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Summary

Prison isn’t a place any entrepreneur wants to go, but it’s exactly where today’s guest ended up a few years ago.

His name is Ryan Stewman, and his story is unlike any host Josh Felber has ever shared on Making Bank.

A two-time felon, Ryan overcame a checkered past through hard work, fierce determination, and an insatiable appetite for learning (in prison he read at least one book per day, sometimes two).

Today, Ryan works as an online coach and mentor for those aspiring entrepreneurs who want to change their businesses for the better. Coupling his impressive life experience, incredible business knowledge, and passion for helping others, the lessons Ryan offers aren’t complicated, but they are effective.

In fact, they’re incredibly effective. And to those who’ve known him longest, Ryan is a limitless source of confidence, inspiration, and energy that can be tapped at a moment’s notice to catapult careers to the next level.

Get ready to hear Josh and Ryan discuss what it takes to crawl from the pits of the Federal Prison System to the very top of the entrepreneurial landscape, and share a number of key insights including…

• The difference between selling the best-case scenario and the worst-case scenario…
• Why the creation of a strict schedule can be the catalyst for exponential growth and development…
• How the smallest opportunities—like working at a car wash—can lead to your biggest business returns…
• The importance of mitigating everyday distractions—like television—to create a healthier lifestyle…

And more…

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What It Takes with Guest Ryan Stewman: MakingBank S2E31

Josh Felber:        Welcome to Making Bank. I am Josh Felber where we uncover the success strategies and the secrets of the top 1% so you can amplify your business and your life today. I’m really excited for today’s guest. He comes out of Dallas, Texas, where I lived for quite some time. His name is Ryan Stewman. He has never had a salaried job in his entire life, and though mastering the art of being a super-effective communicator Ryan has closed more transactions than he as had time to add up. With a no BS approach to making things happen, Ryan has been able to help high-income and high-net worth performers make adjustments in their business that have led to windfall profits for them. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, homes, financial service or consulting.

Ryan can help you generate more leads with higher quality, as well as increase your closing ratios and show you how to charge premium fees for the items you sell. Ryan was raised and born in Dallas, Texas, and is probably the proudest Texan you’ll ever meet. He’s also the father of the future greatest salesman in the world, AKA, Mr. Jacks. As well as I know he has another son and another one on the way. I want to welcome Ryan Stewman to Making Bank.

Ryan Stewman:                  Hey, what’s up everybody? Dude, we’re live. I shared this on my page too, so maybe some of our people will watch this, and maybe we’ll say something interesting. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll talk about making some money, making some bank.

Josh Felber:        Awesome, man. Tell me a little bit about how you got started. I know I’ve kind of heard your story when you’ve spoke at different events that I’ve been at. It’s fascinating just some of the challenges that you’ve incurred throughout your life to be able to get to where you are today.

Ryan Stewman:                  I’ve definitely survived some ups and downs in my life. As a matter of fact the other day, I guess this is about a week ago, I put a timeline out there on my personal profile. It was like 1997, left school and this whole thing all the way up until 2017. Man, I have been through a hell of a lot, adoption, prison, homelessness and everything else. These days I’m actually in the sales training world, like you talked about in the intro, but I got my start by selling car washes. I had ADD as a kid, go figure, right? Wait, what were we talking about?

Anyway, so I had ADD as a kid, and my stepfather was always trying to put me to work so I was out of his hair. He could just drop me off with the carwash manager, and then he didn’t have to pay a babysitter or anything like that. Anyway, I just started working at the carwash and selling car washes. Actually, after my first stint in prison I went back to work at the carwash, and one of the customers offered me a job in mortgages. That’s when I was open to the opportunity of making real money. I was working for the bank, making bank, strangely enough.

Josh Felber:        Right on.

Ryan Stewman:                  How’s that for a plug? Shameless plug there, ladies and gentlemen. That’s how I got started, so right there in the mortgage business, man, and then, obviously, from there things have changed. I lost my license in 2010, and that’s when I switched to doing the online stuff today.

Josh Felber:        With your mortgage business, you kind of went through that whole up and then the big crash and everything else along the way.

Ryan Stewman:                  Not really. I didn’t, and that’s kind of what was strange about me. Actually, in 2005 the local police here in lovey North Texas they decided to pay me a visit without asking to come over, and they came in with a bunch of guns. They were like total party poopers. They arrested a bunch of us. It was a terrible ordeal. Anyway, because of that terrible ordeal and not inviting them over and them crashing our party I ended up going and doing 15 months for some unlicensed weapons. Who knew? It’s Texas, I thought we could have whatever the hell we wanted. I’ve got a buddy up the street that’s got nukes.

Anyway, so I ended up going and doing some time in prison, again, and actually had to go inside a federal prison from 2007 until 2008. I went and did 15 months during those two years. That was when things were starting to implode. About the time that I left and had to go do my time things were starting to implode. By the time I got out what had happened is there had been a mass exodus. Everybody had been butt-burnt by the mortgage business, and they were so mad at it, and they went to the oil business or they went to become land men or something like that, right? When I got out I was like, “Dude, it’s wide open out here. If I can get my mortgage license back there’s no competition.” That’s exactly what happened.

I just went out there, and I started hitting up all my buddies that weren’t in the mortgage business anymore, and I was like, “Hey, man, whatever happened to all those real estate agents you were doing business with?” They’re like, “I don’t even talk to them anymore.” It’s like, “Well, hey, why don’t you introduce them to me? At least you know I’ll take care of them and stuff. It doesn’t make any sense you just let them go somewhere else.” Dude, I just scooped up a good portion of the market for myself because I saw an opportunity where everybody else was scared as hell to stay in the mortgage business. I was like, “Well, if everybody’s leaving, and I step into it, and I’m still good, then, that just means that we just got a lot of the chaff out of the way and I can go straight after the good stuff.”

Josh Felber:        Along the way, obviously, coming out of prison, what was some of those challenges that you ran into just being able to start your business, to start building it, as well then creating that trust factor and stuff with people?

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, I’ve always been a straightforward person, so trust-building has never really been a thing with me. I’m the type person that I build a bond with somebody pretty quickly. Most people say, “Hey, man, I just met you. I feel like I’ve known you forever,” kind of thing. It’s not that I let my guard down, but I get real friendly with people really easy. I don’t really mean anybody any harm ever, so trust has never really been an issue, but it is hard to sell a bank on giving a two-time felon an opportunity to work there. I will say that took some serious sales skills.

In 2010, I lost my license because the administration called something called the Dodd-Frank Act. It’s like the biggest joke in the history of the U.S. litigation and everything. Anyway, they passed it somehow, and it incorporated this thing called the NMLS licensing. This would be like a recurring theme in my life for some reason. With the gun charge that I went to federal prison, the state of Texas says, “You can have whatever guns you want.” The AFT says, “Uh-uh, that’s not what we think,” and there is a different set of rules. If it was like Colorado, they say you can have as much weed as you want, but if the DEA steps in they’re like, “Hey, man, this shit’s still illegal.” That’s just how it works, and same with guns in Texas, but I didn’t get the, “Hey, the AFT doesn’t acknowledge our laws,” memo on our door step or I would have been paying better attention.

Anyway, as luck would have it things happen. I got a license in the State of Texas to do mortgages, and what happened was the federal government passed a law and abolished the state licensing exam. Since I had just done federal time they’re like, “Oh, hell no. We ain’t giving you a license.” Again, they will have superseded the state that I live in, and I’m like, “That’s not how, it’s state’s rights. That’s not how it’s supposed to.” I lost my license, and that’s when I started looking at this whole internet equation. I was actually going to go ask a friend of mine for a job, and before I even got to get him a job I was like, “Hey, man. I’d like to talk to you about working.” He goes, that’s great because this thing we’re doing on the internet,” and then he didn’t shut up for 10, 15 maybe 30 minutes about this whole Ryan Dice guy. This is 2010, and I’m like, “Man, whatever.”

We get out to this guys Hummer, and in the back of the Hummer he’s going to give me this DVD collection or some shit from this guy. He’s like, “I paid $8,000 for this.” I know my friend to be like one of the cheapest bastard’s on the planet. He’s still driving a Hummer. It’s like 2010. They ain’t made those things since 2001. He’s still driving that thing. He still has it now. It’s 2017 almost. Anyway, but he has these $8,000 DVD’s, and I’m like, “Dude, that’s intriguing. If somebody got that from you, I want to see what they’re selling.” I watched it, and it opened my mind the possibility of the internet. I don’t have that story about where, “I went out and I got two JV’s and got a working funnel and became a millionaire.”

I don’t have that story. I have a story of from 2010 until what you see right now it has been a lot of struggles, a lot of testing, but I’ve done it all without any business partners, without any joint ventures, without any affiliates having to promote me. I am completely debt-free. I have done it with minimum labor. Not util recently did we even start hiring people. I’ve been able to build this very strong machine online. It took me a long time, obviously, but I’ve been able to build this very strong machine online in a way that most other people haven’t. Most people are very reliant on different things, and I’ve been able to do it all, like I said, debt-free by myself, no business partners, no joint ventures, no investors, just like me.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. What do you think your key to being able to learn and understand all that information so quickly? I guess, what, six years, seven years? I guess it’s not quickly, but people may see it that way.

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, the thing is when I was in federal prison I read a book, maybe two a day. I didn’t want to go watch TV because people bitch and argue over TV channels and all that stuff. You go in there, and it’s like there’d just be on one side of the room it’s like rap music, which is cool, then on the other side of the room it’s Mexican music, which really don’t mix well with rap music. You got all this noise, and then they telling each other turn it down and all that, so I just stayed out of there, you know what I mean? I got to where I read books, and I would read. I thought, “Well, you know what? I didn’t get an education.” I left school when I was like 15 years old, got my GED when I was 17.

I basically said, “I’m going to learn about business, because I’m going to probably have to create my own because nobody’s going to give me a job when I get out of here.” That’s what I did. I read every book about business I could get my hand on from the federal prison library to whoever I could order for free online or whoever I could write letter to out there in the outside world and ask them to send me a book. I read, I borrowed from other inmates, traded the books that I had. Dude, I was trying to take as much information as I could. It’s not like I had to just process.

That taught me how to process information, and so with all that knowledge, and then just applying those same principles online, that’s really what allowed me to build all this. Like I said, it’s not something that I built all overnight. I have had the Hardcore Closer blog itself since 2012, and so I’ve been at this for quite a while, little by little. It’s just like chipping away, slinging singles one after another, but right now we’re hitting a bunch of home runs. We’re hitting a whole bunch of home runs. It’s nice.

Josh Felber:        That’s excellent. I think a lot of people, like you said, they look at it and like, “Oh, man, Ryan came out of nowhere, and now he’s this huge success,” and it’s not. It’s that grind every day, and it’s that long game like Gary Vaynerchuk says, and I think that’s what we got to really look at.

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, well you know it is a long game for me, but I have a great balance. I have nothing like Gary in the sense of, well, hey, I don’t make 100 million dollars a year, so we got that going for us. In the sense of like that guy, you never see a picture of his family. You never see him spending time. Every picture, every video, everything you watch is always him working. You never see him holding his kids, or at least I haven’t, and I’ve seen a lot of his videos and stuff, you know? I don’t want that.

On the contrast, another popular person would be Cardone. At least you see him with his little girls and his wife. His wife’s in a lot of picture with him and a lot of videos. His wife’s involved in the game, she’s involved in his business. The little girls he always [inaudible 00:12:43]. At least they’ve got that going for them. I want that balance, man. I don’t grind all the time. Like today, I’m going to do this interview. I’ve got another interview at 12:30. I’m going to go pick up my kids someone school, and we’re going to go ride four wheelers all afternoon on a Wednesday. How about that, you know? That’s the side where a lot of people think, “Oh, man, you’ve got to work all the time,” and look, but I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been up handling my business since 4:30 this morning. That way here at 2:30 in the afternoon I can go do what I want.

Josh Felber:        Cool. That’s awesome. Hey, we’ve got to take a quick break. Can you stick around?

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, of course.

Josh Felber:        Awesome. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Making Bank. I am Josh Felber, where we’ve had the honor and privilege so far this morning to speak with Ryan Stewman where he’s ran into a lot of hard challenges through prison and trying to build his business, to his license being taken away, to being able to take an online internet business and create wealth and create freedom and create lifestyle for him and his family. I want to welcome you back to Making Bank, Ryan.

Ryan Stewman:                  Here I am. Here we are. It’s round two.

Josh Felber:        Round two. Tell me one of the things, and you mentioned it right before the break, was your whole thing is you want to incorporate whole life and the balance and all that. That’s one of the things that I’ve always kind of taken ours is being able to create that integration. The balance is never going to be balanced. I’ve always thought, “Okay, how can I integrate what I’m doing with my family, and my family with what I’m doing and my wife and our other businesses and everything as well?” I think for me that’s what made the most sense, and I really think that’s really cool that you’ve kind of taken that same approach to being able to connect your family with everything you guys do.

Ryan Stewman:                  I’ve really figured out how to manage it. When you’re in prison a lot of things stem from there. You create a habit in 21 days. Imagine what I created in 15 months, right? Like a habitual, and I stick to a schedule and everything else rule. I’m used to waking up early. I don’t need an alarm clock. It just kind of happens naturally with me. 4:30 I’m up because that’s when they fed us for a year, every morning at 4:30, or you didn’t eat for the day. You were sure up and there.

One time I took a trip to Hawaii, and I was with a friend of mine and he said, “You know, I’d like to live here instead of the mainland because you can wake up here at like 4:00 in the morning, and it would be normal working time on the mainland, and you’d be done with your day by 2:00 p.m. and you could go surf the rest of the day while the rest of the world was sleeping.” I’m like, “Why I just do that on the mainland? Why don’t I just go back to Texas and start waking up from 4:00 to 2:00, and keep that same schedule and work really hard from 4:00 till 2:00, and then be able to do what I want and still have daylight?” This was probably four years ago, and I’ve always done that. I front-load the time that my boys are going to be in school I am like hammer down productivity time. Then when they get out of school often times I’m able to do whatever we want.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. Tell me about three defining moments in your life that really made transformation for you.

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, which three, I guess? As far as transformation, I know a lot of people say this, but I want to give credit to where credit is due. The first time that I read Think and Grow Rich was in 2004. One of my mortgage banker buddies gave it to me. Actually, it wasn’t Think and Grow Rich, it was Law of Success, the really thick one. He’s like, “I challenge you to read this 1700 page book.” I’m like, “Bitch, don’t challenge me. I don’t turn down challenges,” so I’m reading this book, and it turns out it was full of all sort of awesomeness. I remember standing on the coffee table like Tom Cruise style saying, “One day I’m going to send a message like this to millions of people. I don’t know how. I don’t know what it’s going to be about. Who knows? But I’m going to do it.” This was so many years ago, and I just kind of let that flicker.

Then, when I was locked up in prison there was a defining moment where I made a decision to where everything that had happened to me up to that point was never going to happen to me again. I wouldn’t be a victim of the system, I wouldn’t be a victim of circumstances. I was in this situation because I should have told people no, and I should have stood up instead of being overly-nice and things like that. I decided that I was no longer going to let people run things. That was a huge transition. The third that I would say has been the biggest most recent transition is writing a book. The fact that I wrote a book, it changed the game for me. If you look at the trajectory of our company’s growth, our client base, our income and the time when I started releasing books, they are all right there aligned simultaneously.

Josh Felber:        You have several books out now, right?

Ryan Stewman:                  Four. Four books in less than two years.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome, man.

Ryan Stewman:                  In less than two years I’ve written four books. I enjoy writing. If there’s one secret, it’s like, “What makes you a better salesman than everybody else,” I can write.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome.

Ryan Stewman:                  I have that skill. Everything you read on my blogs, the things I write for Forbes, the things I write for Huffington Post that’s really me. That’s not me telling somebody smart to write something and put my name on it. That’s like me actually putting together, formulating everything. I put the time in, and that’s something that every Sunday from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. I put the time in to write for all these publications and produce all this stuff, man. That’s like my big talent is writing, and that’s what I enjoy the most about this business too. I get to write. Who would have thought? Dropped out of school, can hardly speak English. I’m from the South, we don’t even speak full-blown English down here, and then I’m a writer. It’s crazy. The book thing’s been huge, and it just gives you credibility. People are like, “Oh, he must be an expert because he was able to formulate his thoughts into paper,” which most people can’t do.

Josh Felber:        Right. Definitely, I think the book does help create that credibility. It creates that way for people to actually see, “Hey, here’s what you’re talking about. I believe it more because it’s on paper now in a book format,” instead of just speaking online or typing or whatever it may be, so definitely, for sure. Who’s one of your role models, or have you had a role model that’s helped you any throughout your process and journey?

Ryan Stewman:                  I have had a lot of role models and mentors that have helped me over the years, a lot of popular people, a lot of even famous people. But the folks that I look up to the most still out there that when I need advice that I go to are my buddy, he’s like a brother to me, Kevin Nations. Garret J. White is another person that is a really close person, is like a brother to me. The thing is, this is weird, and I’ll give advice to people that you take it for what it’s worth, often times, man, meeting your role models ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

There’s been plenty of times where I’ve joined these masterminds with people, and I realized I was the sharpest dude in the room. I don’t say that to be arrogant or mean or ego, but that’s not what I joined for. There’s a lot of times you wind up in the middle of things, you find out it’s not what you thought it was. It can be disheartening. I’ve met a lot of people that were my role models at one point that now I don’t think of them that way. Garret and Kevin have been guys that have always been true to the game, they’ve always been straightforward with me. Frank Kern is another one. I was just at his house about a month and a half ago. He’s always been something that’s been straightforward and been true to the game that I’ve leaned a lot from as well.

Josh Felber:        Cool. That’s awesome. I think it’s important to have, and once you find those role models that you connect with, and I think part of it, too, is that continue to be able to challenge you and be able to call you out when you need it. Like you said, if you’re the smartest guy in the room you’re totally in the wrong room all together.

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, that’s not cool. You’re like, well, in this business if you show up in the room, and you’re the smartest dude in the room some people what think it’s a compliment. I’m a salesman, I start thinking, “Damn, everybody owes me some damn money in here. I’m helping y’all’s businesses and shit. Y’all didn’t even pay me. I’m paying to be here. What the hell’s going on here?” Like I said, it’s not always like that, but I’ve been in a lot of different programs over the years, lots. I’m just saying that the three guys that I listed have been the guys that have made the three biggest impact in my life. I believe that I wouldn’t be who I am today or where I’m at today if it wasn’t for the help of Frank Kern, Kevin Nations and Garret J. White, for sure.

Josh Felber:        Cool. Yeah, all awesome people for sure. Tell me a little about, I know you mentioned you get up at 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. What are some of those daily habits or those rituals that you’ve incorporated that have led to your success?

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, we don’t watch TV in our house. That’s one big thing. When I say TV, we have a family movie night or something like that, but we don’t have cable TV. We don’t have record or DVR or any of that. We’ve got Apple TV and we want something we rent a movie on Apple TV. The thing is, that’s been huge because instead of going to sleep watching TV, and I haven’t had TV in years, but instead of going to sleep watching TV we read books, and we have conversations, or we’re online on our iPads or our phones or whatever where we’re engaging with people or reading and taking in information instead of just like watching mind-numbing TV.

That’s been huge because you don’t realize how much time you waste. You don’t realize how much cooler it is, really, if the family is waiting for dinner, and at most places the TV’s on. The wife’s cooking dinner, the TV’s on, or the husband’s cooking dinner. The TV’s on, they’re watching the news. Their brain is being rotted out because that news is like, “Trump’s going to get us all nuked by Russia, damn it, Russia. Hillary should have won.” Everything’s like the end of the world crap, right? Then you can’t understand why everybody in your family’s on edge, and they flip the potatoes over on the table and like, “Screw you, mom.” They can’t figure out what’s going on. They’ve got the news media wiring them up over there where they can’t go.

Whereas in our house, when we’re cooking dinner we don’t have the TV on, so what are we doing? We’re listening to music. We’re hanging out talking. All of us are sitting around the table. Even though we have our devices on us, we’re still talking to each other too, maybe showing each other what’s on the device or whatever the case because my little kids, they love technology. I believe that doing that has made us more of a family. A good song comes on, the three or four of us will hop up and start dancing and stuff. You never started dancing to your favorite commercial. Nobody does that shit. Their TV commercial comes on, nobody’s family gets up and dances, but we do because we listen to music. We’re just doing things different. I think that’s made a really big different in our overall mental setup over here and actually finding a lot of time to do things.

I keep a schedule. I can give the entrepreneurs, this is like a key to success, is I keep a schedule. I’m very efficient with my time. If Amy, which Amy is my fiance, if she wants to do something, whether it be date night or have a conversation or whatever, she puts it on my calendar. I know that sounds like, “Dude, he makes his girlfriend, what a douche bag. He makes his girlfriend put time on his calendar?”

But here’s the thing, if I’m going to do million dollar deals, and I got to put that on my calendar, and that’s important, which signifies it’s important because it’s on my calendar, then why wouldn’t I share that same importance with my significant other and put her on that calendar and make it real too? Because if it’s on my calendar it’s real. My kids are the same thing, they want to go to the park, they either hit me or they hit Amy up, and they’re like, “Hey, we want dad to take us to the park. Put it on his schedule for when he gets off work. That way he can take us to the park.” They know, and I’ve got the whole family acting that way. That way I don’t get ambushed.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome.

Ryan Stewman:                  During the day nobody shows up through my doors. My kids don’t come in and bother me because I might be in the middle of a podcast or Live Stream or whatever. I don’t have those problems. Instead, everybody gets in the calendar, respects the calendar, and guess what? They get more time than anybody else because they schedule it for themselves. They get all the time they need because they schedule it for themselves.

Nobody feels inadequate because like, “Oh, I don’t feel like you’re paying attention to me.” “Did you go to the schedule? It’s wide open. We could be hanging out for six hours on Thursday just me and you. Have you asked anybody to do that?” Now they get it. It sounds weird to a lot of people, but it is effective if you can just get everybody onboard. It’s not a matter of my calendar matters most. This is the family calendar. I’m the leader of this family. Here’s the leader calendar. If you want to be a part of what’s going on, and you want to take part of it, then you’ve got to slice out your part of the calendar just like I do.

Josh Felber:        That’s awesome. I love that idea. We do that now, but I think I like the part that you got it where the kid, “Hey, let me schedule this in,” whereas it’s they say, “Hey, dad, we want to do something,” and then I go make sure it gets added and stuff. I think them coming to you help them block it out, but we do pretty something similar. I think it works awesome because then I don’t even really know what day it is until I actually look at my phone and know what’s in the calendar and what’s happening.

Ryan Stewman:                  That’s it. Same here. I just want to point this out, man. Shout out to Max, man. I got a Startup Drug shirt on. You got a Startup Drug shirt on. My boy, Max, man-

Josh Felber:        He’s awesome.

Ryan Stewman:                  … who’s the real salesman out there? I’m thinking Max is the real salesman out there.

Josh Felber:        Yeah, Max’s Startup Drugs. We’ve become some pretty good buddies there. Actually, I’m interviewing him later tody. I’m like, “Dude, I’ve got to have you on the show. We’ve got to tell them about what you’re doing, what you got going on.”

Ryan Stewman:                  Tell him I said, “What’s up,” man.

Josh Felber:        I will.

Ryan Stewman:                  I probably spent $500 with him, and god knows how many people I’ve sent there. As a matter of fact, the last meeting that we did for our Break Free Academy, on day one you can wear whatever you want. On day two you got to wear my T-shirts so we can get pictures, but on day one you can wear whatever. Like 80% of the people showed up wearing Startup Drug shirts that said one thing or another. I’m like, “Oh, man, that’s awesome.”

Josh Felber:        That’s so cool. Yeah, he’s made a dent there.

Ryan Stewman:                  He’s got good stuff, good slogans and logos and things like that.

Josh Felber:        Yeah, for sure. Tell me a little bit, you’re the Hardcore Closer. Let’s dive into a little bit about, we’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs listening. People that want to be better sales people. What different ways have you found that have made you successful in selling better, closing better, however you want to describe it?

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, that’s a broad-ass question.

Josh Felber:        I’ll let you define it and bring it in tighter.

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, I guess pretty easier answers. My biggest thing is I sell worst-case scenario. I am confident, and if anything that I’ve ever sold I’m very knowledgeable about it. I sell worst-case scenario, and I believe that if you can set this is like the worst-case scenario situation that can happen, if you can sell on that basis point, then you deliver way above and beyond the expectation you set with them. They’ll send you a plethora of referrals. They’ll never complain. They’ll fall in love with you any time they then of whatever it is that you sell.

If you go, and you’re a general contractor, let’s just say, and you go to a job site, and you over bid by $50,000, but, yet, you sold them on the fact that your service was superior, and your stuff was going to be double-inspected and triple saved and it would be earth quake proof and this other stuff. You closed them on that, and then you delivered it 10 G’s below the original 50 grand, so you delivered it $60,000 less. How much happier are they going to be about it and do the next project with you?

Instead, what most people do is they sell at that $60,000 deficit, and then when they come over the budget by $60,000 they lose referrals. They’ve got to deal with all sorts of heat and everything. I’ve always just sold worst-case scenario, and I think that that’s really been what’s helped me because often times nowadays I’m kind of in my own little circle people know. But back in the day when I was building that circle people would say, “Well, why didn’t you just tell that all of this back there existed man? I would have bought this shit months ago from you.” It’s like, “Man, I don’t want to promise you that. That’s up to you.”

Josh Felber:        Cool, so kind of selling the worst-case scenario. You’re not over-promising, but you’re over-delivering.

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, I way under-promise. Like I said, I’m selling people worst-case scenario. I takes sales person to be able to do that because most people are selling best-case scenario, and that shit never happens. I don’t really think that’s selling. That’s like make a bunch of false promises that you don’t have a slim chance of coming through. Again, I’m from the mortgage industry, and so in the mortgage industry that’s what we had to do. We had to sell worst-case scenario because, “Hey, man, if you don’t give me a bank statement, then this shit’s done. If you don’t give me a tax return, then this stuff [inaudible 00:29:37]. If this doesn’t say these exact numbers that you’re telling me right here we cannot do this deal.”

I’ve done that thousands of times. I’ve done thousands of mortgage transactions, so I’m always used to just being straightforward with everybody and letting them know. Plus, I always watched how the lawyers dealt with me through me going in and out of jail all those years, and they always sold me on some worst-case scenario stuff. The experience between the legal system and the banking world, that’s just been a good habit that I created that served me well. Sure, it’s probably kept a lot of people from buying from me on the front end, but when people do purchase we don’t lose them. We don’t have refunds. We don’t have complaints. We don’t get that kind of stuff in my business, which is rare for the kind of business I run.

Josh Felber:        Right. We just got a few minutes left if you could kind of give us an idea. What are maybe your top two things that helped lead you down the best path of success throughout your life?

Ryan Stewman:                  Well, creating habits and managing the schedule, like I said earlier, and then aligning yourself with the right people. Back in the day when I read the Law of Success from Napoleon Hill I couldn’t reach out to Napoleon Hill and be like, “Hey, yo, Napoleon. Let’s me and you link up. Maybe we go to a mastermind at Richard Branson’s island somewhere.” What is it going to cost, a hundred grand? We couldn’t do that, but now it exists. We have online where you can go to guys like Kevin and Frank, and you can pay them money and mastermind with them. If you can’t afford those guys you can get signed up for someone like Ben Settle’s newsletter for 97 bucks a month or something like that to where whatever it is that your means you’re allowed to surround yourself with someone that you can learn from.

Even for me, right now my mission is to give out 5,000 books. You can go to elevatortothetop.com and I’ll give you a free paperback copy of my book. It’s like this. You can get a free paperback copy of it. Back in the day, people couldn’t give their books away because they didn’t have any kind of platform to get them into the hands of people. Now, even if you can’t afford anything, you can go to YouTube and you can learn all sorts of stuff. You can invest in knowledge. Here’s the thing, knowledge has to be implemented on, and that’s been the single biggest thing that I think that has attributed to my success is my ability to not only just consume knowledge but to take action.

As of a matter of fact, here’s my biggest downfall. When I buy these programs online. I see something and I’m like, “Dude, that sounds awesome. I’m want to learn that.” Speed reader or how to run Facebook ads or Google ads expert stuff. I’m like, “Yeah, I want to learn that.” Then I watch like the first video, “I’m like, dude, that’s genius,” and I never log in again because I’m over here trying to take action. I think that’s the difference. I think most people watch the video six or seven times and try to memorize it and get it perfect, whereas I just figure I’ll just Tasmanian devil my way through everything, and somebody will come behind me and pick some pieces even if it is me doing it. Really, that’s just how I’ve done everything. I just have taken action.

There’s two things, like I said, having mentor, and then being able to take action on the information that you get from mentor. These days there’s no excuse. You can get books like this. You can go to YouTube and like Gary Vaynerchuk, you said Grant Cardone, all those, myself, we’re all over YouTube. There’s bunch of videos, free stuff that you learn. There’s really no excuse not to be successful these days. There really isn’t.

Josh Felber:        No, I totally agree, just even with the internet and everything it’s made it so much easier. I remember when I first started my company at 14 years old, having to actually fill out, call the company, have them mail me a vendor application, fill it all out, mail it back. Wait like a month to find out if you’re actually approved and everything, and then having to go network it, like, little meetings to sell the stuff. There was no internet to pop up a website or do it that way.

Ryan Stewman:                  Pop up, one-click up sales. The one-click up sell was the networking you had to go to.

Josh Felber:        But it got good, valuable sales, communication, closing, selling, everything. I really appreciate you coming on the show today. Tell our audience where they can find out more about you. Obviously, elevatortothetop.com, go grab a free copy of your book.

Ryan Stewman:                  Yeah, definitely grab the book at elevatortothetop.com. You can go to HardcoreCloser.com. That’s my blog, all my social media is there, everything else. There’s like 1500 blog posts on there. I’ve written for Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, all that stuff plus the articles on that website. There’s not a better sales resource on the internet. I’m willing to put my reputation on that that there’s not a better sales resource on the internet other than HardcoreCloser.com. If you sell anything, head over there and check it out.

Josh Felber:        Cool, awesome. What’s one piece of technology you can’t live without?

Ryan Stewman:                  Man, there is more than one, but right now let’s say my iPhone because I pretty much run everything from my iPhone. Other than doing the interviews like this or whatever, man, I run my entire life on my iPhone, so I could never make it without it.

Josh Felber:        Cool, man. That’s awesome. Again, thanks. I really appreciate your time today. It was an honor to have you on the show and just being able to share your information and share everything with our audience.

Ryan Stewman:                  Cool, well, thanks for having me on, Josh.

Josh Felber:        Definitely. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank. Get out and be extraordinary.