#33 - William Brown Reveals His Exact Path to the First $50,000
How can you make your first 50 k online?
Will:Because business is just just solving problems for people. And the bigger the problem, the more you can charge. I started a YouTube channel. Views on YouTube, there would only be a link in the description to my Twitter. Get them to my Twitter.
Will:And I just thought if they follow me for long enough, they'll buy something. And that was the case. And that was my first ever kind of sales process.
Speaker 3:If you don't know who William Brown is, he is one of the top dogs in the info product space and has done something only three people have ever done, which is exit his info business for a cool $16,400,000, and his next business is on track to do the same. He's generated over 32,000,000 in sales online. And if you are on the path to leaving your nine to five, building a business, trying to make your first 50 k and beyond, he's someone you should listen to. So I hope you enjoy.
Dean:How can you make your first 50 k online?
Will:How to make your first 50 k? Well, you need an offer. You need a group of people to sell the offer to kind of an ideal avatar. You need a traffic source to get the right people's attention. You then send that into a sales process of some kind and convince those people, maybe that's the wrong word, but convince those people that they need your offer You priced it in the right way, right?
Will:Maybe we'll talk more about that later. And if you get enough traffic and you send it into an optimized sales process with a good price, you're gonna make 50 ks,
Dean:basically. So how do I make an offer then? What if I don't know how to make an offer? What does that mean?
Will:What does an offer mean? So an offer means a problem that you can solve for them, I is a good way to think about it because business is just solving problems for people. And the bigger the problem, the more you can charge. And hopefully there's a big group of people that have that problem. And if there's loads of people that have the problem, well, you've got a market.
Will:If you've got a solution to a big enough problem and you can charge a good enough price, voila, that's kind of where the money comes from. So I would say an offer is just your way of solving a problem for a specific kind of person. And hopefully there's a lot of those people out there.
Dean:It's so simple really at the core of it. It's just like you can, in some you can influence or sorry, provide some value to some person in the world. And if you can find one person, you can find a thousand. If you can find a thousand, you can find a million. Right?
Will:Yeah.
Dean:When you started though, if I go back to like when you started, what I found wild about your beginning is that you did so with Twitter or no, was it Reddit even and a Word doc?
Will:Yeah. The first business it was yeah, it was Twitter and a two page flat text word document for £50 or dollars. I can't remember which. Yeah. How did
Dean:you realise that you had something there?
Will:Well, the way it happened was, so I didn't actually intend on starting like a coaching business. And I would just tweet on Twitter and people slowly followed me over time. And then one day someone messaged me out of the blue, a random follower that didn't know who the guy was. And he just asked me, he just said, Will, I've been following you for a while and I can see that you kind of know what you're doing. Could you please give me some help?
Will:And I was like, okay, come. This is it's, I mean, what do you say to that? I said to the guy, all right, come to my house and sit next to me and just watch me and you can learn. Was like my But what were
Dean:you making content about? How did you start that part? Did you, were you an expert on something?
Will:Yeah. Yeah. So I was trading financial markets at the time, right? Semi professionally, I was doing music on the side and trading on the side. And I would just share my trades and talk to other traders and post what I was doing and talk about what I was doing and chat with others about what they were doing.
Will:And I had like 200 followers, probably two fifty followers. I was tiny, it was brand new. And I'd had the Twitter for maybe ten months, something like that. Then this guy, Wissam, messaged me and that was my first ever customer. And then I just thought if he would give me a little bit of money for this session and the word document, I just thought, I wonder if anybody else would also pay for the word doc.
Will:So I started, I kind of just learned, let me message all the other followers and just see if anyone else wants it. And just two, three other people gave me £50. One of them refunded as My first ever reason. Cause it was shit. It was a fucking two page word document for God's sake.
Dean:Was £50 a fair price? Was that the size of the problem you were solving?
Will:I actually don't really know. I mean, I just made that up, you know, to me back then, mean, for the music, I was getting paid 400 to £600 per show. Right. And I was DJing like in loads of, you know, I've DJed in over 45 countries. I just thought, well, £50, it's relatively meaningful and I don't have to really do anything for it.
Will:I don't have to leave home. I don't have to travel to Sweden for it or travel to fucking this place for it. And that must've been where my comfort level was. And then after a few people bought it and then they started giving me feedback straight away, people like, oh, there's no images. Can we put images?
Will:There's no screenshots. Can we do that? But what do we do for this? What do we do for this? And then they made the product better.
Will:They helped me find product market fit. And then I raised the price a little bit, sold a few more, raised the price, sold a few more. And then I realised, wow, so people find me on Twitter. They follow me for a while. They see that I am probably better than them or if only marginally.
Will:So then I thought, well, how can I get more people to my Twitter? And then I thought, well, a lot of these Twitter traders, they also have YouTube channels. So let me start a YouTube. I started a YouTube channel and sent all the traffic to my Twitter. So I would get views on YouTube.
Will:There would only be a link in the description to my get them to my Twitter. And I just thought if they follow me for long enough, they'll buy something. And that was the case. And that was my first ever kind of sales process. Funnel.
Will:Funnel. Yeah.
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Dean:What I love about that is that it just goes to show the power of the Internet one, you know, just publicly sharing that you've got expertise in a specific niche. And this is something I say a lot to the guys that I'm working with is like, you know, it's actually really not that complicated. Just like share what you're good at and just put it in front of the right people. And this is something I've been almost guilty of is like, don't be afraid to just message people, send a message. Yeah.
Dean:And make offers. That's exactly. As well. Exactly. And what I've learned, like a key distinction I've learned about offers since being in Bali and being at Darren's Mastermind, James Kemp was at that, you know, James Kemp?
Will:I do.
Dean:Yeah. Super. Like, I love the way he talks about offers and positioning everything. But he just said an offer can be you sending a message just saying, hey, would you like me to send you something else? Yeah.
Dean:Would you like me to send you a video? Or would you like me to invite you to this webinar? That's an offer. And that key distinction just makes it seem less of a big ordeal because I think instinctively we're quite afraid to ask, to make an ask for something. And when you make the ask very small, it takes the pressure off you, the self imposed pressure off you such that you can say, hey, do you wanna come to this call I'm hosting tomorrow?
Dean:Or would you like me to send you this document where you can look in further detail? And that's just like a mini yes on the series of yeses. And if, like you said, they are a right fit for your products, they'll eventually buy it, but the offers can be smaller, a lot smaller.
Will:100%. That's just got me thinking like of all the little offers that we make now, you know, we sell the book, you know, we run ads to sell the book. And then a lot of those book buyers become coaching clients. We make offers through the Instagram story, through the YouTube, through LinkedIn, through DM ing people,
Dean:through running
Will:ads to the VSL, email. So, yeah, it's just a collection of, you know, providing value and just telling people that you can help them and how.
Dean:Yeah, here it is. Here's what I have.
Will:I think I heard that from James as well, because I'm friends with James Kemp and I saw on his Instagram the other day, you know, he said something like, don't assume people know what you do and how you can help them. And it was a welcome reminder, It was a welcome reminder that, because I think like when I follow someone, I go and look at everything. I look at their funnel, look at their website, look at their YouTube, watch a podcast. And I look at everything and learn and get as close to what do you do as possible. But I think normal people don't do that.
Will:Normal people, I think maybe just see a reel, they'll drop you a follow and that's it. And then they might see a few reels, maybe see a post, but they haven't been to your funnel, haven't been to your YouTube, they haven't seen the podcast yet. And then, yeah, it's funny how, people say map your customer journey and you can do that. And it's important to do that, but you can never predict human behavior. I mean, can and you thought.
Dean:And I've been guilty of that specific thing thinking that people know what I'm about and it just couldn't be further from the truth because I was looking at it from my lens, my lens of knowing who I am, what value I bring. When in reality, I needed to look at it from a complete stranger's point of view. And I can actually do that now. I shift it in my head when I'm looking at something, I'm like pretending to be someone else. And I'm like, oh, that actually doesn't make sense.
Dean:And I think flipping that has been super helpful for me to think about what is somewhat, what am I like, what am I trying to convey? What's the purpose of the piece of content? And where do I want them to go? Do I want them to then follow me, go to a YouTube video, go to a landing page, sign up for something. And that's been big for me, but it seems like you've been thinking about, you've been thinking in that way for a while, is that something that you've cultivated through mentors or otherwise?
Will:Well, I've been doing this
Dean:In that period, yeah, let's say in that period when you were sending the word doc and everything like that, what was, how much strategy was going into it or was it just brute force?
Will:Pure brute force. Yeah. I didn't know what cold outreach was. I didn't know what a funnel was. I didn't know anything about paid ads.
Will:I didn't know anything about offers or pricing. I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything about this online course coaching world at all. I was just trading and doing music.
Dean:It's like so innocent, man. You're like, didn't you literally stumbled into
Will:this? I did. I knew nothing. I knew nothing at all. I didn't.
Will:Yeah. It literally just happened to me. And then I just kind of used common sense and I just thought, well, if he would buy it, maybe other people would. So let me just ask them. And then if you did, I was like, okay, so that's true.
Will:So, and I was like, well, how do I get more people? Because I've only got 200 followers. So how can I get more followers to then ask? I was like, well, I can post more on Twitter. I can do YouTube.
Will:So I just use common sense. And then I found out about a guy called Sam Evans. Right? Found Sam Ovens YouTube. Off the back of Sam, I found Alex Becker's YouTube.
Will:And Alex Becker's mastermind was the first online course and coaching program that I ever bought. And in that, I learned what funnels are. I learned what ads are. I learned what copywriting is. I learned how to price things properly.
Will:And that made me like millions and millions of dollars because when I bought that, I was a year and a half in and I'd scaled the Twitter and the YouTube and it had become like a Dropbox folder of videos by this stage. So it was like a much longer Word doc, like a 15 page Word doc, which is better quality by then and a Dropbox folder of videos. And I was charging like, you know, a £100 for the Word doc, £300 for the Dropbox folder and the Word doc, and like £500 for all of that and a couple of
Dean:coaching calls. And were you selling it by chat or how were you distributing You were just saying, okay, would you like the offer? Here it is. And then they can purchase it at the end with a link.
Will:Yeah, dude. It was the Twitter inbox.
Dean:So good.
Will:And email. And I would email back and forth with people.
Dean:And this is what, like 2019? This is 2018. That's so good. Yeah, 2018, 2019. Like the dark ages for this type of stuff as well, isn't it?
Will:Yeah, it's so ghetto. It was so ghetto. And I got that up to, did, in year one, we did about 40. In year two, we did about a quarter of a million pounds. Wow.
Will:A Off this. And then December 2019 was when I bought Alex Becker's Iron Mastermind. And then the year after we did £1,300,000.
Dean:Wow. Wow. Wow. At that point then, were you dealing, because I like to think about the mental battles and as somebody from The UK and Ireland, there there's a bit of a tall poppy syndrome when somebody tries to do something. It's very often met with resistance, let's just say, and people don't really like that a lot.
Dean:And I think, you know, being compassionate here, it's coming from a lens of fear, right? Because there are a lot of people are afraid to step outside and try something super subtle how this goes on as well. It's just like little remarks or comments made by somebody. And I'm just curious, did you experience that or feel that? Because it seems like you just breezed into this without a care.
Dean:No. So trading, I only told my mom and my best friend, I hid my trading from everyone. Didn't Didn't tell anyone. Weren't in public light at
Will:No, the Twitter was faceless.
Dean:Amazing.
Will:It was just like, so I called it WB trading. The profile photo was just a logo, not my face. So I shared my name, but no one knew what I looked like and no one knew who I was. And there was other William Browns because it's not an uncommon name. So you couldn't really Google me because you just find all the William Browns.
Will:So, because I didn't want the music people to find out I was trading. Because I thought if they find out that reveals to them that I want more money and maybe suggest that I'm not doing too well. So I was like, I'm just gonna keep secret. And again, didn't intend on selling any education or anything. Wanted become a professional trader and quit music, which is what I was working towards.
Will:So the Twitter was faceless. I hid it from everybody and no one even knew it was about a year and a half. And someone from the music world stumbled on my YouTube and recognized my voice. And then they posted the video in like a music forum and was like, is this? Was it also faceless?
Will:It wasn't your face? I think was faceless as It my voice though.
Dean:But it was your voice.
Will:I'd done radio shows, I'd done interviews. So people knew my voice. Then dude, I'll never forget that comment. I saw a comment on my YouTube, cause my DJ name was Compa. And someone commented like, is this Compa?
Will:I was like, oh fuck. I was like, oh, I was like, well, let me just ignore it. Let me just ignore it. And then people slowly started to find out. And then there was this big hate thread about me on Facebook, oh, he's trading financial markets, he's selling education.
Will:What? You know, oh, like what is he doing? Blah, blah. But anyway.
Dean:People just in that space or was this friends and family kind of chiming in?
Will:Just in the music space, just kind of semi friends, acquaintances, fans, that kind of thing. But that was towards the end of the second year and I was making so much money already. I was making 30 ks per month, 40 ks per month by then. So I didn't really care. And I'd stop
Dean:You've doing established that you've like crossed the threshold.
Will:Because dude, by the end of that second year, I was making more money than I'd ever seen in my life. I'd gone from 2 to 4 ks per month as a DJ, you know, to 30 ks per month, staying at home, selling online education and trading. So I was like, my life was really starting to change. So I didn't really care because I was like, and I had decent cash reserves. I probably saved up a couple $100 by this stage as well, which to me was like mind blowing.
Will:And then in year three, things grew so fast. At the start of year three, we were at $30.40 ks a month. At the end of year three, we were at a quarter of a million a month.
Dean:Wow.
Will:So things just blew up so fast.
Dean:I wanna just zoom in on one component of this, which is the fact, and you and I are big on this, which is sell your knowledge. You know, everybody, like literally everybody has some gift or some knowledge, expertise in some fucking area that that is helpful for someone and that can be charged for like your trading, you know, you had the example you give is brilliant. The lady knitting. Yeah. Making 15 ks per month, selling a fucking knitting course.
Dean:Yeah. And she's in her what forties or fifties?
Will:Yeah, 50.
Dean:If that is not the biggest advertisement for what the unlimited vast possibilities of the internet is, I do not know what is.
Will:Dude, I've got a client who teaches cycling. He's doing about 35 ks a month. Sick. That's just
Dean:insane. Yeah. And somebody, Like, if I think of so many people I know, everyone will think, nah, that's not like I don't have something. Yeah. Cycling and knitting.
Dean:The knitting one is just crazy. I'm sorry. That, that's crazy. And what I another thing I love about what you share about this and the way you describe it is you said you only need to be a three teaching a one.
Will:Yeah. Yeah.
Dean:You don't need to be a black belt in your niche. Niche. I like, I'm not a black belt in business, but I'm a black belt at getting to $10.15 k a month. You know, I've done that. You know, you need help with that.
Dean:I can help you. And so that has really stuck with me because no matter what level you're at in your thing, there is somebody who wants to be at your level or somebody you can help. Yeah. Somebody you can impact. And I think when you think of it that way, than just a money grabbing exercise, it's like, no, I can actually fucking help people in whatever it is that I'm good at, I'm skilled at.
Dean:And I I think the analogy of three teaching a one is just it's super good, man.
Speaker 3:Do you wish you could work on something that was your own? Do you wish you could
Dean:take a week's holiday on
Speaker 3:a moment's notice? These are all things I craved so badly when I was in my nine to five sales job and it ate away at my self esteem. But eventually I took matters into my own hands, invested in an Airbnb mentorship and course, and systemized the business to where it now requires me for about four hours a week. The best part is I don't actually own any of those properties. I can travel anytime I want.
Speaker 3:I choose when, where, and if I work, and the business does a predictable 10 to 15 ks per month every month. If you want that too, I can help you. I've documented all my processes and procedures over the past three years, right away from finding your first client to accepting your first guest. It is my entire Notion Hub that my entire business runs off. So you can automate your business in weeks rather than years.
Speaker 3:If that sounds interesting to you, just click the link below and we can have a conversation and see if we're a good fit together. Worst case, I'll give you some free advice and best case we can roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Will:I appreciate that, man. Yeah. Dude, so many people resonated with that example, you know? And it's funny because back when I started, I was probably a three, maybe a four teaching that guy who was a one, you know? So that's kind of where I started.
Will:But I love all the different niches, man. You know, I've got another guy doing about 80 ks a month teaching how to talk better, how to communicate, you know, it's fucking awesome.
Dean:Who's been like, we've got knitting for cycling. Communication's pretty common. Like that's Yeah, it's not. Any other like standout ones that come to mind?
Will:Communication, cycling, manifestation is an interesting one, but it's quite esoteric. So that's an interesting one. What are other weird ones? Knitting, buying and selling watches.
Dean:Because I think it's actually useful to list examples just to show how easily you can package up your skills. I think that's like super important.
Will:Networking is an interesting one. You know, you really can teach almost an interior design. I've got an interior design client right now as well. Loads of stuff.
Dean:Yeah. And I think with the online space, it's just think of one person that you can help find them online. If you can find one, you can find hundreds and hundreds of thousands. You're the living, breathing example of that in action,
Will:you know? Definitely, man. Yeah.
Dean:Let's go back to your story then because we look nice little rabbit hole there, but I want to go to like when things started to kick off then, right? So things start getting a bit juicy and you're starting to scale and you're starting to get money that you haven't quite seen before. Like, actually I wanna ask you like, what goes through your head, right? As somebody you're from somewhere in The UK, what did you say the name was again?
Will:It's called Clitherow.
Dean:Clitherow, okay. Clitherow. I'm from South Dublin, right? You know, we didn't come, I'm super middle class, like just run of the mill fucking- Same. You know, don't come from money, but also there's a scarcity mindset around money where it's like, you know, you better save up for the pension and you better save up for the house.
Dean:That's the kind of mindset, right? There's nobody earning $20.30, $40.50 ks a month from where I'm from and where you're from. Right? And my question is what goes through your head as you're seeing those numbers? Do you deal with shame?
Dean:Do you deal with guilt? Are you trying to reconcile this in any way? Or can you describe what that was like?
Will:Yeah. Well, before this happened, right? Back in the music career, I slowly started to know getting paid 100 a show, then 200 a show, then 300, $406,100. The most I was ever paid was 1 and a half thousand pounds for a festival in Istanbul. And that just fucking blew my mind.
Will:I'll never forget that. It just blew my mind that someone would fly me there, put me in a hotel and give me 1 and a half thousand to DJ for an hour. It's fucking sick. So I was more used to slightly bigger numbers than most people. Cause if you said to most people, like, I'm getting paid 1 and a half thousand pounds to DJ for an hour.
Will:They'd be like, wow, that's pretty sick. And on very rare occasions, if I like toured America for say three weeks, I might be seven ks, eight ks, nine ks.
Dean:Still decent.
Will:Was I mean, I had big months, I had zero months, I had months where I earned zero and I had no shows at all. So music got me used to slightly bigger numbers and it taught me cashflow management and communication and contracts and agreements and how to communicate better with international people and shit. So that helped me. And with the business, it was so slowly up, like 50 pounds and then 200 pounds
Dean:J curve.
Will:And then a 1,000 pounds and then 2,000 pounds. So it was so slow. I didn't just go 50 ks a month. So it took me about a year to get to about 10 ks a month. Then it took me a year to get to about 40 ks ish per month.
Will:And then year three really went mad, from about 40 to about two fifty ish. So that was a big jump. And then a year later we got up to about 600 ks a month. So it was very slow, very slow, quite a lot faster, way faster.
Dean:How did your suite of offers change as you grew then? Because did you shift from the Google doc to another product?
Will:Yeah. Yeah. So it was the shit two page word doc, right? Then it got into a, like more of a ebook, just like ten, fifteen pages with images and examples and stuff like that. Then there was the Dropbox folder of videos with the ebook.
Will:Then I started doing some coaching, which is just one to one sessions over Zoom, which was again faceless with my camera off. Cause no one knew what I looked like. I remember that. So I never showed my face still in anything.
Dean:Okay. So you still hadn't been on YouTube then at that point?
Will:Well, I was on YouTube, but it was slides and voiceover. No face.
Dean:And
Will:then I turned it into like a proper online course in a portal. This was like in year towards the end of year two, I kind of made it a bit more professional. And I just slowly raised the price. And then I started having, you can just buy the Word doc, or you can buy the Word doc in the Dropbox folder of videos, or with some coaching. Then it was the online course with or without coaching.
Will:And it slowly got better, better, better, better, higher price, higher price, higher price over time.
Dean:Did you just know naturally because of the demand that was coming in that you think, okay, well naturally I can decrease the supply or increase the price?
Will:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The demand got bigger and bigger over time. And I got some big YouTube videos, you know, one would get 80 ks views, which got, was a lot of traffic and 150 ks views.
Will:Yeah. So I was quite lucky with the YouTube channel as well. It got quite big. So if
Dean:I was watching your YouTube back then, we're still what, around twenty twenty ish now? 2020. Yeah, right. So if I watch one of those YouTube channels, because obviously the online space has changed quite a lot since then, right? I'm imagining, Where would I have clicked when I've clicked on the landing page to pile your coursing then?
Dean:Like what was the main funnel? Yeah. So for a long time, just went to the Twitter and it was like,
Will:just follow me on Twitter. And that was like my landing page really of all the tweets and stuff. That was for about a year and a half. Yeah. And then eventually I did make a sales page and it was just a white page with fuck tons of text.
Will:Okay. And some buy buttons.
Dean:You were just trying to get people from your YouTube to follow you on Twitter.
Will:Yeah.
Dean:That was the goal? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Will:Because then I knew I could nurture
Dean:them on Twitter
Will:because they'd see my results. They'd see other customer results. They'd see me talking to big traders, stuff like that. And then eventually we moved to a sales page and then we drove the YouTube and the Twitter to the sales page for people to buy. And we had like a $4.99 thing and a $9.99 thing, which was like the course, the videos and the word doc and that with coaching.
Will:And then, yeah, eventually we made it into a proper course and coaching program kind of thing. And then the thing that changed everything was paid ads. When I learned how to run YouTube ads to a webinar, that is what got me to half a million a month, that and that alone.
Dean:Did you pay for that?
Will:Alex Becker's mastermind.
Dean:Yeah. Wanna get on to like mentoring and mentorships and mindsets around money and that soon as well. But that is just like incredible. The sheer spike that you experienced there. Like, one thing I just want to like stay on for a sec is like your mind, like as that was happening, because I think until you experience that for somebody like us, who's come from a middle class family, like not crazy or anything like that, also not poor either.
Dean:You know, we're not coming from the favelas or anything What is going through your head as you see those numbers? How are you feeling? Are you just like, what the fuck?
Will:Yeah. It was a mix of, I can't believe this is actually happening. Amazement and just thankfulness. And also, I don't So what's the best way to tell you this? Now, my dad always sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind.
Will:So when I was a musician, he was like, save all your money. It could end tomorrow. You could stop getting shows. People could stop buying your music. Things could change and you could be fucked.
Will:So save all your money. So I always saved all my money. And I carried that into the business. And when I eventually told my dad how well the business was going, he was like, well, again, I hope you're saving all the money because it could end at any time. And it was actually very beneficial because I would buy real estate with cash.
Will:So when I had my first say 100 K, I bought a $51 house and rented it out. And when I had a few $100, I bought my second house, which was, I think it was about $62 and rented it out. And then when I had a bit more, I bought a $200 apartment and rented it out. And this is how the portfolio came about. So really the portfolio was a bit out of fear just to like get the money out of the bank, you know, because I was just nervous because I had a lot of money in cash to either lose it or waste it or spend it.
Will:So I just would get it up by real estate. You know?
Dean:It's so funny because I've actually heard billionaires who, oh, I can't remember his name now. Was on that. Did you ever listen to my first million podcast? Was on that anyway. Can't remember his name.
Dean:It's gonna annoy me, but he was like, no matter what stage I've gotten to, I'm still afraid that I'm gonna lose it all. And I was like, that is super reassuring. Yeah. And also concerning.
Will:Dude, I once heard someone say, if you are not worried, you should be worried. If you're worried, there's no need to be worried.
Dean:That's good.
Will:It's so good, isn't it?
Dean:That's good.
Will:I love that. So, always, honestly, I've always been worried, you know, but it's gone down, you know, all the time it's gone down, down, down, down, down, down. So now it's maybe like 10% worry.
Dean:What do you wake up and think about then? What worries you now?
Will:I think one thing that represents my worry is I always keep now a large amount of cash, like multi 7 figures cash. The more cash that I've got, the calmer I feel. Because I'm like, you know, if I had to fly home, I could get home fast and easily. If I had to buy something, if something went wrong, if I had to do something, then it just calms me down. So having the real estate boat with cash calms me down, having a lot of cash on hand calms me down.
Will:One thing I've got this net worth spreadsheet, right? And it's got like all my real estate, all my cash in the different bank accounts and all this stuff. And I update it about once a week. And every seven days I write down all my cash, right? The day and all liquid cash.
Will:And that spreadsheet calms me down down. Because I'm like, oh yeah, we're good. You know, we're okay. And that's always been a big help for sure. But the worries, I think the worry will always be there to some extent.
Dean:I think we're doomed. Yeah. Yeah. So then you're at this point where things started to kick off. And one of the things around this time as per your your YouTube videos that you were saying is that you started to charge higher prices around this point, which is just great.
Dean:And I'm starting to realize this myself, right? Because I've had experiences now with my coaching where I've like, I started off by giving it for free. Can't do that.
Will:Can't do that.
Dean:Won't do that again. Just people just don't value free things. And also the dangers of starting with a lower ticket as well, because equally when something's cheap or perceived as cheap, people equally don't value that as much as well. Yeah. And with higher prices and Darren and Larry, you know, Larry as well, like they were on a podcast and they said, when I pay for a mentorship, it's not that I'm going to get like loads of crazy knowledge, like, yes, I'll get some wisdom and such, but I'm going to try harder because I've put my money down.
Dean:Yeah. And that that was something that you said that really stuck with me. And that's kind of landed is like, as much as there is a reluctance there to charge more, it kind of needs to be done. It seems like you throughout this whole process have always backed your value because you you seem to just increase the prices naturally? Like, did you ever suffer with worrying about increasing that price?
Will:Yeah. Yeah. So I had to learn this the same way that I teach my clients now. So when I joined Alex Becker's program, he said in the program, he was like, listen, charge $2. I was like, okay.
Will:I just, well, one thing that I've always done, if I work with a mentor and they say to do something, I just blindly do it. I never question, I just do it. Because I'm like, well, they must know, surely, or else they wouldn't be telling me. So I joined this program and when I joined, we had a bronze, silver, gold platinum. And it was like, something like $2.04 $9.04 $9.09 $7.09 $9.09 9, something like that.
Dean:Different levels of access to Yeah, you type
Will:different levels of the product, different levels of access, basically. Those prices might not be dead on because it was years ago, but something like that. And when I went in there, he said, just make one great program, run a webinar with YouTube ads and charge $2. So I was like, that's what I'll do. And it worked immensely well.
Will:So I did that. And then again, I think we have a natural tendency to drift into complexity and do loads of different shit. Because later on I'd mess with stuff and we had the 2 ks thing and a 5 ks thing and a $4.97 thing. And then I joined Sam Woman's Mastermind and Sam said something similar. He was like, right.
Will:I remember on the first call I ever had with Sam, he said, just tell me everything that you sell. I was like, right, this thing, this thing, this this thing. And he said to me, which one makes you the most money? And I was like, this one. And he was like, which one gets customers the best results?
Will:I was like, that one. And he was like, right, stop selling everything else and only sell that one thing. The first thing he ever said to me. And we did that and we made a lot more money.
Dean:It's the eightytwenty thing, right? Like when I think about my business back in The UK, I've got clients, right? And some of the clients, I never speak to them whatsoever. And they bring in five times as much revenue as some of the clients who are very annoying, constantly messaging and worried about things. And I'm like, should I just focus on people like this maybe, you know?
Dean:So true, man. Yeah. And I think it's like the, you know, it's the paradox almost of charging more and then you you actually have a better life because you've charged more.
Will:Yeah, dude, it's so funny, man. Like what we're in May now, last month we closed, well, for me, it was the biggest sale I've ever closed in my life. It was an $80,000 full pay for seven months. No, sorry, nine months of coaching. One to one.
Will:One to one. 80 ks, wow. Like wired in full. And that lady, she's been on two group calls in, I reckon three weeks, four weeks. They just do the work.
Will:They just don't bother you. They just go in the program. They attend calls only when they need to. They just get on with the building. They only ask you for help.
Will:She's probably messaged me three times. And when we closed that sale, I was like, we could just sell these really expensive things and do one unit a month, two units a month. I would have nothing to do. I'd make 200 gram with like probably five hours a month or something. It's just insane.
Will:But it's just a welcome reminder of the power of just the few people that will pay any price, but for the absolute best thing.
Dean:But I think at the start, right? At the start, especially for, you know, the vast majority of people who might this episode out, it's like at the start, you want anything you can get your hands on and you're kind of willing to take anything. And I don't know whether that's just like a prerequisite, like you have to just eat shit with shit clients until you find your way and then you can start to discard them. I think that might be the path for everyone really.
Will:I agree. I agree. When you start, you've just gotta be scrappy. Just take any, not any money as such. Don't take a pound, but just start small and just get shit working.
Will:Just get a sale, get a few customers, fiddle your way around, and just get them the best results you can and just figure stuff out. You know, there is a way to shortcut it. I mean, I could have probably saved, if I would have had the money and the sense to find and invest in a mentor, I probably could have saved a year, maybe a year and a half and got there a bit faster. But I didn't even like know that you could, I didn't know what a mentor was. I didn't know.
Will:Yeah, I just didn't know anything. I was so stupid. I still am quite stupid, but I was more stupid back then.
Dean:Yeah. Because the whole investing in a mentor, investing in a course, investing in knowledge, it kind of gets a bad rap, right? People are very, very skeptical. Yes. Super skeptical, you know, me being one of them.
Dean:Right. But I've learned the power of doing that, you know, of doing it because, A, you get the knowledge, but B, you also change. Like I was saying a little moment ago, like if I didn't put money down, would I have tried as hard? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Dean:If I got that information for free, which I can do on YouTube, like,
Will:yeah,
Dean:what I know, it's the fact that I'm in the corner with that person and they're in my corner. That's what actually does it. Dude, I can't remember this exact saying, I'm gonna butcher this slightly,
Will:someone commented on my YouTube channel, this was a few months ago. And they said, why would I buy your course when everything that I need is for free on YouTube? And I said, well, if everything is for free on YouTube, why are you not a millionaire?
Dean:So good. Well, yeah, that was one of the things you said as well. It's like, if you knew how to make $10.15, 20 k a month, you would be doing it. You would be doing it. So you don't know how to do it.
Dean:So learn how
Will:to do it. Dude. Exactly. So that whole it's for free online thing. If that, it's just, I mean, if that was true, everybody would be wealthy.
Will:Yeah. You know, but it's just not that simple.
Dean:Yeah. So true, man. So going back, one of the things you said a second ago was that you changed to a sales funnel with a webinar with YouTube, right? Yeah. Did you have a sales call in that process or was it just webinar, buy on the webinar?
Will:Yeah, so it was like a YouTube ad. And if you click the ad, you'd go to an opt in page, which would say like, sign up for the webinar. They would give us their name, email, and phone number to go and watch the webinar. The webinar was a three and a half hour prerecorded fake live webinar. And yeah, they would just watch it and buy with no sales call.
Dean:Oh, wow. What was it? What did you charge for it?
Will:Well, with price tested, the best price was $1.05 £45. So about $2,200.
Dean:Wow. And were they buying an info product then? Was that what the purchase was or were they buying?
Will:Yeah. It was just the course.
Dean:You brought them to a webinar. They watched the webinar where you deliver a lot of value. And then obviously like there's more value contained in the course, basically. That's the next step.
Will:Yeah. So in about an hour and a half, the pitch would kick in and then I'd be like, right, well, listen, you can either go out there and try and do this on your own. Or if you like, I've got a programme where we can just get all this stuff done now. And I would pitch them a little bit and then a button would pop up. And if they click the button, they go to a sales page and they can just buy the $15.45 program.
Will:And at the height of that funnel, we were spending about £6,000 a day on ads And we were doing about two and a half X. So we'd spend a $100, make a quarter of million back. And we just slowly spent more and more and more and more and more more and more. If
Dean:I was at the beginning, right? But also one thing I wanna say is I love that, that you were making little offers along the way. It's like, hey, would you like to watch the webinar? Okay, well the next step is would you like to go and like take further action? It just goes to show the power of like an offer at the right time rather than being like, hey, do you wanna do my one to one coaching, really expensive thing?
Dean:It's like, oh no, hey, would you like to watch this video that I've made? Yeah. And, and that just like warms somebody up and gradually demonstrates your expertise. Yeah. And gets them kind of ready because nobody's ready to fucking buy your one to one coaching straight away.
Dean:They need to know you. They need to trust you.
Will:So Yeah.
Dean:Think that's great. But if I go back, right, ads is great. Ad sounds great on paper. Put in one, get out two and a half. Like, that sounds amazing.
Dean:But like, if I was at the beginning, I think, would you say that ads is like something that you just delay and you just get your hands or your sleeves rolled up and just kind of go into the DMs? Or would you say start straight away with ads?
Will:Well, some people come to me and they say, I don't wanna do the organic thing because it takes a lot of time, which it does. You've gotta earn organic all the time. It's free, which is the advantage, but it's slow and hard, which is the disadvantage. With ads, like could, like now today, we could write a VSL, shoot a VSL if you're fast, put it in a funnel, shoot ads and turn ads on and have calls coming in tomorrow. We could do that with like the rest of today.
Dean:Shall we? We could,
Will:we could. I I shot a VSL this morning for God's sakes.
Dean:Did you?
Will:Yeah. So ads, if you know how to write good copy, like I could write a VSL now, ads now, turn them on and have sales calls coming in and close them.
Dean:Very quickly, if I didn't know what a VSL was, how would you describe that?
Will:It's basically a video that people watch and it conveys the argument for their problem, how you can solve the problem and why they should work with you to solve the problem. Basically, it's like a, just a compelling sales argument, convincing video, and you use it to push them to a sales call to have a conversation about solving their problem, basically. Mean, dude, to answer your question, you don't need organic. You could just run ads like to a brand new offer. And I'd say about 40% of my clients don't have organic.
Will:They just run ads very profitably. So you can just run ads.
Dean:Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So we're at twenty twenty in your journey here.
Dean:You bought Alex Becker's course.
Will:Yep.
Dean:Things starting to shape up then like, what was, because you said as well that you moved to Dubai around that point, right? And you also said, so I was really curious about it as well. You said you had a bad tax bill in The UK. Like What went down there?
Will:Well, yeah. So 2020, I bought Alex's Mastermind in December and I turned ads on in January. Right. And I was living at my, was I, yeah, I was at my parents' house. I still live with my parents at this stage because I bought it from their kitchen table.
Will:And then we turned that on in January, things started ramping up really fast from there. And I actually moved out, I think in April, I got my first ever studio apartment in Manchester and I moved out of my parents' house since my first ever apartment that I've ever rented. And then the business started to do really, really well. COVID kicked in and that just was like rocket fuel for the business because everyone was at home, everyone wanted to learn how to make money. And we just started running ads to an optimized webinar.
Will:So that's what got us to a quarter million a month that year was the COVID thing as well. So a bit of luck there, fucking awesome timing. And then because of the last year and that year, that's what created the massive tax bill, 6 figure tax bill. And then I moved to Dubai May 2021, a year and a half later. So I'd scaled the business.
Will:I remember we were doing about $25,300 a month when I moved to Dubai. Because that's why I moved to Dubai was to frigging solve the tax problems. I was like, we're gonna just be paying a mountain of tax. And to me back then I was on my own. I was single.
Will:I didn't really have many friends. COVID didn't help either. I moved to Dubai during COVID. And honestly, dude, I just wanted to live in a country where it was sunny and there was no tax, get a nice apartment with a nice view and just work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. That's what I wanted and that's what I got.
Will:And then I just shut myself in the apartment, worked every fucking day, every fucking hour for like four years and just murdered. It was great.
Dean:Were you actually, like you were loving it though?
Will:Oh, fucking loving Really, man. Was the best thing ever.
Dean:Was that where you guys met? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Nice.
Will:Yeah, it was great, man.
Dean:And so you're cracking on then that periods, because I know you had the sale, right? Which I wanna get to as well. Yeah. The sale went through year and a half ago, eighteen months ago now, right?
Will:Yeah. 09/29/2023.
Dean:Okay. Okay. Yeah. Year, year and a half. And just a moment ago, said you're at 2021.
Dean:Like what just happened between 2021 and the sale kind of coming into the picture? Like, was it just more and more of the same, more scale, more growth, more twelve hour days?
Will:No. No. So, dude, as luck would have it, right, when I moved to Dubai, the webinar was just starting to die out and we'd scaled it so far. Like the more that we spent, the lower the ROI. And it got to a stage where we were like 1.5 X.
Will:So we'd spend say a $100 and make back $1.50 or whatever So the maths the profitability was just coming down, down, down, down. And we were like, we just couldn't fix it. We made new ads that didn't really fix it. We wrote a new webinar that didn't really fix it. So we were like, shit, like we need to change something.
Will:And around a few months after I moved to Dubai, we ditched the webinar, we moved to a VSL and we just wrote, I literally, I wrote a VSL in a day at the kitchen table in some Airbnb in Dubai, made it the same day. We used the same ads and we just switched the link on the ad to go to the webinar to a VSL instead. And we started taking sales calls. And literally, immediately we went from like 1.5 X back to like five X literally overnight. Wow.
Will:It was fucking amazing. So good.
Dean:So many questions. When you write copy for a VSL, because when you speak right, it actually seems as though you're just chatting to me in a boozer and On your videos, it's super natural, man. But by the sounds of it. Yeah. Which probably is a good thing to tell you.
Dean:But like you, you just mentioned about good copy for a VSO. Like, so is is is that just is it just look like it's casual and you actually are quite intentional about what you're saying? I imagine you are with the hook and like kind of the journey of it, but is it word for word?
Will:In the YouTube videos, it's just unplanned, unscripted, just chilling, which is probably why it seems like that because it is, because I just talk off the top of my head.
Dean:Okay.
Will:Right. In VSLs and in ads, is like word for word.
Dean:Okay, Okay.
Will:Word for word.
Dean:So you wouldn't describe some of the videos that like the most viewed videos on your channel, there's a few of them there. They're not VSLs necessarily.
Will:No.
Dean:What are they? What would you call them? Chit chats. Just assets, I guess. Yeah.
Dean:Or like trust building.
Will:Yeah. So some of the biggest videos, know, there's the step by No, no. What's the one that how to make 10 ks a month ASAP video was just me just chatting to the camera. Chatting I had no plan, I had no notes, no bullet points, nothing. All of my best videos and something for me to learn about this as well.
Will:All the best videos are just off the cuff, completely off the cuff, but VSLs though, and ads, they need to be written properly. They need to be written properly. So there's a whole, you've got to be good at copywriting to get a VSL to work. So when it comes to VSLs, they take three, five, seven, ten hours to write and then, it's totally different. Really?
Dean:That's a lot of, yeah, wow. Yeah. Wow. So at this point then, like you've shifted, you're using that model. I want to get to the sale now, like when that conversation starts to happen, like who approached who there?
Dean:For sure. So we moved to the VSL funnel. It was me and
Will:my best friend, Alex on sales calls. We were super profitable. Again, we were making loads of money. We then built a sales team as we scaled. So we got up to nine full time sales reps taking, God, like fucking 80 sales calls a day something You wild like know, that's what got us, our biggest ever month was $8.24 ks.
Will:And that's when we had like four setters, nine reps, me, sales team manager, three support coaches, all
Dean:this stuff. Talking to agent.
Will:And when we got to there, was, because I sold in September 2023. So it was really the 2022 where, I just remember I went for a coffee in the building I used to live in in Dubai and I was writing in my journal and I'd really grown to just not enjoy the company. I didn't enjoy having a massive team. Every fucking day there was some shit, some rep doing this, coach doing this, customer this, blah, blah. And I just built like a Frankenstein that controlled me rather than me controlling the business.
Will:It was a weird feeling. And I just felt trapped. I felt like we're spending all this money on ads that we have this massive team, you know, and I just felt tired and trapped and a bit like, I just wanted to, I just didn't enjoy it anymore. And the good thing, I was lucky because I've made loads of money. So I owned loads of real estate outright with cash.
Will:I had very good cash reserves. I just bought an apartment in Dubai outright with cash. So I was like, well, I don't need more money as such. I'm okay financially. So I don't need the business.
Will:I don't enjoy the business anymore. So I remember saying to a mentor, this is my plan. I'm gonna try my hardest to sell it to someone who can take it and grow it and to kind of just re energize it, you know? And if I can't sell it, I'm just gonna turn it off. I'm just gonna fire everyone, turn off the ads, put it in the bin, go and start again.
Dean:Were you not the face
Will:of it though? Well, no, because it was faceless.
Dean:Still? Yeah. It wasn't the William Brown show?
Will:No. And dude, by that stage, I was completely removed. Right. So I wasn't taking sales calls. I was hiring and firing and doing a bit of management and I had to manage the sales team manager.
Will:I still had to do a few meetings, but I was pretty much removed. I was like 90% removed. And I was left with the, just the annoying shit, just like looking after everything and just making the decisions and making sure everyone's happy. And it sounds easy, but it was surprisingly fucking exhausting. I know man, it's weird.
Will:Remember saying to the private equity firm that bought my business, when they said to me, why do you wanna sell? I said, I feel like it's in my head and I wanna get it out my head. And if I can sell it to you guys, then I can finally get it out of my head, move on, and you guys can take it and grow it and take it to the next level, which was their plan. And in the end, obviously I was lucky enough to be able to sell it to Hive View, a private equity firm in America based in Colorado. And yeah, was fucking great.
Will:It was the icing on the cake, man. I'm so happy that I was able to exit that business. Yeah.
Dean:What was it like the day that the money arrived in the bank accounts?
Will:Yeah, well, I remember it because when I got the email from my lawyer and the email from my lawyer is on my Instagram in the exit highlights. So you can see that, which is quite cool.
Dean:I saw that when I was, yeah.
Will:So when I got that email, I think the first thing I did was I think I called Lauren first and I said, I finally got the bloody money, it's finally done. I was walking around my office and then I made a video about it.
Dean:I watched that video.
Will:Yeah. And then I called the founder of the PE firm and I was like, awesome, congratulations. He's like, yeah, congratulations, let's get to work. So I spoke to Lauren, made the video, called the guy, the founder, Karl, and that was it. And then it was just amazing feeling, man.
Will:Because I was so excited to do what I'm doing now. I already had a few business consulting clients at that stage. So I'd already proven the concept for the next thing. And I was just excited to go all in. You know, I wanted to do the YouTube channel and really build this next thing.
Will:So then that day I was like, it was a fresh start. I was like, great. I can go again now and start from scratch. So it was a great feeling.
Dean:So good. And I remember like my, you just made me think of something there when I was, when you're talking about hiring and the different problems that that brings with scale, it's like, you're no longer involved in the same thing. It's now like, you're making sure that people aren't fucking all over each other or making the business or like, you know, you're just dealing with different things. I remember I hired somebody, right? And he talked a super big game in the interview.
Dean:Right. I was like, I like this guy, you know, he's got some pizzazz or some sort of, I like his energy. Right. Two days in, he posts in the WhatsApp group because we have an Airbnb, Airbnb's back in London and he posts in the WhatsApp group and he says, yes, this guest who arrived, really shitty guests, but the girls are like so sexy. And I just checked the group.
Dean:I was like, I was like, okay, sorry. Just messaged him privately. I was like, dude, that's not how we talk to each other. Yeah. That's not how we do it.
Dean:And fired him like two days later because he just kept going off. But like, know, that type of shit. I'm like, I can only imagine what it's like with nine.
Will:Trust me. Yeah. Well, it was a team of, I think it was a team of 19. Wow. Like all together with everyone.
Dean:Yeah.
Will:It's fucking, there's always something to deal with when you've got a team that big, you know? And that the team is the only thing I don't like. I like everything else, but I don't enjoy hiring and managing and training and all the meetings and stuff. Don't like that.
Dean:Don't like that. Onboarding is like probably my least favorite thing.
Will:Yeah. That was maybe the key reason that I wanted to sell our business. You know, if it weren't for the team, I might not have sold it, to be honest, because I'd have what I have now, where it's a super lean business, super easy, super profitable, tiny ad spend. This is what I wanted. You know, I've got what I wanted now, but I had to learn my lesson to know what I didn't want, you know?
Dean:I had the same thing. Had, when I first started, while I was in my nine to five, I bought a rent to rent course, if you know what that is. It's basically where you take on very expensive leases in the in the hope that if you get your numbers right, you get the uptick on the Airbnb revenue that comes in. And in my first year, I put down a lot of money on the course. And then initially I was very I was kind of in a state of buyer's remorse after I purchased that because I thought, fuck, okay, now I really need to make this work.
Dean:And my first two deals that I got, like, they're very capital intensive, man. You've to furnish it and make it look like this beautiful place so you can market it. My first two deals, man, I got my numbers way off and actually one of them was a sourcer. Do know what a sourcer is? Yeah.
Dean:They sell the deals to you at a premium and you buy it off them in the hopes that their numbers are what they say they are. Yeah. It's my fault. I didn't do my due diligence. It's ultimately something that I had to learn from.
Dean:But my God, man, like my first year, I was just so stressed. And like you, I was just like, what have I got myself into here? I don't want this. I don't want this anymore. Yeah.
Dean:Help, help, help. And, you know, the way it ended was I actually shifted model. So I just did a management service way less risky. I just take revenue from the top and I can sleep at night. Better model.
Dean:And I shifted that and got my money back and life is good now. So, but my God, man. Yeah. When you get, when you get into something and you realize that you don't wanna be there salvation feels like it's so far away.
Will:It's a bad feeling, isn't it? Yeah. I can definitely resonate with that dude, but you've gotta learn, you've gotta learn the hard way. Cause like, you know, you just, some things you've just gotta learn through experience. You've gotta make the mistakes.
Will:Be like, no, this doesn't work. I don't wanna do that. But there's this idea. And then you do this and then that works. And you're like, oh, let's do a bit more of this.
Will:And then you find what does work and you're good, you know.
Dean:I think Nabal said the key to success or insert hook, he said that it is the rate of revelation that you have in business. And I was like, or life in general, think, know, rate, or maybe it was harmoniously, I can't remember who said it, but that stuck with me. And I think you can get revelations by trying, okay, that didn't work. Okay, that did. Definitely.
Dean:But that one doesn't, next.
Will:Yeah. And he takes time. Like business is just, if you want to get good, you just got to get the knowledge, take the action, make the mistakes and keep trying and learning. And eventually it all falls into place over time,
Dean:you know. So now that you sold the business at that point, like why not go on a yacht and chill and scratch your ass?
Will:Yeah, that's fucking boring. Know, because that's what some like,
Dean:you know, when, when, when I was in a job. Yeah. All I wanted at that stage was to not do the job and I would have given anything to just not have to do something. I think it's when you have to do something, you are repelled from it. I think when you do it by choice.
Dean:Exactly. That is you come at it
Will:from such a different energy. Well, I'll share a story with you. So during the exit process, I read a book, I can't remember what the book is called, but it was talking about whatever you did as a child for fun, before you knew about money and stuff, those are the things that you should do as an adult, because that shows you what you really love when money is not considered. So I was thinking like, well, what did I do as a kid? I was like, I skateboarded.
Will:I liked making videos. I would make slight skateboard videos and film them and edit them and stuff. And I liked doing art and graffiti and painting and music originally before it was a career and that kind of thing. So I thought, okay, well, and I worked out, my number one favorite thing to do is to make videos. So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna make business videos for YouTube.
Will:And if it gets me clients, great. If it doesn't, I don't really care. So as I was selling the company, I started making YouTube videos, it's about a year and a half ago. And that worked really well, really, really well. That's been the primary driver of this new business, but I just love doing it still to this day.
Will:I love making the videos because it's one of my favorite things to do. And I love writing as well. So I like designing the course content and making the lessons and doing the coaching calls. I don't know. And this is the thing, I've just always loved doing the design right back to when I was younger and I would make the covers for like, because I used to do a graffiti magazine, right?
Will:That I made myself. I would like take the pictures, use Photoshop to design it and stuff. So I've always just loved design. And again, that was before I knew that I wanted money, you know? So I just wrote down all the things I used to do before I knew that money was a thing essentially, and then started doing all those things and carrying them into this new business.
Will:And I think that's one of the reasons why this business has worked is just because I just do it for fun and I don't really care if it works or not, which conversely makes it work way better. It's like a paradox.
Dean:Paradoxes, they're everywhere. It's like the less you need it on a sales call. Every time I've been on a sales call. Yeah. And I bring that with you without you energy and I embody it and I actually embody it.
Dean:And I'm just there to genuinely try and help this person because I know what I have is valuable to what they want, what they need.
Speaker 3:Nine times out of 10
Dean:that call is closing anyway.
Will:I know, I know.
Dean:Because I don't need it because when I can feel it as well, you know, I don't know if you've ever been like that where you're kind of like clinging to the call. You're like, I'll be like, no, but Mr.
Will:Client, we've all been. You're not fucking seeing it
Dean:the way you got to see it. Like, let me handle your objection. It just doesn't work. Just And doesn't you also don't want a client who's gonna fucking, you don't want somebody who's, who's been almost convinced because they invariably end up being a bad client, invariably.
Will:Dude, 100% man. This is why, you know, to answer your question, why didn't I just sail off into the sunset? I just thought, I'm just gonna do whatever I want that I find fun. And if it makes money, that's great. If it doesn't, I don't really care.
Will:So I just did what I thought was fun and it just so happens that that has helped to create another good business.
Dean:So good that you get to do what you, you've been making me think there. I'm like, wait, what do I love doing in my business?
Will:What do you love? Tell me one thing. I really like
Dean:the front end. I like speaking to people. I like speaking to people. I like working with people. I like seeing people have a breakthrough on a call.
Dean:I love that. I love that on a call when I help somebody see something from a different perspective. I had it last night, there was a guy, Jack, I was having a call with him and he's feeling a bit directionless. You know, he's building the business, but he's looking ahead and he's kind of like losing his mojo with it. Yeah.
Dean:And I was like, okay, dude, let's think about what you want your world to look like in ninety days. Okay. And he was like, well, I guess I like, would you like to take out X Men from the business? Would you like to go on holiday with your missus? Because he's at the point where he's just about almost there to quit his job.
Dean:That's where he's at. And I was like, what would you like the world to look like? Okay. You need X amount more money. Okay, great.
Dean:Well, how many more deals would you need to close to get X amount of money? Three. I was like, okay, so we just need to close one deal a month for the next ninety days? Yeah. Yeah.
Dean:That's what I need to do. I was like, okay, well, what do we need to do in terms of activity to close three deals over the next ninety days? Well, I need to do 14. Then he was like, yeah, alright, I'll just do that then. And that for me was very rewarding because I could see it so differently to what he was saying.
Dean:I just gave him a gentle nudge and off he went.
Will:Dude, it's different. Like, it's so hard to give yourself advice. It's so, but you know it, but you just can't do it. I think humans need other humans, man. Humans just need other humans.
Dean:This morning I was at a brotherhood. Do know that?
Will:I need to come to that.
Dean:Oh man, it was brilliant. Yeah, should come. Where was it at? Morabeet, I wanna say. Some beach club on the ocean.
Will:What time did it start? Eight. Oh fuck that fuck that shit, no way.
Dean:Yeah, but we got there and it was like, as I was saying this to Molly before we came on, as guys, there's, you know what guys are like, especially from The UK and Ireland, right? When you're in a room and you like share something that's maybe a bit vulnerable or emotional, like someone's probably going to say some remark and then therefore you will feel less inclined to share more or feel like it's safe to do so. And this place was just for that reason. Everyone gets together, sit in a circle and there was a five minute timer, eight people on a table, eight dudes. We'll go ahead.
Dean:There's the timer. We speak and everyone no one's allowed to check their phone. No one's allowed to interrupt. No one's allowed to give advice. No one's allowed to say, oh, have you thought about that?
Dean:Shut up. Let them talk. Wow. And I actually went first and I actually just started talking about my previous relationship and just so much stuff came up. And I think as guys, man, I don't know how I got to this, but like as guys, we don't have that very often, that space.
Dean:Never. They're with dudes and especially at a party or something. Never. That one's going be like, actually, by the way, I'm having a tough time with my girlfriend. Never.
Dean:Yeah. Yeah. And I think we need that man. We need people like you said.
Will:Yeah. Well, I've just taken on, you know what shadow work is? Yeah. Yeah. I just took on a shadow work coach.
Will:I've done two fucking sessions with him. James? Not James.
Dean:Not
Will:James. It's funny, this guy was a client of mine and I helped him grow his business. And then he came back and I was like, because I'm in a season right now where I just feel too good. I just feel things are too good. You know?
Will:And I was like, things are just too good.
Dean:You know? I kind of feel that myself actually.
Will:Yeah. That's a good thing because it's taken me thirty four years to feel this feeling. That's a long time. I probably felt it when I was a kid actually, but it's funny when I found out about the importance of money, when I was like twenty four, twenty five, I feel like my happiness, I guess not because I've had a very fun life and I've done some awesome stuff, but I've just never been fully, fully peaceful, you know, fully just free. And man, like I've only just got that back recently where I just feel peaceful and free and It's a fucking great feeling.
Will:But anyway, I was doing these shadow work sessions, gruff fucking up. I was in tears. I was fucking in tears, man. I was embarrassed. I was just crying at the guy for like ten minutes at the start.
Will:Cause I was just like, just telling him everything that I would never tell anybody else. And I think it just felt good just to say, I miss this friend and I shouldn't have done this and I wish I'd done this sooner and all this shit. It was great.
Dean:It just makes, helps you to make sense of the chatter, chatter, chatter that's going on upstairs because a lot of it can be unfinished. It just kind of like blurts by and you're like, oh, it's fucking nothing. Okay. And it's gone. And then you don't like, when you share it with somebody and somebody's like, especially a paid professional.
Will:Yeah.
Dean:They're ready to like listen to you and help you through that. That's cool.
Will:That's It's good when you really get along with them you trust them you feel like a friend, then gets even, it's actually, I think it's a bit, it's a great feeling. It's a bit of a challenge, but it's a great feeling. Know?
Dean:That's like, I was saying actually to Molly on the way up here, I was like, my goal with business now is yes, like chase crazy financial heights. But that isn't the goal. That's our goal. But the goal is to do it peacefully without fear, without stress, like, or at least minimizing it without the spikes. I don't need to fret.
Dean:Like ultimately, no matter what happens, I am going to be okay. And rationally, I know this, but sometimes my emotional, I don't know what that called is like the amygdala, emotional reptilian brain goes into fight or flight and thinks, oh, well, this thing happened, this client and this thing. And it's like, it feels like the world can be caving in on me sometimes and it doesn't need to be. And that's, I wanna remove that. I wanna get, I wanna have success.
Dean:I wanna have impact. I wanna make lots of money, but do it gracefully, do it chill and do it like the way we're feeling right now. Bring that energy to it the whole time.
Will:Yeah. I don't think you can do it all the time.
Dean:As much as more than I am, I think is gonna I be a better
Will:definitely think you can do it a lot. Like we just hired a sales director and it's been turmoil. It's been fucking but it's good necessary turmoil. And even when I hired him, he said to me, Will, I just wanna tell you, if we work together on this, here's what's gonna happen. He was like, when you announce that I'm coming in, all the sales team are gonna be angry.
Will:They're gonna be like, No, like, Oh, we've got to do all this extra shit. And they're gonna be pissed off and angry. Then when we start doing all this new stuff, some of them are gonna think about leaving, some of them are not gonna wanna do it, blah, blah. And he had this graph and he was like, then they're gonna realize it's for their own good. And then they'll come back to normal and then we'll go way up and blah, blah, blah.
Will:And it was exactly that thing. One rep was like, no, I'm not doing these meetings. I'm not doing tracking four times a day. I'm not doing all this shit. So sometimes you've to go through the stress to get to the good, you know.
Dean:Do you think then it's the people? Because I think your clients and your employees, they are some important people.
Will:Yeah. Well, they control your happiness and peace. If you close bad clients, you're fucked, you know? And if you hire the wrong person,
Dean:you're gonna have a headache. Yeah. Bad clients and bad employees is just about as shit as things can get in business.
Will:It really comes into your life and it seeps into everything because you're having calls with them, you're WhatsApp them, you're in Slack with them, they're impacting your business, they're impacting everything. So it's very impactful team. Team is in my opinion, the hardest. I don't really get bad clients. No, I don't really get, touch wood anyway, but I think it's because our prices are so high.
Will:We only get super committed people that make the jump. Price is a definite way to protect yourself from bad customers. For me, one thing that I've learned is it's better to sell something for $10. Let's say for example, $10 to one person than $1 to 10 people. Yeah.
Will:And it's better on separate work, because you're supporting one rather than 10. The natural refund and chargeback rate is way, way lower by a factor of 10. It's just, everything's easier, better for cash flow, everything is easier. Know?
Dean:Do you have many, and I asked this from like my own point of view, right? My POV in business has been historically dealing with very emotional people, right? In the world of property where I kind of broke out and built this sort of machine that's kind of generating money in The UK. And along that way, right, my clientele and the people that were my suppliers and are still my suppliers, a lot of them are emotional and like not really business minded in a lot of ways and like really in the manner in which they treat people as quite, you know, not professional, not like very friendly, you might say. Like, I'm just curious, do you, historically, have you had a lot of emotional people in your circle that have kind of came your way that you've had to deal with or have you not experienced that?
Dean:In the old business,
Will:I would say 70% of customers were like that, right? Because trading money, ever moving financial markets
Dean:is
Will:one of the most emotionally turbulent things you can do in the world as a humanist trade. It's one of the hardest careers, if not the hardest career. So I would say most customers were a challenge because of the nature of the career. In this business, it's more like 5%. Yeah, I'd say five in a 100.
Will:So not many, not many. And when they do act like that, we just take extra care of them. We say, I'll have this, have some extra call, extra time, blah, blah, blah. We just take like extra good care care of them to calm them down.
Dean:What would you say then is your biggest, one of the biggest lessons that you've learned along your way that you would share to previous Will? If you could go back to Will, he's like on the Twitter doc and he's in his dungeon, selling that, what would you tell him in advance?
Will:I would say just learn the fundamentals, man. It's just, it's really simple. There's traffic, sales process, conversion, value, good offer for a good price. I just didn't understand the fundamentals and now I do. So I would just go back and give him a lesson on those things.
Dean:Do you think he would've spent the money on you?
Will:No, no way. Well, it depends at what time. Depends on what time. Like I could have been the Alex Becker for for for sure. And I am now, I am to my clients now.
Will:That's what I do for them. So it's good.
Dean:Do you find that it's more rewarding working with people? Do you get more value out of like working directly with people? Yeah. Yeah. Filament, I should say.
Will:Yeah. Oh dude, definitely man. Definitely. I love the calls. Yeah.
Will:And I hope that I love them for a long time. There'll come a day where I don't anymore. Well, I think that's a good
Dean:time to ask you, like, what is your plan with Bilgro Exit? What do you, do you see yourself still owning that in five years?
Will:Do you know who Matt Gray is? No. So Matt Gray, really great entrepreneur. He owns a company called Founder OS. He's got a great YouTube channel as well.
Will:I was chatting to him last week, we were on Zoom. And I said to him, do you want to exit Founder OS one day? And he said something to me. He said, Will, I want to get up to a point where we're making 5,000,000 a year profit, which to me is basically a mini exit every year. It's like a 5,000,000 exit every year without selling the company.
Will:And I thought, wow, that's really smart. You know, why? Because I was saying to him, I'd like to exit this in the future. But when he said that, I was like, no, I'm not gonna exit. I'm just gonna, because we're pretty much doing those numbers now for God's sakes.
Will:So I was like, wow. Yeah. I said to him, well, I'm doing that now. So I was like, this
Dean:is amazing. You sound like you found your sweet spot with it as well. You're waking up every day. You're the most peaceful you've ever been. You're doing all of the things that you enjoy doing and you're making the most money you've ever made.
Will:It's mad at It's all like,
Dean:what the fuck?
Will:Why would you Yeah. Change It's fucking crazy.
Dean:But you have seasons, right? You know, five years ago or what you want five years ago might change.
Will:Yeah. You never know, we'll see. But for me right now, when he said that I decided, right, that's actually really smart and I'm not gonna exit. So I'm gonna keep it for as long as I enjoy it. The goal, we want to scale a little bit further.
Will:So we're doing 500, 600 a month cash now. We're going to scale to a million a month, see if it's still fun, see how stressful it is, see what kind of team do we need to get there and stay there. And then we'll feel it out when we're there. So we're gonna scale a bit further, pretty much hold. And I wanna just keep buying real estate really.
Will:And just keep having fun. I wanna grow the YouTube. I wanna get to a million subscribers on YouTube. So God knows how long that's gonna take, but we'll see. That's a fun, it's a fun game to play.
Will:So yeah, just messing around and having fun really.
Dean:Do you think you'll ever go back to The UK?
Will:I fucking hope not. Fucking hope not.
Dean:Yeah, I kind of think the same with Ireland. I'm just like, you know, it's my home, but like, do I wanna go and live there again? No. Not so sure.
Will:No, I mean, England is nice for a week, you know, go back to the countryside, see my mom and dad. My mom has an ice cream shop in the country. So it's nice to just go and see those guys, go to the pub, you know, but I wish my family were out here, man. Love that as well. I love that.
Will:Can't change people when they get to 50, 60, 70 years old, man. They ain't moving to Bali.
Dean:I actually told my mom a few days ago, I was like, I'm gonna fly you out to Bali. I want you to come out. Like, cause I was like, you know, like got a bit of money that I've come from the business. And I'm like, you know, I wanna treat you. And she was like, what?
Dean:Oh my God, come to Bali, can't believe it. Would she move here? Maybe not. Think she'll be in like in over her head when she gets with the chaos of Bali.
Will:It's a young person's game, man. I think it's a, it's a young person's game, I think.
Dean:This I has been think your story is like super inspiring because like, you know, it's very, you're very transparent about it. And I think the beauty and why I love your story so much is that you haven't done anything special, man, you know, with the greatest respects to you and not all you've achieved. You've done it very simply. You've done it very publicly. It's very clear what you've done.
Dean:You just provided value and you've found a way to deliver that value to a lot of people and charge what you're worth and just create a business and create an amazing life. And I just hope that that lands with the right person.
Will:Dude, thank you so much for having me on man. Massive pleasure.
Dean:Yeah. Nice.
Will:Good times.
Dean:Yeah.
