Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Ups and Downs of Entrepreneurship with Trey Lewellen

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Trey Lewellen created the first 2 Comma Club funnel that made over 1 million dollars with an e-commerce offer. What turned into a ‘maserati bomb’ of cash that led to unprecedented growth problems and success. This is the thrilling story of scaling a real business and how you treat both the successes and the failures to reach your business goals. But you’ll also discover the path Trey recommends for your ecommerce funnel development and sales. Join Trey in the brand new One Funnel Away Challenge at https://onefunnelaway.com Get your own .BIO domain name for a low price at Porkbun! Go to https://porkbun.com/MarketingSecretsShow24 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Metrolinx and CrossLinx are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. There's always ups and downs. No matter where you're at in the business life, if you're making sales or not making sales, you're making a lot of sales, making no sales,

those same ups and downs, kind of like a roller coaster, is just the path of entrepreneurship. We all have it. We all have the stories that are fun to hear about. In the moment, they were not fun. In the moment, they're never fun, but they're always fun to laugh at later because you survive. And I think that's what kept me driven is... People ask all the time, how'd you get through it? You faced so much just... Blah. And funny, how'd you get through it? And it was just like, I just kept telling myself, I get to live tomorrow. And that's a beautiful thing.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today's interview is going to blow your mind. I brought somebody who was one of our first ClickFunnel members ever.

We think he was like in the top 10, like first people to join ClickFunnels. He also had the first funnel that broke to Comic Club and it went from zero to over $30 million in like two months, I think is what we figured. It was insane. Uh, and we're going to tell that story, which is gonna be a lot of fun. Um, but on top of that, we're not just going to talk about the good stuff. He's going to go deep into the dark side of things, the things you don't know about, the stress, anxiety, the legal problems, the issues, the merchant accounts. Because he had a funnel, probably the fastest growing funnel I've ever seen.

But with that came a lot of other things. So we're going to go deep into that in this interview, which is really fascinating. We actually just finished it up, and it was really cool to hear that side of it. And then from that, most people who have big successes and they fail they don't come back and trey then talks about how he came back and what he's doing now and all the funnels econ funnels he's doing um so if you've ever been interested in like how do you do e-commerce online not so much like how do you build a shopify store but like actual e-commerce funnels like this is the guy who basically invented the blueprint he's uh he invented it he figured it out and he's been the one who i've

known who scaled it over and over and over again more than anybody. He's got more winning e-com funnels than, again, anyone I know. Do you know anyone better than you? Probably not. I've looked. Yeah.

They're not there. They're not there. At least they're hiding. Yeah, so this interview is amazing. We just got done with it. I'm excited for you guys to jump in and meet our guest for today. His name is Trey Luell,

ClickFunnels member number five or six, whatever it was. And with that said, let's jump right into the podcast. All right. So I'm here today with Trey Llewellyn. Trey, how are you feeling today? Doing good, man. I'm so excited you're here in Boise again. It's a trip. It's a trip. It's a quick trip. Nobody wants to come to Boise, but when they're here, they love it. I do love it. It's beautiful. Yeah. So Trey came in today because we were working on a secret project, uh, for the ClickFunnels

community. Uh, you were building out an entire training for our people, showing them how to sell e-commerce through funnels. Um, and, uh, the story behind, behind how you got here is fascinating. And so, um, I want to talk about that story for a second, but I also want to listen to you. I want to go deep because you've had like some huge ups and huge downs back and forth and i want to share i want to talk about all those kind of things i think a lot of times people just hear about the highlight reel i think i'm excited to talk about both sides of it if you're cool with that yeah okay yeah sure first i want to tell i told this story earlier on facebook live but this is really fun so we launched click funnels uh you were customer number what do you i think i'm three no one has never officially said trey

you remember this i'm pretty i have to be three or ten or i hope i'm in that number like single digits yeah okay so trey's a single digital one of the first people ever joined click funnels and um and i think i don't know how far you were in the in your career but you were just kind of getting started right like it wasn't something where your first funnel didn't just take off i was like no name no one knew me i knew no. And I was just fiddling in my insurance office. That's what I was doing. And I remember you told me a story, and I'll probably get the details wrong. But you talked about like, you heard me talk about like just launch a funnel, do a funnel,

one funnel away. And then you started doing them. And then how many funnels did you do before you had the one that like popped? Man. Or what's the story? Give me like, what are some of the ones you tried i'm just curious like some of the funny stories behind it geez uh what did we try i mean we had like we had some like like uh little winners you know like we're good so like before clickfunnels we sold

t-shirts yeah and i tried to build a t-shirt it's like on shopify or something or how are you selling them teespring oh yeah of course yeah i do that gone that was the worst thing ever but made made good money but then uh people came in our Facebook page. That's when you could actually reach people on Facebook. And they're like, hey, I bought all your t-shirts. Give me something else to buy. That was what they were saying. So then that's when I was like, you know, I was messaging anybody I knew in my little circle of like, hey, how do you do this, WordPress?

And they're like, no, ClickFunnels. I was like, what's that? They're like, Russell Brunson's building this hooth thing. And so I went over to ClickFunnels.com, signed.com signed up i said you know sign me up for the free trial or whatever and that was like when like things the building blocks were coming in and um you know i think that it started with like webinars and then it moved in like i was just i was just waiting for ecom like that's all i was just sitting there waiting for ecom because i was like i need this the way we first launched is we we weren't finished when we launched this we uh did a reverse

launch so we like we launched like. We did a reverse launch. So we launched like, you can create an opt-in funnel. Hey, you can create this funnel. Hey, we have order forms. So like, yeah, it was because we launched before we were ready. That's like how entrepreneurs do it, right? That's all good. Yeah.

I sell products before. So you're like waiting for us to actually like. Yes. That's crazy. So it worked. We started doing our little pages like it's great because you can just, you know, build it. And I was a computer science major, so it came easy to me and there was no programming. You just, you know, you build it. And so I built, the first thing we built, I remember this, is was a 10 sign. And it said, due to ammo shortages, there will be no warning shots.

I bought that off of Amazon for $6 and I sold on ClickFunnels for 12. And that made, I don't know, maybe a couple of sales. Like we would post it to our Facebook page, which had 300,000 likes, which got comments. So you can monetize it a little bit, but it was nothing like we were about to do. And so, man, I'm trying to think of what some of the stuff we tried. We tried P52 can openers. We tried a deck of cards.

We tried solo targets. We tried oil. We did all these like little things. I remember you told me that you'd like walk to Walmart or something and just find stuff and list it. Yes. I would walk to Walmart and list it. Uh, find a product. You're like, maybe this will sell. Let's see if it would sell. You run out of ideas. Amazon wasn't like huge yet. You know, Amazon wasn't full of ideas. So you're still at the retail level of like, you know, what's selling. And I, and I kind of still do that today but you go into stores and you look at what's depleted like what inventory is depleted

and that's how i kind of guess like oh that kind of that kind of is probably selling like people are actually buying a lot of that that they can't restock it fast enough and so that's how i found uh what was what you're referring to is the cleaning gun cleaning kit i had like 42 items that you know i closed my eyes i'm like what would i pay for that 50 bucks holy crap walmart selling for 20 these guys are crazy and i take that back take photos of it upload it to a you know page that looked like trey built it and then hope that something sells you know and that that was the beginning man what would you do something sold you bought at walmart you bought one or two of them i'm assuming to have a sell that you tried to source them or uh well yes we would source them but funny enough is you know we would source them. But funny enough is,

you know, we got that cleaning kit. I uploaded it and it sold like gang gangbusters. Like, I think we sold 30 or 50 within a week and Walmart only had five. We need more Walmart. Go order some more. I had to go to Walmart. I had to go all the Walmarts in St. Louis. So I went to every single Walmart and bought out all the the gun cleaning kits it's a horrible day to come back and just be like we got to ship these like that was definitely not uh a good management of my time you know think about how many people like wait because they're trying to find the perfect product try to source and they go and buy those inventory and it sits in their garage for like 20 years of their life versus you're just like driving a walmart's grabbing crap and selling it i was grabbing crap and selling it well selling

for more i sold it for 50 bucks yeah Yeah. So I was making money on Walmart, right? Walmart selling for 20, I'll sell them for 50. So I was definitely making 30, but then we would outsource it, get it for, I think we got it for like four bucks landed.

So I made even more margin. Right. Yeah. But yeah, that was the idea. Like I, I actually, uh,

I mean to this day we still sell products before we, yeah, we sell products before they land. Like we import it all from China, but even products I'm like, Oh, we sell products before they land. Like we import it all from China, but even products I'm like, Oh, is this going to work? We start trying to sell that product before we even have like the box created with our logo on it. And that way we know like, Oh, it's selling great. Put out like a four email series. Like, Hey, uh, your orders in production. Hey, your orders, uh, you know, being QA checked, Hey hey your order is being shipped so that kind of delays

us or you know we'll be like hey due to xyz you know uh shortage in employees or whatever like your order is delayed some will cancel some will refund but at least we know there's life yeah in the product and we say okay this is a go like this is a green light offer let's hit it versus oh we didn't make any sales no harm fail because we didn't invest all this product because like you said earlier is sitting inventory is bad inventory yeah yeah so tell us about like when the first one hit because i have my side of the story i'll tell later but like for you like what was that why did you have to come the idea walk through that whole process and then flashlight yeah okay oh yeah So the flashlight, what a story.

Greatest story ever. We could be an eight-hour podcast, honestly. So short version is the flashlight was an offer that we tried. We tried to sell it for $12.95. We bought it on Amazon for five. So it was listed on Amazon for five. Tried to sell it for 12. Didn't sell.

It's just a normal flashlight or a little. Yeah. Yeah. A little flashlight, nothing different about it. And so I tossed a box of them of a hundred in my closet and we were working out of the house in the closet and four or five, six months goes by. And I go in, that's where we had our airplanes, our remote control airplanes. I tripped over these dang, dang flashlights. And I was like, can we just get rid of these? Like, let's just dump these things. So I built another real quick funnel and for for whatever reason, they sold. Like, they all sold.

I was like, huh, maybe we should buy more. Like, I've never really said that about a product. I was like, maybe we should buy more. So we bought more. And we kind of course corrected the funnel a little bit to where we actually make a little bit of money. And it's been a little bit. So I'm trying to kind of remember what kind of happened there, but we built the funnel and we started increasing the price. So we went from $12 to 26 to 36 to 46 to 56 to 66. And that's where it broke. So people stopped buying at 66. It was a $56 offer and the conversions were good, but they weren't great. And like we couldn't, we were like breaking even on Facebook. And so I remember one of the key factors I teach everybody that ever comes into my life.

Like if there's one thing that I can leave you with, it's to call your customers, you know? And so call your customers and call your leads of why they didn't buy. It's the easiest thing to fix your funnel. So I call this, I'm just making phone calls one day. And I was like, hey man, saw that you were interested in flashlight, but you didn't buy. Why not? And this guy, you know, these guys are gunslinger guys. And he's like, he gets his little raspy voice, you know, like he just got done smoking a pack and he's like, Hey man, like I, uh, I didn't buy your flashlight. I'm a flashlight guru, but you know, it just didn't seem like

it was a fit. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, I'm looking for, you know, a manly, a masculine flashlight. I was like, oh, okay. What, like, what's that? Tell me more. Just kind of getting more out of them. Yeah. Manly. What's a manly? He's like, I'm looking for like one of those tactical flashlights. It was like tactical. I was like, that's interesting. So I literally go to ClickFunnels, edit the page and I type in tactical G700. So it was a G700 flashlight first. Now it's a tactical G700. So all I did was add the word. I didn't change the flashlight. And I press save. And literally, I'm telling you, within minutes, our conversions doubled. They were doubled. And I was like... Which means your ad cost cut in half, right?

Cut in half. Yeah. Cut in half. And I was like, Holy crap. That's amazing. Like all they wanted was a tactical flashlight. And that's how I separated myself from all these other flashlights from one dude who told you to one guy. And that has happened more and more. Like there's other examples of that, you know, that's happened through our, my career of just these one little word changes.

Um, like we, with, with the oil that we sold, we, we would buy a 50 pack of uh uh what are those towels called they uh oh uh the white um you know i'm talking about yes yeah okay so everyone you know those towels microfiber yeah so microfiber towels buy a 50 pack off amazon for ten dollars so each

one costs whatever that is 25 cents and we were selling those for $3.99. And so on the funnel, conversions were like 15% take rate on the order bump. Well, I called people like, Hey, why don't you grab the microfiber towels? Like, Oh, I can get those anywhere. They're like, well, what would make it better? Like, Oh, well, if it was a premium microfiber towel, I'd buy more of them. Premium. Typed in premium. Hey, grab a premium microfiber towel with your oil selection. Sales just rocketed. So now I wasn't investing money with towels from China. I was just going to Amazon, buying a pack of 50, sending it to my fulfillment center. And they were just

one single handling each one out of the pack. That's how I save money. So those are like ways to do it, right? So tactical flashlight was how we kind of got our start. Did Facebook, scaled Facebook, went to a went to an event called traffic conversion. At that event, I was invited to go to a survival life meeting with Perry Belcher. And at that meeting was like these 100 affiliates that were like pushing survival life stuff. Sat down, this guy, Justin Brooke is there. And, um, I'm telling him, I'm like, Hey man, like, you know, you're an ads guy. That's just his kind of name to fame. I was like, what would you do? He's like, I'd talk to this guy right here. I was like, Oh, hello. And, uh, I was like, what's your name? He's like, my name is Brian

Lippman. I was like, what's up, Brian? What do you do? He goes, I send emails. I was like, Oh, that's cool. He goes, what do you do? I said, I go, I sell flashlights. He's like, cool. I told him the sales we're doing, which is decent. And he's like, well, you should call me after the meeting and we'll see if we can make something happen. I was like, okay. So I call him. Here's the offer. Hey, do you got an email that you've written? No, I just got some Facebook copy that says, you know, military grade, tactical flashlight. You know, I was like talking a little bit about how, you know, military grade, uh, flashlight, you know, I even, I was like talking a little bit about how, you know, we took this technology from the military and now it's a, it's available to the public. Like just create a spin, a fun spin on the flashlight. He's like,

ah, you know, let's test it out. I said, okay, man, how much for, for a test? He's like, oh, uh, 10 grand. I was like $10,000. Like this was 10 years ago, 10 grand. He was like, yeah, 10 grand. Like it's nothing. You know, I'm like, man, I wish I felt like 10 grand was nothing. And so I was like, maybe he's just, you know, so, uh, I was like, all right. I was like, Bryce on my business partner. Like, what do you think? He's like, Oh, let's try it. I guess. I was like, well, whatever. So we grab an Amex cause we didn't have 10 grand and, uh, here you go, Brian. And, uh, he's like, all right, let's send it out. He goes, I will not let you lose. And that was really confident for me. You know, he's like, I won't let you lose. Like I'm going to win for you either way. Like we're going to make it work. Okay. I believe in

you. He goes, if it fails, I'll refund the 10 grand. Okay. Little risk. Here you go. So he sends out the email and we made sales. We made more than 10 grand back. We made, I think 20, I think we made 20 grand profit was probably two to three grand. Hey, I like that. So I called Brian up, Brian, that was a success. Like we made some money. And I was like, now what? He's like, Oh, we full send it. I was like, full send it. What's that mean? He's like, well, I'm going to send it to everybody. Like all my emails. I was like, how many is that? I don't know if the time is like 20 million emails or 15 million emails. I was like, okay, let's do it. How much is that? 80 grand. I was like, Brian, like, bro, you want me to hand you,

I've only met this guy once, right? 80,000, I'm like, this dude is running with my money. So I even still get sweaty right now. He calls, he's like, so you doing it or not? And I was like, I guess, I guess we'll do it. And I'll have 80 grand. So I called Amex. I was like, hey, can I get a boost? And they're like, well, how much do you need? Like 20 grand, 20, you know, 22. I was like, I guess, I guess we'll do it. And I'll have 80 grand. So I called Amex. I was like, hey, can I get a boost?

And they're like, well, how much do you need? Like 20 grand, 20, you know, 22. I was like, 80. Are you buying a house? What's happening? We call them Maserati. My first house was $90,000 we bought. So there you go.

Well, the Maserati I bought was 80 grand. Yeah. So we call them Maserati bombs. You know, when I'm handing these Maserati bombs. I would call them Maserati bombs. And I was like, all right, well, here's a Maseratierati bomb because if it explodes like i'm not getting it back yeah and so i hand in this this eighty thousand dollars on an amex and i told bryson i was like we might not get this money back like i guess we got a charge back that we could do so ironically enough i'm

headed to hawaii for a mastermind and why, I forgot why it was so late, but it was like 10 o'clock at night. And I knew, I knew that, um, the email was supposed to send at that time at like 10 o'clock. And so I'm watching our watch. He's watching his watch. We got our phone. This was back when like you could do, it wasn't Zapier's, but it was like an email that goes to an app and that app makes a ka-ching sound. So it was like ka-ching, like when you got a sale, it's kind of cool. So it feels good. It's a good, it's a good feel feeling when you hear that ka-ching, you're like, oh, I made money. And so I said it on loud and I'm trying to eat dinner. I'm nervous. Cause nothing's, you know, nothing's happening. And it's 10 o'clock that like, you know, the third

hand, second hand's going past. I'm like, we got no sales. Like we got no sales. We are screwed. And minute goes by, two minutes go by, three minutes go by. And then I hear this ka-ching. I was like, oh, okay, okay. That was 50 bucks. Not bad. Closer to 80. And within like five minutes, it went from ka-ching to here, ka-ching here. like the amount of sales it was just like you could just roll through them i'm like

oh my happening dude the dinner table was so loud and so boisterous and like people were having so much fun to where these kachings took it over and the whole dinner time i've said before the whole dinner table goes silent and everybody's just like staring at our phones because it's like just going nuts and everybody's like what what's that i said that's a maserati bomb and they're like holy smokes and i go we me and bryson after dinner we go back and bryson i got a picture of him he's standing up with his leg like this up and he's holding his phone and i was like taking a picture and i was like that's a cool picture because you made a thousand dollars in that picture like that was a thousand like in the time that he raised his leg we made a thousand bucks i was like this is crazy like he doesn't see so we get home i was like brian super success

awesome what do we do like how do we do one of those like i'm ready like my amex burning for brian he's like it's done that's everybody what do you mean that's done he's like that was everybody that's full send it no one's ever done that before no one's ever done that before like what are you talking about and uh he's like yeah you're the first one i couldn't believe it i was like holy smokes so he's like i don't got anything else because we sent the whole email list like you got to come back in like 30 days 40 days that's when i joined inner circle yeah and i was like you know everybody's always like what do you ask russell and i had one question what do you do after facebook after emails like i was like where's the next traffic and you came to me and

you go all right this is risky and i don't trust this guy but i'm gonna tell you right now he might do some favors for him and uh that was uncle bernardo and so so i was like i'll give you go i was like so tell me about Uncle Bernardo. And he's like, well, I had this supplement. It wasn't a supplement. It was a supplement. Yeah, supplements. You go, I got with Bernardo on a Friday.

He called me. He goes, hey, I'm going to push this offer. You go, yeah, you push it. What's your limits? I'm like, what's your limits? No cap. As long as you're profitable, I don't care. Yeah, no cap.

Profitable, CPA, get after it. And I think you woke up on sunday to notice that you were he'd sold he'd sold like eight months worth of inventory in one day yeah and the supplements was like to get new inventory is like three month process right yeah gone gone and i remember i think i told you this i go if he just does a quarter of that for us i'd be forever grateful yeah so i called him up i was like hey man got a flashlight uh offer russell said that you know what to do here you go he goes ha ha ha he laughs he goes ha that's what he laughs like no it's joking uh he's gonna watch this he's gonna laugh so uh he's like

laughing at me he goes what's so special about the flashlight it's tactical i don't know like i i honestly didn't know i was like it's tactical he goes okay he goes but he goes i i can't take this to my pubs he worked for a network and he's like i can't take this to my pubs because they'll just laugh at me like we've never seen anything like this before i was like well it's selling on facebook it's selling email like it should sell everywhere else he's like dude you have to pay me i was like how much you want he's like i want 10 grand i was like what is it with you guys and needing 10 grand to like test this stuff? Like, like you're killing me. So I was like, whatever. So I give him 10 grand. And I think it was like during the week or weekend,

three days go by, we see some sales coming through like, oh, okay. You know, Barnard is up to his little games. Like he's got sales coming in and he calls me and he goes trey this offer is gonna be huge we want it on a cpa and i was like okay what's that mean and uh he's like i just need you for every conversion i need you to pay me x you know i think at that time it was like 80 bucks so every time we get a conversion no matter what this what the sale was is 80 we pay him out okay cool is there a cap that means like basically you can only sell so many per day. I was like, Oh, and I was like, just do what you did for Russell. Like I warned you. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't been speaking to you at that point. And so, uh, he's like, okay. And then dude, we, we, we, it was just crazy. Like he went to town,

he took that offer and he just went to everywhere and everyone and blew us up. He scaled it, you know, and every day, every day, the Stripe account got bigger as I mean, like the sales we did yesterday, it was always like 25% more the next day, 25% more the next day, 25. So we were doing 10 grand a day to 15 grand a day to 25 grand a day to 100 grand a day. We capped. I remember capping at like 475 or 500 grand in one day and just flashlight sales. We were 70,000 units. No, 70,000 orders in the whole by with our ship station account. We could not keep up with the orders. Customer service, I was getting 15,000 phone calls a day. I had 20 people working the phones. You can't stop. Yeah. That's what I said. But I don't know. We got to slow the train down. He goes, we're on a freight train, bro. If we stop this train, it won't come back.

So as an early entrepreneur, like you don't know what you don't know. So I was like, scale it, send it. Like I'll figure it out. And that's that's you know we were just in figure out mode like we weren't on our business we were definitely in our business and just picking up the crumbs you know picking up the messes yeah we'll go into that in a minute i'm going to talk about some of the messes people can understand but but it's crazy to think about that story and um my side of the story i've told you this before but it's crazy because we had just launched click funnels it was the first year year and everyone plugs into Stripe, but we're able to see like the volume happening through Stripe, through all the merchants. We get paid a percentage on that, right?

And I remember looking in the back office one day and, you know, we had, I don't know, I can't remember. We were, everyone on the platform combines by making 10 grand a day or something like that, which was cool. And all of a sudden it's like 10 grand to 30 to 50 to 100 to 300 to 500 right and i'm freaking out and todd's freaking out we're like everyone our platform is making so much money we were so excited that this was happening i remember going like uh facebook lives and periscope like showing like the thing like like clickfunnels members are blown like and it was crazy because i didn't know it was you i didn't know it was one person doing the majority

of the volume but it was crazy because for me it gave me so much belief in what we were doing i'm like funnels work i've been telling everybody this like i finally got proof it's actually working and then um and it was cool because like that bought me into my business and my calling my mission so much more because i was like now like tell everybody like because i saw that and it's crazy because again i um i didn't know it was all coming from you but it gave me belief in what i was doing as well to come out and like it's crazy because now we do you know clickfunnels platform processes i think like $3 billion a year now, which is not, that's not all your volume, is it? It might be, but, um, but like, that was the thing that gave

me belief in what we were doing for me to triple down and just be so excited because of that. So it's kind of like this weird blessing happened for me, uh, watching your, you know, having your success happen. And then I found out, I can't remember five or six months later when you're like, I saw that live and it was crazy because like your numbers and mine were almost the same. I was like, oh, yeah. So thank you for that. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells. And Taylor spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to

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I want everyone to hear that part of the story because I think I tell the story, like you're one funnel away, you're one funnel, I talk about it a lot, right? And people hear me say that. It's like, well, what does that look like? And in reality,

there's always pros and there's cons with that, right? Like the pros are just like, it hit, it worked, like, oh, this is true. And I can tell you a dozen times in my life when I had the one funnel way moment like we are in click funnels like when click funnels finally hit the same thing like it was blowing up year one we got 10 000 members and then the software crashed everything's crashing and we couldn't keep up support or operations or everything it was just like we almost lost our business year one because we had success because

the funnel worked and it's like that side of it and no one ever talks about that side of it and um i want to talk about that and then we're gonna come back to more fun stuff and more all the stuff you're doing today and all the other funnels and offers but i do want to share this part just because i think a lot of entrepreneurs don't know what happens when it hits and then again there's the positive and the negative they just i'm sure they've just visualized the positive but i'd love for you dive into some of the other side of it as much as you're willing to share but just you know yeah you get the point where you're doing five hundred thousand dollars in sales a day like that's a quick you can't keep up with

that it's impossible yeah it's in it was impossible we didn't have the systems in place uh geez i mean the call center alone like 15 000 calls like people were leaving voicemails like where's my flashlight you know and they're mad like like for me you know i'm like it's a flashlight but for them it was a gift. It was a Christmas present. It was their only money they had at the time. And that's what they want. The one thing they bought and they wanted their flashlight.

They wanted their flashlight. Like it was, it was wild. Jeez. I don't know what, what is the most fun? I think, you know, I have fun stories, which are, which are doomsday stories. I remember, I remember when up and the local news had been doing an article on us, which they don't tell you until they show up with the video cameras and the spotlights. And you're just like deer in a dead headlight.

And I remember it was funny because we went and watched it because I remember the call center guy, he's like, we're on the news. And I was like, what are you talking about? They hadn't come to our office yet. And he's like, check this out. So we pull it up. The call center was kind of like a room like this where everybody had their, their, their desktops. I had them all big 25 inch screens

for the apples, like nice stuff. So we pull it up. All 25 call reps are just like huddle around this TV, watching this news article. And what you see is this grandma in her kitchen, and she's like, yep, they just keep calling. They just keep calling. I can't call nobody. I pick up the phone, and there's somebody there. No dial tone. And the lady's like, well, how has this affected your life? She goes, I can't make a call out.

I can't receive calls. I can't talk to my grandchildren. I can't talk to my children. I can't talk to my friends. I can't talk to my children. I can't talk to my friends, nothing all because of this flashlight company and here in St. Louis. And he's usually outbound calling them or what? No, her number, her number was one digit off from the number of ours. And so people were just fat fingering her number. We were getting 15,000 calls a day. 100 of those were shifted over to her. And so she would answer the phone.

And so they video recorded her. You see the phone ring. Hello. Nope. This ain't. This ain't. That's a scam. And I was like, and I'm watching this.

I'm like, oh, my gosh. Oh, I'm just going. I'm like, oh, my gosh. She goes, that's a scam. You need to call your bank and charge back. Just the words that we as entrepreneurs and CEOs hate to hear, you know, like charge back. And I'm just like, wow. And she'd hang it up.

I tell you, it was wild. Hang it up. Ring. Hello. Like, I was like, she ain't lying. Like, that was the amount of calls she's getting. That's crazy. It's just same story, same story.

And the news made it dark, invasion, stuff like that. So how that happened, that was a learning experience for us. Like Alex Sharfman, which was at Pirate's Cove, I told these stories. And the one thing I remember from him is I tell you the same thing. We did $30 million in two and a half months. Oh, that's great. Pretty much lost it all. And he said something to me that time. I was like, I've taken it to heart

and I've told other people that. He goes, you got a $30 million education. And I was like, wow. Like, that's a really cool spin to understand. Like, I feel bad because I didn't take much home from that. And I was like a has-been, you know, like, oh, I had the success. And then like, what do you do after that? It crashes. And it was like, I was like a has been, you know, like, oh, I had the success. And then like, what do you do after that? And it crashes and like, can I do it again? Can I create the spark? Like, I don't know. You go through all these like

psychological demons that, you know, come and try to capture you. And that was really cool for him to say. And I took that to heart because that wasn't education. Like we go to college and pay, I mean, I don't know what my college was, maybe 120 grand now, but a $30 million education. I learned so much just by the law of, you know, getting in the dirt. Well, think about things like you learn about the systems, right? But inside there's the customer support stuff. There's probably shipping and logistics you gotta figure out. There's importing stuff from China, I'm sure.

There's traffic. Like how do you handle the relationship and the mass media? Like I can't even imagine like all the different things things you have to figure out and try to solve while like while all this is raining on you sales are still coming in people are like you can't stop you can't stop the train you can't and then as soon as you do stop the train this happened to me at least i'm sure i'm assuming similar thing like you stop the train all the affiliates who were promoting it are like wow this offer converted and two minutes later they've got a flashlight offer and now you got 500 competitors who were your partners. Now your competitors,

and it's just gone. And you're like gone. Everything I just created just got ripped off by the people who supported you for a dollar, usually a dollar difference. That's what the CPA is. But to rewind just a second. So the, the lesson I learned from the grandma was not to have a local number for the company. That was the lesson. And so that cost me a lot. That cost the business a lot, but real quickly, we got eight, three, three number. And those numbers aren't grandma's numbers, right? Those numbers are other businesses, like call them all you want. But the eight, our eight, three, three number is now like validated to where we're not going to harm someone's home and, and miss and miss, you know, type.

The other thing was, is I think we called somebody of the number and we had the wrong number on our, um, our label, our shipping label. We couldn't find it. Couldn't figure out where it came from. Um, so that was, that was, that's, that's always an interesting story. Uh, you know, we also had the other stories where, uh, one time this guy calls and he's like, uh, Hey, is the, is the owner there? That was never a good call. And I was like, Oh, I'm here. And I was like, what's he need? He's like, they're like, well, um, uh, his house burned down. I was like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, one of your flashlights caught his house on fire. I was like, gosh, darn it. Like we're, we're out of business. Like we're gone. So I put on the headset. Hey, this is Trey.

And how can I help you? He goes, how you doing? I said, probably better than you. I said, how can I help you? He goes, well, I got to tell you. He goes, I bought one of your tactical flashlights. And I said, uh-huh. And then he goes, I was sitting in my rocking chair.

And I was just sitting there. And you know, I can't hear well. And my kitty cat is sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I'm watching the ball game. I see my cat fling up in the air, run across the street, run across the, uh, uh, the living room. And I see grandma just, just running with a towel. And I said, something must be wrong. So I looked over, I said, grandma, what's going on? She goes, honey, the bathroom's on fire. I said, oh no. So he got up, he goes over. Sure enough, the battery, the lithium battery had blew up in their bathroom, caught the bathroom on fire.

So now the bathroom is on fire in their house and they're swatting it with towels and they put it out. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Uh, what, what do you, what do you want me to do? And cause I'm like, I don't know, buy me a new house or something. Uh, I've got no money. And he's like, well, I've been thinking about it and I think it'd be okay if you sent me just two more flashlights. I was like, oh, praise Jesus. Like, I could not believe he said that. I was like, I'll send you five. So I was like, yes, sir.

I will get those out to you right away. I said, boys, pack up two flashlights, overnight mail to this gentleman right here. And I was like, good Lord. We are, again, like touch of death you know like you just never know what's going to happen we we had this we had this this this uh uh you know the fbi showed up one time because it was a tactical flashlight uh they got they got a call in because they we had a headline that was like you know tsa uh gets through t. I brought one into the airport, and it had like a ridge on it.

And I took a picture in the airport like this with the planes outside. I was like, TSA approved. And that got us all in a dizzy. And so the FBI showed up. Great marketing. Great marketing. Great marketing. But somebody reported us to the FBI.

They showed up. We made friends. And so you know how that goes. But they asked a lot of questions and, you know, they said, just don't, don't advertise it like that. I said, okay. So, you know, like all these things, you know, stir up and like, it's great. And it's not, it's like you live through the ups and downs. Like there's always ups and downs, you know, no matter where you're at in the business life. Like, you know, if you're making sales or not

making sales, you're making a lot of sales, making no sales, like those same ups and downs, you know, no matter where you're at in the business life. Like, you know, if you're making sales or not making sales, you're making a lot of sales, making no sales, like those same ups and downs, kind of like a roller coaster is like just the path of entrepreneurship. You know, like we all have it. We all have the stories. They're fun to hear about. Um, but I, in the moment they were not fun in the moment. They're never fun, but they're always fun to laugh at later because you survive, you know? And I think that's what kept me driven is, you know, like people ask all the time is like, well, how'd you get through it? Like you, you faced so much just blah in front of you. Like, how'd you get through it? And it was just like, I just kept telling myself, like, I get to live tomorrow. And that's a beautiful thing. Like I get to live tomorrow. Like, uh, we'll take care

of whatever the issues are, but we'll get, we'll take care of it. We were getting 15,000 calls a day, you know, coming in in like, where's my flashlight? Where's my flashlight? And I, uh, I hire this, uh, uh, Mexican, uh, call center. They had like 200 agents. I was like, let's plug and play. And I call them to like onboarding takes 30 to 45 days to plug you in, get y'all set up. I said, I need it done in like five because we're just on a railroad that like nowhere, like we're going to crash. And so they're like, cool, we'll do it. I said, I need you to like do overnight training, get these people on. I need like 50 to 75 agents overnight, ready to go. So they plug us up and they're like, we're ready. I said, okay, let's go. And so we plug in.

Meanwhile, we are able to hear what's called barging the call. We can barge the call in St. Louis. I have me and two other guys barging the calls in like a back room. So we can listen in, just make sure they're saying the right things, making sure everything's going good. So the first call comes in early, you know, open up 8am. I'm on the phones. I hear him. First call center comes in, call comes in. Where's my effing flashlight call center goes be there tomorrow good click i was like huh let me look up that order look at that order it just got like ordered two weeks ago and it's three months out like we're 70 000 orders in the queue we're getting out 5 000 orders a day and it's growing. We're not going to make it. He's not getting that

flashlight tomorrow. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. Bob over here. It's like, Bob, what are you hearing on your call? He's like, they're, they're, they're, they're telling them that they're going to get the flashlight tomorrow. I said, okay, like all of them, all of the agents. So all the agents, the 50 or 75 that we brought on, it's just like ring. Where's my flashlight? Be there tomorrow. Great. Click. Where's my flashlight? Be there tomorrow. Good. Click. Like they got great answer rates. They got great. There's putting it out. Well, the next day we went from 15,000 calls to 22,000 calls because it's like my flashlight didn't come. You said it was going to be here tomorrow. I'm going to charge back. I'm going to, you know, want a refund. And that's when we knew we were in

trouble because like we can't keep up with phone calls. We can't control the customer service. I can't, uh, I can't control my, my, my fulfillment center. So I had it all. Like I had the call center. I was overseeing in-house. I had the fulfillment center overseeing in-house trying to do it all. Try and understand logistics, shipping, like all these different departments. I built 20 different businesses and I realized real quick, I'm not a CEO. I'm not a manager. I suck at that. Like I suck at being all that. I'm not a COO. The best thing I'm at is building a funnel and, you know, striking gold. Everything else is there. You know, I create problems for everybody and then it's up to the team to kind of fix that.

And so, you know, I learned, you know, all the dust settles kind of thing. Like one thing I learned was I can't, I'm not, I don't, I don't do a good job at controlling it and managing it. So I need to outsource it. Somebody who does this already is AJ Kobani. AJ Kobani is the owner of As Seen on TV ads. And so does all those. So I talked to a few people that worked with him in the past. I was like, so how does AJ do it? Because he's in the same business as me, launches a product, has huge scale. He calls them blockbuster products.

But then it might fall. The next TV ad doesn't work. It dies off. Whatever. He's running that same cyclical business that I think I'm in. I'd love to structure my business around his. Come to find out, he has scales. He has levers. So he's able to increase call centers. He's able to decrease call centers. He's able to

increase shipping, decrease shipping all by just outsourcing. I was like, that is genius. So I fired everybody. I fired everybody. Um, I called Alex from OZ. I was like, Hey bro, um, I got 10,000 square foot building. I'm paying 10 grand a month for plus, uh, uh, uh, internet's a thousand. I said, I'm 11 grand of money just in debt, just from the call center guys, like leaving them. I was like, how do I, what do I do? And he had, he had the answer, you know, lucky for me, he had the answer and he goes, dude, I had the same issue with my gyms. He's like, I had three gyms. Just go down to the landlord and tell them that you're going bankrupt. If they want the

bankruptcy lawyer's card, give it to them, but they're in line. Or you can leave peacefully. I said, did that work? He goes, it worked for all of them. I'll try it. So I go down there. I'm all teared up. And I was like, hey, bad news. We're going bankrupt. And they're like, oh. I said, yep, can't afford to rent. So I can either leave peacefully or you can come after me and get in line for your money. Because I was in a three-year contract. And they're like, we'll just let you go.

Signed off and out I went. Did you make something crazy? Saved me 300 grand. Same thing happened to me uh when my my call center crashed everything fell apart i had like three years on the lease i had like 700 something thousand dollars i owed the guy hired a bankruptcy lawyer uh he asked me he's like how much money can you afford and i was like i got 100 bucks in my pocket he took it put in his pocket he's like i'll meet you tomorrow the thing so he showed up and went to the landlord and uh

and walked in i was like this is my lawyer and And he like, Oh, I got all postured. Like I'm trying to sue him. And then he's like, I'm his bankruptcy lawyer. He's in screw. Like he's in so much trouble. And same thing. He's like, he's going to like, but on and on and, and the landlord sent me, like, let me go.

And we left and packed all stuff that night left. And that was it. So that's crazy. I didn't know that story, but I did the, I did the exact same thing. So there, if you'd know other value from this, like, that's how you have a lease so you can at least need to and it was true for me i was like probably sound the same for you like we're at spot right we were gonna have to and had that not happened i would have had to go bankrupt but because we got out of it i was like oh yeah oh i've been done i can breathe yeah now like a small scale there's 10 we actually um you know

they they asked me the same thing like how much can you afford and i was like well i kind of still need an office so they actually had a small room that we got for like a thousand bucks so we downsized to that with them still but then you know we were out after the two years but like so they still made money from us but i told them like i can't pay you what i'm paying you and i'd rather leave peacefully no holes in the wall like don't get destructive like just leave it as it is they'd be better off yeah they're totally agreeable that so it worked out and of course in their position like that's what they would want anyways like they don't want me to like not leave and then they go to you know jury and try to fight like it's just easy to sign it off so it worked for the better but at the end of the day like that

was just like one of those little things that you get from you know a sound board or a board of advisors or your peers that you're like, hey, I'm in trouble. You know, like, I think a lot of us, we don't want to expose ourselves and like say, hey, I'm in so much trouble. Like I'm going in debt. Like I'm losing money. Like we don't look bad, like ego wise. Right. But when you do, when you become vulnerable and you have these, you know, real life talks, that's when the real help comes, you know, like, oh dude, like you just said, like I've been there. It was fun to laugh at now, but here's what you do here's here's the game plan and you'll be great at it and um that's exactly what it did and it worked and so i was like thankful for him for

that i called him i was like dude it worked uh that was amazing he's like yeah dude but i was like okay that's so cool that's cool i'm curious for you after so this whole thing happens right you have this the success of like i'm the genius like took this yeah i figured out internet marketing yeah really what i thought you have that success and then crashes i don't know about you but like so much of your identity usually gets tied into the success of just like i am successful and then it crashes like i am a it failed therefore i'm a failure and a lot of people never recover from that i'm curious what you had to go through mentally from that because i because you have come back and you have done a ton of amazing stuff we'll talk about next but like what was that like that transition like

just psychologically for you dude i i crashed hard and um i didn't want to tell myself i was crashing hard like i get a little teary-eyed uh so two things kind of happened like back to back and it was just like here's a gut punch and And then while you're down, here's another one, you know? So the first thing that happened was the affiliates, the affiliates went to a different offer. Uh, we had the G 700 offer. The other ones are out there. And what they were doing was they were doing what's called black hat offers. So, I mean, good for them, right? Like whatever, what they did was if you bought five flashlights the upsell don't do this the upsell said uh yes i want uh five battery kits for you know let's say 20 bucks each so i was like 100 dollars right the no button no button goes no so big letters no i just want one so it's still a yes

button disguised as a no button. Oh, shady, shady. And I was like, that's genius. Like, that is amazing that they're doing that. But I was like, the chargeback they're going to get is just, you know, crazy. So I don't know how they survived, but they were growing. They're taking all of our traffic. So they're taking $500,000 a day of traffic and growing. So they the chargebacks were never catching the growth right so they were they were paying like 120 dollars a conversion just irrational unimaginable like how's they've impossible numbers but they're doing it through black hat offers right so we couldn't compete and that's that's what really hurt us is they took all of our traffic. Funny enough is I was at an event in Las Vegas called shot show and a mag

light was there, you know, mag light, like police mag light, like, you know, knock you across the head. Oh,

mag light. They had a booth. I have a little name tag on. I go over to him. I was like, Bryce, I'm just curious. Like,

you know, there are another, there are massive flashlight company, huge brand. And I walk over to him. I was like, Hey man, look at his flashlights. I was like, hey, man. Look at his flashlights.

I was like, I don't see the G700 tactical flashlight anywhere. You got one of those? He goes, ha, the G700 tactical flashlight. That thing's a joke. I was like, oh, so you heard of it? Oh, have we heard of it? I was like, wow. Like, I got mag light looking at us.

Like, that was pretty incredible so i was like just kind of a cool ego thing that i got to see you like uh yeah so um so the first there's actually three things so the first thing that hit was the affiliates took our traffic right so now now we're in this descension the descending uh ledger and then chargebacks start chargebacks pass so the chargebacks catch to us and we had no like metrics like i don't know what i was doing like i was making money right i thought it was but yeah the charge backs hit what happens you understand like you have to be a blow certain charge back ratio like one percent or below right and so as you're growing it's easy but all of a

sudden your sales cut in half and then you get what would have been 0.5 charge backs pops to one because you have less volume for the for because it's always leading one month, right? Like that's how that can happen. So, yep, that's how it happens. 1% is threshold, right? You start getting looked at over one. And that's when they show on your merchant accounts. They're like all – like that's when you lose your business.

If you're not careful, you can lose your ability to ever process money in the future. Like you get on a TMF list, which means terminated merchant file. You can't get a merchant account. You can't sell stuff in the future like you get on tmf list which means terminated terminated merchant file like that you can't get a merchant account you can't sell stuff in the future and like it's a scary no i'm not on the list i am are you yeah from this crazy so i got on what's called match tsf i think i've never heard of that uh match so yeah so basically what happened was this was before stripe had a phone number now stripe actually has people who you can call um but this is before that this is when they're kind of like starting right they became like that company and so chargebacks surpass the the sales and it went from like one percent to three percent to seven percent to ten percent we were at ten percent chargebacks on our stripe account and i remember i remember uh the

phone rings and i answered i was like hello hey go I answer. I was like, hello. They go, this is Stripe. I was like, oh, you guys got a phone number? About time. About time. Well, it comes under whatever. Unidentified. Unidentified.

And so I was like, oh, okay. See how this goes. And they're like, yeah, well, we've been reviewing your account, and we're going to put a 100% hold on all your money. You can still transact. But we're keeping it. We're going to keep it all. I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense. They're like, yeah.

So you can't go find mids that can scale like Stripe can overnight. So we went to Marisha. And we got one under Marisha. And they took a 20% reserve. So that was hard. So all these things are happening. It's kind of hard to pinpoint each story. But they're all happening on top of each other so basically stripes coming in chargebacks are high

uh you go on what's called a watch list so we're on the watch list for visa and mastercard we surpassed 10 and stripes on the phone we're all we're on a zoom call with stripe there's this girl young girl uh hate you and basically she's sitting there on the zoom call i was like i'm like pleading i'm like we are like a young business we have no idea what we're doing and uh we're trying to back up we're trying to sales i'm like we're doing everything we know and so she's like well we got to hold your money i said they're holding 1.6 million affiliates want their money uh brokers want their money i was like we gotta we gotta whatever she goes i i go how are we gonna get out of this how do we when do we get our whatever. She goes, I go, how are we going to get out of this?

How do we, when do we get our money back? She goes, when you fall under 10% or whatever. And she's like, we don't know what to do. This is what Stripe is saying. We don't know what to do. We have never seen metrics like yours. Okay. She goes, we have taken this to our aggregators. I think is what she called them. And we have three of them best in the world who have looked at your account and they can't figure out a calculation to figure out what to do. And I'm like, so you're saying that we're... We broke the internet. We broke the internet. So I was like, okay, so we're holding all your money. Okay, cool. We can still refund, right? No. I was like, oh, well, so if we can't refund, what happens when I press the refund button?

It don't go nowhere. Okay, so then, hold up. If I can't refund somebody and they don't get a refund. They charge back. What are they going to do? Oh, charge back. But aren't I in trouble for charge backs? Yeah, you're at like 10% right now.

But you're not allowing me to refund. You're going to have to send them a check. You want me to send them a check? You know how many checks I'm going to have to send out per day to refund these people? And then what stops them from charging back once they get the check? And then they get double the money. She's like, not my problem. Hate you.

You're the worst. I'm doomed, bro. So then they call. And I'm doomed, bro. So then they call. And I was like, hey, listen, we need to open up the refunds because we are going to keep getting chargebacks. You're putting us in a bad situation. They're like, okay, wire us $100,000. You got $1.6 million of my money. You want me to wire you another hundy?

And they're like, yeah. I was like, what makes me want to trust that? Because you're already holding $1.6. They're like, well, that's the only way we're going to allow you to refund we're going to keep a reserve so reserve on the reserve reserve on the reserve so we start wiring them 100 grand twice uh twice a week start wiring 100 grand 100 grand 100 grand it's just like you the accounts were just depleting and not fun and so we're trying trying to, you know, pay Peter, Rob, Paul, like we're robbing two Pauls to pay one Peter and stripes like note and doesn't know what to do. Call center

comes in. Guy goes, guy goes, Hey, there's a lawyer on the phone. Wants to know where his money's at. I was like, we got lawyers chasing money now for a flashlight like what is this hello this is trey ceo proud owner of lumitac and uh how can i help you i need to know right now where my money is at my client needs their money i was like how much money are you talking about they're like 300 grand i was like man what we we sell flashlights that are 5656. I don't think we collected 300 grand. She's like, is this not Stripe? Mm-mm. This is LumeTac. We sell flashlights. We use Stripe, but this

ain't Stripe. Well, your number's on Stripe. That's funny because last I checked, Stripe don't got no phone number. So I Google. I'm like on the phone. I Google Stripe. Google. And you know how it has the business thing that comes on the right-hand side? So Stripe, California shows our number so many people had charged back and complained and googled stripe that where it says suggest a phone number so many people thought we were stripe

so they put our phone number in stripe so now i'm getting lawyer calls of people demanding their money from stripe as if i'm stripe so i call up stripe i'm like hey haha welcome back to the show i got you guys want their money oh what a debacle bro wow and so um so this is i must hate you they like hated me hated me uh they didn't know what to do with me that's crazy i'm sure i'm sure so they put us on match which is a big picture of you on the wall they do not i guarantee i'm in their playbook like when they probably hire people they're like here's what we look it's like somebody calling a ponzi scheme it's like a llewellyn scheme yeah i'm probably like a llewellyn

you know like here's what the llewellyn i'm a term of some sort i'd be i would not be surprised that would be fun to know and so that's going on kicking the butt, right? I'm getting kicked every which direction I got call centers. I got, uh, uh, I got ship station at 70,000. I got this kid like we're hired, dude, I'm hiring juvies. Okay. To, to, to ship this stuff out. Like I remember Saturday, I'm like, we're going to kick 10,000 orders out today. We're going to have a lot of fun doing it. And we go there. I get pizza for everybody. We did 10,000 orders. I log in a ship station and it shows 72,000 orders in the queue. So we sent 10. We grew too. We can't, I can't keep up. I cannot keep up. And so now

the affiliates are going away. New offers are coming out. People are moving. Stripe is charging us back. Visa and MasterCard are calling now. And when they call, they want money. Visa wanted 300 grand. MasterCard wanted two. So $500,000 in fees. So what they do is for every chargeback that you get, Stripe makes that 30 bucks for 15 or whatever it is now. That goes straight to Stripe. That's money for Stripe. So they love charge backs, but they don't like when you go over 1% because then Visa and MasterCard start asking questions to Stripe saying, Hey, are you keeping track on these guys? We're at 10. Okay. We're 10X. And so what happens then is Visa applies a charge back to us, a fee, which is $100.

MasterCard applies a fee to us, $100. So now instead of a chargeback costing me $30, it's $130. So now I'm having to send wires to Visa. I'm having to send wires to MasterCard. I'm having to send wires to Stripe. I'm depleting. How about you just bankrupt this thing and run away and hide? Dude, I get to live tomorrow.

Like that's what I lived on on and then the sheriff walked in and the sheriff that'd be a good headline for this and then the sheriff walked in then the sheriff walks in and i'm telling you that packet was probably that thick inch thick lays it on on me and i was like what's this and? And he's like, you're getting sued. I said, for what? And I just start to turn the pages and it has everybody's name, everybody's address. They did their research. And it's of this company that basically holds the rights to the light bulb we had in the flashlight, which is a, was a patented piece. And we showed it as if we showed it accidentally as if we had that light, but it turned out we didn't. But the only place that we... Ironically, I didn't even know what this company was

until they showed up on my desk. What happened was we took a video from China, China that we used on our sales page. In two seconds of that video, it showed their logo on the light. And they took that as evidence of, Hey, uh, you owe us money. So like you aren't selling our product, but you say you are. So we're going to take a, I forgot what they call it. Infringement of some sort. So we're going to see, we're going to see you for $2 million is what they wanted so trace come to daddy like i got this tree that grows money and it just it just plows so i got visa i got mastercard i got stripe i got refunds i got now this lawsuit for two million and that's that's i think was the breaking point for me because I'm looking at this $2 million check that I'm going to have

to write to this company because we accidentally used their logo. They didn't even write a cease and desist. Like we didn't know they existed until they wrote. They thought that we were everybody. They thought we were all the affiliate offers. So everybody who copied us, they thought we were them too. So they thought they had a big fish, right? Which we were none of that. We were the opposite. Little did they know, like our books were just like on fire. And so the next year, I was depressed because all I could think is I'm working for them now. I'm working for them. Like I owe these people $2 million.

I don't have $2 million. Don't even have that. And like, how am I, how am I supposed to pay them? I'm going to go work for them. Like they're going to seize my checks. I don't know. You know, maybe they're going to seize my house. They're going to take, they're going to take something. And so I couldn't get out of my head where I'm working for them now. And I got these new handcuffs that didn't know existed. And it was, it was, it was demoralizing,

you know, like I, like the spark wasn't there anymore. The fun wasn't there anymore. Um, it was totally gone just because of this, this freaking, you know,

huge monumental success to where it all came crashing down. Yeah. I'm curious thing. Cause like I've seen people who had success and lose it. Like there's like subconsciously so scared to succeed again because of the pain that would cause like, yeah. Like how did you get to the other side of that?

I'm trying to think of why, how did I come out of it? Like it was two years, maybe three. Um, cause then, cause then I got in my head and I, you know, I'm trying to build offers, but I'm not excited about it. I'm, I'm scared, you know, like again, $30 million, uh, education,

right. Which is great. Like I still use that to this day. Like all the principles, all the theories, all the things that we learned, we use and utilize, and we've become so much of a better company. Like we don't, you know, it's an old company, new company now, but we, I've carried those through and we run so more, so, so efficient. It's fun, energetic. Um, we're not doing anything illegal. Like all this stuff is a lot of fun. Yeah. And so that's the change, but that's, I mean, that's 10 years past. Right. So for three years I was definitely down in my roots. Um, you know, I think, I think a good thing for me was when we settled the lawsuit, like that was kind of like the end weight off. That was definitely a weight. Getting rid of the office was a weight lifted. Getting rid of the call center from,

from was a weight lifted. And so like all these anchors, I guess we're getting cut. Like my boat was sinking or I guess it was sunk. And these anchors, I probably had like 12 anchors holding me down and little by little, I guess those anchors were being cut and released. And then I kind of, I kind of came up and like breathe some air and then started to set sail. You know, I didn't catch much wind for a couple of years because what started to get into my head again was, am I just a has-been? You know, is this something that got lucky kind of hit it on you know i built a funnel a funnel week a funnel week and like one exploded like was that was that just a fluke was

that a fluke was was trey really smart did trey really figure out the world of of ecom or just luck you know and because you get a i got a little fame from it like i got a little fame i got some you know some some some good old boys and like stuff like that. But, um, I definitely got down about it, you know? And I'm trying to think like, what was like, what was the big like turn of events for me? I think, I think mainly was, you know, finding a new market that I could sell to because we were selling in the gun space and we were mentoring with Jay Abraham and I paid him 10 grand a month for three hours of his time each month. And we flew to California every month. We flew in and flew out same day. And we did 12 sessions with jay and they were great sessions

and i took each session by heart i went back to the office i did a month's of work went back like jay can't get to work like nothing was working for the gun space no one wanted to run gun ads newspaper and stuff like that so i talked to jay on the 12th week or 12th month with him and i was like jay dude, I've been doing everything you've told me. I've done everything. He goes, Trey, you're a great marketer. You know exactly what to do. You know how to do it. You're just in the wrong space. He goes, you're trying to go up current when you could just go down. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. And so on that flight home, you know, like wow that's incredible like that's an internet like

how do i how do i yeah how do i stop what was called the ngoa and this was the second call alex has had some pivotal moments for me i guess so second call i made to alex from mosey probably talked to him twice in my life and these are the two times but i called him up and i was i was i think we're just talking and i was talking about his business and i think you could hear just my me being down or i was like just like dude like nothing's working like what i do he's like throw it toss it it's not working let go of it i was like easy for you to say like i got systems i got you know subscriptions i got softwares i got employees like he's like just i mean he's like you can kill it or you can die with it and i was like oh and uh i was like i guess we're going to kill and so the next weeks are when i went and had tough meetings

and had to fire i gave bryson the other half. So I was, I only had so much guts to do, but I, I only, I, I fired, um, the call center and Bryson fired, uh, the warehouse. And I remember we, you know, we were already paying out of our personal accounts. Like we were depleting our business account depleted. Now we're paying out of our personal accounts. Like we were depleting our business account, depleted. Now we're paying out of our personal accounts of what our savings was. And so they don't know that, right? Which is, that's fine.

But when I went to fire the call center, you know, obviously they see you as a success. Like you're the one who's making all the money. You drive the nice car, but they don't see the actual realness of what's actually happening. And so I was like, for your team, you have to like hold it together. You got to hold it together.

It's great. You got to motivate them. You do. That's what you're there for. You're a leader. And so I remember this one guy, you know, he's like, you know, it must be nice to be you because you get to be here and stay here and make your money. But I have to now go find a new job.

And that hurt because I knew like I was paying him out of my own personal account and we gave them like two weeks severance. Like we'd have to now go find a new job. And that hurt because I knew like I was paying him out of my own personal account and we gave them like two weeks severance. Like we'd have to do that. There's no Missouri law that says, Hey, when you fire someone, give them two weeks severance. Like we did that out of the kindness of our heart, out of our personal bank accounts, because I was looking after them more than myself. And that's what, that's like, that was the dagger, right? Like, Oh, good for you. Like, but you don't even realize bro, like I'm, I'm whole, like I don't have anything. Like I'm giving you all that I have. I'm emptying my pockets for you. And that's what you treat me with hurts, you know? So like letting all that go and then just

really kind of getting close with, as you call them, the inner circle, talking to people who are successful in another business and just hearing their excitement and being motivated through them, you know, through vicariously through them, I think really helped me is just reconnecting, being re-energized, hearing the success they're having and being like, dang, like, all right, it's time to go back to work. And so in the last four years, you know, I've gone back to work. So let's talk about last four years i don't i don't want to give all the specific offers but i've been watching a lot of the offers you're rolling out post flashlight post all this kind of stuff um can trade do it again yeah and so i'm curious one of them i think

was the funniest one because heath is the copywriter that works on my team now but you work a long time and he was like monday was like yeah you know uh trey's butter butter knife offer or something i was like what are you talking about he's like yeah the butter offer is killing i'm like a butter knife i'm like what are you talking about you showed me the funnel and i was like what the crap is trey doing so we talked about some of the offers you're doing just just to give people a glimpse of like the kind of e-commerce stuff that you're doing now that's that's been fun that's exciting that you're kind of playing with today so um a mastermind client of ours uh Wes, was like, you know, you're the king of gadgets, of widgets. And I was like, that's kind of cool title.

You know, like somebody used to call me Mr. On It. Lost that title because I got sued by everybody. So then I became the king of widgets. So I just something about me, like I just love the art of selling. And I don't want to be stuck to one product like I don't want to be stuck to uh you know fishing or a certain niche like I want to be like oh I can sell whatever so that way as a company we can be a speedboat so I can make a quick change versus a a cruise ship that takes three miles to make a turn right so I always look

at our business is like how do we be a speedboat and make changes? So that's with going with whatever product is working now that's sellable and that we can scale it. That's our business is we now have the infrastructure in place to take on a scalable product at large and have it do great, but also take care of the customers, take care of the mids, make sure chargebacks are under one percent and make sure everybody's getting taken care of like we've built all that now because of the last six years you know previous to four and um so yeah one of the one of the uh you know products was the better butter spreader butter better butter spreader better butter spreader because it spreads better better better and so uh we did that one that was that one's good i'm still alive uh that one's still cooking uh and scraping 2020 i did the uh ornament one christmas my entire family every year we put up on a tree we still have them so so right now this podcast is in 2024

yeah and i uh i wear i you know i'm dressed up today but i'm wearing short shirts and shorts and t-shirt every day yeah and jen jen is like, hey, we need to take your jackets down and get them hemmed down at this really nice, high-end seamstress. So I'll take them down. So I take them down. I'm walking through their back hallway. This is midsummer. Walking back through the hallway,

and you know when you see a ClickFunnels logo, you got that rim, like, oh, ah! It's the Christmas ornament. It's a freaking Christmas ornament. These are like 2021, right? Like, yeah, 2020. No, 2020. Yeah. Because it's the Christmas ornament. It's a freaking Christmas ornament. These are these are like 2021, right? Like, yeah, 2020. No, 2020. Yeah, because yeah, the year.

So I'm like, where'd you get that? He's like, oh, you know, I can't remember. I was like, I am pretty certain that I sold you that and you bought it for me. That is why like like you would never think that the person buying those christmas ornaments is the guy who owns a seam a seamstress uh play you know like a big company like people just got a kick out of it like it was a gag those who don't know it was really cool it's like you'd sign up for the christmas or 2020 and have like had toilet paper rolls and masks and stuff and you could say like how many kids you have in your family how many dogs how many cats and it was like anyway

you did a whole interview on, uh, on click funnels radio walking through it with Dave. That was insane. But yeah, we bought that whole thing. So my entire family's got one. So the Christmas tree, my wife hoards ornaments every year.

We collect them. Then we keep adding sort of these trees are just covered in the last 20 years of ornaments. So all of those are our tree every year till we die. So yeah, we've, we've got them still, which is amazing. It's a cool ornament.

So cool. It's cool. That, uh, that hit that we did three and a half million uh with that ornament merry christmas merry christmas and i think you know like we were lost for sure before that um we were doing masks so we brought in kn95 masks but of course like you know with that art of like new products like masks are a different product there's always the cons that come with the product like the things you never think about so when we brought in kn95s we were the first like we're the

first to land masks and to kind of rewind that to like bring your brain back like masks weren't available we were bringing in almost like you know uh i don't like i don't know how to like describe it but like masks that were saving lives, you know, that people needed these. And I remember delivering them to the EOS emergency operating center in St. Louis. And they go, how did you get masks in St. Louis before our government got masks in? And I was like, that's a good question. Connections. And she was like, well, it's impressive. And we took these masks in, they paid us 30 grand out of the, you know, EOS company. Like we made, we made good money on it. And, um, two days later I get a call

and she's like, Hey, we took your mask down to the fire department and they got this like ventilator and they tested your mask and it leaks. It doesn't work. We need a refund. Like that sucks. And so we had this huge business plan like people were calling me from companies you and i don't know exist like military operational companies like it was wild like who you with where you from where you located can i come like wild and uh and then of course their number is gone now but now I have mass that I can't sell to the government and we brought over 200,000 of them. Wow. So what I do, I go back to my roots. Your, your route is, you know, build a webinar, make a million before you make another one.

My route is build a funnel. And so I built a KN95 model and you know who I called? Uncle Bernard. I called Uncle B. And I said, hey, bro, I got an offer. And he's like, what's the offer? I said, KN95, man. He's like, holy cow. He goes, yes, let's go. It was the worst looking funnel I've ever built in my life because it was made so fast.

Dude, it's so like bananas. Because it was people were in need. Who's the guy who always talks about like, I don't want, you know, the one thing I want of the audience is I want a starving audience. Oh, Gary Halbert. Gary Halbert says that, right? I want a starving audience.

And dude, that's what I had. K-9-5s, I just, hey, you want a K-9-5? People knew the news was selling my product for me. And then on Fox News, I'm on CNN News, I'm on MSNBC. I'm on Yahoo news. Like anywhere you went was like, you need masks. Want to buy a mask from Trader Lennon? Yep. Buy 10. And I got people on renewals. Like people were like, I was like, do you want to, you want 10 months, 10 masks a month, 20 months a month? Yes. And we sold through 200,000 so fast to where we flew to California and where this guy bought

6 million masks. Couldn't give them to the dentist offices that he was going to sell them to. I bought them for pennies on the dollar. And so he had a supply. So I was like, Hey, I'll take a hundred thousand at a time. So he became my supplier. So now no longer to have to get them from China and worry about all this stuff from flying. He just supplied me and I sent him through the funnel. So it's KN95 masks. And then we made a mockery of it with the Christmas ornaments. And then, yeah, then we started doing kitchen gadgets, which is the Better Butter Spreader.

That's crazy. So, man, we're probably close to time, but this has been insanely cool. And I want to talk about, so you came to boise today because um well first off like of all the people in our community like you're the person who's had the most success e-commerce funnels you have a unique way you do it you're a great teacher you're fascinating and uh you've been here this week uh filming uh an entire course for all of our click funnels members uh one funnel away which a lot of you guys know we've done one funnel way where i've taught people how to like how to be experts and how to sell and this is like one funnel way uh e-commerce edition uh showing people how to do that and um i'm pumped to see i've been kind of like uh spying agent filming stuff i'm so excited

to see the end thing but uh this is a course that people can get for free when they're trying to click funnels which is a big gift for everybody that you're doing for the community and helping them but we talk about just and don't go deep into just explaining kind of the the things you're talking about in this course i know like how to find products stuff like that just people have an idea like everything that they're going to get when they when they plug into the click funnels into the training so when we started you know when you called me and said hey will you do this um you know i put i put a lot of thought into you know what is it that we can give people that will create i want you know quote unquote, overnight success, right? Like,

how do we get them to where they need to be to sell a product online? So I went through, you know, this stuff comes easy to me now. So it's hard for me to be like, oh, this is what people are struggling through. So it really took a lot of time to kind of go back to my old ways and say, okay, what brought me here? And what were the anchors that, you know, led me to where I'm today? And so I came to you and I was like, you know, I think the easiest way we do this is very simple, is we create and show them how to do one product, one offer, one traffic source. We keep it super simple, super concise, super tight. And that way, there's no distractions. You know, life's not going to get in the way.

Opportunity is not going to get in the way. Confusion is not going to get in the way. They're going to know exactly what to do from start to finish, step-by-step templates, tutorials, Napoleon, Napoleon. Uh, he, he comes in amazing. He's amazing. You'll find out soon. And, uh, dude, like within 10 days you got market selected, you know what, you know, guaranteed, you know what product to sell. Okay. Third is you have the offer written beautifully, by the way, for you in every market. And then you have the order form done for you, converted the best order form we got. And lastly, traffic.

Like all that punched into a 10-day video series you know, from every day you're celebrating small wins to get to those big wins. And that big win is, you know, one selling your first product maybe, or maybe you're selling products now and you're selling more of them to then, uh, building a business over the next 90 days and then building wealth, generational wealth over the next year. Yeah. And that's really what encompasses, I think in the, in that training. So cool. Um cool um you've re-inspired me i'm going to be refilming the one funnel way like the expert side of things and then my goal is compete so we're going to find out the e-commerce side of click funnels members versus the experts who can who can have the most fun oh which would be fun but then on top of that not only are you can get this 10-day um training program to help

them figure out all those kind of things. You've also committed. I've committed. We're going to start going live once a week just to do open Q&A for all the members to help figure out their stuff. So if they're stuck, I can't figure out a product, Trey. They can jump on and ask you a question or my funnel's not converting or whatever. And we're going to have the ability to literally do one-on-ones with me and you. Me on the expert side, you on the e-comm side.

Yeah. Working with people, which I'm, first off, grateful. You're willing to do that second off. It's gonna be so, so helpful for people. Cause I think a lot of times it's, that's the thing is like they see people need, like, it's like one little thing that gets them from like,

you know, it's like you had the call with her Mosey or the, whatever it is that like gets you unstuck. And now they have a chance every single week to have that with you, which is really cool. Yeah. You're not alone, right?

Like, I think a lot of people go through e-commerce alone because they don't get support from the spouse. They don't get support from the family. Like, oh, that's a great idea. Jimmy's going to create his job. Like there's no support. And I think that's the beautiful thing that's happening here. And this is the only software company I've ever seen it done with is somebody who actually cares more about their students and their clients than they do themselves. You know, I think that's a beautiful thing where you now know and understand that when you join and you commit and you're all in is not only are we building a e-com business together, but we're building a business together. We're

building a foundation together. We're building wealth together. And yeah, like you said, you get to show up to these calls, ask questions, overcome hurdles, overcome roadblocks. And, you know, sometimes it is, it is that like one little thing, one little sentence that changes the trajectory of your life. You know, one example I was given was, you know, when, when SpaceX, you know, launches their rocket, they point at the moon and let's say they're going to go, you know, launch a satellite on the moon or something. They point to the moon, but in between the launch and the landing that rocket makes over 3 000 micro

corrections 3 000 if it misses one it's off by two miles and i think that's the same thing with ecom you know like we know what to do we know to build the offer we know to build the order form we know to do the product and it's like if you're off by one correction that that one micro you might be off a lot so you need you need guidance you know don't do it by yourself you know you're not buying they're not building a spacex by themselves and neither neither we you know we're not we're building we're building funnels together so it's gonna be a lot of fun i'm really excited about it i'm pumped man like yeah when we start talking about it came together i'm like this, this is amazing. So there's no one better to teach us than you and have you be part of that.

We're doing ClickFunnels. And I'm excited because it's interesting. ClickFunnels right now, you look at the first decade of ClickFunnels, I'd say it was like 15% people were e-commerce and 85% were on the expert side. And now we're probably 70%, 30%. Yeah, 30% e-com. And my bet is in the next year, year and a half, we're going to 30 like 30 yeah 30 e-com and i my my bet is in the next year year and a half we're gonna be 50 50 and i think e-com will actually overtake the expert side because um as we're growing and scaling that's where the masses are coming from people want to learn to understand

this part and they've only seen like here's how it's fun shopify or things like that which is good but it's not great right what you're showing is like you don't need to have this huge store and all this kind of stuff it's like right one product one traffic source one offer and and and you do it and you run funnel way to the first one, the second one, then you know, who knows when your flashlight offer hits and this time, hopefully you do it with the stuff Trey's going to teach you. So you don't have to stress out about like, yeah, all the things, the sheriff and the $30 million education for free. Like that's what you're getting, you know? And that's incredible. Like all the things that I've learned, I teach and show you how to do and what not to do. And get it you get it for free yeah that's pretty incredible that's awesome not many people

are doing that bro that's insane well by the time this interview is live uh my guess is this will be inside a click funnel so if you're existing click funnels members log in and then click on um one funnel way e-com edition click the button and boom you'll be put into the into the track and you start going through everything with trey and in 10 days from now you could be done you have your first funnel done and launched and live and then and then yeah do what you did like if the first doesn't work do a second one a third one and then eventually one hits and then it's like yeah it's off to the races yeah it's easy though i appreciate you thanks for thanks one boys thanks for creating this thanks for being on the interview uh thanks for being

vulnerable and willing to share that side of it most people don't and so i'm grateful for that as well so you're awesome man man. Thanks for hanging out. And hope you guys enjoyed this interview. Go hang out with Trey every single week here inside of ClickFunnels. And yeah, we'll see you guys soon.