Blaze Your Own Trail - How the Black Diamond Club Founders Got Their Start with Dr. Shawn Dill & Dr. Lacey Book

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

About the guests: Dr. Shawn Dill & Dr. Lacey Book are chiropractors by profession and now serve as certified "Book Yourself Solid" coaches in the entrepreneurial space. This power couple runs The Black Diamond Club - a group of 600+ service professionals with a desire to reach more people and make a bigger impact and create the lifestyle that they deserve. Their work is driven by relationships, collaboration and their mission where “health and success are known as fundamental truths rather than fundamental pursuits." Work with Shawn & Lacey: https://www.blackdiamondclub.com/ Follow Shawn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drshawndill/ Follow Lacey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlaceybook/ We hope you enjoyed the episode! Shout out to our episode sponsor, The Blackbridge Group, your expert team for litigation funding & international dispute resolutions Learn more: https://www.theblackbridgegroup.com/ Connect with our host Jordan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/ Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail Podcasts. My name is Jordan Mendoza and I am your host and we've actually got two incredible guests today. We've got Sean Dill and Lacey Book and I'm going to have them tell you who they are and what they do today. And we'll actually kick it off over to you Lacey to start. Yep, I am Lacey Book and currently I work with my husband, Sean Dill. And I would say to put it in a nutshell, we're small business consultants. We are chiropractors by profession. We have a big heart for the chiropractic profession, have a franchise that has 14 offices, but we were able to grow and scale our model and then take that knowledge and help other service providers be able to reach more people and make a bigger impact. And that's what we get to do on a daily basis is work with wonderful individuals that are really looking to change the world. I love it. And we'll kick it over to you, John.

Current status, working on getting my golf handicap down during my off time from that. Spend most of my time consulting with small business professionals, just as Lacey was saying. Also, our highest level engagement, our clients, we work with them to understand investment strategies. So sort of our mantra is the quest for seven figures of active income coupled with seven figures of passive incomes. That's sort of the formula that a lot of our. clients are chasing, helping a lot of people that have built their business, and maybe they've built it in a way that sort of confines them in the service world. Basically, if you don't show up, you don't get paid. And so a lot of people find themselves stuck. Maybe they left corporate because they wanted

to, quote, work for themselves, but they realized they just traded out Bob, their boss for themselves. Now, they're the boss, but they really didn't create any different environment. And so also helping people to make that transition, understanding passive income, how it works, where you could allocate and deploy capital so that you can receive your gains to replace your active income, you know, you want to basically be able to live life on your own terms. Love it, love it. And I love all of those things that you guys are up to, you know, helping adding value to people, which is phenomenal. And that's why you're on the show. So now it's my favorite part, though. We get to rewind a little bit, right? And we're going to start off with

you Lacey. So if you can tell the audience, you know, where were you born and raised? Okay, so let's think back. We're going back to adolescent years, elementary, middle, high school. What kind of kid were you? And then what kind of things did you get into? Did you have any hobbies? Were you into sports? I'd love some deep context here. Is this a PG type of podcast? No, I'm just kidding. So I was born and I was born and raised in Silicon Valley. I was blessed and was able to grow up around the corner from businesses like Netflix and Google and Yahoo and Apple and really see the birth of that industry grow as I grew up. And so I always say it was a totally different world.

I mean, you, like growing up in other parts of the country, I've been lucky to travel everywhere, you don't know what it's like living in Silicon Valley until you go into it. I mean, we were raised on iPhones and Mac and like they were putting. putting laptops and elementary schools so that students could begin to learn them at a very young age. So it was just a very different world and community. But hobbies, you know, I worked since the day I was 14. I grew up in a family. We didn't have a ton of money. And being in Silicon Valley, it's a expensive, you know, lifestyle. It's expensive to live there. And so I contributed very early on. And since I was 14, I've never not had a job. But the non-PG part is I

got into a little bit of trouble. I got into, you know, as a kid, I was curious. I wanted to know about everything. And, you know, let's just say I worked on my street smarts from a very young age, which along the way has really helped me propel my career because I can relate to a lot of different people on lots of different levels. So that's it in a nutshell. Love it. Love it. Appreciate you sharing that. And we're going to kick it off over to you, Sean. Well, I had a different upbringing. I'm half Japanese. My father served in the Marines.

He did two tours in Vietnam. Then he was in Okinawa, Japan, where he met my mother. Been there. Great place. Yes, who was Japanese. And she was, but she was born in the United States, but she was in Okinawa teaching at a school. Then they went back to Kansas City, Missouri, where I was born. I only lived there for one year.

And then they went back to Okinawa. So I even went to elementary school at Cadena Air Force Base. Then subsequently, my father moved to Cherry Point, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. So I had a little bit of an upbringing there. Then moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, just like a military kid. We moved all over the place. And so that was sort of my formative years. Super into playing soccer.

I at one point thought that I wanted to be a professional soccer player, ended up turning down a scholarship at university level to play soccer because I thought, I also, when I juggled was it was between soccer and music. So I was a saxophone player and I thought I wanted to be a professional musician. Went to Indiana University and one class realized like, no, I wasn't going to make it. The people in this class were really, really good. My cousin was a chiropractor and so that's what then drove me into the chiropractic profession. And one other unique thing is not really like my upbringing so much is like my background.

When I graduated from chiropractic college, I moved to the country of Costa Rica. So I just kind of have that in my blood. I lived in Costa Rica for eight years while there sort of cut my teeth on the entrepreneurship side of things, opened four clinics, and also wrote the law that regulates chiropractic to this day in the country, which that was done when I was in my 20s. That was something that kind of was an experience. Also, by the way, I know it's Jordan Mendoza. I speak fluent Spanish, but when I went to Costa Rica, I didn't speak any Spanish.

So writing a law and actually defending the law, I was in Congress where I had to testify on behalf of the law and answer all of the questions, why, how would it work, etc. In Spanish, sort of accelerated my learning curve to learn the language. that's awesome that's awesome pretty appreciate you guys sharing those stories and a little bit more context for the audience it's definitely helpful to get that but i'm not going to stop there because i need i haven't got some questions right i need to know from lacy you know what was that first job at 14 and and share with the audience you know what were some lessons that you learned in that role because it sounds like you didn't get the job because you needed to you did it because you wanted to contribute and help with your family, right? And those are completely different circumstances. So I'd love for you to

share what was that job and what are maybe one or two lessons that maybe you still carry with you today that you learned. Yeah, it's actually a great question. So my very first job, I worked at a second run movie theater. And so I started out when I was 14. I worked there, I think, till I was 16. And very quickly accelerated. So essentially, like a movie would go into the movie theater. And then when it had its time and people stopped watching it as much, it would go into the second run movie theaters, and we would have days like $2 Tuesday where you could come and get a ticket at a very low price. So, I mean, it was a little bit more kickback than when you think of when you go into like more of a corporate feeling theater. It was tiny. It had multiple, maybe only like four different

places where you could watch movies. And then by the time I was 15 and a half, I was the assistant manager. I don't know who decided that that was a good idea, giving somebody that couldn't even drive the assistant manager position. And so I would be the head of shifts. And one of the things I remember most distinctly is there was a field trip. And these teachers brought in a bunch of students. And I think they were probably in elementary school. And again, second run movie theater didn't have a lot of money. So the chairs of the theater were bright orange, okay? Bright orange.

I got to tell you, this is for context. And every once in a while we would get sections of them cleaned. And then it would get roped off because they would be soaking wet. Well, somebody that day forgot to rope off these seats. And this entire class and these two teachers sat in these orange chairs. And when they got up, their clothes were stained orange. I mean, it was a disaster and I was running the shift. And I very quickly learned how to deliver solid customer service and learned at a very young age how to diffuse a crazy situation.

So that was probably my biggest lesson. And being able to figure out how to navigate that very young was something that I was able to take with me throughout all of my jobs, all of my positions, you know, as I grew as an individual. And it didn't matter what I was doing, learning how to defy you. a situation when people aren't happy is such a life skill. And man, I had to learn quickly that day. Wow. Yeah, that's that's super powerful story. And I definitely appreciate the context. You know, when it comes to customer experience, there's only three types of customers you're going to deal with, right? It's either a promoter, right? They're promoting your business. They're either passive where they're kind of just in between. And then you have the disruptors. And it sounds like

you took a disruptor, somebody that could have potentially, you know, all hell could of broke loose and you figured out at 15 years old how to diffuse that. And so I can definitely see how that would carry on, you know, as you moved into different roles because you had to think on your feet, right? You had to smile. You had to apologize even though it wasn't your fault. And those are all things that show a good leader. So appreciate you sharing that. All right. So you're ready for you, my friend? Got some questions for you now. So you mentioned soccer. I played soccer for 12 years only because of the fundraising. I was the guy that loved selling the beef jerky and the candy bar. Like I hate I hated playing soccer. I'll be honest with you, but I loved the candy and selling it. Like I've

always had this ability to just have conversations with anybody and make them feel comfortable. And that started as a kid. So what are some lessons from soccer? Maybe it was the fundraising. Maybe you got some lessons doing fundraising or maybe it was from the sport or the team aspect of it. are there some lessons that you could share that have added value to your life? Well, I would have loved to have had you on our teams because I did not enjoy the, I did not enjoy the fundraising part. What I think that happened with me is I think I had some degree of natural talent. And what I had to learn, though, was that, you know, that wasn't going to be enough.

So I wasn't just, you know, like the next Freddie Adieu or something at my age. but I had to learn that I had, and in both cases in soccer and in music, that you have to put in the work, even if you have the talent, right? So one of my least favorite things was like, you know, the conditioning, especially the off-season conditioning. Running to me is extremely boring. It was just running with no purpose just to get in shape. But I realized that, you know, as I advanced through getting into high school travel teams, you have your summer camps. I was in. in Indiana State at that time. Indiana University soccer team is incredibly well known and going through camps there. I really did learn like even small things like stretching. Who likes to stretch, right? But you have to do those things to perform at the highest level. And so I think that, you know, the translation into modern life is that there's a lot of things like the fun part is like, you know, getting checks or when your stripe account receives the money in. But what you don't really see are the tedious things, the prep work.

Even for you, like probably a lot of people are like, man, Jordan, I want to have a podcast must be great. You just like hit record and talk to these people. And what they don't see is all of the other elements that make for a successful show that make for a successful individual. And I think the same thing. When we look at athletes on the highest level, we don't get to see their off-season training regiment.

We don't get to see the sacrifices and diet and recovery. all of these things, you know, just recently, depending on when you're hearing this, but just recently, you know, Tom Brady announced his retirement, you know, and everybody is like, oh, they're kind of surprised by it. But for me, I mean, at that age, all of those other things are probably the things that wear on you, right? You know, at 43, you probably have to do like triple stretching of what you had to do when you were 21. And who wants to do triple stretching because nobody wanted to do single stretching and conditioning and the diet and all of that. Those are the qualities that, those are the elements that I learned. Those are the qualities that I admire in an individual are all of the, you know,

fundamentals that you have to be practicing constantly in order to hone your skills and hone your craft. And I love that. And I share this with people all the time. I say, you know, my first podcast failed. I released two episodes that no one heard because I didn't have clarity. I didn't know, have a purpose. I didn't know what I wanted the show to be called. But so when I went to go launch my second one,

I had all of those things in order. It was like, you know, I grew up in Portland, Oregon. My favorite team was the Portland Trailblazers, and I've always resonated with Trailblazers, like people that have stepped outside and thought outside of the box. So I was like, blaze your own trail podcast, right? So it was easy then when I had that mission statement and when I had my why I want to do it.

And so when I went to go put in the work, it wasn't work, right? Because I was living in that passion and mission and the reason why I wanted to do it. So yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And so we're going to go back to Lacey, right? I didn't forget about you. Right, we're, let's go past high school, right? So what happened after high school?

I know you started working at a young age and we're doing incredible things. You became a leader at 15, just crazy to think about. I don't know if you looked at yourself as a leader, but you definitely were. So what happened after high school? It was college something that you were interested in and that you pursued to go to? Did you just keep working? It sounds like you've got a passion and a, and a school. solid work ethic, so I'd love to find out some more info. I did both, actually. So like I said,

I worked at that movie theater. I got to rewind just a little bit. And then I moved from the movie theater and I went to a bank. And I was about 16, 17. And this lady, she used to always come to my teller window. She would wait in line in order to actually come to my window to talk to me. And one day she slid me her card and she said, I want you to work for me. I was like, what in the world? And I flipped it over and she was a chiropractor. And at that time, I had no idea what chiropractic was. Nobody in my family used chiropractors or went to chiropractors. And she said something that I always say literally changed the trajectory of my life. She said, whatever you're getting paid here, I'll pay you more. Well, you're 16 years old.

You're like, I don't care what chiropractic is. I'm going to go work for her. And so I actually ended up working for her. And that's how I got into the chiropractic, profession. And so fast forward, I graduate from high school, and I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was kind of like, I'll be a lawyer or maybe I'll be an interior designer, two totally different things. But at 18, I decided that I wanted to make a change in my life, and I moved from Silicon Valley into the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Totally different life. And end up working for chiropractors out there and put myself through undergrad by working three jobs. I used to work for the chiropractors during the day.

I worked at a restaurant on Fridays and weekends. And then I cleaned the building and scrubbed toilets at night to make sure that I could pay for my undergrad and ended up when being in that office, a chiropractor looked at me one day and said, what are you doing? You need to go to chiropractic school. and that's how I got into the chiropractic refression, and essentially that's how I ended up talking to you today. Love it, and it sounds like, you know, you put in the reps, right?

I mean, I tell my clients this all time, if you're showing up one day, it's not enough, you know. If you show up one day and the next day, that's a start, but you've got to show up every single day, and you've got to put in those reps. And for you working three jobs and paying your own way, that says a lot. And that is the reason why you're on the show because you have blazed your own trail. And that's what it's all about. So let's kick it over to you, Sean. And so it sounds like we got a little bit deeper context into your story into the

chiropractic side. But I'd love for you to just share why the chiropractic industry, like what was it about it that resonated with you? Was it maybe seeing someone you know, go to a chiropractor and get some results? Was it you got results or was it you were just fascinated by it overall? Well, my cousin, Steve Hernandez, was a kid. a chiropractor in Mechuan, Wisconsin, and it's just outside of Green Bay. And I was always fascinated by his success. And he had tremendous success in the profession. And then in high school,

playing soccer, playing indoor soccer, I suffered an injury. I was in the air and I was punched in the head by the goalkeeper trying to punch the ball, punched my head instead. It knocked me out. And then oddly enough, when I came to, like, I had. had pains in my back. And so my mom called my cousin. They referred me to a chiropractor and I had results. So I decided very early on that I wanted to be a chiropractor because of those reasons. I wanted the success and then I had an experience myself. But when I got to chiropractic college, my understanding of what chiropractic is and what it can do for the world radically changed. And like Lacey said, that remains our core passion. Everything that we do really is to build success in an

area financial success so that we have the ability to pour into the chiropractic side of things. You know, we're strong believers in a holistic approach to health. We think that a lot of the flawed philosophies and thinking relative to health has gotten not just our country, but the world into lots of issues where we've bought into this idea that health comes from the outside end. We rely on men to create pills, potions, lotions, and vaccines that will cure us of our ills and we've abandoned the thought of the concept that health can come from within, that your body is made perfectly and we have the inborn ability to cure ourselves of every disease known to man, as long as our body's functioning at 100%. I'm still amazed even in this era of COVID,

regardless of your position or stance, but the fact remains that there are plenty of people who have been, who have tested positive for COVID and then got well. And there's no real cure. There's how does that work? I mean, and every time that you think about that, regardless, again, of your vaccine stance, your body is what has the ability to cure this. And so I think a lot more time and discussion should be focused on that. Like, that's a pretty amazing thing. And if we could wrap our minds around that, I think we could radically shift the way that our world operates. And we would have a lot of money that we could place in other areas rather than the billions and billions of dollars that we spend every single year on pills, potions and lotions.

I love that. And, you know, it resonates a lot. I was just at a conference called the, it was called Create. It was here locally thrown by a guy named Ken Jocelyn. He's a local real estate agent in Atlanta. We had John Maxwell speaking, Jesse Itzler, Dave Meltzer, Anthony Trucks, a lot of top speakers. But the guy that blew me away the most, his name's Gary Brecker. I'm not sure if you know who Gary is.

But this guy, you know, is like a human biologist. he's a scientist and uh grant cardone uh just actually invested 250 million into his company and now they've changed the name to 10x health but what this guy was talking about was a lot of the things that you were talking about is you know we're basically not giving our bodies you know the ability to do what it naturally does and i got hit with COVID a few weeks ago and and i was down for the count and it sucked and but i got through it and i'm here talking to you on this interview and you know and i think even if I get it again, my body will be stronger because of the natural way that I handled it. And believe me, I'll be completely transparent.

I'm the worst guy to be sick. I'm a baby. Like, my wife is, you know, I've got a bell I'm ringing, you know. And so, but, you know. My husband. Hi, five, bro. Hi, five. It's okay.

We can't be great at everything, you know. That's definitely not good at being sick. But yeah, man, we're going to get through it. Like, I tell people all the time, I'm like, there are people in 2022. that would not survive the chicken pox. Like, do you remember how crappy that was? Like, in the schools had it dialed in. You couldn't go to, if you showed up at school, they sent your butt right back home.

You had to have the weird lotion on. You look like you had lepers. I mean, that was bad. You know, I'm like, this is. I was younger. But when I was younger, my community, they would have chickenpox parties. I heard about it. One kid would get chicken pox and they would bring all the kids together

so that all the kids could get them to build the natural immunity. Yep. They didn't get it when they were adults. And it's like, where did that get lost, right? You're right. There's a lot of people that would suffer big time if they ran into chicken pox. And it would be, you know, in our social media feeds, it would be all these people with all these weird talking like what happens. How do I deal with this, you know?

So, yeah, very interesting. Yeah, yeah, definitely filters. So let's talk about, you know, your book. It's called None of Your Business. So what sparked that title and give the audience a little context on, you know, what they're going to gain if they were to invest in it? Many years ago, there's sort of a sub-story there. We've always been big believers in investing in ourselves. And we have attempted to, anytime we had any bit of money beyond what it required to maintain our basic needs as we were starting our business, we would invest back in ourselves.

And I remember initially we worked with Michael Port. He's the author, New York Times bestselling author of None of Your Business. I'm sorry, he didn't write none of you. We booked yourself solid. When we didn't really have enough money to work with Michael, and Michael's been a massive impact in our lives. After that, we decided to make a crazy leap. And we decided to work with Jay Abraham at a time that we didn't have the money to work

with Jay Abraham. And in our very first coaching session, in his office in Torrance, California, We sat down with Jay, and Jay had made a comment. He was like, this is fascinating. We were talking very much like we're talking today about sort of our background. He's like, you guys should write a book. And I think I must have made a face when he said that or something because he looked at me and he said, I could tell you don't like the idea.

And I was like, not that I don't like the idea, but like, how am I going to write a book? And he was like, Sean, there's a lot of ways to write a book. And he kind of left it at that. Fast forward. Just a few months later, we were at an event and somebody introduced us to Tucker Max. And they were like, I just think that you guys should meet and talk. And turns out Tucker at that time was heavily. He's no longer at Scribe, but heavily invested in Scribe. And we talked about the prospect of, you know, he was like, I can help you to write this book. And the, so Tucker and

the crew at Scribe, highly recommend if you everybody, everybody has a book inside of you. And they're experts of helping to extract that from you. So you're not just sitting there at your laptop typing away, wondering like, how am I ever going to do this or how do I structure it, all of that. But the reason why we wrote the book is because we realized being in the healthcare space that the world's greatest providers of services. So, and not just healthcare, but the world's greatest artist. We have a phenomenal piece behind us that was done by a young man, Theopolis, who was at Fresh Laundry, P-H-R-E-S-H-Londry.

Fresh Laundry is his company. And what we realize is that the world's greatest providers of services live in relative obscurity because they do not want to embrace the ideas of marketing and sales. We realize that, you know, there's shows like Dr. Oz and the doctors and Dr. Phil and there's these people that get on TV that we hold in high regard. And I'm not knocking any of them. But look, stop for a second. Most people don't even know what kind of Dr.

Dr. Oz is. You don't know if he's good, but you are taking his advice. Why? Because he's brilliant at marketing. He's leveraging a medium to communicate a message, which is creating authority. So that's why we wrote the book is because we want the best of the best. We want the best podcasters, the best hairstylists, massage therapists, chiropractors, medical doctors, artists, recording our digital agencies. We want the people with the best talent to be known as the best. But in order to do that, they are going to be. to have to fall in love, like actually fall in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur. And that's where it kind of breaks down because a lot of the best service providers, the best attorneys, the best accountants, they're like, but I don't want to market. I don't want to sell. Well, that's the, that's a problem because then you are leaving your skills on the table, your impact that you can leave on the world.

You're leaving a lot of that on the table. We must embrace this so that we can reach the people that you were put on this planet to serve. I love it. I love it. And I'm going to tell my clients all the time. Listen, if you don't want to sell, just go add value. Just go educate. Just go teach, train, like, you know, share your message with people because people need to hear it.

And you're absolutely right. Everyone has a book in them. When I had Victor Hansen and his wife, Crystal, on the podcast, and I was like, you know, I wrote a title for a book, and I was so excited to, like, share it with them. And it was called How to Blaze Your Own Trail. I mean, it just makes sense. I've got the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast. It's the name of my consulting agency.

and he's like, I love it. He's like, I would just keep thinking about it and then go do it. Like, don't just talk about it and keep thinking, like, go actually take action. And so I took his advice, and I've got a book coming out soon in about a month. It's a collaborative book for my first one where we've got seven or eight of us guys that are sharing our story and journey and teaching people how to brand themselves. You know, that's something that I've built every single thing I have really started a couple years ago when I got active on LinkedIn.

And now a couple years later, I've got an active audience of 60 plus thousand people that follow content and they're actively engaged. So when people come to me and they're like, man, I wish I could do. I'm like, you can do what I did if you're willing to put in the work, right? Because it doesn't matter if you're a chiropractor, a doctor, a lawyer, an entrepreneur. It's all about putting in the work. It's all about testing. And I've been marketing since I was 14.

My first job, I went door-to-door selling newspaper subscriptions, the Oregonian newspaper, signing people up for the daily and the Sunday. And I know there's going to be listeners that watch this. So the newspapers are these things that, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Right. Some people don't even know what newspapers are today because we don't read them anymore, you know? How about that?

Right? So by the time I turned 22, I did four years of door-to-door sales. I heard over 200,000 people tell me no. So my mindset is bulletproof. Like you could tell me no. I just laugh and I go to the next one. And so what I teach people is like, go look for the noes. Make it a game for yourself because every no is that much closer to a yes.

Yeah, I love that. People, especially like service providers, they have such big hearts. They want to give everything away. And so they have such difficulty like being rejection proof, right? Their rejection armor is, it's weak. And so they feel uncomfortable going and putting themselves out there because of exactly what you said. They're not conditioned to keep taking those nose. It becomes very personal because they have such a big heart around their service.

And we tell them all the time, you've got to put yourself in those positions where you can just take a no over and over because it actually helps you to craft your message better and stronger and get to the right people. And so I love that you did that. I've done door-to-door stuff as well. It was only 2,000 doors, so not quite that many. But man, when you get told no that many times, it becomes easy, you know, and you're like, on to the next one. So yeah, I had good leaders, right? That we did these trainings in the morning, and it was called atmosphere.

I mean, how powerful is that? And so what would you do in atmosphere? Well, there would be teaching and coaching. I learned some acronyms like PMA equals OPM. You know what that stands for? A positive mental attitude equals other people. people's money because it's so true right if you have a you ever sold anything well you are grumpy like like you tell me you ever sold your wife Sean on a movie when you were grumpy not gonna happen

but I guarantee you've sold her on a movie when you were in a good mood and you had confidence and you exuded at and you could feel the passion behind it right so pma equals OPM like those are little downloads that I was getting as an 18 year old kid that had no business probably learning this stuff, but it conditioned me so well to go knock on a hundred doors a day, knowing I was going to hear 90 knows. So I just reframed it and said, all I'm looking for is 10 people to tell me, yes, baby. Let's go. You tell me no, great. I just got to keep going and I'm going to finally get to that. Yes. Yep, I love it. I think what's important too, and I would love to, I mean, you have a really strong handle on this. There is, there must have been a point, though, when you

make that switch, everybody has to. When you were knocking on doors and they were saying, no, to the newspaper. Oh, bro, I've got a good story for that. But they weren't saying no to you. 100%. People take it so personal. They're like, but they're not rejecting. That was me.

14 on day one because I was pumped. Like, I was doing this with my brother, my buddy Steve down the street. We got dropped off in a neighborhood. I had my clipboard. We had some Burger King. Like, I was ready to go sell. And so the first 10 doors smile on my face. door 11 my smile went away because I heard 10 nose that's tough at 14 so by

doors 15 I was defeated by doors 20 my my shoulder shrugged so I'm and I'm hope people that watch or listen this it's it's resonating what happened I was lit my attitude was declining so by the end of that hundred nose on day one I was on the curb with my head between my legs my brother and buddy are high fiving because they got sales and I was like this job sucks like sales no one reads the newspaper you know i was like no one no one anything no one reads it it was every excuse that i could give and i got the biggest lesson sean and lacy that i hope you can take something away from this it was a guy his name was jim franks will never forget it

and he was at the distribution office i was you know going ready to settle up nothing because i didn't sell anything and he's like trying to get my clipboard i'm like kind of pulling it back because i had all the papers in it you know I felt so bad I didn't sell and he looked me in the eyes and he said Jordan I don't know when this will click in but hopefully one day you will understand this and I'm like all right whatever let's I just go home and he's like the sale doesn't start until the customer says no and I looked him in the face and said that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard Jim and I kind of stormed out but ready so four years later fast forward four years I'm 18 years old I'm now a sales leader I'm training and coaching and I had a guy go in the field and he came

and he had that same defeated look on his face. And what do you think I said to him? I said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. And it's so powerful because usually we don't give ourselves the ability to think quick enough to have the first word. And that's what I was realizing is when you go knock on someone's door, you're interrupting them, whether you believe it or not. Like they're not expecting you.

And so what I started to do is I would look at cars. I would look at flags. anything I could figure out to try to relate to them as soon as they open that door. So I would have that first word in to break that ice because when we can break the ice with people, it makes it a lot easier. And so that's really where I learned how to read, how to relate, how to relax. You know, I learn all these skills that have been really adding value to my life, you know, the last 25 years. I love that. That's fascinating.

We can talk about this all day. I love sales. and I love how really good salespeople oftentimes will throw out a super weak clothes just to get that first know. I love that. So many times we just want to have this build up, right? We just like started off and it goes all the way to this climax when we throw out our offer and we get shut down and then we're like, okay.

And so a lot of times really scale. I love watching people do that to me when they throw that like super weak clothes at you early on in the game and then you know like, wow, this is good. I tell this whole story of this time I bought this watch in Australia. And I was out, I was at the gym. And then I just jumped into this watch store and was having this conversation with a guy. And then he was brilliant at sales. And we went all the way through.

And they were even offering me in the watch store champagne. I kept telling him, no, no, I'm not taking your champagne. And then at the very end, I just kind of paused. I was like, how do you think we're doing? He says, I think I'm doing pretty good. I mean, we have rapport. But I also know that you could just walk out right now. And I was like, well, I'll take the watch.

I also want my champagne on one condition. I want you to walk me through this sales process that you just did. And I want to look at it through your eyes. I'm already committed. I'm going to get the watch. But I want you to tell me the things that you were doing through the process of how we work through this. And that's, I mean, you have a really good salesperson. It's like watching, it's like watching a performance, right?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. It is. It's like magic, right? Because you are inspired. and you're kind of blown away and you're like, you know, taking a back and you're like, what just happened? You know, it's almost like, what just happened? That's a good point because people say that all the time.

Like I, especially the people that we help and our clients, like, well, I don't know. I don't want to go out there and sell because I hate to be sold. It doesn't feel good. And I always tell them that's because you're being sold by people that aren't good at it. So, you know, if it feels icky to be sold on something, it's because it's a really pushy sales, or they were trying to give you something you didn't need. But if you go into that sales process, like you said with a performer, you don't even know what happened to you.

And it feels right. And it feels like you were empowered to make a decision. So it's a skill for sure. And I love teaching people about it. Yeah. And I tell clients all the time, I'm like, you know, transactions feel salesy, but relationships don't. You know, and so if you can build a relationship with your customer first and that's the

foundation that it's built off, the sales are easy. after that, right? Because they're 90% of the reason why they buy is because of you. If they like you, like, who cares about the product? Like, I want to work with this guy or this girl. Does that make sense? And so I'm telling people all the time, like, just be yourself. Don't try to be overly salesy.

Have a conversation. Ask questions because if you can ask open-ended questions, they're going to tell you what their problems are. And I want to know what those problems are because if I can help solve them, then it might be a good fit. I love it. So let's talk a little bit about the book. I know it's surrounded around, you know, helping people with marketing, helping people

with sales. So is there anything in there? Do you guys have workbooks in there? Is that something that you've implemented in the process? Or is the book more of, you know, teaching elements and then take that information and go apply it? I'd love just some context on how the book was developed. Yeah, it's definitely teaching elements.

And we teach through stories because we find that. that that really helps make things relatable and can spur ideas for yourself to go actually implement that into your own business. And so it is. It's a lot of just teaching through stories and things that you can go implement right away, which I love. Because sometimes, you know, you read a book or you read something and it's so far away from the way that your current business model is that it's hard to make that shift and that change. So we've got a lot of stuff in there that you can take away and walk right into your business and start to implement on the spot. Let me also just say because, you know, trail blazing or blazing your own trail implies like there's not a trail, right?

You're going into uncharted territory. One thing I think is super important is that all great business advice always is counterintuitive. Because if it was intuitive, you would have been doing it anyways. And so what you'll find in the book, too, is not just your standard, you know, be nice, tell stories, put some stuff on social media. Like it's a lot of it's a little bit outside the box, so it's going to challenge your thinking. But look, that's why you would, that's why you would want this information is because it is outside the box. If it was like, hey, post on social media, we really don't need to buy the book to learn that, right? So it's a lot of stuff that, you know, we teach what we call our blind club sales ladder,

the steps that a person goes through. And even in the inside of that, not your stereotypical sales process, but also our Black Diamond Club marketing matrix, just very unique because it's not based off of a lot of the traditional marketing. It's very community oriented. It's a very event oriented. There's certain moments when you can trigger the move from marketing to sales. We also understand that there's sort of that gray line between marketing and sales. And so we talk about that. Some people are really good at marketing and bad at sales. Some people are good at sales bad at marketing. And so we have to fortify that. And then lastly, I think one of the big pieces on that is mindset. We talk. We talk.

an awful lot that you could have a lot of the, all of the great tactics. And, you know, probably for a lot of people, you've had these people as employees. Like, they check all the boxes, but somehow they don't seem to get the same results. So maybe even, you know, back to the original story of knocking on doors. I knock on 100 doors, but like I just have the wrong mindset. Like you said, my shoulders are slumped and I just, I don't have the right attitude and mindset. And that will destroy your tactics, even if the tactics are right. And so we do, discuss that as well. Well, Michael Port, one of the lines that he used to always say is that all business problems are personal problems in disguise. And so that really hits home with a lot of people. It hit

home with us. And so we work really hard to help people shift those mindsets, shift their relationships and shift what they're working on inside so that it can be projected into a very successful business. I love it. I love it. And that's such an important area to to cover. I'm certified in Myers-Briggs. You know, I taught a six-month leadership program for three years that rotated from Atlanta to D.C. And, man, when you can unlock and really have people have self-awareness and understand how they're wired, man, it's a big unlock. You know, and I had a lot of people say that their relationships at home were better. The relationships with their coworkers are better because they had a better understanding of who they were. And then we took it further, and we dove into EQ.

We dove into Clifton's strengths. And we're really diving in that professional development track because, like, for me, me jumping into that is what really spurred my imagination to what could be possible. You know, and it helped me realize that I wasn't truly living in my potential in corporate America, that I was actually being suppressed because I had all these grand ideas I've been given out for three, four years. And they'd be like, let's put it on the checklist, Jordan, we'll get to it. And I'm like, we've got to take action now. Like, we've got to do this now. because or else we're going to be left behind. And when you deal with years of that,

I knew when I was leaving it was the right time. And it wasn't a perfect plan. It wasn't like I had all the ducks in a row because they're never going to be in a row. And that's a message for someone watching this. Like you're waiting for the perfect time to do that thing that you've always wanted to do. Well, I'm going to tell you right now that time is today.

What's wrong with today? Why can't you take action now? Done is better than perfect. Getting it done is going to take you way farther than waiting for that perfection. Yes, messy action is where it's at. You got to take it. I have a whiteboard that is always constantly rotated out with new ideas because if you're not iterating, if you're not, marketing is all about testing. I've known that from the newspaper days to the telemarketing days, to the everything that I've sold. It's about testing. You've got to test new scripts. You've got to test

new ideas. You've got to test new strategies. If you're not, you're not getting better. And it's all about evolving and getting better. Well, I really, you know, I appreciate you guys sharing your story and your journey. And I would love for you to give, you've kind of touched on some of these groups that you have. It sounds like you've got communities where other entrepreneurs can get involved and really get to know each other, but also learn from you guys. So I'd love for you to share some more context about that. And then we're definitely going to make sure we get all your info in the show notes. And then also, if you have anything, you know, special, you want to offer our audience that you've got for people that are listeners of the show.

show, feel free to drop that as well, whether it's a giveaway, a resource, anything. Well, first of all, I just want to offer anybody that wants to get a digital copy of the book that could just hit me up at Sean S-H-A-W-N at Black Diamond Club.com. Just let me know that you'd like a copy of the book. Be happy to send that over. Or any questions or anything that we could possibly do to add value to your current situation, Sean at Blackdiamen Club.com. Obviously, then that's the website.

black diamond club.com, the gateway into our community of service-based entrepreneurs many, many years ago, I think eight years ago, I think six years, six or eight years ago. I'm terrible with time. You must be terrible with time too, Jordan, because we're both terrible at being sick. You can tell me, Sean, you've been married for 56 years and I would be like, wow, okay, I have no idea like how long things are. My concept of time is terrible. But many years ago, we started Black Diamond Club, and we did this out of necessity because we were seeing a trend on social media that a lot of these groups, as groups were emerging, were extremely negative, that, you know, people would come in and ask a question, and basically the comments would be, well, you're so

dumb, you don't get it, you don't know what you're doing, and it just was like this sort of epidemic. It was all over the place. You know, social media turned, you know, people remember the time when it was all about, like, taking pictures of. of your food. It's not about that anymore. And there was this turn where it just got a little bit dark. And so that's why we started Black Diamond Club. We wanted a place where people would support each other. We live in a world where, I mean, think about it. Honestly, if you were to post on your social media feed, wow, greatest day ever, I just did $100,000 in sales. Now, you're going to get some people that would say, yes, high five, friends, colleagues, family maybe.

and you'll get a ton of people that are like, oh, look at you, Jordan, bragging up. Oh, it must be nice to be you. And Black Diamond Club is a place where that does not happen. You could post, I made my first dollar in my very first business. You could also post, guys, I just went over 100 million year-to-date. It doesn't matter. And the culture is we celebrate everyone's success. We were on an interview the other day and someone was saying, you know, what they had with their business. And they're like, well, I'm not doing it to brag. And I was like, well, what's wrong with bragging? I mean, if you did that, put in the work, high five, you crushed it. We want to, we want to stand up and cheer for you.

That's what Black Diamond Club is, but also then the nuts and bolts. We want a positive environment where we can teach you things that are well outside the box. And there's no ridicule. There's no, there's only support. We're going to help you to implement these things. You know, Dave Meltzer talks about the compounding act, the compounding of action. You know, sometimes it's these little tiny things that you pick up in a group. you start to apply it like you said not just one day not two days you start to compound the effect over time

and you get these massive results as a result of that you know that's what we try to drop it these little things that you're like oh i could do that's not how hard is that it's not what i would normally do but i mean it's not like i'm going to invest millions of dollars or tons of hours of time i could just do that for five minutes every day and see how it goes and those are the things that produce the biggest results so that's www black diamond club dot com love it love it yeah well definitely put a link to that in the show notes, as well as get your contact info out for everybody. Any other parting words? Any words of advice you want to give to the audience? Maybe there's someone that's watching this that they have that idea in their head or, you know, they're just not sure if they should take it. So any type of encouragement you'd like to offer. We say this at the end of our podcast every single week. We say, listen, it's not enough to just listen to the podcast every week. It's not enough to buy a course and just listen to the words that people say.

You actually have to get up and take action. So even if it's just one thing that you found in this podcast today and you said yourself, I could do that or I should do that. Implement it now because that's how you move your business forward. I just want to throw in one last thing. One of my favorite historical characters, not characters, personalities, historical people is Rosa Parks. And a reason why I love the story of Rosa Parks is because Rosa was a simple seamstress. You know, there were many people in the civil rights movement, you know, big names, Martin Luther King, Malcolm, a lot of people that were doing, commanding a lot of attention. And one day Rosa Park stood at a bus at the bus stop, got on a bus and sat in the front. One, there are several parts of the story that are very important. One is that

the bus driver knew Rosa by name. The bus driver looked at her and said, Rosa, what are you doing? So that means that Rosa had been on that bus literally hundreds of times before and went to the back. Something changed in her that day. She decided to make a stand and she said not today. Everything changed. Listen, if you are in this world, you know Rosa Parks and the impact that she made on our lives today because she decided to take a stand. So many people are waiting, right, for the people on the stages to make a change. You mentioned, you know, Grant Cardone and Jesse and Dave and all these people, but I got to tell your listeners, it's not them. They're not the ones who are going to actually affect the impact. Here's the let my parting words is I want you to

really think about this is that history remembers people who who had a desire as desire to make a conviction I'm sorry, a conviction stronger than their desire to please. We don't follow the current people, ordinary people that are convicted and stood their ground like Rosa Parks, change the face of history. That's someone that's listening to the podcast. Last thing, I think that every, Everybody gets their Rosa Parks moment, but you have to decide, am I sitting in the front or am I sitting in the back? Far too many people decide to go to the back and don't realize that it was them. It was their calling that they could change the course of history if they just stood up for what they believe. I love it.

I love it. And it reminds me of a quote that is, action creates momentum. Momentum creates consistency, creates habits, and habits create results. So it just takes that first step, though, right? You just got to take that first step outside of your comfort zone because the comfort zone only produces more comfort. It doesn't do anything else, right? So, hey, you guys are trailblazers in all senses of the words. So keep up the great work.

Thank you so much for coming and adding value to the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast. Thank you so much for having us.