Modern Wisdom - #098 - Mike Winnet - The Contrepreneur Formula Exposed: Behind The Scenes

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Mike Winnet is an entrepreneur and a professional Get Rich Quick ad clicker. The people who made the real money in the gold rush weren't digging for gold, they sold shovels. Fast forward to 2019 and the new gold rush is on to discover the magic formula for passive income. Enter the contrepreneurs. Mike has spent half a million pounds on putting the claims of internet marketers to the test in a documentary, from crypto mining to property investments, stock trading to amazon affiliate sites. Today we get to go behind the scenes. Extra Stuff: Subscribe to Mike on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/mikewinnet Follow Mike on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mikewinnet Watch The Contrepreneur Formula Trailer (full episode will be updated here once it's live) - https://youtu.be/ZK1z_rNrhgA Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hello people of podcast land. Welcome back to Modern Wisdom. My guest today is Mike Winnet and he is the creator of probably one of my favorite YouTube videos of all of 2019. The Contrapreneur Formula X-Post was a short documentary that Mike made with a couple of his buddies as he went on a journey to find out whether internet marketers deliver what they promise. You'll have seen videos potentially even before this very podcast that say, I can't believe people are still working in this old way. Do you want to learn how a 10x your income

in just eight months, all this sort of stuff? Mike came into some money from a business that he ran and decided to put these promises to the test. So, to the tune of nearly half a million quid, he has spent money on pretty much everything, from crypto mining, to property, online courses, in-person seminars, literally everything. The documentary blew up on YouTube and started to gain some real traction before a copyright claim was put in by a very prominent internet marketer. So yes, today expect to go behind the scenes with the Contrapreneur Formula exposed. Find out exactly who it is that submitted that

copyright claim to Mike. What he thinks is going to happen is the future unfolds and an awful lot more. I genuinely think what Mike's doing is a really noble cause. He's helping to educate and protect people from quite predatory tactics that are being used to pray on exactly the vulnerable people who do not have the finances to ban crawl this in the same way that Mike has. So yes, give us a hand, helps some people out by alerting them to these problems and share the episode. Might just save someone from throwing 5 grand down the drain. But for now, please welcome Mr. Mike Winnett. I am joined by Russell Brunson's best friend and the undirected King of LinkedIn, Mike

Winnet. Mike, welcome to the show. Cheers, Dr. Mjoln, thank you. It's a pleasure to have you here, massive fan of your YouTube channel and the work that you've been doing recently. A lot to talk about today, I think. A lot of the listeners will be very familiar with internet marketing and get rich quick schemes and they'll be targeted by the ads probably

on this video on YouTube. They will almost definitely be targeted by those ads. So yeah, we've got a lot to delve into today. So for the listeners that don't know who you are, would got a lot to delve into today. So for the listeners that don't know who you are, would you be able to explain what you've been doing on YouTube over the last few months? Yes, so I am Mike Winnett and I am a Get Rich Quick ad clicker. So all those things that you see in your newsfeed on Facebook or Instagram, I think they are amazing. I'd love to be a million

million every six months from drop shipping or through flipping products on eBay and affiliate marketing. So I believe them all. I click them all. I invest all my own money into it and I report my results as they are compared to what the claims made by the gurus is. And that's all I do. I put that content onto YouTube. And you can say, for free, whether they've worked or they don't. What's the success ratio been like? None of them worked so far. No one, which is weird because the only people that seem to get success from it are the people that are selling you their course to do it, which is, I mean, maybe I'm just unlucky, but I promise you, I'm

trying my best. I'm trying my best to make them work. They just don't so far. But I still carry on with in hope. I will be a millionaire this time next year from all of these different schemes. I think one of the, you hit straight on one of the points there, which is that unless you have the money to be able to spend on these particular courses, does no way of foolproofing them? No, no, no, that's true, that's true. Yeah, so there is no way to foolproof them. I think the problem with them is

how they're marketed to people is if anyone can do this, it's easy. And it's passive income and you can make this money from two hours a week, three hours a week. It's like targeting people that don't want to put the effort in many ways. But also, of course, they're going to make it sound easy. And anyone can do it with no start-up costs.

Because if they said, actually, it's 100 hours a week, and you need money to start up, and they wouldn't sell of many of these courses. So that's true. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think that proliferation of these sorts of schemes and an advert and I mean, anyone who's scrolling down Facebook, the number of times that I've heard the sentence on YouTube, I can't believe that people are still working in this old way, but like an Australian guy,

then an American guy, then a guy from down south, then a whatever guy. And it's like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, yeah, like stupidly. I have worked really hard to earn money and when I have my own business, I used to do six days a week, 16 hour days. And I didn't get paid what they're getting

from just doing two hours in their mum's fair bedroom per week. I wasn't getting those returns and then luckily I was lucky enough to grow a business and sell a business and then create enough money to afford me to do this sort of two year little experiment, whichever Gret sometimes. So I have built some downsides like a love hate kind of project, to be honest. Yeah, well I mean you've recently sort of seen a massive influx in terms of exposure in plays, all right, like the last couple of weeks have been insane. Well, it's on 5,000 subscribers two weeks ago and now it's on 17,000, so last two weeks

it's... Dream. No triplets, yeah, yeah. Absolutely dream. Well, I'd say the dream, but you'll know this more than me because I've never had Instagram before. I've never been on Facebook before and I had obviously started YouTube in January. What I find is the more people that start subscribing, you get two sets of people, you get like fans that love what you're doing, but then also people that hate what you're doing, but they still subscribe to tell you they hate what you're doing, but then also people that hate what you're doing. But they still subscribe to tell you

they hate what you're doing. So it's crazy. I've worked it out, now it's roughly 1000 views, equals one thumbs down. That's why it's sort of raged right at the moment. Yeah, I think that's about right. It's interesting as well when you talk about the little asymmetries in your exposure

and you'll notice this with your better performing videos and some of the listeners may know this as well. If you've ever posted a piece of content which is absolutely banged, like gone much bigger, like two X to 10 X more than your usual piece, it kind of opens that sphere of awareness outside of the usual people

that are just a part of your like crew and they know what you're about and they're always gonna give you a bit of support. And then what you actually see is this little you just get to look through the people and you see the real internet and you're like, oh that's the fucking, that's the no man's land out there, that's where the savages live. Yeah well I've had that with the Contrapreneur Formula video, that's the one that went, so my videos are doing about 20,000 views That was almost at 200,000 views before it got pulled. We'll talk about that later

But that did 200,000 views, but what that brought was 100 and 100 comments like calling me out. I mean some people even noted at a bunch in in the comments I've never noticed that before I edit YouTube video the bum chin in the comments. I've never noticed that before I had a YouTube video. The very observant, the people of the internet are crazy observant, man. I know, it was news to me, but it just makes me think sometimes. It's like some of the comments on there, for example, this is a channel for losers, but then he's made that comment on every single video. And you always want to say, so what are you still doing here, then? Yeah, why have you got so much time on your hand?

If I'm the loser, how come you've got so much time on your hand? I know. I know. It's funny though, but that's the biggest thing. So like you're unsuccessful. That's the only reason it doesn't work. You're a loser. You'll never quit the 95 grind and all these things.

I'll inform comments really. But I suppose that's how people got on your life. I don't know. It's just the internet, isn't it? It brings out the worst in people because you can hide behind a fake profile, fake username, so. There was an interesting point that John Peterson made, actually, in an interview a year ago.

And he said that because social media's so new, he was specifically referring to Twitter but the same thing works for every social media. We don't know what causes people to respond. Like, we haven't done a study on which people, how the data skews on which people reply to tweets or which people comment on YouTube videos. It might be that it skews massively towards the people that have had a bad day. Might be if you've had a good day, you just don't, you don't respond for whatever reason

you're either in too good of a mood or whatever it is, but it might skew that like 90% of the comments that you get from people that have had a ruthlessly bad day. So they might not actually be ourselves, but we just don't know. And when you look at it, when you take an aggregate view across the board, just looks like everyone's a cunt. Yeah, I said that. There's a video on YouTube and we talk about it in our office.

It's David Attenborough, isn't it? You know, the animal guy. And it's called David Attenborough talks about giraffes. And it's a four minute video about giraffes, and it's got 35 thumbs down. But it's just giraffes. And David Attenborough talking about it. And it makes me think, what were you expecting? There's still 35 people that have hated that video enough to say, oh no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna thumb that down. Fuck you David. I know. Oh, and even it was like, oh, his voice is terrible. It's like, it's David after the world. What do you think it's David?

It's David after the world. Oh yeah, so it's just, that's the internet. We've started to make a joke now that we'll have a 40 minute video that goes up and it'll have one thumbs down as soon as it gets uploaded. So someone's subscribed specifically to thumb my stuff down. Stop what they're doing. Give us a thumbs down post notifications turned on though. They've listened to you. They've turned the post notifications on. They've just done it for the wrong reason. And it's it's just funny how people are on there and how people are on LinkedIn towards it now because obviously the message has got a bit more serious now. I think people thought I was joking when I first started because I said I'll put my money when my mouth is and I will invest in these things to prove whether they work or not.

Because I'm not calling all a scam per se. I'm just saying I think the results promise the highly unlikely but let me see if it does work and if it does work you can copy what I did for free after pay me for the course. You can watch how it works. Absolutely. Before we get into the thick of it, ladies and gentlemen, if you are listening right now, head to wherever you are and give us five stars or give us a thumbs up, let's know that you're listening and fight back against the R-Soles or the internet. Thank you very much.

So the first thing that I wanted to know, Mike, was actually to roll back a little bit and work out what you did before this, because in one of your videos you mentioned, you had a company and then you managed to get an exit. I think you fondly refer to it as being kicked out of your own company with a paycheck. Could you give us a brief bit of history with that? Yeah, so I had a company that I set up with three of my friends. It was called Learning Heroes. And it was, we would make blended learning resources.

So e-learning content animated explainer videos on loads of stuff like cybersecurity, data protection, leadership, teamwork,, working at heights, just normal boring work stuff, but made in a style that was more in keeping with how we'd learn at home, so be sure animated explainer, rather than click next, death by PowerPoint.

So it's basically interesting you learn in if there is such a thing that wasn't really if I'm honest. We sold that to corporates and then corporates because used that in that company to help them train their staff. So we made content for trainers to use to do employee training basically. And it was always a three year plan. So we thought, make the business, grow the business, look to partner certain companies that might want to buy us out, look to target some companies that do similar things to what we do and they might want to buy us out to protect their client base, create competitive tension, sell to one of them, then

walk away with our money and it was a three year, three year, ten million pound plan. And we did it almost, we didn't quite get the ten million, we got eleven million dollars, but it was eight million in cash two and a half years later. That sounds like an incredibly well laid out and well executed plan. Had you had success in business like this before? No, I had worked in two startups before, so I had seen startups from almost day one through maybe two, three, four years down the line. I was a sales trainer for a company that sold franchises so every week when a new franchise e-common, I would help them set their business up. It was like I was kind of helping

start-up businesses week after week and I'd stay with them for a couple weeks. I was doing it for a salary, for other people, for ages in a completely different sector, by the way. And I just thought, what am I doing building someone else's business when I've got all the knowledge, I can see what's work for them, I can see what they could do better in trying to play it to a sector that I thought we could grow a business in. And e-learning was the easiest sector in my mind at the time. And no background in that sector.

What unbelievable identification of a niche to capitalists. What do you mean it was? This doesn't sound like a crazy story, so I just walked out of the job at the time. I had a baby on the way and I had a good money and I had a bit of a discreet with the boss and he said, my problem is I want everything to run perfectly. He said, if you had your own business, it'd be very small and very well run, but it wouldn't be much money.

So I handed him a notice right there, it was like telling them, oh, come home. And then he said, it basically put him on gardening Eve, so I had six weeks to come up with an idea. And then I looked at what jobs were available basically and every job description was saying stuff like, you must be able to work in a team, you must be able to manage your time properly.

And I thought, you know what, I have a GCSE in time management. What courses were available looked online, saw the courses and it was like a four hour course on time management and it was like click next. And if I wanna find anything out at home, I go on YouTube and watch a five minute video. And that's what the idea came from.

Why don't we learn at work, how we learn at home? And then I had friends that had a training business and they did a lot of face-to-face training and between ourselves, we come up with the idea. That was it. It's great. It's honestly the fact that, as suppose this is kind of oddly romantic given the path that you've gone down at the moment, the fact that it was such a transactional relationship between you and your business which ended up being like the one that banged it was just finding each.

Yeah, I don't know to say I'm like a bit of a weirdo, but I've got a kind of checklist that I think a business would work in this sector. So if the sector has these certain criteria, I think I can apply this checklist to that sector. This upload, if anyone that's watching this, this upload some people's minds. If you read the YouTube comments, I'm a failure in business. I'm just an internet troll, but yeah, but my legit business, I've got like a checklist that I follow. There has to be certain market conditions. You have to be able to offer a genuine alternative. That was one of the biggest things in e-learning. If you want me to start specifically about e-learning, but every body, here's a

great example. Recruitment agencies, there's hundreds of them and most recruitment companies are started up by someone that used to work for a recruitment company, right? We're different, but the only difference is they charge 1% less or the fees are slightly small. They haven't got a genuine USP, but they all like to say they're different. What we did with the learning was we looked at it and everybody charged per course, per head, long contracts, it was long drawn out content and we just thought why don't we do the complete opposite? So we'll just, it's pay a monthly subscription and when you can get access to all of our content, similar to Netflix. Similar to Netflix, we'll give

you a new content every week, so when a new course comes out, you don't have to pay as anyone when you can have it for free. And we said, if you don't like what we do, we don't want to keep someone unhappy, just leave. We're not asked, just leave, we're not trying to get the most money out of you can have it for free. And we said, if you don't like what we do, we don't want to keep someone unhappy. Just leave. We're not asked. Just leave. We're not trying to get the most money out of you. We want you to be a fan and advocate. And we did that. And we absolutely just tore, like, hammered the industry. We were taking people's finance, they're frightened, censored. And people said, you must have your price in wrong because it's so much cheaper than everyone else's. And we said, no, they've all done it wrong. This is how it should be done. And it was one of the companies that told us in the first few months that, you know, we wouldn't be around if we

carried on like that, that ended up showing the most interest the buyers out. Amazing. It was, it's quite an interesting story in many ways, but don't want to sound weird, but we knew it was going to work. We knew it was going to happen. So we sort of planned for that exit in the first couple of weeks. It was like, this is the day we're going to sell it. And this is how much we want. So every decision we made on that way was backwards planned from that point.

Unbelievable. That's so good, man. It's great. It's really nice to hear, especially given that you've worked through the industry and a lot of people that are listening, right, this kind of ties into, I suppose, why people are tempted to do these online courses from the entrepreneurs, the online marketers, because they want that. They want to be able to know that in three years' time, I've got an exit that's worth nearly

10 mil. Like that's, you know, that's the goal, the fucking golden dream that everybody wants. But yeah, the whole point of what you've come across there is that you had some existing experience which at least allowed you to frame the particular situation appropriately. And then moving forward, you came up with a unique product and then just single, single mind aimed towards the goal that you knew that you wanted. The whole point of that is the fact that you had a unique offering, without the unique offering, everything else would have just fallen apart.

But the first thing that strikes me about these online marketing courses is that if everyone is learning the same thing as you, you're offering cannot be unique by definition. I say it so many times, logic would state you are turning your customers into competitors and it's the shitest business model ever. That's why it doesn't work. It's like, oh, I'm going to teach you, so if I had a property seminar and I did property training in Warington, and I'm talking to a thousand people and I'm a property investor and I make most of my money in property in warrington and I can tell you how to find below market value deals. Why would I teach a room for a thousand people how to do the thing that I earn my money from. I want a few of you to know how I make my money so I can not making that much money from actually property investing, I'm making money from teaching people how to invest in property, which is something I think

that a lot of these people do. And yeah, go on. So let's get into it. How would you define a contrapreneur? So really, I think a contrapreneur is someone that sells shovels to a gold rush. So they're telling everybody there's a gold rush on, this is how you can become rich and wealthy, yet they don't make money from the actual thing that they're telling you to do. They are selling you theory on how to do it, but there's no evidence to suggest that they've made that money doing that very thing.

And that's what it is, and it's target as many people as possible to sound as easy as possible. And then once they've got you in there, sort of sales funnel, they will upsell you. Well, do you know what? The reason why it's not worked at this stage six months down the line is because actually if you just pay me another three grand from I want some month mentor and I'll give you an extra bit of the secret source. And then the reason why it's not worked now,, but the reason why it's not work is because it doesn't work, but they'll still tempt you, well there's actually a higher level to get to and then you'll know the real secrets and the real secrets so it's just basically getting you into the net, following you through and taking as much money from you as possible that's it basically and

It's they follow pretty much the same script. It doesn't matter what the passive income thing is that they're selling. The language is the same, the formula and the process that they use to get you in the net, even through to the same back stories. I hear the same back story at different events now, because I go to all these events.

And so that's what they do. They basically sell shovels to one-trippers and people desperate to leave the rap. The rap rate is basically yeah, one truck and us one trucker is nice. I like that as well. Yeah, so they're contractors and they basically sell the dream to one truckers and sometimes it's vulnerable people, desperate people. But I'll say this and be clear here.

I don't think that all trainings bad. I don't think that all trainings are gone. I don't think that any every single person that ends their price in a seven, which is something that a lot of them do, is a cons, because if you read the YouTube comments, some people take what you say literally, like, oh, well, he's got a price that's a seven, so you're saying he's a scant, like, no, if you get a value from that and you have achieved that thing from that person, he isn't a contraponner to you. He might be to the 99% of other people that failed on his course. So I mean, but everyone once blood done, everyone's just to basically spell it out to them, say, right, this person's a contraponner, this person's contraponner,

right, I don't know if he's single one of them, but people want me to say, my DM's now is what about this guy? He's here, contraponner, so I've never heard of the guy. Fucking clue, yeah, you're not the glossary. You're not Wikipedia for contra-prinners on the internet. You think I was though? Yeah, from my tip, my DMs, it's crazy. Well, I think the reason for that is that so few other people are doing this, everyone else is drinking the Kool-Aid.

Like, the only people that you see that are touting these sort of online get-rich, quick scheme courses are the ambassadors or the showcase clientele that they've got. And for the fact that you are the only person that I've ever seen, really, that's not like just some disgruntled sounding like old, like wife from God knows where, the back end of Nebraska or something like that

who's written a bad review on trust pilot. And I don't know, I don't understand the process. So you went indeed a lot of these courses, right? Do you know how many you've done? Yeah, well, I've been to 12 actual events like face to face. Well, here's my click-funnels event, here's my affiliate marketing event, here's my drop shipping event, here's my brand new demand. But how it actually started, I didn't set out to do this. So when I sold the business and I got

given the lump sum of money, I mean, I don't know your background, but we're working class kids. We're not told how to handle money. We're not told how to handle that amount of money. That's how come, you know, when people win the lottery and it blows six million seven million. I was like, ah that would never happen to me That is a lot easier than you think because you do not know what to do You don't understand people think if you have a million pounds put it in the bank live off the interest You can't do that Your interest is probably point nine percent inflation three percent you actually lose money putting a million pounds in the back but people don't understand this concept and that's not therefore that's because

Working trust people aren't taught this stuff because we're supposed to be good workers and so it's given this money I thought I was doing the right thing and go into find Financial experts and independent financial advisors to tell me what to do with my money because I thought I've hit the jackpot here I could eyebrow the best two years of my life and then get back and have a job or Be boring and make sure that for the next 40 years I get paid a steady income from this money and it'll only be say 20 30 40 grand a year. I say only that's a lot of money, but It's not I'm a millionaire money. It's it just pays your bills or you know, so that was the plan Every single person has all 15 different financial

advice and they're telling to revess in all sorts of stuff and my question was always the same. Don't tell me what returns I will get if you believe in the asset you're trying to get me to invest in so much how much of your own money have you got in this. So if you're telling me to invest in a Cayman Islands because I can make 300% logic with state. Every single penny you get paid, you put in the Cayman Islands because they need to make 300% back on it. Not one person. Not one person would either show me how much they'd invested in their own asset or how much they would really get, which then made me think, do they make more money from telling other people to invest in this amazing investment opportunity or do they actually

really believe what they're selling. And then I just thought, you know what, I'm going to look at some more left field investments like crypto mining and some of the, you know, property we all know you can make when from property long term, 10 years, 15 years and stocks and shares over time you can see that. but the ones that made sort of like, we raised my eyebrows with the interesting ones with a, anything that was flashy, anyone that had a 23 year old lad sat in a Lambo, or anything other thought, you know what, I just put a little pot of money into these things, almost like a gamble, you know, I put five grand into that, ten grand into that, and that's what I've done, but to the tune in the 500,000.

Is that your total cost of hourly? Like, so far. And this is why when people say you want this to fail, you can't be further from the truth. You can't be further from the truth. So we've got properties we've bought in the UK just to test the returns that we've promised by some of the people that we've been on their courses. Property in Spain, we've got crypto mining rigs, we've got a crypto farm running to chess those results,

we've invested in cryptocurrency as an asset rather than mining it. We've just bought an affiliate marketing site, I did the video last week, so we've put 10,000 into an affiliate marketing site. We've got stocks and shares. I've put 250,000 into stocks and shares. And it's just going to be, here's everywhere I put my money. This is what happens over the next year. This is what was promised in these are the results. And then I would almost give them a result. Would I invest with this again, knowing what I know now? Yes or no?

I'm going to make this amount of money, I'm going to make a million pounds, knowing more like it to make 10,000 pounds. Don't quit your job if you want to do this. And that's all it is really, but I don't want anything to fail. I'm not deliberately trying to sabotage anything. You need a, you got to have a very particular mindset if you want something to fail to the tune of our familion quid. Yeah, I'm, you're the first person I've told that bit to, most people don't think, I think they just think that I'm going there and deliberately, you know, trying to just show up the people that are on stage, but I'm not their name in individuals, it's more like an observation of the actual asset or the passive income stream rather than this guy, he's a con artist because, you know, I'm giving them all the benefit they're dealt. I think they really are just trying to give back to other people

and help them become millionaires. They're not doing it. So, like in their own pockets, I think they really are giving back and they're genuine people. Yeah. So, one of the things that I thought, and we'll get onto the contrapanor in a second, because really now that it's been taken down, the only way that we can talk about it at the moment, is by us discussing it, the only way that we can talk about it at the moment is by us discussing it. The only way that people actually know that the fuck's going on is by this weird retrospective like nostalgia that we're gonna have to go through.

But one of the things that I thought to be really interesting was the fact that you and your team elected not to name names. And I think there's a point where you go and you manage to whangle of meeting with Gary Ve in New York, and you go see him, and you sit down, and you're on camera, in that famous office he's got, which just looks like chaos.

And he's pushing you to say, like, who are the people? And then rather than, like, that's Gary, it's Gary fucking Vaynerchuk. Like, the listeners will know I've got mixed feelings about Gary, but like what you think about him aside, that is the opportunity. If you were ever going to do it and not be called out by the people on the internet, it's like, look, Gary V wanted me to fucking tell him, but what you elected to do was cut the recording. So you cut the recording

and told Gary and then you cut back in. So what I really liked about that was the fact that it shows that this isn't a headhunt or at least primarily this isn't a headhunt from you guys. This is you with genuine sort of inquisitiveness and a little bit skepticism. Just trying to find out what the fox is going on, trying to cut through some of the bullshit. Yeah, that's it. I don't want this to be and I'm not saying, I'll just say it's John it. I don't want this to be, and I'm not saying, I'll just say it's John Smith. I don't want this to be an expose of John Smith because in my mind, what happens is this.

There are 99 other people that are using exactly the same tactics as John Smith. But if then he's the contraponur guy, it doesn't solve the problem. Seven things, I've not been scammed by that guy. If I just make people aware of the tactics used in the industry, if they get that feeling, ah, this sounds a lot like that Contra no Formula, they will then start to question whoever's trying to sell them to them in that way.

In my mind, I think that actually helps more people than just saying, oh, this is, I don't know, I just picked random gurus, like the Tony Robbins show, or this is the Gary Vayner show, whoever it is, the mic, you know, mic when it's the contributor, whoever it is, I just think that was better, but also, I don't want to get sued. I don't want to get sued. And what I've noticed is, there's a lot of people that have a lot of powerful powerful friends and these people make a lot of money for A lot of the social media platforms as obviously I'm finding out now There's only gonna be at this stage won't winner in that let's expose them now

But I tell you what Gary actually told me that I do need to name someone He thinks that I should name someone and if I want to take it to Netflix it needs to be Name someone but I think that's based on the name I told him off camera You see I tell you Gary got an agenda there I mean only he can answer that honestly. I mean I can speculate I would suggest that when I told him the name of the person and he was pretty much Balancing up the wall saying, yes, that's the guy. That would suggest that he also thinks the same about that person.

But he's been on the same card as that person. He's spoken at the same event. Granted, they weren't on stage together, but they've been at the same event. So he doesn't mind getting paid to be there while that person's there. So you can, and this is me being balanced and neutral on it. I've got very similar feelings, I think, to Gary B as you have. But then at the same time, if you're putting out content every day, you're going to say a lot of things that contradicts each other and stuff out. So it is a unique guy, Gary.

So I'm only like, so my major gripe, I. So my only, like, some, I made you drive. I'm going to go off on a Gary tangent for like one minute. I made you drive. I get stuff about Gary, by the way. People now think that I'm like, best buds with him. Yeah. Yeah, like I've met the guy once and he said he was going to introduce as an Netflix.

He's still not managed to do that yet. So like, I'm not a Gary V fan. I'm not Gary V hate. A Gary V is just a guy that runs a business and could potentially help me out. Or not, that's it as far as I'm not a Gary V fan, I'm not Gary V hate, a Gary V is just a guy that wants a business and could potentially help me out or not, that's it as far as I'm concerned. Fuck me, like Gary's contacts are unbelievable. So I'm good friends with the guys from Social Chain, which isn't far from you in Manchester, big social media agency, good friends with Dom who's the COO and a bunch of the guys that were there from the start. And I discuss

this with about Gary there. And my only major concern about Gary is that he doesn't sleep enough. That's my major concern. I'm just thinking, there's a couple of immutable truths in life, right? And like not sleeping equals earlier death and Alzheimer's. Like that is a fact, same as dropping a ball from a height. Like it is, it's coming for you Gary

because there's some toxins in your brain that really, really need to fuck off and all your myelons. It's dangerous isn't it? This whole work, you know, to your eyes bleed, that mentality, it's dangerous. I get you have to work hard, but you can't sustain that for 23 hours a day

for three years, five years, 10 years, because all you're doing is, it's got the reaction or a consequence that is you're shortening your life by 10 years, it's 15 years, five years, 10 years because all you're doing is, it's got the reaction or a consequence of that is you're shortening your life by 10 years, it's 15 years, 20 years, so yeah, some of the advice he gives I think is bullshit, but then, but you'll know this from the internet. I think on the internet people think, if you like someone, you have to agree with everything they say. They say one thing you disagree with is like, I hate that person now, I don't like that person now. So I don't agree with loads of things my friends say.

You don't fall out with them or whatever. It's like they say some things that's true, they say something that's bullshit. You just, but with the internet, it's crazy, isn't it? It's like people like, I love Gary. Everything he says is gospel. Well, don't say, don't think that. Just do you believe you think that?

Do you not mean? And I think sometimes people take everything he says is gospel and like you've got to do that you don't. I think a lot of this that he says is bullshit if I want to. Yeah, you're totally right. The overworking thing, I've done it and you may have done it as well in the past like in your 20s, Jordan Peterson again to sing his praises, he says that everybody in their 20s

who's an entrepreneur, it would be a good idea for them to work out just how much they can work. So he says that your 20s, you don't have sufficient responsibilities that are going to hold you back from working to your maximum capacity. And he actually suggests that for short periods, see if you can do 14 hour days, six days a week, and see what happens.

And I didn't do it by design, but I've done that more by neuroticism, I think, but, and fear. But yeah, I've done that, and I played around with that. And then he's saying, well, okay, now see what happens if you only work two days a week. And I've also tried doing that. The two days a week for me personally was a lot worse because of the cabin fever than the 14 hours. But I think you're right. Gary, you have put the words hustle and grind on the bottom of paracase whizz. Like as soon as you've done that,

you kind of out of the chill out from work conversation. Like that's you over there with your hustle and grind shoes on. Yeah. Yeah, it's on that event that we went to. I went to a success research sources event and Gary was there. And just seeing people with his trainers on and that and like seeing people grow men queueing

because you paid if you wanted a diamond ticket so you could sit two rows closer than the people that paid ten times less that behind you and you got to ask Gary a question. Growing men in case with Hossel and Dirk Clouds and whatever it is, heaven and hell shoes, whatever bullshit it was, they were wearing. One question you can ask out of your feet, this is the guy that you know, you worship, you idolize, just can I have a hug? Growing men saying can I have a hug and I was just like, what's this world come to? You can ask them anything about business, you can ask them, but that's what it came down to.

I thought it's just a weird kind of world we live in. What a bizarre situation. So, getting back to the contrapreneur, can you take us through the Contrapreneur formula, please? Yes, so the Contrapreneur formula was after going to numerous events and live events, like say the 10X, the success resources and property shows and any of these type of events that you see all the time I've been told. What I started to notice is almost the bait them was the same script used by every single speaker. It turns out by the way, I can't remember the guy's name now. There's a trainer that trains these people on, you know, that script, which I may or may not be signed up to go to. So to the point where, so Ian is my business partner he was also in the all business as well.

He's like, we slowly get an image shot a few times. He's like, is he the big dude? Don't say that. He's been a, yeah, yeah, he is. We look very similar I think. Yeah, you do. Yeah. He'll watch this as well. you do? Yeah, it watches as well. Yeah, sorry, you look great. There you go. Yeah, so, yeah, so to the point where me and Ian could almost look at each other and say, the next bit they'll talk about a bullshit backstory and say, ah, here's the time where they they were the one that, you know, went out on a limb and they got this amazing opportunity. Three, two, one. Hey, and then my daughter twisted her ankle and then the coach came over and it was like, I've

played a twist at the ankle and the coach came and said, is anybody bought the boots? Yes, my daughter was there good to go and she got the game and and literally I could, I can word for word to you exactly what they say. And we're like, this is absolutely bullshit. So we just saw why don't we write this script from these shows and actually test what these people say. So when these were saying stuff like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, I'm never going to offer this price again. We thought that's really interesting. We'll just go see a next show that you're doing in two weeks time at a different place and we'll just check, fact check everything that you say. And we found out that they were lying because it was exactly the same pitch, exactly

the same price and the show that they said they weren it was exactly the same pitch, the same price, and the show that they said they weren't going to do ever again, they were doing it three weeks time at a different venue. So the point where we started seeing the same plants in the crowd at different events. So they are paid for professional customers that get dead excited, rush up first, because some of them were working on reception, signing us in at registration at some events, but then they were in the crowd running on to stage, let me sign up now. We just started to notice a lot of strange things happening, and we just thought this

is quite funny, why don't we turn this into a program or an episode and put on YouTube and we called it the Contraper Formula X-Pose. And that's what we did. So we explained about the use of a bullshit back story. There's always a warmer pack. They get you to commit. They get you to commit. All these events start off with they make you raise your hands and it's very much like hypnosis. So it'll be so, who here wants more money? Everybody's hand goes up. Who here would like more time, everyone's hand up. Who here thinks they deserve more? Everybody's hand goes up.

If someone didn't put their hand up, they would be single doubt and it was like a shaming practice. So they would say, oh, you, sir, Mr. I've got enough money. You don't need enough money. And then from that point on, he would always, but it was part of the show. It's part of the whole, oh shit, if I don't put my hand up, I'm gonna be shamed.

No one likes to be shamed in front of a big crowd. So there was shaming. Then there was the bullshit backstory of, I was sat just where you were two years ago. I was working 60 hour weeks for a boss that doesn't appreciate me and I had mortgage payments. And you know, you can think about this for a year and you're still gonna be in the same position,

but you need to take this opportunity now, grasping. It's all, is it, shall-dini, shall-dini? You know, the influence. Robbo is that? Robbo, shall-dini, yeah. Yeah. So it follows that process. And then, well, I took the opportunity and, you know, what, what were your lose if you

don't do this? And then it would be that amazing opportunity presents it. So if I took the first step, you could take the first step today and then it comes down to testimonials. So here are people that were just like you from last year on the other stage, which turns out now obviously been to a lot of these events. Some of these are professional testimonials. They go to all these events and read out the same script. So I've seen the same two or three people, a different event saying, yes, I signed up to this course.

So. It's different people, different events for different speakers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, okay, so there's even like these mini industries for people facilitating these people. Yeah, yeah, of course, yes. That's right. But I'm not not I've not gone

Let's go and expose this I've just been going there to say Let's go and find some stuff to invest in wow That's the same girl that was in Birmingham three weeks ago that run on stage What is she doing running on stage at this event? Oh shit? That's the same person that rushed the back of the room to sign up at the course at that event Oh hang about why she signed in the this in today when she was the testimonial three weeks ago? This seems a bit weird and it's almost, it was amusing to us.

It was just funny to us. Right, well this is so, it's so bullshit, it's unreal. So that was all, that's all it was and then it'd be a scarcity. So by the way, you know, increase their value. So normally my product's 30,000 pounds, oh, sorry, 29,997, because it's always a weird price. But today, because you guys have took the first step, you know, I'm going to sell this price, the 397 pound,

it's like, you're not going to give someone like 98% off. If it was really worth 30 grams, you wouldn't be selling it for 99% off, would you? It's like, it's never been that price, just so it's the same inflated value. And then often it was, so then everyone's get excited and then the first three or four people get up to, you know, sign up. And by the way, we've only got 10 of these left today. They say there's 10 left, so it's fake scarcity. I've got no problem with these tactics when they're real. Real testimonies are cool. I'm a genuine advocate of that product, it helps me. That product was really £30,000 and it's a genuine discount, you can get it for

£15,000, all them things are cool and they are real sales tactics, that work. It's the intent of the person using them and whether it's fake or authentic. That's what I've got a problem with. You know, if you're a good person trying to give someone a good product that's valuable and will help them achieve their goals, these tactics are perfectly fine. In my view, but fake testimonials, fake scarcity, people pretending to be customers in the audience, rushing to the back room, that's not cool in my mind. So yeah, they'd rush to the back of the room,

they'd say there's only 10 of these products left. They'd still take money from 70 people with no due diligence. It wasn't like, well, can you afford to do this? Are you in a position to pay this 2000 pound now? People paying on credit cards. I've seen young glad signing up to PropertyCourse is age 16, 17, you can't get a mortgage at that age.

So why are you allowing them to sign up to your courses age 16, 17, they can't get a mortgage at that age. So why are you allowing them to sign up to your property course? Now, I get that some people watching will say, well, it's their own fault for signing up. Yes, I get that. But a 16, 17 year old lads in that scenario, there's not world-wise, and it's just been solved the dream that he can be financially free and not have to work again and even say stuff, sorry I've been talking about, go off on a tangent. They even say stuff like your friends and family won't understand this. If you talk to them they'll tell you that it's not worth doing it. It's almost like isolating you from sort of logical, their losers, they've never achieved it. They bought the pill that you go, they just followed the bullshit

that you go to college and you're working out to five and it's for you over the week and you struggle all your life to pay off your mortgage. It's very clever what they do. Anyway, so then they sell you with the fake scarcity, they sign you up and then before you know it you're in the sales funnel and then they're offering you upsell, upsell, upsell at every single stage. The point where they offer you the chance to come and talk at their event at a testimonial as part of their premium package. And I know people that are on stage in Florida talking at an event to convince other people that their business has been transformed since they've signed up. But I know these people, I know their business because they're friends of mine.

And they're not making any more money now than they were six months ago when he signed up to this course. They've just spent an awful lot of money to have a few pictures with celebrities, hang around with these business mentors and now convince other people that these scams work. Does that make sense? It's incredibly predatory. That's the first thing that comes to mind, especially when you're talking about young people, vulnerable people, that obviously if you were in a stable happy life with a job that you loved, you wouldn't be like going to see Robert fucking Kiyosaki at the sage in gate

said or something like that. You wouldn't be doing that. So first off, they're already selecting for the people who want this to be the answer to their problems, which suggests that those people have problems. Then they're using tactics which are a purposefully manipulative, new linguistic programming, the stuff from Bob Chaldeini. I've had Rory Suddlandon, who's a friend of Bob's, and he was talking about how powerful that stuff is. I've also had Robert Green, the guy that fought yet lost power and mastery and lost of Human Nature and stuff like that. I don't know whether you know this, but the reason that Robert Green made Forty-At-Lose Power the way that he did, he says that it is a cookbook with ingredients but not a recipe. And the reason that he did that was so that bad actors couldn't use the tools in a manipulative fashion.

And the fact that fucking Robert Green, five times over New York Times best selling author, is having to like, nerf his own products to stop bad actors, like these ones, getting a hold of his tactics and using them to manipulate people. And then on top of that, to like finish off, the whole, I mean, I'm a club promoter, right? That's my business, I run night clubs, I have done for 13 years. And we use some scarcity will hold the queue

20% longer than we need to. We'll slow the entry, because if you walk in pasta club that's got a big old queue outside, you're like, oh, fucking hell, there we go, a bit of social equity, a little bit of, you know, a associated, a higher steam for going to that venue.

But there's a big difference between slowing a queue down by like 20%, and paying people to sprint to the back of the venue to spend five grand on a thing when you're surrounded by vulnerable people who've just been told, buy now, if you buy now, then you can buy now, and you need to buy now. Like if you keep on repeating these things

and using these tactics, it's incredibly manipulative. And obviously the worst thing is it's fucking effective. Yeah, I've got the one on the buy now thing. So the script that we recorded, we were at a branded event. So it was a event where a guy said, so boost your business, it was a crazy claim. He could change any business from his business plan he He was going to give you for $397, $309,000 which is usually $5,000, but $5,000, $397. It was basically a GTSC

business business plan. You can download it online, it's bullshit. Anyway, he would turn your business into a 10 million pound business in eight months, which is a mad claim when you don't know the sector of the people that are in your audience or what they're like as individuals. But people swallowed it. 70 people got up and signed up. Now, in the clothes of his pitch, he said,

buy now 23 times in the three minutes leading up to the prize reveal. And it was ridiculous. It was like, by now 23 times in the three minutes leading up to the prize reveal. And it was ridiculous, it was like, by now you realize you can't miss an opportunity like this. If you follow this step by step, by now, it was like everything was like, it was like, bye, bye, bye, bye. It's the point where we're laughing.

We find it funny. Interestingly as well, in the crowd, when some people, it's like hypnosis, and they kind of weed out the people that won't work on So they get rid of people that are negative from the crowd to get told not to come back or they get they get moved constantly There's people in the audience being moved and did it just refuse because especially being British and being as disagreeable as I am If someone came over and I was sat down in a seat and they said you didn't put your hand up when you said do you want more money or more time or something like that? I wouldn't move.

But were people just so into it that they're already getting shifted around? Yeah, it's strange. If you ever watched this or sound weird, are you still living a beta for a long time? I used to live in a beta and there used to be a team of pickpockets that worked on the street below the apartment. I used to live up and I used to watch them every night. And I used to, to the point where I could see the signals, so like one of the flashes lighter, then the crowd would start moving. It was all basically as easy. And the street would stand still until someone came, I have a drum core intoxicated. The sign would be given to let people know

whether it was under the influence of drugs or drink. And then literally a ball would roll out into the street or when we bought a pass, bump him. And I'd see people get a pickpocket in over and over again. The scenes in these rooms are very similar to that. It's like people move exactly the same times when I've seen the same show at different events. People, it sounds like I'm crazy explaining it, but when you've seen that many

people at these events, and you've seen so many of these events, you'll realise the whole psychology of the event and everything is set up for you to spend your money basically, and anybody that doesn't look like they are going to do that, they get rid of them. So. The main thing that I'm struck by there, apart from the fact it's a manipulative and is taking advantage of unruable people,

is how fucking sophisticated it is. Yeah, it was big business, I wasn't it? So say these events, I don't know, say it's a success resources event. However much that person on stage sells, they have to pay 50% to success resources, that's how it works. So it's big business, so that's why they want to fill the room, that's why they get people to move forward so it looks busier, that's why everybody in that room wants you to spend money. So no one's

there trying to help you, if it's not right for you, they're not going to say, you know what, and I think that's why people leave if they're on a court because they realize it's bullshit. But everybody else around them is like, who pinstead stood up. I remember speaking to one woman that she didn't have a business and she went and spent two thousand pounds, what was one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven, one nine nine seven on a course to brand her business. And I actually said to it, what are you doing? In short, oh no, I can't add this is it. This is what I needed to put. You've not got a business or service or product that you sell.

So what are they gonna brand? Well, it doesn't matter. They'll help me come up with an idea for a business. And I just think there's people like that that she was paid on a credit card. She's not got a business. She's not got a service. Why are they taking the 2,000 pound offer to help her brand her business that doesn't even exist yet?

It kind of blew my mind really, but yeah, a lot of people get up and leave. They don't let you eat or drink in there because then you get it's called just decision fatigue. Yeah, so they make it you they make you safe like four, five hours before you get your first break, but then after that break, the numbers have dwindled massively because most people realize this is a pitch fest, I'm not coming back. So anybody that returns after that break, they're more likely to buy and now it will be a higher product. So what happens is I call it a tripwire. So low buy your product to start with, who takes the bait, right? If 70 people have signed

up now, we could probably sell them the five runs the five grand product in the afternoon and then the following day it could be well now we get the mentoring but the following day some people think shit I spent five grand there, I've regretted it and they've got you know buyers remorse. So the next day the numbers are a lot less but the numbers are a lot less but they are the most qualified people and they have bought into your bullshit the most and they're buying 20, 30 grand mentorship. They're the warmest leads that you're ever going to have in your life, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course.

And don't get me wrong. If this product really did work, I'd be all for it. I would be saying, you know, but look at the stats. The stats show that maybe 1% of these people, what 1% of people are successful through these causes. But it's weird. The only people I've met that are successful through these are actually part of that organization or selling you that product. So I've not met someone that's made a million dollars through the 10x course.

Let's just say, through Grand Cardone's University or Cardone Capital. I'm just as a random example, by the way, I'm not saying it's him. It's just the random example by the way, I'm not saying it's him. It's just a random example. Yet, I can show you 10, 15, 20, 10X affiliate resellers that will be telling me that Grant Cardone has changed their life and they are millionaires. You're selling his product. You've not made your money through the thing that he says that we are going to make our money from.

You are making your money through selling the thing that he says we are going to make our money from. And yet to me, through selling the thing that he says we are going to make how money from. And yet to me, anyone, 100% unbiased and independent that's gone. Actually, I invested Cardo and capital, I'm a millionaire now. Not one person. I mean, if you are out there, getting touched. Yep. Link is in the show notes below. Come and email us. So moving on, this really cool, very interesting documentary blows up on YouTube. I enjoyed it, thankfully. And now what happened? So I only found out on Saturday, so Saturday,

Ian sent me a message saying there's been a copyright strike or there's a strike against our channel. And Russell Brunson from ClickFunnels who provides the software that many of these contributors use to obviously click on their advert and upset you their content, put a copyright claim in and the video has now disappeared and it has been pulled so we are putting a counter claim or because we used the one second clip of the back of Russell Brunson coming out at the 10X conference and that's what he said was a copyright infringement. We don't think it will stand, but it's not. What's the specific scene, sorry?

So at the beginning, there's a sort of an intro to it. It was just showing different events where people are dead excited, people rushing to the back of the room, people putting their hands up. So it was all like clips taken from all these different types of events that we've been going to. And there's a back of Russell Brunson walking on to stage and then puts his arms out in front of the crowd. You know it's like a proper moment like here I am. Yes it was a one second clip of him there and he's putting a copyright claim to get the video removed. Russell Brunson's put a copyright claim in against the back of his own head. Yeah yeah yeah, to be honest, you wouldn't have been able to tell it was Russell Blunson, but now you can, because he's put the copyright claim in.

Russell Brunson knows the back of his own head very well. Yeah, yeah, maybe he has mirrors in his house, two mirrors. I don't know. Well, spends a lot of time at the hairdressers. Perhaps. or spends a lot of time at hairdressers. But now, all he's gonna make me do is I will cut that image from the re-upload and I will name him saying, insert back of Russell Brunson's head here. Where that clip would have been.

And then put the video out again. So it's not copyright infringement now. And now you will be the only person named in that video. Because no one else was names. No one was named in that video before. It didn't point anything to anyone in person in particular. So for you to actually make it about you. You've pulled your head above the parapet Russell.

And now clickfunnels is in the crosshairs. Well, funny now. So there's been videos made about it being pulled, which I didn't know. There's a guy called Meet Kevin. I don't know if you know him on YouTube. He's got about 150,000 subscribers. And he did a big video about it.

And he did a big video about click funnels and him being friends with Grant Cardone and saying it's a bad look. Like why have you even basically said, I've only got 17,000 subscribers. Not many people have seen this video. But now because you pulled it down and it's all over the internet saying, video no longer available. Basically, I've already got 17,000 subscribers, not many people have seen this video, but now because you pulled it down and it's all over the internet saying video no longer available,

but it actually says who's made the copyright claim. Yes. So now it's, I mean, I don't know, this works, I don't know anything about YouTube really, but so now, in a lot of people's minds, the Contra-No Formula is about Russell Bluntson, but weirdly, he was named in the comments so many times saying, oh this is like the book that Russell Brunson got on telling how to sell to people. So maybe he's thought, you know what, this is basically the content of my book that I sell. Thanks, given my book away for free.

Probably, but I've never read it. Yeah. I've probably gone to a lot of his students courses and just notice that they are saying the same thing over and over again. So yeah, so the video is no longer available. We'll upload it. Re-upload it next week, probably with a lot of references to Russell Bluntson clickfunnels throughout now. This is, are we going to do going to see like the Contrapreneur formula like 2.0, the director's cook. So, edition. So, there's a few little things I wanted to change anyway. The math thing about it was, we didn't do that thinking a lot of people would watch it. We did it for it like you said, for like a small group of people that followed his own LinkedIn, which is our main platform.

Then it got picked up by a couple of Instagram accounts to share it and it just blew up overnight. It went from 22,000 views to like a hundred thousand views about two days. And then it carried on growing and it was like nearly 200,000 views. But yeah, the actual Netflix documentary, you know, the one that Gary spoke to us about, wasn't that. So we were going to reveal what we've invested in our results. That was going to be a bigger piece of work. The Contra-No-Borming was just a very specific part of this is the language that you use at live shows. It wasn't our year as a Contra-No-Borming

because there's been stuff like I've got an Amazon bestseller with a blank book. Just to prove how easy it was and how that can be manipulated. So as part of the Contra-No-Borming is established authority, nothing screams authority like an Amazon bestseller. So I thought, why don't I just prove it's bullshit, write a book that just has blank page on 144 blank pages, publish it, and get it to number one in Amazon, which I managed to do in 24 hours. And then I made an episode about that. So there's loads of things that will be in the main documentary, but that weren't in the Contra-No-Former, but we'll re-outload that formula and you can watch it probably next week Thursday Friday, or this week, sorry Thursday Friday.

Amazing. Well, I'll make sure that the link to that is in the show and up below if it is up. What's interesting, especially the Brunson thing, the fact that he's decided to get stuck in. I don't know how much, I'm gonna guess you've done a little bit of research on whether you knew who he was before that,

but his particular platform, ClickFunnels, is the basis for a huge number of internet marketing businesses. Yeah. So many online businesses use it. I don't get it really. It's a bit stupid in my mind for him to have done that, which makes me wonder, was it somebody else in his office that's done it? On my life of a mate. Yeah, they've seen it. Seeing the rest reported it and now we'll probably

get in trouble for the amount of coverage click funnels might get from this. I'm not saying like, you know, whoever watched it is going to watch it, but it was never about click funnels. Now I've got a bit of a beam upon it about click funnels. Do you still, I mean? Absolutely. And I just, I And you still haven't crossed that threshold

of opening people up to the masses or naming and shaming someone. Yeah, no. Russell or Russell's company, or whoever the admin person was that decided to do it, are the favor for a friend. They've named and shamed themselves. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy really, but, you know, maybe they just thought a quick strike now, who knows, I might get two, three strikes next week,

it's like, maybe it's an idea that, you know, I'll report someone else reporting someone else, but I don't know. So all I do is I just, I just chop, I just chop anybody out there, any content that I've used, chop it and just re-upload it without it, and just screenshot the names and say, this is that contributor, that's that contributor, that's that contributor. And just do it as if it's subtitled, you know, like for on TV, ad of hearing. Mr. 10X walks on stage. Yeah.

Wow. I'm kind of sub-yeah, so that's interesting really. But it's the first time, to be honest, the YouTube thing's been affecting me a little bit in a weird way. It's cool that a lot of people are watching it, but now I'm getting hundreds of emails and I'm getting hundreds of messages and I don't want to sound like I'm not grateful about it. I didn't want, I don't want to sound like I'm not grateful, but I didn't want this. I didn't want to be the Anne Whidde-Comall, the watchdog of online entrepreneurs. That was never my intention. So as much as it's nice that people tell me who I should be investigating, why I should

be investigating and telling me all about how they've been scammed, I've not got the time to take individual people's cases and say, right, I'm going to try and get you about your sixth grant that you spent with this Contrapreneur. But I think people think, I can or that's what I want to do. Does that make sense? It sounds like I'm a great. No, no, no, I totally understand. It's like people are seeing you as like dog the bounty hunter, like Mike, Mike, the Contrapreneur

hunter. Yeah, like Sisters andice Bureau and stuff like that. And that's becoming quite difficult to manage. It's almost like, because weirdly, as well, someone will ask, say something complimentary about watching it, or someone that should investigate. And if I don't respond within 20 minutes, then all of a sudden, it's like, give me loads of abuse.

And it's like, come on now. Well, it's obvious that people's emotions are, people's emotions are quite heated here, aren't they? Because potentially if they have had their fingers burned, they're then looking for you as this potential savior. And then when you don't appear to be that savior, they're then redirecting that those feelings that they've got towards whoever it might be, Contrapreneur X, and they're redirecting towards you. Yeah, it's math. Here's one. So I had an interview with someone that a lot of people said was a Contrapreneur.

Now, I've never been to this guy's live event or live shows. So I interviewed him and let him talk, let him talk, let him talk. Now, my own gut feeling was he's not being truthful with just his body language the way he wouldn't answer the questions, the way politician type answers, he wouldn't answer a direct question with a direct answer. So that would suggest you anyway. In the comments, people were saying you should have brought this up about him, you should have brought this up, this happened at his event, it probably does, but I have not seen those things happen. And you're talking about things that have happened to you

personally that I don't know. Do you see what I mean? Oh, you should have, if I push this guy too hard in the first two minutes of an interview, call him out, you're a liar, you do this, you do that. He'd have got to put him out. There wouldn't have been any video feed to watch on YouTube. It would have been him sat down and me saying,

oh, this is the guy here. I think you're a contraponer of trick, you've come down here, I'm going to call you out as a contraponer. You do like a people, you do rip people off. You get to put walks out, two minute YouTube video, everyone's going to go, oh, you didn't answer a single question. So it's like, it's weird, isn't it? I'm kind of getting shipped from the people that support

what we're doing and then the people that don't like what we're doing as well. Yeah, I'm both sides. Yeah, on both sides. Yeah, it's a matter of... I know when really, I'm not trying to expose people, I am letting you see how successful or unsuccessful my personal investments are in these different passive income streams. Not Tilo pezzas in idiot, I'm going to fly to his house and punch him in the face, which is what some people want me to do yeah, no? I'll sign up to tyloppus's course. I will do is affiliate market course Tylope says I'm making million pounds a year. I make 500 pounds a year. I will say tyloppus's course is bullshit

That's it. I'm not gonna get tylopas in a headlock and you know who you are you? You are from Warrington, mate, so you might be quite hot. I don't know. No, I don't know. Well, I'm a, the posh end of Warrington now. Oh, okay. You've moved up in the world now. You'd have to, you'd have to fence him or something like that when you'd have to offer him out in a duel.

But yeah, I think, you know, to the people that are listening and I'm going to guess, considering this is probably one of the first times I've seen you on another podcast or featuring on something else. I've been in a long time, yeah. Wow. So, you know, there will be a lot the first times I've seen you on another podcast or featuring on something else. That's not been a long time, yeah. Wow. So, you know, there will be a lot of people listening who have seen you through that video. And I think it's really cool that you've had the opportunity to kind of speak with this big bird's eye perspective over exactly what it is that's happening, right?

Exactly what's been going on and what you're trying to achieve with this stuff. And yeah, I wonder how much of the heightened emotions due to the fact that people want to believe. So some people want to believe in what they're being told by these entrepreneurs and you being someone that calls it out as untrue is potentially killing the dream. So that's something that they're unhappy about. Yeah.

Then there's the other people on the other side of it who believe you so much or believe in the bull that they it is bullshit so much That they see you as like this harbinger of truth that's gonna fly in and like pull out a AK47 and just start like sniping people. There's those people as well But both of those people are incredibly There's those people as well. But both of those people are incredibly, like, enraged and energetic about what you're doing. And I think that leads to, like you say, these flurries of emails that I'm sure

that you'll have been getting and stuff like that. And it's bizarre as well, because obviously if you'd said when you first did the contraprono formula, like, maybe you know what's gonna happen? In six months time, this is gonna have nearly quarter of a million views. You'd have been like, fuck it now. That's great. But on the other side of that, you go, I didn't realize all the side effects that we're going to come with this.

Yeah, yeah, it's so mad. And then some people like, you're just the same as them. That's one of the biggest accusations I get all the time. You're doing the same, you're a contributor, you're doing the same scammers them. And I ask the same question every time, what am I selling you? Well, you've got adverts on your YouTube channel. How much are you paying to watch my content? The only adverts I get on my content are the adverts by entrepreneurs because they use the same tags I tag my stuff. Now I am building a crowd of people that don't like that shit. You know you get paid on people clicking the ads and buying the products. I have literally got the worst type of ads online. I want to buy my

affiliate marketing course, skip ad, affiliate marketing courses are bullshit. It's not going to buy that affiliate market course and people can't get yeah you must be making loads of money on YouTube. No. Do you know what? And so quarter of a million, well sort of 200,000 views on that, um, contrapon of four million video. I think it was about, it was on something like $600. Yeah, in terms of ad revenue. And they're not going to pay it me now because it's $600. Yeah, in terms of ad revenue. And they're not going to pay it now, because it's been pulled to $600. But that video to make, we've been to four different events.

We stayed in hotels, we bought diamond tickets to sit at the front. It probably cost us six, 7,000 pounds to make that video out of my own money. I'm not making money from this. What I make my money from is my investments, whether they make money, that's it. For some people's things,

you are gonna make money from this all. What course am I gonna release? How to spot a contrapreneur course? And I'll sell it for three, nine, seven, it makes no sense. That would be hilarious if you did. If this was a real long game, for Mike, when it to release, how to spot a contrapreneur course. Someone said, oh, yeah,

I and finally it was all to get an Amazon best seller. I said, I sold 49 copies of a 99 P book, barely mind if I pay 70% royalty to Amazon. I made 30 P a book, 30 P a book on 49 books that I've not wasted two years and five hundred thousand pounds to make. But people just don't, I don't know, I think they want there to be some sort of big reveal to be like, ah, hold your so, this was the big thing. But it literally isn't all I'm doing is doing what I wish was available two years ago. I wish there was a channel I could go to when I had some money to invest that would give me a hundred percent unbiased advice or results of these different investment

options. That's it. I'm just making the thing that I wish was there like when I did the learning business. I made e-learning, I wish was available to me when I was doing e-learning. That's it. It's no hidden agenda, no big reveal, no, I've just built a huge crowd and now you can come to see me talk for 5,000. None of it is in a way right now which I was because I could make a lot of money being stood on stage some of people how to make money from making online courses. So I became because I became a billionaire from doing that. I've probably got more rights to be on stage telling you how to become a millionaire from

online courses because I've genuinely done that thing. But I don't think it's right because the reality is you could come to my office, Chris, and I could tell you exactly what I did day by day for two years and you could do exactly what I did. But the market's different now, conditions are different now. There's so many variables that stop that big million pound exit, five million pound exit, ten million pound exit. You can't dress it up in a course and tell people if they fall out of step by step plan, they will get those results. That's the truth. But that's why I'm not on stage telling people how to become a millionaire through online

courses because we were, we worked hard, we did all the right things, but ultimately it comes down to a huge element of luck. There's somebody else values your business on that set day that you want to sell for what you want. And that can't be replicated through any course that you do or any mentorship. That's the truth. And sure people don't like me saying that 99% of you won't achieve that thing that we achieved. That's not me being a dick.

And yes, you can say, well, you did it, so I can do it. Yes, that's true. But I didn't do it. Yes, that's true. But I didn't do it by going to an online course or signing up to a guru or doing a manuscript. I did it from working really, really hard, didn't not pay myself for a few years, employing people, paying staff before a pay myself, sacrificing holidays,

doing all this stuff, picking an industry where there wasn't the competition, not picking something that everyone needs to be doing, it's like finding a niche, marketing it, having a genuine USB, working really, really hard, taking massive risk and being lucky enough to find someone that at that time was acquiring businesses in that sector so they could then sell their business a year later, because the company that bought my business sold the business 12 months later. What do you know what they got? This will be a signal.

So they bought us and they bought 13 other businesses. Similar sort of. Yeah, it was all like online training, online learning. They'd become like one of the world's biggest learning platforms. They sold the $2.8 billion. So if you work out what our business made up of that, it probably would have been around about 20, between 20 and 22 million, but they did that nine months after they bought us.

So in some regards, cool. Four labs from Warrington managed to make 8 million quit and we walked away with 2 million quit each. What flip side is, we have the tickets that left that much money on the table and if we just worked hard for another 10 months we could have made double triple that money. Wow. It's mad in it, sometimes I try not to think about that too much, but in one regard we say, wow it's amazing what you did, but you know, another way we might not have sold, there's different way what you did, but another way we might not have sold,

there's different way to look at it. We might not have sold, so we would never have known it would have been worth that much, but someone could see more value in it than what we put on the business. That's ultimately what you're looking for, because someone's only going to spend 8 million to 10 million to be on your business if they think that it's worth 15, 20, 25 million. Yeah, a business that's only worth what someone's prepared to pay for it. It's the same as a house isn't it it's like people say oh my house is worth one million quid will you put your house up for one million quid if no one buys it for six years it's not worth a million quid but if you keep getting off us for 750,000 your houses worth 750,000 so yeah man and so

it kind of in in summary of that one of the things that I think's really interesting is what you just said there about the fact that everybody is presuming that you are doing this with an ulterior motive. You're doing this to then flip your audience that you're going to grow and then be like, actually, this is the how to avoid a contrapreneur course for 397 or whatever it might be. And the fact that so many people see that as the immutable dynamic of online content production, should be confirmation to anybody if they need it, that this is how pervasive the issue is. Like if it wasn't for the fact that people can't presume in any world, like a lot of people say to me,

this podcast been going for a year and we're about to probably hit just about a million downloads soon. And the number of times that people are so like, what, you know, how much money you're making off it or when, what's the plan next, like, when you're gonna start doing it? I'm like, man, if you could imagine how much time I've spent, I've never been paid so little, even when I was a glass collector in Middlesbrough at 17 years old, per hour, I've never been paid so little for doing anything in the history of my life. Like, I'm not doing this. This podcast doesn't exist for that reason, and the same thing for you guys starting the YouTube channel, it's an interesting project, but the hilarious thing is, and this is

what I think a lot of people should hopefully try and take on board, the things that you do without an ulterior motive and purely for the fact that fuck that looks interesting. I'm gonna have a crack at that. And then you guys come across well on camera and you had experience with producing things. So you had some associated skills already in the wheelhouse, so to speak.

No, no, wait, the first time I'd ever been on camera was January. I'd never been on camera before. Yeah, we'd never picked up a camera before. We had literally learned on the job. We have not got a clue what we are doing. I'll tell you what, man, you come across incredibly well. Yeah, no, honestly, if you saw what I was like, I get angry at Ian, because Ian basically gives me a script

that goes, right, you're saying this, and I say, it's easy for you, Ian, you just can write the word. LAUGHTER I've got a gut there, and then get called Bumshin. You've got a square edge. You look like an eight. It's all right, but it's like, it's all right, mate. And then so we've got like little jokes in the office where. They want me to act now. I was like, I'm not an actor. No, you need to react to some of these videos. And I'm like, oh, so I'm like pulling face like, oh, wow, and all that shit. But yeah, I absolutely hate it. So doing anything we experience one was like scripting stuff and storyboarding stuff because we used to write content.

So we know roughly that will work well, timing will work, well that might be funny in our opinion. You might think stuff isn't funny, but that's quite funny. But yeah, but in terms of filming, editing, all that stuff, we are literally learning on the job. We know what we're doing. You're doing a good job of it.

But yeah, so the fact that you guys have, you know, even no skills, you have no skills that are in there, but at least an interest in doing it. And what's hilarious is that downstream from that, you guys are actually growing at a rate that most YouTube channels would be, would be fucking dream of. You know, like the uplift that you guys have had recently is the sort of thing that full-time YouTubers that are maybe even putting loads of money into and really trying all the different tricks of the trade.

But the point is, and this is what's interesting about the Contrapreneur formula and the typical things that they're trying to put across is, none of those things emerge from passion. All of those things are simpler. You just need to do this 67 step process or whatever the fuck it might be. And bizarrely, yeah, all of the best things that I've done have been when I've worked fairly hard at something that I'm interested in. Ground manows against a grindstone for sufficiently long. And then some are right to be on the other end.

Yeah. What's interesting about that is, and this is what people, so I have this happening in the argument, so online, which I don't recommend doing, by the way, it's actually answering something that's bullshit. So you're doing this for the money. No, at no point I've said, I am not trying to make money. I am trying to make money on every single investment I make. That is where I'm trying to make money. Oh, yeah, you've got where I'm trying to make money. Oh yeah, you

put 17,000 users through your subscribers. You must be making money. You don't get paid per subscriber. I could wake up tomorrow of a 7 billion subscribers. They don't send me a check for a million quid. It doesn't mean anything. But you try explaining that to someone that doesn't know what they're on about, but they'll beat you with that stick. So what you said there, I think by doing this and letting people see how well or badly I do, or some of the unethical or not very pleasant elements in this industry and in these specific different passive income streams, I think there will be enough, and this is my ultimate goal. There will be enough good guys that are genuinely nice people in those sectors that also have a problem with the flashy Lambo 4x traders and the Shit House property trainers.

And they would love to come to me and say, Mike, I don't want you to talk bad of our industry as a whole because you can make a living through property investment or affiliate marketing or even forex trading, whatever it might be, I don't know. I would like to work with you and show you the right way of doing this ethically and I will then invest my money with the good guys and they will make that work for me. That is ultimately what I think could happen. Does that make sense? It's like natural selection or like natural evolution I suppose for people because for any online entrepreneur, potential entrepreneur, for any of those guys to come to you, like you recently had the gentleman from Birmingham who does probably had him on. And if someone wants to step into your podcast studio,

what is it, not another dickhead with a podcast, is that it? Not stick with a podcast podcast. That was a joke because basically everyone's got a podcast, isn't it? They do, me included. And if someone wants to step into that arena with yourself, with the platform that you guys have now and the exposure that you guys have now and the track platform that you guys have now and the exposure that

you guys have now and the track record that you guys have now, they better fucking hope that they're bringing something legit, because if they're not bringing something legit, they are going to get found out. And, you know, so we can put it out as a lovely way to finish off this podcast, which has been absolutely fantastic. If you are an online market or an entrepreneur who thinks that you can make genuinely make people online. If you're on a sheet and you can make people run, come and seek us out, work with us and we will document that journey. And if it works, it works. It is the best advert for you and your service is ever.

It is that. But you know what? Not one person's gone, yeah, you can come and film our event yet. Not one. Which I think speaks volumes. Do you know what? Not one person's gone, yeah, you can come and film our event yet. Not one, which I think speaks volumes. Do you know what I mean? Well, doesn't it? The affiliate marketing guy that's got in touch. He got in touch to say, I know you're doing stuff on affiliate marketing. I'm not a millionaire, I'm not promising to make you a millionaire. However, here is my projected income. This is how much I earn and I'm happy to show you how I do it because there are some good guys in this sector. I don't sell a course, I don't sell mentorship, I just do this for myself and I'd be happy to work with you guys to show

you the right way of doing things. And that's great and he seems a good guy and hopefully it does work. Isn't that interesting that the only person that's come to speak to you so far to teach teach you how to do well within an industry, is the only person that isn't trying to sell a course within that fucking industry? Exactly that, exactly that. And weirdly as well, so to say the property guy that you mentioned, I've had a few other property teachers or they've got podcasts and their leaders in their books and stuff like that, they've got podcasts and they're like leaders in their books and stuff like leaders in their sector they're quite in touch saying I can show you the right way of doing these things because some of the things that you see in these events aren't 100% legal, it's gray areas, it's plain sort of like both sides of the law

this is the way to do it and you can make money to be property if you ever want to talk about that or discuss that we're happy to help you and that's what I think this eventually will lead to. It's not necessarily which on naming individuals, I think it will show people. Here's what they promise you. Here's the reality. You're probably going to be closer to this than that. So don't go and spend all your money on this thing that doesn't really exist because we've shown you how much money it costs us to make this amount of money up. Yeah. Well, it's an open challenge, ladies and gentlemen, everybody that's listening, people of the internet, if you have a business and if you think that you can help Mike make some of his half a million quid back that he's lumped into a manner of different things.

If it carries on at this rate, I will have to do a proper job because not one thing so far has made money. What's the money? And tomorrow I've got an interview with a guy that I brought some crypto mining rigs off. So I spent 30,000 pounds with him. And that'll be an interesting interview. It's all I'm gonna say. I'm excited, man, I'm very excited.

So for the listeners who want to find out a little bit more, they can't watch the Contrapreneur formula yet, but they might be able to, and if it is uploaded by the time that this episode goes up, it will be in the show notes below, but where can they find you that hasn't been taken down yet? So I am on Instagram, which is just Mike Winnitz. I don't have many followers, and I don't follow anyone. I'm a proper weirdo, and I'm on LinkedIn. Mike Winnitz, which is the same spell like Winner with a T at the end, rather than an R, and then YouTube. Mike Winnitz.

Fantastic. You need to go and have a little bit of a look on LinkedIn. This is a total the same spell like winner with a T at the end rather than an R and then YouTube might win it. Fantastic. You need to go and have a little bit of a look on LinkedIn. This is a total another episode. And I'm, you know, if you've got time, man, at some point over the next couple of months, I want to do a whole delved deep into the world, weird world of LinkedIn, because until watching your stuff on YouTube, I didn't even know that there was this whole subculture of weird engagement shit on LinkedIn. It's like Instagram for people that have like smoking jackets and sit on Chesterfield's sofas. It's amazing. I say what LinkedIn is just a Facebook for a professional one because that's the best way

to describe it. There we go. And on that note, we'll finish. Like, share, subscribe. You know what to do. Really appreciate your time, Mike. Thank you so much, man man and good luck as everything comes forward. Cheers thanks so much. you