I'm out on a walk today, so I'm going to monologue to you and I'm going to talk to you about focus and where you choose to apply your energy and effort. So I'm going to stick you in the pocket. I met with a guy recently with a lot of really great ideas. I, too, feel like I have some great ideas. I know a lot of people with great ideas. What I don't know is a lot of people that know how to execute and choose one thing and stick with it for a long time.
There was a point in my life where I had tax and wealth strategies. I was working on a, you know, crypto and trading and NFT projects and advising. I had a company where I was doing vape cases, you know, creating injection molded silicone products. I had Scorchmarker. I had vanader and I was teaching and I was doing all these things. My attention was split. My attention was split between all of them. And while I thought I was putting irons in the fire, what I was doing was handicapping myself.
My attention was split and I was average at best in all of those areas. I wasn't focusing on anything, therefore nothing was increasing. I was spending my time wrong. I was splitting it. To build a great business, to build a great team, to get to the eight figure mark, you need to work with other people. At least I do. I can't get to eight figures alone. We can get to seven figures alone, but not eight.
What I quickly learned is that it's better to whole ass one thing than it is to half ass a bunch of things. It's not a matter of putting all these irons in the fire and waiting to see which one works out. It's a matter of choosing one thing and making it work out. What you focus on will increase. That's a fact, and I am living proof of this. Whatever you choose to give your attention to will grow if you focus on it.
But if you split your attention, you diminish proportionally the amount of growth that thing can experience. So. The takeaway for me was that I just needed a pick. But how do you pick? How do you know which opportunity vehicle is the one that's gonna be able to get you to eight figures? Well, we can do some basic math.
And I tell you what, if you're trying to do a local service based business, you know, where you are delivering greens to somebody, to chefs in your area, there's probably only 200 restaurants in your area. And even if every chef ordered every week from you, the max you can make is 20 grand. I mean, that sounds great. But when it really comes down to it, 20 grand ain't shit. That's not eight figure money.
So I like to look at it in terms of total addressable market or your TAM, as well as the opportunity vehicle that we're creating. I chose to focus on Scorch Marker because I could create a craft product. I can make a bunch of videos about it and it would sell while I'm sleeping overnight. It has national reach. Potentially worldwide reach and all I have to do is make a great product. It's not, this is not that simple, but all I have to do is make a great product and get attention for it.
If I was going to do tax and wealth strategies, I would be limited by my bandwidth. If I was going to do NFT stuff, I'd be limited, you know, by my bandwidth and what I was able to contribute. It's just, it's just, The NFT stuff isn't even like a real thing, like that was just a shiny object that was there to distract me. But when it really comes down to it, I wanted an opportunity vehicle that could grow and scale and provide me the income and the revenue that I needed to reach my goals.
And there's very few paths that would lead to that. Scorchmarker was the clear path. It was the business that I had neglected. So that I could pursue shiny objects. But when I really look at it, it's the business that I had started the compounding process on. It's the business that if given the right amount of attention would survive, thrive, and allow me to reach my goals. I even took this to the extreme, by the way, I almost killed off my personal brand vanader.
I almost threw in the towel because I was like, Oh, I need to focus. I can't, I can't do two things. There were a few people who advised me against that. They're like, dude, everything is so synergistic. You learn stuff with Scorchmarker, you teach it with Vanator and it helps you attract talent and get better at creative and content. Like these are very synergistic businesses. You should keep these two. I heard that from a coach and a few other people. So I did.
I decided that I would grow this Ecom brand into a nine figure brand, Scorchmarker would reach nine figures, and along the way I would document and teach what I'm learning. That is literally all I do now, and it's been that way for a little over a year, maybe two, and I can tell you that I've seen significant growth. And I believe that that growth is a direct result of focus. It's saying no to all the women in the red dresses. Saying no to all the shiny objects.
Saying no to people when they want to give you part of their company to help you operate it. It's not part of my mission. Hard thing to do. Hard thing to do because those ideas, that mindset, is typically what allows us to quit our job and go all in. But we need to break that habit, and I'm quoting Alex Hormozi here, but we need to break that habit that allowed us to quit our job, that, that feeling, so that we can then focus again on one thing.
So it is not an easy thing to do, but I believe it to be necessary if you want to create a machine that compounds and creates the life that you want to live. It's no easy thing, man. It's no easy thing. If you're anything like me, business banking can feel intimidating and overwhelming. That's why this podcast is sponsored by Relay, a business banking platform, that's better than all the others. Why do I say it's better though? Because I've used it. I still use it. I love it.
And it's way better than all the big name banks that I've used. They do everything I need a bank account to do. Multiple accounts. No problem. Send checks. Easy. Pay yourself. Statements. Connect to QuickBooks online. All of it. It's taken me years to find a banking partner like Relay. So I reached out to them. I asked them if we could work together to sponsor this podcast, because I enjoy and use their product so much.
And I know that if I spread the word to you, there's a chance you'll get to experience what I've experienced. Stress free online business banking. The setup is super easy and can be completed from your computer at home. All you need is your LLC paperwork and your EIN. After a short application process, you're done. There's no monthly fees, no account minimums, no minimum balances, and no hidden fees. So big thanks to Relay for sponsoring this podcast.
I'll leave an affiliate link in the description so you can try it out for yourself. At least I do. We all have 24 hours in the day. The playing field is fairly level in that respect. How are you going to spend your 24 hours? Are you going to be starting the compounding process over again? Every time you have a new idea? Or, are you going to stick with it long enough to see the returns? We're not talking a short amount of time here either. We're talking long term. We're talking 20 years.
We're talking 30 years. We're talking 50 years. I'm going to do this for 50 years. And at the end of it, it is going to be a giant crafting company and I'm going to have just an incredible education company, but it starts small, with one customer at a time. One sale at a time, one video at a time, one interaction, one handshake at a time. And those things begin to build, you know, and, uh, I just, I can't stress this enough.
It is such a poignant and clear lesson, and I'm so glad I learned it when I did. Because shiny objects will continue to show themselves. They'll continue to try and distract you. They will be something that continues to resurface time and time again, nagging at you saying, Come on, man. Come on. This would be so great. The opportunity is so good. It's a restart. It's a restart. We want to avoid restarting the compounding process. It's just like when you look at the stock market charts.
I see it and it just stays the same for a long time until all of a sudden takes off. So many people quit in that flat line area. I'm serious. Anything can work. Your merch company can work. Your sticker business can work. Your music career can work. You can launch the children's book. You can start the craft company. You can do the videos on. Cooking, it can all work. Anything can. You just gotta focus on it.
And that focus, I found is a really hard piece with people who are sub $1 million in revenue. They haven't seen the returns yet to get them excited enough to want to pursue it full time. And that's what I really think it comes down to. I think that if you can get a quick win and get some wind in your sails from revenue, it will really give you the confidence and like the fucking the sauce, the intensity and the, the, the, the excitement that you need to devote yourself.
It's hard to devote yourself to something where you don't see a return. It is so hard. Let me tell you, I almost quit YouTube four weeks ago. I'm dead serious. I almost quit. I was like, this is too much money. This is too much time. I'm investing too much of myself and I'm not seeing a return. I'm just not seeing a return. It's been four years now where I've been posting videos and nothing is happening.
It is crickets across my entire channel, literally pouring thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into videos and getting 150 views and it was demoralizing and it sucked. And I had a conversation with myself. I said, dude, this has got to stop. This is too much. It's too much money. It's too much attention. You need to apply it elsewhere. This is. Becoming a shiny object.
A week after I had that conversation with myself, I had a video blow up and my channel got 21 million views, 21 million views. After getting a hundred views, what are you kidding me? How I don't have an explanation other than the fact that I kept at it. I didn't quit. I posted a video a day. I got the reps in and eventually I was rewarded because I had honed my craft and that's exactly. That's exactly what happens in business. That's exactly what happens with your merch company.
That's exactly what happens with your restaurant. You get enough reps in that all of a sudden you get good and you don't know exactly when that's going to be. Nobody does. I believe it's after video number 100 you start to get a little bit better and you start to learn from it.
But as long as we approach it with the mentality of I'm going to focus on this one thing and I'm going to get better at it with every repetition, I'm really going to be hypercritical and I'm going to become the best version of myself. When you do that, the compounding process continues. That's how you compound it. But if you try to set it and forget it, the compounding stops. If you try to get the quick buck and not put in the work, the compounding stops. There aren't shortcuts.
There's no get rich quick scheme. There is no like, hey, if I just do this one thing and set it up, it will pay me for the rest of my life. No, there isn't. Maybe after 10 years of understanding and working hard at it and practicing, sure, but not right away. And it takes a really long time. I thought I was an exception to the rule. So does everybody. I am not. I am not special. I am not unique. I am just a regular ass dude. And that means I need to work extra hard to be exceptional.
To be excellent. And that means it takes me four or five years to have success on YouTube. Versus someone else who can do it in a year. My brother is so much better than me at YouTube. And, it really fills up my heart. And it makes me feel good because I I know that he won't have to go through the same period of hard that I went through.
That valley of despair, for me, was years, and for him, it's not, and he's so fortunate, he's so fortunate, because eating shit for that long, it sucks, it is not easy, it is a difficult thing to do, but if you can do it, if you can have that compounding work for you for that amount of time, you are capable of incredible things. So the takeaways from this is don't quit unless it's a shiny object and distracting you. If it is, get rid of it, cut it out of your life.
If you don't believe that this is the business that is going to get you to where you want to go, cut it out. Just focus on one thing. That's my takeaway. At least focus on the one thing that you believe to be the opportunity vehicle that gets you to where you want to go and get rid of everything else. Even if you lose money, even if you fail, I'm selling a rental property right now and I'm going to lose my ass on it. Yep. It sucks.
It is a blow to my ego and it makes me feel like a shitty business owner in just all respects. However, it's a distraction. It is just another shiny object. I'm not going to get rich in real estate. I'm not going to get rich in crypto. I'm not going to get rich in stocks. I'm not going to get rich in speculative, speculative assets or flipping stuff. I'm going to get rich building businesses.
Therefore, I'm going to spend all of my money and all of my time on business and compounding the value of what I'm creating. It will outshine me. any returns I ever get in the stock market or with crypto. And I don't have to spend any time doing anything else. I can just keep doing what I'm doing and know that eventually I will get good and eventually it will work, but it's going to take time it's going to take a really long time.
It's going to take years, five, 10, 15, 20 years for that to happen, but I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it because I've seen what happens when you dedicate yourself to something for a long time. And the outcome is Size results that you get, it is crazy orders of magnitude different. And I've very clearly remember starting over and starting over and starting new things. And I'd start over and I'd start over and I would just keep resetting my progress. Like hitting new game over and over again.
When I could have just hit continue and made it to the end game. See what I mean? What is your end game? What is your new game that you're starting over and over again? Do you need to kill what needs to die? And what do you need to say no to in your life to make space for the one thing that you're going to focus on and grow so that you can have everything that you want in life. What's it going to be? Now I will add one thing. Maybe you don't know what that thing is yet.
And if you're in that situation where you don't have an option to choose anything specifically, I would. Just try stuff. That's what I did. I tried stuff. Tried making furniture. I tried selling stuff online. I tried, you know, doing woodworking. And, um, I tried doing print on demand and coaching. And just, I tried all this stuff. And what it did is it gave me a really good perspective. Perspective in terms of what I like and what I don't like. And it helped make the decision easy.
I love making content and videos and I love selling stuff online and having sales come through while I'm sleeping. So I chose e commerce. And then I wanted a service based business, and Vanadar is my service based business. So, between those two things, and I know that's still a lot, and for me it is, for sure, but between those two things, I'm able to scratch all my itches and I don't feel like I need to go chase the next big or new thing.
I've got my things, and I'm going to continue to work on them. I've made my choice, and that's why I don't really pay attention now to the stock markets, the crypto markets, the real estate markets, what's going on in AI. Sure, I'll use the tools when they pop up, but I'm not going to get rich that way. I'm not. I'm going to get rich by compounding these businesses. What are you going to compound?
just because I was out walking for this podcast doesn't mean we're not going to still address how much money we are taking in currently in sales and the conversion rate. Let's start with retail. Big fat goose egg. We didn't make any money from retail over the last 30 days. We have about 80, 000 in revenue coming in in March, but can't count it until it's in the bank account. Shopify 39, 825 in the last 30 days at a 1 percent conversion rate. It is insane to see how quickly.
Our seasonality took effect. After Q4, crafting businesses in general dipped down. Our slow season, January, February, March, April, May. August, September, October is when everything starts gearing up again. But anyways, neither here nor there. The conversion rate, I will share this with you, in the last week has gone up to 3 percent plus. So everything is looking good, and it's because we've been changing offers. But that's not what you're here for. You're here for the numbers.
So let's focus. I'm talking to me, by the way, not you on Amazon. We did 106, 500 in sales with a conversion rate of 12%. So our conversion rates gone down across the board and our revenue has gone down across the board. Come when compared to Q4 total revenue for the last 30 days is 146, 325. I hope that's helpful. I hope it inspires you. I'd like to take a moment to thank you for listening. Your attention means the world to me. It really does.
If you've gotten to a point where you have any questions or you're ready to apply for the Operator Academy, shoot me a DM so I can take care of you. Otherwise, keep doing the boring work and be good to future you.