Blaze Your Own Trail - Positively Impacting the Financial World with Rob Gill

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Robert Gill grew up in the tough, rough and tumble town of Bayonne, New Jersey. His Dad struggled working three jobs to support his Mom and four children. Although there was no shortage of love, life centered around the constant dysfunction of a lack of money. There was absolutely zero financial education which resulted in a constant fear of the unknown: money. He have since been obsessed to provide the much-needed financial education that is so lacking in the world, so no one has to experience the pain and helplessness that his family did. Rob has learned from experience, people don’t want just money. In over 20 years of working in the financial services space, him and his team have done over 23,000 cash flow analyses and over 10,000 financial plans. What he has learned is that the one thing that people want most is Financial Freedom. They want the Freedom to do WHAT they want, WHEN they want, HOW they want and with WHO they want WITHOUT financial or time constraints. This is exactly what he sets out to do for each and every client. In this episode we discuss: Rob's upbringing How he was as a kid The sports he played Who some of his mentors were. Where he went to school The first job after College The route he went next What he does today And more! Connect with Rob: Website: https://www.epicfinancialstrategies.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicinsservices Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicwm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/epicinsuranceservices/ Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠ Clapper: ⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com 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.

Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast with your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice, you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Rob Gill, and I'm going to actually give him a second to tell you who he is and what he does today.

My name is Rob Gill and the founder of Epic Financial Strategies, which is a two-division company, one on the wealth management side, which is run by a bunch of fiduciaries that we have on that arm of our business. and then the insurance side, which is not only for individuals, but for business owners, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, people that are family-oriented looking for proper planning, really want to make sure that the experience is based on the right-hand speaking to the left hand because, you know, financial products and strategies become chaotic and confusing.

And we try and, through our process and strategy, eliminate the chaos and confusion and create a map. I love that. I love that. What I love to do on my show, man, is take a real. rewind and jump into those adolescent years to start off with. So can you tell me, you know, how was Rob as a kid, you know, thinking about, you know, elementary, middle school and high school years? You know, that's a great question. Thank you for that access. For me growing up, I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. So it's a blue collar town. It was 12 miles outside of Manhattan.

So there was always a city feel and urban field to it. Hey, hey, Rob, don't mean to cut you off. Is that an Aberdeen Township? No. Okay, I've seen that sign because I used to do training in Aberdeen near Red Bank in that area. I don't know if it's near there or not. So my office is in Red Bank, but Bayonne is like 40 miles from Red Bank. Okay. I've got a question about Red Bank after we get through your story. So you got it, brother.

So I grew up in Bayonne, 75,000 people, three mile town. Everybody knew each other's businesses. There was a probably growing up from me. to say there was at least 14 or 15 different grammar schools, all in a three-mile radius. So if you can picture that, there was always these little clicks. And then within each school, there was clicks even deeper. So I was always used to being on some sort of a team. Social team, sports team.

I grew up playing basketball. And young Rob Gill in grammar school and high school, for that matter, was just trying to fit in, trying to figure out his identity. Always knew that there was something else better. I had the good fortune of my oldest sister of marrying into Bob Hurley's brother. Bob Hurley is the coach of St. Anthony's, New Jersey Powerhouse Basketball,

high school for 40 years. His two sons now coach in college. Danny coaches at Yukon and Bobby Jr. coaches at Arizona State. I had the good fortune of knowing that family and those guys at a very, very young age. and they were both very successful basketball players in our own right. So I understood what success looked like. I understood the commitment,

but I wasn't willing to make that commitment at that time. That learning experience in the 80s and early 90s I was able to use in the 2000s in the new millennium to where I am today. So I understood what success looked like, but I was very insecure, just trying to fit in. Because I was so close to basketball, I was able to play basketball on a high school and a Division III college level. I always wanted to build teams, always understood being part of something bigger than myself,

what the importance of that. And I was also a people pleaser at that particular point as well. And when I think back to those years, you know, took me down a couple different paths. Eventually, for like a six-year period, I did some drinking. I've been in AA since July 1996, having had a drink in 24 years. you know, all that ties into my story once I got sober and began to build the businesses that I'm in. Man, I love it. I really appreciate you, you know, being vulnerable sharing that context.

And so basketball means a lot to me. You know, my late mother, you know, she was the biggest Portland Trailblazers fan. That's where I grew up. And I grew up in the, you know, Cliff Robinson and Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter and Kevin Duckworth. days, right? The Rip City days. And so she got us all into basketball. And my show, actually, the Blaz Your Own Trail Podcast, the reason why it is is the Portland Trailblazers. Like that was my team growing up. So I was able to give my show a dual meaning, you know, which is, which is awesome. And I play basketball two or three times a week. It's what I love to do.

So I would love for you to share what are maybe the top two lessons that you learn, being around high performers, like the Hurley family, you know, and in basketball. basketball that really have helped a tribute to your business success. Yeah, it's a great question. And may your mom rest in peace. And thank you for that access. Appreciate it, buddy. You know, when I look back at the Hurley's, more importantly, St. Anthony's,

which is where their dad coached in the environment that he brought them into, there's a book called The Talent Code. And they missed the target by not interviewing Bob Burley Sr. because if you look at that environment in the 80s, it started in the 70s, but by the time it got to the 80s, it was a national powerhouse. They never had their own gym for the first 20 years.

It was basically out of the bingo hole, but what was interesting was the distinction in the fundamentals, number one, number two, the high level of talent that was constantly playing against each other, therefore lifted each other up. But even like the workouts, like if you could have somebody, and I'm sure Damien Lillard is,

and every pro that you know is a great example of this, but you can have somebody shoot 500 jumpers a day standing still versus 500 jumpers a day simulating in game speed, and the person that does it simulating game speed is going to be so much better. Oh, 100%. And then you have the stacking and the momentum. And so the biggest lesson I learned is talent hotbeds.

They don't just show up out of anywhere. There's a lot of science and mastery of patterns that allow that to happen. And I think what Epic's creating right now is its own form of a talent hop-ed because if you look in my business, which is really sitting down and financially educating folks,

it really comes down to how many folks you get to talk to. Now, I know a lot of licensed agents and Series 65 fiduciaries that are really smart up top, but they never get to speak to clients. So therefore, they're as good as just a warmer player. or, you know, they're good in practice or, you know, they're good in the locker room.

But until you can speak to clients on a daily basis, which requires high-level marketing, right? If you could speak to clients on a daily basis, every day, you're going to get better and better and better. It's no different than the AAU circuit where they just get to play a lot of games. You could have the player that plays a lot of games and is naturally gifted. And then the player that it plays a lot of games, but also practices game speed, 500, jumpers a day that creates that talent pool. Same thing in my business, we're in the process of creating a talent pool.

You know, we are the only that I know of financial planning strategic company that's bringing people in with licenses and giving them 30 appointments a month. I don't think anybody else is doing that right now. Wow. And those folks, you could be average, but because you're getting 30 appointments a month versus somebody that's getting 10,

you're just naturally gonna be better because. You're getting the reps, right? You're getting the reps, right? It's all about the. reps brother like if you are not taking action how do you expect momentum to be created you know and there's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines watching that should be in the game yep you're right so man that that's definitely great so my red bank question man so i was in red bank i went to dinner at this amazing restaurant called char yes you know where we're at bank by what i was it so so i

so actually you know the cat's out of the bag now i just gave my two week notice two today to leave my company of 15 years to pursue full-time entrepreneurship. Congratulations. Yeah, man. Listen, I'm pumped. I'm excited. And really what did it for me, brother, was a lot of what you just said, 18 months ago, I started showing up on LinkedIn. I started pushing out content.

I started teaching sales, marketing, and leadership. 18 months later, I've got 60,000 followers. My podcast, I'd interviewed 80 guests last year. I was a guest on 30 shows. And I generated, you know, six new clients during the pandemic. And that proved to me that I could also blaze my own trail. Absolutely. You know, and so now I'm starting the year off with a fully booked calendar.

You know, people are just reaching out out of the woodworks because I've told them, I told them what I was going to do and I did it, you know. And so I really wanted to share that with somebody. I'm glad it's you today because I want, hopefully that inspires other people to go after their dreams because my passion met my purpose in 2020. And I don't know about you, man, but when you find that one thing, if you don't go after it, what is life about? Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? I do. I do. That's awesome. Congratulations on that. I'm excited for you. I appreciate it, bro. I appreciate it.

So, yeah, Red Bank. So I did do training. The last 15 years, I've been in property management. We owned a property in Aberdeen Township. And I happened to stay in Red Bank. I stayed over at the Hilton, right over in Red Bank. And I was like, where do you go to eat? They're like, oh, we'll just go into the town.

And then I come across Jay and Silent Bob's secret staff, the comic book store. And I happened to go in there on a day they were filming for comic book men. And so I got to see some of the guys that were in the show. I had to sign a waiver. But that was like a cool experience. But then I found char and I ate at char. So, I mean, you know, small world, right? But really good food.

If anyone's in New Jersey, make sure you check out Char. They didn't pay me for that. But if you want a nice steak, you know, check them out. Yes, awesome. Yes. That's cool, man. So let's talk a little bit more about the journey. So you're into sports in high school.

You're really trying to find yourself. You're trying to fit in. You've got some really good examples around you. So what was that next step after school? Did you decide to go to college? Did you do something different? I would love to give that context. Yeah, so I went to college just to play basketball, which I did for three years.

I never graduated college. It was definitely a fun yet unresponsible. I was irresponsible, I should say, during that time. Came back home and I really had no prospects of doing anything. You know, maybe lands, not that landscapers are bad, but landscaper maybe try and become a police or fireman. Although I was living a risky lifestyle, you know, I just got to that point where enough was enough. and I did hit rock bottom. I was able to enter the 12-step program, and I needed a job.

And I had no real explosive growth opportunities except if I was to go work on Wall Street. A friend of mine got me a job where, you know, for the first year I was going to be doing cold-calling and studying for my Series 7. And that's when I got sober during that time. What's interesting is I got sober as I entered Wall Street, which is kind of like an oxymor. But I really did. And, you know, every day for six, seven years, I made three, four, two hundred dials a day. I learned every possible no under the sun.

And once again, it's about pattern recognition. Once you begin to understand, you know, the personality type of the person you're speaking to, because there's only six of them. And it's really how they take their values and how they put them in whatever order that person's going to live in because each person is uniquely different. Yet there's still six different paths. and then the combination of the values, we really learned in the one thing I was doing,

which was opening new accounts over the phone, how to do it in a mathematical way. And as a result, I think we opened like, I think I opened over 3,000 accounts for six years. And then the team I trained, because I was training people, collectively they opened about 3,000 accounts over six years. So I knew that,

and that first wave achieved a certain level of financial success, But the thing that I learned was I can't control what stocks do and I can't control the emotional side of how people react to what stocks do. Right. So that was like, all right, how do I increase my base camp? Began to ask myself empowering questions. Yeah. And then I began to actually learn the business. And it was a slow learn over 17 years, 20 years.

But I began to learn the business that I'm in. And it just kind of led me from next step to next step to next step. I love it, man. And so when did that pivotal moment happen? where you knew that you could do this on your own. Like you could step into entrepreneurship. You know, I didn't realize, you know, between 2003 and 2015, I was actually an entrepreneur. I had no idea.

I had a lot of massive momentum back in 2000 to 2010, but I missed the whole boat on social media. Didn't see what that was. Didn't see like, you know, the YouTube's and the Facebooks, which is really what it was at that particular point, right? Didn't understand the value of that and didn't understand the value of that. and I confused myself as a marketing. I was really good of marketing and I was good at building systems, but I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur. And then I think I read Tony Robbins as both Money Masters of the Game.

I want to say in 2015 and 16, and that was like a massive shift for us. And I really replaced my old way of doing business with a brand new way. And that was to build out a fiduciary arm. I am not a fiduciary, but to build out a fiduciary arm while at the same time create ecosystem mergers. And I learned that through my partner

and one of my best friends, Sean Callagy, the founder of Unblinded. I need to talk to you about that here in a second because I attended one of their events recently. Yeah. And I'm his poster child. You know, we went from 8 to 300 new meetings a month and we just had 600 in December.

We're going to have another 6 or 7, or even 800 maybe in January, based on that formula. right? So I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur. I saw what Tony was doing on stage because I, you know, I bought a Tony Robbins ticket. I eventually became a platinum partner of Tony. And I noticed that on stage, he had creative planning. And then when you begin to look at who creative planning is, you would see. And Tony said it, but he was on the board of directors, right? So you realize that, hey, he's getting paid for this. And by the way, that's great. You know what I mean? He's no longer on the board, but there was at that particular time. And he was offering great information for the investing public that was not getting this information. So it was awesome. With that being said, it was really, really, how do I mimic that? So I go to Tony's event. It was phenomenal. About a month after that, I accidentally meet Sean Callagy, who had not stepped back into the Tony world at that point. And I saw him speak in front of a bunch of doctors

because he was a phenomenal, his law firm is the number one law firm in New Jersey of recovering revenues for physicians, right? And he happened to have two top 100 jury verdicts for 30, for 27 and 33 million for his underdog clients in 2014 through 16. And that's what I first heard when I met him. But the words he was using, the language was all, it just sounded like Tony, it felt like Tony. And right away, and this is important for you, brother, he was a shining example of real life of what Tony was talking about a month before on stage. And you know where it took me to? 1980s when I was around the Hurley's.

And I knew that this was what I saw back in the 80s. And I was not confused. And this is before I'm blind that was even thought of. Yeah. And I said, hey, can we become partners? You be Tony Robbins and Epic will be creative planning, which is the company that Tony talks about in Money Masters of the game. And he goes, not yet, but we developed a friendship.

And he began to coach me. the different version of what you see and I'm blinded but the same components, right? It was more one-on-one. Very aggressive guerrilla coaching that I needed, but it was hard for me to follow the formula at that particular point because I was just like going through massive shifts

and massive changes and it was still a lot of fogginess. About a year into that, he introduces me to a gentleman, Chris Crone. Chris Crone is a top 20 worldwide influencer on YouTube as over 600,000 subscribers, is very big in the space of real estate and peak performance coaching. And Chris and I spoke the same language

when it came to life insurance strategies and had a compliment that with real estate. So what took me seven months to get even my, you know, momentum meeting with Sean. And then a year to where Sean introduced me to Chris. It took me and Chris two or three meetings. And that was based on Sean edifying me to Chris. And next thing, I know the three of us are in a partnership.

I was at eight meetings a month, went to 25, went to 75, then went to 300, brought on 10 new advisors. This year I'd like to bring on if the meetings go up, maybe another 20 advisors and just keep scaling it out like that. I love that, man. And it's crazy because like literally everything that you said has actually happened to me in 2020 through building relationships that were value based. Yeah. Right. Like I literally, I had a good friend now, Sam, he's an NFL agent. I had him on my podcast. And him and I built a relationship. And so he started sending me his clients that are athletes to come. And now I've got some of them as clients, right? And so those things happened. But like it took eight months for him to make another introduction to a CEO of a sports rehab place. And then he made an introduction to his buddy. So it's like this, this just word of mouth. Right. that happens, but when you set your intentions based on how can I truly add value to this person? Yeah.

You know, and man, like, it's just done wonders for me. And I see what it's done for you. And the audience that's listening to this, if there's anything you take away, if you position your business where it's relationships first over transactions, because the transactions are going to happen naturally if you've built the relationship right. Yeah. And, you know, that's a great point. And you have to somehow become so resourceful that you're able to survive your monthly obligations and not force into transactions and stay the course.

And that requires doubling down on work ethic. 100%. And it's really about not, hey, when this happens, this is going to be great. It's make it great today. Make it great now. what are you going to do today to change the trajectory? How am I going to improve today, build revenues and income on a daily basis that stack and build upon each other while being integritous and making sure that everybody wins? Absolutely.

Absolutely. So you mentioned social media and how, you know, you wish you would have kind of taken action sooner on it. And I don't know how many of the audience, you know, knows about kind of the financial world. But there are a lot of regulations. There's a lot of compliance. a lot of things that you can't do, right? And so, you know, some of my clients that they're in that space, they've said, I want to work with you, but I don't know if I can because you're on social media,

but I can't say some of the things that maybe you can say. And so what I had to do is I had to get very strategic and teach them a way that they can add value through education so that they met those compliance areas, right? Because, again, the last thing I want to do is tell somebody something. then they go get in trouble by the SEC or have somebody come after them. So I just say, listen, if you can educate, right, you can educate people all day long, but there's certain things that you can't say. And so you got to get creative and you got to think outside the box and figure out what that looks like for you.

Yeah. To your point, that's that's 100%. Jordan, unfortunately the fiduciary, and I know this, and this is why I dropped my Series 7, because I build a team around us here at Epic. And we have three fiduciaries, an in-house compliance, two different law firms, one an SEC attorney, and then Calgary law firm. And that's all on the wealth management side, which, by the way, for anyone listening, I do not give investment advice.

I don't dissect portfolios. There's a team down the hall that does that. And on social media, we do not at all promote endor, try and drive traffic in that space. However, if you have an independent mindset and you want to be able to create potential business opportunities, the insurance space is wide open. There's still rules.

You have to follow every single rule, have all the proper disclaimers. But hey, listen, go watch a Chris Crone video where he talks with Rob Gill. And there's a nice little strategy for you folks out there if you could connect with influencers that have right intentions and good relationships with their community, it's a way to organically create opportunities. And to your point, yeah, listen, the financial fiduciary that is non-independent and is subjected to

all of the discrimination when it comes to the compliance side of it, you have to hire your own compliance officer, you have to have a lawyer that's going to back it up and sign off on it, But if you want to get creative and understand that, hey, we're not in the business of offering advice on the internet on social media, but we are in the business of creating relationships for potential clients for financial education. And we're in the process of doing epic academy as we speak to your point as a whole other educational arm. So Rob, so you were mentioning something about an academy. What's the name of that academy that you guys are building? And, you know, what work has been done so far? And what's the game plan behind this?

So we are, we did video shoots in December for, you know, part of our link tree. Another thing that we're going to work on is Epic Academy, which is strictly education. And it's really to, you know, if someone was to go through the program, really go from 20,000 to about a thousand foot view on how to and what to look out for and approach on how to really kind of figure out. what you want to do game plan wise and strategize with your money. We're not giving recommendations in this educational course. It's strictly like, hey, you want to look at this and this is why you want to look at that

and that is why and really start to formulate some kind of game plan. So if you put the time into that, you know, I think it's going to be anywhere between 10 and 20 hours initially. And then we're building out another one. We're flying out to Utah to build out another one that's going to be really kind of, you know, blasted on all the different social channels. But at the end of the day, it's really about how you could get your mind in the right state, kind of get rid of the chaos and confusion, really focus not on a to-do list, but more of an outcome list. You know, what do you want to achieve? What is your purpose? Why do you want to achieve it? Why do you want money? What are you going to do with the money? You know, stuff like that.

I love it. I love it. So really educational empowerment, you know, motivating, you know, that type of content is always good. One of the things I like that. And Jordan, if you don't mind to that point, like, you know as an athlete, a basketball fan that if the other team is going to full court press you, right? Meaning if the economy at a nowhere gets a hundred year virus or the capital gets stormed and is uncertainty in the market. Or because of the 100 year pandemic, we're printing $3 trillion. And we don't know what that's going to affect our credit card, our national credit card, 26 trillion dollar balance and what that looks like on the value of our assets. When you get educated, you're prepared for that press.

You're prepared for when economic winter comes. You're on your toes. You're thinking a step ahead. You can anticipate where the press is coming from and where to go with the ball. Or in this scenario, where to go with your money. So, you know, that's how we look at that. I think like anything else, preparation is the key. and because everybody is living lives that they're busier than ever

but they're living longer and you have great shows like your podcast where you know they want to just maybe listen to it while they're in the kitchen or listen to it while they're driving or listen to it while their son or daughters at practice and are in the car waiting right all these little things these net extra time things you can do to elevate your game and your knowledge are so important and it helps move the ball forward no no those those are really great points and I love as you know I love the basketball analogies right I mean I'm trying I'm trying to hoop you know now that I'm a full-time entrepreneur I'm going every day

brother I'm going to be hooping every day and and working on my craft but but but that's exactly what it is you have to practice right you've got to put in these reps every day yes because if you're not actually putting in the reps you're not going to get better you're not going to elevate your game you're not going to get to where you want to be yeah yeah and you know interesting. You just made a great point. There's a book. I don't know the author, but the book is called The Talent Code. You familiar with it? I've heard about it. I haven't read it, but I've heard about it.

Okay. I just dove into it. And what's interesting about the talent code, and as you know, I spoke about this about my relationship with the Hurleys from St. Anthony's, which, by the way, if you look at St. Anthony's, they had like 150 students, Catholic school, and inner city, Jersey City, and they wound up winning 30 state championships or 29, five national championships, six division, six NBA first round draft picks, 142 division one scholarships. And I say that because they were considered,

not in this book, but in general terms, a talent hotbed. And the misconception of a talent hotbed means that, oh yeah, the talent just showed up over there. And that's just not the case. It's to your point. Practice drill and rehearse, rinse, and repeat. Practice drill and rehearse, rinse, and repeat.

All day long, every day, on Sunday. However, you want to practice, drill and rehearse, rinse and repeat as the elevation of the competition and you're stacking on the basketball knowledge and skill set in that scenario increases every day. And for us at Epic, you know, we're kind of creating that hotbed for financial advisors, planners, insurance agents because you just said it about reps. Because we had 600 new opportunities that came in December, where we had 300 October, November and like 200, 300, 300, 50 like leading through COVID. We think that we're going to have 2,000, 1,500 to 2,000 this month starting next week. Every single one of my agents, which we've gone from 6 to 17 in the last 90

days, is going to get on average 60, 70 reps. And because of that, even if they're below average in performance, their numbers are going to be through the roof because they're getting to speak to somebody on the other side of the table that's conditioned and that wants to hear the good message of what Epic is bringing. Right? 100%. And if you think about that, it could be confused as a hotbed, but no, what we've created through our ecosystem mergers to warn blinded with Sean Callagy and Chris Crone is a marketing

strategy that it's being pioneered as we speak on YouTube. Doesn't exist, right? So for all the entrepreneurs out there that listen in and Jordan is, this is one of my best podcast that I've ever been interviewed on, just so you know, I love this. I appreciate that. It's about practice drill and rehearse. It's about reps. It's about knowledge. It's about experience. Experience comes to practice, go and rehearse, right?

Because how many, Jordan, how many advisors do you know that know all products and are real smart, but they don't have any clients they can tell it to? Plenty. Like 95% because the industry doesn't teach folks how to get in front of other people. It just doesn't, it does, it's a flawed system, right? That's why it's important to really surround yourself with people that are accomplishing what you want to accomplish and be a part of something bigger than yourself. And if you do that, you will win.

And no matter what area of life you're trying to do it and you will, you will improve drastically and you will raise the standard and break through your own ceiling of complexity. I'm sorry. I just, I want to go out there. No, no, listen, that was that folks, if you didn't write that down, rewind, write it down. I mean, that was some, some fire truth right there, right? It's, and so important. So I have a question about the content, right?

So you're going to put all this content out. You're going to create modules. And listen, that's what I've been doing the last eight years in training and development is building modules. But a part of content creation is content retention. Right. So what is your plan, right, at Epic? And we might be able to brainstorm this, you know, together here. What's your plan on making sure that people are actually retaining the info that they're that they're consuming?

Because if they don't retain it, they're not going to take action on. it right so do you have a system in place for that or is that in the work still I just really want to get your take on that because it's I know for me as a not only just you know a guy that's created it but one that's facilitated and delivered and survey from end to end it's so important that that retention is there dude that's awesome so if you go to our YouTube channel which is Rob Gill dash epic financial strategies every day we're pushing out free educational content every day I I think we've done over 240 videos.

I know we've filmed at least 240. I think there's over 200 that have been released. So if you really want to get educated, there's a lot of great information there. Now, to your point, we're taking that information and putting it into an academy and educational course. If somebody is to take the educational course and they want to take the next step with us, they're going to have that ability. But somebody may just want the education and never talk to us again.

So we're putting all that stuff together as we speak. We're building all those platforms out of what it looks like as they go through the course. And if they want more, what those situations will. And one of them is we're going to help folks build their own personal financial website where they can have all of their financial data on one landing page. So it's connected to all their different financial institutions that you could have your mortgage information, your credit card information. You could budget on there. you could stress test any potential investment decisions and measure, monitor against your current assets.

And every day it's going to be updated automatically because it's going to be tied to your financial institutions. So from a data gather, financial data gathering standpoint, we're going to create high level organization as well, which also clears up the chaos and confusion and allows you to really make better clear decisions on your money from a standpoint of science and math, not emotional to admit the your gut level hunch. Awesome, awesome. Appreciate you sharing that context. And everybody definitely makes sure to check out that YouTube channel, you know, content, especially free content.

Like, I've taken advantage of that the last couple of years. And what I've done is I've taken content that I've enjoyed. I apply it to my business. I see if it works, right? If it does, then boom, I just got something that a lot of people invests a lot of money to get, you know? And so if you think about it, and this is really for the audience listening,

If you think about everything that you consume, you have a choice. You can either just let it go in one ear and out the other, or you can actually take it, start putting in those reps. Because within the last 18 months, I was able to go from 7K to 60K on LinkedIn. Well, that didn't happen from sitting on the dang sidelines. You know what I'm saying? It didn't happen from that. I would love to know how you did that.

I would tell you, it was consistency. It was showing up with intention, adding value, building relationships. relationships, like those, that's the secret ingredients. And that's, that's not easy. It's not easy to do that, right? Because we all wake up sometimes and are not in the best mood. We all have, you know, a kid that got sick, right? We all have those things, but you just have to make, you know, what's important happen.

Yes. You know, and the more that we can think about that and the more that we can, you know, put that into context for anything in our life, man, is that a big unlock? Oh yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. No, my pleasure. And I know you mentioned something about Linktree. And I would love that we can talk about this offline.

But that's one of the things that I've really, really talked to a lot of my clients about lately is the importance of having, you know, a one-stop shop for people to find you. But also one thing that's underutilized, and I don't know if you guys and your team has looked into this, but Link Tree Pro, the features that are in there. And, you know, one thing I've done is I've done a good job at testing the analytics. and all of that data. But there are some amazing things you can do, like putting your own logos in there, you know, having it automatically and natively tie to YouTube so people can watch

YouTube videos directly from your link, right? So there's some really, really cool features. Have you guys dove into any of those yet? You know what? I'm going to ask my social media. I have no idea. I mean, if you go to Instagram, you'd probably be able to tell a lot faster than me. I know I have something up there.

I'm sure my logo. I don't know. I would have to find that out. Yeah, we'll chat about it though because that's something, man, that's super powerful. And so like click through rate is key, right? You want people to not just click, but click through to the point. I think mine's at like 38%, which is really, really good. A lot of people have, you know, a 10% click through rate or 2%.

And so I've just done a good job at marketing it because, again, it's about putting your message out to the masses. So if you're not showing up, and this is a good lesson for, I have a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people that are just starting out for creating content. If you're not trying to show up and putting yourself out there, not just on one place, but on multiple places, you're leaving opportunities on the table. Right. And so you have to think about what's the opportunity cost of me not showing up versus, you know what I'm saying?

Because you already know the impact of what happens when you show up. What's the impact of you not showing? Especially you, brother, you've got so much fire and energy. If you're not showing up often, you're actually creating a disservice to the world. Because you're not bringing that light out there. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Thank you for that.

Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about what else is next. I mean, the content thing is amazing. And as we know, you know, digital courses is a trillion dollar industry. I mean, there's so much impact and dollars to be made from a business standpoint. So are there any other things, you know, thinking about how our world is expanding? I mean, there's a new app called Clubhouse that I've been on for about nine days that's drop in audio. So think about that.

Literally, people are dropping in. I was in a room with Damon John, Grant Cardone, Ty Lopez, and Ty Reese was in I was in a room with. And so now it's creating this space where people from all over the world have a space to share and learn and network and grow. And not really, it's not about sales pitches. It's about, you know, how can we really impede our wisdom and knowledge to each other? And then each of us take that and go make the world a better place. So I don't know if you've heard of Clubhouse. No, I love you.

Okay. Let me get your thoughts on that concept. And then, you know, as the world shifts to voice, right? You know, now we can wake up and go, hey, Google, what's on my schedule, right? And I think in the next five years, that's what the world's going to be like. It's going to be like, hey, Google, what's on the schedule for the day? Okay, cool. Hey, go start my car.

I'm going to go jump in my car. You know what I'm saying? And so I see voice really becoming powerful in the next five years. So first off, what do you think about the clubhouse thing? And is that the first time you've heard of it? And also, what are your thoughts on the power of our voices? Well, the clubhouse thing is brilliant. I'm actually involved with the company called Proximity.

It's brand new, but proximity is, you know, the premise of proximity is, which ties into what you just said, but a little bit different. The premise of proximity is, let's say, Jordan, you have an audience of 60,000, right? I'm just going to use that as an example. And let's say, 60 people want to talk to you one-on-one, right? But you're a busy guy. What proximity does is it creates a market. Your audience can meet you privately one-on-one for like 30 minutes, 15 minutes,

one hour. You could have group sessions, but they would have to pay to enter and to have those conversations. So if you think of it, which you would be considered a pro. So think of a person that has 15 million subscribers on YouTube. his subscribers love him, right? They can't get in touch with him directly, but they can through proximity.

Think if somebody wanted Tony Robbins to coach them for 30 minutes, and they were wealthy, and they were willing to pay a million dollars for 30 minutes. That's what proximity is. And when you talk about Clubhouse, which I can't wait to figure that out and then look into that,

it reminded me of that. So I'm very interested in seeing about Clubhouse number one. Number two, yeah, I mean, listen, waking up and telling my car to get ready, making sure the showers at the, right temperature and then finding out who's in my schedule is tremendous. Love it. And I want more of that. And then for Epic, you know, Epic today, it's great. At three o'clock, we have a call with a person, really cool person that's phenomenal at mergers and acquisitions, but also scaling businesses. And this

person wants to talk to me today about franchising epic. No one's ever said that to me before. Like, that's really cool. Like, I don't even know what's going to happen with the meeting, but the thought of franchising, something that we created is a kind of cool thing. Yeah, because, I mean, that just shows you the value, right? That shows you that someone else believes in the same value that you believe to build it. And now they want that to go to the masses. So, yeah, man, what an honor and I hope that meeting goes well. I think, well, if you're there, you're going to crush it.

We already know that part. I'm not even sure if I want a franchise between you and I. I don't even know if I want to do that or not. You know what I mean? Like, that's like a buzzer. my pay grade right here's what I look. I love the fact that we've gone from six to 17 advisors. I love the fact that we could probably go to 30. This is all organic. I had this whole week with my team, we've had what we call the epic boot camp because I wanted to prep everybody for

what was about to happen next week as we have these opportunities that are coming in. And it's been like two hours a day every day for the last four days. Today is going to be the last day. And at one point I looked on the screen and I said, wow, what's interesting is I didn't recruit one person. They all reached out to me. So if you think of a business, right? And businesses in our industry, all they do is recruit. That's what they do. And you'll have advisors and agents go from one financial company to another company every five, six, seven, eight years, right? So when you recruit, it's still the law of large numbers. You probably have to talk to 100 people and get to the three or four that you want, or maybe the nine or 10.

What I realized yesterday is we didn't do any recruiting. We didn't spend any money on recruiting. And by the way, the people that came to me were people that were watching us on social media. 100%. And wanted to be part of something. That is dynamite. Like that to me, I don't know how to put that into like a formula, but there's something special there. Well, it's attention. And that's, I don't care what business you are on the planet, whether you're a lemonade stand or you're, you know, you have a jet company.

You need attention. We all do. Without attention, you don't have a business. Without attention, you don't have traffic. Right? So what you did a great job is creating that omnipresence that, you know, Grant Cardone talks about all the time. You want to be everywhere and have people see you so that you're top of mind. So that's exactly you did recruiting, but you did it without recruiting, right?

You did it through consistently showing up, sharing your message, teaching and training, adding value. That's the recipe right there. That's the formula. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think what we offer is the ability for people to come in and meet folks that are peak. you know, peak interest and really want to hear your message. And a lot of the other folks out there, the people that are in my space really want you to bring in your mom, your dad and all their family and friends. But I think that trajectory shift was important as well.

Well, because here's the thing, brother. If they have found you through your content, that means that the no like and trust factor is already there. Yeah. Period. And who knows how long. They could have been watching for a year and never liked, never made a single comment. But all of a sudden now they want to work with you. Yes.

Because you showed up, you showed that consistency. You know, I tell people all the time, they're like, man, how did you land this client? How are you getting these DMs from these people? And I've said, because I've been saying the same thing for the last two years. And people are just starting to listen. They're just starting to listen to what I'm saying and saying, wow, if I did that in my business, that might actually work, right? But guess where I got that in from someone else that did it in their business and I put

it into mine? You know, and so, you know, it seems hard, but we make it, I think, harder on ourselves sometimes. Because success leaves clues. Yes, it does. In this interview, I've learned so much from you that I can now take and apply to my life, not just business, but my personal life. The way that you are with your kids, the way that you talked about them, like,

those are things that I value. So I'm going to inject that in somewhere in my life, right? And so the more and more that you can put your message or even consume things that that add to your life, the better. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And by the way, I've learned a lot too. Appreciate that.

Yeah, awesome. And I appreciate that. I appreciate being on here. Yeah, yeah. So I would love for you to just share, you know, where's the one place? If you had to pick a place that you wanted my audience to go to find out all of the amazing things that you're up to. Yeah, that's great. Come check us out on Epic Financial Strategies.com.

Epic Financial Strategies.com. And from there, you could, you know, you can check out, you know, one of our educational videos. you could book appointments. If you put in this special request that you came from this channel, we'll provide a free look. You know, no obligation at all. If you want one of the advisors to sit down and answer any questions, you know, we can do that for you.

As long as you just put in there where it came from, we'd love to be able to serve and contribute and educate. Epic Financial Strategies.com. Awesome, man, awesome. And listen, I have one last ask from you. And, you know, this is something that it's really been kind of weighing on me lately because it's based off of a TED Talk, a guy named Drew Dudley, go look it up, Rob. You're going to love it. It's all about lollipop moments. And what lollipop moments are is it's actually, you know, there's so many people that have impacted us in our life, you know, friends, family, mentors, leaders. And we can probably write down a list of 50 people. But out of that list, most of those people we never live. let them know that. So I'm going to give you the opportunity on this podcast to give a shout out to somebody that's impacted you, but you've never had the opportunity to tell them. So is there

anyone that you can think of just love to give a shout out to? I'm sure there is, but I really think that anyone that's impacted me, I've always given shoutouts to. I really do. I love that. I love that. I really, like I don't, I'm the guy that if I learn something from somebody else, I give them credit. I don't take credit for it. My first teacher on, on Wall Street. before I got licensed, but I was learning the telephone game, Jay Billstein. Phenomenal, the greatest inspiration, the greatest coach, the greatest person you could have enter your life as you're entering any kind of sales. For me, at that time, in the mid to late 90s, and it was Jay Bill Steen.

He made it so much easier for me 20 years later, after I went to Tony Robbins. and when I met Sean Callagy, who's the owner and founder of Unblinded. And there was a lot of different parallels there. And it's amazing how 20 years makes the difference. And by the way, like I shared before, growing up in the environment, you know, on the peripheral of the, you know, the Hurley royalty in basketball was something just wildly impressive to witness at a young age. I love that.

I love that. Well, they, you know, listen to this episode. If they were fine, I know they're going to appreciate that. So thank you for sharing. And folks, I'm going to make sure that. it. All of his info will be down in the show notes, so where you can connect on social, the website, all of that. Hey, brother, you are a true trailblazer in all senses of the word, and I appreciate you coming and adding value on the show. Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate it as well, brother.