More Than A Side Hustle
8 Business Lessons We Learned Over The Past Few Weeks!
Learn what it takes to thrive as an entrepreneur with insights inspired by Alex Hormozi. Hear our experience with a payment processor failure and discover the importance of owning your traffic, having backup plans, and the benefits of remarketing. Get branding tips from Target and lessons on balancing success from content creators Ms. Rachel and Blippi. This episode is full of actionable insights to boost your impact, income, and influence.
🌟 Don't forget to drop us a review to support us!
Leave us A Review
---Resources----
Learn how to start and scale a cleaning business without cleaning ANY Houses
Cleaning Business University Course
Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram | Youtube | Facebook | Twitter
Podcast Sponsor:
If you are interested in a spot shoot us an email at info@thehartrimony.com
Learn what it takes to thrive as an entrepreneur with insights inspired by Alex Hormozi. Hear our experience with a payment processor failure and discover the importance of owning your traffic, having backup plans, and the benefits of remarketing. Get branding tips from Target and lessons on balancing success from content creators Ms. Rachel and Blippi. This episode is full of actionable insights to boost your impact, income, and influence.
🌟 Don't forget to drop us a review to support us!
Leave us A Review
---Resources----
Learn how to start and scale a cleaning business without cleaning ANY Houses
Cleaning Business University Course
Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram | Youtube | Facebook | Twitter
Podcast Sponsor:
If you are interested in a spot shoot us an email at info@thehartrimony.com
What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the more than a silo podcast, where we help nine-to-fives create more impact, income and influence outside their jobs.
Speaker 2:My name is mr hardzog, hustle himself anthony oh, okay, and I'm janoka and thank you for listening to us. Be sure to subscribe on youtube and also make sure you're listening and downloading episodes or wherever you listen to us at that can be Apple, spotify, yahoo, google, so thank you for coming back Yahoo. They got a. Thing.
Speaker 1:Maybe Yahoo Music, Google Music, I don't know. Leave us a five star review, if you've listened to this before and you think we are a five star podcast. So we're going to be talking about 10 lessons that we've learned in business over these past eight. We didn't have 10. You know I'm gonna have 10, so we might come up with 10 as we go along, but we're gonna talk about eight business lessons we learned over these last few weeks.
Speaker 1:And Alex Hermosi had tweeted. Let me pull up my tweet, man. He said once you become an entrepreneur, you have only two options you eventually succeed or you give up before you do. That's it, and we know, when people start quoting alex ramosi, they think they're the best entrepreneurs ever, so uh what is that?
Speaker 1:the t, that's literally once you have people who are brand new entrepreneurs. Just start quoting alex ramosi is like, okay, here we go. Oh, luckily, we've been doing this for eight years now and, uh, he's only been in our lives the last two. But but I thought that tweet was literally the definition of entrepreneurship. It's like you don't really know when that thing is going to hit, like when it's going to take off. You have no idea and the only option is to do it or not, and once you stop it's over, you will never know if it's going to take off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is part of the reason why I think that you should have, and the only reason you're able to know to continue to do, or able to continue to do, is if you have capital to do so if you have the finances to do so now or you have the grind all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna say of course there's some stories that people would be like I was dead broke making sure, doing these different things, um, but there's not a lot of people in the world that has that that much hunger and grit to continue to do it when you're losing or you don't have any 50 cent.
Speaker 1:Got shot nine times but I'm still breathing. Well, I don't know. If that was, he could have quit rap right there.
Speaker 2:He would have, probably should have, but maybe not because of where he's at in life. So, um, luckily it worked out for him. But it's not a lot of people that have that really grit, that you can try, try, try, try, even while being broke down, depressed and things like that. So majority of society is not going to operate that way. So that's the reason why we all speak about having capital to be able to continue when things ain't going well, because things ain't going to go well.
Speaker 1:Never start anything on your last dime, unless you got that 50 cent hunger in you. Like I'm going to make it. It has to work or it has to work, and these past weeks have been, I don't want to say hard, but it's been challenging, challenging, is a good one. We're going to talk about a couple of lessons that we learned over the last couple of weeks when it comes to business, and just some takeaways that you know. Everything for me especially, I'm always thinking about the takeaways. I'm always thinking about shaking your head.
Speaker 2:Because I'd be like, not everything is a takeaway, I'm just operating here.
Speaker 1:There are takeaways, I believe, that we can all have, and that's why I wanted to bring it to the episode today and one of the first things that have been, especially and you guys get some insight into our lives when it comes to business One of our payment processors literally stopped working. Now, what is a payment processor? So essentially, the way you process payments. They said we are stopped, it's going to be stopped on this date, and no rhyme or reason. There was no phone calls or anything. There was nothing we could have done about it and they literally stopped. Now you may say, ok, let's's get another one, which is fine and dandy, but when you have thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that are happening recurringly, yeah, which means it happens week, daily, monthly and all those payments stop. There is no, just find another one, right?
Speaker 1:there is no, just, oh, you could do this. And I don't want to hear none of that, because now I'm losing money, now you're losing money, that happened.
Speaker 2:And when I say that was just, a mental that took over a lot of mental space. Mental, and I don't want to hear none of that because now I'm losing money, now you're losing money. That happened. And when I say that was just a mental, that took over a lot of mental space, mental and physical.
Speaker 1:A lot of conversations, conversations, do this, don't do this, and when you Google it, you're like, yeah, people are. This has happened to multiple people before in the past and it's like, yeah, my multimillion dollar business was shut down and I just had to like pivot, had to pivot and I'm like, if they, if they, if they are able to say that I'm just going to pivot, well, I guess we could do the same with a couple thousand.
Speaker 1:We have to. So that was literally something that we were just. Well, you made it work, we made it work Right. So I know that I want them to feel my pain. We just go to the. I made it work Because you have to make it work right.
Speaker 2:Why would you just say, like you can't just say, all right, they're shutting things down? The biggest thing, I think, is also remember you don't own anything with all these companies that you're working with, so you don't own YouTube. You don't own Instagram. You don't own anything first of all, so you're utilizing them. They're taking a cut, you're getting a cut, but at the end of the day, they can do what they want to do you know what you right want to talk about, that airbnb thing you sent me oh yeah, that was a good one too, was that that's not on?
Speaker 2:your list that's on my list, but where would you put that? Maybe that's a separate thing or a part of this payment processor?
Speaker 1:could be there.
Speaker 2:Could, I would say it could be the same thing, but yeah, yeah, the fact is you don't own anything and I was just bringing into this, so I sent I saw a tweet and I sent it to Anthony that apparently someone had a Airbnb property. They had great views like a super host. If you didn't know, if you're a super host on Airbnb, you're doing really well. And they also had upcoming bookings of over I think they said $100,000. Apparently, they tweeted something that I don't even. I personally don't think it was too crazy. I don't remember. He said what he had tweeted to. He tweeted something and that is what impacted Airbnb to shut down his profile, just like that's it.
Speaker 2:If you don't know, some of these companies don't have a phone number. There is no talking to someone, there's just email back and forth forth. There is no. They didn't allow for opportunity investigation or anything like that, but it was something to do with something that he had tweeted. I guess they didn't like it. And he found his profile on airbnb. He didn't mention that, but found his profile on airbnb and shut it down. Now, that's your livelihood, right, if I don't know if he has other businesses, but that's your livelihood, right If I don't know if he has other businesses, but that's your livelihood that you're just done. Yeah, got to find another platform If that, if they allow that, I don't even know completely shut down. Now, that is just an example of the fact that you don't own any of these businesses you. You work with them. Yes, it's a partnership, it's a contract, but at the end of the the day, they can do what they want when they want I'm gonna bring that.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna bring that to this point is like never rely on never rely on a third party to help you run your business. So this is about the payment processor, but this is also about running your business on airbnb. You have an airbnb business. That is a challenge, because now air Airbnb is the business and they're just sending you what they want to send you, right, if you have a short term rental business that just happens to be ran on Airbnb as well, or.
Speaker 1:VBRO or short term, you know, rental stays or any of these platforms okay, but and then we talk about the cleaning business. A lot of people are like, oh, I run my business on Thumbtack, I run my business on Angie's List and it's like, no, you should not be running your full-blown business on these platforms, because once they take you off, they take you off, you are now shut down. So the lesson in that is always have a backup plan and taking action. So for us now we're not talking about our business is based on multiple platforms, right, and we own our own traffic. Once we have the leads, they're ours.
Speaker 1:Airbnb doesn't let you own that traffic. They keep the name, email, phone number, that's theirs. You can never remarket to those clients unless you kind of do your own thing. So you don't actually own that, but always have a backup plan. Now, if they shut you down at Airbnb, maybe you could send everybody to VRBO, but again, you don't have that contact information. You're kind of stuck. So when it came to our payment platform, I would have said for us, if we had a backup plan more immediate, that would have helped. But I think if we would have took action sooner, we would be able to save some of that more recurring income, but um action over perfection every single day of the week, so don't build your business off of somebody else's back on somebody else's platform. That would probably be rule number one.
Speaker 2:Okay, number two, this story. Now, this is just like a business story. What could be the takeaway from that? Going back down from these big companies? This may be it.
Speaker 1:They own that what you going to do to Airbnb?
Speaker 2:No, not talking about that. I'm talking about this story here. Oh, okay. This one's yours, I'm trying to see what the lesson would be. I don't know if I have a lesson for it, but it is an interesting story and maybe you'll get something for it. There is a TikToker whose name was Ciara Miss, spelled differently from the soda brand Ciara Miss, but people may not know what. That is the soda? Yeah, who don't know what? If you don't know what is that? An East Coast soda.
Speaker 1:Like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:I'm just saying people people's ages range when they're watching this show, and location matters. You haven't seen sierra mist in a while and you never wondered why. That's the topic. That's the topic, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, sierra mist is a soda. That was a soda, was this brand? That's always been associated with sprite, in my head at least, like if someone doesn't have a sprite, maybe they got a seven up or a sierra mist. You haven't seen seven up either. You haven't seen seven up either, but I don't have a storyite. Maybe they got a 7-Up or a Sierra Mist. You haven't seen 7-Up either. You haven't seen 7-Up either, but I don't have a story for 7-Up. Maybe they'll have a 7-Up or Sierra Mist. They taste similar. Now, if you're a soda connoisseur, you may be like no, they're not. I don't know the details, but they're clear sodas. They got some bubbles. They taste similar.
Speaker 2:Sprite is obviously more popular than Sierra Miss, but we haven't seen Sierra Miss because and you might not have noticed it, neither have I, but I saw on TikTok there was a TikTok TikToker with the name Sierra Miss in her name, but I think she spelled it with an S or something and Pepsi, who owns Sierra Miss, sent her like a cease and desist and said you got to change your names to similar to our soda, sierra Miss. She in turn I don't know if this was the thought of her and her lawyers, I have no idea who thought of this Decided to, I guess, check the trademark of Ciara Mist and saw that it had expired. And she bought the trademark and now owns the trademark of Ciara Mist, estoda. So they have changed the name now.
Speaker 1:So that's not even a kicker.
Speaker 2:Here's the kicker They've now changed the name to Starry. Now you might have seen these commercials because Ice Spice is in the commercial. So it's a really recent commercial of a Starry drink and that is the former CRMS. Basically, it's like an unbelievable story of how you see, like what is the lesson? I'm like I don't know, don't back down or protect your ish.
Speaker 1:Protect yourself.
Speaker 2:Her thing was that why are they coming after me? One, I'm not selling soda. I'm not selling soda. Two, I don't spell it the same way as you guys. And three, I'm like a nobody. I think she had traction, like she has followers, I think when you go on it. Now I don't know how many followers she has on TikTok and on YouTube, but she's just like I don't understand why they came for me. And now she's like yeah, I won't, I won't sell it back. They've asked me to. It's been a rumor that they've offered to sell um, give her a 10 million, but she said no, we don't know how true this is Um, but yeah, she owns Sierra Miss, now the trademark. So Pepsi, the big company. Pepsi had to change the name of their soda to Starry, and that's the other thing. Be ready to pivot.
Speaker 1:Be ready to pivot. Be ready to pivot At the end of the day. We're not worried about Sierra Miss, because Starry is now Starry is now it.
Speaker 2:Ice Spice is one of the biggest people in the you know world right now.
Speaker 1:That is the business lesson for that one? Because when you told me that story I'm like we got to tell this story on a podcast some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:You're like how do people not know this? Because it just came up on my feed.
Speaker 1:I'm like why didn't we know this? And we didn't even think about Sierra Mist at all. But we just see the story. We never wondered where it came from.
Speaker 2:But you know, I thought about it as well in relation to, because we speak to our students and people talk about oh, should I trademark my name or should I trademark my logo? And I'm like you know what, nobody, nobody cares about you. Not disrespectful to you, nobody cares. And if they do, just change it, just change it specifically for the cleaning business. There may be things that, okay, it's a bigger brand and you may not want to do that, but for the cleaning, I'm like, just change it. It's not that deep, deep. So Pepsi had to go and change it. I guess they wanted to keep Starry around Sierra.
Speaker 1:Mist is Starry.
Speaker 2:And same colors, same branding in a way, you can tell, you can tell, and if you now know.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh well, I can see how that makes sense. But now they're in the NBA and they do all these sports commercials and stuff like that. So I thought commercials and stuff like that. So I thought that was uh. I was like, wow, I was so amazed by that story.
Speaker 2:I was like how is this not like everywhere, everywhere, but probably because the aramis was.
Speaker 1:This is one of the things that you get from tiktok that I'm like okay, this tiktok thing is actually useful and helpful, so hopefully it's not banned in the us. So, um, what did I have? So number three for me was make more offers. Um, your audience want to buy something from you. They just don't know what else you have, right? So we have our cleaning business university, our signature course, and we have our cleaning business university community, which is our signature platform as well.
Speaker 1:But we realized that there were students who wanted more from us, but we just didn't. We just didn't recognize it. We I mean, I think we recognized we wasn't really sure what they would want, how, yeah. So we used to do these eight-week programs, or four-week or six-week. We kind of just guide you through and walk you through and kind of give you that extra support and help. Yo, what's going on, guys? Did you know? We own a seven-figure cleaning business and we use that business in order to pay off $114,000 of debt? We use that business to help us travel more, save more money and eventually become financially free. If any of that sounds good to you, check out Cleaning Business University, where we teach you how to launch and scale a six now seven-figure cleaning business. And the best part about it is that you do not have to clean homes yourself. I know that sounds crazy, but check out Cleaning Business University. We give you more in-depth information about that. Check it out and we will see you.
Speaker 1:On the other side and we was like, let's just do it again. And we rolled it out and I'm not gonna say the numbers, but we were a week and a half. We got, you know, quite a few people in it. That was just like yo. I just needed more help and I didn't know where else to get the help from. And I want you guys to remember that people are on your list. People buy from you once. They can always buy from you again, so don't be afraid to remarket an offer or just make more offers. If someone joins our list, that means at some point they want to buy something from us. Right, they were ready to go, they were excited and they might've bought something, but there was nothing else that they could buy or they could afford or they could afford at the time.
Speaker 1:So always making offers to your audience, that they are on your list. Whether it's Target, whether it's Walmart, whether it's JCPenney or Macy's, they are always marketing to you. So always market an offer to your audience because they want to buy something. You got to give them the ability to buy something.
Speaker 2:And I think about that in a bigger capacity, because somebody be like well, how does it pertain to the cleaning business? How does it pertain to this? I think about, like, for a sec I don't know if you guys know Bays, the luggage brand. They started out as just as luggage, right, but then it turns into a backpack, laptop bag, a baby bag, a diaper bag, like all different type of your travel caddy, all different things, extensions of that, because people want more right.
Speaker 2:So for the cleaning business, you're like, yeah, I clean, can you offer organizing? Can you offer carpet cleaning? Can you cleaning business? You're like, yeah, I clean, can you offer organizing? Can you offer carpet cleaning? Can you offer, you know, laundry? Like there's other things you can do that can be an extension, probably in any business that you have that you're not thinking of that. Other people, that people that have bought from you already would like, just don't know how to ask, like they're not going to come back and say, hey, you don't got this, you should have this in your store. Uh, some people will, but most people will not come back and just give that information. So try to think of how can you help your clients on all levels, if anything, those that may be just starting out, those that want more, those that can't afford it this, those that can afford it lower. So that's something that we've definitely been thinking about continuously.
Speaker 1:The past few weeks, I didn't Even with the last coaching calls we've been doing was we had one of our one of our students come back and he was. He started his business maybe in 2023 or something like that. He came back. I think he's doing about five thousand dollars a month and he was like I came back because, you know, I wanted more help, but I didn't want the. The larger group community and you guys came and offered this, and last time time you did it it was closed. So now when he opened, we opened it back up, he was all in. But one of the things he, the group, has reminded me of is that we're afraid to just remarket to our current audience. So we're talking about emails, we're talking about text messages, we're talking about, hey, getting back on the schedule, or, if they were a current client or current lead, remarketing to them as well. We're like well, I don't want to bug them, I don't want to annoy them, but then you always give the target the Walmart, those examples where they will always be in your inbox.
Speaker 1:So if someone was on your email list once and they wanted something, who says they don't want it again? So don't be afraid to just remarket your offers to your current client base or just previous leads. So that's just a reminder for everyone.
Speaker 2:Yep, everyone yep, because they will just unsubscribe and I want you to unsubscribe.
Speaker 1:You can unsubscribe if you don't want to get my emails. It's real easy. Quicker you unsubscribe, the quicker I get to the person that I'm looking for, or the person that is looking for me finds me or speaking of target.
Speaker 2:Now we in target probably two times, two to three times a week.
Speaker 2:Okay, nuts which is nuts. But target has branded themselves and they're like I really would probably listen. They probably should have a show or a documentary on the marketing or psychology of Target. And I say this because now, like, even our daughter knows that she, she wants to buy something, she wants to go to Target to buy it. One. You can buy any and everything there. Right, there is the. Well, it depends on what target. But we have a super target so you can buy, um, groceries, straight to clothes, straight to toys, books, electronics, bathroom stuff, kitchen stuff, arts and craft, gift cards, anything you need you can probably find in target.
Speaker 2:But we say, like the branding of it. Because because Anthony was saying, well, do you think she would know Walmart? And I'm like, well, we don't go to Walmart. But he's like, even if we so say, we did go to Walmart versus target, do you think she'll know it? Like that I said, maybe she'll know the name. But what target has done is they allow, it's their red shopping cart. They also same thing as a store. They also sell a target cash register which is a red cash register with white on it. Then they also it comes with a shopping bag which is like the red with the circles, whatever the target, the target logo and it has like a Target dog. If you didn't know, all of that is included in these things, so the branding go ahead.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say even a step deeper on, that is, the products inside those Target bags are the Good Gather. I think that's the name of it that's their brand. Target's brand, like the little fake, fake cereal, fake Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, is the Good and gather. Now she has that and she knows what that is and she can see it and know it.
Speaker 2:So they have really the psychology behind it, besides people just being obsessed with targets. Like you know, it's that running joke I walk in to buy one thing, I leave with seven, or I spent a hundred and I was came to spend 20. It's that running joke of that. But there is a lot of truth behind that, and especially with, like you know, your children and stuff. So the marketing behind target is genius. I would say the convenience of it. They allow you to check out independently. Um, I don't know, I don't, like I said, I don't know the details of it, but it should be studied what target is doing and how they're able to sustain and continue to grow year after year after year. Um, as a supermarket, I don't even know what to call a department store.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what to call that at this point probably a department store and then what makes them different from a walmart? I think walmart is less expensive, absolutely, I think one of the things is just, uh, the branding itself. Right, you, you would get. It's like the iPhone and the Android, the.
Speaker 2:Android is a better phone.
Speaker 1:It is definitely All around the quality, the gadgets, the ads, the pictures, everything about the.
Speaker 2:Android is a superior phone.
Speaker 1:But Apple has branded themselves as a superior branded product. So you as a consumer now think you're better than an Android user based on the branding of the Apple product Android. You don't really see their commercials so much. I mean, they got commercials but it's not. That's a good question. So Apple was able to brand itself as a luxury product, even though the Android itself.
Speaker 2:Apple has Apple Events. Android doesn't have Android Events. I have no idea.
Speaker 1:But they've been able to brand themselves in such a way where people are now like I'm better than you because I have an iphone, you don't. So showing up green in my phone, I think that's you mess up the group chats as well. Exactly so when it comes to the, even with the target as I don't want to go to, I don't go to walmart because it's just dirty and nasty and it's just different and I walk in it's, I walk into. I walk into walmart. I might. It might be cheaper, but it's just. Things are just all over the place, the aisles are just all over the place and you don't know where anything is and you can't find any help. And I mean target may be the same wherever you live, but I know for fact the target that's by me and the walmart that's by. It's just night and day.
Speaker 2:It's two different things.
Speaker 1:It's two different experiences just walking in the experience.
Speaker 2:yeah, so how can you?
Speaker 1:brand yourself as an experience versus just being the bottom of the barrel when it comes to pricing, because that's what Walmart is. Walmart rollback, that little smiley face, oh yeah, that's all they got.
Speaker 2:But we know Target got the nice dog with the spot eye and it's cute and with the spot eye and it's cute and as soon as you walk into Target. At least our Target to the left is Starbucks. That's part of branding If people enjoy that. Many people like coffee.
Speaker 1:I don't know what Walmart has.
Speaker 2:They don't have a big they don't have something I don't know.
Speaker 1:We don't go to Walmart enough. We got to go do an experiment in Walmart how? About that. We Walmart to Target.
Speaker 2:We just don't go. Maybe you might be right, but yes, the marketing psychology at Target, I think it's something a sight to see, if you will. Like I said, I get emails from them all the time. Most of the time I just delete it. Sometimes I open it up and star it and say, okay, I need to get this, so next one was draw a line in the sand.
Speaker 1:So this one was an interesting one. So I tweeted about what was literally the tweet. So I said people think about the return on investment. People always say no, no, no, no. Let me get the actual tweet. I want the real tweet because I want you guys to know exactly what I said and how I said it. So it was a tweet about buying a house, right, and I said I don't even know where it came from.
Speaker 2:You put it on the page on the Instagram page.
Speaker 1:Oh, that buying a house is a bad investment goes out the window when you have a wife and kids. You don't buy a house when you have a family as a good investment. You buy a house because you're making a good life decision for your family. And that tweet got some traction Because are you saying you have a bad life decision if you choose an apartment no, I'll so that's why I say that so that's.
Speaker 1:That's the thing about drawing a line in the sand, because people are going to either fall in love with what you're saying or they're going to absolutely hate it. So you got to be able to draw your lining in sand. So, like I'll tweet some things from time to time, I'll say there is no such thing as good debt.
Speaker 1:And then where you draw the line, that's the line no, the line is I'm not saying, oh, people are like, oh, there's good debt and bad debt. I'm saying there is no such thing as good debt. And now people who are saying, oh well, you could buy, you could use debt to buy an investment which makes you money. The word debt alone is not positive, so that's what I'm saying. So, when it comes to drawing a line in the sand, you're going to get the people who are more likely aligned with you on your side, but then also the people who are not in alignment with you are now going to treat it as controversy. So that tweet was kind of like a I don't want to say a clickbaity tweet, but it's one of those things I know people are going to disagree with because, like Like the question I just asked, so does that mean I'm making a bad decision?
Speaker 1:if I buy. So, like Rah, I'll teach you how to be rich.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I got my guy's book Like literally I read the book or you read the book.
Speaker 2:I read the book.
Speaker 1:Right, we've read the book, so he's one of those guys that talks about not owning a house not owning a house. He's like buying a house is a bad investment most of the time.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I and I think.
Speaker 2:I've had with his scenarios.
Speaker 1:Most of the time these people he's speaking with to that. It was like I said buying a house is a great return on life, not a return? Not a return on money, not a return on investment a great return on life. I said, if you're married with kids, buying a house is a great return on life. And people started commenting like, oh, that makes sense, because you're thinking about, like I always come to you about, oh, what's the return on the investment? Or this, like sometimes you just want stuff because it's a great return on your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think Alani was in the backyard with Blue or something like that and I'm like, damn, I couldn't imagine being back in an apartment, not having this space and freedom to just do our own thing. Now, buying a house might not be a great investment for some people, but it's a great return on life. So that was just about drawing the line in the sand, especially when it comes to just creating a brand for yourself and just want to be known for something or not known for anything else. That was just one of those things that I thought was pretty interesting, because it started going my version of viral. I'm like, all right, let me mute this. And then, yeah, people sending me comments and tweets from oh, this person says this about our house, and it wasn't about you, it wasn't about me, it was just about the opinion on a return on life. So, drawing a line in the sand when it comes to just building your brand, but then also standing on something, standing a 10 feet down.
Speaker 1:That's it, and I still don't stand back, and I read his book and we watched the YouTube and we didn't watch the Netflix special, but it's the same thing as a book. And the funny thing is I don't disagree with my guy, but it's like I don't think he has kids. I don't know how long he's been married, but the tweet was for people who are married with kids. They're going to think differently.
Speaker 2:If the shoe don't fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're going to think differently than a person who's just married Absolutely, or a person who's single, or a person who's just dating right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because if we were married I mean for us we were married for what? Six years before we got into a house with our dog and we probably would have stayed in the apartment a lot longer if we didn't have kids. So I would agree completely with that, because we don't mind apartment living, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:We had the amenities, we had the sky and we had the gym and the pool and all of that yeah. I would agree, but going back to Return on Life, having Loni being able to run through the backyard in her slippers and whatnot, so being able to make a line in the sand and standing on business.
Speaker 2:So number six is not to be too consumed about protecting your family name. You forget to protect your own family. So this was from a Netflix special that we watched A man in Full is the name. Repeat that one more time. Don't be so consumed about protecting your family name. You forget to protect your family.
Speaker 2:So A man in Full is the show that we watched I think it's like seven episodes on Netflix A quick watch, you can check it out when it was just a real estate mogul that had a lot of debt and a bank was basically asking for the money back because he was spending it lavishly. Essentially, that was that's the synopsis of it. There's more to to them to the show, but that was the synopsis of it. And he was all like you know, when you're, when he's a mogul like close to I don't know how much money, I don't know how much he was like 900 owned or something like that.
Speaker 2:But he was very rich. So you know power and everything plays into that and he was so focused on just like making sure of like pride and you not taking me down.
Speaker 1:His name was on his sky rise that he owned yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, rightfully so. I guess he was so focused on that. But when it came to the family side, he had had a divorce, he had a new wife but he also had a child. Not the best relationship, but it seems like the son was just like you know, you're like this is my dad and I'm gonna stick beside him. He was just trying to be around him, but he didn't have the best relationship when it came to family and even friends. I wouldn't say he had that many friends either.
Speaker 2:So it was just kind of like we were not at that point, obviously, of owning 900 million. So I don't know how I would act, but I would hope that I would still maintain the love and the friendships and things that I've had around me and not just focus on only the business. Now I know people say people that are billionaires, people that are up there there, they have to be a certain way to maintain that. Okay. But the point of all of it really is prop is generally to give back to your family. Right is generally, I want to make this money for me to live a good life and my family to live a good life, and if I don't have those connections, then really, what's the point? What am I still climbing for?
Speaker 1:yeah, that was. That was a really good show, number one. You guys should watch it. What is it? A man in Full.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he won't be watching nothing and I don't watch a lot of things, but this kind of goes to the same thing, where we see where people are, like you got to change your circle, but you never see those people who really get successful at that level around the same people that they either grew up with or they don't really have that tight circle of friends or family or influence and not just let me. I would say kanye west is an example of that where he got, so you don't see him with anybody around him.
Speaker 2:Really, well, you can't compare kanye west because he things have escalated for him.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying like usually you get push people away. Yeah, that's the exact point I'm making. Like, usually you get push people away. Yeah, that's the exact point I'm making is that you get so super wealthy where you're just consumed with what you're, what you're trying to get, to which you're trying to obtain, you forget everything that's happening around you.
Speaker 1:Um, and then that was just a reminder, like we was watching the show and I'm like, damn, his relation with his family is not that good. He really don't got that many friends and his closest friend is like a lawyer who has to, like, help him out of like that. So don't get so consumed on chasing whatever that thing you're chasing that you forget the reason you're doing it for. And I think that's what the whole show, in my opinion, as I'm watching it, was about. Because he was, he wasn't well like many, not many friends, not many family members around him and he was just trying to get out these binds and chase these next things. So don't be too consumed about the end goal that you forget the reason you're doing it for.
Speaker 2:Yep, so that was the gem from that one, Number seven Red Lobster. Now, if you didn't know, we'll get to the lesson of it, but Red Lobster is my favorite restaurant and Red Lobster has filed bankruptcy and started closing down locations Like they just one day one day they announced it, the next day they're like we closing locations.
Speaker 2:So our crew here in Dallas decided to go out to Red Lobster to make sure our kids at least has experienced some Cheddar Bay biscuits, to say that they've had it. I wasn't in town to celebrate there, but Anthony said while there they met someone really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So this is about just finding good people in unlikely places. So imagine this. Let me give you guys a scenario. So imagine you go to your job and your boss is like, yeah, we're going to close down in a couple weeks, right, and you still show up to work because you still want to get paid. Did this?
Speaker 2:location say they were closing soon. We didn't. They didn't know.
Speaker 1:They didn't have any idea.
Speaker 1:Oh, they didn't know, we asked the people that were there when you guys were going to close and they were like we don't know yet. Imagine you're going to work, you know they're going to close, but you don't know when they're going to close. But you know you got to get paid. How the hell? Attitude like you don't want to be here, you're not happy to be here, you know you're losing your job, you're not figuring, you don't know what's next. There's so much uncertainty in your life where you need this job to maintain and this server that we had had the complete opposite of that. He was friendly, he was cheerful, he was cracking jokes, he was exciting, he was accommodating, he was everything that you would have wanted in a server. And if you you want to do some extra credit, take a screenshot of your phone. Or if you're driving in the car, take a screenshot of your dashboard. Tag us Tag us on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Let us know you are tapping in so that we can repost you and show you some love too.
Speaker 2:You can tag us at more than a side hustle podcast or at the heart. We have two ways that you can tap in with us. We appreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 1:And we were sitting there, y'all have four kids with y'all. We have four kids. There was how many adults? Five adults, five adults, four kids, we had a full table, kids is making noise, whatever.
Speaker 1:And he was just coming over. He was seeing he was also serving multiple tables at a time it wasn't talk about. Obviously they're closing and he's like we're just you know, we're trying to make it work. Just please be patient, I'll do what I can. Oh, was your lobster full? Sorry, he was actually pretty full. And uh, he was like yeah, I'm just you know. So he came aboard the sales. Hey guys, I'm gonna give you guys this free salads, because if it was gonna take some time, I'm like oh, we're getting free salads. He's like it's on the house.
Speaker 2:He's like we won't be here too much longer.
Speaker 1:But it's on the house, right, he's cracking jokes and we were just like, damn, this guy's really good this whole time. Um, his name is, uh, andrew, I believe, yeah, andrew, and he's really good and accommodating like yo, what are you doing after this? He's like I don't know. I'm out to figure it out. I got wife and kids. I believe he said he was a vet, whatever. And I'm like yo, if I could help this guy out, I could, right, and I would.
Speaker 1:So at the end of the conversation we were all checking out, we gave him an amazing tip. He was super flexible with everything and at the end of the night, I'm like yo, you know what? I don't know if I got a role for you or not, but check us out on social media. Here's my phone number. Shoot me a text and maybe we can figure something out. Maybe there's a role for you in our company, right? And I have no idea. He's like what do you do? I'm like, oh, I own a cleaning business. I also own an education business where we help people start their own cleaning businesses. Check out cleaningbusiness. That's a quick, um, commercial break.
Speaker 1:But I was like I don't know what you could do, but you have a great personality, we might be able to figure something out. And now I say all that to say I don't know where that's going to go. Right, he might never hit me up or he might, and then I still might not be able to know where he's gonna go, but I'm like he was a great person, great personality, and I'm like we could figure something out. So I would say, when you're thinking about business and business is all around us sometimes you might be looking for people online. It might make sense to get offline and find good people online I mean in person. So that was the moral of that. So you might find good people in unlikely places. So always show up and do your best, because you never know who's going to be watching you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in any capacity.
Speaker 2:I agree. So now I tweeted about this guy. The tweet went fake viral. I know who's going to be watching you?
Speaker 1:yeah, in any capacity, I agree. So now, wherever you go? I tweeted about this guy. The tweet went fake viral. I posted it on our social viral page on tweets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my, my teeth be going off. Um, I posted on our social media page too, like yo, that's great idea. Blah, blah, blah. And now we're talking about it on a podcast, right? You never know who's gonna be watching you, so maybe I'll run into andrew. I might go run on him like yo. You hit you didn't hit me up yet. What's good, you trying to work or not?
Speaker 2:We can figure this out.
Speaker 1:You never know who's watching. You never know what opportunities may be out there for you. So always show up in your best capacity when you can. That's the moral of that story.
Speaker 2:All right, and our last lesson learned in our weeks of existing, I guess these last couple weeks? Number eight is businesses everywhere. So we have a child and if you have a child, you probably know who Miss Rachel is. So we just there is a whole thing. We constantly have conversations about Miss Rachel and there's also somebody named Blippi and Mika, and the reason why we're talking about this is because we recently went to a Blippi and Mika show locally and so we always like why Miss Rachel don't got, why Miss Rachel don't got? And even before then, during Christmas, I saw Amazon sent the book Blippi has like merchandise, so tons of merch, like actual toys and books and all these things. Miss Rachel does not have this. So we were like the comparison of the two, like trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1:And then we went down a rabbit hole with him.
Speaker 2:Went down a rabbit hole with him, went down a rabbit hole with him and for her. Ms Rachel was a school teacher that started doing videos online because she couldn't find. I think her son had like a speech issue. She couldn't find those type of videos, so she started doing it on her own. Husband is a musician on Broadway, composer, something like that he's done. So he does the music, she does the videos. If you look at her older videos, it's very like very baseline in her apartment, just getting it done. So that's who she is and that's how she has started.
Speaker 2:To my knowledge, she still owns this um, miss rachel, I think it's called songs for Littles or whatever. She still owns this YouTube or whatever. Now, blippi, on this other side, he also has somebody named Mika and he goes to different locations, which is a bigger difference from Miss Rachel. Once again, she was a teacher, so their lessons are a little different, and so we're like why doesn't Miss Rachel have A, b and C? Because any parent that you speak to would say Miss Rachel is a third parent or someone that they love in the household. Maybe your kid watches Blippi, maybe not, but everyone knows Miss Rachel, so she could be bigger if you will, doing tours of shows and having merchandise if you will, but she doesn't. She's finally coming out with her first book this year I think it's september, finally, um, and so we were talking about the differences of the two of them. Like she still owns it, he has sold it. It is actually her doing it, all those other things. So what else did we learn about? Well, the differences number one.
Speaker 1:He started his youtube. It was just a youtube page that he started and just him dressing up which is blippy him dressing up.
Speaker 2:This is 2000 and yeah, I don't know how long she's been around a while too but you could look it up or something um but, we found out that he sold the rights to his show for 10 million dollars.
Speaker 1:Was it 10 or 100? Was it 100? It was 10, it wasn't 100. $100? Was it $100?
Speaker 2:It was $10. It wasn't $100.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was $100. $10 million. It was a YouTube channel that he just started.
Speaker 2:She started in 2019.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in a couple years she'll be where he is, and if not further. So you got somebody who's done the thing that you want to do, and the problem is that a lot of times we like, um, what was it? I forgot what the tweet was, but essentially he started this channel and he was just posting these videos and essentially sold it to was it disney or sony or something like some studio, something like that for 10 million dollars and he sold the rights. He sold you know whatever, and he's just living his life. We're on his instagram page and he was just in his car doing a video or something like that. But could you imagine starting something on youtube that you didn't even know was going to take off the way it did and being able to sell it for, I think, 10 years later for 10 million dollars or something like that? I told you it was something big.
Speaker 2:He was acquired for 120 million by moonbug entertainment, which then was acquired from by disney so disney bought it from he, so it was acquired for 120 million.
Speaker 1:Wow, it wasn't 10 120 120 million dollars. I don't know if you got 120 million.
Speaker 2:We got to look that up it says steven john sold blippy in a deal valued okay, maybe it's not the valued at 120 million dollars in december 2023 so, and then they sold it to Disney for $3 billion.
Speaker 1:$3 billion with a B. So you're like well, how does this even apply to business? I don't know, but business is. Well, this is a business, this is a full business. Business is everywhere. And we're having this conversation Like how did they even start? Right, this is one of the things we do in our household. Like you guys may not Like we would so, like you guys may not like we will be sitting there watching something. I'm like damn, what is he? Like? It was just a who is he?
Speaker 2:Cause you're always like who the hell is he? Why are we going to the show? Cause we were going to the show and the show was expensive.
Speaker 1:It was like $70 a person.
Speaker 2:I don't remember $60 a person Like this. Show is expensive and the merchandise that they were selling and the glasses and the kids.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how big it was until we got to that show, because he's not as big for us in our household as it was for the people at that show. They clearly knew songs that we didn't know, and we were like we're so far behind.
Speaker 2:I mean Alani's only two.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's the furthest we'll be Two years in, but we came. I came back and I was just so baffled by how do all these people Know who this guy is and how big is he? Cause we watched A little 10-15 minute video and we came back and went down a rabbit hole and we were like it was 120 billion.
Speaker 2:20 million, 20 million dollars, and we saw that Disney Bought.
Speaker 1:3 billion dollars and I was like could you imagine?
Speaker 2:and then it became why doesn't Miss Rachel have this? That's why, that's why I wrapped the whole of Miss Rachel?
Speaker 1:is Miss Rachel going to be able to sell her? So, if you think about it like this, he started 10 years before Miss Rachel. He was able to sell his for 120 million. Miss Rachel is where she is today, and she has the information that he had, plus the information that she has today, but she doesn't operate that way. Not yet, though, but it's not yet because she's, because think about it when he started he was where she is now, so he's still.
Speaker 1:She's still trying to navigate where he was eight years ago. Her first video is trying to figure this out. Now she has the understanding that he was able to sell his for 120 million. If you're able to take the information that somebody already has, they he started in 2014. 2014. She started in 2020.
Speaker 2:She started in 2019, yeah 2019.
Speaker 1:So she's five years behind him, but she also has information that he didn't have when he started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he started in 2014. He joined the Moonbud Net Entertainment in 2020, so six years after starting, and then he sold to them three years after. So within eight, eight years, he was able to sell his company at 120 million dollars.
Speaker 1:so like our um our business coach she's at five years.
Speaker 1:She was she had this uh lady on the podcast and it was someone, madam cj walker. Right, madam cj walker was the first black millionaire, first black woman millionaire, first black millionaire in general. I don't remember which one it is, but she was saying. The lady on the episode was just saying, hey, I mimicked her model and I knew that if she was able to do a million dollars back then, I should be able to do $100 million in my business today. And Donnie was just saying that I can't fathom doing $100 million. She's like no, you need to fathom doing $500 million. She's like, no, you need to fathom doing $500 million. She's like, if I'm able to do $100 million and she was able to do $1 million, you should be able to do $500 million. And now it just makes you think differently. So if Ms Rachel saw that he sold his company for $120 million.
Speaker 1:I have the information that he didn't have. I have the tools that he didn't have, the technology. I have the, the ai, I have the graphics, I have the team I have the marketing the audience I have the branding. I have the audience that he didn't have. I should be able to sell my company for 500 million yeah and get acquired for maybe 8 billion, 10 billion.
Speaker 1:So sometimes it just takes us having that having that head start and just seeing what somebody else was doing, so that we can know what we need to do for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Agreed so we went off on a tangent on that.
Speaker 1:No, that was the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Well, you, I'm like 10 million, I'm like no, I think it was bigger than that.
Speaker 1:10 million is a lot don't get me wrong, but everywhere. But you gotta be able to look at what other people are doing and be able to say if they could do that, I should be able to do this and I know miss rachel can.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you don't, if you, okay, if you're listening, miss rachel, I know that you can and I want to see merch People will wear the jumper and the pink headband suit as well, because that's how she dresses. And yes, we know that you can be as big or bigger than them. They're doing tours. Now, obviously it's not the person, but you have to. I guess you have to license it out in order to do that and not be you yourself touring in every city.
Speaker 1:So another concept that could be applicable to this. Think about Tyler Perry.
Speaker 2:When he started and he was doing the tours, it was just him. He was doing everything himself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So now people come into the game and they see what Tyler Perry is doing, Like Kevin Hart is like I'm seeing what Tyler Perry has done with his production studio, Now I'm building it. So if Tyler Perry was able to hit a billion, Kevin Hart is like y'all got the same infrastructure and I've learned from him. So billion kevin hart is like y'all got the same infrastructure and I've learned from him, so I should be able to do quicker, more than that and faster so it's like our students just like our students.
Speaker 1:So we got students who are doing a hundred thousand in their first year. We only did 80 and didn't got students hitting a million dollars in half the time that we did. It's like if we had the, if we had the coaching, the infrastructure, the blueprint that you guys had and I was like you could have got, you should be able to do that in half the time that we did. It's all about taking that information and taking it to that next level. So business is everywhere. Consume what you have and use what the reason. Use the resources that people have given you yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So thank you for listening to our eight lessons. We didn't think of two more. It's eight. Yeah, eight business um lessons we learned over the past few weeks. Make sure you are commenting with us and let us know what's your takeaway.
Speaker 1:What was your favorite lesson?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and see you again in next week.
Speaker 1:All right guys, peace, take care.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tapping in with us again. As you know, we always ask if you guys can, please, please, go ahead and leave us five star review. Go ahead and write something. If you're enjoying what we speak about, if you listen to us week to week, please be sure to let us know that helps us to continue to grow and for other people to listen to our show as well.
Speaker 1:We appreciate it.