Yifat Cohen: How to Activate and Monetize Your Expertise (#311)

Yifat Cohen & Fei Wu: How to activate and monetize your expertise – powered by Happy Scribe

Fei from FeisWorld Media. I am here today with my lovely guest, Yifat Cohen, and I am so thrilled to introduce her to you guys. So let me just briefly introduce a fat and we’ll get started again. The name, pronunciation, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s Efat.

Yeah, pretty good.

Pretty good.

Okay, that’s good.

So you’re an entrepreneur and you run an engagement marketing business that helps entrepreneurs establish trust instantly, where they’re prospects. And you’ve been running your business for over eleven years. You do Krav MAGA, which I’m a huge fan of, martial arts, taekwondo in particular. We’re going to geek out on that. And you love geeky things, cook, spicy food and it’s a traveler adventurer, but also one who loves your sleep. So do I. So funny. I just watched a YouTube video right before this about waking but five in the morning, so I guess we’re both disagree with that. Strong coffee and quickly a little bit on your background, but there’s so much to explore today. You are one of the first 100 people to be invited to Google Plus and you have built your entire brand with one show, on one platform that most people didn’t even care about. And so you know what, I think that is incredible. Some of the things that we’re going to talk about today is that we will not shy away from money. So I hope money won’t turn you off. I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to lay the groundwork and to be able to talk to each other about not only how to start your business.

How to grow your business. But also you’re somebody who is about three to five years in a little bit more experience. Trying to really focus on. Again. Sort of the balance of their business or personal life. But trying to make more money. So to create more freedom. So let’s get started. IFAT yay do it, do it.

Tadantum.

Awesome. So, yeah, so please, I love the fact that you connect to your channels. I want to take this opportunity for you to share a bit of your origin stories. I know that sometimes people are hesitant to ask. I am an immigrant as well, a Chinese immigrant, and I moved here when I was 17, that was 22 years ago. And I know that you’re from Israel, so please tell us a bit about your origin and what was the transition like for you?

Yeah, so, born in Jerusalem, then my parents decided to start a tiny little village and I was one of the first kids over there. And the joke was that a good fence is a fence that keeps everybody out. And he fought in because I was troublemaker. And so I grew up in the Jordan Valley. Tiny, tiny, tiny village. Like 40 families. So when you say like, we heard what you did last night, we actually heard what you did last night, tiny. And then I went to a boarding school in Jerusalem for three years. And then I went to the Air Force, did my two and plus years in the Air Force. Then I went and I worked in the border between Gaza, Israel and Egypt. Kind of like a security position. Made some money, went backpacking in South America for like, eight months, came back to Israel, got a job, get a house, get a car, got a thing. And then my cousin sent me an email and said, if you ever want to come to the States, you can stay with me. And I said, Great, I’ll be there in two weeks. And she said, Give me a minute, okay.

She said, I’m going to Austin. I’m like, fine. I’ll come to Austin years later. Wow.

When was that? When did you come here?

I got here in 98. I went to UT. I majored in Spanish and business only because people were like, well, you like Spanish? I’m like, yeah, I do. Okay. I did that. And then I started actually, during my college years, I was working in a startup, and it was me, the owner and an operation guy. And so I did everything. I did the sales, I did the accounting, I did the website. I didn’t fulfill everything. And the operation guy was like, if you get the run over by a boss, we’re screwed. And I was like, what if I want to take a vacation? Like, why do we have to go in the battle that I’m dead? Right? And he’s like, okay, well, he started bringing in people for me to train them on each one of the things that I was doing. Twelve people later, I was fired, and I was like, okay, thank you. Now I know I can build a company and I’ll never build it for anyone else. That was the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.

And this was still when you’re in college?

I was in college, yeah. So I got fired. And I was like, thanks. I’m going a semester abroad in Buenos Sinners. That was my last semester. And then I came back and Google Plus launched timing. Yeah.

Well, I’m going to just stay on the origin story a bit longer because in just 1 minute, I guess I heard a lot of things that I had no exposure, no experience, and I was never part of the military. And I know that perhaps there’s a requirement for men and women in Israel. Yes, I think it was widely understood. In a way. I think it helps that you’re not alone and you’ve seen, hopefully, your relatives, other men, women, and joining the workforce, the army. But did you have any excitement? Was it fear? Was it any doubts towards being part of military?

No, because like you said, right, everybody goes there. And so the conversation usually around your senior year of high school is like, which division you’re going to go to? Are you going to be a fighter? Are you going to be what are you going to do? That was the time when I realized that my father doesn’t know everything, how shattered my world, because I wanted to become a journalist. And my dad it’s very interesting, right? Like, you never realize how your parents see the world until you grow out of it, and you go like, oh, wow, interesting. So I wanted to be a journalist, and in high school, I wanted to go and apply. And my dad was like, no, no, don’t do that. Because if you failed that, then you will close all the other opportunities that you have in front of you. No idea why you said that. Because I don’t know. I don’t think it’s true.

But it’s not.

Yeah, but then I was like, okay, so I didn’t apply, and then I ended up in the Air Force. I didn’t want to be in the Air Force. I want to be something fighting on the ground. Yeah, right. But now it’s very interesting because I know you wanted to be protective, but I was like, wow, I didn’t realize how protective he was like, don’t do this, this might happen. Don’t do this, this might happen.

Right? I actually spent a lot of time thinking about that, even, like, yesterday or earlier today, about even being in my 20s, certainly teenage years, but since late teens in my twenty s, I obviously spent most of that time here. And my parents, surprisingly, especially my mom, was very oftentimes very concerned, afraid of a lot of the decisions I was making. And I thought somehow that I was alone. This is a whole teams, and parents like Tiger Mom sort of deal. But it does sound like perhaps do you think your parents had similar feelings, perhaps because you were in a different country by yourself? Most likely you think their anxiety increased as a result of that.

You know, it’s funny because when I was right after the military, I went backpacking in South America, and I took a one way ticket, and I was like, I’ll just see what happens. And it was the days before phones and cameras, anything, so I had to actually call my parents once a week, usually collect, because it was a backpacker. And in one of the calls, my dad was like, jokingly, of course. Come on, you’re calling us too much. And I was like, okay, so I didn’t call for a month. And then I called back and said, what the hell are you? I’m like, you said, don’t call. You know, like, you’re like, I was fine. I was traveling. Why are you calling all the time? I don’t know. My dad, he’s expecting me to be very independent. And I think a lot of that is kind of like, why I am who I am today. Can, like, figure things out. At your age, I already knew how to do this, and that, and I know he cares, but it’s kind of like if I show her that I care and she’ll be so close, then I failed as a father to give her the independence and all that stuff.

Yeah. Interesting. Do you have any siblings, you thought?

Yeah, I’m the oldest. I have three sisters and two brothers.

Oh, wow. At least the attention is split. Whereas for me, I’m an only child, so there’s a lot of attention on this is like the one shot my parents got.

Must forbid something happens to you. That’s it.

I know that’s it. And I think it’s crazy because a lot of people, my generation were born as an only child, and a lot of people are so curious about it and how we grew up. Are we all selfish and stupid or something?

And it’s selfish way.

Exactly. A lot of people think that’s what kids like growing up an only child. As an only child, I think when I speak to my American friends, it is a very strange feeling or sensation when they are themselves like an only child. But to us, it’s absolutely normalized. And now they’re definitely more and people were watching and interested. They’re definitely you know, people are now raising multiple children, typically one or two. Now you have the permission to raise two children in the city, and most parents would choose to have only one just because it’s really expensive. But wow, this is so incredible because we caught up not a few days ago, and I had no idea any of this ever happened to you. So I would love to kind of shine a spotlight on some of the things you’re working on and please tell us about the various projects and perhaps one of the things you’re focusing on right now.

Yeah, so, you know, it’s very interesting. I was, like, one of the first to jump into Google Plus and the first one to do live streaming and everything, and I built my entire brand with one show on a platform that most people couldn’t care less about.

Right.

And it was because of the engagement and the conversation that I had with people, and during that time, I had the hardest time convincing the world that video is such a fantastic platform, that live video, you know, people can bond over it. It will be fantastic.

Right now, guys, say hi. Yeah, right?

And so. Thanks, Covet. Finally, everybody’s like, oh, man, this is so cool. Tony Robins just said I used to reach 150 people in my live event, and now I reach a million at once. So it’s like it’s huge for everyone, right? For connection, for sharing, for all that stuff. And so we have two problems. One, everybody’s coming online, right? And everybody’s trying to be an expert, and now we don’t trust things anymore because everybody’s online and everything can be manipulated, and it’s just tough. And so people who are coming online are trying to figure out, well, how do I monetize this?

Right?

And we have coaching, which is growing pretty big. We have content, we have courses that are growing pretty big.

Right.

And the challenge is, each one of these markets is extremely saturated because if right now you’re coming in and you’re like, well, I’m going to do a course, well, good luck, because all the information is already on YouTube and Udemy and Quora, right? So it’s going to take you forever to start the course, build the course, find your uniqueness, try to convince people to buy it and all that stuff. Not saying there’s no value in it. I just want people to understand that it’s not an overnight success. Like they make you think, right?

Yeah.

And I think for me, that’s the biggest challenge. It’s kind of like, look, all you need is a book. Really, all you need is this. It really you’re just a funnel away. Are you? So right now, we’re kind of like at this time with the Internet, where it’s saturated, a lot of people are coming in. Stuff that worked five years ago doesn’t work anymore, especially for podcasters, right? Those who started five years ago have a huge advantage over those who are just starting out now. So it’s way harder. And so what can we do? Right? And so I remember Grant Cardone was talking to Louis Hous about Underground Billionaire, the show that he was on, and they took him and they put him in the boondocks like some city with 22% unemployment in Texas and said, you have 90 days to build a business. And Grant was like, if there’s anything we don’t need is more businesses. More businesses, more bars and more restaurants. We don’t need more hair salons, we don’t need more massagerfree. We have 35 million businesses in the US. Two thirds of them are failing. So if you want to succeed, go into those businesses, figure out how you can add value, and that will be so much faster and so much easier and so much more valuable.

And so I was like, okay, so what can we do? How can we add value to what is the friction that people need right now? And because there are so many experts coming online, and because there’s such a demand for content, one thing that we can really help people with is what I call activating their expert gym. And you know this because, hey, you’re an expert and learning every day. That’s what an expert does, right? I know everything already. It’s like there’s always more to learn, but when you’re an expert about something, you’re geeking out over it. Like you know everything. Like you with put up and you know everything. You know what happens there and what’s the statistics and what’s the latest software. I saw you sharing a review about the script and recap, right? Like, how many people compare different softwares, right? If someone comes to you and go like, hey, I want to start a podcast to be like, okay, here’s what you need, right? And here’s what to avoid, because you know all these things. The problem is, most experts, when they talk about their expertise with their friends and family, like I did with my Google Pass, people were like, okay, enough already.

I don’t care about Google. Leave me with my Twitter and stuff. And then when you come online, it’s kind of like vanilla, right? Like, I don’t want to offend anyone, and I don’t know what to talk about, and I don’t know what to put out there. And so nothing works for them. But if they’re talking to someone who activates their gene, who is, like, geeking out with them about the stuff that they really care about, all of a sudden, the energy changes. You’re getting into a state of flow. You lose track of time because you’re so into what you’re talking about. And that’s really what’s missing for these experts. It’s like someone who will come in and be like, you’re brilliant. Let’s bring out your brilliance and take that and turn that into content. And that’s a huge friction that is really in high demand. Very few people in Story know actually how to activate that gene. Oops, I don’t know why my thing sorry, my bad. My phone was saying, no problem.

So I think there are two parts for people to understand. Here is one that you have to understand. What your expertise? Well, number one, you should know what your expertise already is, and you have to be able to activate that and attract the right people, right? I think that’s kind of the two parts.

Well, there’s a challenge, right? Because we can’t be activated on our own, right? Unless you’re like, super. Okay. So there’s two challenges. Even if you’re really comfortable with a motionless camera, you don’t know how your message lands, right? You might say something to the camera thinking that you’re extra clear, and then the person hearing it going like, what do you mean by that? Right? And if you don’t have someone with you that kind of like to see the reaction, get the immediate feedback that like, okay, my message is not landing. Then it becomes a trial and error, right? Let me put all this content on there, and let’s put some money behind it, and let’s see how people react. And then if they like this one, we’ll do more of that one, right? But if you’re doing it the same way you and I are doing it, just exactly what just happened? You were like, Wait a second. There are two things let me make.

Sure you’re talking about exactly what is this about? And anybody who’s watching have questions for ya. Fatt. Please drop us a note anywhere you are. I would appreciate that. Can answer them alive. That would be really interesting. Please continue.

What just happened? Between us. I was wrapping on and you’re like, wait a second, I think I’m hearing this. Is that what I’m hearing?

Now?

Imagine you were not there. I would be just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Makes sense. Yeah, exactly.

That’s what experts need, why they need you, or what I call a CSI, someone who knows how to ask these questions, who knows how to pay attention, how to activate that gene and make it like super awesome and juicy to get these type of conversations going on. Otherwise it’s just more noise online.

So I’m going to use something very specific because there is a creator community podcasters and some YouTubers. It’s kind of a mix of both podcasters who are now on YouTube as a platform and YouTubers we’re now podcasting. It’s such a fantastic, such an intriguing world we’re living in right now. So tell us about one of your activation programs designed for podcasters. And when we started the conversation, I had some questions around that. I’m also happy to project it if it’s helpful, but maybe tell us a bit about this program. I dropped it in the comment, by the way. It’s called How Podcast hosts can make Money without Podcasting and turn their curiosity into profit. So please.

Yeah, so podcasters have this beautiful ability to be curious about people, right? And you know more about podcasting in the podcasting world than I do. But I started reading into it and I was like, okay, wow. It’s very, very hard to launch new podcasts because even though the audience is growing, the audience per new podcast is shrinking because people you’re competing with Joe Kogan and you’re competing with Don Kahbi or something, right, the daily Alex Cooper. So you’re competing with them. And podcast listeners are very loyal to the podcast that they’re listening to, right. So for them to jump to a new one, it’s going to be tough.

Right?

And so you have like all these I think it’s like, what, 3 million podcasters now on Spotify, right? So now you’re competing with 3 million podcasters that are just coming in to share their message and their passion and all that stuff. Monetizing, this is really hard.

No, I confronted right away. Right? It’s much easier even then. It’s still very hard. But podcasting, it’s even harder, in my opinion.

Yeah, right, because you need either sponsorship, right, and they’re looking for how many listeners per episode, right, and then so you need to grow your per episode listeners, but you can’t get an audience because they’re already listening to the podcast from 510 years ago. And so most people quit, I think, after the 9th podcast.

Yes, absolutely. How do you convert their skills? Right now we’re talking about people who want to become podcasters. Either fine, they never start, or they quit after the 9th episode. And you have a message for them to be able to make money.

So take your curiosity, guys, take that. Learn how to act. You already know how to reach out to experts, right? All you’re missing is really, how do you provide a conversation that achieves the expert’s goals, right? Otherwise, it’s just conversation, noise, content. But if you take the experts and you run a strategy with them going like, okay, what do you have? Where do you want to go? How can I help you get there? Right? And then you’re having exactly the same conversation that you’re having on a podcast. Minor changes, right? So that it fits the strategy. You activate the gym, you get them into a state of flow. You make it so that you lose track of time, and then you turn that into content that really promotes that expert’s goals, and you get paid for it. So you really get paid to talk right now with no sponsorship and no courses and no merch and no affiliates and no audience and none of that stuff, right? All you need is really to be curious enough about that person really interested in their goals and helping them achieve those goals. And you do that through this type of conversation.

Yeah. So one thing that I have been doing for quite a number of years, I think that part resonates with what you’re sharing. So for me, for instance, as someone in digital marketing, I work with a number of clients on retainer and have been since 20 16, 20 18, 20 19. And I noticed, like you said, it’s hard. They’re very busy. They’re very accomplished entrepreneurs. So every once a week, I hop on these zoom calls, and sometimes they have their fancy 4K camera laid out as well. It doesn’t really matter. We’re not here to focus on equipment. We record the conversation. And also, you know, my partner Adam and I are working on Podintelligence for anybody who’s interested. So we then transcribe and be able to tease out the keywords audios videos right, from that 1 hour content. And what you’re left with are, I don’t want to say infinite, but dozens of these assets, and we curate them. We put them together for social media. So that will be one route you’re describing, and it absolutely works, and it’s incredible. It’s something that you have to introduce to the clients, and some of them may be very new or not uncomfortable.

Be like, tell me more. How does it work? And you demonstrate it through that conversation.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

So the challenge is that most people who are doing anything online right now don’t have a strategy to begin with.

Right?

It’s like, let me post. Okay. Right. I’m not posting enough. Yeah, it’s not about that. It’s about brand building. If you’re looking at, like, Gary Vee, he spent, I think, 2017. He came up with a content model, and his content model was like, take a pillar content piece of content. Kind of like what you’re saying, right? And cut that into a billion pieces, laid it out step by step. Everything is like, for free. Just guys do it. Nobody did it, right? And then he was like, okay, why are you guys not doing it? I spend so much time and effort into this. You have all the information that you need. Why is anyone applying it? And then he’s like, okay, I’m going to have a competition, a content. Whoever’s going to apply this is going to get something. Still, nobody does it. Why? A few reasons. One, it’s hard to talk to a motionless camera the way that Gary Vee is doing it. He’s taking his keynotes well. How many of us are on a keynote have a keynote? How many of us are on channels? How many of us do that consistently enough so that we have content daily?

So it all breaks from the top, right? We don’t have the pillar content. And so Gary goes like, okay, let me create VaynerMedia, and I will do that for people. So for a starting point of $25,000 a month, you will come in and you will get your pillar, and we’ll cut it into two articles, four videos, and stuff like that, right? Every week. And by the end of three years, it’s on his website. By the end of three years, after you’ve done that for three years, you’ll be able to send some merch. I’m like, really? Okay, so if you’re not at the $25,000 level of Gary Vaynerchuk, right? But you want to have that specific model, you have to start from a pillar content, and that pillar content has to be applied to the strategy. What is it that you’re promoting? A course, an email list, a podcast, something, right? Like, how is the content that you’re doing right now growing your business? And I think most people don’t ask that question, right? You’re just like, Well, I need to be on Facebook. I can’t because I’m not insistent. Let me hire someone. And now it’s generic, and nobody connects to me because I’m just like everybody else.

Yeah, true. And I’m going to just tease out a couple of questions, and we’ll go back to understanding the three K guarantee, like how you’re able to make not one to $300, but you’re actually able to generate a real income from the strategy. But first, there’s a question from Adam. How could someone decide if they should or could start a business around their passion or keep it just as a hobby?

So, you know, business is okay. A business will be something that you will dedicate your time to. It’s not going to be just baking cupcakes because you’re going to need marketing and accounting and salespeople and website, all the other stuff that make the fact that you enjoy baking cupcakes valuable, profitable, and pays the bills and takes all the time. So most people, when they start that, they basically replace their existing job with a job that they own.

Right?

It’s not a real business if you leave the business. If you stop doing it, then it’s gone. Like, why there’s no money, like a job. If you don’t work for a certain amount of hours, then you’re not going to get money. So I would say if you can monetize it, right, if it brings you money, then you can focus all your time on it. If it’s not, keep it as a hobby. Have something that generates money while that’s going to try to build this one, while this becomes bigger than this, then you can drop this and become this.

Yeah, it’s a great question, and same thing for me. I was 30 years old when I started my podcast, so my realistic expectation was, okay, I’m really doing this for fun. I’m trying to learn new things, connect with new people. And it was not generating any money for me because that also wasn’t my expectation. I wasn’t treating it as a business until things started to really there’s a turning point for me. Not because of ads. I still have zero ad on my podcast, but instead, it was people I interviewed if I said their friends and connections. Some of my listeners reach out to me to say, oh, I need some help with digital marketing. And I said, what do you think that is? And they kind of explain that based on the way that I’m talking about the business I was doing so at the beginning of, like, designing websites, helping them find their message, creating content, and later on, it turned into a business. So I do have a follow up question to what Adam asked as well. Ivan, I would love to hear your take on people always say, niche down, find your focus.

Whereas, frankly, for me, that advice didn’t really work out as well because I didn’t at the beginning at least, I didn’t have the one thing that could really generate significant amount of revenue for me. I’m living in Boston, you know. You’re in New York, right? I didn’t of course you didn’t tell me, so that’s not a cheap place to live either. And I find that as I’m growing and learning to be a creative entrepreneur, I started to pick up different skills. And also a lot of my expertise were activated by different people, literally throughout my journey. So, you know, therefore, I was trying different things along the way. I was adding something to something existing that was working for me. So I kind of pivoted a number of times. Does this sound normal to you, to your experience? Or do you think people should really focus on that one thing and make it blossom?

I think they’re different types of people, right? I’m the same as you. Like, my resume is a mile and a half long. I’ve done everything that you can think about just because I was curious. I’m like, OOH, like, I get a job to learn. It not to actually learn something and then get a job, which my son’s dad hates. The difference between Americans and Israelis. I’m like, pay me to learn. Why not? But I think that makes you a much more rounded person. And also when you’re young, you can do that. Why not? I mean, like, who says you have to know everything that you want to do at 30? The challenge now is like, when we started, social media was like its infancy and so email marketing really worked or just blogging really worked or just YouTubing like the first person on YouTube was fantastic. Right now it’s much harder and people are looking for the shortcuts, and I think that’s the problem. How long did it take you to get to where you are?

Right?

It’s not an overnight success.

Absolutely not. No.

And it has a lot to do with your mindset and your skills and what you’ve tried and who do you know and how comfortable you are in going like, listen, I’m now at the point where it’s worth $5,000. Most people when they start like, can I ask for a hundred?

Lot of hesitation around asking for money now at a point and I’ve been doing this is really my own business, there’s an LLC question coming up. But I started my LLC in January 2016. But I had been doing kind of just working with my friends on the side, building skillsense. I was in college and certainly very actively since like 20 10, 20 11. Absolutely. It’s a long game, guys. And so Artura asks, what are your thoughts on creating an LLC versus staying a sole proprietor?

I’m not an accountant, but from what I know, I got an LLC. It’s $300. You do it on your own on the website. You don’t need anything aside from that, and it will protect your personal assets if something ever to happen. So you don’t need a lawyer and you don’t need accounting, none of that. You just go online, whatever state you’re in, and you’re like, Texas LLC, name of your company. Right. $300 and you got LLC two days later in the mail. It’s a cover your ass kind of thing.

Yeah. Oh, I would absolutely agree. Something happens between you and particular client, there are a lot of things that you just can’t prevent or avoid. And luckily for me, I’ve never really gotten into any legal issues. But if there is, people can’t come to your house to say, well, now your house is ours, your car. There’s no division between you and your business. And that could be a really big problem. So in Massachusetts, it’s $500 a year and it’s not cheap, but at the same time, when you have a real business, that also becomes your business expenses. Right. So it’s fantastic. So I’m going to go back to the core question on the landing page that I shared earlier, which is following this path that if I had just laid out. You said there’s a guaranteed $3,000. I always get a little nervous whenever I first of all, for my business, I don’t guarantee anything. The reason is I can’t control what the client is willing, is or isn’t doing. And luckily for me, they’re fantastic. But I still don’t use the word guarantee. But I want you to explain where that comes from.

Yeah. And so it’s a conditional guarantee, right? Same thing. If you don’t do the work, then I can’t guarantee you’re going to make the money, right, just by showing up nothing. But if you do the work and by the end of 90 days you have not made the money, I personally will pay you back the difference from what you paid and the $3,000. But you have to do the work. If you do the work, people have done it before. They made way over $3,000. That’s how I know for sure that you will make that much money once you apply it. I know right now things are kind of financially and we don’t know what to trust. And this is very hard. And what if it doesn’t work and I just lost my money and all that stuff? So I want to remove that fear of like, what if it doesn’t happen? If it doesn’t happen, you’ll get paid back, but you have to apply. If you don’t apply, you avoid your guarantee, right? You avoid your warranty if you don’t apply. So if you want to start making $3,000 each and every month while working very, very little with just a few clients, this might be the thing for you.

If you are really curious, love talking to people, started your podcasting journey and realized that I need some income to make this going. You can make a lot of money monetizing skills that you already have. All you need to do is figure out how do I activate the gym, what do I offer? How do I deliver first class experience so that when I go like, hey, you want to stay first class or do you want to go back to coach? People are like, yeah, I don’t want coach, I want to first class. And it’s very interesting phase because I see it with my clients. They’re starting out with people who go like, yeah, I just want to try it out and I don’t know and I don’t have money. And then those guys are bending backward over to be like, okay, how do I work with you? Because this is so awesome. So what’s nice about this process is that even though it’s very simple and you can apply it right away and in fact, I have people who may who got two clients after two days of taking the course and double that a week later.

So finding clients is not hard. Finding clients that you love is hard. How do you know who I want to work with? Who they are what to work with. Can they afford me? Can they not afford me?

How do you quickly identify clients who are worthy of your time and who can obviously also clearly pay for the rate that you’re comfortable with?

Yeah. So there are two questions. They’re five, but the two main ones is what are you selling? If you’re selling a 2000 $3,000 offer, then you will a one sale will cover the whole thing. Right. But if you’re selling that and you’ve sold that not like, hey, I’m putting it on, thinking about it. We’ll see. Right? I’m in the beginning. If you’re already selling a $3,000 offer, that means you have a funnel. You have a way you know what you’re doing. People are paying you so much easier to work with people like that then people who are just starting out and go like, yeah, I don’t know who my audience is. I don’t have a website. I haven’t really tested my messaging. I kind of think that I’m on this, but I’m not really sure if you want to work with these people. I have clients who are like, I just want to be helpful.

Right.

So if you want to work with these people, then both of you need to know it’s going to be a long journey, right. It’s not going to be quick return on investment. If you’re the kind of guy who likes to show results right away, find the people who can get the results right away.

Right.

What if you send them leads and everything and they don’t know how to close them?

Yeah, that’s a big problem for since you mentioned the funnel, and I want to just maybe talk about that a little bit because a lot of people and as you could imagine, will struggle with just building that first one to three clients. And I don’t know what your strategies would be, but what has worked out really well for me, for instance, which is not news to a lot of people, are number one. Eight years ago, I started the podcast, and I was very carefully picking who I was talking to. Not always just famous people. I got a couple of I got a few, maybe a dozen fairly recognized people, but the rest to 300 people are people you’ve probably never heard of and have their own expertise. And then they’re very kind, opened their doors, and we’re good friends, but that took a long time. And that’s a really good funnel, by the way. Like, even if they don’t want to need to hire me, they don’t have that need themselves. They’re always very open to referring me to other people. Now there’s another engine that are powerful for me now, since 2019 is my YouTube channel, which has probably recently surpassed over 2 million views.

And I have very targeted content. So people watch this. They’ll hire me. I mean, I have consulting calls, paid schedule, even before this call for instance. So if people don’t have the podcast or the YouTube channel and they have follow your program taking the course, where do they start? What is that immediate next step?

So there are ten ways of getting clients I’ll share the easiest one. The easiest one is your friends and family. So I call it kind of like being in a city where all the houses are on fire and you’re the only one with the fire truck in town, right, and you’re just going around. So if you’re in a city, the entire city is on fire. You’re the only one with the fire truck. Are you first going to go to a stranger, or are you going to go to your friends and family first and go like, hey, you guys with the buckets with my host, right? And if you’re like, no, we’re good with the buckets. Okay, here’s the fix. Wearing a house, right? But you first want to help the people that you know because they already know I can trust you, right? So the conversation is not like, Buy my shit, shit, because that’s what everybody is doing. The conversation is like, hey, are you struggling?

Right?

Like, I know you’re a dentist. I know you’re a chiropractor. I know you have your own business. I know you’re doing this. How’s that going, right? Like, where’s the friction? Let me just find out whether there’s a friction, and I’ll tell you just that conversation of going like, okay, you have a problem. Let me help you for free. Let me just show you that I can help, right? That builds the trust and the conversation and everything. When I was going live, I would bring people in to talk to me in real time, right? Like, ask me anything you want. And this lady that I’ve never met jumps on from LinkedIn. She happened to be available. She happened to watch this thing. She comes in from LinkedIn. She asks a question, I answer the question. And I’m very big on don’t build your home on rented properties. So I go live everywhere, but I send everybody to my website. So she comes to my website, and in order to get on the show, she puts her information. So after the show is over, I follow up and I go like, Did I answer all your questions?

And she goes, like, kind of And I’m like, okay, let’s jump on a call and let’s see if I can answer the ones that I didn’t answer, right? So we’re talking, and she’s telling me what she needs, and I’m like, I don’t have a program for that. Like, I don’t have a service for that. How am I going to help you? Let me think about this, right? And I think about it. I come back and I’m like, okay, here’s what I can do from a cold client that made me one time, one call, $10,000 1500 a month. Why? Because I can solve a friction. She has a problem, I can solve the problem. I can do it. If I couldn’t solve the problem. Be like, look, I can’t solve it. But my friend, he can solve it. Go talk to him, right? So the easiest way to find clients is have a conversation and say where’s the friction?

Right?

And friction is not something that you kind of like, eh, maybe one day I want to grow into something. Friction is like I’m trying to move and something is blocking me and I’m not moving as fast as the one because there’s friction. Right.

There’s pain. You’re selling painkillers and vitamins, right?

Exactly. Where’s the fire? And if there’s no fire, awesome. If they’re struggling with flood, you’re not a flood insurance, right? You’re a fire truck. So you’re having these conversations and as you have these conversations, all you need is one or two people, honestly, right, to get started. To get started. You give them the first class experience and you say you want to continue. I can’t tell you how many friends of mine I needed some samples for what I was doing. And I was like, yeah, let me do one for you because I want to show my guys how it’s done, right? And they’re like, OK, well, how do I work with you? This is really cool. Maybe I can send my team. Maybe you can work with it. Because when you relieve the pain, then people don’t want to go back to the pain. Why do you want to continue working with you? It’s so much easier than going like, listen, I have a course, listen, have a product, listen, don’t you want to try my thingy? Right? So much easier than that.

Yeah. No, I love it. And this is something that I hope people will put into practice as well. That when you start your conversation with family and friends and also local businesses and people who actually know you, that is much more effective than sending somebody a tweet or a random email that may just land who knows trash or spam. So I think some of the these days, whether it’s face to face or someone you just know, text a direct email is really helpful. And I have to say that I think for people who love business in general, find it so much easier. I find myself to have always really liked business, like learning these things. Yeah. So just start somewhere. So I love to respect your time too, IFAD what are some of the things that you wanted to talk about maybe we haven’t really gotten into? I know we got really deep into this particular offering here.

This is it, right? This is how you activate the chain. You get to geek out with people about the stuff that you both enjoy. I know you and I love martial arts, right, and sleep and stuff, right? So by the way, one of the really cool things. You’re asking how to meet people you and I met through a shared friend. Right? And it was because I was like, hey, Michael, this is what I’m doing. Do you think it will benefit anyone? You can do exactly the same thing. You go to your friends and family and go like, you don’t have a fire, you know, anyone else’s house is on fire. That I can help them get in my way. And now you’re not messaging strangers on the internet, so I think if we change the mindset from selling to serving, right? Then life becomes so much easier.

Absolutely. The same thing goes for the communities we’re part of as well. I was part of seth godin’s. Ten PA. I grew very close to Doria Clark and her group. And not only that you’re now having introductions, but you’re part of a group with shared belief systems and that is huge. You know, I love the fact that I am now working with clients in their fifty s and sixty s, well into their sixty s, and they don’t see it as, oh, I want to retire and live on a golf course and do nothing. And all of them have the shared mindset of how can we be offset and continue to contribute and grow? So when you’re part of the community, you don’t have to explain yourself, you can geek out and you’re kind of operating the same wavelength, you feel good and you save so much time. So this is fantastic. Thank you so much for calling that out.

Yeah. If there’s one thing I can leave you guys with is don’t believe the hype, right? Nobody did it overnight, it’s here. Nobody did it on their own, nobody figured everything out, nobody knows everything.

Right?

That’s why we’re in communities, that’s why we get support, that’s why we’re talking to each other. And so you have time, you can do it. Find the people that you want to walk the journey with and just enjoy the journey. Because by the end of it, we die.

Right?

With a million left. With $100, we die. Make sure the path to the tombstone was enjoyable.

No, it’s very, very important. Absolutely. This is not a rehearsal, so yeah, live your best life and take a few risks here and there. Measured, calculated risks. And I think exactly like the program that you’re talking about, you thought and the way that you approach waiting for something to actually generate an income replicating that and just tread lightly, calculated risk is fantastic. I think that’s all I’ve ever done in my life. So this has been such a wonderful conversation. I’m so grateful to Michael Ruddy who introduced us, and I look forward to continuing into absolutely. Not just the near future, but let’s play the long game and hopefully to partner on a number of projects together.

That would be fun. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Alright, bye.