REAL AF with Andy Frisella - ASK ANDY： How to Build a Customer Base (And Two More Questions) - MFQA1

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, what's up? It's Andy. You're listening to the MFCEO Project. That stands for motherfucking

00:00:16.060 CEO. I'm here with my co-host Von Kohler. If this is your first time listening, I'm 0.99

00:00:22.980 an entrepreneur. I started my business with my business partner in 1999 with $12,000 that

00:00:29.980 we earned from painting the stripes on parking lots. Our first day in sales, we sold $7. The

00:00:37.600 second day in sales, we sold nothing. It took us eight months to have a day over $200. And

00:00:43.780 today, we own six different companies with cumulative sales of over $100 million. The

00:00:50.720 goal of this podcast is to bring you the truth, to bring you the honest truth without the sugar 0.99

00:00:56.100 coat, fairy dust, pussified bullshit that we're all getting spoon-fed so much of in today's 0.99

00:01:02.380 society. So if you're a normal listener, a regular listener, we're going to do something a little 0.99

00:01:09.580 bit different here on Thursdays. We're going to start with some question answers. We've

00:01:15.060 been getting a ton of questions, and we've been challenged to figure out how to fit them

00:01:19.800 into our regular podcast. So what we're going to do is we're going to put them in on Thursdays

00:01:26.900 as Q&As, and then also do a couple other cool things on Thursdays. So it's going to be a

00:01:31.620 shorter episode, but it's going to be total feedback and interaction with you guys. So

00:01:37.380 like I said, I'm here with Von. What's going on, dude?

00:01:39.620 Oh, things are great. I'm excited for this new venture.

00:01:42.620 Yeah, it's going to be cool, man. You know, it's hard to work them in. Our goal is to keep

00:01:46.400 the Tuesday podcast under an hour, which we have a hard time doing anyway.

00:01:51.060 Yeah, you're kind of loquacious.

00:01:52.520 Yeah, whatever that is.

00:01:55.000 You talk a lot.

00:01:56.080 Yeah. So we decided, hey, you know what? We'll work it in on Thursdays, and we'll do some other

00:02:03.200 things. We'll do some Q&As today. We'll do some other short, different style episodes on Thursdays,

00:02:10.740 and it'll be something a little bit different.

00:02:11.960 Yeah, I'm excited about this, too, because we are getting a lot of emails.

00:02:16.400 And frankly, I feel kind of guilty, because there are so many people emailing us, and

00:02:21.000 it's, well, emailing you. But it's just, it's a little overwhelming. It's encouraging, but

00:02:26.340 it's overwhelming. And trying to respond to everybody, but this will give us a chance

00:02:30.840 to really give back to people who are sending in their questions.

00:02:34.140 Well, the support so far has been crazy.

00:02:35.620 Oh, yeah.

00:02:36.300 Yeah.

00:02:36.920 It's been nuts. You guys have killed it for us. I mean, we're consistently in the top 0.55

00:02:41.760 10 on iTunes. It's been awesome, which blows my mind. I didn't expect that right

00:02:46.000 out the gate. Of course, my goal is to be number one.

00:02:49.840 Yeah.

00:02:50.720 But to be in the top 10 right out of the gate and stay there is a testament to the loyalty

00:02:56.680 of our listeners. So thank you guys so much for even really giving a shit about what we 0.94

00:03:01.920 have to say. It's pretty awesome. 0.86

00:03:03.500 Definitely.

00:03:03.800 So we're getting bombarded with questions. Honestly, it's just, it's so much, it's hard

00:03:10.920 to pick which ones to answer. And Vaughn and I were talking a minute ago about what would

00:03:14.560 make it easier for us to pick which ones to respond to. If you want to go over that with

00:03:18.900 the guys, that'd be cool.

00:03:20.920 Yeah. Yeah. So simple pointers, guys. Number one, if at all possible, have your question

00:03:25.820 in the subject line of the email. That's going to, if it's a good question, it's going to get

00:03:30.140 our attention right away. So if you can do that, I mean, some of you are kind of clever

00:03:35.020 in what you put in the subject line, but really.

00:03:38.220 Well, you know what that comes from? That comes from that Facebook post I did a while

00:03:41.480 back. I told a story on Facebook one time, because I get so many emails. I mean, and I'm

00:03:47.640 not trying to sound weird. It's just, it's a lot. It's a lot of emails. I mean, I get so

00:03:50.860 many, I can't respond. And I feel bad because I want to respond because I truly appreciate

00:03:55.640 and have gratitude for anyone who gives a fuck about what I have to say. Right. So it makes 0.97

00:04:00.660 me feel bad, but I don't always get to pick, you know, to choose which one. Right. Of course,

00:04:06.340 of course, my, my, my goal is we are going to respond to all of them. Yeah. I mean, 20

00:04:09.560 years from now, you might get an email from Andy, but yeah, it's, we're going to, we're

00:04:13.080 going to get to you and don't think that we don't see you or, or that we're ignoring

00:04:16.840 you. It's just, it's overwhelming. And I think, uh, by the way, I'll say this right

00:04:21.200 now, if you're in St. Louis where we are, um, and you're looking to be a part of what

00:04:25.520 we're doing, we are going to start taking applications for interns. Right. Um, we're

00:04:29.800 going to have more details about that. So stay tuned if that's something you're interested

00:04:32.480 in. You got to be a college. You have to be a college, college student, um, locally

00:04:35.360 and at St. Louis and local in St. Louis, Missouri, but, um, and you can't be a pussy. All right. 1.00

00:04:41.320 So if you qualify, um, our basic qualification requirements, uh, we are going to have a spot

00:04:49.420 for at least one intern, maybe two interns. Yeah. We're going to get into some Q and a here

00:04:53.360 and we're going to do, uh, about 20 minutes of it. Um, Oh, I forgot to finish my story.

00:04:57.640 Well, yeah. Finish your story. Cause my story was, it was about putting, putting clever

00:05:01.400 things. You have to like, I, people want to stand out and I got this message in my Facebook

00:05:05.880 one time and it's all it said in the subject line was boobies. Of course I'm going to fucking 0.99

00:05:10.400 click on it, you know? And then it was like this serious email about it. And I was like, 0.97

00:05:14.340 dude, that's, that's clever. All right. So as clever as that is, and it probably will work,

00:05:21.140 don't do it because it won't get your question answered. You know, what Vaughn's saying is

00:05:25.560 be, um, be specific with your question in the subject line, because it allows us to really

00:05:30.900 filter through and figure out where that question will fit in. And it betters your chances for

00:05:34.460 us answering it on air. Right. So, so the second, I've just got three things to say. The second

00:05:39.140 thing is, and, and I'm, again, I'm want to be sensitive because a lot of you guys are very

00:05:42.840 passionate about what you're sharing. And, and frankly, some of the, some of the emails

00:05:47.900 are very moving and we love them, but, uh, try your best to put your question right at the top

00:05:54.240 of the email. And then if you have some back information or backstory, then do that afterwards.

00:05:59.460 Um, because honestly, reading through paragraphs and paragraphs to try to find the question is

00:06:05.460 it's hard, it's hard. And it's going to make it less likely that your question is going to get

00:06:09.980 answered. So put the question right up front and then just say, okay, and now for some back

00:06:13.440 information. And then the final thing is just guys, you know, do your best to listen, you know,

00:06:18.620 listen to the podcast, uh, listen to the content. And if it's a question that we've already covered

00:06:23.200 in the, in the podcast, then, you know, don't email us. I don't know. I mean, again, I don't,

00:06:31.880 I don't want to be mean, but you know, if we've clearly answered this question on the podcast,

00:06:35.600 then don't ask guys, if you're interested in, uh, in getting Q and A's more frequently, I am always

00:06:40.420 on Periscope now. Um, download the Periscope app. I'm at Andy for Sella on Periscope. I do daily

00:06:46.880 Periscope Q and A's. Um, I try to do, I try to do it every day, but I'm at least every other day

00:06:52.380 on Periscope. And that's cool because if you guys don't know what Periscope is, it is an application

00:06:57.420 that is basically like a TV channel. And if you haven't used it, it is fucking awesome because 0.83

00:07:04.520 basically I'm, I'm on the screen and you write your question in and I see it, it pops up. I answer 0.73

00:07:09.660 it in real time. It's really, really cool. It would be like if you could ask, you know,

00:07:14.080 live questions on the evening news or whatever. It's really cool. Right. Um, so if you guys are

00:07:18.420 interested, check out Periscope, download it and follow me at Andy for Sella. And, um, and that's

00:07:25.380 another way to get your questions answered. A lot of good questions on that. Yeah. Yeah. But, but you

00:07:29.600 know, um, without any further ado, yeah, let's get into this. So the first question is actually been

00:07:35.200 asked by so many people that I'm not going to specify one person that, uh, that is asking

00:07:40.840 it, but it's this question is Andy for Sella available for mentoring. I'm always available

00:07:49.220 for mentoring. I'm, I have a podcast. I have Instagram. I have Periscopes daily. I give my

00:07:57.000 mentoring away for free. There's nothing that I'm going to tell you in person that is going

00:08:01.960 to be really any different than what I would tell you here or what I would tell you on Periscope

00:08:07.100 or Instagram. It's all going to be lessons that you, if you're an entrepreneur should be

00:08:12.920 able to pull apart and reapply to your situation. Okay. You don't need somebody. Let me rephrase

00:08:20.960 this. And we've got more resources on the way in the next year. Absolutely. We've got a number

00:08:24.880 of books. We have three books we're working on. We've, we have a number of courses that we're

00:08:28.760 designing that are all going to be available for you guys to work through these issues,

00:08:32.880 but let's get, get down to the point on this. If you're an entrepreneur, you have to have a

00:08:37.440 certain level of problem solving ability and ability to reframe information and apply it to

00:08:42.360 your situation. One of the best skills I've been able to develop as a person is being able to read

00:08:48.440 something about another company that is totally unaffiliated with ours, take that principle and

00:08:53.340 apply it to my business and make it work. And if you don't have that ability to do that, if you

00:08:59.140 don't have the ability to take information and say, okay, um, ABC, and then, and then this worked

00:09:07.220 for them and then reapply that to whatever your situation is, you know, I'm in the sports nutrition

00:09:11.880 world pretty, pretty much. That's what our main business is. Let's say you're in construction and

00:09:16.920 we're talking about pit principles. If I tell you a story about how we did it, you know, over here in our

00:09:22.100 business, you should be able to, as an entrepreneur, pull that apart, reapply that into your business

00:09:27.300 as a basic entrepreneurial skill. If you don't have that skill, you need to either develop it.

00:09:32.360 And if you can't develop it, you will not be successful as an entrepreneur. It will not be for

00:09:36.380 you. So when you talk about mentoring, you don't need somebody to hold your fucking hand. You just need 1.00

00:09:44.220 to take the initiative. And, and, and I get it. Being an entrepreneur is a scary thing. You feel alone.

00:09:49.280 Sometimes you feel like, fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do. I can remember when I felt that way, 0.99

00:09:53.340 when I was terrified all the time. And to be completely honest with you guys, there isn't

00:09:57.420 a fucking day that I go to bed, not terrified to this day. That's just part of being an entrepreneur. 0.96

00:10:03.200 So, you know, man the fuck up and realize that this is part of the process. You've got to be able 0.96

00:10:09.820 to apply information and you've got to understand that nobody's going to fucking hold your hand 0.96

00:10:13.920 because anybody that's worthwhile holding your hand to be completely honest with you, 0.98

00:10:18.380 you can't fucking afford. Right. And I'm glad you brought that up because, and again, I, I, 0.99

00:10:22.880 I don't, for those of you, and I don't mean that to be an asshole. Yeah, no, no, no. Like what I'm 0.98

00:10:26.700 saying is the information that you want is like for me to do that, it would be so expensive for you to

00:10:33.260 afford what my time would be or any other worthy, you know, entrepreneurial mentor would be

00:10:39.140 that it wouldn't make sense. Right. So, so utilize these tools that we're giving you for free

00:10:45.760 and, and let me help you that way. You know, do I have people I mentor? Absolutely. But they're

00:10:51.560 close friends or people I've known. And usually, you know, if I take on, uh, if I take on an account

00:10:59.040 to mentor or a business to mentor or consult, dude, I'm getting equity in that business. I'm not doing

00:11:04.460 it for fucking a salary. Right. You know, we're becoming partners. Right. No, I, I, the people 0.99

00:11:09.740 who have asked me, um, just one-on-one, uh, what I've told them is, you know, honestly, it's either,

00:11:16.160 it's either all or nothing. And I, I've told them basically if Andy, you know, you, you obviously

00:11:21.300 have the, had the ability to make the choices for your own life. And so there are times I'm sure

00:11:26.380 you're going to say, yeah, I am going to help that person, but you're going to do it basically

00:11:29.820 because you want to. And now the kindness of your heart either do it for free, right? Or a lot of

00:11:34.340 money. I'm getting a piece of your pie. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, just, just

00:11:39.480 know that going in when you guys email, um, again, never hurts to ask. I appreciate the,

00:11:44.260 the initiation initiative. I'm sure you do too, but realistically. But the practicality of it is

00:11:49.740 impossible to make happen. I mean, I've got my companies that I run in addition to all the stuff

00:11:54.420 that I do. It's just not practical for me to do that. Right. You know, it's just not unless I'm

00:11:59.240 going to get a huge payout of it or unless it's one of those one in a million cases where I just

00:12:04.680 feel like I can help and with very little effort and make a big difference in that person's, you

00:12:09.980 know, career. Right. Right. Exactly. And again, and again, enjoy doing, and again, what Andy said at

00:12:14.320 the beginning, which is, you know, 80 to 85% of the stuff that you're going to, you're going to, uh,

00:12:20.380 download on the, well that, and it's going to be free and that yes, there will be some products

00:12:24.860 that will be paid and, and, and some services that will be paid. But so much of what you offer

00:12:29.580 is free that, you know, why not take advantage of it? Yeah. But Vaughn, here's where this comes in.

00:12:34.260 Okay. And this, I get this question a lot too. A lot of the people who ask this question are under

00:12:40.480 the assumption that there's some sort of secret recipe or secret message that I'm withholding

00:12:47.760 because I'm not charging for it. And they think there's something that I'm not telling. Right.

00:12:52.860 And the truth of it is, is that I'm telling you everything you need to know. That's the truth.

00:12:59.460 If you're one of these people who thinks that there's people out there that have this fucking 0.98

00:13:03.180 pixie dust business secret that they're going to tell you, and you're going to go out and go do 0.97

00:13:08.820 something and make it work for you. It does not fucking exist. If you could accept that right now, 0.99

00:13:14.080 your life will be so much easier. Yeah. You will move forward so much faster. Yeah. And you accept the

00:13:19.420 fact that you just got to do the work. You have to make a smart plan and there's no fucking 0.94

00:13:23.900 shortcut. Dude, that is the shortcut. That is the secret. That's the special secret that, you know, 0.99

00:13:30.700 nobody wants to talk about it because it's not sexy, but I'm telling you guys and anybody who's

00:13:35.300 built anything, if they're not trying to sell you a program, we'll tell you, you see what I'm

00:13:42.020 saying? Yeah. We'll tell you what I'm telling you. And now if they're trying to sell you shit,

00:13:45.300 they're going to tell you, Oh, I got this fucking secret back here. Right. You know? And I'll tell 1.00

00:13:48.980 you that if you pay me. Right. I'm telling you all I know guys. So, all right. So we, uh, I think

00:13:55.500 sufficiently answered that question. So the next question is from Boris. Can you guess where Boris

00:14:00.940 is from? Uh, his name, his full name is Boris Volkov. Oh geez. He's from a mother Russia. Yeah. Mother

00:14:09.300 Russia, the former Soviet union. Don't be offended by that Boris. That's how we in America think of,

00:14:13.500 you know, Russia is the former Soviet. Dude, the Americans think of Russia as Rocky four. I was,

00:14:18.240 that's all they think. You beat me to the punch. What do you think of Russia? I should say Drago. 0.96

00:14:22.080 All I think of is, is I must break you. Yeah. You won't lose. That's what people think of. Yeah. You

00:14:27.320 know? Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that speech at the end of Rocky four is very moving. Dude,

00:14:31.860 that's my favorite Rocky movie. Oh, by far. Yeah. Except for Apollo Creed dying, but you know. Yeah,

00:14:36.660 it sucks. But the, the movie though, like when I think of like the best Rocky movie, I don't think Rocky four,

00:14:42.780 I mean, it, it's so far ahead of all the other ones that it's just, yeah, you know, yeah, it is.

00:14:48.380 Uh, yeah. Like dude, when he's running through the, the fucking snow, the logs on his back and shit. 0.99

00:14:52.420 Oh yeah. Like dude, that's badass shit. Before my wife and I got married, she broke our engagement. 1.00

00:14:56.940 The next morning I went for a run and listened to the theme song to Rocky four. And I was like,

00:15:01.860 I'm going to win her back. You want her back by like running through Russia? I did. Sort of, 0.87

00:15:06.160 sort of, I wonder, I wonder back by being really charming. Um, okay. So Boris says, I am a CEO and

00:15:13.380 I want to be an MF CEO. I've worked at a machine shop for 18 years and literally ran it for 12 years

00:15:19.400 with an absentee boss who anybody rarely saw. I also worked hard as is the Russian way. I like that

00:15:25.260 little Russian nationalism there. Okay. He's proud. Yeah. And he writes, he writes, by the way, work

00:15:29.740 hard or die sounds better in Russian. So we need to figure out how to say that. But anyway,

00:15:35.340 so he recently quit and started his, his own shop, et cetera, et cetera. Here's his question.

00:15:40.880 I kind of skipped, skipped over a couple of things, but here's his question. Andy,

00:15:43.860 my question is how do you build a customer base from the ground up? I work hard. I do cold calls,

00:15:49.300 door to door, flyers, emails, et cetera. I can't support my family with the work I have now, but

00:15:54.160 you know, he's, he's hoping to eventually. So, you know, any thoughts on both traditional

00:15:59.620 and digital ways to build your customer base? Yes. A couple of tips on this that are very

00:16:03.060 effective and people overlook them because they're so simple. And when I tell people these tips,

00:16:09.280 they usually look at me and they're like, come on, dude, like what's the real secret? Okay. And

00:16:14.460 here's the secret. And anybody who works for me will tell you that I preach this nonstop.

00:16:20.780 I grew my retail company a hundred percent per year, five years in a row, um, starting in 2007,

00:16:27.180 the worst economic environment ever. Okay. In the United States. Um, I did it on a simple,

00:16:39.040 a simple philosophy. You take one customer and you make them tell a friend, you turn one opportunity

00:16:45.900 into two. Okay. You, you do such a great job for one customer that he has to tell somebody else.

00:16:52.780 And there's ways to do that. There's ways, you know, a providing an excellent product B providing

00:17:00.900 over the top service where they can't help, but go to Facebook or go to Instagram and tell a story

00:17:06.360 about how you went over the top. Not only did Boris machine every single part that I needed with

00:17:12.760 perfection. He also changed the battery in my car when it died in his parking lot. Okay. People,

00:17:20.200 there will be opportunities for you to go the extra mile and make these crazy stories for people to

00:17:26.100 talk about, but you have to realize that every time that happens, you have to do it. You can't

00:17:32.240 just make it a one-time thing. So it's not just have a great product. It's use the opportunities you

00:17:38.940 have to create tremendous stories about your brand or business to your advantage by, by taking advantage

00:17:44.880 of the opportunities when they present themselves. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So that's where

00:17:50.660 you start. You just start by being a good fucking dude and doing the right thing and going so over 0.99

00:17:56.020 the top for your customers, regardless if they paid for it or not, that they tell people about you. 0.98

00:18:01.660 That's how you get word of mouth going and word of mouth matters because we don't as a culture,

00:18:06.260 and I'm not sure how it is in Russia, but I would assume that it's similar. Um, if he's even paying

00:18:11.340 attention to anything that I have to say here, we, as a culture do not buy off advertising,

00:18:16.320 that's a, not a genuine or trusted media. We don't buy the message from the company. What we buy

00:18:23.320 is the recommendations from our friends. So our job is to create situations where people recommend us.

00:18:29.180 That is how you start building, uh, not only just more customers, but that's how you start

00:18:37.460 building a culture around your brand, whether that brand be donuts. You know, we have a local

00:18:43.320 company here called strange donuts. That's developed a huge culture. Okay. Um, whether that

00:18:49.320 be supplements, whether that like what we do, whether that be Harley Davidson, you know, whether

00:18:55.300 that be Boris's machine shop in Russia, everybody can do that and it just takes effort. So that's

00:19:02.660 where you start. Um, the other thing that you can do that, that, that I think is important is to make

00:19:08.740 sure you follow up with your customers after the sale in a way that's over the top. One thing that

00:19:14.900 we've always done is we do handwritten thank you notes on every, almost every order. It's 80% of our

00:19:19.780 orders get handwritten thank you notes. And we do a lot of fucking orders. You don't even do one of 0.99

00:19:23.680 those like electronic things that sign your name person. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But it's

00:19:27.440 impressive. You know, write them a thank you note, show that you care is really what it comes down to.

00:19:31.360 Because right now in the day of technology, everything is text, Instagram, Facebook, automated

00:19:38.520 tellers at the grocery store, uh, you know, automated tellers at the bank, you know, you go to Home Depot 0.98

00:19:44.620 or the hardware store or Lowe's or whatever, there's one checker and a bunch of automated shit. The human 0.99

00:19:49.620 interaction element is at an all time low, which creates an opportunity that when you, when you step

00:19:54.360 up and give that it stands out. All right. So those simple tools can help you generate a ton of

00:20:03.980 business. It just takes a little bit of time. All right. When I started in business, we didn't have

00:20:09.420 social media. We didn't have Facebook or Instagram. The internet was brand new. There wasn't review sites.

00:20:16.360 You know how I got people to come to our store is by doing such a fucking good job with, with customer 0.87

00:20:22.840 number one that he went and told customer number two, three, and four, every time the conversation 0.94

00:20:28.440 of supplementation and nutrition or working out came up, he would say, dude, you got to go see these

00:20:34.320 guys over here, you know, and your job as a, as a CEO should be to own the conversations that come up

00:20:40.660 about your brand and to own them. So whenever people, your, your colleagues or your, uh, people

00:20:47.500 that are in your industry or getting together at cocktail parties or, you know, vodka tastings in

00:20:52.760 Russia, you know, uh, or at Rocky four boxing matches, you know, whatever you guys do over in

00:20:59.380 Russia, when you're, when you're people that do business, you get together, your job should be to 0.99

00:21:04.120 own the fucking conversation. Okay. So that they say, oh, dude, oh, you, you need machining. 1.00

00:21:10.060 You need to go talk to my boy, Boris. He's the fucking man. And that's how that works. But, but 1.00

00:21:16.060 companies don't do it because when I tell them a, they sound, they think it's like so simple that

00:21:21.220 they're like, dude, that doesn't work, which it does. And B it takes work. It takes effort. It takes

00:21:28.320 genuine caring to do. So, you know, like I said in the beginning, a minute ago, there is no secret.

00:21:34.440 This is basic shit. You've just got to execute on every single time. You know, in our company, we have a, 0.99

00:21:39.880 award we give out every month called go the extra mile award. And it's to, it's to reward the mentality

00:21:45.100 and the core value of going the extra mile for customers, knowing that when you go the extra

00:21:50.500 mile for customers, it creates tremendous word of mouth. So we actually, in our company, we have an

00:21:55.880 award that we give out every month that if you win it, you get an extra paycheck. And it's basically,

00:22:01.100 you know, who went the extra mile the best. And dude, we have stories from people changing out

00:22:06.620 batteries in the car. Like I mentioned a minute ago to sweeping out, uh, or helping people move

00:22:12.340 to sweeping out local gyms when, when they've had hardships and cleaning them up, making sure 0.99

00:22:16.700 they're still running. We've had guys in our company go open other people's business when they

00:22:23.220 like had a death in the family and that store was going to be closed. They went and fucking ran it for 0.99

00:22:27.800 them for a day or two. I mean, dude, this is, this is shit that creates, creates loyalty for life for 1.00

00:22:33.360 your company. So anything you can do along those lines is going to, is going to be what grows your 0.99

00:22:39.920 business in today's day and age, because, and I'm talking about outside having a tremendous product,

00:22:44.400 you know, machining machine shop, there's a billion of them. So you got to figure out how to stand out.

00:22:50.160 And when you're running a commodity service or commodity business, the best way you could stand

00:22:56.540 out is by blowing people away with your customer service interaction and care for them.

00:23:01.460 So awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Um, okay. So next question, again, Boris, thank you so much.

00:23:09.060 Uh, we apologize for, yeah, Boris, I hope that helps man. Yeah. It's really, we totally

00:23:13.360 stereotyped his entire country, of course, by talking about vodka and Drago and all that kind

00:23:17.940 of stuff. But yeah, it's a, don't get offended. Cause you know how Andy's going to respond

00:23:21.260 get over it. Yeah. Right. Pretty much. Okay. So next question for the MF CEO, this is from

00:23:29.020 who is this? Well, this is from Michael Scott, Michael Scott. I don't know if it's the Michael

00:23:35.560 Scott of Dunder Mifflin, the office fame, but, uh, and I'm sure he gets that joke all the time,

00:23:39.340 but this is a guy named Michael Scott. He says, Hey Andy, thanks for doing this. It's really great

00:23:42.720 to get insight from someone who won't give nice, delicate answers. Anyway, onto my question.

00:23:48.120 This year I started a company. I developed the brand, created the products and tested them

00:23:51.460 over and over again. People loved it. And I was able to partner with a very good company

00:23:55.500 with this company. I have the ability to make, to have a resounding effect for marketing,

00:24:00.620 but I do not have the capital to make much product. So if I market it widely, there will

00:24:05.940 be no way I can meet the demand. Assuming there will be one. This led me to find an investor. So I

00:24:11.380 did. I found an investor who is willing to give me the capital I need to launch, but some are saying

00:24:16.760 that I should start small and not bring someone else in. So you can kind of imagine his question is,

00:24:21.460 what do you think? Should I make a deal with the investor or try to grow it by myself

00:24:25.380 when I don't have enough money to make my product? That's a great question.

00:24:29.360 Yeah. It's a very difficult question to answer because there's really two ways you can go about

00:24:35.420 it. You can do what we did where we constantly reinvested our money over the course of 10 years

00:24:42.080 back into our business and didn't get paid. Okay. And that's definitely a good way to do it because

00:24:47.800 we maintain our equity. We maintain our ownership of our company. We maintain control. We don't have to

00:24:52.860 answer to anybody. And I love that about what we do. Okay. So that's how we did it. But the problem

00:24:58.820 with that is that, you know, A, it took us 10 years to get anywhere. B, most people won't stick

00:25:03.900 with something for 10 years. C, if your product is great and let's say it's, maybe it's a product that

00:25:10.720 can get passed by in technology or can be outgrown by technological advances, that amount of time

00:25:18.020 could make your business fail because you're not able to hit or strike when the iron is hot for

00:25:24.980 your product. So, you know, I don't, did he say what kind of product it was? He didn't. Okay. So I

00:25:31.980 don't know the product, but when you're dealing with something that you have to inventory, a lot of

00:25:36.740 times, man, it's important to, you're going to have to take other people's money to inventory. If you

00:25:43.720 want to strike when it's hot, I'm, I'm doing a deal right now with a guy who is working on a

00:25:48.400 fitness concept, a piece of equipment. I'm not going to talk about, say the name or say who it

00:25:53.780 is, but he's a billionaire. Okay. And his product to do what he wants to do, he's because the product's

00:26:04.100 going to hit in the way that it's going to be marketed. It's going to come on so strong that even

00:26:08.500 though he's a billionaire and you know, when I say billionaire, you know, we're talking about assets,

00:26:12.600 not liquid all the time. A lot of people mistake that a lot of people think a billionaire has a

00:26:16.820 billion dollars in cash, right? You know, that's not always the case, but even this guy who is well

00:26:21.800 funded is going to have to take other people's money to meet the demand of, of the sales in order

00:26:28.360 to have enough inventory produced to meet the price point that needs to happen to make the margins

00:26:33.080 happen. So, you know, it depends on the product to be honest, but like if you have a product or a

00:26:40.380 service that you can do it on your own by reinvesting and you're willing to take that

00:26:46.160 time, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. That's what we did. Um, and I'm, I'm proud and

00:26:52.120 happy that we did that now, but in hindsight, you know, had, could I be where I'm at in five

00:26:57.060 years by using somebody else's money? I would have fucking done it in a second. So my answer 0.98

00:27:02.980 is, is, you know, I can't give you an answer cause I don't know the product, but if your product

00:27:07.440 has any potential at all of being passed up or, or it's a, it's a strike while the iron's

00:27:13.360 hot type product, or it's a product that can be, um, consumed by advancing technology, you

00:27:18.820 know, technology is advancing. It's such a ridiculous rate that things that are brand

00:27:23.740 new today, next year are obsolete. And if that's the case for your product, you have to

00:27:29.940 use somebody else's money to have the inventory to meet the demand and make your business viable

00:27:34.820 right now. So, uh, not knowing what the product is, that's the best advice I can give you.

00:27:39.780 Okay, Michael, hope, hopefully that was helpful. I think it should be. Uh, I think that's it

00:27:43.980 for this, uh, this episode. We, uh, we took a little longer. Normally there's gonna be 20

00:27:48.040 minutes. The reason we took a little longer is explain to you what we were going to do

00:27:51.860 differently, but, uh, we're gonna try to keep it under 20 minutes, 25 minutes. I think we're

00:27:56.480 a little bit over that right now, but, um, but that's going to be the basis of how we're

00:28:00.100 going to do things on Thursday. Sometimes we might come in with a show that's going to

00:28:02.980 be a bullet point show, sort of like if you listen to the 4th of July episode, I did something

00:28:07.140 like that, but just something a little bit different, you know, to work in more interaction

00:28:11.420 with you guys. Yeah. Uh, just a couple more things real quick before we, uh, close up a

00:28:15.660 one is that I want to just tell people again, how thankful we are for the reviews that they

00:28:20.680 continue to roll in. And I honestly, please don't stop. I mean, it's been awesome.

00:28:25.940 The, um, the, you guys have picked up a slack on the reviews big time and it's super helpful.

00:28:30.960 Um, you know, my goal, and I said this this morning on my Periscope, I want to change the 0.96

00:28:37.280 fucking world. Okay. And this is not something like, Oh, I want to change the world. I'm just 0.99

00:28:42.200 sick of the fucking world. You know, it's not, I want to do it. It's just, it needs to be 0.99

00:28:45.980 fucking changed. And this politically correct, everybody wins bullshit that we've been consumed 0.99

00:28:52.280 with for the last fucking 15 years needs to fucking stop. And, and that's, that's the goal. 1.00

00:28:58.260 So the long end term goal, which I get asked a lot, what's your goal? My goal is to get back to

00:29:03.020 where the fuck we used to be and be, be great. A fuck great country, a great economy, hard workers 0.99

00:29:09.420 that do what the fuck they're supposed to do. And, and that's my goal is to send that message. 1.00

00:29:14.380 So the more, and I, and I know the people that listen here agree with that message because the

00:29:18.680 resounding support speaks for itself. So if you guys agree with that message, the way we can help do

00:29:26.040 this is by getting this message out there more. And the way that we do that is by leaving reviews

00:29:29.820 because it pushes up the charts on iTunes. Absolutely. So it helps us a lot. And, and,

00:29:34.440 um, I should also mention too, because we've been talking about it and people have been asking about

00:29:39.200 it. Um, we're going to set a date real soon to start announcing the winners of the review. Cause

00:29:43.980 what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring all of them in here and we'll have a drawing and you can,

00:29:47.240 we'll start with, uh, knocked over my pop anyway. Um, so we're going to, we're going to have a

00:29:53.980 drawing to, uh, to, to draw the first five winners. I'm not sure what they're going to get yet,

00:29:58.460 but, uh, we talked about some different things and then we'll do that.

00:30:01.660 And we'll also have details on the $50,000 entrepreneurial giveaway coming up soon on the

00:30:05.940 podcast. Um, that's something that a lot of you guys have been asking about. That's something that

00:30:10.700 we are going to do and we'll have details very soon on that. Right. Send a, if you're, if you're a

00:30:14.900 college student in the St. Louis area, send an email to askandyatthemfceo.com and just put in the, um,

00:30:22.080 in the subject line intern. Now, if you, if you're not really an intern and you put that in the

00:30:26.760 subject, subject line to get our attention, it will go very bad for you. So, uh, we'll not answer

00:30:33.820 your question. Yeah, we definitely won't answer your question. But, um, I guess the last thing I,

00:30:38.060 you've told them about your Periscope, your, your Andy Frisella on Periscope. I'm Vaughn Kohler,

00:30:42.620 V-A-U-G-H-N-K-O-H-L-E-R on Instagram. Andy is Andy Frisella on Instagram. And then Snapchat is what?

00:30:49.240 MFCEO-1. MFCEO-1. And same, uh, Andy Frisella on Facebook. Periscope thing is cool. You guys

00:30:55.500 should check that out. It's very, very cool. It is. It's like a live podcast. There's no editing.

00:30:59.760 There's no, it's just on the spot. I like it because I feel like, you know, it separates the

00:31:06.420 people who know their shit from the people that are pretending to know their shit. Yeah. You know, 1.00

00:31:11.240 um, it's, it's cool. I follow a lot of really cool guys on, on, uh, on Periscope and learning a lot.

00:31:17.720 Is there a, is there a limit? Cause I know I was, I was in one of your sessions one time and it said

00:31:21.960 something like overload. If you don't get in right away on the, on the broadcast, um, I think it's

00:31:26.820 like first 500. You can't, you can't ask a question. It's actually 500. Oh good. I, uh, but you can be

00:31:33.160 in, you just can't answer questions. Yeah. You can walk. Oh, okay. And then sometimes if you log back

00:31:36.980 out and log back in, you bump somebody. Sounds good. Okay. Well finish up, finish us up. All right,

00:31:43.260 guys. Well, that's it. Um, send us your questions, keep them coming, keep the reviews coming. Uh,

00:31:49.640 like Vaughn said, we appreciate everything that you're doing for us very much. Let us know if we

00:31:55.880 can do something different to help you guys. Um, our job is to help you guys get results. I am here

00:32:03.100 to mentor you guys and to help you guys any way that I can. That's why we do this. That's the purpose

00:32:07.800 of this. Um, so bring us your questions and we'll answer them. And, uh, and I guess that's

00:32:14.500 it, man. That's it. All right. We'll see you later.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - July 30, 2015

ASK ANDY： How to Build a Customer Base (And Two More Questions) - MFQA1

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