Magazine RainMaker Podcast
Behind the Scenes Look at the #1 Publisher for 3 Consecutive Years!
When Jeremy McCuslin, a three-time sales champion publisher, and I sat down to chat, the air buzzed with the electric charge of shared passion. Our unexpected guest opens up about his seamless transition from a music-loving teen with his own Christian radio show to a sales phenomenon. His story isn't just about ascending the ranks; it's a journey draped in the power of early experiences, shaping his professional path in ways he never anticipated.
Harness your strengths and let the competition fade into the background; that's the mantra that carried Jeremy to the top of the publishing game. I take you through my grit-filled story of going from Yellow Pages ads to triumphantly launching five magazines, each a story of perseverance and strategic thinking. Together with Jeremy, we dissect the essence of mentorship, how we've navigated sales slumps, and the importance of embracing a positive mindset. Plus, discover the entrepreneurial secrets like strategic hiring that catapulted his business success and how these can be applied to your own ventures.
Magazine RainMaker
MagazineRainMaker.com
When Jeremy McCuslin, a three-time sales champion publisher, and I sat down to chat, the air buzzed with the electric charge of shared passion. Our unexpected guest opens up about his seamless transition from a music-loving teen with his own Christian radio show to a sales phenomenon. His story isn't just about ascending the ranks; it's a journey draped in the power of early experiences, shaping his professional path in ways he never anticipated.
Harness your strengths and let the competition fade into the background; that's the mantra that carried Jeremy to the top of the publishing game. I take you through my grit-filled story of going from Yellow Pages ads to triumphantly launching five magazines, each a story of perseverance and strategic thinking. Together with Jeremy, we dissect the essence of mentorship, how we've navigated sales slumps, and the importance of embracing a positive mindset. Plus, discover the entrepreneurial secrets like strategic hiring that catapulted his business success and how these can be applied to your own ventures.
Magazine RainMaker
MagazineRainMaker.com
In this episode of the no Call Calls Ever Show. It's another record breaker, publisher spotlight, but with a twist. The twist. This guess is someone who you'd never, ever expect to be on a show called the no Call Calls Ever Show. Who is it? Let's find out.
Speaker 2:Hello. Hi, it's the no Call Calls Ever Show. Go away.
Speaker 1:Hey Well, welcome back. Viewers, listeners, charlie McDermid here with yet another awesome guest, and those of you who are watching us on YouTube, you probably already recognize the face. Those of you listening, you're probably wondering who's Charlie? God this time and there are so many great stories out there in the publishing community. We talk about Hall of Fame and certainly this guest is in there. My Lord, three times three years in a row number one publisher when it comes to sales volume. Let me reveal our guest today, jeremy McCosley. Jeremy, how you doing, hey?
Speaker 3:Charlie doing great Thanks for having me on your show. Thanks for fitting us in. I didn't think I would ever be on a show called no Call Calls Ever.
Speaker 1:How about that? You know you picked up on that. Now you know, for our listeners and viewers. Jeremy didn't know the name of the show. I just said, hey, jeremy, come on the show. And so he's picking up on this and he's still here. No, just kidding. But you and I both know what you do and we'll get into that and how that saves the publishers from that. I don't know. Can I say that evil, that dang cold calling madness, let's call it necessary evil there we go hey it's revenue generating activity?
Speaker 1:Obviously the sales industry. Where would it be without cold calling? No doubt. But we have listeners who maybe don't know you, aren't familiar with you because you've been out of the industry for a little bit here. Let's start there, jeremy Phil, send it on your background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've been in sales all of my life. I would say that I got into sales accidentally. I think my dream. I had a couple. One was to be a rap star, another was to play or do you sing?
Speaker 3:I used to enjoy music. I still enjoy music. Used to enjoy rap music I'm kidding with that but I've always enjoyed music. In fact, my father I didn't grow up with him, but he was a disc jockey and he owned his own music service disc jockey. So I had a love for music and radio and that's how I got into sales. I was interning at a radio station in Washington State.
Speaker 3:I'm from Oklahoma, lived here most of my life, except for a couple of years I lived in Washington State and I really wanted to get into radio broadcasting. So I, long story short, contacted a local radio station and I said hey, I'd like to learn radio, I will work for free, I'll do whatever you want. And it started by the grunt work go clean our file cabinets and I was just happy to be around it. I was thrilled I was 16, 17 years old at that point and how I got into sales, I had a desire to have my own radio show. I'm a 16, 17 year old kid and approaching the management saying I want my own show, I had the mind that that's probably not going to go over too well Dollars talk and for some reason I realized that at this point. So, long story short.
Speaker 3:I had this brilliant idea Before I asked them for my own show let me go get sponsors for a show. So I didn't ask permission, I just went out and started talking to businesses. I got commitments. And not only did I get commitments to do my own show, it was a completely different format. The radio station was the 70s, 80s and 90s and I wanted to start a Christian radio show. And so I had a Christian radio show on Sunday mornings for a couple of years, called Celebration. So it was a completely different format. And when I went to him and said, hey, I have these sponsorships, I want to start this show. Oh, you mean, they're going to pay the X amount of dollars, whatever it was, I don't remember. And that's how I got into sales and it really got into my blood and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:And how old were you again?
Speaker 3:16? About 15 years old, yeah, yeah. So I'm surprised. I'm surprised the businesses even listened to me, but I must have said something interesting. Or maybe they just felt sorry for me, I'm not sure, or a combination of both. How long did you do that? A couple years, until I was about 18. Then I left Washington and came back to Oklahoma and the show actually went on. I don't know for how long, but I know for a while. Afterwards I had someone take it over and it continued and became pretty popular. It was the only Christian radio show, and I'll throw in this real quick. I don't want to take all the time, but I'll tell you how outdated it was.
Speaker 3:A small radio station in a small town. How I would get my weather report. If I wanted to do the weather, if I had enough cash on me, I would stop at the 7-11 and get a newspaper. That's if I had the money that morning. If I didn't have the dollar or 50 cents or whatever it was, I would open the windows and, oh, okay, I'm going to take a guess. That's how I did my weather report. You have to be creative sometimes.
Speaker 3:Radio can be a tough business, so I got my foot in the door with radio and that kind of got me into cells. I found that I love music. I thought I wanted to go into broadcasting. I did that, but I really fell in love with cells. Then it just took off from there.
Speaker 1:So I know you had a number of careers in sales, but eventually you made the decision to become a publisher. How did you get into the publishing business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I did have a number of careers in cells. Most of my cells not completely, but the vast majority of my selling has been advertising cells. So the radio was the first. Then, a few years later, I came back to Tulsa to go to Bible College and I worked at a company called Dial America which was a cold calling. We called residential, we did cold calls. I don't think I even shared this with you, charlie. We called and sold all kinds of things over the phone. So that really helped me learn how to use the phone, which I didn't realize. That little petty job would really help me. And I did that for a couple of years. And then I worked for a company called Impact Productions and we sold over the phone. Mind you, we sold commercials, television commercials to churches. So if you're out there and you think what you sell is tough, try selling television commercials to pastors. Anyway, I did that for a couple years, Very successful. It was fun. So I started in radio cells, then television, then before the publishing company. I won't mention the name, but it has three letters in it. I'm kidding, yeah, I work for now.
Speaker 3:If you're under 40 years old you probably don't know what a yellow pages is, but Charlie and I know what yellow pages are. So I sold yellow page ads for about 12 years. I loved it. I was very successful at it. I loved it. But to answer your question, how I got into publishing, particularly magazine publishing, is I decided to leave that career. I loved it. I just really got tired of corporate America. It was a corporate type job and I really wanted to have the autonomy and freedom which is number one to me. And I came across a magazine publisher job and I did that for close to eight years very successfully before I started this business. So I've done radio, television yellow pages and within yellow pages we sold digital, we sold direct mail and then magazine ads. So a pretty good variety. I would say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you mentioned you did it for eight years. You didn't mention specifically the accolades that you received. I know you've got some metal behind you there Looks like three trophies. Talk a little bit about your success as a publisher if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started as a magazine publisher April of 2015. And I'll share a real quick story because it might be embarrassing to me but it might be encouraging to others, especially if you're in that business. I'm the guy that had sold ads for lots of years and I expected to hit the ground running and I didn't. In fact, the company that I sold ads for they enjoyed telling the story over. It was quite embarrassing, but I hope it helps some people. So I started and I thought, man, I'm going to hit the ground running and it was. I think it was about 30 days and I was working too. I was working.
Speaker 3:It was roughly 30 days before I made my first sell, which wasn't normal for me at all. And in fact, I remember vividly sitting in a Starbucks and I was distraught. I was sitting in a Starbucks here in Tulsa and I just left a six figure, 12 year career. I was one of the top people selling yellow pages in the country for this company and I had a family and I'm starting this new career with zero income and I'm like what is going on? And I was distraught and I'm a believer and I asked the Lord to help me and literally that day I left that Starbucks and I pulled into a gas station and I saw a van that said Mary Murray's flowers on it and I thought, okay, I'll give them a call. So I called Mary Murray's flowers.
Speaker 3:Nikki picked up the phone. I introduced myself I'm starting a magazine in this community. I would love to come by and talk to you. She said, listen, I've worked here 20 years, we've been in business 50 years. I'll talk to you, but we don't do advertising. She said I just bought the business. I've worked here 20 years, but I just bought the business. We don't do advertising, but you can come by and I'll listen to you.
Speaker 3:So I went by and I was so thankful that she would talk to me and I ended up convincing her somehow to buy an ad. So I went by and I was like who's my first sell? A quarter page ad. So that was the same day I had my Starbucks experience. Then, after that, the floodgates opened and I hit baseline 13 days later. So from the time of my first sell not when I started, but from my time first sell I hit baseline in 13 days and then it was just. It was all good. So I say that just to encourage anyone that might be listening that there's ups and downs and sideways and you just have to keep persevering. So I made that sell and I gave her a hug. I'm not sure if that was appropriate or not, but I was so happy I gave her a hug. Thank you for buying the quarter page. You're not really supposed to share your excitement, but I went overboard on that. Very cool.
Speaker 1:But yeah, one very inspiring too. You make a great point that, and you hear those stories of publishers with all the success, but oftentimes it's a story that equates to how bamboo grows all this stuff under the surface that you don't see. That's right. The trials and tribulations of refining and getting your presentation down and appointment after appointment with no sale, but then all of a sudden, poof, you break through.
Speaker 3:Well, you think of it like there's planting seeds and I'm not a gardener, but there's the analogy there's planting seeds and then harvesting, and sometimes you're spending a lot of your time planting seeds and you just have to know that they'll grow. We live in a culture, in a society, where we want everything instantaneous. We have fast food, we have microwaves and we have that ingrained in us, but not everything happens in two minutes. So I think patience is really important. Yeah, so I started my first magazine. We launched in July 2015. One year later, I launched my second magazine, a year later my third. A year later I'd launched two more. So I launched five magazines in two states. I believe that was the only time that had been done. I don't know if that's still true Four here in Oklahoma, where I live, and one in Dallas, and I was driving back and forth to Dallas, which is about four, and a half hours.
Speaker 3:I did that every week for about six months and I went into a market there that I don't have any connections in Dallas, that I won't get it do a long story on, but I've always loved Dallas. That's the big city, that's the place to go if you live in Tulsa. And one of the managers called me and said hey, we have an opportunity in this particular market. We've had other publishers try but they couldn't do it and I always joke they had to bring in the guy from Oklahoma that didn't know anyone and the market there it's called Highland Park, it's basically the Beverly Hills of Texas, so there's tons of competition there. You're not allowed to drive through there unless you drive a Bentley or they made an exception for me. So we launched a publication there. I went there about three days a week, then came home and I launched it in six months at 10,000 over baseline. So that is a quick figure check.
Speaker 3:So it can be done and I think a lot of people not to get off in the weeds, but a lot of people I think get too caught up into who is my competition and I think that was the problem. I don't know who tried to launch it there, but I think they were paying too much attention to the competition and I'm not saying that's not wise to know who your competition is, but I think that you can get too hung up on that and I took the opposite approach. I'm not saying it's the right approach, but it worked for me. I didn't pay attention to the competition, I just went in and did my thing and it worked out. It worked out so we launched five publications. I was the number one publisher in sales three years in a row 2017, 18 and 19. And we were doing over a million dollars in sales, over a million dollars a year in actual not just signing contracts, but actual cash received in the business. So it was a million dollar business and great time. I really enjoyed my time publishing.
Speaker 1:And that was before many other products have shown up. You were selling print.
Speaker 3:I'm at old school. I believe in it all. I think it all has value and it all has its place. But coming from yellow pages, I really loved the simplicity of here's your ad. It's very tangible and that was a big appeal to me. Honestly.
Speaker 1:All right. So obviously a lot of experience, a lot of success in the publishing industry. Looking back to me, what would you say was your inside advantage?
Speaker 3:That's a great question and I got that question a lot. When you're in the spotlight and you were as well you're constantly. People are calling you hey, what's the secret? What's the secret sauce? And truly there's no one silver bullet. It's usually a combination of things, but I will say that if there was. But I also don't go to the other side and act oh, false humility is what I call it. Oh, I don't know, I'm really not that good, and just that's. False humility is what I call it.
Speaker 3:So I think one advantage I had and this is going to sound self-serving because you and I have companies that help publishers, but I think that this is why I have this company and why you have your company is because it freaking works. And my advantage was I hired people to do things that either I didn't want to do or, even if I was okay with doing it, it wasn't the best use of my time. And I think that's where a lot of people make a mistake. They step over $100 bills to try to pick up a $1 bill. I say, and we get too caught up in oh, there's a dollar bill over there, but you're stepping over $100 bills and yeah, there's things that you can do. As an example, I think I'm good at making calls. I started out dial America. I know how to make phone calls, but I felt early on and I'm not knocking anyone if you do that or decide to do that to each their own but I decided that wasn't the best use of my time. It wasn't the best use of my time to try to do all the paperwork or submit ads.
Speaker 3:Actually, funny story, I'll tell you how little I knew on the admin side. If somebody, if a customer I had an administrative assistant that I hired from day one and I really didn't have the money to, but I made that investment If she would have left me and one of my customers sent me an ad, I would have no idea what to do with it. That's how little I knew about it. So I just focused to answer your question what did you do? I focused on what I'm excellent at and I'm not going to have false humility and ask, oh, I'm okay with this, no, I'm excellent, I know what I'm excellent at, but I also know that 99% of things I'm not good at. Well, it's not a good use of my time. I tried to stay in my lane, I would say, and I hired other people to help me in areas that either I'm not good at or it's just not, or maybe I am good at it, but it's not the best use of my time. That's a long answer to your question.
Speaker 1:It's a very important answer because you touch on a number of things and hey, we get it.
Speaker 1:Some publishers are just starting out. They don't have the box to yeah, no, no, no. But I still think having that mindset that the moment I get to X, whatever, that is the first investment is help, so you can get out of the $20 an hour work and elevate your statute to what's what were you making right $500, $600, $700 an hour when you were in your prime and and yeah, I trade that any day of the week. That's the way you grow. Any business grows by getting I call it firing yourself right. I want to fire myself from here and hire someone so I can elevate my game to the next and next. In your case, it's as you mentioned. It's all about getting in front of decision makers, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, and your point exactly. Look at what your time is worth or what it could be worth Maybe it's not there now and then look at whatever it is that you're doing and say can I? And I'll tell you if I can make a plug for a book that I read a long time ago? This has nothing to do with my business that really opened my eyes to this, and there's a lot of books, but this is a book from a long time ago. The four hour work week Now, the premise of the book I don't think it's been a long time isn't that you can actually just work for hours.
Speaker 3:I think that's not possible in most businesses. But that was where it opened my eyes to outsourcing that book and it's oh, this makes sense. And I think I said at the very beginning, we all have our why and what's important to us, and normally it's not just one thing, but my biggest why, what? The biggest thing that's important to me is freedom of movement. I want to do what I want to do, I want to go where I want to go, I don't want to be tied down and a lot of that. If you have systems in place and people that help you. Then you're able to do that more yeah.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it. And it's funny when you said the four hour work week and emphasizing work you think about and you again you touch on really just emphasizing. We get to do what we enjoy and working with businesses, interacting with businesses, helping them grow we enjoy and we don't consider that work. But all the drudgery stuff, that's work. And if I have to spend more than four hours a week on that, I'm impacted. Yeah, no doubt it changes me. It changes my mood and my mindset and conviction and everything else.
Speaker 3:That's. I'm sorry to interrupt. That's a great point that you make. That I don't think a lot of people consider is you might think, oh, doing such and such, whatever it is, it only takes I can do it in an hour or two hours or three. But really, what you said about draining you, I don't think a lot of times we consider that as well. It's not just the time, it's okay. And when there's certain things that drain you, that may not drain me and vice versa, it actually charges me and gives me energy to be in front of a client and do a presentation and get them to say yes, and that that is that charges me. But then there's other aspects of work that you may look at it and say, oh, it only takes X amount of time, but that's. You're not really looking at the whole picture because it's like mentally, what does that take out of you? So it's not just looking at the clock. So I think you make a great point with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thanks, all right. So tomorrow you wake up, you get to start all over again. Take those eight years of experience and what would you do, what would you do differently, to accelerate your success early on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, another great question. You have very great questions. It's almost like you've done this before. Yeah, it is really a good question I would.
Speaker 3:One thing that I say when I'm coaching is when you're listening to anyone and you're taking advice, and there's two sides to this, because one side and it's going to sound contradictory, because one side says you can learn something from everyone, and I agree with that. You don't want to get to the place where you're arrogant and you feel like I know it all. That's not what I'm talking about. I want to be clear you can learn something from everyone, but it on the flip side too, be careful about who you listen to and what has this person accomplished. There's a lot of people that have a lot of opinions. Social media, as an example, is great because it gives everybody a voice, but it's also bad because it gives everybody a voice and everybody has a voice and everybody has an opinion. And I like to ask what is this person accomplished? What do they know? And that's with everything, not just sales, but with everything.
Speaker 3:So I think I would be more selective about who I listen to, and a lot of times in companies I'm not talking about any company in particular, just companies. You'll have managers or people with a title that say, go, do XYZ and that's how you be successful, but they've never done it themselves. And or maybe they did do it, but they didn't really have success themselves. I like to, whatever it is. I like to listen and follow people that have had success in that area that I'm doing.
Speaker 3:We all aren't successful at everything, but we're all successful at something, so I like to. That's what I would do. Different is just maybe be more selective about who I listen to, be open. Be open and be open because you can. There's times that I've learned things from people that are brand new and way less experienced in me. So I'm not arrogant where I think, oh, I can't learn something, that's not the point, but who you're truly going to devote your time to, and energy and dollars. It's okay, you have an opinion on this, but what did you accomplish or what? So that's what I would say.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:No, completely. I hear you and I'm with you. All right, an important topic and in over your again eight years and all the success you had. Everyone goes through those dreaded sales slumps. What was your strategy? How did you defeat those sales slumps?
Speaker 3:Starbucks was a big help. No, they are not a sponsor of your shows.
Speaker 1:I don't know yet Not yet Not yet With all the meetings that publishers have at Starbucks, they should.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they should. I think with anything and what I'm about to say isn't easy at all, so I don't want to oversimplify it, but with anything, it comes down to getting your head right, getting in the right place.
Speaker 3:And we all have days and times. We're not all, we're not always in the right place mentally. There's no one I've met that's like that all the time. So we all go through slumps and I think you also have to realize that it's okay to have bad days. It's okay. Don't be too hard on yourself. We all have challenges. We all have difficulties.
Speaker 3:I think that some people look at top performers whether it be in cells or athletes or whatever and you always see the good, that's what's highlighted but you don't see the behind the scenes. You see the trophies, but you don't see what it takes and all the everything blood, sweat and tears to get there. So I would say that you have to accept that there's going to be slumps. That may not be something you hear from other people teach or widely. Most people, a lot of people, are just going to be totally inspirational and get your mind and you won't have a bad day. I think everybody has a bad day, but here's where I think the key is Do you allow yourself to stay there? So I think that you need to know yourself. We're all different. How do I get out of that and just know I'm going to get there sometimes and what do I need to do to get out of that? It might look different for me than it does for you and for me personally, because you're asking me and again, we're all different. It could be something as simple as just going for a walk or a run.
Speaker 3:Where I mentioned Starbucks, I was joking. I am a big coffee drinker. I like coffee and it's relaxing to me. It's not just coffee, but it's actually relaxing. So sometimes I'll just shut it down for a half hour and go set and have a cup of coffee and do something different and that helps me or listen to some music that I like. So you have to find out, know how you're wired, but what you don't want to do is give into it and let that go on for hours or days. That's where you get into trouble. But don't be hard on yourself when you do go through a slump, because it happens to everyone. They may not admit it, they may give you a raw, inspirational message, but if they're truthful, it happens to everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Except for Charlie. Yeah, you bring back memories. I started right at the beginning of COVID and I had the same. I struck out for the first month in my publishing career and I remember back then everything was shut down so I would go out for typically a walk with my wife Barb and it just changed everything, the mindset. It got you away and from all the triggers and the fear of oh my god, I was never going to sell, or even then I had success. But you have that dip. I was like, oh my god, what now? I'll never make a sale and you just feel renewed. You feel like a different person.
Speaker 3:One last thing I'll say just real quick is I think sometimes we take yourself too serious and we all do that and it's I'm not saying that your job and making money for your family and reaching your goals.
Speaker 3:I'm not suggesting that's not serious. But at the same time, in the big scheme of things, what if you have an off day? Or what if you have an off hour or a bad presentation? I think sometimes people are too hard on themselves and it doesn't matter, Move on. And I know that's easier said than done, but that has helped me to get that mindset and sometimes I even laugh about it.
Speaker 3:I'll be in my car. People probably think I'm crazy. They'll drive past me and I'm just laughing at myself about something silly. I said I'll probably go back and watch this podcast and do the same thing, but I think when you do that and don't take yourself too seriously, that helps too. And a lot of times in presentations and you have to be yourself, be yourself, don't try to copy me or Charlie, but a lot of times in presentations and this is my personality I'll say something just off the wall. That may not work for everyone, but that's my personality and I'll start laughing about something and it works. So don't take yourself too serious. That would be the other thing.
Speaker 1:Nothing better than laughter, both from a stress management standpoint and when you're presenting. Have fun with your prospects right, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 3:I think, for the most part, they appreciate that because it's not so regimented and serious. People like authenticity. I think that's important. How?
Speaker 1:about and, my Lord, you covered so many great things, so many tips, but for new publishers, that number one tip that you would, or piece of advice you would give to a new publisher listening, Don't get caught up in all the details.
Speaker 3:I think that would be a good piece of advice. Focus on what matters most, and what matters most is sales. Sales matter. Most People get too caught up into what's the name of my publication, as an example, or what's the font. There is no font, there is no name, unless you have sales. And that's very blunt, I know, but you have to sell and you have to be in that mindset. So focus on that and the other things fall into place. And the other thing too is if you chose this as your craft, we all have a doctor, a pilot. I fly a lot, I'm on a lot of airplanes, I fly internationally. I hope my pilot continues their education.
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of times, salespeople, we don't really. A lot of times we don't really do things. And I think that read books. People ask me what's a good sales book? Honestly, most of the books that I've read weren't and I'm sure there are some good ones, I'm not saying they're not, but most of them weren't sales books. They were more books on people skills, on psychology, on personality types, that type of thing. But work on your craft and be open.
Speaker 3:And again, this is going to sound very self-serving, but I'm not even promoting me. It could be anyone else. Find somebody to help you and if you're not there yet, at least have a vision for it. Don't try to do everything, but you ask specifically about brand new people. That's what you ask, I believe. I would say focus on. There's a good book by Gary Keller. He started, he started the Keller Williams. He has an excellent book and I've read it multiple times and it's called the One Thing. So focus on the one thing. What's the one thing that I need to focus on today, because it can get overwhelming. It's I've got to do this, I've got to do this. I've got to get a content coordinator. I've got to find a photographer? Nope, you've got to get somebody to say yes to a meeting. Then you've got to get that meeting to say yes to an ad. So that's the one thing, that's the most important thing.
Speaker 1:That's a great suggestion and that book is phenomenal. And you know the way our brains work. Your brain can only focus on one thing. There is no multitasking.
Speaker 3:No doubt, and when you?
Speaker 1:look at the eight things I have to do today and you split your attention to all eight, you'll get nothing accomplished.
Speaker 3:So multitasking is a joke. It really is, and even the people that think they do it and they're like, no, it works for me. You're not as effective as you think, and if you focus on the one thing, you're more effective, and I believe that. And we all fall into that we're, we all fall into trying to multitask, but it's really different. Yeah, it's really not effective.
Speaker 1:So great tip. All right Scaling your business. How did you scale your publishing business over the years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it so scaling your business, specifically talking to publishers. That's who we're talking about. So if I could just take it step back, look first. I would say what is your goal? Is it to have multiple magazines or to have more income? Because scaling the number of magazines, as an example, does not necessarily mean more income. It could, but if that's your goal to have more magazines that's okay. I'm not telling you what your vision should be. So for me, the way that I'm wired, one reason that I had multiple magazines is because it's a new adventure to go start something different, and that kind of kept me motivated. But we're all different.
Speaker 3:You're going to doubt, but hindsight is 2020, looking back, and let me put a caveat here. I'm not saying that this is the right approach for everyone. I'm talking about me. I think every situation, every market is a little bit different. Looking back, I think I would have been happier and financially close to the same spot had I just focused on one publication, maybe two.
Speaker 3:And so I could have scaled that way and focused more. So there's different ways to scale, but your question that was your question, which I don't think I answered how did I scale my business? So I'll answer that now. What I said earlier and again, I, early on, I made the decision and I know everybody can't do this and I know you may not want to do this. So again, I'm telling you what I did.
Speaker 3:I made the decision from day one and fortunately I was in the position that I'm going to have people help me and I'm not going to try to do everything myself. I'm going to focus on selling. That's what I enjoy doing. And I hired an administrative assistant. That I really couldn't afford, honestly, from day one because I had no income but I had some savings. I hired an administrative assistant from early on. She was with me the whole time. She was the office manager, she yellow book here in Tulsa that I worked for and she was retired and so I basically begged her to come out of retirement and help me and I convinced her to do that and it was a great partnership and she handled everything administrative for me. I don't want to do that. I'm not good at it and it's not with the use of my time. So that's how I scaled my business and again, I know it's going to sell, sell and sell, serving.
Speaker 3:But I hired folks to help me prospect and make cold calls and I think this doesn't contradict your podcast at all. We talked about it no cold calls ever. I agree with that. You should not be making cold calls. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do cold calls. They still work and maybe have somebody else. Now I want to be clear. I still did some of my own. There were strategic accounts that I wanted to contact, so I did that. But I had other folks help me with that and that decision alone was, conservatively, a $4 million decision and I don't pull that number out of the air.
Speaker 3:I sold roughly $8 million worth of ads in my magazines and I'm contributing half of that success to my help, half of them helping me. I had to go out and close it, but when someone helps you find a business and they get the person to say yes to a meeting, that's half the battle. And, by the way, charlie offers a really great service. He didn't ask me to say this. A really great service. And it's another way to get people to say yes, there's not one way to get in front of someone. There's different ways and it's good to have different doors. If you have a business, you have there's one Starbucks in town or there's 10. There's different doors. There's not one magic pool.
Speaker 3:But that was my secret sauce, if you will, is I hired appointment setters and I hired administrative and I was budgeting a fair amount of money and honestly and I would never judge anyone or I don't want this to sound judgmental but I do think that a lot of times, folks that sell ads, they're go day to day, they're going out talking to small businesses about making an investment in their business to do marketing, to do this, but a lot of times they won't do it themselves. It seems a little hypocritical and I think that. I think that I thought I want to practice what I'm asking other folks to do and I spent thousands of dollars a month on that and, by the way, it was a good investment, even if it was a couple of thousand dollars a month, and it made me four million dollars in revenue. I think that's a good investment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other piece that I think publishers should think about is hey, it's great, we know the compensation and 80% of the commission. That's great and that's phenomenal really. It just doesn't happen in most sales positions. But can I do that for so long, doing everything yourself to generate as much income into your bank account and at some point burnout hits you? And versus where? You lasted eight years and, by the way, in a minute we're going to address the elephant in the room, but we'll save that for a few seconds. You lasted eight years and a big part of that again goes back to what you said earlier.
Speaker 1:You were focused on the things that you enjoyed, the fun things, and you weren't being dragged down with the administrative stuff that just could be drudgery.
Speaker 3:The other thing, too, is I said the most important thing to me and I like making money, just like everybody else, I'm not making a lie to that but the most important thing is freedom of movement, freedom of time and by doing those things. Now I want to be clear when I first started, I was working like a crazy person, but I got my business. Now, this isn't something they would want me to talk about on a call or when I spoke on the stage. This was not something that companies would want me to say, but I got in a position where I was averaging 20 to 30 hours a week working. I wasn't working 80 hours a week and I was making really good money. In Oklahoma, the money I was making, you're considered rich, maybe not where you live, but here it was good money. Yeah, I could have done some of those things, but it's okay.
Speaker 3:Going back to the whole thing, what is your time worth? And even laying that aside, what is my time worth? I have no desire. I'm not a lazy person at all, it's not that but I have no desire and our culture makes we almost what's the word we almost? It's almost for people to say I work 80 hours a week or 100 hours. It's almost a badge of honor. Okay, and I'm not making light of hard work. I believe in it, and there's a great place to go when you're broke to work. I believe in work, but I think there's something to be said about working smart, and I think that's very understated. Our culture talks about hard work all the time and I'm a believer in it. But here's another point the hardest working people in our society are not the best paid people. In our society. There's people that work way harder than you and me and they're washing dishes and I'm not knocking any of that, god bless them and they're working harder than us and they're barely making it. So there's something to be said about working smart too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, let's get to the elephant in the room. Publishers are listening, they're familiar with the business. They're going eight years, eight million, doing the math. You are no longer a publisher and we haven't had this conversation. I'm doing the math and I'm going. Okay, jeremy was probably in the mid six figures range of annualized income and he decides to walk away. Why did you leave? Publisher.
Speaker 3:So this is going to sound. Doesn't matter how it sounds, it's the truth. I, during my time of being a publisher, I had folks like you, charlie, because you're in the spotlight when you're having success, so you have folks that call you hey, can you help me? And just the type of person that you and I are. 99.99% of the time I'm not looking for another job. I'll get on the phone and help somebody. I like helping people and it's never came down to making money or anything like that. That didn't even cross my mind. But some people wanted more help than a 30 minute phone call and they asked for more help. They can you come out and come to my market? And I did that probably a dozen or more times during my career. So I probably I don't know if this is true, but I probably have sold ads in the magazine for in more markets than anyone else, because I literally have been out to a bunch of markets and sold, spent days and I fell in love with that.
Speaker 3:I did, and even to the point and where I thought, man, I would do this. I can't do this because I'm not like Charlie. He's independently wealthy, but I'm not independently wealthy. So I have to make money. But I would do it for free that's how much I loved it. But I can't, and people would pay me to do that, and it wasn't about the pay. I would have made more money staying in my market and selling ads.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed helping people and I learned there are two sides to the coin when it comes to sales and some companies do an excellent, excellent job about promoting one side of the coin, and that's get your yeses, get in front of people. I'm in total agreement. You have to get in front of someone. There you can be the greatest salesperson in the world, and if you're not getting in front of someone, you're not going to make any sales. So I'm total agreement. But when I talk to a publisher and I won't mention names just recently, who has gone out and done 40 presentations, 40 presentations and signed two contracts, and I'm not making fun of this person, and if they're listening. I want to help this person. They've signed two contracts and they're like Jeremy, I'm doing what the company has told me that I should do. I'm getting my yeses, I'm getting in front of people. They're not closing. The other side of the coin is sales knowledge. Right Now I will say if you get in front of enough people, you can be not be skilled in sales and you're going to get some sales and you'll eventually get there. So I'm not saying that you have to be an expert salesperson I'm not saying that at all. But why not address both sides of the coin and get your close rate from 10% to 20% or from 20 to 30? Raise it, because then you could do the same amount of work and and make more, or you can work more and make more.
Speaker 3:So, to answer your question, the reason I got into this and left is nothing negative. I loved publishing. I may still get back into it at some point, but I really wanted to create a service. I've sold ads for over 20 years at a high level and I really wanted to help others, and I know that sounds very cliche. I want to help others, but Charlie and I had a conversation offline and if you guys, if you're under 40 and listening, you don't know the name, zig Ziglar, but everybody else does and he has a quote. That is my life mission statement, my business and life mission statement that if I, if we help enough people get what they want, we get what we want. I truly try to live by that and I don't mind being behind the scenes. We helped a I won't mention the name. We helped a particular publisher sign a $17,000 contract yesterday that will be on the call. We're not going to get any credit for that. No, no one's going to say and that's okay, I don't need credit, but I'm excited that we were a part of that. Charlie does that. He helped.
Speaker 3:That's why I left is because I wanted to be more kind of transition, more into a supportive role and I now I've won all the trophies. Don't mean that to be arrogant. I've thrown away more than I can keep Because I just have room. I kept these because these were hard to throw away, but I've literally thrown away tons of trophies over the years and I've been on all the trips. I've done all that and I love it. I'm not making light of that, but that's not what gets me excited. Now I can buy my own trip. I can. What gets me excited is to come along some, come alongside somebody else and help them reach their goal, and I'm totally content with that. I don't need to hear my name on a call anymore. It's fine. I'm not taking anything away from that, it's great. I'm just saying I don't need that anymore. So that's why I started. What I did is to really help others win. That's the bottom line and that's where I get my satisfaction and joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Jeremy, go ahead and touch on, because I you've been great sharing all your Intel as a publisher and your experience, but I'm sure we have listeners are wondering, okay what exactly does Jeremy do now? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I started a company called Mabuhi. Is it okay to say the name? Absolutely, it's called Mabuhi and you're like that's a weird name. It's a Filipino word, mabuhi and I just like the word. When I took my first trip to the Philippines summer of 2022, when I started this company on Philippine Airlines and they always say Mabuhi, and I'm like, oh, I like that word. That was the first Filipino word I learned, so I'm like I thought I'm gonna call my company Mabuhi.
Speaker 3:So we're called Mabuhi marketing and we I started a call center. We have a call center in the Philippines and there's lots of call centers there. There's lots of appointment centers. But what makes us unique and different is we only work with publishers. We only work with publishers. So all of our team that's the only language that we speak and most call centers will take on all types of different clients. We just work with publishers. We're all on the same page and we set appointments.
Speaker 3:Now, sometimes we don't take every client that comes to us. If I have a client that calls me hey, jeremy, I want to hire you to fill up my calendar. I'll have a conversation with them, but our goal is not to fill up your calendar. If that happens, that's awesome. You say that's weird. I want my calendar filled up. We, I have found and some might disagree with this, and it's fine there's quality and there's quantity. Now, in an ideal world, we want both. We want quality and quantity, and I do too. I'm all for that. But generally you're going to get one or the other, depending the approach that you take, and I have found that quality Trump's quality, quality, in other words, and what I mean by quality is I want to get in front of someone who knows why I'm coming in. They know what to expect and it's the right type of business, and they're there to talk to me about advertising. So we started a call center.
Speaker 3:We do appointment setting for publishers Mabuhay Marketing and our website is Mabuhaymarketing and I also do sales coaching, and not everyone takes me up on that and that's okay. But any of my publishers that are interested in getting on a call or and sometimes I even got go out to the market. I was just in California a few months ago it's been more than a few months last summer with a couple of our clients, and if I mentioned their names, you would know them, because one of them was I'll just say this she was never two in the company last year and she still had me come out because you shouldn't get to an area where you know it all. And so I'll go out and we'll do ride-alongs and go out and do appointments with those that want me to do that. And the cool thing about that, you can do virtual coaching and that's great. But there's nothing better than like eyeball to eyeball with a prospect. Plus, if we close something that's like revenue in the bank, right then.
Speaker 3:So we offer sales coaching and appointment setting and I don't know, I don't want to jump ahead. We didn't talk about this, but I hope I'm not talking out of line. But Charlie and I, we feel like that. We kind of compliment each other. We do, we have the same mission, but we do different things. So am I jumping it? I'll let you touch on that. You're having some talks about some things and maybe some big announcements coming soon. We'll say that. But that's what we do. The bottom line is we help publishers win and we do that through solid appointments. And then the other side of the coin is okay, I'm in front of a good appointment. Now what do I say? How do I overcome these objections. So that's where we help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of pieces to it. I'll just use the million-dollar publisher jargon. Right, it's a success. Whatever doesn't need to be a million dollars. And to your point, jeremy, and what you? Just the loop that you opened, because we're both passionate about helping publishers and we both get. I think I get more excited about my clients making a sale, and I know you do too. That then, when I made a sale back when I was a publisher, it's just so cool.
Speaker 3:No doubt.
Speaker 1:No doubt All right. Final tips, words of advice, anything that we miss that you want to share.
Speaker 3:I think we covered it all. I would just encourage you that you're a publisher, whether you're just starting out or have been in it a long time have a vision for what for your. Why am I doing this? And don't just repeat what somebody else says, but really dig into it. Why am I doing this? Then build your life around that and be open to having someone help you. If that's part of your vision, if freedom of time, if that's important to you and it may or may not be, but that's what I would say is just to just be open to that. Go to conferences. I'm not promoting anything about me. I don't have a conference. Go to conferences. Talk to people. They don't even have to be in the same industry. Listen, I would never tell anyone what to listen to that's none of my business or what not to listen to. But a lot of people are already sitting in front of the TV hours a day and they think they don't have time to do things. And if you want to do that again, none of my business, I don't care. But maybe use some of that time to listen to a book. That could help your business. Maybe it has nothing to do with publishing or nothing to do with sales Gary Keller's book the One Thing.
Speaker 3:The Four-Hour Workweek picked up a book and read it. I just bought Patrick Bet-David's book called Choose your Enemies Wisely. I'm reading that that book is 30 bucks. He should probably charge 30,000 for it. I'm being a little sarcastic. You can get one little tip out of a book or watching a YouTube video. There's so much free education online watching a video. If you're and again I have no connection with you an entrepreneur, your publisher find channels. Patrick Bet-David value attainment. Every entrepreneur should watch and listen to that channel.
Speaker 3:I met him on an airplane one time. I sat next to him for three hours. He came from another country, poor, long story short, built an insurance company. He was a insurance company from 45,000 agents in 49 states. He just sold it a year ago for his cut was 300 million. My point is by saying that the guy understands business. He may not know anything about publishing, but that's someone I'm going to listen to, someone that put money into your business. Again, I'm not promoting me. If you never do business with me, that's fine. Or make an investment in yourself, in your business. Go to a conference. Just invest in yourself is my final way.
Speaker 1:They say, you become like the five people, your five closest friends, family members, what we have available to us today through technology and conferences and books. There's no excuse. We can surround ourselves with guys like Gary Keller, right? And folks like that. They're smarter and have been there, done it and we can continue to elevate our game in the comfort of our own home or office.
Speaker 3:I always say there's no excuses. We have everything at our fingertips. Hey, let me say this too. I will publicly again just say thank you for inviting me on your show. I'll send you the Starbucks gift cards that I promised late.
Speaker 1:I can walk to a Starbucks. For years I will use that.
Speaker 3:It was a pleasure and I've enjoyed getting to know you on a personal level and really understanding to your heart a little bit more about helping people, and that's very evident. So, to give you a plug and you didn't ask me to do that and it's not just false flattery I can see and I'm pretty good at reading people. I'm terrible at most things, but I can read people and I see that you really and I know you were interviewing me and it was about me, but I think there's a lot of similarities. You were very successful. You stepped away from that and, believe me, it's not for the money, because I don't think either one of us have replaced. I don't want to speak for you. We truly enjoy what we're doing and helping people. So it's been. I wanted to say thank you for again for inviting me and it's been good to get to know you and look forward to some other collaborations soon.
Speaker 1:Same here, jeremy, and so, for our listeners and viewers, there's more to come, but for now, sadly, we have to end this episode. We will see you in the next show. Until then, have an awesome one.