#152 Dylan Madden – The Secret to Freedom & Wealth

The people that work for me are taking care of I'm making good money from it , because obviously your business you're not taking 100% of the money Like your business is doing 20 grand a month . It doesn't mean that you're making 20 grand a month . How much are you paying yourself in salary ?

Obviously , you've got people that work for you And focus on building that a solid foundation for your business , even if it's taking a step back from outreach .

And then , once you get everything running as it should be , the systems are in place , the people on the team know what they're doing and clients are fulfilled , then at that point you can take that step forward . You're actually not going to take just one step . You might take five steps forward .

You also have to just accept one responsibility for a lot of people And then two . You should always be feeling pressure People these days . They want to be . They want things to feel like perfect and easy going and all that , but it's just not going to get you to the life that you want . You should always be feeling pressure .

Maybe I'm just delusional and crazy , but I like feeling like I'm falling behind , like I'm stagnating . I like that .

I was living in Qatar at the time and they were getting super , super strict And , to make a long story short , i ended up moving to South America , specifically Brazil . I was there for like three and a half months and then , but I didn't really like it , brazil .

I all in all , it's a good place , but it's one of those spots where you kind of have to look over your shoulder a little bit , especially if you don't speak the language which I don't speak Portuguese . And then I went to Columbia . I lived there for about three and a half months also , and there were riots and it was bad .

Like the government decided for whatever reason oh , people can't operate their businesses , so we're just going to increase the taxes . There's a bunch of other weird political stuff . I was literally on my balcony and they shot it . His helicopters , he was flying over .

I was just like , yeah , so like three , three and a half months left there , went to Costa Rica , didn't like it . I was told by a friend I should have went out to the beaches or the mountain area , like . I stayed in the capital city , did not like it . And then I went to Mexico .

I was there for about four or five months and I decided I was like I want to go back to America just to see if maybe it's because I was poor whenever I lived there that I wasn't crazy about it . So I had the money by this point I'd already was taking care of my mom All she was good .

So I went to Dallas and was there for a couple of months , lived , went back home for a couple of months , went to my original hometown for a couple of months . I was in America for like six months total And I was like I want to go back out . I need to find somewhere outside the US . So it's not that I'm anti-US , i'm not .

I think America is still a great country . The people are awesome , lots of opportunities . It's just not my lifestyle . It's becoming more and more of a police state with like , but there's not really much much benefit to it , like . So I was like I just don't really want to live in the US .

Eventually I would like to move my family out as well , which leads us to drumroll terribly . A friend of mine . I wanted a home , like a home base , that I could build . I'd been for the last two and a half three years .

Up to that point You'd been bouncing around So you'd start building up a network there , you'd start getting used to the area , you'd start getting certain places on lock and then you leave and you probably will never go back . So I , a friend of mine his name is Lawrence King . He was living in a Paraguay .

I don't know how long you'd been there , but he basically just said oh yeah , paraguay is a pretty good spot , residency is relatively easy . And I got introduced to a really high level lawyer there . She's super awesome . She's still one of my lawyers today and residency , like that .

Within like a month I had residency , had a bank account set up , had everything set up . So I was like , okay , i'm going to move to Paraguay because a huge issue that I had beforehand is getting residency in a lot of these spots . It's not really that complicated once you know what to do .

But before that I thought residency was super complicated but I was like , oh wow , i could just pay this lawyer and she just handles everything . So , done What I love about Paraguay because I'm still I still have some business interests there as well . Paraguay , it's South America mixed with a little bit of Europe , but it's also safe .

Like you'll literally see Paraguayans that are like you would assume they're like German or something , but they are 100% Paraguayan . They don't speak English at all . They don't speak German , they just speak Spanish . The mixture of they've got their own language , guarani , so it's like their native language makes a Spanish . All in one , it's like a hybrid .

And Paraguay is just awesome . It's cheap , like I had like a really nice apartment there for about 1600 US a month Two bedroom , nice balcony , all this like the whole thing . So for anybody's watching this , if you are looking for a country like you're just getting into this online space , you don't need to live in a place like Dubai .

Dubai is expensive , but if you're just getting into making money online and you want to save money and reinvest it to your business , a place like Paraguay would be fantastic because , like I , was one of the last people to get permanent residency .

Now they've changed the rules a little bit , so I think you can have one to two years residency , but I was one of the last people to get permanent residency but it's still just as easy .

So a place like Paraguay or the country of Georgia I mean there's lots of countries around the world that if you want to build an actual home base which leads me to , i guess my rambling point would be to truly become successful and make a lot of progress , you need a home base .

Like I can look back over the last three and a half four years of me traveling , in the times where I spent a lot of time in one area for more than just a month or two .

My progress is just night and day Because if you're going around , you're traveling , you're dealing with annoying flights and it takes me about a week or two to really get into a solid routine and you start to know the area And there's definitely some hacks or whatever travel hacks to where you can mitigate some of that .

But you need to find a place that's cheap , it's safe obviously you don't want to be looking over your shoulder and easy to get residency set up . So my rambling response to your question is that's why I ended up choosing Paraguay . It checked all the boxes for me .

Obviously Singapore is super expensive right now , but like even Thailand , indonesia , like Vietnam I heard like the way finally , vietnam is like even better than most places across Europe . So , like you need somewhere that like to minimize your expenses in the early years , like when it's really painful .

Like I don't understand why you would pay London prices , new York prices , san Fran prices , even if you were building a stardop . I just I just don't see why you would do it , you know , so trying to give yourself as much fucking chance as possible before it actually gets hired so that you can go live your life .

You know , and I love what you when you're saying during that , as well as the fact that you know you mentioned about when you get healthy , you don't blow it and get a fucking McDonald's meal , and then when you're working on your money , you don't blow it and get a Rolex straight away .

That's the perfect example , that when you start making money online , you don't just blow it , you just be sensible , be reasonable . How did you come to that realization , man ?

I always want to be getting better , but there have been a handful of times where , like I would be earning the most money I'd ever earned up to that point , but at the end of the month I wouldn't have that much . And I was like , okay , dylan , you're being an idiot here . You've literally just earned the average American yearly salary in a month .

But yeah , you've literally got like eight grand in your bank account . Like , what are you doing ? And doing that repeatedly .

Eventually you're just like , oh , my God , you need to be smart about this , because this actually the most recent time this happened was last year , i can't remember what month it was , but we I had an issue with a project I'm very involved with and it wasn't anything on their end , it was just some like banking issues and for like a solid two months it was

progressively harder for us to do what we were doing at that time And that was like a reality check , like , wow , you can be like a full God mode .

Everything's just working , but you don't know what opportunities are temporary , or maybe something's going to come at randomly , is going to happen , or maybe something health related happens , because obviously you can't guarantee you're going to be in perfect health for the rest of your life .

You can take advantage of like working out , eating , eating good food and all that , but you don't know what's going to happen . And so I've had that happen many times to me being an idiot , but also just observing other people

Like I've . I've got a good friend of mine who was super , super successful and he got lazy . And then some other stuff happened . Got lazy , he started taking things for granted and his one client it was this top paying client which literally is most of his income came from that one person , and the person decided to retire .

Now he doesn't have that income stream and then he started he's like Dylan , i don't know what I'm going to do . I'm running out of money . I got lazy , i started stagnating . I don't have all these case studies like you do blah , blah , blah , blah . So on my end it's it comes down to .

You need to remember that , yes , right now , maybe it's great , maybe you're making the most possible money you've ever made . Maybe you're in the best health , best energy ever , but that doesn't mean it's going to be there for like for eternity . At some point maybe one little thing's going to happen . And I can even go back about four years ago .

I had a client of mine that was paying me about three grand a month to write emails for him and he originally we signed like a deal together . I was only going to do the sequences for him , like the welcome sequence , product sequences , but then that turned into actually , can you write my weekly dues later And I started getting into a .

I'll start stagnating , so making three grand a month from him . I had two other clients I was working with . I was doing well , he was still my top paying client at that time And then once I forgot how long we even worked together . But to make a long story short , he was like okay , dylan , your sequences you put together are great .

I have a good understanding . I've freed up my time because he sold another business . He had sold this business and I'm going to get into just writing my own newsletters , blah , blah , blah . I'm taking the business in a new direction . And then I lost that And I was just like and I .

It was actually , funnily enough , it was right when I left Qatar and moved to Brazil . So I just moved to Brazil , i thought that I had X amount of money coming in .

I stopped doing outreach almost completely And I was just sitting there like I literally just like , next month I'm not going to have that three grand coming in , which at that time was still like man , i just got kicked in the balls , which goes to my philosophy of you need to always be doing outreach and building a web of it doesn't have to .

I'm not one of those guys . Seven income streams But if you're like a freelance or like I teach freelancing don't rely on that one client , just like in the nine to five . You don't want to rely on that one nine to five job . You don't know what's going to happen . So you should always build like a base around yourself .

Of sure , have your top hand client , give them a lot of your energy , but you should also be creating systems around you , whether it's you just working with one or two other clients , three other clients or , even better , getting yourself to a position where you have a person that's working for you , or you can even design a team around you to where clients are

being fulfilled . And sure , you can still once again focus on that one main client If you want . But you need to have other clients coming in because otherwise , once again , you can't predict what's going to happen . A lot of especially the guys that I teach they have this like arrogance and bravado about them , that Oh , and I'm going to be on top forever .

No , you're not . You never know what's going to happen . You can always be pushing , of course you always should , but you should be prepared just in case stuff really hits the fan . I don't know if I can custom the podcast , but if it hits the fan ?

And I know , you know Justin Wellum , when I was recording with him , he was saying his favorite word is being relentless , and I think that's the stuff that I try to just , you know , embody a lot of the times because , especially in the online space , like you might be a 10 K a month , two clients are dropped from you . You're down to 3000 a month .

Again , it's over . You know what I mean . You're back to focus , square one . You need to have that level of relentlessness . Now , how did you instill that in you ? If it was , it's easy to just get complacent at different times , even when you're moving transfer , like , how do you do that ? on an action basis , like what do you ? what systems you build ?

make sure that you're moving forward continuously , month over month ?

If I have a decent apartment , i can a bed , i can lay on a cafe nearby , can work from , i'm good . So I and I've realized that . I realized that years ago , which this correlates back to whenever I was working a regular job , i quit the job . I broke up this girl seeing at the time and I wanted to put my .

I wanted to make myself so miserable that I had no option but to succeed . So I started cleaning this is I don't know how much my story know , but I used to literally clean bathrooms , clean departments . I even took care of some boats and stuff and I didn't want to allow myself to have a regular job . That would just be all you know .

Clock in , clock out got a decent amount of money coming in . So I forced myself to push through , push through , push through , which eventually led into freelancing couple years after that period , which lead us to today , i have put myself to positions where I'm responsible for people . I'm responsible for taking care of my girl , taking care of my mom .

I've got staff that work for me that I , if I do not pay them one month , where's the rent money ? where I've got this ? one person's got a kid like ? so I put myself to a position where I'm responsible for a bunch of other people , which definitely adds a lot of stress , like just the other day I was sitting there and I had this crazy pressure my brain .

I was just like thinking how can we take this to the next level ? I guess I want to keep pushing , pushing , pushing . And which also leads me to the point of you also have to just accept one responsibility for a lot of people and then two . You should always be feeling pressure . People these days .

They want to be , they want things to feel like perfect and easy going and all that , but it's just not going to get you to the life that you want . You should always be feeling pressure . Maybe I'm just delusional and crazy , but I like feeling like I'm falling behind , like I'm stagnating . I like that . I like feeling like man .

I've got my mom to take care of , like just from an ego standpoint . You know you never want to say mom , you know , stagnated this past couple months , i can't afford to keep taking care of you , so you're gonna have to go back to a job . So I don't refuse . I refuse that reality and anybody is watching this .

If you struggle with motivation , i'm not telling you to retire your mom right now . That was the point that I was making earlier . A friend of mine is a bro . That is a mouth of responsibility that you should not put on yourself so early . Like as soon as I could afford it , i took start taking care of my mom .

It started out with just sending her a little bit of money and then I retired her . But for the people are watching this like you need to put yourself into situations where You have no other option but to push through because at least once again for me , i'm a very simple man , i don't need that much . So I constantly have to push myself to these Higher .

Okay , i've got to find a way to pay for that . Okay , i need to take care of this . Okay , i have people that work for me . They're crushing it . I want to see them succeed Like the people that work for me and they've been with me for a couple years . I don't want them to be getting paid the same amount of money month after month after month .

I want to be taking on bigger things so that I can afford to pay them more . So they're making 10 grand a month , etc . So little things like that are what I do on a day to day basis , week to week basis to constantly trick my brain , if you call it that And going after more .

Because , to be honest , whenever I was finally making 20 grand a month , i stagnated for a little bit . This I was living in Bogota , columbia . At the time . I stagnated . I was like making just enough , i didn't have to work all the time And I was happy .

But eventually , because every person , once you get through , go through , i call it purgatory . You're not living in hell , you're not living in heaven , you're just existing , and I was just existing . It was just me . Two other people are working for me . It was good . One person full time . One person was kind of just like a gig by gig basis .

We're doing alright , we're doing alright . I was living in a nice place in Bogota , but eventually purgatory if you're a person with a soul , which everybody that's watching this has a soul . You're going to feel this like man .

There has to be more to life and you can allow it to either make you miserable or you can allow it to motivate yourself and be like okay , even though it's not going to be easy , i'm going to push to this next level . But yeah , that's really , at the end of the day , what I do is to be relentless .

It's about being responsible for other people outside of myself . Otherwise , to be honest , i'm kind of I'm naturally a lazy person unless I'm responsible for other people .

I knew originally was the fact that if you think of the worst possible scenario , like you going back to cleaning toilets or cleaning fucking apartments again , right , that's the hell , that's what gets you up in the morning .

And then the heaven then is okay , you can do 100k a month or 200k a month or whatever it is , but you often don't get that heaven In a nine to five , even at the best companies , man , the best companies in the world , because you're at a certain cap level . you can earn a maximum of I don't know 200k a year , but then you don't have that drive .

so that's why I think that is that's a beautiful , like serendipity of , like online business , the fact that , yes , it can go shit and it's up and it can really fuck you over , but at the same vein , it's all on you and you can take that responsibility and really fucking go with it , man , you know , and really really pushing it , and that's the , that's the

beauty of it . What I want to ask you on . that is , when was the ? have you ever had a period of life where you didn't take responsibility ? so you went through a period or boy you were , you were completely the victim . Has that ever happened to you ?

like maybe the I guess the best example Of being a quote unquote victim is maybe filling Oh , i can give you now that it just came to me , was back to everyone to Brazil and I lost that 3k client just writing emails for me and I almost are feeling I was losing my touch And I for a solid I don't know how long it felt like eternity for maybe it was a

couple days , maybe maybe it's a couple weeks . I did feel maybe this isn't for you doing like , oh , my , like This , maybe you're losing your touch , maybe like you need to find something else to do And very quickly , i'll sleep . What are you doing to remind myself ? like a year and a half earlier , i was cleaning properties .

I was doing all that and then , if I went back even further , i was literally , with this back rewind to 2016 . I was sitting there , i just quit my job . I've been jobless without him for about a month . By this point , i was just staring up the ceiling and I had no idea of how to make money .

I saw the little bit of savings I had just going dwindling And I felt like a victim , like 100% , because I didn't know what to do . But then I you have to realize that and it doesn't feel good , it sucks . You have to realize literally nobody is going to do anything for you . They're not some magical person is not going to come out .

Okay , dylan , you're a really inspirational guy . I think you can positively impact a lot of people and all you know your mom . You need to take care of her as well , because her health isn't the best . You know what here , bro , we're right to check . Your life's changed . Boom , nobody's going to do .

That is amazing , as that would be Like I used to fantasize growing up that my real dad would come out of nowhere and it was like some multi , multi billionaire . Everything would be good . That was like a childhood fantasy .

There's a fantasy we live in the real world , meaning you can be a victim , you can feel bad , you can feel certain emotions , you can , you can have self doubt , you can do all that type of stuff . That . What does that actually do ?

it doesn't do anything for you and it actually hurts the people around you , because if you're not going to be doing anything , you're going to just be this like victim going through life , feeling that life is happening to you Instead of you happening to life .

That's a quote I really like is that you happen to life and like I actually remind myself that often Life's gonna suck is gonna suck for you , is gonna suck for the people around you and I tweeted this at some point a month ago , two months ago Like , if you have less meaning , less money , less strength , you're not the best shape by default .

Everybody around you is going to also have less Meaning , whether it's your family , your future kids like in the next year or two , i would like to start having kids as well , god willing . Like , if I'm being lazy and I'm just being a victim , my future children , their life's gonna suck . Or the people that work for me , their life's gonna suck And it does .

You don't even need to be a business owner to realize this . Like your life , even as a nine to five worker , is going to suck if you just sit around feeling like a victim and feeling depressed because the emotions are always gonna be there . Like people see me and they my , my girl just the other day asleep , don't I got ?

I didn't even know you're like going through . That was not . Like there . It literally serves no purpose for me to show that I'm going through something mentally you know what I'm talking about late Literally serves no purpose . So I may as well just be completely calm and I just take care of things and I'm not gonna . Actually I just overnight .

I've been like this since the beginning , but it's repetitions and this is something people really need to realize that they expect . All these changes in mindset shifts or I can read this one page from a book of my life . It's not how it happens . It's repeatedly reading and living , because I tell my students this all the time experience breeds confidence .

By you going through the experience time and time again over years and years and years , that's when you finally have this overnight . Like that's what that really means . Or wow , you look back and really I really am the man of whatever your thing around , the woman whatever you know , whatever your thing is .

And like last night , like half eleven at night , working fifteen hours , had a no show and then there it was all about . What's the response ?

responses get back on it , get back up this morning , start moving forward , start getting yourself ready , go to gym , get back into normal motion , instead of being the victim And that's very important is about like it's not really matter , but it's not the issue . What's happening right now .

It's about how you respond to how you move forward , and that's what I learned a lot from you from that perspective , you know , because I see that over time and going through like your videos , like you've just Leveled up and leveled up and leveled up , but I know it hasn't been fucking easy and I know it's not a charade as well .

That's what's most important here . When I ask you one question , i heard you mentioned before That you were labeled with like a learning disabled disability when you were younger . What was that in reference ?

So that was definitely like a memory in my mind , like I for and to be honest , not , i'm just being I've I think I've only talked about this once before like I labeled myself like not that intelligent up until literally like a year or two ago .

I always allowed that limiting belief in my mind , which is definitely driving force for me , because I was like man , i've got to over deliver , i've got to prove myself . But I finally realized , oh , wow , you're actually , you are actually intelligent .

But going back to your point , yeah , i couldn't read , i could barely write , and they put me into a learning disabled class , which is basically you have a handler that is in every class that you're in like regular people classes , but they're taking notes . And it was kind of freaky because I read it .

Years later , dylan began anxiously looking around the class as everybody was beginning the blah , blah , blah , and it was like literally Word for word , writing every little thing , like about how anxious I was looking around , how I could read , and they put me in this , so you have a handler .

But then after that they also put you in this like special room with other learning disabled kids And it was this weird . It was like imagine like a stage where you perform in front of like the school and then behind that There's like this little meeting room . That's where we would be . It was just this weird dark , dreary room .

I'm seeing in my mind right now . We would all just be sitting around there and I would be sitting there And I still remember this day was like eight , nine years old , i'll be looking around to like I am not , like these kids , like oh , these kids actually have issues , like I am not that .

So it made me like really hunker down And like by that next year , as I fell the second grade , by that the next year I was literally what is it ? principles list ? I don't know if that's like the highest honor , there's like honor roll and there's the that like I hit that and I did all right , i was never a good student .

Like basically , after that I stopped caring . To be honest , i was like I was like , ok , i can get like a , b or C and still pass . Ok , so I just , i put it just enough .

But even math , like they said , i was also learning to say with math and that was actually limitation I accepted for years like , obviously I can read , obviously I can write , i get paid to write for people . But even that math thing , like to this day , i have to constantly like Dylan , literally it's just , you're good , like you've proved yourself .

So That learning disabled limitation , quote unquote I used us to . Actually to go back to your point earlier , i did accept that like , yes , i'm learning disabled , i'm not as intelligent as all these other kids , blah , blah , blah , blah . And I accepted that for a while . But eventually , naturally I , because I didn't know about reframing as a kid .

Obviously I start reframing that into OK , sure , maybe I'm not as intelligent as these people , but I'm not gonna let them see me as less , so I'm gonna work harder . So Work harder in school , work harder whatever I do sports and this even translated into what I'm doing now , which is I'm constantly pushing , pushing , pushing and have that driving force .

So it's one of the many variables throughout my experience growing up that definitely have made me into the person I am today , and I anybody's watching this like you , don't want to stay in that negative state . That's something that I thought that I prided myself and being able to harness all that negativity , but it doesn't really serve a purpose .

You should reframe it into a positive and then fuel yourself from positivity , from a more positive state of mind , like it . Definitely I became a very unhappy person for years , like borderline miserable , even though I was pushing , i was going after my goals , because I tried to just fuel myself in negativity .

It's gonna make you into a soulless person unless you reframe that into more of a positive rocket fuel .

And then I got to university , i just had , like , pushing a lot harder and I started to get a lot better at it . And now , as part of my podcast , i write every single day . Like I use different platforms , i'm writing every single day . Am I writing is fine , like it's .

You wouldn't be able to distinguish it between someone else is probably not as good as the fucking Oxford student , but that's not the point . But that's the reason why I asked you is because , like , over time , i've had to reframe my brain . I guess , like it's , the same Quality is as when you go to make money for yourself . You need to reframe yourself .

Like I can make a dollar , i can make a thousand dollars and I think they're important principles . You know so When I ask you about copyrighting in particular . So it's nice to say when to that , what , why did you pick copyrighting and why is that your preferred choice ? now ?

It was like the theme back in the day And so in my mind I started seeing these bloggers

.

I've been interested in writing because , going back to the learning disabled thing , something I pride myself in as a kid is they did some creative writing exercise And I did this years later after I was probably like in fifth or sixth grade , and I came up with this creative story that ended up going to like it won like the state awards , it won the school ,

then it won the city and then it won the state of South Carolina And I was like , wow . So in my mind I kind of stored that as I'm good at writing and good at storytelling and all that . Then fast forward to high school . I started a website And I didn't understand . I'd kind of heard about this blogging thing but I didn't quite understand it .

I literally made a website And like , imagine you go to a website right now and you go to the about page . I thought that the blog was oh , i'm just going to update that page every day .

I didn't realize you can make individual blog posts , which led me to finding out about blogging And I was like , oh , there's literally something like a WordPress blog And I found out about those guys . I was like , okay , so I started writing for a blog . It's still around comic collectorcom . I think we've got like three or 400 articles by this point .

I just recently started writing again , like on a more regular basis , but I chose copywriting because I dabbled in all these different things . I tried dropshipping and I was able to make some money , but it wasn't anything sustainable . Otherwise I'll probably still be doing it to this day . I tried having a cute computer repair business . I did some stuff on eBay .

I tried all these things . It wasn't my thing , and so something I told my students is like find something you're naturally good at and they overthink that .

So basically , what I say is like , if you told me because I've tried it web design if I had to code a website , i would rather go right over to that wall right now and bash my head into it and have to figure out how to code a website . First thing is writing . It's always just been my thing .

You could tell me an idea , i could sit down and start writing right now , no problem . So I chose copywriting because I saw that as my vehicle of I already kind of had that ability .

I just didn't necessarily understand the psychology behind it or the different little hacks and what you should and shouldn't do , or the words Even to this day I'll sit down with . I was sitting down yesterday with a copywriter and he was using words I have no idea , but he was . He wanted to sit down with me to pick my brain on some ideas .

So it's like I know what I'm doing . I just might not know all the exact words that he was using .

So I just copywriting comes naturally to me , and it has for a while , and it was one of the things that allowed me to start actually making money , which obviously is another thing that obviously would make me be interested in , as I started writing blog posts for people .

Then , after that , i segued into writing like computer pages , like if you started a website , i would write the about page , the homepage , all that type of stuff . And then in 2019 , i started doing email copywriting . That was when I was able to make enough money to live abroad . Which was obviously my dream this whole time was I want to make enough money .

Well , back in the day , my dream was I want to make enough money writing that I can live in Bangkok , thailand , make 10 grand a month and just do whatever . I will not have to worry about a job ever , and I thank God I've achieved much more than that . But at the same time , that was that first little goal that I had .

So I didn't necessarily consider myself a copywriter . Really , until the past couple of years , it was just I can write , okay , i'm going to go through the application of writing emails for people . Then I even segued that into content creation on Twitter and all that . So I chose copywriting it because it gave me like I'm naturally good at it Number one .

And then two there's so many applications of it . A lot of people they , when they think of copywriting because I see this as my students every day they think copywriting is writing sales pages . I'm like sure that's a version of application of copywriting . There's also email copywriting .

You could throw Twitter ghostwriting in as a form of copywriting , like there's so many applications of it . So if you can get the fundamental skills of being able to write , come up with ideas and understand psychology behind it , you literally can write whatever check you want . You can print money from the air , because there's any business out there .

For the most part they need a copywriter And if you're one of those guys that come in , you can write emails for them . You can also do the sales page stuff for them , maybe even blog post whatever . There's so many applications that you can make money . So you have no excuse not to vote . At least make a living outside of a nine to five .

So to go back to your original question , the reason I chose it is I'm naturally good at copywriting And that was where I started finally achieving those little hits of success 100% man .

And he explained he's making like six grand a month writing emails for clients . And I already do that for my because I had my main blog , common Collected Bells . That's , mother , like niche blogs for affiliate stuff . I already do that .

So yeah , bro , just often write emails for clients , you'll make some good money basically is writing emails and able to travel around South America . And so that kind of planted the seed .

And then , by accident , a couple months later , whenever I moved to Romania , a friend of mine his name is Frazier , a friend of mine ended up . He was writing emails and he started kind of telling me some of the stuff .

And then one thing led to another , i started writing emails And then , before I knew it , i was like , oh , i'm like I write emails cool , as a part of my , my like one of my first like actual clients abroad was writing some of the emails .

And then I took up my second client , my third client , and I was like Oh , okay , cool , i'm an email copywriter , so I mean that's really why I chose it . There wasn't some like edit sit there in a dark room with a candle and predicts a success . I really just accidentally fell into it over time .

Is I like retainers because you can predict for the most part , as long as the client keeps you on and you're delivering results , because at the end of the day , this whole client's care about . Are you making the money , are you professional , are you even a likable person , like ?

if you can hit those different things , then you can predict okay , i am 100% going to be making eight grand for the next couple of like this month , probably next month , and then from there you can grow it . So if you want to make an extra grand , okay , i'm going to go close another client for a grant .

Or I want to make another three grand , i'm going to go close another client for three grand or three clients at a grand a pop . But in the beginning especially , i've actually been testing this with some of my students over the past couple weeks And I'm pushing them into if they don't have testimonials to go down the rev share path because it's zero risk .

You can frame it as an I'm going to come in right emails for you . You're not going to have to pay me . I know a lot of people won't money up front . You only pay me if I get your results and it's like literally just a risk free thing . So I've started testing some of my my beginner level students with that .

With the rev share , like , just perform a space and it's really easy to set up . You can literally just get them to give you a affiliate link for 15% , 20% per cell . You're good . But on my end , whenever I got started , because I literally knew nothing about business , i knew nothing about copywriting .

I didn't know anything about anything , if you like I just , by this point , knew how to put together a WordPress blog new article , new email , right subject line , click this link . That's basically my entire knowledge at that point . So I was like , oh , okay , yeah , a grant a month , okay , for this . 1500 a month .

Okay , i can see that I'm making clients X amount of money , so logically it makes sense for them to pay me like two random months or three random months or whatever it was . So I just stuck to the retainer for a long time until I discovered this performance based , which I recommend that everybody's watching this .

If you're interested , start talking to other freelancers , like , obviously , inside the real world .

I teach students how to get into the freelancing team email , copywriting , whatever your skill is and I basically just tell you everything you need to do from picking up clients , getting testimonials , how to maintain that relationship , how to build a team , eventually , teach all that .

But I definitely limited myself in the early days because I didn't really need to read about the stuff or any . I was trying to just learn everything through my own experience . So whenever I finally discovered performance based , i didn't even think about it that way . I was like , okay , we're going to launch this product .

And they brought up the idea of because you put help put together this product . You also wrote the sales page for us because I was always about over delivering it , which could correlate back to me being learning to say we're back in the day .

I just always over deliver , so either pay me to write emails , but I put a lot of work into creating the outline for the product . Looking over , oh , we should do this .

We shouldn't say that , okay , i'm going to put together this click funnels page for us And I did that and I over deliver and they gave me a affiliate link And I was like I wonder if I could do this for more clients . And then later I discovered the word of performance based rev share .

So maybe I could start doing this more clients , and which is is great . But the retainer is really good in the beginning , in my opinion , because you can prepare at some point , because you can predict the income that you're going to be paying for that , because otherwise it's going to be up and down , up and down , up and down .

But you can definitely secure some clients in the very very beginning for sure , risk free .

If you're like I was in the early days where you doubted yourself , you didn't like I'm not sure about this that they're going to pay me money to write emails or whatever your skill is and you can like , instead of them paying you a grand to grand upfront , you only get paid if you deliver .

And I guess another good point about that is you can actually predict or not predict , but learn actual data of when I write emails . They deliver , they make X minus cells or whatever your skill is . Obviously not every skill makes sense for rev share . But like , whenever I write , wrote the email for them today and we sent it , they made X minus cells .

Whenever I wrote this email , they got zero cells . When I wrote this email , they got zero cells . Then I changed subject line , kind of took what I wrote . This first email is basically the same approach , but it was a different storyline . We had a stronger call to action , a stronger subject line , something like that , and they made like 10 cells .

Okay , now we've got some actual data that we can move on . So it's like little things like that broke . but retainer performance base . You just test it . Test both of them and see which works best for you .

I did three to four months or free , just would conduct . You've been like , can I help you do this ? And I say , yeah , okay , cool , and I did everything for free , man , and I was so happy . They were my first testimonials , whatever .

And the only reason I discovered rev share was when I spoke to someone who was a direct response marketer , who was working with a medical company and he was doing like 5% on sales , so he was making they were doing like a million and he was making 50k or is that 50k ? so that's fucking wild .

But then , of course , a flip side to that was when I speak to someone else . They said that well , if the rev share is so high , they'll just cut you and then they'll hire internally because they're like this is a huge payment , we're playing . So of course , there's pros and cons to life . You know what I mean . That's the way I get into it .

But I love that , though . It's really good , because give someone who's starting a way to get in the door , build data , build experience . Now I wanted to get into that technical side . There you said I'm persuasion and psychology .

So people kind of often say , as well , like you know all , you should understand the psychology of writing and everything , but from your perspective , what is it you're really trying to learn ? what are the different triggers ?

And obviously I'm speaking from an email copyrighting perspective . We can go into any skill you want But at the same time , that market is going to be different . Like , example , cnn , fox News , complete different markets that they apply to . Like that's like I was talking to a guy that works for the other day .

It's like , bro , like I would just I would never watch this . I was like , yeah , but there's millions of people that watch this particular channel . Why ? Because there's a market . So it comes down to understanding each of your clients markets .

So , like , if you work within like one I guess quote , unquote niche for the most part you know what types of things like trigger words , what people are looking for and all that .

But then it also comes down to and this is what I love about social media is you can just literally look on their Twitter account or their Instagram account or their YouTube channel and see what their audience really is interested in , What things are getting the most amount of engagement , check the comments And then from there I turn that into emails .

We'll turn that into possible products , like the audience will literally tell you what they want to pay for . Like a lot of people , they make the mistake of coming up with these products or coming up with these content ideas because they just think that it's going to be a great thing , for that The audience is going to love it .

That isn't probably not going to happen . People buy things because they buy something , because it actually helps them to some kind of degree .

So it comes down to and I'm not even really much a direct response , psych psychology type of person It just comes down to me I identify what people are actually looking for , what they're talking about , the types of content they're engaging with , and then from there I'm like , okay , i'm going to create stories based off whatever my clients are .

So you could literally just send a message to your client , be like hey , can you tell me one time when XYZ happened or if you're in this situation , how would you react ? Or can you tell me three tips for blah , blah , blah , blah blah .

They'll send me a voice note and then I'll transcribe that and then I'll sit there and I'll edit it into a good email or you can come up with a campaign , but it really comes down to this is my approach .

That doesn't mean it's the best , like some people really like to nerd out and understand the psychology and direct response approaches and all this stuff , but it comes down to understanding your market . So what are they actually looking for ? What types ? What is that person doing ? Like there's a real person on the other side watching this video right now ?

I understand this . Never I'm writing emails for clients or for myself , or if I'm writing a blog post , i'm writing to a real , living , breathing human being . Maybe once AI takes over will be different , but I'm writing to an actual human being that has problems , they have doubts , they have different things like that .

And if I understand that I'm talking to a person , i understand the market , i understand the stuff that they're looking for or the pains are going through , and then I can even take content and see what content people are engaging with that follow my particular client or if they follow me , whatever . It is Okay . This tweet got 50 likes and like 50 retweets .

That's a bad example compared to two retweets and two likes . Obviously , there's more people that follow me or follow my client that are like this type of topic , so I'll start talking about that . And then , magically , people start opening up the emails , they start purchasing , and I could go on and on for hours about that .

But that I mean at the end of the day , that's what I do is I just look at what people are actually interested in . I have a baseline understanding of the market . I understand my client , the pros and cons of my client , what attracts people to my client ? because people and this isn't my thing , it's very cliche thing people buy from other people .

So if you can understand why do people follow my particular client ? Like I know on my end , the reason a lot of people follow me is I'm relatable . I don't try to be anything that I'm not . I've got a pretty relatable story as far as , like , i used to be like almost 300 pounds . Basically I was super fat .

I still need to lose weight , but I used to be super fat and I lost that weight . I've been , i've worked in a nine to five . I've been learning to save what I've done . All this I just threw sheer like showing up every single day , working , working , working . You can see , over years and years of time , my progression And so I understand that .

So I can make my . I know that people like me for being relatable , so I'm not going to try to be something I'm not versus another client . Maybe they like this particular client because he's almost like superhuman and some in some shape or form , so I'm going to lean into that . Does that ? does that make sense ? or am I being a ?

You know that's the litmus test is that when you put something out , if people don't like it , that's the reason why they don't like it , cause it's shit , you know , and it doesn't resonate with you need you need to lean into what's different happened .

But I like the fact that you're able to kind of understand and sympathize , because I actually just have a tweet that's coming out on a schedule and a minute being like you shouldn't be creating stuff for yourself .

You'd be creating stuff for your previous self two years , three years , four years ago , when you were just starting out , the pains you were feeling , how like the stupid questions you had and how uncomfortable it made you feel , because that's what makes it , you know , plausible , and especially for coming out with products , man or services or even what you're teaching

in the real world , you're often helping someone who was you at the very beginning and that's why . That's why all this works , you know . That's why . That's why we don't trust people who are just shilling anything . You know they come out with a new crypto coin . They shill , they shill shit that our followers , but you don't trust that .

You know you want to look for those kind of people who are relatable and are like role models , which essentially , is kind of like what you're kind of , what you're paving away for which which I , which I really admire as well .

. And to go back to the point of just finding what the audience is looking for , it really is a lit , a perfect litmus test , Like , if you create content and people engage with it , obviously people are interested in it . Don't sit there and keep acting like a victim and both the algorithm just doesn't like my content .

Oh , come on , bro , it's because your content sucks . That's that's why that's happening . Or if nobody's buying from your emails , don't keep saying writing the same exact stuff . Sit back and ask yourself okay , why are they ? why are they buying ? Maybe they don't even want the product to begin with . How did this is something I do for clients .

Run a poll on your Instagram , roll up , run a poll on YouTube , on Twitter , and see what some of their common problems are . Have you tried that ? No , but I just this . This idea would be really no . Run a poll , see what people actually engage with . Oh , they're not actually even interested in what you're about to make a product on .

They're really interested about this specific thing . Why don't we put together a product about that or put together an email campaign about that to segue into some kind of product you already have . I mean , use your audience to get purpose , literally data . They're actual people with actual problems .

They follow you for some specific reason And if you can lean into that and actually help them , which is what you're supposed to be doing at the end of the day sure , making money is great , but it's a byproduct of you actually helping people .

So if you can run polls and figure out what people are looking for , if you can write content , see what people are actually engaging with , all of a sudden you go from just being a victim to actually making money and actually changing lives .

So it's there's no magic to this And this is something I try to tell students all the time is they just sit around and they they're looking for something like swipe file . Like every single time I'll send this specific , 100% guarantees somebody's going to open . I'm like stop doing that . You can compliment people . You can lead with value .

You can like I give them various frameworks that they can use , but I keep putting into their mind and the students that apply this or , as I say on Twitter , understand this and prosper that once they actually pay attention to what I'm saying and they apply it .

That's when they start progressing And that is stop looking for some templated approach to DMs or even code email or content or whatever . If you focus on , if this is from a client outreach perspective , if you focus on in my DM instead of me trying to pay Darren today , your Instagram video was really good . I related to it because of this .

By the way , are you going to be using this video in one of your emails , like who cares , like it doesn't matter ? if I rocked up to you and I was like Hey , darren , really liked your video . I actually just helped a client of mine make 30 grand last month .

Here's some of the ideas I have for you And I show you a screenshot of the money I made a client . I give you some bullet points . That's going to get more of a positive response from you versus me trying to like obviously it's not even a genuine compliment or really liked your video today . It really related to me because back whenever I cares .

So stop looking for some templated approach to DM . Stop looking for a templated approach to really anything and actually get real data .

I stopped doing all that stuff because I realized that everything had to be personalized And whenever I speak to people like I even speaking to you earlier I do an unscalable personalized approach to my emails and to my DMs . I do videos , i do loom videos , i do I just learned out that they're called like VSLs . That are they .

I literally learned that out that other day , even though I'd been sending hundreds of videos for so long . And that's the stuff that matters , because I'm like here's your problem , here's a solution , here's how I can help you And here's some other examples that I've used other people with .

Versus this fucking email loop that we send on a on a , on a scheduler that goes nowhere , like and maybe some people can do it and 100% because , like Lemlist and Lempire are great , our great platform , and 100% of worst repo . But for me I just felt like that it just wasn't that human touch .

And when I just get into the DMs and actually speak to people , it works a lot more . So I kind of wanted to ask you about that as well , like because I've never actually been kind of DMing on Instagram or Twitter . I actually mainly use LinkedIn .

And the reason why I use LinkedIn is because , first , you can like social proof yourself And , secondly , the average income is pretty high It's around $75,000 . And 1% of the platform posts on LinkedIn compared to other platforms . So by just doing that , you're already literally in the 1% by default .

So I kind of wanted to get your approach on how you do Twitter and Instagram .

How'd you find these people Like ? and it comes down to now . Just this is what I tell students of mine . I'll tell you , tell the viewers . Find somebody like I go like , if you've ever played Call of Duty , like , be more of a . Take a sniper approach .

Like , instead of you going and just trying to spray into a room , sit back , be calm and just be like a sniper on Call of Duty or something and actually look for people .

Yes , it takes more work , but would you rather put in a little bit more effort and get an actual result , or would you like to feel good , oh yeah , i just sent 500 DMs , or I just sent 500 emails . Cool , that's not a flex . The flex is did you actually get a response ? Did you close that client ? Did you get them results ? Did you get a testimonial ?

Did you get get experience ? and are you building an actual business ? Because that's what I care about . I don't care about how many DMs I sent and all that cares . So , find somebody who has an actual audience 10 , 20 , 30,000 , 100,000 followers . I don't recommend going past 100,000 from there . Look at their engagement , especially on Instagram .

You have to be very careful about this because anybody and everybody can buy engagement on Instagram . I'm sure you can do it on Twitter . It's just not as popular . But go through and actually see the comments . Is it a bunch of just random emojis or is it their genuine comments ?

back and forth And once again , this is for Instagram specifically go through and actually see some of the accounts that are liking these , some of their posts . You don't need to do it for every post , but scroll back a little bit . Don't do the latest post .

Go back maybe two or three swipes and then click the post or click the video , whatever and check the amount of like , the types of lights . Does it correlate Like if they've got 100,000 followers but yet they're getting like 12 lights ? obviously that is not an actual account . Go to the next person , go to the next person , go to the next person .

So it finds one that actually has engagement , that correlates the amount of followers and then look for do they have something to sell ? If they don't have something to sell not saying don't work with them , but it doesn't really make sense to work together especially 100% Yeah . Cause you're .

You need to find somebody that you can help make them money and you can help save them time and all that type of stuff . So if you can do that and you actually find people yes , it takes longer Who cares ? I want you to actually make money , you're broke .

Once you start putting together , just put it on a spreadsheet , put it on a Google doc , whatever you do , i have my team take care of that , cause I don't like handling that And I've got some of the handles this completely . I'm talking about way back to the day whenever I was having to do a lot of this by myself .

Put it on a spreadsheet , put it on a Google doc , and now not only do you have that person and let's speak through the perception of doing like Instagram you find this person on Instagram , see if they have a YouTube channel , see if they have a Twitter , see if they have a LinkedIn , like for somebody like yourself and get all this data on that .

So you have their Instagram , you have all , so all their socials , and then you can even if you want to go really altist about this , you can even have like the common things that you could actually help them with .

You can put it on that doc document as well And also put down , once you've reached out to them , what day , what time , or you don't have to do the time , but what date you reached out to them , and that way you can follow up a couple of days later and if they don't respond to you , guess what ?

Because you took the extra time and you found their Twitter or you found their LinkedIn . Now you can reach out to them on that platform Because I know , on my end , i kind of responded to my Twitter DMs , i kind of responded to my Instagram DMs , but , like , if you email me a lot of the time I'll respond .

That does not mean to have my email leaked , because I know I'm going to say this , it's going to be clipped off and I'm going to start getting departed . Instagram Instagram is the best place to reach me , yeah , but yeah , like they might not actually respond to their Instagram DMs , they might respond more on Twitter or vice versa .

And so if you can do that now , you actually can start following up and you can maximize the effort you put into that lead And then you could also see the types of people they collaborate with , the types of people that they also follow . Like , example , i follow a lot of other people and my same niche . I follow other creators , all that type of stuff .

That just mean I'm 100% money bag endorsing them , but that does mean that there's some kind of value that I sold in them . So I followed them . Maybe it was just out of . Oh , they followed me . I followed the back , who cares ? But now you can turn that one lead into possible , like 10 , 20 , 30 , whatever other leads that you can now reach out to .

You go through the same process . So go through who Darren follows , go through Dylan follows and start putting together a list of okay , here's this guy , he's got a fitness brand , this guy's got this brand , this guy's got this brand . These are different socials And you can literally just build up a big list .

And I would drop something else , but I don't want to overkill it because I just told my students about it . But it's another great way for you to find people that actually have products . You find their social media like that . But I'm not going to say it . I almost dropped it . I won't get the belt statement first .

You're even talking about that because you open yourself into a whole new world that you don't even know . I think that's the beauty of it , because you've figured these things out as you go , you know , but you can very much limit yourself on the other side and say , oh , i DMed him , he didn't get back to me , fuck it , move on to something else You know .

So you're pretty much opening up and tracking yourself , man , using some sort of CRM or spreadsheet , like that's just , that's just the way to go .

You know , um , that's what builds an actual business , i think , because , remember , one of my best mates said to me recently he was like conversations you have today is money a year later or even 18 months later , especially if it's a big B2B stuff . You know , and I think what we're kind of doing is with businesses that like strike conversation .

They follow you back , you prove your work with your Twitter , your Instagram . 18 months time , when they either get some money or they raise capital for their startup , you're the dude to call .

That's the beauty of it , because I think what you're doing as well as you're building like a , you're building like a huge business that you want to come back to in the future . It's not the short term stuff , so you're not that concerned about making a big in the short term , and that's the way you should be thinking about this . I think you know .

I could have started using my testimonials up front , all that , but I was like I'm going to put together my testimonials , I'm going to get really good at my skill and develop myself and play the long game , because I never want to be that guy that has returned to his hometown and go back to changing trash cans , cleaning bathrooms , doing all that .

I refuse that . So I'm going to play the long game . So I And you could also argue it was maybe a little self doubt , I could have sped it up a little bit more , but I wanted to make sure for that first client , I'm actually good at my skill . Then I took on my second client .

I need to make sure that , okay , I maybe I got lucky with this one client , So let me make sure that I'm really good with this . And then I took on the third client .

Then I actually started doing outreaching because I was like okay , Dylan , you actually are good at this , but you need to play the long game and it can suck in the beginning , especially if you're a beginner or maybe you're like you have a business , it's making five , 10 grand a month .

You want to make more and you need to be talking to people every day , Every single day . You should be sending out DMs . The only time that I recommend you stop doing any kind of outreaches once you is . This is actually something I realized about a year and a half ago whenever I from a mentor of mine .

It's like why do you need to be constantly pushing , trying to grow your business , when the business you have now Like you're like we were filling for clients ? It was like , oh god , we're like trying to take on new clients for launching these projects . Like , oh my . He was like why are you doing that to yourself ?

Why don't you just take a step back for the next month or two , focus on the clients you have and then take a step forward ? I was like , oh my god , that's so genius .

So you should be doing outreach every single day until you get your business to a point to where you're like okay , the lights are going to be on everything's good , the people that work for me you're taking care of . I'm making good money from it because obviously your business you're not taking 100% of the money Like your business is doing 20 grand a month .

That doesn't mean that you're making 20 grand a month . How much are you paying yourself in salary ? Obviously you've got people that work for you and focus on building that a solid foundation for your business , even if it's taking a step back from outreach .

And then once you get everything running as it should be , the systems are in place , the people on the team know what they're doing and clients are fulfilled then at that point you can take that step forward and you're actually not going to take just one step . You might take five steps forward because now you've actually got the systems in place to do it .

So , going back to , you should be doing outreach every single day until you get your business to the point to where like , okay , everything's good , I'm going to focus on really making dialing in my systems and just getting the foundation solid and then you turn the DMs off .

You don't have to go out and be doing outreach every single day Once you get to that point until you're ready to actually throw the business , but you are not going to make money until you let people know that you exist , Because nobody knows that you exist , even if you're sitting there trying to grind out posting content , until you send them that DM .

So if you want clients and if you're sitting here watching this , really , Dylan I really want to take on clients and start reaching out to them in the DMs and also stop assuming that they care about you . Nobody cares that you're a freelancer , nobody cares that you're an email copywriter , you're a web designer . They don't care about any of that .

They care about how are you going to help them And if you have social proof of any kind , you can validate what you're saying , because everybody talks big game nowadays . If you can come rock up and say here are some of the results I've gotten , here's how I'm going to help you with some bullet points . Don't send them a DM this late in this .

Send them some bullet points . You're good And you let them know about you And you don't frame it as hey , Darren , so I'm an email copywriter . I also have a Twitter account and I've got it in . Nobody cares If I came up and I was like Darren , here's what I've done for a client . Here's some ideas I've got for you . If you're interested , let me know .

Something like that That's a thousand times better . So , yeah , you should be doing outreach until you get to your business , to the point where you're like okay , I need to chill out , because a lot of people have psyops themselves into because of these success gurus that you constantly have to be growing the business .

If you're not growing the business , everything's falling apart . No , Get your business to a point where you're doing well . That doesn't mean now you're making a grand a month , Now you get lazy . No , Get your business to an actual business , maybe like 10 grand a month , something like that .

And then if you find that you're struggling to like you don't really have a solid foundation , it's okay to take a step back and figure out how can I actually grow my business , And this is something that I've more and more forced myself to do . I've got a big whiteboard right there .

I would show it to you , but then you'd see my big master plan of taking over the world . But I sit there with my whiteboard and I'll ask myself questions like okay , why are we facing this issue ? And then I start writing the response to it .

But you're not going to be able to do that if you are constantly pushing , going for like just push , push , push , sending out the DMs doing this , if you're hardly fulfilling for clients . Maybe that takes or puts an idea in your mind of where you want to take this conversation .

But you need to get your business to a point where you have like a solid foundation to play in the long game . You're not playing the short game .

The actual business because I don't know how you feel about it , but my biggest mistake , or my biggest worry , was a client churning and then talking shit about me rightly so . If it was a bad service , that's way more damaging than bringing someone in .

And also the other aspect of it , too , is that I don't really want to be always trying to get new clients , i just want to keep the existing ones that I have . The way Justin extended to me was that he's like in the service business , you want to hunt , hunt , hunt , kill and then not have to go hunting again .

Like you don't want to be always fucking hunting . You want that business to pay you back over the course of a year or a year and a half or or however long the tenure of the , and it also increases the lifetime value of your client .

I want to ask you about the systemizing the process , because that'd be something that I'm kind of struggling with sometimes , at times as well , in terms of , like , what systems do you build ? How do you build systems ? Even saying the word systems is like sexy these days , but like from a practical perspective , like what are you looking to fill ?

Like , is it lead gen . Is it filament ? Is it marketing ? What do you think about this ?

You need to have some kind of own boarding system . Like I'm not the genius of systems , i've got a really good right-hand guy . That's , that's just how his brain works , so I can basically tell him here's my outcome , here's the job that we have , here's what we need to fulfill it , put together a list for them and then he basically takes care of it .

But you need to have a very clear on-boarding system . A lot of people , especially early in the game , is chaos . As soon as you take on a client , it's just chaos . You're like , oh , i don't do it , i'm doing . You need to have a clear objective .

Like my objective early on as an email copywriter was , as soon as my client and I signed , like we signed together , i put together a Google drive and Google folders , all that type of stuff inside of social proof . So I want to click that folder to have all their social proof . And I used to do , i used to go through and find it myself .

I do recommend at some point hiring somebody because it's very it's not even worth your time , but it does help .

I'll put together the social proof , i'll put together any like products they have , so I'd have my client giving me access to their products And then I would have all this organized in my Google drive And that way it's a part of the whole on-boarding process .

You'd have very clear step Okay week one , week two , week three , week four , and obviously you can if it's a video agency . It's going to be a slightly different on-boarding , but I'm talking from an email copywriter And as an email copywriter , i want to , as soon as you sign up with me , i want to start making money as quickly as possible .

So I would have a specific campaign that I would launch for one of their products that would make them money , because it was like a two soft sell emails and one hard sell email with a discount if they hadn't purchased by that point . So I could get them that when ASAP .

So you need to design an on-boarding system that gets them some kind of progress , even if it's videos edited , whatever it is that they need to see , something tangible And then from there , the actual aspects of the whatever the job is Like . I've got my right-hand guy . He's basically he manages people . We have a very clear task list for every person .

We've got editors on staff . We have some copywriters on staff . They know exactly what their job is . We don't want to say , okay , you're a video editor , here's how many videos we want you to do . No , we don't do that . We've literally got a loom video where my guy goes through . We've got our head editor . He went through .

He created a notion document of here's the way we edit videos , here's why we do it , here are the types of colors we use , here's the captions we use . We've got that entire notion document for them And he's got a . We've got a loom video that walks them through step by step of what they actually need to do .

And an issue that I've noticed a lot of people do whenever they're designing these systems and they're hiring people is they don't explain that well enough . They need to literally see you doing the job and they also need to have a checklist . Don't assume that they're just going to know , like , watch the video and automatically know what they're going to do .

Try , you don't need to be super intense about it , but you need to at least have a checklist of do not submit this video until it has this , this , this , this , this , this , this and this , and then you need to be getting updates every single day . You don't need to micromanage , because I did that back in the day , i would literally every every hour .

I was that annoying guy hey , what's going on with this ? Hey , what's , don't do that , just don't do it . But you do need to get updates every single day . So on my phone we've got some telegram groups . I designed telegram groups where they update me on what's going on randomly throughout the day , like hey , bro , these videos got done .

Hey , this content got posted . Hey , here's what's going on with this email . Blah , blah , blah blah . So they do that . But it really just comes down to you need to your goal , your intention needs to have some kind of self-sustaining system to where you have an actual business .

And back in the day , meaning , like what was it like eight or nine months ago , i found that if I disappeared for like a couple of days , chaos would ensue And I was like that is not an actual business .

Like a mentor of mine slapped me around , was like , bro , you don't have a business , you have a very high paying job , basically , and you have to be there every single day . So I was like I don't want to live like that .

If I want to disappear for like a week or so which I don't plan to do that anytime soon But if I decided to disappear and just go on a vacation or whatever it is , i'm with the business to continue growing . So you need to identify like it depends on the example of the business . Let's use email copywriting .

If you're an email copywriter , if you decide to hire a copywriter , you need to have a very clear step-by-step thing on what they need to do . How are they going to find the content to put to write an email around Like okay .

Step one go to his Twitter account , go to his Instagram , his YouTube , see what the comments are about , see what content is getting the most engagement . Step two do this . Step three do this all the way to where they're testing the email So they make sure the email is actually going to the primary .

It's not into the world if it goes to promo , but ideally it goes to primary . So they need to be testing the email . They need to try different subject lines . You need to have a process to get to the call to action from a lead gen standpoint . If you aren't doing that yourself , you've got somebody doing that .

They need to walk you through the process that we walked through earlier . Find somebody as an actual audience , step-by-step verify if it's actual people that are following . It's not fake engagement . Look for this type of stuff . Aka they have like an actual newsletter already . They also join that newsletter . Make sure they've got a product or a service .

They need to have some way of making money and get that as step-by-step as possible to where they not only know what to do , they also understand your thought process . Don't just tell them to do something . Why you think this way which leads me to the final thing is also be open to improvement .

This is something I tell people that have been working for me for more than a couple of months Now that you actually understand what to do and you're doing it every single day .

If you ever find a way that we could be doing it better and you can show me that it's better , don't be like , okay , i'm just going to keep doing it the way Dylan said , because what Dylan said is the best . If you see a way to do it better than the way that's been working up to now , please tell me .

So , as a boss , owner whatever you're going to call it you need to install that frame of mind into the people that have proven themselves , that if you ever at any point find a way to actually improve what we've been doing , let me know , because I've seen this , because I used to help other people , that I still do .

I've got my advanced student , for example . I've got a guy . He made 60 grand last month . He came to me . He's an amazing animator , does big time contracts . What was this like Six months ago ? he reached four months ago .

When he reached out to me he had reached a point in his business where he was like working all the time and he didn't have hardly any systems , it was just him and some of his team And we sat down and we clarified exactly , step by step , what they needed to do the loom videos , everything and it transformed his business .

But he also had people that have been working with him for a while and they actually had ideas that were way better than how he had been doing it up to that point . So it's about creating an actual team around you that is invested into the vision . They understand what they're clearly doing and don't make it like a job .

It is a job , but don't make it just like the smoke boop , boop , boop , you're just a robot . Actually , explain the thought process and give them the steps and also incentivize them . That's actually my final point when it comes to the team stuff is incentivize them .

Nobody is going to want to work endlessly , because a lot of the people that work if you're like a video editor or something like that like you've got three videos today , that's it But people that are going to be very heavily invested in the business and you want them to be working 10 hours a day . Sometimes . You need to give them an actual incentive .

So for me , that's maybe I'll buy them a new laptop . If we hit XYZ , i'm going to buy you a new laptop . Or this last month , yeah , because we're in June now . So in May I was like if every day we hit this goal , you're getting a bonus . So whenever I go to pay them , i'm going to give them a $2,000 bonus just because they hit this goal .

So you need to find ways to incentivize as well , because it's not just about okay , you're lucky because you work a job and , yes , sure , work from anywhere in the world because it's a remote job . No , you need to incentivize them , otherwise they're going to get bored and they're going .

Man , why am I sitting here working all the time for this guy making the same amount of money ? You need to find ways to incentivize financially , but there's also other ways as well , so not just all about the money .

And they have literally said like it's a motivator , because they feel part of the journey , part of the vision . It's not me sitting on top of the mountain , you know what I mean . It's like we're all working together , like that's the kind of goal And , i think , having that unlimited upside too . And , to be honest , i learned this from Justin too .

He was saying that Thomas who introduced us , he's unlimited upside . So , depending on how much he works and what he produces , he can make as much as he wants and obviously he has like location , freedom and all that good stuff too .

But I think that's the ultimate kind of benefit , because that's the opposite to a corporate career where , boy , you do this job , you stay in this lane , shut the fuck up , get on with it . You're part of the journey . That's the main thing . Before we wrap up , man , i wanted to ask you about networking community .

So , of course , we have a couple of like overlapping people on our network and like it's been hugely beneficial for you and for me over the years . But how much do you think your life has actually changed , of course , from your network And that's an easy question because of the massive changes you have had in the last couple of years .

I don't want to be about that .

And I actually reached a point where I thought that once again , something was wrong with me for a very short amount of time , until I went to this event up in New York City and I met all these like minded people that literally thought just like me and not only thought like me . They were actually successful , they were crushing it .

And I was like , oh okay , so this is actually real .

So at the very beginning stage , the beauty of networking is that you get to actually see that the way you're thinking , like all the people that there were , all like on a similar wavelength , all the people that have been brought to this video to watch this , you're on the path with us , you're not crazy And number one , number two .

There are other people out there that think just like you , that want a different type of lifestyle than just the regular nine to five living page at the paycheck , all that type of stuff . So my in personally it I literally my life is a testament to the beauty and power of networking .

It proved to me that it was real And then it also started showing me like a lot of these top guys and it's I just promised , for multiple reasons , i think , one just being objective I'm a likeable person . People can tell him , genuine , and I'm also going back to that learning disabled thing . I over deliver .

So like , no matter what it , i will over deliver . I will over deliver over everybody . Of course , that's me saying that as the most modest person in the world , but I over deliver in everything . So people pick up on that because most people they just oh , i'm thinking about how I can make money from it .

I don't care about the money , i just want to be in the room to prove my worth to you . So I'm going to over deliver .

So by you doing that , that on my end , that put me in the room with a lot of up and coming people and they're like major now And then also to this day still puts me in at tables We were talking about this beforehand puts me at tables of very rich and powerful types of people , because if you're likable , if you're genuine , it's going to open so many

doors , which leads me to it's open open so many doors . I remember back in 2017 , i worked with a guy on a book launch . No reason that literally I , in hindsight , i'm like why did he even think that I could do this ?

But anyways , just because I put myself in a room with him and I proved myself at some of the events and all that type of stuff , that , wow , this guy actually is about it The door open .

So if you're sitting here watching this and you feel like you're not really making the progress and you look around all your friends maybe you're going to school , all your friends . They just want to play video games and maybe do drugs or something . Whatever You're like man . I don't want to be about this . Maybe you're in your twenties , like we are .

You're like man . There's got to be more than life of just working this regular job and doing this , living this type of lifestyle .

You need to start putting yourself in rooms of people that are like-minded , whether it's online , like we do in the real world , like you can literally be around people on that same path or offline , finding people , going to events , different things like that . It's going to make this path even more real , and we were talking about this earlier .

Your point a conversation can lead to money . At some point , a conversation can lead you to thinking about a certain thing that you read about two years ago . You never thought about it that way , but they say it in a certain way that just flips the switch on in your mind . I've had that happen so many times I can't even count .

So you need to be putting yourself around other people and don't try to get anything out of it . A lot of people , once again , they just try to . How can I talk to this person and get something out of it ? Come on , bro , don't do that .

Just go there , because you like to be around cool and interesting people that are on a similar path that you are , and the amount of doors are going to open , the amount of ideas that are going to be given , the little seeds that are going to be planted in your mind that are going to come out at some point , and maybe you'll even think it was your idea ,

but it was actually a conversation that you and I had on this podcast . Somebody is going to be listening to this and they're going to have an idea two months from now , two months from this very the time they're watching this video And they're oh wow , that's such a genius idea All because they took the time to come to a podcast .

So yeah , networking bro is life changing for everybody , but you have to approach it in a very genuine way .

You just talked to him and he was like the worst thing you could be is someone who's like a fanboy And you just come into it , have a conversation , just talk , just be normal , because everyone's just fucking normal . And then all the side businesses , the real estate deals , all this stuff just will happen in the future .

It's about approaching these things with actual legitimacy and not being a fucking sleazebag with the whole scenario . And you can spot it a mile away And that's why sometimes networking events , actual conferences , are bollocks . I don't go to them most of the time . Not necessarily paid group communities , that's different , but I just mean open door networking events .

They're very , very forced fun . That's exactly where it's forced fun . It's disingenuous . Do you go to some events in the war room yourself ?

, bro . Back in the day I went to some of these regular networking events and I was like , where am I ? So I focused on this online community . Thank God for online community , but when it comes to the war room , those are the only events that I actually go to .

I almost went to this meetup here in Dubai and I won't give any power to this person's name but a friend of mine went to it and they're like bro , it was such a waste of time . It was some big time content creator here in Dubai And it was a bunch of random losers trying to all get something from each other and try to get followers .

So I exclusively only go to war room events at this point , because if I go to a war room event , i know one . They're like-minded , we operate on a kind of a similar level . They also understand there's a value exchange . whether I bring something to the table , they bring something to the table . They're very well put together .

Professionals I only go to if it's an offline thing . I only go to war room events at this point . I exclusively avoid those weird real estate networking events and I don't do that .