Getting My First Ever YES (Video Marketing Agency)

[mikecarlooch]

2019

Sitting in my dark room with things all over the place, I scrolled through YouTube. Video after video, trying to figure out exactly how to make a my "own business" by constantly watching videos about how Warren Buffett made 100 gazillion dollars and I would walk around talking about how I had "3 businesses I wanted to start." None of which ever happened.

All of the content I was consuming was from people who weren't giving actual advice on how to start a business, but just saying "work hard" and "do what you love" and it got so hard in my head trying to figure out what to do that I had panic attacks and constant anxiety thinking about how the hell to start a business!

I made my fair share of money in sports cards, ebay, amazon, and crypto currency, but every single time I'd see someone making a REAL business that was my age, I would envy them. Because for a long time my life was sitting in my room constantly refreshing ebay prices to see if the prices of my basketball cards were going up in price. I would scroll on social media ALL day and see these kids my age making all this money.
ff
"How... HOW ARE THEY DOING IT?" "WHAT IS THE SECRET? I'LL DO ANYTHING.. HOW DO I START??"

My heart would be racing, I wouldn't be able to socialize with people, I had so many limiting beliefs, because every second of the day was about trying to figure out how a business is ran by teaching myself by telling myself thoughts in my own mind, but doing this would just lead to more stress.

But still, there was only one influencer that I would listen to (garyvee) and everyone that was NOT garyvee I considered a scammer. I didn't read any books, didn't even take into account that there were people OUT THERE giving ACTUAL business advice (If I had found MJ 3 years ago, my life today at 19 would be significantly different)

For a while, I gave up. My literal reasoning for why was "maybe they have some kind of wiring in their brain that I don't". or "I guess I'm just not a natural entrepreneur like gary vee said and I didn't want to accept it this whole time"

I started trying meditation, trying to live a "media-less" life, getting into spirituality, as a way to get out of the constant anxiety I was in trying to figure out how to start my 3 businesses. I had quit trying to make content on the internet for a long time after spending literally whole days trying to think of videos to make for each platform.

Then, in January of 2022 (yes, I had a "new years resolution" to figure this out for real) I quit watching gary vee, I quit watching all the stuff that clearly wasn't moving me forward for the past two years except for some luck with basketball cards and crypto currency. I had tens of thousands of dollars as an 18/19 year old, but no idea what to do from that point on because all the money I had made came so easy in market booms.

For the first time, I ripped ADHD self apart and picked up a book for the first time. Next thing you know... I was READING FOR 5 HOURS. Holy crap. This was a book about nutrition, what if I read books about business? Could I find the answer?

While listening to a podcast, I did. someone mentioned Unscripted , and I read the entire book, and was completely fascinated by it, but still didn't understand HOW business worked. I didn't know that. But I was SO Excited.. I felt such a sigh of relief, feeling like I had cracked the code. For the first time I got myself to schedule a session for "deep work" after reading deep work by cal newport, and I made a promise to myself that every single morning, before the gym, before eating, I would go and get into a state of depth for work even if I had no idea what to do.

Overnight, my life went from an absolute mess, to having a planned out daily schedule for the first time in my life

Wake Up->Meditate->Cold Shower->Deep Work With No Phone->Make TikToks->Gym->Read->Deep Work->Brazilian Jiu Jitsu->Sleep->Repeat

My "deep work" was writing self improvement books and setting up a kajabi website to sell some kind of product (I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I still got it set up.) After a week, I had my kajabi website set up and I was reading Russell Brunson's DotCom secrets. I didn't really take what Russell was saying to heart at the time, because I still viewed him as a "scammer". (Looking back now though, that book is one of the best books I've ever read.)

After staying consistent, I put together one of the worst products someone could ever create. (a book that had no plan behind it and took me 5 days to write) and put it out there and sold 10 copies because my audience was growing well because I understand TikTok very well and started growing my following for self improvement.)

Even though the product was awful, I had never felt more accomplished in my life. I felt like I was actually "DOING BUSINESS". Was 99% of what I was doing action fakes? Yes. But it didn't feel like it at all.

After realizing that it wasn't working, I tried something else. I was still so excited that someone would even BUY my book in the first place, so I decided to make MORE products. I tried to add coaching programs, tried to sell 1-1 consultations on fiverr, I planned to make a fitness course, I put all of these products out into the world and just went on social media and told people "Buy this", but no one did.

I was proud of myself for taking action, but very frustrated because I didn't know why the hell I wasn't rich yet?

I decided to forget about it, and for a few months I just decided to read more books because that's where I got my first bit of information from. I read TMF , The Great Rat Race Escape , Influence, ALL of these different books which finally started to give me the answers to HOW to do business.. I had one part of it down..

Value. Okay. I need to give Value.. But what else, How do I give Value?

I found another book that I had been putting off for a long time because I again perceived the author a scammer. His name is Alex Hormozi. One day, I got my head out of my a$$ and I read his book $100M offers, all of it in one day.

"Holy Shit" I thought to myself "This is it. This is all I need to do. This is the secret If I just could have known this whole time I would've understood business!"

Step 1. What product are you going to sell Step 2. Who are you going to sell it to Step 3. How are you going to get them to see it Step 4. Make an offer so good that they can't refuse it.

And then to top it off, I read a post by @Andy Black that was talking about how you don't NEED a website. You don't NEED any of this stuff you think you need. All you need is SALES. Earned traffic, paid traffic, manual outbound, reaching out to PEOPLE. Talking to PEOPLE and showing them MY OFFER. and if they TRUST ME, because they've SEEN ME BEFORE, and they also NEED my product, they will give me money!

"Duh Stupid! This is what you've been trying to find out for the past 2 years and you just found it out within a couple hours!" I thought to myself.

So that's what I did. But what am I good at? What value can I give people? I know how to make tiktoks... I know how to workout... But do people really need this?

In order to get myself to believe what all of these people were saying, I would need to see it work. I would need someone to say yes to my offer..

I decided to call a business owner that didn't KNOW me, but was aware of me to make him an offer on TikTok marketing.

This business owner was a motivated buyer for what I had. He said to me "I want my own personal brand on TikTok, how do I do it??" So we got on a sales call, and I was soso nervous. My first sales call... Ok what do I know.. I had studies Alex Hormozi's CLOSER framework like the back of my hand.. So I decided to go with that.

But the price... What was I going to charge?! This guys my first customer.. He doesn't even know it.. Do I charge $500?? No. $3000 for 2 months of marketing. Alex always says if there's one thing you should do, charge a lot of money. That was what I was going to say..

And so I did.

Guess what happened

"Okay I'll pay the 3 grand just send me a proposal"

"HOLY F**K. WHAT THE F**K?" I thought to myself.

And now here I am today, typing this. Looking for new prospects doing the same thing. Excited as hell for the future.

Am I rich yet? No. But I feel like I know how to be now, and the outcome of ALL of this was mental clarity, something I have been seeking for years.

I hope you guys enjoyed my story,

Thanks for reading!

 

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[mikecarlooch]

Want to add something to this -
So when I realized that I had a client paying me a good amount of money, I noticed something. I got a bone chilling fear..

What if I can't serve the client? What if it doesn't work?

I haven't been scared or stressed out in a long time, but in that moment all of my fears came back.. And guess what? I spent HOURS thinking about how I wasn't going to be able to serve the client and kept telling myself how scared I was.

I felt like an imposter.

"This guy's paying ME $1,500 a month?? Oh my god I have to figure out how to do this..."

I went to bed that night and woke up with a different mindset. I woke up at 6:00 AM and I looked in the mirror and told myself "today, you're going to sit your a$$ down and over deliver to this client."

So guess what happened when I got myself to sit down and start being creative? All of the work started to flow... There was no stress... I was doing exactly what I had promised to the client.. The thing the night before I was stressing out about how I didn't know if i'd be able to do it.

Sometimes all it takes is sitting down and blocking out all the distractions and just starting. Something happens in your body when you do this for like 20 minutes. You forget everything, and your mood completely changes.

 

[IceCreamKid]

I found another book that I had been putting off for a long time because I again perceived the author a scammer. His name is Alex Hormozi. One day, I got my head out of my a$$ and I read his book $100M offers, all of it in one day.

This book is amazing. I only wish that it was released earlier in my biz career as it would've expedited my growth. Easily in my Top 3.

You also know you can make sales.

I often tell young people to get a job in tech sales. Imagine getting paid to be taught an extremely transferrable skill that, once learned, will feed you for a lifetime....what a deal!

Now instead of focusing on those fears, my focus is on loving and helping people to the best of my ability, and landing more clients to bring myself from $3k a month to $10k a month

Reach out to me when you get to $10k and I'll show you how to scale your outreach and create systems....all for free because I'm not a guru lolol. We need more threads on how to create systems. Systems are the key to automating everything and freeing yourself to work ON your biz instead of IN it.

Congrats on taking action.

 

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[mikecarlooch]

Recently, I decided to niche down and focus on a specific group of people to serve with my digital marketing services.

Within 5 e-mails to those people, I got my second client paying monthly.

I was reading @IceCreamKid 's posts and as he would say it seems like "loving the hell out of others" + having a service that people need and that works is the game.

Landing this client is super exciting for me, because not only has it validated my service even more, but I'm actually going to hire a bit of help now with making the content for clients so that I can focus on getting more and more clients

Younger me never would've known that business is this simple (not easy). Grateful to have found this forum.

As soon as I landed the second client, I felt a sense of peace. Before I had any clients and didn't know anything about doing business and was selling tee shirts and e-books, I was always so stressed sometimes because nothing was really working.

I was scared that I would have to hear my parents say "GET A JOB!" again and again

But with a little bit of hustle and a little bit of thought, I fortunately don't need to hear those words.

Now instead of focusing on those fears, my focus is on loving and helping people to the best of my ability, and landing more clients to bring myself from $3k a month to $10k a month

I'm going to regurgitate some basic fastlane knowledge here, but here's what I understand MUCH MORE now that I've actually taken action:

If you have 1 person that said yes and your service is valuable to them and helping them, the thought that you can't get 10+ people to say yes to your offer in a world of billions is laughable. How many people have you called? talked to? e-mailed?

And if your product/service really does suck, no one will buy it. Plain and simple!

 

[mikecarlooch]

Update -

So today I went through the process of posting a job on a VA website

Until today, I never knew that people actually will do quality work for 4 dollars an hour.

My goal of posting this job wasn't just to hire a VA, but also to get them to do my SOP's FOR me. In my job description, I told them that in the e-mail they send to me, list out every single step of the process that you do while creating the work (i didn't mention this was for SOP's, I made it so that it's an "entry barrier" that most people on there won't do. The ones that did do it AND sent quality work are the one's i'm giving serious consideration to hiring.)

As soon as these VA's started sending me their work (i told them to edit something I put in a folder), I realized that these people were doing better work than I could do myself AND the were desperate to join my team for such a low cost, it taught me a very valuable lesson.

You don't need to know how to do the services in the business, you just need to have the skill and capital to find and hire people that do know how to do it.. And then all you need to do is focus on selling. I've heard people say this a lot, but never really understood it until I experienced it today.

It's quite amazing.. I've gotten 20 real e-mails with work sent to me today, and it just puts it into perspective. 20 people took 20-30 minutes out of their day to compete for me to give them $240 a month in a job.

Man, I love learning. The only barrier I've ever had in my life when I didn't know what to do (which felt like the end of the world) was knowledge. It sounds cliche, but KNOWLEDGE is everything for me. I didn't know it was possible to hire a video editor for 4 dollars a video until I asked the question to someone who KNEW it.

Stay tuned..

 

[mikecarlooch]

What I Learned From Talking To @Andy Black For 1 Hour
​

Last night Andy Black and I had a chat on Zoom.

I've got to say, Andy opened up my eyes to new ways of doing things in this business I'm currently, and the amount of time this advice has already saved me is ridiculous.

I almost don't want to share this because it's such a different way of thinking for the business I'm in.

First of all, Andy gave me a new way to think about the videos that I create, and this new strategy has cut my time making a single video for a client from 3 hours each to 40 minutes this morning.. SHOCKING.

What was the simple thing?

Just like how @Fox says all the time for Web Design, it's not about all of the fancy pictures and fancy details, it's about results.

In my case for creating videos, all the fancy transitions and fancy motion graphics and pictures don't matter.

What matters is getting the message across to the correct people so they can get value out of it.

If things are moving and happening way too fast, the viewer will get distracted from the point of the video. Even if one of the fancy videos were to get a ton of views, it would distract the viewer from what matters.

Andy also gave me clarity on my exact customer avatar and steered me away from a couple of things that would have completely distracted me.

There is a couple things in particular that Andy said that I'm actually going to keep to myself until I execute them.. (just know they're brilliant lol)

I will reveal it the next time I post to this thread.

So make sure you're watching this thread and come back next time to see the upcoming episode of:

Inside The Mind of Andy Black..

Thanks for reading,
Mike

​

 

[Andy Black]

Recently, I decided to niche down and focus on a specific group of people to serve with my digital marketing services.

Within 5 e-mails to those people, I got my second client paying monthly.

I was reading @IceCreamKid 's posts and as he would say it seems like "loving the hell out of others" + having a service that people need and that works is the game.

Landing this client is super exciting for me, because not only has it validated my service even more, but I'm actually going to hire a bit of help now with making the content for clients so that I can focus on getting more and more clients

Younger me never would've known that business is this simple (not easy). Grateful to have found this forum.

As soon as I landed the second client, I felt a sense of peace. Before I had any clients and didn't know anything about doing business and was selling tee shirts and e-books, I was always so stressed sometimes because nothing was really working.

I was scared that I would have to hear my parents say "GET A JOB!" again and again

But with a little bit of hustle and a little bit of thought, I fortunately don't need to hear those words.

Now instead of focusing on those fears, my focus is on loving and helping people to the best of my ability, and landing more clients to bring myself from $3k a month to $10k a month

I'm going to regurgitate some basic fastlane knowledge here, but here's what I understand MUCH MORE now that I've actually taken action:

If you have 1 person that said yes and your service is valuable to them and helping them, the thought that you can't get 10+ people to say yes to your offer in a world of billions is laughable. How many people have you called? talked to? e-mailed?

And if your product/service really does suck, no one will buy it. Plain and simple!

That sense of peace comes from *knowing* you can eat what you kill. Lose these two clients and you know you can get more. Need cash fast? Get a couple more clients.

That peace will help you when you’re chatting to people now. Business owners will sense you’re not desperate, and that will make you more attractive to them.

Well done.

 

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[mikecarlooch]

Wanted to share some more of the hard parts of the process - not just the great parts.

The past two days have been so difficult as I've been trying to figure out how the hell to use website software. It's been quite frustrating to understand and I feel like I wasted a lot of time so far trying to figure out how to set this thing up. As of right now, I've probably got another day that I need to put in to get the site fully up and running.

It's honestly been teeth-gritting frustrating lol. I now understand why people hire web designers, but I personally didn't see the value in giving someone a thousand bucks to make it, rather I could just make it myself.

I just know that once I just get this damn website up I can get to the fun stuff of this business I'm in.

It's turning into what seems to be the real entrepreneurial grind, It wasn't until I got a couple clients that I actually feel like I have an ability to sit in a chair and work from 8 am to 10 pm at night. I almost lost track of time today and caught myself at 1:00pm and got myself to get my a$$ to the gym.

That's the current update!

 

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[mikecarlooch]

I've been gone from the forum a while, I think It's time for an update.

There's only one thing I can say about my recent efforts in my business.

I wish I started doing what I'm doing now, 2 years ago.

Moving around to other states, reading 100 books, being confused..

All of it lead me to the fact that selling (getting my product in front of people with a good offer), and delivering were the only things I had to do this whole time, and actually making sure the people I was reaching out to are already in need of what I'm selling.

I avoided creating the habit of selling for years because of my own mental biases.

Now I'm glad to say that, in the past two weeks I've felt what real work is. I've been able to sit for 6 hours a day and do high-value work that's moving the needle, and therefore I'm seeing results.

I guess sometimes the right things to be doing are right under your nose, which is the basics.

I've never gotten so much done in my life and I hope to keep this habit forever and keep improving on it.

-Mike

 

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[Andy Black]

2019

Sitting in my dark room with things all over the place, I scrolled through YouTube. Video after video, trying to figure out exactly how to make a my "own business" by constantly watching videos about how Warren Buffett made 100 gazillion dollars and I would walk around talking about how I had "3 businesses I wanted to start." None of which ever happened.

All of the content I was consuming was from people who weren't giving actual advice on how to start a business, but just saying "work hard" and "do what you love" and it got so hard in my head trying to figure out what to do that I had panic attacks and constant anxiety thinking about how the hell to start a business!

I made my fair share of money in sports cards, ebay, amazon, and crypto currency, but every single time I'd see someone making a REAL business that was my age, I would envy them. Because for a long time my life was sitting in my room constantly refreshing ebay prices to see if the prices of my basketball cards were going up in price. I would scroll on social media ALL day and see these kids my age making all this money.
ff
"How... HOW ARE THEY DOING IT?" "WHAT IS THE SECRET? I'LL DO ANYTHING.. HOW DO I START??"

My heart would be racing, I wouldn't be able to socialize with people, I had so many limiting beliefs, because every second of the day was about trying to figure out how a business is ran by teaching myself by telling myself thoughts in my own mind, but doing this would just lead to more stress.

But still, there was only one influencer that I would listen to (garyvee) and everyone that was NOT garyvee I considered a scammer. I didn't read any books, didn't even take into account that there were people OUT THERE giving ACTUAL business advice (If I had found MJ 3 years ago, my life today at 19 would be significantly different)

For a while, I gave up. My literal reasoning for why was "maybe they have some kind of wiring in their brain that I don't". or "I guess I'm just not a natural entrepreneur like gary vee said and I didn't want to accept it this whole time"

I started trying meditation, trying to live a "media-less" life, getting into spirituality, as a way to get out of the constant anxiety I was in trying to figure out how to start my 3 businesses. I had quit trying to make content on the internet for a long time after spending literally whole days trying to think of videos to make for each platform.

Then, in January of 2022 (yes, I had a "new years resolution" to figure this out for real) I quit watching gary vee, I quit watching all the stuff that clearly wasn't moving me forward for the past two years except for some luck with basketball cards and crypto currency. I had tens of thousands of dollars as an 18/19 year old, but no idea what to do from that point on because all the money I had made came so easy in market booms.

For the first time, I ripped ADHD self apart and picked up a book for the first time. Next thing you know... I was READING FOR 5 HOURS. Holy crap. This was a book about nutrition, what if I read books about business? Could I find the answer?

While listening to a podcast, I did. someone mentioned Unscripted , and I read the entire book, and was completely fascinated by it, but still didn't understand HOW business worked. I didn't know that. But I was SO Excited.. I felt such a sigh of relief, feeling like I had cracked the code. For the first time I got myself to schedule a session for "deep work" after reading deep work by cal newport, and I made a promise to myself that every single morning, before the gym, before eating, I would go and get into a state of depth for work even if I had no idea what to do.

Overnight, my life went from an absolute mess, to having a planned out daily schedule for the first time in my life

Wake Up->Meditate->Cold Shower->Deep Work With No Phone->Make TikToks->Gym->Read->Deep Work->Brazilian Jiu Jitsu->Sleep->Repeat

My "deep work" was writing self improvement books and setting up a kajabi website to sell some kind of product (I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I still got it set up.) After a week, I had my kajabi website set up and I was reading Russell Brunson's DotCom secrets. I didn't really take what Russell was saying to heart at the time, because I still viewed him as a "scammer". (Looking back now though, that book is one of the best books I've ever read.)

After staying consistent, I put together one of the worst products someone could ever create. (a book that had no plan behind it and took me 5 days to write) and put it out there and sold 10 copies because my audience was growing well because I understand TikTok very well and started growing my following for self improvement.)

Even though the product was awful, I had never felt more accomplished in my life. I felt like I was actually "DOING BUSINESS". Was 99% of what I was doing action fakes? Yes. But it didn't feel like it at all.

After realizing that it wasn't working, I tried something else. I was still so excited that someone would even BUY my book in the first place, so I decided to make MORE products. I tried to add coaching programs, tried to sell 1-1 consultations on fiverr, I planned to make a fitness course, I put all of these products out into the world and just went on social media and told people "Buy this", but no one did.

I was proud of myself for taking action, but very frustrated because I didn't know why the hell I wasn't rich yet?

I decided to forget about it, and for a few months I just decided to read more books because that's where I got my first bit of information from. I read TMF , The Great Rat Race Escape , Influence, ALL of these different books which finally started to give me the answers to HOW to do business.. I had one part of it down..

Value. Okay. I need to give Value.. But what else, How do I give Value?

I found another book that I had been putting off for a long time because I again perceived the author a scammer. His name is Alex Hormozi. One day, I got my head out of my a$$ and I read his book $100M offers, all of it in one day.

"Holy Shit" I thought to myself "This is it. This is all I need to do. This is the secret If I just could have known this whole time I would've understood business!"

Step 1. What product are you going to sell Step 2. Who are you going to sell it to Step 3. How are you going to get them to see it Step 4. Make an offer so good that they can't refuse it.

And then to top it off, I read a post by @Andy Black that was talking about how you don't NEED a website. You don't NEED any of this stuff you think you need. All you need is SALES. Earned traffic, paid traffic, manual outbound, reaching out to PEOPLE. Talking to PEOPLE and showing them MY OFFER. and if they TRUST ME, because they've SEEN ME BEFORE, and they also NEED my product, they will give me money!

"Duh Stupid! This is what you've been trying to find out for the past 2 years and you just found it out within a couple hours!" I thought to myself.

So that's what I did. But what am I good at? What value can I give people? I know how to make tiktoks... I know how to workout... But do people really need this?

In order to get myself to believe what all of these people were saying, I would need to see it work. I would need someone to say yes to my offer..

I decided to call a business owner that didn't KNOW me, but was aware of me to make him an offer on TikTok marketing.

This business owner was a motivated buyer for what I had. He said to me "I want my own personal brand on TikTok, how do I do it??" So we got on a sales call, and I was soso nervous. My first sales call... Ok what do I know.. I had studies Alex Hormozi's CLOSER framework like the back of my hand.. So I decided to go with that.

But the price... What was I going to charge?! This guys my first customer.. He doesn't even know it.. Do I charge $500?? No. $3000 for 2 months of marketing. Alex always says if there's one thing you should do, charge a lot of money. That was what I was going to say..

And so I did.

Guess what happened

"Okay I'll pay the 3 grand just send me a proposal"

"HOLY F**K. WHAT THE F**K?" I thought to myself.

And now here I am today, typing this. Looking for new prospects doing the same thing. Excited as hell for the future.

Am I rich yet? No. But I feel like I know how to be now, and the outcome of ALL of this was mental clarity, something I have been seeking for years.

I hope you guys enjoyed my story,

Thanks for reading!

Add writing well to your list of talents.

Glad you got out of your way and just started helping people (and getting paid).

Nice sized Yes too.

PS: Think of him as a client rather than a customer. That conjures up images of white glove treatment.

 

[Andy Black]

I decided to call a business owner that didn't KNOW me, but was aware of me to make him an offer on TikTok marketing.

Curious about this part. How was he aware of you and your TikTok skills? And how did you know he was aware of you?

 

[mikecarlooch]

**PROCESS UPDATE**

This is more of a mindset post. I've been in complete producer mode the past month, its been some of the happiest days of my entire life.

For the first time, I feel like if I lost everything I could start over and be successful.

For a long time, it wasn't like that. I was extremely scared of what the hell I was going to do with my life after high school.. I would always put on a confident act to make it seem like I had my sh*t together... but in reality, I was all over the place.

Every time someone would ask me "So, what are you going to do with your life?", I'd get extremely insecure about it and every time I'd say "entrepreneur" people would look at me like "ooo...kay this kid is a nut job and probably has no future"

The reason I felt insecure about it is because I had no knowledge and I knew deep down that I hadn't taken any action, and I didn't know how.. THAT was my deepest insecurity. The fact that I was uneducated on the very thing that I wanted to be my entire life.

Now when someone asks me what I want to do I look them in the eye and tell them I identify as a motherf**king entrepreneur. I say it with confidence. throw me on the side of the road with a dollar and I'll figure out how to provide value and do it.

If you're someone who doesn't yet have that confidence yet, don't worry. It's just a lack of education and a lack of action that is making you feel that way. Every single time I get stressed out about a particular thing relating to business, I now understand that it's just a sign I need to pick up a book relating to it and learn something new.

For example, one of my biggest stressors used to be time management. I had no idea how to do it until I started reading and found out in a book called The Ultimate Sales Machine that time management is as simple as writing down the 6 most important things you need to do, limiting distractions, getting the most important stuff down in the morning, and estimating the amount of time each task is going to take.

Now with that knowledge and having taken action on it, I have mental clarity. Stress is just a sign that you need to learn something new..

I want to learn to advertising. My first thought was fear and stress. That was until I reminded myself there's about 17+ amazing books on advertising that have actionable things you can do.

-

The past few months for me have made me completely forget about the normal way of living - the way I've been told to live by family, teachers, and guidance counselors in school.

I now have a solidified belief that holding a job is even more risky than entrepreneurship. For years while I was in high school everyone would constantly be telling me to get a job and it was an absolutely miserable time in my life even though I was making good money reselling things online.

They would say "All you do is sit at your computer, eat, and go to the gym, when are you gonna get up off your a$$ and get a job?"

Nowadays this doesn't affect me. I now live by the following: If I have something someone wants, it will pay 100X better than working a desk job at the gym. Not just in money, but in time and knowledge. Finding that thing, finding customers/clients, and putting that into action is a much better use of time, even if it fails, than spending 12 hours a day twiddling my thumbs on Instagram behind a desk.

For some reason, for us young people, our parents and people around us see getting a job as a more productive thing than offering value to the world. When we say we do something else, we are labeled a loser. It makes no sense!

The other day I was with one of my slowlane mentality family members, I looked at the sky and said "did you know some stars are bigger than the sun?" They were like "WOW OMG REALLY.. YOU'RE SO SMART LOOK AT YOU!!"

But then when they ask me what I want to do with my life and I explain an entire opposite way of thinking to them and the Fastlane cents commandments like the back of my hand, there's no excitement. Instead they look at me like a lost kid and go behind my back and chit chat about how they're worried for my future.

But now it doesn't matter anymore - all that matters is my results. I've taught myself to completely blockade all of those comments and instead understand the reality of the world: Money is an exchange of value between two parties and if you have something someone wants and deliver on it, they will give you money for it.

That's all for now, had a urge to put this message out there.

Thanks for reading

Mike

 

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[mikecarlooch]

This book is amazing. I only wish that it was released earlier in my biz career as it would've expedited my growth. Easily in my Top 3.


I often tell young people to get a job in tech sales. Imagine getting paid to be taught an extremely transferrable skill that, once learned, will feed you for a lifetime....what a deal!


Reach out to me when you get to $10k and I'll show you how to scale your outreach and create systems....all for free because I'm not a guru lolol. We need more threads on how to create systems. Systems are the key to automating everything and freeing yourself to work ON your biz instead of IN it.

Congrats on taking action.

Man it is great to see you here.. Love reading your posts

As soon as I read your message I instantly visualized my message being sent to you after I hit 10k/mo

Thanks for giving me something else to work towards.. you're awesome man.

I'll be sending you that message.. Until then, time to hustle.

 

[mikecarlooch]

Update :

I built out an entire website and funnel over the past few days, created offers, productized them into packages, and got a sick logo made.

Goals moving forward:
Create sales scripts
Create SOP's
Hire Help from Onlinejobs.ph
*DELIVER TO CLIENTS.
*DRIVE REVENUE.

 

[mikecarlooch]

UPDATE -

Time for an update on what I've been doing..

I got another client onboard (my 3rd currently) and there's a reason why that 3rd client took so long to get:

I WAS SPENDING HOURS AND HOURS COLD E-MAILING INSTEAD OF FIRST LEVERAGING MY OWN NETWORK.

I was reading a book called Million Dollar Launch by Alan Weiss and he made the suggestion to make a list of (literally) everyone you know, and put them into categories. Category #1: People you know will buy from you or will give you referrals - Category #2: People you are unsure will give you referrals - Category #3: People you know won't give you referrals.

Upon hearing this, I had that one limiting belief: "Yea Alan, but I know like 3 people that I talk to on a daily basis so how the hell do I do this?"

I already know the answer, but to be honest I was just scared to go down that route.. The answer was going against my introversion and reaching out to every single person that I've interacted with over the years.

When I got myself to start thinking bigger, I ended up jotting down over 200 names.. A lot of whom I had already built up trust with when I was selling basketball cards, and reselling things on ebay, discord groups I was in, groups I paid to be in.. All of these people were familiar with me. People from the gym, people from brazilian jiu jitsu, doctors, literally everywhere.. hell.. Even the 8,000 instagram followers I have from when I used to post cringy TikToks.. I now understand that you never know who could lead you where.. One of my 13 year old followers could have a cousin that runs a company who needs exactly what i'm selling lol..

So.. the past couple days I've been reaching out to people with personalized messages to get referrals. To be honest.. No one yet has dropped a name.. But from messaging so far I've gotten one new client who I got because of trust and a couple of ideas from people that i would've NEVER thought of that will hopefully allow me to scale my business a lot!

I also dramatically improved the quality of my product delivery, I still do a lot of the editing, but hired an editor (A good one from the USA that I know in person who follows instructions this time.. not a VA) and it has saved me a significant amount of time to be able to market.

I remember something Alex Hormozi said with his "Rule of 100" Philosophy. Basically it's where you reach out to 100 people a day and demand won't be the problem. I can't say I've gotten there 100% yet.. But at this point with the 3 clients I have it may be a good idea for the time being to just focus on bringing these clients the most value possible and also looking for other editors to hire for when I decide to start marketing again and get new clients.

I also made a company channel to display some work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsbxzrooUbOlVdEej0Q8H9w/videos

Anyways, that's the update guys!

 

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[mikecarlooch]

This sh*t was painful.. (& my first cold call)

Update..
​

Welcome back to the show everyone! (Ok I'll stop) - Before I get into the painful stories I went through recently, I want to start off by addressing my last post with @Andy Black 's ideas!

After my call with Andy, I didn't just take the advice that was given.. I completely transformed the face of my business model and it's given me an immense amount of confidence and I'm starting to get interest in my business like never before! I won't go too much into my new business model because that's not what this post is about.

You guys may be wondering, what were the brilliant things that Andy told me on our call?

"Hire Copywriters!!"

Instead of just being a typical video marketing agency.. be one that markets as COPYWRITERS. I realized that copywriting is such a critical part of videos today simply because it's what creates the structure of the video. It can turn a boring video into an interesting one by just moving around words.. It could be the difference between no interest and virality!

"Run Ads To The Best Performing Posts!"

Andy's second idea was to see which videos get an insane amount of views.. and use THOSE VIDEOS as ads! If a video goes viral, it's for a reason. It's not a coincidence. People are doing something to make that happen whether it's watching the video over and over again, constantly commenting, sharing, etc.. So it only makes sense that if you make an ad out of a video that's already working organically to a specific target audience, it will work great!

Awesome stuff, huh?
Ok..
Now to get into my recent painful experiences.

I'm sitting at my computer sending cold email after cold email.. At first, i'm getting a ton of great responses and it's working WOOHOO!

I then concluded, you know what.. Cold e-mailing works! I'll just do that..

So I decided to sit down day after day for sometimes up to 4 hours a day just sending cold emails to people with a templated (but personalized) message.

After a little bit though.. I noticed something

I started getting NO responses, but still I treaded on cold e-mailing. Changing up templates, all that stuff.

NOTHING was working.

After spending about a while just cold e-mailing hundreds of people, I found something out today that was a blessing and a curse.

Almost all of the hundreds of cold e-mails I sent manually every single day was not received by the person I was sending to. Almost ALL of these e-mails ended up in spam.

I slammed my head on my desk and took it as a learning lesson.. but f**k man that was tough.

However, this was also one of the best experiences I could've had - because it taught me something.

The only reason I was cold e-mailing was because of that fear I had inside of me to go and pick up the phone. I knew picking up the phone and calling people was the way to make sh*t happen.. Not sitting behind my computer sending messages that will most likely not get any attention.

But I was terrified..

I get inbound calls all the time from my website, but calling someone? that was tough for me.

So instead, because I was so terrified of messing something up in my cold calls, I decided to test myself first by selling something that I am doing as a little side project as a co-owner with my friend.

We had a lead.. someone who was 100% interested in purchasing our product. All I had to do was pick up the phone and call him.

This product I was going to be selling is pretty clear of what it is.. but here's what happened when I got on the phone with this guy:

"Hey, I'm interested. What is it that you guys actually do?"

My mind went blank. All of a sudden I'm stumbling all over my words sounding absolutely clueless. All of the sales books I'd read up to this point meant absolutely nothing because I didn't remember a single thing I'd read in that moment.

"It's a... a group where you get uhh (blank), (blank) uhhhh.... and (blank)"

(awkward silence)

"Ok.. so what does that mean what does (blank) mean?"

At this point I'm struggling so hard to come up with words. Usually I'm such a charismatic and open person but this was like trying to lift a 1,000 pound weight.. it wasn't going anywhere.

"It means uhh ya know you get.. you get to (blank) and stuff"

My mind: and stuff? What the f**k do you mean "and stuff?"

This conversation went on for 13 minutes of me trying to explain what I was selling.

"Yeah... Ok I'll let you know in 2 days ok?"

"Ok yea man I probably didn't explain it correctly but yea it might be a fit or it might not let me know"

After I got off the phone, I noticed I was sweating and tensed up. I couldn't believe I had spent so much time learning to sell and all of the tactics I learned became useless when I actually jumped into the water and started doing it.

But this small experience taught me the following:

What you just did there my friend, is selling. That's REAL selling. That right there is a skill that needs to be developed. Selling on the phone is reps just like weight in the gym.. You need to do it over and over again and not get discouraged when you suck. And the people that get discouraged in the beginning are the ones who become unsuccessful. But the ones who go through the pain in the beginning and push to become great.. are the successful ones.

I'll finish off this post with a real question that I need help with:

I know what my product is and what it does.. but how the hell do I communicate it in a way where i'm not talking on the phone for 15 minutes.. how do i communicate my product in a simple way without all of the above happening?

There's a lot more I could add to this update.. but I'll save it for next time

Thanks for reading!

​

 

[mikecarlooch]

What I learned this month..​

I've learned a lot the past month and I think some people may find it valuable

1. Undersell and Over-Deliver

One thing I didn't mention in my previous update was that I completely switched my entire business model around.

I went from selling videos as bundles now to an unlimited model where clients can make as many requests as they would like.

Why? Because I started to feel like I was giving people massive expectations that was a gamble to be able to fulfill.

That uneasy feeling just wasn't something I was willing to keep going on with..

I got into business because I want people to go "Damn! This is AWESOME stuff!". The core beliefs of my business that we're trying to spread is against social media censorship and spreading "Positive Polarization Against The Norm".

While I was over selling and under delivering, I just couldn't get excited about it.

This new model has reshaped my confidence about this business I'm in, and I'm currently loving it because I am unbelievable confident in what my company can deliver and help people with.

2. Anti-Selling

The above has lead me to be more careful in what I say I can do in my business.

Before-hand, when someone asked me "can you do this this this and this?" even if it was not listed in my offer, I would say yes yes yes and yes.. knowing I was just causing problems and frustration for myself.

If someone asks me if my company does long videos, I now stay true to my word and say.. "NO. We would recommend going to another company if you need long videos. For the time being, we specialize in short videos."

I will even go as far as to recommend competitors that offer what my prospect is asking for.

PS: doing this has helped build a LOT of trust.

3. Helping Others

From cold emails, to asking random people if they know anyone who needs my services, and all of this other stuff that did nothing but make most people uncomfortable, the best marketing I've done so far is helping others in communities.

Not just because of the inbound leads coming in.

But also because, the amount of intellectual property I have now that I've been writing a lot.. Is EVERGREEN. These articles and posts can be used to answer questions in a ton of communities without me having to constantly write them over and over again, and as long as those communities are alive on the internet (such as this forum), people will see them for years to come.

(as you guys know I love mass distribution. That includes the mass distribution of every single blog post I make on this forum! the more places I can put them.. the better in my opinion)

Having someone come as an inbound lead, wanting my help because something I posted on a forum helped them, is the best feeling ever. Instead of feeling like an intruder, I feel like I'm providing value in someones like that they actually need!

4. Getting on the phone instead of building funnels/websites constantly

The amount of time I've wasted and the frustration I've had because of trying to correct every detail on my website or trying to make sure my "funnel is optimized" is laughable.

All people want is to talk to someone.

"Hey, do you need video editing?"
"Yes"
"Ok. Click here to talk to someone"

While all the "download this and that" may have it's place and I use it for my email list, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for someone to just talk to someone instead of having 2 weeks of emails sent to them and blah blah blah whatever all the marketing gurus do.

5. Having fun with branding

Question. Do you like the matrix?

The movie.

I LOVE that movie.

So what did I start doing? Call myself the Morpheus of social media and using the matrix in my branding.

Taking this approach has given me personally a certain "vibe" to my business that I love and other matrix fans will also love.

Instead of just telling someone "We do video editing", which isn't that memorable, I say "We show you how to escape the social media frustration matrix" and then it's a photo of Morpheus holding the red pill and blue pill (man Im a geek on this stuff lol i love it)

Tell me which one's more memorable (it's the latter)

And the truth is, a lot of people may think it's immature.. My thinking is that if you're too serious and can't enjoy the fun of "red pill vs blue pill", you'll probably be a hassle to work with!

I use this type of theme branding now because I view it as a filter for awesome clients and clients who don't like fun. lol

That's some of my learnings recently!

Mike

 

[Andy Black]

Update :

I built out an entire website and funnel over the past few days, created offers, productized them into packages, and got a sick logo made.

Goals moving forward:
Create sales scripts
Create SOP's
Hire Help from Onlinejobs.ph
*DELIVER TO CLIENTS.
*DRIVE REVENUE.

Lol. I'm always slightly worried when people get logos made...

 

[Edgar King]

Im stuck at the stage of knowing what the hell to even do.

I had the same challenge recently, but I think it's just about stepping back and asking yourself, "What can I offer that would make someone happy? What do I have or can get that would make someone happy?" And sometimes ideas just flow. Else, you could just ask yourself, "What can I offer at all?" and get it in front of the people who would most benefit from it.

 

[mikecarlooch]

Congrats, I'm really happy for you and amazed how far you came. Im stuck at the stage of knowing what the hell to even do.

Tiktok marketing, so you're creating him content for tiktok?

Hey Liam, I recommend reading some of @Andy Black 's posts. He makes business so damn simple that you can't not know what to do after reading his posts.

I position my new company as a media agency. We create short videos that help businesses (in a specific niche) get thousands of eyeballs. So that doesn't just mean tiktok. It means any platform that allows short video posting. Tiktok,instagram reels,youtube shorts, whatever other platform comes after that

 

[mikecarlooch]

So - today I came across a website called stickk.com which is something where you basically bet on yourself or else the money goes towards something you dislike.

I decided to put up a decent amount of money for the month - if I don't make 7,000 dollars by July 14 $200 will be donated to the biden administration. LOL..

 

[mikecarlooch]

This is super interesting. I have soo much content and ideas for videos. And it would be handy to have good video editors to create videos for clients. I was considering finding a good video editor and had no idea they could be so affordable.

I know, right! it's amazing. All i did was make a job, post a link to an example file, tell them to edit it, told them how much they'd be paid, and that they'd be e-mailed if they did all of the steps correctly and their edit was the best.

Even though the english isn't all that amazing on some of the videos they edit (in terms of subtitles) and they need to be revised, it is so so worth it - they don't just edit from what i've seen, but they're actually willing to go back and fix mistakes

 

[mikecarlooch]

Update -

Remember how I said I was using Virtual Assistants to fulfill my services?

Not anymore.

I realized how horrible of a product I would be putting out if I kept doing this.

So instead, I decided to make my product amazing.. by taking the services side of the business back onto myself. I realized that the videos that I produce are 100X better than the ones the VA produce even though a couple weeks ago I said the opposite. The videos I can create are actually something that is much harder to replicate.

Think about it, if you were a customer of mine and you found out that I was paying people in the Philippines $4 a video for your services, would you want to continue working with me? Hell to the no.. right?

The good part about this change is, I actually now use the fact that I DON'T use VA's and that our videos are created by people (just me at the moment) who know the ins and outs of what's going on in these videos and how to really create a piece of art for social media, an ad, or any other creative platform as a SELLING point to get new clients.

I'm not going to lie, when I was hiring VA's to do this half a$$ work for me it didn't feel right deep down. Even though I've just taken on a whole load of work for myself right now (one video takes 40-80 minutes to make), I know it will be worth it. I know that if I kept using VA's my business would probably go no where. For a VA, the videos seemed like they were taking 2 minutes for them to generate, it was like nothing.

When I decide to hire someone (probably ASAP), it will be someone real. someone who understands what they're doing, why this goes there, why a video gets created a specific way, etc. I've gotten a vision recently of wanting to be a REAL media company that thrives, and I know that to do that, I can't be half-assing things like that.

Thanks for reading guys!

 

[Andy Black]

There is a couple things in particular that Andy said that I'm actually going to keep to myself until I execute them.. (just know they're brilliant lol)

Dammit. Now you have me wondering what they were.

 

[Andy Black]

My Cold Call Journey Part 2
​

Before I started my journey with cold calling, I thought it was going to take me hours upon hours to build a list of people to call..

But then I remembered, there's people in different parts of the world who have been doing lead generation for YEARS.. why should I do it when I can just hire someone on upwork?

So I did. I posted a job on upwork detailing the exact criteria for businesses I wanted to contact and in what area. I asked for 100 leads and said I'd paid 25 cents per lead (got that price after watching a video relating to this topic)

Within 15 minutes, I had 8 applicants, chose the best one, and put $25 into an escrow!

I was given a sample lead and was happy with it.. I'm currently waiting on the full list until tomorrow.

Since my first experience with cold calling at the beginning of the week, I have gone through Josh Braun's B2B course as recommended by @IceCreamKid and it helped me put together and personalize almost every single piece of communication I need from cold calling prospects to getting a sale.. (Josh preaches education based marketing just like in the book The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes)

I now feel much more confident in my upcoming cold calls!

Curious why you're cold calling and not creating videos to get clients.

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

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[mikecarlooch]

I turn 20 in two days

It feels like every single day of my life so far has been preparing me for my second decade on earth.

All of the mental suffering, confusion of what to do in life, introversion, freakish ambition, doing everything wrong, wasting boatloads of money, and purposelessness, has lead to a mindset that is almost completely bulletproof and forward-moving.

The truth is, if I had not gone through everything I have in the past 2 years, my curiosity would be non-existent. I wouldn't have found this forum, I wouldn't have learned anything, I'd probably just be following a miserable path that my parents set for me.

All of those experiences caused a serendipitous event that lead me to figuring out what success actually means.

The way my mind works is, there is no chance of failure for where I want to be long term. It's an inevitability in my mind.

Everybody around me in real life knows me as the kid with big goals. Some think I'm absolutely insane. Some are inspired by me. Some family members want me to fail.

I don't give a f**k.

I have immersed myself so much in the world of self-development in all areas of life with the goal of massive financial success.

Everything from meditation, time management, fitness, strict healthy dieting, reading, asking questions, etc.

Everything I do boils down to wanting to become massively successful. But it's not all about money necessarily.

What is my WHY? You may be thinking.

My why is that, I know where I've been and even where I am. I've seen how I've changed in the last 19 years on an upward trajectory of understanding and learning new things. I know how LOST and PURPOSELESS some people are nowadays.

If I get there, everyone can. If I get there, I can make it known to others that they can get there too. If I were not to get there and instead decided to say "F**k entrepreneurship", all of those thousands of people I will help for free in the future will potentially never break out of their closed mindset. They may never understand what they can do because my message was what they needed.

My long-term goal is almost completely based on other people. It's all about fixing the messed up school system. I have a vision of one day creating a whole new generation of people who move the world forward in massive ways.

I have a vision of being at the forefront of that movement, to spread the message that the world needs more entrepreneurs and that younger people don't need to suffer if they choose not to. I don't know what this movement is yet, but I know I want to push more people to become engineers and more people to be entrepreneurs and fewer people feeling purposeless.

That's a far cry away, but here's some of my goals in the near future:

1 YEAR -
$30,000/month revenue $22,000 / month profit, most of which is invested right back into a massively growing business
Build a Network of Forward-Moving Individuals
Build a Rockstar Team

5 Years -

I'm going to copy @Envision and say I want to be a Millionaire by 25, and have an amount of money that is impressive for that time period (1m probably wont be as much in 5 years)

10-15 Years

9 Figure Exit
Buy Parents Dream Home
Buy My Own Dream Home
Speaker To Thousands
Buy a Mercedes Benz Maybach Black/White with White Interior
Author a Book
Change Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives
Join Trump's Country Club
Own tons of companies

30 Years

Work On Something World-Changing
I want to own a jet
Be the leader of a massive movement

-

I decided that one of the most important things I could do to achieve what I want to achieve is to be a decisive person.

For where I am right now, @Antifragile took the words "You can build an empire in the video industry. Just focus on that. Stop bouncing around.", stuck them in a bucket of lava, and pierced them onto my bare skin.

And so I decided that instead of bouncing around constantly, I would just stick with what is working.

After all, Nike started off as a kid with a dream and a supplier in Japan, right? Who would've known it would become worth billions?

-

Anyways, I'm feeling very optimistic about the next decade, I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time and I will do anything to get to where I want to go.

Thanks for reading, and I'll keep you guys updated

-Mike

 

[mikecarlooch]

Reach out to me when you get to $10k and I'll show you how to scale your outreach and create systems....all for free because I'm not a guru lolol. We need more threads on how to create systems. Systems are the key to automating everything and freeing yourself to work ON your biz instead of IN it.

Congrats on taking action.

Hey @IceCreamKid , sent a DM but not sure if you look at them.

I'm in a different business now but we're on our way to $10k / month, like nearly there.

Is your offer to talk about systems still on the table?

Thank you

 

[mikecarlooch]

Aha. Referrals is how I get most of my business.

I thought you’d maybe got some TikTok channel about how to grow on TikTok, but then couldn’t imagine a $3k client spending enough time on TikTok to find you.

Haha I actually WAS thinking about doing a tiktok channel about how to grow on tiktok,

but now that I think about it, you're right.

reminds me of that saying "there's a reason lamborghini and ferrari don't advertise on tv" lol

 

[Peacefulwarrior]

2019

Sitting in my dark room with things all over the place, I scrolled through YouTube. Video after video, trying to figure out exactly how to make a my "own business" by constantly watching videos about how Warren Buffett made 100 gazillion dollars and I would walk around talking about how I had "3 businesses I wanted to start." None of which ever happened.

All of the content I was consuming was from people who weren't giving actual advice on how to start a business, but just saying "work hard" and "do what you love" and it got so hard in my head trying to figure out what to do that I had panic attacks and constant anxiety thinking about how the hell to start a business!

I made my fair share of money in sports cards, ebay, amazon, and crypto currency, but every single time I'd see someone making a REAL business that was my age, I would envy them. Because for a long time my life was sitting in my room constantly refreshing ebay prices to see if the prices of my basketball cards were going up in price. I would scroll on social media ALL day and see these kids my age making all this money.
ff
"How... HOW ARE THEY DOING IT?" "WHAT IS THE SECRET? I'LL DO ANYTHING.. HOW DO I START??"

My heart would be racing, I wouldn't be able to socialize with people, I had so many limiting beliefs, because every second of the day was about trying to figure out how a business is ran by teaching myself by telling myself thoughts in my own mind, but doing this would just lead to more stress.

But still, there was only one influencer that I would listen to (garyvee) and everyone that was NOT garyvee I considered a scammer. I didn't read any books, didn't even take into account that there were people OUT THERE giving ACTUAL business advice (If I had found MJ 3 years ago, my life today at 19 would be significantly different)

For a while, I gave up. My literal reasoning for why was "maybe they have some kind of wiring in their brain that I don't". or "I guess I'm just not a natural entrepreneur like gary vee said and I didn't want to accept it this whole time"

I started trying meditation, trying to live a "media-less" life, getting into spirituality, as a way to get out of the constant anxiety I was in trying to figure out how to start my 3 businesses. I had quit trying to make content on the internet for a long time after spending literally whole days trying to think of videos to make for each platform.

Then, in January of 2022 (yes, I had a "new years resolution" to figure this out for real) I quit watching gary vee, I quit watching all the stuff that clearly wasn't moving me forward for the past two years except for some luck with basketball cards and crypto currency. I had tens of thousands of dollars as an 18/19 year old, but no idea what to do from that point on because all the money I had made came so easy in market booms.

For the first time, I ripped ADHD self apart and picked up a book for the first time. Next thing you know... I was READING FOR 5 HOURS. Holy crap. This was a book about nutrition, what if I read books about business? Could I find the answer?

While listening to a podcast, I did. someone mentioned Unscripted , and I read the entire book, and was completely fascinated by it, but still didn't understand HOW business worked. I didn't know that. But I was SO Excited.. I felt such a sigh of relief, feeling like I had cracked the code. For the first time I got myself to schedule a session for "deep work" after reading deep work by cal newport, and I made a promise to myself that every single morning, before the gym, before eating, I would go and get into a state of depth for work even if I had no idea what to do.

Overnight, my life went from an absolute mess, to having a planned out daily schedule for the first time in my life

Wake Up->Meditate->Cold Shower->Deep Work With No Phone->Make TikToks->Gym->Read->Deep Work->Brazilian Jiu Jitsu->Sleep->Repeat

My "deep work" was writing self improvement books and setting up a kajabi website to sell some kind of product (I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I still got it set up.) After a week, I had my kajabi website set up and I was reading Russell Brunson's DotCom secrets. I didn't really take what Russell was saying to heart at the time, because I still viewed him as a "scammer". (Looking back now though, that book is one of the best books I've ever read.)

After staying consistent, I put together one of the worst products someone could ever create. (a book that had no plan behind it and took me 5 days to write) and put it out there and sold 10 copies because my audience was growing well because I understand TikTok very well and started growing my following for self improvement.)

Even though the product was awful, I had never felt more accomplished in my life. I felt like I was actually "DOING BUSINESS". Was 99% of what I was doing action fakes? Yes. But it didn't feel like it at all.

After realizing that it wasn't working, I tried something else. I was still so excited that someone would even BUY my book in the first place, so I decided to make MORE products. I tried to add coaching programs, tried to sell 1-1 consultations on fiverr, I planned to make a fitness course, I put all of these products out into the world and just went on social media and told people "Buy this", but no one did.

I was proud of myself for taking action, but very frustrated because I didn't know why the hell I wasn't rich yet?

I decided to forget about it, and for a few months I just decided to read more books because that's where I got my first bit of information from. I read TMF , The Great Rat Race Escape , Influence, ALL of these different books which finally started to give me the answers to HOW to do business.. I had one part of it down..

Value. Okay. I need to give Value.. But what else, How do I give Value?

I found another book that I had been putting off for a long time because I again perceived the author a scammer. His name is Alex Hormozi. One day, I got my head out of my a$$ and I read his book $100M offers, all of it in one day.

"Holy Shit" I thought to myself "This is it. This is all I need to do. This is the secret If I just could have known this whole time I would've understood business!"

Step 1. What product are you going to sell Step 2. Who are you going to sell it to Step 3. How are you going to get them to see it Step 4. Make an offer so good that they can't refuse it.

And then to top it off, I read a post by @Andy Black that was talking about how you don't NEED a website. You don't NEED any of this stuff you think you need. All you need is SALES. Earned traffic, paid traffic, manual outbound, reaching out to PEOPLE. Talking to PEOPLE and showing them MY OFFER. and if they TRUST ME, because they've SEEN ME BEFORE, and they also NEED my product, they will give me money!

"Duh Stupid! This is what you've been trying to find out for the past 2 years and you just found it out within a couple hours!" I thought to myself.

So that's what I did. But what am I good at? What value can I give people? I know how to make tiktoks... I know how to workout... But do people really need this?

In order to get myself to believe what all of these people were saying, I would need to see it work. I would need someone to say yes to my offer..

I decided to call a business owner that didn't KNOW me, but was aware of me to make him an offer on TikTok marketing.

This business owner was a motivated buyer for what I had. He said to me "I want my own personal brand on TikTok, how do I do it??" So we got on a sales call, and I was soso nervous. My first sales call... Ok what do I know.. I had studies Alex Hormozi's CLOSER framework like the back of my hand.. So I decided to go with that.

But the price... What was I going to charge?! This guys my first customer.. He doesn't even know it.. Do I charge $500?? No. $3000 for 2 months of marketing. Alex always says if there's one thing you should do, charge a lot of money. That was what I was going to say..

And so I did.

Guess what happened

"Okay I'll pay the 3 grand just send me a proposal"

"HOLY F**K. WHAT THE F**K?" I thought to myself.

And now here I am today, typing this. Looking for new prospects doing the same thing. Excited as hell for the future.

Am I rich yet? No. But I feel like I know how to be now, and the outcome of ALL of this was mental clarity, something I have been seeking for years.

I hope you guys enjoyed my story,

Thanks for reading!

DUDE wtf?! Are you me from like 6 months in the future? I also have ADHD and have just restarted my own personal development page on IG, wanting to build up an audience and then sell my course and e-books etc, but you decided not to go down that route

Do you just teach people how to build their own personal brands now? Or have you also continued to build your following and sell digitalised products?

ps. I also have ADHD and recently have found myself using it as an excuse, what would you say has helped you to focus and stick to that one thing?

 

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[mikecarlooch]

DUDE wtf?! Are you me from like 6 months in the future? I also have ADHD and have just restarted my own personal development page on IG, wanting to build up an audience and then sell my course and e-books etc, but you decided not to go down that route

Do you just teach people how to build their own personal brands now? Or have you also continued to build your following and sell digitalised products?

ps. I also have ADHD and recently have found myself using it as an excuse, what would you say has helped you to focus and stick to that one thing?

Hey Man!

I’m super glad that this post resonated with you.. it’s been quite a long journey

To answer your first question-

One day not long ago I came to a realization.

I realized “damn.. I’m good as hell at social media.. Getting all these views all these vanity metrics.. but I’ve made damn near 0 dollars doing it.”

I sub consciously knew this for a long time, but didn’t want to accept that I was making videos for people that had no money.

Most 13-19 year olds don’t even have the ability to buy a 50 dollar program.. clearly I didn’t think through the audience I’d be serving.

But giving content to this audience was a blessing in disguise.. why? Because I’m not doing these videos with intention to sell anything.. because I now serve BUSINESS OWNERS.

The content that I put out for people my age related to self improvement is strictly to help people.

But the amazing part is this - when a business person with a lot of money sees the community I’ve been able to build on social media, THEY all of a sudden want me to do it for THEM.

Just like how naval says specific knowledge is the key.. what sounds more like specific knowledge? Making a saturated workout program for teenagers or understanding the backend of how to make content get a lot of views, how to write copy and get traffic to a website?

Business owners have much more money, and there’s much more of a need in the market for the latter, it’s also not something that can be easily replaced. It’s a skill.

Even though I understand the above, I still continue to grow my audience of teenagers who are into self improvement . Why?

1. Because I know they will get older and hopefully stick with me for the next 10 years. The longer I go without selling them anything the more trust I will have built up with them.

2. The bigger I grow that audience the more credibility I get for selling my services to business owners

3. I am constantly learning new skills by producing content .


As for what has helped me stick to one thing, I’ve got to say it’s been reading. The more I read the more skills I reveal that I didn’t know I had, the more clear my path is becoming.

Hope this helps