Adding value, I feel like it's tossed around a lot. And a lot of people are using that, we're, oh, I wanna add value on, but are you truly adding value for you all listening right now is your skill set, you're probably charging. Not enough. You're probably undervaluing yourself. I didn't listen. My mentor lost $20,000, but I said, okay. I'm gonna commit to this no matter what and see it through, and we did. What's up, everybody?
I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast, coming back to you again today with another king. On the stage. My brother, Michael Tucker here this morning. How are you? Man, I am amazing. It's a little cold in Chile here in Kentucky, but, dude, I'm blessed to be here with you. I'm ready to pour out some value. It's good stuff, man. You say cold. I think the whole United States is cold.
But You know, it for Kentucky, Kansas City, I'm not necessarily used to 10 or 12 inches being, snow being stuck on the ground. Are you guys dealing with snow over there? Yeah. We got about 6 or 8 inches, about 0 degrees this morning. So Yeah. But, you know, I got I'm ready to bring the heat, man. I'm ready to bring the heat and let's, let's have a good conversation, though. Just melt it all away right here right now. Okay. So, Michael, tell us what kind of business that you got, my man.
Yeah. So I am the owner, and CEO of the funnel pros. And so what we do is we just simply help online entrepreneurs spread their message, spread their mission through virtual events. So we have a done for you virtual event agency where we people come to us, and we just help them run their events to reach more people and make more impact. And the fun part about is they make more income as well. Yeah. I love that.
Obviously, with us, you know, gathering the Kings being a a, peer to peer mastermind groups or a group we have run multiple virtual events. So I was thinking this is gonna be a great conversation. I love what you do. I've I've been in and up up and down your information. I'm sure we'll put all that in the show notes as well, but, you you genuinely have helped, quite a few entrepreneurs really hit some major targets with their events. So I'm I'm excited for this. Talk to me first.
Like, you're a young guy. You've had a lot of success pretty early in life. You know, there would be young people who maybe just cash the check and and sail away, but you're still building. Tell me why. Yeah. I would say one of the main answers to that is because we have a team. Right? And then when you build something great, a lot of times there's great people attach to him, not most times all the time.
Like, if you build something great, there's gonna be great people in the the process that are there helping you? And so for me, when what we're doing and you guys are gonna hear in his few minutes, we're helping hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people a year through our business. So, like, we're making a lot of impacts, but then we have a great team and they're they're great at what they do.
So just then keep empowering them, letting them step into their greatness is, one of one of the main reasons We keep trucking on, man. Yeah. For you as a young guy, because I'm sure we've got, you know, young listeners here today, and they're you know, maybe a couple years into business, and and maybe they're not thinking quite as big as that. How how can they, you know, kinda keep at it, especially if they haven't maybe seen the level of success that you've seen so early.
Man, that's a good question. And I don't know. Are you cool with me sharing my story on here? Because I think my story will resonate with those younger peers more than anything. Yeah. Okay. Love it. So Actually, I started out and the question you asked would have resonated really hard with me about 5 years ago. I just gotten out of college I just got married. And if you know anything about college kids, most of them don't have a lot of money. I and then then on top of that, I just got married.
And so I was working as a part time restaurant server and a part time youth minister. And, you know, ministers, they don't often make a lot of money either. So, you know, I just kinda scrapping anywhere I could to grab a dollar. And, you know, I was looking for something because I was always entrepreneurial minded, maybe, like, a lot of your audience. I said, Mick, God, there's gotta be something out there for me. And so I searched and I searched and I searched. I tried everything, man.
I'm not gonna lie. I tried stock trading, Amazon drop shipping. I was one of those that had, what they call it, shiny object syndrome. Any ad that popped up, I was clicking on it. I was making that cost per lead cheap for these business owners. And But but you know what? It was it was the last venture that I got into, which was real estate. One of my friends reached out to me and he said, Michael. See you trying a little bit of everything. He's like, how do I teach your real estate?
And I said, dude, I got no money. How in the world are you gonna take a restaurant server up part time youth minister and help him get into real estate. I said real estate's for old people. I'm gonna be frank. This is what I told him. I said real estate's for old people. People, they got money. That's not me. And he said, let me show you. And so what we did is we borrowed services.
And this is how I broke into the virtual event industry was he coached me in real estate, and I helped him grow his business. But it was once I jumped into real estate and this this story is not about real estate, but it's about the fact that I stuck to something long enough to get good at it. And real estate was one of the first things that worked for me, and it was simply because I worked it. Right?
So many times the other industries I jumped into, I got in for 3, 4 months and never found results. And I said, well, that didn't work. Maybe some of you all listening right now are in the same situation. You tried something. Oh, that didn't work. Question is how long did you work it? Because I'm not gonna say the rule of 10000 hours is perfect, but I like the theory of it. If you spend enough time doing something, you're gonna master it. And so for real estate, that was the first thing.
And that Wolfe for me, because you were talking about for the young entrepreneurs or young peers here listening, I would say to first to think that big, you just gotta stick to something. You gotta find something that you're gonna commit to. And so for me, real estate was that first thing. And, I ended up losing $20,000. I didn't have any money, but I made I didn't listen to my coach. So point number 1 here is listen to your mentor.
Listen to Chaz, listen to the the the brothers here, but I didn't listen my mentor lost $20,000, but that was the first. I said, okay. I'm gonna commit to this no matter what and see it through, and we did. And then from there, we ended up getting really good at digital marketing in the process, but for the young listeners here, just pick something. And, yes, you're gonna have to bounce around and try new things. Because you're young.
Sure. But once you commit to something, there's something about Chaz. And I'm sure you've experienced the same thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love the persistence you know, it's it's cliche. Right? We we hear about persistence or sticking to something. But when you're 22, 25, even 27, 89, it's tough to think, I'm gonna do this for 10 years. Yeah. And, I think that when I look back at my history, it wasn't really until 10 years. I kinda, like, picked up my head and was like, oh, snap.
I've been, like, doing some stuff. Right. And it really was, like, head down focused. And so I I align with everything that you just said there. But I loved I loved the segue there because it was like, I stuck with something, but that thing wasn't actually what you're doing today. Yeah. And so it's like the stick to itiveness wasn't necessarily the thing. You know, the real estate piece.
It was to learn a skill set that was good in real estate, but it's also good in all these other things, which is now what you've leveraged. To help other entrepreneurs. And so that's really what the stick to itiveness has been about for you. Talk about that for a second, because it's more about the skill set. Yeah. A 100%. And so with real estate, you have to get good at marketing anyway, but like I told you, I didn't have much money.
So at the time, David, which was my real estate mentor, I had no cash. So I just borrowed these services with him. And so I learn I was learning a new skill, like you said, which is important. So I was learning in jumping, learning in marketing, automation systems. And so I was learning this real estate because I stuck to it. But at the same time, I to stick to real estate because to stay with him being my mentor, I had to keep working in the back end of his business.
So I wasn't making any money. I was working for free, but I was learning this valuable skill set of real estate that same time learning this valuable skill of business building and marketing and automations and systems. And so what happened was We ended up building his, which this is gonna be a really good segue. We ended up growing his real estate education company to 750,010 months, and he had no list no no audience. It was crazy how he did it. And then that was, like, like, ball for me.
It was like, wow. Real estate was a perfect segue to this other skill that I've been building. And so You're gonna acquire a lot of skills as you're building businesses. And what I tell people is double down on what works. Right? And so for me, what works in my life, I was like, man, I'm actually pretty decent at this marketing stuff. I'm pretty decent at this sales stuff. So I'm gonna I'm gonna dive into that. I still do a little real estate. I'm like, I'm gonna focus on that.
And so so many people, I think and this is kind of an an off tangent here, but a lot of people here, and this is a good example, You need to have multiple streams of income. You need to have x multiple ways to market your business, but what happens is a lot of people get spread too thin. And they never can really hone in on what's working. And so for me, I just Chaz, and I know this is kinda reiterating what I said earlier, but with the marketing and and that part of the business. I said, wow.
This is crazy. This is this is working. So let's double down on that. And so work got out what we were doing. And when you get good at your craft, When you get good at your Chaz, people hear. People will see you whether they comment on your post or not. Whether they like your post or not, if you get good at your craft, they will notice you. And that's what happened. I got good at running virtual events and doing these things. And eventually, people were asking, Hey, David.
Who helps you with your marketing? Hey. And so it it grew into what is now a full blown agency just because I got good at one skill set. Yeah. I I just love the bottom to the top story there. I just commend you for all your success on that. You know, even in, you know, my most endeavor, which Chaz gathered in the Kings. It's two years old. I've I've had multiple companies before that, but before the podcast, before the group, I was a successful business owner, but nobody else really knew that.
Nobody knew my story. I wasn't I'm not. I wasn't known, and I really don't wanna be the guy. That's why I started up here group, not a guru peer or, group coaching. That's, you know, quote unquote, a mastermind. I think a mastermind is actually, a a bunch of equals And so, I didn't really wanna be the guy. So how do you build a online business without being the guy?
It's like, well, you just put your head down, do the thing that you know that brings value, and then over the course of time, I have I have people that contact me now or that have listened to the show, or that have seen us on social media or watch our cool event videos. And they're like, yeah, man, I've been following you for, like, a year. I'm ready to be a king. And I'm like, What in the world? Like, a year ago, I'm like, can I just find anybody? You know? Right.
And so just to just to give a little encouragement to the listener, that everything that Michael's given to you is is real, whether it's the 1st business or 12th. Yeah. And that's the sim like, if we talk about marketing, which I don't know if you wanna get too deep in that, but that's simply what marketing is is just getting your message out in front of as many people as possible. When I say as many people, as many of your target audience as possible Chaz many times as possible.
So getting your message out in front of as many of your target leads customers as much as possible. And so that's what you were doing, right, Chaz you're doing these podcasts. You're doing these, I'm just making this up. The event promos. You're doing all these things and you're Whether you know it or not, because this this is part of your mission, but it's also part of your marketing.
And so just by you showing up every day and recording this podcast, just by you showing up and speaking at an event or maybe just putting out that email, you are marketing because you're getting in front of your potential audience. So I think it goes hand in hand. Yeah. Well, and and we can tie a nice little bow on all this and and put the principle of the stick to itiveness or persistence that you kinda started this conversation off with.
If you start something, like, you got good at the marketing, but if you hadn't us stuck with it long enough to realize, like, oh, thing, you know, I could do this for other people. This would be amazing. I can create an agency out of this because it was originally, a skill set that you learned that turned into an idea that turned into an actual business. So I think it's a great story.
Okay. So inside of the business, because you had, again, like this trajectory of what seemingly on the outside, I was like, wow. Success. Like, boom. I know that it didn't happen just like that overnight. So I wanna start with something that happened Chaz wasn't good, a bad decision. Just like, listeners stay far away from this thing. I've already made the mistake for both of us, which is, oh, you know, what is that? Yeah. Great. There's many. Like, a lot of entrepreneurs that are in there.
I'm sure why I could pull out a a Chaz, you know, just something out of the hat and just read some off. But You know, for me, I think one of the biggest mistakes, and it sounds so simple. Sounds so simple. The biggest mistakes early on was trying to do everything myself. And I'm gonna be honest. As an entrepreneur, I still struggle with this a little bit because I'm a I'm one of those that are very driven my personality type. I like having my hands and everything, and so I do struggle with that.
And it's good to be aware of Chaz. But for me, when I first started out, I was doing everything in my agency myself, technically, it wasn't an agency, but I was doing everything. And that led to burnout quick. That led to a lot of late nights that I shouldn't have taken. Now they're, you know, you hear people talk about the grind, the hustle. Yeah. I get it, but when you got a family, you also have to consider them. And so that's the season.
I'm still you know, there's still times I have to work through Chaz, but for me, I would have hired earlier just because you can you can grow a lot faster when you hired faster. And so for me, I know we didn't make our 1st hire until, like, a year in, but I would have probably done in a couple months, a few months with my journey knowing where, like, looking back, I had the the money to do so. I had the the work for them. So why not to do it? I don't know. I was bullheaded.
I didn't think I needed help, but that's what I would done. So if you're here and you have tons of work on your plate and you're on the edge of burnout. And you're just like, man, I'm tired of doing everything myself. Ask yourself. What can I gain by hiring out my weaknesses? What can I gain by hiring out the things I don't need to be doing? Because more Chaz likely, the things you're doing are not money making activities for your business. Now you may be doing some money making activities.
You may be making sales calls, popping in, doing strategy calls with people, whatever that may look like. But I'm sure there's some things that you are doing that you don't need to be doing. So maybe take an inventory, and that's what I had to do and say, okay. What am I doing Chaz I shouldn't be? And some of them were responding to emails, onboarding new clients, doing all these things that took up 10 hours a week when I'm like, hey.
I could pay a virtual assistant or I could pay somebody else to do this. So I know that was basic, but for me, it was it was pretty profound if I Wolfe took took the bull by the horns earlier. Yeah. And I also appreciate the the a couple layers down that you went there with. I had the money. I had the work for them. You know, probably the bullheadedness there was just, kind of the first time you'd come into some money. And it was just like, I kinda like having the money.
But Yeah. I mean, I was listening. Sorry. I wanna just chime in. When you go from Yeah. Making 15 100, $2000 a month, and then you're making, you know, 6 figures a year. It's like, oh, this is nice. I could get used to this. Yeah. You know, and, like, wanna give it away. That was pretty fast too. That, you know, that that wasn't, like, anything, like, oh, that was 2 or 3 years in. That was so, yeah, I I definitely would say that was a cause to it as well.
Sure. What about the guy who who is at the opposite? Right? Like, whether they're new in business or 2 or 3 years in, and he's thinking, I don't have the money. I need to hire But I'm I'm he feels maybe he does or doesn't. I don't know. But he feels as if, like, there's not enough resource there. There's a scarcity. What what would you say to that guy about hiring? Yeah. I think there's there's 2 angles here. The first angle is ask yourself, is that an excuse? Because I'm not saying it is.
But a lot of times, we we allocate money to certain things, and a lot of times it's just restructuring your business or your budget to actually be able to attain that. Now not saying that's the case for everybody, but I do wanna say for some, I have encountered people doing coming to me. They're like, I don't have the money xyz. And then then you lay out their whole finances.
They're like, well, I number 1, a lot of people don't even know what their finances are, and that was another big mistake is not getting that set up sooner knowing, like, the transparency or P and Ls, all that, having an actual business. That's that was one mistake. But so for those out there that are bluffing saying you don't have the resources, look at your budget. Lay out everything. Take some yes. It's gonna take some time. I hate bookkeeping. I hate accounting.
See if you could actually move some things around. And, listen, even if you have to be I'm not gonna say you need to be in the the red every month, but for me, this is my reference. And so you may not agree with this, but I'm saying, like, if if I'm gonna have to come out just a little bit of pocket, and if I'm gonna be if but this is an like, I look at it as an investment. Like, it's it's probably gonna be worth it.
If if you truly are getting burnout, you have the trajectory for Grocer for me, I looked at it like this, the demand is high enough. I know I'm gonna continue to grow. I'm gonna con like, just based off of the next 6 to 12 months, the way we're going, I'm not going backwards. I'm going forward. So for me at the time, I, technically, with that being said, I shoulda hired way sooner. And so for you, just ask, are you planning out your finances for the future?
And a lot of people don't do that so I think this is a whole another conversation we can get into, but sitting down and just looking at your projections for your income as well can be great. Because if if you don't know where your neck next dollars coming from. You may have to bootstrap it for a bit. I'm not gonna lie.
Like, that would be my preference my preference if you don't know your income for the next 30, 60, 90 days, And, like, I can tell you right now for the next 5 to 6 months what our income is gonna be. But if you don't know that, you may have to bootstrap in so you can get into the into the green and know what your your projections are.
So I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for, but for me, that would be number 1, lay out everything, lay out your finance, your budget, what you can move around to make that happen. And if you absolutely can't wiggle around any any money to make this happen and you don't know your projected income moving forward, I would just say bootstrap it until you Chaz, and it's gonna be hard, but try to do this at the very start. And and this is what I tell people.
And go ahead and prepare as if you were going to build a team now. Start building the SOP. Start building the handbooks. Start laying out everything. So when the time does come, everything's already laid out. You have all the structures built, and now it's just passing the baton. Yeah. Yeah. You've given a lot of gold in that conversation. So I think the the takeaway there really is, you know, if you're not paying attention to your finances, how could you make a financial decision of no? Right?
I'm not saying Chaz should be yes, and neither is Michael. But but you gotta know, in order to be able to make the decision. So I think I think the knowing piece, the financial piece, I mean, I've got I've got several members inside of Gathering of the Kings who do 1,000,000 of dollars a year who are like, I really don't even wanna look at the P and L because it makes me nervous. Yeah. Right.
Well, dude, it was so funny you're saying that because I have a guy I have a guy that does eight figures. And what happens is as you grow, there's a lot of slippage they call it, right, and you're familiar with it. There's a there's a lot of slippage. This guy, he reached out He works with a lot of contractors, so he doesn't have a lot of in house team. And so this is something just for all business owners to be aware of.
He reached out to me because I'm kinda At one time, I was his right right hand guy doing a lot of marketing for him. And he started messaging me, hey. I'm getting charged for this this software. Paying, like, a $1000 a month. Is anybody using it? I'm like, I don't I'm not we weren't using it when we were working with you.
And so, like, come to find out he had, like, 5 to $10,000 a month in services he wasn't even using, but it was because he didn't take the precautions and the time upfront to do that. So that's that's 6 figures a year. That's $50,001,000 in your expenses that he was paying just be and he wasn't just because he didn't take the precautions there. So there's a lot of slippage that can happen. I don't want you guys to do that. I understand what you're saying. Yeah. The the knowing piece there.
I I was just it was, like, a month ago. I was talking to one of our members And he he's got a just a giant business, but, he's like, you know, we were digging into some numbers. Like, oh, here we go. He's like, look, man, you know, we have we have a classification for, like, when we need to buy things for job sites. You know, maybe we need a shop vac. Maybe we need this. Maybe we need that. He's like, but but what we didn't have but I just reckon as it was a way for those items to be returned.
And so, you know, it's like whoever bought it, we used it for that project. They do pretty big projects, and then I don't know where it went. Like, where did that shop back go specifically? He's like, so just to kinda add all this up, he's like, we're talking about roughly $600,000 a year of stuff. Wow. Chaz we keep buying over and over and over again because it's quote unquote miscellaneous, and he wasn't you know, he didn't have his pulse on it.
Yeah. He could literally hire one to take one person to be over that specifically, and he would make his money back. Right? So but for you, have have you had any experience? Because I wanna talk about continuing the the conversation, if you're cool with it on the hiring, the, like, the basics of building a business, what have you struggled with? Wanna know what what did Chaz not worked for you? You're you're one of few here. 450 episodes in.
You're one of the the the few that have tried to turn this thing around on me. But I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. No. In all seriousness, I've hired a bunch of people, probably a couple thousand, even before I was a business owner, And so the the biggest issues that I've come is just putting people in the wrong seat, trying to help them do something that they're not designed to do. I like that. And so, trying to take a, a not social person and make them a salesperson.
You know, or trying to take a nontechnical person and make them, a back end, never talk to anybody. They work in a closet on a computer, and and basically both examples, they slowly die, because they're not doing what they're made to do. And you can call it, put them in the right seat on the right on the bus. You can call it you know, figuring out what they what brings them fulfillment and joy. Like, there's lots of different ways to maybe slice that pie.
We use a couple of different, tools inside of gathering Kings, a personality assessment as well as a productivity assessment to be able to help not only just our clients, but us, like, is this person in the right seat? Doing what they know how to do that they're good at Chaz well as what brings them fulfillment and joy. And so I think it has to be a mixture of both.
And that's just what I've leaned into for for years now, but early on, and I still make mistakes now, but early on, I was just hiring for the sake of hiring. Like, I've never been afraid to hire I've always been maybe a little bit more on the risky side and building teams and stuff like Chaz, but sometimes when you're hiring quickly or for lots of different businesses all at once, like I have, it's a little bit of a spray effect. And Right. You know, you a lot of slippage.
You wanna talk about slippage. It's like you you just it's just like a revolving door because You know, there's not things in place and people think it's kinda chaotic. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you're just kinda running and you enjoy the chaos, and most people that work for businesses don't Right. Enjoy the chaos. You know?
So I'm glad you said that before that gives you It's something we're working on, and I will end this this conversation piece on hiring, because I don't want the whole thing to be all about that. But What we've been kind of dwelling on is because I think a lot of times when you ever people are first starting to hire, They're looking at budgets. They're looking at, okay, how can I find somebody who's good at what they do, but at a reasonable price?
But for us, in our agency, like, the conversation recently, because I wanna be honest. That's been the that's been my mindset for too long, and now it's like, hey. How can we go straight for hiring a players? Because we know that's gonna take our agencies to the next level. That's that's Like, people are gonna have a different experience when they work with us when we hire a player. So, like, just going straight for, hey. Who's the best that we can bring in?
Yes. There's gonna be a premium to that. But let's just build a a team of a players all the way around. I think people would say, oh, yeah. That's duh. But if you've been, like, a beginning business owner, you know what I'm talking about. You kinda go at it. Kinda, alright. Like, how much can I afford? And, you know, you're just kinda pull pull there. But if you have the resources just go, like, go find those a players. It's gonna be worth it. And so that's what we've been focusing on.
But, yeah, I'll I'll complete the hiring talk on that. Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So Let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. No. That's good. I actually I'll I'm gonna add one thing. I'm gonna tell you about a book to the listeners as well, but I just read, Mike McCallowitz book called All In. Mike McCallowitz also wrote, profit first. He was just on the show a couple weeks ago, or last week, whatever it was, but we talked about his new book called All In, which is a leadership book, and he has this principle that everybody is an a player.
Now he's not saying go hire anybody. But what he is saying is that a players are made by a leaders. No. I like that. That's dope. You can go find a players. There are people out there who have already been groomed and who already have a skill set that you can put them in place. However, the misnomer when it comes to a players is that you find 1, and then you just give it to them, and then they do it for you. And it's like Right. Chaz doesn't always happen either.
If you're not an a leader, then then that a player, even if they're still maybe new and they're becoming an a player, they're not gonna stick around anyway. It it it more falls on that person who's a a good leader, which it sounds like you guys are if you're thinking about these in that in that particular way. No. That makes sense. And I'm actually I was reading a book a while back that talked about this, as Wolfe, and I'm pulling it up on audible as we speak. The hard thing about hard things.
By Ben harrow Horowitz. I think it's he says last name, but he talked about that and, you know, he was building software companies and he talked about how his companies, he realized they weren't spending enough money, time, and attention training and they had a lot of, you know, slippage with their employees, a lot of, you know, people coming in and out. And so what he realized was exactly what you said, just to put the cherry on top, training your employees and non expenses and investment.
Equipping your people with with your time, with your resources is only gonna help you. So ask yourself right now if you have a team, How am I equipping them? How am I becoming that a plus leader that we're talking about here? And, what can I do this week? Starting this week, not next month, not next year? To better my staff, like, and just take Chaz their skills to the next level because it does take effort. And so that was one thing you guys wanna pick up the book? It's it's a little different.
I don't know. Have you read that book that I mentioned? I haven't. No. No. Now pick it up. It's a little different. It's for me, it was, the author is very like, I don't know, aggressive. And so I kinda liked it, but the hard thing about hard things. I don't know how you could have a book called hard things, but hard things, and not be kinda Yeah. Well, you know, most most authors are pretty, like, I I'm not gonna say saw, but they're pretty, like, but the he's he's real raw.
There is some language in it, but it's it's good when it comes to business billing. That's awesome. It's awesome. Okay. So let's flip the coin here. We talked, long and hard about bad decision making around hiring. What's been something that's just like catapulted the business, something that you would just do over and over and over, or maybe it's even something that you guys do for your clients? 100%, man. Well, there's 2 here, but they go hand in hand.
Number 1 is just using virtual stages to grow your your impact. That's number 1. You said you run virtual events, but for us, that's been, like, the key marketing marketing strategy that we've used for tons of entrepreneurs. And then with that is using other people's audiences to fuel that virtual event. And so when we put those 2 together, a virtual event that is really built out well, plus you you pull in other people's audiences and use that as leverage, man is Chaz.
And that's how we help David, who was my real estate coach when we first started. You guys heard me say he didn't have any list. He didn't have any add, he didn't have a ad budget. He didn't have a big social media following. I think he only had, like, four or five people four or five hundred people on Facebook. But it was because we leveraged other people's audiences. And so we we dialed in our message We built a virtual event that was really good.
It wasn't good at first, but we built it out to where it was really good. And then we went and partnered with people who had the audiences we needed and just served other people's audiences. And because we served other people's audience as well, we got paid in, like, high level view. We got paid in, we made a lot of money. And so those are the two things that have worked Wolfe. And I know that was pretty quick there, but those two things, I think, for anybody can be great. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I think even for the person that's listening right now that, you know, I, as a contract, right, and they're local to their area and they're building a project. Maybe they're not gonna use virtual stages, but the idea of using someone else's network to be able to grow your influence. That's what I'm hearing you say. The principle is. Am I right on that?
Yeah. And even for those people, I mean, a virtual stage may not be a webinar or master class, right, but you know, even for local, like, a, a contractor per se, a a local podcast, because there are people that do podcasting in your area. It could be, leveraging other people's, Facebook pages, Facebook groups. You know, those are virtual stages.
Like, you getting up in front of people and be able to share your story, your message, your mission, in the digital world can be can mean and lead to multiple things. But yeah. So I mean but definitely the opportunity if you're like, hey. I don't know if that would work for me, but I think definitely the ability to leverage other people's audiences. So a contractor may be able to partner up. I'm just making this up with a, someone that's a real estate agent. Right?
Or they may be able to partner up with insurance companies. You know, there's different ways you can get in front of other people. And so you just have to ask who has my potential customers. And so for us, when we first started out, David, he taught real estate. So we said, okay. Who has his potential customers? And then we went through his network and, some people call them champions. We said, who who likes us? Who knows us that has our customers. And so there was one guy.
He was, he was a finance kinda guru coach, and he actually I think he had an advisory company, but So he's helped people, like, get their money under wraps, how to get their money, their budget under control. And so for us, the next best thing after you budget your money as you go invest your money. Right? If you are horrible with your money, you get your money under, control first with a budget, and then you learn how to invest it. And so we did, oh, this guy would be amazing.
And so we reached out. We created a win win win scenario. And what I mean is a win for us We created a win for him and a win for his audience. And so, that you have to have all three. You can't just have a win win, a win for each of you. You have to generally have a win for the audience that you're trying to reach. And so for us, it was that amazingly built virtual event. And so we went to him, and we pitch this idea. Hey. We have this virtual event. We've ran it 1 or 2 times ourselves.
It's really awesome. People are loving it. Let's we would love to teach your audience. And then at the end, we're gonna present a service. Chaz service People could take it. They're not it's no hard feelings. We're just here to add value. If they do, how about we split profits? And the guy said, yes. We came into his audience. We ran this event. We ran this promotion. We added value. We taught them about the topic of real estate.
And then we went out there and made an offer for a service, but this can work, like I said, for anybody. For example, I work with a lot of, like, 8 life insurance agents. Life insurance agents can go and speak to other people's audiences or be on podcast or run their own webinars or master classes. Teach on the importance of life insurance Chaz the end offer your services. Right? Educate them on why they need to to work with you and then offer their services.
And so that's what we did over and over just rinse and repeatness. It seems simple because it is. It's just you you get really good at presenting your message and you go present it to more or other people's audiences, to more people And we we've done that so far with him. We still do it today. We've done it at least 20 to 30 times, and it's that was over the past 4 years. And he's made well over 7 figures just doing that leveraging other people's audiences. So he's he does it a few times a year.
Nothing too crazy. And Yeah. He just focuses, and we focus on building really deep relationships. And I think that's the key. Yeah. Let's let's unpack that just that last little piece there. That was, like, a huge nugget right at the end. We focus on relationships in a world that seemingly is, you know, social media driven, comment only super surface. Don't actually can't reach out and touch anybody. Even through a virtual event, you said we focus on building relationships.
How is that even possible? Yeah. Whenever it comes to finding partners and leveraging other people's audiences, I think it comes down to asking what is a value of the other person? Another line. So, like, when when I come in here and I say, okay. For the gathering, the king's podcast, their host, what is valuable to them? Well, one, I know that you guys are probably wanting more people, more business owners in your mastermind, in your peer to peer group. Right? So I could say, okay.
How can I bring more people into that for them? That's gonna be a value to them. It may be that they want more podcast guest. Okay. Awesome. How can I refer podcast guest to them? So I need to figure out what these partners or what the people that, I want to eventually build a relationship with and leverage their audience. I need to figure out what's a value to them. And sometimes that's easy to to know.
Maybe because they're asking for it on social media, maybe because they You've heard it say that, they you've heard them say it in the past, but sometimes you have to ask them, hey. Like, how can I help? What what can I do to add value to you? And so for us, that's what we do. We just simply start out by saying to build a relationship with these people we wanna connect with. Let's just focus on adding value of some sort.
And adding value, I feel like it's tossed around a lot, and a lot of people are using that word. Oh, I wanna add value. You wanna but are you truly adding value? And so adding value means you stripping yourself of any any I don't even know what you wanna call it. Stripping away any, motives that would move you forward in putting the other person in place instead. Saying, I wanna move them forward. And so for for the partner side of things, that's what we do.
But then on the same time at the other end for your potential audience that you're gonna be speaking to, you know, we'll often do the same thing. Okay. Let's do some research. Let's ask our partners. What do they what do they need? What do they want? What do they desire? What's their end destination, right, that they desire to be at? And just it takes some time thinking. It takes some time dwelling on it. But when you could figure that out, then you can build products.
You can build services to truly help them. And so I just I think it starts with taking a survey or taking note of exactly what everybody needs and then filling the gap. Yeah. I think that you're spot on. The value piece is thrown around a whole bunch. How Chaz, I don't know, someone who's just hearing this for the first time, this idea of adding value, how can they I I out I mean, you kinda just gave a few on ramps, you know, survey asking just directly, paying attention is what I heard you say?
Doing some research and just saying, hey. What what what is common sense here? What how could I how could I help this person? What would you say, like, how much positioning here is curiosity versus Wolfe, like, how I wanna move forward. Because, obviously, We wanna move our businesses forward. That's what's driven us to the place of, let me find strategic partners. Right.
But at some point in there, curiosity has to rain or my ability to want their thing more than my thing, which is what you were just saying. Where in that process for somebody whose news never done this, when does that switch happen where I become more interested in helping them get what they want? You know, that's a great question. And I think And I may be wrong by saying this, but I would say for everybody in every relationship, it's gonna be a little different, but I could be completely wrong.
Because what your audience I'm just throwing this out there. What your audience may need and what you may need and the type of relationship and the value I'm gonna add to you. Like, that that switch may be flipped at certain certain time. Sure. It may be earlier, maybe later. Right? And so I can't give, like, a a for sure answer to that. I would say this Don't and this may sound bad. Don't don't worry about Chaz. And I know that's that's you were just asking a question.
But for me, I would just say, I'm really sometimes there's stuff in my head and I got so much words. I'm trying to put it out in a way Chaz makes sense because it's like, makes sense in my head. I'm like, how do I how do I portray this in a way that actually makes sense to the audience without, like, sounding, sounding super high level. But let me just say this because I'll I'll summarize it by by this this message here.
Whenever it comes to you know, this whole process of building relationships. When it comes to building these partnerships, adding value, everything we just stated, you need to you need to always have a sense of curiosity with you And I think that's in everything we do. And I actually just wrote a article yesterday that kinda is on the same note of this.
And whenever it comes to marketing, so many people, and and whenever it comes to social media as well, so many people get sucked into social media. And they just consume, consume, consume. And this may be a good example or not, but what if you came to social media with a sense of curiosity? And you just use social media as a tool that to gain market research And so I'm saying this, for example, you hop on TikTok.
Don't don't hop on TikTok just to watch funny videos from, random people or to watch the most viral thing. How about we actually see what makes these videos go viral? What about we actually look at these these pieces of content these mean and say, okay. What causes these people to share this? Hey. How can I use this spin of this viral video to actually make my business get seen more? Right?
And so I think there's Long story short, there's just a a new mindset that has to be taken up whenever it comes to this stuff. And, one, like I said, just put yourself aside, but at the same time, make sure that you're always always having some sort of curiosity Yes. You're in it for your own gain. I get that you are in this process.
You're you're trying to add value, trying to build these relationships for the growth of your business, But sometimes you just Chaz to push that aside because serving for me comes first. And I do know that those who serve the most often win the most. Now I'm not saying you have to do everything for free, but I'm saying from the from this perspective, from this conversation, It's okay to serve. It's okay to give out some times, energy, some resources to make sure those in your care win.
And those that you wanna reach when, because it's gonna pay off in the long run. Yeah. I think that you're spot on Chaz a great answer. The the time horizon, Hermozi talks about this quite a bit.
As far as making decisions that are based on a longer time horizon, and that's in essence what you've broken down is I'm gonna make this decision to add value or to when we say add value, what we mean is I'm gonna focus on the thing that is what they want Chaz brings them the result that they're looking for. And naturally, then my belief then is I'll get what I want. Maybe it's with this person. Maybe it's with the next next person. I don't know. We can use this podcast as an example.
150 episodes or so, 2 years in. That's a lot of work, and I just kept doing it knowing that I'm gonna meet the right people. And I'm gonna shake some hands. There's gonna be some strategic partners. There's gonna be some people who are interested in what we're doing. There's gonna be, like, one of the one of the One of the guys who was on my show about a year and a half ago, I'm I'm about to use his plane to fly from one city to another.
And it's like, how would I have ever known this guy if I didn't reach out, have him on the show, shake my hand, add value to him by respecting him through a process, telling his story, doing all the leg work for him, So I think that you've done an amazing job of of communicating that. I wanna I wanna switch gears here a second. You mentioned earlier that you know, really entrepreneurship for you on top of than having a family early on was a challenge. And and I think that you're you're right on.
And so I wanna I wanna go down that lane for a quick second here. For me, I see, the word obsession as the answer. Really to everything, like passion, obsession, all in, whatever you wanna call it. And because I don't believe balance is a thing. Like, I can't I can't I'm not gonna balance my wife and my kids. Like, not gonna balance my wife and my business. I'm just gonna go all in on all of it all the time. And some people are they kinda struggle with Chaz. How have you done that?
That's that's what I heard you saying, is that you were doing it all. Although there's maybe seasons and there's maybe some strategy in that, How have you done that? Yeah. Great question. And so I had to had to sit down with another friend and mentor. She's awesome. And one day I was at a mastermind event, and I was sitting down with her on the back patio. It was a, a summer summer day sunshine of this back patio, we sat down. And I I shared my heart with her. I was like, hey.
Like, you've been in you've been in real estate. You've been in business. You know, you guys had an awesome marriage. I can just see it. Like, every time you guys are together, it's just everything is is great for what it's seeing.
And so she shared with me and she said, Michael, too many people try separating their business and their marriage as if they're 2 separate things, which she said what I've done is I found ways to include my family in my business, find ways to include my family in my real estate journey or business journey, whatever that was, And so for me, that was a light switch. It's like, man, I have been doing that. I've been work is here, family is here, which in a sense it is.
But how can I find a way to include my wife, my kids, into what I'm doing? And that may not be that they're gonna come to work with me every day. But how can I share with them the wins I'm having? How can I share with them the maybe the losses I'm having and so they can support me? How can I, share my goals with them business goals so that she can keep me accountable? Right? And so for me, that was a big light bulb moment. It was just like, okay.
And it's still, like I said, it's still something I work on every day, but how can I include them in instead of keeping them separate? And so maybe for some of you out there, that's just what you need to do is find ways to include your spouse, your significant other, into what you're doing. Yeah. And I really I'm the same way, man. It's it's you're never gonna find balance. So with that being said, how can I go all in on on all and then but just include them in with what I'm doing?
And so that's, for me, kinda what I'm working on right now, and that's what I've been working on in the past is just keeping them included. Yeah. Yeah. I think that did. You're gonna be working on it. And if you ever stopped working on it, I'd be concerned. 100%. Yeah. No. No. I mean, but it's easier said than done, but, I think you guys get the gist of it. Yeah. It's good stuff. I wanna wrap up with this last question here.
Michael, I wanna know if you Chaz the opportunity to roll back the clock. You're already a young guy, so I don't know how young Wolfe go here, but you're talking to the younger, Michael. You tap him on the shoulder, and you whisper in his ear. What do you tell? I I knew the exact thought when Chaz when you asked that. And it's don't let other people place your value on you. Don't let other people place a value on you and don't forget and don't lose sight of how valuable your skill set is.
Let me let me mention this. When I first started out, I was helping people make just so you guys are aware, we've helped people make up to 4 to $5,000,000 per event Okay? Net net profit per event. Whenever I first started, I was only charging $1500 through $2000 and not saying I I wanted to be greedy because we added a lot of value to those people and help make impact so many lives. But I stayed there too long.
And now looking back, I would have been, like, Michael, your service, your skill set, something you've mastered is way more valuable than Matt. And so for you all listening right now is your skill set, you're probably charging not enough. You're probably undervaluing yourself. Not saying you are, but for me, I was.
And so I would go back and say, Michael, value yourself a little bit more, have confidence in yourself, have the courage that you talk about Chaz, like, have that courage to go out and and, be premium be premium. That's what I would say. That's awesome. There's there is courage, in in a premium ask.
And I think that even for the guy listening right now, Orcal, who's just recently started even, it's tough because you you're just trying to make ends meet all the way to the guy who's listening who's doing 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars that has never changed his or hasn't changed his price in 10 years. It's like, no. Look. What is the end result? Not what's the hourly wage. What's the end result of the value that you're bringing?
And I think that's it's more of a delivery based, you know, value model, and I think that that's the world is continuing to move towards that. That's why you see more performance plans for employees. It's like, look, if you bring value, then you then you then you get value in return. If you don't, you don't. Mhmm. Right. That's how it works when you're a business owner. That's for sure. Yeah. So you're working. Michael, you've been incredible here today. How can the listener find you?
1, if they are an online entrepreneur and they wanna run a virtual event and freaking crush it and have your team come in and maybe make a 6 or 7 figure day for them. How can they find you? Or if they're just an entrepreneur, they wanna talk shop or marketing, get some get some ideas from you. How can they find you? Yeah, man. I mean, listen. I'm just here to build relationships. I I have nothing out there right now that you can go and buy for me. So just go to the funnel pros.com.
You can set up a call with me, literally me, not anybody else on my team, go to funnelpros.com, and, we would sit down 15 minutes, just have some virtual coffee. And and shoot the bull and see how we can help you guys win. From there, if you're like, hey. This isn't the virtual events that may not be for me, but I still would love to connect. I'm on Instagram. Go to official Michael Tucker. I'm there. That's probably one of the best ways to connect with me because I'm active most on there.
Love it, man. We'll put all that in the show notes as well. Blessings to you and your team and your family as you're integrating everything Chaz you continue your success. All the millions of people that you're helping through all of your events. Thanks for being here, brother. We appreciate it. Yep. Thanks, man. Peace. Blessings. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself, doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey, from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs.
In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.