Christopher D. Welcome to the Freedom FastTrack Podcast. I’m here with Scott Oldford and Scott, I’ve been waiting for this podcast for a while. We were actually booked in last year and it didn’t happen, but now it’s the right time. If you don’t know Scott, I don’t know where you’ve been. I’ve been liking his stuff and his emails are just on point, everything he’s doing on Facebook, but Scott’s got a great story and I don’t want to jump in there and share too much about it, but he founded a company, Infinitus, he’s been able to build and help … I think it’s 5,000 entrepreneurs now.
We’ve had Russell Brunson on the show. Russell’s someone I look to massively as well, but you know what listeners? I look to Scott a lot as well. He’s one of the few people I actually read emails from. So listeners, I think we’re into a really, really, really great session today. The first half of the session we’re going to be talking through Scott’s story, the amount of debt that he got into, and how you can build out and start a company. Then in the second half, if you’re making $100,000 and you just want to go to a million and you want to skip Scott’s story, you can skip straight to there if you like as well.
So Scott, welcome to the show brother, it’s exciting to have you here.
Scott Oldford: Awesome to be here, man. I’m looking forward to share a little bit of story but also sharing some information that hopefully you can deploy directly into the business if you’re listening to this. I realize if you’re listening to this, you’re kind of super valuable, so I know both of us respect that and we’re going to kick some ass.
Christopher D.: Yeah, we are dude, and I’m just excited that you want to just get straight into deploying stuff and getting action because the one thing about what I see from you online more than anything is results. You just showing up results. We screenshotted, I think I screenshotted four of your posts last week, because you’re like, “Oh, here’s how you can get podcast, I’m going to screenshot that. Oh, here’s how to do this.” Then you send us the Facebook group thing and I’m like, “[Austin 00:02:16] are we talking to this dude next week right?” He’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “Oh my god.” We’re like ripping all this stuff. It’s been awesome, but you don’t end up there clearly to be able to have all those results and do those things you have to start out somewhere, so I’d love you to take us through your story. You’ve been in an incredible amount of debt and I’ll kind of shut up and let you go because I think it’s an incredible stroy and I’d love my listeners to hear it as well.
Scott Oldford: Sure man, definitely. Well like a lot of entrepreneurs, it happened by mistake. Definitely by mistake in my case. I started my first entrepreneurial endeavor when I was seven, selling eggs on my parents’ [inaudible 00:02:51] back in a little village, 13 people in a small little place in Newfoundland, Canada, which is on the east coast of Canada. From there, I was this little geeky fat kid when I was 9, 10 years old. Start learning HTML and CSS, started programming. Realized I sucked at that, but what I was really good at, I was really good at understanding someone’s problem and then finding someone to be able to fix that problem.
So what I had done, I was 16 years old, and I have this quite successful company for being 16, and then up until that point I didn’t even know I was an entrepreneur. I didn’t even know the amount of money going into my PayPal account was a pretty good deal of money. Then essentially what happened is I was discovered, per se, and so people started calling me an entrepreneur. I had no idea I was. I didn’t grow up with wealthy parents or anything from that perspective.
By the time I was 21, I was starting investing in all these businesses, I started letting my ego drive me, I started being really honestly a douchebag, if I really kind of go back to it. But I over-leveraged myself, and while I had a lot of success, by the time I was 21, 22, I found myself $726,000 in debt, and of course you kind of have to have a bit of money to get into that level of debt. It’s June 2013, which is about three and a half years ago, and I’m like, “Shit. What do I do?” So at the time I sold out to an agency back in 2012, to try to avoid bankruptcy, and kind of fell into depression. Used to wake up every morning around 10, used to get home at like six or seven, drink, smoke weed just to try to forget about how shitty my life is right now.
I think it’s a lot easier when your life is shitty consistently, but it’s a lot harder when you know what life is like when it’s good versus what it’s like when it’s not. Or at least I think so. So I started Infinitus in June of 2013 when I just had enough of that crap, and I sold everything that was belonged to me, I raised a basic three months of cash by selling everything I had, and then I just went and hustled. I think the mindset change for me was I believed my own kool-aid for far too long, and I looked out and I was like, “How can people serve me?” Instead of, “How can I serve them?”
So it was a methodology we are all, as entrepreneurs, we are all the kings and queens of our kingdom. Moment that a king or queen serves him or herself is the moment that they lose the kingdom. Nobody wants to serve somebody who just serves themselves. Kind of come into this realization on a walk while I was just crying on a June summer evening and just being like, “I’m sick of it. Enough is enough.” So that day was one turning point of the past three and a half years.
Since then I started an agency in basically June/July of 2013, I did that 2014, we did $996,000 in revenue, which gave me a little bit of a boost. Now I’ve always had an agency, so by the end of 2014 I was like, “Man, I hate what I’m doing. I wake up, I still don’t like what I’m doing. I’m making money but I don’t like what I’m doing.” So in February of 2015 I was like, “Screw this. I’m moving. I’m firing everybody in my company. I have $30,000 in my bank account. I don’t care what I’m going to do, but I’m not doing that.”
That essentially lead up to today. Which is e-learning for entrepreneurs. Helping at this point in time, helping them with their online lead generation. Because the number one reason why somebody that’s at 100k or 200k can’t get the seven figures is because of lead generation. They can’t get to the point of being able to use leverage. They can’t create a sustainable business, they can’t create a scalable business because they don’t have any cash. So if you fix that problem, you now have cash to fix the rest of the problems, such as delivery, operations, finances, blah blah blah blah. Then of course this is what happened for me to go in debt many years ago.
So in 2015 we did half a million in six months. This year we did just below three million. And 2017, minimum goal is eight million. I think we can easily do 12. So this has been a … There is only so much you can fail, there is only so much you can iterate. There is only so much you can do before you kind of figure out the path. That’s really what it’s been. I’m 25, I’m very, very grateful for the people that are around me. I invest heavily in the knowledge, I invest heavily in my community, and I invest heavily in my connections. Those are the three things that if I ever go broke again, the bank can’t take away from me. That’s the story, man. That’s really it.
Christopher D.: It’s a really inspiring story, brother, and you know what I’m really impressed with where you’ve been able to get to at 25 and what you’ve been able to do, and it’s going to show a massive level of maturity, the things that you’re saying, which is huge. I’ve had a similar meltdown and breakdown, which my listeners already know about, so I know exactly what that’s like, and I know exactly where you’re at as well, so that’s huge. So let me ask you the question. If someone’s listening in right now and they’re in that place that they want to start out and they don’t really know where to start or what to do, what is some of your advice to somebody if they’re in that place right where you were, how would you suggest that they get started?
Scott Oldford: Well, the first 100k comes from pure hustle, grit and honestly doing whatever it takes to create momentum. The rule of momentum is essentially that you must create momentum and then do everything in your power to reduce friction, because of course things that are in motion stay in motion unless equal forces apply.
So based on that, what I would do is look at, okay who has money that can pay me? What can I figure out that they need? And how do I solve a pain? How do I solve a pain? And get into the bullshit email, I mean again, this is bad for my business, probably bad for lots of other businesses, but this is what I would do. If you’re flat out broke, you have no money to be able to pay for Facebook ads, you got no money to be able to pay for software, for a landing page, [inaudible 00:09:33], all these different types of things. I think a lot of people make online marketing seem a lot easier than it is.
Yes, it can be easy, yes it can be done, yes it can be effective. I’ve done it and I’ve helped a lot of other people do it, but you’re flat out broke. You’re starting at ground zero. It’s being able to find a pain that 10 or 20 businesses have and being able to figure out how to get them to pay you upfront to solve that pain, maybe going out and figuring out how to actually solve that pain. You don’t have to be an expert, you don’t have to be a guru to solve someone’s pain. A lot of the time, you just have to spend enough time figuring out how to solve that pain. Once you have someone paying you for it you’ll be able to leverage that.
Once you get to 100k, it’s a totally different ballgame. It’s a totally different ballgame because now you have to start leveraging yourself. But at the end of the day, if you put 18 hours a day into your skill and into your knowledge and it going out and just trying to get as many people as possible they know you, you will get to 100k in less than 12 months guaranteed unless you’re a flat out idiot. Right?
Christopher D.: True that.
Scott Oldford: Or you just keep telling yourself this bullshit story that in your head every single day that you’re never not going to be broke. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen it. I have all kinds of skeptics and the haters that reply to my emails being like, “Bullshit.” Or “Facebook ads, whatever.” It’s the same people that are broke as shit and you choose if you’re broke or not.
Christopher D.: I’m with you, dude. I’m totally with you. And it’s sometimes so funny because people want to stay there instead of actually going, “You know what? I need to be vulnerable and make a massive shift.” And before we started I was telling you about how great I’ve seen your vulnerability and how much I’m just loving your message. And I said that to Austin, I said, “I’m really excited to talk to Scott and to really hear what it is you’re doing.” I nearly say the exact same thing, so listeners just know that they need to freakin’ start.
So let’s shift from those people. If you haven’t heard that message, hear it now, turn off the podcast, get out there, get a service and get started. Scott, what do you think is going to happen in 2017 when it comes to marketing? Where do you think that the marketing’s moving?
Scott Oldford: I think there’s a couple of big things. I just published specifically on Facebook advertising, because of course it’s hot and wonderful and earning great. But overall as marketing, here’s what’s going to happen both 2017 and beyond. 2017, if you are … There’s three different types of leads, I talk about this all the time. There’s sidewalkers, slow laners, fast laners. Essentially it means that somebody that’s in the sidewalk aren’t relevant of a pain. Someone in the slow lane is relevant that there’s a pain in their life, business relationship, and they’re looking for the process of they’re looking for the knowledge and they’re looking for the authority to look up to. Then someone in the fast lane is ready for a solution. They’re looking for the elixir. How do I solve this? What do I pay for it? What’s my resources?
Now, if you think you can go to all those three people with exact same messaging and exact same marketing funnel, the exact same video, the exact same lead magnet, the exact same webinar, you’re totally wrong. The only reason anyone’s gotten away with it up to this point is simply because of the fact that traffic has been so cheap. Well, in six months, in 2016 we went from three million advertisers to four million on Facebook. It’s only going to get higher and it’s only going to get more cost effective.
Now let’s think about another thing. All the brands, all the big brands, Gary Vaynerchuk talked about this about a month and a half ago in a video. He was talking about the fact that brands haven’t translated their ad dollars to online yet. They’re still using the traditional radio, the traditional TV, the traditional. Guess where that money’s going to go in the next five years? It’s going to go online. So it is going to get incredible competitive, and your ability to have eyeballs, your ability to gain attention, to be relevant is going to be more difficult. My book that’s coming out in May, it’s called Relevancy. And I talk in it about the fact that if we’re not relevant at the right place at the right time to the right person with the right mindset, we are dead. We get turned off. And as soon as that person turns you off, you’re off for pretty much forever.
Now, what this essentially means is that you have three marketing funnels that interconnect. So that’s number one. That is a guaranteed … There’s no way that you’re going to be profitable if you don’t have this huge, huge, huge, huge, huge project. That’s number one. Number two, you’re going to see the uprising of video in a way that you’ve never seen it before. You are going to see amazing, amazing progression with virtual reality and augmented reality. You’re going to see Facebook launch this if not the end of 2017, into 2018. Now we have an entirely new marketplace to be able to sell ads on, because let’s be honest. In quarter II report of 2016, Facebook said, “We will run out of ad space by 2017 quarter II.”
What happens when ad space runs out? Facebook’s growth is screwed. So now they’ve got to figure out ways to find new growth. How are they doing it? Well, they just demoed three, four months ago this amazing new technology that’s going to allow you to be in the same room as someone using virtual reality. So that’s coming faster than people think it’s going to come, and this is a new growth place. Back in 2003 to 2009 it was websites. Then it was online advertising. [inaudible 00:14:34] ads, and all these different types of things. The next big thing is VR and AR.
Then the next piece in the next couple of years, 2019, 2020 is going to be the rise of artificial intelligence for small business owners. You’re not going to need to run your own Facebook ads, you’re not going to need to run your … There’s going to be technology to be able to market for you as a small business. So it’s going to become easier, but more difficult because now it’s more accessible. I would say the third thing, you’re going to see small business owners having to spend money and time on awareness and audience building just like big brands have for the past 100 years.
So you are going to have to build a cult like following like Apple did, just like Nike did, just like Sony did. All these big brands spent so much time and money on awareness and audience building. Well, now you have the ability to do the exact same thing with Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and all these different types of things, assuming Twitter don’t go out of business.
So those are the three things that I see the biggest potential, but you’re going to have to move fast. You’re going to have to iterate. You’re going to have to be ready to fail forward. The reason why I’ve been able to create so much momentum in 2016, 6x our revenue, is because I’m not afraid to fail and I iterate like crazy and I break shit. I break a lot of stuff. I try to break as fast as I possibly can, because every time you break something you’re learning a lot.
So that’s where I see marketing, especially online, going. It’s going to be competitive, but it’s way easier to do it than any other time in history, but you’ve got to be relevant at the right time.
Christopher D.: I’m with you dude. It’s massive to actually really hear that, and I think that people don’t understand the speed and the opportunity. It’s literally a gold rush right now. It is literally right now is going to be the cheapest time ever to market on Instagram.
Scott Oldford: Every day that you’re not running online advertising and having your marketing funnel running, so I want you … There’s two things here. There’s one losing money and there’s one not making money. Every day that you don’t run online advertising, you are not just making money, you are literally losing money that you will never be able to get ever again. Every day that someone’s not running Facebook ads, or every day that someone’s not running a marketing funnel, every day that they’re not being able to be introduced to new people, they are losing the biggest opportunity of any … There will not … I don’t believe, okay, the last time that this happened was 1999-2002, with the website boom. [inaudible 00:17:19], and unfortunately I wasn’t old enough to be able to take care of that one, okay? I wasn’t able to utilize this one.
Well, this one I’m here, I’ve seen the past, the past is a pretty good indicator of the future. So we are seeing a time where the big brands haven’t really adopted it yet, a lot of people are still in the mode of, “Oh well, that won’t work for me,” special snowflake syndrome. And I guarantee you, you use this, you implement it, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. I have people that come into our lead generation program, three weeks later they get a marketing funnel, they’re getting leads for $2-3 off of Facebook, and I guarantee you they aren’t anymore brilliant than anyone listening to this. Their business model isn’t any better than anyone listening to this. The only thing was they took action. Take action, get results, and then go from there.
Christopher D.: So they get into your program and you help them get leads off Facebook. Here’s what I hear people saying right now, “I can’t understand that.” So how easy is it for people to learn how to market on Facebook and build a marketing funnel?
Scott Oldford: Here’s what you need to understand. We talked about the SSF method, the sidewalk, the slow lane, the fast lane. That’s the mindset. That’s the mindset behind lead generation. Any time you sit down to write a Facebook ad, a webpage, an email, anything. You need to be thinking about who’s it going to? A lot of people just sit down and it’s like, “Okay, how do I solve this thing?” Well you have to remember 3% of people are in the fast lane. That means 97% of the other people, none of your competitors are even trying to get, because everyone’s going for the fast lane.
So there’s a couple different pieces inside an actual marketing funnel. There’s seven components. First is you’ve got to make sure that your business strategy and your math add up. I don’t know how many people actually go and start advertising on Facebook. Never did the math, which let’s be honest, majority of entrepreneurs that don’t make their million dollars plus is because they didn’t do the math ever, right?
Christopher D.: It’s correct.
Scott Oldford: It’s the most idiotic thing and I’m very happy one of my mentors that helped me, I signed him on two and a half years ago, he’s the biggest reason I’m out of debt. So that’s number one. Business strategy, math strategy. Number two is your conversion method. How are you going to take a lead and turn them into a customer? Me and you, we do that with webinars. Whether that’s a strategy call, whether that’s a big sales letter, whether that’s a seminar, doesn’t matter. But how do we take leads, turn them into customers? That’s number two.
Number three is our lead magnets and our content. Everyone’s out there talking about content marketing, at the end of the day you only need a couple core pieces of content because you are not … Most people are not in the business of being a content machine. I’m in the business of being a content machine, and besides that I’ve just got so much shit up in my head that I’ve got to get out, I don’t have a choice. I just need to get this stuff out. So the third part is lead magnets. You need to have a different type of lead magnet for the sidewalk, a quiz, a guide. For the slow lane, we’re looking at a three part video series, we’re looking at an ebook, we’re looking at an assessment. And then of course your conversion method is your fast lane.
So that’s three. We’ve got our business strategy, conversion method, lead magnet, the fourth: landing pages. Make three landing pages. I see so many people, “Why doesn’t my landing page convert?” Because you wrote it for the wrong person. Somebody that’s coming out to your quiz don’t give a shit about you, they don’t give a crap … All they want, “Oh, you know what, that’s interesting to me. That pain might be relevant to me. I didn’t really think about that before.” Versus, coming to a webinar, “All right I’m going to invest 90 minutes of my time, I better know that this is good. I better have some testimonials on the page. I better know the five top things I’m going to learn.” So different landing pages for the different mindset. Then we have the email automations. Now, again, this sounds all scary and everything else. This stuff, less than 30-40 hours to implement yourself. Not hiring anybody else. 30-40 hours to implement yourself. That’s typically what I see people implement this on.
If somebody, I see this all the time, I see these email indoctrination sequences. Email automations [inaudible 00:21:07]. First email. The person’s telling so much about themselves, listen, at the end of the day, if the person doesn’t see you as an authority, if the person’s not in the slow lane, they don’t give a shit about you. They really don’t. So we have to have different emails for the sidebar. We need to have different emails for the slow lane. We need to have different emails for the fast lane. Are we going to try to sell to somebody that doesn’t even know what the problem is? I hope to God we won’t, he’s not going to be able to sell. You just got the unsubscribe button, because that person’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is salesy.” Remember, when somebody sees you as being relevant and is in the fast lane, you’re not salesy, you’re giving them an opportunity.
Christopher D.: Got it.
Scott Oldford: That’s the difference.
Christopher D.: So it’s nearly like different levels of awareness, right? Like the slow lane to me sounds like they’re not even aware, they need to get problem aware, then they actually move up in to the fast lane when they actually know the problem, they’re looking for a solution. It’s nearly like the … You know, [Chet Holmes 00:21:57] talks about it.
Scott Oldford: Exactly.
Christopher D.: 30, 30, 10 and 3, and it sounds very similar, so I love it man, and it’s such a great model. I’m going to pause you, I know you’re got so much energy and so much to share, but we’re going to have a quick break. Listeners, we’re going to just have a quick break, I want you guys to hear about an upcoming webinar that I’ve got happening. Straight after that we’re going to talk about how you can move from six figures to seven figures as quick as possible. Scott’s one of the best on the planet to help you, so Scott love you, and let’s be back just in two minutes. Go check out this webinar, I think you’ll be loving it, it’s going to be hot, and I can’t wait to see you on it.
Welcome back. I’m so glad you’re here and I’m so glad that you’re enjoying this episode with Scott. I definitely am. Scott, I’ve taken so many notes, from relevancy to what’s coming next with the VR, the AR, to really understanding the slow lane, the fast lane, and to make sure that I know where people are. So I want to ask you. I’ve seen your marketing, and one of the things that I’m so intrigued by is your seven day marketing funnel challenge. And listeners, I think you should all get on this, but Scott do you want to fill us in on exactly what that is?
Scott Oldford: Instead of me going and explaining the whole thing, here’s what I’m going to do for you. We’ve got the seven day online marketing challenge. We’ve got over 5,000 people going through this so far, and completed which is amazing. Not just signed up but completed. And essentially what it is, it’s going to bring you in, it’s totally evergreen, and from day one to seven it’s going to bring you through the seven components that I just started talking about.
So each day there’s a 15-20 minute video, there’s a strategy assessment, there’s a Facebook group where you get all your questions answered and that type of thing, amazing entrepreneurs in there. Then at the end, if you’re saying, “Listen, you know what? I want help implementing this, and reduce my time, increasing my momentum.” I’ll offer you a lead path or a lead generation program. If not, no big deal, I’m not going to try to pitch you if you don’t want to be pitched. I believe in my own methodology and I use my own methodology, but if you want to be able to implement an SSF method marketing funnel, that is the best way that I can show you. About 30 minutes a day, seven days, and then you’re going to be ready to be like, “You know what? Was this cool knowledge or do I want to change my reality?” Obviously I’d love for you to change your reality, but if not I respect that.
Christopher D.: Got it. So we’re going to put a link in the show notes, and if you guys want to go check it out go click it. christophermduncan/podcasts and you’ll see the show notes and do that. So Scott, what we really want to go through right now is we want to talk about how to go from six figures to a million. When I looked at your Facebook, that’s exactly what you wrote. I love the clarity and the simplicity. So if you click on Scott on Facebook, which is also in the show notes, you’ll see very clearly, “I help people make 100 grand scale to a million.” I love that, how does that work?
Scott Oldford: So number one, if you don’t have … There’s a couple missing components inside of somebody that’s below … Let’s call it 200,000. At the end of the day, pretty much anybody can get to 200,000 with just grit, hustle, and grind, and 18 hour days. Right? I get it multiple times and I’m no harder worker than anybody else and no smarter than anybody else. So I know what can be done. Now, once you get to 200,000, here’s a couple of keys. Number one, you have to have the lead generation on point. Before you do anything, before you scale, before you hire an employee, before you want to do anything, you have to get luck out of the equation. Because you are relying on luck right now. If you’re under 200,000 and you don’t have lead generation, you’re relying on luck. Don’t try to fight me on it. You’re relying on referrals, [crosstalk 00:26:20], networking. You’re literally relying on luck.
What you should really do, I like roulette, I know I’m not a huge gambler, but I was at Vegas about a month and a half ago, for the first time, which was pretty interesting. And I love roulette. And it’s the same as, if you remember 27, because I won about $12,000 on number 27 about three or four years ago, which is my fiance’s birthday. I remember, it would be amazing if you could just scratch the numbers out and then go, “Oh, 27.” So to increase your chances of being able to actually be successful.
Which is essentially what allowing … To take luck out of the equation, that’s what you do. The first thing you got to do is [inaudible 00:27:00] lead generation through the equation. Now, what does lead generation allow you to do? Well, it allows you to have a predictable flow of qualified leads. What does predictable flow of qualified leads do? Well, now you can create sustainability. Because ask yourself this hard question. If you want to wait for 60 days, would the amount of money in your bank account increase or decrease? And I am betting if you’re under a quarter of a million it would decrease instead of increase.
Now, the reason that is is because you do not have a sustainable business. You cannot hire employees successfully and go from being a reactive business to a proactive to a strategic business. Three different types of business. Majority of people under a quarter of a million are reactive. Once they get to about two million they’re proactive. Then when they get to about 10 million they’re strategic, right? You cannot get from reactive to proactive without being able to know how much money is coming into the bank account. If you are now … It’s the beginning of January 2017 while recording this. I hope you have your revenue projections done for the year. If you don’t, make sure you go and do those.
But, are you bullshitting yourself? Because the majority of people literally pull the numbers out of the hat. If you cannot be able to hire people when you know money’s in the bank account, what you’re doing is hiring when you’re on an up, when you’re on a feast, and when you go through a famine you’re going to be like, “Oh my god.” Now, what happens when you go, “Oh my god.”? Scarcity sets in. Now what happens when scarcity sets in? Now you’re starting to make short term decisions, and what happens when your short term decisions? You go against your principles, your values, and things that you said you would never do. You pick up the wrong clients. You pick up everything.
Now you get stuck in this six figure hamster wheel. You get stuck in a six figure hamster wheel, and you can never scale, you can never leverage, because at the end of the day you have the out, you have to optimize, outsource, and automate. Or the other way around. [crosstalk 00:28:59]. You have to do those three things with every piece inside your zone of genius. My zone of genius? Having a podcast like this. My zone of genius? The marketing plan overall. My zone of genius being able to get on the phone with people and within 25 minutes, then they’ll know exactly what their 2017 or their 2018 needs to look like when it comes to it. My zone of genius, strategy for the company. My zone of not genius, writing. My zone of not genius, replying to emails. Right?
So you have to take all the things out that are lower end tasks, but in order to be able to afford it you have to have sustainability, because if not you get stuck in scarcity. As soon as you get stuck in scarcity, that’s typically the companies that grow 10-20% a year, and you’re frightened shitless when December 25th comes because no one’s paying you, you’re going into the new year with no money in the bank, you can never take a vacation, and all you’re doing on Facebook is you’re making it Fakebook by showing everybody else how amazing your life is, yet you cry at night.
I don’t want that for you, because I’ve been there. I remember the day I publicly said I was $726,000 in debt. I only had 2,500 on my email list. First, I remember taking my mother off my email list. Then I went and I cried in the shower for a good hour and a half. And I came back out and it was nothing but love. It was nothing but love. And it was nothing but support. People sharing their stories.
I was like, “You know what? Maybe I’m not actually an idiot. Maybe everyone’s just as screwed up as my situation, or maybe this is a little bit different than what society makes as the reality.” I think that goes also into don’t compare yourself to anybody else. You’re yourself in the mirror. Are you 1% better better evening than you were this morning? If so, keep on going. If not, change it, and yeah. That’s the best advice I can give you. Lead generation, make sure you’re creating sustainability, work from your zone of genius, don’t get stuck in this hamster wheel because it will kill you.
Christopher D.: Sustainability is huge and I’ve got this saying that you actually are not in business when you’re making six figures. I get very frustrated, Scott, with-
Scott Oldford: [crosstalk 00:31:12].
Christopher D.: It is. So let’s talk a little bit about that, and here’s my take bro, is if you’re making $200,000 you can’t even hire somebody at 80 or 90,000 to actually come in and run your company for you.
Scott Oldford: I’ve been through this before. You’re hiring the worst of the worst. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, I mean it sounds bad, but unless you’re hiring people, like you’re poaching them from other people, you’re not hiring the greatest. But here’s the other side. People always shoot for this … This whole thing online, oh all the internet marketers talking about six figures. I was just like … Actually, I was thinking of 90 people, all beginner kind of entrepreneurs. I was like, “Who here wants to make 100,000 next year?” They’re all probably broke as shit, but everyone rises again.
Then I do a quarter million, only three people raise their hand. I look around, I’m like, “Well guys, listen, there’s a McDonald’s down the road. You can go be a manager at McDonald’s, you’ll make way more profit, you’ll work 9-5, have no stress, go home, have Netflix and chill and smoke weed, have a great life, don’t even need to worry about it.” Because if you’re going for six figures, the amount of stress going for six figures. If you’re the only one to make $100,000, you might as well do half a million because the stress is about the same. At the end of the day, you reconstruct … If you make 100,000, you might profit 20,000 if you’re lucky. When all is said and done, and I don’t know about you, but I’m in business to impact, have freedom, have fun, but there better be profit at the end of the day or I’m doing something wrong.
Christopher D.: Scott, I want to bring this into the conversation. I think it’s easier to build a million dollar company that it is to build a $150,000 company.
Scott Oldford: Easy. I don’t work anywhere as near as much as I used to. Anywhere. I actually fucking sleep for eight hours a day, eight/nine hours a night. I actually, we were talking beforehand, I just hired a personal chef and a full time personal coach to come and train me five, six times a week. For like two hours at a time. I’ve never had more time in my … Say in the last seven years at least. And it’s way easier because at the end of the day you’re like, “Okay, this is what I need to do, okay. Awesome. Erin Cameron, let’s jump on a 15 minute phone call so I can debrief you on this.” Boom, two weeks later he comes back, “Awesome. Put that out.” Everyone at the end of the day I take from the company. It didn’t particularly come from me, it was my ideas maybe, it was more from my zoned genius, but that was it.
Whereas with 100k, 150k, you’re there like, 2:00 AM in the morning being like, “Oh my god.” Right? So yeah. I think if you want to serve people better, you do that, because you can serve people better when you’re profitable, when you can have the best people, when you can afford to do things the right way and not have a shortcut. Do you have to make some shortcuts along the way when you’re starting out? Of course you do. You’ve got to make some compromises. But yeah, it’s way easier, way easier to have a couple million dollar company than a couple hundred grand, but it all comes down to this … We always talk about the scarcity and abundance mindset, but it always comes back to not only the mindset, the emotional response to abundance and scarcity.
You know Jesse [Alder 00:34:35], right?
Christopher D.: Yeah, I do.
Scott Oldford: So me and him were having this conversation, we’re doing a little event in Austin in February, and it’s specifically for coaches and consultants. And we’re talking about the fact that if you have more leads coming in the door than you have the ability to deliver, you now have an abundance of new people that want to know you and want to work with you. There’s literally no way to go into scarcity mindset at that point. Because you are literally so in demand that you can … “Hey, listen, I cost 100 grand to work with.” And people are like, “Okay, it means you’re not attached to it. We’ve got another 50 people wanting to work with you.” That’s the beautiful thing with all of this, right?
And that is not unreachable for anyone that’s listening to this right now within the next six to nine months. I need to remind you I started this current company with basically nothing May of 2015, a year and a half ago. Not that long ago.
Christopher D.: That’s awesome, man. I’ve got so much appreciation for everything you’re sharing, and mainly because it’s just nice for a similar message to come from another voice, and you’re such a rockstar, you’re doing some really great things. I’ve got two questions I ask every single person on this show, and everyone really loves it. In fact, my stats show that people skip forward to this moment. So if that’s you, you missed out on some really good stuff, go back and listen to the whole dang thing. But here are the questions.
The first question is this. If today you had to start over from scratch, no money, no contacts, no relationships, no social network, no email list, nothing, only what you have between your ears, how would you go about starting your business?
Scott Oldford: On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, every single week, I would invite eight people for coffee and I would go around the table and I ask them three questions. The question number one would be who you are? Question number two, what is your biggest challenge? Then the question number three, based on those two questions, I would ask them a third question. I did this and I have a book about how to actually do this, Connections That Count. I actually don’t even think it’s online anymore. It’s on Amazon, but I don’t have it online anymore. That’s how I built the network I did in 2014, 2015. Without any lead generation. I should say 2013, 2014. Not 2015.
So if you’re dead broke, invite people-
Christopher D.: What’s the third question? You gave us two questions. What’s the third question?
Scott Oldford: Third question is just some random question of intimacy. What would you do … Ask them a question like you just asked me. Or number two, what’s the three things you would bring on a deserted beach? Or number three, what was your defining moment? Things that nobody asks anyone, and that gets someone’s emotional response to connect with you. And you’ve just connected seven or eight other people and now you look like a little bit of a thought leader. How much does coffee cost? Not a whole lot. I do these sometimes now, I don’t do many of them anymore, but when I used to do them everyone pretty much paid their own way and absolutely loved them. I was able to meet 7, 800 people in the span of a year doing that. [inaudible 00:37:54] but I like safe.
Christopher D.: I love it, dude. Here’s the second part of the question. If you were to go back to your old self, yourself back at the beginning, if you were to go back in time, and you had two minutes to give advice to the young person of Scott starting out in business and you had those two minutes right now to give him advice, what would you say? Go.
Scott Oldford: Kill your ego. Don’t be mentored by too many people. Don’t take the advice of too many people. Follow your gut and intuition. Fail fast. Fire fast, hire slow. Don’t over-leverage yourself both in time and money. Never buy anything. I don’t own anything. Never buy anything. Invest in experiences. Have more sex. And just be obsessed with the ROI of happiness, because the ROI of happiness majority of people try to make money to be happy, but of course the beautiful thing is is that happiness doesn’t require any money, we just believe that ourselves. I believed in that for far too long, and maybe it’s the fact that I’m on the other side now, but my happiness thankfully no longer is dependent on how much money is in the bank anymore, and it’s pretty powerful.
Christopher D.: What a great note to end on, brother. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for spending some time on the Freedom FastTrack Podcast. Listeners, go check out Scott on Facebook, all the links are on the show notes, but also obviously just type his name into Facebook and you can find it pretty quick.
Scott, man, I appreciate you so much. Everyone go and get that seven day challenge. I hope we can get you on the show again later in the year. I would love that, man.
Scott Oldford: Awesome. All right, man. Well, listen, to everybody that is listening. Thank you so much for being here and listening and having a good time, but more than anything listen less, take less advice, read less books, just go ahead and do shit, because I guarantee you, you go ahead and do shit, get those results, you implement, you’re going to make progress, you’re going to make results, you’re going to create momentum, and that’s what it really comes down to.
Christopher D.: You’re a badass. Like, subscribe, and share this everybody, and make sure you get this into the hands of the people that need to hear this, and we’ll catch you on the very next episode.
Hey, it’s Chris, thank you so much for listening to the Freedom FastTrack Podcast episode. You are the reason we do it. I would love to hear your feedback, I would love to hear your support. So please rate the show, please share it with your friends. It’s the only reason we do it, is to get more people living virtually free, to travel the world, make more money, have more time off, and do more of what they love.
If you want to increase your freedom, if you want to make more money, if you want to have more time doing what you love, head over to christophermduncan.com. It has free trainings, gifts, and updates on how you can be expanding your business and expanding your freedom. Again, thank you so much. Please rate and subscribe the show and head over to that site right now so you can get started on your journey to total freedom.
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