are you ready to scale and outsource
your business okay let's go welcome to the outsourcing and scaling show I'm
your host Nathan Hirsch a show where we talk about everything
Amazon shopify ecommerce and digital marketing let's get started hey everyone
welcome back to outsourcing and scaling I'm your host Nathan Hersh we are here
with a special guest James smiley James how are you hey what's going on
appreciate you having me here hello hello so I'm gonna read your bio and
it's awesome James has been recognized as one of the
most innovative and in-demand entrepreneurs under 40 here's the lead 0
to 20 million dollar growth for not one but two different companies fed part of
a Silicon Valley software is a service IPL and get sold it for three of the
Fortune ten companies James has been behind the scenes paid advisor to over
560 executives and entrepreneurs his primary specialty is helping
entrepreneurs with rapid revenue acceleration by leveraging online
automations and his proprietary digital marketing systems pretty cool James
hahaha I appreciate it man it's funny I consider myself just a normal dude so my
dad always told me the moment that you don't put your pants on by yourself then
you made it but until then you're just a normal dude so go to work that's my dad
told me so I always say when you get too hot or when you get to the top don't get
too high when you get to the bottom don't get too low you got to stay that
even keel but yeah take us back before before you were an entrepreneur what
were you doing you always want to be an entrepreneur give us a glimpse into the
past that the previous life yeah I mean I am I grew up really poor the
inner-city in Seattle on a place called Rainier Valley Beacon Hill if anybody
looks it up and I I don't know I just had this knack for making money even I
was when I was young I used to work multiple jobs multiple paper routes
things like that I learned how to double the revenue on a paper route then I got
another paper route and double the revenue that one I did simple things
like I just knocked on every door and just made an offer like it was so crazy
I just like you'd be surprised how many people don't even know a paper is in
their area and they got these marketing teams and all these people trying to
figure out how to market and it's like if you just go knock on the door people
you know I mean just go knock on a door put an offer you leavin on a cell but if
you can put your offer out there people will buy like people wake up more than
ever before in history wanting to buy something they just don't want you to
sell you know so yeah I mean that's kind of how I started
what's ball denied peeling a software company my 20s made my first six figures
when I was 20 years old and then I that allowed me to get recruited to a
software company and we were the first Google Maps essentially as well we were
the first Google Maps so that went really well and then from there I just
bridge that and leverage that to just do consulting for hundreds of companies and
and just coaching programs stuff I've been doing the executive coaching and
entrepreneurial coaching for over twelve years and it's been really awesome fun
it's my passion to how people grow the revenue so you work with a lot of
different businesses small startups coaches influencers larger companies
what's your favorite and why do you prefer that the smaller people getting
off the top you prefer people that are already established and taking them in
the next level yeah I really focus on the solopreneur right now and I think
that's that's gonna be the big thing so I made that shift about two years ago
two and a half years ago because I really realized that capabilities were
at a place that were unprecedented and that it was only gonna get more there's
gonna be an increase in capabilities for the average human being so if you have a
phone and internet access well you can do now you couldn't do five years ago or
definitely not ten or twenty years ago so you know if you can dance on you're a
kid you can make three to five thousand dollars a month getting sponsors to
dance on Instagram or tik-tok or whatever right like and so like back in
my day m38 back in my day when I was teenager people told you you're dancing
on the street like you go get in life go get a job go you know anything like so
if you're good enough and you can provide content that people want that
the capabilities are there like never before for you to you know serve you
your market serve the world make money whatever it is you want to do and so I
realized that shift was happening about seven or eight years ago I realized that
this was this era was coming about because of social and things like that
and so I you know I've always tried to move my expertise to where the leverage
is the highest because then for it because at the end of the day you only
have a certain number hours you can work right like Gary Vaynerchuk or Steve Jobs
doesn't have more than you or didn't have more than you and Elon Musk doesn't
have more than you like you actually have the same amount of hours they do so
the question is how do you leverage what you're doing and one of the best ways to
do it is to be in a highly leveraged of Bowl if that's where highly leveraged of
all market like social media internet marketing those kind of things where you
know you can do one-to-many and you know there's all these capabilities that are
available you know I I believe there's so you know economists in politicians
and I think you know they'll tell you that doesn't matter people left write it
up down whatever they are believed like like economists will tell you a lot of
people tell you that you know things are gonna crash things III believe it's the
opposite they might think things are gonna crash but that's because fortune
500 brands I believe there's gonna be more fortune 500 brands crashing the
next five to six years than ever before in history and we've already started to
see that but that doesn't mean that there isn't an uprise of millions of
people like us you know and so I saw this wave coming in and I knew that I
could be a part of supporting and enabling people so let's talk about the
sole entrepreneur where do you see people struggle the most and how where
can you make the most impact the fastest so it's interesting there was a study I
believe by Carnegie Mellon came out two years ago and it really specifically
studied entrepreneurs who were using the Internet and it said that now it's you
know typically in entrepreneurship 8 out of 10 businesses fail and on the
internet it was 96 percent so almost 100 percent like almost everybody in some
way is not doing what they wanted to do or we're not doing their dream on the
Internet and when that survey said that the number one reason that people will
check the box and said this is why I'm failing wasn't money it wasn't they
didn't have skills it wasn't the typical things it was the
word overwhelmed and overwhelm specifically means you know what to do
you've read the book you've you know you know the
nomenclature you just don't know what to do in what order right yeah I mean like
you hear there's so much to do you feel feels like you just you can't get the
right things done and so you end up failing so I think you know having
really good systems being really good at namely people with automation in
teaching them how to leverage their time and their money and everything their
data their resources what they know like all that stuff can help make them money
and so you know uh you know although I'm really good at funnel sales copy and all
those things I find you can have an amazing funnel amazing sales copy but a
bad business system and a bad business process and never actually get your
business off the ground you know you look at all the to comma Club winners
are all these people who crush it and click funnels or whatever they are
amazing at running their business their business models are really efficient and
so so many people just don't have that and that's what we provide so they could
have stability of growth and in automation of freedom and those kind of
things yeah I think you're right I mean you mentioned never before her people
had so many opportunities well with those opportunities just comes a lot of
things to do a lot of lessons or people saying hey do this do this do this and
and it really comes down to the prioritization so if you're someone
let's say there's someone listening who has struggled to prioritize do you have
any tips for them yeah if you started to prioritize I think the number one thing
we all need to do is figure out what's the you know the core whatever you wanna
call it the core purpose of course skill look for your destiny from God whatever
you want to say like what what is your thing you know and if you don't know
there's a couple ways to figure it out one what do you enjoy you know the you
can write down a short list of that number two what other people think
you're good at that's kind of easy to figure out like people will tell you and
another good way is like what what can you do to make money you know and not
that the world's about money but money will open up a lot of doors and get you
places and help you you know if you want to build wells over over in third world
countries money is how you do it you know I mean you can't do it with just
talking about it though so I think you know kind of
figuring out what you're good at and then figuring out how do I spend 80% of
my time doing what I'm good at that's the key is like you know and
that's tough when people don't have money they don't know how to outsource
or whatever but once again capabilities are there more than ever before so you
can hire people like like for me I am you know we on any given year we're
gonna do some around a million dollars our goal is really about a net profit
margin of over 80% and so we can you know I can do 800 grand and make more
cash flow into my bank account than friends and I know that do two or three
million so so it really just depends on the giving year what we're doing
sometimes you know we're way over a million or more but but it for me it's
about cash flow about leveraging that cash flow and and one of the really cool
things is you know like like I have I really have to so kind of you know the
contractors wife who were involved in my business and then we on any given month
we're gonna pay between 6 and 11 people that are contractors depends on what
we're doing so we could scale that back on months we could maybe we're doing all
the more but but those capabilities were never there before you know uh uh I mean
for a company my size to be able to do that we wouldn't need an office and you
know all these things and now with technology and communications the way
they are is unbelievable you know what's possible so let's talk about hiring a
little beiieve i viously hired a lot of people you've helped people hire other
people we look at your videos back you've helped people hire a lot of
people um what do you look for when you're hiring someone I'm sure you've
kind of figured that out a little bit by now that's a really good question so so
I have a little bit different philosophy than most but my idle mind works really
really really well so the one that we teach is you know we teach you know you
want to you know try to hire and with it within a process or a system where so
this is really in the kind of virtual assistant kind of kind of world where
somebody's not coming to work with you every day it could be us it could be
abroad wherever but really what we're gonna do we're
gonna put a really good application out there that the Matt talks about we're
looking for the ID you'll candidate we're not looking for people who are
good we know God bless those people and whatever but we need like people who are
rock stars we want the best of the best right if I'm hired a salesperson it'll
say like you have to be able to how you have to have the abilities and the
capabilities and the skills to do 150 grand or 180 grand or more per year if
you don't have the skills for that do not apply and so it doesn't mean
everybody that applies is gonna be that rock star but you're gonna get a certain
mentality a person who has a that's to apply to that so that helps you a lot
the second thing we'll do is in there it will tell them exactly what to do so the
this is how you gonna figure out can they self manage themselves because
that's ultimately what their job is their job is about you know doing a
repeated system over and over and over again without you seeing right without
you knowing and we do not check in with them every day there's people out there
who have huge coaching programs who teach that I have found you do not need
that if you know how to bring them in on board them right and and and manage them
by results because at the end of the day I can see if the social media posts are
going up I can see if the videos are being edited right like so I don't need
to like like we have very few meetings in our in our company our company was
extremely efficient we might have one or two total meetings maybe one meeting I'm
a week like we very rarely have meetings I don't like meetings because it really
ties up a lot of people's time so if we're having a meeting it needs to be
really efficient it needs to be about productivity right in like like you
think about pulling five people together I mean the amount of money and resources
they're being spent there isn't is incredible in corporate America people
have meetings all day long they're in boardrooms and conference rooms meeting
after meeting after meeting after meeting and basically all people are
doing is talking about problems no one in the room actually knows the solution
you know I mean and that's why companies are inefficient so so to kind of loop
back so when we look to hire somebody we will give them
process of exactly how to get hired how do you beat everyone else we will
literally tell them that you know we'll tell them the scent of video this is
really important well tell them to include your favorite color or something
weird and random this to see if they pay attention you know I mean and and just
to see if they can follow a process we will we might give them a link that's
somewhere out there on the internet and we'll type it in there and say this this
they'll write the word dot and then we'll write the rest of the URL because
really long and we'll just see like do they realize this is a period not the
word dot you know I mean like because there's spaces in between that we're not
we're trying to see like what's the intellect well like can this person
solve a problem on their own do they need to message me do that you
know and then they'll send me a video and so typically you might get you know
50 applications 100 applications but you're really gonna get five or ten
videos and I mean that's how you you you just you created a tremendous amount of
leverage in automation around a process where now I've got the ten best
candidates right in front of me in my inbox and will look at those and then
we'll take the best people out of there we'll give them a specific task
so this kind of next level is if you get the task you're one of like the three or
four more people and use a lot of times we'll pay people for that because we
want them to do the tasks we want to see what they're gonna do and honestly it's
not good doesn't cost you that much to have three people do a two-hour task but
that task is gonna send them all over the internet I mean it's gonna be like
Google search this will find an article posted here start a Dropbox account for
free go over here and do that like in they've got to solve problems and it may
not have anything to do with their job if they're a video editor it may say
take find a video on YouTube about this download it edit here I need 16 seconds
of this then go here and get some royalty-free this and get of music and
do all this and like I mean they've got a huge process and thing to follow and
basically I'm trying to see like can they follow 21 steps and they literally
look at a video pause it don't do it then because that's that's gonna be
their job you know and really you're gonna come down to one or two people
every time you're gonna it's like you're gonna down to one maybe two people who
are actually gonna do that task and do it right
most people will not do that task you'd be surprised IV at 10:00 half of them
won't even turn it in so the people who do it right and do well now I've seen
how they can perform what they can do it doesn't matter if it's a sales call
whatever like I'll tell them you know find somebody do a mock call recorded on
this app I mean literally because I want to see how they are in it you know in
live and then from there what will will usually hire them and what we do is we
apply a lot of pressure in the first week okay unless I know for sure like
maybe it's I'm hiring a friend's assistant or something like that but if
I don't know them we are gonna apply the max amount of pressure in the first week
almost so where they're gonna be like man I'm out of here like we don't want
that but we want to know how do they perform under pressure and can they
actually hang with us because the last thing you want to do is figure that out
in six months everybody knows them now you're gonna look like you can't hire
people you know I mean like it's so if you can figure out the first week and
you know sometimes we can get my severance or something we'll keep paying
for the rest of the month like if they're nice and they didn't you know
they tried but we're gonna put a lot of pressure on that's what we personally do
but but if they make it through that hell we they're their goal talk to us
about the the strategy that comes behind just growing a business from one to five
million because that that process from zero to 1 million okay you hire a few
people you figure it out and you've helped people take that next level from
one to five and what works from zero to one doesn't work from zero to five you
have any insight into that kind of business owner yeah
so the first thing I would say is you have to have a you have to have a
reality check on where you really are today okay I can't tell you how many
people come into the programs and we do or coaching or whatever and they're
they're posturing right they're trying to impress me or press someone else and
it's like if you tell me you're fast at running the ball and then I give you the
ball in the game and you're slow well that's your fault you know I mean like
people are gonna tackle you like you know so I you know I can't
there's no one can prepare you if you're if you're if you don't actually have
where you really are and if you can't communicate that then you're you're in
trouble because of yourself so so so the reality is okay a lot of people we work
with we're one of the only coaching programs that do this we will work with
people over pre-revenue most and back almost all big high ticket programs they
will literally tell you and they they tell people like me do not ever work
with people or pre-revenue do not work with small companies well the reality of
that is those people even though they're good even though they're smart even
though they have a talent they're cool people but they don't know how to coach
those kind of people that's the bottom line is they don't know enough to coach
those people we don't have any problem doing that so the first goal if you do
if you're not there is you need to get to 10k a month yeah I promise you you
will never hit a million dollars unless you hit ten cama
there's no mathematical way to do it right so let's not even talk about a
million and that's why I tell them like let's get to a 10k right let's figure
that out once you get there then it's about duplication duplication of
processes eliminating it's real so so the you know you everyone heard this
this phrase now 10x right like Grant Cardone ones made it big for Grant
Cardone 10x was actually from another guy who taught what's called the ten
times business growth theory so he called it ten times and then grant was
in that program grant called it 10x and like made it big but the ten times
theory is not AB not what grant teaches actually grant teaches 10x your revenue
okay ten dexing revenue is truly a small company strategy there is no fortune ten
that will 10x the revenue this year zero that is a small company startup strategy
so it sounds really good it sells really good but it doesn't implement okay
the real 10 times strategy that that started out with is the best one which
is how do you ten times productivity how do you ten times how do you get ten
times more the lifestyle that you want out of your business so that could mean
that you double your revenue but do 50 percent less
work this year now you know I mean like that is the real 10x mindset the true
authentic and that's what we teach is like like for some people 10x in revenue
is where they need to be because they're at 10 K there at 2 K hey so that's
totally fine but you know when you get to like a million 10x in a million it is
extremely complicated so the first place you know realistic in recent plans is
how do we get to each into 10,000 a month once we get you there I mean we've
had we just had a girl Sonia Lee she did 54 grand in her first month she's from
California ed board he did a hundred and six grand in his first month like we
have people who can crush it in the first month yeah these are people go 0-2
that by the way they're not like bringing in revenue they're going to
zero from that to that and then from there my next strategic
goal is the plan around how do we get you to a thousand dollars a day okay a
thousand dollars a day is achievable might be seven thousand a month depends
on what you sell but but it's it ends up being about 30k a month okay if you can
get there okay here you're close to being a one percenter one percenters
four hundred twelve thousand dollars a year okay
you're a 300 350 380 to 280 or somewhere in that range okay
at that point you can make in cuz I've taken a lot of businesses to that point
you can actually make a logical decision on love the kids love them so at that
point okay at 300 grand whether you're a 10-man operation 59 one
man one woman doesn't matter at that point you can actually make it do you
know how to acquire customers you've got a sales process down you know how to
support them like you've got enough in your business to actually say do I want
to create a million dollar business here because you could actually look at ours
effort energy all these important things that you need to track
and go do I really want to 5x my time do I want to spend five times more five 5x
more time in the business or am i okay a lot warmer is my goal gonna be the 2x
the business and do the same amount of work right like you like when you get to
300 grand it's like a magical number where you can make a very realistic
prediction of what you want to do you know and sometimes like a million
dollars people like dude I don't care about a million I just want to you know
I just want to make a hundred grand a week or a month or whatever you know
they set a goal and so at that point one of the best strategies ever okay I've
done this from a lot of companies is spending like a hundred grand and
bringing in a top-notch operations person somebody who can get a little bit
equity they'll work for 80 grand or something like that but they they are a
operations genius you get these people from big companies they'll they'll take
a lot less pay than they make now because they're into the entrepreneur
thing and I mean you can get people that will take your sales process for X the
amount of revenue for X amount of leads you're getting take your support double
the support so you can handle that double up accounting like you know I
mean like you like it's literally a mathematical equation they're literally
like right out in a spreadsheet and you'll see it happen so you know at that
point that's one of the smartest ways to grow from that point is to you know you
could do it yourself too but I can tell you if you bring on one of these people
that that is their life like they know it cuz truly it is a mathematical it's
more of a mathematical place than executing on that you know once you get
to about 300 how does someone make that decision because I've always been in the
mentality it's okay we hit 1 million let's get to five we hit five let's get
to 10 and and for me taking a step back and maybe that's because I don't have a
big family and I'm kind of all focused and maybe that'll change when I get
older but how does someone make that decision whether okay let's try to 10x
or or let's really just organize this business and take a step back and have
or about lifestyle business I I think it's it's really based on what the
person wants to do you know what really makes them happy yeah you know for me
like like my business can run Monday I'm sorry Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we
have all our meetings all our coaching you know Monday and Friday
is kind of a buffer day like if we need to have means we can I love my business
so much I pretty much work seven days a week like it's not work you know I mean
like yeah so in it but but see I like it because I've set it up so I have that
flexibility like if I don't want to work for two or three days I really don't
have to you know I might need to check an email every now and then I've got my
you know one of my right hand people she'll tell me you know hey you need to
look at this and I'll just look at some things here there but I'm really not
like hustling you know not balling out for like three days in a row when I want
to take a time off I want to go out to the ranch or ranch and do some hunting
or fishing with the kids or whatever like you know I have that flexibility so
so yeah it really just depends like for some people they don't want it they
don't care they don't own any outdoor equipment they don't own a boat they
don't you know they just they don't have kids or whatever they just want to they
want to just see what they can do and that's the cool thing about business
like the neverending what you can do you know and there's no unethical like well
if you make more than 10 million then here honest I there's no such thing you
know I mean like you can go do whatever you want make whatever you want as long
as you're you know not doing something wrong you know I mean like I mean in the
beauty is especially if you want to help people I'm telling you it has been
proven more than ever before it used to be 10 years ago 20 years ago people say
well if you want to help people don't make money
don't be an entrepreneur just just go try to raise money and put out a charity
you know pal and but I'm telling you you can put out and I'm not against I get
money the people who put out the charity buckets you know but like like you can
put out a charity bucket and put it on 10,000 grocery stores or if you work for
input the guy who works for five years and crushes it will smoke
all those people in one year he'll smoke what they do kanoon 20 literally in 20
he was that one person in one year with smoke what they can do in 20 years and
that's been proven that's why all these guys make all guys and gals make all
this money and they now become the philanthropists like the new cool word
and and some people make fun they like well if you really fly another piss you
would have been flying suppose this whole time but it's like you don't
understand like what they're what they're saying is they have like like
they can do and one like Bill Gates can do and in one day what a huge charity
would take them 30 years to do you know because people think like can you give
these charity people call start a 501c3 all this stuff when you have no money
well what you don't understand okay it's for every dollar you give to one of
those kind of broke and I'm not making fun I'm just saying most 501 C these are
really broke when you give to a broke 501c3 90% of the money goes to the
operations of that business so your money is not hitting the field or
hitting the well or whatever it is you're trying to do you know I mean like
you're given $1 only 10% of that actually goes towards building a home or
helping a child or whatever it is so but but when you give to the Bill Gates
Foundation or whatever it's like a huge percent of that money goes out you know
plus he's giving his own money so which is a hundred percent of that money goes
out so anyway um yeah I mean it's it's it's endless what you can do it's really
about what what you want to do what you feel called to do man this has been
great any last tip or advice to the entrepreneurs out there listening well I
mean the one thing I would say number one get used to failing get comfortable
with failing there's like five big failing lessons one is like there's like
fell early fell fast they'll cheap just fail like you gotta be you gotta fail so
much you can finally get to a win that's how it is when you start and so don't
feel like oh man I did those leads it didn't work I sent those emails it
didn't work I did the sales call it didn't work good you're just like
everyone else luckily you're exactly like all the winners all the players
like you are finally at first base this is where we all were you know so so you
know like don't don't feel bad about that and get really used to failing but
learn how to do it cheap is the key that's why my business partner Kevin
Harrington from shark tank always tells me and the
other thing I would say and this is a big thing I really believe it's like if
you have a dream or something in your like heart or whatever it is in your
mind where you're just like I got to do that I got a I got a develop that I got
to sell that I got a I got to be this person I want this freedom whatever that
like weird dream that be there like you never really tell people because like if
you told them they probably think you're weird you know like they don't get it so
you very rarely tell people if you have that thing okay in that dream that idea
like it doesn't stop and it's here again it's here today it's there when you go
to bed you wake up and it's there you're sitting there listen spod Casas there I
am telling you that is your ultimate most real most like physically tangible
confirmation that you are supposed to do that okay because I won't go into all
the psychology of it but like I'm not thinking it Nate's not thinking it
you're thinking it you know I mean like the way even if you might say well hey
we'll bunch of us are agency owners well you live in a different area like the
way you want to do the way you can do is different the Nate or me or someone else
and so let that be the confirmation and the confidence that you need to go out
there and do it and take risk and take chances and people like Nate is here to
help you I'm here to help you whatever you need but that's the beauty of it you
know whatever level of learning you're at if you need to make millions or
thousands or hundreds the capabilities are there more than ever before so don't
be a victim don't be a complainer just go out there and get it done and and and
I'm telling you if you just put your head down you'll you'll be surprised at
how far you can go I love the word weird-ass entrepreneurs
we're all weird James how can people find out more about you one of the best
things to do is just look me up on Facebook somebody friend request or PM
me whatever and then James smiley org is where all the cool stuff is so you can
get you know free playbooks on stuff free USB drives with all the masks like
thousand dollar masterminds that we knew you can get that stuff for free if you
want to join a coaching or something like that there's a bunch of programs
and stuff they're at every level so yeah whatever
whatever you guys want to do if I can help you in any way let me know but
appreciate you having me on here I appreciate all your all your followers
to of course visit it's Jane smiley dot org check it out he's got a really cool
offer a free USB that'll send you with a ton of great content on it thanks so
much for coming on really appreciate the time appreciate him in hey everyone
thank you so much for watching did you enjoy this content if so click
like leave us a comment and subscribe to our channel so we can continue bringing
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