Speaker 1: 0:00

I have friends and if they're listening, like, I try not to hang out with them as much because secretly, like, they bring me down they don't even understand what I'm doing and the vision I'm going for. I wanted to be a pilot and I wanted to fly commercially and I fell in love with business because of the agency, because of learning how businesses run. You're not going to regret the vacation. You're not going to regret. I ended up buying the plane, turned around a year later, sold it, made double the money and bought my own plane on my own, like, and I had my president sit down with me.

Speaker 1: 0:31

He's like travis, if you were to grow this business faster, no strings attached, just just dream what would it be. And it was like I'd buy another agency because I could acquire that, I know our playbook and we could grow faster. He's like. Then why don't we do? Basically, the third principle here is get a tool to help you keep track of expenses and keep people accountable. I'm more than mediocre, but I'm not the greatest salesperson and I was able to build a multimillion dollar business off of my sales alone. My philosophy is beyond your paycheck.

Speaker 2: 1:00

It's surges of cash that you can use to grow your net worth and feed your investments. Welcome back to the surges of income that you can use to grow your net worth and feed your investments. Welcome back to the Surges of Income podcast. I'm your host, chris Moore. Today I have a very special guest with me. His name is Travis Weathers.

Speaker 2: 1:12

He owns a company called Rotate Digital Marketing Agency and we were hanging out together. I actually wore this special Hawaiian shirt for you. You didn't show up prepared like you were before. Hawaiian shirt for you. You didn't show up prepared like you were before, but we spoke together in Gatlinburg at the Rank Masters Lead Snap Mastermind. That happened back in July and I just was really impressed with you. I loved how your heart was on your sleeve and in the tip of your tongue as you were speaking into these people. You are truly helping them with no strings attached, and you've made quite an impression in the marketing world. Your agency is so niched down, so specific. I just wanted to share your story with everybody. I'm sure there's a lot of really golden nuggets and things that have made you who you are and gotten you where you are today, and any knowledge and wisdom we can give to my audience. I'd love to be able to do that, so thanks for being here with us today. And, travis, why don't you introduce yourself?

Speaker 1: 2:04

Thank you so much for having me. Man, you said I'm special, you know, and my mom used to tell me I'm special and I thought I was special. But then, the more I learn, I'm like I may not be that special. I may just be able to execute and just hope for the best and be blinded. So we'll talk a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 2:21

What makes you special is the fact that you don't overthink things.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Yeah, exactly, uh, yeah, so, um, I, uh, my name is Travis Weathers. I own rotate digitalcom. I'm married, been married for 12 years. I got three kids. I own a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO. Uh, and now PPC for moving companies? Uh, honestly.

Speaker 2: 2:46

I'm really excited. My goal is to share as much value as possible and I'm an open book, so no question will offend me. Awesome. Well, I don't have any crazy questions that are going to give away your life story, but I think let's start with surges of income to begin with.

Speaker 2: 3:00

I mean, what I teach specifically is how to make money in large surges, all at one time, where you can use that to really feed your net worth, your investments, rather than spending it Money. Where you can use that to really feed your net worth, your investments, rather than spending it Money. Where, I mean, if you just go work for somebody, as you know, you're never going to earn your way to really being wealthy, because cost of living, inflation, scope creep and lifestyle creep constantly will come up and it's going to be hard to save your way to wealth. So, with what you do, I know being a digital marketing agency owner, being a business owner and having the ability to make large amounts of profit One of the things that you presented while you were in Gatlinburg with us is all about profitability.

Speaker 2: 3:30

You really focus hard on margins some from some tough life lessons and things you've learned along the way, but I think that's something that everyone needs to hear. So just to hear a little bit about my audience here a lot of people in the business acquisitions, real estate, people who are seeking success, people who are younger and older alike, who are looking to really grow their net worth. So let's talk about your story, let's channel it in a way where we can give some really good value to my listeners. So how'd you get into moving company SEO and PPC marketing agency?

Speaker 1: 4:01

Like that's an interesting niche. How did that come about? Yeah, so I um. The long story short is, I wanted to, um, become a pilot, and being a pilot costed some money and we did not have a lot of money, um, and I wanted to pursue that as like a career and again, that is just more and more money.

Speaker 1: 4:14

And so I had dabbled like I'd built a website one time and dabbled in website stuff, and I was working for a marketing company doing marketing stuff and I was like I can just I can leave, start my own business and make way more money. So I put in my two weeks, I quit and then the first thing that happens, I fell flat on my face. I sold maybe three clients making you know $500 a month, which now is like, ah, $500 a month, but at the time I talked down on it. Now, $500 a month of new revenue was amazing for me. On it, now, $500 a month of new revenue was amazing for me, and I was, my wife was thrilled. I was thrilled. It just I wish it came when I had it, when I had my consistent job income.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Uh, but anyway, I ended up getting a job learning how to sell and I was selling Bible software, and what that did for me is it allowed me to understand that when you sell, you don't need to be sleazy, and when you can sell right and sell well, you're actually providing tremendous value to people.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So I combined that with a course I bought, and that's why I love when hearing that people invest in courses, invest in their education, investing in themselves. Because I did that in between learning how to sell and then buying this course, I started my digital agency and what happened is it said I, but they basically said you got to choose a niche and I did not want to do it, but I decided I added one guy who was a moving owner who's like you did really well, and we had restaurants and insurance companies and we were making you know $6,000 with 12 companies and, uh, and he's like you did really well for me. And so I knew, with a testimonial and him in the moving industry, I could at least sell one more person. And so I decided to choose the moving company niche and I sold my first moving company client in December of 2018.

Speaker 2: 5:52

So fast forward to today. How many clients do you have in the moving industry now?

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yeah, so we have got currently about 150 clients. We've served over like 270 clients in the moving industry but currently have about 150 clients all over Canada, australia and the US which is really cool.

Speaker 2: 6:08

That's a lot, and somebody who does-.

Speaker 1: 6:10

I didn't even know. You had that many moving companies in America, by the way, when I started this, and there's probably 10,000 plus. Right, yeah, there's 10,000, but like 7,000 good ones. I had no idea, though I thought there was 50, but I still did it idea, though I thought there was 50, but I still did it.

Speaker 2: 6:23

Well, niches make riches. You know you go and follow Alex Hermosi. He calls it niche slapping when he sees somebody get too broad, too general. A couple of my buddies always talk about this. I think Patrick, our friend, Patrick Shannon, and my other business partner, Carl, say like, if you're going to go to a surgeon and you're having open heart surgery, do you want to go to a general surgeon or do you want to go to a heart surgeon? And it's also interesting, if you follow the money, a heart surgeon makes 10 times more per year on average than a general surgeon. I think niches make riches. Bitches is what they say, and excuse my language, but it's so real. I mean you got to niche down, you got to specialize. Everyone wants to work with the best and you can't be the best at everything. So I think that's smart. Fast forward to today. I mean not everyone's going to understand how big 150 clients is.

Speaker 2: 7:06

I did own an agency, a pretty good-sized agency, and that's a lot of clients, People paying you on monthly retainer. You probably have at least a 90% retention rate over a three to six-month period. There is somewhat of a revolving door in general, but that's a pretty sizable agency. Let's jump over to some money stuff. You talked about two things in general. In Gatlinburg you talked about sales and you taught a prospecting system and you literally opened up the kimono and gave them your sales script, which was phenomenal. Teaching, I teach sales. I have a sales mastermind I lead every Friday. I'd love to have you on there one day if you're willing. I'd love it, but I mean that was very impressive.

Speaker 2: 7:42

And then the other part is margins. You talked about not only how to make money, but you made money and then you spent it. And then one day you sat down and say how do I keep it? So let's talk about those two things in general. One, let's talk about sales, because I think sales truly is one of the biggest things that you could ever learn how to do.

Speaker 2: 7:58

I think it pays. Some of the highest ROI of anything you can invest in is yourself, and learning how to sell is massive. There's so many opportunities for people out there. I have people come to me every day Travis, like how can I work with you, how can I be in your world? I said, listen, if you're damn good at sales, I've always got a place for you, and for me it's not taking any risk. It's all performance, Like selling is everything. So we'll talk about sales, your journey there, how you came up with that great framework that you shared, and then let's talk about profit margins, your view on that and the things that you've done in your business that we maybe can pass on as some wisdom to our listeners.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Yeah. So I'd say, if we're going to start with sales, there's some philosophies. I live by Number one. It's still human to human contact and human to human conversation. And I think a lot of people sometimes can get caught up and you can slap me if I'm saying things against what you say, but I doubt, I doubt it will be against it. They'll get caught up in the sales tactic, the, the, you know the do this and say this and at the end of the day, if you can step back and go, my goal is to provide value to the person that's on the phone call with me or on the Zoom call with me. That will level the playing field of how you interact. And you can be a mediocre salesperson and I would say I'm more than mediocre, but I'm not the greatest salesperson and I was able to build a multimillion dollar business off of my sales alone. And so, when you step back, my philosophy is how do I provide as much value as possible to this person in a systematic way, in a framework where we don't waste their time? And I think that framework was helpful. And so the framework I talked about, you know where it was like, hey, you direct message them, you go to them on Facebook, you reach out to them, that whole process you know again you.

Speaker 1: 9:38

You'll talk to people who will poo, poo that process. They'll be like that is old school, that's not cool and you can take your opinions but at the end of the day, a lot of the times people just don't do it right. They'll do it and they'll be like hi, how are you? Like, I don't know you. You wouldn't do that to a random person on the street. But if a random person on the street came up and said, hey, I see your car, do you need it washed? It's like this is what I do, this is who I am. I didn't even say hi. It was like this is what I do, this is who I am. Do you need help? And people would say no and a lot of people would say yes.

Speaker 1: 10:09

And we talked about these conversations. These outreaches would lead to $100,000, $200,000 lifetime value clients. That's massive leverage. So that was kind of the process to get them on the sales call. And then the sales script that I went through was not anything unique. I was presented a version of it. But that sales script that I went through was really just systematically figuring out what is the best way to deliver this value through the sales call and get them to understand their pain points? I think a lot of the times, if you're like me, you almost get a little timid on a sales call. You're like I don't want to be pushy. I would almost argue if you're concerned about being pushy and too sales sleazy, you're probably missing some of the conviction on why you're on that call right now. Those are some of the philosophies.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Yeah, I love the human to human thing. I think a lot of stuff that I teach outside of just sales. I work a lot in the business acquisition space as you know Dealmaker Wealth Society. We talk about seller conversation frameworks, negotiation frameworks, which in everything is sales, and one of the things when you're talking with someone is learning how to create rapport. It's also helping them understand that they're in a safe pair of hands, just having this conversation, positioning yourself as an expert leading with value. And we talk about when we're talking to sellers.

Speaker 2: 11:27

A lot of times you have all these walls up. When you're talking to a prospect, a lot of times they have these walls up right, they have their own confirmation or biases or things that they came into the call already believing or just looking for someone to take advantage of them. And I think when you start as a consultant and an advocate rather than someone looking to sell them something, people can feel that and then they open up like a clam, like so I love the human to human. I love building relationships, I love using empathy, I love validating their thinking. I like to I teach something called leading the negative Probably never heard of it because I'm the one who created it, but it's the idea of how do I get someone on a sales call to bitch and complain to me within the first three minutes.

Speaker 2: 12:02

That's my superpower, right, because I know if I can get them to complain and open up and talk about what's not working, I can find the pain. We also know no pain, no sale. The entire dynamic of the call has shifted to where now I'm listening to them, I'm their psychologist, I'm their solutions provider, I'm the consultant trying to find the solution for them. And now I don't have to worry about getting that thing at the end of the call where they're just like, okay, well, I'll think about it, or one of these smoke screens, because I've already identified exactly what's going on. And when I was listening to your framework and you explain it to all the students in the room, it was really kind of like cut through the BS, build a relationship, add tons of value and then just leaving it up to them for the next steps, and I thought it was powerful. So I think we have very different styles. Yet I love sales because there's so many different ways to make it work.

Speaker 1: 12:51

And yet both both ways are creating value and opening up the pain and giving them the option to make a decision. And again, we talked about it on the on the meeting. One of the things that you talk about like how do I add value? Sometimes adding value is telling them no, I know two people I sold and these are, you know, 60, $70,000, uh, lifetime value clients that I sold, not because I did such a great job on the sales call, but because they were referred by somebody who I said no to Cause.

Speaker 1: 13:17

I said I don't believe you're ready for this. I think you need to do X, y and Z first, then come to us and that's going to get the most leverage out of you working with us. Come to us in two months, but I think it's actually best that you don't move forward with us. And I didn't do that as a sales tactic. I just genuinely was looking at the situation going. I think that's what's best. And he was like no one's ever done that with me, posted online, left me a review, put it online. I'm like this guy's not a sales sleazy guy, like he will really help you. And I got two calls from that that I closed because they're like yeah, we want to hear your honest feedback, so again, value.

Speaker 2: 13:49

It's huge. And also, I think you have to have a paradigm shift. When you have an agency right, you have to understand that your goal is to say no. Your goal is to what I call painting the ideal win scenario, like what would have to be true. What parameters would have to be in place? What size of business? What problems have they already solved? What perspective have they already gained? What have they tried that hasn't worked?

Speaker 2: 14:10

Like somebody who fits in this box is who I'm going to accept as a client. Everyone else, I'm going to say no and not waste too much time because I only have so much time. I'm only looking for certain clients who are going to have the longer lifetime, customer value and the longer relationship. They're going to appreciate what I bring to the table. They're not going to be on a timeline where they have three months to make it work or they're going to have to throw me away. And they didn't even tell me like they have the right expectations. And what you're saying is you said hey, I like your business. I wish I could help you. We only work with people who fit in this box. You're not quite ready for us yet. I'd love to work with you in two years.

Speaker 2: 14:44

Maybe I can refer you to somebody else who specializes in working with businesses that are your size, and he thought that was so authentic rather than you just taking his money, and he was able to give you a positive view. That came back to you and that karma, the universe, god, whatever you believe came back to you and brought you stuff back. So I think it's huge, and that comes back to also just being having integrity. Like Carl, one of my business partners, one of my main business partners, he talks about being a noble capitalist. He said we're in business, it's our job to take care of people, and that's exactly what you're doing in your industry, and I love that.

Speaker 2: 15:17

So let's pivot from sales, because we're doing a quick one today. Right, let's pivot from sales. Let's talk about money. You told a story about how you guys were making lots of money in revenue and how almost it was a vanity metric, right, and you were measuring your success based off how much revenue you're bringing the door, and so you had this moment Uh, and then you realize that you need to measure something else. So can you just go through that story and kind of share with everyone?

Speaker 1: 15:41

Yeah. So the the story goes you know I'm starting to make some money and you know, when you're, when you're smaller, you can get away with being like, all right, we'll see what happens next month. You know cause you? You're lean, you're growing like there's a lot of good stuff going on and, uh, and so what I what basically happened is I kind of lived that all the way into as we got bigger, and the key philosophy here, uh, is I'll share in a second. But what ended up happening is we had our best month of sales and profit that we've ever had in four years at the company, or three years at the company, whatever it was, and I was on cloud nine. I was buying Christmas gifts, like it was the whole gambit. I was excited.

Speaker 1: 16:21

And then, no joke, followed up by the next month, not next year, well, it's the next year, but the next month we had the worst profit. We were negative profit and we lost money. And that was the eyeopening event. That was like Holy crap, I can't be passive on this, I can't be complacent. I can't be passive on this, I can't be complacent, I can't be reactive, I've got to plan for the profit. And so what changed that time is. I then told our team we're going to specifically make profit like a forefront thing that we're focusing on in tracking. So we created this whole expense tracking because we wanted profit to be intentional and not profit to be this like byproduct of like let's see how the month comes and plays out. We wanted it to be so intentional that we could calculate 30 days before what we would get and come close to, and then, if we were off, we would be able to figure out why we're off. And so that was kind of what had happened.

Speaker 1: 17:16

And then what that did is it sparked a ton of follow-up of like how we're tracking profit, how we're tracking expenses, how we're keeping people accountable, what you know we're using virtual cards and how we're making sure that we're tracking expenses and, and every end of the month, making sure that it's plus or minus 10%. And so that was like the high level story of what. What was happening. Because, again, you, you, people, and there's no harm, no foul but you get the people who like to talk about their $2 million digital marketing agency I know these people, by the way and then, when push comes to shove, you find out they're paying themselves $100,000 a year and they're making $50,000 in net profit that year in their business, like $150,000 a year.

Speaker 1: 17:57

I can go work for Chris Moore and make that doing sales calls. My life would be way less stressful. People like to play the game of revenue and in that year I switched to go. Yeah, there's a revenue aspect when you come to selling and valuations, but it's always at the crux and at the core it's profit. So that was the story.

Speaker 2: 18:16

So let's give some advice to anybody watching or listening, whatever platform you're on Travis. If you had three books, three pieces of advice or three things that you studied when you got profit focused, what did you go and learn? Did you read profit first? Did you go study EOS, Like what did you do to kind of help you through that process?

Speaker 1: 18:37

Yeah, I would say the main things is. The first thing is I got control of my expenses and maybe I read Profit First during that time, call it first or second, whatever it is but I got control and understanding of my expenses. Even if it wasn't in control, I knew where it was going. And when I talk about this, we're talking about line item by line item. I knew every single transaction. I had it on an Excel spreadsheet and then I would have a reconciliation and I know that sounds like a fancy word. It literally just means me going to QuickBooks, clicking this open and going transaction by transaction. What's going on, where's this going and why did we spend this and who's accountable for the spending. And that took time. It wasn't like I created this and then suddenly it was done. It was like I created this and then, for the like, the next seven months, I tweaked it, I redid it. I've added more accountability to different people. So that was the first one, because you can't talk about profit, you can't talk about expenses If you don't even know where it's going.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Quickbooks will not save your profit, it does not tell you profit. It will tell you profit but as an after fact, quickbooks won't save your profit. You've got to protect your profit and I did that with the expense sheet and that was the first starting point. I did reap profit first. That's hard. It's hard to just be like, oh yeah, well, this is what we're going to do. But I did take of like, well, if we're going to make 18% profit this year, what needs to change? And there is a reality that when we had a downturn of the industry and it was my fault, but when we had a downturn, we were very specific and strategic around what expenses and what type of people we got rid of to help with that and making that profit first.

Speaker 1: 20:13

So keep track of expenses, the profit first. And then, for anybody here that has a team, I use something called pay with extend, but it's just the idea that people have accountability on their cards. The cards are virtual, everyone's got their own card and there's accountability of submissions, of what is spent. And beforehand people could just spend willy nilly and again I didn't have a finance person, I couldn't afford it. So this platform, so there was a. Basically, the third principle here is get a tool to help you keep track of expenses and keep people accountable. And again you've got you. It is hard work, it took me time. It takes me time to still focus on that. The money is probably the closest thing I keep to my chest of everything else, because it goes by very quickly.

Speaker 2: 20:59

I think it's huge. It's having financial visibility is massive as well. Sometimes we don't look at it because we say a lot is what you water grows or whatever you can measure, you can manage. And sometimes, as much as we think we're doing good work, we're not measuring everything that matters and getting surprises at the end of the year and finding out that you didn't make as much money but your bank account still has money in it. It's like a vanity metric, it's like a security blanket. That's not really real.

Speaker 1: 21:26

And for those of you guys who are sitting here going okay, I feel like I know what's right, I feel like I know what should be done, and then you go to your, let's say, your bookkeeper or your accountant and they tell you why it shouldn't be or whatever it is. I just want to encourage you listen to your gut feelings and just take control of your finances the way you need it to be done. Now the person at the end of the year can do all the changes they need to submit the taxes. But my financial guy would tell me why X, y, this is travel, so it needs to be in the business expense. I was like no, this is travel for marketing reasons and I want to track my marketing ROI. So I need you to put this in marketing and out of the gate, you're out of the box.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Accountant or bookkeeper will not do that, naturally, cause guess what? It's not their business. They're not running the business. You got to create the PNL for you to make business decisions as the owner of the business, and that is really important to know is like just because your accountant says it should go over here doesn't mean you have to do it. You have to do what you need to do to make good decisions in your business.

Speaker 2: 22:25

I'll take it back to a saying my stepdad told me when I was a younger, younger dad I was probably like 23, 24, just had two kids and I was running out of money constantly. I was working at a restaurant as a manager at Ruby Tuesday, probably making 36 grand, 38 grand a year, and I said, man, I don't know what's happening, but I don't have any money left over. He said well, chris, let me tell you, you can't always control how much money is coming in the door. There's so many things that could happen. You can lose your job because lose a client, he said, but what you do have control over is where you swipe your credit card and I heard you say that a minute ago like the idea of controlling the expenses and being more intentional about not only controlling it but tracking it and holding people accountable, and I think that's a huge lesson to be learned for anybody who's in business, owns a business. At the end of the day, that's really what matters is how much you take home, and I think the systems that you put around it, the way that you measure it, what you water grows like, focus on that. You grow your profit, you can make more profit, but if you ignore it, it's going to, it's going to go out of control.

Speaker 2: 23:27

So, travis, I want to go in a different direction. I want you to say OK, where you are on your journey, today, you have all the knowledge you have, which comes from failures, successes, challenges, breakthroughs and really your like imperfect experiences all added together. You've got everything. You've got right. I want to go to a chime machine. I'm going to throw you back in time 10 years. And if you had all the knowledge, all the experience, all the lessons, everything, but you were able to go back 10 years and you're able to do things differently, what would you potentially do differently? What would you do faster, or would you even be doing the same thing you're doing today?

Speaker 1: 24:06

That is a deep question there. It is, so I'll caveat the answer to you. Know, there's a lot of things that have made me who I am today and I am very grateful for that. I'm very grateful for the deep hard work, the pain points. You know I've lost, I like I've lost friends over this business. You know you think it's not going to happen, and then it happens and then you find out they're stealing from you and you're like, uh, like it's really hard, like so. So I say all this to go, I'm grateful for who I am today and the experiences that have created me today.

Speaker 1: 24:36

If I were to go back and take the wisdom or the things that are on my heart right now and I would go back 10 years probably one of the first things is regret sucks. For me Specifically, I should have bought that house. Remember that idea? We were going to buy three houses and we never executed on it. Oh, remember this. And then every time I've like, should we really go on vacation? You know what? Let's just go do the vacation right, the kids are going to love it. I never regretted doing these things, and so I might've got lucky that a lot of the things I've done have ended up going. Well. I bought a plane and I was like, should we even buy a plane? So the one of the first things I would do is I would tell myself all those things, that all those things that I was scared to take action on, that I was like, ah well, maybe here's why I shouldn't, and the excuses I would tell myself take action, do it now, because it's really harder to shift and pivot and take riskier decisions as you get older, as I, my kids get older and I still push the limits, you know. But it would have been a little easier when I'm by myself with my wife and we had nothing and it was like I should have just taken that risk.

Speaker 1: 25:41

So I would have said execute. I tell my leadership team, you get done with a day's worth of planning and it's like great, 3% of the work is done, strategy, the rest is execution. So I tell myself execute. I regret my time in high school. I think I wasted my time. So execute. Your time is so valuable and it's so easy to just let it flee. Next thing, you know, 10 years later and it's like I could have taken action. So, um, take action, execute. Um then, secondly, I don't think I would have done things differently.

Speaker 1: 26:12

I think that this agency has been a great time for me. I wanted to be a pilot and I wanted to fly commercially and I fell in love with business because of the agency, because of learning how businesses run. And so I have done that and I like that and I want to acquire businesses. I want to do more than that. I have those big dreams, but I think I needed this foundational level to go. Here's how to run a business, here's how to grow a business, here's the hard times in a business. So I say the biggest thing would be execute, travis, don't wait. And if you can handle a little bit more of risk, like, push that limit a little bit, because you're not going to regret the vacation you're not going to regret.

Speaker 1: 26:45

I ended up buying the plane turn around a year later, sold it, made double the money and bought my own plane on my own, like I bought a house. I was so scared to buy a house. I was like 4.5% interest rate, this is going to be so expensive. This house costs us $700 a month. I don't even know if we'll ever be able to pay that bill, you know exactly. And then again sold it a year and a half later, made 30 grand, gave us the opportunity to go to a new place. Like I just I believe in the execution, I believe in the opportunities and most of the people who are going to be listening to this podcast. They're the type of people who will succeed in that experience, and so therefore, go and take it.

Speaker 2: 27:18

I think it's a lot of good advice there. I think one of the biggest things you said that resonates with me is if I could go back, I wouldn't necessarily change something. And I think about the two most powerful emotions in the human existence. Are you familiar with those? There's one positive, one negative. The positive emotion, that with the most power, is gratitude. That's why you see a lot of people who do mindfulness and breathing and yoga. They start with gratitude because it puts the body and the mind in the right frame of mind to be able to receive. And then I think the most negative one is actually regret. So it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 27:50

You went to those two things gratitude and regret and it's almost like you're saying I don't really regret my journey, but if I could do things differently, I would have executed more, I would have spent less time and invested more time. I feel like I could be so much further than I am today if I would have taken a for you a little bit. Is it? Don't moving forward from today? Don't let yourself be set up to regret the next 10 years, like if you're looking back from 10 years from now. Take the. Take a little bit of risk. Take a calculated risk, like be able to predict success, but do the things that are going to get you to the next level. Don't second guess yourself, but also appreciate the journey. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Speaker 1: 28:41

Yeah, I think I would sum it up with learn to be content where you're at and then never stop pushing the bar of excellence, execution and taking those risks that you believe needs to happen. I think those two things. I think if you can be content in life and content with where you're at, whether you have no money or a lot of money, you're going to be in a really good spot. And then you continue to go, dream bigger, execute, take the risk while you can. And I'm starting to push myself and live out the framework.

Speaker 1: 29:09

We want to buy an agency, and I had my president sit down with me. He's like, travis, if you were to grow this business faster, no strings attached, just dream what would it be. And it was like I'd buy another agency because I could acquire that. I know our playbook and we could grow faster. He's like then why don't we do it? And my knee-jerk reaction is well, it's risky, well, I'm scared, well, this you know. And it's like, why not do it? Yeah, like, let's go for it, like it's not going to kill us so let's talk about risk for a second.

Speaker 2: 29:37

There's really actual risk, and perceived Actual risk is when you're standing in front of a giant cave and you see a lion, and that's real risk. We have all these. That's real, that's real risk. But what you just said a second ago is not risk, believe it or not. And no, it's not risky, it's perceived risk.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Right, perceived risk is a reaction you have to the fact that you're not feeling like you're prepared to take advantage of the opportunity correctly. You don't know everything you should know. You have reluctance because of those things. You don't want to fail. You don't want to look like an idiot. You don't want to make it and proclaim to the world that you have this mission, that you're going to buy another business. Yet what happens if I don't? I'll look like an idiot, like there's all these things that create risk. But it all comes back to the one concept of if you were able to say, yes, I can do it. Yes, I'm going to be successful. Yes, I have the tools, the guide, the map, the shovel, everything I need to find the gold is at risk at all.

Speaker 1: 30:31

Yeah, and it will help you go faster and save money. Cue the promotional for your course.

Speaker 2: 30:38

I mean, if you want to learn how to buy businesses, carl, my business partner, is the best in the world. We have the biggest coaching company in the world for this exact thing, and I work with marketing agency owners all the time who are trying to buy other agencies. And agencies, believe it or not, are a tough thing to buy right now. If you just want to call it like it is Number one. The average agency owner is not super old. We measure something called mud score. You've probably never heard of this, but it's motivation, urgency and distress. That's a mud score. Are they motivated? Is it urgent? Is there distress? That's how you get good deals and acquisition. You can buy things off market. You can get things without using traditional financing. You can get good deals Like so. There's not a lot of older marketing agency owners and then there's not a terrible amount of mud score really recently there is.

Speaker 2: 31:22

A lot of agencies are struggling. There's a lot of agencies that are struggling because of their customers struggling and, just like jettison, they're just throwing stuff off the ship so they can stay afloat and, ignorantly, a lot of people get rid of marketing and it's just because that's what they feel like they need to do, and a lot of bigger people who are doing agency work for enterprise level companies. People are saying we can cut costs without cutting our employees. Get rid of the vendor, bring it in house, even if it's not as effective. So the marketing agency world is under attack at this moment, truthfully, and I know so many of them that are struggling, which is why I think your niche is so important. If you're not niched, you're going to be a generalist and it's going to be very, very difficult to be successful and really hold your ground and then also not understanding like the ideal win scenario, like I'm working with clients who are in this box, who've already struggled and already solved the problems with their sales. They know how to convert leads if I bring them to them. They're real businesses that have sales, marketing, financial, hr and operations all as separate roles. I'm not dealing with somebody who's always freaked out and distressed. I'm not dealing with somebody who has accounts, receivable issues, who's having a hard time paying their guys. You got to know who you're working with and I think this quality of your, of your customer base, is going to be the reason why you survive or not Like if you have nothing but a whole bunch of really small, crappy businesses that are all making less than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Good luck holding on to. Those guys are going to struggle, right? So I think where you're doing well is you chose the right niche. You chose the right like ideal win scenario where I can crush it If you're inside this box. You don't bring people in that don't fit your ideal win scenario, right?

Speaker 2: 32:59

I want to share my screen for a second, a little bit off topic, but you said something that I do believe is pretty powerful. So can you see this? So we talk about the four stages of success. Quite often you got people in survival mode. You got people who are comfortable. You've got people who are thriving. Then you have people who are like more legacy driven.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Like legacy driven, think of people who have more money than they could ever need. The reason why they get up every day and they do what they do is because they are trying to leave a legacy. They're trying to do something much bigger with their life than just live. They want to like live for purpose. Right?

Speaker 2: 33:35

Thriving is pretty interesting. It's where you have way more money than you need and you're really like hitting this, hitting your stride, where you're making a couple hundred grand a year, a million dollars a year, and you're still really driven. You're pushing and for someone to get to legacy driven from thriving you have to work for something bigger than yourself. You want to. It's like a paradigm shift. Comfortable is the worst one you could ever get to. It's absolutely terrible. And that's kind of that contentness you were talking about earlier. And that's where you get away from survival. You're not fighting to eat every day. You don't appreciate it as much. And you go from this having to push every day in this fight in the dog, to now I want to hoard what I've got and I want to take a break because I've been fighting for a long time. And then survival at the bottom is where you got to wake up and your decision-making is really driven by the idea of I have to make something work, I have to keep pushing hard, I have to trade my time for dollars.

Speaker 2: 34:27

So the reason why I want to bring this up is you were talking about this for just a minute there like in your journey, being comfortable or content with where you are in some ways is really, really dangerous. In other ways you have to. You don't want to always strive for something and you want to feel guilty Like I already have enough. I'm already super blessed. Like you go biblical and you go like the religious angle, which I think both of us are believers here, and I don't care who hears it Right, I believe, like sometimes we think are we being selfish for wanting more than we have? We already have more than everybody else. We're already very blessed, you know, and I think it's got to have a little bit of a paradigm shift and say actually, no, you can help so many more people in your life if you get to that legacy driven. And you can't do that when you're comfortable.

Speaker 2: 35:16

So I just encourage anybody who's listening and I've talked about this a couple of times on my podcast Like, if you're comfortable and you feel like, hey, I feel good about it, I've got a good routine, I make enough money not not great money, enough money. Um, my family's proud of me. Uh, I feel like I've got everything I want. And you know you're in this zone when you start buying stuff. I don't know if you remember this, but you went from the the beat up Kia to a used Lexus or a brand new Toyota 4Runner.

Speaker 2: 35:43

Like you know, you're there when you start spending a lot more money and you also know there, when you don't have very much net worth, like if you're not, if you're not a millionaire by net worth and you're in your forties, your fifties, you're definitely in that comfortable state. So I just want to talk about that for a second. Any reaction to that? What's your advice for somebody who's kind of gotten stuck in that where they're making money, yes, but they're also spending the money quickly, they're not really accruing any net worth and they don't have anything that like in their stomach. That's such a burning desire to achieve and get to the next level where it's almost a discontent. Maybe this is a W2 person, right? Somebody who's just trying to make more money every year. What's your reaction to that?

Speaker 1: 36:25

Oh man, yeah, I think my, my knee jerk reaction here is to go that if you're sitting in the comfortable position which I a lot of times find myself being like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm comfortable, and that's what I actually think, the risks, the things that you're like, this is what I want. It's almost more important for you to take that because it gets you out like a little fire in your butt and it gets you out of your seat, from the comfortable and working you into towards the thriving, and I think that's really key. To go is like you need that to get out of it. Because, again, I think there's a very big difference between content and comfortable.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Being content is realizing where you're at and going hey look, I'm grateful for who I am, I'm grateful for who I've become, or whatever it is Like being content. You've got to learn to be content because whether you're in legacy mode, thriving mode, survival mode, if you can't figure out how to be content, you'll never be content and that's going to be a systematic problem that will hold you back from thriving and hold you back from the legacy mode Once you learn to be content, if you find yourself just comfortable. Now it's time to take the risks. And again, I would argue if you're sitting here thinking about this going well, am I comfortable? Am I, you know? Am I that type of person? If you're even thinking about it, it's like you're the type of person. You're already listening to this podcast. So if you think you're comfortable, you're probably in a spot where it's time to take some risks, get some fire under your butt so you can get to the thriving, because you're not going to get to where you want to be.

Speaker 2: 37:48

If you're just comfortable and showing I think part of it is learning how to going after something that's bigger than you. I think that's a big part of it right. If your ambitions are the ceiling of what you want to achieve, you'll never really reach your full potential. You have to be reaching for something much bigger than yourself. We talk about a lot of times like what are you fighting for? And that's not the right question. I think who are you fighting for is a better question. And think about whose life is affected by my decisions, whose life is affected by my decision. To say this is as far as hard as I want to push Now I'm going to go into coast mode.

Speaker 2: 38:23

But then I was on a call yesterday with a good friend of mine, keston, who's a mindset coach, and he was saying that you actually should never use your family as your why, he said? Because when push comes to shove, even if you were broke, for most of you your family would still say it's okay daddy, it's okay mommy, we're happy with just you being you. He said you've got to find something bigger than that. Carl talks about this a lot as well, as the Iron Cowboy. James Lawrence was at one of our events last year and he talked about it, he said those and he said that person with the big enough why can solve almost any? How said that person with the big enough, why can solve almost anyhow? And that was an interesting concept as well.

Speaker 2: 39:01

So I think your mission for you, travis, like the reason you get up every single day. Obviously it's because the wife, the kids, you love your customers, you love your employees, you love the work you're doing. But when you say this is what I really want out of life, this is the and really it's nothing about the goal, it's usually the benefits of the goal is what you're really looking for, like it's gotta be something so much bigger than your customers. And then your, your business and your employees and your wife and your kids Like that's where I think people who really change the world, that's where they live in that headspace of.

Speaker 2: 39:32

I'm not doing it because I need more. I have enough. I'm content. Like you said, I'm doing it because I need more. I have enough. I'm content. Like you said, I'm doing it because I have to. I have to do it because I'm on a mission. I'm doing it because my vision won't let me stop until I reach it Right. So let me ask you two questions. One what is that vision for you? If you don't mind sharing like what what really drives you beyond everything we just talked about?

Speaker 1: 39:53

Yeah, I, I, uh, I would say a few things. One I really enjoy, like I really enjoy what I do, and so what's driving me is like I want to learn, I want to become better, I want to own more businesses, I want to make a big impact with either the people that work at the business or what can be done with the profits of the business. Like we're, we are supporting uh homeless shelters. We're supporting we're we are supporting a homeless shelters. We're supporting, uh, you know, uh, shelters where women go after they've been abused. Or you know, like that's super cool that we're making that impact and it I wouldn't, like you said, I wouldn't be able to make as big of an impact if I didn't have this ability. So that is one thing is like, what can I do with the profits? Like you said, the benefit. The other thing is like, again, I like to push myself and I don't want to look back and have a ton of regrets and therefore I know myself and I know I want more out of life. I want to push the boundaries and I don't think that's wrong. I think God made me like that. So I need to push the boundaries, push the limits, take the risks, and that really is actually what drives me is like I think I'm made for more. So let's go and find out what that more looks like and it might be a world where I don't know what the end looks like, but I know there's more and I'm okay. Continue to explore, taking the risk, exploring and experiencing that.

Speaker 1: 41:07

And then the other thing I'd like to just real quick point out you said something about like having a bigger vision. Like that is a big vision but, on the flip side, having the right people around you to help you either craft or support you in that vision. I have friends and if they're listening they're probably not my friend I'm talking about, but I have friends like I try not to hang out with them as much because secretly, like they bring me down. They don't. They don't they don't even understand what I'm doing in the vision I'm going for, in the kind of living life and like getting more out of life, and it really does actually bring me down. And so part of like having that big vision is also starting to craft yourself with the right people. Not that you have to be a jerk and be like I don't want to hang out with you, but be very wise about how you spend your time and who you're spending it with, because you need a lot more of the Chris Morris and Travis Weathers in your life than you do, maybe the other people that you're like. That's just not even a healthy relationship, and when you do that, you'll actually paint a bigger picture and be driven to that, because I remember sitting down with people.

Speaker 1: 42:04

It was the first time I met business owners and I was telling them about my things. I was like I'm just so scared, what if I lose it all? I'm so scared, what if I lose it all? They're like Travis, what if you mean they're like everything, like your family is literally on the sidewalk. You have no more houses, you have no more business. What would you do? I was like well, honestly, after I met you, I'd pick up the phone and I know I could sell, and so I know I could provide for my family by selling. They're like okay. Is that the end of the world? Well, no, they're like okay. Then why don't you go and take this action? You know You're so scared to hire a president. Go, take that action, because this perceived risk is not, like you said, not really that big of a risk, and that was when it clicked as like I need better people in my life and I need people to hold this vision higher and keep me accountable, because it's easy to bring my vision down.

Speaker 2: 42:48

When you grow up, moms always say be careful hanging out with so-and-so. You are who you hang out with.

Speaker 2: 42:54

It's so freaking true. My uncle taught me something. He said hang out with the people you want to be. In 10 years, that was such a valuable lesson for me. The other thing there's a story my buddy Clay in 2018, changed my whole world when he said this. He's like hey man, chris, you're kind of like a zebra in a room full of horses. He said people just don't quite get you. You're just different. You have different ambitions. He said I'm going to go find you a room full of zebras and he did, and he brought me to top.

Speaker 2: 43:23

One mastermind is MFA marketing funnel automation 2018 with Todd Brown, and that's where I met a lot of the people that I do business with today. I've had so many partnerships. Come for that. That and just getting in the right rooms and being around people who share my ambitions. It's led me to a lot of partnerships, led me to lots and lots of money, led me to friendships, led me to new opportunities, and I think what you said a few minutes ago is huge. Like you, have these people that you grew up with, or people that you're friends with, who don't share your ambitions. They don't understand your ambitions, and it's not that they're bringing you down or trying to. It's just you can't thrive when you're around people who aren't looking to thrive, right?

Speaker 2: 44:00

One of the things that I believe you were in the room when I did this presentation in Gatlinburg, but I love the concept of talking about wealth in a very different way, right? So if you look here, I think wealth and thriving in general, you have to have wealth to thrive and the reason you want to thrive and get to a legacy driven with the wealth is because you want to have the ability to make a bigger impact and change lives. But when I look at wealth, I look at what wealth really is as resources and get rid of the word money. But resources is time, money, wisdom, it's also. It's also capabilities, it's also businesses, it's also the ability to take action faster than everybody else because you have resources. And I think one of the things we got to do as business owners, as leaders in our family or community or industries, is always focus on taking care of ourselves and stop piling our own resources. And I think you talked about it a minute ago like you've got great team members, you've got great staff, you've got great partners, and this is a resource your team's a resource. Having great technicians is huge.

Speaker 2: 45:01

Having access to capital, having multiple businesses Like give me an example, like my bowling alley is a tremendous resource. It doesn't make me a lot of money, actually cost me a ton of money. It's a tax shelter. My Ninja Warrior gym, same thing. My business partners, justin and Melissa, run it now. It costs me money, but wow, what a resource that is because it helps people. We've had people looking to end their own life who've gone into that business and, literally, as a student, found themselves and their identity for the first time and started to thrive and didn't take their own life. It's a resource. The bowling alley what a tremendous resource for the community, even though it doesn't make me any money and cost me a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 45:38

I wouldn't trade it for the world because but that's what thriving is all about. That's what I wanted to share. It's all about can I focus on stockpiling resources? One, so I don't have to always trade time for dollars. Two, I don't always have to work as hard as I'm working now and I can focus on things that really make me happy. But also, three, having the ability and being prepared to take action and being able to help people Like you went back to your regrets. Like I wish I would have executed more. What if you had all the resources you have today, 10 years ago? Would that have changed the game?

Speaker 1: 46:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:08

One last question my, my, my mentor sat me down one time. Yeah, you got all this wealth, you got all these resources, but he sat me down one time and I was just in just a dump and I was just not having fun. And he sat me down and he's like dude, it is your job to have fun while you do this. Your team will thrive off that and it was a reminder. There is all so much more, but you're listening to this. Have fun, this is fun. What we're doing, what we're listening, what we're talking, this is fun. If you're not having fun, you may want to question what you're doing, but have fun, enjoy the process, enjoy the fun that comes from it, because I think we need to realize it's okay to be like I do this because I enjoy it and I have fun. Good, let's do that, all right, sorry. One more question.

Speaker 2: 46:51

You're good. No, it's more on you than anybody else. I think the way that you look at it is either you see the greatness in what's going on, you're enjoying the journey, or you dredge through it and you're just looking at the destination. I think stop looking at the destination for just a moment. Enjoy your journey, enjoy who you have around you. If you don't enjoy who you have around you, that's on you as well. Upgrade the company you keep and you'll upgrade everything in your life.

Speaker 1: 47:23

That's a saying that we have at our company. We tell when I onboard people, I say we take our work very seriously here, but we don't take ourselves seriously and that's why you'll see us have fun Poke, like no one wants to work with some robot who's like higher as mighty as me. It's like we take a job seriously but we don't take ourselves and so we have fun while we do it in another episode I'd love to bring you back.

Speaker 2: 47:44

I was talking to you earlier. I forgot something I was going to ask you. I remember it now and I don't want to talk about today. We're open loop. Let's do travis weathers part two if you'll come back and talk to us again.

Speaker 2: 47:54

But the idea of bringing your employees in your business and making them a key focus of profitability. There's a lot of controversy there. What if employees see the business making more profitable, that they say give me more money. If you read Built to Sell, which is a beautiful book, if you haven't read it, and he talks about having the employees feeling like they're entitled to more of the profit or they built the company when you sell it, they should get an exit check. I just want to talk about that because that's something where I think some business owners are afraid to have the employees and the team as part of the profit and having them focusing on profit with you. I just love to hear more about your style. Are you making them profit interest partners? Are you tying part of their compensation to performance? Let's do that in another episode.

Speaker 1: 48:38

I've got a run today, yeah cliffhanger Part two in a month or so.

Speaker 2: 48:44

Yeah, we'll do it in a month or so. I've got a big event coming up for two, but once again, so thanks for being here, thanks for pouring into these listeners. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, always feel free to jump over to YouTube. Type in surges of income podcast. Find it on YouTube. Send us some comments. If people want to get in touch with you, maybe they have a great referral for you. They know a buddy that owns a moving company. You are the best. How do they get in touch with you?

Speaker 1: 49:07

Yeah, I'd say the best way. Number one you can find me on Facebook. I'm pretty good on Facebook and Messenger, so find me, travis Weathers, on Facebook, send me a message, or on Instagram at Travis Weathers, and those are probably the best ways to get ahold of me and I'm happy to help in any way I can and love to connect with you.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Awesome man. Well, thanks for being here. Part two open loop cliffhanger we're going to do it. We're going to talk about profitability more and thank you so much for being here. Sounds great, Thank you, Thank.