How do you become a successful entrepreneur?

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SUMMARY:

I’m Josh Felber. You’re watching “Making Bank” on AdvisorTV and AppleTV. How do all this successful people become successful entrepreneurs? The question we want to talk about today. What are the things that find interesting is success leaves clues? That is a very powerful statement and you know, what do I mean by that? Do you understand exactly what I mean by that? And so, if you take a look at it, the most successful entrepreneurs in their businesses, what have they done to get there?

Today on Making Bank I have Evan Carmichael, super serial entrepreneur, like myself, and a twitter extraordinaire. I’m excited to have him on the show today to be able to share with you guys some awesome tips to how to super charge your business. How to take your business to the next level and learn a little more about Evan and what he has done to create success around his entrepreneurial life.

One of the things they have done is what’s called success modeling and Tony Robbins said in his best selling book, “Unlimited Power”, is if you want to be successful, you have to model yourself or your business after other successful businesses or other entrepreneurs. By taking and duplicating what other entrepreneurs or other successful people have done will eliminate or give you a shortcut to your path to success … and so for myself, one of the original businesses I started when I was 14 years old was a computer company and I didn’t know anything about computers. I didn’t know what steps to do but for myself and I unconsciously started to do this was I went and look at other successful computer companies out there.

What was making them successful in selling their accessories and their devices and everything and the big one back in that day was called Micro Center … and so Micro Center, they had different retail stores and they would have their computers out there and their accessories and then how they brought traffic into those businesses. And so, from myself in launching a computer business when I was 14 years old, I wanted to really duplicate, you know, what was happening, what was going on out there and so by that, I started studying.

I started having my dad take me to the stores and really understanding and learning exactly how would they display their computers as well they display their accessories … And for myself, I originally read Tony Robbins’ “Unlimited Power” book as well when I was 14 years old and started to apply the principles and success strategies of modelling and by that, I mean for myself personally, I would find other successful entrepreneurs and other successful people and find those key traits, those key pieces that made them successful. Whether it was their gestures, their mannerisms or how they spoke or you know, it could have been, you know, how they presented themselves.

And so, one of the things that we have to ask ourselves, there are two questions that we want to ask is whose success are you studying? Are you even studying success clues? What we have to ask ourselves that’s going to help us move us forward, to help us push that needle for us in our business is, are we staying in success clues first of all? And then second of all, we want to make sure that success clues that we are studying in the people that we are modelling in and we are following actually complement what we’re trying to do.

If you’re in the real estate business and you want to become a super successful real estate entrepreneur, you don’t want to go out and copy success clues on a fitness trainer. You want to, you know, go out and try to copy maybe Donald Trump or Dean Graziosi or you know, other successful entrepreneurs in your niche that your trying to really focus on.

So, number two is what model are you looking to duplicate and so, that’s a little bit of what we just discussed is what model that you want to duplicate, what is that niche,  what is that focus in where we’re at? So for myself, it was hey, how can I build an awesome computer business? And so, by taking these success clues and those successful opportunities as a computer store from Micro Center, I apply that to my businesses … and so, when I would go out and go to computer trade shows and sell the accessories and sell the computers, I would display and I would utilize those same techniques and those same success strategies that they utilized to sell their goods in their stores.

For myself, I was able to carry on that business throughout my high school time frame and then sell that business when I graduated and by doing that and all along modelling, and modelling the success strategies of an another computer business. I’ve done that throughout my life whether it was you know, fitness gyms that I owned and modelling the most successful fitness gyms. We went out and called all of the top crossfit gyms at that time and ask them what were they doing, what made them successful, you know, how they were able to deliver the best quality training in their clients? How were they been able to charge more than other, you know, fitness facilities in their area and still maintain and command a larger based clients than other gyms out there.

By doing that and understanding on what they utilized and how they took it and built their gyms and made them successful. We were able to model that and create massive success in a matter of 18 months to over $700,000 on revenue for our gym. Without being able to model somebody, you’re trying to reinvent the wheel. You’re running down a path without a road map and without being able to duplicate that model and implement and then take action is the key, so we may go out and have that successful model but we need that to be able take action.

Next up, we have Evan Carmichael who’s taking his software company and struggled and struggled and struggled and in the last minute found modelling success. He was been able to create that and sell that business for great amount of money and generate for himself and for his partners.

And so, I am Josh Felber and you’re watching “Making Bank” on the Whether It Takes Network.

Josh Felber:              Welcome back and I am Josh Felber and you’re watching “Making Bank”. I’m so excited today. We are here with Evan Carmichael, super serial entrepreneur, like myself, and a twitter extraordinaire. I’m excited to have him on the show today to be able to share with you guys some awesome tips to how to super charge your business. How to take your business to the next level and learn a little more about Evan and what he has done to create success around his entrepreneurial life.

Welcome Evan.

Evan Carmichael:     Thanks for having me Josh, pleasure.

Josh Felber:              For sure, so I guess, some of my audience maybe familiar with your Sunday night beat but I kinda like a little bit of background on you know, you sold a business and you know, you’re just into … Focus on helping other entrepreneurs grow their businesses or maybe just give everybody a quick overview, what your background, how you got started and how you got where you are today.

Evan Carmichael:     Yeah. This is super quick. I started when I was 19. I had a biotech software company with two partners and we sucked, hard. I make $300 a month. I turned down high paying jobs and I’m supposed to live in yacht for life, and all my friends are jealous of me and here I am can’t afford to do anything but eat beans for lunch and I was of course, too, you know, proud to let them know I was staying on yacht. I’m grinding it. I’m working hard. We’re killing it. Meanwhile, we’re just dying.

Eventually turned it around, we can get into that story, if you want, later but ended up getting customers in 30 countries. Including Johnson & Johnson and NASA. Over a course of three years and then sold my business, went to venture capital gain for couple of years, learned about how to do financing and then, started my new business which is helping entrepreneurs and I have a popular website, a popular YouTube channel. Everything I would try to do now is at scale, so I want to be able to help millions of entrepreneurs at the time.

Josh Felber:              For sure. Awesome! And so, what from your business that you had being in the biotech and you know, sound like you guys … You said you turned it around. What gave you kind of switch, it was that switch that made you transition with like “hey, you know, I’m gonna get out. I want to be able to help and give back to help other entrepreneurs grow their business”?

Evan Carmichael:     That’s switch came … it wasn’t like, I wish I could say I had it all planned out, it wasn’t all planned out. When I sold my company, it was great, it was a great high, like, I sold my business but it was all depressing and I didn’t know what to do next.

Josh Felber:              Sure.

Evan Carmichael:     And I just honestly, just explore the whole bunch of things and one of them was the YMCA asked me to come and speak to their group of entrepreneurs and put on a free event to help mentor them. And I said “sure why not”. How could I kinda give back and give some advice.

Josh Felber:              Right.

Evan Carmichael:     They put on this free event and they promote it to their audience and I was … I forwarded it to people I knew and spent weeks putting together my best information and I get to the day and I’m nervous, my palms are sweating and I hadn’t done any public speaking. My heart’s beating and I go to the room and only 3 people showed up to this event. And my heart stopped I think, for a second there and the show must go on. You know those 3 people came and I thought “I did this work, I’m going to go, I’m going to help these 3 people.

It was awesome. I really helped those 3 people by telling my story and give them some advice and they left like different people from what they came in …

Josh Felber:              Cool.

Evan Carmichael:     I didn’t know how I was ever going make money doing this but it just felt so good that I knew I had find a way to keep going. So, that was the start. It was just exploring and finding something that I love.

Josh Felber:              Awesome! You know, it’s really cool and now what you do is, you consult for businesses, is that what the focus is or you know, you have your YouTube channel and blog and everything but is it more beyond that or you just kind of focus on driving content for people there?

Evan Carmichael:     I do, but it’s got to be high scale. I basically want to … I almost quit, I almost failed, I was this close … I told my partner I quit. So many entrepreneurs quit and by making a few simple changes, I was able to get my business to grow and I wanted to share that with other people so they didn’t have to go through all the suffering that I went through … and so everything I’ve been trying to do now is at scale.

Doing this show with Josh Felber, reaching millions of entrepreneurs, that’s what’s up. Doing my YouTube channel and working on a book deal. I do, do some work with entrepreneurs, but again, I don’t do one-on-one consulting much, it’s more … That scale.

Josh Felber:              Definitely. And as for me, I sort of been, it’s kind of that one-on-one feel, like you’re talking about and it does become… not time-consuming in a bad way but the fact you’re limited on the amount of people that you’re able to reach and touch and help. That’s one of the things for me, is over the last 6-8 months, I have been transitioning everything from that one-on-one to more of a master mind larger type of scale. You know, presence with other people, as well with the show. So, we were able to help a lot of people that way, and have had some awesome people like yourself on.

Evan Carmichael:     I love it.

Josh Felber:              Cool. From working in your businesses and the content you’v pushed out, you see a lot of people responding to your kind of learning. What are just maybe three highlights that you can pull as teaching and say “hey guys, here’s what I’ve seen, as you growing your business”. What’s your three major hurdles that may come across and how to overcome those?

Evan Carmichael:     Sure. Number one is probably the most clichéd but do something you’re passionate about and I see so many entrepreneurs just start a business because they are trying to make money. They chase off more opportunity that … They have no interests in that business, really. They don’t live it, they don’t breathe it, they don’t sleep it. You gotta love what your doing to a crazy extent because as soon as you face some minor hurdle, you’re going to give up because you don’t love it. You’re going to go chase some other opportunities.

Where, if you look at the people built massive businesses had tremendous success, it’s because they really love what they did so, love what you do. Pretty simple but most people don’t do it.

The second one, I guess, would be model success and this is what helped saved my business. Understanding that whatever problem you’re facing right now, whatever goal you’re trying to achieve, it’s already been stopped. You don’t have to be genius equipped with everything with yourself. Whatever your trying to do, find someone who already done it and model their success. That’s what saved my business when I was a 19-year old software entrepreneur sucking, making no money. I hit the bottom and I then discovered “hey you know what, I’m not the first guy who sells software before, this can’t be that hard. There’s gotta be something I’m missing from someone who’s had success.”

And I modeled Bill Gates who started Microsoft.

Josh Felber:              Awesome!

Evan Carmichael:     And not how Bill Gates makes millions of dollars now. I mean, I don’t care about that but 0-1. 0-1, that’s I want to do. How do I do it? Come on Bill Gates, give me some answers and he did partnerships. Yeah, partnerships was his strategy. Microsoft was all built through partnering up with bigger companies. Big deals like IBM.

Josh Felber:              Sure.

Evan Carmichael:     But before IBM, they were already a 7-million dollar company and 7 million is not huge but still 7 million more than I had. They got their big partnerships and so, I started forming my first partnership and that first chat came in, it was thirteen and half thousand dollars and I wanted to cry.

Josh Felber:              Evan, we got to take a quick break. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching “Making Bank” on the Whatever It Takes Network and we’re here with Evan Carmichael.

I am Josh Felber. You’re watching “Making Bank” on the Whatever It Takes Network and I’m excited to be back. We’re speaking with Evan Carmichael and he’s been dropping some awesome nuggets of wisdom on three different highlighted points that he’s seen, or he’s utilized in his businesses to grow an be able to scale and to start … Make money, deliver values to his clients and everything.

So Evan, we’d wrapped up with number two about modeling other businesses. You talked about how you modeled Microsoft in the software field and we were just getting ready to jump in to point number 3. You know, what was that next stuff?

Evan Carmichael:     Yeah, so number 1 was follow your passion. Number 2 was model success and number 3 is do you … And I think this is a huge problem for a lot of entrepreneurs because there’s a lot of ways to have success in business. There’s a ton of success in business and you’ve got to find one that fits your personality best. Do what makes you come alive, what your really good at and want to learn more about. As an example, I’m a terrible net worker. I may not come across, you know, I’m a really introverted guy in general. You know I’m not the guy hanging up my business card on airplane and you know, strike out conversation, that’s not me.

Josh Felber:              Right.

Evan Carmichael:     And so, if my business depending on me doing that, I would fail, I mean I have to go get a job. But in a different way to stand, but instead, I kick up a ton of noise in my field. I putting up YouTube videos and I’m really active on twitter. My goal is, instead of going to events and being a guest there and try to make connections, I want to speak at the events.

Josh Felber:              Okay.

Evan Carmichael:     And get people come to network with me afterwards.

Josh Felber:              Right.

Evan Carmichael:     And so, that’s me. You may hear lots of great strategies and you can try them and see if they can work but you’ve got to find the ones that best fit who you are and your personality. Too many entrepreneurs try to improve their weaknesses instead of focusing on their strengths. If you suck at something, don’t go and all and try to get better at it. You’re not gonna like it. You’re not really good at it and if you’re never going to be a happy entrepreneur or successful. Instead, if you don’t like it, stop it. Go all in on what you’re really good at it because that’s where you’re going to create a lot of value.

Josh Felber:              Definitely. You got a huge point because I know myself, working with other entrepreneurs, just feeling some different events and things you see, you’re like “Oh, this person and this is the way they’re doing it and they’re so awesome at it” and they try to do it, and they’re just like … Man, they’re miserable and they’re like, how are they doing it but I can’t? Definitely, you gotta find what really fits you really well and then utilize that strength to grow. I mean that’s an awesome thing. There are a lot of people that are introverted and like how do I get out and network it. I just make people come to talk to me. Like going and speaking at the event. So that’s very … A genius way to go about it and it’s awesome.

Evan Carmichael:     Yeah, we all have these things that we wish we can be better at and so many people just get so disappointed and so frustrated and so upset trying to make their weaknesses better. If you sucked at networking, don’t go out and try to get better at networking. You’ll just be disappointed, unhappy, you won’t be getting results. Find another way to do it. Don’t let that be the only way to achieve success. There’s ton of other ways. Find the one that works for you.

Josh Felber:              For sure. Awesome! I think that’s some great information that, as entrepreneurs we can take and being able to utilize all three of those points to really ramp up our business, to ramp up what we do out there. I know one of the things I always talk about is, what you mentioned is … A lot of people, oh well, I’m going to start doing this because other people make a lot of money in this field, and that sort of thing. We do, we have to have that passion, we’ve got to love what we’re doing. When you are eating the beans or McDonald’s french fries and that sort of thing, you’re able to realize “wow, this is why I’m doing it what I’m doing, I’m gonna be here tomorrow doing it and the next day doing it and everything.

Part of that is going out and wanting to create as much value for your client, for the people that you’re working with. When you have that understanding and that balance, that’s what helps, like you said, propel you to be a success and everything.

Evan Carmichael:     Yeah, you may look on somebody on YouTube and say ” wow, I want to be a YouTube star. I want to be like josh. I want to have my channel. I want to be rocking it. Josh is killing it. That’s the way to make money, I going to be going a YouTube star too.“ It took me 800 videos on my channel before I was not embarrassed by what I was making. 800 … Maybe you guys are faster, but me, man, 800 videos before I wasn’t embarrassed by what I was putting out there.

Josh Felber:              Right.

Evan Carmichael:     If you don’t love that stuff, you’re going to quit. There’s no way you’re going to make 800 videos, there’s no way you’re going to keep doing it for years and sucking at it and slowly getting better and improving and hitting roadblock after roadblock unless you really love it. It’s super important.

Josh makes it look easy, but it’s not.

Josh Felber:              I’m like you man, you just got it in your head and you have to keep doing it. I know, you shoot a video and you’re like “man, that video is just horrible…” I just re-shoot it or just keep redoing it until it’s at least it’s partially good, you can put it out and then just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing. That’s really cool. You mentioned earlier, like “hey, we had a biotech company and it wasn’t going and you were able to just take it and sell it and make some money, what was that key element, what was that indicator … You said you modeled Microsoft and everything, but what made that whole transition and you keep sticking with it?

Evan Carmichael:     The two things that really helped me, one was modeling the success and just having that strategy that … I thought I had tried everything … Everything I had tried up to that point, I had been successful at, in school, in sports, whatever. I knew if I worked harder at it, I’d get results and here I was working my ass off, and just sucking hard at my business and that modelling success helped me. When we had that first strategy, I applied it to everything in my business, we’re looking at: what are we going to use for our next marketing campaign? Let’s go model successful marketing campaigns and see what we can learn from that.

Josh Felber:              That’s awesome.

Evan Carmichael:     That was one, and the other was, my own limiting beliefs.

Josh Felber:              Oh boy, okay.

Evan Carmichael:     I was selling to people who were three times my age, had PHDs, were professors and doctors, and I thought, I’m too young, I don’t know enough, I’m not a scientist and everyone knows science was my worst subject in school and I was afraid to talk to them and they came across, I had no confidence …

Josh Felber:              Sure.

Evan Carmichael:     It wasn’t until I realized that what I’m offering has real value, I can help them and they don’t care what my degree is, as long as I can provide value to them, they were willing to listen to me. That switch in my head, just knowing that I can actually help these guys, gave me so much more confidence and helped me land so much more business.

Josh Felber:              Wow, that’s amazing, I didn’t … Especially with entrepreneuring, failure and limiting beliefs are two of the major hurdles that … it’s hard for people to overcome or push past. With the limiting beliefs, what were some steps that you took break you through barriers? I think that’s a phenomenal piece that people really need to understand and hear.

Evan Carmichael:     I still have them by the way, and we all do.

Josh Felber:              Right.

Evan Carmichael:     Every time I’ve made a significant growth in my life for my business is because I’ve shattered a limiting belief.

Josh Felber:              Yes.

Evan Carmichael:     And It may be … My parents weren’t entrepreneurs, so I could say well, I don’t have any entrepreneurs family, so I can’t be successful or I don’t have a rich uncle Jim who can support me, so I won’t be successful or I didn’t get a university education, which I did, but a lot would say that, because I don’t have that, I’m not successful. We create these stories in our heads and they’re so ingrained that we don’t even notice them. What really helped me get past them was reading those stories of famous entrepreneurs. That modelling success, looking at how they started and a lot of times, these guys came from nothing, nothing. Broke, other side of the tracks, no education, a lot of times they came from absolutely nothing and they achieved monumental success. If they can do that, why am I with way more resources and I ideas and energy than he was, why am I sucking so hard? It’s a limiting sort of belief, looking at those stories really helped me break through.

Josh Felber:              Cool. [inaudible 00:24:20] advice is just, be able to take those stories of other people and apply what they’ve used through your whole modelling success formula, to push through those barriers with everything that you have … I know for me, one of the things that I’ve always tried to do since I was … One of the very first books I ready was a unlimited power with Tony Robbins when I was 14, that and just working on and constantly applying that through my life … All those pieces of parts, and I still get hung up, there’s times when I’m like “man, why is this person more successful or why is this?” You start to compare yourself and then you’ve got to just take that stuff back and realize “I can be whatever I want to be from the level of success that I define as well as I’m the only person holding myself back.” I know a lot of entrepreneurs, they get in front of themselves and they’re the ones “ hey, you’re the one holding yourself back.” You just kind of let go and just really get out there and go after it.

Evan Carmichael:     [crosstalk 00:25:29]

They’ll blame others and say “well, I didn’t get this because of the economy, or because of that client or because of my parents or whatever.” You’re in charge, and when you recognize that, you start to make changes, but if you don’t, you stay on your current track and you never experience that significant growth.

Josh Felber:              Yeah, definitely. I was looking at something earlier, and there was a pretty cool thing I jotted down, it was like “ownership mindset” you’ve got to own your own thoughts, own your own actions and own your own results, it’s all up to you.

Evan Carmichael:     I like it.

Josh Felber:              Awesome, real quick, we’re going to have to wrap up in a minute, but I’d love to hear what you said you’re working on a book, when’s it coming out and how can I help you with that?

Evan Carmichael:     Details are still being worked on, we just signed new contract so I don’t have too much to share, but I guess if people want to learn more about me, they can check out my YouTube channel, that’s probably the easiest way. It’s modelling the masters, on YouTube.

Josh Felber:              Okay, awesome.

Well, I was really excited to have you on the show and you were able to really share some awesome insights, and looking forward to pushing this content out there and being able to have [? 26:39] audience really take a look at it and learn who Evan is and grab those nuggets and apply them to their own lives.

Thanks again for coming on the show Evan and I really appreciate your time today.

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