Robert's Business Mastery: From Tech Whiz to Entrepreneurial Wizard

Ever wondered how to transition from a traditional job to running your own successful business? Join us as we explore one man's journey from the world of IT to becoming a web design wizard and CEO guru. Our guest, Robert, shares his inspiring story of overcoming self-doubt and fear to deliver value in his business and charge a fair price for his services. He takes us through the importance of implementing systems to consistently generate leads and the power of self-improvement and resilience.

As we navigate Robert's path to business success, we uncover the significance of taking a slow, steady route to gather crucial information. Robert highlights the need for assistance, acknowledging that it was through seeking help he was able to challenge himself and ultimately build a business valued at over a million dollars in just 90 days! This episode is packed full of hard-earned wisdom and business strategies that are sure to fuel your entrepreneurial spirit and ambition.

In our final segment, Robert emphasizes the life-changing power of education and self-motivation in business. Hear his journey from a $7 course to a 50k a year job, demonstrating the phenomenal value of investing in oneself. We discuss the power of daily mantras, the importance of speaking your dreams into existence, and the critical role of self-belief in achieving success. Join us for an episode filled with inspirational mantras and valuable business insights. You don't want to miss this!

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Chapters

• 0:01 Overcoming Adversity in Business and Marketing
• 8:56 Discovering Habits and Routines for Success
• 24:46 Transforming Business Through Value-Based Marketing
• 42:37 The Power of Education and Self-Motivation
• 49:43 Self-Belief and Creating Digital Products
• 1:01:19 Gratitude and Motivation for Inspiring Legacy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Good afternoon, good morning, good day wherever you are in the world, and welcome to another episode of A Rites From the Ashes, with myself as Porter. For those people who don't know, this is a podcast about other people sharing their stories and inspiring others with their thoughts, tribulations and findings over their lifetimes business and also in life. My next amazing podcast guest is Robert. Now, robert, I met through a platform called Alignable and he is a CEO guru. He is the wizard, the go-to person of anybody that I know when it comes to computers or SEO, or getting your brand website out there organically and in the quickest ethical fashion ever that I've ever seen, and that's partly why I asked him to be a guest on my show and I let him introduce himself, because people speak about themselves best and rather than me trying to introduce him and make it a complete hash of it, robert, please tell the world who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Jeez, I can't even beat what you just did. That was amazing, thank you. Thanks for the introduction. My name is Rob Dillion. I was in IT for 20 years and got laid off and subsequently ended up opening my own business, and so, just for the intro piece itself, right then. What I have come to do over 16 years is take my experience with web design and SEO and marketing, and I'm a coach and a guide for the business owner, because SEO gurus and experts teach aspiring SEOs, but nobody teaches the business owner. So that's who I am, or what I do.

Speaker 1: 2:01

And may I just add, what I actually said does not do you justice. I've seen the evidence of what you do and it's pretty phenomenal, which drew me to you in the first place. A lot of our listeners are avid about overcoming challenges and overcoming adversity. Is there ever a time you can share with our audience that you overcome a significant adversity but triumphed or ultimately turned around into one opportunity?

Speaker 2: 2:37

Well, you know, when I first started in business, I was doing SEO. I didn't even know I was going to be doing web design yet and I was scared to charge for my services. It was very new, had never taken a business class, had never even read books, anything, I just knew this is what I wanted to do. And when I got started, I got hired by a dentist to rank a web page and he was paying me $300 a month. That was my first client and you know, yeah, it's a heck of a salary, right. So I was making $300 a month, man, and I was on my way, I was trudging through the forest and doing my thing and I quickly realized that I had something really, really good to offer. I had something that people needed, and you know, and I needed to price it correctly. But, long story short, what ended up happening was he hired me. I worked my tail off to not only deliver results but to over deliver, and I worked feverishly for that $300 a month and I got a lot of the work done really fast and did a really good job for him. We got paid. I took that money and I had read somewhere that you know, when you get paid. You pay yourself first and you celebrate those paychecks right.

Speaker 2: 4:20

So I took my family out to eat and we had dinner. We had a really good time, of course, spent most of that money in one shot. And we came home and then Monday rolled around and when I got back to my computer I was there going now, what do I do? And that was my first biggest aha was I need to be marketing even while I'm sleeping. I need to be marketing no matter what. Marketing first, and as long as I can put something together that's out there marketing for me and doing all of that for me, then I can focus more on my business instead of having to focus on marketing. So really, that's you know.

Speaker 2: 5:06

When a lot of people get started, they really don't know where to start. They don't know how to charge for themselves, they don't know, they don't know where their next leads coming from, and that's what they don't know. They don't know is that you need to put systems in place so that leads are coming, at least you know, from one source, right, at least you know something. But that's the biggest thing for me was I've got to have multiple sources that create leads for me so that I do kind of know where my leads are coming from and I have more control and I know that there's going to be a tomorrow, because instead of making $300 a month, they should be making $3,000 a month per client, or whatever. It may be that you charge right.

Speaker 1: 5:56

So I like what you mentioned there, rob, about the undervaluing with your services. This is a common challenge with a lot of people just starting out and also people who are veterans in the community and they don't even know what they've been doing for five, ten years and they're still undercharging for themselves. And the one thing I discovered it wasn't ever about the money, it was always about what they were going to, the value they were going to receive, and the emotional component. Is that what you found in this journey as well?

Speaker 2: 6:35

Oh, I took that to the up degree and my whole thing is deliver value, value, value, because everything that you want when you deliver value will come back full circle. But you know, when people get started, I think that you know there's again you don't know what you don't know, and one of the things that you don't know at least I didn't know was that some of the reasons I was scared to charge for, at least, you know, a fair amount for my services was because my challenges lied right here. They were from childhood, they were from early adulthood and they were, they were. It was lack of confidence that I didn't even realize I had. I didn't, you know, it's a subconscious thing, it's not a conscious thing. So so I had to, I had to do some work. There was a lot of things I didn't know, that I didn't know, and I had to allow myself to get out of the way so that I could read books and educate myself and figure out what are these things.

Speaker 2: 7:46

And then, even beyond that, I need to go to an expert and reach out and get a little help and I can tell you that from your you're talking to a person that took the slow path. Okay, and what I've learned along the way is I could have got her so much quicker and maybe even had my black hair still by hiring someone and hiring, you know, doing some really good research and hiring some of that really would have helped me jumpstart and just get so much further ahead of my career.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Yeah, I know a lot of people struggle with finding that person. There's a lot of I call them sheeps in wolf clothing and they say they can move the needle when they truly can't, and that's okay. But it's also that person who is going through the experience, learning that as well.

Speaker 2: 8:43

That's right.

Speaker 1: 8:45

I like what you said about finding that person who was. If you'd mind sharing with us who that person was? If you don't, that's fine. And what habits and routines did you discover in that process?

Speaker 2: 9:00

Well, like I said, I didn't necessarily hire that person. I took the slow path. I was in position A. I could see position B being where I want to be. I just happened to hit every boulder and tree along the way. So guess what, when you do that, you pick up a little golden nugget of information all the way there.

Speaker 2: 9:24

And it wasn't till I was almost there where my wife had left corporate and she went promptly out, hired somebody, and then hired another person, and another person, and another person, and next thing, you know, she would blow me away. And I'm going what is going on? And that was the true power of the rabbit and the turtle. And so then, as I got further along, I'm going okay, I do need to hire people, I do need to get help so that I can excel, so I can get out of my own way, so I can fix these little things in my head that I didn't know were happening and causing me to go slower, if not even just fail and struggle. And I had some really good breakthroughs and I can tell you that, while I didn't necessarily hire a coach, I learned from what my wife was doing. I hired people to help me fix myself and address things that I was experiencing. And once I did that, things started changing. Things really started changing. And if you want me to get more back into my story, I was cruising along. We were building websites, we were building mobile apps, we were building software custom software and still doing some SEO projects. And then I just went you know, where do I see myself in five years and can I sustain this? And you know, I was trying to be really honest with myself and go, I can sustain this and I could do it for another five years, but I'm not happy with what I'm making. I'm not happy with the way things kind of were, the way I created my reality and what it is. So it's not what I really envisioned. It wasn't really point B, I wasn't there yet and so and you and I have had conversations but a couple years back I was going to watch this movie. It was in a movie, it was a series where it's called Undercover Billionaire and I found it on TikTok, of all things, right. And I found it on TikTok and I'm like, who is this Grant Cardone guy, right? What is this all about? So you know, he was on TikTok and he just had this interview with someone and he was telling them about making this, you know, going through and recording and it being on TV. And so I went out to the internet, started doing some research and I found that Grant Cardone was on Undercover Billionaire.

Speaker 2: 12:24

And for those of you that haven't seen it, what it is is they this movie production company goes out and finds these billionaires and says, hey, would you be up for taking this challenge? And the challenge is this We'll take you out of your element, change your name, even change the way you look, take away your phone, your contacts. You are not who you are anymore. We give you another phone, a little flip phone. We'll give you a hundred dollar bill and we'll drop you off somewhere in the United States, and in 90 days you need to be able to have created a business that is valued over a million dollars. And if you don't succeed, you have to pay us a million dollars, but if you do succeed we will contribute a million. And so this guy, grant Cardone, who is a real estate tycoon, he accepted the challenge and so I started watching this, and this is a really long story, so I'll keep it.

Speaker 1: 13:33

No, please, no, we've got time. This is. I love this story. I know this story but please, ok.

Speaker 2: 13:39

So I decided to watch it and I told my wife I'm like I want to watch this thing. Grant Cardone is the one she goes. Oh yeah, I heard kind of about this but I didn't know and I know a little bit about Grant. I'm not really a big fan, whatever. So we start watching it and it was amazing, they drop them off in Pueblo, Colorado, which is literally an hour and a half south of me, and they drop them off one evening and literally, like I said, they give them a phone and they give them a hundred dollar bill.

Speaker 2: 14:13

And so they give them a car and it's a beater right, it's a, it's a POS and they, he drives into Pueblo from the south, I believe, going north, and the first thing he runs into is an RV park not a park, but a sales RV sales place. And and he goes there and he talks to this guy that's run in the place and he says hey, you know, I could, I could do security for you here. You look like you might need security out. I can watch this place, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just need a place to sleep. And you got to remember this is Grant Cardone and he's got a camera crew following him. So you got to, you know, you have to keep that in mind. So this business owner is like I don't know what's up here, right, but maybe there's something that I'm going to get out of it, maybe you know some awareness for my business or whatever. So, anyway, he accepts Grant Cardone's proposal and so he gives him an RV to sleep in and then it says here, here's a gift card, go down and get yourself some food. So, anyway, grant Cardone does that for a couple of days.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Then he goes and he meets up with these guys. He's trying to find who the big players are in town and get himself in front of them. He does that by going to the gym and he bumps into a few people and then what he's trying to do is put together a real estate deal that's going to obviously you know value for over a million dollars and nowhere near the time that he needs. And he starts doing this and it falls through. Nobody knows who he is, he has no credibility, he has no cloud. So so the deal falls through because they asked him how much money do you have in this deal? And he's like I don't know what this together, and so they were like no, I'm out. Anyway, he used up half the time trying to do it that way and it didn't work. So then he had to start over after missing, you know, losing the whole, I think, but three weeks or so and what he did was he put together a team of videographers.

Speaker 2: 16:21

So what these, what this team would, what his vision for this team was and the way he put the team together was one of the people that was kind of interested in doing the real estate deal with him before it all fell through. He actually, you know, he saw something in Grant and so they got to talking and this guy on multiple businesses so he says, hey, I know you got that mattress company down downtown. Why don't you let me go market this thing? I do some Gula marketing, we'll get online, we do all these things right. So he goes out, he does this. It was a success. And then he has another conversation with the owners. He says let me put this video team together for you and we'll go out and push the service around town. And I think we can build this up really fast.

Speaker 2: 17:08

And the guy has no clue who Grant is. He's just the guy that he met. But he had crazy you know information, like he knew things. And this guy's like man, I don't know who you are, but there's something about you, right? So again, what he ends up doing is putting together this video crew where they would go out, they would do videos for these businesses, they would come back, splice them all up and you know, in result we're all these different videos and he was selling it for a pretty good ticket three, three grand, five grand, in some cases 10 grand per month, and after the 90 days they come in to evaluate his business and he knocked it out of the park. I think it was worth like 10 million or something Like five million. I don't remember what it was, but it was a lot.

Speaker 1: 17:59

It was nearly 10. It was nearly 10.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Was it really nearly? Yeah, nearly 10. So I watched this thing my wife and I would say. Every time it came on we watched it and watched it, and watched it, and in my mind I'm just taking notes the whole time, and then I would really go back to my desk and write it all down. And so I sat there one day and I went. What really happened here? This guy just created a multi-million dollar business in 90 days. I've been at this for 14 and a half years. What did he do in 90 days that I couldn't do in all this time? What am I missing? And it's all right there.

Speaker 2: 18:41

Now I looked at that and I realized he had mad, mad focus. Pull it, pull you out of your element. You don't have kids asking you for everything and doing all this stuff. You don't have your wife that you're having to support and do all these things. You don't have your bills and your colleagues and partners and TV and all these crazy interferences. It's all gone and you don't have any money. So, like you got to still got to eat, you got to sleep. And so I just thought. I just thought.

Speaker 2: 19:20

I think the biggest, biggest takeaway was the hyper focus. It was number one. Number two he had a purpose. I got to get this done, I got to get this done, I got to get this done. And he had no distractions. So he had the drive and the purpose, with just insane focus. And then he had to put his own brain to work. He had to use what he knew and put all that together and go out and make it happen, take action.

Speaker 2: 19:56

The difference of some of us that go out and watch workshops or seminars or any other events or whatever right, and we just do this at our leisure and go get a nice hotel and spend the weekend in Atlanta or do whatever right, and he didn't have that he had. I need to knock this out of the park right now. So he put himself together a plan and he had a vision and he made things happen. He took action, took action, took action. The difference is that we already have our apartments or our houses and we have our luxuries and our comforts and we don't have anything driving us. There's nothing that's making us super, super, hyper, focused and passionate About what we're doing. And I just looked at all that and went oh man, I'm such a wuss. I'm so, I'm so pampered. I've given myself so many luxuries that that I've lost my way. I just don't have the drive and the passion that he had. So could I? Could I get some focus? Yeah, I can make some time, I can make. It won't be what he had, but I can make some time. Even if I did it in double the amount of time that he did, would that not be crazy, right? So I just started looking at that, going what the hell have I been doing for 14 and a half years, seriously? So I just started looking at that, going what the hell have I been doing for 14 and a half years, seriously? So I just started looking at that, going what the hell have I been doing for 14 and a half years, seriously? I saw that and it really put a fire on me. Then I went okay, I need to rewrite my own script. I need to figure out what I'm gonna do, what I'm best at. Since I don't like what I built, I need to write it so that it's what I want. And so I did that.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Then, before I launched everything, or while I was in the middle of putting everything together, I ran across a guy named Joel Kaplan. Joel Kaplan was selling Google Ads. So what he did is he put together a company around him. He had people around him and he was selling the service of Google Ads and he was selling it for probably 2,000, 2,500, 3,000 a pop and he was getting 30 clients a month. And I saw again a TikTok. I saw a TikTok about this guy and he was saying hey, here's how I'm making $200,000 a month and this is what I've been doing, and getting 30 clients a month and doing all this. And I put together all these things and this is what I'm doing. And I went out, I searched him online. I found all his stuff, I found everything he had. And then I replied to his TikTok and I said that's great, I have all that, but how'd you get the 200 clients? And he made a reply, tiktok to me and he said hey, rob, obviously I didn't have the 200 when I started.

Speaker 2: 23:01

When I started, I started doing. I was going out to networking events and handing out business cards and meeting people and doing breakfast and lunch and dinner and all these different things. He goes, but he goes. If you think about it, I was spending one to one time. It wasn't growing fast enough, not the way I wanted it, so he goes. So I changed it and I made an adjustment where I was covering more people at the same time and he said he was running ads for himself and he was doing all these different things and it was exploding and got to the point where he was getting 30 clients a month.

Speaker 2: 23:42

And so that, with what I learned from Rat Cardone, I stumbled across Alignable, where you know, when I connected and I reached out, I went to Alignable, because I've been on Alignable since literally since two years of its inception, and I just couldn't figure out how to traverse Alignable. What do I do here? Like I just I know Facebook, I know LinkedIn, I know Twitter, I know all these other things, but there's something different about this platform and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to operate and then and so I was kind of back and forth, so so and I got this invitation from Alignable to join a smart connect I think that's what it's called we connect or smart connect and I hopped on there and when I got on there, there were 300 people on there and I went. I want that. I don't know how they did that, but I want that because I've tried to give.

Speaker 2: 24:46

I have digital products that I created and I was trying to sell those by giving classes, even free classes, online, and I had maybe 12 people show up online for a free class. I did an in-person event where I charged like 50 bucks a person. I had 45 people show up, my best ever outing. And then I had many online events after that where I had like three people show up. So obviously I wasn't doing something right. But these people had 300 people and I went I want that.

Speaker 2: 25:19

So I started reaching out who was hosting this event, email them, connected with them. Nothing, crickets did it again, found somebody else, email them, connect with them, and it took me a few times and then I ran across the right person. Then I said hey, look, I wanna do this. They said what are you doing? You know? I said Google my business listing. I can teach people how to make changes themselves and it'll help them rank their Google business listing. I also have a course on next door, hyper-local marketing and we can do that. I also have. Like I just started spinning all this out, they were like no, no, no, this is good. Send me materials on this. Send me if you've had, if you've held any other workshops. Send us what you got, and so.

Speaker 1: 26:04

I did.

Speaker 2: 26:05

And I was approved like the next day or two, and then I held my first workshop and I had 863 people registered for that workshop and the max capacity on Zoom was 300. So we had a total of 350 people throughout the 90 minutes of that workshop show up. And that was just the beginning and from there it blew up and I'm still. That was in January this year, 2023. I'm still doing it. What's happened is my business has approximately 4X and I'm talking from a revenue standpoint.

Speaker 1: 26:50

And Josh. You wanna clarify that, rob, for the listeners. So since January, when you had 800 plus signups, it is now October of 2023, you have 4X to your business. Can you just explain the trajectory of and you know the statistics on this, I'm not gonna share them, I want you to of the probability of that happening in your industry.

Speaker 2: 27:22

Well, the probability, like I said, my trajectory asking myself what I'll be doing in the next five years. My trajectory is flat and to be able to hit a home run like that in my industry is very, very possible. Obviously, Grant Cardone did it and he was very close to what I was doing. However, he was an excellent entrepreneur and he was a great entrepreneur, and he was very close to what I was doing. However, he was an exception.

Speaker 1: 27:55

But is that the case, was he?

Speaker 2: 27:56

an exception.

Speaker 1: 27:57

Exactly, he was exceptionally smart about how he marketed himself.

Speaker 2: 28:03

That's exactly right. He was an exception and I'm only gonna say that because he had cameras around him and people act differently with cameras, but it didn't matter, he still had to do everything. So again, I looked at myself and went he just did this in 90 days and I've been doing this for so long. So I gotta make changes. I don't know if I can do it as fast as he did, but I gotta make changes. And literally with the workshops and everything that I've been doing, it was just insanely amazing Because I did what Joel Kaplan was doing, but I did it differently.

Speaker 2: 28:42

He used ads to do it. I used a one to many approach. So, instead of me getting online, finding a networking event, get dressed clear my evening, go out to this networking event, hand out business cards, have conversations with people, collect some business cards, come home, email everybody, carry dialogue while I'm still trying to go to another networking event and then go have breakfast with them or coffee or lunch, maybe one, two, three times, however long that sales process takes that courtship, if you will, and I'm spending more money, more time, more money, more time and then, out of the 12 or 15 businesses I was responding to, I might get one conversion If that, and instead what I'm doing is a one to many approach, with a workshop where I have 300 people, full capacity, and I'm literally going through four months of the networking thing in 90 minutes. And in 90 minutes I am not only creating awareness about who I am, what I do, I'm delivering mad value and I'm creating no like and trust. People do business with people they know they like and they trust, and I create all that in 90 minutes. Now what happens is when I get done with that workshop, my calendar's already got two or three bookings. I've got emails all over the place. I've got people that have connected with me all over Alignable.

Speaker 2: 30:20

And now I'm jumping on a Zoom with someone who reached out to me from the workshop, and the first one I did went like this hey Baz, how's it going? Nice to meet you. Thanks for taking the time to jump on the Zoom with me. And then the other person goes Rob, what an amazing workshop. You were so awesome. You gave us this, you gave us that, you taught us this, you taught us that, like you threw everything out there and it blew us away. I already you know, I want your SEO package. What do you charge? All I said was hi, yeah, I'm not even joking. That's how those calls started going. Where was that 14 years ago? Like it didn't exist.

Speaker 2: 31:05

I made changes and those changes paid off. I took a risk, I took a chance, made some investments. Those they just all paid off. And I'm in a completely different place now. And so now I just keep looking at my stuff going. I still do the same thing. I still deliver value, value, value.

Speaker 2: 31:29

Along that journey I ran across another guy named Alex Hermosi. Yes, and Alex always says when you make someone an offer, give them so much value they feel stupid to say no. And so I started doing that and just give value, value, value, value. And they're going oh my gosh, this guy's amazing. And then the conversations just completely changed. I don't have to try to talk anyone into anything Anymore. I'm kind of trying to talk them out of it, depending on what they want. So that's kind of what my journey has been and what that is for my journey has been and it's been amazing. And so now we're still doing new things and changing the trajectory a little bit, just by adding a few things, and but again the bottom line is over deliver, give everything away, sell the implementation.

Speaker 1: 32:30

Yeah, and that's crucial to remember For anybody listening to this. Now. I've done the math on this in my head while I'm stood here because I'm a bit geeky like that. His trajectory was over 87% in the last 10 months. So he's forex his business in 10 months, surpassing anything that he could possibly imagine, but then opening up to heights that he didn't realize and relationships he didn't realize.

Speaker 1: 33:02

But also it's so simple. Rob said deliver massive value. The more value you give, the more you open up different conversations.

Speaker 1: 33:15

A lot of entrepreneurs focus on one of two things themselves or the money, and it's got nothing to do with that. If you focus on what you're giving away and Alex Hormosa said this, give it away for free, give the best stuff away and get a switch from that mindset of giving it away to its value to you. Hope you do the best with it you can. If you want implementation, like you just said, rob, come back and see me and it's a different conversation then You're not trying to convince somebody or use persuasion taxes like outdated NLP to try and convince them to do something, to find the emotional connection, all that BS. It's just very congruent, very smooth Leaders today and I love what you do here, rob, is you give it away and it's not the information you're giving your time away. It's the most precious commodity you'll ever give and you've got to have that mentality of I can earn it back. It's paying it forward, it's gonna inspire somebody and when you've got that line of love and you've got 800 people which is phenomenal, the pivotal moment from you going I'm scared, I'm not confident, I'm not worthy of this. I'm charging 300 bucks-ish for whatever I'm giving away and I can't sustain that to that valuable leadership lesson that you actually learn of that as your own self-worth and then charging accordingly for what that is. It takes people sometimes years to do that. It took you 13-ish years, but equally it can take people all the lifetime to learn.

Speaker 1: 35:12

The recommendation that I'm asking from you here is if there was two things that you could recommend for the listener who are in that position of I don't mean you're not able to charge enough of my services what would you recommend for that person listening right now, because there are many people out here like that right now. Who were you a few years ago going? I think it's worth three, four, maybe three to three and a half hundred, I don't really know 300. And that's the conversations that people have. I know because I've heard them. What would you, what would the recommendation you would have for somebody in that position right now?

Speaker 2: 35:58

I would do. This is what I did, because I couldn't figure out what am I gonna charge for these services? And have it feel good Because for me it had to feel good and for me to be comfortable to say it. And I learned a lesson from someone. They said first off, go out and search the exact same service as if you wanted it online, find the highest service that somebody's charging for the exact same thing, and find the lowest and sometimes the lowest may be you, and then you'll know what's in the middle. And then what you do is you take what you would normally charge and make that the low end. Then you take the high end and I couldn't charge the high end. So I came just down from the high end and put that out there and when okay, if nobody ever buys it, who cares? I still got what I would be comfortable with and then put whatever's in the middle, put that out there.

Speaker 2: 37:03

What I found was that nobody ever bought the low end. They all bought the middle. And if they didn't buy the middle, sure, there was a couple that bought the low, but there's also a couple that buy the highest. So you gotta get out of your own way. You're the one putting those limitations on yourself. And instead of doing that, if you can't get out of your mouth, if you can't get it from here out and say I charged this and it's the middle or the high because you don't feel comfortable with that, right, like it hurts, you don't have to. That's why I said you put yours on the low end, because, guess what, you put those other two out there.

Speaker 2: 37:50

You're giving them a choice and then, if you don't ask, the answer's always no. So by putting the middle and the high there, you're actually asking, but you don't have to vocalize it. You're allowing them to choose themselves, because it's too easy for us, as business owners to look at someone and go oh, they'll never buy. Oh, they don't have that kind of money. Oh, they can't afford that monthly. That's way too expensive. You're already saying no. So stop telling everybody no for you. Instead, let them say yes to whatever they want.

Speaker 1: 38:32

Yeah, and that's key there, Rob. People tend to overlook that they assume the financial status of the person in front of them. A valuable lesson that I learned watching a YouTube video and not on TikTok. I can't deal with TikTok, well, three people who do it with it it's not for me.

Speaker 1: 38:56

But there was an Italian guy who was in Film Italy YouTube short, probably all over the internet anyway and there was a Ferrari, a 40 Ferrari, on the side of their road and this business person, business man coming out of the building, dressed up to the nines, a Marnie suit, briefcase, his suit jacket, thrown across his arm with his briefcase, and he's laughing at the guy at the side of the road in very scraggly clothes, and he got into his mini and the man in the scraggly clothes looked like clothes, he looked like he was homeless, stood up and he's in complete stitches. He's laughing, he's belly laughing because he's just seen this guy get into his mini, the mini coupap, and he clicks on, pulls out his coat pocket, which was ripped holes everywhere, brand new for two Ferrari F40, and just clicks it on and then he gets in the car and drives off and he's still laughing down the end of the street, basically saying don't ever judge a book by its cover, because the guy next to you that you're assuming hasn't got the money because of the way he presents himself or the way he's dressed may be the person that can invest $100 million into your business and literally put all the processes and all the people into that place. That's a valuable lesson that you've just shared with everybody that people are willing to judge somebody on the way they look or the way they sound or the way they present themselves. People who are over-wealthy don't presume they are because of the way they dress.

Speaker 1: 40:49

Alex Homozi, or another person. He's a $100 million company with one company. However, he wears a flat cap, shorts, old trainers and a vest a gym vest. But to look at him in the street without knowing who he was, you would just assume he's just a gym buff, not an over-successful entrepreneur heir to multi-millions and eight companies. And that's the truth. He is. That's who he is, but he got there by learning sales with one of them. Grant Cardone was another Failure is often viewed by many people as a pitfall or a road stop.

Speaker 1: 41:40

How did you use failure in one of your journeys to ascend from that mindset of oh my God, I'm not worth it, to pivoting, and that failure drove you to that next level?

Speaker 2: 41:56

Well, I I have a lot more questions. Sorry, I got. No, you're good. When I was laid off from my IT job, I tried to get into real estate. I got into construction for a bit, I learned some SEO, but I thought, okay, I can probably just make money, and online I'll figure out how to do it. Oh gosh, are you kidding me? I was getting smashed in the head with a brick wall over and over and over and over. And you know what's funny? Because the exact story you just told is what happened to me.

Speaker 2: 42:37

I was looking online, searching online, and I ran across this guy and he goes look, if you need to make decent money, then he goes, it's super easy. I got this course, I'll show you how to do it. And I'm like, oh, of course you're selling a course, right, and it was only $7. And it was I'm not even kidding with you, beth, it was a $7 course. And I was having the hardest damn time. Like man, I'm not paying this guy $7, but I would literally go to Starbucks and buy myself a coffee, right, like come on. And so when that perspective kind of hit me, I went, oh, okay, I'll buy the stupid thing. So I bought it. And the minute I got it, this guy comes on the video and he is dressed like I mean, he was dressed, just ragged clothes. And I went, oh my gosh, I just got had no-transcript and, fortunately for me, I just let it keep playing. And it wasn't about the cover, it wasn't about his appearance, it wasn't about any of that stuff.

Speaker 2: 43:49

That guy taught me a lesson in the next 10 minutes that ultimately landed me here, right. What he taught me was to build websites, even though I have no clue how to build websites I do a little bit now, but at the time I'd never done anything. And he said look, all you gotta do is find somebody that needs a website, and then you go over here and find a developer that needs to build a website. You just become the middleman. You're putting a project together. That's all it is.

Speaker 2: 44:24

And I went, wow, what have I been doing? Trying to figure out AdSense and all this other stuff and just failing visibly. And then what this guy taught me literally was making me 50 grand a year, and at the time that was it wasn't great money, but it was helping. So I took a chance. I had to take a chance. Number one I had to get out of my own way and put things into perspective. I was willing to go spend money on coffee, but I wasn't willing to spend $7 on my education. We do it all the time. Yep, we do it.

Speaker 1: 45:11

There's a party of less than that. You know people say they will spend more on coffee than they would on a course, but it's not actually the course you're spending on. It's what you do with that course. It's what you do with the information. So we're not. 12% of people in the weatherbike or online courses won't even get past the first session, and the ones who get past the first session won't even get past the third. It's not 3%, only complete the course.

Speaker 2: 45:50

Even the courses that I get, I give away sometimes, but even when I sell them. It's funny, I sell my course, for I think it's 135. And I know I make it so that when they go to the course, I still make them put their name and email in or they cannot access it and that's how I know whether or not they actually go and watch the information and they don't. They'll spend $135 on this thing and they still won't watch it. No, they won't watch it.

Speaker 1: 46:24

It's nuts. It's the difference between shifting that two millimeter, because if you're not going to pay for it, you might as well just do it. Time block the time to go and watch what it is. You've got to watch and implement the tools afterwards of what you've learned, but most people, most, won't do it, and that's what defines a successful entrepreneur to a mediocre. Try again, try again, try again. Entrepreneur or wanna be an entrepreneur or wanna be an entrepreneur, they don't move the needle enough. You did.

Speaker 2: 47:08

Well, I'll tell you, there was one other thing that I did that, I think, was the catalyst to everything. Yes, I made some changes, I took some action, I took some risks. I even invested money Money I didn't have and I literally went to my garage and was looking for what can I sell? I'm not even joking with you, but what moved the needle for me was I told you, I took the time to get some help, to get out of my own way, for people to come in and help me with my roadblocks up here that I didn't even know I had. And once I started doing that, then I started thinking you know, maybe I should be meditating and not to sound hokey or sound weird, whatever, I don't know what kind of if your audience is into that, right, but this is what I did. So you guys can look at me like I'm the hokey one, right, but here's what I did. I just felt so good after getting some work done that I thought I need to embrace this, because I think there's a whole lot more there. And so what I did was I went out and watched a ton of videos, I did a lot of reading, I read a few books and I determined and decided that I needed to create a mantra for myself and I had to do it myself. There's a lot of things you can do. Other people have and that's perfectly fine and it works for a lot of people. I'm just weird like that, like I'm like I need my own thing.

Speaker 2: 48:54

So I created this mantra and what I would do was, like most people will sit down in a dark room or whatever and put some incense on and all that. I'm just not that guy. I have nothing against it. It just doesn't resonate with me. What I found was that I get in the shower and I'll shower and at the end of my shower I turned the temperature so that it's perfect and I let it hit my head so that the water, when it comes down, it covers my ears. So you get the effect of having your ears covered like that, and then when you speak out loud, you can hear yourself in your head. And I would start going through my mantra like that for five minutes or so.

Speaker 2: 49:43

And I started out really simple was I needed to remind myself that I was good enough and I am good enough. I can accomplish these things. I am good enough and using the power of I am in everything that I was saying. Over time it started to morph and change a little bit and for the most part it stayed. I just kept. I wanted to be thankful as possibly that I could, thankful for what I do have, thankful for my beautiful wife and my kids. We have a place to live. I was able to wake up today Like thankful for the basics of life and just being thankful for that, and then knowing that I am good enough for what I want to achieve and using the power of I am, and then, like I said, it just kept growing and growing and then.

Speaker 2: 50:40

So what I started doing was I would do that every single morning in the shower and then I would come out, I would work for a little bit and then I would go on walks and when, and in this area where I live, there's sidewalks everywhere, it's a green belt, there's all this space where everybody walks, but there's this one little off to the side spot where it's a path that's been created, that's all dirt and you know that's just been walked on so much that it's.

Speaker 2: 51:08

You know, the grass has been killed and it's all dirt in this field. So what I do is I walk up to that path, I take off my socks and shoes and I do earth grounding and so I'll wear my headphones playing specific like chakra, energy type music and I touch the ground and I walk and it's about, if I take my time, it's about a 20 minute walk and while I'm listening to this music I go through my mantra and you know, you can think whatever you want. For me it felt amazing, it felt great, and since it felt great, I just kept doing it and and at all the same time, I had just watched Granite Cardone, I just saw Joe Kaplan, alex Hermosi getting on a line of all and all these things were happening and then it just exploded. It's still exploding, man.

Speaker 1: 52:13

I love your story how you went from detrimental mindset to everything that's working against you into finding yourself, overcoming adversity and some of your own limiting beliefs and then crossing the path with spirituality through meditation. There's science about meditation now and my listeners some of the listeners do act in. I'm included in this. I actually meditate. I do mantras three, four times a day, so I know that, what that works. But I also am avid in the quantum fit, the quantum science of it, physics, of how it works. So when someone asked me or says to me it doesn't work, I will say actually, every leader, every king, every over successful entrepreneur, business owner, woman, doesn't matter of all time had one thing in common and they all spoke out loud who they were going to build, believe they were going to be. They didn't verbalize it in their head. They started to speak out loud and act as if it already was. Not fake it to you, make it BS, but act and feel as if it or is.

Speaker 1: 53:46

And if you look into the chakras and the resonation of the chakras, frequency of them I am is the root chakra then we go into frequency of I feel. Then it's active, as if I love and the fire you go, the highest chakra in the body is the crown chakra and that's I understand and it's whole different frequency. If you can, you start. That's that instead. I am with, I understand, and then the verb it afterwards. It's a different frequency, it's a different vibration.

Speaker 2: 54:25

I'm still learning as I'm going, I, and what's funny is it's all been kind of an accident, but I, I'm at the.

Speaker 1: 54:33

I feel I'm still growing, but that that we all are, but it's all a part of the the evolution of our soul, who we are at the seat of us and we have different ways of learning. Like you learned by the mantra, you learn by trial and error. You learn over 14 years grand card I'm a thrish months but he had the experience and confidence within his belief, with no distractions, to achieve what he wanted he understood correct.

Speaker 1: 55:09

But equally, you do you understand how to achieve what it takes, or to to accumulate what it takes, for that success, madam, or that success may be, and that's powerful. It's not just about oh I, it was luck or coincidence, as I think it's a coincidence. It just takes belief within yourself, and I love the way you. You persevered with it. You learn from your mistakes, you leveled up, you pivoted and tried something else. What was? What? Are you looking forward now to three to five years? What do you want to be doing in that time?

Speaker 2: 55:53

I know lots of time off, but no actually, I've already had that conversation with myself, so good timing. I am a product creator. What I've learned about myself over time and did not know this when I went into business was I'm a creator and I need to create. I'm not an execution person, so I got to have someone that I'll execute for me. My like it's funny, my wife and I do a lot together, so she's the executioner so. But I've learned that I'm a creative, so what I do best is I create digital products, and so where?

Speaker 2: 56:36

Where I see myself in the next five years is I will probably still be giving workshops probably not as frequently, but I will still be doing it, because I feel like every time I do, I have a whole new group of people that are there that have met me for the first time and they need to go down that path, they need to hear it, and so what I see myself doing is doing some workshops here and there on a regular basis, but I see myself building and creating more digital products to actually help people do the things that I talk about, step by step, because it's one thing for me to say, hey, look, if you want to rank your Google business listing and get more, more business, get more people calling you, emailing you, texting you that you know, then that raises the ability of conversion, right? So if you want to do that, you need to do this. And if I just say it, they'll go, oh, okay, cool, and they'll never do anything. But if I give them a video course and go here, here's 10 videos, go watch these. They're only 10 minutes, each eight minutes, maybe 12 minutes on the high end, and if they go watch them, it's literally okay, we're gonna go here, we're gonna log in to our Google business, we're gonna go in and edit the profile. The first thing we introduce this now. This is what this is and this is how we do it. And then the video is over.

Speaker 2: 58:04

Now you've taken one single step towards accomplishing that and getting it done, instead of being overwhelmed with I gotta go do all that. So let's break it down in small steps. Take one at a time. If you feeling really, really motivated, do two in one day. But as you do, if you take one step one day towards your goal, then you're making progress, you're taking action, you're getting things done.

Speaker 2: 58:31

And so what? What am I hope I'm doing in five years is I hope I have more products that I can give and, yeah, I still sell some and I hope I have new audiences that find me for the first time and go, wow, somebody finally put it in a way I could understand. So the way when I introduced myself in my workshops, I tell everyone the SEOs teach the SEO want-to-bees. Nobody teaches the business owner. The s, the marketing experts and gurus teach the marketing want-to-bees nobody teaches the business owner. That's what I'm here for. I teach the business owner, and so the second thing I tell them is be careful, what you ask me, because I'm going to give you the cold, hard, brutal, honest truth and it can be painful.

Speaker 1: 59:22

However, somebody you need to hear yeah, so that's how my workshops go but I love that about you, robin, and the the authenticity and the vulnerability of yourself and that also is is a concept people are still trying to master in a lot of ways, because they're trying to be like somebody else, dress the same as the other person today, as far to be yeah, I just got to a point where I, you know, I think it's it's a little bit of age and a lot of a lot of failure, but a ton of success, right, I think I just got to the point where I went.

Speaker 2: 1:00:04

You know what? I don't care, I don't, I don't care what people think of me. If, if you watch me and what I say, and in five minutes you go, man, forget this guy. I'm out of here. Who is this guy? Who is he is? Yeah, you know what I say. Hey, you know. Thank you, thanks for trying. And you know you're right, I'm not for you, but the other 300 people are.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

So so if that's the case, you know, like I said, I kind of have a I don't care attitude because guess what I worked for myself. Nobody's gonna fire me if I cuss or if I say something they disagree with, because I'm not gonna make everybody happy. You cannot make everybody happy. That was another realization. I don't care what you do. If you're giving away gold, somebody's couldn't complain that they didn't get two bars ago. So you can't make everybody happy. So just do what you do, do it as best as you can possibly do it and let the people that accept that and are thankful for it and bless to be there. Let them be happy and everybody else.

Speaker 1: 1:01:07

They're gonna go find who resonates with them and that's perfectly okay yeah, I couldn't end on that note, because that's a very poignant statement there. Rob, thank you very much for your time absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:01:22

Thank you very much, it's been great it's been amazing.

Speaker 1: 1:01:24

Thank you very much for more listeners. Thank you very much for joining us. Please, as always, share this message. This is Rob Bellini and I'm Baz Porto. Remember live life with purpose and inspire with legacy until the next time. My friends, see you soon.