How to Audit and Implement Air-tight Systems Into Your Business to Help Scale it to the Moon With Johnathon Zamora (Systems Mini-Series (3/3) | TNE075

Are you brave enough to resign from your job through the phone to go after the opportunity to make five, six figures? This week, we finish our three-part Systems Mini Series with none other than Jonathon Zamora, the brilliant young mind behind the email marketing agency, Settler Systems. Jonathon, at just 23, is a force to be reckoned with in the ecomm space, just like his peers Noah Brewer and Jake Thoen. With his email marketing agency, Jonathan has helped businesses grow their revenue by 30%. Settler Systems started offering its services in December 2020 but despite its newness in the space, Jonathon, together with his team and systems, have already managed to generate over $10, 000, 000.  

Crazy? Yes! Impossible? Not really. For this episode, I sit down with Jonathon and get to know the story behind his incredible success. Jonathon shares some awesome anecdotes about his early life and also how his mindset has changed over the years. He also touches upon the strategy he employs that has propelled Settler Systems to the heights it has reached today. This episode surely offers a ton of value for entrepreneurs on every level. 

Time Stamps:

[4:05] Jonathon’s Origin Story

[9:08] The Trip That Changed Jonathon’s Life

[13:34] The Serendipitous  Moments That Steered Jonathon’s Mindset Apart From The Crowd

[19:54] How Can A Power List Transform Your Life?

[31:33] The Difference Between Market Risk and Execution Risk

[45:47] Systems Provide You With Leverage

Jonathon’s Agency: https://settlersystems.com/home

Jonathan’s Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnathonzamora/
https://www.instagram.com/johnathonzamora/?hl=en 

Jonathon’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEbGgRzYI8G1DK7-H4HpUFA

Omar's (Host) Social Media:

Instagram - @nomadables

TikTok - @nomadables

Facebook Group - NOMADABLES - Accountability & Growth Community for Remote Workers- Perfect to meet fellow online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads.

YouTube - Omar Mo

LinkedIn - Omar Mo Nomads Cast

Twitter - @nomadables

Pintrest - @nomadables

Clubhouse - @pods

WEBSITE: https://www.nomadables.com/

Transcript

TNE 75 - How To Audit And Implement Air-Tight Systems Into Your Business To Help Scale It To The Moon With Jonathon Zamora [Systems Mini-Series (3/3(]

Omar  

Imagine having systems so damn good that you have 100 happy clients and yet none of them have ever had a conversation with you. That is what I mean when I say having airtight systems in your business allows you to truly remove yourself from it and turn it into a cash money machine. 

Our guest today has established these systems in his own business with time and practice. And you can do it too, whether you're a business owner or a freelancer. At the end of the day, aren't we all looking for freedom? We're joined by Jonathon Zamora, founder of Settler Systems an email marketing agency that helps ecommerce store owners increase their revenue, sometimes even doubling it through the power of email. 

Join us while we dive deep into Jonathon’s systems, how he built them and inspirational words of wisdom. Remember Nomad fam, we've got some incredibly value-filled episodes planned out for you so please hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Your review helps us podcast become more visible and ultimately inspire more people just like you. My name is Omar Mo and this is The Nomadic Executive.

Intro  

You're listening to The Nomadic Executive hosted by Omar from nomadables.com. 

Join Omar as he sits down and speaks with leading online entrepreneurs, remote workers and digital nomads about everything from business strategy to travel and lifestyle design. Together, We're here to help you achieve a life of happiness, health and freedom. And now here's your host, Omar Mo.

Omar  

All right, Jonathon Zamora. Welcome to The Nomadic Executive, man. Super stoked to have you. I've done the trifecta now. I've done -  I've interviewed Jake, I've interviewed Noah and now I have interviewed you. And these are all going to come out episodically. 

So everyone that's listening to this episode right now has already heard the episode with Jake, as well as the episode with Noah. So welcome to the third person trifecta, Jonathan. Happy to have you on.

Jonathon Zamora

Saving the best for last, huh? I’m just kidding, man. 

Omar

Noah and Jake listen to this. I hope they caught that too.

Jonathan Zamora

No, I appreciate you man, I appreciate you having me on the podcast. It's a real pleasure to be here. It's kind of funny, you met all of us all in one go. And it's fun for all of us to be on the podcast.

Omar  

Absolutely, man, super stoked to have you every single one of these episodes have been very, very valuable. And like I said, there's a whole section of business that we're going to be exploring as well today. 

As well as the mindsets behind what you do and your intentions and all of that. And I think it's going to be incredibly valuable for any of my audience. And what I always like to do is always put the stuff in context, too, right? So Jonathan, you're definitely younger than I am. How old are you? 

Jonathan Zamora

23.

Omar

23 years old. And you've built this business to where you are now. And your monthly recurring is sitting at about what with this current business?

Jonathan Zamora

Anywhere from 70 to 100? Honestly, just depending on the time, and how many fires we have  at once.

Omar  

That's right. So for my audience, like, I've had this great idea, and I mentioned this on the last podcast episode I did as well. But I've had this idea of doing this like documentary thing of just interviewing young millionaires or young people that just make a ton of money. 

And the whole idea behind that documentary, at some point, it's going to be to really open up people's eyes to what's possible, and that average day people like you and I can do it. So that means they can do it too, right? To like, inspire a whole new generation. 

But whenever I say that, I have people like you coming on my podcast, no one believes me. They're like, how are they making so much money, right? So I want to explore your own journey today. And I want to explore like, what even got you into business? Or even before the whole business charade started, what really stemmed inside of you, what was your like origin story to get you to where you are, and the mindsets that you have today? Start me off with that.

Jonathan Zamora

Yeah, so I think for me, it wasn't something that it was like, I kind of started getting into business. I feel like I've always kind of been interested in business. It was something that I always wanted to be. And I think it started with just early on having a fascination for money. 

I remember being, you know, a little bit younger, my mom would always tell me these stories of me going and seeing like cashiers at Walmart and being like, “I want to be them.” And she's like, “Why?”. You know that, like what you want. That's where you want to be when you grow up as a cashier. And I was like, yeah, and she's like, why? And I'm like, because they get all the money. I didn't understand when I was like three or four years old that they didn't actually keep the money. 

And then as I started to kind of grow up, I started to see other business owners that were you know, were near me, and just seeing that they were, you know, building something that was bigger than them building teams, building businesses, building movements, and that's kind of where the journey sort of started. 

So it was kind of like, you know, 6, 7, 8 years old, always being interested in trying to build something. Whether it was selling candy, I used to sell tie dyed socks. I used to go, you know, lawn mow. Everything that you would typically, you know, expect from a young entrepreneur. 

And I feel like as I got into my teenage years, I kind of got distracted with other things. You know how high school and colleges, you know, you get interested in girls, you're trying to figure out life. And so I kind of got away from that. And I remember my freshman year in college, I had a great time living in the dorms, did the whole college experience. And as I was kind of wrapping that up, I felt like I was really missing something. 

And I know, I never want to say I was like, depressed. But it was kind of like, I didn't know why I was going to college, it was just because I was told to do so. And so I felt like I needed some sort of a competitive outlet or something to kind of get my head on straight. So I decided to dive into powerlifting. 

Omar

Powerlifting, out of all things!?

Jonathon Zamora

Well, I was already kind of into the gym. And so I was like, “Okay, let me let me kind of see what's closest to me.” And powerlifting was something that some of my friends was interested in. So I decided, Okay, let me give this a go. 

So I competed, I prepare for powerlifting powerlifting meet for about 10 months, went through the full, you know, spectrum. Got super into it, and ended up competing in that and, you know, winning state titles and breaking records and was super pumped. Like, it was something that was like, Okay, I have that like competitive edge back. 

And then after I did that, it was just this like moment of silence for me where I turned 20 years old. My competitive outlet was now gone. I did what I thought I was wanting to accomplish, which was a small goal for me. I didn't realize I had to set big goals.

Omar  

Wait. So before we continue there, just for some context, I like diving in deep here for every moment, right? So you did the competitive lifting? Why was it that when you turned 20 that went away? Like Did you not have another you already reached the peak of the level that you wanted to get to?

Jonathan Zamora

No. Fantastic point. So the powerlifting me and me turning 20 was like a month apart. And so it was kind of just like both of them happened at the same time. So I did the meet, I broke my goals. I was super pumped to that. And then I turned 20. And it was like, Okay, I did what I said I was wanting to… what I set out to do, right. And then I also turned 20. 

And I felt almost like an early life crisis that I was like, what, like, I said, I wanted to be successful. I said, I wanted to be my own boss. I'm 20. And I haven't even started thinking about any of it. And that for me was kind of like a reset. It was like, okay, what's the next step? 

And so at that point, that's when I decided to start my business. And for me, it was this thing of not knowing what I wanted to start, it was just like, okay, whatever comes my way, I'm gonna stick with it until it works out. And so that initial thing was ecommerce, it was dropshipping, I saw YouTube ad typically people sort of find out about or whatever reason.

And so I saw that I'm like, okay, you know, what, if there's people making money with it, I'm gonna stick with it until I can make some money. And so long story short, I stuck with that for about six months, you know, ended up doing pretty well with that. And that kind of got me started on this journey. 

You know, there's ups and downs with entrepreneurship. So six months in, I ended up going out to California. That's when I met Noah, because he invited me out there. And I was still in college full time, I was still working a full time job at a call center for $12 an hour. 

Now I was making okay money at this point. You know, I was making probably around six figures a year. But I was still scared to quit my job. I was still scared to drop out. And it was something that I could do on the side. So I continued to like, work that job.

Omar

How did you meet Noah? Did you just reach out to him? Were just making YouTube videos as well at that time or… what happened there?

Jonathon Zamora

So the way that I met Noah is the way that... I think that the internet is honestly really beautiful. I saw a video from Hayden Bowles. And he had this guy Dennis on. And so he was talking about this kid Dennis. 

I reached out to Dennis then and Dennis introduced me to Noah. And this was all through Instagram. So I just shot somebody a DM and one thing led to another and I ended up meeting him. 

Omar  

That's awesome, man. So yeah, carry on, you went to go visit Noah. What happened after that?

Jonathan Zamora

So I went to go visit Noah in LA. And I'm really trying to condense as much of this timeframe. This is like about a year and a half, two years kind of… a lot of these things.

Omar

Don’t worry, we’ll come back to that but you're on a roll, so I don’t want to stop you there.

Jonathan Zamora

So I ended up going to LA and for me this was like, transformative. It was the thing that I think honestly kind of set me on fire. And it was like, Okay, now I'm committing. Because all the way up until this point, I hadn't really committed to anything. I was getting my business going. I was trying, I was putting in the effort I was putting in the hours and paying my dues. 

But I wasn't wholeheartedly committed on making this thing happen. And so when I went out to LA, I ended up meeting up with a variety of different people that were in e-commerce my age or younger, I was actually the oldest one there. And that was kind of weird, because I was like 2021 at this point. 

And I saw these kids that, you know, were making, you know, 20,000, 30,000 a month. They, you know, were 18,19 years old. They own their own business. They were traveling, going to Dubai in Europe in all these places and just had like freedom that I had never seen from adults even but much less from people that were my age. 

And so I was nowhere on that level. They were all above me. And so, seeing that was like, Okay, this actually is possible. Because from where I'm at locally everybody else is, you know, working a regular job. They work at car washes or construction or whatever. So me making $10,000 a month online was like, insane. It was insanity. 

And so I felt like I was, you know, big balling, like, crushing it and then see and other people where it's like, there's more levels to this was like, okay, cool, it kind of opened up the floodgates. 

On that trip, I talked with those guys that were there, and they encouraged me to drop out of college, they also encouraged me to quit my job. So I actually have a video on my Instagram of me calling up my job, and quitting because I wanted to document because I felt like it'd be like a big moment for me. And so I went to -

Omar  

I’ve watched that video a few times now, man. It’s inspirational. Be sure to check that out for my audience here.

Jonathan Zamora

Yeah, so it was June 18 is the day that I quit. 2018. And so I always kind of celebrate that day, like, like, it's my birthday. And speaking of which, actually is your birthday. So Happy birthday, by the way.

Omar

Thank you.

Jonathon Zamora

Um, but yeah, so I always kind of celebrate that day like, it's my birthday. And I went through, quit my job and dropped out of college the same day. And since then I just haven't looked back. And it's just been doubling down on business and growing since then,

Omar  

How'd you feel when you made that move right then in there, I mean, it must have been such a spontaneous decision, which goes to show that you're someone that's very risk tolerant, and you're willing to take a move in a decision right then and there, which automatically makes you a better entrepreneur than people that aren't decisive, right?

But how did you feel the moment that you did it? I guess, you felt this sense of freedom, but then the upcoming weeks, how did it go?

Jonathon Zamora

I would actually say I was very scared. So for me, I actually kind of contemplated, kicked this decision back and forth for months for three, four months. And it was something that I felt like I should do, but I didn't actually have the guts to do it. And so for me, I would actually say I'm a little bit different than some entrepreneurs, because some entrepreneurs, I feel like handle risk really well. And they're like, okay, cool, let's just, let's just go.

I feel like I'm actually relatively risk adverse. Like, I would rather make slow consistent progress, rather than like ups and downs, but end up with like a big one. And so for me, it was like this process of like, going back and forth, going back and forth, going back and forth for months. And I finally already had that decision, kind of in the back of my mind that it was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this, but it was just a matter of when. 

And then seeing those guys talk to me about it. And la was like, Okay, I see the path, I know how to get there now. It's clear to me. Now I just need to actually go through and make that jump. And so honestly, it was kind of terrifying. 

And it ended up working out in the long run. But I had a little bit of money, nothing too crazy, there was kind of like, stockpile just in case. And the biggest thing that honestly made me say, Okay, this decision still gonna be there for me, is really two things. 

One, I knew that college and a call center job would be there for me just in case it didn't work out. And the opportunities that I had in front of me really weren't that phenomenal. And then the second thing is, I don't realize that these kids that are, I don't think a lot of the kids that are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, like those early years, I don't think they realize how good they have it, because you can lose absolutely everything start back over from zero. And you're still so early on, right?

Like once you have a wife, once you have, you know, three kids, once you have a mortgage, all of these like responsibilities, you can't go through and make that big leap. And so for me, it was kind of looking at that whole, it's a whole thing where it's like you look at yourself, when you're 80, you know, kind of reflect back on that moment be like, Okay, if I looked at myself when I was 80 at this 20 year old version of me, am I going to regret this decision? Or am I going to be proud that I took the leap and actually bet on myself?

Omar  

So do you think, at that age, when you were 2021 being surrounded by these people and having them be your catalyst for the growth that you did, and you willing to make those moves and those risks are such an early age because you have the mindset of if I lose or something goes wrong, I can always go back to this thing. What do you think differentiates your what, I guess serendipitous moments that you have to go through that separates you from someone else that your average 20 year old or 22 year old? 

Because I know damn well, at 22 I was still in college, like, enjoying partying and girls, right? So like, how did you manage to steer your mindset in a way that differentiated you already, I would say, 99% of people that are your age at that bracket?

Jonathon Zamora 

I think honestly the biggest thing that it's hard to find in people. And I think it's it's even harder to train into somebody as I as I've grown my company and started to build the bigger team, that I think the hardest thing that is something I look for culturally inside of people is like a burning desire. 

And it's kind of hard to really put into words what that is, but it's just like the desire to become better the desire to push yourself forward the desire to actually take that first step. And so the nice thing is like with this podcast, the people that are listening here, they have that desire.  Because you're not going to be listening to a podcast unless you have that desire to become better to actually improve yourself. 

When you actually look at the people that are surrounding you. A lot of the times they aren't reading, they aren't going to the gym. They are trying to better themselves. They're living on a plateau. And so the people that are actively seeking education trying to surround themselves by better people trying to move in the right direction is already ahead, you know, 90% of those people. Now all you need to do is just back that up with action. 

And for me that was just going through and giving myself a consistent amount of time that I was going to work on my business every single day. I think right now we have such a strong culture that it's like you have to go through and do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. 

But a lot of the times, it's like you have other responsibilities, you have a job, you have school, you have whatever. And so I think even more important than doing whatever it takes for two weeks is being consistent. Carve out two hours a day to work on your business consistently. And you get every single day. And over time that ends up stacking up.

Omar  

Yeah, I've been reading this book called The Slight Edge from Ravi lately. You got it right there, huh? 

Jonathon Zamora

I got it right here, man. This is my Bible, man. 

Omar

I know. I've just started reading it like about, I would say a fourth of the way through, I just started it last night. 

Jonathon Zamora

How do you like it?

Omar

Oh, man, it's amazing. Naturally, I heard it the first time at Ravi's conference about three, four weeks back and I was like, I need to check it out. And I have and it's it's incredible man, like I see everything that it says is... just stacking. That's all it is like these small little actions every single day. And I think you're a living embodiment of that, right?

Because you are much more focused on the long term picture than the short term, you make these small moves every single day to kind of stack up to get to where you are and where you have been right now in the last few weeks or few months or however long you've been at that monthly recurring limit. 

But not only that, and I've started to see you do the same things with fitness and meal prepping and reading and all these different things. How do you stay so disciplined? Is it.. Because going looping this back to what you just said earlier about? That burning desire, I realize there's like two sides of that same coin, right? 

There's the front side where there's like that burning desire of wanting more. But on the backside of that the fear of mediocrity, right? That fear I think of mediocrity rules people's lives just as much as that burning desire, right? 

For me, like, I just relate this back to myself here for a minute. I know, I never I had the burning desire to improve, but the fear of mediocrity far exceeded that ever, right? I just never wanted to be a mediocre person. So how is that which one of those two, I guess sides of the coin really drives your ambition in your discipline every single day? Like when you wake up in the morning, what do you think?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah, I think you know, really what you just said, which I think is honestly powerful is that fear of mediocrity is like a push and that burning desire is a pole, right? And so for me, I feel kind of almost like a little bit more like pulled, like, I'm just kind of following the path, it's already there for me. And so for me, it's like that burning desire of like, I feel like I need to become better, I feel like I need to kind of live up to it. 

I'm not necessarily scared of not living up to what I feel like I can I feel like I just need to continue to do what I'm doing. And I think it's an important thing for a lot of people as they're kind of starting to look at these different, you know, people that are in business are accomplishing things that they're wanting to accomplish, looking at what they're doing and saying, ‘Oh man, they have all these habits, they have all these things’ and then trying to dive into it isn't the way that you should go about it, you know, the book of The Slight Edge, I feel is just taking the smallest step first. 

And starting with that, and making that a habit, you know, and then starting to do that consistently, where you don't have that resistance anymore. I feel like you know when something is a habit when you don't have any resistance to do it. So for example, every morning when I wake up, I write down three things that I'm grateful for, I write down three affirmations, I do a journal of my day, every single day, I have a power list that I'm going to work through throughout the day. 

And so it's like every single day, I have those couple of items that I worked through, each one of those were built up at separate times. They weren't built up, you know, all in one go. It's just these blocks that have to kind of be pushed together over time. So whether it's a push or a pull, I think it's starting with the smallest piece and building it up over time.

Omar  

Well, you read this book in its entirety probably a couple times now. Right? 

Jonathon Zamora

Yeah, like four or five. 

Omar

I wanted to ask you a little bit about your book called Philosophy, right?

Jonathan Zamora 

Right.

Omar

So you're saying start off with the smallest step and to relate this back to me a little bit, but not only me. Also people that have reached out to me that listen to this podcast right now you know who you are. They struggle even with this, like for example, you wake up in the morning, write three things, you're powerless, etc. They struggle with even getting up in the morning and writing one thing, right or at least doing it consistently. So what do you think? 

And I want to break this down into different aspects, right? I want to break this down first into waking up and goal setting and all that I also want to go to health and I also want to go into small things for business. So let's start off with writing things down and kind of plan setting and goal setting for your day. What do you think is a smallest action step someone can take and do consistently before they level up and go to the next step?

Jonathon Zamora  

So I think the most transformative for me and you could kind of scale this up and down is what's called the power list. Now I didn't come up with this Andy Forssell talks about it quite a bit. And essentially what a power list is, is a list of three to five things that you need to get done in order to consider the day a win, or loss, right?

So for me, I'm going to write down about five things that I need to get done in order to consider that day a win. Now, this doesn't have to be all work related, it doesn't have to be you know, only health or you know, fitness or relationships, it could be kind of like a variety, whatever you need to accomplish in order to make that day a win. 

So if you're just trying to start this momentum, you're powerless could just be one thing. What's the one thing that you need to do in order to go through and consider this day a win? Is that going through and putting on your shoes and just going to the gym, don't even step foot in the gym, just put on your shoes and drive there? How long? Is it gonna take? 

You know, is it going to be writing down a couple of things for gratitude? Is it going to be you know, whatever it is. And I think The Slight Edge is helpful in the sense because the concept behind it is, each thing that you do is a vote in the upwards direction, or a vote in the wrong direction. 

And once you start viewing life as a vote, I'm either moving up or I'm moving down, those small decisions that you make over time actually makes it really easy for you to start to build habits. Because now if you just have that power list, and it says write down three things that I'm grateful for, maybe you're struggling, where you're in that point where you feel like depressed, or you feel like you're, you're struggling to just even be happy or get through your day, or whatever it is. 

Gratitude, I feel like is one of the best ways that you can start to kind of shift that mindset. So going through and writing three things that you're grateful for is a super easy thing. Takes five seconds. Don't go in here and study or Instagram for 30 seconds, don't - 

Omar  

What kind of stuff are you writing for that gratitude, just as a side note here, cuz I remember I know I've changed it now. But I remember like a year, a year ago, before I started writing in this five minute bullet journal that I have here. I started I wrote things like, Oh, yeah, like, I'm grateful for girls. And I'm grateful for like, so what kind of stuff? Are you writing in your gratitude journal to be grateful about?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah, I think there's, for me, it's mostly things that I take for granted, mostly things that I take for granted. But I always try to make them unique. And I always try to be as specific as possible. So like, even if you are grateful for girls, that's fine. That's cool to be grateful for girls who, and why.

So like tomorrow, tomorrow, for my gratitude, I can almost guarantee that I will. Right, I am grateful for Omar giving me the opportunity to be on his podcast and share my vision with others. That will be my gratitude, right? 

And that's one thing and like, I think it's important, when you have that gratitude, just take a second to just be like, wow, like Omar entrusted me to deliver a message that is going to be powerful to his audience, that gratitude, I think actually transfers to other things. It's like, you have a responsibility to yourself, and you owe it to yourself to I think have that gratitude.

Omar  

Makes a lot of sense. These things compound, one after another, right? Have you seen a difference in your own mentality and the way that you, I guess, see life in the past year or two since you've been doing this?

Jonathon Zamora  

I mean, wholeheartedly, man. Yeah, wholeheartedly. Yeah, I think. I mean, the habits that I've been able to develop, I never really realized what habits I've developed until I look back. And then when I look back, I'm like, holy crap, I have traveled so far in such a short amount of time for myself as a person. 

You know, if I look at myself, a year ago, I didn't go to the gym consistently. I didn't give myself gratitude. I didn't have affirmations, I didn't journal, I didn't have a power list. 

If I was actually looking at my day to day and actually auditing it day after day, a lot of them were losses. And, you know, I read every day. There's so much that I've like, I feel like I've been able to develop from this habit stacking over time. And I feel like my mood has shifted, because the knowledge that I have one of the most powerful books for me is The Happiness Advantage. 

And that talks about that a lot of people feel like once they become successful, then they'll be happy. And it's like, you need to flip that. Once you are happy, then you will be successful. And so for me, it's like actually practicing happiness as a habit has completely transformed my outlook in the way that actually carried myself on my, in my day to day life. And so yeah, it 100% stacks.

Omar  

That's, that's really cool, man. And that's really good to hear. I want to round this mindset portion off with one final bit here, right? And I want to make it as applicable as possible for someone who's just starting off that has probably never practiced a day of gratitude or a power list or even gone to the gym consecutively enough at all right? 

Someone just starting from bottom zero, no business nothing. If you were to give them like three tips to start as early as today, it would inspire the hell out of them just listening to this podcast episode. What would you tell them? Like what habits would they form or not even habits just like do a B and C starting today, and that can go whatever direction they want later on. They can pick on that on themselves. 

But if you were if you had this person, let's call them John, sitting right in front of you. And they had never they're young. Never worked, started at business or even focused on making money to maybe work in a Kroger or something. They've never been to the gym. They've never practiced gratitude or in the list, they just watch TV for fun, right? They have nothing going for them. What would you tell them a, b and c?

Jonathon Zamora  

Easy. I would say number one, I would look at who you want to become and one habit that that person has. So say... you say you're like, Okay, you know, I look up to Dwayne The Rock Johnson. He's fit. He's confident he carries himself. 

Well, whatever. 

Well, what's the one thing that you love about Dwayne The Rock Johnson? That is phenomenal. man. He's so fit. He's so healthy. 

Okay, cool. What's the one habit that you can develop? Well, he works out for like, three hours a day. Okay. So that's the one habit you want to develop. You want to work out for three hours a day. Perfect. 

That's step number one, identify that habit. Step number two, I would break it down to the smallest portion that you possibly can. What is that? Is that put it on your shoes and driving to the gym? Cool, do it. That's the smallest portion. 

Like literally break it down to the absolutely smallest thing. You know, I've had it before we're, you know, I tell my employees because like I do performance calls for each my employees every single quarter. I look at what they're doing. And I ask them what their goals are personally find financially professional, everything. I have one of my employees, I won't name any names, but they wanted to go through and increase their health. 

And I'm like, okay, identify that habit that you could go through and do consistently. Can you do 30 minutes? No I can't do 30 minutes. Okay, can you commit 10 to me? No, I can't commit 10? No, 10 is too much. I know, I'm running out of breath, whatever. Okay, can you do five? Yeah, I could do five. Okay, cool. Commit to the smallest thing that you could do. 

So that's step number two, break down to the smallest habit. 

Step number three would be for me would be do it consistently. Like your life depends on it, like your life depends on it, like do not break a single day. And if you do, it's fine. Don't beat yourself up about it. But don't make it two days.

Omar  

You know, that really, when I look back to the way that I've done things, and I don't know if you've ever dealt with this or not. But I've always kind of dove into things thinking that I have to have it perfect. Like if I want to hit the gym at two hours a day, then I need to hit the gym two hours a day, consistently every day from the beginning. 

And that what you just said, kind of opened up my eyes in a way where consistency is so much more important than having your goal… your final goal being the thing that you start off with right away. 

Jonathon Zamora

Right, yeah.

Omar

Because I think back to like, when I when I was biking, right? I used to be really, really into cardio and like biking a lot back in the day. This was like my kind of release. And I was thinking like when I first started biking, I could bike for maybe 20 minutes at a time, right? But all I did was that I go to the gym, and I'd bike for 20 minutes, and I come back home. And then I do it every single day. And soon I was biking, like for an hour at a time without even realizing that an hour had passed because I found enjoyment in it, right? 

And the only reason I did that was because I was consistent rather than trying to bike an hour every single day from the beginning. Right. So that is so true what you said there and…

Jonathon Zamora

Right.

Omar

Anybody could follow that and really end up exactly where they want to be months, years from now.

Jonathon Zamora  

Right. And I heard a saying a while ago that honestly stuck with me. And I feel like has been massively important for me to actually build habits. And the saying was super simple. 10 minutes today is better than two hours on Saturday.

Omar  

That's really good. You know -

Jonathon Zamora  

So a lot of people, a lot of people will be like, oh, like, I'm going to skip it today. And I'll do two hours on Saturday.

Omar  

I know, I've done that a lot.

Jonathon Zamora  

Right. And so it's like, don't push it off. 10 minutes today, do whatever that habit is, commit to it, like your life depends on it. And if you can't commit to that, then make it smaller, break it down to the smallest thing. And then you'll know it's a habit when there's no resistance.

Omar  

Really, really, really good point. Great for habit building. And on top of that compound interest effect of getting to where you want to be, man, I appreciate you sharing that value with my audience. 

Jonathan Zamora

Of course, man. 

Omar

Yeah. Now I want to jump here. I think it's a good segue into your actual business, right? 

Jonathon Zamora

Right. 

Omar

Right now the current iteration of your business that you have, how long have you had that for?

Jonathon Zamora  

So we've, we've gone through many iterations in business. And that's just the nature of business. It's something that constantly evolves, the market tells you this is what we want, this is what we don't want. 

And so for us, we are a direct to consumer email marketing agency, basically, meaning anybody that sells physical goods online, we do their emails. Not everybody yet, but with due time, we will. 

Omar

I love the confidence. 

Jonathon Zamora

And so the cost but it's, yeah, so with us. We have been currently active on this offer full time since December 18 of last year, it's like five months.

Omar  

Fairly recently. What were you doing before that offer?

Jonathon Zamora  

So before that, we did a more full service agency where we built out what websites graphic design, video editing, copywriting, product research, Facebook ads, email, marketing, all of it.

Omar  

And then he finally refined it into the one thing that bought your clients results, is that right?

Jonathon Zamora  

Right. So I think one of the things that is most difficult for an entrepreneur or as a business owner is really finding that product market fit, and you have to find something that's not only engaging and interesting and really niche down. 

A lot of times I think people identify niches like narrow and a small, you know, a small pool of money. And that's just not the case. Because the market’s way bigger than we realize. And so, yeah, for us, we just had to kind of niche down and say, Okay, this is what we're gonna chase. And for us it... niching down was one of the best moves that I've ever done.

Omar  

That's really good. There's this interesting quote that I heard recently where that every business owner has three businesses they do throughout their lifetime. The first one is something that's kind of vague and just brings some money on their table. But is it the one that makes them ultra successful. 

The second business is one that they realize, finally, that this is the thing that's gonna make me money, and they scale it to really high income. 

And then the third business is the one that after they've kind of gotten tired of the second business, now they have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want. And it looks like you're on your second business right now that it's if we're using that model, is that right?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah, I would, I would wholeheartedly agree. I mean, that's exactly what it is. And I always have, like, some of my buddies will be like, really Jonathan email? ‘Coz email’s not... email’s not sexy, right? 

It's not one of those things, that it's like, oh, I, you know, I do this crazy thing - I build in an app, you know, like, you tell somebody that at a party, and they're like, oh, man, this guy's the next Zuckerberg, right. And I tell somebody, I'd make email and they're just like, cool, dude, you know, turn away, talk to somebody else. 

But I had a big shift back in December, maybe a little bit earlier, like November. And it was really just one simple thing. What we were trying to do was a prod, a market risk, and not an execution risk. Now I'm gonna explain the difference between these two. I think I've talked to you about this, but we'll all kind of just hash it out. 

Omar  

I don’t even remember, so please do. 

Jonathon Zamora  

So, yeah. So what we were doing before was a market risk, essentially, a market risk is whenever you're putting something into the market, and you don't know if it's actually going to work. 

So a good example of this is Facebook. Facebook, whenever they were first becoming a business, a product that they were putting out there. They don't know if people actually care. They don't know people get it. Right. So they're actively -  sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to cuss on this podcast, but -

Omar  

I think I’ve cussed a lot on this podcast. I can’t help it. So go ahread.

Jonathon Zamora  

Okay. So, so they don't know if anybody else gives a - about Facebook, right? whenever they're first putting it out there, it's like, I don't know, we'll see the market is going to determine whether or not you are successful. Is your idea good enough? 

Now, an execution risk is something that you know, that works, and you're just essentially creating a better mousetrap. You're doing it better than anybody else. This is like email marketing. Email marketing? People are going to buy email marketing. Yeah, it's, it's something that people are actively buying right now. But are they going to buy it from you? 

Are you going to be good enough to actually go through and create a business that delivers the results and, and creates the system and the product that they're hoping for? 

Omar

Right. 

Jonathon Zamora

So for us, we kind of said, okay, rather than this market rest that we're currently putting out there, we don't know if people actually care about this, we're gonna go with something that's boring, tried and true. And we know we can make money on and we're gonna do it better than anybody else. And that was the big shift for us. 

Because everybody that I see a lot of times new entrepreneurs they want to chase, market risk and market risk are the hardest businesses that you could do. Execution risk is way easier, because now you know, people at least want it you just need to get better. 

Omar  

You need to get right in front of the right people. That's all it really takes. I think the entire service space business agency industry is centered right around execution risks, right? At least ones that are really niched and refined like yours. 

But I can understand the market risk whenever you're offering like 10 to 15 different services like you were before, how it can be a market risk, and you see what people want this or what people want that, you know, that's, that's currently the shift that I'm going through myself so I can 100% relate to that. So with this execution business model that you have now, what's separating you, what's making you distinct from other email marketers that are out there?

Jonathon Zamora  

So I think there's a variety of different aspects. One of the big ones is that I think we are more systemized than 99%, like 99% of other email marketing agencies. We have our onboarding process insanely refined, we have our testing process, our results are through the roof. So a lot of that is, you know, result wise, I feel very confident with where we're at.

Omar  

It’s funny, before you go on there. Every single time I hear your name in our circles, it's like Jonathan is a systems guy, Jonathan's got systems up, like Jonathan is the guy you want to go for systems, you know? It's hilarious, just wanted to point that out, but do go on, but

Jonathon Zamora  

I appreciate that. I mean, that's the reason that my name, the business name is called settler systems is I think that, you know, some people kind of like, enjoy systems, but I feel like it's honestly like an art. Like, I feel like I'm like painting when I build systems. And so for me, it's like, almost like a fun pastime. 

But I feel like we're more systemized and we have like a cleaner process than a lot of other businesses, which is kind of like was the end goal. And then on the second portion of that, we have found a way to go through and improve the system that we are putting onto clients accounts in a pretty impressive way. 

Meaning that we are testing variables on each client account across everybody getting results in three days and then applying that to everyone. So rather than testing each like on account number one, we test and then account number two, we test we're testing get across everybody and it allows us to improve the system at a really rapid rate.

Omar  

Does that mean you're stuck like with or sticking with one very niche type of audience that you're serving?

Jonathon Zamora  

Not necessarily. More so means that we're making levels changes at a systematic level, it's kind of difficult to explain but more. So what it is, is a product development system that we have that allows us to become substantially better than other email marketing services at a really rapid rate.

Omar  

You're testing internal systems, rather than what's working specifically for each client in three days and then putting it across. 

Jonathon Zamora

Exactly. 

Omar

I get it. That makes more sense. Interesting. I would think, though, like, after you've had this business for five months, now, your systems would have been refined to the point where they're already working exponentially well, better than they used to, right? So are you still testing and growing those?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah, so the the thing that we kind of think about is there's there's layers of systems building, there's this really interesting movement called DevOps. And it's typically, and it's in SAS companies a lot of the times, but there's different layers of systems building, there's kind of like the first layer where it's like operations, where you say, this is how we're going to do something, and you go and put it out there. 

That's where a lot of people end up with systems. It's like, okay, here's the SOP, the standard operating procedure, I'm going to throw this into the ecosystem, that's just kind of out there, just throwing slps into the ecosystem. 

The second layer to that is then building in a feedback loop. So a feedback loop is say, okay, we're going to actively document what the changes are, we're going to put it into the ecosystem, then we're going to document those changes, see how effective that change was, and then determine whether or not that was actually good or bad.

Omar  

So you document first, then test.

Jonathon Zamora  

Right. So what we have essentially is a change log. So we have a project inside of Asana, that is a list of all of the improvements, suggestions, mess ups, the complaints that we've had, and just all in one line. 

Then every single week, I just got off this call about two hours ago, I have a call with my leadership team, where we go through and vote on what those changes are. So we say okay, this change is going to be the next one that gets pushed through this one, this one, this one, a lot of the times people are just making changes to systems over and over again, their systems changing isn't systemized, right. 

So this is, they don't know what to systemize the changes, right? So then we vote on that, we say, Okay, these are the three changes that we're going to make this upcoming week, we have that done by Tuesday. Then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we go through and we look at the results of those changes, we say this change is good, this change is bad. And then either we keep those inside of the system, or we get rid of them. 

So that's kind of the second layer is those like feedback loops, then the third layer is a cultural portion where you get people to tell you inside of your company, this is what we need to change, this is what's messing up. So then you have additional people telling you, this is where you can improve. 

And so for us, that's kind of how we've started to kind of build towards the first layer is kind of getting that operation portion down where it's like we're building our systems and releasing them. 

The second is then going through and actually getting that feedback so that you know whether or not the systems you're building are effective and actively making it better over time. And then the third layer is building into the culture so that people are actually giving you the suggestions rather than you just being the only idea machine.

Omar  

How granular, do you go at tracking on a second set? 

Jonathon Zamora

Everything. 

Omar

So like, What is it? What are you using to track, spreadsheet? Yes, to know things in Asana only? Or what are you doing there?

Jonathon Zamora  

So every change that happens inside of our systems, for the business, we document.

Omar  

How about in terms of measuring results?

Jonathon Zamora  

So it's, that's a little bit more difficult, right? Because some of them are like qualitative, where it's like, okay, you know, if we make a change to an onboarding call, for example, some of the phrasing. That's qualitative. 

How did they feel after they got off the call? What was sort of the feedback? What were some of the reactions? And then some of them are more quantitative, where you could actually look at the numbers and have them and you can see like, Okay, this was a 10% increase. 

So it's difficult to say this is exactly how the KPIs, KPIs, the key performance indicators are going to look, but for the most part, we're going to go through and kind of just do on a case by case basis,

Omar  

Coming from a person who's a really big executor, or someone that I just like, executing but systems are, I would say, I'm okay with them. Like I can build them out when I need to, you know? And I do it like the path of least resistance type systems where like, just get from point A to point B without putting the least amount of effort and spending the least amount of money, but my systems aren't nearly as tight as yours. 

So I'm curious. And I think this is perhaps a limiting belief that I have in terms of systems. Does it really matter to have to test different variations for things like an onboarding call, or an onboarding sequence? Or like, even things that just don't bring direct client results?

Jonathon Zamora  

So yes, when you asked me earlier, you know, at this point with your system, shouldn't you have it refined? Well, systems are never done, you could always be better, you know. And so, with us, we're constantly going through and refining them, adjusting them, making them better and better and better. For us. Yes, there always has to be a reason for systems building. 

So I have a full systems building course that I've given my my leaders, where it's like, this is how I expect you to build systems and part of that is whenever you are building system, there has to be a reason behind it, there has to be a tangible result, a thing that you're trying to accomplish, it can't be we're going to change stuff to change stuff. Because that's when you actually start to run into things. That's why we have to change log to limit how many things are actually getting through, because we don't want to make a million changes, because businesses can adapt that quickly. 

And so with us, we're going through and we're saying, okay, with these changes, is it providing additional value? Meaning, is it making our clients more money? Are they getting better results? are they staying longer? Are they happier because of it? That's value. Value is kind of, you know, something that's a little bit ambiguous, because it could be presented in a lot of different ways.

Omar  

Yeah, tracking that can be a bit ambiguous too, right. So like, how do you say that one specific thing made my clients stay another mont, right?

Jonathon Zamora  

Right. And so that's why that's why also limiting the amount of things that you're changing at once is important, because then you can isolate that variable and say, Okay, how effective was this versus not. Where if you changed 30 things, you have no idea what was bad or what was good. It's confusing, right? So it's like kind of limiting it and making good steps in the right direction. 

It's that whole concept inside of The Slight Edge, as they say, move slow to move fast, right? So we're moving really slow and being intentional with the changes that we're making. And that's allowing us to move really fast, where a lot of people run around like chickens with their chickens with their heads cut off just being like, I'm changing everything, I'm gonna do all these systems. And it's just the wrong way to go about it. 

So for us, we're looking for either value, or some level of efficiency, right? And so it's like, Okay, are we going to be more efficient from this, and the efficiency can't just be for efficiency’s sake, efficiency has to be directly linked to Okay, now we're going to save more money because of it, we're going to be able to serve as more clients, what is that?

We're not just going to be efficient to be efficient, we have to be efficient, because then there's some result that then comes from that.

Omar  

It's interesting, you take like an inward out... And let me explain that to you after I say it. I'd say you take an in to out approach. And I think an end approach, right. So you're in doubt approach is methodically going down each part, each variable, making sure that's perfected before you move on to the next one, and then revisiting it again, go again, again, again. 

Whereas I put everything together, and I like a very outward, superficial level, and put it all together. And then I go in and try to refine every single little thing, you know. So it's interesting, that little dynamic teams there, but the way that you do it, where you methodically go in and try to fix each variable and perfect it before you move on. 

How much do you think that's paid off? One in two? I do agree that every business should do that, at some point, what is a good point that start doing it the way that you did? Looking at the time when you first started business?

Jonathon Zamora  

I think it's a good point, because I think the way that we're doing it now a business early on, does it need to do and honestly, probably can't do, right? So, you know, if you if you're early on, and you're just getting started, you can't say okay, well, I'm gonna wait for this data to come in on how effective this change was, if you don't have any data to actually read it off of. 

So a lot of the times, you're going to have to go through and kind of make these changes based off of assumption and kind of just some level of faith to say, Okay, I think this is the right way to go about it. But you don't really know for sure, as you kind of start to ramp up the amount of data that's getting pulled through your system, whether that's the amount of onboardings that you're doing, the amount of sales calls that you're doing, the amount of cold emails, whatever it is, as you kind of start to ramp up that data, having a little bit more of a clean process around, it does matter. 

So I would say there isn't necessarily a defined number, but it's more so just the amount of pieces of data. And data is kind of ambiguous so it's kind of hard to define the amount of like actions that are happening for whatever you're changing, that then allows you to measure that result. 

So if it's like onboarding, if you wanting to adjust onboarding, if you only have one onboarding a week, you can say, Okay, I'm gonna go through and run through this like whole like systemized process, and then read the data on that one onboarding, it's not enough. 

But if you have 10 onboarding a week, that's enough for you to go through and actually kind of have some tangible result by the end of that. And you can still run through it at a systematic level, it's just going to take forever. 

So I would say once, for me, it was right around like 30 to $40,000 a month, is when I was like, okay, you know, we need to have a more refined process on how we're building out these systems, and be a little bit more cognizant of the changes that we're making, rather than just throwing things out there. Because as a business becomes more developed, there's kind of like systems that are built into systems. 

And early on, it's just like, one system is kind of like a standalone thing, rather than a gear inside of a larger machine. And so as you kind of build on system, on system, on system, you have to be more careful with what you're changing, because it could kind of stop everything, if you're not careful, right?

Omar  

I've met agency owners that come from two separate camps here, right. And me being a very low level agency owner, I'm always curious about the arguments on both sides. On one, it's built systems as soon as possible and start refining those systems over and over again, until you have something that's just a turnkey machine, right. 

And the second camp I've heard is grind to like $100,000 or a million dollars and then focus on system building, because you don't have to keep building systems over and over again. What's your counter argument to the second one?

Jonathon Zamora  

Well, to be honest, I don't even know there's two schools of thought. I would say that for this, the second argument, you aren't going to get 200,000 if that's the way that you do it. I mean, if do you're going to end up you know, way overweight, you're never going to work out, you're not going to see your family, you're going to be grinding your face off working 16 hours a day stressed out, you know, it's not going to be a fun time. 

Where, like, right now I actually really enjoy my business. I have a great time. You know, I work a nine hours a day, it's really not too stressful. There's moments where it's like, Okay, this isn't, you know, ideal, and I need to kind of hammer through it, fires. That's how business is. But I would say, if you're looking at that second path, there's no way that you'll actually get to $100,000 a month. 

Omar  

Interesting. Yeah. 

Jonathan Zamora

Because you're doing -

Omar 

I have a buddy who was like a, like an agency coach or something, has like a million. He's got a podcast himself. I remember listening to his podcast about a year ago, and he mentioned something along the lines of systems that weren't worth building into you making a million a year?

Jonathon Zamora  

No, they are. And the reason is, is because systems provide you leverage. So for example, my copywriter, right? 

For us, we're creating anywhere from 20 to 50 emails a day, right for our clients. With that, if I was saying, Okay, I'm not going to build any systems, I'll do the copywriting. And I'll figure out the system later. 

I'm creating one copywriting email, and that's a one to one output. I do one, I get one. Now for me, I built the system, I built one system, and now we produce over 15,000 emails,

Omar  

Right, a lot more leverage, less time, a lot less money to actually use to get those same results. Makes it a lot of sense.

Jonathon Zamora

You know, 1500 is what I was meaning to say, by the way. 

Omar

I got it. I got it. That's amazing, man. So now I want to kind of put your thought process, right? Because…  Let me explain the way that I come off, or I tried to build systems, and perhaps you can mend that a bit. Because I'm thinking a lot of my audiences are in the same boat as I am. 

When I think of systems, I'm like, it's like plateau inspiration, plateau inspiration, right? So like, I've like, okay, I ran into a problem, I know, I need to fix the system. So I'll like spend the next three to four days just brainstorming and writing and creating and building a system. And then when I have that system in place, it runs well, and it's going and it's getting the results. So I start plateauing. I'm like, okay, everything's working like a well oiled machine, I don't need to be too deep into it. 

Then I run into another problem, I run into something else. And then again, system, system, system that. I'm in that mindset where it seems like you're in the mindset of constantly refining so that it's a future mindset, where if I run into a problem later on, I don't have to deal with it, because I've already got the systems in place. So have you ever thought the way that I have? And if you haven't, what's your mindset behind building the systems of when and how?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah, I feel like everybody starts there with systems, right, that's kind of that initial thing of like actually going through and kind of just going and doing the operation, pushing things out, and kind of seeing how the systems react. The second layer is then doing the feedback loops, just actually looking at how the system is reacting and going through and making changes. I will say the one thing that has helped me kind of be a little bit more proactive about these systems is what I call a franchise day. 

So with my entire business, I'm trying to build it in a way that I could almost franchise it out, right? So that it's like I could completely remove myself from the business. So what I do with franchise days is I go through and break up my business into different components, different systems. 

And I’ll spend a full day actually spending time inside of that system with that employee, seeing how they do it, seeing what's wrong, asking them questions, taking notes, and thinking about like, Okay, what kind of complaints are we having about this specific system, what things are going well, documenting all those and then that's where those ideas then come from. And then that allows you to become a little bit more proactive on the things that you're wanting to change before they're actually issues.

Omar  

Brilliant. That's a really good idea: franchise day. I'm going to coin that term. That's a great term

Jonathon Zamora  

That idea came up after I had one of my one of my, my COO actually ended up having to leave. And it was just like, a very sporadic thing was like, Oh, we weren't expecting this. And nothing that he was doing was documented. 

And I kind of had to think back like, Okay, how do I go through and make sure I never deal with this again? And that was kind of the solution that came from that is saying, okay, we need to build out some sort of a system that makes it so that we are constantly going in and refining positions and processes, so that it's all documented. It's all random.

Omar  

I'm kind of in that position right now, I just had the scary thought of if my employee stops serving this client, then I'm screwed because they don't have a backup client or employee to be able to do the exact same things this guy is. So that's a good - it's a good time that you say that. Cool.

So going into the business side here a little bit. What's your point with it? I mean, as we near the end of the podcast, what's your plan with the business itself? Are you going to continue growing it? Are you going to continue making it more turnkey? Or, I know I was in a mastermind call with you a few weeks back and you mentioned something along the lines of having enough income to wanting to maybe start a second business and what's going on with that?

Jonathon Zamora  

Yes, so as far as some things that are kind of in the works right now. You know, I'm starting to get a little bit more involved into real estate, which is exciting. I'm hoping that that's not going to take up too much of my time. At this point, it really hasn't. 

For me for this business in particular, though, I want to grow to $500,000 a month. That's kind of the goal at this point. And I want to be able to do it without me having to spend my entire day inside of it. 

At that point, I'll take my eye off the ball. But at this point, I'm wholeheartedly focused on just growing it and making it just a value machine. I think that one of the biggest things that I'm kind of focused on right now is just trying to find unique ways to provide value for my clients. 

So like something that we just started doing actually, just is kind of like a little side note for that is if I could find it real quick. I don't know where it is… I have it here somewhere. Oh, here it is. We like, with this. This is a small thing. We started doing handwritten notes. For all of our clients. 

We use it, we use a company called Handwritten that goes through and sends them handwritten notes. So right now, what my goal is, is honestly just to provide as much value for my clients as humanly possible make it so it's the best investment they've ever made in their business. 

Omar

And best experience, from the looks of it. 

Jonathon Zamora

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, that kind of comes in a variety of different spectrums. And I think that will be the thing that gets us to 500,000. After that, I'm not sure I don't really have any defined plans.

Omar  

Right? Well, you heard it here, folks. Like if you want to get your email done for ecom. It's ecommerce specific, right? 

Jonathon Zamora

Yeah, direct to consumer ecommerce brands only. 

Omar

Yeah, if you're a direct consumer ecommerce brand, or even if you're just somebody that's kind of skilled at drop shipping store and really want to take it to the next level, like reach out to Jonathan, not only is he going to get you results, he's going to get you a handwritten letter. So you heard it here, make sure to check him out at settler systems dot com, right? That's it? Settler Systems dot com, correct? 

Jonathon Zamora  

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I've had a blast, man. I hope that it was valuable - 

Omar  

Not done. We still got two more questions here. 

Jonathan Zamora 

Right. Okay. Let's run through it. Real quick. 

Omar

So, first of all, in a few words, not a few words, a few sentences, I guess. If you were... if somebody was at the 10K... 10K range, what do you think, are some steps that you should take for the 100K?

Jonathon Zamora  

That's a great question. I would say, obviously, systems, I think that, you know, for me, I'm constantly trying to evaluate what is the cost of the task that I am doing, and whether or not it's actually worth my time. And I think a lot of people look at that as something being like, Oh, well, that's not worth my time. 

And it kind of sounds like a little bit, like pretentious, but it is something that you have to constantly kind of combat as a business owner, you have so many things that are, you know, kind of spreading your attention. And that focus is insanely valuable. 

So I would be auditing what I'm doing and trying to delegate anything that I shouldn't be like, I don't cook anymore at all. I only do meal prep. And it's just because for me right now, it's not worth my time to go through and cook all my meals or for me to go grocery shopping, it's just not worth my time. 

Where you know, going through and building a system on customer success is worth my time. Building the system for customer success is a $500 an hour task. Me cooking is a five to $10 an hour task. So I go and outsource that. So I would be auditing my time. That'd be number one. 

Omar  

Makes sense. Cool. Auditing time and systems. Got it.

Jonathon Zamora  

And well in delegating whatever is like a low level task that isn't actually yielding something like if you hire somebody for three to $5 an hour to go do that task that you're currently spending your time on. And you're at 10k a month, you need to start delegating those tasks so that you could free up your time to start doing things that are actually important.

Omar  

Starting to sound just like Ravi man, automate delegate. And what was the third one? 

Jonathan Zamora

Eliminate. 

Omar

Eliminate. That's right. Cool. And one final question here. And now this question is something that I asked every single person that comes on my podcast, right, so from Dan Lok all the way to the dirty backpacker. They've all answered this question. And I'm curious about your take here. 

So if you had a billboard in space, and on that billboard, you could write whatever sentences you wanted. Everyone on planet Earth could read it in some universal language. And every time the sun rose, people could see that billboard everywhere. And whenever the sunset, the billboard went away, what would you write on it? 

Jonathon Zamora  

If you want to be exceptional, you have to act like it.

Omar

Nice. Why?

Jonathon Zamora

Because I think that was when I was in high school, I had a teacher that was constantly on my ass because I was never paying attention. I was never doing what I was supposed to be doing. And after class one day, he pulled me aside and he said, “Jonathan, you're like literally going to turn into nothing in your life. If you keep on this path. You're not focusing at school, you're not getting the job done. You know, you're gonna fail my class, whatever.” 

And he was like, What is going through that brand yours? I looked at him, I was like, “Listen, my man, I'm gonna be a millionaire.” And he thought I was ridiculous. And I was kind of, you know, I was a high school kid. I was, you know, acting, you know, stupid. And he laughed at me and he was like, Jonathan, I think what you don't realize is that is the exception and not the rule. 

And that stuck with me because it was like, Okay, if I actually want to do the things that I'm saying I'm going to do I have to actually act like an exception. Like an exception wakes up on time when they say they're going to wake up an exception actually follows through with their habits. 

The exception has an impeccable word where whenever they say something, they mean it not only to other people, but also with themselves. An exception has a phenomenal character. And so for me, the thing that I would want to translate to the world would be if you want to be an exception, you have to act like it.

Omar  

That's awesome, man. I really like it very wise. And that gives my audience a ton of value. I appreciate you coming on today, Jonathan. 

Jonathan Zamora

Of course, Omar, thank you so much for having me.

Omar

Fantastic episode with Jonathan here. Be sure to check him out on YouTube for some really incredible content. And remember to hit that follow button and share this episode with your friends that you think might get some value out of it. Thanks. 

Remember Nomad fam. We've got some incredibly value filled episodes planned out for you. So please hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Your review helps this podcast become more visible and ultimately inspire more people just like you.

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