Transcript of LEAD GENERATION SECRETS EXPLAINED FOR YOUR BUSINESS || DAQUOTA AVILA || EPISODE 067

The Coat-winning Insights We need today to Seize the World Tomorrow. If you are interested in learning a lot about what happens behind the scenes, if you want to know about media, building your social media team, trying to convert content into revenue, if you want to learn about how to run a podcast studio, how you want to try and do the back office and learn all about that stuff, I have one of the guys who's going to be training me as well. He is the CEO and founder of yourMedia My guy. I had to double check. Your guy, my guy. He's a very good person, very knowledgeable in this field and this industry as well. Very experienced. He's got studios in Arizona. So without further Our Amazing Guests today. We got Dakota. How are you doing, brother?

Good. Hanging in there. It's a long day. Long day for you, long day for me. We're working and getting it done.

Yeah. What's crazy is that my first and my last, I go to the reserve tank. Listen, I got to be able make sure I step on the gas. I'm like, Where the heck did that gas come from? So I'm here for it. If you heard from the intro, I still got it, brother. I still got it. So how are you doing, boss?

Good. Just working. It's never-ending. I don't know, people are like... When I had my 9: 00 to 5: 00, Monday, I was like, Oh, it's Monday. I got to go back to work. You own a business. It's like, Every day is a Monday. Monday is still a show, but every day is a show. So it's like, What do we have today? What problems are we going to come and overcome today? Just keep moving forward. You can only control what you can control. And yeah, we make it happen. We have so many moving pieces. It's hard to have a perfect day because it's like there's 20, 30 jobs, 10 phone calls, five sale calls, all of this stuff. It was like nothing's going to be perfect every day. You just got to focus in on the stuff that's good and keep moving on. You can't win everything.

Do you do any roofing sales?

So we do a lot of setting for our customers. So we have 72 different social media accounts that we run and manage. We are not a sales team. We are a lead generation. So I just set it and be like, Oh, you have problems with your roof? Because I'm logged in as them. I'm like, Hey, that's crazy that you have that roof leak. I need someone to get out there immediately. We do a free tarping service. What's a good number to call you at? They send me their Remember, I send that to the company or the CEO and go, Hey, this guy's ready. He has a roof leak. He needs you guys to go take care of them. That's where I hand the ball off. I'm not a sales team. I don't close sales. We're not paid off of commission. We are a lead generation company. I just generate leads, and you got to do what you do.

How do you get paid from that if you generate the leads for customers or for clients?

Yes, so they're on subscriptions. We build them a subscription-based model where it's like, Hey, you're going to pay X amount of dollars. We're going to plan your content. We're going to show up at job sites and record your content. We're going to edit that content, and we're going to post it. Where we really, really thrive is after the posting, we find your ideal customers. If you're like, Hey, we did this job in the Pacons. In Arizona, the Pacons is a super nice neighborhood. Average house price is like 3. 5 million plus. So very good neighborhood gated, a great spot to live. Well, also everyone in that community has quite a bit of money. Well, Instagram will let you geo-locate. So not only can you post that you're in that neighborhood working on a roof, but it's going to show all the people in the area. So it's like we use the geo-location as a post, and then we go find the park that all the moms take their kids to, and we follow all the moms like, Hey, did you know this house has problems? It's 20 years old. Actually, all of your houses are 20 years old.

Roofs out here only last for 20 years. So for you guys, I want to offer you a complimentary inspection so you can sleep safe at night knowing when this storm hits us tonight, you're not going to wake up in a puddle. What does the mom do? How much is it? Oh, it's free. We'll come out and do it right now. We're already in the neighborhood. We're down the street. You can see your truck's outside. So they walk over there and be like, Hey, I just saw your Instagram video. Can you come give me a quote? I was like, How do you sell roofs? You got to climb on them and write quotes. So it's like, boom, immediately generation. And for these houses, we're talking about $50,000 plus roofs. So it's not just a little tiny patch job. So that's where our company thrives, is ROI. That's our big thing when we're planning content, we're recording it, we're posting it, it's how do we get the business ROI?

It's crazy. I remember our conversation that we had Yesterday, I was just fascinated to figure out that even when you were doing the lead generation thing, when you focus on those multiple accounts, you're actually targeting actual people rather than having these larger numbers and massive amount of followings and millions, where some could be ghosts, some could be different country, could be in Iran. It doesn't really... It's very irrelevant where you're actually focusing and targeting jurisdiction, which is so important, especially with leads, because you're targeting the actual market. That could be more important. Can you talk about when did you start this, the lead generation?

I started about four years ago. I was a solopreneur, and I met a guy on Craigslist, and now he's my business coach. But he's like, Hey, I'm in business coaching. I'm doing an open house. I want a hype video. Cool. I I can do that. Here's some examples of me doing it before. Sent him. He's like, Looks great. How much do I owe you for the day to come out? And I was like, honestly, I'll do it for free. I've never heard of business coaching, and I think it's a pyramid scam because I've never heard of that. So don't pay me because I don't want to be obligated to stay in the room if I'm just getting weird vibes. I'm going to grab my shit and I'm going to bounce. So he was like, it's free, even better. So I show up and there's 30 guys in the room and I go up to a real estate and I'm like, hey, is this real? Is this just some pyramid scheme type stuff? And he's like, well, I've only been with them for a year. I was like, okay, well, what did you last year? He's like, oh, I sold three houses last year.

I was like, well, what did you sell this year? And he's like, I'm like, 37. We're only halfway through the year. I was like, you went from three houses a year to 37 in six months. How? The shit he taught me. So I go over to a roofing company. I was like, hey, does this stuff work? And he's like, well, I've been at 10 million for the past 15 years. I've been stuck at 10 million. And he's like, dude, we did three million last month because of the stuff he taught me that I wasn't doing. I was like, oh, shit. Okay, that's pretty impressive. So I go and start talking to all these people. And everyone gave me this green testimonial of how great this coaching is and how it's transformed their personal life, their business life, and they're just happier overall. So I sit in the corner, set up all my cameras, sit in the corner, and I'm taking all these notes. And one of the assistants came up and she was like, Hey, do you want a booklet? I was like, I would love a booklet. So I get a booklet. I'm following along with him, taking all the notes, doing the cameras stuff.

And then after, he was like... That business coach was like, Hey, what did you think of it? I was like, Dude, I'm so interested. This was very valuable to me. I'm so happy that I'm here. Thank you. And he was like, Well, how's your business doing? I'm a business coach. You're a business owner. At that time, I was a solopreneur. I wouldn't even say I was a business owner. And I was like, Dude, I'm killing it. I'm going to do 60,000 dollars. And he's like, That's amazing. Let's go to my whiteboard. So we go to the whiteboard, we map out everything. And he's like, Oh, dude, your numbers don't make sense. And I was like, I'm at 63,000. I'm on track to do 63. 000 this year. I'm doing great. And he's like, Oh, I thought you meant a month. And I was like, That's impossible. There's no way my company can do 63. 000 dollars a month in social media management. And he flips the whiteboard over, goes like crazy mad scientist, draws everything out. And he's like, you're telling me if you don't do this, don't do this, hire a person here, train someone here, blah, blah, blah.

I have this training that you this subscription, fix your billing, fix your lead gen. You're telling me, is anything I said on there impossible? And my idea, this is a roofer. He's not the smartest guy in the world. Love him to death, but not the smartest guy in the world. And I was like, No, everything you said is completely doable. And he was like, what would the revenue on that be? And I was like, shit, I'd be like 75,000 a month if I did it like that. Wow. And he's like, so why aren't you doing it like that?

How much are we making at that time? Well, 60 a year.

Yeah, I was at 60 a year. Now we're doing 30 on a bad month.

Wow.

So have I done the 60,000 a month yet? No. But I've done 53. That was their best month ever. Wow. So totally made me look at everything different. And what I learned from that was I love my family. I love my friends that I've had, but they were not the right circle for who I wanted to be and where I wanted to grow. It wasn't the group for me. So it was like, when you hang out with your friends, and it was like, it literally happened. I went back home and they're like, Hey, dude, we're having a bonfire tonight. You want to come through? I was like, Dude, I'd love to come through. Hanging out with all my high school buddies. I'm so in. And they're like, could you pitch in 10, 20 bucks for some shitty beer? I was like, No, dude, I'll just go buy some beer and bring it. It's fine. I got you. We're good. $100 of alcohol, I I woke up and I'm like, I'm the guy. Bro, you spend $100 in alcohol for us? I was like, yeah, it's not a big deal. At that time, I'm doing $100,000 plus a year of profit.

Not a big deal at all. Happy to do it, to hang out with my friends. And And I realized the people I was hanging out with were so happy and content with all of them kicking a few bucks together for some horrible beer to sit by a bonfire. In their minds, they're like, you've made it. You're at the cream of the crop. Best of your life. Good for you. Well, then I come to rooms like this and I'm like, oh, you're doing a million a year? That's cute. I do a million a month. I'm like, that lights a fire in me. And I'm like, that? Okay. I'm so interested. Okay, I'm looking at things all wrong. And that's what it came down to. I was the biggest fish in my pond and I had to just get in the ocean. If you're in the room and you're the biggest person, there's a problem. I love being in rooms where I'm the smallest person, the smallest business, the smallest entrepreneur, because it makes me look at everything. The I think I have in my business, I listen to their problems and I'm like, Do that. My problems are nothing compared to that.

And I'm like, Hey, your problem, I can't help you with. You're mind blown there. But this is my problem. And they're like, Oh, dude, that's super simple. Just do boom, boom, boom, and you're fixed and you're good to go. I'm like, Shit.

No, dude, I couldn't agree more. I think that's what they say. If you're the smartest person or you're the biggest fish in your thing, you got to change circles. You have to because you naturally end up becoming accustomed to what you're surrounded by. And I think I also mentioned yesterday, even what Jim Ron says, you're the average of the five people you hang out with. And it's so crazy. The reason I like this mastermind, it was a very engaging one. It wasn't one of those just talk, talk, talk, go God, they'll go to... It was like, you started off, we're all doing push-ups. We started off with those questions, what can we do? What can we do? Another person comes up, spotlight. I'm like, this must have. And I wonder everyone's coming every single week because it's an engaging thing. But not just that, it's a different room because I think I was mentioning all those that are name dropped yesterday and even today that you are on stage with. But just to take it a notch further, when you start hearing all the amounts that everyone's making, you're like, I swear we got the same body.

No, we're human beings. We breathe the same air. It's just somebody managed to crack the code and they're willing to teach. So I'm willing to pay to try and make sure I can be in that room and I can try and get that connection. And just that's what networking is, which even segues to what I'm about to say. Did you always Have a networking mindset, or is that something happened over time after you met that one coach?

No, my mindset... Honestly, everything was so bad. So when I was a solopreneur, it was pure luck that I made 60,000 a year. Pure luck. I think Craigslist was my only source of lead gen, and they were horrible leads. The stuff that I was doing for the price I was doing it, I was racing to the bottom. So there would be multiple jobs, and it would just be like, are you going Like, oh, someone said they do it for $100. I'll do it for 50. Oh, cool, you got the job. And I'm like, okay, cool. There's an hour of planning, two hours of recording, four hours of editing. And I'm like, so I'm paying myself a dollar an hour. Why did I race to the bottom? And that was the problem I had. I was like, I was racing to the bottom for what? There was no profit in it. I was able to barely pay my bills. Now, on the exact opposite, people are like, Dude, this is my budget. I'm like, this is what I'll do for it. And they're like, No, someone's I'm going cheaper. I'm like, Okay. Go with someone cheaper.

But if you want great turnaround time, you want this, you want this, you want this, this is what my agency offers. If you want the best of the best, go with that.

Oh, I thought something was wrong. No, I love that. I think the fact that there was no adjustment, you said the precedent right there. How did you start forming your own lead generation business apart? How did that start about? I'm curious.

I got roast. So what we did is we did that one-on-one, and I pretty much just got told, Dude, you have no lead gen. One source of lead gen is you don't have a company. Why are you not... When you hit the home run out of the park and the customer is like, This was the best thing I remember. Thank you so much. Hey, do you have any friends in the area doing the same thing? One text message. Actually, I have four of them. Can you send me their numbers? Boom. Four leads. That was more than I was getting a month through Craigslist. So There was a lot of things I learned, and how I learned it was I got roaster. I sat in front of a room of 30, 40 business owners, opened my books, opened everything. This is everything I'm doing. This is what I think is working. This is what's not working. What can you guys tell me? I'm the small fish in the room, and they They wasted the hell out of me.

Was that very similar to what is happening today, where it's like, Hey, what can you do better? What can you do?

Was it different? That one was a presentation. So yeah, they got wasted on a five-minute presentation. No, this was like numbers, hard numbers, profit. And I didn't have KPIs. I didn't have a team. I didn't know my closing ratio. I didn't know what lead gen was. I didn't know what I didn't know. Everything I've learned was through YouTube and just trial and error. And you said it earlier, you're the average of five people. But it's how I was taught. The metaphor that got me is like, Hey, if you show up to buy the brand new iPhone and the line is seven hours around the block, do you want to wait in it or do you want to pay $500 and cut the first person in line? I'd pay $500 to be the first person in line. So am I smart enough to get to where I am today? Absolutely. But it would have took me years of failures and errors rather than I just paid to cut the line. I paid to listen to someone else's failures and for them to audit me and be like, You're doing this wrong. Why are you doing it like this?

And I was like, because I don't know what I'm doing. So it's being as a business owner, everything is your responsibility. Trial, error, failure, succession, all of it comes down to you. So it's like, one, you have to that. If you own that everything is your fault, even if your customer is screwed up and like, Well, why wasn't your... Or your employee is screwed up, why didn't you train them better? Yeah, they were stupid and they shouldn't have done that and it should have been common knowledge, but is it an SOP or their onboarding or their training that taught them not to do it. And you're like, no, well, that's your fault. Totally undue. So it was like, I took full responsibility for everything and I've built that out where it's like, I'm the first one to blame myself for everything that goes wrong. Wrong. And it should be me. It's my systems, it's my processes. And I tried to break them. I'm like, how hard can I overload this to see what breaks first? Because once it breaks, I can fix it. But if I don't know what breaks, and I don't know where that weak point is you can't do it.

And I've learned this from one of your guests, too, Tiffany. We help her with her social media, and she's like, the best thing you can do is go on vacation for two weeks and turn your phone off. Come back. You'll know what the problems are real fast. As soon as you're If you're not there, you're going to see who covers down, who picks up the slack, what systems failed, what went wrong. And then you can't fix something you don't know. So overload your system and try to break it. Because what happens is you just come back stronger. And it was like, yeah, it's going to suck. You may lose a customer, whatever. It's not good to break a system. Someone's going to drop the ball or something. But on the back end, you can come back stronger. So that's my thing. It was like, let's fail. Let's fail and fail fast and hard so I can fix it so it never happens again.

One of the things I love the most is you said that you spoke about accountability. You know how many times people jump in something and they're always ready to point the finger, Oh, no, I shouldn't have done sales with this person because the company sucks. Oh, I shouldn't have done this thing, but that thing is I should have went to that area. And then you realize that, Hey, hang on. There are people that are in the exact same boat as you are, but they're finding success. And I don't want to be a hypocrite, but I've also been in those situations where I just blame everything but myself. Accountability is such an important factor, especially when you become an entrepreneur and you want to try and upscale. It just stuck out to me. It's like, Gosh, how many times do people find themselves in this thing where they play the blame game and pointing at every other thing because we are capable of literally achieving anything we want to achieve. We just put our mind to it as well. From our discussions and all the stuff that you've been doing, everything just comes down to how you're structured.

How many times you work out? You work out all the time. You do the small things that just add up. The small stuff eventually add up because my favorite term is consistency. You know what I'm saying? I go from state to state doing what I do. But every time when I keep posting every single day, episodes, and I start seeing new subs, and we do all these different stuff and people engaging. Like, Hey, I've been following you for a while. It's exciting to see that because you may not see the end goal. You're like, Oh, yeah, I've been monetised since my second episode. But it's like, Why am I not making I show speed, okay, side thing. And I'm like, Hang on, these guys have been doing it from at that time. You know what I'm saying? Stop. Comparison is a thief to success. That's all I can... And it's hard for me because I'm like, look at the guests I'm bringing. I'm like, I should be 100K at least. But it's like, listen, success comes in many different ways as well. So Have you ever felt discouraged and say, damn, I've been busting my butt.

I'm doing all this stuff, running all these studios. I should be 1. 2 mil a year. Has that ever discouraged you?

Oh, every day. There's not a day where I'm like, could I have done more? Could I have done better? What could I have done different? You've been here for two days doing podcast. So I was thinking about today. I was like, shit, I don't have the names and numbers. I think I got two of your guests' contact information. They're all local. They obviously like to do podcast. They show up to podcast. You brought me 12 of my ideal customers. What have I done as a business to close this? And I'm like, Shit, I'm going to have to message this guy. I'm going to be like, Hey, buddy, can you send me the names and phone numbers of everybody just so I can... Yeah. And so then we go back to Legion. You brought me 12 ideal customers. All I had to do is send them a text and be like, Dude, I'm so happy that you came to our podcast studio and checked it out. If you thought about doing a podcast or that's something that's just an interest to you, I'll do your first one to free to get you in here and hook you.

And once you're hooked on it, and it was like, then you'll do another one, and then I charge you. And then I put you on subscription. So there's ways to do it. It's just like, discouragement is huge. If you're going to fail, just accept you're going to fail. But you can't let it... You're going to get kicked while you're down, but you have to get up. And it's an everyday thing. Improve yourself. And I wanted to get a tat, too, and I think I'm still going to. It's like one % better every day. I didn't come up with that, but it was like, if you're just one % better every single day, you will succeed. You just have to do it. And that's where I think people give up is like, I posted five times on social media and I didn't get a lead, so I stopped. Cool. I posted 500 times on social media and I got one lead. Talk to after your 500 posts. And I have other people, I post one time on social media, three people reach out. It was great. Cool, good for you. High five. But did you post the next day?

No. I was like, well, did you post the day after that? No. I was like, Post ever? It goes back to the consistency. You're going to lose battles. Welcome to entrepreneurship. It's not for the week. You're either in it or you're out of it. But it's like consistency, accepting defeat, improving yourself. There's so much to it. And that's why I push people to coaching. I love coaching. I have nine different business coaches, some of them being more on the life coach, some of them being harder on the business coach, some of them in the middle. You just have to find that person that speaks to you and helps you get to where you need to be. And I have different coaches for different things. I have some where it's like, I could tell them like, Oh, I did this podcast, this guy, he had 12 guests. It was cool. We made a little bit of money off of it. And they'd be like, But you didn't generate any leads. You suck. And I have other ones that will sugarcoat and be like, Oh, well, you should have thought about this. Could you have done this differently?

I was prior service military. I need that person to slap me in the face with it and be like, You're stupid. You messed up. Fix it. And I was like, That's the coaching that I need. And some people were like, Oh, that's way too intense. I need something nicer. I didn't find a coach that's nicer, but it was like, you have to find that person that speaks to you, motivates you, and can get through. We're all stubborn. There's something that gets through to you, and you just need that person that gets through to you and has done it. And there's too There's so many coaches online right now, in my opinion, that haven't done what they're selling. In theory, do this, this, and this. No, find a coach who's done that. And after you find a coach that's actually done it, hire them as your coach because they've done it. They've been in the trenches. They paid for the losses. They paid a million dollars on ads. It didn't work. They paid 50,000 dollars for a billboard. It didn't work or it did work. Regardless, use their money, pay to cut the line, take their failures, take their wins, and then just implement from what you learn from them.

You know, brother, you're not so It's crazy. Is that everything you're saying, I believe, but sometimes hearing it again is amazing. The reason I share that because you and I have had so many raw convos. I'm so grateful Jason got to connect us because obviously I know what we're going to be doing in the future and the stuff you're going to be training me and my team as well. But it's the fact that doing this right now has just always been so much of hard-earned money, like sales. There's no investor, there's no sponsor. But just this trip of Miami, Vegas, back, blah, blah, all these different stuff. I've had people reach out and say, Listen, have you got a sponsor? Have you got this thing? I had the power guy reach out again. The one I interviewed, he said, Listen, I want to get you on play TV. Let's talk about other stuff as well. I've had people's... You know what I'm saying? It's the fact that it's like, sometimes you put yourself in situations where opportunities are there. And then when I started speaking about that vision, I'm like, How the heck am I going to get...

I don't want to say, obviously, what we're going to be doing, but 200 to 300 of people in a certain industry. And you're like, Hey, listen, I know a few guys have just went there, blah, blah, blah. But it's stuff like it. It's like, oh, my gosh. Sometimes just opening up and letting people know because we're all in this thing where we want to win together. And nothing as good as winning as bringing people together. But one of the One of the things I like about winning is people like you that see the vision and also see the opportunity rather than trying to just scan people. And that's a hard... That's why people are so afraid of coaching because people want to try and teach something that they're not living. And I'm the same way, man. Just say it direct to me like, Hey, KGB, this is not good. Do that thing rather than try and get you spend over close to 100K from your sales money or this amount of money from that side hustle. Try and work efficiently because YouTube is not going to pay you 100K when you're only on 40K subs.

So stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it starts with that one % better consistency and just doing it over and over again. Because unless I've done over 100 episodes, I haven't. I've already had people potentially reach out as well. There's many things that just do what you want to do. I've seen when you're there, yesterday, when we were watching you and Jason walk and then coming here. I think we saw you do three workouts yesterday. I think we were talking about your story as well. But it's the habits, you know what I'm saying? The habits that get instilled in your head and then it gets you moving as well, which segues to what I want to talk about right now. Yes, you did that. What was the hardest part or the hardest part of being an entrepreneur?

Oh, my gosh. I know exactly. The hardest thing I did was hire an assistant. I was making around $500 a week, and my assistant cost me $500 a week. So go from a small business, all of your money paid to one person to do the back-end stuff. So week one, I trained her. Week two, I trained her. Week three, she started. Week four, I tripled the size of my business because I took so many my new easy tasks that were just time-consuming off of my plate and paid someone else to do it. So I went from making $500 a week, and then a month, I made nothing because I paid everything to her. And then that next month, I tripled my business. Two weeks after that, I five-dexed my business. I was like, mind you, my business wasn't huge, so it was easier to do. But I went from $500 a week to four grand a week with one higher of doing the my new back-end stuff. So it's so hard as a business, you put all your heart and your energy into building this business and it's your baby. But eventually, you have to pass parts to give it away to actually grow it to a business.

I still don't think I have a business because I can't leave for a month. Someone told me, If you have a business, you can churn your phone off for a month and just disappear. Go on vacation, go to Mexico, do whatever. Churn your phone off for a month and come back. Do you have a business or do you have a ton of ashes that are burnt down? I have a ton of ashes that are burnt down. It would burn down so fast. Maybe not that fast, but I would like to think it wouldn't. But I know we would have anything declined. We would have lost customers. Revenue would have gone down without me here. I don't have a business yet. I'm still an overpaid employee working in my business. I have a business when I can just disappear and I know that I'm going to generate leads, I'm going to close leads, I'm going to have new customers, and everything's going to improve. So I was like, I still don't think I have a business. I'm just an overpaid employee.

Which goes back to that cash flow quadrant. You know the Robert, you see a thing of E for employee, S for small business, and then there's B and I. You said you want to be in the right-hand side, B and I, big business and investor. It's like the big business you can for months, but because of the structure and also the systems that are in place, it's easy for the company to end up generating and moving. And I did an internship in A/B, a Bloomberg company. He was hardly there. The guy would leave for months, and he's in the UK, he comes back. But because there's CEO, there's border directors, there's this and there's that, then there's people taking care of interns, it's a freaking story building of all these floors and stuff. But it's like-It's almost sometimes better that they are gone.

It grows more without you and their micromanaging people. And that's where I want to get where it's like, oh, it's better. I have some of our clients that are like, Will you send so and so? They're just better than you. I know. That's why I hired them, because they're better than me. That's why I send them. I'm so happy you want them to do it because I don't want to do it. I'm trying to do bigger tasks. So they'll be there every week on Monday to record for you. Not a problem.

Yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. And that's one thing I do, a collaboration. There's so much in this world where there's so much ego. And I tell you, man, every time I see people with ego, you only can go so far before it all comes crumbling down. And I think we spoke about the crap that's been happening with some of the leaders in there and their teams falling apart and this thing and that thing. But I always reach out. I'm like, listen, I'm willing to... And I'm willing to not just reach out and try and scabble people. I'm reaching out saying, listen, I need this thing from the... How important is collaboration and networking, working together.

Networking is everything. You're only... What was it? Your networth is your network. I heard that and I was like, does that really make sense? And I sat down and thought about it. I'm like, yeah, dude, my network of people are so powerful. And I have people all the time like, Hey, I need this. Do call this guy. He's my AC guy. He'll take care of you. Just tell him you're with me. Oh, your roof's bad? Oh, dude, call this guy. Oh, that guy's busy. He can't get out soon enough. Call this guy. I have a roster of every blue collar business that are the best in their industry, first off, and that they would jump through hoops because they knew they would do it back for me. I have it sometimes. Whatever reason right now, we've had a lot of people die, and it was like, Hey, dude, so and so's brother just died. Cool. Reach out to them. I want to do the Memorial video. Oh, well, they're a little struggling with, no, I don't want money for it. That network and keeping that network so close and just taking care of people will go so much farther in your business than paid ads or anything else.

And that's where people like, if you have an ego, I just don't mess with you in the first place. It was like, if you have an ego and we see it, it's the hardest thing for me to hire videographers because they all have an ego. They're all the best videographer. And I was like, well, I don't care if you're the best. I want it done this way. Well, I went to film school, a prestigious film school. And no, you want to do it like this. And I was like, well, my customer wants a social media video and they don't want to pay $20,000 for a 30-second video. So do it not to your standard. No, I refuse to do that. Well, cool. Then you don't work for me. And then we'd look back about some of the overpriced people and I was like, wait, so you did $25,000 in work last year? That's cute. I've done that in a month. And they're like, oh, aren't you cool? I'm like, no, I'm just saying your ego is stopping you from all of this. So it's super tricky in my industry to find badass employees that don't have an ego.

And I have to get them to buy in on the culture. And that's so hard as a business owner. I think people miss that. Like your culture needs to be strong enough where people want to come to work. They're happy to come to work. And we talked a little bit off camera about how I break it down. I have my videographers and I have my editors. My editors love to stay at home and just edit. They're not people people. They like to just sit at the computer and play on their keyboard all day. And then I have my super creative people that are like, they need that interaction and they hate going and locking themselves in a box to edit. And I'm like, why don't I split it? Like, yeah, it's It's expensive. I have to double my payroll. But I was like, you guys go be creative, go out in the field and go make awesome content. Then upload it to the Google Drive and then this person is going to download it and edit it. And I was like, now as a consumer, Our turnaround time is amazing because it's like, this person was so high energy.

They came out there, they made us awesome videos. They went home that night, uploaded it. 3: 00 AM, our guy woke up, clicked Download. 6: 00 AM, he woke back up and he's editing. Like, noon, all your videos are done. And you're like, Dude, we finished less than 12 hours ago. I just got on the flight, just got home, and I open it and it's like, Click on the link, all of our videos are done. I was like, Well, how do we do that? Because we build an agency. So you have to motivate people to do what they like, and you have to know what they like. I sold this from Natalie Dawson, like PPFs, personal, professional, and financial goals. If you don't know your employee's goals and you're not helping them achieve those goals, you're not the business for them. They'll leave you for money. So it's like, how do you motivate your employees where they're untouchable and unrecruitable. There's always going to be a dollar amount or whatever, but ideally, there's not a dollar amount. You pay them good. You've met all of their goals. They're hitting their life goals. They're hitting their family goals.

They're hitting their personal goals. They're hitting everything they want to do with their life. Why would they leave the company? No, they're happy. And that's where I think people go wrong is you forget. Your employees aren't workhorses. I have some workhorses, but it was like, what are their goals at the end of the day and what motivates them? And then how do I help them motivate? One of my assistants right now is on vacation. I still sent her her paycheck, and she's salary. She's not salary, she's based off of the account she post for. So I was like, I still sent her her check full, and she's at Disneyland with her family. And she's like, Hey, I don't think you meant to send this to me. And be like, No, I absolutely did. You bust your ass while you're here. You took a week-long break, and I'm so happy for you that you get to go to Disneyland with your family. But I know what I'd pay you is of your play money, and you guys are out playing right now. So I want you to still have a good time with your family and kids.

That's nice. So it was like, Go to her right now while she's on vacation. Be like, Hey, come work for me. I'll pay you more. My boss just paid me, and I didn't do anything all week. And sent me a text saying, Hey, good for you. Have fun with your children.

Dude, at the end of the day, people are people. Yeah. I just like it so much because if you start treating people like people, I think that's where things start working super well. And I think that's where we're I'm not going to name drop because I have no beef against other people and the stuff that's been happening, especially in the Fountain Hills area.

Cool. Now we're going.

But my point is, if you just Because people will... If they buy into the idea, it's also if they see the vision, but if their vision also aligns with their goals and by understanding their goals. And I think that's one of the things I like the most. And that's why I'm like, Listen, I just sensed something good about you. I'm like, I'm going to fly you out of Salt Lake, and I'm going to take notes like everyone else as much as, Yes, they're going to be in my team. I'm going to recruit them. I need to know what the expectation is, and I'm willing to learn as well, because one of the things I liked a lot about Jason, he was in the trenches. He's selling, he's out there on the roofs and stuff like that. And you always in and about, you're involved, you've taken calls, seeing how that studio is doing, how that studio, what's the goals for this thing, KPIs, all these different stuff. It's all a process. And the minute you take your foot off the gas, and you stop becoming complacent. I think that's when everything falls apart. Complacency is also another dangerous attribute as well.

So how do you continue to stay motivated yourself?

Being the smallest person in the room. I refuse to be the biggest person in the room. It's just not going to help me grow. I'm very open-minded. As nice as possible, I lose a lot of money by trying marketing things. Like, Oh, dude, so and so said they did this and it worked really good. Cool, let's do it. Hook me up with their person. Oh, it didn't work for us. It was great for blue collar, not good for tech company. Well, I tried. But it was like, once you're complacent and you're like, I'm not willing to grow, I'm not going to integrate AI in my company, your business is going up or down. As soon as you stop willing to grow and take notes and improve yourself, you're going down. And that's where I'm still... My business is only three years old. We're thriving. I feel like we're dominating. You go to a Facebook group for Arizona, they're like, I need a videographer. I have 60 comments, 30 of them are me. And they tag me personally, and I've never even worked with them. But it's like, we've built that team in that culture where it's like, no, these are the guys you want to use.

Are they going to be a little bit more expensive? Yeah. They're reasonable with their prices. They're not going to give you this crazy quote. And that's why I hate giving people quotes because I'm like, what do you want? Oh, I just want you to record. Do you want editing? No, I just want one 20 minute long video. Very basic. I'm like, then I'm not going to quote you 10 grand. It doesn't cost me 10 grand. And it's like we built that team where we can reasonable with our prices. We do a ton of work. We have fast turnaround times, and everyone's happy. So just keep growing. As soon as you're complacent, it's over. Be a small person in the room, be open minded, take notes from the best. And If you feel like you are the best, then you either have an ego about you or you're just in the wrong rooms.

Love that. The reason I've been looking at the time, I know you guys have to go somewhere right now, and I really respect and I appreciate the time that you've taken to jump on this podcast, and we open up and discuss and so forth as well. I'm excited to come back here. By the way, this is his studio right here. So the great hospitality that's been given here in Arizona, it's been amazing to be able to bring the guests all last minute, and we ended up managing to pull 12 out. It's another thing I have a passion for as well. So now, Dakota, in your opinion, like I said, I've always asked all my guests this thing because it is the coach winning at the end of the day. What does the term winning mean for you?

Winning, I think, is that freedom where I can just leave. My dad's going to retire 10 years tops, but he's aiming for seven years. I was like, I want to sell my business in seven years the same time he retires, where it's like, money is not an issue. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? So I was like, I'm racing my dad to retirement. I won't retire. Ideally, I'll sell my business the same time he retires. We'll have plenty of fun money for a year or two to travel and do our thing, and then I'll probably start another business or do... I have too much ADHD. I have to do something. But yeah, so winning for me is being able to achieve that, like race my dad to retirement. And then when I retire, just be able to money not be an issue. Or even if I don't sell in seven years being able to be like, Dude, I'm going to go hang out with my dad for the next six months. My board, everything, the company is going up or down without me. All the systems are in place.

Everything is going to run smoothly. I'm going to come back. Let's say I left with a $5 million company, and I'm at least going to come back in six months and we're doing 5. 5 million. It has to increase without me. And that's what's winning for me is if you have a real business where you're not an overpaid employee, your business can thrive, and honestly, sometimes it thrives better with you when you're not there. That's what winning is.

Powerful. If you could let our viewers know where they could get a hold of you, if they want to try and jump, rent a studio out in Arizona, videograph, all that different stuff. Can you let people know where they can get a hold of you?

Yeah, you're a media guy. Any social media platform, you're a media guy. That's what everyone called me. So that's what we just went with. And it was like, yeah, you're a media guy. Any social media platform, send us a DM. Or if you just follow us, you're going to get a DM from us anyway. So that's how you do it.

Awesome stuff. The co-twinning insights you need today to see us the world tomorrow, Dakota. Thank you very much, brother.

Yeah, no problem. Awesome stuff. Appreciate it.