Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Inside the Mind of EdTech Visionary Paul Daley

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of Escaping the Drift. In today’s episode, we dive into Paul Daley’s journey. The visionary CEO of educate.io shares stories from his early days at Sunglass Hut to reshaping the education industry, Paul's story is a masterclass in perseverance, innovation, and finding success on your terms. This episode is packed with laughs, wisdom, and actionable insights for anyone looking to turn their passion into profit or simply seeking a dose of motivation. Highlights:"God... just puts everything in my lap and I fall in the right place." "A lot of the time it's just someone thinking out loud or processing." "Using excellence in business as a way to direct toward Jesus Christ to grow the kingdom of God."Timestamps:00:31 - Meet Paul Daley01:26 - Youthful Achievements03:38 - First Steps in Sales07:44 - Car Lot Lessons10:59 - Real Estate Revelations15:00 - Rethinking Objections23:40 -EdTech's Future28:10 - Education's Evolution34:42 - Cultivating Success45:30 - Growth Strategies💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford using this Link! ⤵️     / johngafford.  .💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers. The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80g...Listen On Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... *************#EscapingTheDrift

Honestly, the only thing I think I really gained long-term was thick skin. You get a lot of shit, mostly from the other sales reps. Yeah. Especially when you're working. How old were you when you did it? 27, I think, 28. I was like 22. And 27 is still young.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of time. So I was at Audi for a majority of what I did. I was working with 40, 50, 60-year-olds. And so I'm this 20-ish-year ish year old kid wearing Lulu pants outselling a lot of the older guys. Yeah. And they love that when you do that. They do. So you just get a lot of shit. And so I just, I think I got thick skin. I've, I, you can get into the, you know, the fundamentals of learning how to communicate with people. And, you know, every time you come

up to a lot, what questions to ask to not get the, I'm just looking kind of thing, right. And how to go around that. And you, you can, we can talk about the fundamentals of people, but I think the real thing I got was just the ability to like take punches to the face over and over. And now escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of Escaping the Drift, the show that, again,

man, it gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, today, I got somebody on the show in the studio that flew in just to be here with us. He is a guy that was the CEO of Educate.io, which is a massive company in the education space. He has been in the education space forever. He is a guy that can take you, I mean, he can do a lot of things, man. The guy's an expert at sales, but he can really take you. If you've got something that you want to package and you want to say, hey, I think the world

needs to understand how to do this and you want to do it in a way that makes money. We're going to talk about that with him today. His name is Paul Daly. Welcome to the show, man. You're way overhyping me. Welcome. Am I hyping you too much? Hyping me way too much.

Too much of an intro, right? Too high expectations. No, dude, you're a young guy and you've done a lot of cool stuff. How old do you think I am? How old do I think you are i think i am i'm gonna say you are 34 years old you went high i turned 30 this year did i go how you just turned 30 i turned 30 this year how do you think i am 44 i'll be 52 in two weeks there you go great man we're both i know it's it's shading it's all proper shading a little slope down the nose, on the cheekbones. No, I'm just kidding. I'm pumping myself up now. No, no. But dude, you're a guy that's reached, you know, you have achieved a lot of success.

Thank you. And what you've done at a very early age. And I want to kind of go backwards before we go forwards. I do want to talk about everything that you do. And I watched some of your stuff and me being in sales in the real estate space. I want to kind of dive deep on some of the stuff you were saying with sales because I thought it was great. I thought it was really, really good. That's actually it's real estate sales are so different a lot of the time than all on sales. And so I'm surprised you actually like some of it. Well, I thought, I thought it was, I thought there's a lot of the same concepts. I think,

I think people are people in a lot of different ways. And you said something in particular I'll get to in a little bit, but where are you from? Tell us a little bit about, you know, young Paul, where'd you come from? Tell me the story, man. I haven't been asked about young Paul yet. Um, born in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, actually Hermosi's here in Vegas. I think we were born at the same hospital and kind of had for a lot of the time, the same upbringing, if you will, in the same area, uh, never met him and still don't know him, but young Paul, I don't know uh really introverted um nervous non-social were you a good student terrible student robotics kid i was a robotics kid uh got bullied like crazy just you know i was i'm six foot now i weigh like 180 and i'm i have i'm way out of shape but i used to have a decent build

okay uh i grew up and you could call me me beanpole. I was, you know, grew up in high school at six foot, probably 120 pounds or something, which is like toothpick, just bullied kid, introverted, nothing special about me by any means. Uh, I tried, I guess I can't answer that. Cause I almost block out those years. If that makes sense. Do you really? Okay. Well, let me ask you a question. You should know, because most of the people that are industrious, they come on this show. They always remember the first hustle. They remember the first thing they did to earn a buck. What was your first hustle? I, I remember my first sales call in the online space, right? And I was trying to teach someone how to close deals. So you didn't start selling.

I thought that can't be true though. So I mean, I, I had been my first, like, like a sale started for me. If you want to go back to the stuff that I don't count, it's sunglass hut sales. Okay, dude, I worked at worked at sunglass hut okay i totally did in the mall yeah same here and so maybe that breeds a lot of sales reps you know um but in high school yeah yes same here did on high school when i went from sunglass hut the guy who brought me into car sales uh came in to buy a pair of oakleys and and essentially just i've never minus one i've never applied for a job in my entire life it It just always has been I'm a Christian and God kind of just puts everything in my lap and I just I fall right into the right place. And so got into car sales, got into government sales, got in software sales.

And then from from software sales is kind of when I start actually talking about my career, which is online stuff. I still remember my first online sale was trying to essentially realize that I could make money on my own without someone paying a paycheck for me. Commission versus like your own money are two different things, right? It's very easy to make commission on a deal if it's under another company versus like no one knows who you are talking to a stranger. They have no, you know, there's no company behind you. It's just you. And it was like a $50 one hour session that I closed somebody on to teach them how to close deals. And what's ironic about it is it probably spent like an hour and a half closing the deal. And then like an hour and a half actually teaching them afterward on this. And so it's like three

hours for 50 bucks. I probably, you know, $15 an hour. Not the best, not the best scalability. I still remember that. And that was like a mind shattering thing for me. It's funny that you worked at Sunglass Hut because I did too. And to this day, my wife, when her sunglasses get out of whack, she'll hand them to me and be like, fix these. And I still know how to adjust the Ray-Bans and bend them where they actually fit her face. So yeah, thank you, Sunglass Hut, for that life skill that I still use today. But it's interesting that you say you went to sell cars because I did too.

And I only spent a total of 90 days on the car lot. So, well, here's what happened. So I, when I was getting out of the restaurant and bar business, which I was in for a great portion of my early twenties, dude, I'm old, man. It is what it is, but, but yeah, you just, you just find your way. But again, like you falling into a lot of cool things, like I didn't have any major success in my life until my early thirties. I had a lot of really cool jobs, but I didn't really blow the doors off until, until much later in life. Cause I was more concerned with doing cool stuff,

like running nightclubs and this and that and blah, blah, blah. But anyway, so when I was getting out of the nightclub business when I was 27, cause I had bleeding ulcers and my doctor told me I would be dead if I didn't get a, he goes, no, he goes, you need a life change. This is what he told me. And I was like, Holy shit. Okay. Maybe I need to get out of this. So we had sold off and gotten out of the bars. And I was kind of like, what am I going to do? And my buddy was like, oh man, you know,

if you want to learn how to sell, you got two choices. I said, what's that? Cause I called him and he was a vice president of world comm at the time. And I said, okay, what, what, what am I going to do? And he goes, well, you got two choices. He goes, you can either go sell Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door, or you can go sell cars. And I said, zero chance of going to do? And he goes, well, you got two choices. He goes, you can either go sell Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door, or you can go sell cars. And I said, zero chance I'm going to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners. He's like, bro, I'm telling you. And I was like, not doing it.

And he's like, I'll go sell cars. So I went and sold cars. And for me, he was right. I got a PhD in cars in 38. So I started at Nissan the first month. What year was this? God, this was 2002. Maybe. So Nissan was like not respected. No, God knows garbage brand, right? Whatever. But

I sold 30 new cars my first month. That's awesome. That's like bowling a perfect game in that business. Yeah. That's bowling a perfect game. So they moved me to infinity for months two and three. Okay. I quit after month three cause I'd already gotten everything I wanted to get out of it and moved on to something else. Yeah. I thought the, I thought the dude that owned the dealership was going to literally like, he was almost crying when I was telling him I was leaving. It was wild. Very few people in car sales have stories like that. It was so because I lied to him when I was leaving. Cause I was trying to come up with some bullshit reason why I was leaving. Right. So I was like, well, you know, I got four roommates and they all moved out on me. So I've got this big house and I got to pay when I was leaving because I was trying to come up with some bullshit reason why I was leaving right so I was like well you know I got four roommates and they all moved out on me so I've got this big house and I gotta pay all the rent I just don't want to do it anymore he's like

I'll be your roommates I was like what he goes I'll pay four-fifths of all your bills I'll be the best roommate you ever had because I'll never even show up and I was like oh dude like I can't do that I'm so fine I was like okay bro i'm really moving to back to florida starting a new company with my sister so i can't do it but the point being was what did you learn on the car lot what did you learn there um if i honestly the only thing i think i i really gained long term was thick skin you get a lot of shit mostly from the other sales reps yeah uh especially when you're working how old were you when you did it 27 i think 28 i was like 22 and that's 27 still young yeah a lot of time i was so i was at audi for a majority of what i did i was like working with 40 50 60 year olds

and so i'm this you know 20 ish year old kid wearing lulu pants out selling a lot of the older guys yeah and they love that when you do that they do so you justselling a lot of the older guys. Yeah. They love that when you do that. Oh, they do. So you just get a lot of shit. And so I think I got thick skin. You can get into the fundamentals of learning how to communicate with people. And every time you come up to a lot, what questions to ask to not get the, I'm just looking kind of thing, right? And how to go around that.

And we can talk about the fundamentals if you will. But I think the real thing I got was just the ability to like take punches to the face over and over and over and over. Exactly. For me, the number one thing I think I learned in the car lot for the number one thing was how important control was to the sale. Okay.

What I mean was you, you guiding the guiding them on like, like really maintaining control of the customer through the, through the process. And it always worked out the same. The people that allowed you to do your job and did it your way always left happy and always got the best, better deal.

The people that did it their way, quote unquote, were always pissed off. They always left a blood trail as they walked out of the dealership. I've never thought about that in the car sales world. Yeah, dude, it was. And I learned that very, very early. And to prove that point,

it was the first thing they taught us, actually, they said, just learning about control, is they said, do this. When you see somebody on the lot, walk up to them and just say, hey, what's up? Blah, blah, blah. And of course you get the hand up, the just looking, whatever it is.

Create some sort of rapport, get a conversation going. But then just literally say, follow me, turn your back and start walking the dealership and do not turn around. He goes 99 times out of a hundred. When you reach for the door and turn around, they'll stay. You can walk them a hundred yards across the lot. They will just follow you because you said, follow me with authority and took them across a lot. And when you do that, then you've kind of got them. And that's so true because now, you know, that's a very, you know, cars is a, cars is actually a simple sale, right? You're there.

It's getting them assigned, get them in the box, get them over the curb. That's it, you know, done. Like houses, what I do now when we're selling real estate and with, you know, the hundreds of agents we have here and what we teach, that control is really important as well, because it's the largest single transaction that a lot of these people ever make. Right. So you just, you've got to guide them in a way. Absolutely. Cause a lot of times people, I've always thought I would slap with real estate sales. We get, you want to know what it is? What? So just spending even like three minutes in your office while I waited for you, your team is just sharp, right? Yeah. 99% of agents. I had a real estate marketing agency. It was the

first online thing I ever did after the sales stuff. And 99% of real estate agents are not sales reps. Real estate, if I may, it's like the largest MLM in the entire world. It's, hey, you're really nice. You should get into real estate, right? That's what Keller Williams does and all these different- Or are you a little, in Vegas? It's, are you getting a little too old to be a bottle girl? Are you a little too old for that? Maybe, maybe she'd real estate. Yeah. You don't have, if you're a bottle girl, the ex bottle girl does real estate Vegas. Don't hate me. Come on. I'm not being sexist. That's true. You all know it's true. Stop it. But the barrier of entry of like sales skills, low that to be a good sales rep in real

estate, I really think it's, I don't, you probably have a whole, I know you would have a whole different perception because you're in the space. Yeah. But I feel like it's very easy to stand out amongst the crowd in real estate. It is. It's very easy to be a standout, exceptionally good at this job. You know, one of the things that makes our company different, no, this is not a sales pitch for our company.

It's working either that way, but we're one of the only brokerages in Vegas that will let people go. Yeah, because that's the thing. It's not financially behooving for most people. No, but it's not that. Our reputation is everything. Everything is based on our reputation.

Nobody is above the brand, including me. Nobody. If I did something incredibly stupid, my business partner would be like, bro, you got to go. If he did something incredibly stupid, I'd be like, bro, you got to go because nobody's above the brand.

And for us, being incredibly ethical, doing things the right way, guiding clients through, being professional. But more importantly, it's so funny. I made a joke the other day that I said, these new mailers that we're probably going to start sending out. I said, I think our tagline should just be, we do what we say we'll do. Ah, your say do ratio.

Just, we do just, we do what we say we're going to do. And I got that. I was at a, I was at a party the other night with Dan Fleischman and it was funny. We were at this event and we were talking about some stuff that had gone not so great over the last couple of years. Um, and Dan just looks at me and goes, can you imagine how much money we would all have if everybody just did what they're supposed to do? Dude, that is the truest thing I've ever heard in this business. There is definitely a shortage of that for sure. Yeah. But you were saying something that I really liked. Let's just get right into talking about sales for a while. You, you were saying something on, on your Instagram Let's just get right into talking about sales for a while. You were saying something on your Instagram that I liked when you're talking about dealing with objections. And I think this is so important.

So I'll let you talk. I don't know if you remember exactly what you were talking about. Remind me. You were talking about most people immediately go into hitting it back. Yeah. Talk about that. Yeah. You know, every single sales rep the like the most sexified thing in

sales is learning how to handle objections and like take people's objections and just like smack them down kind of thing right and so i know i'll mention a few people and i don't mean anything negative about the them and their styles but like you you hear guys like you know uh have you ever read grant cardone's car sales books no oh my god bro so when i was in like grant when when you were in when i was in was when grant was going around and before he was really doing his doing his tour yeah and so i got his it was closure survival guide and it's mostly car sales stuff and his like objection handling stuff was like even now i'm i'm not a but like i still couldn't say half the stuff. It's incredibly just aggressive, but the, the, the

training for 99% of sales is how to handle objections. And so what most sales reps do is they'll get some kind of no in a, in a process. And then the very first thing they do is like put on the gloves and they're like ready to spar. Right. And I think they're, they create so much resistance. It's almost like you get where you get what you look for. And if you're training on objections, you're going to look for objections. And so one of my favorite things to zoom out for a second that I constantly go over with sales reps when I do any kind of training

is complaints versus objections. So the first sales book I ever read was a book called When Buyers Say No by Tom Hopkins. And I loved that book because he mentioned this like 30 years ago, which is most sales reps think that every single thing that is said after a pitch is an objection unless it's a yes. But a lot of the time, it's just someone thinking out loud or processing or such.

And so let's example say this is really common one. You give me a pitch and I say, that's a lot of money, right? Most sales reps will start to be, you know, okay, that's an objection. Let me get into financial objection mode kind of thing, right. Where I think the right thing to do there is just realize that was not a, that that's not something that's going to stop the sale. That's just someone thinking out loud. I'm just going to go re-ask. And so that's kind of what I meant about the boxing gloves and, and going into, into fight mode as soon as you hear anything after price drop. Well, I think, I think the difference, some of what you just said to unpack some of what you

just said, because there was a lot, but first of all, when it comes to the hyper aggressive Grant Cardone strategies or whatever, I think you can get away with that stuff in a quick sale. If the sales cycle is, I'm going to shake your hand and within the next two hours, it's done. We're done. Yeah. You can probably get away with some of that. That's fair. But if you're in a long cycle sale or a relationship sale where you want to sell these people over and over and over again, like one of my favorite sayings, you can, what is it? You can shear a sheep a thousand times, skin it only once. You want people leaving, not just with the product you're selling, but with a good feeling about you. And especially

in real estate, you're talking about a 45 day cycle. And that's why I tell people all the time, it's like, look, you're never going to be able to sell somebody a house. They don't want, nobody's ever going to wake up in a house and be like, what happened? Like it's a Hooters t-shirt, right? Nobody's ever going to do that. Like, why did I buy this? What happened? Like it just, it's too much time to change your mind. So the important thing there is you have to remember, you've got to be consistent with how you work with that client through those 45 days. And if you go into that sparring mode, you're going to have a problem. Absolutely. did sell it from him is there's an improv there's an improv game that you can do where essentially and it's funny if you have a group of sales people do this with them it's funny you stand them up

and you just say they have to add two people at a time i have to ask you a question you have to answer the question and then respond back he was on my sales team have we ever played this game before have you guys done this i i would argue he's pointing off camera for those there's another person here so yeah it's not just randomly i've done that for teams for years yeah years yeah i love that because i i'm all about 90 of the call being one of the first in car sales right guy that brought me to the car sales i will never i just saw him the other day actually um for the first time in years his name is lamont randall and he always said it you have two years one mouth right he was like,

talk, like talk, or I'm sorry, listen twice as much as you speak. Since then it's, it's really, you know, gone even further 80% of the time that you were having a conversation. I want to be listening. That's actually, I don't know about you. It's the weirdest thing about podcasts to me is you're talking a lot when, when we're out of the studio, I'm sure you're like me where it's most of the time just listening and then speaking very seldomly, but when you speak and make, making a matter, it'd be pretty boring podcast if I just say I agree, but it's something about being in this room is very counterintuitive. I'm sure to your care. Yeah. Yeah but the the thing that I see like the

Most people think a sales rep is a really good speaker or talker I think that a good sales rep is a good listener and question asker. I think asking questions, it's actually one of the, I do a lot of coaching now. And one of the things that I rip people on constantly is just their inability to ask good questions. Like asking a good question, it's what makes a good podcaster. It's what makes a good sales rep. It's what makes good anything in business. And it's something that most people don't put any kind of attention into trying to grow in. Well, I think the funny thing that I have found that that exercise exposes with my people is, you know, for me, I don't know if you believe this or not, or how much I'm a huge believer in personality types. I distest all of my people. I'm looking for that high D high. I,

that is the Michael Jordan of sales. That's what I'm looking for. Every time I'm looking for that natural call it athletic ability to close people, the aptitude or just a hundred percent. But the problem with that disc, what makes it so great at what we do, that's my disc is you also have a tendency to really love to talk about yourself sometimes. And what I love about that particular exercise is when you're answering questions, then asking a question very quickly, you can see when the questions they're asking are trying to guide the other person back to what they want to talk about. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right now you're trying to, you're trying to get, let them feel good about themselves and talk about them,

and it doesn't matter about you. And it's really interesting. I found that, number one, it gets people good at asking questions, but it also exposes that moment where you're trying to guide the conversation to you. I look at something different when I'm going through it. So the beginner version of that game, or I call it game, but exercise, whatever you want to go into, is sales reps make a statement and then almost put a question mark at the end. Right. So that's like what a novice does. I'm sure you see that a lot where it's just a statement and then they're like the

tonality at the very end just makes it a question. And then the second thing is, is a general question response. What I look for is based on like where the conversation is going. Can you ask a question that gets even deeper into the conversation in a way that is, is pretty intricate, right? I love, I love when questions can go vertically deep instead of, you know, horizontally general. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that we preach. Like most real estate agents, if you're an associate real estate agent, let me describe 95% of the phone calls you have with people. Oh, what are you looking for?

Oh, single family house. How many bedrooms do you want? Three. How big do you want? 2,000 square feet. Where do you want it? Green Valley. How much do you want to pay? Okay, great. Well, I'm going to do an MLS search. And if something pops up, call me back. Click. Right. That's it. So we train our people to go deep on each one of those questions. I don't care what you say.

I want to know why. So you tell me you want 2,000 square feet. Why? Why do you want three bedrooms? Do you have kids? Where do they go to school? Are they school-age? Is school important? All of those things. Is Green Valley the best place? Yes, 100%. But you're digging deeper into what they really, you know, I get you want a house, but the house is almost irrelevant to the conversation. Are you trying to elevate your status? Do you have a growing family? Do you have a shrinking family? Do you have, did your spouse just cheat on you? Do you have a splitting family. Like I want to get to the, why probably don't even know as to why they're looking for something. Right. Cause the other side too, I would argue, and this is, this might be a hot take to self talk to someone who has a

brokerage about, um, or in real estate, take it up. I like it. If, if you're just going to be someone who sends houses that fit what people are looking for to them. I'd argue your job is worthless, right? But if you're someone who finds out that what someone thinks they want is actually not really what they want, they actually want X and Y, then you're going to have not only insane wealth, but you're going to give so much value to the people around you where people are going to flock to you because you're essentially like a therapist in real estate. Does it make sense? And I think that's where probably the value you found has been. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

With us, it's like the last question that my people ask before we get off the phone. The last question is, well, if it's an appointment, there's a tie down. But I'm saying the last question during the interview process that we're talking to them, the last question they ask is, okay, I get the house. Besides the house, during the interview process, if we're talking to them, the last question they ask is, okay, I get the house besides the house, forget the house. Is there any other information we can get you? And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, well, you're moving your life here. I mean, do you need to find, do you need to do is the gym important to you? What church do you want to go to? Does your kid need special needs? I mean, what, what, tell me about your life and let us also try to solve those problems.

And I think when you go deep with somebody like that. It just sets you so apart, you know? Oh, dude. Now you're a life consultant rather than just a real estate agent. A hundred percent. And it's so easy. It's easy for people to want to do business with you when you are presenting that solution to folks.

Do you want to know what I would, There's a line that I constantly say now, a buddy taught me it, but it's not that better is better. It's that different is better. And that's just so different than nine out of 10, 9.9 out of 10 real estate agents, right? Well, it's just like you said, most real estate is just like, great. I'll put you on MLS click. And if you're the life consultant, people are going to go off the phone and be like, that was like, who is this guy or girl? You know, as my buddy, my buddy, Ryan Flint, his brand in, uh, he's up in Utah. His brand is actually the lifestyle realtor is his brand. That's, that's what he goes for. All right. I don't know what happened, uh, that, but that's what he actually goes with as far as,

as far as his brand. So yeah, I agree with that completely. Well, let's shift gears, man. Let's talk a little bit about the education space. Cause I do, cause man, there's some, I agree with that completely. Well, let's shift gears, man. Let's talk a little bit about the education space. Because I do, because man, there's some, I want to talk about what you do want to talk about. But before we get to that, I asked this question also to Ulysses the other day. So on this podcast, because I want his take on it too from a PR standpoint.

Now you are a little closer to the nitty gritty of it. I think, in my opinion, we have reached a little bit of a tipping point in the education, mastermind, coaching space where with the rise of sites like Baller Busters on Instagram and exposing some people, and I do think they're doing the Lord's work in some cases. I totally agree. I think they're doing the Lord's work. What do you think the state of the educate online education?

Tell me, give me a state of the union. I am not nearly qualified enough to answer this question. You see guys like Sam Ovens and Hermosi who are much smarter than me talk about how it's only growing. And I do, I do believe that, right? What I look at too, is that, um, I'm sure you've seen this, but in, in biz opera b2c the ftc is really coming in and looking at the info product educational space uh and massive like multi-deck a million fines against brands that are making any kind of claims of that threaten corporate america right and what i there's there's three sides number one i do agree that like coffee cellar baller brusters the ftc, are doing a lot of good work.

But at the same time, I also know that the reason that they're focused there is because when you start when you start to threaten corporate America, it does not it does not like that. You know, I think that the general consensus of education is that a lot of people are really getting tired of college and even high school. I'm pretty sure the high school dropout rate is dramatically increasing year after year right now. The amount of college applications in the U.S. has been going to mind the last time I looked down. That might be out of my ass, so don't quote me to that last one. But-

It's all right. 67.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Yeah. I'm pretty confident in saying, I still have a Bradley by the way, Brad, before you give me shit for steel that yeah, it's Bradley.

Sorry. I think that the educational space is going to go through a lot of change. I think it's going to keep growing, but I also think it's going to get a lot more governed. Uh, you see the, the claims example given, you know,

did you, you know who traffic and funnels is? Yeah, sure. Traffic and funnels got a big, you know, they don't exist't exist anymore but a big i don't want to say slap on the wrist it was like a overall what 20 something million dollar uh fine from the ftc did you know the ftc works on commission do you know how they're funded that they keep they just keep the money they find so the ftc the way they work is essentially when they come after you they make

they only are funded to an extent really from the amount of money that they win from the core cases they bring on. So if they're going to look at a company, they have to know that it's big enough to make money on. So there's a general rule in the info product space, which is like, unless you're a big enough company for the FTC to make a lot of money off you, you're generally fine.

So what you see are the big companies really worry about compliance. And so I know Cardone and Robbins and Dave Ramsey and such, like they'll always be under a spotlight because they, you know, if they get, they're so big, but they care about compliance. They're not going to do anything with their dialers and such that they're going to get fucked on. But the companies that really screw the space are the companies that are doing one to 5 million, $10 million a year, where it's not big enough for the FTC to actually want to come after. But those the you know at aggregate they're much larger as a whole than all the big guys and so that's why this space has such a tarnished you know perspective yeah well and so i i think if anything

that what will happen is somehow that'll change i have no idea but i do see the space growing yeah well the ftc has got you know they have a new coffer with the text thing. I was on the phone yesterday with a buddy of mine that owns, he owns a big mail house. And they do a lot of mail nationwide for people. And he goes, bro, we have gone from $25 million to $35 million in 60 days because of the text thing now. Because you can't cold text anymore. The FTC is handing out like, they are handing out million dollar fines like it's candy. of the text thing now because you can't you can't cold text anymore the ftc is hammer is it saying

out like and same with ai they are handing out million dollar fines like it's candy yeah and it's why you heard about how they're coming down on ai too and ai voice calls and all that stuff oh that that yeah they're really like they're hammering down on anything when it comes and a lot it's car dealerships is huge one ftc's been has been around with the car. Did you, were you there? If you ever go to a car dealership and get text messages, the, the last fine that I looked into was that every single text that does not have an opt out in it, even if you're just texting as a sales rep to a person is that it was like a

$25,000 fine per text or something. So there are people that just won't reply and then cash in multimillion dollar lawsuits. And so, um, the world has become a too litigious place absolutely but i i do think the educational educational space is going to grow also i mean the alternatives are you either learn a hard skill on you know through some kind of

program which is becoming a lot more socially norm you know but you 10 years ago five years ago if you told someone that you were you were learning how to copyright online, they would look at you like taboo, right? Now, if you say that you're taking an online program, it's not normal yet, but it's a lot more accepted. And I think nowadays too, people are really unhappy saying that they go to school or paying for schooling and such. And I think that the entire traditional education system of university and such, I think that's going to go through a big, big change. I think, I think, you know, cause I've got, I've got kids, I've got one that's 16 and one that's 14. And we talk about, we talk about this a lot with the kids and we talk about my son going to

school. My son has Ivy league aspirations. He's got the grades for it. He's a smart, smart kid. And my thing is the only reason that i would want you to go do that is for the connections i agree strictly the connections if other than that like like we're going like like parallel what do you want to do well you know we go back and forth luckily doing what i do here um my kids have a unique advantage which is i'm always able to find somebody over the summer to take them on that's cool to see what they do last last uh last play with a lot of things well last summer he worked uh arm and arm with the guys that run v shred oh that's cool so

yeah they love dude they sent him a thousand dollars for his birthday for gas money they loved him it was crazy um yesterday. Yesterday, Nick Daniel did that. But no, so he spent all summer, last summer, with two of the best digital marketers in the world and saw all of that. And then this summer, we kind of got a bug a little bit. His grandfather was an attorney, my dad, and he's like, maybe I want to be an attorney. So this summer, I've already got him.

It's funny. So if you think, if you want to know how you're doing in life, get sued. That's how you know how you're doing, especially in this business. If you're not in a couple of lawsuits, you're not trying. Sadly, it's a very good health marker. Yeah, it is. I mean, if you're not getting sued somewhat all the time, that's not an invite to sue me, but we always have some lawsuits going on.

And I've got one where I'm a plaintiff, uh, unfortunately where a deal went South and, and, uh, it requires a lot of investigation through the, through the, uh, discovery. And so my attorney was like, yeah, no problem. He can come work for me instead of me going through the discovery at, you know, $195 an hour, have an associate do it, pay him 20 bucks an hour. And I'll just show what to look for. I'm like, done. So this summer he will be going through thousands and thousands of pages of discovery for 20 bucks an hour in a lawsuit that actually- I don't think I want to be an attorney for much longer after that. But here's the thing, but he needs to see what the job really

is. I totally agree. And that it's not suits. It's not suits exactly exactly yeah it's uh so where some guy walks over the file and you go yeah this is exactly what i need to solve the case no it's stacks and stacks of paper to find what you need but so he's going to do that this summer um but yeah but again as far as college goes it's like if you're looking at what 200 something thousand for for the connections to be worth it yeah but the other okay so the other side to this too that a lot of people don't talk about is are the connections still worth it after covid where a lot of it's now remote you know i think it is you still think so i think it is i think i think if you're going to get that level of education you have wall street you hire a lot how often do you look at cvs where you're looking

at the university people go to no but you have to understand what i'm doing is completely different okay you have friends that that you know probably do have companies that are more yeah if i'm looking for c-level executives for a company, I mean, we, we look pretty hard at what they're doing again, but I think, I think,

I think the world, but yes and no, I've heard a lot of C-suite and I never look at the yes and no. Yes. There's, there's certain places where that stuff matters. But again, do I think,

is he going to go to the university of Nevada, Las Vegas? No offense to you and LV, but no, I, that, that does. There's no point in that to me. But I do think college does have value for one thing.

I think it's a, I think it's a great place to learn how to be an adult. I, I think, see, I have a, I have a whole different take, man. That's fine. I think that colleges is the whole thing on my, in my perspective is that you go to high school can i get political a little bit here all you want cool i think that 95 of educators in the educational space traditional education are far left and indoctrinated exactly so you're from pre-k to you know 18 or be a liberal be a liberal be a liberal right and then you go to college and you get into massive student debt,

nine out of 10 times. And the college loans are some of the only loans that you can't be K out of. You can't get out of them. You are stuck with them for life, right? So you have kids going and studying whatever, you know, whatever they want, because it's all about follow your passion. And so he doesn't, if he doesn't know what he exactly wants to do, and he gets in for 200 something thousand dollars.

Zero chance I would pay for a liberal arts degree. But even so. Or have anything to do with that. That's fine. But even like STEM, I get it, you know, and even STEM and medicine and such, I think that it still needs to be redesigned because you don't need to go and you don't need to study history to get your gen eds to become a doctor. Right. But outside of all that, 95% of it is, I think liberal indoctrination get people so stuck in loans with you know you call it hundreds of thousands in loans where they're still coming out and waiting for 30 something thousand dollars a year that they then have to vote liberal and then they reinforce the

system because misery loves company i think right and so i think that i don't know man you look at the people who are doing the online space and there's like they're almost all far right and then you look at people in the traditional, traditional educational space and they're all far left. And so there's, there's obviously something much larger play that I'm not smart enough to see when it comes down to it. I think there's almost like a, a civil cold war in the educational space going on right now. I'll agree with that. Yeah. I mean, I think Bill Ackerman, you look what he's been able to do, just running, running like the grim Reaper through Harvard and MIT and leaving these, leaving these, these chancellors and presidents in his wake is, I think that's a good change.

I think, I think like anything else, I think the pendulum is swinging back. I think the pendulum, like it, cause it tends to, it goes too far out one way and then comes back and it will always, it will go too far back the other way. I think we're, I think the pendulum is swinging back. I think it is. I think if you look at. Back to what though? Well, I think back to a place where. Because it all started with like the fundamental Rockefeller system, right?

It did. And so I don't think there's ever been a correction the other way. But I'm saying if, I'm saying if you look at, if you look at the education, especially Ivy League, if you look at the educational system and what, what was going on in those campuses in the seventies, you know, seventies was crazy everywhere, but through the eighties and early nineties, I think that was fine. I think you're seeing that swing. I think, I think if you look at the lawsuit that was filed by the Asian students that felt they were discriminated against at Harvard. I don't know. Okay. Look, well, a group of Asian students, shockingly enough, challenged, right. i'm just saying

they challenged harvard because harvard said basically essentially we have too many asians and they were discriminating against them based on race so these these asian kids are suing or have sued i'm not sure exactly where it is but they're suing harvard based on the fact that college admissions should have nothing to do with race yes so that lawsuit there's a lot that you can get into with that right i'm with it but but that lot that lawsuit filed by a collection of asian students is going to help my white as he can be hasn't seen the sun because he plays too many video games and six months male kid yes right because you know if you look back three or four years ago he was completely screwed i think he's got a shot now to have to equality there are some uh i don't

know how to get into this that will be negative for another group of people too that um yeah i mean nothing's going to be perfect yeah but but until we get to a point you know i teach my kids and i have from a very easy very early age that equality of opportunity is far more important than a quality of outcome. I mean, this country was built on not to get political, but this country was built on the opportunity and what you made of your life is what you made of it. And somewhere along the lines, it's gotten twisted into the world owes everybody, everything. I know. It's just that everyone should have the same outcome, not the

same, not the same ability to input. So I totally work that way. Doesn't work. I trust me. I know it's just that everyone should have the same outcome, not the same, not the same ability to input. So I totally doesn't work that way. Doesn't work. I trust me. I'm 100% with you. I think that image where it's looking over a fence. Have you ever seen that little picture of people looking over a fence and ignore me? I'm not going to go into no, I'm not going to ignore you. So yeah. So back to the podcast where no one's here, that's just how we're doing it now. And I I'm kidding. No, but so let's talk, well, let's talk about education. Let's flip into that because online space, which is what you really specialize in is finding people that have something to say. Now, again, back to where the state of the educate online educational space. I think the biggest problem with the

online education space is there are people that really can't do anything, really maybe have never done anything, are puffing their background, are faking who they really are, have become this person they're not, and now they're selling stuff. And then boom, people, when maybe it doesn't work or here's the problem. Like if you're not, there's no education in the world that if every the by that buys it is going to change their life i agree right there's there's variables that go into that between your education your aptitude level and your effort level yeah right there's some things out there that if i don't care if you if you're the hardest worker in the world

and you get up at five in the morning and you work out you do this and you're stupid you're the hardest worker in the world and you get up at five in the morning and you work out and you do this and you're stupid, you're never going to be a brain surgeon. It's just not going to happen for you. Right? I'm never going to be a brain surgeon. I'm not that smart. I'm pretty quick. I'm not smart enough to do that, I don't think. It's just not going to work.

But the problem is when people are buying these courses and they're failing and then the people that they bought them from all of a sudden it's like, wait a second. This dude leases that car he's leaning on that dude rents that house he's puffing okay so number one i totally agree they're scammers right and i would i would think that the amount of scammers that were in this industry versus now are going down because what happened like that's it's not a long-term vehicle you don't see people get away with that for too long right and i don't think that it you know every single time you see any kind of industry explode like online education there's always the the um con men con men if you will at the beginning right but con men you know and they're

always going to be there but they don't they don't stay as as prevalent in an industry as the industry starts to mature and grow. And so realistically, I think a lot of the guys in the space now are, are more, um, credible than people even think they are, but there's such a negative connotation on the space because of, because of that. Exactly. Well, the reason I'm asking you is because what you do is essentially you're like a record label where you will go out and find an artist or an ed Yes. We'll call them, we'll call them the educator and artist. We'll find somebody that's got something you think is a value to say that's going to genuinely help people help extend your, your mission through God and do what you want to do with that.

And there's a good symbiotic type relationship there. And then you develop them and help them build their products and help them get going. So what is that process like? In short, what I love working with, so you said you had Sirhan the other day, for example, right? I'm not saying anything about, I know nothing about his business ops, but as an example, he's a big content guy, right? And to be as constant on content as he is and as prevalent on social media, that's a full-time job. I'm sure that he spends a majority of his time now just being on camera, doing stuff to create awareness. And what it does is it takes away from your ability to grow business, focus on business,

learn about business acumen, et cetera. So you see a lot of guys, let's dumb it down away from Sirhan level. The guys I work with end up doing on average anywhere from like five to 20-ish million a year. You can get there by just having a big audience. You can get there by just having a voice on social. And you can make stupid money by not being a broken clock to write twice a day. As long as you have, call it two million people that follow you, if you have some kind of way for someone to buy something, people will find a way to buy it and you'll get some stuff, right? What I really work on is

essentially finding guys who actually do know what they're talking about, have some kind of leverage in terms of audience, and then helping them monetize that by creating sales machines, right? The right kind of process from taking someone from watching some short form content, like a clip of a podcast, for example, and turning that into someone who actually wants to pay you money to solve a problem over X. And then on the backend, how to create, you know, you talked about relationship sales. It's a little bit different in the online world, but how to take dollars and turn them into gold by creating Ascension sales and LTE, you know, like value ladder to be exactly. And so that's the process. It's pretty much the, the, the business ops of everything. So there, I've always said there are three

things you need to talk about in every business or have people focus on. Number one is you have to have someone who creates eyes. That's what you're obviously doing here, right? Number two is you have to have someone who monetizes eyes. And so that's a CMO, a VP of sales,

et cetera. And then number three is you have to have someone who does all the boring shit. That's your, um, your HR, your legal, your finances,

your, uh, products, student success, et cetera, right? Student success kind of goes into number two with monetizing because a value ladder. So we focus on the two. Getting eyes is not my forte. It's the forte of the people that I want to work with.

And so we work with more artistic people, if you will. And we are the kind of boring glasses guys that help you make, you know, guys that, that help you make more money from it, if you will. Got it. So do you go out and find people? Do they find you? Like, what do you look for? Yeah. Uh, I, I've become, this sounds so douchey to say, I hate saying it, but it's the best way to say it. I've become a little bit of like, of the, like, if you know, you know, guy is how people are. I love that. Yeah. I love it, but I hate saying it about myself. When people say it about me, it's cool. When I say it about myself to explain it, I feel like it's a douchebag thing to say, but that's, that's what I'm like my brain internally

in the online spaces. If you know, if you know, you know, I think the only thing you can't say about yourself is you can't call yourself cool. I think that's the, that's the, if you call yourself cool, you're definitely not. I think that's the only thing I, you can't say I'm a cool guy. Like if you know, you know, that's, that's business acumen. I'll give you a check. You will allow it. Yes. We're allowing that. Yes. Judges say yes. Judges say it's a lot. So it's, I, I do, we do have, you know, a sales team that goes out, but a majority of it is, has been inbound so far. Very cool. So when people come to you and they say, Hey, look, I got this audience. I don't know what to do with it. How do you, what's the process of breaking that down into what they

should be teaching? The first thing is they have to have some, I don't start people's businesses, right? So let's say you had 5 million subscribers or followers over platforms, but you have nothing. I, I don't want to, to work. There's a certain level of like fundamental that I want to make sure you have by having something in play. You could be doing a hundred thousand a month or so. And that's enough for me to see that you kind of have an idea as to what you're doing. Right. Very, very little. So, but if you have nothing, I'm not, there's so much of a discrepancy there. I've thought about getting into that, but that's way that's, that's not label. That's like straight up

creating somebody out of nothing. So real quick though, wouldn't it make sense? See, I'm going to- I know it would. From a financial perspective- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, you can't take flyers on people. I get that too. There's too much probably involved with what you do from time and money that you can take a lot of flyers. But what I was going to say is Mr. Education space is, wouldn't it make sense for you to develop a program to get people from zero to 50? I thought about that. And then you pick them up at 51.

Yeah. The, you know, the whole thing is I, I know it's, this is hypocritical cause I'm on a podcast with you right now, but I don't want to be an info guy. You know,

I don't want to be the guy who's on YouTube. Cause the thing to it, genuinely to create an info product guy. You know, I don't want to be the guy who's on YouTube. Because the thing, genuinely, to create an info product, you should have, there's only two ways to really leverage it out. There's paid ads and there's organic content, right? If you look at Hermosi's $100 million leads and such, there's, of course, different levers that you can pull. But in info product, those are the main two. And paid ads right now is brutal.

That's why you see so many people getting into organic content. And I don't feel like being an organic content guy, right? And so if I was to create a paid, get from zero to 50 with organic following kind of info product, info product squared, whatever you want to call it, then I would have to get, I would have to spend a lot of money on ads and grow that.

And then eventually become a face. I just not right, right now, I don't see how that applies to the mission and vision I have for myself or for the company I have. Which is what? What is the mission and vision you right right now. I don't see how that applies to the mission and vision I have for myself or for the company I have which is what what is the mission of isn't you have right now using excellence in business as a way to Create respect and authority in the space that I can then direct toward Jesus Christ to grow the kingdom of God Well, there you go. Yeah business to me is a means to an end So I I generally right now there are so many people in the space that that make a lit

I say a little bit but it could be a couple million dollars a year right with with their following and it's pennies on the dollars to what they could make and there's enough opportunity for a likely nine-figure company in just that when i start to hit the tim and like like really cap out what that market has then maybe at that point i'll be like okay now it is time for me to start to to leverage all the brands we work with almost make a masterclass if you will. And then get into that. Well, this is right. It's red sea versus blue sea is what it is. I mean, yeah. I mean, if you're walking in and doing what you do, it's much easier. It's probably a lot easier lift to take somebody from a hundred thousand,

a million from zero to a hundred thousand. Incredibly easy. Well, dude, if they want to get in touch with you, want to't we learn more about what you do? How do they find you? Instagram? Just Paul daily, Paul daily on Instagram. Check it out. Well,

dude, man, that was a good talk. I appreciate you coming in. And Hey, I want to say, man, you've been a lot of fun to talk to.

Your office is awesome. And you have a great demeanor about you. It's just, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All right, guys. Well,

we will. I hope you got something out of this today. If you didn't, I don't know. You weren't listening. I got something out of it. I thought it was funny. Anyway, uh, dude, look again, guys. Well, I hope you got something out of this today. If you didn't, I don't know. You weren't listening. I got something out of it. I thought it was funny. Anyway, dude, look.

Again, the show Escaping the Drift is about stop floating along with the breezes of life, man, and start taking control of it because nobody's coming to save you, and you got to do it for yourself. So we'll see you guys next time. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com.

You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.