Running a Martial Arts Business During COVID-19 | Brian Debes

Brian Debes is a martial arts professional and anti-bullying advocate. He is the founder and owner of 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu Beaumont, a martial arts school developed by renowned instructor Eddie Bravo, where he coaches children and adults to overcome obstacles like shyness, anxiety, and bullying. Through the philosophies and practices found in Jiu-Jitsu, Debes instills confidence and self-esteem, preparing students with the know-how and strategies to defend themselves mentally, emotionally, and physically. 

After enduring relentless childhood bullying for his small stature and physical disability, which limits his motor skills, Brian pushed through the restrictive beliefs of others, including his family, who adamantly discouraged physical activity for fear of injury or failure, and pursued his childhood dream  — Jiu-Jitsu. Never sharing his disability with peers to avoid labels and preferable treatment, Brian trained hard and flourished, mentally and physically. His success fueled him to build his own business, and today he uses his experience to show others that anything is possible, despite the opinions and confinements of others.

Through martial arts and his teaching of healthy habits, Brian has helped improve the lives of thousands of students. As a competitor in 2013, Brian was listed as 10th Planet’s competitor of the year and was rated the No. 1 adult grappler in North America by Ranked/NAGA. In addition, he has worked with several A-list celebrities and UFC fighters.

Discover More

https://www.10thplanetbeaumontjiujitsumma.com/

https://www.facebook.com/brian.debes.5

The Podcast video is at
https://youtu.be/5V1wcrXPvso

Transcript

Josh Bolton: 0:00

Okay, there we go. Now we're good.

brian D: 0:03

Okay, let's, I'm leaving it up to you. You do it however you want.

Josh Bolton: 0:06

I'm just doing live streaming this week. So it's kind of like the figuring out the bumps. Okay, hit the Live button hit and forgot to hit the recording.

brian D: 0:13

Okay, no problem. Do we need to start over? We just keep going.

Josh Bolton: 0:16

It's going already. So Screw it. Let's go. Yeah,

brian D: 0:19

awesome. So yeah, what? Honestly, in martial arts, we were talking about the tap out gyms and too big to fail. And I honestly, I see those guys fail all the time. Because they start. Honestly, in my opinion, many of the people that run that might make all the decisions and tap out. They don't have a martial arts background. And while having a business background is good. You see all these mistakes, like almost all the times you see, oh, fake about Black Belt revealed. Well, where is he he's like at a Tapout gym or something. He's either in his own school, or at a tap out gym. He's never at this small school run by a black belt, because that guy would have caught him immediately.

Josh Bolton: 0:59

Oh, yeah. So when I was learning Kempo, with my instructor, he took me under the belt, V instructor and learn all the sales and stuff. And I had a guy come in claim he was a 10th degree black belt, this and that. He's just like, I trained for 20 years in Okinawa, and I'm like, oh, okay, like God, glove up, let's go in the room. And he can like pause the mic, release it, because you wouldn't take that challenge. You are not a black belt. And he just kind of like, bowed his head, I actually like ripped his belt off him to get the fuck out of here.

brian D: 1:32

You know, it might offend some traditional martial artists. But there's for sure some traditional martial artists that have like, you can define a black belt. But if you're defining a black belt as then a legitimate person that is allowed to give black belts has awarded you have not vote. There's plenty of them that can fight first year. Um, so I mean, they give them to seven year olds. So. But yeah, there's a lot of them around also that, you know, they bought their bike belt from Century Magazine. So there's those two, and if he's a 10th degree, there's a better chance that perhaps he's bought 10 of them from Century Magazine.

Josh Bolton: 2:17

Probably. Is I buy 10 One striped Black Belt get your 10th degree free.

brian D: 2:22

Yeah, we can get whatever I mean, that's that's the thing. It's like it's not it's not about the belt is about the the training and stuff like that. And yeah, it's yeah, you can you can go buy Halloween costume you can make get the belt whatever color you like. That's not what anybody was talking about.

Josh Bolton: 2:40

No. You provide me a red dragon karate when I was first signing up. My we were in LA fere. And I still remember to this day this one lady with like, watermelon size tits. In her gi look, she was completely not look like she was supposed to be there. She was all dolled up and everything her nails were like the long then this one guy is wearing like full camo ghee. And then another person's wearing a gear that looks like a actual clown outfit. And I just sat there and I'm like, this is martial arts. It's kind of a weird over exaggerated Miss proportionate stuff. And then that's where I found my instructor was like this cool. Chinese Shaolin Temple theme, Shaolin Temple. And, yeah, it was just one of those. Have we signed up 15 years ago and haven't looked back? I just tell him like, That lady was like the frickin watermelon tits. Yeah, I saw her too. He's like, she doesn't know martial arts. Like, I could have told you that and I don't know martial arts. Yeah,

brian D: 3:43

I mean, I will say that I do a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in it. And more precisely, I do. I mean, I've done traditional martial arts. I've trained all sorts of things. And more precisely, I do 10th planet jujitsu, which is a style of NoGi Brazilian jujitsu founded by my coach Eddie Bravo. So, uh, so in other words, I'm, I'm pretty open to progressive attire, right? So if you've been to my coach, like, and he's got a great school, um, a lot of world class UFC fighters drop in and stuff like that. But everybody's wearing like rainbow Spats, whatever. I mean, so you can't you can write. To me that's not that important. And a lot of the tradition of traditional martial arts, especially for adults. I don't think it's essential. I think there's different vibes. And that culture is not for everybody. But yeah, I think you can be legitimate and wear your camo gi wear your Spats, whatever. There's other warning signs Other than that, at a karate school, man I've never seen at a karate school though. Like it's probably more of a warning sign of the karate school because karate is typically a lot more traditional. Yeah. Even just like a black gi if somebody's got different colors. Jeez, that's a little bit weird at a karate school.

Josh Bolton: 5:08

Oh, it is. And that's where I was saying to him. I'm like, thinking karate kid. He had his wakey his thing like, I didn't I've seen this lady with like a teal green. I don't like I don't think that's supposed to happen.

brian D: 5:21

Yeah, well, and in Brazilian Jujitsu, the more traditional schools, you typically have a choice like, say Gracie Baja in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, typically could where they're very traditional uniform must have their logo on it. But you still get Wi Fi or Bluetooth, which is way more choices than a normal traditional. That's like the most traditional BJJ organization that's kept popping into my mind than most of the standard ones. I mean, there are certain restrictions on length and whatever, but you can kind of just a lot of the rest of them. You can wear a number of variety of different colors. Black, whatever, and then you got NoGi places like my coach where you can literally wear unicorn rainbow Spats.

Josh Bolton: 6:03

Hell yeah. I want to go to those places. Just do it. Yeah,

brian D: 6:07

well, you can do that in my school do I'm fine with most of my guys don't. But I got one coach that does some of them at least once a week, they'll wear something totally ridiculous. So I'm all about like, you know, training should be fun. And you know, we don't have to take yourself that seriously. just yet.

Josh Bolton: 6:26

Same. Actually, I remember once I one of my trading buddies when I was teaching, he did Brazilian jujitsu. And he took me to a tournament it was I was young, and he just paid for me to get in. And I remember this one guy coming in with a hot pink ghee. And really, his name's Ernesto. He was like, I bet you 20 bucks. He's gonna win the whole tournament. If he's willing to wear that to a tournament. He knows his shit. And then he went and I was like, damn it.

brian D: 6:54

Yeah. There's a there's a story about Jean LaBelle. I don't know if you've heard of him. He's an old school Judo guy. Supposedly, and a time in judo where you absolutely did not do that sort of thing that he wore a pink Gi. Supposedly he said, it was like a laundry mistake. Like he was stuff with later in interviews is that like it was a white GI and he washed it with red shirts or something the night before was only one I got. And it was one of those that it wasn't on purpose. But yeah, he's famous for and Judo is much more traditional. Like you, you don't do that sort of thing. And but he did, and he did win.

Josh Bolton: 7:34

And it was just one of those. I was young, and I didn't. I was still learning. And I didn't know the context of like, if you wore that, like, you know your shit. So now when I go in to anyone with a hot pink, like neon pink, specifically, I'm like, Oh, I bet you that one's gonna win.

brian D: 7:52

Yeah, well, it's, it's like confidence. And, um, I mean, that's definitely not a guarantee. But I get where your friend is saying it's like, you know, if you a lot of people are so uptight, going to a tournament. And if you're, if it's your first time, and you're super nervous, that's probably not what you chose. I mean, who knows there's different people in this world. But a lot of times those guys are just so confident they're gonna go try out and make a statement or whatever. And yeah, good be.

Josh Bolton: 8:23

So I'm just curious for you for Brazilian jujitsu. What are some of the tactics that you go in with your students? Kind of thing? Well, let me rephrase that. What did you how did you handle Brazilian jujitsu during COVID?

brian D: 8:37

Oh, yeah. So not very well. So some COVID stuff. Um, so at the beginning, like I'm, I try not to break the rules in general, not just law, whatever. I'm not the biggest government regulate me more sort of guy. However, I try not to break the rules if I don't have a reason to. And okay, we'll do it. Like I was trying to play by all the rules. So I remember I legitimately like I did what I was supposed to do, I shut down. And then at that time, I was actually sleeping upstairs in my gym still. And I remember I got a little notice of violation thing on my door. Because we're so zoned commercial is like, you can't be in a gym. Like, look, it was literally just me has been in here by myself upstairs at the gym, like so that's given the government in an age sort of thing. And that that's kind of just how it started. We, but I was struck, I stayed shut down for the mandatory amount of time when they said gyms could open Of course, they're nonspecific about martial arts. So then they go all these, you got to be six foot away, and you got to do this and that. So we did all that advice. So if you don't know about Brazilian Jujitsu, and you're listening It is like, kind of like wrestling with submissions and chokes and stuff like that. In other words, it's a very, very touchy contactee there's no six foot

Josh Bolton: 10:11

you're gonna get some interesting armpits situations or growing in the face.

brian D: 10:15

Right, but it's not like he, most martial arts are not so six foot friendly. However, some of them have forms, you could do something you can do. So even boxing kickboxing, you can do back work for a little bit like jujitsu, even just basic drilling, there are some drills you can do by yourself. But there's, you're expected to be like touching a training partner the entire time. So yeah, the government does not like that sort of thing with COVID. So we got like a witness, I got extracts the most expensive grappling dummies stuff, and like, we follow the rules on that. And like, you know, I went through all of that I, I probably lost about close to 90% of my student base. Over the whole shutdown, I mean, I didn't zoom jitsu. So like I

Josh Bolton: 11:09

got it, but how long do you do? How would you do that, though?

brian D: 11:13

Well, I got creative, okay. I mean, once again, I built a home dummy, but then I didn't even use it. Because it's like, man, not everybody will have that I could go to the gym. But I actually was living at the gym at that time. And I went over to my parents house when they're upstairs and carpet to film it. Because I didn't want to have mats because I knew my students did. So I went over to do do it on carpet. Because I didn't have good, right? So I went to find somewhere that's less comfortable. So I would be in the spot that they were and I would say five or six people got home with me every day, I taught more classes than I weigh more class classes than I did before it shut down. So But that said, I mean, I did the very best I could I networked with other people, we had a guest instructor every single day, that's guest belts. And I did I was a guest for other gyms and stuff like that. And I I'm, I made these networks for people. And like I made it awesome experience for people that tuned in. That said, everybody's all depressed. Not excited about jujitsu on the internet, which I understand not that exciting. And you know, most people, um, they they quit coming, and when you quit coming for three months, it's hard to get back into it. Like I haven't most of my life I was like, small weak out of shape problems. But I was never I was always on the small side. Like my first tournament, I weighed in, and 114 pounds as an adult in like the 149 division, the smallest one they had. So the only thing I've had is I've never been fat so after COVID I was both fat and skinny. So the first time so I'm still not like big muscular guy. But then I added like 20 pounds of fat like there was the first time my I have back problems from a car accident. They started getting worse from not training being sedentary like oh you feeling better from not doing or not doing all that jujitsu like you know? And then you know, it was it was not it was not easy for sure. And fortunately I do pretty good with not spending a lot of my money on that's how I'm able to make other companies and do stuff on personal stuff. I've never had a new car like like I said beyond when I had to I was sleeping in the gym so I had some savings and stuff I even helped out some other school owners during that period had I not I mean we couldn't have made it because the government's Oh stimulus this Oh loan this like man that's not nearly enough. No it's not nearly enough

Josh Bolton: 13:58

they deny that then it was literally just chump change to what actually should have been handed out but if they did the actual handing out inflation man

brian D: 14:06

should have I mean there's there's no win there because should have we already have all this inflation and everything I mean that there's just no that's what people are missing. Oh if it's let saves one life well meanwhile How many say in the beginning meanwhile you I mean, you keep people at home with people that were being abused, like you know, hindsight is 2020 Like, it sounded like I was always Yeah, I don't know about like, is it really just gonna be two weeks because it wasn't even in my city yet. At that time.

Josh Bolton: 14:35

Where are you at? By the way? Beaumont, Texas, Texas. All right.

brian D: 14:40

Meanwhile was state that what was notoriously not as regulated as many of them a Canada might still be shut down. I'm not sure I know. It was shut down forever. It might be.

Josh Bolton: 14:53

Okay, so where I am in California we just led up like a month ago in our strict rules. Australia they smell COVID they finally are just saying go do your thing. So yeah, it, it looks like it. But the funny thing I've been telling people, Mike, they they're letting us all go. But there's a new wicked variant down. So from June, we're all locked up again.

brian D: 15:15

So yeah, I mean, pretty much what you did if you were in, if you were in California, is you had two choices, or three, I guess. But you either completely go out of business, which is what they told you to do. Oh, you can find another job like, well, you bet this up your whole life. That's not supposed to be the government's job to tell you down. Yeah, yeah, to go mow lawns or something instead. That's literally what the governor supposedly told one gym owner and yeah,

Josh Bolton: 15:42

Newsom is totally was clueless during the whole thing.

brian D: 15:45

Yeah. So you could do that you can move to a different state, many people did that, actually. Or you could operate your gym completely illegally. And a ton of people did that. Maybe not right at first, but in California, I can tell you that it's just a lot of people started just straight up breaking the law. Um, and yet people got reported. They supposedly like ripped out the power for which my instructor Eddie Bravo, like he rents but like, supposedly, like they came in and cut all the power stuff like of his building. That's what I was told. So that's what you that's what the police and or government inspectors, whoever was, like, Okay, now you go vandalize property if people were in there, but yet people are everybody. I think he's still kept going.

Josh Bolton: 16:37

I mean, oh, well,

brian D: 16:39

there's no there's no other way to pay the bills. Yeah, you didn't give anybody any other solutions.

Josh Bolton: 16:46

Yeah. And that was actually like my instructor for lunch. He did it. He had locked down for the three months or whatever it was. And he was just like, I'm tired of these stupid zoom calls. So I was one of those I told him like, technically what they're worried about, it's the six foot distance. I said, you're, you're introverted. Anyways, I said, the whole scare of COVID in a closed room is there's no airflow kind of thing. And like you have huge fans turn the fans on, you just stand 1020 feet away. So it doesn't matter where you are. You can see a problem half a mile away. And if anyone comes you like what are you talking about? I have airflow. They have a mask? I'm like 10 feet away? I'm fine.

brian D: 17:23

Well, that's after because at the beginning, like it was it was at least three months or so maybe it was close for at least three months in even in Texas when that's before you could go to a gym with the six foot distancing before that they weren't worried about like huge gyms or just closed. Oh, yeah, it doesn't matter what that's before even anybody even talked about maths, they told you not to get one. Because leave it for the healthcare professionals. Just don't leave your home. That was the instructions at that time.

Josh Bolton: 17:55

It was it was foolish, and it's coming out now that maths don't really work. Other than restrict airflow.

brian D: 18:04

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely not a magic solution, that's for sure. It was just a certain mindset was approached with all this. And I mean, man, I don't have the magical solution. Because I mean, COVID is real people did die, people got sick. I've had it twice.

Josh Bolton: 18:26

I was there. I had at least one. So it was December 2020. So I'm not naysaying. It's totally real.

brian D: 18:33

Oh, it's real. For sure. I've had it twice, at least like you said, beforehand. There's a chance I had it earlier, but they just didn't even have testing at that time. Three times. Who knows? And, you know, it's it wasn't funny. It was it was not as bad the last time having had it repeatedly maybe helps.

Josh Bolton: 18:54

I don't know. You gotta like a natural vaccine for it.

brian D: 18:57

Well, I mean, that's, that's, that's not how this vaccine works. I'm not a vaccine expert. But that's what I'm told. But yeah, in general, that's how vaccines work, basically, expose you to a piece of it. So yeah, I mean, I get how that's not the most attractive way because not everybody makes it when that happens. But yeah, I mean, it's it's real people get sick from it. However. I think people just maybe have gotten so used to the vast amount of wealth, though we complain about it here in the United States, since since I've worked a little bit with people in other countries. I can kind of see it, like people were just, they're very used to the vast amount of wealth here. To the extent that people can't comprehend a number once it's so a certain size, right? And so people see the vast amount of wealthier and they just go ahead and assume that infant it's so vast that it's just infinite. So they assume the government can just like, it doesn't matter about stopping production. We have an Infinite Wealth. Well, but if nothing's being produced, like, which that didn't Fortunately, that didn't actually happen quite like that some production. But people were didn't even consider that if stuff. If things did completely stop being produced, no amount of wealth really matters. But you can't tell that to a normal person, because normal people don't think about it that way. In other countries, they understand scarcity, but we don't even really know what scarcity is. I mean, it's, I get it, there's four people, I came from a really poor family, like my, my family made something like 6k, a year when I was growing up, could have got on food stamps, but they were too proud to do that. That said, we were still from a global perspective, we were wealthy. I never went I never starve to death. I didn't have maybe what I wanted to eat. But I never starve to death. Like, globally, I believe it's like, something like $5,000 USD would be 50 percentile for the globe. The

Josh Bolton: 21:16

level Yeah, what a part time worker only working maybe 1015 hours a week makes double analogies double someone's making an Africa ELLs in South South Africa, because they're like the super rich, rich area. But yeah, like Nigeria area. Oh, guy, they, they'd freak out if they you handed him 100 bucks, because what are they gonna do with it? Their visors, the canes now?

brian D: 21:43

Yeah, I mean, there's. And it's not just places in South Africa. Of course, some of those places are poor. But there's many countries that are pretty developed, to have internet to have cell phones to have whatever. And, you know, a lot of people are like, Yay, remote mark, keep it this way. Hey, this proves that works should have always been remote, not realizing, hey, there's a dude, that would be super excited to take your 100k a year job and do it for 35k a year. And be just as good as you maybe not as good at English speaking. But but he probably speak one in some English and he sure would learn for an extra 10,000 a year.

Josh Bolton: 22:27

And he would outwork you in a heartbeat for half the price.

brian D: 22:30

Yeah. And there's a there's tons. Well, there's way more because you take like, India, I'd have to Google it. What 10 billion ish people, way more people. It's filled with engineers. Oh, yeah. And they have good engineering schools. Yeah, some of them are coming over here. But some people from the US goes to some engineering schools over now. They're now because they got such a good program.

Josh Bolton: 22:56

Oh, yeah, their software engineering, especially like the coding and all that Oh, leaps and bounds ahead of America. And it's just yeah,

brian D: 23:03

I won't say that objectively, because like, Silicon Valley still has some of the best guys. But overall, um, you know, because we have been our infrastructure. We were there first. But yeah, like men, if you're just random. You don't want to compete. If you just got your computer science degree over here, and you're looking for a job. You don't want everybody to go to remote. You want to go work in an office, because you don't want to compete with those guys? Because they'll take less money for you. Then you there's more of them. And they may be better than you. At least they're close.

Josh Bolton: 23:42

Well, I've had a few people from the Philippines talk about how they're making a virtual assistant, this and that. And that was one of them. I asked. I said, So what's the mic? I know it. But I'm just asking you like a stupid person. What's the difference between the Filipino work ethic and American work ethic? And they're like, the work off the clock gladly. Because you're still paying them more. I'm like, What's the American system owed so quick? Just to have that. So that was there. I told him like, yeah, you guys have work ethic. There's no price to put to what people in India, Philippines name the other country. It's like, they'll workers in a heartbeat.

brian D: 24:20

Right? Well, one other reason is, is the amount of wealth that when people when people get laid off here, you could still get money. Yeah, the fear isn't the same. You're not going to starve to death. There's almost no way that I mean, there's food banks, there's the government there's this there's that you're not going to start people don't really I get it and somebody listens to this and hates on me and sends me a single case or something. But you almost have to get locked in somewhere beyond mentally unstable and like there's so much you may starve to death and die if you can't find where it's like it's totally different. You You have to kill to eat over there. Oh, so, uh, and we forgot what that meant. And, you know, because there's just such a concentration of wealth here at this exact second. And we just can't imagine it possibly ever not being that way.

Josh Bolton: 25:19

Well, the given demonstration of the wealth, this one, I went to like Pasadena here in California, and it's very left leaning. So there's a lot of homeless. This guy just bought a brand new iPhone like 12 for like, 1200 bucks. But yeah, he didn't. He was on the same turn. He's like, I don't have money for food. I'm like, you can bastard. You didn't have an iPhone?

brian D: 25:46

Yeah, so I've stayed in LA a lot. Um, because my instructor Eddie Bravo was out there in LA. And I was I was staying with my friend, Kay Nelson, for a while and he had this guy that had been homeless a long time, and he let him like, stay in his mobile home now, I'm in front of his house in exchange of, like, doing some handy stuff and whatever. And that guy told me that he's like, he told me having been homeless, that guy had been homeless for like, 20 years. So like, you know, if you're homeless in LA, you don't need food. Somewhere, so many places, you can get food, but some of those some of the people homeless in LA, are making more money than some of the viewers hear me loosely. And meanwhile, having having no thoughts, not that it's great, you know, their side effects, I wouldn't want to do it. But um, it's a it's not like homeless, other places, that's for sure. And I'm not complaining that these guys, that's it upsets people, it doesn't upset me, because that's just an indication of the pure concentration of wealth as so much wealth than when they will accidentally spill over to the poorest. And we just think that that guy's poor, but he's rich compared to most of the world. We're just so wealthy, we're just so ridiculously wealthy. That I mean, I remember not until, and this was by choice, but not until, like, after opening my business, I was 20 something. I went through college, everybody else I knew. I knew some people that didn't come from money. Also, they all had cell phones. I never had a cell phone. I was traveling to La instead, like, oh, how can you afford this travel? Why spend it on different things. I wrote the bus. I remember saving a hotel in between doing grapplers quest Vegas, and then doing a tournament, I'm in some way or North California. So I saved the hotel, like, I'll just take the bus at night, and sleep on on its way to San Francisco. And it was like a 16 hour trip. That wasn't the best decision I've ever made. But I'm still, uh, you know, I saved money doing all that stuff from doing like the normal basic living expenses, right? Because people don't know what that means anymore. And then I use that for something that I cared more about. Many people believe I see that listed in terms of and they talk about how much poorer we are compared to and I get inflation I get how much poorer we are compared to people a generation or so ago with a with a minimum wage in the patent like, and they're listening these expenses, but like, listen, the richest people didn't have something equivalent to a smartphone and now poor people, you're listening that as a basic expense. It's like that's a required. Um, I got bad news. That's not a required many people like if you're, if you're like, I can't afford to eat healthy, in my opinion, the the Eat Healthy comes before your cell phone that really offends some people. But that said, you can find the money somewhere else probably.

Josh Bolton: 29:07

Oh, yeah. It's easy. Yeah, it's just funny how you listed because like, I don't have the best phones. And obviously, you can probably see my hand I trained very hard. I break my phone all the time. And it's just one of those people like why don't you just buy a new one? I'm like, that's an extra $1,000 I don't have to like put it on your credit card on my I still an expense.

brian D: 29:27

Yeah, I mean, I'm not. So I'm still I'm still kind of like that, that I don't spend a lot of money on myself. But I also not mean it to hate on people that have money and spend it. I'm more talking about people that complained. If you're complaining about being broke, and you're spending money on all this random stuff. If you have a Netflix subscription, not that it's that expensive and people are like, oh, you can't out save like it's canceling Netflix. That's not how you get written like, no, that's not how you get rich. But that's how you do pay for other essential stuff that you say you can't afford right now until you go figure something out. Right?

Josh Bolton: 30:10

Well, like for me, I went year and a half without going to the gym. And it wasn't anything against the gym. I just sat there and I'm like, I save so much money, I cancelled my membership. I now work out at home Bodyweight Workouts, actually, in the best shape of my life that I've been in a long time. And yeah, and it's just one of those. I didn't cancel a couple other things. I'm not like saving like two 3000 a year.

brian D: 30:34

Yes, like, and I get that. Oh, and I was always kind of like that I never, I never had. So I paid a lot for martial arts. But I did not for like a gym. But I've changed that. And I've started you know, I've even so after I got my black belt. So for for contacts, that's fairly recently, I had a gym way before and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, sometimes it takes a long time, mine took 1314 years, something like that, so long, I even forget the exact amount. And that's like training multiple times a day, every day. So a lot of training. But anyway, after I got my BA around the time I got my black belt. Um, I kind of started, I was waiting because I didn't want to get my black belt because I was strong and stuff. But I started going more to the gym. I've even I've even hit up personal trainers and stuff like that. And I think it makes sense to invest in yourself if you have it. If you have it. I'm not all about save money for no reason. So, but like, no, no, no where you are and don't complain about it. I mean, I was in a phase where I invested like, I didn't have a cell phone. I did. Like I slept at the gym slept on mats, I would take the bus instead. But I mean, man, I did all the seminars, I could I traveled competed, I spent tons of money, and be like, Oh, I don't have enough money to spend the bowl. Yeah, because it's not a priority for you. So I'm not all like saved for no reason. I do think I'm huge on personal development. So I do think spend money on yourself. If you think if you really think it's going to be the same for you save the money, but sometimes going to go into a public gym can have some benefits, paying somebody to help you. Especially I have some injuries and whatever I mean, that the amount of time long term that That saves me. Yeah, I'm into a pain expert, for sure. Um,

Josh Bolton: 32:43

I have one point before the lockdowns what I did is because I was making so much money I live with my parents. Actually, I still do. But I was I was rent free back then. And essentially, I hired a trainer. And not because he was going to train me it was out of principle because I was like, I'm paying him. My brain works. If I pay him, I want to get a return. Because my techniques were so much stronger and better than his. I did. That's where he would ask me like, why are you paying me? I said, I just need someone to show up, yell at me and take my money. So I feel like I have to earn it back. Yeah, all I'm paying you for.

brian D: 33:17

Right? Well, honestly, a lot of personal trainers as like, a lot of it depends on the person and what they're they need them for. But one thing they can, especially if your goal is weight loss, we can let's be honest, you can change your diet alone and do that. Oh, yeah. Good. You're probably not going to if you're an average American, but you should, if you if you know you need to do it. But that said, it's just somebody to keep them accountable. Okay, I'm going to show up at this time. Hey, what did you have to launch today? Like, just somebody held them accountable helps people on lots? Oh, yeah. Um, so and on what you said, if you're going to pay for it, you're going to I do agree with that. I didn't use to understand that. And it's to me, that's not I feel like it's not as powerful for me personally, that I don't need it as much, maybe that's me not being as self aware in that area. But I know for a lot of people, that's the case. And I never really went the route of like really trying to sell like business coaching and stuff like that. But I've worked with business coaches, and I've paid business coaches, and, you know, some of the ones I know, some of them really well, and I've heard him talk and stuff like that. And like, you know, one of the reasons they don't want to give away, some of the good ones don't want to give away free coaching. Because no one listens to them. I don't know, like you think same thing in martial arts. Like I've let people train for free, whatever, they don't show up. You would think you'd really appreciate it and show up and work hard if I sponsor your membership. But you don't value it because you didn't pay anything for it. Right. So there is something now there's upset Of course I have, but the rare, I've sponsored some people that. But nowadays I try to, I try to work something else out where it's not a true free because people don't value it. And they throw it away. So yeah, there's something do that.

Josh Bolton: 35:18

Also there is and it is okay to touch on something like your business coach I, I've invited business coaches on and I've talked to them, but I wanted to, I was actively listening. So they, they had actually commit their knowledge. But that one of them told me I've heard the same thing. And they're like, if you are invested in person, and you know, they're not financially able to, but they're willing to listen, he's like, yes, give him a free lesson or two kind of thing. But he's like, people will listen to you, if you charge him. He's like, Don't expecially listen to you, if you charge him a lot of money. Yeah. And I'm like, but that's the opposite of everything. Like, I feel like that's bad. He's like, it might seem like your corporate capitalist, but he's like, you're actually helping that person because they're so invested so much money in that they feel now they have to make it back. And there's this he's a thin the listen to everything you say?

brian D: 36:06

Yeah, it's, um, I mean, I, I did definitely have had both cases of success and not on I've worked with a whole bunch of different people write different things, and I do it, I feel like that's one of my strengths that helped me move to the next level is that I am willing to be coachable. And that I am willing to, like, try stuff. And if I waste the money, and it doesn't work out, um, then it is what it is it what I learned is, this wasn't the one I didn't. And this is a different mindset that I feel I feel like some people like they feel like they get burned. And then like now they're a skeptic, and they won't invest. Like the difference I think in a lot of the people that really make it is that they get burned on an investment, and they make the money back and then make another investment. And whether it's in yourself or something else. And they keep going until they find it. But the average person, they get burned, and they learned a lesson. But they learned the lesson. They didn't learn the full lesson, which is the lesson is it's a probability thing. It's statistics, a certain probability these things work. So you didn't learn the full lesson, you learned a lesson you should have known at the first point when you make any investment, like the number one rule of investing is, you got anything you're not willing to lose. Right, right. So you under that, so you're on the first piece of investing, but not all of it.

Josh Bolton: 37:36

Sorry, that's so true. Because, like for me, I would say as the camera I don't have to say it the other way. I'm reading books on trading and investing in business now. Because when the whole 2020 crash and stock market, I was like, why are some people dancing like it's the best thing since sex and summer crying like beallsville been in a room and that started the whole rabbit hole K, stock market stock markets, business businesses mindset mindset is spirituality. And, and that's the biggest one, I've realized that Mike. For me, the hardest thing for me was to step out of my comfort zone and start the show because I was worried about woke culture, and counseling, and I was gonna lose my job. And now I see here joking myself, I'm like, damn it, that is free advertising. So it's one of those. If I didn't adjust, like you willing to be more coachable, I probably still be doing the same job in my life. Now I look at everything like this conversation and opportunity to Well, first of all, Phil Marshall ours to talk to each other, but also to just have a good time compare notes. I didn't have that mindset, like two and a half years ago, essentially. So it's it is but it was an investment of risk. And it's paying dividends beyond belief.

brian D: 38:53

Yeah, I mean, it's your, I saw somewhere and I was like, I wonder if this is just from somebody trying to sell their coaching program or something. But it was like a quote. And I like, Man, this quote is kind of true. It says it's better to be a sucker than a skeptic. Like, you know, I think long term. And there's way more skeptics, but uh, you know, I've, I've, I've paid people to do nothing, a number of times in a variety of different areas. And in some cases, I could try to pursue getting that money back from court and whatever. And most of the time, like, man, that's just not worth the money. In fact, I've never exclude it like that. So it's just like, you know, my thought though, is, man, this person lost a lot more out of this deal than me from a certain perspective. Now, they didn't put anything in they got some money, but they made me like, whatever offer they made. A lot of people have offers out there. And I'm talking about like, not Small stuff, I'm talking about something substantial. Whatever offer they made was good enough to make me buy it, which means you had a really good chance to continue to sell me other stuff. Like, if you know about business and marketing, especially if it's coaching, but different fulfillment, different things like men, the hardest thing is getting the sales, everybody thinks, Oh, I'm gonna be a coach, it'll be easy, I got to do this, this but that, like, man, you got to get somebody to want to be coached by you, or you want to whatever your thing is, it's like it's the customer base. This is a big part of the reasons why anybody goes to work for any other company. Because let's face it, most of you will never be able to make as much money on your own that as you would working for someone else, why not? Because it's not your time isn't is valuable there. But it's because you can't generate enough business. You can't make enough sales. So when you start generating that business, and you burn that person, that's so stupid. Because it's also highly referral based, I could have gave you referrals, I could have been a returned customer. The easy part is the fulfillment, you should have that system ready to go before you made an offer. So every time that happens, like man, I mean, you're the stupid one. Oh, yeah, there's somebody that says that's the easy part. There's somebody for sure, whatever that you are selling, that will sell it to me also only fulfill it and do a great job. And I'll just find that person next time rather than thinking, Oh, I'm never going to do this again, I got to be more careful. I know. You need to be more careful. Because if you keep doing that, you're going to be broke.

Josh Bolton: 41:44

Oh, 100%. And that's actually one of those the mastermind group I was in. And then the guy was a genius. But that was the thing he was pushing. He's like, sales over everything. And I was like, but what about the relationship? Like you said, What about the trickle down effect, maybe that person wouldn't buy, but they're like, oh, because I had a good experience, I highly recommend this person. You can't price that there is no gauging that kind of thing.

brian D: 42:09

I mean, so sell over everything. That could mean a couple of different things. I definitely think how you take care of customers, because that's what I'm talking about here is right, because that affects future sales. But if you can't generate when you generate the business, it costs way more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing. I forget exactly where I got those numbers from got that from, but I've read a lot of different numbers from different companies that have run those numbers. And it's almost universally true, that it's way easier to keep an existing customer than acquire a new one. But many of these people and in an effort to be more sales driven, they forget that they like Okay, God, this person took their money nice to on the next person. Forget about that person. Not remembering that. Manda. That's the hardest part. So you can set up system. I mean, if you, depending on the nature of your business, man, you if you're good at sales, you could definitely set it up in the way that you mainly do sales. And you have a team that do this other stuff. Maybe not at the beginning. I don't know we're an abstract talking about any sort of business, right? But like, it's not. If you show me a business, that's making a very high variety of sales and the sales have a profit March. But then, and it's like, Hey, Brian, congratulations on your inheritance. It makes $100 million in sales a year. 20% is profit. Ah, like, okay, no. And then, yeah, that yeah, that's 20 million profit. But um, that's like, okay, cool. That's probably our business is probably worth $100 million. Depends, may only be worth 20 2015 To 2015 to $100 million, probably. And I'm not like, Oh, I'm so strict. Like, I just got to find a way. I mean, that business is ready to be executed. Sounds like it's already scaled. Like, it's perfect. I don't have to do any of that fulfillment. Some people hear that, like, how am I going to learn how to do whatever it's like, Nah, it already has sales, it has the systems to generate sales. So there's nothing stressful about that. Like, oh, can can we it's pretty, pretty close to go and public level. Can I just do that? Get some sales? Yes. But I'm pretty sure I don't have to even learn whatever the heck this thing is, is probably just to be sure probably, if you want to give me$100 million company. I mean, I'll learn a little bit just out of principle. But you know, it's, that's not that's not the hard part. The systems to do that, like that's so hard, very few people can do it. That's why CEOs get paid so much because those guys could build it on their own. You got to give them a ridiculous offer because they're capable of building that business. And only a handful of people in the world are.

Josh Bolton: 45:10

Oh, yeah, sir, is it's one of those. That's where people like, Oh, why? Why do CEOs make so much they have the company like this and that like we could have Jeff, the biggest one on your shift basis could have paid everyone 100k A year and he still have x amount of billions left. And I said, Yeah, but I said here, let's put it this way. Do you know how much stress he's constantly under? They're like, No, I said exactly.

brian D: 45:35

Another there's another fact there also is, how much cash does business have?

Josh Bolton: 45:40

He doesn't it's not much like 86,000. He that's the only cash he takes.

brian D: 45:44

Yeah, so you happen to know that. But I asked most people, they're like, I don't know, a couple billion, maybe millions, like very little. So what does he have? Yes. Shares Amazon. Mainly, he has some property as some other things. So what are shares of Amazon? Well, that that his rights to control and get revenue from potentially. But does Amazon even pay dividends right

Josh Bolton: 46:06

now? No, they don't. I say, No, they don't at all.

brian D: 46:10

So he's not even getting revenue for his control of a company, which is proven to be able to make it profitable. That pays a lot of people. Now, when I went to work at Amazon, not from what I've heard so far, but maybe it's worse than I've seen on articles, because I do know somebody that went to work there. And they said it was fine. Personally, I know someone that went to work there. So maybe it's overhyped. That said, he on some of the stuff I've read, but that said, like the, it's producing something of extreme value, and it's employing a lot of people. And that's really all Leone. So it's like, oh, he's wasting a wealth tax that like, okay, so you just want to take all that and give it to the government, who's proven that they're way less.

Josh Bolton: 46:58

They don't know what they're doing.

brian D: 46:59

It's just like, he's not wasting anything, because of all his wealth. Oh, he got so much richer during that, like, we didn't have any more cash. Same with Elon Musk, why are they so much richer? Well, his stock went way up. And he has the same number of shares. Well,

Josh Bolton: 47:17

and this is the one thing one of the co workers yelling at me about, like, oh, he has all this money. I'm like, he doesn't have money as it. Here's the thing that he's doing, that it's known, if you want to look it up, he's taking what like a HELOC equivalent. He's taking a loan out on his own shares. I said this is how the rich dodge taxes legally. Because when you refinance, and you get your cash from a bank, you don't shit. So he technically only makes eight is literally $86,420 In point something cents, as a that is all he owes you, the government will see that he has for income, as it that's how we can fund all these projects is because he might

brian D: 47:57

game well. So one thing that people are like a How does Trump not pay how to all these people need not pay taxes, what's really easy, once you have a certain amount of money, that you don't personally need any more money to spend on yourself, but you only want to do business or charity events. As long as you don't need to declare a profit ever again. It's going to be really easy to wait the tax number say whatever you want them to. It's the problem for people like you and I that still need to take more money out to eat, we're going to have to pay taxes, but if they're not actually taking but also on the flip side, all those investments are good for the economy. Now, you're like Oh, bad for this bad for that. I mean, there's multiple points of view but I I acknowledge there's multiple points of view. Some rich people even say there needs to be more taxes however,

Josh Bolton: 48:58

this make I wanna say Warren Buffett saying oh yeah, tax the rich but then I'm kind of like on the same note. You won't get the money out of me though.

brian D: 49:05

Yeah, well, you won't get that that's the thing is like you can change these numbers people don't like the top tax bracket used to be 90% But then when you Google what the rich used to pay, it wasn't that no one paid 90% Like that used to be on the books but no one paid right so the those numbers aren't for the super rich they're for you and I so

Josh Bolton: 49:28

Max's shadow the poor in the middle class. Yeah, well, we

brian D: 49:31

call the upper middle class rich and then we tax them until they're down into the lower middle class, but you're not going to touch basis. I mean basis doesn't need the US he could go somewhere else.

Josh Bolton: 49:43

He's got plenty of money and different

brian D: 49:45

needs the whole country he doesn't need like he doesn't need the US government. So good up.

Josh Bolton: 49:51

Yeah. Honestly, lately I haven't heard him Alas, they heard about him on the news is he's stepped down to the board of directors and was trying to do something with his rocket company. That's the last I heard he could be out of country just sit on Puerto Rico. Who knows where? Who knows? I'm just curious. How long do I got you for?

brian D: 50:12

Um, I didn't build anything afterwards because you never know how long these bill so

Josh Bolton: 50:16

oversee. I tried to use you. You had something I tried to summarize it. I'm loving this. Let's keep going. So, yeah, that's the one thing I tell people, Mike, dude. When you get to the point where literally, it actually is kind of annoying to have money. Then like you, there's so many opportunities, that it's just insane. But I'm like to swear, I've telling my instructor, he's worried about the New World Order and economic reset and all this bullshit. And I'm like, Alright, whatever. We're gonna have to meet up one day. But I told him, I said, here's the thing. I said, Look at Have you done your research on China? And he's like, Well, yeah, they have a digital yen. I said, Well, okay, let's put it in really simple terms. It's not actually how it works. If you're caught watching porn in China, we'll take 1000 bucks from you. It's super simple. It's just extremes. But if you, you pick up someone else's dogshit, they'll give you that 1000 from the other guy. I said, now we're in the in that does it say it's going to tax a corporation that way? Music It doesn't like it's peer to peer. So in this whole new world reset, you're going to want to put everything in a company and LLC. You also only want to pay yourself up to like, basically 86,000. And that's it. Just ignore the company other than make sure it's functioning. I said, that is how everything's gonna work. Those who don't figure that out in time. They're gonna be screwed. Yeah,

brian D: 51:43

I'm definitely I'm not. I mean, I'm talking about like, different little taxi things that I've read about. I am not tax master. I probably mean either. I pay way too much. And I haven't I should probably just I know, I don't declare every deduction I could. And I've probably should go get like a really good accountant. But I haven't got around to it. I just pay the government lots because I guess I love the government deep down. But so yeah, that said, I don't have all that. I mean, I do have an LLC for my business. You know, so I mean, if I didn't take any deductions, I'd be broke. Because if I paid them a sales, right, like I would, I would make way less than nothing. Because we pay many companies are like that, if you pay, did you pay the taxes off of the sales? Not the profits, you wouldn't have anything? You'd have less than nothing, you wouldn't even be able to pay the tax

Josh Bolton: 52:42

you actually might owe before more than you realize.

brian D: 52:45

Oh, yeah. Well, you would? Because I mean, what's your tax bracket? Even if it's just say 30%? A lot of people only make 10 to 20%? Profit? Yeah, depends on which business you're in. Some people manage to run some pretty lean businesses, some of these, some of these coaches, non skilled coaches, right, organic only are close to like 90 100% profit, but the big ones, man, they're running. They're running ads, they're shoveling so much into expense, then they hire other teams to fulfill like, then they're down like everybody else. Everybody, if you look at then there's all these awards for sales of these different things. And that's cool. But it's like, yeah, you did a million dollars in sales. Well, that some people do a million dollars in sales, and like make almost no profit whatsoever. It's possible to do. And then some people make a million dollars in sales. And so like, they did really great.

Josh Bolton: 53:51

Oh, yeah. And

brian D: 53:52

show that you can make sales, right? So either way, not hating that. Hate knowing that. But there's like there's people like I've talked to him and marketing events, some people I know people have made a million dollars in sales and maybe basically very close to zero because they just found something that could do lead gen, like a front end product that was paying for advertising and churning through it. And they found a little niche to work for a little bit and they made a million dollars in sales, but they made basically no dollars.

Josh Bolton: 54:18

Oh, yeah. And that was the biggest one. I was someone I was helping out. And I realized it was just, I didn't even understand the full cash flow statements and all that I do now. I said, Hey, you know, you spent $900,000 in ads on Google, Facebook and Instagram and all that, but you only made a million and then you had to pay your team another whatever. So actually, you lost $10,000

brian D: 54:44

Yeah, but you know what if you're doing that, um, that sounds like a business without with a lot of opportunity. Because if that's this year,

Josh Bolton: 54:52

now if that's your was a long time ago, that was pre pandemic.

brian D: 54:55

Well, I but I'm saying like if that's so let's say that's at the end of year one or year two, or what have their business. And that's what they did in this last year. Future potentially looks really bright. Right? Because all those people are former customers, we have email addresses, we can market to those customers, we have a brand. So we didn't make anything. What we did was we invested $10,000. Right, which is not too much to invest in a company that can do a million dollars in revenue a year now, can it do next year? I don't know. I don't know about your business model. But I'm so like that there could be something there because that's the like, if you can, the saying is if you have a breakeven funnel, if you have a breakeven process, and then that can scale, then I mean, right, that's almost all you need to get started like you you you could be a millionaire, like if you can break even that that means you can get infinite advertising. If you can break even at scale, you can get infinite advertising and infinite customers for free. So that itself isn't worth any money. But you can then take that, and you can get. I mean, how many of those people will buy another thing later remarket to them on the back end through email, like some percentage for sure. If your product is good, and you sold a million dollars worth, then without ads, some of those people just coming back. So once again, like if if you told me that, like, I don't want to make those people sound like idiots, because I don't know anything about their business. And if they just lost $10,000 a year, every year, they probably would close their business. But if it's the start of it like Man, they might really have something going with those numbers.

Josh Bolton: 56:40

No, they were struggling. That's where they were so desperate. They asked me like, What am I doing wrong? I'm like, Yeah, you're taking? And that

brian D: 56:47

at that point? I mean, yeah, hire a good business coach or something in their area, probably find a specialist because it sounds like from those numbers, there's something there. Because you got all those people? I mean, are they doing email marketing? Are they doing testmasters marketing to have automated campaigns campaigns dripping out? Are they using these lists that like, because the most valuable thing I saw there is like, you have not only a list, you have a list of people that have bought from you. What are you doing to use that? And if they're not growing? It sounds like the answer is nothing. They found a

Josh Bolton: 57:26

they just got lucky for like 20 years, essentially, they found

brian D: 57:29

Facebook ads, they found Oh, it's if it's 20 years. Within that what sounds like happens then is they found something that worked with, with paid advertising, paid advertising got more expensive, there's people that, um, that they made a lot of money with the business was fueled only on Facebook ads. Yeah. And as Facebook ads got more and more expensive, that they couldn't pay the cost to acquire the customer. And that they didn't utilize all that time they had generating all those customers that they could afford to build something sustainable. And yeah, many businesses have disappeared that way. That's why a lot of those businesses aren't super investable, in my opinion, because they're like, some niche little thing. Oh, I've got list a little thing. And congrats. If you if you can run ads to something. And on the front end, you can break even really congrats, because that's harder than most people think it is. But even if you can do that, right now, once you get there, you got to really start to think about what your long term plan is, especially if you're doing it at scale, because those numbers can change at any time. Oh, yeah.

Josh Bolton: 58:45

And that's where like, like you said, hindsight, it's a blessing and a curse, kind of 2020. Yes. Look, not

brian D: 58:56

to say 2020

Josh Bolton: 58:56

I know, I know. If we triggered Someone, please go tweet us on Twitter, whatever, screenshots? I don't care. But literally, that's where now with hindsight, I would have realized I would ask Mike okay, what is your your this your that? How are you paying your customers back in loyalty programs? Like we're not but I was just a young kid, I kind of knew the basics of a cash flow state and like, you're technically losing money.

brian D: 59:24

But that's so that's not your problem. That's their problem. Because they went and asked some students for free instead of they know they have this business with a huge amount of potential. And once again, they were a skeptic instead of that wave closer to the set skeptic and get us stead of soccer and is like hire a professional business consultant like me, okay. You don't like these coaches, they're consultants, professional consultants in your industry, they can give you some advice there. And you know, that that company can could potentially be sold or acquired as well. Because even if it doesn't make money to somebody in that interesting. For instance, like, this is purely theoretical. But say I had a software company that I'm about to have and say one of my competitors, it turned out, they weren't profitable. And I had a similar business and they wanted to sell. But to say they were doing numbers, like you're talking about, if I could afford them, I would probably buy them. Because to me, I can change those numbers, I just need to customers, because I have a set of business, like I have a process that's profitable in theory. So if yours isn't, I can buy your customers, change him to a product, that's better, because yours is falling apart. And I just acquired all yours. So you could still potentially sell. So there's so many different angles, that they could go with it. I mean, if they needed to, but that says a lot about them. If they're not just the only advice, hey, we really need help. We're struggling. We're about to go under. Let's ask somebody for free that doesn't know. Like, yeah, that there's there's your problem. Found it for you.

Josh Bolton: 1:01:09

Oh, yeah. And again, I'd say that's where I'm sitting here going like you should have. This was 2015 2016. I'm like, You should have Googled, like, business coach or my business failing, what do I do? Kind of thing? Yeah,

brian D: 1:01:24

well, a lot of a lot of these business coaches aren't great. A lot of them are, have never run a business by having and you know, what, if you go for the cheapest one, you're gonna pay it when you pay. But you can find somebody and you know what, if you don't want a business coach, you can get a consultant, you can start by going to some marketing events, you can go to some different places. And like every coach that I've ever gotten, I haven't just straight up hired a coach. I've like seen been to different events, or seen what them listen to what they had to say, like, okay, cool, I can learn something working with this person. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. But, you know, that's, you can find somebody that can probably help you some. But the people that like I said about the CEOs making a lot of money, the people that can help you with something like that. They're not like, the minimum wage, dude. Sorry, love you minimum wage, dude, I hope you're a CEO one day, but if you could be a CEO now, like, you probably wouldn't be there. Everybody thinks, Oh, I could do the CEOs job, but the job is hard. And maybe you can do it one day, but they're there steps to get there. And I'm not acknowledging that. And just not being willing to understand it, like, hey, a guy that could help me can't afford to, and then not you wouldn't listen to him anyway, like we discussed earlier, that, like he can't afford to, like just spend time talking about like, you're gonna have to pay for that you're gonna either have to hire him, you could hire a new CEO, you can hire a consultant. I mean, there's cost effective ways. There a lot of what I told you, I have an engineering degree, a lot of what some engineers do, some industrial engineers do is they do little audits of different companies, like even something like Subway, they'll audit the process of how a sandwich is made. And do like, Okay, well, the lettuce should be over here. It would be faster, the, and there's simulations and stuff that they can run on that. So this is a different side of what we think of the business coaching, right? This is what more corporate does with maybe better for a lot of people actually. But there's different simulation software's. That's a lot of there's a lot of stuff in there, but you can look at right down, okay, how many customers have to be in line before somebody leaves? Right? So then you're losing this much money per customer? So when the process is this slow? So during peak hours, can we justify having another employee here? Okay, where should this be for this? Should this product be that product B, to make it faster, different things? That's just an example. So that subway was an example that was used to me in an engineering class, as somewhere that does that has hired consulting for something like that. That isn't what people think of because people think of the plants, right? The think of factories, refineries, plants, those who need optimization and engineers, but really anybody who hire that and if you're doing any, there's there's marketing, consulting, and then there's efficiency. And sounds like your buddy could have benefited from almost either one. All the Pretty

Josh Bolton: 1:04:44

much. Yeah, so I was in college too. And that's why I even told him like, I'm not even getting like a business degree. Why are you asking me for this kind of thing?

brian D: 1:04:55

Yeah, because they have the wrong mindset. They have the scarcity mindset. So they went where scarcity mindset people go

Josh Bolton: 1:05:04

out of business? Yep. So I'm just curious for your SEO, your red belt, CRM? Yeah. How would what would be the basic pricing? Let's say someone's willing to do to beta, what would it cost them?

brian D: 1:05:19

Oh, for the beta, um, we probably are gonna have like, I mean, because you're helping me beta tests, like some different free offers or pay offers or something like that. With that, when we actually sell it in a couple of months, it'll be $200 a month. So like,

Josh Bolton: 1:05:35

if they come in on beta, they could get locked in at about what, hypothetically 50 or 70 a month kind of thing? Is there a beta?

brian D: 1:05:42

I mean, I don't

Unknown: 1:05:43

I don't have a hypothetical right

brian D: 1:05:45

now. But yeah, I mean, I would, I would definitely, we probably options in terms of, hey, you just want to do it for free now and then sign up later? Or you are you willing to start paying us now? Cool, I'll grandfather you at some sort of discount, for sure. But we're gonna come in at the same price point as our two most expensive competitors, and we have more stuff than they do. And we function better. Well, so

Josh Bolton: 1:06:14

the only reason I'm even asking is my martial arts instructor essentially, has his wife that you're texting was the sell point for me. He has his wife using her company phone, texting everyone. I'm like, Dude, you could take so much off your plate if you just buy this guy software.

brian D: 1:06:33

Yeah, for sure. But it's he, I remember a time. So I have a CRM. Now I've went through a couple of them for martial arts school owners. And like I said before, I don't think that part was being recorded. But that I've went, like, I just felt like we could do better that compared to what out that is out there and other software that it could be better for martial arts school owners. That said, even from what was there when I went from nothing to using it. At first I was, you know, because we were exactly how you were talking about your instructor was that said like, my first year was very close to breakeven, second year, profitable, but very narrow, like not me making minimum wage when you break down hours. And then, but when I finally like, I paid for some coaching. I paid somebody for a coaching program that was a martial arts guy. It was $500 a month, and I didn't have $500. But once again, I hustled and before the credit card was due, and I got it. And like shortly after that, I got a CRM, I got all this stuff. So the revenue tracked with the expenses when I was scarcity mindset, I was like I couldn't like and that's one thing that coach said, like, well, you need to hire somebody, at least part time to take some of the phones while you're teaching classes. Some of this stuff is like, well, I can't afford to hire somebody like but that was a mindset thing. Because you know, as you if you do things the right way. And I mean Asterix, not financial advice, you can always go broke, or do investing, right. But I feel if you do things the right way, as you're scaling, and you're hiring employees, you're buying more infrastructure, you should be making more money. And that was the case for me is when I wouldn't invest in these different things because I couldn't afford it. And I was stuck. When I started doing. Some of the things I invested in, by the way did not pay me back anything. That's part of the Asterix I included a second ago, some of these things that like when I almost didn't afford to spend any money. Some people, some of the things I spent money on, didn't give any return, but still better chance then many people like I'm doing bad, better, they'll have a drink at the bar. Why didn't do any of that. And so, you've got zero chance of return on any sort of spending like that. So at least if you give it put it into your business, you have some sort of chance you at least learn something you need you keep trying. My thought is I mean, there's, there's a way if other people are making money and making a living with it with the business. And I mean, not just one person, bother people. If a lot of people are doing it, there is a way to do it. And success leaves clues. Go find that out. And oh, I want to do things my own way you can do that. And I've innovated and whatever but like one thing I did first though, was like the first thing I did was like, okay, if I'm going to pay this coach, I'm going to not, oh, I'm going to do that and change this and that I started by like okay, I'm going to copy exactly what he says. And we're going to get there and then you can make some tweaks and make it your own. But like many people some people are so smart and creative that they'll never get anywhere, because the wheel was already invented. And you're struggling. And there is a proven model that works. And you're not doing that, because you just think you know better. But you haven't even had experience doing the proven model. So you don't know enough to know for sure, if you do know better or not. So you do that first. And then you slowly make tweaks to your idea. And like, once you're in there, you may think like, you know, those ideas that I had, some of them may not be that good. And some of them may be worth pursuing slowly, one tweak at a time, that's a B testing, right? So we don't change everything. Like we do something that works. Okay, I want to change, here's here, like, we're gonna take one little thing and change it, is it better or worse? Okay, if it's better, that's the new default version, one of the thing and change it rather than taking the whole business, and they're like, Okay, what are these proven models, but I'm not even going to start with one of those and change it to what I want. I'm just going to do a random thing. And if you are Elon Musk, and you just want to start neuro tech, or SpaceX, and you have large amounts of funds, you go, do you he also has experience, and he's got a decent money to lose. I don't recommend that.

Josh Bolton: 1:11:14

Oh, no. As I said, he's also kind of boring like crazy. He's running almost four companies that should have they. Yeah. But he's also this is a nerd. When I tell people, Mike, when you get to that point, like Elon Musk, it almost makes sense to intention that your money on fire and random projects, because then you can figure out what works and what doesn't like that's, that's what he does.

brian D: 1:11:40

A well, he people like him see money differently. Because most people see money and they see things, they see stuff they want to do with it. He doesn't care because he only sees vision. So the only thing is like a he's he's trying to accomplish something. And then money can be a means to that. So he doesn't need any more things. So it doesn't matter if he quote unquote, loses money. In fact, he might not even see loss, the same way you see loss, which is one reason why some of those companies aren't public because you know, how investable is neuro tech or SpaceX? Perhaps I don't know. But as a

Josh Bolton: 1:12:20

SpaceX now if he can actually perfect it. That would that would be a very interesting company. I well, I was there they both

brian D: 1:12:27

they both might be investable one day. But right now, it's like, are you going to invest in something their product maybe? And I know he's got some short timelines, but I don't know about those just like, the everybody was gonna be the truck car was gonna be driving themselves like,

Josh Bolton: 1:12:43

Oh, I didn't believe that the moment he said it. Oh, he's the oil we up and running. And within two years, I have so many delays No way.

brian D: 1:12:51

Well, I mean, to his credit, the Tesla actually can drive itself. It's just this government regulation, different things, but bugs not out of it. But like, Yeah, I mean, he actually does kind of have a he mainly has a self driving car. It's really cool. What are the big on on the timeline? He first said,

Josh Bolton: 1:13:10

No, and then the biggest one, and this is even us humans driving. Other humans are such an unpredictable variable. Like, even if you taught the best computer, every single possibility, some humans gonna figure out something and he's gonna kind of pull off a little bridge and

brian D: 1:13:28

write well, I've kind of got a pure theory, and it's just a theory, but that one day, I think probably in your lifetime, probably nearly we'll see. We will see driving. Maybe Lille? Because yeah, me drive. And you'll probably always be able to go do it on a track, right? Like you can race horses on a track or whatever. You can put certain cars, race cars, you can only race on a track, like private tracks or drives. But as far as public ways, it seems like because that's, that's the final step. Right? Which once that would be a slow adoption. But once most people are there, it would just be okay. These old like, because that's the weak link. And once you had most of the population, I mean, that's what the government likes to do. They like they see it, and then they they may last. So that's what they're going to do, I think is they're going to make human driving illegal. And it actually would make the process much smoother. Then you could have like chips in the roads. You can have cameras, like basically everything would be on a network communicating with each other because right now when your car drives, it only knows what it knows. But the ultimate version of it would be if it was on a network, that it knew what the road knew. It knew what a different cameras knew. It knew what all the other cars knew it was and that wouldn't be that's not nearly as sighted Fi is some of the other stuff Elon Musk is working on. So, you know, it's definitely could be done. And I think that, at some point, once self driving cars were super mainstream, eventually people, there's going to be a push to remove the human element to make it illegal

Josh Bolton: 1:15:22

was not the number one as a personal theory to, I think, especially with this fear of the digital currency. One thing actually China has tired. So if you have an automated self driving, or even electric car, because they still have to connect to the internet, if they don't like what you're doing, they'll just kill your car right there.

brian D: 1:15:43

Right? There's super, I'm not saying there's not concerns with this, because there's a lot of concerns as, um, I mean, digital currencies is part of the conversation to is like, Okay, well, is there a way to keep the government from controlling it? Is the government just gonna, in the end, going to be able to have their own and control everything of that, too? But yeah, I mean, while I can definitely see, one, I just my theory is for good or bad. That's just what's going to happen. That's the next natural step. But I do think it's gonna save lives. I also think it adds to the government's already incredible power and potential invasion of privacy.

Josh Bolton: 1:16:29

Yeah, the, the final one that you heard podcaster say this, he's like, um, he's like, I'm interested when you go into Facebook ad or whatever the ad platform is at the time, and then you see the, whatever they look for, and then thoughts. He's like, that will be the final like,

brian D: 1:16:48

as we're so close already, because, and so so many people are like, and I'm not saying Facebook is not doing anything illegal, but I don't think they are people like they're listening to conversations. I don't think they are, personally, because I can fathom how they're able to do what they're doing without it. Based on how that will everything they can track completely legal, which what they tell you they do in their terms and conditions, which is some people don't realize, but the vast majority of places on the internet have a Facebook pixel one, so that you can do retargeting tracks. So they know all of that. And they know every single, not only did they know what you clicked on, they, as you can maybe start to notice, if you slow down on certain ads, you'll see more of that type. They know how long you spend on each ad. They know on what time of day, you tend to spend more time on the other ads like and then they know how people like you statistically tend to behave. They know times of years, whereas FICO people tend to behave certain ways and they have so much data, they can come to these conclusions, these guesses, right and their guesses. And then people say like, Man, I can't believe I saw an ad about that. When I was just talking about it, it's like well, they're good at guessing. And here's the thing, what which other 20 ads Did you see today? You don't remember those, the one that popped out to you was the one you were talking about, but showed you tons of and you just remembered that one. I remember one time I ran this ad that I was doing this, it was January I was running this local fitness kickboxing boot camp thing. And my gym, and I had so much ad spend on it, that my my average number of impressions for user was like four or five so the average person would see it four or five times and it was targeted towards all women in the in that area. Right? It's so all women in that area. So if you had if you had a Facebook during that time, and I was putting so much money on it, everybody was gonna see. So if you were a woman in Beaumont, Texas, you were gonna be seeing that ad during that time, because I was shoveling money into it and people are like, this is scary. I was just several people said that I was just talking that I wanted to do kickboxing. Facebook is just so they know so much. I was just talking about it. I was gonna do kickboxing with my feet. I never searched anything. Like yeah, but you were the right type of person and every single woman in your area seeing because also not just Facebook, but I know that based on the time of year and your demographic, then I can afford to show it to everybody right now. So they're like so Facebook doesn't need to see your thoughts that they already know you. So if they could see your thoughts they'd no less than they know right now, because they know statistically what you're about to think tomorrow right now. And you don't know that yet. So and they don't have to know you exactly. They just need to know statistically, to be able to like, on average, this is probably what he's going to do to be able to run these ads. So they know so much. They don't need to know your thoughts. It's ridiculous how much they know anyway.

Josh Bolton: 1:20:26

Oh, and it was just it was a funny little quote, he was just being snarky, like, oh, we'll see what the day when they say dag target.

brian D: 1:20:33

I know that I know that. But like, it's, some people don't realize like completely. Now that said, as a business as an advertiser, I can't see any your personal information. So you still have privacy. It's just all it is, is Facebook is able to offer a ad service to me, that gets me customers for cheaper than other stuff like TV, because they show you ads that are quote, unquote, more relevant to you. Which is not necessarily a bad thing for you an ad is an ad, it's just more relevant to you. I don't people are pushing more and more against it for privacy, but I don't see that changing

Josh Bolton: 1:21:14

on No. And if anything, it's gonna actually get more creepy, because they're gonna have to use even more deeper learning. So yeah, they're not using cookies match. Great. But now, like, for me, I have a Google phone. So by using the Google phone, Google will always get my data no matter what. Yeah, kind of thing. And that's why they're making their phones damn good. Even the hardcore Samsung only or like, actually, the Google Pixel is pretty good. And it's cheaper. Said, so they'll just figure out other ways to get you and they might even be more creepy.

brian D: 1:21:50

Yeah, enemy, they still can. That you're talking about the iOS update? That was? Yeah, I guess that's almost

Josh Bolton: 1:21:57

15 year old now. Yes, a year. I was.

brian D: 1:22:00

Still can they still can use cookies? It's just, um,

Josh Bolton: 1:22:05

I thought 15.5 pretty much killed cookies. And we'll also email them targeting to

brian D: 1:22:12

Yeah. Well, the good marketers have found ways around it. So basically, if you just, if you authenticate it the right way, you can still do it. So it doesn't kill it. But it majorly inconveniences some people. And that said, I mean, there's plenty of other ways. You can steal. So for instance, if it's what it really killed was like, okay, it hurt with the pixel tracking a lot. But it didn't kill it all together. Because I know people that have got it working fine on iOS users. I haven't spent the time so mine is working fine on that. But that said, I can just do a video retargeting. And that doesn't affect video retargeting at all. Because that's on platform. So if I'm retargeting you based on the videos you've watched on Facebook, then it doesn't there. There's nothing the phone can do about that, because Facebook has the data internally.

Josh Bolton: 1:23:14

So wait, that's a new one because they know they have leads. So if I can make my simple like posting, I do this. If you're interested, send give me your email and verify it. How would I do video retargeting on Facebook, then?

brian D: 1:23:27

I'm so easy. All you do is if you have any sort of video ad, what you do is you then set up set up a custom audience, for people that have watched that ad or any other videos you want to include. And then you run traffic to that ad. Oh, okay, that one got it. So not now that's because basically all the all the pixel was that was retargeting people that went to your website, right? Well, I can retarget people that just watch the ad. And there's nothing you're ever going to be able to do Google can ever do about that, or Android can ever do about that. Because that's one platform. And there's I mean, that's just one example of different retargeting that you can still do. And Facebook owns both Instagram and Facebook. So you can do across platforms there too.

Josh Bolton: 1:24:17

Then WhatsApp knows to Yeah.

brian D: 1:24:21

Yeah. Is that finalized that they own?

Josh Bolton: 1:24:23

What? They've owned WhatsApp for a while now? They are now considering monetizing it recently. Which makes no sense. It's messenger. Absolutely. You're gonna get like, oh, we just read that you're hungry. So you should get GrubHub

brian D: 1:24:38

make claim they claim currently that like I said, I just I think their claims may be believable. They claim currently they don't run traffic verse in messages. And I can tell you on Facebook Messenger you can report these messages in the bottle look at it, whatever, but for like harassment or whatever but supposedly They don't use that for targeting people claim they do. It could go either way, maybe they do, but they could do everything they currently do without it. So it's it's believable to me either way, because they actually don't have to break the law. They have enough data to do everything anyway. Lee right.

Josh Bolton: 1:25:18

What and so for that reason, I'm convinced they do listen in the whole air cool for harassment. Back in, like 1617 I was talking to, I only use Facebook Messenger. I was like that diehard I can only use it. Don't even try texting my number. And it was one of those. I was talking about something really specific. Let's, let's say sea monkeys. I never Googled it. I never looked it up. I never did any searches about sea monkeys. And suddenly, I sent a message to my buddy saying, Hey, I think I might buy one. I got ads everywhere. And I'm like, I didn't even

brian D: 1:25:56

you you hear you hear about that a lot. And you know, it's not enough to 100% convinced me, I get why it convinces people and the reason it's not a way to 100% convinced me is this so does the company see monkeys run ads? Oh yeah. Oh, you saw if you saw one they run them okay. And uh, when they set him up you you can go in the platform you know what they're running targeting do and you know, you can't select based on people talking about it in Messenger. So they're going to show it to somebody. So when you talk we're talking to your buddy after that the next day how many ads do you see only ads about see monkeys or you saw ads have all sorts of other things you don't remember? So somebody's seeing them.

Josh Bolton: 1:26:44

So here's the funny thing so recently, but I did this I wanted their site I was looking for like a product called cassava it was a healthy superfood. I just want to see what the prices were and another one that went to Amazon

brian D: 1:26:57

go to their site you

Josh Bolton: 1:26:58

probably hit a I hit I hit so many pixels and flags I get it's literally still in the Amazon windows looking up Bitcoin wallets just like the hard USB ones

brian D: 1:27:09

are gonna get you ads. All I see now

Josh Bolton: 1:27:11

no other ads. I literally just get chewed

brian D: 1:27:14

out everything because I think there's more money behind those ads. Yeah, they have to pay a shit ton of money. They're getting they're winning the bids by paying more. So yeah.

Josh Bolton: 1:27:23

So I all you get is Java in this one stupid metal bitcoin wallet. That was just like someone mentioned like offhandedly, there is such thing as Oh, okay, I was just like, oh, there is now everywhere. And like I'm not going to buy even though you keep showing me well, you

brian D: 1:27:37

know, if you if you care, you can go into your ad settings. You can either click on the ads themself and say Hi, this ad I don't like ads of that type, or you and you can so you're never gonna see less ads. But you can customize that. And it really does work. Okay, so next time I played with it like you, you can turn these off. And like if you say, Don't make my ads specific, you will start seeing ads for Coca Cola, for Walmart for I mean, I've tried that. So it really like they tend to be listening to that. So if you said don't don't listen to the my information at all, you can go into your settings and try it. I get generic stuff.

Josh Bolton: 1:28:21

I think I have it set to that. But I don't know why. It just on specifically Google Chrome. It's the hyperfocused. I don't know if there's like a layer layering of difference. But yeah, it was just what I was, I was

brian D: 1:28:35

playing with it before. And it did appear here to work. And if you're I mean, Facebook does want to listen to you. Because so if you're like I don't want this stuff, like they want to show you now, of course what you really want to see no ads, so they're not going to do that. But if you want to see ads about something specific, they would be thrilled to show you that because that's that's their whole goal. That's why they collect all this information is to show you stuff about the what you want to see. As long as somebody else is willing to pay for it with somebody out there probably is if anyone is selling it. So yeah, I mean, you know, they'll pretty much listen to you and show you the sort of stuff that you want to see ads for. But the second you stop and looking at more, you're more likely once again, you increase watch time you he's you're more likely to see ads of that time.

Josh Bolton: 1:29:28

100% Yeah, and that's actually one of those I personally have been doing it without you even telling me I just realized if I look at something more than like a blink, they're gonna like the computer's gonna go haywire and extra do that one. So what I do now is I can kind of tell by the pattern Okay, three poses gone isn't bad, no matter what just swipe heart kind of thing.

brian D: 1:29:49

And then, you know, if I kind of don't mind seeing ads, I don't like scrolling in general, to be honest. Probably the most productive use of my time if I'm going to scroll Facebook, because if I, if I see random posts from people on my Facebook, it's just going to be people being toxic and political. If I see ads, I see an ad that somebody is willing to pay for. I see, sometimes a professional copywriter was paid$100,000 to write it, I see a product for professional editing. And I see what people are buying. So, you know, I check out ads all the time on like, okay, cool. This is what's working, like all that. Like, if I have free time, I don't mind seeing the ads, especially if they're a specific one or something in my industry. I want to see every one of my competitors as both martial arts gym are and martial arts CRMs. I want to see all that stuff. Show them all to me, Facebook, I'm here because they're listening. They will. Well, they, they want what they want is to not spin ad spin on me because I'm not buying that stuff. So if they're they're trying to like find a way to not show me. But Facebook don't care, they get paid either way, right? I mean, they do want, they want to give a lot of value to the advertiser so that advertising money stays on platform for sure. They also want to make the experience good for the user. So the user stays on platform. Beyond that, they want to get paid. That's pretty much all they care about those things.

Josh Bolton: 1:31:30

Yeah, it's all about money. We got to get make sure the advertisers happy, then they'll still they'll spend more money and then sometimes boo on the the person receiving on it. I'm honestly, I'm living this chat, but I actually need to head to bed at work night shift. All right, no problem. This. This has been awesome. I got like, two going out questions for you. Okay, so someone aspiring to be like you, a gym owner, guy who created his CRM, speaker, relatively speaking, very successful, what were some tips, tricks or advice you'd give him to start down that path?

brian D: 1:32:09

Man, find a mentor, find a mentor earlier or earlier on than me. Look at people doing similar stuff that you're doing, if possible, see if you can work work for them. One of the best things I did was like when I when all that I investment to go spend as much time as I could with my coach Eddie Bravo, like get out of where I was, and go to were around people I wanted to be like, like, if you're, if you're around the people that are doing the things you want to do. Your I mean, your probability of success starts changing. And also just keep, keep it. Like, just because something doesn't work out. Just keep trying. That's kind of been my message the whole time we've been on here Yes. If it's something doesn't work out, because the first thing probably is not going to work out. Keep trying. Don't opposite assigning an object syndrome, but it's like, and I've tried some different things too. But like if you like, Okay, I want to do my gym, I want to do this CRM, and I'll do a whole bunch of different things to promote them. But like I have some degree of focus. So if you don't have any focus, you're not going to be a master, you're not going to be an expert. You're not going to get the personal development, you're not going to get all the things you need. So

Josh Bolton: 1:33:29

100% Keep your eyes on the prize and don't worry about the journey just get there pretty much. Yep. So then where can everyone contact you at

brian D: 1:33:38

all I'm hard to contact but you can follow me. But you can follow me on Facebook Brian barn camp Deb's same thing on Instagram. And yeah, I've got a YouTube channel as well to find at Beaumont. If somehow you happen to be near Beaumont, Texas. Uh huh. That visit my school gift by Beaumont.

Josh Bolton: 1:33:58

You might even give you a special deal if you mentioned the show.

brian D: 1:34:01

Yeah, sure. Mention the show. I would be shocked. Shocked but

Josh Bolton: 1:34:05

they actually so because there's like so I heard you on the show. And I was nearby. Wait, what

brian D: 1:34:09

show that show. He's not local, like, Wow.

Josh Bolton: 1:34:14

That's awesome. Yeah, absolute honor and a pleasure. You're always welcome on the show. I'm like, I think I gave you my link. So you want to come on in the future. Just book yourself a slide.

brian D: 1:34:24

Awesome. Thanks so much, man. Talk to you later. Talk to you later.