Business Innovators Radio - Unleashing the Rhino Mindset: A Journey of Entrepreneurship and Resilience with Steve Sipress

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

In this captivating episode of Business Innovators Radio, host Marco Salinas sits down with renowned marketing expert and successful serial entrepreneur, Steve Sipress. With over 35 years of experience, Steve has built numerous successful companies while guiding and assisting ambitious business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, and sales professionals from various industries around the world.Marco dives deep into Steve’s journey and mindset, shedding light on the story behind the rhinoceros symbol that has become synonymous with Steve’s brand. Inspired by the book “Rhinoceros Success” by Scott Alexander, Steve explains how he adopted the rhino mindset—a mentality of tenacity, resilience, and unwavering determination that sets entrepreneurs apart from the herd of “cows.”The episode delves into the power of magnetic marketing, a concept that Steve passionately teaches and implements in his own businesses. He shares how building a distinct personality and character for oneself is crucial in standing out in today’s competitive landscape, even for seemingly commodity-based businesses.Steve’s transparency shines as he candidly shares his own setbacks and failures, including the collapse of his fantasy sports game company and periods of homelessness. From these experiences, he has gained a unique ability to spot warning signs and guide entrepreneurs through challenging times, providing invaluable insights and strategies for success.Throughout the conversation, listeners are encouraged to embrace the rollercoaster journey of entrepreneurship, as Steve emphasizes the thrill and excitement of living life to the fullest. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes evident that Steve’s passion for teaching and helping others stems from his heart, making him an invaluable resource and mentor to countless business owners.If you’re seeking inspiration, practical advice, and the motivation to unleash your inner rhino, this episode is a must-listen. Join Marco Salinas as he explores the captivating world of entrepreneurship with the dynamic and unapologetic Steve Sipress.Listen now to gain insights from a true industry expert and embark on your own journey toward success.To learn more about Steve visit his website:https://www.TheWOWStrategy.comSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/unleashing-the-rhino-mindset-a-journey-of-entrepreneurship-and-resilience-with-steve-cypress

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. And welcome back to another episode of Business Innovators Radio. I am your host, Marco Salinas, and I have with me today a very special guest, a old marketing friend of mine, old marketing buddy, Mr. Steve, Cyprus. Steve, welcome to the program. Great to be here, Marco. Very, very, very happy to have you on after some annoying technical problems, but we got it going. We got it up and running. And a little bit about Steve.

Steve has a very impressive bio. Steve is recognized as one of the most requested in-demand small business sales and marketing consultants in the world. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has created and built over a dozen successful companies of his own, while helping thousands of other ambitious and aggressive business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, and sales professionals all around the world do the same over the past 35 plus years? That's not a typo, right, Steve? Sorry to say, I lost my hair a long time ago. After I first started.

He's assembled a team of the world's top business building experts as the publisher of Rhino-Muslim magazine, the Rhino Daily blog, and the Rhino Daily podcast. And he has written numerous newsletters and articles on sales and marketing for a wide range of publications. He's appeared on radio, TV, and in international media. And get this, the best selling author of over 20 books. Steve is the behind the scenes go-to marketing advisor for many top business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, experts, and thought leaders in all 50 states, 26 countries worldwide, over 165 different industries. Very impressive resume, my friend. You've been busy the last 35 plus years. Busy is good. Productive is even better. Sometimes I've been ones. Hopefully I've been both.

Question number one for you that I've been myself wondering this for a long time. what's the rhino about what's the story behind the rhino why did you go with that why is that your focus ah i should have one right here by my desk but uh it comes from a book called rhinoceros success by scott alexander so i see some of your impressive book collection in the background you ought to check that one out it's a short book big type easy to read lots of full page photos and it's all about uh Scott uh it defines entrepreneurs as rhinos and nine to five workers as the cow. And so with all the analogies you can make the rhinos live in the jungle, we got to have two-inch thick skin, we got to be charging towards our goals no matter what happens, we got to hunt every day for food or we die.

Whereas the cows, well, they're kept on the farm by a boss named the farmer who tells him, when to eat, when to go to sleep, what stall they have to sit in cubicle. whole life. Someone cleans up their crap for them, feeds them, waters, does everything for them. The rhino, nobody does nothing for us. We're on our own. We're in the jungle. We could get

destroyed, attacked any day. We've got to always be up for it. And he goes on from there, but that's the basic idea of being a rhino in life. So goal is to be a rhino and not a cow. Exactly. That's the short of it.

Then off there out of bed, brush your Horn and go attack the day. Paraphrasing Scott Alexander. Very good stuff. You know, we had a few conversations. This was several years ago. I remember you specifically telling me that that growing up, you were observant very much of your mother who was a long-time educator.

Am I right? Yeah, I just saw in the back of it. You can kind of see the book. So there's a trilogy. That's the end of start with number one. Right. Ospre's success by Scott Alexander. Got it.

And that's a three-part series. What's that? I said that's a three-part series. Yeah, but just stick with the first one. 100 or two pages. You got big fun photos and take up two pages like that. So it's easy to read. Big time.

That's my kind of book. Who can't read through other pages of this stuff? So basically read it in an hour and you can't put it down. and it gets you all excited being an entrepreneur. Look at that cover photo. There it is right there. Yeah, we're driving by in our Rose Royce path to cow pasture, shaking our head and wondering why the heck are they just standing in the cow pasture?

Right. They're in their whole life and want to be taken care of. And they complain about, you know, gee, I need a raise and inflation is tough and life is tough and whatever. And like, come on now. Get out of that. Correct. Correct. That book, Steve, is very reminiscent of one of my.

favorites by Robert Ringer, winning through intimidation. Yeah. You've got the turtle and you've got the ears. Those authors are fans of each other. I have a feeling, yeah, because I see some, I can see some overlap there. But one of the things that I wanted to know about you specifically was when did all this entrepreneurial stuff come together for you? I know you've told me that you love educating people.

You love being the guy that coaches and guides and helps people to learn. but when did that really take place? Because I know for a fact that you went to school to be a lawyer. Is that correct? I went to law school. It is not a vocational school, however. Got it. We did like three or four years of graduating law school.

I think half of law school graduates are not lawyers. But I did go to law school. My law degree is up there. I can barely see the tip of the degree on the wall with the yellow. Oh, God. So, yeah. So my, to answer both of your questions here, my mom was a schoolteacher and my dad was a salesman, which basically is extremely entrepreneurial for anyone who's had a commission sales job. And after making a lot of money and getting a lot of crap from the company he sold for, because you know how if you've ever sold for a company, the owners and the management get all jealous that you're making more money than they are and they don't listen to anything to say, even though. you're in the trenches. My dad went through all that. And so he started buying companies and being an entrepreneur. So I am the perfect mix of the school teacher and the salesman's marketing advertising guy entrepreneur. And so my mom brought us up and had a saying. She said, you have an obligation

anytime you learn something to teach it to somebody else. And that started as being the oldest in the family and went on. So what happened is in my final year in law school, thankfully, since I didn't want to be a lawyer, I turned my business, my hobby, into a business. And that thing took off like crazy. And so I never had to even think about working for anybody else or, God forbid, being a lawyer, nothing personal. I have a lawyer clients, but not for me, thank you. And within three years, I did have an offer at a valuation of, I forget, 4.7 or 5.2

million or something. That thing was a big success. and I started just because of who I am. Like I said, my mom marketed into us of my obligation. People would ask me, how'd you do that? And how'd you do this? How'd you build a such successful? I mean, today, $4, $5 million valuation, not a big deal, but this was 1985.

A much bigger deal back then. And so I just started helping people out. Well, you do this. Let me see your ad. You can do this, do this better. Do this with your sales strategy. Do this with your marketing. Do this with that.

and after a few years of that, I had someone come to me and said, do you know there are people that get paid for them? And I was like, when do you meet? She said, yeah, they're called business consultants. And they actually do the same thing you do, and they get paid for it. And I was like, who knew? So I did not give up any of my companies. Today I own all or part of, I think, 16 or 18 companies,

always starting or partnering up with a new one and lopping one off that's not working well or selling it or just getting out of it. But I think it's a dozen and a half or so. However, I love, and I believe in the saying you probably heard of the teacher, always learns more than the students. So, sure, it sounds all altruistic. I love the tea, whatever you said, I love to teach and help and guide others. But that's really selfish.

I learn more every time I talk to my clients, every time I even talk to a prospect, and even every time I'm on an interview like this, at just saying the things over and again, light bulbs go off and I get re-motivated and re-invigorated. Maybe I remember something I forgot to be doing. And so my businesses get better, and I fulfill that obligation from my mom of passing on my knowledge and my skill and my capabilities to other entrepreneurs, which I love because especially in the last, I don't know, at least 10 or 15 years, it's become more evident than ever that big business and big government. is just smashing small business more than ever before.

I mean, those three years of those shutdowns, you know, made it loud and clear. Oh, Home Depot can be open. Little local hardware store cannot and on and on. So, you know, look, it's us against them. I love the small business owner. Let's go. I love what I do. That's awesome.

You know, I can't have a conversation with Steve Cyprus without talking about what I consider to be the main thing that you and I have in common. which is that you and I both are fanatics of a gentleman by the name of Dan Kennedy. I know you have your own Facebook group kind of honoring and dedicated to him. And you've shown me, you know, some of the, some, a little portion of your collection of all the, all of the, horses and programs and things like that. But something that I've always had in my mind is I wonder, out of all of those, I would assume you've pretty much gone through all. of them. Is that correct? Steve, you probably see just about all of Dan stuff? Well, probably not, just because there's a ton of stuff. And since Russell bought all the

IP, he actually told me he uncovered a ton of unpublished stuff. Okay. And we're all excited about putting new things together and whatever. However, it's extreme. Now, I'm not, hopefully people realize I'm not denigrating Dan Kennedy when I say that it's extremely repetitive. Sure. I feel lots of gurus, Dan included, and he's taught hundreds of disciples really have one core concept. And then they create program after program after program. So in Dan Kennedy's case, it's magnetic marketing. And if he's paying attention, everything else he does is magnetic marketing for this and magnetic marketing for that and magnetic marketing. Look at just the titles of his book. I mean, it's magnetic marketing for Bulvers and the trust aspect of magnetic

marketing and how it makes you more magnetic and magnetic marketing for social media. But it's one core concept of going from, as Dan says, to paraphrase, an unwanted test to a welcome guess. Yeah. You're advertising your marketing. So you're not saying, man, nobody's what, you know, it's tough to find people and to interrupt their life and to get them to want to talk to me like much better as Dan teaches, as you know, get them to come to you.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The thing about Dan. I mean, I have some issues, big issues, and we've added out, of course, you know, over the years with some of the things with Dan. Mostly what we just talked about. So Dan does coaching and consulting and has taught lots of people how to do coaching and so. But I don't think I'm breaking any breaking news here to people that know Dan or know anything about him.

He does not like coaching. He doesn't like people. He is a copywriter. He likes to lock himself in the big. basement and write and not be interrupted and he won't even use email. He won't use social media. You have to fax him and wait three weeks for a response. Leave me alone. And I don't want to be interrupted. So I, as a, you know, my mom being a school teacher. And every day I came home from school and the kitchen table is full of tutoring students. And my mom, my mom taught English

as a second length. So just on top of all the general typical school stuff, she was pretty much these people's mother. I mean, these were kids. These were refugees, not like the fake refugees you see today. These are war-torn refugees 50, 60 years ago coming from all over the world, not speaking the word of English. Their parents sold everything they had just to get their kids into the U.S. They appeared in New York where I'm from knowing no one, having nothing, not speaking a word of English, put into my mom's class. She pretty much became their mouth. And so we always had multiple people living in our guest room, in our playroom, and our, you know, sleeping on the couch and being tutored and being guided by my mom. I just saw all that growing up and said, this is a great, because I also saw later on, she'd been doing this for years before I was born.

And she would take us as a teenager. I remember going around town, go to a restaurant, go to the movie theater, wherever we went. it seemed the owner of the business was one of my mom's ex-students who had come as a kid with nothing as a teenager, whatever, and now 10, 20 years later, owns the business. Of course. You know, Americans are born as cows. They want to work 9 to 5, and on Friday they want to clock out, drink beer,

be in a coma until Monday morning, and, oh, I got to go back to a word to a job I hate and the boss. We're entrepreneurs. We love what we do, and we can barely turn it off. And so as a general role, at least I grew up with people that came to America for a land of opportunity, did not come to get a factory job, me taking care of for 40 years. They came to like, hey, my parents sacrificed everything to get me here. I'm going to make some myself, and my mom helped them to become business owners and entrepreneurs. And I saw that as we, wherever we went out to dinner that suddenly someone would come out from the back, oh, Mrs. Cypress, your money is no good here.

blah, blah, blah, blah, boo. Or the guy would come down the aisle in the movie theater with his hands full of popcorn and candy and whatever, me and my sister's like, here you go. And my mom were like, take that stuff away. Don't be giving eight tons of candy to my kids. Like one box is good and plenty is enough. But I was like, man, that's what I want. I want to be beloved like that because I want to pour everything I have into people who have

a burning desire to do something, to be self-reliant, to pick themselves up, to have a rippling effect and serve and help other people. And so that's what I do. So, Steve, if you had to, could you arrow down? The point of that story was nothing personal. I don't think he minds very much if I say, but Dan does not. Dan doesn't have any such a call. He, and that's right. You were tying it into that. I'm putting them down, and Dan will be the first to tell you. He loves Rai. Coach consulting because it makes it up. Right.

I like the money. It goes a little deeper for you, though. Much deeper. Yeah. But if you had to choose one of Dan's program, book, seminar, what have you. Is there one in particular that you could highlight as the one that stands out the most to you? Yeah. You know, it's interesting.

You ask that because it came up today in my Facebook memories every morning I go and say, happy birthday and I look at who commented to me the day before something and I I looked at my memories and just today came up a memory when I was on a Dan Kennedy Glazer Kennedy Insider Circle monthly call they featured me because they asked me what's your favorite Dan Kennedy program and can you teach on it and it's called I well I forget the technical name but it's called personality and copy I think the technical name was like how to use personal and copy in all your mark and stuff like that but personality and copying. So it is a very simple, it's a typical Dan Kennedy course, which he's taught many

people to do because he didn't create a course. What he did was he got up and spoke at one of his annual events, gave an hour and a half talk, that thing was video recorded and audio recorded, and now you can pay X amount of money for, back then it was the two DVDs and the two audio CDs and the transcribed workbook and the overhand. slides with Dan with his trusty overhead plastic slides, not even using a PowerPoint. And that altogether is a product. But basically, I was in the room when he gave this talk, and it's how to use personal mentality and copy, not to a cold audience, although, of course you can, but how to create

a character for yourself. So your current audience keeps coming back and wants more. In other words, as Dan says right in the beginning, it's modeled on the concept of comic books, soap operas, movie franchises like James Bond and Star Wars and Harry Potter. On and up, we want to fast and furious. We want to see these characters again in the comic book, in the TV. Now almost all these TV shows have cliffhangers, and they're not just, even a show like a CSI show, which is a self-contained mystery. you know, the police, they cop, they solve a crime. But they also throw in some personal story about somebody, something going on.

So now you're left on a cliffhanger at the end of the episode. Gee, I wonder how that works out with him, this girlfriend, and next day. And I got to tune in. So Dan teaches an entrepreneur, even if we think there's nothing special about us, and we're just another heating and air guy. Or I don't like sharing anything personal with my business. I don't mix the business. I don't want to use.

I don't need, this is an excuse. I don't want to use my family and my marketing and all this stuff. Dan T. Just had to create a character because, again, I don't know if I'm sharing any secret, but for Dan fans that don't know, Dan Kennedy character, the people know him as, the professor of harsh reality, the crusty, you know, to the point, direct, boo-bah, you know, Simon, early Simon Cowell days of like, straight out, you're the worst, that sucks, whatever, like, that's not actually Dan Kennedy, the person. If you've ever had dinner with him, which I have it a bunch of

times, hung out with him. Like, he's a great guy. He, you know, he's towards the end of his career, so I guess he doesn't mind people to tell him, tell me telling people that. But like, what? Dan Kennedy's a great guy. No, that shatters all my conception of him as the professor of harsh reality is going to tell you like it is. He's going to this and that. He's a sweetheart. So he doesn't want people to know that. And he crafted that if people don't know the story, he crafted that person out. when he was a member of the National Speakers Association. And he wanted to become a successful speaker and had his program for speakers. And he said he went to a conference and he said,

holy crap, there was a thousand speakers in the room. And as you can imagine, every single one of them came up to him with a big smile, the firm hand, shaking the positive attitude. Hey, how are you doing? I'm a speaker. He said, you know what? There is no one in the room here who is a kind of grumpy, not smart. not shaking hands, not outgoing, not, I'm going to create that character. And therefore,

I'm going to carve out a position in the marketplace for someone who wants a straight talking, no nonsense, different than everybody, tell it like it is, and he's taught a lot of people to do that. But make no mistake, that's a character in this personality and copy course, or talk, or whatever you want to call it, teach us how everyone could do just that. Yeah. And, and really should and must it, especially now, because thanks to the internet, it's more easy than ever for people to find your competitor. Sure. And you can just click from your website to another, or your ad just scrolls right by,

or they click on it, and then anyone knows who's ever clicked on, say, an ad on Facebook, that by the next day that algorithm will show you 22 competing ads for that same product or service. Sure. and let's stand out. And even if you are, again, thinking, I'm just, how can the heating and air guy stand out? I'm a plumber stand out. I'm a plumber. I twist the pipe. I'm a plug. Your personality, nobody can duplicate. Presley, you create a personality that people don't duplicate or like I just told it, Dan did very strategically. Right. And there's parts of my personality that, I mean, I told you, for instance, in the beer, you asked, you know, my mom, this, my father, did I tell you lots of other things about me or this? No, I told you, strategically, the parts about me that explain why I'm such a passionate teacher and I'm

passionate about sales and entrepreneurship. Yeah. Well, that's carefully crafted. And then also, it'll go into more detail about how to communicate with your audience multiple different ways. You can communicate as the guru, kind of speaking for the mountaintop. This is how you do things. You can speak as, hey, I'm one of you, and this is how we do things, and on and on and all. So it's just a great. I love it because it's short. It's to the point and it's super, super powerful. And every business or especially anyone who thinks, I'm a commodity, I'm just another X. Yep, highly recommended. And if you can't find it or can't get it or wherever, get with me and I'll go into more detail and I'll help you. That's fantastic. So 35 plus years that you've been at it, a bunch of different businesses.

you've helped a lot of other businesses. But my question is, Steve, have you experienced any significant setbacks or slowdowns or dare I use the F word? Failures. No. Everything has been a straight line

perfectly all the way up forever. No roller coaster ride, no ups, no downs. All businesses are fit. We already went to. this. That's for the cows. If I want to stand in a meadow, in a pasture, and go into the same stall every night and go to the same grass every day for my entire life, I would go work for a job. Or as Volume 3 of the book, where Scott talks a lot about government workers, he calls the super cow, which in my last year of law school, one of my professors came up to me and tried to

recruit me for what I now is known as the Swah. He said, man, is a law degree, you can get a really cushy job in Washington, D.C. and write regulations. They need a lot of regulations written. Specifically at the time was 1984, 85, and he said they just came out with an invention that's going to be able to put a phone in every car. I was like, don't be ridiculous. Only the richest, tutious, hootiest, frutious people have the big antenna on the back with the car phone. And the way he doesn't even foresee there's going to be two in every pocket. Like, come on now. But this was cellular technology. He said at any time a new technology comes along,

the government has to write a lot of regulations. And you can, man, you'll never get fired. You will get great benefits. You'll be taken care of. You make good money. I was like, later on when I read Scott's third buff, like Super Cow. Yeah.

I mean, the one goal of the Super Cow, which is more pronounced than even the cow, is don't get five. That's our only goal. Not perform, not do it faster, not do it better, not doing more efficient, not help the government or more people make more money or have a better life. No, no, just don't get fine. So I was like, thankfully, I was like, no. And then I had one of my members of my game. It was technically, if you want to know, it was a fantasy sports game, which back in 1984 no one ever heard of and Bielthought reinvented it. And one of my friends playing

in the game came to me and said, I found an ad in the back of a, of a, of a, of a, obscure sports magazine. There's actually people doing this as a business running these leaves, multiple leagues and multiple people and making money. And I was now running multiple leagues because I ran the first one. And then immediately everybody in there said my father wants to join my friend, my cousin, my whatever. So I was running a second league, a third. I'm like, why not? I don't want to be a lawyer. I suddenly going to go work for the government. Let's do it. I ran some ads. The ads worked. I had all kinds of great innovations that I did. Now, later on when I started reading stuff like Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy,

other Peter Drucker, business gurus of marketing, advertising. I recognized a lot of things they were talking about. I knew they were because I'd already done them without knowing that they were a thing and there was a name for it. And then as I read the rest of the books and I saw so many other strategies. I was like, man, but I didn't do that. I didn't do that. Look at all the money I left on the tape.

but I had to wake up on a lot of people that were introduced to this kind of stuff because I knew right away reading anything. I was like, I know this works. Made me a millionaire in a very short time. Yeah, I started that business up and that was 1984. So it's very soon to be I got to change my bio to 40 years. I mean, it's about to be 40 years. Can you think? And helping other entrepreneurs to have a lot of fun, make a lot of money.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. and not have to work for someone else. Oh, so you ask, so of course. So I just named one, for instance, because right now, do I still have the largest fantasy sports game company in the world? The answer is no, because not only would I not be talking to me right now, but everyone would know who I am.

I'd be the owner of Fandul or whatever these things are called. They have billboards every Major League Stadium. They got prime. He has their $15, $20 billion company. He's like, oops, I screwed that thing up after seven years when the baseball strike of 1991 hit. Yeah, and, you know, delayed people joining my baseball league and all my ads. I had to rerun them and all my brochures. There's no internet.

I had to preprint them and pre-print them, remail them. People were so pissed off in majorly, basically, they were like, I'm never watching again. They certainly weren't joining my league. You know, a month later, they were like, okay, I'll give it. Well, that's too late to, like, join a fantasy baseball league. the seasons without stock. Whatever it is, I lost a ton of money and my business collapsed. And I became homeless. I mean, if we really want to know, talk about ups and downs or failures, like screw that up. Even though I have a law degree, talk about a screw up, I had not incorporated

the business. So it took everything I owned. And there I was law degree in hand. Mr. Bigshot, having this great multimillionaire life doing what I love, sports. I mean, I was reading, breathing, watching sports, talking sports. all day. I just love this. I was like a grown-up little kid. I refused to grow up. I'm like, well, I lost all that. I became homeless and lost everything and nothing and I'd start all over again. So, and I could go on and on and on. So the answer is yes, I have made it back, lost it all, made it back, lost it all, declared bankruptcy, been homeless, done the whole thing. And I will say in true, I guess, you know, it's a cliche, but it's a cliche, but it's It's certainly clear in my case since I am a consultant that the positive of that is I can spot

the warning signings usually a mile away because I'd been through it. And I can help my clients and even prospects and say, hey, from what you've told me or from what I see, you're not on a good track. Things are going well. My company was doubling every year. But looking back, there were some in the beginning, I was a coward and I blamed it on the baseball story. No, what the baseball all strike did was uncover a lot of cracks in the foundation of my company, which I learned years later from a mentor, always have a mentor, always have a board of direct, always be in a mastermind groups, always have people who have been where you are and are now where you want to be to help guide you along the way. And one asked me when I was going through this BS of blaming, it was if people

remember the 80s with major recessionary times, this was early 90s now, interest rates. They think they're high now. They were like 22%. The mortgages were 18% on my first house. Like, come up. And I blamed everything. Oh, the economy's tough. You can't get a loan.

The bank is tough. The baseball strike, the this, that, whatever. And I love it. This meant to look right at me. He said, oh, so every fantasy sports game company went out of business, huh? I was like, oh, that's a good point. Yeah, but mine did. So if you're not anyone else's fault, and therefore, like I said, the positive I can see,

even though you might be doubly and doubling and doubling every year, strategic questions and really looking at your business, and I'm not a friend, my nickname is straight dog, Steve, in case you can't tell already. I have no filter. I have no qualms about looking right at you, Marco, if I was consulting to you and say, but Marco, watch out because I did there over and over. and, you know, like I said, I own multiple businesses, but the fact that I right now have, if I counted them up, 16, 18, whatever businesses, I must have had 30, 40, 50 over the years.

Like, well, that's however many failures. Yeah. You know, 32 failures. I had 50. So, yeah, yeah, I have had the ups, the downs. And I just believe that's more of my strength consulting to business owners. What BS if I looked at a business owner and said, wow, you're not. going through some cash flow crunch.

Yeah. I don't know what to do. I've never had that happen. I don't know what. What? Who the heck would want to consult with me? That's right. He said, you know, my business is struggling a little bit to get leads.

My lead genus down. Why did I never have that? I've always had an unlimited number of ideal perfect leads. Always. Life is always perfect. What are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous. I've been there, done that with all the failures and whatever else you ask.

Of course, the complete roller coaster. Which I love. the way. See, I even call, I gave a little hint. We call it the Roller Coast. The Roller Coz is pretty much the most exciting ride, the amusement part. Yeah. Why wouldn't you want that as a life? Why do you want to be a cow or even worse, a super cow and be in a set job, in a set place, get the 3% raise if you're lucky every year and be in a set everything and whatever, like know that, oh, all I got to do is, you know, spend 20 years and then I get my pension, and then I get this amount for life and this amount. You know what? I might lose everything again and in my age,

that's going to be tough. That'll be fun though, because I get it all back again. But I mean, like, damn, I'm not, I don't have a set anything. I get a roller coaster for a life. That's exciting. That's fun. You only live once. I like living mine. I really appreciate all your, your candidness and your transparency in that. Obviously, this is something that, you know, is a big part of being an entrepreneur. And we're in a real wild and shaky economy again. Yeah, but only 10% of people, right? You can see, you can look it up.

You get different stats, of course, wherever you look it up. But they say there's about 33 or 31 million businesses in the way. Well, 99% of course are small businesses. And they'll tell you that too. So by my, you know, somewhat calculations, that's about 10 or 12% of people or businesses. That's 88 or 90% of people are too afraid or to whatever to be us. They depend on us unless we build a business. They have no one to work for and no one to complain about on a Monday morning. I hate that guy. I hate my job. I hate my boy. Yeah, that's okay. Whatever,

but you need us. And only 10% of us. So you know what? We got to stick together. We got to hang out with each other because in the rest of the world, we're not going to get it. you're not going to get consulting from your relatives, from your neighbors, from your anybody on how to be a successful entrepreneur, you've got to hang out with successful entrepreneurs, which includes those that have been unsuccessful and know how to build back from it. Yeah, there's no doubt. There's a few of us, there's a reason for it. And I love it.

And I guess I'll close with, you know what Dan always says. the majority of people are always wrong about everyone. So, you're 90% of people are not business owners and entrepreneurs. They're living wrong. Sorry. Right. We need them.

I need them to, you know, fix my car and clean the pool. And I need a landscape guy to come by and a bug guy to come spray. We need them. Right. But I don't want to be them. Right. Right. As we wrap it up here, Steve, you are the owner of Successful Selling Systems, Inc, and you are helping unhappy business owners. Can you just tell us briefly what you're primarily doing right now, 2023, what you're going to be doing next year, 2014?

I'm sorry if I said unhappy. I like to say frustrating. I hope I help business owners who are frustrated with their advertising and marketing results. In other words, I'm at the point of my career. where I no longer work with startups or people that are doing advertising and marketing because it takes too long. I work with people who are currently doing advertising and marketing. Something's not clicking. Their lead jam was rocking and roll them and it dried up. One little tweak, one little thing I can do could have a massive quick result, which I love to do. So I love to work with people who are aggressive, ambitious, they're out there, they're marketing, they're advertising, there, but something is not happening. And I can often, you know, put my stethoscope and my

microscope on the problem and I can go to because I have helped every imaginable type of company and every type of economy and every area of the country, the world, but I can often spot it and have a massive success, not only in that person's life, but of course the rippling effect. They have a family, they have employees, they have customers, clients, patients, members, they have a community, they have suppliers, they're going to pay taxes, which is going to build roads and bridges and schools, whatever. A rippling effect by this, solving this one issue. So I like people who have an issue and a burning desire to solve it. And that issue is my advertising and marketing isn't working what I like.

Steve, can you help me? Almost undoubted. Yes, I can. And that's one. In the very rare event that you're not thinking about business or help, a business owner, what are you doing in your in your downtime and your off time and who are you hanging out with? Now, I wonder how much that question comes from your personal experience, because it sounded like a little of that. You know what it's like, right? I go out to eat

and you'd think I could turn it off when I'm at an anniversary dinner in a spectacular five-star restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, my beautiful white, Michelle, and a waiter comes along and says something. I'm like, did you hear that? He should have said this. Or look at the menu. This should be over here and they should have told their story over here. And oh, then they came by with the dessert. You don't really want dessert. No, they shouldn't have said that. Well, you know, you're going to be, I can't turn it off. And the whole ride over, I was like, look at the rap on that truck. And look at the billboard over there. And I cannot turn it off. The good news is I gave up. There's enough movies about entrepreneurs. We just watch, you know, there's enough

movies about entrepreneurs. There's not books about it that it's interesting and it's fun. at the same time, so why not? I never turn it off. But when I attempt to, one of the reasons we moved here to way too hot and way too sunny Scottsdale, Arizona area is to play golf all the time instead of being in Chicago and jam every outdoor thing into three months and hope it doesn't rain, which it does a lot. So I love to just, we live up in the mountains, I love to go for a hike with my beautiful wife, Michelle. I play senior softball. I'm on the field at 6.30 in the morning before it hits 90 or 100 degrees, and my brain thinks I can get to that ground ball, and then the body goes, dude, no, you can't. Like, that was 10 years ago. So, you know, I'm out there with a bunch of old

guys who, you know, somebody was watching, came to watch the other, they said, all I saw was a bunch of old guys standing around. I'm like, well, then you missed it. Because what you really saw is a bunch of guys that we all played ball. I mean, there's pro baseball player. I play a pro football, play hockey player. It's great to be around. These guys were young at heart. That takes my mind off everything. Then I come off the field and I know I got a calendar full of calls and clients to help and emails to write websites to put, I do a lot of stuff done for you for my clients. I'll do whatever it is to get them successful. And so that does take my mind off it a little bit. You're not going to be able to hit the softball, not that I can't anyway. You're not going to

be able to hit it if all I can think of is like, gee, what's the cost per lead on that latest Facebook ad campaign? I'm running for client number seven. You know, like, so that's good. And and I like to read novels. You'll see behind me there's a stack here in novels by a friend of mine. He wrote six novels. I'm on number two in the series. And now that it's summertime, I will sit out by the pool on a Sunday and force myself to not read only nonfiction business and marketing books.

Yeah, but I will attempt to read a novel. So I do. And you know what? And Dan Kennedy does say this too, so you know this. You got it. It helps. When I get my mind into the real world and off of marketing and advertising, it helps they come up with ideas.

People know, you go for a walk, you take a shower, you go on a trip somewhere, and suddenly ideas come. So just reading a novel, turns my brain off, and very often I will come off the softball field and me rare to go for calls going like, you know what, this just came. Yeah. Very wouldn't have if I was just nonstop putting up funnel. writing emails, consulting with people, like, you got to take some break from. I agree.

I still love sports. There you go. Last night, I got the unbridled joy of watching my beloved Mets below their fifth game in a row by being tied up in the eighth inning of the course giving up two runs in the bottom of the weekend losing again. So I do, that takes my mind off of things too a little bit. Steve, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for joining.

Thanks, I got to say you, I got to give you some props here if you'll let me is Thank you so much. Number one, thank you for not asking me for the questions in advance, not sending me the questions in advance,

and then not asking pretty much any question anybody asks because I do at least 100 in at least two a week. I do at least 100 interviews a year. And this was just great. love to see to my pants, roller coaster, who knows what anyone's going to throw it at me, ask questions. You didn't ask, what are the three keys to success in your advertising?

This was great. It was fun. Your audience should love you. And we'll save all the marketing advertising talk for if anyone wants to actually go. That's right. We're really sad. I was enjoyed the time flew by your fantastic interviewer. I miss you.

we haven't talked in a while and I can see why. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, Steve. We'll save those questions for people that are ready to open their wallet, right? And pay some money to get those questions answered. Well, I need, again, another disagreement with Dan Kenney, but I do free consultations. I love business. There you can't.

Even if you're not going to pay me. I shouldn't say that, Dan. Dan, Dan would hate me. My mom would love me for saying that and I'll give you a hint who matters more in my life. There you go. There you go. That does it, folks, for another episode of Business Innovators Radio. We will catch you here next time.

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