We Spent $5M on Business Gurus, So You Don't Have To
Cole Gordon and Nick Fisher rank the coaches, courses, and masterminds that actually built their 8- and 9-figure businesses.
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1 months ago
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
The programs that changed two nine-figure operators rarely delivered the advertised outcome but handed each of them something more durable: an identity, a funnel architecture, a mental model, or a proof of what scale is actually possible.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A coach, consultant, or agency owner past $100k/yr deciding whether to invest in masterminds or courses at the next stage.
A founder who wants an honest post-mortem on what Sam Ovens, Alex Hormozi, Taylor Welch, and Alex Becker actually deliver at close range.
An operator curious about the direct VSL funnel structure that produced over $100M for one high-ticket sales recruiting company.
Anyone building a course-based business who wants to understand what made Consulting Accelerator 2.0 the gold standard for program design.
SKIP IF…
You are pre-revenue and looking for a step-by-step first-client playbook.
You are in e-commerce or SaaS; the conversation is almost entirely coaching, consulting, and agency.
You want tactical ad scripts or campaign frameworks; this is a meta-analysis of what to invest in and why.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Two operators who have collectively crossed nine figures in annual revenue rank their top five most impactful business programs and the pattern that emerges is consistent: foundational frameworks outlast tactics, proximity to a scaling company teaches more than any curriculum, and the programs that cost them money still delivered ROI through unexpected pivots. Nick got his copy architecture from Todd Brown, his $100M funnel from Becker, and a future-of-education blueprint from a guitar course. Cole got his sales identity from a failed SMMA program, his setter model from inside Traffic and Funnels, and a belief-breaking expansion of what is possible from a $250k Hormozi session. Both name the Agora Black Book, a 600-page underground publishing SOP, as among the highest-density business material they have ever encountered.
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Cole introduces Nick Fisher of NewReach ($150M/yr) and frames the conversation: two operators who collectively spent over $5M on business education ranking their top five.
00:19 – 02:33
02 · Honorable mentions
Both hosts rapid-fire honorable mentions: Derek Halpern Yes Engines, Nathan Lacka, Lewis Howes live webinars, John Loomer Facebook ads, and Perfect Webinar.
02:33 – 09:46
03 · Copywriting masters
Nick groups his honorable mentions around four copywriting teachers: Frank Kern (here is what I got / will do / you do next), Jason Fladlien (webinar GOAT), John Benson (Big Idea Map), and Todd Brown E5 (marketing thesis architecture). Leads to a deep discussion of dimensionalizing pain points visually.
09:46 – 10:31
04 · Nick #5: Hormozi free course
Nick names the Hormozi free lead gen course on acquisition.com as his #5 for its more-better-new sequencing. He puts every new NewReach hire through it on day one because it builds the correct mental model before anyone touches ad accounts.
10:31 – 18:19
05 · Cole #5: Kat Howell SMMA
Cole describes spending $4k on an SMMA program after a year of failed cold email (with a blacklisted domain he didn't know about). Made $60k in ten weeks then lost it all to bad contractors. The real ROI: being recognized as a salesperson in the program, latching onto that identity, and pivoting to a sales career.
18:19 – 22:43
06 · Nick #4: Consulting Accelerator 2.0
Nick worked on Consulting Accelerator during its creation, conducting 800+ customer interviews. Argues it is still the best-structured course ever made for how every module chunks frameworks down to limiting beliefs and back up. Also covers the discipline of shutting down revenue to build a better product.
22:43 – 26:06
07 · Cole #4: Alex Becker SaaS Mastermind
Cole paid $30k without having a SaaS. Becker ran through a Google Doc for 8 hours straight with no breaks. Cole learned the direct VSL funnel structure (offer-guarantee, social proof hammer, CTA, then demo for information buyers) that has since produced over $100M for his business.
26:06 – 28:02
08 · Nick #3: STA
Nick explains how STA (Cole Gordon program) helped NewReach implement the setter-closer model on 60,000 dormant leads. Their team still trains on it; someone requested the login as recently as last month.
28:02 – 35:45
09 · Cole #3: Traffic and Funnels / Taylor Welch
Cole describes the most transformative year of his life working in-person at Traffic and Funnels. Osmosis learning from watching the company scale from $300k to $1.5M/month. Invented outbound setter calling from scratch by pulling 1,200 print newsletter subscribers. Dark energy close: Taylor told him he would never make more money than he made there.
35:45 – 40:33
10 · Nick #2: Sonora Guitar Accelerator
Nick bought a guitar course for its operational architecture. Spencer Hanley (first Patreon dev) built a custom algorithmic LMS that grades performance and unlocks content based on demonstrated skill, not linear completion. Nick sees this as the template for AI-native practice-skill education.
40:33 – 49:29
11 · Cole #2: Alex Hormozi investments
Cole bartered sales reps for Hormozi one-on-one consulting day recordings before Hormozi was a YouTuber, later bartered for the Alan white-label affiliate course material. Paid $250k for the money models event. Main ROI: belief-breaking proximity to how large Hormozi was thinking and access to content team architecture.
49:29 – 56:30
12 · Nick #1: The Agora Black Book
Nick names the Agora Black Book as his #1. 600-page underground publishing SOP from Michael Masterson; he has read it 6 times and keeps a physical copy on his desk. Maps four business phases. Ready Fire Aim is the public version of one-sixth of it.
56:30 – 1:05:50
13 · Cole #1: Consulting Accelerator 2.0
Cole names Consulting Accelerator 2.0 as his #1. Read How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis while bartending, pivoted from pre-med to entrepreneur, saw a Sam Ovens ad via Tai Lopez JV, bought on the webinar, almost refunded, then went through the course three times. The mindset training in week two changed his identity.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Losing all your money in a program does not mean it failed; the Kat Howell SMMA program cost Cole everything and handed him the sales identity that built his entire company.
The more-better-new framework is the correct sequencing for lead generation: maximize volume of existing channels first, then optimize conversion, only then add new acquisition channels.
Consulting Accelerator 2.0 is the best-structured course ever produced in the coaching industry because it chunks high-level frameworks down to limiting beliefs and back up in every module.
The direct VSL funnel that produced over $100M starts with an offer-and-guarantee statement, hammers social proof, delivers a clear CTA for ready buyers, then continues with a deeper demo for information buyers.
The best version of any expert's framework is often the underground version: one-on-one consulting recordings and pre-launch course material carry far more density than any public YouTube channel.
Proximity to a scaling company teaches more than formal training; watching a CMO set budgets and listening to client calls produces pattern recognition that cannot be packaged into modules.
The Agora Black Book maps four business phases: zero to $1M is product-market fit via marketing, $1M to $10M is front-end optimization, $10M to $50M is operational infrastructure, and $50M+ is proliferating front ends off a proven core.
Dark energy, the sustained drive to prove a doubter wrong, is a legitimate and durable founder motivator; the mentor who says you will never make more money here may be doing you the most useful service.
An algorithmic LMS that unlocks next-level content based on demonstrated performance rather than linear completion is the template for any practice-skill course as AI becomes embedded in education.
Calling warm leads, print newsletter subscribers and opt-ins, was so effective in 2017 that the coaching industry had not yet named the channel; the first 100 calls produced multiple closes and became the setter model.
High-ticket proximity events worth their price deliver belief-breaking expansion of what you believe is possible, not a list of tactics; the main ROI is recalibrating your target scale.
A 4% close rate on 10 daily calls produces enough revenue to present yourself as a sales rep if you frame it right; conviction in your own narrative matters more than the underlying metrics.
Takeaway
What two nine-figure operators actually paid for
WHAT TO LEARN
The programs that shaped Cole Gordon and Nick Fisher rarely delivered the advertised outcome but handed each of them something more durable: an identity, a funnel, a mental model, or a proof of scale.
01The $5M premise
Two operators who have crossed nine figures in annual revenue retrospectively rank the educational investments that actually shaped their businesses.
02Honorable mentions
Derek Halpern calling buyers personally on a welcome call is a trust signal that has survived 15 years; Cole still does it himself.
Lewis Howes running a live webinar every single day is a model of grit-based skill development that is underrated as a teaching approach.
03Copywriting masters
The copy platform, a structured pre-writing document mapping thesis, sub-beliefs, pain dimensionalization, and claim-proof stacks, prevents blank-page ad creation and generates 100 ad ideas from a single session.
Dimensionalizing pain points means asking what the prospect literally sees, hears, and feels so that abstract problems become visceral specifics.
The E5 framework is the most systematic approach to building a marketing thesis: central argument, sub-beliefs required to accept it, claims that prove each sub-belief, then assets.
04Nick #5: Hormozi free course
The more-better-new framework is the correct sequencing for lead generation; most marketers skip to new acquisition channels before exhausting volume and conversion improvement in existing ones.
05Cole #5: Kat Howell SMMA
Losing all your money in a program does not mean the program failed; unexpected side effects like discovering a talent or pivoting a career path can deliver more value than the stated outcome.
A 4% close rate with high volume can produce enough revenue to present yourself as a sales rep if you frame it right; conviction in your own narrative matters more than the underlying metrics.
06Nick #4: Consulting Accelerator 2.0
The best-structured course ever made works by chunking high-level frameworks down to limiting beliefs and back up; every module catches the objection that would prevent the student from applying the concept.
Shutting down revenue entirely to focus on building a better product, even for three months with no income, is a form of product discipline that produces outsized results when the team has the conviction to execute it.
07Cole #4: Alex Becker SaaS Mastermind
The direct VSL funnel structure is: open with an offer-and-guarantee statement, hammer social proof, deliver a CTA for ready buyers, then go deeper with a demo for information buyers who need more context.
You do not need to be in the exact market a mastermind targets to get ROI; the transferable framework often matters more than the industry-specific tactics.
08Nick #3: STA
A training program that still produces results years after purchase, with team members requesting login credentials in the current month, signals durable framework quality rather than tactical shelf-life.
09Cole #3: Traffic and Funnels
Osmosis from proximity teaches more than formal curriculum; watching a CMO set budgets and observing how an 8-figure company scales is an education that cannot be packaged into modules.
Calling warm leads, print newsletter subscribers and opt-ins, was so effective in 2017 that the coaching industry had not yet named the channel; the first 100 cold calls produced multiple closes and became the setter model.
Dark energy, the sustained drive to prove a doubter wrong, is a legitimate and durable founder motivator.
10Nick #2: Sonora Guitar Accelerator
An algorithmic LMS that grades performance and unlocks next-level content based on demonstrated skill rather than linear completion is the template for any practice-skill course as AI becomes embedded in education.
Operator genius applied to the wrong market ceiling produces a well-run business that tops out early; the most impressive operators are not always in the highest-ceiling vehicles.
11Cole #2: Alex Hormozi investments
The best version of any expert's framework is often the underground version: one-on-one consulting recordings and pre-launch course material carry far more density than any public YouTube channel.
High-ticket proximity events worth their price deliver belief-breaking expansion of what you believe is possible; recalibrating your target scale can be worth seven figures when you are running a $30M company.
12Nick #1: The Agora Black Book
The Agora Black Book maps four business phases most operators try to skip: zero to $1M is product-market fit via marketing, $1M to $10M is front-end optimization, $10M to $50M is operational infrastructure, and $50M+ is proliferating front ends off a proven core.
Ready Fire Aim is the public approximation of one-sixth of the Agora Black Book; reading it four to six times is not unusual for operators past $10M who find it more useful at each new stage.
13Cole #1: Consulting Accelerator 2.0
Reading a single book, How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis, while bartending was enough to pivot a pre-med student to entrepreneur; the identity shift preceded any tactical knowledge.
Almost refunding a course and being required to complete it before getting your money back can be the best accident; the course you nearly returned may be the one that changes your direction.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Setter-closer model
A two-role sales structure where a setter calls or messages leads to qualify them and book discovery calls, which a closer then runs to pitch and close. Popularized in the high-ticket coaching and agency industry around 2017-2018.
Direct VSL funnel
A video sales letter funnel that opens with an offer-and-guarantee statement, delivers social proof, gives a CTA for action-ready buyers, then continues with a deeper product demo for information buyers who need more context before booking.
Copy platform
A structured pre-writing document that maps the marketing thesis, central argument, sub-beliefs, pain point dimensionalization, and claim-proof stack before any ad or sales asset is written. Prevents blank-page creation and generates dozens of ad angles from a single session.
Consulting Accelerator 2.0
Sam Ovens training program that scaled to approximately $30M/yr on a $2,000 automated webinar. Widely considered the most structurally sophisticated course in the coaching industry for how it chunks frameworks down to limiting beliefs and back up in every module.
Agora Black Book
A 600-page internal SOP and founders-letter collection from Agora Financial describing how to build and scale a publishing company through four business phases. Never publicly sold; circulates among high-level operators through personal networks.
Ready Fire Aim
Michael Masterson book that maps business growth across four revenue phases. Considered a public approximation of one-sixth of the Agora Black Book; recommended reading multiple times as the business grows past each phase threshold.
E5 framework (Todd Brown)
A marketing architecture process: identify the central marketing argument, map the sub-beliefs required to accept it, list the claims that prove each sub-belief, then build all sales and ad assets from that structure.
Dimensionalize pain points
A copywriting technique that translates abstract problems into what the prospect literally sees, hears, feels, and touches. Converts vague pain (no leads) into visceral specifics (showing an empty calendar), which produces far stronger hooks.
More, better, new
Alex Hormozi sequencing framework for lead generation: first maximize volume from existing channels, then optimize conversion within those channels, only then add new acquisition channels. Most operators skip the first two steps prematurely.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
00:38productYes Engines (Derek Halpern)
03:12productFrank Kern Mass Conversion
04:08productJason Fladlien webinar training
04:23productJohn Benson VSL course / Big Idea Map
05:05productTodd Brown E5 / Marketing Funnel Mastery
“My close rate was literally 4 or 5 percent. I was just burning leads, dude. But I thought I was good, which is what matters.”
Honest self-deprecating confession that reframes how sales confidence actually gets built→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
34:00
“Taylor told me I would never make more money than I make here. And I swear from zero to probably beyond a million a month, I was determined to prove him wrong. I am kind of glad he did it because it gave me dark energy fuel.”
Complete narrative arc with a counterintuitive lesson; no setup needed→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
49:10
“If all I got from the $250k was a belief-breaking ideal of what is possible, to me, when you are running a thirty million dollar company, $250k is worth it.”
Specific dollar amounts, counterintuitive ROI framing→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
23:35
“He just opens his laptop and runs through a Google Doc for eight hours straight, fire-hosing information. No breaks, no nothing.”
Vivid description that defies expectations about what a $30k mastermind looks like→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
52:10
“I have read it over six times. It sits on my desk. And if there is ever just a publishing problem, it is in there.”
Intensity of endorsement for an underground resource builds strong curiosity→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 10:31denseHonorable mentions and copywriting frameworks
09:46 – 18:19dense#5 picks: Hormozi free course and Kat Howell SMMA
26:06 – 35:45dense#3 picks: STA and Traffic and Funnels
35:45 – 49:29dense#2 picks: Sonora Guitar Accelerator and Hormozi investments
49:29 – 1:05:50dense#1 picks: Agora Black Book and Consulting Accelerator 2.0
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So I'm here with Nick Fisher today, cofounder of NewReach. They do over a 150,000,000 a year. And so between us, we probably invested 5,000,000 plus into coaches, gurus, courses, etcetera.
And in this podcast, we're gonna get the top five that were most impactful for us in building our 8 and 9 figure businesses. So, Nick, we should start with some honorable mentions. Dude, I'm super Yeah.
Pumped for We've spent way too much on on courses, but in a good way, I think, over the years.
Honorable mentions. There's a few that didn't crack my top five that were super impactful for me in my career because they just gave me, like, one thing or even a mindset shift. The first one I wrote down was the first course that I bought that was over a thousand dollars, which was Derek Halpern's Yes Engines.
Oh, he was a he was a goat back in the day. Do it. He He was the man.
And he still is, I think, in the ecom space with just Giovanni. Yeah. Which is literally it's my fiance's favorite protein powder.
No way. Yeah. Well, shout out to Derek Halpern.
He actually was one of the few because it's funny how few
people from like, back then it was info. I don't even really call it info anymore. It's more of, like, coaching and services.
But he was one of the only few people who there's only been a few who actually can break out. You know? Like, Alex Becker's broken out, Sam Buffett.
I mean, but he was an OG in terms of going into ECOB, and then I mean, they're in retail now doing really well. You're right, dude. I think there is that perception.
There's, like, a lot of people that say they're gonna get out of info, man. This place sucks. I'm gonna get out of it.
You guys And then they come right back in. They come right back in about
eighteen months later. Yeah. Derek left for good.
He's it's been ten plus years. One k course. Anything else?
Yeah. One k course. It might have been two k.
I just remember it was a stretch for me, and I felt like I might refund this. Like, what's his risk reversal at the time?
And the thing that actually reassured me that I brought into my business to this day is Derek Halpern himself called me on the welcome call. Wow. And I thought it was you know how people are like, is this AI?
Is this a setter? Like, whatever else. It wasn't back then.
It wasn't back then. And I just recently did that myself. I just called a few people that I've sold in the past, and they said the same thing.
And I had that, like, full circle moment. I'm like, this is me questioning if Derek Halpern is Derek Halpern. Yeah.
What's funny about that course too, just to make you feel better, is
I I looked at that and I think I was too poor to even afford it. I was like one k. I was like, I got like $300.
Yeah. Yeah. We were roughly at that same I was just finishing college.
Right. Very poor. Yeah.
No. A 100%. So
what was yours? Let me so you just have one honorable. No.
I have five. Oh my god. Okay.
Let's rapid fire through the honorable mentions. So mine, I'm going give in one big group. Okay?
Alright. So my honorable mentions are all my copywriting teachers. Because for me, you know, I think I was obviously really good at sales when I started my company.
But the way I thought about it is like, okay, I'm really good at sales. There's lot of other sales trainers who are really good at sales. I don't necessarily want to outcompete these guys on sales, even though I still need to make sure my training and everything is good.
I wanna be the best marketer and the best business person Yeah. Out of all these people. And that's where I put my focus.
And so part of what helped me be a good marketer was these copywriting people. But that was kind of my Blue Ocean strategy in a way, if you want to call it that, when I first started the company. So I'll give you what do I got?
I got four. Okay. Okay.
You're to know all of these. So obviously You're to be giving me give me heck for giving five when you have four? Well, but I'm going to give you I'm going to I'm going rapid fire them all.
I'll rapid fire them all then. One is Frank Kern. So, you know.
Yeah. You gotta give him the Like, mass conversion? But I bought the thing that was like, just buy every single thing I've ever had.
And the there's a few, like, trainings in there that I still use the language and the framework of, like, some of the stuff that he taught today.
So, like, the one I used, I still use today, is the here's what I got, here's what I'll do for you, here's what you do next. It's just like the most simple direct offer copy of all time. You're right.
And so when I first learned that was when I first started the recruiting offer and we started placing setters. And so I did a simple post on Facebook that was in that format for setters. It was like, read if you need setters.
Like, here's what it is. Here's the benefits. DM me.
That was like it. That posted like a 171 k. It was the first time I ever sold any sales recruiting.
Damn. But a 171,000 from that one post.
So Frank Kern, obviously, you got to throw a Jason Flagelin in there. He's the webinar GOAT. The GOAT.
He's, like, just probably the best one to many sale. I almost view him more as a salesperson, but he's a little I mean, it's both.
And he's, like, one of the best one to many guys in sane objections. John Benson in his VSL course.
So he's the only person you know, you hear about big ideas. I think he created p 90 x. I'm not sure, but it was No way.
Created something like that. It might it might not be p 90 x, it might have been something else. But he's created one of those things that's like, you you would know what it is.
But he has have you seen his big idea map? No. The only thing I bought from Benson is like three accelerator or something like that.
It was a long time ago. I just did the thing with him too. Just bought all the things.
That's smart. You need to start doing that. He has the only process I've ever seen for, like, creating big ideas that's like a mechanical type of process.
So he was good. Then the last, and I think this is the best teacher of direct response marketing period, is Todd Brown.
Oh. Because his I think it's called e five. E five.
It just goes over, like, you know, how to create a marketing thesis, how to create a central marketing argument, and then how to create the sub beliefs of those argument, and then the claims and the proof of that argument, and then how to actually really put that into marketing and sales assets.
Right? Interesting. I kind of grouped them all into my honorable mentions.
Well, I ask you a question on those? Because the first time we worked together, it was like in the very early days of STA. I've never had anyone do this because you're right.
You were the most Yeah. Copy savvy sales trainer I've ever met in my life. Well, and I sent you a document that basically I called it the copy platform.
Yeah. And it was essentially like the argument, the thesis, the sub belief, the belief ladder to get there. Yeah.
It had the empathy map, what they feel, And fake then like Uh-huh. Yeah. It was the what I do is I forget what it's called, it's not empathy map, but it's like a visceral pain point thing.
So it's you know, when you describe their pain points or their dreams, hopes, and desires or whatever Uh-huh.
You want to relate it to what do they see, hear, feel, touch, etcetera. So like a classic one, if you're selling like lead generation, what do they see in terms of a pain point?
They see an empty calendar. Right? What do they feel?
They feel instability of not knowing where the next dollar is gonna come from. Right. But like, that's why like one of the ads that, you know, I don't know if this ad still runs, but it worked for me for a long time, is I would point to like an empty calendar.
I'd like, be does your calendar look like this? And do you want it to look like this? Like a lot of people have done that one.
But it's like that's that's coming from that seat. You're using visual hooks off what do they see? And what do you hear?
So like what you might hear is is you only get unqualified prospects that say, I don't have the money for this, for instance. But, like, when you brainstorm all of that stuff, you will, like and and and that's why going through that copy platform process, you will come out of that with a 100 ad ideas.
Yeah. It's just like it'll flow so well. And now AI can actually help you with it a lot.
But that's why when you have that, it makes you're never really starting an ad from a blank page. Like, you're start like, the the ad starts in this, like, ideation process.
And, you know, if you want them like, if I wanted to make a bunch of ads, what I really should do is just go through and fill that out from scratch, even from my existing offer. Because, like, just by the nature of doing it, you're like, dude, I should have an ad like this. I should have an ad like this, etcetera.
So how do you pull those out? Because a lot of them you could pull from transcript from like sales call transcripts. Well, there's that.
Yeah. Right? Well, I mean, honestly, AI can give you good stuff.
Okay. There's the transcripts of sales calls. You can look at competitor testimonials or your own testimonials.
Some of it you can just use common sense. Yeah. Like, if they don't have leads, their calendar is empty.
Like, I just know that. Right? There's other things like what else, you know, there there's a lot of other things you could probably put in there.
But it's oh, it's called dimensionalize pain points is what I call it. Dimensionalized pain points. Yeah.
That's one of the most helpful things you can do. It's one of the most powerful things I've seen before.
Yeah. Is you wanna try to start it if possible, like, you know, I don't follow this because I do a lot of offer guarantee ads. But, you know, the best way True.
The best way to start it is if you could call out a pain point that you can touch you like, could finger Right? Touch Mhmm.
So, like, a lot of people, they're like, do you not have leads? Well, that's like an abstract concept. It's abstract.
So that's taking the vague. If I make that specific Yeah.
Then what happens is specific and tangible and concrete languages,
does your calendar look like this? Do you see how there's a difference there? I see.
It's it's very powerful. Back to the honorable mentions. We need to finish these up.
Alright. Sweet. My honorable mentions, I'll group.
I'll just speed run it real fast. Nathan Lacka, he had some sort of giveaway course. Taught me just promotion and honestly, from how he moved, I learned a lot.
Lewis House had a live webinar course, which he taught by doing live webinars every day, and that just taught me grit and, like, discipline of, like, if you want something, you should just do it every day. Old school Lewis House. Yeah.
I just remember, like, he's training. Really? I remember joining multiple times to see if he was actually doing an auto webby or or, like He's live.
Bike live. He was actually live. Yeah.
John Loomer advanced Facebook ads. He taught me kind of like the basics and the guardrails. He was OG.
He was an OG. You're an OG when you're a Facebook targeting option. Yes.
In the ads, man. 100. Yeah.
Shout out to John Loomer, Frank Kernan, Ryan Dice, and few of those OG Facebook targeting options. And then the perfect webinar by Brunson, I think it was part of a bigger course that he probably did. But that one hour live training on the perfect webinar is like textbook.
Yeah. It's Marketing like fundamentals of how you actually run a webinar. It's good.
Yeah. Alright. Then you go let's go into your number five.
Alright. My number five, and I put people through this in variants of this as soon as they start for me in NewReach is Alex Rumosy's free course on acquisition.com.
I wanna say it's the lead generation course. It's the one that starts with more, better, new. And it's such an important the lead gen.
The lead gen course. And it's such an important concept to me because a lot of times, people, especially in marketing, they come to me and they're like, oh, I got this new ad idea for Pace.
It's day one. I'm like, oh, I'm sure you do. Mhmm.
You got a great ad. So, like, I take them through this process. In any beginner, I started there because, a, it's free, and it just builds the fundamentals that you need in marketing.
You gotta do more before you can refine or do better ads, and you gotta do better ads before you start thinking of new concepts altogether. Yeah. I agree.
So that's your number five. That's my number five. My number five, have you ever heard of cat hell?
No. Okay. Woah.
So I gotta get I gotta set the stage here. So, basically, when I first started my business, you know, long story short, I was bartending in college.
I started a nutrition blog. And then eventually that kinda over time, maybe, like, a year, fourteen months, fifteen months, morphed into a Facebook ads agency.
And then when I did the Facebook ads agency, I basically went another full year of just sending 50 cold emails a day with no response. And I sucks.
By the way, as an aside, I now know from back then, what had happened was the first day I sent those cold emails, I got myself so pumped up.
You know, I'm like post out of college. Right? Mhmm.
So I pull an all nighter. I sent 400 emails off of my domain.
So, like, you know what I did. I blacklisted the domain. Yeah.
For sure. The first day, I got a bunch of responses. Yeah.
You gotta work And then after that, I sent 50 a day religious, like, discipline. 50 a day, nothing. And I did that I'm not kidding.
I did that for a year. Bro, I love that about I was so, like That's so I took a program, This a cold is what you're doing.
You're supposed to get this client. You're supposed to send this. And it was like the the program really hammered you too.
It was like, don't quit. Don't deviate from the process, like, volume, whatever.
So I'm like, I'm I'm gonna make the most out of this fucking investment. And so I'm like, 50 emails a day, customized written emails Oh, shit. For a year.
And it morphed to the point where I was like, I gotta make the offer better. So I was, like, trying to ask people to work for free, and I was getting nothing. And I now know like, I was able to I didn't know this till, like, four or five years later when I started doing cold email at scale for my company.
And I was, oh, that's why that didn't work five years ago. I blacklisted my domain the first day. And then I spent eleven months and twenty nine days, basically just in the dirt.
You're probably the only example where quantity didn't win. No. More did not win.
That was when I needed to do I think that's I needed to shift the better. You should shift But the anyways, so I'm like in the cold email 12 grind and I'm like, fuck man, like this is you know, what am I gonna what is what is wrong? Like, why is this not working?
And so I see an ad and it's like, grow your Facebook ads agency yada yada yada, and it's Cat Hou's ad. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna click this ad. Because back that was the first ad I saw that was like a specific I mean, this is how long ago this is.
I mean, this ended up being such a popular offer. Right? But it was the first ad I saw that was like, how to grow your Facebook ads agency.
So I'm like Mhmm. Click. You know, I'm like, this is not what I'm trying to do.
What I'm doing is not working. Yeah. And so I I booked this call.
I get on a sales call. And the sales the sales guy's really good. He's super nice.
He's it's it's he pitches me $4, which at that point was like, you know, half of my net worth. And so I was like, holy shit.
I still bought anyways. And then I get on in the program.
And I remember, like, kinda going through the modules. I'm, like, doing my thing. I attended a group call.
Then I attend the second group call, and she's like basically, the the client journey in that program was you were supposed to, like, launch a funnel and with ads to get clients.
And, you know, so I was doing cold emails. So that appealed to me. But I was kinda dragging ass.
I get on the second group call, and she yells at me. I was like, oh, shit. So then I'm like, by by the next thing I had my freaking funnel launched.
And what ended up happening was, dude, back then I was getting like $50 calls for agency leads. I mean, in hindsight, all these leads were unqualified, but but that didn't keep me from pitching them.
Still pretty good for a bad meeting. I ended up doing, like, I think it was $60 total the course of, like, ten weeks.
I know I did 32 or $31 in a month, but the problem was anyways, the problem was I I I was so new and so green, and I was getting business, like, so fast. I outsourced a lot of the business to contractors, and I spent more on the contractors because, like, they would have to fire them and hire a new person, and they wouldn't get results.
I spent more on the contractors than I actually, like, made in revenue. So I ended up losing all my money, but that wasn't her fault.
Like, it was a it was a good program. But here's here's the interesting thing about this, is that and this is the reason it's my top five, is when I came in that program, that sales guy who sold me, we just got in the conversation and he was like, yeah, I'm making, like, 30,000 a month.
And I was like you know, to me, I was making dude, I was bartending in Appalachia, Ohio. Okay?
So I was making $2 a month. So I'll make $30 a month. You know?
You you might as well told me you're making 1,000,000 a month at that at that point in my life. And so I thought like, I see it in the back of my head, I was like, if this doesn't work out, I'm gonna do this sales thing. High ticket sales rep.
And then also then what happened was the only thing I sucked at funnels, that's why I contracted it out. I really wasn't that good at ads.
And, like, this program because she was, like, a divorced lady in her thirties. So all the people in the program naturally are divorced ladies in their thirties.
And so I'm like this young 23 year old dude who's, like, living in a shack. Wait. This is funny.
I think I was in her free group, actually. Did you have a free group? Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm, like, living in a shack. My my computer screen barely even works, and I don't know how to run ads.
Don't know how to do funnels. I'm just, whatever. But I'm making freaking sales.
And so the thing was is I I think because they were like, how's this fucking kid? Like, some I was beating like some of these people who are way better than I was. And they were just like, oh, you know, he's just so good at sales.
And so when I heard that, I was like, oh, like, I'm good at sales. And so then I kind of identified with, okay.
I'm good at sales. Like, I grabbed on to that. Because, like, when you suck at everything, the first thing you kinda you're trying to figure out, like, what am I good at?
Who am I in this, like, new career world I'm So, like, I latched on to that as an identity. Realistically, I wasn't that good. But I latched on to that, and then that's kinda also fed into that, okay, if this doesn't work out, I'm gonna get into sales.
So when I lost all my money, that's what I got into sales. So the reason that was so important to me, it's number five, is not necessarily because I made a bajillion dollars. I mean, I actually lost all my money Yeah.
Which wasn't, again, her not her fault at all. But that sort of what I did after that is I was like, okay, I'm getting into sales. And then I got my first sales job right after that.
Dude, I would challenge the idea that you probably weren't that good at sales too, because if you ran like $60 Dude, I suck. What was your redeeming quality? Did you call a script to a t or did you No.
A volume. Volume. So like, I would take 10 calls a day and do my close rate was, like, 4%.
Cool. You know? So but when I applied to the sales job, I just didn't tell them that.
I was like, oh, yeah. In ten weeks, I just, like, ripped, you know, 62 gram. I'm I'm the shit.
No. My my self my my close rate was literally four or 5%, and I was just burning leads, dude.
Like and I sucked. I sucked so bad, actually.
But I thought I was good, which is what matters. That is what matters. Yeah.
Self self belief and conviction. You wanna move on to number four? Let's do it.
If you're enjoying this conversation and you wanna be in a room of people who are just like the people I have on this podcast so you can ultimately network with the highest level people in the industry and up level your business, you should fly out to meet us in Scotland at the end of July. So this is a one time opportunity where you can get a ticket to actually be able to come if you qualify to network and get content and ultimately work with me and my team and so many other high level speakers in the industry in Scotland at the end of July.
So you have to be doing at least a $100,000 a month in your business to qualify. If not, don't bother with it. But if that's you and you're trying to scale to 10,000,000 or even 20,000,000 or a 100,000,000 a year, there's other people in the room who have done that, and the speakers I'm gonna have in Scotland have done that too.
So check out the link in the description and see if you qualify. And if you do, book a call with my team. We'll talk about the ticket price to be able to come.
This is the only time you're gonna be able to do this, so take advantage of it. Now back to the podcast. Dude, number four,
this is the only one. I tried not to do ones that I had direct involvement in for, but it's consulting accelerator two point o. Okay.
And it's maybe not for the reason that some people think. Like, I I worked on that course. I didn't end up buying it.
So I was comped it, let's call it. But I've probably been through it six times just because of how much work I had to put into it. Rewrote it, did transcripts of it, made the workbooks, the whole gamut, if you guys know that era.
And it teaches people how to get clients. Right.
It never did that for me, but what it really taught me was how to make a great course, which was super impactful. So anyone watching this and, like, growth operating too is the story goes when I got there to work with Sam Ovens, I was on a base plus a rev share.
The first day I audit our Adits account, and I told him it was shit basically or, like, we can do a lot better than this. And at the time, he was just samovens.com. And he was like, okay.
We're gonna shut it down then and work on a new product, and it ended up being accelerator. Oh, wow.
Yeah. I didn't know how long Which was a two k webinar. Yeah.
It was a two k webinar, but we were nine months from that point at that point. And he was like, we're just gonna shut it down and make no money. And I was like, bro, I kinda, like, took less salary than I had before to come out here thinking the rev share was gonna kick in.
So for three months, we made zero money, and I was sitting there in New York in an apartment that Sam told me to live in in Midtown just burning through cash. So I was like, this has to work.
But it taught me the lesson that I got out of it was the discipline to work on a product every day. So, like, Sam had outlined and done all the curriculum, and then I was doing all of the customer calls and testimonial reviews. Mhmm.
If you remember, we launched I do remember that. Yes. And that's like the lesson I learned out is if you can really if you can afford to put yourself in a point where you can shut off or not at least you don't have to shut it off.
We just didn't have a team. It was me and Sam at the time. So it was either like, you know, he knew ads would be a distraction.
He's a big preacher of focus. So I just did. He made me do over 800 customer interviews and get those, like, first testimonials.
And then Nick Houser and a bunch of people took it from there, and we had 3,000 to launch. But I just remember being like, holy crap.
If I have to do another user interview,
I'm going to So so give people so so a couple things. So give people a little context. So you Sam was doing uplevel, and he was probably doing, you know He was actually doing something called Consulting Blueprint at the time, if you remember.
That's That one was uplevel? It was May it was uplevel one point o, but he wasn't even selling that anymore. When I like But it was like a high ticket five k fit.
Right? It was a high ticket And 5 doing k that. Uh-huh.
And he was probably doing, like, 400 to 800 a month or something like that. He was. And then you came on.
Okay. You guys shut it all down. Then you launched the two k auto webinar.
Two k auto. Right? Which that's what scaled him to, like at the time, it was, like, 30,000,000 ish a year.
Yeah. Which at that at that stage in our industry was, like, you know, a 100,000,000 a year. It was like a 100,000,000 today.
Nobody was doing that. Yeah. It was like publishing.com, like, today.
And and when you first launched it, it was just ads or
it was just ads or was the JV the initial Did I have to show you the job? JV was the initial launch. I've never shown you the full prelaunch war map.
I'll send it to you. Not not for this this room to see, but it was ads JV Yeah.
One and two. And he had come off a year 2016 when we met where he had Tai Lopez. He had met Tai Lopez and Sean Dossard hooked them up, and he had printed money in JV space.
So he knew how to do that and he had that relationship. I didn't grease that at all. I just came in from like the ads.
And I like, whatever we're doing in JV, I was like, I can definitely What
what happened the JV went nuclear, but then as the audience started fatigue, you had to place replace it with ads. Correct. Yeah.
Okay. Yep. So and then and then just to help the audience understand, because I know what you're talking about.
I still think today that two point o course is the best course. I mean, it's not really as relevant that tactically It's not.
This today. Yeah. But for its time, I do think it is the best course that has ever been made.
Dude, thank you. I think it is the best course that has ever been made because of how, like, he does such a good job of it's all, like, the high level concepts, but then it chunks down to the littlest detail and catches all of the limiting beliefs, etcetera.
Mhmm. And then it chunks back up. And every every single module course, every anything I've ever made, I always try to, like, think about that framework of when I took that course.
Oh. Yeah. So anyways, let let's move on to number my number four.
That's cool. So Alex Becker's SaaS Mastermind. I was never in that one, but I've heard of Have you ever done an Alex Becker?
You've probably done Iron. Yeah. Okay.
Have you ever done anything else? No. So okay.
So what's funny about this is I didn't even have a SaaS. But when he launched it, it was 30 k. I was like, I don't I was like, you know, and high roast was like exploding.
It was like, you know, the the big thing in the industry at the time. Like, I'm just fucking going. I don't care.
I'm just gonna say I'm gonna start a SaaS. And so I go I did ROI actually just from the networking because I got a lot of clients for the salespeople. And, you know, a lot of the SaaS stuff was just kinda like way over my head.
But the cool part about that because if you didn't have a SaaS. Is it is it yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I just was like, oh, this is not really relevant to me right now, but I just sat there. Because the thing is, if you've never done, like, an in person Becker event and Spencer, who's my CMO, he's done multiple, so he said this is, like, always how it is. Is it's not like you get there and there's coffee and tea and there's a breakfast and then there's like an intro, yeah, applause.
But he just like doesn't say anything, gets up there, and then he opens up his laptop and just runs through a Google Doc for eight hours straight just fire hosing information. Like, he I mean, you you almost like he was like, hey, guys. Alright.
We're just gonna go through this. And we were all sitting in air Airbnb. We're just like, fuck.
You know, just like fire hosing information. You know, no breaks, no nothing.
You know, it just was that's all it was. Shout out to apparently, that's just like how he how he does it. So I actually it I enjoyed it.
I mean, I I just want the information, so I enjoyed it. Yeah. But here's the deal.
So at the very end, he was doing how to do marketing for SaaS. And he was breaking down what I call now today, like, the direct VSL funnel.
And he was breaking down essentially, like, his funnel that was like this you know, what was it? Like, this hard drive or whatever will decrease your cost per book call and increase your ROAS and do x y and z or you don't pay for it.
And then he would hammer you with the social so it was offer guarantee, hammer with the social proof. Uh-huh.
And then it was a c CTA. And then it was like, so if that's all you need to hear, go ahead and book. But if you want to know more more about why this works so well, keep watching and I'll tell you why.
And then he would go into essentially, like, a demo of the product Yes. So to speak, of, like, kind of a little bit more detail of why it worked to essentially sell more higher information buyers. And I saw that, and he had actually said that, you know, he evolved that from Hormozi's gym launch funnel.
That's what he said. And so That makes sense. They were really the only two kinda doing it at the time.
Joel Orway also, with his power offer thing, he was doing it, and and he what his system was really good as well. Yeah. And I I thought about it, and I'm like, I'm thinking about, like, Joel's stuff, and I was thinking about what he did.
And I'm like, I have, a done for you recruiting offer. Like, this has gotta work for my business. Because at that time, I was just doing, like, $500 a month off referrals and organic.
Right? So I went back and wrote that funnel, and that funnel has produced, I think, it's had to have been over a 100,000,000.
You know? Because that's been the main funnel for my b to b side of the company for years. It's it's had to have done at least over a 100.
It might be, like, a 120. I don't know.
It still runs. That makes so much sense. Yeah.
You Becker and Hormozi and Joel all come from that. You have such strong direct leads.
Yeah. I mean, it worked. So that's my number four.
Number three.
Number three for me is Cole didn't pay me to say this, is STA. And the reason being Glaze me up right now.
I will glaze you me up. Dude, I will glaze you up. You guys should click the link below.
I'm gonna include it in my description and if Cole doesn't but STA so going back, like, let's call it four years ago, it was about 2021 or 2022.
We had kind of maxed what I would call, like, the relative scale of the VSL call funnel inbound, one call direct close that I was kinda getting known for at the time. And we had all these leads.
In fact, like, I wanna say the first time I looked, it was, over 60,000 leads that we had a phone number that hadn't been called. And around this time, Cole's starting to blow up, and he's made modifications, refinements, and a bunch of other things.
I was like, okay. Maybe the game has changed here. There needs to me does there need to be a set close model?
And I remember I was like I was against it at first. I was like, no.
You don't need to do that. It's just like delaying the sales motion. We wanna liquidate cash faster.
And then I don't know what caused me to look into it, dude, one more time. And I was like, okay. Maybe it was a conversation we had, and you told me your average, like, basically time to liquidate ad spent, and it was less than mine.
And I'm pretty fast. And I remember being like, maybe it's that close is actually better and faster. So that was the And then I ended up buying it for our sales managers.
Chad went through it first. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And then I made everyone. So, like, our whole sales team, they still train on it to this day.
Someone asked me for the login last month. Oh, nice. Joel on our team.
Nice. So legitimately, STA, like, I don't know how much, like, improvements and refinements you've made over the years since then, but it's still relevant to our team to this day Yeah.
When they train on it. Well, I've I've done multiple versions, but I I appreciate it. Yeah.
We'll leave it at that. Well, well, we'll leave the link in the the link in the description.
Alright. I'm gonna give you number three. And so this is my I cheated on this one a little bit because it's not something I invested in, but they were technically a coach, but I was working for them, which was TNF and particular Taylor Welch, because he was my manager when I was a salesperson at at Traffic and Funnels.
And so that was by far my life, the most transformative year in terms of personal development in my life.
I bet. And so there's a couple reasons why. And the first thing is is I was able to work and you probably had this a lot with Sam.
Is I was able to work in person in an office with a company that went from at the time, I started they're kinda rebuilding.
They they kinda peaked, then they went back down. They were, like, $3,400 a month, and I got to be all the way up to 1,000,000 to 1,000,005 a month, which, again, you know, now that's, like, great. You you did a good job.
Back then, it was like, we did that and was like, Sam. That was it. It was like just us two in the industry that were the only ones to do that.
Yep. So I was able to see how we scaled through that journey. And because we were in an office, and I just am naturally, you know, a pretty social person.
Like, I would talk to Ashton Shanks who was the CMO, and I'd be like, oh, you know, how do you do this? How do you set the budgets? Oh, you gotta spend, you know, $400 this well, we would spend probably more because we would do a liquidating funnel.
So, like, he'd be like, yeah. We're spending, like, $600. I'd be okay.
Like, how does that work? How are we doing that? How are you doing the budgets?
So I I would learn so much about how the marketing department worked and how they would have, you know, copywriters and media buyers and this and that and people on low ticket and people on the email and all this stuff. And I also learned, like, okay, here's the ops people. Here's what they do.
Here's HR. Here's what they do. Obviously, you know, our sales team scaled and all that stuff.
That's where really also I don't wanna say we invented it because clearly calling your leads has been around for a long It goes.
You gotta realize in our industry at that moment, there was you know, high ticket was more of a thing where it's like, oh, you know, it's all about you reaching out to me and you booking a call with me and you need authority.
Why should we work with you? Yeah. It's like and that was really pioneered by Kevin Nations.
Kevin Nations. Yeah. Which which Frank Kern, too.
And he's a legend. Right? He's a beast.
Mhmm. But at that time, like, the idea of calling your leads was like beta in a way. And I remember Taylor being, like, you know, dude, every business calls our leads.
We need to call our leads. He's like, want you to figure it out. So, like, one day, I literally this is when I first started at the company.
I'd I'd I had, like, never done outbound. You know? I'd I had done high ticket before.
I had several other sales positions, but, like, all we did was inbound. Yeah. We just came up and we did outbound.
We just, like, followed up. You know? Right.
And so I remember sitting down with the wolf of what was it called? The straight line selling book. And I'm like, there's gotta be something in here.
You know, I can I was like, I don't even know what to say to these people? And do you remember the memos? No.
Like, was I never went through straight that he sent out every month. Had this Jordan? 79 Taylor's.
Was $79 a month. Yeah. I do remember Taylor's name.
So we had all these, like, we had 1,200 memo buyers. So I just pull up that list in the CRM, and I'm just like, I'm gonna just call these people. And, you know, newsletter people who read a print newsletter Yeah.
Are probably the warmest leads of all time. Yeah. So like I'm calling these people and it's so easy.
And I just kinda create the script on the fly calling them. And like my first set of a 100 calls, I got several sets and like got several closes out of it.
And then I refined that over time, and then eventually helped train the entire setter team that we had at TF with that scripting. And then we shifted from webinar to low ticket, and then obviously everything was setter driven.
And that would we were really the first company at that time who was doing any I mean, no no company was setter driven. I mean, might be like maybe some old school heavy direct response companies or something like that. Were like the one Like, not saying we created it by any means.
But like in the Rustrofino, Sam Ovens Correct. Skull Dulford at the time, us, like, we nobody else was doing it. So, obviously, I learned all of that kind of on the fly.
A lot of it I kind of just like figured out just because he told me I should figure it out. I was like, alright, I'm just gonna sit down and call a bunch of leads. So there was that.
The other thing, and you probably got this at consulting as well, is what was so transformative about that experience is I got to see because we were a coaching company for companies in the industry. Right? Mhmm.
So I got to see, like, all these clients come in, and then, like, you you pick up a pattern recognition. So you're like, okay. The clients who hit $500 a month to 1,000,000 a month, they do they usually have this type of offer.
They usually have this type of funnel. They're all pretty good at sales. They run good like, you just pick up, like, these basics and pattern recognition.
Yeah. And so that combined with knowing how to run, like, seeing how an 8 figure company operated and then also being good at sales part of the reason, like, when I went to start my own company, I basically did 70 like, I launched the company and then did 71 k in forty eight hours.
Yeah. It's because, like, I had those skills that I learned sort of from Osmosis. And so there was that.
And then I would say the other two things is, like, the standards of that company and the culture was so intense and so high that, like, I had a lot of sales mechanics coming in. And a lot of people ask me, like, what did Taylor teach you about sales?
And he you know, I learned some stuff about sales from him, no doubt. But we really didn't train on sales a lot. Like, didn't review my calls a lot.
What it was was, like, a massive demand of performance and a super high standard, and we would just have to, like, figure it the fuck out.
So, like, I was investing in sales trainers and coaching and this and that. I was reviewing my calls, and I just had this so such a tight feedback loop to where I got so good just under that culture. Like, I got good because of the culture, not necessarily because of the training.
But still, that's, like, really important. And so I grew a lot lot that way. And then, you know, you know, me and Taylor have made up since.
But when we left Yeah. I remember We didn't have the when you didn't have the best departure. And so, you know, he even told me at the time and, like, know, I I Taylor now and everything, but he told me at the time, he was like, you're never gonna make more money than you make here.
Right? And I was like, fuck you. And so I swear from, like, 0 to, like, probably beyond 1,000,000 a month, I mean, I was like determined to just prove them wrong.
And I'm kinda glad he did it because it gave me a lot of like dark energy fuel, you know?
And so that's my number three. Number two for you. That's so funny.
I had a similar experience with Cody Spurber though. Like that culture, he's A lot of new people that had that, you know, experience like that. Uh-huh.
100%. I agree. And I love Taylor.
I need to check out his new podcast if you listen to it. Dude, he's ripping right now. I need listen to it.
He gets like 400 to 600,000 views a video. It's some sort of Christian niche. I don't really understand that.
It's not my particular like yeah. I just don't consume that level of content.
But I I don't even know what his monetization is. But if you're getting 400 to 600,000 views of He's video figured it out. Somewhere up there.
Mean, it's a lot. Like, multiple hundreds of thousands. I'm sure you're making money somehow.
Yeah. So good for him. 100%.
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Check it out. Now back to the video. Number two, this one I thought about for a while, and this one is for people who specifically have a course and are thinking about the future of operations.
I'm like, which one has inspired me in looking forward of how education is gonna be consumed with especially with AI being so prevalent?
And it is Spencer Hanley's Sonora Guitar Accelerator. And you guys like, it's it's it's the deepest cut I have for you guys.
And if you don't wanna play guitar, I would still recommend going through it because For the operations? For the operations.
He's an operations. Because the dude's mind is so He's an operational genius. Yeah.
He was the first dev at Patreon. So he has experience in, like, coding LMS. And his LMS was the first one that I ever went into that wasn't just a Kajabi, go high level, like, ClickFunnels back end.
The thing was custom built. And because it's a practice skill, if any of you guys sell a practice skill where you need to continue the practice in order to maintain the skill, which is like guitar, imagine going through his course and it has an algorithmic LMS back end where instead of just going through a linear course process, it's like, oh, you did you play the guitar at, like, 80 beats per minute.
Now we want you to do it at a 100, the same structure. Just go faster. And then so it's unlocking or thinking, like, thinking through of how you actually get good at a skill.
And I told him eventually it'd be super cool if you, like, put the camera on. It analyzed like, think of where AI could go, and you could just it could just be a lifelike teacher with you in real time. For linear based outcome courses where you're getting the knowledge and then just go and practice in it, it doesn't really change much.
Not so relevant, but about half the people in the industry are teaching a practice skill. Yeah. So that was a huge unlock for me, and I haven't done it to the effect that he has.
But I've thought about that concept in other courses where people get rusty. In certain courses, I'm like, okay. Instead of having them watch a new video, have them do this thing again.
Have him just rewatch the same video in a slight variation. Yeah. You know him as ideal market.
Because I I told him, I was like, yeah, you know, I can play pentatonic scales.
I can like play pretty much anything you hear on the radio unless it's like some crazy John Mayer solo or something like that. But, you know, what I can't do is I can't, like, listen to something and then kinda know what key it's in and then riff, like, a solo or whatever to the key.
And I can't pick up and, like, just jam with somebody. Or I can't, like, if somebody lays on a drumbeat, I can, like, do something with guitar. Like, I can't do that.
I'm, like, I gotta do the tabs and listen to it on the radio and then, like, figure it out. But I can, like like, coordination is decent. Right?
But I don't have that, like, ear and that and then he was like, yeah, dude. You like, you're literally literally you're literally target market. He's like, that's the intro of every single discovery call that we have.
That is a sales call. And so I was like, it and then he tried to sell me and I was like, and and honestly, you might make me buy because Dude, you should buy it. I would go through it and and relearn, like, a lot of the guitar stuff I've dropped off.
And it sounds like it would help me with, you know, even like fulfillment stuff too. But I'll tell you this.
So Spencer Hanley, who was a client of mine and and might even still be in our mastermind. I'm not sure.
But, you know, he was he's been in our stuff, you know, for years. He in boardroom. And he's a great guy.
Uh-huh. He's one of the it's a great example of an extremely advanced operator in my opinion, and, like, not the best opportunity vehicle problem.
Yeah. Which he still got to, I think, 10,000,000 a year ish. Right?
I hadn't I didn't think he would. And and, you know, he had to really squeeze everything out of that business he could to probably get it there. Mhmm.
Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that I think he should do something else, because I know also he likes guitar, likes to travel, he likes to, like, go to South America and, like, learn this crazy type of guitar and jam with these random people. So maybe it's a business that, you know I mean, dude, if you could make a lot of money, which he's certainly making, and also do, you know, everything that you love and lifestyle and all that stuff, I mean, that's probably better than just making a lot of money.
So I'm not saying you should change. But, like, if he was in a different like, if he had a SaaS company with, a high like, a high ticket type of SaaS Mhmm.
I mean, he could, you know, sell a company for 9 figures. I think he's very he's very impressive. Very.
Like, he would show us some stuff, and I'd be like I'd be like, okay. Like, do our setters do that?
My team would be like my team would be like, yeah. What he's doing is pretty good. Like, we do it.
But he would I will say this. He was probably especially with setter operations
Setter operations. The most advanced client we've ever had. I would agree.
Yeah. He he showed me, and we had to course correct it sub two. His setters were there's a bunch of different metrics you could evaluate it on, but let's call it two times more active in just this one.
Active time. Active time. Yeah.
Which dialer now has built in. Yeah. He was really the first one to do that.
And we talked about that with Ryder. Yeah. So, like, he was.
He was the first one to show me, and I was like, shoot. Maybe my my people are just, like, lazy.
Yeah. Or maybe I'm lazy as a manager. I just didn't know.
Is he still doing that business? What is he doing now? Yeah.
He's still he's still running I this should hit him up. You should. Okay.
So that was your number two. That was my number two. Okay.
My number two is my series of Hormozi investments. Cool. So I gotta tell you a few stories.
So the best Hormozi training I ever went through was one of my clients well, so I'll tell you a little backstory.
I I I knew who Hormozi was because Taylor had told me, who again was my old boss, he was like, yeah, dude. He's like, the real dude who's fucking crushing it in this industry is this Hermozzi guy who sells gyms. And I was like, what do what do you mean?
He's like, yeah, dude. He's doing like 40 bill. I was like, what the fuck?
Like, what is this? So I had no idea.
This was 2018, 2019 or something. And so I'm like, I kind of knew who this guy was, but I'm like, okay, he's like a gym guy.
Right? Yeah. And then I had these clients.
He had mustaches with people on stage Yeah. Following up. I'm like, okay, cool.
Whatever. And then he had I had these clients that were agency owners. And kinda, you know, Hormozi sort of, like, is agency adjacent.
Gym Launch was agency adjacent. So they're they were telling me, and particularly this one person like, one guy was like, dude, I funnel hack their sales process.
It's, like, the greatest thing I've ever seen. I was like, okay. And then this other person told me, they were like, dude, you should listen to the Gym Launch secrets podcast.
I was like, what do you mean? I don't have a gym. And they were like, no.
It's just really good business stuff. So I started binging the podcast. This was in '20 early, early, uh, 2020 during COVID.
And so I started binging the podcast. I was like, this is fucking good. Then I had I don't I don't know.
I wanna get them in trouble. So I had a different client who was like, yeah, dude. I spent 50 k to get a consulting day with Hermosy.
And was telling me a little bit about it, and I was like, dude, you gotta send me these recordings. And he's like, I'm not gonna I like, I'll buy them from you. And he was like he was like, look.
He's like, if you give me a sales rep, I'll give you the recordings. So I bartered a sales rep for the one on one full day consulting day recording that they got with Herbose.
And that was probably, at that time, the best content I've ever been through my entire life. Because, like, he hadn't he didn't publish a lot of, like, business stuff on YouTube yet.
Right? I mean, it was, like, business stuff adjacent for gyms. So this was the first time, like, you know, more better new.
Right? Like Yeah. I was, more better new.
That's pretty fucking cool. Like, I had heard that before. It was, like, public.
And there was a bunch of other of these frameworks. Like, you know how he has the other one that's, like, beliefs, character traits, and skills or whatever it is? Like like Conviction.
That, which, like, he still says now, but, like, I I had that back before he was even, like, a YouTuber. Right? And so I go through this one on one day and I'm like, dude, this is amazing.
So then I have another client who's like, yeah, dude. We also just invested in a one day coaching promotion. Was like, I'll give you two sales reps for the recordings.
So so I bartered the sales reps again to get the recordings. So I'm going through these recordings, and I'm like, dude, this is, like, the shit.
So then they were like, you know, when he launched Alan? He No. That's like the the lead nurture software that he had.
No. Missed that era. That you know, so he was reselling it for agencies as like a white label.
That's what he was doing. So he would like, bring an agency in, you'd pay money or whatever, then you would, like, use the software. He would obviously make money from you using the software, and then you would charge the client or whatever.
But when he would bring them in as, like, affiliates or what have you, you would get all this course material about how to, like, scale your agency. And that was, like, the OG, like, all the Hormozi frameworks.
So, like, the profit genie, like, all this stuff was in there. You didn't tell me about that this time? I bartered sales reps for that too.
Because I I was like, I don't have an agency. So I was like, yo, dude. I I had this one guy in my program.
I was like, I'll give you some more sales reps if you give if you give me the logins. And would have bought it. To be clear, wasn't trying to be cheap.
I just wasn't like I hear you. I was like, I don't have an agency. You've done that too.
Yeah. So I was like, trying to get in. So then, you know, I'm already well versed in the Hermozzi stuff because I'm, like, I kinda got the underground content, which, by the way, underground content's sometimes the best content.
I would agree. Then, you know, he he gets big on YouTube.
Right? And, like, the the 2020 and 2021 Hormozi era of YouTube, like, advanced person will tell you is, like, the OG Hormozi videos were, like, the best videos. Like, now, like, you know, they're just broader.
You know? And I've heard a lot of the same concepts again and again and again. So those were good, but then I did the two and fifty k thing, right, which I made a video about.
I don't know if you saw it. So did you Which 250 k thing? Well, I don't know if it's a thing, But basically, when he did that money models launch Mhmm.
One of my sales reps who was a top sales rep for me at the time, Hermozy Post him. And but I you know, was like, yeah, get it. I was like, yeah.
Was like, I get it, dude. Like, you know, he he got this really good offer and I was like, you should just take it, dude. It's don't worry about it.
We're good. Yeah. And so we're still friends.
And he called me, like, during the launch and he's like, hey, dude. There's this, like, special offer. It's like $2.50 k, you know.
It's like a consulting with Hermosy. And then it's also this, like, event. You get to go to attend people who also pay $2.50 k.
So I was like, yeah, fuck it. I'll just do it. So you bought the 2 k rep.
For my old And, you know, I wanna support the other thing is too is, like, I wanna support my old sales rep. I know you do.
Like, you're gonna I'm that way too. I'm like, you're gonna get commissions from this. Yeah.
So I bought it. And the thing is it's hard to like I always get roasted when I talk about it online.
Why? Because well, people will I'll I'll be like, oh, I spent 250 k with Hermozy, and I'll be like, here's what I learned.
And then all the comments are like, you could have learned that in chatty p t. You know, I could have told you that. I'm like, dude, you're fucking broke.
Like, it's a bunch of broke people being like, why could have told you that? I'm like, well, if you could have told me that, why are you broke? Yeah.
You know, first of all. But anyways So His time is worth what it's time is to, like, encapsulate everything you learn because you're you're there for so long, and a lot of the stuff is, like, a little nugget here, a little nugget there, a little nugget there, a little nugget there.
They all, like, do culminate, but they're not it's not like, I can't make content about it because it's I have to give you so much context on, like Yeah. My whole business, and then, okay, had this relationship with this one leader, and now restructured that, blah blah blah.
Yeah. It's like, it's very difficult. It's heady.
Yeah. I can't really it's not it doesn't make for good content. Right.
So, you know, when I try to summarize it into my takeaways, I always get roasted because it makes for good content. Seems like mean, that headline. Yeah.
It seems like I didn't get any good things from it. But I'll give you a few I'll give you a few. Alright.
So he gave you know, I wanna I've been trying forever to move the business into a different industry or and or upmarket. Sure. And so we talked a lot a lot about that.
Got a lot of great strategies.
Is that for evaluation multiple or for a different No. Just because I think
we could scale further into the high ticket online services market. I think we'll have better LTV to CAC in a different industry.
So it's really just hit And also diversification, just in case, you know, something happens to our industry, which I don't foresee happening, like, in the next couple of years, but you never know, just AI and stuff. Okay.
Expansion of target particularly want to move into home service because home service can be, you know, small business all the way up to private equity rollouts. I agree.
Yeah. And whereas, like, coaching, like, you know, I mean, you get an extreme level of topping out at, like, 10,000,000.
Uh-huh. There's just not that many people who whereas, like, you know, there's a there's a wider segment of, let's say, bigger businesses in home service and others. So Right.
Okay. That makes sense. Yeah.
So I wanna do that. So we talked a lot about that. We mapped out, like, a lot of content strategy, and so I got to see, like, how all their whole content team, content department works, how that's all working, etcetera.
And, I mean, obviously, I've basically, we get more views probably in fifteen to thirty days now than we did all in 2025 in in in two weeks.
Two to two to three weeks, we probably get more views in that time frame across all platforms than all in 2025. So I think that worked.
I would say so. And then got some good leadership and management stuff.
But I would say, like, the biggest thing and and, again, a lot of that leadership and management stuff is just stuff that's, like it it's not sexy to talk about No. In content.
But the biggest thing is, like, it was just overall such a sick experience.
And so you go in, like, his office is sick. Right? It's the old guy.
Team is really fucking good. And then also, like, a lot of the value I got was I was just interested in what he was doing and why he was doing it and, you know, and and and how big he was thinking and okay, what what's like Sharon doing? What's Sharon over?
What's Layla doing? What's she? Yeah.
I would be interested All of in that stuff. Yeah. And obviously, again, I can't say that on social media because I would feel like it's a little bit of, like know, I don't know I don't know if some stuff was told to me in confidence or not.
So I'm not gonna, like, be like, oh, they told me this. So but, like, seeing how big their vision is, how good their team is, how sick their you leave and you're like Inspired. Fuck.
Like, I'm playing, like, so small. Yeah. You know?
And like, okay. And look, if all I got from it was I'm playing too a absolutely, like, belief breaking ideal of what's possible, to me, when you're running a $30,000,000 company, $2.50 k's worth it.
Yeah. Right? And so there was that as well.
But overall, I would put like all of those experiences as my number two. Alright.
Sweet. Alright. Number one.
Number one.
Number one, I thought about a lot, and I wanted it kinda fits in that same category as your Hormozi like experience of, like, what has impacted me the most at, like, the CEO founder level in this industry, and it's the Agora Black Book. And I can finally talk about it because I training.
It's an underground training, but it's 600 pages. And I had the same experience, dude. I tried to buy it off people that Michael Masterson had mentored Yeah.
Like, directly. And I was like, I finally found someone who's like, yeah. I would just send it to you for free.
I go, could you do that right now? Yeah. And then I made a ball of his email, and he sent me the PDF version of the black book.
I have read it over six times, and it's at the source. It sits on my desk. And then, if there's ever just a publishing problem because if you guys don't know Agora, they're the only one the only one I know in our pocket of the industry that's been billion.
Been over 1,000,000,000. And they're, like Yeah. Not necessarily a coaching company.
They're an investment newsletter
They're an investment newsletter. Which is a info product basically with high ticket stuff on the back end.
Yeah. And you know, they've they've had controversy because like I think some of their mark I think even they would say like some of their marketing at certain points got pretty out of control. Yeah.
They use heavy fear based marketing. Yeah. But but, obviously, you can learn a lot from how they
How they operated as a company. And same thing as you go into acquisition.com. I actually, I had Agora as a client for Agaxa.
We didn't have equity in it. If you guys don't know, we have two different models. Like, one, partner with people, take equity, and only get paid if the business goes well.
B, for a little bit, we had a marketing agency for cash flow. Yeah. So Agora was a cash flow client, and they were the first ones that were like, hey.
Could you just could we just prepay you for ad spend and you could put it on your card? And I was like, sick. I get points, and you're gonna give me a 100 k upfront to just blow?
Yeah. Hell, yeah. So I got invited to the office.
It was right around the launch they did with Tim Sykes, but then I learned they had 40 or 50 other brands and newsletters too and, like, sub affiliates. So it kinda opened my eyes to what my business model could be if I played it right. Just this house of brands, and you have all these experts that are going well.
And then behind the scenes, they cross promote each other. That's like ish how they got to a billion. Okay.
There's more nuance to it than that. But this 600 page book, I didn't know about at the time, but I was chasing.
People kept telling me there's like this internal SOP book and like series of letters from the founders. It's everything you need to know about how to, like, launch a publishing company. I was gonna bring a dude that I totally forgot.
I didn't have enough time to swing by the office. I've read it. And I should also reread it.
I have physicals. It's funny is like,
it's an underground thing, but like Yeah. When I I had dinner with Hermozzi right as he was starting to get big.
And I remember I was like, dude, have you read the black book? And he was like, dude, have I read Black Book? And like, it's so funny that, like, really good operators, they all know about, like, that secret piece of content.
There's also one that is, I think, just a Stansberry one.
There's a there's, like, three, actually. I didn't know about that.
And I've read all of them. The Stansbury one has a lot of carryover from the black book. So I think if you read the black book, it is Yeah.
Is, like, the main thing. And if you've read Ready Fire Aim, that's basically one sixth of the black book. Yeah.
Yeah. Which is really phenomenal. Yeah.
That book, because I was gonna bring it up, is the best book in business I've probably ever read. And I was actually thinking recently I need to reread it. I've probably read it four times.
No way. And Okay. Because and I'll say this, a lot of I think, you know, not to just keep, like, bringing up Ramosie, but a lot of his early content, you could tell was very inspired from Ready Fire Aim.
You know? Like and I think it's a lot evolved since then, but you could tell that, like, was a big influence in some of his thinking, in my opinion at least. And it was in mine as well.
And if you're running a publishing company, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. Because there's different phases.
Right? And, like, the phase one from zero to a million is really good. I think most people should read that because a lot of, like, when you read books out there and it's like, oh, how to go from zero to a million or whatever, it's so general and broad based or it's like a lot of business writing is really built for, like, software companies because that's kind of like the you know, that's really Yeah.
It starts with the product market phase. I mean, look, that's like most of the American stock market is software companies. Right?
Right. So a lot of, like, business writing is software based, which doesn't mean you can't learn from it. But if I'm like a beginner, you know, that book's the zero to 1,000,000 phase, which is really more about like how to properly market and sell to get product market fit, is really good.
Then there's the million to 10,000,000 phase Right. Which I believe is like essentially kind of scaling it and getting a good front end.
It getting a good front end to back end system. Right? And then the 10 to 50 is more operational It is.
I believe. Gosh, I need to reread it. I'm I'm a little rusty.
Yeah. But it's more operational and, like, bringing in proper management, yada yada. And then the 50 to a 100, and really, I think a 100 to a billion, is essentially the proliferation of different front ends for the same core product Yes.
Or even, like, essentially kind of, like It's like model printing. Product lines and just repeating the process, which they did with Agora because, essentially, they were a publishing company. So they were just always trying to find and produce the next hit.
Exactly. Yeah. Dude, you nailed it.
Like, that actually is, at least how I remember it too, the exact four different phases of scale that they walked through. And I have found myself, like, guardrailing against it as we've gone over a 100,000,000.
You start to wanna start nonstandardizing things. I'm like, no. Like, if we don't standardize our funnel model or our acquisition model and start printing and going off and be like, this one can do this.
This one can be a low ticket funnel. This one can be a low ticket ascension. This one can be a $5,400 mid ticket with a a one call close.
All of a sudden, you have no synergies across the whole business, and you're sitting there wondering why things are so complex and confusing. Yeah. So
yeah. I 100% agree. I think we gotta move on to my number one.
Let's do it. Do you wanna guess what it is? Uplvel two point o?
Close. It's Consulting Accelerator two point o. Oh, sick.
Yeah. So this was funny.
So you know how I said earlier that I was sending Nicole to emails because, like, I was trying to be so disciplined for the program? It was Consulting Accelerator that I was trying to get disciplined from. So what happened was is again, you know, for people who don't know, I've said this story a million times.
I started you know, now I have a 30,000,000 company. I've also got two SaaS companies that so the two SaaS companies actually are together doing, like, almost $800 a month.
Dang. Pretty cool. That is pretty cool.
And then Should tell Alex obviously, I had RCA, and that did, you know, 20,000,000 a year. And then if you count the medical company, that did 30,000,000 a year, yeah, 30 ish million a year.
So three eight figure companies and two seven figure, soon to be 8 figure SaaS companies. But, anyways, before any of that, I started you know, I was gonna be a doctor.
And then I was like, okay. That's I basically read a book. It was how to get rich by Felix Dennis.
Have you ever read that? I remember you telling me this story, but no. I read that book.
Know, I was bartending. I read this book when it was over the winter break. All the students were gone.
Nobody was there. It was just me and a hobo in the bar, and the hobo was drinking this beer called Little Kings.
And so I'm giving him these Little Kings, then and I'll you know, he's just sitting there being a hobo, and then I'm just, okay, I'm gonna read this book. So I finished this whole book on my shift, because not a single person came in the bar. And that book, what it really helped me realize was I was trying to be a doctor because I thought that's how you make money, and the book literally was like, you if wanna make money, you should basically be in business.
Yeah. Like, that's like, just start a business. That's how you make money.
So I'm like, okay. I'm a start a business. Like, wasn't, like, trendy like it is now.
No. So I was like, oh, entrepreneur. I'm a start a business.
Okay. Cool. And so I'm like, what business am I gonna start?
Well, I was a nutrition major, right, who was kinda gonna do pre med. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna start a nutrition blog. Because I had seen, like, Muscle for Life, Mike Matthews, and some some of these other bloggers out there.
And I'm like, okay, you know, they're making money somehow, I guess.
So I'm gonna start a blog. Well, obviously, didn't work out. Because I basically started publishing blog posts.
And I'm, like, so proud of these blogs. I'm sending it to, like, my friends. And my view count was, like, three.
And so I was, okay. Well, so how do I get traffic? And that's when I saw the ad that was like, how a 26 yeah.
Year old punk And so I saw that ad and I'm like, who's this guy? Okay.
Whatever. Then I'm also like, any 23 year old who wants to make money does, I'm following Tai Lopez on Snapchat. And I see the JV.
I forgot that was the thing. So then, like, I saw the ad, then I'm like, oh, that's the guy from the ad. I see him in the JV, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna register for the webinar.
And so this was my first real, like, direct response experience as a consumer. And I get into the funnel.
Right? And I'm, like, watching the webinar. I had no desire to become a consultant.
I didn't know what a consultant was. I didn't even know what I wanted.
I realized I I didn't even know what I would do. Like, am I gonna what am I gonna consult on? What am I gonna coach on?
I don't know. It's just almost like I got put in a hypnotic state, and I just bought. And then immediately after, I was like, I got a refund.
So I, like, email, and I'm like, can I get a refund? And I think they were like, well, you can get a refund, but you have to go through the course. So I was like It was action based.
I was like, okay. I'll go through the course. Then I started going through this course, and I'm like, holy shit.
This is, the best thing. Like, it blew my socks off.
I went through it, like, three times. Dude. And it blew my freaking socks off.
And so, again, like, part of it, it was a really well structured course. But the best part for me, obviously, being super young at the time, was the mindset training. Week two.
Like, you remember the week two? And it was like and he's talking about, like what is it called?
Quantum physics and monk like discipline and, you know, all this stuff. Right?
And I'm like, okay. So now I'm, like, so dialed in productivity wise to where it's like, you know, like, even if you get up to pee, you're like, oh, this is messing with my productivity.
You know? So, like, you know how, like, that phase people go through and, like, Sam went through that phase where it was like, you just have to be, like, such a relentless, like, focused obsession machine. She made me like that too.
I've never worked 9AM to 9PM consistently like I did under Samovitz. Yeah. I was like dialed down to the fifteen minutes.
I didn't even have a business. I'm just like, I'm just so focused. But I also learned, you know, some bare bones sales stuff.
I learned what Facebook ads was. I didn't even know what Facebook ads was. Then obviously, like, most people in the program who had no idea what the fuck was going on, which is like me.
Yeah. What did we all do? We were like he's like, don't start a Facebook ad agency.
He's like, you could do it if you want. Here's how to do it. But, like, try to do something unique.
Yeah. And I'm like, I'm starting a Facebook ad agency. So I started the agency and then, you know, how do they teach you how to get your first clients?
Cold email. Dude, I did that. So that love that spurted my whole year of essentially sending 50 emails a day with no response.
Dude, good Because I burned my thing the first I mean, I I was so and then I got into the cat house program. So that but that the reason it's the most impactful for me is it is it started my journey.
Because, like, it blew it literally blew my mind. Like, I remember doing the consulting math spreadsheet. Yeah.
And it was my first ever encounter with, you know, being spreadsheet rich is what they call it, where you're like, oh, if I get this clients and this and this price Start future then you're like, oh my god, I can make 100,000 a month.
And then you're like, but if I increase the price to this, then you're like, 200,000 a month. You're like, oh my god, you know? And so, yeah.
And I think, you know, genuinely too, like, obviously, Sam is probably, I think, the best entrepreneur to ever come out of our industry.
I think so too. You know, I think even more so than Harmozi. I don't he's never publicly said this or wouldn't say this, but There's a reason why I'm not sure working together.
He's technically, I think, a billionaire now. I think on paper? On paper.
Yeah. And I think he's gonna be a lot more than that.
Mhmm. And and, you know, especially when you think about he basically basically when when people people saw saw him him go from making a ton of money to starting a Facebook group competitor, I will even call you out, even you and some other people too were like, I don't know why the fuck he's doing this.
This is stupid. Dude, I know. You're like, this makes no fucking sense.
And now that company's worth, I think, you know, I don't I don't know, I'm just speculating, but probably well over a billion dollars. Yeah. And so it's it's absolutely crushing it.
So I think you gotta give him props. Like, think he's the goat of our of our industry. I know.
And I'm so proud of school too and what it became. Like,
it's cool. I was there the day we bought school, and I just remember him saying, yo. I bought school.com.
And, like, without consulting me. And we were working on this together. And I was like, what do you mean school.com?
How much does that cost? It was a lot less than I thought. And then he was like, it's s k o o l.
And I was like, shoot. What are we doing here? Yeah.
We're like, we're really all in on this. And, yeah, he just had that belief, man. And, like, I always tell people, I'm like, Sam I would never bet against Sam Ovens.
Yeah. He's an he's an animal. He's an animal.
What do you think I mean, you worked with him. What do you think are the things that make him, you know, unique, different, just really good?
Dude, I the first thing that came to mind that I experienced with him that I've never seen to that level with anyone else is he just does not he's hardened himself to the point where he really doesn't care what people think.
Like Yeah. A of lot people will say that on camera and also he signs it. It's Jensen Huang or Elon Musk would put it, know, Jensen this is Jensen Huang's quote, is he tortures himself into greatness.
That's exactly what Sam did. Yeah. And I learned just from our discovery calls, like, I could I have my theories.
Like, he got bullied as a kid. He doesn't talk about that a lot too. He had, like, bad acne.
Like, there's a lot of things that if people think Sam's a robot, there's a lot of empathy I pulled out of him, like, behind the scenes doing things that we just didn't tell certain stories. Like, I I did parent interviews with him before because he wouldn't even tell me on some of the stuff. So, like, he I feel a lot of empathy just towards his come up story and how, like, how he was treated as a kid.
And me to me and him, like, once I got that story, like, I'm willing to go to war with someone. So me and Sam kind of, like, at our worst, we bullied people back during that era. We just, like, did not care both me and him.
I was like, shoot. Oh, you'll let me write whatever I want. I was ghost writing stuff for Tai Lopez, and he was like, screw it.
Tai, we'll we'll we'll watch it. We'll do it. I'm like, sick.
I'll just write the most crazy stuff I can. So that era of copy, I felt I felt maybe invincible.
And I don't know what Sam felt, but he gave me that feeling of invincibility, which is super cool. It's very rare for an entrepreneur to give you that much control, freedom, autonomy where you feel invincible in your craft.
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think consulting would have became if he just went all in on just info and coaching and stuff.
I think he would have done what I'll send you the original Sam Ovens job offer letter that he sent me. I've showed it to people and people are like, dude, it's batshit crazy. And it said, we're going to grow consulting in three years to a $100,000,000 company and sell on the NASDAQ.
And I believed it.
Like, that's what got me to come to New York. And I I remember thinking it was crazy too as I read it, by the way. Yeah.
What would have been the purpose of going public though? I don't even know. Just because it's cool?
Just because it's cool. Because, mean, the only reason to go public is obviously to raise money. To To raise money?
Yeah. So we like I mean, not necessarily. I guess you could just get a huge cash out.
But Yeah. Generally, it's really to expand because, obviously, if your stock price goes up, you could issue more stock, you can expand.
Also, the initial liquidity of the IPO gives you a lot of capital to be able to expand. I mean, that's why most companies go public. Right.
Like And also because of, you know, the venture and PE cycle of they gotta get liquidity at some point. Yeah. Phase two, like, LMS wasn't even a thought.
That came in about a year after we started thinking about LMS, and I started doing research on teachables come up, Kajabi come up, circles come up, and that became the market research for school. But before that, we just thought we could get with three products. We could get to a 100,000,000.
We would IPO because that's, like, definition of success is you look cool, and Nasdaq because it had a tech leaning to it. Yeah. And Sam liked that.
And then we thought we were gonna buy something like entrepreneur.com
and just content distribution network. Interesting. Yeah.
That was the original plan. Interesting. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're also probably gonna like this podcast I also did recently that you can check out by clicking the screen right here.
The Hook
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Cole Gordon and Jordan Schumacher, who've built a combined $225M in lifetime revenue, trade sixteen systems for scaling a company past the point where it needs them in the room.
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