He Turned $600 to $8M: Why Matt Shields Is Creating a Course With Iman Ghadzhi For FREE

In this video, Keaton Walker interviews Matt Shields, a 23-year-old entrepreneur who built an $8 million SMMA empire from a $600 course he purchased years ago. Matt shares how he went from being a depressed teen to scaling 10 companies and hitting $500k in monthly revenue. He reveals the secrets behind his remarkable success and provides exciting details about his upcoming free course collaboration with Iman Gadzhi. This is a must-watch for any aspiring entrepreneur looking to be inspired and learn from Matt's incredible journey. Enjoy!

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Matt's Channel:  @mattshieldssmma  

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Timestamps:

00:00-Teaser    
00:25-Dubai is overrated    
04:29-Creating a course with Iman Gadzhi    
08:46-Matt's Beginning    
12:32-GHL    
14:20-Matt's Agency Success Journey    
17:16-Lessons from the past    
25:13-The working model for $500k a month    
30:28-Appointwise    
36:12-Matt's Team and System    
40:38-The Power of Content & Personal Brand    
42:42-Work-Life Balance    
50:44-Success together with Faith    
57:47-Approaching Business in another angle    
01:02:49-Surrendering my Business    
01:06:16-Dealing with Corrupted 'Faith'  in Business    
01:15:09-Religion & Business    
01:20:37-Advice for Christian Entrepreneurs    
01:23:44-Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Matt Shields: 0:00

An SMMA course is what changed my life. Spent $600 on a course, it turned into like $8 million in revenue. I built an agency. We got it up to 20K a month when I was 17. We have to sacrifice the pennies to really get the dollars and I think you have to recognize SMMA, for most people is chasing pennies, and we scaled that agency from 15K a month to 150K a month in 90 days.

Keaton Walker: 0:28

The model to get to 400 500k. Here is sweet matt. What's up man, what's up bro? This is so fun, yeah, um, so you just got back from europe and dubai yep, you were filming part of agency accelerator yeah, we were filming the new course for amon, yeah, okay, and you're not making a dime off that. No, but he made for your flights.

Matt Shields: 0:44

He paid for your flights. He did cover the flights. Okay, he did cover the flights, and he covered the flights to South Africa too, which is my first time flying first class. Okay, I've never flown first class, but when somebody else offers to fly you first class, you're like all right, I'll do it. Yeah, and it's like the big box suites that the seats go back and you can like sleep in them at night, and, yeah, they bring you wine and stuff. And I was like, bro, this is, this is, this is sick, uh, but I'm back to my coachways now, all right. Um, yeah, man, but just got back. It was super fun and, yeah, I had a blast. That's great. Uh, how'd you like dubai? I did not like dubai. I got sick, though. So, pod take from Matt here Didn't like Dubai.

Matt Shields: 1:26

Take did not like Dubai at all. Then again, I'm not a city boy. You know like I love living on the golf course or by the beach, like I like being Away from the noise, and I actually think it's really. I think there's confusion Amongst a lot of entrepreneurs that they need to be in these hot spots, that they need to be in, that they need to be in these hot spots, that they need to be in Miami, they need to be in Dubai, they need to be in these big cities.

Matt Shields: 1:47

I really disagree, because you actually don't want to be a part of the collective consciousness. If you want to build something great, you actually want to be separated from it. I think it was Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla, one of those guys who said solitude is the genesis of great invention. So I'm a big fan of being in solitude, being separated from those places and then just doing my strike missions once or twice a year. We go, we meet people, we do what we have to do and we leave.

Matt Shields: 2:16

We go back to our solitude and we spend time with ourselves and we figure out and we think what's going on, what do we want to do, how do we get to the next level? And we separate from all of the collective confusion of money, money, money, growth, growth, growth, but they don't even know why they're doing it. That's the fascinating thing. It's like oh, we have Lambos, we have watches, we have nice cars and nice clothes and all this status, but we don't even know why we're doing this in the first place. Anytime I see that I want to run the other way, so I saw a little bit of that in dubai, for sure. So like posturing, posturing, yeah, which you know we're all guilty of I am too yeah um, but I want to separate from it if I can.

Matt Shields: 2:54

So, dubai, I definitely, I definitely felt a little bit of that and, dude, everything there is man-made. Like you walk into the ocean and the ocean's like warm, it's like a bath. Yeah, you're like what the heck is this? The nature is not even nature. That's not even nature, it's man-made, it's it's. That's scary to me.

Keaton Walker: 3:09

So yeah, I feel like the, the solitude thing, but also the community, like maybe people gravitate towards those big cities because they think they're going to find community yeah but like what you built, living here with just a few guys that you trust and like are on the same path yeah, that can be equally as powerful or much more powerful than a big city right, I agree, because a lot of times networking can actually do more distracting than it does.

Matt Shields: 3:37

Yeah, driving of growth? Yeah, because unless you're really leveraging the people around you in the right way, you're not going to get anything out of them. Like if you have these genius minds around you, but you're going leveraging the people around you in the right way, you're not going to get anything out of them. Like if you have these genius minds around you but you're going out to the club every week, you're not actually getting the benefit of being around them, you're just distracting them in you from the gifts that you both have. So it's not just about the people, it's about the environment that the people are in. You need both if you really want to make the networking successful. So, yeah, our plan has been hey, let's go out to the suburbs of Charlotte where there's no noise it's so quiet here. Let's get a few killers who all want to do the same thing we're all on the same mission or similar missions and then let's just make each other better. Yeah.

Keaton Walker: 4:29

And let's lean on each other, and let's build a real strong, tight-knit community, and so, yeah, that's been the approach. Love, it been okay so far. So why? Why do the Iman course if you're not getting paid?

Matt Shields: 4:36

it's a good question. He did offer to pay. I do want to say, you know, he offered a nice chunk of money and I to club him to pay or to be an affiliate to boat. Okay, he offered a nice chunk of money and I declined to pay or to be an affiliate to both. Okay, he offered both, he. He offered, uh, to make me an affiliate, but then he offered also offered me cash. I hope it's cool if I talk about that.

Matt Shields: 4:53

Sorry, iman, not um, but I declined because to some extent, it's like the nostalgia of it, like I grew up watching iman. I grew up watching him crush it. I grew up watching him crush it. I grew up watching him build snmas and build a coaching program and like take over the industry. Yeah, and I've seen him transcend, make money online and become this like celebrity, like when he was in, uh, spain or wherever that montico, wherever that is I don't know where that is, but wherever that Montico, wherever that is, I don't even know where that is, but wherever that F1 race thing they were doing is, he had like 150 people show up at his hotel trying to get pictures with him and trying to figure out where he was. That's like some Justin Bieber stuff.

Keaton Walker: 5:34

You know, that's when Messi came to Charlotte. Yeah, yeah, like he had more than 150 people.

Matt Shields: 5:42

Yeah, sure it's crazy. He's kind of reaching that level. He's getting there. You know he's getting there and because of that I feel like just out of the nostalgia and the respect for what he's built and I know like I've had my criticisms of all gurus and course sellers, just like people have their criticisms of me, but overall it's really easy to judge and that's what I found.

Matt Shields: 6:06

It's like it's really easy to judge Iman. Everybody wants to go after the top dog but, all things considered, like he's spread a pretty positive message. He's gotten good character and values. From what I can tell, like there's worse gurus to be following and so, just out of the respect for who he is and what he's done, I was like man, I should do this. Just to do it. Like an SMMA course is what changed my life. It changed everything for me. I spent $600 on a course and it turned into like $8 million in revenue from one course and so if I can be a part of that next course for somebody else to where they say, dude, I watched your course and it changed my life like what more can you ask for?

Matt Shields: 6:48

yeah, and all things considered, I'll probably get a lot of brand value from yeah, you know being a, so there is a lot of justification to nice.

Matt Shields: 6:54

That was the process, are you? What are you teaching in it? So we did the entire seven-figure agency course like it's a it's their separate course, I guess. So I brought Josh, one of my business partners. He's teaching sales and sales teams. And then I brought in John Ali, who's like the operations queen, she's teaching ops. And then I taught CS mindset, paid ads for B2B. So we really we just covered everything, dude. Nice. Yeah, yeah, it's like 20 hours of content, wow, yeah so fun and is it like his teams?

Keaton Walker: 7:25

they're just like filming everything and you just have to like sit down and talk. Basically, how much prep did you do for each video?

Matt Shields: 7:32

So we learned this in South Africa for the first course. We scripted out everything. So the sales course that Josh did Josh led the sales course. It was 110 pages of notes, wow. And we put it all on a teleprompter. And that's the secret for content. By the way, like, biggest content hack is just get a teleprompter, write your script, play with like you have the remote for the teleprompter, you can make it go faster or slower, you can pause it, and makes content super easy. So we just wrote it all down, put it on the teleprompter and then you can, like one, take it. Is that what you do for YouTube videos too? I actually don't. I've only done that for one YouTube video. Yeah.

Keaton Walker: 8:10

Usually I try to go off the dome Because I tried the teleprompter and I felt like a robot. Was that all I was like?

Matt Shields: 8:15

not breaking eye contact with the camera, like I'm not blinking, yeah, Do you feel like the seen the course videos yet I haven't, but I I feel confident that they came out well?

Keaton Walker: 8:30

um, because we got the practice in the first course. Was the first course different? So the seven figure agency was what you filmed in spain, yes, and the cape town one was agency accelerator yeah, the cape town one was the, the sales training specifically now to become like a really good salesperson.

Matt Shields: 8:43

Basically, yeah, dope yeah.

Keaton Walker: 8:47

So for those that don't know you, how did you like give? Obviously the whole story is on your channel, everybody can go watch it. But give us a cliff notes of, like how you got into your first agency, how you ended up partnering with uh jared, and what happened with uh estate ai and all the other agencies that you've. You've grown up to this point yeah, so the cliff notes.

Matt Shields: 9:19

I left school after ninth grade. I left public high school. I started online school, which is a big scam like you think courses are a scam.

Matt Shields: 9:27

I'll go to online high school, try that. Um, I finished my senior year. It's a crazy story. I finished my senior year in three days, so I hopped on and actually like a month before I started my senior year, I bought my sma course, billy wilson. Yeah, shout out to billy. Everybody, really shout out to everybody. Everybody thinks I'm an affiliate. Anytime I bring it up, I'm like bro, the course is six years old, I'm not.

Keaton Walker: 9:49

I am an affiliate and I steal money from his course.

Matt Shields: 9:55

I've lost so much money in not taking affiliate deals.

Keaton Walker: 9:59

Anyway, that's the difference between you and me. I'm fine selling out.

Matt Shields: 10:03

It's fair, bro, it's fair. I actually have some thoughts on that, but we'll loop back to it. So I buy this course for 597 and I started going through it. I'm like a month in and my parents are like how's school going? They're like how are you doing? Like they weren't even checking in on me because I was just I was doing online. I was at that point. I was I don't want to say I was a lost cause, but they were kind of just like good luck to this kid. They were like one day my mom was just like how's school going for you? I was like, oh, I haven't started yet. And they were like it's like October, you need to start school. And I was like, well, I'm doing SMMA, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, no, you need to finish school. So then I committed to finishing school as fast as humanly possible, despite whatever my grades were, so I could go back to the agency. And it turned out that basically I finished my entire senior year and I finished in seven hours of work, two hours a day, for three days and then I was done and after that I completed my school, I got my degree, my degree, and then I got back into my SMMA course, got my degree, my degree, and then I got back into my SMMA course and I just started hustling.

Matt Shields: 11:09

I built an agency. We got it up to $20K a month when I was 17. Got kicked out of that agency by a just bad partnership on my end. I didn't sign anything, I didn't put it in writing, and so it came back to bite me, learned a valuable lesson, started another agency, scaled it to 20K a month, but this time in a month and a half. And what were the niches? Gyms. Both of those were gyms. And then COVID happened shut down. I helped my friend build a Cairo agency to 8K a month. In like a month and a half, covid happened shut down.

Matt Shields: 11:43

Then I built a white label agency and a agency franchise, like we'll build your agency for you. Which terrible idea. But we scaled that to like 40K in three days. We scaled the white label to like 35K a month. Then we started a state AI, which actually started as one of the white label agencies. And we saw this agency that was just getting new clients every single month and his clients weren't leaving. We're like man, this guy doesn't even really know really what he's doing, but he's getting new clients. He's scaling, he's growing, we're doing all the fulfillment. Maybe we should see if there's something here in this real estate niche. So we ended up partnering with him, ended up acquiring him later on. Then we scaled that agency from 15K a month to 150K a month in 90 days. It ended up getting to like 250K a month in the first year.

Speaker 4: 12:33

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Speaker 4: 13:43

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Matt Shields: 14:21

And then we started a seventh agency, which was a real estate wholesaler agency. Cause I was like at this point I think I got something here. So I partnered with this guy, josh, scaled him from 20 K a month to 150 K a month and 90 days again. And then we started a mortgage agency, scaled it from zero to 26 K a month and 30 days. And then we did a consulting agency. We scaled it from zero to 120k a month in 30 days. And then we did a consulting agency. We scaled it from zero to 120k a month in two months. So I guess the synopsis of all that is my background is scaling companies really really quickly. Now, what I need my future to be is scaling companies really really far. Yeah, because 200k a month cool, but 2 million a month would be much cooler, yeah. So now I'm really having to shift my focus to how do we build long-term wealth, not short-term rich. Yeah and yeah.

Keaton Walker: 15:14

So that's a quick background and the consulting agency you just mentioned, that's Serve Others.

Matt Shields: 15:20

Yeah. So I don't really talk about it, I don't really promote it, so I'll even leave it at that, because I don't want people saying, oh, you're making content like it, dude, it's yeah we.

Keaton Walker: 15:32

That's it though. Okay, yeah, and that's helping agencies. Yeah, okay, matt's not selling out guys. I approve this message.

Matt Shields: 15:41

I mean it technically. I mean, it depends on how you look at it. It's I don't, we're capping it out 100 people, so we've done it really differently. We don't do paid ads. I don't promote it on my youtube, um, it's 100 people and then it caps.

Keaton Walker: 15:56

It's already almost there and yeah, so that's it and you're. You're just selling 100 spots one time or 100 like recurring memberships like 100 people can be in the mastermind at any given time.

Matt Shields: 16:07

Nice yeah.

Keaton Walker: 16:08

Yeah, love it. That's cool because I remember we talked after soccer that one day, yeah, yeah.

Matt Shields: 16:13

You actually inspired me a lot. You're like dude, the one person coaching model makes so much sense. And I was like that's really interesting. And I talked to. When I talked to iman, he was like I told him about how hermosi had taught me. You know, just build all this goodwill, never sell anything. And then, like, make your big play. And he was like bro, like how did hermosi really make his money in the first place? Yeah, gym launch it's the most aggressive sales company in history. Like what do you mean? Don't sell anything. And I was like you're right, that's not, it's what am I doing. And so, yeah, and I'm guilty of this because I'll make videos where I'm like oh, I'm uh, you know, I didn't make my money selling courses, which is true, I didn't. I've made. Like five percent of my money has come from the agency mastermind and I don't promote it, the agency mastermind and I don't promote it, not to you too.

Matt Shields: 17:11

Yet I do almost look down in my content. I don't actually look down, but I make it seem that, like course sellers are bad. I want to be really clear. I don't think course sellers are bad at all. A course changed my life. I think the fact that you can buy a course for a thousand dollars and it can make you a higher ROI than a $200,000 college education is insane. I think that's a beautiful thing. So I apologize for contributing to the stigma around course sellers. That said, there's a lot of scammy course sellers. Yeah, that's where the stigma comes from, so you just got to be careful.

Keaton Walker: 17:39

Yeah, Makes sense. So all of those Estate AI was by far the highest MRR, most successful agency.

Matt Shields: 17:49

Direct-to-Deals actually went to 275. Oh wow, and Estate got to 292, but that included some client ad spend, so really it was like 250.

Keaton Walker: 17:58

Oh, okay, and you? I know I don't actually know how this all panned out, but you were looking for a buyer, like six months to a year ago, for State AI. Yes, how did that all pan out?

Matt Shields: 18:11

A year and a half ago, the dude signed. We got an offer for $2.1 million. We'd been running the company for like 14 months. So we're like sick, like let's go, we made our money. Walk away with a couple mil and then, and that was like cash.

Keaton Walker: 18:25

Like sick, like let's go, we made our money walk away with a couple mil and then and that was like cash up front the 2.1?.

Matt Shields: 18:28

No, half up front and then half seller financed, okay. And our broker advised us to take it. And we were naive, we had never sold a company before and so in this conversation we didn't properly vet the buyer. He didn't actually have the money Got it. So in this conversation we didn't properly vet the buyer. He didn't actually have the money. He needed to get the money. And then we went through a 10-month due diligence process and he never came up with the money. And he loved us, he loved the company.

Matt Shields: 18:52

Like I talked to him to this day, but naivety on our part and the broker's led to us not actually getting the deal. So after that, my partner and I were just like, man, we don't want to run an agency anymore, but we have this thing, we have this team, we've built something special in this space, yet, like, we don't want to do this anymore. So it led to us like, well, we held on to it way too long. And I actually talked to Joel Kaplan about this a year and a half ago. I went to visit him in Denver and he's like so you're thinking about selling your agency? And I'm like, yeah, I just don't know if I want to do it anymore and he's like what's your agency do? And I'm like we run Facebook ads for realtors and he's like sell that shit.

Matt Shields: 19:35

He's like get rid of that. I was like no dude, I can make a couple million selling this thing. In retrospect, although his advice was extreme, I think he was right, because there comes a time in our lives where we have to sacrifice the pennies to really get the dollars. And I think you have to recognize SMMA, for most people is chasing pennies. The dollars are in software or a lot of people find their dollars in education.

Matt Shields: 20:04

The dollars are out there in these better vehicles, and sometimes we have to get rid of our previous vehicle to really fully go into the new one, and so I think I've learned that the hard way, because I did not want to let go and I still haven't fully let go of a Stadia. It's still up and running and we're trying to sell it now, but I wish I had just dumped it a year and a half ago. Honestly, even when it was making money, even when it was doing really well, like it was at its all time highs, had I just dumped it then and gone and focused on other things, I'd be way further.

Keaton Walker: 20:36

And by dumped it you mean just like taking half of the offer and taking a third.

Matt Shields: 20:41

Okay, I would have never done it though, because I'm like this is worth millions of dollars and it was but in retrospect it would have been better to just get the mental focus and separate from it to be able to go all in on a new venture that's going to make me significantly more growth and money in the long term.

Keaton Walker: 21:01

I think this take is really important and I think a lot of beginners listening to this are going to be confused right now. Yeah, because it's clarified Of the education of all the course sellers out there like obviously they're selling the agency course and a question all of them get all the time is like do you still run an agency, why, or why not? Et cetera. Why isn't an agency, in your opinion, the best vehicle to make your dollars and why is it a pennies-based vehicle?

Matt Shields: 21:32

I think it's the best vehicle to go from zero to one. I think you should figure out how to get to 100K a month in an agency. I think when you do that, that's a really valuable skill, and I felt like I couldn't live with myself until I hit 100K a month in my agency. It was crazy. I was like I can't die not having hit 100K a month. That's literally how it felt.

Matt Shields: 21:52

That said, the agency business model has significant limitations and it really comes down to if we're going to get tactical and technical. It comes down to your cost per acquisition to lifetime value ratio. That's the thing that business owners need to optimize for. How much does it cost me to acquire a customer? Then? How much does each customer pay me? In the agency model, cost per acquisition is getting higher and higher and lifetime value is staying relatively stagnant, and so there's very few agencies that can break through the ceiling of 100K, 200k, 300k a month, especially in local legion Like.

Matt Shields: 22:31

If you want to build a legit marketing agency, go for it. I think that's a sick play, like a VaynerMedia or like a 4Media or bad marketing, like what Eddie Maloof is doing. I think that's really cool. But they don't run Facebook ads for realtors. They run legit email marketing and retargeting and all this stuff for like multi eight figure, nine figure companies. So it's an entirely different model. But I think the local Legion agency just has so many limitations on getting to eight figures I think it's very hard to do. Yeah, I don't know anybody, except maybe rich fiola and hermosy, if you want to count hermosy, who's gotten to eight figures in a local legion agency, and even hermosy it's not really local legion. It's like it was a licensing company and a mastermind company.

Keaton Walker: 23:18

Yeah, so a lot more education in there than service exactly.

Matt Shields: 23:22

Yeah, it just turns into education, because that's where the money is. What about Stevie? Stevie's at like 500, 600. So he's close. He's not any figure, yeah, you're right, but he is close and he's a savage. He's been doing it for five years. Yeah, but I don't want to run an agency for five years. It just doesn't excite me. Software excites me, yeah.

Keaton Walker: 23:45

So Got it. So talk to me about profitability of a $250,000 a month agency, especially like when I, when I watch your videos, you're like we do. I want to say you were doing like a thousand a month with the payment plan, so it's like 1500 a month a month, but if they pay up front it's $6,000. And then you would talk about how you take that $6,000, invest it into recruiters, get the best talent et cetera, which makes sense. But like at what point are you like a thousand a month? What's your cost to deliver on that? And then obviously you and Jared were like very much high level, like never ran an ad, never took a sales call, type thing. Yeah.

Keaton Walker: 24:26

And you had a lot of middle management, yeah. So what is what do margins look like that on that type of business and do you think it's feasible Like if there's someone that genuinely enjoys the agency model wants to make, you know, 200 to 400K a year Easy?

Matt Shields: 24:41

Yeah, easy, yeah. A state AI, even with us being almost entirely out, was making 25, 30% margins. Okay, our first, our first year in business, we did like 750 in profit on 2 million in revenue.

Keaton Walker: 24:55

And that's a profit, meaning you guys haven't been paid yet.

Matt Shields: 24:58

That's what you were Profit, including our salaries, I believe. Okay, yeah, but we only paid ourselves 36K. We're just low paid.

Keaton Walker: 25:08

CEOs yeah, but yeah, you and Jared would like split that 750, right over.

Matt Shields: 25:14

Right, okay and so. But Josh, I've seen Josh's agency like he had 50% margins up until $200,000 a month, yeah, so margins can range from as low as $10,000 to as high as $50,000, I think depending on the way you structure the agency. I would shoot for 30% and, yeah, you could automate an agency or spend four hours a week in an agency, make 500k a year relatively easily. And what is that auto?

Keaton Walker: 25:44

partners. What does that model look like?

Matt Shields: 25:46

yeah, because the business partners business partner, yeah, like, so that's the thing is. Like half my money went to jared, half jared's money went to me. Yeah, the truth is we both weren't needed to run the agency. Yeah, um, but it did make it way more fun and it made it way more sustainable, because your business murder is like your, it's like your life partner in that sense it's like you go to them for anything and, like you know, you have each other's backs. It makes it a lot easier when, when shit hits the fan um, excuse my French, but yeah.

Matt Shields: 26:16

So the model to get to 400, 500k a year without business partners is, in my opinion, you have one salesperson, you have one setter, you have one CSM, you have one media buyer, and then you have, like, a general manager, and that entire team might cost you 20K a month in payroll, 30k a month in payroll tops, and then you can manage 100K a month worth of revenue with just that team. And then it's just about making sure your input and your output match every single month. So if you know you have 50 clients and you have 10% churn, that means you're going to lose five clients every month. That means that one sales guy he just needs to get at least five clients every month and you're going to stay right at 50. And then you just give them really good incentives. You give the general manager profit share, maybe even some equity, and then you just make sure the team is well incentivized to match your goals.

Matt Shields: 27:13

It's like Charlie Munger said the most important part of management is getting the incentives right. So if you can get the incentives right, everything takes care of itself. And so if you get the right people small, tight knit crew, give them good incentives and you have a clear goal like this is what I want and you don't try to go beyond it, as appealing as it might be then I think you can sustainably make 300, 400, even a million a year in profit yeah, I've seen a lot of um.

Keaton Walker: 27:42

Basically what you guys did, like we have three creatives, we have like a copy paste system that's like so simple and then I on and that scales very well. And then the other thing I've scale seen scale fairly well is like a fully managed service, where you're charging so much that you can invest in like really good talent and um, even though there's potentially more custom work in that, like, let's say, you're charging a 10 grand a month to manage website, se, seo, facebook, google, there's so much more profit per customer that you can afford to spend a lot more to acquire them and then you can sell a 12-month contract or something like that. But the middle ground is where I see people get lost. We're like, yeah, we do ads, but like, oh, yeah, we can also do this and we can do that and we can do that, yeah, and it turns into like you're bending over backwards for people that are paying you pennies and that's where people burn out. Yeah.

Keaton Walker: 28:49

And the boundary, like if there's one word I can tell every single agency owner, like screaming from the rooftops is like boundaries, like do not go past, like scope of work, and if somebody asks you to do something more, you charge them or you say it's interesting because we didn't, we don't, we don't really face that in our agencies and maybe it's just the niches we were going after.

Matt Shields: 29:11

But we didn't deal with a lot of people like wanting things that we didn't do, but like follow up, for example.

Keaton Walker: 29:17

Like you guys, you trained them to follow up. Right, you also had like did you have automations or AI setters?

Matt Shields: 29:24

Yeah Well, we had a point wise for the clients. We had it towards the end of our agency. We were using Capri before that. Then we switched night and day difference and that was our setter via SMS, and then we trained the clients how to call. On top of that, I get your niche.

Keaton Walker: 29:43

Like you run some good Facebook ads for a realtor, like they're kind of one man bands, like they're going to be busy. You train them on some stuff. Yeah, I think a lot of other local scenarios is like the churn is so high because they're not following up with the lease. They try to train them, but like it's the front desk staff that's getting paid $15 an hour, not the business owner that it's actually tied to, like their income, so that that boundary stuff becomes a lot more important. When you're you're getting you're dealing with potentially less tech savvy clients that are like, can you do this? And they don't understand that that means an extra, even if it's an extra one or two hours of work for your team, that compounds and you're screwed eventually. It's a really good point.

Keaton Walker: 30:30

So talk to us more about AppointWise. I don't even know. I literally just I was watching your channel on the Uber ride over today and I was like, okay, here's the AppointWise that's did you? I don't even know. I literally just I was like watching your channel on the Uber ride over today and I was like, okay, here's the AppointWise link. He was talking about this at dinner last night. What is it? Did you start it while you were running a state?

Matt Shields: 30:47

AI. So good question. So I was a customer of AppointWise actually. Okay, I got referred to it by a friend of mine, ibrahim Turner. Okay, got referred to it by a friend of mine, ibrahim Turner. Okay, agency content too. He used to at least he was running an agency and he said dude, you got to check out this software. It's sick.

Matt Shields: 31:02

And it's changing the game for our clients and I'm like, okay, cool, I'll check it out. I look at it and I'm like this is pretty sick. And basically it was automated appointment booking via SMS, all AI driven, and it was a conversational AI, but like way better than what GHL had at the time and way better than Capri that we were using. So I was like, all right, let me check this out, sign up to it instantly, fall in love with the platform. The software is really cool. Met the co-founders, met the people running it and they were just like really, really good. I mean, they just really took care of their customers. At least they were taking good care of me. And I was like that's pretty cool.

Matt Shields: 31:42

And then I knew I always wanted to get into software, like since I was 17 years old. All I wanted to do was start a software company and like build something that was big in the SaaS space. That's the whole reason I got into agencies was I wanted the experience, resources and the capital to be able to fund software ventures. Yeah, and so they came to me one day. I was actually about to go to them. I was like, hey, would you guys be interested in partnering at all.

Matt Shields: 32:05

yeah, and I think I messaged them that and they said yeah, actually we were just about to hit you up because we want to bring on some partners right, so I hop on a call with them, end up partnering with them, and it was a great deal for both of us because I was able to quadruple their user base from one YouTube video in like one month and I was able to get a decent amount of equity in the company without having to spend any money developing or buying in. So it's just kind of like upside only for me in, yeah, so it's just kind of like upside only for me, um, and I really think the product solves a big problem, like I, the fact I was a customer of it gave me all the conviction I needed. Yeah, and the more customers I've talked to from the platform, I see the case studies people are getting. I'm like dude, this is like I can't. Sometimes I can't even believe and it's not that it's perfect, like you know, it's not perfect by any means, but it's really freaking good.

Matt Shields: 32:58

And I talked to people are like, yeah, my client closed. Uh, my client got 10 appointments in the last week without having to call any of his leads. I'm like what? Like dude, our clients weren't even doing that. Well, okay, um, so it's just been, it's been sick, and it makes a lot of sense for me because I've built this five years of agency reputation and history. I could just sell a course and make that the main thing I promote and run ads to that or whatever. Or I could do things different. I could really build a cool software company and that actually solves a problem for the space that I care about, and it just made a lot of sense for me. So I partnered with them and we're trying to scale it up and take over closed bot. We're coming for you guys.

Keaton Walker: 33:44

And yeah. So how does it compare to the other like competitors in the space? Well, it's way better now.

Matt Shields: 33:52

It just is Trust, just trust. Sign up for a blend and don't cancel ever. So I think what I really liked about theirs, the appeal that it had to me, is the simplicity, and I'm reading this book right now, called Behind the Cloud, about Salesforce and how Mark Benioff scaled it from just an idea to the biggest CRM company in the world and they pioneered a whole new version of software and I didn't know because they did this while I was like two years old.

Matt Shields: 34:24

But one of the things he talks about is simplicity in the product, and Salesforce was so cool because it was so easy to use. A point-wise is so easy to use If you go to like a Closebot or a Zappy chat. They're powerful, they're good same thing in two minutes on a point-wise. So the simplicity of product, the simplicity of the user interface, is something we spent a lot of time on. We're spending more time on right now.

Matt Shields: 35:06

On top of that, the pricing we don't charge per message. Every other AI bot charges like anywhere from one to five cents per message. Yeah, that's huge. So if you send 10,000 messages, that's 100 bucks, minimum 500 bucks. Yeah, 100 to 500 bucks just in those fees. And then on the SMS fee, yeah, and then on top of that, you have to pay whatever it is 200 bucks a month for an account, 500 bucks a month for an account. So you end up spending 1,000 bucks when you could have just paid $297 to have unlimited on a point-wise. So, pricing, product simplicity. And then we're going to do some really cool things with the marketing too, which is going to be fun. So, yeah, that's the plan right now. That's why I think it's different, because the truth is, I could have partnered probably with any of those companies, at least in some capacity. But I chose them because I think they have the right mission, the right vision for what they're trying to do.

Keaton Walker: 36:02

Can you tell us about the technical team and the founders? I can try.

Matt Shields: 36:07

I can try. Yeah, we get technical team. I can talk about Technical, I'm just stacking. No, I don't understand it.

Keaton Walker: 36:14

I just mean who's? For me it's a big like when I look at GHL, like I can See Sean, I can see Sean, veruna, robin, and like I've sat down and chatted with them and I'm like I feel like I could go, you know, grab a drink with these guys and like, yeah, they're just, they're down to earth, but they're also like insanely committed to their customers. Yeah, so tell us about their. You know who were?

Matt Shields: 36:41

the who's? The Sean Clark of Pointwide? Yeah, that's a really good question, Because I think that's actually who. I think that's what made me really want to partner with them is like I'm believed in them Really, like I'm a big believer, that you bet on people.

Matt Shields: 36:51

Yeah Than anything and the main, like the CEO, is this guy named Locke Lachlan. He they're both. All three founders actually are from London. They're based in the UK. One of them I can't talk about because he does some other like big stuff and he's really I can't share who he is, but Locke and Ollie are the main two faces and, yeah, locke's just a down-to-earth guy. Scaled an agency to 30k a month, has started building a zapier ai integration into ghl. People were going nuts for it a year ago it was like man, maybe we have something here.

Matt Shields: 37:27

So ever since then, him and ollie have been developing this technology. That's now point wise, um, but yeah, they're just really down to earth. People like I went to london to meet up with him and lock and I just ran like a quick 5k, talking about life Uh, talk about how you know we need a wife who runs. Because it's just like we're like yes, there's so much character in, uh in in female athletes. Like so it's just just cool dudes Like you know, like simple guys you can you can hang out with, have a beer with, talk shop with.

Matt Shields: 37:56

Like you know, like simple guys you can hang out with, have a beer with, talk shop with. But also like they really, really love a Point Wise. They love their customers and the customers really love them. That was another big thing for me. It's like I needed to figure out what people besides myself thought, and the more people I talk to, they're like yo, this is sick, and are they devs Like Ali, is Locke's not Okay? They're like yo, this is sick, and are they devs like ollie, is locks not okay? Locks about as technically savvy as me? Probably god is.

Keaton Walker: 38:21

So good um, it's, it's interesting.

Keaton Walker: 38:25

It's like at dinner last night we were talking about how the like a system cannot be solved, or some problems within a system that cannot be solved unless you're outside the system.

Keaton Walker: 38:39

Yeah, and I feel like that's having a non-technical founder who's like no, make it simpler, like no, do this. But also having the founder, the. The trouble is and this happened to me like you get taken advantage of by the technical people if you don't have enough speak, and so having someone you can trust implicitly to manage the devs, because they will bleed you dry and say, no, it's not possible. No, it's not possible unless you can, unless you have someone on the the tech team that's like, hey, no, this is possible, this is how we're going to do it. Yeah, but combining that with and I think this is why High Level's done so well, because they have so much strong dev stuff but then Robin came from the agency world and they've just talked to their customers so much but having the people that are just like no, can you just make it look this way. This is what it needs, this is what the user experience needs to be, and then having someone that can manage the devs and deal with whatever you know bullshit they try to show.

Matt Shields: 39:41

Yeah there's one thing I would add on to that, which is somebody who understands the problem from a firsthand experience. Yeah, the fact that they started with their agencies and they face this problem. The fact that I has worked I've worked with over a thousand clients in different niches and that face this problem in every single niche of how do we convert more leads, like having that understanding of the problem is so invaluable, and I think maybe it's Michael Seibel or Sam Moulton, one of the OGs of Y Combinator. They talk about the tier list of problem solving. It's like well, it's good if you know somebody who has the problem. It's better if you've had this problem yourself and you faced it yourself, because you're going to be able to build a better solution to it. Yeah.

Matt Shields: 40:28

So it matched that as well. It's like I know this problem intimately well and that makes me more inclined to be able to solve it, more passionate about solving it. All that good stuff got it yeah, that's cool.

Keaton Walker: 40:42

Um, and it's cool, I mean just goes to show the power of content and personal brands. Because when we were talking a few months ago, you were like I just want to, I want to make a bunch of money so I can start a software yeah, and instead you made a youtube video so you could partner with the software yeah. So would the plan be to like, grow this potential exit or maybe just keep growing it and then just do software the rest of your life?

Matt Shields: 41:09

I'd love to build a portfolio of software companies. Yeah, you know, my mission is to help create freedom in the world, and I think there's four types of slavery. I think there's mental slavery, physical slavery, financial slavery and spiritual slavery. And so if I want to be able to impact those four pillars, it's much harder for me to pour if my bucket's empty, because if I can't provide for myself, how can I really provide for somebody else?

Matt Shields: 41:31

So my goal, the reason I've been more fired up about business than I have ever in my entire life and it's because I finally see the reason that the game is worth playing. And it's worth playing because you can actually use it as an instrument to serve others. And it's tough because that does mean you have to serve yourself to some extent too, like you have to take care of yourself, you have to make your money, you have to prove that you know what you're doing in business, but ultimately, no-transcript. So that's the vehicle that I've always felt drawn towards. And, yeah, so the goal is to scale this up, at least get an eight-figure exit, maybe try to push for nine, we'll see. It's a tough space right now, but if I can do that, then I have proof of concept and I can hopefully build a portfolio and help other people do the same thing with their software companies.

Keaton Walker: 42:43

Very cool, yeah, um, I feel like, uh, I came into the world, or came into the business world, with that mindset at the beginning, like, oh, this is about serving others, like I'm going to do great things. And then I didn't focus on profit, I didn't focus on, like, the skills that I needed to gain in order to be able to help other people. The skills that I needed to gain in order to be able to help other people. I did to an extent, but it took me too long because I was so, I was so outward focused that it was like I couldn't take care of myself in the first place. And I feel like in retrospect, or maybe just today, I'm like okay, I realized how important it is to. In like England or Ireland, they say, like mind yourself, like take care of yourself, and then then you'll be able to do that serving. How do you look at that and how do you make sure that you're getting taken care of?

Matt Shields: 43:50

yeah, it's just a great question, dude. I've been thinking about this so much over the last couple of months. I went to see Jordan Peterson here in Charlotte like a few weeks ago, and the main takeaway I had from his talk was if you really want to find your calling, it needs to be the right balance of enthusiasm. In the Greek word, enthusiasmos means possessed by the spirit of God, so it needs to be something that makes you feel like this is just what I'm here for. So your work needs to be a balance of enthusiasm and sacrifice for the greater good, so something that benefits and brings other people up but also makes you feel inspired to do. And the problem for me is I went way too far on this side of sacrifice for the greater good. Who cares about matt? Who cares? If it's matt's passionate about it who cares, it doesn't matter. Sacrifice for the greater good. That's where I was starting to go and I realized I'm not going to do great work that way. It's not going to be a sacrifice to anybody, because nothing fruitful is going to come from it, because I'm not passionate about it. I need to enthusiastic, but I need to see the way that this serves others, that this makes a difference in other people's lives too. And if you can find the right dichotomy, the right balance of those two, then I think you have something really special. So, yeah, I hear what you're saying 100% and for me, the way I make sure I'm taken care of is yeah.

Matt Shields: 45:17

So I was reading in the Word today, mark 6,. Jesus sends all the disciples out, two by two, and then he or this is right after he goes to his hometown and like nobody's receptive to him and like he heals a few people, but he was amazed by their disbelief is what it says. He was amazed by their disbelief. Then he sends the disciples out, then Herod kills John the Baptist, then they cross the sea and he sees the crowds and he has compassion on the crowds, but I think actually right before that, he has all the disciples rest. He's like take a second rest, basically spend some time alone, because they had been working so hard, they've been going so hard. He says take some time and rest.

Matt Shields: 46:03

And so I think a really important concept for entrepreneurs to grasp is having some sort of conscious rest, some sort of process where you can separate from the business, you can rest your mind, you can rest your body, you can recuperate yourself. For me, I love going to the beach for a weekend, for a week. If I can just go to the beach once a quarter for one week, that's my zone, and Sam Ovens talked about this way back when he said every quarter I do a one-week retreat. Yeah, yeah, remember. And I was like that's perfect, perfect, that's all. I need one week every quarter where I just do no work, I just sit with my thoughts I read I write.

Matt Shields: 46:44

That's the goal, yeah. So having some sort of active rest, I think is important. And you're like unplugged unplugged when you go. I like to be, but I don't do a good job of it. It's really hard. But I, in two weeks, I'm going to the beach with my family and I'm going to try to be completely unplugged For the first time probably ever. I'm going to try not to go on Slack or email or anything. I'll let you know how I do. Yeah, yeah, but I'm going to try to completely separate for a week and see what happens. So, yeah, that concept of rest and having good support around you For me, faith is obviously a big driver of knowing, just from giving me the strength to do what I'm trying to do. It's hard. I get overwhelmed, I get scared, I get frustrated. It's not easy, but if I remind myself what I'm doing it for, then it makes it a lot more bearable.

Keaton Walker: 47:38

And how do you think about your mission compared to, like, I assume you want a family one day. Yeah, when you have that family let's say I don't know how many kids you want, but let's say you have a wife, a couple of kids how do you foresee yourself balancing the mission to serve others and want to grow software companies and, you know like, maybe be a super dad and be around all the time. I don't know if that's your desire or what.

Matt Shields: 48:03

It's tough, dude. I know I want a family, but I'll be honest, I was agnostic about it until maybe a few months ago, to where I was like I wouldn't mind being an entrepreneur the rest of my life. But then I realized the reason we're able to procreate is because we're supposed to procreate, we're supposed to have children, we're supposed to raise families. That's what we're designed to do. Whether you believe in evolution creation, it doesn't matter. We, biologically, are here to be able to reproduce. So I was like, okay, maybe it makes sense for me to to really give that some focus. Um, I don't know how I would balance it right now. I can't imagine it.

Matt Shields: 48:43

Yeah, granted, a lot of my time right now is like reading and chilling and like just thinking of really big ideas, which is what I love. I'm not grinding 12 hours a day like I used to. So I I think by the time I have kids if I can have kids by the time I'm like 35, 40, well, hopefully we've got eight figs, nine figs, in the bank by then and we can chill and I can take my time and I can have my passion projects and we're good and I don't have to worry about money at all and I can. I can be that super dad for my kids, but the mission will always come first for me and that hopefully my future wife's not watching this, but like it's, the mission will always come. For of course, my family's a huge part of that mission and I'm never going to like screw over my family because, hey guys, I gotta go serve everybody else besides you.

Matt Shields: 49:32

Like that'd be kind of foolish, yeah, but I will always prioritize, um, what I feel like god wants me to do over anything else, and I feel like god's gonna want me to be a good father and good husband. So he's not gonna, yeah, you know, uh make me cut off my, my sons and my daughters. But you never know. Jesus says like uh, whoever chooses their mother or father over me is not worthy of me. That's a crazy thing to say yeah that's a really interesting thing to say.

Matt Shields: 50:01

Like whoa I I, if I put my mom, my relationship with my mom and my dad above you, I don't deserve like. But if jesus is ultimately your creator, if he's your true, if he's your true family in the sense that like he's the one who created you and gave you this life, then he's just as much your. Your father Got it. So that's kind of my perspective on it and it's a tough thing to balance.

Keaton Walker: 50:24

Yeah, yeah. So along those lines, how old are you? I'm 23. Okay, so you're 23. Would it be safe to say you have more money than you know what to do with?

Matt Shields: 50:36

I, I could figure out some things to do with it. Okay, I don't know how to spend my money, yeah, so that's fair. Yeah, but I'm not like. I'm not like Emo, it's not even close. Yeah, he's got so much more money than me.

Keaton Walker: 50:47

It's crazy, but it even like like 30, 40k a month profit, like you're taking that home. Sometimes it's hard to know what to do with that. Sure, sure, put it in the S&P 500 or invest in a business, whatever right, but what's it like? I feel like most people in that position kind of end up going crazy, maybe like hedonism, go out into the world and your journey has kind of been the exact opposite where, like, the more successful in the world you've become, the more you've turned to god. Right, yeah, what do you think made that difference?

Matt Shields: 51:26

that's a great question. I thought about this yesterday when I was I talked to brett the uh not brett watts, but the other brett after everybody left was actually pretty crazy uh conversation, um, but I was talking to him and I started thinking about this. Part of what led me to god is the fact that I I chased down my idol. My idol was money. Yeah, my god was Many entrepreneurs, whether they realize it or not, their God is money. I chased it down, I grabbed it in my hands and I saw it for myself, and I saw it for what it was, which is an illusion. It's nothing. Money's created by man. It has no inherent value. Even Ray Dalio, probably the greatest money manager of the modern day, has said money is just a storehold of value or a transference of wealth, meaning money in itself has no value. So I found that out for myself once I made the money and I got to this point last year where I had achieved the goals I wanted I'd hit the 100K month, I had traveled the world, I had met the beautiful women that I thought were going to make me feel all good about myself and I was like what is this? This is a trick, this is a deception. This is an illusion. What else is out there? There's got to be something. This can't be what I was made for, this can't be my purpose, this can't be the reason I'm here. And so I went on this really existential investigation of what is truth, what is true and what am I here for and what am I on this planet for? And the conclusion I came to at first was there is no truth, there is no purpose, you're not here for anything at all. And it led me to nihilism. And so I became a nihilist and I got really into nihilism, which is the idea that nothing matters, there is no purpose at all, and I even started writing a book I mentioned this last night called Nothing Matters at All Great title for a book. Why would you write a book if it doesn't matter? That's the thing about nihilism is it's almost self-refuting in your actions.

Matt Shields: 53:30

But eventually, um, these people prayed for me and I denounced god. Actually, I denounced god. After seeking for like five years. I said god, I don't even think you're there. I've wasted five years. I'm just gonna be a good person. You know, you can take it out with me when I die. I guess, yeah, and then, uh, two days later I meet one of my.

Matt Shields: 53:51

I go back home from a trip I was on where I denounced God, and then I visit my roommate who was an atheist at the time, kyle Knox, and he ended up telling me while you were gone I think I believe in God now. So he tells me these crazy stories that happened to him. Then his sister says a prayer for me. The next day, god reveals himself to me, makes my head hurt. Then the next day he reveals himself to me again, and then thing after thing just kept happening where I was like maybe there's something out there.

Matt Shields: 54:23

And so I went on this really long six, seven month journey of investigating and trying to figure out what is this God thing? Is he real? Why are these things happening to me? Why can I not seem to find any purpose in my life without assuming that there is a creator? And then I realized well, that's because purpose presupposes a creator. It purpose, the word means the reason for which something is created. So if there's no reason for you being created, there is no purpose. And if there's no objective creator, then there is no reason for you being created. It's all just a great coincidence. There's no objective purpose behind it. So I said, well, in order for me to have purpose, there needs to be a creator. Then I had to ask well, would a creator make all of us and then never make himself available? It's like that'd be, like the greatest, that'd be dad in history. You know, I was like, well, I don't think so, but I would understand if he, he, only made himself available, if we actually really care about knowing him. So I went on this path of trying to find him and seek him, and I had a ton of crazy things happen to me. I shared it with Brett last night and eventually none of those things convinced me. That's the crazy thing is, none of the miracles that happened to me convinced me. They made me seek, they made me interested, but they didn't make me believe. It wasn't until these guys prayed for me in church one time and they said God, make the Bible come alive to Matt. And I went home eight hours later I picked up the Gospel of Matthew, which I'd read twice before, and I picked it up and it was like it was a different book than I'd ever read and I just I was just like smiling, laughing, crying reading this book. It was the weirdest thing in the world and it was just like a different book. It was like different text and I just kept going through it. I couldn't put it down and I haven't been able to put it down since, and it was that that convicted me. It was the word of God that convicted me that he was real. I had plenty of reasons to try to justify my faith with apologetics and different arguments and the miraculous encounters I had different arguments and the miraculous encounters I had. But the thing that actually convicted me was when I read the Bible.

Matt Shields: 56:38

I have one tattoo and it's this word in Greek logos. I got this tattoo two years ago, maybe two and a half years ago, in Medellin, colombia. It's my only tattoo. It's my only tattoo and I got it because I was really into stoicism. Stoicism is obviously really popular philosophy even today, and in stoicism, logos means destiny. It means everything happens for a reason. Basically, everything happens according to how nature wills it to happen. And so I got this tattoo logos because I you know, if anything bad happens to me, I can just say, hey, this is nature, it's part of the game, part of the plan Turns out.

Matt Shields: 57:20

Logos also means Jesus in New Testament, because the New Testament was written in Greek and Logos in Greek means word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. So Jesus is being referred to there as the word. The beginning was the word, the word was with god and the word was god. So jesus is being referred to there as the word, the logos. Yeah, and so I got this tattoo for stoicism, but then it ended up actually being the word of god. Uh, so that's just another. Another thing that happened, I guess, over time. That I realized is a kind of funny coincidence, shall you say? So how?

Keaton Walker: 57:51

has that whole experience affected the way that you show up in business? I know you mentioned now you're more service-oriented, it's about helping other people, but it sounds to me like there's a brand new lens with which maybe you see everything. To me, like there's a brand new lens with which maybe you see everything. How does, on a day-to-day basis, you find yourself like talking to people differently or referring to them or thinking about problems differently because of that that's a really good question, I would say it's.

Matt Shields: 58:25

It's given me much more struggle with how I'm used to doing business, because the way I was used to doing business was not godly at all. It was let's make money and just like not break the law yeah, and like I had a moral and an ethic.

Matt Shields: 58:39

It's not like I didn't have that before, but it didn't mean as much to me. Now I'm trying to honor god in my actions, in my business, more consciously, uh, than I have obviously ever in the past. So I'm trying to think about how do I talk to this customer? How do I talk to this team member? Do I get frustrated and lose my crap if somebody messes up on the team, which I didn't do before? But I'm just more aware of how am I acting? How am I presenting myself? More aware of how am I acting? How am I presenting myself? How am I honoring God through my actions and through this business?

Matt Shields: 59:20

And it all comes back to what is the foundation of why I'm doing this. And when I do things for myself, when I'm the forefront of my decision-making, it comes back to bite me. But when I put God first and it's actually for God it's never done me wrong. The problem is, I don't always put God first. As much as I want to, I don't always. And so that's the challenge in the battle that I'm fighting now is really making the North Star.

Keaton Walker: 59:48

And have you found, like for me, when I started out growing up very religious, I felt like I had a lot of internalized like money is bad, sales is bad, like a lot of that's scripts I kind of had to get rid of if I was ever going to be successful. Yeah, the dichotomy of like you know there's a lot in the Bible that says wealth is, you know, could, like it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of heaven, I think is the quote and like that affected me in a big way. Do you feel like that those types of messages have have effect as a way to think about making money?

Matt Shields: 1:00:34

yeah, like first timothy, I think it's chapter six. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil a lot of people say love of money is the root of all evil.

Matt Shields: 1:00:42

It's different, not exactly what the text says if you look at the real translation, but there's all these, these conflicting verses, almost it seems. Yeah, I struggled with it for a little bit but I just went deeper into it and there's. There's nothing in the bible that I've seen that says money is inherently bad. It's always referred to it. It's always.

Matt Shields: 1:01:06

Anytime money is criticized is because of the person's relationship with money. It's just like a woman a woman is a. It's just like a woman is a beautiful thing. Just like a man's a great thing for a woman to have. A woman's a beautiful thing for a man to have. But if the man's having the woman without her consent, that's not a beautiful thing anymore, that's an evil thing. Or if it's outside a wedlock, that's not a beautiful thing, that's an evil thing. I know that might be extreme for some people and you know I'm guilty of doing that plenty of times. So like, maybe evil is a strong word there, but it's an unholy thing. Let's say so.

Matt Shields: 1:01:38

It's not money that's the problem, it's the relationship and the perspective we have of money, and I think god makes this really clear if you just read solomon, he says uh, money solves all. He's like money is the solution to all problems. Well, money is the solution to all problems. Well, if money is the solution to all problems, according to King Solomon, could it really be such an evil thing? If it's the solution to all problems? Now I think there's some metaphoric speech happening there. It's not the solution to your impending death, but it's the solution to a lot of the problems we face. I think is what he's getting at.

Matt Shields: 1:02:10

So I don't think the Bible actually does condemn money. I think it condemns idolizing money. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters. You'll love the one and you'll hate the other. You'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon is money, so you can't serve both. It doesn't mean you can't have money and God. You can't serve money and God, and that's a big distinction that, when I was able to make, I think I saw it pretty clearly that money is not the problem. My relationship to it is, and that's the thing I need to be careful for and keep an eye on is am I putting money above God?

Keaton Walker: 1:02:51

Yeah.

Keaton Walker: 1:02:51

And that's a scary thing am I putting money above god? Yeah, and that's a that's a scary. So the thing I I struggle with there is, like I feel like the time that you have to spend to make money is so much more than the time that you most, you know, self-proclaimed god followers actually spend, maybe studying what they feel to be the word of god or, um, you know out, serving the poor, etc. Etc. Like, if you just look at how people spend their time, it's not actually congruent with that and it's part of, like, how society's set up. We've got to live, we've got to make money. How do you think about that? Like, is there a part of you that just wants to be spending 12 hours a day studying the Bible?

Matt Shields: 1:03:35

and helping, Literally. Last year I surrendered business to God because I'm struggling hard. I was like God I don't know if you want me to be an entrepreneur or not, but I feel like my whole life you've shown me like I'm meant to be an entrepreneur. But on the other hand, it's like if you want me to just become a theologian or a preacher or something like, I'll do it. I won't be able to answer this question in time. Yeah, I have to go Do that, but let me see if they did move it back. Okay. Okay, well, that meeting's canceled. Oh, no, here you go and we lost a buyer for a state. Ai live on podcast.

Matt Shields: 1:04:18

So the book of Ecclesiastes is really interesting because Solomon has this whole existential crisis of I looked at everything under the sun and I perceived it. All this vanity and a striving after win. All this vanity is the conclusion. This most successful and wise person in all of history, even adjusted for inflation, Like Solomon, had more than anybody in history has ever had, and it's not even close. Yeah, and he said all is vanity and a striving after win and there is nothing that matters under the sun, right? And then he concludes the book of Ecclesiastes with it's good for man to enjoy his toil, which is the work of his hands. So he comes to the conclusion that we're here to work and create, because that's what God did. He created us. It was work. That's why he rested on the seventh day. So we are here to enjoy the work of our hands and to use it for good. And I think Solomon comes to that conclusion.

Matt Shields: 1:05:17

And I think the problem that people actually have, and maybe the problem you were struggling with, is not that the work was separating you from God, but that the work well, the work was separating you from God, but not because it was the work itself. It's because God was not invited into the work. If the work was for him, if the work was with him, if God was your business partner, then it wouldn't separate anybody anymore. Right, this would be with God and for God. So I think the problem a lot of people have is they don't know how to honor God in what they do. Solomon says in Proverbs submit your plans to the Lord and they will be established. So if you submit whatever you're doing right now to God, to a greater power, and you say look, this is for you, this is for you, Use me however you want in this, but this is yours, then it doesn't take you away anymore, because it's for him and it's with him, and every morning you can invite him in, like God. What do you want me to focus on today?

Keaton Walker: 1:06:21

Yeah. So what would you say? This is something I've observed and like how I grew up, isn't? I don't know? I guess some people in my circles would have done this, but in a different way. But what would you say about, um, people who use their status as, like a christian or a you know, a follower of god to basically like sell more of the stuff that they're?

Matt Shields: 1:06:48

trying to sell? Yeah, that's not. That's not where I thought you were going with the question. But okay, that's a good question, so where did you think I was going either? Like, how do you feel about religious people who like use their faith for like corruption and power?

Keaton Walker: 1:07:02

oh, yeah, you know, like the evil yeah, I guess it's along those lines, but specifically like they like lead with that identity to call out more people like that and it anyway it's interesting.

Matt Shields: 1:07:15

I've had conversations with my roommates about this and we've definitely been skeptical of people who do that. I will say this If, if you want to serve Christian entrepreneurs like you, have to call out your audience. Yeah.

Matt Shields: 1:07:29

Like, if that's, if that's you good, that the call out in itself doesn't make it twisted or evil or wrong, okay, it's the. Then what do you deliver on to those people? Like, do you honor the promises you make to them? Just saying, hey, christian entrepreneurs, there's nothing wrong with that and like, what inherently is wrong with calling out that group, nothing. But if then you say, christian entrepreneurs, um, we'll pray for your business to double, look for the next 12 months. You know, we'll help you double your revenue through an intimate 12-hour prayer session for twelve thousand dollars, like, okay, that's, that's a different thing. But if just like a christian entrepreneurs, uh, yeah, we have a community of other christian entrepreneurs, we're all growing together, trying to spiritually, trying to grow our businesses and build and develop and become better people, if you want to join join Like that's no different than sales professionals want to join our sales community You're just calling out your audience.

Matt Shields: 1:08:25

If you start, you know the word says Solomon said buy wisdom and do not sell it. So the second you start selling wisdom which the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord so the second you start selling the fear of the Lord. That's where I get a little bit confused but just saying hey, you're a Christian entrepreneur or Muslim entrepreneur or whatever. You want to join more people who are on the same path as you probably have a lot of similar values as you, probably you'll get along with really well. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not how I would approach it because I have some hesitations, I guess, with my own just dialogue there around that.

Keaton Walker: 1:09:04

But I don't condemn it. Do you feel like they're kind of it's like putting up an AI picture of you and a celebrity and being like look, I met the celebrity and using the clout of that celebrity to sell more of your stuff. But obviously it's not an AI picture, because anybody can say I'm a Christian.

Matt Shields: 1:09:23

Yeah, I don't look at it the same, because saying that you're a believer in God does not mean that you actually know God, not mean that you actually know god, and any believer in god knows that that there are many false prophets. And the word tells us very clearly be careful of of wolves in sheep's clothing. So I don't equate it as like I'm using god to get you into my business, unless somebody is trying to use God to get them into their business. That's a different thing. Yeah, if you're like God wants you to join my mastermind Again, now I got a problem. But if you're just saying, hey, like I'm a believer in God, you're a believer in God, cool. Now I will say there are some people who I can't think of, anybody who just doesn't believe in God and is doing this and like literally just faking faith, like oh yeah, I'm a Christian, and like they're memorizing Bible verses or something like I don't know anybody doing that. But there are some people who definitely should not be teaching and should not be coaching that specific group of christian entrepreneurs.

Matt Shields: 1:10:35

James says very clearly in his book. He says not all of us should be teachers, brothers and sisters, for we know we'll be judged to a higher degree. Not many of us should be teachers, okay, so many people are not ready to put on the weight that's required to teach and they jump the gun because of worldly status and pride. Um, james says I love the book of james, it's such a good book. He says you do not receive because you do not ask. And you do not receive when you do ask because you ask wrongly, hoping to use your spiritual gifts for your own fleshly desires. So a lot of people abuse their faith for their flesh and that is, I think, kind of what you're getting at here is is, you know, be skeptical of that. And I think that's a fair message. Everybody should be skeptical and use their discernment well yeah, I appreciate that because it's not.

Keaton Walker: 1:11:25

I think it's not as cut and dry as like everybody's bad and every yeah, yeah, everybody's good, or or even that everybody using that call out is using it with a good intention, or there's nothing wrong with that, because, like the other example that comes to mind is like somebody posting a thirst trap to Instagram. Yeah. And the caption is like I do it all for.

Matt Shields: 1:11:44

God, oh, that's just crazy. I mean, that's just like that's just that's.

Keaton Walker: 1:11:50

But they do. They're like they're building their body. God wants my body to be good, Like building the temple.

Matt Shields: 1:11:56

You know, yeah, like somebody's like building the temple, okay, fair.

Keaton Walker: 1:12:00

But they're posting. I'm not trying to defend them, I'm just being devil advocate here. Like to me, I'm like you, amassing followers based on the way your body looks and claiming it to be God. Like you're doing that for God. Something just smells a little fishy and I think that's the same business wise for me, but I know. To me it doesn't seem like a lot of these people are bad intentioned.

Matt Shields: 1:12:23

Yes, that's what I was going to say is I do think people mess up and get it wrong because they don't know the word of God, they don't know the scriptures, and so they think they're just building the temple and like building strength, and they just don't know the word. So they post their picture of, like my biceps are freaking, getting yoked today and they think it's inspiring and good, but in fact it actually is. Uh, it is causing others to to sin, right, if a girl's watching that? Or for guys watching a picture of a girl who's like building her body and she's like in some outfit or whatever, like yeah, that's causing others to fall into temptation, got it. But I don't think many people know that. They probably do in their hearts if they were to investigate deep enough. But yeah, I don't think I try to think people have decent intentions until they really really prove me. I don't think I try to think people have decent intentions, got it, until they really really prove me otherwise.

Keaton Walker: 1:13:16

I like that about you. I think, like you really live up to that in a big way, like even what we're talking about with Iman. Like you're, you've you suspend a judgment until you met him and, despite what anyone says, you'll go off of your own experience with them. I try to I'm not perfect.

Matt Shields: 1:13:35

I judge plenty of people. It's another place. The word of God comes in handy, matthew 7.1,. Judge not, so you may not be judged. The judgment you pronounce will be the judgment you receive. The measurement you give is the measurement you get.

Matt Shields: 1:13:48

When that hit me, I was like, oh, the reason I'm so worried about other people judging me is because I'm judging them. If I just didn't judge anyone, I wouldn't even care if they judged me, because I wouldn't judge them for judging me. And it's like. When that hit me, it's like that's a profound. I haven't cultivated it. I wish I could. I'm trying to grab it, but that's. That's a profound sense of love that I've not seen taught to that degree anywhere else than in that chapter of Matthew.

Matt Shields: 1:14:18

The measurement you give is the measurement you get, and if you didn't judge others, they wouldn't judge you, because you wouldn't even care about their judgment. It wouldn't even mean anything. I do want to bring something up, though, because you, anytime I'm quoting these Bible verses, it's making me think of something Mac said to me, where he would like tell you these kind of lessons or something, or like these things he's learning, and you would be like well, mac, it's almost like that's in the Bible, because it is. You know, there's a lot of good stuff in there. So well, maybe we can talk about that off camera. But I'm curious your thoughts on scripture, maybe that, yeah, again.

Matt Shields: 1:15:02

Yeah, yeah, maybe that's something we talk about off camera. It made me think of that because I know you. I guess by that statement I would assume see some wisdom and some value in it. Oh yeah, even though it assumes he's some wisdom and some value.

Keaton Walker: 1:15:14

Oh yeah, yeah, there's. I think for me this is like the first time I've really been public about this.

Matt Shields: 1:15:23

I didn't mean to put you on the spot. By the way, we can cut all this out if you want.

Keaton Walker: 1:15:27

Where I'm currently at is like the things in Scripture are not unique and the good things in scripture are not unique. I feel like there's, there's, you know, what you mentioned like the golden rule is very similar to that, and and then the unique things about religion in particular, I think are are not good, at least for me, and haven't been, haven't served me well, and um, that may change at some point in my life, but I'm I'm just like I'm recovering from a lifetime of, like self-worth issues because of all that. So I, I, uh, we'll get into it another day. Okay, that's kind of where I'm at, but, um, the other thing I wanted to ask you is what about like marketing agencies for churches and like the business of running a church? How do you feel about that morally?

Matt Shields: 1:16:24

Marketing agencies for churches. It's a real thing. Yeah, I believe it. I mean, if you get results, you get results. Again, I don't think the thing can inherently be wrong. I think there's so much nuance to it. Nothing god created is inherently wrong. Okay, it's wrong when it's twisted.

Matt Shields: 1:16:43

Yeah, so marketing was created by god. It's not wrong to market. If you believe in your product, you should market. The reason I talk about it, point wise, so much is like I actually believe in it more than any product I've ever been a part of. Yeah, so marketing's not inherently bad. Uh, business is not inherently bad. Church is not inherently bad. These things are created by god. But when you start marketing with a deceitful message to lead people to a church that doesn't have their best interest in heart and just wants a bunch of worldly gain by getting a ton of tithing, well, yeah, then we got a problem on our hands. Yeah, so there's a lot of nuance to it. Um, I would say, hot, take, christians will get mad at me. Uh, for this one, probably. It's funny. Usually the christians are the one who get the most mad at the other christians, which is exactly what the enemy wants, by the way.

Matt Shields: 1:17:32

But yeah, um, I I've tithed once or twice but like I, generally speaking, I don't get my money to church. I just don't, and there's not a church that I've. There's one or two churches I've come in contact with where I'm like I would actually feel comfortable giving my money here. But even then, there's like a little thing in me that's like and it might be, it might be spiritual in mind, it might be something I need to work on on my end. Um, I like I prefer to just give directly to the source. Yeah, so, for example, there's this thing called compassioncom where you can go and you can sponsor children. I love going to that site and just sponsoring the children directly because I know what it's going to. Yeah, when I give the money to the church, it's a lot like giving the money to the government. Yeah, I don't know what it's being spent on. Yeah, and that makes me feel weird because my preacher shows up in a new Benz truck. I'm a little bit. I'm like, okay, you know, look, dude, do your thing bro, but it better come from book sales or something.

Matt Shields: 1:18:31

And even then it's like it's a bad sign. That's why, again, many of us should not be teachers, because we need to be held. They are held to a higher standard we got to. So I don't think it's inherently wrong, but there's obviously a lot of corrupt churches. There's obviously a lot of corrupt marketing agencies. There's obviously, I think, also people who have good intentions and make mistakes in both of those paths. I mean, I know in my marketing agencies there's plenty of times we let customers down and it sucks. I think anybody who runs an agency can relate. It's the worst feeling in the world when you let a customer down, yeah, but I don't think when that happens it means you're a bad person. I think it means you made a mistake and you're supposed to learn from it.

Keaton Walker: 1:19:14

Got it. To me it's like drawing that line of like okay, how much should the pastor make? Like, is it $100,000 a year? Is it $200,000 a year? Like, morally, where does that line get drawn? It's not easy to answer, and the obscene wealth of some of them I've seen.

Matt Shields: 1:19:40

Wealth is scary, yeah, the private jets and the mega mansions is is interesting. I mean it does say like teachers should earn their living by their work. So, like we are, they are to make their living doing this. They're dedicated their life to teaching the word of god. I have no problems if my preacher makes a good living. I want him to live a good life, like. But once he starts becoming a victim of the world yeah, and that's what he's living for, more than he's living for god, then we have a problem. Yeah, um, but like, if a t, if a preacher makes $200,000 a year, that's tough. I'm not inherently against that. Got it $500,000 a year, we're getting up there, we're getting up there. But like, do you think? Like I don't know, it's tough, it's so tough, it's so tough. I think it should be percentage based. Maybe that's the solution. Percentage has to be given and then a percentage can be spent. Yeah, and the preacher makes a percentage of what the whole congregation brings in or whatever. Maybe that's the solution.

Keaton Walker: 1:20:43

I think what I'm trying to get at with all of this, like this whole kind of back half of the podcast yeah your shoes, but feels lost. Um, like you, you got you. You got to the top of the mountain and you looked down and you said, oh, this isn't the mountain that I actually wanted to be climbing, yeah, but that said, like the money, the skills, the process was still a very positive outlook for you and, as we both know, like mindset will determine everything in your life. And I just want, I'd love, for you to close out with, like, let's say, somebody's early twenties. They're a little bit lost, they're not sure where they stand with with God, or where they want to go business-wise, but they just know they don't want to be where they are now. What's?

Matt Shields: 1:21:39

the first step I mean tactically speaking, the first step is to find somebody who has been where you want to go. And if you don't know exactly where you want to go, well, start thinking about it. I mean, just start thinking. The first exercise we did in Billy Wilson's course was design your dream life. Yeah, you put together what you want your dream life to look like, and so start with that. The bible says without a vision, the people perish. So create some sort of vision for yourself, and then you have an idea of where you want to go. Once you know where you want to go, go find somebody who's there or who has been there, and then find somebody who's been able to take other people there too. That's like the tier of mentors. Have they been where you want to go and have they taken other people there to find that person? Figure out. You know what, like? What do I have to do? Do I have to start working a side job to be able to afford to get you to mentor me? Side job? To be able to afford to get you to mentor me, do I have to, uh, work for you for free? Can I come work with you? Like? Go find somebody who has been where you want to go and just learn everything you can from them. Um, and then get around more and more people who want to go to a similar place, because the success of the king is determined by his counsel. And so if you're around a ton of people that are not taking you to a higher level, well then. And so if you're around a ton of people that are not taking you to a higher level, well then, that's who you're going to become. So, tactically, that's what I think about.

Matt Shields: 1:23:02

Skill, mentor, mastermind. That's exactly what they teach you in college. A major, your skill, a mastermind, your college classmates, and then a mentor, your professor. The modern world allows that in a much more affordable and, I think, productive way, which is you join a mastermind, you find a mentor, you find other members in there or you find somebody on YouTube. You learn the skill for free. You don't even need to buy a course anymore. It's crazy. You can find everything for free for the most part. So that's how I would think about it those three things that college provides mentor, mastermind, skill but flip it in a digitalized way in the modern world. Find that thing digitally. How can you build an online business. What skill do you need? What mentor do you need? And then, where are the people?

Keaton Walker: 1:23:49

I love the in-person aspect of what you just described because, as awesome as YouTube youtube is and, as you mentioned, like there's a lot of organized information that's not in paid courses nowadays. But, like I promise you, the next level of whatever it is that you're going after is on the other side of just hanging out with a few people. That are a few steps ahead, because it there's something that will click when you hang out with those people, hear them talk, hear the way like, see the way they carry themselves and see how like common sense it is that this stuff can work and does work right, that that flips such a big switch in my head when I started doing a lot more in-person stuff and I had a student a while back who's like just graduated high school, you know, had like all the gung ho, like wanted to do it. It was just behind his computer 12 hours a day sending a bunch of outreach messages and I was like, dude, go to a networking event. And every week I would follow up and see if he had gone to a networking event and, um, that's fun.

Keaton Walker: 1:24:53

Uh, isaac, if you're watching this, if you've gone to the networking event, comment below. Um, uh, that's, it's just so important for the, the mental development, like there's something. I think subconsciously that when it's all on the computer we still have this skepticism that eats away at the confidence. But once you go in person you see people like, okay, this is real, it's. Like, oh, maybe it's not all a scam.

Matt Shields: 1:25:19

Seeing is believing. You know, once you see it. When I went to Joel Kaplan's Mastermind in Mexico three and a half years ago, I was coming off my like fifth agency. We had all these agencies crashed because of COVID. I was thinking about getting out of the space altogether. Then I go to this event and I meet all these guys who are doing 100K a month plus and I was at the bottom of everybody in the event. I was quite literally the dumbest person in the room in terms of my success at least, I was the lowest person in the room.

Matt Shields: 1:25:51

But as I spent more and more time with these people, I realized they don't really know that much more than me. They're not sharper than me. These guys are going out and partying and clubbing every night. They just figured out a couple of things that I haven't and they've taken some risks that I haven't because they believed it's possible, like I didn't. And that event I wrote down. I'm going to make a hundred K a month before the year is over because I became so convicted and I went from zero to 11 months later we're doing 150 K a month. Well, and that event was the genesis of everything for that year. I mean, it inspired everything because I finally believed it was possible, and so, yeah, I love that you touched on that, because getting in person is incredibly important.

Keaton Walker: 1:26:34

Yeah, and it's interesting that it wasn't like oh wow, these people are so amazing. No Same thing happened for me. The first guy I knew that was running an agency. I was like he said some really cringy things on this call. Like I listened to this call that he did and I was like not impressed with his sales skills and yet he closed. It was my family business at the time. Sales skills, and yet he closed. It was my family business at the time and I was like maybe, if this, this 17 year old, can close my family business for 1500 a month, like maybe I can do that too. He was cringy and he's, you know, like gave me that belief, like breathe the belief into me via just being normal.

Matt Shields: 1:27:12

You know yeah it's cool, that's fun. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, thanks for having me, bro, it's a pleasure. Yeah, good chats, great chats.