.520 I don't think, uh, I had to be an entrepreneur.

00:15:46.280 I knew it from a very early age and I've never looked back and I don't think I'll ever will

00:15:49.760 be anything other than an entrepreneur.

00:15:51.100 Did your parents ever run a business?

00:15:52.600 Like your mom and dad?

00:15:53.480 Like, like what was that story like growing up?

00:15:55.400 No, I'm, you know, I think my grandfather was a great entrepreneur in South America.

00:15:59.820 Um, and I saw that and that's another thing that I admired.

00:16:03.280 I admired my grandfather greatly.

00:16:04.800 My father worked for the city.

00:16:06.380 My mom worked at a school and I watched them struggle financially their entire lives.

00:16:10.920 And I knew that what they were doing wasn't what I wanted.

00:16:14.080 I wanted abundance and that hunger.

00:16:15.960 And I see this pattern of all my friends, every single one of them.

00:16:19.000 I have two friends that are billionaires and a couple that are a hundred millionaires

00:16:21.620 and a bunch of millionaires.

00:16:23.080 And you know what they all have in common?

00:16:24.940 And I want to ask you if you have this in common is they didn't grow up with money.

00:16:27.500 They grew up hungry and, uh, that's the key.

00:16:30.680 Most, most really successful entrepreneurs did not have a silver spoon in the mouth.

00:16:34.800 That's where a lot of guys go wrong.

00:16:36.260 Like a lot of people will point and sputter at guys like us and they'll be like, well,

00:16:41.400 somebody just gave you the money.

00:16:42.620 You know, like one of the common, um, uh, you know, charges against Donald Trump seems to be,

00:16:47.880 well, his dad gave him a whole bunch of money.

00:16:49.280 So that's why, you know, he's a billionaire today.

00:16:52.240 Well, you know, he had a start, but most people that, that make a lot of money

00:16:57.100 or successful with multiplying money, um, they came from nothing and they, and they

00:17:02.080 know the pain of having nothing or struggling with, you know, life and, you know, basic shit.

00:17:06.880 I was telling somebody the other day, like, I remember when I was a kid, um, I was cold

00:17:11.140 in the winter.

00:17:11.680 You know, a lot of the times, like I had a lot of blankets in my bed.

00:17:13.660 I remember we had this like sheep, like the sheep sheer, um, skin, you know, on the floor

00:17:18.420 and that would be on the floor in the summertime.

00:17:20.160 In the wintertime, my parents would put on my bed to keep me warm.

00:17:22.440 Um, or like food was even rationed in my house when I was growing up.

00:17:27.100 Cause my dad was like a product of the second world war in England.

00:17:29.580 And when he was growing up after the war, like buttons were rationed, eggs were rationed,

00:17:33.420 bread was rationed, like everything was rationed.

00:17:35.420 So he would ration food with us growing up.

00:17:37.160 So I, I know exactly what you're saying.

00:17:39.880 It's like, this sucks.

00:17:40.860 I'm not doing this when I'm an adult.

00:17:42.740 And that from that pain comes profit or for that pain comes opportunity.

00:17:46.760 And, and, um, you know, I hope if I have kids someday, I think I'm, I mean, they don't

00:17:51.100 have paper roots anymore, but I'm going to, I'm going to make them work.

00:17:53.560 I'll tell you that right now.

00:17:54.800 I'm going to make them work.

00:17:55.960 Um, I think a mistake, a lot of second, you know, they say, well, it skips a generation

00:17:59.940 and I've seen it.

00:18:01.440 I've seen it over and over and over again.

00:18:03.360 So, uh, yeah, I think I'm telling you everyone, everyone that I know that's successful, you included

00:18:09.640 now that I know your background a little bit more, it, it comes from hunger.

00:18:13.840 You need to be hungry and I think that the biggest challenge is later on in life when

00:18:18.320 you do have a massive abundance and you can do whatever you want, whatever you want is

00:18:23.180 how do you stay hungry?

00:18:24.240 And that's always a challenge, right?

00:18:25.680 Is, is, uh, and that's something I struggle with is also just to stay hungry and staying

00:18:29.300 curious and stay hustling.

00:18:30.820 Cause it, you know, it's easy to lay back and, and, uh, and just sit back, but I don't

00:18:36.100 think I can do it.

00:18:37.200 Do you think, um, like the title of the show is playing to win, right?

00:18:41.960 And there's a distinct difference between playing to win and playing not to lose.

00:18:45.240 Have you ever used Colin Collard for like a facilitated, uh, retreat?

00:18:49.260 Uh, what is it called?

00:18:50.040 What's the, uh, what is Colin Collard is the guy's name?

00:18:52.700 No, I have.

00:18:53.460 No, I don't know.

00:18:54.360 Okay.

00:18:55.060 Um, I think he works more with high level companies right now.

00:18:58.200 Cause I was trying to get him booked for like a retreat that I'm trying to schedule in for

00:19:01.160 the spring, but, but he doesn't do small stuff anymore.

00:19:03.200 But one of the concepts that I learned from him was, you know, um, a lot of guys, when

00:19:07.920 they get into stuff, like even, even starting to work in the business, it's almost like you've

00:19:12.240 got a racehorse giving pony rides and it's only until you wake up and you realize that

00:19:17.240 you're, that you're truly a weapon and you need to unleash yourself and stop holding yourself

00:19:20.900 back and just give yourself the, you know, the permission to be excellent at what it is

00:19:24.400 you're going to do that, you know, the greatness starts to happen.

00:19:27.280 Um, at what point did you realize for you that it was like, okay, shit, like I'm onto

00:19:33.960 something.

00:19:34.420 This is big.

00:19:35.400 Like there's always that aha moment where it's like, you take a frying pan to the forehead.

00:19:39.080 It's probably not when you're doing the paper route or anything like that, but at some point

00:19:42.180 when you're running a business, like, um, like for me, it was when I switched over from,

00:19:48.280 um, in my debt business, it was around 2005 or six, this is about five years before I met

00:19:53.000 Cameron.

00:19:53.420 Right.

00:19:53.740 So it's about 2005 or six.

00:19:55.180 And I switched over from a model of basically, um, eating immediately what you would kill.

00:20:00.260 So it was like this, go out, hunt, kill something you're fed.

00:20:05.640 And then you have to go and repeat that every other day or every other week or so in order

00:20:09.860 to keep the revenue flowing.

00:20:10.940 And then I realized when I switched the model over to subscription base and I built the plan

00:20:15.580 over like three or four years and people would subscribe to a program for a longer period

00:20:19.280 of time that it created more sustainable revenue.

00:20:22.220 You had a customer for a longer period of time.

00:20:24.060 And you had a good idea of your accounting at the start of the month when you'd open

00:20:27.480 up the business, how much money was coming in.

00:20:29.000 Cause you had a certain number of customers that were paying a certain amount.

00:20:31.440 Yeah.

00:20:31.980 For me, that was like the frying pan, you know, the forehead moment.

00:20:35.000 And I was thinking to myself, all I got to do is multiply this and this could be a

00:20:37.700 five, 10, 25, $50 million business.

00:20:39.760 Right.

00:20:40.100 Yeah.

00:20:41.180 What was that point for you?

00:20:42.120 You know, there, there's been so many small moments when I was present at the moment and

00:20:46.780 appreciated what was happening.

00:20:48.120 I think the one was a couple of moments.

00:20:50.020 So the first moment that stands out for me is, uh, when I got my, when I first started

00:20:55.300 DNA 11, we got our first order from somebody in California that I'd never met before.

00:20:59.960 And this is before Shopify.

00:21:00.900 Uh, I'm really good friends with the Shopify founders and they were just building Shopify

00:21:04.560 at the time.

00:21:05.060 So we couldn't even use their platform.

00:21:06.620 And I remember we're really early in the e-commerce game and it was such a magical moment

00:21:11.340 seeing somebody I never met before buy a six or $700 piece of art over the internet and

00:21:16.180 seeing that order come in.

00:21:17.200 That was the first humbling moment where I was like, wow, this e-commerce stuff is magic.

00:21:20.540 Right.

00:21:20.840 What was the artwork?

00:21:22.040 Was it like a DNA 11?

00:21:23.080 It was a DNA 11 portrait.

00:21:24.460 Oh, okay.

00:21:25.200 Yeah.

00:21:25.420 And somebody bought that.

00:21:26.120 And this is like 12 years ago.

00:21:27.720 And that was about six or 700 bucks at the time.

00:21:29.920 Yep.

00:21:30.560 Okay.

00:21:31.140 Yeah.

00:21:31.280 Up to a thousand, 1200 from, from, we had stuff for $200 up to 1200.

00:21:35.100 But at that time, the average transaction was around $500.

00:21:37.920 So, and you got to remember, it's a portrait made of your DNA.

00:21:40.220 It's not something everybody needs or wants.

00:21:41.760 So that was really a magical to somebody who never met before bought this thing.

00:21:45.320 And that was a moment I realized how powerful e-commerce could be.

00:21:48.120 I think fast forwarding a few years later though, uh, we had a, we had a facility in Las

00:21:52.720 Vegas that had, you know, over 50 people working in it and walking in that facility, a facility

00:21:57.660 that I'd never stepped into before as the co-founder of the business.

00:22:00.560 And walking in and seeing, you know, 50, 50, 60 people around the holiday seasons working

00:22:05.220 in this factory.

00:22:06.840 And no one knew who I was.

00:22:08.720 I didn't know I was the co-founder.

00:22:10.000 I didn't, I didn't announce myself, but it was really surreal moment walking around and

00:22:14.840 just seeing all the, you know, huge, you know, 20,000 square foot building filled with people

00:22:19.160 that I'd never met before that were working for me.

00:22:21.320 And it was like a proud moment, I would say, where I'm saying, wow, I can't believe this

00:22:24.260 thing is in Vegas and all these people don't, you know, it was a magical moment.

00:22:27.960 So that was another moment for me that, that stood out.

00:22:31.000 But, uh, yeah, I think it's about creating those moments, right.

00:22:33.980 Where you, where you give yourself permission for a minute, just kind of celebrate your,

00:22:37.980 your milestones and your successes.

00:22:39.260 And we, as entrepreneurs often don't stop to recognize those, those moments until later

00:22:43.540 when we look back.

00:22:45.000 Yeah, I know guys, um, guys are pretty tough on themselves when it comes to running a business.

00:22:49.340 They don't like to pause very often and look in the rear view mirror to see how far they'd

00:22:52.700 all come.

00:22:53.300 Right.

00:22:54.280 Um, you and I, um, I know I did anyway, like I took a lot of, uh, coaching and tips from

00:23:00.260 Cameron on a company culture.

00:23:02.500 Um, I saw some of the pictures of your outfit.

00:23:05.400 Um, I think one of the facilities was in Ottawa and then you moved it down to the state.

00:23:09.260 It's at one point, right?

00:23:10.520 Yeah.

00:23:10.920 We had two facilities go at the same time.

00:23:12.520 Yeah.

00:23:12.880 Yeah.

00:23:13.180 So, um, like how important was culture in like the playing the wind concept, like the

00:23:19.080 growth of the business?

00:23:20.200 Yeah.

00:23:20.660 I think culture is really, really important.

00:23:23.300 Like, uh, I coach dozens of companies today and I don't say coach, I advise them.

00:23:27.460 I don't consider myself a coach to the company, more of an advisor, but I think culture makes

00:23:31.420 a huge difference, right?

00:23:32.460 It's what, uh, it's like, what's the definition of culture when it comes to your understanding of

00:23:37.640 it?

00:23:37.740 Maybe that's kind of like back it up to just a little, a little simpler.

00:23:40.680 Yeah.

00:23:40.840 I think, I think it's the common fiber that, um, ties everyone together.

00:23:45.920 Right.

00:23:46.300 And so it's the culture to me is when a company is mission driven, everyone in the company

00:23:51.940 has got alignment and that alignment that the bill, the fact that everybody in the company

00:23:56.140 kind of understands the why of the business that is in its essence, the culture.

00:24:01.260 Uh, that's how I see it anyways.

00:24:03.200 It's that familiarity between everybody, that common factor between every employee where

00:24:08.420 they're all pointing in the right direction.

00:24:10.020 When you have that happening and that's what I consider great culture.

00:24:12.780 I'd love to hear what you, what, how you define culture.

00:24:15.300 I, I went really far with it.

00:24:18.100 Like I got high on the Kool-Aid and I probably went a little bit too far at one point, but,

00:24:22.380 um, I basically went on this mission.

00:24:24.780 Like I toured, um, Zappos twice.

00:24:27.660 I went and saw, um, uh, I can't remember his first name, but the guy that ran, uh, rewards

00:24:35.500 out in, uh, Liberty village, uh, Suleman.

00:24:39.060 Yeah.

00:24:39.740 Yep.

00:24:40.240 I remember talking about, uh, you know, Cameron's sister's place.

00:24:43.360 I went out to, um, the 1-800 contact.

00:24:46.580 No, what was the name of that?

00:24:47.380 Uh, yeah, I actually went out to 1-800 got junk in Vancouver one time.

00:24:50.860 Cause we did a, um, EO, uh, uh, university out in Whistler.

00:24:55.200 So I stopped by and saw Brian.

00:24:56.580 Um, I probably saw about six or seven different places and I'm like, okay, I got a good idea

00:25:01.620 now.

00:25:01.900 And I did like the whole rip off and duplicate.

00:25:03.780 Yeah, of course.

00:25:04.500 And, and it was like, everything in my office was like that.

00:25:08.620 Yeah.

00:25:09.180 You know, it was like all of those businesses had sex and it's like this entire thing just

00:25:13.440 kind of poured out into the, like, and just vomited all over the wall.

00:25:16.400 Like, like shit was on the walls.

00:25:17.700 It was in the office space.

00:25:18.620 Like people loved it, man.

00:25:19.600 Like we had, um, we got recognized by world blue for one of the world's best, um,

00:25:25.780 you know, working cultures as well.

00:25:28.280 But it, but at some point, one of the things I noticed that if you go too far with the culture,

00:25:32.700 people start to get a little too comfortable with it.

00:25:36.480 Right.

00:25:36.720 Like the focus in productivity, getting shit done.

00:25:40.120 And like, if you have a chill room in and there's people taking naps and the naps are like running

00:25:44.260 like a little bit over like 10, 15 minutes and productivity starts to go down, small things

00:25:48.180 like that.

00:25:48.740 Right.

00:25:49.680 Um, so, I mean, you gotta be super careful with culture.

00:25:51.820 So that's one of the things, you know, when I'm coaching, coaching somebody on their culture

00:25:54.480 and their growth and stuff, like, like there's a careful area that you have to work within.

00:25:58.080 Like you can go too far.

00:25:59.600 I agree.

00:26:00.140 I totally agree.

00:26:00.940 Like, um, by the way, I wasn't the culture guy at my company.

00:26:04.000 If I'm going to, and I also did, I also got to meet Tony Shea and did the Zappos tour and

00:26:08.060 quite honestly, the place was a bit of a frat house, but, um, I love that they gave free

00:26:13.960 books away.

00:26:14.620 And I love the fact that these people were making minimum wage and were absolutely obsessed

00:26:18.580 with the brand.

00:26:19.220 And so that's why we moved to Vegas.

00:26:21.060 It was actually, uh, it was Tony Shea that inspired that, uh, that's what we set up in

00:26:25.260 Vegas.

00:26:25.500 So that's what it's funny that you mentioned that, but I wasn't a culture guy.

00:26:29.100 My ex business partner was the culture guy at the business.

00:26:31.860 I was kind of the guy in charge of making money, you know?

00:26:35.460 And so sometimes I would look back and be like, all right, we're making, you know, all

00:26:39.340 this revenue and, and things would go a little far.

00:26:42.220 Like it'd be, uh, we had a beer, those Kaganators in the office and people were getting hammered

00:26:47.760 during the day.

00:26:48.300 Right.

00:26:48.560 Which I'm like, this has gone too far.

00:26:50.440 Like we're, we're a business at the end of the day.

00:26:52.420 I also remember we're running a factory.

00:26:54.660 Okay.

00:26:54.840 If you've ever been in a factory before, there aren't too many factories in Canada, but we,

00:26:58.440 we use fingers and machines and stuff, right?

00:27:00.820 Every, every, you know, you, you, there's a reason you rarely see machines in Canada.

00:27:04.900 It's because square footage costs, taxes, minimum wage.

00:27:08.060 Like it's not a place for factories, right?

00:27:09.920 China is a good place for factories.

00:27:12.020 Uh, Mexico is a good place for factories, but not Canada.

00:27:14.340 Well, we had a bunch of like really hipster kind of guys working for us.

00:27:17.420 And we, I caught a guy napping and underneath one of the shelves once I've got guys playing

00:27:21.840 guitar during the middle of the day.

00:27:23.400 And no wonder our, you know, our, our operating costs were off the Richter scale.

00:27:27.780 So, so yeah, you can go a little too far.

00:27:29.700 If you're building a factory, you know, if you're an Amazon warehouse, sadly, and you're

00:27:33.920 trying to compete for the, for the, you know, a penny of margin, you've got to run a tight

00:27:38.920 ship.

00:27:39.400 And so I agree.

00:27:40.920 There's gotta be a balancing act between culture and efficiency.

00:27:44.640 So, um, what are you doing today?

00:27:46.660 Cause I mean, like you exited from canvas pop, you'd exited from DNA 11.

00:27:50.820 What'd you do?

00:27:51.300 Just sell the businesses.

00:27:52.060 Did they merge somebody else?

00:27:53.000 Like what happened to them?

00:27:53.820 Yeah.

00:27:54.140 So it was, um, it was actually, uh, uh, venture capital buyout.

00:27:58.120 So the VCs, we, we raised, uh, on a $14 million valuation, uh, almost two years ago.

00:28:04.680 And as part of that, I exited, um, my, my, most of my shares, I, I still have, uh, a portion

00:28:11.760 of my shares that I've kept in the business, but I, I recently, uh, sold off, uh, more than

00:28:17.040 half of my position in the company.

00:28:18.360 Um, and so, uh, it was to me a great move because after 10 years, you know, the thing

00:28:23.380 is everybody has these sort of Instagram dreams of you, you build this app, it skyrockets and

00:28:28.520 Facebook buys you, but it takes a decade.

00:28:30.700 You know, I haven't, I haven't met too many people.

00:28:32.380 I haven't spent at least 10 years and I was at my 10 year mark and quite honestly, I was

00:28:36.540 burned out, really burned out.

00:28:38.420 And I wasn't passionate about the business anymore.

00:28:40.500 Um, and I needed a way out and, and this was, you know, we went 10 years without raising

00:28:46.560 a penny of venture capital.

00:28:47.780 We bootstrapped it to eight figures, which is difficult to do.

00:28:51.220 And, uh, raising venture capital allowed me to have an earlier liquid liquidity event

00:28:55.640 and get the heck out of there while I still had some, some energy and some youth left in

00:29:01.220 me.

00:29:01.400 And so, yeah, that's what I did.

00:29:03.820 And what are you up to these days?

00:29:05.420 So I'm mainly doing a lot of advisory work.

00:29:07.700 I'm kind of back to where I was 12 years ago before I started DNA 11 and Canvas Pop.

00:29:12.200 I'm actually really lucky to be in this blank state right now when I blank canvas, meaning

00:29:16.180 anything's possible, but I can't just sit around and, uh, you know, surf and snowboard

00:29:21.860 all day.

00:29:22.320 I need to stay busy.

00:29:23.380 So I advise a dozen companies.

00:29:26.060 I'm on the advisory boards of 12 companies.

00:29:28.820 Um, some of them pay me equity.

00:29:30.600 Some of them pay me cash and equity.

00:29:32.360 Um, I wrote a book, uh, the first thing I did upon exit was launch this book with Cameron

00:29:38.120 Harold, actually, uh, called free PR, um, doing a link for that in the top comment pinned

00:29:44.180 down there, by the way, guys.

00:29:45.420 Yeah.

00:29:45.780 Check it out.

00:29:46.380 It's, I think it's one of the best books on PR out there because it's a truly a manual

00:29:51.040 on how to, uh, scale your business without paying for advertising.

00:29:55.180 So Cameron and I took a decade, decades worth of knowledge, how he built 1-800 got junk or

00:30:01.120 helped to build 1-800 and how I built the canvas pop and DNA 11 without ever hiring a PR agency

00:30:05.640 or spending a dollar on advertising.

00:30:07.560 We didn't really spend almost any money to build an eight figure business.

00:30:11.140 Uh, so we want to really, what I'm feeling right now is I've got all this knowledge and

00:30:15.580 battle scars and experience.

00:30:17.020 And I feel like I need to pass on some of this onto my, my clients, my coaching clients

00:30:23.720 and, and my courses and all that kind of stuff.

00:30:26.920 There's a gazillion people doing this stuff, but I feel like I'm doing it legitimately.

00:30:30.500 I'm doing it with the right intentions.

00:30:32.100 And I just want to, I just want to share my knowledge and my, my lessons, man.

00:30:35.980 That's, that's what I'm doing.

00:30:36.960 So, um, you did a video that you linked to me the other day when I asked on Twitter,

00:30:41.960 um, you know, what advice would you give yourself when you were younger?

00:30:44.820 And I think there was another video that I saw in it where you went through like, uh,

00:30:48.880 three or four simple steps on how to get PR.

00:30:51.600 Yeah.

00:30:52.380 Can you kind of walk people through what those are?

00:30:54.260 Like, I know the book details a lot more, you know, like plenty of storytelling, but can

00:30:58.040 you give away some of that?

00:30:59.280 Yeah.

00:30:59.440 I mean, I'm happy to give it away because that's what I want.

00:31:02.540 I just want people to learn the fundamentals.

00:31:04.520 And I mean, the first thing that you have to do is really be able to explain your business

00:31:08.720 in one sentence, right?

00:31:10.100 I mean, it really does start with that because a lot of people are trying to get into, you

00:31:14.160 know, tech crunch or New York times or GQ or whatever they want to get into, but they

00:31:18.340 can't really clearly identify who they are, what they do and whether they're different.

00:31:21.560 So that's the first thing we start on is, you know, understand who you are and why people

00:31:25.140 should give a shit about what you're doing.

00:31:26.880 Once you're done that, you really do need to understand who your customer is.

00:31:30.480 And I, and I know it sounds obvious to you and me, but a lot of people.

00:31:34.520 Are building these businesses, they really don't fundamentally understand who their consumer

00:31:37.860 is, who their actual customer that pays, who their product is.

00:31:40.260 The reason we want to know that is if we know who our customer is, then we know where

00:31:44.840 to go target them, what they read, what podcasts they listen to and all that stuff.

00:31:48.740 So it's our secret weapon to be able to, to target them.

00:31:51.640 And once we know those targets, then we can go to those targets.

00:31:54.980 You know, okay, let's talk about tactical soap.

00:31:57.320 Cause I know that one is, is, is that the new way to get free PR?

00:32:01.360 Cause in the past, you know, it'd be to get on mainstream media, but now is it podcasts?

00:32:05.780 For sure.

00:32:06.640 Podcasts are a huge play right now.

00:32:09.240 Huge play.

00:32:09.980 And the reason is, um, you may not hit, um, we used to go on good morning America, hit

00:32:15.560 3 million people in one day and sell a ton of product, but those numbers are dwindling.

00:32:20.160 People are watching less and less live television or news or television period shifting more

00:32:26.020 over to social media stuff and podcasts and YouTube and all that.

00:32:29.060 It is.

00:32:29.740 And so if I'm selling soap for manly men, I'm going to sponsor, uh, I'm going to sponsor

00:32:35.820 one of your podcasts because I know who your target is.

00:32:38.040 Right.

00:32:38.840 Um, and so you're not going to get that level of targeting on the today show.

00:32:42.280 You're going to hit 3 million people with a carpet bomb, 3 million people with your message.

00:32:46.200 But I believe today it's about sniping, about focusing your, your, your message.

00:32:50.480 Now, the best thing happens when you hit one of these niche players that has, you know,

00:32:54.740 8 million viewers.

00:32:55.560 So same, same idea you get on Joe Rogan, you know, and you know, it's different audience

00:33:01.280 sizes.

00:33:01.560 Then you're going to get that niche and you're also going to get that massive amplification

00:33:04.980 at the same time.

00:33:05.860 And so that's really what it's about.

00:33:07.340 Understand your market, understand how you're unique and then think big.

00:33:11.040 A lot of people will go pitch their local radio station or something because their cousin

00:33:15.020 works there or something.

00:33:16.200 We've always gone big, go to the today show, go to good morning, go to Joe Rogan, you know,

00:33:20.640 go to the biggest targets you can find, get, create that.

00:33:25.500 And then the smaller podcasts and the smaller, uh, publications will just pick you up organically.

00:33:31.000 So, um, so let's use an example.

00:33:33.820 Like I'm just finishing up my book.

00:33:35.200 It's going through the edits.

00:33:36.200 It should be done in a few months.

00:33:37.340 Um, it's basically like about 20 odd chapters of stories that, um, guys really need to understand

00:33:46.100 to do better in the world.

00:33:47.120 I mean, there's a lot of rudderless men today that, you know, as a function of societal

00:33:50.660 programming, single mother household, there's a whole bunch of reasons for it.

00:33:53.420 Um, but these are a bunch of very useful lessons.

00:33:56.160 So let's say I want to get on the Joe, on the Joe Rogan podcast.

00:34:00.480 Like how would I pitch him?

00:34:01.920 Like how would that work from your perspective?

00:34:03.760 So we've got a couple companies on Joe Rogan and it was done pretty organically as advisor

00:34:07.900 to a company called Hayabusa that makes a MMA combat gear.

00:34:11.220 And, uh, Joe Rogan uses his stuff, their stuff exclusively.

00:34:14.680 That was done organically.

00:34:16.120 Um, I also got canvas pop.

00:34:17.940 So, all right, first of all, two things you've got to lead with value.

00:34:22.180 Okay.

00:34:22.420 And I'll tell you how I got canvas pop actually on Joe Rogan's Instagram feed.

00:34:26.720 Um, real story.

00:34:28.620 Um, and you can, you guys can look this up if you want to kind of see the picture.

00:34:32.980 Um, here's what I did.

00:34:34.860 Here's what we did.

00:34:35.780 Uh, at this time I had a PR team working for me and I really wanted to get on Joe Rogan.

00:34:39.780 I just didn't know how, why canvas pop would, would, would belong on Joe Rogan, but we figured

00:34:45.240 out a way to do it.

00:34:46.080 And so sometimes about looking for opportunity and leading with value.

00:34:49.740 What do I mean?

00:34:50.620 Well, um, young Jamie was talking about, uh, some epic photo that Joe Rogan had and my PR

00:34:57.400 head of PR guy was a huge Joe Rogan fan.

00:34:59.020 In fact, he used to listen to it during the day at work and he found an opportunity and

00:35:02.480 said, you know what?

00:35:03.000 I'm going to contact Jamie, the producer of Joe Rogan and say, Hey, we would love to print

00:35:08.040 that epic photo for you.

00:35:09.160 I can't repeat what the picture was cause it was pretty crazy photo, but he just, he,

00:35:13.960 again, like, like same way I got on CSI New York.

00:35:16.340 I didn't say, can you give me a free ad on your podcast?

00:35:19.520 I, we, you know, I said, I want to make you a free piece of art.

00:35:22.540 We did the same thing to get on Joe Rogan.

00:35:24.080 I said, we're huge fans.

00:35:25.580 Uh, and it wasn't me.

00:35:26.480 I have to give a credit to chase the guy who was, you know, leading PR, uh, working for

00:35:31.160 me at the time.

00:35:31.980 He, he pitched at the right time with the right message and bringing leading value and said, I want

00:35:36.160 to print that picture for you.

00:35:37.120 And he did, he printed it and shipped it off for free.

00:35:39.020 They love the print.

00:35:40.580 And then we ended up taking a picture of Conor McGregor and repeating it a bunch of times.

00:35:44.960 And this was when Conor McGregor wasn't so hated.

00:35:47.880 Uh, and we printed it off and sent that as a gift.

00:35:50.260 And without asking Joe Rogan, put it on his main feed and said, I want to thank canvas

00:35:53.920 pop, uh, for printing this.

00:35:55.820 And it got hundreds of thousands of likes.

00:35:57.420 And so that's one example.

00:35:58.960 So how do you do it?

00:36:00.180 Well, first of all, I do a couple of things.

00:36:03.120 I would make sure that he hears about you from other people.

00:36:06.280 So I would get the whole Richard Cooper, uh, army, uh, right.

00:36:11.200 The whole playing to win army out there to start at messaging Joe Rogan.

00:36:15.840 Just actually do this.

00:36:17.060 If you're listening to this right now, go on to Instagram and mention Richard Cooper and,

00:36:23.400 and just do this on his feet.

00:36:24.920 And I guarantee Joe Rogan says he doesn't read his comments.

00:36:27.360 Bullshit.

00:36:27.840 I guarantee he reads his comments.

00:36:29.340 He reads his DMS.

00:36:30.620 And if 12 people, if just 12 people, maybe 24 people all message them within the next

00:36:36.460 couple of days, he's going to get on the radar.

00:36:39.020 It's going to go check out what Richard's talking about.

00:36:41.600 And he's going to get on his radar.

00:36:43.020 And you never know.

00:36:43.600 Young Jamie could be DMing you, Richard, and, uh, ask you to be on the show.

00:36:48.540 I've had two friends on the show.

00:36:50.500 Believe me, it could happen.

00:36:51.540 So first of all, I would need you to believe that you could do it.

00:36:53.520 I actually believe you're a great fit for Joe Rogan and, uh, it'll happen, but you've

00:36:58.220 got, you've got to make it out.

00:37:00.600 Let me ask you this question.

00:37:01.600 So there's, so there's some businesses that are not very sexy for the media.

00:37:04.960 So I tried really hard to get my debt business, um, some free PR because I really, you know,

00:37:13.840 saw what happened when he did it with 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

00:37:16.660 And I talked to the other people that were using the same principles and I even hired,

00:37:20.480 um, uh, what was his name?

00:37:22.960 Tyler from Megawatt PR.

00:37:24.440 Like, I don't know if you ever met Tyler.

00:37:25.380 He was a guy that got, that got lost in the hike.

00:37:27.220 He never showed up again.

00:37:27.940 Like he disappeared.

00:37:29.020 Yeah.

00:37:29.260 Yeah.

00:37:29.420 Um, yeah, yeah.

00:37:30.540 But I even hired him to, to do some work too.

00:37:32.620 And he was unsuccessful at it as well.

00:37:34.080 Very unsuccessful.

00:37:34.700 So there's certain businesses that just don't get picked up on PR because debt is not a sexy

00:37:39.980 thing to talk about.

00:37:40.820 You know what?

00:37:42.580 No.

00:37:43.320 Uh, you know, the mistake you made in this one area is no one can tell the story better

00:37:49.420 than Richard Cooper at this stage, at the early stage, when you're trying to get that flywheel,

00:37:54.280 PR is like a flywheel.

00:37:55.660 And at the beginning, you've got to take the leadership position to go tell your story and,

00:38:00.720 and to tell your narrative.

00:38:01.620 And I, I think credit is, is sexy because what you could do with credit is amazing.

00:38:06.140 We have a great credit score.

00:38:07.160 And, um, you know, when you're authentically tell your message and I've actually caught

00:38:12.400 videos of you on social media, it might've been Twitter.

00:38:15.740 It might've been Facebook.

00:38:16.520 I don't remember where, but I remember the message where you were saying, keep your credit

00:38:19.940 rating at half capacity or less.

00:38:22.280 I used to think I was being awesome, keeping my credit cards loaded to the tilt.

00:38:25.540 And you taught me that I should never use more than half my capacity.

00:38:29.260 And since then I've never emptying my credit cards all the time just to get better credit

00:38:32.920 rating.

00:38:33.560 Anyways, my point is when you're authentic and you go out there and tell your story,

00:38:37.160 it's not going to happen in a month and you can't just hire a dude or a PR agency

00:38:40.600 to make, make it your message out there in three months.

00:38:43.620 It's about doing it over a really long amount of time.

00:38:46.780 And if, and at the beginning, nobody, it would be like outsourcing the show to somebody else.

00:38:50.680 It wouldn't get any views.

00:38:52.380 Now, when you get big enough, you can start spinning off different, you know, uh, things

00:38:57.860 off of your, your main channel.

00:38:59.780 But at the beginning, you got to do it yourself.

00:39:01.320 So I'm a huge proponent in the early stage of the funding.

00:39:03.380 You, you should have been doing your own PR.

00:39:05.280 You should have been out there pitching a New York times, a financial posts or whoever

00:39:09.140 your audience is.

00:39:09.960 I think your audience would have been more like, um, you know, more people in the middle,

00:39:14.400 but, uh, you should have been doing your own PR.

00:39:16.660 You would have had much more success, just like you're having even more success here.

00:39:19.780 Now that you build your own show.

00:39:20.720 You know what I've noticed, um, you know, kind of as a by-product is it always shocks

00:39:27.720 me when somebody tells me after the fact that they watch my shit, like a guy like you, for

00:39:32.680 example, I think to myself, why would you have time to pay attention to a, to a short

00:39:37.100 clip on me talking about utilization on your credit to have a good credit score?

00:39:40.860 I was at a Starbucks the other day and I ran into a friend of mine.

00:39:44.240 Um, he's a guy that does like rehabs on houses.

00:39:47.260 He's very successful.

00:39:48.060 He wrote a book on it.

00:39:48.800 I actually had him on my channel a long, long time ago, a couple of years ago, we did like

00:39:51.820 this quick video on like four tips in his truck, but, um, I hadn't seen him a couple of years

00:39:56.180 and he just kind of like sticks his head around the corner.

00:39:57.720 He's like all excited to see me.

00:39:58.800 He's like, I've been watching your shit like crazy.

00:40:00.100 And it's like, I don't even know when people pay attention to my stuff.

00:40:03.080 So I think that this, that this new age today where a lot of people kind of get like caught

00:40:08.480 up in Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and all that sort of stuff, YouTube, it's, it's, if

00:40:13.260 you have something interesting to say and you're a good storyteller, then share it because if

00:40:19.040 it's, if it's worth sharing, like if the interesting is sorry, if the message has interesting components

00:40:24.440 to it and, or it has sound bites in it that are either enlightening or triggering or entertaining

00:40:29.760 or educating, it'll probably get moved around the internet at some point, right?

00:40:34.120 Like, would you agree with that?

00:40:35.920 I can't have said it better.

00:40:37.100 I mean, I have nothing to add to that.

00:40:38.080 It's exactly what you need to do.

00:40:39.360 And when you're passionate about it and you're authentic about it, these things that you and

00:40:43.160 I might take for granted because, you know, it's just common sense and it's become common

00:40:47.580 sense by us repeating these things.

00:40:50.600 Uh, when you share these golden nuggets, I don't know how many times you've had probably

00:40:53.300 people come up to you and be like, Hey Richard, thanks for giving me this piece of advice.

00:40:56.920 It changed my life, it fixed my relationship or it made me, you know, whatever it is.

00:41:01.580 I've had that happen as well.

00:41:02.940 I know people tell you that all the time.

00:41:04.620 And I'm like, I, sometimes I don't even remember saying a thing that, you know?

00:41:09.800 And so I think when we owe mankind as, as all of us, as entrepreneurs, as, as, as

00:41:15.860 wait, wait, wait, what about people kind, man?

00:41:18.080 Sorry.

00:41:18.560 What about people kind?

00:41:20.000 Yeah.

00:41:20.400 People kind.

00:41:21.020 Right.

00:41:21.640 Sorry.

00:41:22.140 My mistake.

00:41:22.900 I'm just messing with you.

00:41:24.100 I know you are.

00:41:25.320 I know you're from Ottawa, so I got to, so I got to play you a little bit.

00:41:29.200 What's that?

00:41:30.080 I know that you're from Ottawa, you know, you're right by our, uh, nation's great capital

00:41:33.400 with Justine Trudeau.

00:41:34.420 So I, so I got to, yeah, I'm a little too, don't get me started.

00:41:37.260 You're going to, you're going to trigger me now.

00:41:40.380 Anyway, mankind carry on.

00:41:42.480 Uh, yeah.

00:41:43.200 I mean, the bottom line is, I think that authenticity and knowledge, when we share what we have as

00:41:48.480 just organically, people eventually will pay attention.

00:41:51.660 And, and, uh, that is leading with value.

00:41:54.600 Again, we're coming back to the same, uh, subject matter, which is if you lead with value, you're

00:41:59.340 going to get way more out of, out of, uh, people than if you ask first.

00:42:03.960 What are you known for?

00:42:04.960 Like, is it mostly getting free PR?

00:42:07.260 I don't know what I'm known for.

00:42:08.460 I mean, uh, I'm an entrepreneur.

00:42:09.660 I mean, first and foremost, uh, that's how I define myself as truly an entrepreneur.

00:42:13.520 That's first and foremost, but I think, um, what I'm known for, I think is, is launching

00:42:19.880 businesses and knowing how to get that early growth momentum without having to spend a lot

00:42:23.680 of capital.

00:42:24.200 And that happens to be one of the best tools for that happens to be PR.

00:42:27.740 And so, uh, I just want to be known as an entrepreneur and I just want to be known as

00:42:31.860 somebody that brings value to people and, and, and encourages people and inspires people.

00:42:36.760 I think that's what we all want deep down inside, but PR.

00:42:39.840 Yeah.

00:42:40.240 Today it's about earned media PR.

00:42:42.360 Definitely my focus.

00:42:43.900 If you're, um, you know, if you're going to launch a business, um, how much value does

00:42:50.280 free PR and bootstrapping have versus building something that you need venture capital for?

00:42:56.340 Like, there's a lot of guys that, that go running around looking to raise money for their

00:42:59.800 business.

00:43:00.120 And then, I mean, I've known a few anyway that have raised a lot of money.

00:43:03.940 They've run their business for a few years and there's an exit and then they find themselves

00:43:07.340 with like legitimately next to nothing.

00:43:10.460 Right.

00:43:11.000 You know, because they've diluted their interest in the business so much and they've just given

00:43:14.540 it to a bunch of other people or companies or VCs or angel investors.

00:43:17.840 Like what's the, uh, can you talk about that a little bit?

00:43:20.580 Yeah.

00:43:20.720 I think, I think when you start a company, look, you don't need PR to be an incredibly successful

00:43:26.500 company.

00:43:26.840 You don't, you can, you can just build a great product and the word gets out organically.

00:43:30.820 Sometimes, sometimes your product just doesn't need PR.

00:43:33.340 Uh, there are certain companies that I've never done PR or find a lot of media are extremely

00:43:37.380 successful.

00:43:37.800 Don't get me wrong.

00:43:38.600 But when you start off with a company that's unique, that has a unique differentiator and

00:43:43.020 it's interesting, you're going to just, your life is going to be so much easier.

00:43:47.700 And it's actually Jeff Bezos that is renowned for, you know, CEO of, uh, Amazon for making

00:43:53.880 his product managers write a press release.

00:43:55.880 So I always encourage people like before you even build a product or any idea before you

00:44:00.040 build a business plan, write a press release.

00:44:02.000 It's one of the, try this Richard and people watching to honestly, next time you have a

00:44:05.600 product idea or a company idea, just try to write a press release, the headline, what

00:44:09.620 you're announcing, the, the five W's who, what, when, where, how much.

00:44:13.180 And if you can't make your idea fucking interesting on one page, one piece of paper in a way that

00:44:19.460 journalists will be interested or other people will be interested in it, don't bother building

00:44:22.760 that company because you're going to have a hell of a time explaining it to others, selling

00:44:26.080 it to others, or, or getting anybody to invest.

00:44:28.440 So, so I think that companies that start off with this mentality of being unique and different,

00:44:33.240 just have an easier time attracting everything.

00:44:35.960 Uh, if you start off with this mentality of a, a PR first mentality, if you want to call it

00:44:39.960 that.

00:44:40.200 You're, I kind of want to pivot a little bit here for a second.

00:44:45.360 So you're a bit of a red pill guy, right?

00:44:47.760 I mean, like you watch my stuff, you know, all the concepts.

00:44:51.080 Yeah.

00:44:51.380 Like how, how deep down the rabbit hole have you gone?

00:44:53.880 Like, have you gone through like the rational mail book series and stuff like that?

00:44:57.460 No, I haven't, I haven't digested a lot of the, the, the books and the content.

00:45:02.500 I definitely watch a lot of your content and I definitely agree.

00:45:05.360 Your advice, um, is, is very much like, it's the kind of advice that luckily I, I, uh, I

00:45:12.260 consider myself an alpha male and always have considered myself an alpha male.

00:45:15.580 And so a lot of it just reinforced a lot of the ideas that I've had.

00:45:19.100 But I think what you offer to a lot of guys who maybe didn't have a dad growing up or that

00:45:23.940 just didn't have the right role models is a lot of the common sense and things to look

00:45:28.140 out for.

00:45:28.640 And, um, but I definitely agree with a lot of the things that you, uh, that you talk

00:45:33.460 about, the advice that you give.

00:45:34.720 You're, you're a bit of a natural though, right?

00:45:37.640 I mean, like, was your dad an alpha?

00:45:39.460 Like what was your childhood like growing up?

00:45:41.280 Like where did I get that from?

00:45:42.400 No, no.

00:45:42.820 I watched my father, um, be essentially bossed around by my mom.

00:45:50.080 Bless her.

00:45:50.560 The reason that I'm even successful, I will tell you this.

00:45:53.280 I would probably be a criminal or who knows where I would be.

00:45:55.720 Honestly, if I didn't have an amazing, uh, mother growing up, so I'm very lucky, very

00:46:00.360 blessed.

00:46:00.780 I had a great father as well, but I definitely watched my mother, um, you know, really, really

00:46:05.940 bossing around a bit.

00:46:07.320 And I said, and that's another thing I said, I'm never, ever going to allow that to happen.

00:46:12.580 Uh, and I've stuck to that.

00:46:14.280 So it's, it's really important.

00:46:15.920 I think I actually molded me.

00:46:17.260 I did not have a, an alpha for a father.

00:46:19.440 He's, you know, he's passed away now and I really love him and admire many of the things

00:46:23.760 he did for us growing up, but it's certainly, I learned from what not to do.

00:46:27.820 That's what my father.

00:46:28.900 Um, so back to my point about, um, you know, the lens in which you view the world and your

00:46:34.680 success with business.

00:46:35.400 So I was having a conversation a couple months ago, I do this other show on Monday nights

00:46:40.060 called, uh, before the train wreck.

00:46:41.460 And I had this, um, guy fill in that's an author's name is Aaron Cleary.

00:46:44.440 And a lot of guys will just kind of like go straight to how do I get the girls, right?

00:46:50.880 Like, um, how do I get girls?

00:46:52.400 How do we get the girls?

00:46:53.280 And I mean, if anybody follows you on Instagram, they'll see you have no problem with women,

00:46:57.640 obviously, but, um, they'll put too much focus on chasing tail.

00:47:01.900 By the way, it's one woman.

00:47:02.880 Now I've actually had one woman guy for the first time in like 40 years.

00:47:06.080 So, uh, not well for the last few years I've been in a, believe it or not, in a single,

00:47:10.100 you know, monogamous relationship.

00:47:11.320 So it's, uh, it's been great, but.

00:47:13.020 Okay.

00:47:13.160 So we stand corrected.

00:47:14.220 So, um, the point of the, uh, the, uh, story here is, so a lot of guys will go directly

00:47:21.480 to how do I get the girls?

00:47:22.940 And I feel like the question should be more like, how do I put my dent in the universe?

00:47:27.180 How do I chase excellence?

00:47:28.440 And one of the questions that I asked Aaron, and I want to put this to you, do you think

00:47:31.620 it's easier to create and build a business that makes a million dollars a year in revenue

00:47:36.520 than it is to find a perfect woman to wife up?

00:47:40.380 Look, building a million dollar business is not easy.

00:47:45.140 Um, it's not, but I think that if you create, if you first of all, take care of yourself

00:47:52.260 and a lot of this was against a lot of people's advice, like be selfish.

00:47:54.880 And what I mean by that is make sure that you're put yourself first, put yourself first

00:47:59.580 because no one else is basically what, what it boils down to.

00:48:03.660 Correct.

00:48:04.580 And, and so I think we're both very aligned on this.

00:48:06.640 If you chase excellence, if you take care of yourself physically, if you are successful,

00:48:12.100 whatever that means to you, you're going to respect yourself more and that you're going

00:48:16.820 to be more attractive to everybody too.

00:48:18.940 Whether it's women, uh, employees, investors, whatever, you're going to attract people.

00:48:23.060 And so you got to be selfish.

00:48:24.300 You're going to start with yourself and you kind of got to, you know, to use Jordan Peterson's

00:48:28.080 kind of line, you've got to make your own, you got to, you got to clean your room first

00:48:31.480 before you can start going out there and doing anything.

00:48:33.420 And so, yeah, I'm a hundred percent alignment with that is, uh, be excellent.

00:48:37.440 You will attract excellence.

00:48:38.640 You can't go out there and be a slob, be a loser, not work hard, not have a work ethic,

00:48:43.480 and then hope that a 10 out of 10 model is going to fall in love with your slobby ass.

00:48:48.180 So, so yeah, I mean, I absolutely, uh, start with yourself and, uh, and you will attract

00:48:53.920 what you are.

00:48:55.020 So back to the question, do you think it's easier to build a million dollar business

00:48:58.260 or find that one perfect girl?

00:48:59.820 I'd probably say it's easier to build a million dollar business because then the rest of the

00:49:04.900 life is easy, right?

00:49:06.140 Because the second part becomes that much more easier because then you've got more, you've

00:49:11.320 got more access.

00:49:11.980 I mean, you've got more inventory to choose from because you're a higher value guy, right?

00:49:16.500 Correct.

00:49:17.340 Correct.

00:49:18.340 See, you know, I see this general trend today.

00:49:21.840 Um, and I never noticed it before until I started doing this stuff in YouTube and it wasn't

00:49:26.500 even for the first little while.

00:49:27.460 So it's only been like the last few years that I've noticed this trend.

00:49:30.320 There's a lot of guys that just throw in the towel.

00:49:32.920 They're like, fuck it.

00:49:34.060 I'm not doing it.

00:49:34.840 Women aren't worth it.

00:49:35.800 It's not worth chasing money.

00:49:36.980 There's only so much of it out there.

00:49:38.380 All the rich people already have it.

00:49:40.220 What do you say to those guys that are like kind of more of the, um, I've given up attitude.

00:49:45.540 What you're going, you're going to get, you're going to hit the target that you're aiming

00:49:49.640 for.

00:49:49.960 If you believe that there's scarcity, you're going to see scarcity and you're going to have scarcity.

00:49:54.440 Uh, you're not going to have anything.

00:49:56.340 Uh, I think it's like almost everything is created up here in your brain.

00:50:00.880 Right.

00:50:01.360 Um, and you know, you are what you think you are, if that makes sense, you know, and I

00:50:06.960 think you, you definitely believe in this is the idea of, if you think you're successful

00:50:11.720 and intelligent enough and you apply yourself, of course, and do the work, right.

00:50:15.460 You're going to, you're going to see the benefits eventually.

00:50:18.400 And so, yeah, I mean, look, I've never had a loser mentality.

00:50:22.240 It's just the one thing I've never had.

00:50:23.440 Maybe it's my mom that instilled that in me.

00:50:25.720 But, uh, if you think like a loser, you're going to become a loser.

00:50:28.800 And if you think like a winner and act like a winner, you're going to eventually win.

00:50:33.900 Uh, it's just, that's been my, my pattern that I, that I've seen.

00:50:38.520 What would you say are your, are your top habits, um, that allow you to win in life?

00:50:43.040 Like what are the top three to five habits you would say that, um, you know, are, are

00:50:47.340 your core values?

00:50:48.340 You know how we talked about core values with Cameron, you know, with a vivid vision and

00:50:51.340 all that sort of stuff.

00:50:51.900 Like what are your core values today that you utilize with every choice that you make to

00:50:56.740 get better results out of life?

00:50:58.420 Yeah, there's, there's, they're all going to be cliches.

00:51:00.360 I'm going to tell you that straight up because I usually take it from somebody else or from

00:51:03.880 a book or whatever.

00:51:04.900 I, uh, but, but my remix on that is, you know, the first thing for me is don't settle.

00:51:10.760 And that's actually a really easy one that anybody can do.

00:51:14.140 Um, and what I mean by that is you set the bar where you want to be and then measure up

00:51:20.600 to that bar.

00:51:21.160 And so for small things for me, like I made a decision a long time ago that I'm never

00:51:26.380 going to fly coach.

00:51:27.320 I don't fly coach.

00:51:28.160 I only fly first class.

00:51:29.440 And even my friends that make a lot more, I'm not saying that to sound like a douchebag.

00:51:33.160 What I'm saying is I just decided I don't like flying a coach.

00:51:36.680 I'm going to fly first class.

00:51:37.800 Or if I stay in a hotel, I only want to stay in a beautiful boutique hotel because I want

00:51:41.660 to surround myself with beautiful things because I deserve that.

00:51:44.980 And it inherently becomes true after a while.

00:51:47.360 Right?

00:51:47.660 So you set your bar, the kind of car you want to drive, the kind of woman you want to be

00:51:51.000 with, the kind of house you want to live in.

00:51:53.400 And, and don't settle because if you settle, that's the beginning.

00:51:56.360 That's the cancer of, of being a failure is settling.

00:52:00.700 Don't settle.

00:52:01.160 Um, I'm going to say the other big one for me is you are who you surround yourself with.

00:52:06.260 I've never seen this not be true.

00:52:08.660 Like, um, if you surround yourself with athletes, you're going to be athletic.

00:52:12.860 If you surround yourself with billionaires, you might only become a millionaire, but you're

00:52:17.620 going to learn something, whether you want to or not through osmosis.

00:52:20.020 And so those are the two major things.

00:52:21.960 Don't settle and don't settle with the people you hang out with.

00:52:24.640 Don't hang out with toxic people.

00:52:26.240 Don't hang out with losers.

00:52:27.280 If your girlfriend's putting you down, it doesn't want to rise you up, get rid of her,

00:52:31.340 get a new one or be alone for a bit until you're, until you deserve to have a, a better

00:52:36.120 relationship, but, uh, don't settle and hang out with great people.

00:52:39.860 That's really my rule.

00:52:42.220 What are you up to this winter?

00:52:43.280 You were talking about, um, you know, getting together with some of the gang and doing some

00:52:47.300 snowboarding and skiing at, uh, bald face.

00:52:50.240 Yeah.

00:52:50.760 So first and foremost, I don't spend winters in Canada as much as I love our country for now,

00:52:55.140 11 years.

00:52:55.840 I, I, I live in Santa Monica, California for three, four months out of every year.

00:53:00.320 It's something I've been doing no matter what, it's what I do every year, no matter what size

00:53:04.380 the company is at, no matter how I'm feeling, that's what I do.

00:53:07.180 And then ironically, I'm going to do a little snow hunting with Dan Martell.

00:53:12.400 Um, the guy who started, uh, clarity and it's just a, you know, just a, an amazing guy,

00:53:18.300 an amazing coach, the SAS company.

00:53:20.680 I know, you know, you know, do you know Dan Martell?

00:53:22.360 Oh yeah.

00:53:22.920 That's, that's how I got on clarity.

00:53:24.540 I mean, Cameron actually introduced me to him when I was at a mastermind talks.

00:53:27.360 He's like, you got to talk to this guy, Dan.

00:53:28.520 Cause I was, cause I was talking to Cameron.

00:53:30.020 I'm like, a lot of people keep messaging me, asking me for help with something.

00:53:32.720 He goes, here's my friend, Dan, let me introduce you.

00:53:34.820 And he brings them over.

00:53:35.500 He's like, sign up for clarity.fm and let him book you for coaching.

00:53:38.820 Right.

00:53:39.100 So Dan did an exit.

00:53:40.720 So anyway, so I mean, like he's doing this thing this winter.

00:53:43.020 Yeah.

00:53:43.340 So he's invited about 45 guys up to bald face.

00:53:48.060 Uh, bald face is pretty cool.

00:53:50.140 Uh, have you been there before?

00:53:51.080 I haven't been there.

00:53:52.000 No, I've not got an invite yet.

00:53:53.940 Well, we'll, we'll get you, we'll get you that invite.

00:53:55.860 Cause it's, uh, it's cool in a couple of senses.

00:53:58.660 I mean, it's got more powder than anywhere else and you can only get to it by helicopter.

00:54:02.360 So there's no roads leading to this place.

00:54:04.060 And are you snow hunting?

00:54:05.000 You said, are you skiing?

00:54:06.320 I said snow hunting in the sense that I'm hunting for snow.

00:54:08.860 I don't actually hunt, but, um, yeah, like usually I'm trying to get away from the snow.

00:54:13.180 In this case, I'm chasing the snow.

00:54:14.840 Got it.

00:54:15.160 Okay.

00:54:15.380 And so we're, you're taking a helicopter up to a bald face.

00:54:19.740 The only way to access it.

00:54:20.800 And then spending four days with a bunch of really smart guys that are all, uh, technologies

00:54:25.640 that SAS founders and stuff like that.

00:54:27.580 So that's not the reason I'm going.

00:54:29.600 I'm going there to push myself.

00:54:30.800 I have a extreme fear of avalanches, um, known a few people that have died in avalanches

00:54:37.040 and I've always been a huge snowboarder, mountain biker, downhill sports guy.

00:54:40.220 And I've always avoided like Dan calls me every year and I'm like, I'm busy that week.

00:54:44.900 And I said, you know what?

00:54:45.520 Fuck it.

00:54:45.880 I'm going to do it.

00:54:47.160 Um, I'm going to go ahead and go big and, uh, yeah, just going to go for it.

00:54:51.700 And I'm really looking forward to that in January.

00:54:54.500 Yeah.

00:54:54.820 It's always good to surround yourself with guys like that.

00:54:56.640 I mean, you know, going back to your earlier point of you become the average of the five

00:54:59.320 people who spend the most time with me, if you spend time with 40 guys that are top shelf

00:55:02.600 and running excellent companies, chasing excellence, they're putting themselves first.

00:55:06.200 I get like, here's okay.

00:55:08.360 So here's an interesting point.

00:55:09.420 So one of the thing I've noticed about really, really successful guys that putting, that are

00:55:13.420 putting a dent in the universe that are chasing excellence, you know, they're able to get

00:55:16.420 together with all these people and do these really, really cool things.

00:55:19.000 There's a lot of guys that tend to suffer with women still that, that tend to struggle

00:55:23.420 with women.

00:55:23.960 Have you noticed that?

00:55:24.980 Yes.

00:55:25.780 Why do you think that is?

00:55:26.500 You know, I think it's different for everybody.

00:55:30.100 I think we all have insecurities.

00:55:31.580 Look, we can act as tough as we want, but I mean, everyone I know has some sort of insecurity

00:55:35.500 in their lives.

00:55:36.280 And I think that until you deal with those, the root of that, you can fool other people

00:55:40.920 for a bit, but you can't fool yourself.

00:55:42.220 And so I'm going to flip that back to you.

00:55:45.140 Why do you think that happens?

00:55:47.860 They subscribe to the same myths, notions and lies that society, culture, religion, school,

00:55:54.700 parenting, everything has sold in their entire life that everybody else has, which is, which

00:55:58.440 is difficult to see past until you're ready to accept the truth.

00:56:03.420 Right.

00:56:03.660 I mean, these guys work so hard, like they can build a 50, a hundred million dollar business

00:56:08.060 within five years, you know, in some cases, you know, they'll make more money than most

00:56:14.600 people ever see in their entire lives, but they'll let a woman push them around and run

00:56:18.820 them through the grinder or tear them through the divorce machine.

00:56:22.240 Right.

00:56:23.180 Um, and then, and they never see it coming.

00:56:25.280 Right.

00:56:25.540 I mean, like a lot of the coaching that I do on clarity is kind of in the higher end because

00:56:29.100 my billing rate per minute is pretty high now.

00:56:31.300 And it's only really, cause I want to work with guys like that and they can afford to,

00:56:34.300 you know, carve out the time for it, but it's, you're not, you're not setting the bar low.

00:56:38.440 You've just did exactly set the bar high.

00:56:40.700 Well, therefore now you're worth that.

00:56:42.640 That's to your point.

00:56:44.460 You know, when I first started doing the clarity at 200 bucks an hour, the kind of calls that

00:56:49.900 I was getting booked where I work in the oil sands, my roommates, a stoner, my ex-wife's

00:56:55.920 a very difficult.

00:56:57.260 She's giving me a hard time with my son.

00:56:58.960 I can't get out of the place.

00:57:00.120 What do I do?

00:57:00.580 And it's like, I don't want to have those basic conversations.

00:57:02.840 I want to deal with a guy that's having a higher level problem that I can solve so he

00:57:05.960 can release himself from it and go and put his dent in the universe sort of thing.

00:57:09.640 Um, so as I went higher scale and I valued myself more, I made more money and actually work

00:57:15.480 less than I make more money.

00:57:16.400 So working less, making more money, um, you know, paid off.

00:57:19.660 And I also understand entrepreneurs.

00:57:21.380 Like I get their mindset.

00:57:22.620 I get their struggle.

00:57:23.540 I do it.

00:57:24.180 I've done it.

00:57:24.780 I still do it.

00:57:26.180 Um, so I always find it fascinating that there's a lot of guys out there that are absolutely

00:57:30.800 top shelf work, world-class at what they do.

00:57:33.020 They can build some of the best technology companies, some of the most interesting products,

00:57:36.620 solve the most difficult problems that other people can't, but they can't get over something

00:57:41.380 like a one-itis.

00:57:42.060 Like how do I get her back rich?

00:57:44.040 Right.

00:57:44.480 You know, sort of thing, or I don't understand why she was banging Chad in Cancun when she went

00:57:48.700 away with her girlfriends and, and I bought her the house and the renovated the bathroom

00:57:52.840 and gave her the kids and all this sort of stuff.

00:57:54.280 Right.

00:57:54.720 So I always find that really, really interesting when it comes to dudes.

00:57:57.180 And that's kind of the area that I'm, that I'm leaning more into focusing on too.

00:58:00.740 Yeah.

00:58:00.880 I have no idea what causes that phenomenon because, uh, starting a company is extremely

00:58:05.280 difficult.

00:58:05.740 You've got to put up with so many challenges every day.

00:58:08.840 Um, you would think that, uh, these guys would be able to apply that those same principles

00:58:13.640 to the relationship.

00:58:14.420 Right.

00:58:15.360 Um, and I think in a lot of ways, if you can't, I mean, look, it's having a successful relationship

00:58:20.700 is a little different than running a company, but you should be able to apply the principles

00:58:24.360 of, you know, respect and being able to be respect.

00:58:28.340 So again, it comes down to not settling.

00:58:29.620 I've seen, I've seen guys, I mean, quite honestly, the guys that I've seen who have

00:58:34.440 terrible relationships kind of allow it to happen.

00:58:37.880 If, if that makes sense, like, you know, one little thing and then they don't say anything.

00:58:42.660 And then one thing turns to five little things.

00:58:44.900 And then before you know it, um, you know, you, you don't have that mutual respect anymore.

00:58:49.840 And I think it's gotta be mutual, right?

00:58:51.780 Uh, it's gotta be two ways.

00:58:53.580 And I, yeah, I've seen this phenomenon too.

00:58:55.700 I won't name any names, but there's some pretty big names out there.

00:58:57.860 Guys that have just been steamrolled by their, by their partners, uh, by, you know, their

00:59:03.260 wives, uh, and sometimes by their husbands too.

00:59:06.160 Right.

00:59:06.380 So, so the, the, the, the point is, yeah, I've seen it and I really don't understand it.

00:59:12.680 I saw a picture of you the other day.

00:59:14.420 Uh, I think you posted it on, on Instagram.

00:59:16.620 You're looking at a Ferrari.

00:59:18.140 Let's talk about cars for a bit.

00:59:19.400 Cause have you ever gotten into a rally before?

00:59:22.620 No, that's, that's on my list.

00:59:24.460 And, uh, you know, Saturn, right?

00:59:26.460 Saturn.

00:59:26.820 I'm like, Oh yes, I do know Saturn, the cars are coffee.

00:59:30.500 Yeah.

00:59:31.740 Sorry.

00:59:32.220 That kind of rally.

00:59:32.920 I thought you meant rally car racing.

00:59:34.400 That's a whole other thing.

00:59:35.620 Well, that's another one too.

00:59:36.500 I've done that as well down in Cabo in Mexico.

00:59:38.800 Yes.

00:59:39.140 I saw that.

00:59:40.480 Ask Dan about that.

00:59:41.700 Cause I know he's done that as well.

00:59:42.880 Yes.

00:59:43.400 Dirt fish.

00:59:43.760 He's doing something I think called dirt fish.

00:59:45.740 It's, um, wide open Baja.

00:59:47.680 It's actually like off-road racing and these $90,000 race cars.

00:59:50.940 They're that's the one you did.

00:59:52.520 And I messaged you on Instagram.

00:59:53.780 The first time we really communicated on Instagram, I was like, where are you, man?

00:59:56.660 That's my dream.

00:59:57.620 Yeah.

00:59:57.760 So, I mean, I love off-roading and I love track racing and I have done rallies.

01:00:02.460 I mean, anything, anything on four wheels I'm into.

01:00:05.560 So did you pick up that Ferrari or?

01:00:07.720 No.

01:00:08.000 No.

01:00:08.960 So the Ferrari, the Ferrari was, uh, uh, I actually got to go down to the factory, uh, just like

01:00:14.820 everybody else looked, just do a lot of window shopping, but had to take one out for the day.

01:00:18.980 And, uh, it was a four, eight, eight, uh, an amazing car.

01:00:21.800 I'm definitely going to get one.

01:00:23.200 Uh, I just think it's just, I know it's kind of stupid to say this, but it is the most impractical

01:00:28.300 car imaginable.

01:00:29.920 So at least with an R8, you know, you've, you've got this back seats if you need it.

01:00:34.220 And it's a two seater dude.

01:00:37.160 Oh, is it?

01:00:38.140 Yeah.

01:00:38.380 And the trunk's even smaller in my car than it is in a, um, Ferrari.

01:00:41.740 The Ferrari has a much bigger trunk because a quadro system takes it.

01:00:44.300 You're in Lambo territory with that thing.

01:00:45.840 Yeah.

01:00:46.020 So you've got, I forget that it's basically the same frame as a Lambo.

01:00:49.980 Um, so yeah, so there's no practicality in your car either, but, um, yeah, I, I did not

01:00:55.820 buy the Ferrari.

01:00:56.480 It's in, it's definitely on my list, uh, to get a Ferrari, but it's going to have to be,

01:01:00.460 I think a secondary vehicle.

01:01:02.200 And the thing right now is I live in California.

01:01:05.500 I live in Canada.

01:01:06.760 Uh, it would have to be in California for me to really justify it at all because we,

01:01:11.360 you know, we don't have enough time to drive it, but it's, I'm going to get one.

01:01:14.420 I'm going to get one.

01:01:16.020 Um, when you were in Italy, when you went to Marinello.

01:01:19.080 So, so you went to the Ferrari plant.

01:01:21.100 Did you just go to the Lambo plant and the Pagani one?

01:01:23.640 I would, uh, Pagani, I would have gone to see.

01:01:25.720 In fact, the guy, if you see the video, uh, I'll send it to you after, but the guy that

01:01:29.620 I was, uh, test driving the car with, uh, who actually used to work for Pagani was a

01:01:33.620 test driver for Pagani.

01:01:34.980 Oh, that big, good looking Italian dude.

01:01:36.880 No, he was a big dude.

01:01:38.400 He was big, but he wouldn't, uh, you know, uh, he, he wasn't a supermodel, put it that

01:01:43.580 way, but he was a very good driver.

01:01:45.360 And, uh, he used to, he used to be one of many tests ever team of test

01:01:49.020 drivers and it was really cool to talk to the guy.

01:01:52.140 Um, so, so, but I didn't go to Lamborghini.

01:01:55.080 You know what?

01:01:55.340 I'm not a Lamborghini guy.

01:01:56.580 I would have felt like a traitor even walking into that.

01:01:59.140 Really?

01:01:59.900 Do you know the story behind Lamborghini?

01:02:01.400 It's a very cool story.

01:02:02.620 I do.

01:02:03.060 I do respect the story.

01:02:05.080 I do like that.

01:02:05.780 He kind of got pissed off.

01:02:07.800 Yeah.

01:02:08.260 Yeah.

01:02:08.920 And so I just want to tell it cause I know a lot of people probably haven't heard it,

01:02:11.580 but, um, Ferruccio Lamborghini, uh, had a tractor company at the time and he was working

01:02:19.300 after world war two.

01:02:20.280 Cause there's a lot of like us military gear that was left behind bulldozers and engineering

01:02:24.380 stuff.

01:02:24.760 And he basically started to build tractors and he wanted to buy a nice exotic car and

01:02:28.520 he bought a Ferrari and he didn't like it.

01:02:29.860 So he went to end zone.

01:02:30.680 He's like, the transmission doesn't work well.

01:02:32.360 This, this part sucks.

01:02:33.660 Can you fix it?

01:02:34.720 And Enzo basically told him to go fuck himself because all he really cared about was racing.

01:02:39.160 And the only reason why he made cars was to make money to go racing.

01:02:42.700 That's right.

01:02:43.540 So Lamborghini goes, go fuck myself.

01:02:46.760 Okay.

01:02:47.420 I'm going to go fuck myself over here and make a car better than yours is basically what he

01:02:50.640 did.

01:02:50.860 Right.

01:02:51.340 Yeah.

01:02:51.560 So it's a very cool entrepreneurial sort of like, um, journey and it's, it's a very successful

01:02:57.800 company.

01:02:58.220 I think they probably sell more cars than Ferrari now.

01:03:01.760 You think so?

01:03:02.480 I know the Huracan has been a big seller for them.

01:03:05.120 Um, and with the Urus and the infusion into Audi and Volkswagen, you know, that whole group.

01:03:10.840 So they're able to cross pollinate.

01:03:12.080 Cause I know that Ferrari is really just owned by a Fiat, right?

01:03:15.580 By Fiat.

01:03:16.820 Yeah.

01:03:17.520 Yeah.

01:03:17.960 Yeah.

01:03:18.160 But all, all great and beautiful cars.

01:03:20.740 But anyway, dude, if you get one, I'll, I'll hook you up with a rally cause I'm doing another

01:03:24.800 one again this summer.

01:03:25.840 There's, I think there's only like 12 or 13 slots left open.

01:03:29.080 So if you get one, let me know and I'll get you brought into the group.

01:03:31.860 But it's like the most fun you can have with your clothes on, hanging out with a bunch of

01:03:35.860 other dudes and fast cars.

01:03:37.340 Yes.

01:03:37.780 You have this entire system set up with like radios and screens and ways and radar detectors

01:03:42.280 and CBs and police scanners and all.

01:03:44.840 It's just awesome.

01:03:45.680 I got to do one.

01:03:47.160 I actually did one in the, I have a Maserati.

01:03:51.360 So it has a Ferrari engine at least, but it's like a GT and I, when it was new, I brought

01:03:55.820 it out and there were just, you know, cars out there were incredible Ferraris.

01:03:59.880 And I mean, you name it, you've seen, I've seen your videos.

01:04:02.560 I got to do it though.

01:04:03.620 We went to Muskoka and the radios and it was just a pretty cool bunch of group for the

01:04:07.960 group for the most part.

01:04:08.820 And we had a blast.

01:04:10.520 Nice.

01:04:11.920 I'm going to let you guys hop in and ask questions if you want, because we've got about another

01:04:16.820 25 minutes left.

01:04:18.180 So I'll put it in the, actually I'll put it in the general chat.

01:04:21.200 So it distributes everywhere.

01:04:23.200 Join us and ask a question.

01:04:27.840 Boom.

01:04:28.480 And I want to talk to you about the Baja racing thing.

01:04:31.100 So every year I do, I go out and do the razor stuff, right?

01:04:34.600 I get to boot around in either Palm Springs and stuff.

01:04:38.640 I love razors because they're just fun to goof around a thousand cc, you know, kind of thing.

01:04:43.100 But how is the Baja?

01:04:44.280 I mean, that's, that's something I definitely want to do.

01:04:46.760 And, uh, it's like a bigger razor.

01:04:51.100 Um, they're not that much more powerful.

01:04:53.160 I think the power to weight ratio is pretty much the same as a razor, but the suspension

01:04:56.500 is way more capable.

01:04:57.680 I think you get about a foot and a half of suspension travel.

01:05:00.460 Um, so you can do things to those buggies that, I mean, you can roll them and they'll

01:05:07.440 just go back on the wheels and you can drive away.

01:05:09.340 Wow.

01:05:09.900 Right.

01:05:10.100 Like they're really, really, really, really tough and they can take all kinds of terrain.

01:05:14.800 Like as long as you're not submerging it underwater or rolling it off a cliff, they can pretty

01:05:19.780 much drive over it.

01:05:21.100 And, um, actually I got a video I put on my channel.

01:05:24.460 I'll send it to you later so you can watch it.

01:05:25.940 I don't usually vlog on my channel car stuff, but I did a vlog of that, um, trip that I

01:05:31.300 did down to Baja and I went off road at almost 95 miles an hour going around a bend and I

01:05:37.240 hit a cactus, but I mean, you got to watch the video to see it, but it's, I want to watch

01:05:41.980 that.

01:05:42.280 So what about like, so did you have a respirator, uh, air tubes and stuff like that?

01:05:46.840 Were you just swallowing up dust the whole time?

01:05:48.780 No, there's a, uh, there's a, there's basically a curtain that Velcro's onto your helmet so

01:05:53.640 that it keeps the dust out.

01:05:54.800 Yeah.

01:05:55.120 And then there's a pumper pack, so it keeps positive air pressure in your helmet.

01:05:58.540 So if any dust comes in, it's just pushed out.

01:06:00.620 Okay, cool.

01:06:01.480 Yeah.

01:06:02.360 That's cool.

01:06:03.000 And so, um, the cars themselves, it must have a lot of roll though with that much travel.

01:06:09.600 Is it, how does it handle?

01:06:11.120 Is it, do you feel a lot of roll, a ton of movement?

01:06:13.680 I assume, right?

01:06:14.400 Very loose.

01:06:14.940 It's not like a road car.

01:06:15.820 Like there's no anti-roll bars, like there's no connection between the wheels.

01:06:18.920 So if you can have one wheel up like this and one down like this, right?

01:06:22.440 Right.

01:06:23.180 And what's the top speeds that can hit on those things?

01:06:25.780 Um, it's only a four speed manual.

01:06:27.620 And I think wide open, you can get up to about a hundred miles an hour tops.

01:06:31.220 Like if you're downhill with the wind behind you, but it feels really fast.

01:06:33.920 Cause there's no windshield.

01:06:34.720 There's nothing there.

01:06:35.380 It's just, it's just you in the wind and there's cactuses zooming by you like this.

01:06:38.840 I've got to do it.

01:06:39.680 Okay.

01:06:40.120 I want you to send me information on that.

01:06:41.460 Cause I definitely want to sign up for that.

01:06:43.320 Um, have you ever done any cart?

01:06:45.220 Like, uh, F 2000 or, um, like any of that type of stuff?

01:06:49.780 Um, no, I've never done any, any like open wheel racing, but I, but I had a shifter cart

01:06:54.160 when I was younger.

01:06:54.720 So I used to race shifter carts on, um, Mossport.

01:06:57.900 Yep.

01:06:58.340 And that's a really big workout.

01:06:59.560 Right.

01:06:59.920 But I mean, I raced motorcycles on the street.

01:07:02.360 You know, when I say race on the street, I had a sport bike that we'd race with friends

01:07:06.360 like on the ramps and at, you know, the middle of the night and stuff like that.

01:07:09.420 So I've always been on fast things.

01:07:11.080 And then by about 30, some of my friends started to die on bikes.

01:07:14.200 So I sold the bike and I got a fast convertible and kind of went into like the exotic car

01:07:18.920 convertibles.

01:07:19.420 And I'm going to be picking up something else for next year too.

01:07:22.580 What do you, what do you, uh, what's next on the list?

01:07:25.180 Uh, it's going to have an engine in the middle and over 600 horsepower.

01:07:28.700 So I'll, I'll let you know when I get it.

01:07:30.540 Okay.

01:07:30.800 I got it.

01:07:31.340 I see where you're going with that.

01:07:32.780 I mean, you know, it's funny is I'm, um, looking for a little bit of practicality so that I'm

01:07:38.600 leaning towards, um, getting a G wagon and I put a place in order on one.

01:07:42.900 And, uh, what are your thoughts on sort of, um, you know, the, the defender versus, you

01:07:48.500 know, the G wagons and these sort of luxury SUVs.

01:07:50.900 You find that there, I like the new, um, I think it's called the defender that's coming

01:07:54.880 out by Land Rover, right?

01:07:56.000 They've got the 90 and then the one 10.

01:07:58.220 Yeah.

01:07:59.020 I think I would go for one of those honestly, because I've liked the Wrangler, but it's too

01:08:02.780 kitty like, and you know, you see a lot of, um, younger people and it's not that like

01:08:08.120 refined inside.

01:08:08.920 It's kind of shitty on the inside.

01:08:09.940 I think I'd go for like one of those Land Rover defenders that are coming up next year.

01:08:14.100 They got the 90, which is a two door and they got the one 10, which is a four door.

01:08:17.260 I probably just get the 90, right?

01:08:19.020 I feel like they ruined it.

01:08:20.880 I honestly love the, uh, the classic defender, like the old school defender, that sort of

01:08:25.380 militarized, um, you can still buy them.

01:08:27.460 They're still on the auto trader, but they're just like, you know, they're just old.

01:08:30.640 They, they drive terrible.

01:08:31.680 I took one for a test drive.

01:08:32.740 They just were fun.

01:08:33.540 And I, I just, I couldn't handle it.

01:08:35.300 I was like, yeah, you don't want that.

01:08:36.060 Like you want something that's a little more refined.

01:08:37.460 It's got like an air suspension.

01:08:38.720 You can raise it and lower it, whatever.

01:08:39.940 Right.

01:08:40.220 Yeah.

01:08:40.600 And serious horsepower and, you know, something that, you know, as a sort of a, a daily driver.

01:08:45.380 Right.

01:08:45.740 So, um, but yeah, the Ferrari is going to be next.

01:08:49.160 I'm sorry you ordered a G wagon, man.

01:08:51.160 I wasn't a big fan of that when I drove it.

01:08:52.960 No, you didn't like it.

01:08:53.760 I found out.

01:08:54.620 Did you drive the new ones?

01:08:56.500 Uh, not the newest generation.

01:08:58.320 The last one up until about like a year or two ago.

01:09:01.380 Okay.

01:09:02.000 I just, I don't know.

01:09:02.900 Like the windshield's right here in your face.

01:09:04.720 And I don't know.

01:09:06.080 It just feels like a soccer mom car when I drive it.

01:09:08.020 Like I said.

01:09:08.260 Yeah.

01:09:08.540 The old one, you have to take a 2020 or 2019 and stuff.

01:09:12.360 It's completely different, completely different vehicle.

01:09:15.180 But yeah, we'll share, we'll share some car stuff offline that I'm looking at some other

01:09:19.460 stuff.

01:09:19.960 So.

01:09:20.200 Yeah.

01:09:20.340 Yeah.

01:09:20.520 Yeah.

01:09:20.720 All right, guys, the link's there if you want to join in and ask a question.

01:09:24.480 I mean, you know, you got a couple of dudes on here for a little bit longer.

01:09:28.020 Oh, there we go.

01:09:29.040 We got John on, so we'll throw him in this game.

01:09:31.240 What's up, Johnny?

01:09:32.440 Hey, man.

01:09:32.940 How are you guys doing?

01:09:33.940 Good.

01:09:34.200 What's shaking, brother?

01:09:35.440 I'm just waking up.

01:09:36.660 It's Friday morning in Tokyo here.

01:09:38.540 I'm really loving this episode.

01:09:39.920 I just want to ask a very quick question.

01:09:42.520 So let's say you're getting great organic traffic for whatever your business is.

01:09:49.400 Do you think it is a viable solution to add paid traffic to that if what you're having

01:09:55.960 is already getting traction or what would you be your professional advice on that?

01:09:59.760 That's a great, that's a really good one, actually.

01:10:01.780 So yes, I'm not knocking paid advertising at all.

01:10:04.800 I think you need to do both because the thing with, of course, with earned media is that

01:10:09.840 you can't control it.

01:10:10.600 You can't control the messaging.

01:10:11.700 You can't control the timing.

01:10:12.600 So what I often suggest people do is let's just say you get on the Today Show with your

01:10:16.960 product or you get in the New York Times.

01:10:18.820 What I often say is take that momentum, put it into an ad, and then pay money to send either

01:10:24.180 that traffic.

01:10:24.800 Some people send the traffic to the ad, to the article.

01:10:28.320 Some people will send it back to their site using the media they already got.

01:10:32.540 But the cool thing is what happens, somebody clicks on that New York Times article because

01:10:35.820 they're curious about your company.

01:10:37.320 They come to your site.

01:10:38.540 You want to pixel track them, right?

01:10:39.700 Use pixel tracking and retarget them because it's really rare that somebody is going to

01:10:43.340 see you click on the article and buy whatever you're selling that day.

01:10:48.100 There's going to be a sales cycle.

01:10:49.160 So I definitely like paid, especially for retargeting, complemented by earned to keep

01:10:56.700 your acquisition costs lower, right?

01:10:59.020 So that's all that earned media is going to do.

01:11:00.680 It's going to lower your cost of acquisition over time.

01:11:03.440 It's going to increase your SEO.

01:11:05.200 So you're going to have better organic positioning.

01:11:07.080 But you don't want to not do paid.

01:11:08.420 You definitely want to have a healthy blend of both.

01:11:12.740 So if you were to do paid ads, right, are you saying that your go-to would be Facebook,

01:11:20.980 Facebook ads and whatnot?

01:11:22.620 It really depends on what you're selling, right?

01:11:24.800 It really does.

01:11:25.560 But yeah, in general, Facebook is the best platform in general, right?

01:11:30.720 Some people have actually better success with Google AdWords for certain categories.

01:11:34.260 You know, Facebook's for certain categories, Instagram's great for other categories.

01:11:38.740 So there's no one catch-all.

01:11:40.840 I mean, if you're doing B2B software, I mean, you know, the nice thing about Facebook, it

01:11:44.820 pretty much works for across almost any sector.

01:11:47.580 But LinkedIn might be worth looking at for certain companies.

01:11:51.140 It really depends.

01:11:52.100 I would say it depends on what you're selling and who your target audience is.

01:11:55.300 Okay.

01:11:55.520 And then one more question.

01:11:56.960 So in regards, it's funny you mentioned that because are you familiar with Dan Lok?

01:12:02.300 Yeah.

01:12:02.540 Yeah, I heard he made a lot of money doing retargeting.

01:12:06.580 Like, that was the backbone of what really brought him up.

01:12:10.300 So I guess you kind of answered it already.

01:12:13.440 I guess so if you were to choose one avenue of paid advertisement, it would be Facebook,

01:12:18.360 it wouldn't be Google Ads or Instagram or anything along those lines?

01:12:21.520 Yeah.

01:12:21.800 And I would say pick a – what I would say for sure is the biggest mistake that I've seen

01:12:25.660 people do is try to do all the channels at once, right?

01:12:29.120 You're on YouTube, you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook.

01:12:32.840 Pick a channel.

01:12:33.980 And usually I like to start with Facebook if you're going to do paid.

01:12:37.120 And just master that.

01:12:38.440 Get your numbers right.

01:12:39.260 Get your acquisition costs right.

01:12:41.120 I work for – I work with and advise a company called Manly Bands.

01:12:45.120 They make men's wedding rings actually, but really cool men's wedding rings.

01:12:50.020 And, you know, we focus on one channel.

01:12:52.840 We've got it dialed in and it's Facebook.

01:12:54.880 And so pick one channel, dominate it before you move on to others and start experimenting

01:12:58.980 with other channels for sure.

01:13:00.380 I just want to add to that because, I mean, I got a little bit of experiences with the

01:13:02.820 debt business.

01:13:03.800 And so if somebody's searching on – like people go to Google to look for answers for

01:13:09.060 shit, right?

01:13:09.600 So if it's how do I get a debt consolidation loan, like I can target those words.

01:13:14.160 Yeah.

01:13:14.460 And I can send them to my ad, which will then send them to a landing page.

01:13:19.060 And the landing page will be directly related to what they're searching for with a specific

01:13:23.960 call to action.

01:13:24.660 Now, if you're not talking to somebody directly about something that they're searching for

01:13:33.080 an answer to, like if they're on Facebook, people aren't on Facebook to go looking for

01:13:37.580 answers for stuff.

01:13:38.340 Like they're not on Facebook looking for how do I get a debt consolidation loan.

01:13:41.500 They're on Facebook to creep their exes because they're bored, because they're sitting on

01:13:44.720 the toilet for a whole bunch of reasons, right?

01:13:46.280 Sure.

01:13:46.640 So what you want to do is you only want to target people that already know you is what

01:13:52.200 I've noticed works the best.

01:13:53.200 So we already have an email list.

01:13:55.900 We already have a Facebook page for the debt business.

01:13:58.700 So what we do is we specifically target people that are already known to us and they know

01:14:06.040 like, and already, you know, hopefully trust us because those are the ones that'll convert.

01:14:09.260 Because if you just randomly put your ad in front of people that are on Facebook and they're

01:14:14.480 not looking for getting out of debt, what they're going to do is they're going to hide

01:14:17.520 your shit.

01:14:18.180 And then the algorithms are going to pick up on that.

01:14:20.580 And then your cost to show your ads is going to go up dramatically.

01:14:23.680 So for things like Facebook and Instagram platforms where people browse them just to kill time

01:14:30.420 or because they're taking a shit or they're creeping somebody, you just want to make sure

01:14:33.460 that you only place your ads in front of somebody that like for you, watches your videos, has

01:14:37.760 already visited your website, follows you on a social media platform.

01:14:41.260 Like there's some cross-pollination because then when they see the ad, they're going to

01:14:45.100 be like, oh, there's that guy and he's got that offer.

01:14:47.580 So let me check it out.

01:14:48.800 Yeah.

01:14:49.200 So YouTube for retargeting or Facebook for retargeting with intent-based search on Google

01:14:57.780 worked well for you guys, right?

01:15:00.820 That's awesome.

01:15:01.440 Well, I just downloaded your book.

01:15:02.760 I saw it's on sale for the next seven days on Audible.

01:15:05.320 So I got it.

01:15:06.340 I got, I bought it for one credit.

01:15:08.800 So I look forward to reading it, man.

01:15:10.460 Thanks so much.

01:15:11.280 I appreciate you.

01:15:12.020 Thank you very much.

01:15:13.160 Take care.

01:15:13.880 Thank you.

01:15:15.120 That was cool.

01:15:16.940 Yeah.

01:15:17.360 I mean, have you seen this company borrow well?

01:15:20.080 Yeah, actually I was going to do some work with them, you know, with the debt business,

01:15:23.860 but they're, they're kind of leaning into an area that I don't really like, but yeah.

01:15:28.220 Yeah.

01:15:28.420 It looks like they're going after sort of cash, almost cash advanced type technology, right?

01:15:33.120 Payday loan stuff.

01:15:34.220 Yeah.

01:15:34.480 Well, that's where the money is, right?

01:15:35.700 Like the, I'm not going to name the company, but I got involved with a company out in the

01:15:40.840 West coast that is like one of the biggest in the payday loan companies at one point.

01:15:44.380 Like we were going to do some cross promotion and some affiliate marketing.

01:15:47.520 And, um, I just, I just can't, like, I can't sleep at night if I know that I'm partnered

01:15:53.480 with a business that's ripping people off and selling them high interest loans sort of

01:15:57.640 thing.

01:15:58.420 Um, but there's a huge, huge need for people looking for short-term, uh, loans or more

01:16:05.820 specifically what they're always looking for.

01:16:08.080 They don't want to deal with the problem of the debt, which is what created the debt,

01:16:12.240 which is their belief system and how they manage money.

01:16:14.340 But what they want to deal with is I fucked up.

01:16:16.560 I have $20,000 in debt.

01:16:18.660 Give me more money to pay off the $20,000 in debt.

01:16:21.060 And that business is always going to trump what we do.

01:16:23.060 And I'm fine with that.

01:16:24.040 Right.

01:16:25.280 Cause people are looking for that quick solution rather than going to the root and fixing the

01:16:29.560 root problem.

01:16:30.220 Everybody wants to pop a pill and lose 20 pounds, rub a cream under their eye and you know, what,

01:16:35.220 you know, wipe away eight years of wrinkles.

01:16:37.400 People are fucking lazy.

01:16:38.620 They don't want to do the work.

01:16:39.540 Right.

01:16:39.880 Yeah, that's true.

01:16:40.780 People do not want to do the work.

01:16:42.180 And I think if you want to stand out, all you have to do is honestly 5% more than the next

01:16:48.320 person in your industry.

01:16:49.680 And you'll actually succeed if you can just push it past mediocre, because most, I will

01:16:55.360 say most companies, most individuals are, are fine with mediocre being in the middle.

01:16:59.620 So imagine doubling that and being twice as good as everybody else who dominate whatever

01:17:03.360 category you're in.

01:17:04.540 So, so from your experience with the canvas company for canvas pop and for, and for DNA

01:17:08.980 11, like how important was it for you to be in like the leadership role?

01:17:12.560 Because there was a lot of canvas printing companies that came out around the same time.

01:17:15.980 Yep.

01:17:16.920 There's no option.

01:17:17.780 We have to be the category leader.

01:17:19.540 Like why, why play to lose going back to what we talked about before.

01:17:22.520 We wanted to reestablish the category.

01:17:24.380 We started doing mobile photo printing.

01:17:26.120 We started doing crazy guarantees.

01:17:27.880 Again, we're stealing from Zappos saying, you know, they can provide a one year refund

01:17:33.120 policy.

01:17:33.520 We can provide a lifetime one.

01:17:34.680 So we started doing like, get your money back anytime.

01:17:37.080 If you're not happy with it, we started doing crazy stuff.

01:17:39.680 And you know what?

01:17:40.820 We didn't go bankrupt.

01:17:41.660 In fact, the opposite happened.

01:17:43.020 We started not having to do advertising.

01:17:45.020 Like I said, we spent very little money.

01:17:47.700 I'm not the guy to talk to about paid advertising because we built a company that was doing,

01:17:51.700 you know, does 10 million plus a year, no advertising.

01:17:54.540 I know very hard to believe that, but we, we did it.

01:17:58.080 Like we did it by using word of mouth.

01:17:59.720 Yeah.

01:17:59.840 That's interesting.

01:18:00.520 There's, I can't remember who it was, but I was, but one of the first Baja trips that

01:18:04.880 I took, Yannick Silver invited me to, again, thankfully through Cameron Harrell, because

01:18:08.480 he introduced me to Yannick because he was coaching him as well.

01:18:10.560 But during that Baja trip, he had a Joe Sugarman, who was a copywriter.

01:18:14.880 And one of the things he taught us on that trip was give them a long as possible guarantee

01:18:21.700 on the product.

01:18:22.660 Yeah.

01:18:22.880 And actually the longer it is, he said, the less likely they are to ever return it.

01:18:27.060 Yeah.

01:18:27.540 Right.

01:18:27.820 Because I mean, if you're doing like a canvas print and it's on the wall, what's going to

01:18:32.320 happen to it?

01:18:32.900 It's not going to ride.

01:18:33.980 It's not going to like, there's no moving parts.

01:18:36.040 Nothing, nothing.

01:18:37.300 Nobody returned them.

01:18:38.480 I mean, why would anybody refund it?

01:18:40.560 And if you're the only company offering a lifetime guarantee on the product, return it at any

01:18:44.760 time.

01:18:45.400 Correct.

01:18:46.120 That's a competitive advantage against the other guy.

01:18:48.580 Yes.

01:18:49.040 And so one of the things that I do with a lot of companies that I advise is it's not a problem

01:18:53.580 until it's a problem.

01:18:54.320 Like you can run a cohort of data and just say, look, we're going to, I always get like

01:18:59.800 do crazy guarantees.

01:19:01.400 No one takes up on them.

01:19:02.840 And if they do, guess what?

01:19:03.840 You've got a product problem and you need to fix it anyways.

01:19:06.520 If you want to keep your, your net promoter score, your reputation high anyway.

01:19:11.020 So it's a great way to just, you're going to get real time feedback from your customers.

01:19:14.420 If your product sucks, they're going to return it.

01:19:16.240 And the key to that is just create a great product, create a great experience and make

01:19:20.180 it easy for people to do business with you.

01:19:22.620 You know what?

01:19:23.580 I'm glad you mentioned net promoter score because I want to wrap up on that note.

01:19:27.560 We got like 10 more minutes left.

01:19:28.760 So, um, for those of you guys that don't know net promoter score is basically an evaluation

01:19:35.180 tool that most companies use to determine how likely it is that you are to recommend

01:19:40.860 your product to other people.

01:19:41.840 So if you just get off your phone and you're with your cell phone company, and then you

01:19:45.900 get a text message afterwards, or they say, you know, please hold for a survey.

01:19:49.060 And it says on a scale of one to five or on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to

01:19:52.940 recommend our service to somebody that needs a cell phone nine and 10 would be a promoter.

01:19:58.800 Seven and eight would be somebody that's passive.

01:20:00.560 They're indifferent.

01:20:01.100 They are not a promoter.

01:20:02.100 They don't really care.

01:20:02.720 They're not going to say anything bad.

01:20:03.600 They're not going to say anything good.

01:20:04.880 And sevens and unders are all detractors.

01:20:07.280 So I did this video on my channel a couple of years ago, and I still think it's one of

01:20:11.180 the most important videos and not enough people see it.

01:20:13.160 It's only got like 40,000 views, but the title of it is why genuine burning desire matters

01:20:18.740 with women.

01:20:19.180 So you guys can go search it.

01:20:20.240 I'm not going to dig it up.

01:20:20.900 Just go to my channel.

01:20:21.600 It's why genuine burning desire matters.

01:20:23.480 And then put entrepreneurs and cars after that in the YouTube search.

01:20:26.460 And I basically use the net promoter score and I applied it to, you know, the sexual marketplace

01:20:32.540 because, um, I didn't really see that much of a difference and I saw a direct alignment

01:20:37.440 and I noticed that in my own, you know, use of it, it made a lot of sense.

01:20:41.760 So using the same metric, if a woman's got very strong desire for you, like a nine or a

01:20:47.320 10, you're going to know it, right?

01:20:49.520 She's going to show up for dates early.

01:20:50.960 She's going to dress beautifully.

01:20:52.140 She's going to have hair and makeup done.

01:20:53.640 Um, you know, she's going to lean into you.

01:20:55.820 She's going to text you.

01:20:56.820 You know, she's going to prompt you to, uh, you know, get your attention.

01:21:00.040 Hey, how's your day?

01:21:01.000 Right.

01:21:01.680 Like you should know if she's a promoter of Adrian, right?

01:21:06.000 Yeah.

01:21:06.300 If she's passive, she'll probably, you know, give you a hard time for date.

01:21:10.180 She's going to want to reschedule.

01:21:11.560 She may not dress up that nice.

01:21:13.220 She's going to be hard to get in contact afterwards.

01:21:15.320 She might be slow to respond, you know, by text message.

01:21:18.160 Those will be like the passives, the sevens and eights.

01:21:20.680 Sure.

01:21:21.140 And then six and unders will be detractors.

01:21:23.220 They won't respond to you when you contact them.

01:21:25.060 They won't go out on dates.

01:21:25.980 They're busy.

01:21:26.520 They're going to put you in the friend zone sort of thing.

01:21:28.560 So that being said, you knowing how the net promoter score works now applying that to

01:21:34.180 the sexual marketplace, because a lot of what I do is rip off and duplicate, right?

01:21:37.480 R and D is just rip off and duplicate.

01:21:38.920 Let's take from what industry it works.

01:21:40.220 Let's put it somewhere else.

01:21:41.740 And I think this works really well for the sexual marketplace.

01:21:44.240 I actually have a chapter on this in my book, so it's going to be detailed in a little bit,

01:21:47.720 you know, greater depth with what's what and everything like that.

01:21:50.000 But I want to get your take on that from that perspective.

01:21:52.740 Do you think that as you're navigating, you know, the world and you're with women,

01:21:57.540 you're dating women, obviously, you know, at this point you're in a relationship,

01:22:00.660 but as you're dating women, how important do you think genuine burning desire is for

01:22:05.120 you as a guy when it comes to attraction with the opposite sex and where you're going to

01:22:09.880 allocate your time?

01:22:10.700 Because for me personally, I wouldn't want to waste my time on a seven or eight because

01:22:14.280 that's going to be too much work.

01:22:15.480 Yeah.

01:22:15.600 It doesn't matter how hot she is.

01:22:16.700 We're not talking about visuals.

01:22:17.740 We're talking about how they feel about you, right?

01:22:19.780 I'm talking about interest.

01:22:20.780 Yeah, I think I think why would you want to be with somebody that doesn't, you know,

01:22:25.760 basically admire everything about you and love you?

01:22:30.300 And I don't want to say worship you.

01:22:31.780 That's maybe a silly term, but isn't that what you ultimately should have?

01:22:35.300 And you can give that back to it.

01:22:37.380 It could be reciprocal, but you can't, you know, I've always said it's important,

01:22:41.320 I think, in relationships to to be the one that's that's like on top, if you will.

01:22:47.180 So and maybe this is my own mentality.

01:22:49.760 You know, a lot of people talk about equal.

01:22:51.460 A lot of people talk about, you know, I have to look up to my to my girlfriend, whatever.

01:22:56.920 I say it's good.

01:22:58.260 You have to have mutual respect.

01:22:59.840 I think you have to have mutual respect, to be honest.

01:23:02.020 But I think it's always better to be the one that's being, you know, admired.

01:23:06.420 And you've got to earn that, right?

01:23:07.700 You're not going to just sit there and be.

01:23:09.060 Well, women don't admire useless men that are incompetent or incapable of doing anything,

01:23:14.700 right?

01:23:14.940 Correct.

01:23:15.520 Let's be honest.

01:23:16.220 So if you are a man of purpose, value and vision, and you've put a dent in the universe

01:23:20.360 and you're doing something of some significance, then that gives her something to admire.

01:23:25.080 Yes.

01:23:25.560 So.

01:23:26.260 Yes.

01:23:26.920 But a lot of guys will go and chase those like sevens and like eights and unders, right?

01:23:31.160 And I think that if you reinvest that energy into those sevens, eights and unders that

01:23:37.160 don't have high interest or lack interest completely in you and reinvest that energy

01:23:42.440 in yourself, your dent in the universe, make, make bank, make more money.

01:23:46.060 We'll have no problem.

01:23:47.640 Yeah.

01:23:47.800 You'll never deal with one of those.

01:23:49.140 Then you'll have the opportunity to put yourself in a position where most women that find you

01:23:54.260 attractive anyway, you know, from a visual aspect, once they get to know you will have

01:23:57.740 stronger desire for you.

01:23:58.760 And that makes your job as a guy easier because you're not chasing tail.

01:24:02.080 You're now chasing excellence and she's in your frame.

01:24:04.460 And that's what we talk about a lot, you know, when we're doing these broadcasts for,

01:24:07.820 you know, stuff in the sexual marketplace and rule zero.

01:24:10.060 And I get involved with Rolo and John and a few other guys is, um, you want a woman to

01:24:14.300 compliment your life.

01:24:15.120 You want her to enter your frame.

01:24:16.680 You don't want her to be the focus of your life.

01:24:18.780 You want her to compliment it.

01:24:20.240 And of course you're going to offer some use to her as well because you're a high value

01:24:24.140 guy.

01:24:24.460 So you see how I mash those two up there?

01:24:28.080 You're wrapped it right up.

01:24:29.240 And, and, you know, to wrap it up even further with the whole net promoter square, I mean,

01:24:33.520 essentially, if you create a great product, in other words, if you, um, live a great life,

01:24:38.180 if you look at yourself as a product, you're going to attract who you are, right?

01:24:42.120 You're going to attract great customers.

01:24:43.360 If your website looks great, you're going to attract great customers.

01:24:45.900 If you take care of yourself, you work out and you work on being smarter and more efficient,

01:24:50.500 great, great person.

01:24:51.720 First, you're going to attract better, uh, better women.

01:24:54.900 And so it all, it all comes out of the power of attraction.

01:24:58.180 So Corey, um, sorry, Conk, uh, thanks for putting that up on the screen, but it's why

01:25:02.940 genuine burning desire for women matters.

01:25:04.760 And he put a link there.

01:25:05.460 So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can click it.

01:25:07.500 If you're watching this elsewhere, you'll have to go to YouTube to click it or just search

01:25:10.380 for it there.

01:25:10.800 But thanks.

01:25:12.220 I think we can wrap it up on that note, man.

01:25:13.560 That was a good chat.

01:25:14.540 Yeah.

01:25:14.720 I enjoyed that, man.

01:25:15.400 Always like talking to you.

01:25:16.400 Love what you're doing.

01:25:17.660 Appreciate what you're doing for, for a lot of men out there and, uh, sharing awesome content.

01:25:22.120 Keep doing what you're doing, brother.

01:25:23.480 Thanks brother.

01:25:24.200 Um, you're in Toronto, man.

01:25:25.660 Just, you know, let me know.

01:25:26.600 We'll definitely have to get together and I'll, and I'll shout out to you.

01:25:28.900 Tell, uh, Dan and everybody that knows me that I said, I said, hi, when you hit the,

01:25:32.540 I'm going to grab that video for you and I'm going to send it to you just so you can

01:25:35.740 check it out.

01:25:36.160 You know, the Baja stuff fly off the road.

01:25:38.580 All right.

01:25:39.460 All right, guys, we'll see you guys in the next broadcast.

01:25:42.280 It's, uh, two weeks from now.

01:25:44.520 And, uh, I got John from bulldog mindset coming on.

01:25:47.360 I know, you know, John too, right?

01:25:48.720 Um, I, I don't know.

01:25:50.480 I don't know if I know John.

01:25:51.560 Okay.

01:25:52.400 Um, anyway, he's down in, uh, California.

01:25:54.660 Actually, um, I might have to introduce you to him cause he's in Cali pretty much all the

01:26:00.060 time now, but any friend of yours.

01:26:02.280 Awesome.

01:26:03.120 And, uh, next Monday we got a, oh, actually know what we're skipping before the, the, uh,

01:26:07.860 uh, train wreck next Monday.

01:26:09.940 It's, um, next one on is with Robert Glover.

01:26:12.540 Who's the, um, no more Mr. Nice guy, dude.

01:26:15.620 Oh yeah.

01:26:16.040 New book out.

01:26:16.980 I think it's June 6th.

01:26:18.100 Anyway, make sure you're subscribed and you hit the notification bell.

01:26:20.800 Cause when we announce it, that's when you'll get the, uh, the heads up on it.

01:26:24.020 And before I go, I know the banner has been running on the bottom, but I just have to

01:26:27.420 quickly mention, uh, channel sponsors, tactical soap.

01:26:30.560 Cause without, uh, Scott from the Grandyke soap company, this stuff couldn't happen.

01:26:34.680 Fairmont infused beard oil, handmade soap, high quality shit.

01:26:37.500 Christmas is coming up.

01:26:38.740 Grab it for yourself.

01:26:39.580 Grab it for, uh, someone that you dig.

01:26:41.260 Uh, there's a link pin in the description, or you can just go to coopersoap.com.

01:26:45.220 Check out with coupon code Cooper.

01:26:46.580 You get 10% off.

01:26:47.820 All right, Adrian.

01:26:48.540 Thanks for joining me, brother.

01:26:49.600 All right, man.

01:26:50.440 It's a pleasure buddy in the next one.

01:26:51.980 Peace out.

01:26:52.520 Awesome.

Playing to Win - March 02, 2022

006 - How To Get Free PR

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