REAL AF with Andy Frisella - July 30, 2015


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


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

202.03867

Word Count

6,521

Sentence Count

502

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

In this episode of the MFCEO Project, we talk about a new weekly segment we ll be doing on Thursdays, where we'll be answering listener questions. We're so grateful for all the support we've gotten so far, and we can't thank you enough.


Transcript

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
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
00:00:56.100 coat, fairy dust, pussified bullshit that we're all getting spoon-fed so much of in today's
00:01:02.380 society. So if you're a normal listener, a regular listener, we're going to do something a little
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
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
00:03:01.920 have to say. It's pretty awesome.
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
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.
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
00:05:10.400 click on it, you know? And then it was like this serious email about it. And I was like,
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
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
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
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,
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.
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
00:10:09.820 to apply information and you've got to understand that nobody's going to fucking hold your hand
00:10:13.920 because anybody that's worthwhile holding your hand to be completely honest with you,
00:10:18.380 you can't fucking afford. Right. And I'm glad you brought that up because, and again, I, I,
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
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
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
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
00:13:08.820 something and make it work for you. It does not fucking exist. If you could accept that right now,
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
00:13:23.900 shortcut. Dude, that is the shortcut. That is the secret. That's the special secret that, you know,
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
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.
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.
00:14:52.420 Oh yeah. Like dude, that's badass shit. Before my wife and I got married, she broke our engagement.
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,
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
00:17:56.020 the top for your customers, regardless if they paid for it or not, that they tell people about you.
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
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
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
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
00:20:22.840 number one that he went and told customer number two, three, and four, every time the conversation
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
00:21:04.120 own the fucking conversation. Okay. So that they say, oh, dude, oh, you, you need machining.
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
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,
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
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
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
00:22:33.360 your company. So anything you can do along those lines is going to, is going to be what grows your
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
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
00:28:37.280 fucking world. Okay. And this is not something like, Oh, I want to change the world. I'm just
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
00:28:45.980 fucking changed. And this politically correct, everybody wins bullshit that we've been consumed
00:28:52.280 with for the last fucking 15 years needs to fucking stop. And, and that's, that's the goal.
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
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.
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,
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.