Episode | 95 Josh Elledge | Military Millionaire Podcast

00:00 - 05:00

David:

What's new with you?

Alex:

Lots.

David:

Yes.

Alex:

By the time this is done, I don't know if it'll be released. But I have seven of my 12 episodes that I'm now officially I can say it on here, I guess because I'll be recorded. But I sent a video in for BP a few weeks ago that I made about a local investor and tried my hardest just to see if I could make something cool. They freaked out. They loved it. And I'm making 12 of them. And we're hoping to release them right before BP con.

So I record sugar.

It's not official in Maya, the official in Maya. It's not official yet. I have to get all 12 of them done, but I have seven recorded. I have one demo record tomorrow. I have two that I record on Thursday. That'll put me at 10. And then I'll do Roderick, that's 11. And then I think I might do Dan kid or I might, I gotta get some more. I gotta get another female to morph in. So I'm recording probably I As a final recording 13 or 14 and only released in 12, but um it's gone incredibly well. And it's gone incredibly well.

David:

Yeah, they've been, they've been good from what I have not seen because it's not official.

But yeah. Ah, yeah, that's awesome dude.

Alex:

And my flip closed $68,000, honestly, on a $70,000 all in cost.

David:

Yeah, it's pretty fucking sweet. Hell yeah, that's good. You know, I closed on my duplex next Monday. And, oh, I didn't tell you but, but actually, I did tell you. Okay, anyway, so the only other thing that's new with me is I finally got my first referral check from a real estate agent. And it was more than I thought it was going to be after taxes and broker fees came out so that's why it was you who see that I went and splurged on this camera I'd been talking about for like two months. I was talking myself out of it because the one I had was effective but then I made about as much as this camera cost me more than I was expecting and I was like yep, that's it sign from the heavens that it is. I wanted to upgrade. I just needed an excuse. So...

Alex:

The EOS R Yeah, who teaches you how to use it?

David:

Yeah, you and YouTube I'm going to be as part of my journal today is sit down and just YouTube through some tutorial stuff and pick people's brains I just need to get it right now I just need to get it set up just decent enough to do a video and then from there, I can pull it down and figure out the webcam piece and everything else.

Alex:

Yeah, the only cam link although canon just released a new piece of firmware that might let you do it without it but I don't know.

It depends what kind of machine you have. I think I don't know I don't know how good that's gonna be. But um, but I'll teach you how to do it because I've set mine up now in the EOS R with the as you can see, there's no display. Because that's Yeah, you gotta you gotta mess with the settings a little bit. Otherwise you'll get some of the, you know, the rounded get like..

Oh, can I?

David:

Oh, I saw ya on the bottom where it's all the, like the actual display from the camera.Yeah,

Alex:

Yeah, yeah. I don't want to do it.

David:

All right. Well, he just jumped into the chat. So real quick. I don't know, do you know, you know Josh Elledge Right?

Alex:

We've had a fin con actually. I haven't talked to him only a little bit since I'm excited to talk to him. Yeah, he's an impressive fella.

David:

Yeah, so this is gonna be fun. So this is not real estate, but he's built a pretty solid business and helped me build mine. So for those of you who use cameras, for those of you who like the angry marine rants, that's all him. So him telling me that my persona sucked. So Alright, we're letting me help. Yeah, you help too. But he was the one who first sat me down. I was like, dude, you're a marine. And you're nice. It's conflicting. Be an asshole on YouTube. I was like, Oh, okay. And then that video did very well. So..

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05:00 - 10:00

David:

Hey, what's up military millionaires. I'm your host David Ray with my co host Alex felice, and today, we get to bring you a really cool episode. This is Josh Elledge. He is a Navy veteran and serial entrepreneur. He's built a lot of businesses but the first one that went fairly large was savings Angel he did very very well with that. And now he's the founder and CEO of upmyinfluence.com, which I have personally used to design my press media kit, and redesign my LinkedIn and change my LinkedIn profile and he's really helped me out with my business. In fact, as you may have heard in the intro, he's the man, the myth, the legend behind the angry marine rants. So if you like the videos, this was all his idea. So Josh, welcome to the show.

Josh:

David, thank you so much.

David:

Why don't you just give a little backstory to the audience about really just your story?

Josh:

Yeah, so straight out of high school, we had a recruiter come into my journalism class. And he brought with him a guy that graduated from our high school a couple years back a few years back. And he was now a photographer, photographer in the Navy. And, you know, he's like, man, this is awesome. And I'm just like, two years out of like, high school. Here. I like hanging out of helicopters and shooting video and shooting photos and stuff. And it is life and like me and a buddy, we are just like, oh, you know, it's like, you know, just like, oh my gosh, that would be so incredible. And you know, and it was kind of funny because he was like, man, you don't want to go to college right now go out and do stuff if you want to make it make it big in journalism, and it's actually not bad advice.

You know, on the job training is in my opinion. Way more valuable for anyone that's interested in a career in journalism. You know, it's so funny, you know, because we hire journalism grads or PR grads today. And I can tell you exactly what employers are looking for. They kind of don't care how you did in your midterm in your junior year, they really don't care at all. What they want to know is how many followers do you have? Let's take a look at your social media accounts. What kind of stuff are you producing right now that they care way more about? What are you doing? So you know, for me, my buddy ended up not getting in and but I did, and so went to boot camp, and then went to a year of journalism school at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, just outside of Indianapolis. It's like another like a couple of bases. I've been to decom since then.

But you know, it's a great experience. And you know, one moment that I had you remember the movie Good Morning Vietnam, right? With Robin Williams. Yeah. So I met Adrian Cronauer and not as funny, very outspoken. And you know, I had a really great moment. I remember, you know, I'll never forget the one thing that he shared to our audience to the class, aside from making some, some pretty inappropriate comments to hasit to a particular attendee. He's like, what are they gonna do to me, I'm a civilian, you know. But, you know, he really was an advocate for serving your audience and putting the needs of your audience first, above all else, even the chain of command is, ultimately they are at the top of the chain of your command. And that's who you have an obligation to serve. And so, you know, one rule that I've tried to live by in business is try to serve audiences with no conditions with no ulterior motives, ulterior motives.

You know, I'm not trying to rope someone into buying my thing or I'm not trying to get them to join my thing, you know, whatever that thing is, which unfortunately, there are far too many people out there, that that's what they do. And so it ends up giving marketers a bad name. And so therefore, we are in the midst. And again, I've been studying leading consumer behavior for 13 years, we are in the marketing apocalypse.

It's because consumers today have never been more jaded. They've never been more skeptical. They've never been more resistant to being sold to. So we just, you know, do everything in our power to avoid commercials being sold to ads. If we feel like we're in some kind of funnel. Now, it just people just like this, it feels icky. So what rules today, what rules today is authenticity. What rules today is, is giving first without the expectation of return. And so if you're in business for yourself, you're not doing this and you're wondering why you're stagnating in business, you might take a look at What your opinion of audiences is, if you think that audiences are just there to manipulate trick and upsell, and tripwire and all this other nonsense, okay, that could be a clue people know what you're doing, you need to start treating audiences like they're just as smart as you and probably smarter. And so you can't, you just can't get away with the old used car sales techniques anymore.

You just need to be authentic Give, give as much value as you possibly can. And just trust that audiences know how to find you know what to do. So while we've been having this conversation, assuming that my name is spelled right on the, on the show description, or whatever people have, a lot of people have already googled me, and I know that and so we'll talk about what you do when you know that audiences know how to use Google and know how to find you in today's age.

10:00 - 15:00

David:

That's awesome. I love that advice. And I'm just gonna touch on the fact but I love where you said that they care about how many followers you have. And what you're doing is, I have noticed that I get spammed and I call it spam, because that's what it feels like, by people at least once a week saying, hey, I'll help you grow your following. I hope you do this. I hope you do that. And the first thing I always look at is their profile. They're always like, Oh, well, I helped manage all these accounts.

And I'm like, well, that's great. Like, you could manage an account with 100,000 followers, but you have 900. And like, not to say that they aren't capable, but why am I even going to give somebody a shot if they can't build their own platform? And that's from just a consumer standpoint for like, looking for someone to help me I'm not looking to hire them per se. But I guess it kind of would be but so I think that's I think that's great advice that go out there and do it.

Josh:

It really is. And so, you know, we have to understand that you know, everything is fair game today. So your internet presence is very much like your internet dating profile. And you know, you could talk a good game with you in the chat, I mean, I don't have been haven't done any internet dating in a long time.

I've been married for 24 years, I'll be married 25 years at the end of this year. But, you know, again, you wouldn't talk a good game in, you know, chatting someone up, and then they look at your dating profile and you're like, yeah, this dude is a major loser. Right? And, and it's not that you're a major loser. It's that your dating profile just looks really bad. And it looks sketchy. It's just you gotta spend some time on this stuff. And is, is in some ways, it's superficial. Yeah, it's pretty superficial, you know, having a LinkedIn profile and your LinkedIn profile being a representative of your value or your you know, you kind of your worth. Yeah, that's extremely superficial.

But it's how we all do business today. Before you do business with anyone, you're going to check them out. And so you know, if you know all the moves on the chessboard, you may as well, you know, play a few moves ahead and just know that, okay, if audiences are going to take a look at my website, I better take a look at my website, if audiences are going to judge me based on what's in my email signature, I better look at what's in my email signature. And I'm not saying it needs to be, you know, like Mozart, it doesn't have to be perfect. So don't don't get paralysis analysis on this. But you do need to be mindful of what other people are looking at, you know, if you are a speaker, and you charge $100,000 per speaking engagement, what would you imagine, your speaking website would look like?

They would probably look amazing, the speaker reels and the testimonials and you know, the video and the you know, everything that the speaker kit, it's going to be locked down. I mean, if you're someone who's at that level, professionally, and so that would be one thing. If on the other hand, you're a speaker, that is just I don't know, you're just doing some free workshops here and there, okay.

And you kind of envisioned your mind, what would that speaker's website look like? Okay? You kind of get an idea. So people are going to say, okay, if you just ask $10,000 for the speaking engagement, I'm going to look at your website and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to look at your poker tells. I'm like, do you look like someone who gets paid $10,000 to speak? And if not, you know, I'm, you know, it's not that I won't hire you, but you kind of got some red flags going up.

Alex:

Hey, Josh, I love that you spoke about authenticity because I personally, I kind of hate marketing as an industry for the exact same reasons that you said. And I think a lot of people think they put up with it even more than me, even though I think you're right. A lot of people don't like it. They don't like shallow sales. Right? And they don't like being hey, look, you don't really care about me. You just want me to like your thing. That's all you really care about.

Josh:

Exactly.

15:00 - 20:00

Alex:

I just wrote a rant about this on Facebook this morning, actually. And so I feel like my message in my content is very authentic. But I have no followers. What's the blend, the balance between like, Look, you have to go out and you have to try to effectively spread your message while still being authentic.

Josh:

Mm mmhmm. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you Alex, like the, the reality is that people will come to you for your leadership and your attractive character. They will, your wisdom, your experience, you know, does it seem like this is someone who can make my life better? What can I learn from them, but they will stay for the sense of community and they will stay for your imperfections and they will stay for, Yeah, right. Right. So yeah, so now you again, I recommend you still have to be prolific.

I mean, you still have to produce as much content as you can. And eventually, you know, again, it's in at the beginning. It's very much that you know, that that curve, it's not linear. I mean, it is exponential, it's a grind to get it going. It really is. And, and so to anybody else who's like, you know, you're just kind of at the early stages of getting that audience going, I listen, I'm with you, but you just got to get, you got to break out of that first kind of six to 12 months. And if you keep at it, like if you're on YouTube, we see this consistently with YouTubers, you know, if you can produce three or more videos a week, and you can do that for four months, chances are, you're going to start building a following. Even if you're not that great, you just will and you'll get better at it by doing it.

It's the reality. And so, you know, same thing with podcasts. Now, today, there are a lot more podcasts than there were like seven years ago when I first started. So it's a little noisier just because there's so much inventory to choose from now, yes, there's more listeners. But it's just a no, it's a much more noisy market.

So, you know, but again, it's you just got to something, stay with it, make sure that you're certain you're truly serving an audience, you've got something that makes you memorable. You know, David, when you and I chatted, you know about your, your persona, your persona really matters. People love to be able to say, that's the guy or that's the gal that dot dot, dot, dot, dot, and you're really, really memorable. And you really lean into that personality. So if you see, I've been on TV now more than a 100 times, and if you see me do a consumer segment, there's absolutely a personality. I mean, it's my authentic personality. Like I really geek out on some things. And I'm not afraid to show people you know, what kind of, you know what kind of a nerd I am when it comes to, for example, saving money and kind of knowing how to like life hack everything and and so that's my persona on TV. And like I said, I really lean into it. And so therefore, you know, especially like in our heyday was saving Angel you I was known as kind of this coupon king kind of guy, like, you know, and it was just like, I love figuring out how to work the system. And do so ethically.

That was my persona. And so journalists knew me as that. And they always called me in. So what you don't want to do is you don't want to be in the mushy middle with your message, you kind of want to be, I'd say not at 90 a 100% because you don't want to be on the lunatic fringe, but you want to be at like, 80% like, you want to be like, okay, you know, this, this gal really stands for something, and I want to be a part of that.

But that generally is really, really helpful when it's, you're kind of coming up with, you know, your who, what, when, where, why, you know, who I am mission, purpose values, all that sort of thing, but, but definitely lean into being memorable. And so that's why David, you know, and I'm like, Dude, why aren't you really doing that? Like Marine Corps drill sergeant, blah, blah, blah, you know, getting in people's faces, it fits. You got the mustache for it, you may as well. So..

David:

Love it. All right. I just want to real quickly, I think we skipped over this and you got a great business idea there Josh. I don't know why you're not helping people do some dating profile coaching and consulting, guaranteed to you know, 25 years of marriage, guaranteed. You do some critiquing, I don't know if you want to pivot. But..

Josh:

You know, I actually went to college for family therapy. That's that was my undergrad and ended up doing so much internet development or internet development for the professor's back then, like I maxed out and research credit and internship credit, that actually that's I I basically didn't even finish my I mean, I guess technically I got my bachelor's but i don't i don't know maybe. I ended up getting a job in internet development. And so I missed out on my lifelong dream of being a love doctor on the radio, that's what I wanted to be all throughout when I was in the Navy.

20:00 - 25:00

David:

That's pretty funny. All right, so Oh, sorry.

Alex:

So let me kind of some...I've been stewing on over the last few weeks. I'm kind of out there. But I'm curious what you think about it. The Tonight show, the daily show the night, the, you know, the talk shows, they all during COVID-19 they all went to their houses. And I thought to myself, um, and I could be very wrong. But to me, it seems like that's the kiss of death for that type of medium. Because what you've done is you've democ you've taken all the production out, and you've just democratized personalities.

And so Trevor now has a good personality. But there's 350 million Americans, and a lot of them have a good personality. And now, even a dingaling like me, right with a nice camera and a high speed internet connection, which doesn't cost that much. Right? We're essentially production quality equal. Now he's got a writer's room and jokes, but there are plenty of people that don't Don't go toe to toe with him for a fraction of the cost.

Josh:

I know it. Yeah.

Alex:

And so I look at that, and I say, you guys have just taken away your, the audience was the weapon. That's the one thing you had right took that away. And you did it instantly. Because you think they thought, you know, we need to continue to produce content. But my thinking now is, I believe there. I look at him like, anybody now, anybody could do it. Yeah. Do you? Do you think that that's..

Josh:

Yeah, that's, that's a really interesting point. And something that I actually posted about this a few weeks ago about, you know, this, you know, kind of celebrity culture is like, some of this stuff has been that, you know, quote unquote, celebrities have been doing it, you know, it hasn't really been landing very well. And, you know, when they don't have access to the writers, I mean, it definitely takes a team to produce a lot of what you see. And then there's also it's kind of interesting, right? It's like when you go to Disney, so I live in Orlando. When you go to Disney World, the food there tastes better. Then it actually is because you're at Disney World because there's this oh my gosh.

Alex:

The cost three times as much.

Josh:

Yeah, right and so you forget about all of that. You know in reality at Disney World, the joke is that they know, they put all the food through the flavor riser before they put it out on the table so it doesn't offend anybody.

And so we go to Disney a lot and listen, it's the ambiance that's what you're paying for. You're at Disney reality in my opinion, if you know, there's some exceptions to this, but just now why am I talking about this? Well, when we see someone on TV, there's also this oh, there's a laugh track. There's a live audience and there's a high production value. It's better than it actually is. So when you watch like, you know, I've even liked Saturday night live from home the first one was actually really good. Second one is okay. But you know, when they remove the laugh track, it's like listen and you live and die based on your performance alone. And some people are just excellent performers, you know, at that sort of thing.

And, you know, having studied improv comedy for a year, I mean, I know how much you know how important that is delivery and, you know, connection with that audience is just so critical. And yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, I think that right now, this is I think the world fast forwarded about three to five years over the past couple months. And I think that everyone is now seeing, you know, kind of a little emperor has no clothes but it's like, you know, look at you know, the quality here with my favorite YouTubers, it's just as good as that.

Again, it's, it's its authority through association. And this gets into Well, why do you still do media, even though reality the audience on you know, someone you know, my local Fox 35 in Orlando, it might be 10,000 people watching at any one time, the audiences are really not that big compared to a lot of social media audiences. But we do. Why does, you know, why the big fortune 500 companies still put those media logos and Tony Robbins, you know, has an enormous audience online. But why does he put a clip of himself on CNBC is because most people overvalue the visibility of the media and they undervalue the authority that you get.

So when you do have that associated association with NBC or something, whatever, like sci fi channel, whatever you're doing, right? It's, you do that because it's validation. And so we look at traditional media as somehow being bigger than those of us just kind of sitting around at the nerd table. So when you share a media win with your audience, you're not doing it because you're bragging about, hey, look at me, I'm so wonderful. You're doing it because it validates the tribe. It validates what we're doing and It's kind of like that third party documentation beats conversation any day of the week.

So if I can show you a, you know, a clip of me speaking for the Tony Robbins organization online, you'd like your opinion of Josh just went up a little bit. I hope maybe unless you don't like Tony Robbins. But I, you know, I will commonly let people know, now I signed a contract that I'm not allowed to promote it, like on my front page. I wish I cried. But, you know, it's that sort of thing.

25:00 - 30:00

David:

I agree with you on a lot of that. And I must say that I watched a few of the SNL clips from home. And there was one because improv like, feed off like you said, You feed off everyone. I can't imagine trying to do that.

Josh:

I got fed off the crowd, too. Oh..

David:

So at the very end of the clip, it was Pete Davidson in his basement and they were doing anyway at the very last 10 seconds. He just goes, oh, man, that's hard without an audience and then it cut. And I was like, see, like, and that was the best part to me because I was just like, yes, like I I could feel it and I was just It was just cool to me to see that I haven't watched any more of it. But I was like, Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm glad he, like, authentic. And then there was one where Brad Pitt, like took off the, you know, at the end and yeah said like, hey, you know we appreciate this so like they've tried to add in the authenticity of it but yeah, it's it's definitely been strange watching and thinking like men, that's exactly what I do.

Josh:

Actors who do stage and then go to film. Many of them will go back to stage because it's just, it's hard to do what you do without that instant feedback. It's really addictive.

You know, I have liked it as I only did improv for one year and you know, I was a play in high school. So I'm not speaking as an actor by any means. Like, I'm such a hack on that. But, you know, having done that for a year, I'm like, Okay, I got it. Like, oh, I've done a lot of public speaking. And I love that. I mean, that's like so fun to be able to do that. But yeah, yeah there's you know that it's it's its immediacy is what what it is that we're after, you know, it's why is a live video engaging with someone on zoom for example, more powerful than a synchronous video it's because you have immediacy, you have the feedback of people engaging with you in real time and so, you know, when you think about sales, it's really important that you try to do all you can to increase time together make it insanely easy for people to spend time with you.

And the higher touch you can make it the better so if you can spend you know if you can get someone to spend a few hours with you live video, I mean live in person is the best of all, but then, you know, live video I'd say would be you know, second, you know, you know, then there would be maybe like a one to many live video might be in where you can kind of ask questions, there's still some feeling of immediacy, but then a synchronous video you know where I record a video and I'm talking directly to you and I send it like I do that like if you're in if you know my systems like even if nothing else you want to see and learn like what I've learned about what works today with consumers, just engage with me somehow someway add up my influence of upmyinfluence.com so you can see how we use video for everything short, short video, what says..

David:

It didn't come through but I've gotten several emails that look like this. And it's Josh saying, like, hey, Dave, and then personalized video for you.,

Josh:

I got so I got my little whiteboard and I began every video waving my hand on the whiteboard with your name on it.

David:

Yeah, I love it.

Josh:

It works. People love it like I use and there's a couple others out there I use Bom Bom and I'm a bom bom a power user. At a minimum I'm sending 1015 a day. And that's what moves our sales forward, without question.

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30:00 - 35:00

Alex:

So to kind of refute my earlier point, but also, I'm trying to get this on all sides. So like, you know, the COVID-19 comes along, the world supposedly stops, and everybody goes to zoom, everybody goes to content, super hard, which I've been doing the same thing, right. I love it. And, you know, to what I was saying earlier, like, Saturday live goes to virtual content, Daily Show goes to virtual content. But what but but two things I think are happening. The first was what I just said, like, hey, look, you're realizing that if it's digital, it's democratized, you have very little additional benefit that you would have if you had the audience. Right? And so but the other side of this is, certainly some people are really enjoying not having to go out in public, right? There are those people that are like, oh, I get to stay home all day. It's amazing.

But I also think as people like me that I always knew, or I always assumed that in person contact was at a much higher value than digital. Right? Even one on one conversations like this, like you're saying, not just me talking on camera, me talking to you like this, but it certainly doesn't replace human contact, physical for face to face, the body mind right? Now, do you think that when we all come out of this in some fashion, that, you know, the conference world, people worried that it's, you know, going to die, but I think actually it's going to increase because people who value that are going to be like, I really need the human contact really can't be replaced. So I think we are seeing maybe a little bit of both. There's a democratization of the virtual but also maybe a higher value on the smaller but necessary human connection.

Josh:

Yeah, I know, it's you know, it's interesting, you look at you know, how events like you know, the Great Depression and 911 and the recession in 2008. Like how how this stuff impacted culture and society and and. This is a generation we're going to forever be impacted by this. I mean, there are already indicators. You know, the restaurant industry has known that, you know, especially like Gen Z and millennials don't like going to sit down restaurants like they're already just saying, look, I'd rather just be at home with, you know, with my gaming system and all this other stuff and just connecting like, you know, my own, like that was already moving in that direction.

Again, I think the world fast forward about three to five years and the things that I think we were already on the way to doing, becoming more so so get to your getting to your point on events, I don't know. But all I know is that if I were a speaker today, I would pitch myself as a speaker who can deliver an in person experience virtually, if necessary, and so I would really invest in having a great home studio and say, listen, if we're going and all of a sudden you know, the virus comes and we all have to distribute again. And this ends up being a virtual event. I want you to see, look what I've got set up here, I'm ready to go and I can still deliver results. So that's how I would present myself if I were a speaker today.

Yeah, but I agree with you, like in person is very special. But, you know, and I, you know, I'm nervous that this is a generation now, you know, at the very least, we're all going to turn into a little bit of Howey Mendell where, you know, we're going to be like, you know, not want to get too close to other people.

David:

Oh, no, I'm a hugger.

Alex:

Yeah.

I think you're right about that. I think. I personally am not a fan of that. That to me is one individual. I mean, I know some people want to talk. I don't there's a lot of people out there that like I didn't want to talk to you ever anyway. And so this is perfect.

I'm okay virtual, but it is an interesting dynamic. And I do agree that in some fashion, it'll shift. I mean, there are people that are Not gonna go to conferences ever again. And I hope that I hope that that's not the case in bulk, I hope that there'll still be some conferences, even if there's maybe less, I don't agree that the mass of it like it was even six months ago is probably going to be quite different.

Josh:

You know, again, my advice on this is, you know, when you see disruptions in the marketplace, ask yourself, you know, how am I likely to be impacted by this long term?

How will this change how I do things and ask other people, you know, and try to get a feel for what consumers are going to do? Because, you know, they always say, you know, trends are your friends. And if you listen sometimes, so, you know, a great example is with savings Angel. So, you know, I have our high watermark in 2011 for a seven figure year company, and then we weren't, yeah, and so it's because we rode the trend, and the trend was, you know, extreme couponing. So the recession we launched in 2007, two 2008 the recession hit.

35:00 - 40:00

Josh:

And then it was a wonderful, wonderful rise between 2008 and 2011. And then it just kind of slowly tapered off from that. And, you know, it's like you can argue with markets all you want. And I'm sorry, but at the end of the day markets win! You have to give the market what it wants, what it wants, and you're not smarter than the market, right? You Well, you can be smart and your own Mark smarter than the market in your own mind. And I could say consumers, what are you ridiculous, why would you pay full price for groceries? Hey, they want to do that, you know, and I can't change that.

And so if the consumers, if consumers have spoken, consumers have spoken, and you just need to continue to give them so, you know, right now without my influence, one thing we do really, really well is we build we do things we do really well.

We get our clients, we turn them into media celebrities, and we so we take them from invisible to seen and celebrated. And then we also are very, very good at building b2b sales systems so much so that you know, we could double the investment that they pay with us. It's kind of a big ticket item for us to build out for them. But when it's built, we guarantee that they'll make $50,000 from their $25,000 investment.

Now, when we initially launched that, yeah and it's I can only offer that now because I've done it long enough. And that's what we could talk about like risk reversal guarantee and I which I think is really important for consumers today. Like in talk and speak in terms of what is the outcome that they really want and if you got to find a way to get there you got to find a way to say you know, even if it's you got to charge more money but you could still guarantee results. That's what consumers really are expecting but when we first launched we did it we did our b2b sales system ourselves. And we were able to grow our sales pipeline. We had about 20 some thousand dollars, monthly recurring revenue last year May by November of last year, get not not including what we had on the books, but that was over 200 thousand dollars monthly recurring revenue in our pipeline, again, not closed.

So, that's what we got really good at doing ourselves. We had a couple clients who were like, Hey, what are you doing? Can you do that for us? We're like, Sure. So the first one we did it for was a mastermind, and they sold $325,000 masterminds in 60 days, I made $75,000. At the time, we only charged them three grand. And I'm like, Well, that was dumb. I should have said, I'll do it. But I want a piece of the action and...

Alex:

What is that, a charity?

Josh:

Yeah, so now.

Now that's what we do. We're really picky on who we can work with. Because we know we know who we work really, really well for and who we don't work for. But you know, we just, we just don't work with that. You know, we used to like it, we work with anybody and kind of test it out and charge and we offered a solution with you. The market said, Oh, okay, I guess we'll try that. But overwhelmingly, we learned a couple things. People go one of two directions. Either we end up doing everything for them anyway. And it ends up being done for you. And they're successful. And we got, you know, one client, like an intellectual property law attorney got him 37 appointments in one week. And so it's like, well, if I can do that for him, I can do this for anybody who fits you passes all of our tests.

But that was one thing that we put it out to the market. I was gonna say the other group of people didn't do anything. Like they, they honestly paid us like four grand and did nothing. And we're like, you have to do this. You have to do this part.

You have to do this part. And they're like, yeah, I know, but I'm too busy. I'm like you gave me $4,000 Yeah, I know. But I'm too busy to get to that. These other guys got 37 appointments and you have zero. Yeah, I know. But I'm too busy working, working in my business, or, you know, working for my business. It happens. So that's why we just don't do anything with you anymore. Like, we're gonna, we need to take charge of everything. And if we could take charge of everything, then we can offer a guarantee on our results because we know our ability.

David:

Love it.

Alex:

That’s Fascinating and it's, that's, you know, at least you're selling it's good that to hear you selling a product that you've got a good testbed for, you know, you know, proof of concept and then you and you know, I like that too. You're like, look, I underpriced myself in the beginning to give more value than I took. And then once I knew my value, you probably still underprice it, but at least you're getting your fair share now.

Josh:

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, reality, once this system is set up, you know, we expect our clients to do about a half a million dollars, if they're, if, again, we're involved, and and we're doing everything for them.

And, yeah, we will probably increase our price again, especially on the, you know, we'll only take on like, you know, one client a month and like, okay, we're gonna work together for three years here. And our goal is to get you to seven figures. That'll probably be the next phase of how we do things. So just because, again, if we can control it, we have enough data at the beginning you don't right and so you know, when you've got a minimum viable, viable, minimum viable product, everything's going to be way inefficient. But that's okay. Like you're gonna end up doing a lot of work you're kind of figuring this stuff out. And you're gathering data and you're gathering testimonials and you're gathering experience so that you know you don't take a bath by making a bad business decision in who you work with in the future.

40:00 - 45:00

David:

Yeah.
Some incredible stuff. All right, I'm backtracking for like a decade. So I know you mentioned you had several business ventures that did not work out before it took off. I guess my question would be, what was the catalyst? Like do you know was there something you did? Or was it just the right product the right time? Like what do you think played into the one that finally I mean, because now it's now it's two that have taken off at least two that I know of that have taken off? Yeah, but...

Josh:

Yeah, I mean, I went through bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy lost a home to foreclosure. lost another home in a short sale. Had to live with my in-laws. You have two young kids for almost a year, like I've been through all that stuff, and it sucks, and it sucks as a guy, especially culturally, if you can't provide for your family, it's like what's wrong with you?

You know, get your stuff together. And, you know, I just knew, you know, some of the businesses did okay for a while. And ultimately, though, they all kind of crumbled. I think at the beginning, my initial fear was, you know, I was afraid of selling because I had, in my mind, an idea of what sales was, and sales was trying to convince people to have stuff. And so it really messed with my head. And it's not at all. So sales is really just kind of the transference of value and you have to give more value than you accept. And if you don't, if you don't think that that's the case, then you need to adjust what you're doing, until you get to the point where you are convinced that the value that you offer way, way outperforms what you're selling. And so you got, again, you got to keep working on product development until you get to that point, emotionally, otherwise, it's going to mess you up and sales.

So, you know, with our PR services, like one fourth the cost of a normal PR firm, and I know from experience, you know, having blown $25,000 on PR with savings Angel, I'm like, that was stupid. I was doing way better than what they were doing it myself. And so I'm like, and I'm like, really, that's the best that this industry can provide small business owners. Well, it's a broken system. So there was an opportunity there that, you know, that we were able to help out with, but yeah, you know, in terms of, you know, failure. It's those failures. Now, it really sucks to go through.

But what I want you to imagine is if you're especially if you're going through this right now, as you're listening to this conversation, you're writing the story right now and it sucks but If there's any, I think if there's any kind of helpful point of view on when you're going through a difficult situation, just know that you're writing the most exciting part of the book right now.

And the most exciting part is when you're facing adversity, and you're really being pushed through the crucible. And you know, you're going to get on the other side of that. And it's, you know, you know, failure is always found, and success is always found on the backside of failure. And so when you have something really bad happen, I would love it if you could kind of reprogram yourself to get a little excited about that. Because if you can overcome this thing, you're going to have success. So I like to do that when weird, bad stuff happens. Like, why did that client all of a sudden quit or why did this something, why did this person you know, say something, you know, uncomfortable to hear? It's like, Okay, well, there's a lesson here for me, and we always grow the most when we go through some of those moments of discomfort.

You know, we Learn this through the military, which is why I think, you know, a lot of, you know, veterans are generally pretty good in many aspects of business ownership. And I'd say that the areas that veterans are really good at is that you need that grit, that determination, that willing to keep on going, when times are tough.

Now, I will also say, and I've noticed this now in serving the military community quite a bit, is that sometimes we get a little pigheaded. And we don't stop to be coachable. And even when we are coachable, we don't really, you know, we don't you know, it's just all I'm just gonna work harder. I'm just gonna work harder. I'm just gonna work harder.
Working hard is not always the best solution. Um, you know, if it's, you know, if it's broken, and you know, I believe in working hard to get something, you know, to kind of really vetted out as best as possible. But at the end of the day, we also need to be really coachable and responsive to what people are asking for and if people are just not asking for what we're doing, be willing to shift and say, well, what do you need? What can I give you?

45:00 - 50:00

Josh:

And that's that's one thing I would say. I actually my mom and my mother in law was just asking me about, you know, you've, you've done all this kind of pro bono work for military audiences, what have you noticed? I'm, like, really, really great on the hard work ethic, not real coachable sometimes. And it's frustrating for someone who's been doing this as long as I've been doing. It's like, you know, I know one question you're gonna ask me is like, you know, if you're sitting down with an E one, e two, e three, you know, your provide them some advice, you know, it's like, well, my dream would be that they truly would listen, the reality is there, you know, it's like a lot of younger folks. Not a lot, but well, a significant portion of them.

You know, it's like they're just not ready to be coachable yet. And coachability is, you know, if I can get someone who's coachable and willing to work hard, that someone is going to be very successful.

David:

Yeah.

Alex:

18 plus A little bit of military background. Bad bad combination arrogance. And I can't speak for everybody. I can only speak for myself. But that's kind of the case, right? You're like..

Josh:

Oh, yeah, I was that way.

Alex:

Yeah, I'm 18 I got a little bit of money. I got some job security and apparently I'm the savior of the nation. Yeah, you can't tell me nothing

David:

That sounds like the perfect segue Josh into that question. What would you tell anyone if they had a little bit of time to give them some advice for life?

Josh:

Yeah, um, well, you know, philosophically, you know, I very much you know, I am a fan of, you know, pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps kind of thing. You know, I've generally always been a bootstrap or I don't need investors, I don't need the government to bail me out.

So, you know, familiar with Ayn Rand, I would say, you know, read atlas shrugged. You might not like it, and you might argue against some aspects of, of her philosophy and that's fine. But the one one thing that I really appreciated and it kind of already fit with my personality is that I will succeed based on my own merits. And, you know, it's not to say that I won't learn from as many people as possible, and really try to adapt as well as possible. But what I'm not going to do is blame anyone else. And that's one that's the biggest message that I picked up from Atlas shrugged. It's a 1200 page book. It's a fiction novel. And honestly, I think you could do just fine listening to the eight hour abridged version.

And for the first couple hundred pages of the book, you're gonna be like, what, what's going on? Why does he like this book, I don't get it. But by the time you know, you get into the, you know, 400 500 you know that that territory in the book, you'd be like, okay, I see what's going on, and I get it. And again, you want to get to the point. Where you don't need, like if something. So if the market doesn't want your product, it's not the market's fault. It's your fault you need to give the market when it's needed, you need to solve a problem better than anyone else. And if you're not, then you haven't earned that you haven't earned those rewards. So go out and do it yourself and quit whining about it, quit being a baby, just go out and do the thing.

And I say that with love, by the way, because it sucks. I know what it's, you know, it just really sucks when things aren't working out. But you know, don't do this out of desperation. But do it out of you know, philosophically I know that this I know that this concept works, solve a problem better than anyone and you don't even have to worry about the money the money will absolutely be there. Sometimes you have to work at it quite a bit. And you got to be your own best publicist, which is you know, kind of where we come in, you know, without my influence.

Alex:

Can I just say that I love Ayn Rand She gets a terrible, terrible rep in the public.

The public sphere, right? Like.

Josh:

Yeah, people take her to the extreme, but her idea of individuality. Individualism is yes, I didn't read Atlas Shrugged yet it's on my list. I read Fountainhead and her other Dury 900 page novel, which is about the same, but man, that was a power, actually, I read Mark Cuban once he goes, that's my favorite book. I read it every two years. I said I gotta check it out. Read it. Amazing. I highly recommend it. It's a very polarizing person. Ayn Rand. I say the name. People get all spooked. But they miss most of them because they haven't read the actual books. They just hear that anyways, but I think it's great advice.

50:00 - 57:43

Josh:

Yeah. So she's from the former communist in Russia. So that absolutely flavors her background and experience. You know, and and, you know, at the same time, you know, politically like I believe that, you know, the mark of a civilized society is the safety net that we can, that we can take care of one another and that we could do well by one another.

So I'm not saying that there's no merit in that, but I am a big believer in the individual being able to follow one's own conscience and make those decisions for themselves. And if we're true, all conscious capitalists, then there is no need, you know, why did savings you know, you know, why did I launch savings angel is because I believe that that is absolutely the best way to end hunger lack and need in your communities is empower everybody with more than enough to give and sure enough savings Angel help facilitate millions and millions and millions of dollars of giving. That's why we do what we do, because we want to make the world a better place, you know, without my influence. You know, it comes down from my core belief that I believe that everybody has a message that could positively impact the world.

What I'm not a fan of is some people having more of a platform than others. I believe everyone should have equal access to the platform, and you gotta earn your way there.

And by the way, I can help you earn that and so that's so there's an innate sense of fairness But at the same time uh you know, we you know, I'd say objectivism which you know, Ayn Rand’s a fan of it's just meritocracy. You can, anyone can get there, but you should earn your way there. And if you will, and if you'll do the hard work and you'll learn from other people, you can absolutely have exact, it's learning knowledge, right? It's modeling knowledge, do the thing. How Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, did the thing, have the power. If you just do what someone does, you can have those same results, you know, do it in your own way in your own voice and, you know, learn from the masters and that's why, you know, someone's listening to this conversation right now. This is part of that, you know, you got to learn, you know what other people who have been down the road, made plenty of mistakes, got their nose bloodied a bunch of times, man, give yourself the shortcut.

You have the luxury of learning from other people. don't discount that just because, you know, this information is everywhere. Not every teacher is going to resonate with you. Not every teacher is good, but you know, certainly try to shortcut the path as much as possible by learning from other people's mistakes.

David:

Awesome. All right. So I always ask what is one resource, a book course website, whatever that you would recommend anybody getting started in business? Is Atlas Shrugged the answer? Or is there another one tha..

Josh:

Yeah, go get the abridged version on Audible or whatever, you know, the eight hour version. Another one, I would recommend if you're either going to be open to this or you're not on Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich. And I'll tell you that that's one book that, you know, it reads like an old timey book, you know, it's definitely written in that style, the 1920s and as well, um, it's, it's an unusual book, in that at the beginning, he offers a promise, and I'll give you a clue and the promise is some people are going to read this book at this level. And some people are going to read this book at this level. And if I can't, you know, I can only promise that when you figure it out, he says this, when you figure it out, you're going to see what I'm writing on a whole nother level.

And I have a theory on what that is. And all just point out is watch for disclaimers, which is a weird pattern that he does in that book, he'll drop a bombshell on you know, talking about like Henry Ford or edits Africa who was, you know, going into a closet in solitude for an hour or more, and to clear his head, but he comes out with all of this inspiration that he claims that he gets from just, you know, this, this intelligence that he taps into, and he goes, but of course, haha, this could all just be a figment of his imagination and blah, blah. Ah, no, you don't worry about that. Right?. Well, that was weird. Why did you tell me that and then go through this whole disclaimer on this, right?

And the disclaimers there for people who don't, they're not ready for it. Maybe there is something to that and I could say, you know, from my own sense like I my best guess like when people say I get my best ideas in the shower, maybe you're starting to tap into something, you know, it's like, you know, maybe there is, you know, a deeper, you know, maybe it's just your brain just, you know, your ability to tap into a subconscious or whatever, you know, when you quiet and you, you know, maybe there's something to that. And again, I say maybe because again, I'm doing the same thing with the disclaimer, but read that book, Think and Grow Rich, and it will change your life. If you're open to it. If you're not open to it. You like this guy's a little kooky every once in a while. But all I can tell you is I've talked to enough people whose lives have completely changed when they really adapted those principles.

Alex:

I had to read that one twice. I read it once. I was too young. I said, just think it'll happen. That's nonsense. And then I got a little bit older. I was probably 10 years in between reads and the second time I was like this guy knows. And I think and he says it in the book. And I think that's, that is the case. I'm not a super ultra big fan of the book personally, it's just not my style, but that is correct. I mean, you got to read that book with the right mindset. And it does. It does work.

Josh:

It is. And you'll read it at different levels every time and there's, there's like so many good books, you know, and the most important thing I think, is that you become a constant. Yo, just just become a student. And you know, stay coachable, stay hungry. You know, don't ever think that you've got life locked down the moment you know, you believe that you are the master. I mean, we could become the master at some things, but you know, never never stop being the student.

David:

Love it.

Yeah Napoleon knows.

Josh:

That's my biggest piece of advice.

David:

Napoleon Hill has some other controversial books too. And they're, they're interesting reads, but I'm a fan.

Alright, so where can people get ahold of you Josh, if they'd like to follow up?

Josh:

Yeah, so we do a lot of stuff pro bono. I generally don't sell stuff to early stage entrepreneurs. It's just, you know, we're doing fine, but we you know, we generally just give it all away.

And so we give away what other people charge thousands of dollars for in their 997 e courses and junk. Like if you could just have that stuff for free. Like we give it away on YouTube pod, you know, our own podcasts, you could search right now, for the thoughtful entrepreneur, it's a daily podcast, and I interview people that are doing six figures a year or more in business. And I ask them hard questions and we get I mean, there's a lot of good stuff.

But yeah, if you just go to upmyinfluence.com and in the lower left hand corner, you'll see all of our social media one thing I give away absolutely worth thousands of dollars is our authority transformation masterclass.

It's free. I'm not gonna I'm not going to sell you on like yeah, we have a about my influence community that it might be appropriate for you if you're at the right level. But otherwise, if you're not, man, just go through downloading my resource guide. It's free like everything's free, man. Just go just go tap into all that stuff. And you know, when you're ready and you know, you got money coming in, you know, we could pour some gas on some fire if you're interested but yeah, upmyinfluence.com and you'll see all the free stuff.

David:

I love it. And I definitely liked the authority transformation class masterclass. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Good stuff.

So, Josh, I know we all got to run. Thank you very much for coming on the show. This has been great, some very, very good insight for the listeners and I really appreciate it.

Josh:

David no it's you guys are good guys. Thank you so much for having me on.

David:

Thank you for listening to another episode about my journey From military to millionaire. If you liked it, be sure to visit Frommilitarytomillionaire.com/podcast to subscribe to future podcasts. While you're there, we'd love for you to rate the show. Give us a review on iTunes. Now get out there and take action!
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