Bryan McDonald

[00:01:27] on the coaching side, it’s entrepreneurs who develop some skill or expertise in corporate America. Okay. Now they’re using that skill expertise or lever, something to serve small and medium size businesses. And on the consulting side, it’s, family own privately held businesses that hit some plateau.

[00:01:45] Okay. And sales. And they’re trying to get over that plateau. They’ve tried a lot of things. Nothing seems to work the way that they want it or work at all. and we swoop in and, for the people that we assess, we can help we swoop in, make the change that they want and, or help them make the change they want and give them that kind of shot in the arm in regards to sales.

[00:02:07] Audra: That’s good. there’s a huge need for that in the marketplace. typically brand new people are not your market. It’s people that have been around a while that are established, but I found over the years as well, that sometimes they’re just two in the weeds. They can’t see what the challenges are.

[00:02:23] Bryan : And sometimes it’s just a fresh perspective of somebody that doesn’t have all that history and all that baggage to be able to say, wait a second, you got a gold mine sitting right here you haven’t even tapped. To them, they may have dismissed it, but you positioning it in a different way. Could turn the revenue machine back on without a lot of effort Totally right.

[00:02:43] Yeah. You hit them down in the head. It’s yeah, we all have bias. Sure. and bias is developed, right? So that’s why I keep people in my world that coach me or consult me because, hey, what can I see? Or what am I not paying attention to? now I have that blind spot.

[00:02:59] Audra: Yeah, totally. Yeah. so what can we talk about today?

[00:03:02] with your, businesses is right now, how long have you guys been doing this?

[00:03:07] Bryan : Since, 2013.

[00:03:09] Okay. So you guys have been in the industry a while. You’ve seen where kind of web 2.0 has got us. What do you think about web 3.0, are you guys getting into that at all? we’re, dipping into it, With paying attention to it. Okay. it’s an unknown space, right? Right.So it’s unknown. So we’re curious, we’re open. And we’re not resisting change. Yeah. We’re trying to figure out, how that. change happens. Like for instance, a good buddy of mine was running his family owned business and they were in the construction space.

[00:03:40] And he was talking to me about the training that is opening up in that space where they can learn safety. They can learn how to operate in a virtual space. So therefore when they go out in the regular world, the real world, yeah. That, they’re safer and they can produce the result that they’re looking for

[00:04:00] better. And when I think about that and I think about interesting what we do on the coaching side. Specifically that we can, talk to clients about, how can pontificate, I can give them, ideas, but if we use web 3.0, to just put ’em in this situations and figure out real time, I think the learning that people can generate

[00:04:24] to use is gonna be fascinating, right? Yeah. Do I know how to do I specifically know how to use it? No. But my interest is peaked and, I, where my mind goes is what other ways can we apply this right, We’re big into creating hypothesis and testing hypothesis. but we’re testing those hypothesis in the real world.

[00:04:44] I’m curious how we can use web 3.0 to do that, to do I have no idea or do we’re all playing or do, what a great way to train your sales team? Totally. Oh gosh. And two on the consulting side, where can we do things and test them? Or how can we, here’s an example. We have a client we worked with that rented temporary heating and cooling equipment to 90% was the construction industry.

[00:05:13] Bryan : The other 10% was the, retail. okay. Mall, strip malls. Oh yeah. Single unit retail, other things like Panera McDonald’s or, small strip malls. And we did a kind of a market test with them where we went back to their construction clients, their top seven and said, Hey, what is it that you guys of like about us?

[00:05:34] and we listened, we heard. And then we said, Hey, here’s the value we think we bring we’re on time. reliable prices are great and they go, ah, we don’t really care about. The reason why we use you is because we knew dad when he had a truck and a dream. and we just trust him and, he always helps us out on price.

[00:05:50] So we’re like, okay, so, you got 10 sales people who are all have a different sales process, have a different offer. They’re not dad. And we can’t duplicate dad. So when we think about strategy and changing their strategy, we ask them, why is it that you’re good at what you do?

[00:06:07] Bryan : Or why do you bring that value? They said, we have this process, right? Okay. Before piece of machinery leaves our facility. We tested to make sure it works. We put it on the truck, drive it to the facility and we take it off that, truck, before we take it off the truck, we test it to make sure it works.

[00:06:24] And they knew that one to 2% of the time based on that process, the machine didn’t work. So we said, Hey, where can we use this? Something unique that you do in the marketplace. And what I’m about to describe is what I’m curious about being able to do with web 3.0, can we test this?

[00:06:41] Is there a way to test this with web 3.0, so what we did was we came up with, A hypothesis that we could solve a problem in the retail world faster if we leveraged a strategy, because what we asked them was, Hey, what’s the biggest problem this retail and strip mall commercial real estate people have.

[00:06:59] They said the biggest problem is when the, air conditioning breaks in the summer or the heating breaks in the winter they lose money. Many times they close their doors. So think about like you’re in Florida, right? It’s hundred degrees humidity. You walk into a place to eat and it’s the same temperature inside as an outside.

[00:07:19] What are you gonna do? You’re gonna leave and go to the next place. So they lose money. We said, okay. Talk to us about who they’re buying from now. They’re like, oh, this is great. Who they buy from now are very unreliable more than 50% of the time, these big kind of, machine rental chain places.

[00:07:35] Bryan : Yeah. their machines don’t work. So what we did was we created an offer, right? we call it a, what we call it is a mafia offer. Is that make an offer somebody can’t refuse. So what we did is we tested it in the marketplace. we made a hypothesis about to said, Hey, if we make the following offer, we think this is gonna go big gangbusters.

[00:07:51] And what the offer was, Hey, retail, establishment, commercial real estate managers. If you sign a monthly contract with us, a monthly retainer. yeah. And a piece of machinery shows up and it doesn’t work, we’ll pay your days lost revenue. Wow. They were stuck at around 10 million dollars.

[00:08:10] This company was stuck around 10 million for about five years or hovering, in nine months revenue went up 1.7 million dollars and,profit went up 1.8 because this, the business was more profitable. Construction was beating em up on price. These people were, Hey, I’ll pay a premium for this.

[00:08:27] So that’s a long story to say, yeah. How do we test that with web 3.0, I don’t know. I’m assuming, can AI basically grab a bunch of data about people. And can we come make an offer, interact with a fake person and see, Hey, does this offer, does this offer accepted a convert?

[00:08:48] because, I just listened to a podcast the other day. And there’s a, Google has built a piece of AI that basically gathers up data and how people talk on the internet and you can ask it questions and it will respond to you based on how people respond. Sure. Which is. Crazy. So I’m assuming that’s moving in the direction of what I’m describing, right?

[00:09:12] Audra: Absolutely. if you think about all the content writers that are out there, are you guys using any content writers like Jasper or Copyai or any of those guys I have used Casper. Yeah. When I said yes, first I was thinking about like a person, oh, we have used those, but I’ve used Casper.

[00:09:29] Those things are amazing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I actually am able to produce quite a bit of content using Jasper. It was Jarvis and now they had to change the name. So it’s Jasper now and then Open AI, which is the source of all where all AI comes from all the text comes from they’ve launched something called Dalle 2, really?

[00:09:49] Audra: And it’s spelled DALL E the number two. Now you have to get on a waiting list for that, but check it out. So what it is a source to create original images. What I haven’t got in yet, but I got to play with it through a friend. And what I said was, I want a cat on a bicycle with aviator flying glasses and it created me like 10 different versions of different cats on different bikes with goggles on hilarious.

[00:10:22] So you can, and it’s original pieces now. Because the AI has created it and it’s not taking part of his picture and his picture to make a new picture. It’s creating all new images. Oh my gosh. I know. It’s so cool. Now it’s great for creating different kinds of images, but you can’t use it for commercial yet.

[00:10:42] And, it goes back to deep fakes and all this kind of stuff where pictures are being manipulated, but it’ll evolve. It’ll get to a place where people that are not that creative can come up with different types of photos. Yeah. Some pretty neat stuff is happening in that space. I am super excited about where it’s going.

[00:11:04] There’s a dark side. There’s always going to be a dark side for any new technology that comes out. It’s how you use it. You can use it for good or you can use it for evil. There’s always gonna be those people that aren’t gonna do the right thing with it. But for those of us that play on the white hat side of things.

[00:11:19] Yep. Yep. It’s gonna be cool. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

[00:11:22] Bryan : It is. And that’s why I said,I’m moving with a mood of curiosity and intrigued. Yeah. Because it’s adapt or die. What? Oh yeah. Or die if you resist it. you’re gonna be, your business is gonna be dying.

[00:11:34] Yeah. And you don’t even know it until it’s all over, right? Yeah. So how we can use these things are gonna be fascinating and it’s gonna change fast as it already is, right? It is.

[00:11:45] Audra: Yeah. I think we’re at the early adopter stage, right? It’s not hit the masses. They’re starting to see it more and more.

[00:11:52] I’ve talked to some of my clients or some of the people in my community, and they’re not at a place where they’re comfortable yet to explore AI. They know what it is. They know it’s coming. Some are willing to tip their toes in and play with it a little bit. Some of them are a little overwhelmed and it’s just I haven’t even figured out this other stuff.

[00:12:10] Audra: And I think the way I try to explain it is don’t try to catch up. Because you can’t just get in where you’re at right now and do what you can with what you’ve got. If you’re not comfortable getting on camera, don’t do it go find some marketing channel or some medium that you can connect to your audience or hire a guest person, or use B roll and, have somebody add text.

[00:12:32] there’s lots of options out there to still play in where we’re currently at, as far as technology and marketing your business online and growing and reaching customers. You can’t catch up, 2000 is gone totally. 2015 is gone. 2020 is gone. Just learn the stuff that’s happening right now.

[00:12:51] Bryan : So how do you see it changing the marketing world?

[00:12:54] Audra: I think that the ones that are willing to get in you’ll be ahead of the game. think pre-Facebook pre-Facebook ads. I’ve been around my agency’s been around since 2009. So when I started, it was just Twitter and it was the wild west. we were just throwing stuff up and totally hoping something was gonna work driving ’em to websites that had no opt-in no call to action.

[00:13:20] it was all brochure stuff then if you were lucky enough to have a site. So I think we’ll go into a little bit more of that, but we’re more educated now on how this space works before it was, we didn’t have anything to compare it to. This was the first of its kind. I think AI and getting into that, it’s a new space.

[00:13:38] Audra: That’ll hit the public, but it’s not new meaning it’s just a different version. I think of how we’re gonna do marketing online and it opens up different opportunities. I believe.

[00:13:51] Bryan : Totally. And it’s like these things are layering on top of each other. and here’s what I mean by that is there’s a guy that I’m connected to on LinkedIn, Joshua B.

[00:14:01] Lee, and he’s, be a serial entrepreneur. But, one thing he does is helps people humanize their LinkedIn interaction like, Hey, this is real people. Let’s stop being like, like frigid and whatnot. it’s, here’s how he’s stacking this is he’s using like discord to, to train clients

[00:14:22] in group. And what he’s done is he’s created a coin that when you buy to buy his training, it’s super cheap right now. But you buy the coin to get access and by default, the, drives the coin in, it, drives the price up, right? So he’s taking multiple different kind of new technologies and mashing them together and literally creating an offer around it.

[00:14:47] Audra: it’s fascinating. Like just listening and talking to people. and like I said, moving with a consistent mood of curiosity because it allows me to see more. Then kinda, ah, that stuff’s stupid, blah, blah, blah. Like it’s just fascinating to me. and it could go up and it could go down.

[00:15:03] not to pivot a little bit, think of Bitcoin and where that’s gone and the whole coin based type market it’s up, it’s down, it’s evolving it’s governments are picking it up, Yeah. The way money is transacted, some websites are accepting it. Not as much now because the price has dropped so far, but

[00:15:22] Audra: it does open up opportunities to develop something else. And yes, at the beginning, you’re gonna take a lot of arrows in the back, trying to get other people to adopt it and not be, it goes into the whole fear and oh totally. the unknown and I can’t control this. I wanna stick with stuff

[00:15:40] I know. And, but those willing to take the chances you can benefit tremendously. that’s so smart. What a great way to do it.

[00:15:47] And the thing that you said about, arrows in the back. I think that’s just the heart of entrepreneurship is being willing to. Take a few arrows , get an arrow go, oh, that hurt.

[00:15:58] Bryan : I’m gonna have to do something different rather than assessing it as I failed. It’s a consistent learning process. And I think those early adapters, what we’re talking about are the ones that have committed themselves. To just learning, testing, trying, getting feedback and making decisions from that rather than, being very tried that I failed.

[00:16:19] Audra: And what did I learn from that failure? And how do I gonna use that movement forward? I think the tried and true entrepreneurs have that mentality. Yeah. Other people are trying to get into that space force it. Yeah. I think that difference too, when I opened my, so I had coffee shops in California when I was younger.

[00:16:36] Oh. And I was a little afraid of it cuz I didn’t even drink coffee at the time. I was 32. I had never owned a business before I was trying to figure it out. But. I think the thing that didn’t scare me is cuz I didn’t expect to know everything, This is my first time doing it. Why would I think that I should know what I’m doing by now?

[00:16:56] And somebody had asked me, how are you even doing this? I did my own blueprints. I went to the city and did all that kind of stuff and it was challenging. But at the same time I was like, I just gotta ask questions if I can get really good at just asking questions. People tell me what to do.

[00:17:13] I don’t have to know. this is pre-Google and the way the internet is used today, I don’t have to know any of this. Somebody’s already done it. Let me just ask them. They’ll be willing to help. I’m not competition for them. I’m not hurting them. It’s their job. And they told me what to do. And so everybody’s how’d you pull this off?

[00:17:31] And I’m like, I just asked questions. I don’t know. You don’t have to. And I think we get in that place where I’m an expert at X. therefore I’m supposed to know everything else that happens when you’re launching a business. And because you don’t and you get online and you see your competitors and you see all this great stuff, the FOMO kicks in.

[00:17:51] It’s oh my gosh, I’m smart. And I’m an expert in my business. I should be able to produce like that. but it doesn’t work that way. we are starting, we all start in kindergarten. People that are working. It are in fifth grade. yeah, that’s it is. You just gotta evolve through that journey.

[00:18:07] Bryan : I think for me, how I perceive the world is one of the secrets to success or not so secret secrets. Yeah. Is what we just described. Here’s an example. I’ve got a client, Matt on the coaching side, right? So on the coaching side, I work with a lot of consultants. A lot of people, most people who are really smart at something, they have a deep expertise. And I’ve a client, Matt, who does process improvement, continuous improvement. he did it at Motorola and now he said, Hey, I want to help other companies do that. And he works. Okay. All the way from the boardroom to the manufacturing floor, he works with service based businesses and every so often he’ll ask me, he goes, Bryan, why am I succeeding?

[00:18:52] And a lot of my peers who are way smarter than me, they’re trying entrepreneurship and then it doesn’t work out and they go back to corporate America. He goes, why am I succeeding? I said, Matt, my perception is that you are more committed to learning and asking questions and becoming who you want to become.

[00:19:11] Without labeling, like you don’t, he didn’t care. He doesn’t care how smart other people assess him. All he cares about helping other people. So he talks less about himself. Very nice, in the sales processes and produces results. Why his peers. Are all just going into places, talking, not asking questions, right?

[00:19:33] Bryan : Not listening, not looking at others around them and just saying, Hey, what’s in my mind, this is so valuable other people should buy it. And not many people do because they don’t have this open mindset to not accepting that they don’t know everything. And I think that’s a key to success.

[00:19:51] Audra: It is. because if you think about it, especially if you’re focused on people that have jobs, they got paid based on what they know. Totally. mostly the, promotions and the bonuses and everything came based on what they knew. Once they tried to transition out of that, to people aren’t gonna pay you for what you know now in the entrepreneur world, the cash exchange is not the same.

[00:20:12] Yeah. As it was when you were providing, services as an employee, Versus services to your client, to your customers. And that is a huge mindset shift that people don’t know how to make. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve mentored that were that same mindset. but I already know all this I’ve been doing it for 10 years.

[00:20:31] I don’t really need to explain it. and I’m like, it’s a whole different you’re not in the same playground that you were before. We don’t care what you know.

[00:20:40] Bryan : No. So actually I think what it is the order. In my mind, it’s the order changed. People don’t care about what you know, Until you care about what they’re going through. They need, I tell clients all the time that I like pounded in their heads is people don’t buy the thing that you sell. They buy the help that they need. So that’s why we’re like on the consulting side, we’re building strategies that are client centric, Actually client centric. We just don’t talk about it. We put actions around it. And the same thing is when you’re interacting, let’s call that’s the strategy and system side of sales, the finesse side of sales is making it all about other people. So then, so then you can offer them the help that they need, not the thing that you sell.

[00:21:24] Audra: And once they understand. Oh, once there’s mutual clarity on, What’s going on with them, the problems, how it’s affecting them, then you start talking about how smart you are because one they’re listening two it’s relevant to them. and remember we buy emotionally, we justify it logically.

[00:21:40] So if you’re meeting my needs emotionally, then you follow up with the logic to qualify yourself or your product or your expertise. So they can say, oh, okay. They got me here. Now. They got me here. Now I’m ready to pull out my credit card or whatever it is a 100 percent, gonna shift gears for a second while you’re talking about customer relationships and strategy.

[00:22:01] I started writing an article yesterday. About the digital customer experience. And started doing quite a bit of research about what the big guys say. So I typically deal with smaller, small to mid-size businesses. I don’t do a lot in the fortune 500 group. Yeah. Or even fortune 5,000. I of stay. In the bigger pool, but I will go to them to do my research and learn things because little by little, it’s like fashion designs, they start in trickles down yeah.

[00:22:30] On the runway. And then they end up in the little shops. So whatever strategies and tactics they’re experiencing at the high level will make it down. Some version of it will make it down the ones that work. So some of the big companies, what they’re saying is they’re finding that people have lots of options.

[00:22:49] Today, there’s so much competition. Your product or service is really fighting against becoming commoditized. matter what you do, you’re a consultant, you’re an agency, you’re a coach. You’re a, this, there are 10,000 people standing behind you that do the same thing, especially after COVID and the whole eLearning and all that is just blown up, which is great.

[00:23:12] Because there’s tons of revenue being thrown in that, but the competition just quadrupled or probably even more than that. A thousand times. Yeah. but what they’re saying is the people that are paying attention right now and starting to create this digital experience, meaning if you have a brick and mortar, people get the same experience there that they do when they go online.

[00:23:33] When they go to your website, when they go to your social media, all of it is connected. Now, currently what they were finding is you go into the store, you meet different people, right? Maybe the customer service is good. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe you have the product. Maybe you don’t have the product. Then they go to a website.

[00:23:51] Maybe it’s a little clunky. But you know what the product is, so you’re there. And then you go to the social media because you have different personalities of staff managing this stuff, and somebody wasn’t driving a consorted effort from the top down, it was from the bottom up that the experience that their customers are getting is inconsistent.

[00:24:14] So it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It’s just inconsistent. And what happens is people will go the loyalty, the brand loyalty thing has gone out the window. Yeah, totally. People are not as loyal as they were. They’re very quick to jump ship and go onto the next one. That’s willing to give them concierge service.

[00:24:34] So they’re saying if you don’t figure out what this digital. customer experience is for your company. You’re gonna lose some traction. You’re gonna lose some market share because the buyer’s driving now. The buyer’s been driving for some time. Totally. Yeah. But it’s getting even more and more competitive because so many more people are joining the game.

[00:24:55] so you may say we’ll do these five things, but we won’t do these three. They’ll go find somebody else that’ll do the three. And they may not even do all the five, but because they, we’re willing to do those three that were important to them. They’re shifting and they’re going and they’re buying from somebody else.

[00:25:11] Audra: Yeah. Now they may come back, but that loyalty is just not there anymore. remember the days when you went to the store, there was like two types of flour. You got this brand or you got this brand. Yep. You go to the store now there’s 18 types of flour, gluten free and almond, and this, and somebody will cater to them.

[00:25:31] And not that small businesses need to run and try to accommodate everybody they don’t. But if you’re gonna stay competitive in this game, you really gotta tighten that messaging. People opt in that message needs to be congruent with what you’re saying online with how your staff shows up or how your sales people are.

[00:25:49] all of that needs to be flowing together in a, symphony of, I like that marketing. Yeah.

[00:25:58] Bryan : So true. because I think you said it, the buyers have been driving and yeah. and from my experience, what they’re done putting up with is words and actions not lining up, right?

[00:26:12] Yeah. Like the whole client centric or we’re about clients. Here’s thousands hundreds of thousands of websites that say it. But then just like you’re describing when you interact with a salesperson, all they do is do a value vomit on you. Don’t let you talk and then wonder why you don’t buy because they’re not client centric, right?

[00:26:32] No, that’s one, one of my missions in this world is to change the narrative of sales to serving. Because if you’re living in that mindset, you can connect with your customers faster. And you can keep them longer. I had a mentor of mine that basically said, Hey, Bryan, you have to go out and you have to ruin

[00:26:50] clients ruin them to the point where they’re not gonna go anywhere that they see their lives better off with you in it than without you. Because clients that are just captured, if you will leave, that’s no loyalty came in the front door. Yeah. And the world wants alignment.

[00:27:07] and for small business owners in my opinion, if you’re not trying to be a fortune 5,000 company, You can grab the slice in the market and you can own it. Yeah. By doing what you just described about making all these things congruent. Yeah. And you can be one of the 18 flours, on the shelves, but you are capturing the one 18th of the market.

[00:27:27] Audra: And one 18th of that, that you want, and you don’t care about the others. You don’t care about the others. You only sell gluten free flour why would you care what anybody else buys? That’s the only market that you’re trying to go. Totally, right? Yeah. there’s more than enough business to go around, The world isn’t really fast. And I think that’s some of the challenge, right? The view of small business, or even medium businesses is very myopic. We get online, we look at our Facebook feed. We look at, our LinkedIn feed and that’s it. That’s all we see. And then we think we’re trying to make our business fit into that.

[00:28:03] And I think that’s the wrong approach, in their defense, they don’t have any other experiences to reflect against. They’ve been an employee for the last 10 years or 15 years. So this is their first exposure. And then they see this treadmill where all these people are running in front of ’em and they’re like trying to step on it and they can’t figure out how to get in and get on it.

[00:28:23] Bryan : And. You can’t do that back up and sit down and say, okay, why am I starting this business? What are my goals? What are my revenue goals? What are my customer goals? Why am I even doing this? then you map out a plan for it and stop trying to build that way. Cuz you’ll never catch up. Entrepreneur magazine has been around for 20 years or whatever it is. You’re never going to catch up. So serve the audience in front of you and add value, like you said, and I think that’s really where they’re gonna win and they’re gonna stay in business. and I like what you’re saying, because,I see patterns of people who, they’re trying to grow their business and they’re not because there isn’t this clarity of ambition of destination.

[00:29:07] So one thing for me, as I onboard or I’m talking to a prospect. Yeah. Yeah. Before we ever start, I always establish with them, what’s the destination? Where are we going? And how do we know we’re succeeding? And a lot of times what I discover is people have not developed that clarity for themselves on that.

[00:29:25] And they’re wondering why they’re waffling around and not getting it’s you’re a rudderless ship. But when I have people basically say, Hey, what I want you to do is I want you to go do some homework. I want you to map out what your life, your business and your life looks like in one, three and five years and come back and let’s talk about it, right?

[00:29:43] Bryan : Because here’s the one thing I know is 100% of the people who think about develop that for themselves all build a plan to get there. And achieve it. They achieve it at different speeds, right? Sure. Not saying everybody gets overnight success, but 100% of them do. And the people that kind of have, are very vague and pie in the sky, they seem to never get what they want.

[00:30:08] Audra: It never takes off, Love Russell Brunson and Click Funnels to death, but his marketing is so good that people just coming in believe that it’s that easy and it’s not, I appreciate the openness to what could be but if I have to hear another person say, I got Click Funnels, and I’m gonna build a funnel and I should be a millionaire by the end of the year.

[00:30:34] Unfortunately, like I said, really great marketing, but it misleads a lot of people in thinking that this adventure is easier than it is. It’s not stop getting maps, or that’s the other thing. You get a, you get somebody that is walking. And they’re on their journey and you’re like, where are you going?

[00:30:50] I don’t know. I’m just gonna keep walking till I show up there without setting some kind of goal. Yes. Here’s the other thing, if you set a goal, anybody that is qualified, like you, made the people that we serve, we can re-engineer that for them backwards, totally a hundred percent without having a destination.

[00:31:08] Audra: How do I ever tell you how to get there? I have no idea. I don’t know where you’re going. Tell me, you need to make $10. Tell me you wanna make 10 million. I’ll help you build the blueprint backwards. But without telling me what that end thing looks like, nobody could help you, not even yourself.

[00:31:24] Bryan : The challenging thing that I’ve learned is when somebody doesn’t want to develop that, and it doesn’t happen super often, they’re not committed.

[00:31:33] Yeah. And I make that request and they don’t develop that. Yeah. It’s using courage to decline to work with them. Yeah. Because it’s already over before it started. Yeah. and I’m not a magic pill. I tell people I’m not a magic pill. I’m not doing building your business for you.

[00:31:52] Totally. I’m helping you, I’m standing alongside of you. being that voice of reason, being that voice of, Hey, did you see that pothole or, Hey, let’s think about this and I think it’s just, the challenge or the, yeah, the challenge of aspirations and ambitions were pushed to be aspirational and ambitious, but yet we don’t develop clarity around those and it fails every time.

[00:32:17] Audra: And then people get stuck in these patterns of this is not working. This is not working. This is not working right. you don’t know how to change. Give them the book of the E myth and make ’em go back and say, okay, wait, you gotta get out of the role of the technician. You’ve gotta be able to move into the manager.

[00:32:33] Yep. As the business evolves. I think that’s some of it too. Again, they don’t know what they don’t know. They’ve just got that expertise. And if they’re to a place where they’re not willing to ask questions and do the work, there’s no amount of money’s gonna help. No coaching program. No course, no nothing.

[00:32:52] It has to start with them. Yeah. And I wonder how many people are on their last credit card, buying those courses or those coaching thinking. It’s gonna make a difference. It’s not,

[00:33:02] Bryan : that’s why I said earlier, the key is one of the biggest keys. If not the, maybe the number one is being open to change, be thinking, Hey, who am I becoming?

[00:33:12] And how does that, am I even willing to do that? And, am I committed to just consistent learning and trying, and not rather than being very fixed, right? Like for instance, I asked yesterday, who is, a consultant and, says cold reach outs don’t work, which based on his business, it’s not highly converting.

[00:33:34] I won’t dive into business. Yeah. so what they, the way this, him and his peers build businesses through referral based, right? They only need 20 clients a year. it’s not a lot. And I asked him about referrals and he says,I just share with people what, I do, and they’re not giving me referrals.

[00:33:50] Bryan : I said, are you asking, are you literally saying, Hey, do you know anybody that has this problem or can you introduce me to business owners? He goes, yeah, he said that could be a problem. I’m like, what’s your resistance? I said, is there resistance here to ask? He goes, yeah. I was like, what is it?

[00:34:04] And he’s it’s like begging people. I was like, okay. So that’s fair that you think asking for referrals is begging fair. I understand you believe that, but then I asked him another question. I said, are you open to changing that mindset? And he goes, Nope, it’s always gonna be like that.

[00:34:21] So I was like, I can’t help you. if you are not open, send him to Brene Brown’s work. oh, totally. Oh yeah. Say a good idea. he’s. Yeah, that’s fine. But go check that out and call me when you’re ready. Yeah. If you’re ready. It’s Hey, one of the biggest changes, I’ll say it this way. One of the biggest way people in all his peers get business is through referrals and asking, and he knows that’s a fact he’s and he says, he’s not gonna change it.

[00:34:49] So he’s not open to changing himself. So this isn’t about his expertise or ability deliver. This is his ability to change how he operates. And it he’s always gonna be. Actually, I’m gonna rephrase that luck could get him to where he is going. Sure. But he’s gonna be stuck for a very long time.

[00:35:06] Audra: if luck is the way it turns out, It’s amazing. It is amazing to, sum all that up. I can see why self-help and motivation and mindset is such a big part of being an entrepreneur. . Some people don’t believe that they need to do any work. They think that being knowledgeable or being smart or being a millennial is enough to help them launch a successful business.

[00:35:31] And unfortunately that’s few and far between. Yeah, it really is. some will get lucky. They had a great product. They hit the market at the right time and they succeeded more out of just in spite of what they had done, but that’s, like I said, that’s just so few and far between we don’t see the millions and millions of other small businesses that aren’t publishing it online, sitting home, struggling with things like this.

[00:35:59] Totally. watching videos, trying to build systems, trying to market their product to one person at a time is super challenging. And that’s really the reality of this space. It’s not what we see online.

[00:36:12] Bryan : No, it’s really not at all. No. and I might suggest that those, that

[00:36:16] we’re at the right place at the right time. and they win big and maybe they sell the company that they don’t know how to, they can’t replicate it. Can’t replicate it. Yeah. It was a one hit wonder. they possibly spend the rest of their lives. Trying, wondering why they can’t repeat it when the answer is inside.

[00:36:32] that was the wrong business or this was the wrong widget or, yeah. It’s not the right customer. It’s not the right time. Yeah. and totally. 90% of any kind of challenges we run into, probably go back to that, to our mindset and our ability to be open and learning. I think that’s the whole thing that attracts me to this industry is it forces me to learn and I love learning.

[00:36:56] Audra: I’m not a routine person. I love change because that means I’m evolving and growing. And the way I do business today is different than my coffee shops. This is my fourth really big company. So I owned coffee shops. Then I owned a title company. Then I got into marketing and now I’m moving into this marketplace that I built, but each one of them, I am a completely different person than I was for each one of those companies.

[00:37:24] Yep. Yeah, you have to be right.

[00:37:27] Bryan : What I assess is you have the core skills to learn and change. Yeah. That has nothing to do. An expert coffee shop owner, a title owner, an agency owner, or a marketplace owner, you went out, you looked outside of you and said, Hey, how does one do this?

[00:37:44] and I’m gonna learn, that’s it’s magical. I think that’s such a gift. And a blessing because I just think there’s so much power in that and good power in that. There is, Like I was asked if you had one thing to give anybody in the world, what would it be? It would be what that, what you, because you can do anything, right?

[00:38:02] Audra: It’s, we just have to learn it. We wanna fly a plane. Let’s go learn it. We, I dunno if I wanna go to Mars yet, I’m gonna let Elon go first. Maybe figure that out. I’m not that early of an adopter, but when it comes to stuff like that, yeah. I’m definitely more apt to jump in. Hey, let’s try it. It doesn’t work.

[00:38:21] It doesn’t work. Will you just try something else? Try something else. I mean,I’m not that flaky, like I said, I’ve only done four businesses, but I do see tremendous opportunity for people that are willing to open it up and stop trying to fit everything into a box and think if you want that box and the security and the consistency and the routine, stay at your job.

[00:38:43] Bryan : Yeah, because you are not getting that here. and that’s okay. It is okay. Absolutely. Your job, right? Absolutely. I hate the narrative that says, in the world that says you’re bad if your employee like those people. No, not at all. Not at all. We need those people in the world. Absolutely.

[00:38:59] It’s play a role. know, I have a nine year old and a six year old daughters, right? Oh, a nine year old is very, in the box, Who you were describing, play it safe risk adverse. So I’m always, when I have the opportunity, I’m always telling her that Lily there is no failure.

[00:39:16] There’s only learning. If you’re constantly learning and trying, and that’s it, you understand what’s happening. You’ll consistently move towards where you want to go. If you’re of the mindset of, oh, I failed and I’m trying not to fail and I’m more fail. I’m more afraid of failure.

[00:39:30] It’s you’re gonna stay in the same spot you’re gonna be scared your entire life. don’t do that. as much as I can tell her not to do that. I’m just inviting. She’s got, yeah. Say this. So I just think that’s such a key to happiness. I think the gal, the Spanks gal. I forgot her name right now.

[00:39:47] Audra: Oh yeah. I know what you mean. She says, she said that when she was a kid, they would sit down at the dinner table and her dad would ask her every day what did you fail at today? Ooh. Yeah. That’s great. I know. So what did you fail at today? Meaning what did you try new? What’d you take a risk at? And I think learning how to develop those kind of skills when kids are younger.

[00:40:10] Yeah, then it allows them to also make better decisions as they start to age, because they’re like, okay, I tried that it didn’t work. Now is when they should take the risk cuz they got mom and dad behind them to give them guidance of, eh, no, let’s go this way. Let’s go this way. Yep. And what a great way to, to be able to look at the perspective, it takes all the power out of failure.

[00:40:34] Bryan : Totally. It just deflates it like, oh, it’s no big deal. So what did we fail out today? Yep. What did we try? What do, where are we gonna look at? What are you gonna do tomorrow? this is kind getting exciting. Let’s do some stuff we could fail at exactly. It’s just the natural human instinct of survival.

[00:40:50] That’s really what it is going on. And when you realize that, Hey, I’m not in fight or flight. What I’ve learned is you can make that fear voice or fear, voice of failure lower. I’m not gonna say you can make it go away. I don’t think that’s no. But when you make it lower, You take more risks, more calculated risks, and you also win more, right?

[00:41:12] Bryan : Yeah. You also win more and you realize how to maneuver through the world and, I, I just think, I wish everybody had that skill developed because I think we live in a happier world.

[00:41:22] Audra: Absolutely. All right. So share something else. We got a few more minutes. Yeah. and we’ve covered a lot of different topics.

[00:41:30] But I think it’s important. This is what’s happening. This is the stuff we think about as a business owner. We don’t just wear one hat. We don’t just show up and do the bookkeeping, or do the marketing, or do the sales or manage our team. We have to think about all of this kind of stuff throughout the day.

[00:41:47] And if you’re not your business, probably isn’t doing a lot of growing right now. I think it’s important to explore what’s in front of us and then also what’s coming. And then, you never wanna forget the past. You don’t wanna live there, but you wanna be able to take the lessons from there and make sure that your business is evolving.

[00:42:04] Bryan : And I think a big key to that is surrounding yourself with people who are. No, they don’t know, have all the answers. No, but they just orient to the world, like what we’re describing. Yeah. Because I value somebody asking me a really good, tough question. Sure. To get me to think. And like I was saying in the beginning, it’s I keep people around me that allow me not to be biased.

[00:42:31] or I, I should say, show me the bias that is happening and open me up to things that, I may not be seeing. Other perspectives. Yeah. Just, don’t be a loner. Yeah. don’t, you’re not on an island, in, and this, I am I’ll say this is we can either assess we’re on an island when we’re not, or we can choose we’re on island.

[00:42:52] It’s understand that’s happening. Like in 2000, seven and eight, I started a, a network group in the suburbs of Chicago. Okay. That went from, three people, me, myself, and I to over 2000 people, nice six months. And one of the things that, I encourage people as I met with them and inviting ’em out to the group was, Hey,

[00:43:13] Bryan : because this is when the world was crashing, It felt like the world was crashing in 2008. I said, Hey, you’re not an island. Go talk to people in this group. I create a space for people to talk to each other, realize that, Hey, you may have been sitting in an office for 30 years. and you just got, let go cuz of downsizing or something.

[00:43:30] Look, there’s somebody here that has that same experience. Maybe even got through it, go talk to them. Yeah. And what I think what people started realizing is I think a shift happened in the corporate America world where people were in these cocoons. safety of working places for 30, 40 years.

[00:43:48] And that, cocoon exploded. and people are realizing like, Hey, I should have done this earlier. I should have got out, and done this earlier. And when you just put yourself in communities like that, You put yourself in places where people are there to support you and ask you good questions.

[00:44:04] Bryan : I think you’re always gonna win, I think anything right? In anything in life, right? Whether it’s entrepreneurship, whether it’s your personal life, because we’re not on an island. and if you are you feel stuck, I bet you’re choosing to be on an island. Get off the island.

[00:44:18] Audra: Get off the island. and if you’re an introvert and that’s challenging for you to go out, to reach out, cuz not everybody wants to go listen to a podcast, go watch a YouTube video. You’ll find that you’re not alone. You may be sitting in your room alone, but you’re really not alone. There’s 20 other people standing right next to you that are going through a similar experience at different stages of that experience.

[00:44:44] Exactly. And I think sometimes that we get so far in our heads that we make up our own reality. Cause we know we can tell our subconscious mind anything we want. Totally. But is it true? Is the story that you’re feeding yourself actually true. Or are you making this up because you’ve got fear and you can’t control the situation and you’re driving yourself in the wrong direction.

[00:45:08] Get outside of yourself, go volunteer, go donate your time, go watch a podcast, go for a walk. do something to break up that record that you’re playing in your mind of oh, my business is this and this. And I can’t do it all as failing, whatever stories you’re telling yourself sometimes it’s gonna be hard, right?

[00:45:27] Bryan : Yeah. and I think that’s going back to very beginning. I think that’s where web 3.0. Is gonna, that’s exciting to think of that. Yeah. Hey, I’m a, what’s a halfway, how do I say this? So what’s halfway for, if I’m an introvert, what’s halfway to an extrovert. It’s web 3.0, it’s Hey, I can shut this off whenever I want.

[00:45:47] And I can go and test them. And how are you using technology and web 3.0 all these things to get what you want. I think it’s gonna boost those people who feel like they’re on an island Get the resources and things that they want in a way that is digestible for them. I think we’re in the year of the geek, for sure.

[00:46:08] Audra: Totally. the ones that can get out there, so on the flip side of that, so that’ll of serve two purposes. One it’ll help give them another outlet. Cause I probably Teeter between, I could be an a when I need to be but I’m okay being a B, As far as outgoing and personality and stuff, I don’t need to be the center of attention.

[00:46:28] I’m past all that kind of stuff, but there’s some people that just don’t wanna do it all. They just wanna do their job or serve their customers. But 3.0, can actually give them a place that they can go and test stuff. And work on different kinds of things without judgment, without fear of rejection or whatever, story they’re telling themselves, but that’ll be great

[00:46:51] Bryan : to see where that evolves. you think there’s competition now? Just wait yeah. Cause that whole story thing, stories, that’s a whole podcast in itself cuz stories run our lives. Yeah. And I always tell clients, change your story, change your life. Yeah. And you change that story cuz we develop meaning we take action or not from those.

[00:47:09] Yeah. And a lot of it’s I would rather make up a story that empowers me. Rather than making up a story that keeps me in my close. so if you’re gonna make up stories, why don’t we just do this in a better way, right?

[00:47:20] Audra: Yeah. All right. So wrap this up. What’s one last thing that you would share for, we covered a lot of different things.

[00:47:28] Why don’t we focus on the competing in the customer experience space? What would be some advice you’d give for.

[00:47:35] Bryan : I would say, learn as we were describing it before. learn the essence of what client centric and customer experience is and figure out how to integrate that into your business and give people experiences and interactions that what you say and what you do line up because when you use that formula, you get the highest throughput of sales

[00:48:02] that you could imagine. It’s like the story I told in the beginning, like stuck at 10 million, bam. We did something client-centric lined it all up and bam revenue shot up. That can happen for anybody. It’s your business is not about you. Your business is 100% about your customers. Yeah.

[00:48:21] End up story, period. So figure out different ways to be client centric, figure out how something unique that you do can become, or is client centric to a very specific, ideal client profile and run at it because everybody else is gonna be, trying to I’ll say, create a better mouse trap.

[00:48:43] And it’s not about mouse traps anymore. It’s about, Hey, how do I give somebody an experience, make it all about them and make money doing it right. And when you learn that formula and you implement it, you’ll make money faster and easier.

[00:48:58] Audra: Okay, that is spot on. And I’m gonna say on the flip side of that, should you choose not to do that?

[00:49:06] You’re a commodity and you’re gonna compete on price and whoever is the lowest wins. Totally. So those are your options right now, I think, to be successful online. Totally. Yeah. All right, Bryan, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you. This was great. Yeah, you as well. We’ll talk soon. Take care.