Why Some Make The Jump And Others Don't

Hey, thanks for joining me on this edition of the podcast. I'm your host, Jason Brown. I'm the co-founder of SERPWoo and I've been in the online space for 20 years now. I wanted to do this podcast because I have so many people from SERPWoo, people in my network constantly asking me questions that range from anything from business to marketing to productivity. It's just hard to really write an email to everybody separately. It's really hard at least for me to write out blog posts because I seem like I'm always writing down a blog post and restructuring it and reediting it, wanting to add to it later.

I figured I would do a podcast and it would be a lot easier for me to share the information that I have with you guys as you have questions or concerns. I really like to make this series of podcasts me answering questions, me giving my thoughts, me trying to help you in the areas of your business with online marketing, with productivity, whatever it takes to make you better. I want to start off this episode of the podcast with a question that I got the other day and the question was, "Why are some people able to make the jump to being a successful entrepreneur and others don't?" I want to tackle this question from a different perspective, a different angle.

I don't want to regurgitate something that somebody else has already put in a book, in a video, in a podcast, on a blog post. I want to flip the question around. Now remember the original question was, "Why are some people able to make the jump to being a successful entrepreneur and others cannot?" That would entail me telling you what makes somebody a successful entrepreneur. Let's be honest, there's lots of reasons for why somebody could become a successful entrepreneur. I want to flip this and I'm actually going to tell you from my experience from personal and from talking to other people and being involved around entrepreneurs what I have found to be 3 ideas, 3 topics, 3 issues that prevent somebody from being a successful entrepreneur.

For the first issue, now you hear this one quite a lot if you're really in tuned to it. A lot of people like to say, "You've got to be able to solve a real problem. You've got to be able to solve a problem where there's needs. You've got to be able to solve a problem that people weren't solving." While that's true, there's a whole flip side to this that many people don't talk about. While I agree that solving problems is a key issue into becoming a successful entrepreneur, a lot of people don't touch on the fact that you've got to be able to also sell your solution, sell yourself. I know very many people, good people who have solved a problem that is a problem worth solving that a lot of people would pay to have solved.

The issue is these people don't know how to sell themselves, sell their solution or reach the amount of people that they need to to be able to sell their solution. You got to think of it like this, the person who can solve a problem is like a chicken. The problem that they've solved is the egg. However, if you're not able to hatch that egg by selling yourself or selling that solution, somebody else will come along and hatch that egg. So many ideas out there, so many products people have been working on. They're at 10, 15%, 30, 60% maybe, maybe it's even completed and they're stuck doing other things. They're not able to sell the product or the solution properly. They're not able to sell themselves. Somebody else comes along and learns about that solution, creates it and then hatches that egg.

If you are able to solve problems which that's a major hurdle, but you're not able to sell yourself or sell it, sell your solution, you're not going to be a successful entrepreneur. Somebody else is going to come along and hatch that egg at some point in the future or maybe nobody will come along and create the same thing that you have, but what you've created just sits on a dark corner of your basement collecting dust. Very many skillful employees out there that know lots of skills that try to become a freelancer and it just never takes off for them. They go on Upwork. They go on Fiverr. They try all these other freelance opportunities. Maybe they go door-to-door knocking on agencies.

They're not able to sell themselves and sell their solution even though they're very skilled and they have a solution to those people's problems. There's lots of investors that create stuff that solves a very big problem, solves a problem that people with money are glad to pay and they never reach out. They never sell it. They never sell themselves. They would be lucky to get on a show like Shark Tank or Dragon's Den for people to even see what their solution is. I think the number one thing or at least the first thing out of 3 is that yes, you have to solve problems, but you also have to be able to sell that problem and sell yourself. All those people that say, "If you build a great product, it'll just sell itself. It will just go far. People will find it. You won't have to do marketing," it's bullshit.

I know lots of people who say that. People who were looked to as experts. People that are looked to as gurus, successful people. It's just not true. Look at all these skilled freelancers that can't cut it. Look at these people who have a better mouse trap. It never ends up on the shelves at Walmart or online. Those people are still working at their job or living at home. The second topic that I want to touch on is the management of your time and it's not really what you think. I'm not here to talk to you about "Pomodoro" or about "Eat That Frog" or "Getting Things Done" because those are things that you can learn on your own. One thing that people do not talk about when it comes to time management is how to get rid of people that waste your time.

All of these tire kickers so to speak. It's very hard when you're starting out especially if you're a new freelancer, maybe you're a new business, a new company. You want to get everybody into your store or you want everybody to open your email to learn about what you can provide them, what you can sell them, what you can do for them. The reality is even if you sell yourself well, you're going to have a lot of people wasting your time and becoming a tire kicker. Plenty of times people will know how good you are and they're a wantrepreneur and they want to come to you and ask you a lot of questions. They want to have this mental masturbation about how you can help them become a better person. Maybe you and them join up and form a company and sell the service. You're going to knock it out of the park and make millions. Those people are just going to waste your time.

There's not any exercises or great advice tips that I can give you on how to avoid time wasters. It's just something that you need to develop inside. It has to be a gut instinct. You really have to build it up yourself. Without building this up, you'll never become a successful entrepreneur because you're going to be spending your wheels wasting your time with these tire kickers and these wantrepreneurs. Now one thing I do do in my life is during the day, there's only 2 possible hours that someone could even waste my time. How I set that up is after I wake up and I do my morning routine, I want to start working on my most important activity for the day after my morning routine. If my morning routine ends at 7 and I spend 2 hours on my most important task, it's now 9 AM.

From 9 AM until 11 Am, that's when I check my email, that's when I check my phone messages. If somebody has left me an email or somebody has left me a thumb message and it came in before 9:00, all the way until 11 AM of yesterday, I'm going to get that email. I'm going to look at it. I'm going to decide if I need to respond. I'm going to see my text messages, decide if I need to respond. My voice mails, my Skype messages and I'm going to get back with that person. This might be a new client. This might be a potential new business partner. This might be somebody I've been talking to for 2 months about maybe starting a joint venture. Whatever it is, those 2 hours is dedicated to communications, so email, Skype, thumb messages. I'm going to get back with that person during that time frame.

When 11:00 hits, I'm back working on other activities that are important to me or my business or my family. If someone tries to contact me at 11:01 AM, they're not going to hear from me. I don't care if that's somebody who might be a potential new client, if it's somebody that might be a potential new business partner, if it's somebody that I've been talking to and they've been dragging their feet and the check's in the mail, anything like that, they're just put on hold. I'm not even going to acknowledge that I've got that voice mail, Skype message, email until tomorrow the next day from 9 until 11. This severely limits how much time I spend with time wasters. Don't get me wrong. The full 2 hours is not dedicated to people who waste my time.

There's other emails I'm looking at. There's other phone messages I'm listening to. There's other Skype messages that I'm responding that have nothing to do with time wasters in that time period. It's just that that block of time is scheduled for email, text messages, Skype messages, any kind of communication. If you fall out of that range, you're not going to hear from me until tomorrow. Then that way the rest of the day, I can work on important tasks, tasks that make me money, my priorities and things that I know are not going to waste my time. Because you could literally spend if you're not disciplined your entire day texting somebody back and forth about a new business idea or somebody who's a new potential client wasting your time with them all day trying to close that deal and it just never happens.

This could go on for days or even weeks actually and you're wasting your time, you're wasting your mental energy and focus on these people who are not going to add to your bottom line and they're not going to do anything to begin with. Only within that 2 hours are you going to be able to contact me. If you're a time waster, that's all you're going to get. I'm not going to put any more focus, any more energy than what's possible within that 2 hours. Truthfully within that 2 hours you're only getting a sliver of that time to begin with. For the last issue that I think keeps a lot of people from making the jump to being a successful entrepreneur is they're not willing to quit their job. It's just that plain simple. You've got a job where you make 6 figures a job. You work from home. You get benefits.

That's hard to quit or you work a job where you make 30, $40,000 a year. You've got a couple kids. You've got a mortgage. You've got a loan on your car. You got some credit card debt. You're looking to put braces on Johnny's teeth. Maybe you're going through a divorce. Maybe you're taking care of your parents. A lot of people don't want to leave that security. They've got too much built up and they gave away a lot of their options that they really can't break away from that job because what if it doesn't work out being an entrepreneur. You might lose your house. You might lose your car. Your kid doesn't get braces. You might not eat at the end of the week. You might not be able to get prescription medication for your mother. If you're not able to leave that job at some point, you're never going to be a successful entrepreneur. There's just not enough time in the day.

For a lot of people the reality is they get up in the morning and spend almost an hour getting ready whether it's themselves plus getting their kids ready. Then they drive maybe 15, 30, 45 minutes, sometimes even an hour to work. Then they're at work for 8 hours, sometimes 9 hours. Then they drive home. Could be another 30 minutes to an hour. Then once they're home, you got to take a bath. You got to do your laundry. You're going to help your kids with homework. You've got to make supper. You might have grass to mow. Your water heater might be broke. You've got to drive to Home Depot and find a new water heater or research and call a contractor. The fact that the job requires you to get up and get ready to go to the job, let's just say that's an hour.

Let's say it's a 30 minute commute to work and a 30 minute commute back. That's another hour. That's 2 hours of your day taken up by getting ready and going to work. Then let's just say you spend 8 hours at work. That's 10 hours out of your day instantly wiped out for work. Let's not even mention a lot of people bringing their work home depending what position you're in, what goals you have if you're trying to climb the corporate ladder, who you're trying to impress. Maybe you got into a job that overwhelms you and you're having to bring your work home. That 10 hours could easily multiply into 12 hours. You've only got 24 hours and you're probably sleeping 7 to 8 hours of that. There's no time to be an entrepreneur if you're spending 10 to 12 hours a day at your job.

Now let's face it, a lot of people want to say, "I'll do it on the weekend. I'll do my research. I'll set my company up on the weekend." That's not going to happen. The weekend comes. You're doing stuff with your kids. You're doing stuff to your home. You're finally relaxing. Maybe you go play golf. Maybe you hang out with the guys. It doesn't get done a lot of the time and who's going to help you on the weekend? You want to set your company up on the weekend? There's not going to be an accountant open, a bookkeeper open, an attorney open. You'd be lucky to go to legal service to even file for your company on a Saturday. My point is if there's something, anything that takes up 10 to 12 hours of your day everyday for the majority of the week, you're never going to become a successful entrepreneur.

Now I'm not saying that you cannot start on the side, a side hustle, that you grow and then quit your job and focus on that side hustle when it starts to replace your income. A lot of people are never going to make the jump to being a successful entrepreneur as long as they cling on to that job. If I were to replace to job with some other activity, maybe that activity is you really love to play video games. If you're playing video games 10 to 12 hours a day and you do not have a job, you're not going to be a successful entrepreneur. It's just too much of your day that's taking up doing activities that do not push you further into your business and into the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's the funny thing about job.

You spend a lot of time jumping through hoops to be micromanaged and to be underpaid where if you were in a position that you could be a consultant doing the same exact job you do now. Now let's say you're an accountant. Let's say you're a bookkeeper. Let's say you're a copywriter. Let's say you're a digital marketer. Lots of things that could be outsourced and are outsourced, you would make more money as a consultant or a freelancer than possibly working that job. When you got your job, you probably went through an interview. Now these companies want you to have 2 or 3 interviews. They want you to have a degree like a bachelor's or a master's. Then they want you to have 5 to 7 years experience doing what you do.

Then you've got to pass a background test. Possibly a drug test. Then they're going to go on social media and look at your social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter to see what type of person you are. If they don't like what you've posted, you might not get that job. They also want you to be young. Let's face it. Grandma walking in to be a copywriter, she's probably not going to get the job. Once you get that job, you're told what you need to do and how you need to do it. Companies think they can hire smart people and then tell those people what to do. In reality, companies need to hire smart people so that those people tell the company what to do. When you sign up for a job, you're going to be micromanaged more than likely.

You're going to be underpaid or at least not paid what you think you're worth. You might have to wait a year to get benefits like vacation, 401K, maybe even health benefits. A lot of companies now say that if your spouse works, that they're not going to offer health benefits to your spouse. Even if you get 401K, your company might only match a certain percentage. Let's just go ahead and say it, the percentage is always going to be something low. Hell, I've even worked at a company you didn't even know what the percentage was until the end of the year and then the company looked at their profits and decided what their matching was going to be. You might have to wait for your vacation days or sick days or something silly like for every 40 hours you work you accrue 10th of an hour of vacation.

Well, if I just signed up for a company and now I'm working there and my anniversary is in 10 months, I'm going to want to take a vacation possibly. I might not be able to do that. Even though lots of companies say that they're leaders and that they're advanced in how they treat their employees, a lot of them aren't up for remote working which means you're going to be making a commute. You're going to be working at the office. You're going to be there around people, some of them you like, some of them you don't. In the end, you're not getting paid what you're worth.

Whereas if you never applied to that job and you walked in and you sold yourself successfully because you're solving a problem for this company that you know they have because they've got a want ad out, and you come in and sell yourself successfully as a consultant, you could charge them 3 times as much possibly what they're going to pay an employee. You've just now tripled your income. You can take as many vacation days as you want because you're your own boss. You can contribute as much to your retirement as you want with a simple 401K and then a Roth IRA, lots of other self-employment retirement options. Nobody's going to micromanage you. You just need to provide results. You can work at home.

You can work at Starbucks. You can work on the beach. Ultimately you're also never going to have to do an interview, 3 interviews, a background check. You don't need a degree. You don't need to do a drug test. Nobody's going to be looking at your social media profiles. The fact is you're doing the same job with the same people and you have all the upside. For all of you that say that that's not possible, I've personally done it 4 times in my life with 4 different companies, so I know it's possible. If you never quit that job and try, you're never going to be able to experience that. If you do quit that job or you go to that job as a consultant and sell yourself and overcome their objections, you've just made it. You've just made the jump to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Now I want you to think about what I've just said about being able to quit your job, do the exact same thing like you're doing now possibly for the exact same company and sweeping all the things you hate about it under the rug and tripling your income. I've done it 4 times. I know that you can do this well. I also want you to think about people who waste your time and how you can eliminate or at least bring down the amount of time that these people could suck away from you. Definitely don't make it to where these time wasters, these tire kickers, these wantrepreneurs are able to contact you throughout the whole day. Do not indulge them.

Then lastly I want you to think about not just solving problems, but being able to sell yourself and sell that solution because if you don't, somebody else will hatch your egg. Then you're going to be sitting on the sidelines saying, "That could have been me. That was my idea. Why is he getting it?" Don't ever regret about that. At the end of this podcast, I told myself that I wanted to throw an idea out there. Maybe somebody out there could pick this up, take the ball, get it across the goal line. These are either ideas I've thought of myself or I've had other people talk to me about. I'm only one person, they're only one person, nobody can do everything. I felt that I could share these ideas with you and these just aren't cookie cutter ideas.

They're either ideas that I've looked at, researched, contacted people about, built script around or built a business model around and just never got to finish it. If it wasn't me, it was one of my partners or somebody that I know very well and trust. This idea for this first episode of our podcast is about lead aggregation, lead generation. It's not a new model. You see plenty of people who go out sell leads, put their ads up on AdWords or Facebook, collect the lead and then sell it to another company. However, the market that I'm going to tell you about is always overlooked and that's the car towing industry. When you only start thinking about the car towing industry, the people who need to have their car towed are in always desperate need.

It's either a family traveling away from home and they're far away from home. It's the mother who doesn't know anything about cars and her young child's in the backseat strapped to a car seat. It could very well be a semi truck driver with a big load that has a deadline. No matter who they are always in pain. People are willing to pay anything to get back on the road and feel safe again once somebody repairs or tows their car. Now the car towing industry is even glamorized on television with reality shows. The leads that these car tow companies get are worth vastly different amounts of money depending if it's just a flat tire that maybe needs to be fixed on a sedan to a big semi that needs to be towed somewhere and worked on with a diesel mechanic.

Regardless of the who or the what, the pain is still the same and these car towing companies, they're all cash flow positive especially in big cities like Miami, New York, Chicago, on down the line. When I did my research, I only found one aggregator of leads who would look like a potential competitor for somebody else to pop up and be able to purchase that advertising, collect the information and then sell it to 1, 2 or more car towing companies depending on the qualifications of that lead. Here's the other thing. While these car towing sites have the ugliest, most hideous websites I've ever seen and I don't say that lightly, a lot of these websites haven't been updated since 2006, 2007, 2010 even. They're horrible on mobile browsers. They're not optimized for local listings.

They're definitely not hardly ever in the Oprah Angie's List and even if they are, they have horrible reviews. If somebody were to come in and they were an online reputation management professional or if they were just a web designer or they were just a digital marketer that knew how to get ranked on Google Local, Map Pax, et cetera, they would just kill it. For the paper click professional that could come in and purchase all those ads, help them get a 5 star review, they would kill it, so would the SEO professional trying to help this company. All I'm saying is this particular vertical is largely untapped for somebody to come in and be the lead aggregator of the industry. Not only that, maybe even the web design and marketing arm of the industry.

Now you've got so many agencies that specialize in dental marketing or they specialize in some other kind of marketing. I got head hunt the other day actually for an agency. They only work with cloud providers and hosting companies. You could be this agency, this extension, this arm for a car towing industry and there's car towing needs in every city across the United States. Now if you take that idea and run with it, I would love for you to get with me and tell me that you did so. Maybe we can even partner on it. No, I'm just joking about that, but I would love if you take any of these ideas at the end of these podcasts and let me know if you ran with it and if it worked for you. It would mean so much for me.

This concludes the podcast. If any of you have any questions, concerns, ideas for more podcast or you just want to say hi, please let me know below and I'll see you again.

---

---