About Our Guest
Ken Okazaki
20X Agency
Transcript:
What I’m gonna say is that the way I work is we do everything in reverse. So what? What I mean by that is I don’t know why story works well. I don’t know why certain things work well, but I do know what works well and then we lean into that.
Welcome to the 91 Day podcast. I’m Jonathan and I am thrilled today to have a guest all the way from Japan with us, Ken. Ok. Kazaki is a just video master and is gonna have the opportunity to share with us today just some insights on video that probably will even amaze me cuz Ken has, I think, forgotten more about.
Produce great marketing video than I’ve ever learned or ever will learn. So Ken, thank you so much, first of all for getting up so early in the morning to be with us and for agreeing to be on the podcast today and share some of your knowledge with our audience. Can you start by sharing just a little bit, maybe an elevator pitch, Ken, about you and what you’re doing.
I know you run multiple businesses and different things like that, but if you could give us an overview. Sure. Thanks John. Thanks for having me on the show. Let’s, if I were. Put that into a. into a nutshell. Then I do everything around creating videos for marketing purposes. So I have a content creation agency, and we don’t build funnels and run ads.
That’s why I wouldn’t call it a marketing agency, but we do everything required to do the research, the actual shooting of videos for our clients, editing and managing their social media, making sure the engagement happens and that there is guaranteed. Month on month growth on all their social media channels that we manage.
So that’s one thing that we do. It’s called 20 x agency.com, and more recently I’ve launched a new business and that’s called the Go Box Studio, where we actually help it. This business was born out of the frustration of my agency clients where. , no matter how hard they tried or how much research they did, they just couldn’t get a home studio to look nice work.
And every time they went on the road, they had to make a choice whether to look, really basic or to lug around a suitcase or two of tripods cables and a whole bunch of gear that always ended up either breaking or for, forgetting something or just taking too much time to set up and take down.
So that resulted in me creating a studio that, flips up outside of. a carryon suitcase, and that is something that’s very recent, but also going very thank you and I have seen your go back studio and I must admit, I am incredibly impressed. As you mentioned it, it’s so common if you want to have good quality video, especially if you’re on the road.
It’s really difficult to get set up and. I cannot imagine the hours that went into testing and development. I know you shared some of that on social media and it was great to watch that early on as you were doing some of that. But from what I’ve seen from the Go Box studio in particular, you’ve managed to create that perfect mobile video studio that can literally be tagged along anywhere and set up within just minutes.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Personally, I’m curious, is it still are you still taking, back order reservations or is it its production got caught up with the demand? Cause I know you had huge demand up. . Yeah, that’s a really good thing you brought up there. Our biggest challenge is keeping up with demand.
I, at end of September we’re in, if you’re listening to this later on, we’re in 2022 right now. We’re almost at the end of the year, but end of September, 2022 and beginning of October, I had taken it on the road and gone to a conference just to make a decision. In my mind, whether or not is this a.
that I need to kill cuz it’s just a distraction. Or does this have legs and can I make a business out of this? And right out of the gate, our booth was the most popular booth at the entire event. This is like 3000 people there. 200 booths. I think 200 booths is way too much for 3000 people. But everybody else was complaining about how they weren’t getting enough track traffic, enough business.
All I remember is I did not get a break for three days straight. We took a whole bunch of orders and yeah, people can order now. We are caught up. We are wonderful. We’re revamping our production process and streamlining things. This is the first time I’m going into a physical products space.
actually, it’s more complicated than I expected. We’re, for example, sourcing custom made parts from 14 different factories and having them assembled in an assembly plant and then quality controlled at different place, and then sh it’s nuts. So to bring it all under one roof would be a big challenge, but that’s one of my goals for the future.
R really cool. Just because I know it’s a curiosity of a lot of us that are watching. Can you walk through, how does one figure out, obviously you had the idea and the idea is the seed for that, Ken, but how do you go about figuring out, producing these parts, what parts are needed in your case, custom parts?
Can you tell us a little bit about your r and d process and what that looked like along the journey? Yeah, really good question. In the beginning the idea came out because , you just, what you see right now in front of me, in front of you on this camera is, it’s a certain type of camera that gives what’s called like a cinematic look where you have a certain warmth of color, you have a certain depth of field, and that, what that means is when the background’s all nice and soft and you don’t have to do the digital fakery, which, frankly is a good attempt.
It’s not gonna, never gonna be the same, the real thing, right? . A lot of people wanted what I had. My clients, they’re like, why can’t we be on Zoom calls? Why can’t we record video like you? And I said you can. And I gave them a shopping list and I made some very detailed tutorials and schematics and, told them exactly what cables to get everything.
And even with that being done, they still struggled. And it, some people got it. Some people got it. Some people have more of a proclivity. Electronics and audio visual things. But so we helped ’em the best we could and then we set up a service where they could pay a certain amount of money for an expert to actually a certain fee to get it done remotely like we are right now, or to have someone actually come to your house, which was a legi logistical challenge.
Obviously, since I’m in Japan, they’re in the US so I, I built a network of contractors and things like that, which which was complic. And and then if the client wanted to change one thing Hey, I want to go from this corner of the room to that corner of the room, then they don’t unplug everything, mess it all up, and and then they’d have to call the expert again, not ideal, right?
And then a certain person who right now is very successful on YouTube I won’t mention his name, but he’s he was in some of the same masterminds I’m in. and he heard that I’m the guy that has video. So he reaches out and says, Hey Ken, I’d love to have that professional set up the same look you’ve got, but I wanna take it on the road with me.
And I flat out turn him down. I said, no, we don’t do that. We’re a digital media agency. We’re not handyman here and. and, but yeah, he’s a very convincing guy and he convinced me to make something. So I drew some really rough designs and literally went to the hardware store, bought some plywood and a saw and some clamps, and I did not know what I was doing.
I don’t have a background in engineering, nothing. But I put together a plan that kind of worked and I sent it over and had somebody in the US fabricated for him, like a handyman type of person who had a bit of tech background. , like this guy was so happy with it. He took a photo, stuck it on Instagram, 5,000 comments in two days later.
Wow. He writes me, says, Ken, you gotta make a business out of this. And then he hangs up. I’m like, . Okay. So this is about 18 months ago from so this is, I guess around the end of 2021. , or . It was August, 2021 that this happened. That was the farthest thing from my mind that I wanted to do, that I was just doing someone a favor, here’s a thing, go away.
That was my attitude at the time. Sure. But the seed planted in my mind and there are days when. You have less work than others. So then I’m just thinking about how can we make this into a reality? So I made a version two, or this is more like a version 0.001. If I were to look in hindsight, sent it to a client, who’s actually paying me monthly retainers, and I said, Hey, this is gonna cost X amount of money, but and it’s, but it’s gonna, I just want to get your feedback on it, but it’s yours.
I just need to cover. , they bought it. I sent it to them, they loved it and had a big list of feedback and I said, great. So I made those changes. Sent ’em another one. Another one. And I did this eight times, wow. Constantly improving with different clients and a, with different situations.
Some people are traveling often, some people are doing live events, some people are podcasters. We got people in the fitness industry. We’ve got, doctors MDs who are doing telemedicine and teaching. We have a nutritionist, so all these different , I’ve got patent lawyers tax lawyers, tax accountants.
So there’s this wide range of clients I have, and I kept sending different versions to different people to get their opinion on it. And throughout this process I had identified most of the things that they wanted and been somehow able to work it all in. And I have no engineering background or electrical engineering background or, or even shop I literal.
When I realized that, a hacksaw and plywood aren’t gonna cut it anymore, , I went and taught myself cad, which I, found out is the industry standard for industrial design. So I just watched a bunch of YouTube videos, taught myself how to do CAD design learned how to work with sheet metal, steel milling.
Plastic injection molding. And then when the electronic components weren’t in off the shelf, components weren’t enough. I taught myself how to design PCB boards, and then I created a power and heat management system, which is the biggest challenge that most people face when creating a setup like this.
And and there’s a combination of custom stuff off-the-shelf stuff, and that’s why we have an assembly plant to put it all together. So I hope I didn’t get too long winded there, but that was the design process, the creation process. And eventually when I did bring it to the states, I’m glad I ironed out a lot of these issues.
And it was , A lot of my clients were already using them for six, seven months, and I was pretty confident that even if I wasn’t there to handhold them, that customers will be able to get a lot of benefit out of these. ? No not long-winded at all. In fact, I find it absolutely fascinating the process that you went through, not being a physical products guy myself, just to the iterations and the processes.
I love the, just the initiative to learn how to do all of that off of YouTube. And candidly, Ken, I’m totally impressed with the knowledge. I don’t think there’s any way I could have figured that stuff out, no matter how good the videos were. , very impressive and a great story to hear about. I know the first time I think I saw your completed kit was a few months ago you were to show in Las Vegas and I was actually doing a call with Dennis U and he was FaceTiming and or zooming whatever we were doing at the moment.
And I remember he was walked past your booth and said, Hey, I’ve gotta show you guys this amazing setup. And I don’t know if that was the first time Ken or that. Dennis saw it or not, but it was just, it was so amazing to see the crowds of people surrounding you and to see the kit the way you had it laid out.
Very impressive. Best of luck with that product. I can only imagine that it’s going to just continue to catapult forward because it really does fulfill a very need in the industry. That’s there. So very, , thank you. So when you and I first met, it was through actually Josh Nelson’s seven figure agency.
. And at the time you were giving us some courses or some advice on something. I think that impacts everybody listening to this call and that’s how to make a better zoom call. . And I should have probably asked you to prep for that, but is that something that you still have available or that is available for anybody watching the podcast to go learn about?
As far as, sure. You mean setting up home studio kind of thing? Yeah. You had talked to, I remember you talked a lot about lighting and camera placement. And just the basics, but it was, I found it so it. Well done because it spoke to me, who, I’m not a techie, I’m not a video guy, but it all made sense on how to set the basics up and I think that’s just a tremendous example of how you are so willing to help in the community and help others do a better job with video, make their videos better.
Across the board. . So actually yeah, I do have that. That’s I’ll give that to you for free. I’ll send you the link. You can put that Oh, thank you. Description below. But it’s a 15 minute video where I, Eli I demonstrate what needs to happen and with it is a PDF with. Schematics on how to position everything where the lights should go, how to set up the camera on the desk, like exactly the position of the lights, the angle, like I broke it down so that, you could follow as much or as little as you want, but if you follow it exactly.
You’ll get really similar results to what you’re seeing. In my camera right now. It was a great guide and I actually remember the diagrams being really helpful. I’ve not had a chance to implement all of that yet, but as we move forward, we’re getting more and more of that by adding different lights and angles and just even where the camera was located.
I remember it was a great discussion about should it be low, should it be high, should it be in front of you? So really good. Thank you by the way, for being willing to share that with our audience for free. That’s very generous. I appreciate that. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about, you recently, and recently, probably in the last four to six months, but you launched your own podcast, and I don’t know if it was the first or not, but it has been a great podcast, by the way, and your growth has been, Astronomical to see how fast it’s been picked up.
Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose a podcast and maybe give us a couple of insights into what you did to cause it to grow so quickly? Yeah, that’s a really good question and you’re the first person that’s asked me that actually. Oh, thank you. The title of the podcast leans.
Capitalism, it’s called the capitalist, the content capitalist. And they could check it [email protected] and yeah, it is very new. I think we’re only 20 episodes in or so, and we’re doing them weekly, so you know, if we do the math, that’s four months ago, right? That we started Steve, right?
Yep. But the reason for the podcast was because I had so many conversations with prospects who wanted to join my agency, and they the thing about agency work, and Jonathan, you’re gonna probably be nodding your head and smiling as I say this, , but as people are coming in, they’re gonna hear what they want to hear and setting expectations later on when things don’t go exactly as they.
Setting expectations up front is super important so that later on there’s no misunderstanding. Absolutely. And one of the things I say when I bring people into my agency is, Hey we’re gonna help you build your brand and your online presence is gonna be phenomenal, however, if you don’t have a marketing system in place.
And what that means to me is if you can’t show me with a 5% tolerance of an R O A S roas on money spent to get a new client that’s been repeatable, then I think you’re too early to bring us on. , and I’ve changed that to 10% tolerance up or down. And what that means is let’s say you got a thousand bucks.
Why don’t you put that into Facebook or YouTube or TikTok or wherever you’re running your ads, then you know, because historically this is a repeatable pattern that you’re gonna get, what, 1.5, 150%, 200%, 500%, whatever that is. Sometimes even negative. If you have a great, a delivery system in the back that’s gonna make the profits.
But whatever your numbers are, if you don’t know. Then you shouldn’t hire. So you gotta figure that out first us, because what we do is gonna make the sales and marketing easier, but it’s, we’re not your marketing machine. You need a machine that we’re gonna augment. It’s like we’re the, I’m not sure how you wanna say it, but we’re like a component of a vehicle.
We’re not the vehicle and Oh, it’s a great analogy. Yeah. Yeah, but what happens is some, later on down the line people are like how am I gonna make money with this? Or, what’s the ROI of what you’re doing? Or, the CFO comes through and does a review and I was having too many of these conversations, so I decided, Hey, you know what, instead of me or even on the pitch, when I’m with.
The decision maker in the business. Having to explain, having to answer this question, what’s the roi? And I gotta, pull out this whole story again. Or whatever, however I’m gonna explain it. I got tired of that, so I said, you know what? Instead of me having to justify why it’s worth it to hire us, even though we don’t promise an ROI or return on ads spend or whatever metric they’re looking for, what I’m gonna do is just interview people sole.
People who are creating content and using that content to make money, and they have to be doing at least a million dollars in revenue a year, because otherwise, why is it worth listening to someone who’s just gonna regurgitate what, Gary V or Grant Cardone or, Ty Lopez is gonna say, it’s just, just go listen to the source.
Right? Absolutely. So many people, Take a sound bite and then they make their version of it. And I think for a total novice it might be worth it. But for someone running a business you deserve better. And so that’s the promise upfront. As I say, these conversations are with people who I vetted and are making a million dollars or more off the back of content creation.
And then we break down how are they doing it? Two things happen there. Number one, people who are listening know that whatever the guest is sharing is from experience and not conjecture, right? Second thing is I put the word capitalist in the title because I think that I lean more toward the. , the business owner who’s doing between one and 50 million a year.
And a lot of these guys are, entrepreneurial. They’re not people who come in through Ivy League colleges and , got promoted because of their mom or their dad. They actually built these business scratch and they have that capitalistic istic attitude toward, life and business.
And I wanted to interview more people like that because attracts so I think those are the main components. and it’s, I genuinely have fun interviewing and finding out for myself who are these people and what makes ’em tick and so the questions I ask are from my own curiosity and that makes the conversation fun for me and that’s why I could keep going.
I have to tell you, it is absolutely my favorite new podcast of 2022. We’ll make sure we put a link into it because you do a fantastic job. You’ve interviewed some just amazing people and everybody seems to share just a great story along the way. That’s part of that. I think that probably brings me to my next question, Ken, obviously being an expert in video and marketing video in particular, from your perspective, can you tell us why?
Story is so effective in gaining that trust and that likability, that credibility that we’re trying to do. Again, as business leaders in that segment that you talked about, I’m right there with you. I’m entrepreneurial, I don’t have any Ivy League degrees, nothing like that. Why is it that story works so well, in your opinion, to reach our audience?
Yeah, I, I can’t really speak too much to the, like the evolutionary psychology of us as humans because I’m not an expert there. Fair enough. And I, so even though I’d like to quote some, something really clever sounding, I probably could, make something up, go to, chat G p t and type that out
And it’ll sound clever, but that’s just not the way I work. So what I’m gonna say is that the way I work is we do everything. reverse what I mean by that is, I don’t know why story works well. I don’t know why certain things work well, but I do know what works well. And then we lean into that.
So we, something that almost everything I do is learned through. l studying my own client’s accounts, my accounts, and a lot of really successful people on social media, their accounts. So what we do is we audit a whole bunch of data everything from what percentage of the screen is occupied by the face.
How much time on the video are looking right at the camera versus looking off camera. Maybe having interview with somebody, like a podcast, like if they’re live, you’d be looking off camera, right? . . How much of it is. Is talking about your personal success, your personal life other people’s stories there’s gonna be we measure, for example, how many seconds does it take from the beginning of the video to when you actually close the first loop and get to the point we count how many words and letters are on the screen.
For the thumbnail. We count how many elements are on the screen, and we look at things all the way to the granular level of . I think that the biggest thing we look at is, oh yeah, how many numbers are on the screen? , how many emojis are on the screen? How many words per minute are you speaking?
But the one statistic that made the biggest, this is by far the thing that’s moving the middle of the most with short form content. So this means stuff on TikTok, YouTube shorts. Instagram reels and. , and this is the one thing I haven’t found much deviance from creator to creator is how long does it take you to get to the point?
That’s what we call that tti time to impact. Yep. So the problem everybody’s facing is, I think so many marketers have been hammering this into us forever, is you need an amazing hook. The hook has to be great, otherwise the thumb’s not gonna stop scrolling. You’re not gonna grab people’s attention.
And we’ve heard this over and over, so everybody is over. Invested in the hook that they forget to get to the point. And what happens is if you’re gonna take more than seven seconds, and that’s the number we’re finding on average as a threshold, if you’re gonna take more than seven seconds to complete.
The hook and then actually give something that they came for, then you’ve lost them. Now, a lot of people, it’s what we call rums, rambling old man syndrome, and I’ve got that Sometimes a lot of people have it. They don’t realize they have it, but they will go on and on and the preamble becomes the entire video and those videos flop.
But, and I’ll give you a quick example. If I were to say because we’re coming into the holidays three foods to avoid over the Christmas holidays if you want to keep your six pack. And I, so let’s say it as a title of the video and I start with Hey guys, we’re going into Christmas season.
There’s gonna be amazing food wherever you go, but here are the three that you’re gonna absolutely want to avoid if you wanna keep those hard gained abs over the holidays. Now that’s the hook. . And what I should do right here is just say, Hey, number one is the mashed potatoes, especially if it has.
I closed the first loop there cuz I, I proposed a hook and now I have to close the loop and then I should, I could explain and go to number one and number two, number three. But what most people do is, instead of giving the thing, they’re gonna stretch out a little bit longer thinking that the anticipation’s gonna help.
And they’re gonna say, you know how it is when you go to your grandma’s place and it smells so good and your uncle’s there and everybody’s watching tv and it’s such. I That’s, forget it. That’s, or they go into their backstory. I remember when I was a kid, I thought that, don’t do any of that.
Cut the fluff, say just enough to tell people what value you’re gonna give them. Give them the value, and you gotta do that in seven seconds or less. And I think that’s the thing I’ve observed. So I’ve answered you in a long-winded way. Like, why do people love story? My answer is I don.
I just know what works and doesn’t, and I don’t even really try to figure out why. I just know what, and then we experiment with what, and it works better and it works better. And then we intensify the what, and we find a whole bunch of whats, and we stack them up. And that’s how our clients accounts keep growing pretty well.
I think you, you answered a question that was even more important and. I’ll tell you right now, if you take nothing else from this podcast, if you’re watching it, that seven second rule is total gold geist. That is amazing. In fact, just to make a point of that, because seven seconds isn’t very long when you’re talking, I wanna take just a minute and throw up a timer here to count seven seconds and think to yourself as you watch these seven seconds go by.
Just as Ken said, you’ve got this long to get into your content, not just to do your intro, but to get into that content. So let’s listen or let’s watch Seven seconds.
So Kenny if people are watching this and they go, wow, I need the type of advice and counsel and guidance that, that Ken and his team offer, what’s the best way for them to reach out and get in touch with you and find out whether or not they’re qualified and at a point that, again, your services would add value to what they’re doing?
Yeah, that’s a really good question. First of all, we have, different levels of service and we’re actually creating something new for people who I really wanna help, but simply can’t afford the, we have, some bigger packages for clients and everything ranges from, starting at, $20,000 a month retainers.
So that’s like a $240,000 investment over a year. And we’re, we’ve, we’re going all the way. To creating something new for, so it’s really accessible where it’s less than $2,000 a month. And that’s something brand new that is really for beginners, people who are looking for, number one, the confidence coaching one-on-one with.
With actual, directors slash coaches, video editing and production all included. And we just found a way to make it extremely efficient. Where, to be honest, our margin on this, and I’m not sure if my team’s gonna be okay sh sharing this, but it’s around the 5% mark on this service. Wow. But we’re doing this because we want to grab enough market share and share enough value so that the.
the techniques that we share, the networks we’re building grow so big even at a tiny margin. We’re pretty safe that we’re not gonna lose money on this, but we want to operate at a tiny margin, but then go to massive scale on this extremely cheap product. It’s kinda like the Costco tasters or, the Costco dogs, right?
Sure. I, it’s a loss leader, but. I’m willing to put that out and experiment with this so that I could bring people into either buying the equipment that’s the go box or grow people up so that they’re gonna want to, when they’re ready, come into, like the 10 to $20,000 a month type of packages because they’ve had that experience with us.
So I’ll the best place to find me is just search Ken OK Kazaki on any social media platform, or the agency itself is 20 x agency.com, and you’ll be able to see Currently we don’t have that new package there, but we will probably by Christmas, and that’s in a few days.
So that’s something I’m working really hard on. Whatever stage you’re at if you’re not sure where you want to go, just find me on social media, send me a DM and we’ll probably have a quick interview and see, what package works best for you.
That’s amazing. And Ken, as you mentioned, this is being prerecorded, so by the time this is live, we’ll be passed Christmas by just a little bit. And you should be able to see that at Ken’s site at that point in time. Ken, you’ve added a ton of value today, and as most of the viewers know, I’d like to ask one more question that’s not necessarily directly related to your expertise, but as a business leader and as an entrepreneur, if you were forced to start.
And somebody said, Ken, you’ve gotta start over from scratch. Here’s a thousand dollars. You don’t have to worry about your food. You don’t have to worry about transportation on a roof over your head, but I’m gonna give you 91 days or three months to build a business that’s generating $10,000 a month or more in revenue.
What would you be looking at? What type of things would you do in order to try to build that business in the first three months? Okay. Can I ask some absolutely. Clarifying questions around this? Sure. So first of all, Is the goal to get to 10,000 a month, or is the goal to build something that’s gonna scale past 10,000 a month and at least hit 10,000?
We’d, I would say the goal is to build something that’s gonna scale past that, but that by month three we could at least get it to $10,000 a month in revenue in that three month period. And again, sometimes it doesn’t work. This is just, our best opinion. Yeah. Okay. Look I would use that money to gain access to a network of people.
First of all, like I, I’d spend the whole world right away on the highest quality network I could get access to. Maybe I’d even combine that with bartering. But every great customer or business idea that I’ve ever had came as a result of doing services for people who were at the income level that I wanted to interact with.
. I would do research. I would go back into the same business I’m in really, but I just accelerate things from what I learned. So let’s say if I’ve only got a thousand dollars, then I can’t really hire people. Do I? Do I have a laptop? At least you have a laptop, you have a cell phone.
Okay. High speed internet, whatever you need there. Yep. Yeah. So I just need to get in front of the right people and obviously a thousand dollars. Get me flying around very much because, so we do it virtually from home. But I want to get inside networks that have a lot of engagement and discussion time, in their lessons and stuff.
Because then I get one-on-one time with other people, or at least one on three or four, not sure on 500. So then you’d actually get time to make an impression on someone. , I would show up to every single thing, add as much value as possible so that the leader of this tribe will recognize my value and also want to feature me in one way or another.
So getting inside of the right network is the first step. Second step is to identify, let’s say 10 key people in there who I wanna do business with. And then it’s just about finding out what they want more than anything else around. What content creation. , and this is going to be just simply cause that’s my wheelhouse and I know that best.
So I’d probably put together a package service, start it super low probably $2,000 a month and just so I could get some testimonials and some re and some positive feedback, hopeful. , I’d shoot it with my phone or on their webcam. Since I don’t have money to hire anyone, , I edited myself and get it back to them.
So $2,000 deals are really easy to close. So I think in the first month, as long as they do, if they have weekly sessions to meet up , I’d probably close five people that’s already $10,000 in the first month. I’d roll that into probably getting five more a month. From the same network of people.
So now we’re making a bit of a profit. But this is all services cuz services are the fastest way to make money. Cuz you know, you’re an able-bodied person and you get stuff done. And on a tiny scale, if I’m not running my other businesses, then yeah, it’s very doable because that’s, I just have to schedule time to get on a Zoom call.
, get their credit card. and then spend maybe an hour or two outside of the Zoom call to actually edit some video. So getting to 10,000 is easy, and that’s why I asked about are we getting two 10,000 or scaling past . Because if I wanted to scale past that, then I’d take a different approach and I’d look for partners early on who will do the editing for me and the social media management for me, and then give them equity so that I can just focus on finding the right people and pitching.
and then have someone else deliver it. So we’d probably, I’d make less money up front because I’m giving more to someone else. Sure. But then that model could scale, to a hundred K a month, whereas the first model I described would probably get me to 30 or 40 K before I start burning out during that, too many zoom calls.
Too much time editing video. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a overview of probably what I do. and what I just described to you is what I’ve been doing up until now on different levels, but just condensed down into the most simple steps. . I think two, two great ideas. And the fact that you gave us two different ways to do it, I think is fantastic, Ken, and I really appreciate that.
You’re the first person that’s ever brought up barter, and I think that’s such a great idea, especially if you’re in that startup mode. Why not do some bartering to get value that is both? Of value to the person you’re offering to, but also value back without having to part with any of that hard-earned cash or to expand on what’s available for there.
So great ideas and I think so often when we get started, we miss the long-term concept of where do we want to grow that business too. And like you said, the ability to partner with other people, give them a piece of the pie, gives you that. to grow it far beyond just a 20 or $30,000 a month business, but have that scalability while still obviously focusing on the things you love to do.
Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much. That’s great. I remember my, my brother lives way on the countryside here in Japan and next door there was somebody who was building their own. . And every weekend he’d come by and he’d have, a contractor would come by and they’d drop off a whole bunch of, beams of wood, plywood, drywall or whatever.
And on Saturday, Sunday, he’d spend his time building up this house and he’d, he was probably a carpenter by trade. I never talked to him. I just saw this house slowly building up . And it took him two and a half years. And it was a beautiful house when it was done. And I remember though that about a month before it was finished, the next lot over.
Somebody else started building a house, but they had contractors do it, and they, the both houses were completed at the same time. And one of them took two and a half years. The other took a month, and the other one had a team of 15 people on site, just, , tap, tap, bang, banging, bang, done.
And the, there’s neither is right or wrong, but when you’re building a business, I think the thing you want to think about, , is this a, you know about a personal passion that you want to have your fingerprint on every single bit of it, and if it is, then do it yourself. You could do every bit of it.
It will take longer, but then again, that’s an expression of your passion, of your love. For the craft. But if you are in it to make money, if you’re in it, to scale to something really efficient and help as many people as possible versus helping one person at an extremely high level. , you gotta think about being the architect, not the architect necessarily, but more like the person who owns the contractor owns the, the plot of land in this building.
A bunch of houses versus somebody who is, thinking and designing and planning everything on their own. And even if it is, if you are early stage agents, you don’t have the access to those kind of people. That’s why you want to go into the barter deal. Say, Hey and I’m gonna use an analogy of a house here Hey, I’m gonna build this house and I, based on the market value of this area and this type of house, I think we’ll sell up for $2.5 million.
You wanna go 50 50 with me? And then you start finding people to actually build it. And your job from then on is just to coordinate. And if you make out with 30% of that for just coordinating, then you realize, hey, I’ve got a great blueprint here that I can continue coordinating multiple houses simultaneously and partnering with more people.
So the first guy gets a hundred percent of the. Takes him two and a half years, the other guy gets 30%, but in that same period of time, he’s built 20 houses. . So you see the difference there in the multiplied effort. So I think that going into that process of starting from zero, you gotta be clear on what the intended outcome is.
Is it to win a contest and get to 10,000 a month? Or is it to build a business that you’re gonna want to keep working at or potentially exit in? in a few years down the line, and that would very much affect how I operate. Now, if there was a whole bunch of people, let’s say that it’s a reality show and there’s 10 people, first person to get to a $10,000 a month wins, then I would do everything myself.
Sure, that’s a short term goal. I could get there faster. What’s that African proverb? If you want to go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together, right? Yes. And that’s super, super true in business. And that’s the decision you gotta make. Fantastic advice and great story to go along with that to make sense.
I, I really appreciate the analogy. I think that helps bring that in more concrete terms, no pun intended with building, but it really helps it, it resonate with everybody, so fantastic.
