Ryan Stewman - CEO of Hardcore Closer | How to Close More Sales?

Welcome to success story the most useful podcasts in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network The HubSpot podcast network has other great podcasts like marketing made simple hosted by Dr. J. J. Petersen Marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work now If any of these topics sound interesting to you, you're going to love his show how to write and deliver captivating speeches How to market yourself into a new job how design can help and potentially hurt your revenue and how to create a social media ad strategy that works if these topics hit home and their things that you want to learn about go listen to marketing made simple wherever you get your podcasts Today my guest is Ryan Stoeman Ryan has built an incredible diversified portfolio of companies. He is a serial entrepreneur The primary organization that he's built helps individuals be better in all aspects of their life. He has over 20,000 clients in growing. He helps them in their personal, their financial, their health, the professional lives. Now not only is he built an incredible organization. He is a top contributor to Forbes. He's published 13 books for those who've gone on to be best sellers. He is also a full-time investor who has ownership in over 30 countries with hundreds of employees. He's a loving husband and a proud father to three boys and lives in Dallas, Texas. Now he wasn't born into the business world at age 7. He was adopted by age 16. He had left high school. By age 21 he was incarcerated for selling drugs after getting out of prison. He turned his life around and made seven figures in real estate. But he lost it all and was sent back to jail on false charges to cover up a mistake that local cops made 11 years after his second release. He is built a self-made 8-figure empire from scratch. So we spoke about a variety of different topics. We spoke about mindset, recovering from the worst possible scenario and how to after leaving jail build a successful business when he didn't even have any formal business training. We spoke about building an agency because he built a very successful one before he pivoted into coaching. So building an agency from scratch, building a coaching business from scratch. We spoke about how to price services, attract leads, close deals, scale an organization. We spoke about the only sales training you'll ever need. It takes about five minutes. It'll teach you everything you ever have to know to be a better salesperson, which is obviously a very important skill set if you're going to be building a business. Then we spoke about the importance of empathy, self-awareness, leadership and accountability to be successful in any career or business. I wasn't one of these people that really had this dream of owning a business. That was never really what I was set out to do. But I was thrown into owning a business. I had a corporate job. I worked in a bank. I was in finance. I was like, you know, the Jake from State Farm looking guy that shopped at coals and, you know, hey, would you like a mortgage interest rates of 4.75 today? I was that kind of guy, you know, but I was a good salesperson. But I mean, I wasn't the person that you see today. I was this, you know, manufactured clean, polished version of myself, but I lost my mortgage license. The state of Texas was where I had gotten a mortgage license from. And then the federal government in 2011 just changed how the licensing process went because of all the bank failures and everything else that became a federal thing. The feds wouldn't give me a license because, well, because I was still on federal parole for some time I had done inside of some federal prisons, right? So they wouldn't give me a license. And then when my original license expired, it was like, shit, I can't do the only real job of the only money making job. I've ever done, now I couldn't do it. And so I was forced to like this, this side hustle thing was like, now the sudden it's like, shit, right or die. We got figured out, you know. And at first I have been selling on the side of my mortgage job. I've always been into fitness like, you know, I'm not a personal trainer anything. I've always been a healthy person. I like going to the gym. I've been doing that for 23 years now. And so I try to sell some supplement stuff, you know, but but here's the thing. I didn't know anything about supplements or anything about health. I just knew eat healthy. Go to the gym. I had never really spent any time on it. So let's assume that me and you've been buddies for 10 years. And I did your mortgage. And now I'm showing up at your house with this like PowerPoint presentation on multi level marketing. Fucking pills, man. I'm looking back. I'm like, man, I probably, I didn't realize how dumb I look. But there were some people that were, you know, hey, Ryan, I know whatever you do. You're going to be good at. So I tried, you know, the network marketing thing. And I built this business up now in the mortgage business. Maybe I'm making a 3040 grand a month. Then I go in the network marketing business because I'm forced over there. And I build it up to like six or eight thousand dollars a month. So basically I'm starving, right? Because I'm used to living on 30, not living on it, but I'm used to making that. And now I'm making a third of that basically. And so what happens, though, is they changed the comp plan. And it goes down to like 1800 bucks a month. And I'm like, man, I can't put my my income. I never again corporate America. I put my income at risk with corporate America. Now I put my income at risk with this network marketing company. I got to start my own business. And what I set out to do from sure. I set out to do from scratch when I still live this today. I just got off a meeting right before we got on here. Is I set out to build the company that I would want to work for that Ryan, not a company that anybody would want to work for, but then Ryan Stoomitt would want to work for a company that pays well. He treats people right a company with core values, a company with massive perks like celebrities and and cool trips and private jets and all the stuff that you get as being a part of somebody that works in our ecosystem. Like I set out to create that because it didn't exist anywhere that I had ever been and I got tired of put in my income and shit like that in the hands of others. And you know what turns out 12 years later to worked out pretty damn good. Now you've had a hell of a story. I don't know how far you want to go back what you want to talk about, but coming out of the shit that you went through when you were younger. And then building a successful business is not easy. Like you're not like a Wharton or a Harvard MBA that just walked out of college and you know figured it out because that's the only path they've ever taken. So maybe you take it where you want to take it, but talk to me about the experiences that you had and maybe how it impacted your success, your ability to build a business because the way you did it. I can guarantee you wasn't a conventional way because you didn't have the conventional training. Well, and I don't have a conventional business. I don't know if you think about this, but who do I have to look up to? There's no, and I don't say this egotistically that there's nobody with our model. There's there's a lot of people with our model, but they're chasing us. They're not leading us. You know what I mean? There's nobody that is doing things the way that we are like like if somebody has an event, they might be raising money for real estate or if somebody has an event, they might be selling a digital product. We don't do those kind of things anymore. That's stuff we did five, 10 years ago. We, we create, I create new models of doing this stuff and keep it innovative. So I really don't have a, when you say traditional training, not only do I not have traditional training from a college or some sort of tech training or whatever. I also don't even have a traditional business. Now mind you, I told you I've been doing this since 2010. Think of what Facebook was in 2010. It was my space still. Right. You, you may not, and I'm not saying you particularly, but, but a lot of people didn't even have invites to Facebook still in 2010. Like it was still semi private. Like you could get on there if you weren't in the college scene, but it wasn't much past that and for sure wasn't a, hey, you know, everybody's making the rush to social media. That shit didn't happen until about 2014 or 2015, right. I remember having a conversation with one of probably America's favorite gurus back in 2012 saying, no, you don't understand this social media stuff is the future. He's like, oh, no, man, it'll never be that way. We're going to keep calling cold calls and everything else. Now that guy's got like millions of followers once he tapped into it like 2018. It really worked well for him. So, but, but I say that because I had to make things happen and I had to figure it out of my own is what I'm telling you. I started and this is like probably a lot of your listeners. So I didn't come from like good stock in the sense that my parents got money or they set me up with life insurance money when I got to college age or anything. My life went like this at five years old. My dad walked up the door. He never showed back up. My mom remarried. That guy adopted me. That guy liked to use me as a punching bag occasionally on Friday nights and sometimes Sunday afternoons and sometimes Wednesday and Thursday and other days it ended with wise too. Then I left school and home and everything at 15 years old to get away from the BS. I was going through with my adopted dad. So think about that at five years old. My dad leaves seven year old new dad shows up adopts me changes my name meanwhile but it's six years old. My grandma went to federal prison for anyways a crime she didn't do but still went to federal prison. She actually went to federal prison for keeping her integrity long story. By the time I'm 15 I'm out of school by the time I'm 17 I'm working three jobs at six thirty in the morning. I wake up and at seven a.m. I'm on the job site wiring houses in Texas being an electricians helper means you pull wire through the ceilings of houses right now in July. This is the time of year I did it right now if I look on my phone crazy enough I'm sitting outside but right now if I look on my phone it is one hundred and three degrees here in Dallas Texas right now which means it's about 135 up there in that attic if you were to pull wire through there. And so that's the job I did until four in the afternoon at four in the by four thirty I would be back home by five o'clock I would be showered and I would walk across the parking lot of my apartment complex to the Mexican food restaurant and I would stand there and I would be the guy that would say welcome to tamales. Let me how many people in your party and I would give them a menu and I would go sit them at the table but I got to talk to everybody I like that because as an electrician those guys are usually drug dealers and criminals and on methamphetamine I'm just saying the guys that I work with maybe not all of them but back then that was the case. I didn't have a whole lot to say to those guys but people coming in to eat at the Mexican restaurant they have a couple of margaritas they're in a good mood oh man I love that job. Then at ten o'clock when the kitchen shut down at the Mexican place I would go home and probably sell pot and cocaine to the few friends of mine to make some money at night. So I'm essentially seventeen years old living in my own place making my own rent working three jobs a day right back up again six thirty in the morning. I always been a early riser my whole life and so my kids are that way now. We've one point got busted doing that selling drugs end up going to prison get out of prison go work in a car wash become manager selling car wash become manager of some shit. Then check this out one day because a hard work somebody to car wash off for me a job. This lady said hey you know we're going to teach you what a mortgage is and I was like well good because I don't know what that is I never heard that word of my life you know. And she explained well a mortgage is like a loan against the home so you can live there oh so you can like rent it's like oh shit but anyway she gave me a job right. And within you know forty five days of working on that job of a like twenty one thousand dollars and I might as well build gates at that point so I was rich you know like I I went from hustling three jobs prison working at the car wash. You know making ten dollars and fifty cents an hour to now send I'm making eleven thousand dollars a month. Man like you might as well giving me drugs broke as I was addicted to that I went on the next year to make seven hundred thousand dollars right like just not bad. Just piling through mortgages I made so much money that the little town in Texas that I lived in the cops thought I was back selling drugs again first of all drug dealers don't make that kind of money. But not any that I ever met anyway not low level drug dealers but anyway they rated my house didn't find any drugs. My roommate had a gun and they charged me with the gun they sent me off the prison which I would I have the right to have a gun anyway. But the gun had seventeen rounds in the clip and at the time there was something called the Brady bill which you can only have ten rounds in a in a clip. They're trying to read they're trying to bring that back right now as a matter of fact. Anyway long story short my ass ends up in federal prison for some shit I need to have nothing to do with. I got fifteen months I walk in a millionaire and I'm married I walk out I'm divorced right I go into the mortgage business that's what I was telling you. Oh and that's what your license taking away. I don't want to mortgage business. You got the license taken away. And I got my license taken away. Yep. Okay dude okay so so dude that's that's that's tough man. I've had this really cushy life that you know everything's been everything's been handed to me on a silver platter. Okay. But here's the thing like because of that I didn't I didn't have a bank loan for my business you think about this I'm selling social media management training and shit before it's a thing. I don't have any investors any bankers any parents to give me money any partners. I'm just out here bootstrapping the shit poor is hell I had to sell my house to move in with my in laws and live upstairs. You know how embarrassing it is to be 31 years old and used to be a millionaire and now you ain't got a job and you live with your in laws and you raise the baby. Like the humility that I had to go through to get here see so many people say they want something they not willing to sell their fucking house and go live with their in laws. At 31 years old man you know I'm telling you what man I had people here washing five of my Lamborghini today it all worked out in the end you know like it all worked this house is way bigger than the one I was standing at if they're place you know so. It all worked out but so many people are scared but man I I risked it I took my family out of the house and put them in with my in laws and and you know they're retired so it's not like they're you know making this crazy substantial income that they can afford to float us anyway it's like I risked it all man I can't tell you how many times I spent my last. One time I spent my last dollar because I can only afford a one way trip to Vegas to go to an event. I got to the event and I made like $20,000 the first day of the event like selling the shit that they talk while everybody was at the event still taking notes. My ass went out in the hallway put together the shit that they talked about and made money from it before the event was over to where not only did I get a flight home it financed my shit for the next. That's awesome dude. Do you think do you think that that like nothing to lose attitude was like the thing that allowed you to be successful. You know nobody's ever asked me that but that it has to be a hundred percent and here's why I joke and say this all the time like you know what's the worst thing can happen they throw us in jail. You know like I've already been there so most people have never seen worst case scenario they've never seen dad leave they've never seen abuse they've never seen prison they've never seen a grandma arrested they've never seen the drug addiction and all that and most people have never seen that shit so I've already seen worst case scenario and I'm like man I know what it takes to get the worst case scenario too so I'm avoiding that obviously but yeah absolutely it's like I had already been to prison twice and I made it back again so I knew that if I was just willing to put in the work. Because that's one thing about me I don't have to be the smartest person but I'm willing to out work as many people as it's possible and again you know when you don't have anything to lose like I didn't have I think this if my end loss would have been rich and given me a bunch of money like if they said here's a you know half a million dollar loan to start your business or whatever Ryan Stoeman wouldn't exist as we know him today. Because it would have it would have ruined me because I wouldn't have not having a safety blanket forced me to take action to put food on the plate from my family. Yeah 100% okay so the first version of that business when you got a jail at a federal jail you started it was a social media marketing agency is that more or less correct? So people that might like that know me well say I'm one of the greatest writers of alive and back then I would write for you for a hundred dollars a month I would write five Facebook posts a day for you. Shit that's hard work that's not easy. I had 70 clients it is it is and I had a spreadsheet so I had like a system blah blah blah but but yes very hard work I built this thing to 70 people again no partners no helpers no investors no bank no advisors I know what the fuck I was doing I just knew that I was on to something but I couldn't keep up with it. You know it's like but here's the cool part of that story is I got to learn different people's reactions and ship from 70 different social media accounts early on in the game we're talking 2011 right. So I came out in 2012 and I said man you know I didn't know how to scale a company so I didn't know how to go and you know maybe hire people or any of that shit right so I didn't know how that worked. So I just did everything myself but then I thought man instead of doing it myself how about now that I've got experience I can just teach people how to do that. And so that's when I got into the coaching side because that's obviously a more scalable at least when you're one person group coaching is more scalable than individual social media. So okay so when you're building this business I find this really interesting because all the businesses you jump into are like super super they're super crowded right you're talking about social media management and marketing you're talking about coaching like they're maybe not in 2011 but I mean like like now like there's definitely not in 2011. Alright so how do you okay so you know you put in the work you know how to you know how to kill it on social you turn it into a coaching business. Even when you turn into a coaching business there's probably a lot of competition with people that are maybe like traditional marketers that are trying to turn their own practice into a coaching business but how do you differentiate yourself how did you scale that up. I want to talk like I want to talk numbers like when you when you start coaching what is the product you sell what's the service you sell how much money can you make what's the strategy to to you know bring in leads close them on a small ticket. I find this whole thing so interesting and and also like I see the people that are doing it at like the highest levels but you never see somebody that builds it from the ground up. You always see well you Grand Cardone like all the people that have been doing it for the past like forever and now you see where they're at but to build a coaching to build a coaching business from the ground up offer true value make true money not bullshit your customers so that you're actually improving their lives in some capacity. Let's let's break it all down because that's what I want to sort of unpack here. So my very first rewire which is my podcast has about four million monthly listeners my very first episode was sell on the level that you're at and so that's what I did and what I mean by that is in 2011 I was making two thousand ten eight nine ten I'm making twenty to thirty thousand dollars a month right as a loan officer which means you're doing about two or three million dollars on average in volume which is five to fifteen houses a month depending on what state you live in right just to give you some math. So here I am a guy that's making almost a half a million dollars a year in a down economy by the way remember that Obama stepped in bush screwed up the economy all the crap right it's not really presidents that do that that's the narrative right so Obama inherited a big mess in other in other words that did his administration was trying to straighten out in the mortgage business where I'm working right and so not the easiest time to do business I think I've always sold the hardest stuff like mortgages in a down time and social media management before anybody knew what the hell that was like now it's a crowded space that's the the objection but back then it was like nobody heard of it space that was the objection you know so but so if I'm a person sold thirty thousand dollars a month I knew that I was one of the top producers if not need to I knew I stopped my company but I knew it wasn't the biggest companies out there there were guys doing more than me so I knew though that I could teach people that were making five or ten thousand dollars a month how I got thirty so I go and I create a social media program because the social media accounts that I was running for those seventy accounts they were like everything you knew everything I knew right that's how I knew the post right so I stuck to what I knew I didn't come from like mortgages and go you know what like I screwed up I came from mortgages and tried supplements and that shit didn't work right but when I went back to what I knew okay then the shit worked right so I knew that if I could get conceit what happened was when I got out of prison I started posting on Facebook that I was top producer and then I was winning and all this stuff because I was hoping my ex-wife that left me when I went to prison would see me still winning and it feel all stupid that you made that decision to leave me when I was down right but because of that people started hitting me up going hey man can you do my mortgage and I'm like shit I'm on to something you know and again this is in there now that's like common sense but again this is in the early days of all this so I'm like shit I'm really fucking on to something here so I start teaching I make an ad this is the event that I go to in Vegas I make an ad to loan officers it says if you're a loan officer and you're not doing at least two million dollars a month in mortgage volume fill out this application let's get on the phone and let me show you how I consistently do thirty thousand dollars a month of mortgage commissions with no team no assistant no personal processor and I don't even know the name of the underwriter fill out the application below and we'll get on a phone call so what happened was it was a YouTube video on a woofoo on a woofoo like which is a survey monkey type of thing and then that transpired into my own I still have all this shit then that transpired and took place into my calendar link that's like the old that's like the first funnel that's like the funnel right there that's the first funnel God that's it that's it and so a guy named AJ Roberts helped me construct that at that event in Vegas he sat to the side and showed me how to do that within about 20 minutes we had already had the video because I just recorded on my phone it was like super easy to do that even back then so then because that got all these calls and so I'm selling a product that's two thousand dollars for six weeks six week training two thousand dollars okay here's what most people do okay they say I'm gonna go and create a digital product and so they go and they spend time creating this digital product and then they go to sell it and then nobody buys the shit and they wasted all their time building it right they wasted their time building something that nobody wants so what I did was I made sure everybody won it so I pre-sold it as a six week bootcamp and then I recorded each of the six weeks and then turned those into a product and it's a digital product you didn't waste any time so I got paid time at all I didn't have no damn money you know what I'm saying like I didn't have the money the waste time like I didn't have a bank partner so I just shit like I keep saying so like I do what your audience I had to hustle and so so but what the way I priced it was if you do one loan the average loan in America at the time was about two hundred and three thousand dollars and if you're a loan officer you typically take home one percent maybe more but on average one percent of that loan amount is what you're actually putting in your pocket it's not the what the company gets and everything else but it's what you actually pocket is one percent of the loan right and so if you have a two hundred and three thousand dollar loan then you're getting two thousand dollars so my whole pitch on the phone call was like look bro for sure we can get at least one more loan over the course of six months because or six weeks from what I'm going to teach you like surely one more loan will come into pay for this so literally my prospect has the belief that like shit I mean I can't really lose if I just close one deal that kind of pays for itself it makes it kind of a no-brainer because because again back then they're like I don't know about this Facebook shit bro and now you want two thousand dollars when I'm like one deal you close one deal man and you got money being close two deals you're in the fucking black you're in the near and profit city you know what I mean what happens if you close two deals a month and then four deals a month and then those give you referrals at least a five deals a month this is something that's going to carry you for the rest of your life so nobody would tell me no unless they didn't have two grand but take this I got to a point where I couldn't keep up with the calls so I've got this digital product I'm the only sales guy I'm the only marketer I'm making the funnel making the video editing the video doing all I don't got no help right and so in that at this point I have money I just not smart enough to hire help I didn't know how all that work I know now but I just I can have mentors and shit to teach me so I'm doing all this shit myself and but what happens is I get to a point where I'm I'm making a whole bunch of calls and maybe only you know 50 70 percent 70 percent of the people probably can't buy because not a lot of people back then had $2,000 especially mortgage especially mortgage workers in the recession like that's not a good time for that my my competitor at the time mortgage marketing animals their product was 47 bucks a month and I'm telling them I want to brand was the mostly I was the Louis Vuitton purse of the mortgage industry coaches at that time right and so but what happens so about 70% of the people wouldn't do it so with 30% still a big-ass closing ratio for most people not so much been make me happy now but back then it is what it is but what happens from that is I couldn't keep up now I'm wasting 70% of my time with people who didn't have money right that was their objection wasn't I don't believe in it clearly they filled out the app because they wanted it they just found out it was too much money for what they had available in their credit card lines or whatever so what I did was I went back to the video and I changed the offer from if you're a loan officer doing two million or less to if you're a loan officer who's closing at least two million dollars a month I want to help you get to five or more as fast as possible so at that point it takes all the people who because less than two million can be zero right but a minimum of two million let's me know at least you're making about 20 grand a month right and on a W2 so you at least got $11,000 or so take home that you're coming in every single month right so allow me to go and then all of a sudden I'm closing about 70% of those conversations because those guys two grants nothing oh yeah I'll give a shot whatever stacks the document and so like eventually there's only 300,000 loan officers in America and I sold products to 20 something thousand of them so eventually I kind of ran through that marketplace pretty good right and I got bored and so and I realized that I had a bigger gift than just social media to loan officers at this point I'm running a full blown company with employees and I've got multiple companies and investments of all this stuff going you know a few years ago and I decided I wanted to just create a like not just products and not just coaching but I wanted to create a network and a movement of people and so I created this this apex program where you know we have basically three tears in it but it's evolved beyond me it's not the Ryan Stuman show it's not the you know come being Ryan Stuman's masterminds like come be a part of something where people represent what winning looks like come be a part of something where it's some of the best of the best in their respective industries where you can get to learn from no network I get to put unknown names that are brilliant with huge companies and shit on stages to speak that wouldn't normally get the face time and stuff and it's it man it's just it's evolved into something now that's got 2,000 active members you know we are doing more money than I'm really comfortable saying but if I said that the big if I if if just know that we are doing well well like well the fucking eight figures a year this year we already well the fucking to eight figures a year this year we are well deep in the eight figures this year with only two sales guys so that's so that is that is some community that's the true community that you said okay so then yes we got a couple things you built out so you built that obviously you built that not some coaching business we sort of have like the blueprint for that so you you know you go after people that could have high ticket high ticket products that they want to sell and you find them a way to get that you find them a way to close those products easier so that's really what you do so if somebody did want to go into this sort of you unpack the playbook that you just did maybe you don't build a product you build the funnel you you sort of use that funnel to find some leads make sure you validate your product market fit for that and then you can record the courses as you go through that first tranche that's kind of what you did but you could do that in any industry if you could really do that in any industry if you're an expert and you know you're shit in that industry and the second thing you did was you built out this badass community that's what I'm assuming it's a recurring revenue product too that's a that's a monthly subscription right okay so okay how do you build out how do you build out a strong community what's what's the what was the strategy to build out apex three things yeah first of all this community goes recurring multiple seven figures per month and so the three things that it relies on one you have to have a mission statement for not the company for the people right so we're creating not a network not a mastermind but a movement in a movement it sounds like you know everybody says they're creating a movement that's supposed to be the next level stuff but to me a movement is people taking action together that's it that's a movement people taking action together right and so the movement's got to have a mission so our mission is apex so we say it like this when you sign up with us you sign the contract to join with us it's not a month a month thing it's a minimum one year commitment so when you sign the contract to join us and you put our our jersey on our t shirt with this logo you now represent what winning looks like it all times if you're out of shape get your ass in the gym right if you broke you better get your ass on the grind learning our stuff so you can get money right if you if your relationships broken and you want to fix it you need to either divorce or get it fixed right like now winners winners don't do lose or shit and now you're a part of us and if you really want to win we go put that heat on you and hold you accountable and so that's the first thing is you have a mission so somebody signs up they don't go oh hey I'm a part of a mastermind they go shit students going to kick me out if I don't start representing what winning looks like right and again when you're from day one in the NFL for example you're not in the Super Bowl it takes you a whole last season to get to the Super Bowl if you can even get there and even if you don't get to the Super Bowl doesn't mean that you didn't represent what winning looks like when you were out there on that how did you find that person how did you find that person that was like holy shit Apex is what represents me and that's what I want to that's why I want to align myself with how did you figure out that winning formula for that person and then I want people to take that and figure how to do that in their own industry or with their own audience well first had figured out for myself you know but but I'm one of these guys has had it lost it had it taken away from me and I always got it back so so there's there's undeniable proof that I want to do that and I want to do that in their own industry or with their own audience first had figured out for myself you know but but I'm one of these guys has had it lost it had it taken away from me and I always got it back so so there's there's undeniable proof that I knew how to how to hustle and make things happen right. The so people believed it me first of all because I had to be the leader because that's that's the big thing is everything really rises and falls on leadership so that matters the most right so I had to I had to become because you just didn't happen overnight but I had to become the man that I would look up to know When I started all this, I was not somebody that I would look up to. I am now, and I'm always growing, you know? But that was my goal. It's like, hey, I got to start think, act, and be the man that I would look up to. And so because of that, people say, hey, I want to be like you. So I want to be in your program, not in a sense of they want to kiss my ass or their fanboys, but they say, I want a good relationship with my wife. I want my kids to have a good relationship with me. I want to be in good shape and create a good habit of going to the gym with a personal trainer on regular basis. I want my employees to respect and love me as opposed to just fear me as a boss and want to work for me for a paycheck, right? These are the things that we're really teaching. So the folks start showing up because they see that fruit in my life. You can't make this shit up. The happy employees, happy wife. You can't fake that for 12 years. You can't do it, right? And so number two thing is you got to core values. So so many people have a company or a mastermind or coaching program, whatever you want to, it doesn't have a relationship, but they don't know what the purpose of that relationship is. The purpose of our mastermind, our relationship with the network is to represent what winning looks like, to show the world what the fuck winning looks like, right? Our core values, which we have to agree that we find value in these things because if we don't value, if we don't mutually value these things, then our values aren't aligned and we shouldn't be aligned anyway. So those core values are number one, we do the work, right? So that is a personal work ethic issue. So that's the statement, the core value is work ethic. We believe in doing the work. Number two is we make no excuses. That is a personal accountability, personal responsibility statement. So the core value of that is responsibility. Number three is we do what we say we're going to do when we say we're going to do it. That's integrity. If one of our members tell, if you do trade services with somebody and you buy from them, if they tell you something, they better stand by it. If you invest with somebody, they better stand by it, right? And number four is we go above and beyond. That's an honor issue because when you service somebody above and beyond, you're honoring them for being a part of your circle or being a client or whatever because so many people are doing a little short and below. You know what I mean? And we like to go above and beyond. A prime example of that yesterday, I joined a, I bought this like inflow training thing for like $6,000 where you go in these guys, basically teach you how to get even more focused in the zone. It's pretty cool. It's like Steven Kochrom, some guys. But when I bought it, there was like no log in and no nothing. I kind of had to, you know, wait a day and then send in a form and say, hey, how do I get access to this stuff? That pays, I'm in the business, so I'm a little more patient than most of them. Like, hey, I paid $6,000 for this. How do I get access to it? I was wanting to watch it yesterday and I couldn't get ahold of anybody. The difference is, and I'm not shitting on them. They're not in this full-time business. I am because of our core value of going above and beyond. I pay American people, kids, fresh out of college, young 20-something-year-old kids, fresh out of college, $50,000 a year on salary, W2 salary to work for me. And every single person that buys any of our products, whether it's a $60,000 product or a $60 product, calls them, make sure that they got their log in, make sure that they know where everything is, answers the question, makes them feel good about it, doesn't upsell them shit, just make sure that they're happy, you know? And when somebody buys our stuff and they like, man, these guys represent winning. They have these four core values. And then the third piece and the most important piece is that unwavering integrity, right? So I have to, as the leader, I have to be the leader of the mission, be the person that respects and values the core values the most, and then I have to have unwavering integrity tied to those two things or it's all fraud. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, HubSpot. Now they don't call it the sales destination. It's a sales journey. And on that journey, you want the best tools and support to keep you and your customers connected every step of the way. HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform that is impossible to outgrow and ridiculously easy to use, meaning you never have to worry about slowing you down. That's because HubSpot is purpose-built for real sales people with real customers and real problems to solve. With customizable hubs and tools that you can add and subtract as you grow, and then interface it's just as easy to use if you're a team of one or 1,000, HubSpot is built for you and your customers to grow together wherever the journey takes you. Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at HubSpot.com. You know, you mentioned it's all fraud and the issue with people starting something is that when they actually do deliver value, they're still in their head. They think that they don't know what they're talking about. That imposter syndrome always creeps in, especially with entrepreneurs. So what would be the advice you'd give to somebody who's looking at everything you've built? They're like, fuck, that would be so cool, but I'm not ready yet. Or I don't know my industry or my category enough yet. But realistically, they may. So how do you know when it's the right time for you to start coaching, start building a community saying, I can be a leader of people. I can teach somebody how to do this better. When is that point when you want to actually take the stuff you learned in your career and then you start turning it into a business? Well, first, like I said, I think, if you're gonna be a coach, you need to have some level of success. Obviously I wasn't teaching. Now I'm qualified to teach people how to do a billion in sales or a hundred million, build a hundred million dollar company. We've done that, right? Like I have the ability to teach that. But in the past, like I said, I started out somewhere, right? I wasn't having the conversation today out of conversation when the guys got $30 billion in assets under management, right? I wasn't able to have those conversations when I first got someone known to fucking say, right? It's like, wow, you're rich. That have been all I did. I'm pretty much known to say, you know? But the thing is, like when I got, like I said, I got forced into all of this. But if you, let me just tell you two things because I have this conversation a lot, because being a coach is kind of like being called to be a pastor or preacher or a police officer or a teacher or a nurse. It's more of a, it needs to be more of a noble calling, like you would do the shit for free before you charge money for it. And here's why I say that because when you're coaching people, you gotta realize you're dealing with problems. They hired you to be a problem solver for them. So you're gonna hear people bitch. You're gonna hear people complain. You're gonna hear people that are struggling. You're gonna have people that you tell a clear solution, that's struggling, that would stop their struggle, that are still gonna choose the struggle despite the fact that you can help them and have helped them and are trying to fucking help them, right? Like this is, this is just, you have to be able to understand it's not just show up and get on a call and be like the cool guy and roll out, like you see in the social media highlight rules. It's gonna be people crying about divorce. People crying about not being paid fair and all this like, it is not an easy job. You become their component, right? You become that police officer, that priest, that person that they can trust, right? And so if you're called to do it as like a nobility, here's what I would tell you. First, you need to let somebody coach you, right? It doesn't mean that you gotta go pay to join a mastermind or you gotta pay any of that shit, but you need to find somebody who's a level up of you. Everybody in life needs to have someone poured into them, someone on their level and someone their poured into. So before you can pour into somebody, you need to go get somebody poured into you, right? Just yet I have two mentors that I pay. One of them I pay $10,000 a month for 90 minutes of his time. The other one I pay $3,000 a month for 90 minutes of his time, maybe two hours a month of his time. Regardless, I have two people that I invest $13,000 a month in just to be able to have conversations with. And because how am I gonna pour into, and one of those guys is richer than me. The other one's not one of them's a pastor and I pay for the pastor's time because I think that's important. One of them's a pastor, so he's leading me with wisdom, core value, spirituality, that kind of stuff. The other one's a multi-billionaire who's teaching me how to exit my software company correctly for probably about the same. So, but these are people that are pouring into me. Yesterday, my pastor and I were on the phone and we're on a Zoom and he gives me this template for core value stuff. And I'm like, dude, I'm stealing this and he's like, take it. And I'm like, dude, you just saved me a ton of time like coming up with this, you already have it. Like, yeah, I'm using your stuff and I'll put your name at the bottom of it and then put a donation to the church and they want, you know? But, so if you're called the coach, you'll know. But if you say, I think I can go make a few bucks coaching, man, I wouldn't even waste your time because you're gonna find the A, you're miserable and the clients are gonna find that you're miserable because of it, you're gonna deal with chargebacks and unhappy and it's gonna be short live. The other thing, that's the first thing I told you I had to, the other thing is suppose you are called the coach, but you are a roofer and you're fucking busy, right? The wind keeps blowing these damn roofs apart and you're busy as hell and you're like, man, I want to coach people but like, how do I do it? First of all, have a goal to coach people. And what I mean by that is like, maybe you say, I'm gonna coach people who want to be on my team. I'm gonna go hire some people, get them to be roofer's with me and I'm gonna mentor them. So you don't have to go out and charge and start a roofing coaching program. You can just say, hey, come work with me and I want to mentor and coach you as a part of being on my team. Then it's a winning situation because now you're coaching people that are making you money and it's a success cycle that you create there. So I would challenge you to have a back end like if you're an investment breaker and it's like, okay, so maybe you could do some coaching and consulting with the end goal to get people to invest in whatever your projects are that you're raising money for. So don't just think, you don't just have to think coaching on the front end is like, you know, where I'm gonna make my money. You could coach people for free and do deals on the back end and get connections and build your own business and everything else. So you can think of it that way too. You don't have to go start a side. I love that. And that's a smart way to look at it. Because I feel like what you mentioned where people jump into it and they don't understand the scope of what coaching is and it leads to really shitty experiences. Then it leads to negative stigmas from coaches who have like screwed over people or not delivered value. Like that's not what we're trying to do here. We're trying to get people that can actually and it does take a certain kind of person to pour into someone else. That's a great way of putting it. That's not an easy thing to do man. It takes away, it can give you energy but can also drain your energy. So you gotta like be prepared for that. But the other thing I wanted to, I want to go into it just because like it's all over your brand. It's okay. So the hardcore closer, that's like the one sales lesson because I know that you could talk about, you could talk about negotiation, you could talk about doing discovery, you could talk about finding leads. Closing, what's the strategy that you would teach over to somebody that's having trouble? Because I think that everybody can figure out the majority of the deal, but closing is always the hardest part. Actually, I would even say there's like two hard parts of closing. There's only two things you should ever be able to do if you're a sales person. You get leads or you close, but if you can't do either of those, you're not gonna be a very good sales person. But the closing part is very, very fucking hard. So what are the strategies tips that you do to bring a deal all the way through? You know, it's funny because when I got started in this, that was all I knew with sales. I was a salesman for a mortgage company. So I taught hardcore closer, closers are what mortgage guys are. They close mortgages, right? So that's where that came from. I'm this prison guy. It was a, you know, a closer mortgages. So I'm like hardcore closer, right? And that was what they called me at the office. It was like my nickname. So I registered it online, you know, this is 2012, I think, when all that came. But that's what they had called me at the car dealership. I worked at for a short period of time. They, you know, I'd always been that in the mortgage. It's like, oh, that's the hardcore closer. It's just kind of a nickname that stuck. And what I know about nicknames is if you get a cool one, I better go in it because you can get a shitty one right after that and it sticks, you know? So like, I'll take that hardcore closer. That's me from now on. You'll hurt them, right? So, um, but that was all I knew. But now that I've been doing this for so long, like I couldn't even tell you the last time I actually closed the sale sale like to APE. Somebody asked me how much level one of APEX wasn't the other day. And I didn't know if it was 2,500 or 3 grand, which is really weird because it's A, it's my company. But Drew B and Zach that are my sales guys, these guys do, you know, a couple of million dollars a month in sales and so I don't have to. You know, at one point, I was a social media manager for everything too and now I've got Brittany so I don't have to do that. So I say that because I still know a lot about sales but I'm about to give you all the sales training you will ever need to pay for in about five minutes. But I'm not as hands on with that because is we make a progression from being employed to self-employed to the CEO of a company to ultimately selling or exiting or owning that company in a cash mowing force, right? That's, there's never such thing as retirement. That's what it is. It's an exit, not a retirement. Retirements when you don't have shit to do and your board and money stops coming in and you go crazy and you go start another job. Exits where you're onto the next thing, right? And so for me, I'm at the CEO level right now. But as a CEO, I've had to have a different sales conversation than I did as a sales person. And I can tell you, sales just breaks down to two things only. Man, don't give a fuck what Grant or Jordan or any of those. I'm not shitting on them. I'm just saying, I don't have sales training to sell you and I stop selling sales training because when I figured these two things out and I'm like, well, I can't literally sell that to anybody that's cheating, right? So it comes down to two things. Number one is empathy. And listen, don't go all Gary Vee saying that shit on me. I've been saying it longer than him. But here's the things, like empathy is, I like Gary. I like Gary, I like messing with him because that's his thing. And if it be wine and shit's every time I say that, I feel like I got to make sure that it's different, right? So, but empathy just means that you listen. So if you're in sales, we are taught that we need to be talkers. You got to have to get to gab. You got to have a blah, blah, blah. It's not true. Like you, he who speaks the least earns the most. If you're in the sales conversation and you use the least amount of words, chances are they're going to buy from you. Because that person's talking to you because they're looking for a solution and they want you to know the problem. They want you to clearly understand the problem. So they are articulating it to you. So how do you get empathy? To empathy means for you, for them to know that you understand their problem. So you get empathy by listening. You get to listen by what asking questions. So that's the key. Talk less and ask questions because like you could call me as a loan officer and I know the second that you get on the phone, the premise you need leads from realtors. That's what the fuck you called me for, right? But I can't just go, well, you need to buy my product because I already know your problem. I got to let you tell me that it all started in the fifth grade when Jenny kissed you and then ran off and kissed another boy right after. And it ruined the way that you thought of life. And like, I got to hear your whole life story so that you know I understand you. Everybody thinks we're unique, we're not, we're all the same. We just have a different story to arrive at the same place, right? And so, but you got to hear that story. So they think, right? That's how you create empathy. Once they understand that you understand that all your missing's confidence and confidence works like this product knowledge. If you know your product inside and out and you are confident that it can solve their problem because they know that you listen to them when you pair empathy and confidence together, they can't help but buy from you because you know their problem and you are 100% confident that you can solve it for them only a fool wouldn't want to move forward at that point. But so many people never get to that because they're too busy talking instead of listening to where the customer feels. See, we live in the field's economy. Not fuckers need to feel like they're listened to. They need to feel like somebody cares about them because everybody's swiping on social media. Everybody's talking over everybody. Everybody's interrupting people and trolling each other on the internet and shit like that. So when you actually have the benefit of having a physical human conversation with somebody whether on the phone or FaceTime or in person, the whole empathy, confidence thing just changes it. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, this person's listening. I love it, dude. Shit, nobody listens to it. Damn good advice. It's so simple. It's so simple. I want to do a couple of rapid-fire to close this up. But most importantly, before I pivot to that, where do people can, well, you could do, listen. Closing thoughts from you, anything we didn't cover, but then social media, website, all that stuff where you want to send people. So there's one thing I would challenge everybody here. And I don't have anything for sale. So when I send you here, it's not to upsell you or trick you into, it's literally, I'm not going to send you an email reminding you to do this shit. That's how little I'm trying to sell you something here. But I have a software called G-code. And the G-code is basically a system of living life. It's four things, a grateful mindset, working on your genetics, being healthy, your grind, which is your job in the group of people you spend time with. And it's all explained on this website. It's 100% free, but it's software where if you get wins in each one of those areas, every day you can get a point. So up to four points a day, okay? So if you get up to four points a day, so you can get about 100 points a month on average, give or take that you miss a few days, right? But what happens is it creates habits for you to start focusing on winning with the people in your life, winning on your job, winning in the gym, winning in your mindset. If it forces you to focus and create habits, I'm going to read something absolutely crazy. At four points, maximum a day, I have 3,600 points in this thing, okay? Like you got to understand, when I say I live by this thing, I live 1100 days in a row without missing it, right? Like 1100 days in a row. That's like, and I did this before, I got the software, but I've been on the software for 1100 days in a row. And so I say that because if you'll plug into that, you know, help you in your business, it'll help you in your relationships. And it's absolutely free. It's just a little system to check yourself and score on a regular basis. So it's a dailygcode.com, dailygcode.com, gcode stands for code to greatness, right? If you want to follow me, honestly, Facebook is the best place, go to Ryan Stuman, it's real Ryan Stuman, it's the one with the blue check, all the other shit, don't trust it. But on Facebook with the blue check, I write a post every morning about between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. central time, you know, open your mind and change your life, right? Like if nothing else, just tune in every morning for my daily post, I really write it. It's not a ghost writer, it's not a copywriter. It can't straight from me, sitting in my ass in front of the gym, waiting to go inside of the gym every morning, right? And so like when you read those, they're very eye opening and motivational and feel free to send me a DM on Facebook. I got Instagram at Hardcore Closer, but I'm pretty shadow banned over there. I don't know what I did wrong over there, but I went from about 10 to 15,000 views per story, the 200 views per story. So I don't know what I did to make them mad over there. Yeah, I'm, like June 13th, it's just like just stop. So I don't know what the hell happened. So, but Facebook is still popping for me. And we have a group on Facebook called Sales Talk with Sales Pro's. You can go to salestalkgroup.com and it'll take you right there. It's 120,000 sales people, super active. Awesome. You can learn a lot. Lots of links and show notes too. So I'll get those from you. But let's do a couple of rapid-fire to close this out. Biggest challenge you've had in your personal life. What was it, had you overcome it? Would you learn from it? The biggest challenge I've had in my personal life is to learn how to be a leader. Everything rises and falls on leader. And so a lot of people want to be a leader, but they want to be a leader in the light when everybody's looking, but they don't want to be a leader in the dark. They tell you to lose weight, but they haven't been to the gym in a long time. And they got a bag of chips in there. On social media, they're showing you last year's pictures that they took not this year. And for me, I just had to learn to be a leader, which meant that I had to learn to love people a little bit more. I had to learn to give people breaks to be more understanding. And I'm not wired that way, man. I'm like, oh, I'm a machine. I'm not wired to be that way. But I can't do this on my own. And I'm going to have to have people around me. And so I had to become a better version of myself and better at being a leader. And that's something that every day, there's two types of leaders, situational and natural-born leaders. I feel like I'm a situational leader. I was thrown into this shit. And now I have to lead. I don't feel like I was born to lead, maybe a Tom Brady or somebody like that. It's like, I'm thrown into this position. So I read books about it. I studied videos about it. I bought programs and seminars about it so that I can just become the best personal responsibility, leadership-driven person that I can, not just for myself, but for the people around me that need me to be that example too. So awesome. Good. What keeps you up at night now? Exciting. Honestly, man, I can't believe this is my life. And I love what I do. And it's crazy. Our company that does well deep into eight figures a year, I don't even take a salary or profit distribution from that company or anything. I dump everything back into it. I've paid myself for my speaking gigs, which I charge $75,000 to speak. And I do two or three a month. So I'm like, no shortage of demand there. And so that's how I pay myself. And I'm still putting the money back into these companies and just growing them. So like I'm literally so in love with my job, I don't take a paycheck from it. Amazing. If you had to pick one person, obviously there's been many. But pick one person, is that a major impact on your life? Who was it? And what did you learn from them? Number one person having an impact on my life would be past your keep craft with Elevate Life Church here in Frisco, Texas. I've been with him for 19 years. It's the only church that I have ever stepped foot in that wasn't for a wedding. And the only church I've ever been a member of, the only church I've ever been baptized in, I'm not some kind of crazy Christian. Clearly I drop more F-bombs than Little Wanderer, this podcast here. But I believe that they tell us to have a relationship with God. And I feel like, I don't want to, hi, God, it's right. It's not who I am. It's not how I have a relationship with my wife. It's not how I have a relationship with you right now. So I'm just me. I think that's the best gift we can give. Anybody's just to be who we really are, not hide and have any secrets. But I wouldn't know any of that without Keith. I wouldn't be the leader I am today without Keith. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be the man that I am today without him. So I was thinking about that just the other day. I was like, man, there's clear is a bell. One person that has impacted my life more than anybody to tell. And if you watch church on Sunday, you're going to go, that's the clean version of that dude on his podcast. He's like the clean version of me. Wearing so much alike. I love that. All right. Book podcast, audible something. You'd recommend people go check out. Go read my book G-code on Amazon. It's free. Basically, it's priced for what Amazon minimum will let me sell it forward. It's like five bucks or something like that. You can read that book in about 90 minutes. It'll change your life. It's G-code, real simple. Black cover, red letter G on the front of it. Change your life. If you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing, what would it be? I made a video about this one time. I would just tell them to keep going. It's going to be really, really, really, really, really hard. But it pays off well in the end. Just keep going. The only way that we really lose it, anything, and the only reason that I'm here is because I just didn't quit. And so many people, life is a business. We'll say it's a lot like a fish hook. If you were to go to the tip of the bar on the fish hook, it jumps up real quick. You start at the bar, it jumps up. So let's say you're a real estate agent. You start the business, and two of your friends are buying a house. But then you don't have any friends that need a house. You start sliding down that fish hook to the bottom of that fish hook. It's so many people quit at the bottom of that fish hook because they're not working on the way down. They're riding that one small victory they got in the beginning. Me, I understand that, man, if you'll just stay working the whole entire time eventually, you'll come out the other side of that fish hook. And if you think about it, it's tied to stringing. It never ends. You know what I mean? You never get to the end of a real string on a rod real. So it's never ending. But so many people quit. Because you don't know where the bottom of the fish hook is. You don't know how much longer this ship's going to last. How much, but your ability to be successful is in direct proportion for your ability to withstand financial pain. I promise you that. And last question, and this uptails nicely, what the success mean to you? Being able to do whatever you want, whatever you want to do it without anybody telling you that you can't, that is success. It's not a measure of dollars. It's not a measure of things or assets. It's can you do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it without it disrupting your life or without anybody getting mad at you and telling you can't do it, including your wife, your parents. I'm in a position where I don't have debt, partners, investors, nobody can tell me that I can't pick up Instagram and say, F, this person, or not that I do that. But in the event that's, you know, let's say a president or something was ruining the world, I want to be able to use my voice for whatever them go, Hey, man, if you don't stop talking about such and such company that's destroying kids or whatever you know I'm saying, I want to be able to use my voice for however I want. And that to me is true success when you can do you.