The Science of Flipping - Episode 131: Interview with Best Selling Author Scott Duffey

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

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Welcome to the Science of Flipping podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Yo, yo, Justin Colby here with the Science of Flipping. And if you are listening this or watching this, you will see I have another incredible special guest on with me on this training. And I don't know if you're listening to this on iTunes, watching it on YouTube, seeing it on social media, but I got my man, Mr. Scott. Now, I almost want to create how hard we've been trying to put this together here Mr. Scott Duffy from Entrepreneur Magazine best-selling author I mean he is the man is here with me and we've been trying all morning to get this call going dude what's up Scott dude this was planes trains automobiles like literally we've tried everything today, but I'm at Whole Foods. I'm in Newport beach. I'm sitting down. I got my kombucha here. Like I'm ready to roll with you. Like,

let's do this thing. Showtime, right? Showtime. So, um, part of the thing I do is, um, I'm always trying to help business owners, real estate investors, um, try to build a true business. And you and I started our friendship a little over a year ago, as a matter of fact, at one of our great, I think it was at the Scale and Escape event where we were both speaking. You are an incredible example of an entrepreneur, someone who's very dynamic. You're a bestselling author. In fact, one of the main reasons I wanted you on right now is you just launched your new book, which I'm very excited to talk about. And you've reached a massive level of success. You're incredibly, your network is huge. I mean, there's just so much going on with you, but you've also had hurdles

you've overcome and you've had to break through these and that's a great name for your book. And so I just wanted to kind of talk to you, just have an honest conversation about entrepreneurship, what it takes. We were talking, I think two weeks ago on a call and you and I were just rapping about, you know, people who are just getting started versus people already in the game and what that is. So let's talk a little bit about you and introduce yourself and your background and what it's kind of taken for you to get to where you're at today, dude. Well, so thank you very much. You know, I started my career working for best-selling author and

speaker Tony Robbins. That was all by mistake. I'm a Southern California guy. I went to school down at University of San Diego. And in my third year of college, my junior year, I was on a fraternity trip south of the border down in Mexico. It was about 90 miles south. And I got into this terrible car accident. Two brain hemorrhages. Had to drop out of school. Couldn't really do anything for months while I was getting better. I literally laid in bed all day every day.

I couldn't read. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't read, I couldn't watch TV, I couldn't do anything because everything made me sick. But I picked up this crazy habit. I started listening to motivational books on tape. And before you knew it, I had this library and it was guys like Jim Rohn and Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy and Les Brown.

And for your younger audience, they're like, who the hell is he talking about? Well, these are people that inspired me. And, uh, and the guy named Tony Robbins. And as I started to feel better and get stronger, um, what I did is I made the decision that I wanted to go back to school and I wanted to work for one of these people that inspired me as an intern and graduate from college.

And the first person I applied to work for as an intern was Tony. But instead of offering me an internship, I was offered this really cool job. I was a young guy. I was 20. He was 30. It was a long time ago. So I started in training. And it was really incredible because being around that industry and being around some of the people in his circle and his sphere of influence, it really helped to shape my sense of possibility and what we can and we can't do. And then I moved. I ended up moving to the Bay Area in my mid-20s.

I was really early in consumer internet. And I was fortunate to be on the ground floor of some really small companies that became big brands like CBS Sportsline, NBC Internet, FoxSports.com. And the last big company, tech company I started was like Expedia for private jets. And I sold it to Virgin and I ran it for that business and Richard Branson's Virgin for a couple of years. And so the funny thing is this. The funny thing is you line all those brands up, right? And it sounds so easy. But look, the reality is this. All of that has been like in between. We all have our highs and our

lows and our ups and our downs and our high points and our failures. We've all made money and lost money and all that stuff. So, um, that's, that's kind of my journey. Yeah. And what do you, you know, obviously I know you with entrepreneur magazine, I keep mentioning your bestselling author and we're going to get to break through momentarily. What are you currently in the middle of right now? Obviously the book, but what's taking, you know, where are you in business and where are you looking to go now? I mean, you're, you're so dynamic in so many levels. Well, so my passion, you know, the thing that gets me up early in the morning, keeps me up late night is helping people to live their dreams through entrepreneurship. So I use all my platforms, whether it's television, online, it's speaking platforms, radio,

whatever it is, to help communicate that message and give people tools to help them build great companies. And so we see each other on the speaking circuit. He can watch my shows online, just whatever. And we run courses. We have masterminds and two day intensives and all that kind of stuff. And I just love to really roll up my sleeves and get dirty with entrepreneurs, go knees to knees and really figure out how we can help them to grow, how we can help them to monetize their innovation, right? How we can help them to scale further, faster,

and with far less capital than most people ever imagined. And that's kind of where I am today. That's awesome. So let's jump in your book. I mean, this is the hot topic, right? And you and I were just talking about this. It already sold out of the first copy, the printed run sold out already. It took six days.

Yeah, it was crazy. That's phenomenal. So I'm really super grateful for that. And again, just like anything else, it's all about team. It's because we had a great team. I have an amazing media partner and entrepreneur. And, uh, and so that was, that was a lot of, that was a lot of fun. That's awesome. So let's talk about what this book is about, right? So it's called breakthrough. You are the author. Now tell me a little bit about how it could affect someone who is

just jumping into business, but then also talk about how it could be, talk to someone like myself who now I've owned a company now for almost 11 years and I've had extreme highs and I've had extreme hurdles and I've been able to weather the storms and break through and continue to great, you know, so talk to me about the book and what the real message is depending upon where you are in life. Well, I, so what I basically done is I've taken my experience working with or around really big brands like Tony Robbins or Richard Branson or, um, being able to, to just do some work for some pretty amazing people and companies and, and, and taking those stories, um stories and really kind of broken the lessons down.

I've learned it really fun and engaging stories and, and hopefully metaphors that we can all relate to and learn from with lessons to apply to our business. But, but like, here's, here's the thing, right? As an entrepreneur, I think the biggest mistake that most of us make is we focus on too many things at one time. And I call this hammers and nails syndrome. And so here's what I mean.

If I were to give you one hammer and one nail, and your job's simple, all you have to do is bring that hammer back and drive that nail into a piece of wood. Like really nail that one business. So the odds are you may miss the first, you may miss the third time. But eventually, I'm going to bet that you're going to nail it. You're going to get it right. Now, let's say I give you two hammers and two nails. You've got a problem. You've got to hold a hammer in each hand.

Who's going to hold the nails? Right. Let's say you find somebody crazy enough to do that. I want you to think about this. You have to bring both hammers, both hands back at the same time and strike at the same time. Look how tough that is. You may miss the first time, the second, the third, you may never get it right. Let's say give you 10 hammers and 10 nails. You get the point. So the biggest mistake I think entrepreneurs make is that, is they focus on too many things at once.

So what I say is, don't do everything. Don't try everything. Really focus on one thing, really nail that one thing and then move to the next. And then the question is, how do I decide what comes next? Well, the best way to decide that is to let your customers tell you. Whether they're paying customers or folks that are starting to use and play with an experiment with whatever it is that you have to offer, let them build your product roadmap for you. And I think if you do that, that kind of focus is really what it takes. And I think that it's that, that kind of focus is really what it takes. And I think that it's not just that kind of focus one day and then maybe a couple days down the road. Here's the thing about life that's super amazing.

What's amazing is anything that you do today to improve yourself or improve your business, you get the power of that times the first power, like that times the first power. Now let's say you do that thing tomorrow. You get the power of that times the second power and the third day times the third time. So there's this exponential effect that happens in the universe. But here's what happens on the seventh day of our diet on Sunday. What do we do? We just blow the whole thing out, right? And so we have to start the next day with that thing to the first power. Does that make sense? You lose that exponential effect. And so again, what I'd say is don't focus on everything. Focus on one thing. Make it a consistent practice every single day. Consistent meaning every single day. Persistent meaning you will never quit and you will get that exponential growth that you're looking for. Amen to that brother. So the way I suggest that to the entrepreneurs I talk to

is extreme focus. Extreme focus gives extreme results. And I'm a victim of it, brother. I will tell you right now, I literally just jumped off the phone with my chief marketing officer and my marketing partners and have a partnership with an agency. And he's like, bro, we are going eight different directions with your brand. We have 17 different things we need to focus and we need to crush one of them. Right. And I'm just like, but what about all this? Right. Cause I just have so many ideas as an entrepreneur, the visionary. So I'll tell everyone out there listening to this, watching this, this is dead on. If you want extreme results and you want to make a million dollars a year, maybe you want to be, maybe you want to get on the speaker

circuit, maybe whatever it is, get extremely focused on what you need to do. And then you have to do it, right? That's the next next the very next thing is get extremely focused but then actually do what you're supposed to be focused on um because i'm even a victim of it man i go 18 different directions and it gets nuts you know it's so easy i so i ran into to a guy that i work with in the tony robbins business i ran into him he's a really good friend of mine about three years ago okay and I hadn't seen him in years. We're down in San Diego. How you doing? He's like, dude, I'm doing awesome. He said, I just raised $2 million for my new business. And I'm like, that's amazing. I said, how far along are you on? He's like, well, it's just an idea right now. I'm like, what? You raised $2 million on an idea? He's like, I did. On an idea. Like, this is so rare, right?

Yeah. And he says, I raised $2 million on an idea. So I'm like, great. We high five, all that kind of stuff. What was amazing is he was solving one problem for one person in the big market. So a year later, one year later, I run into him in San Diego downtown. And I'm like, bro, how you doing? How's that business? He was on his way to go to his attorney's office to close it down and declare bankruptcy.

And I go, how in the heck did that happen? One year, 2 million bucks, what happened? And you know, Scott, he said, it's as simple as this. He said, when I started this business, I was solving one problem for one person and that was it. But as simple as this. He said, when I started this business, I was solving one problem for one person, and that was it. But as soon as we got the money, something changed. Every single day, people came into our office, made all this cash, and they had another big idea. And so what we started to do is build and build and build. Instead of one thing for one person, it was everything for everybody. And he said, by the time that we launched, we had this big site.

We basically spent our self-drive. And here's the crazy thing. He said, when we put it out to the market, 95% of the people used 5% of the site. So if you reverse engineer that, 95% of his time and his money was wasted. And the 5% that they used was the original product that he was building. Yeah. So focus on one thing. I was with Richard Branson on Necker Island at his home. And I asked him, I said, I go, I go, Richard, I got a question for you. I said, I've spent my entire life living like in launches, going into businesses where we were creating markets, defining markets.

We were leading brands, like pushing, like we were educating customers about what their problem was and what this, and why they needed this product while we were trying to build it. Right. I said, now you are completely the opposite. You go into the biggest markets with the most entrenched competitors and the most marketing dollars to spend against you. I said, why would you do that? And he said this, he said, all I do, my recipe for success is simple. I look at a big market where people already have their wallets out. I will never try and convince anyone to spend money. They're already spending money. He said, then all I do in that big market is I find one person and I find one problem they have. And if I saw that one person, that one problem for that

one person, and it's a big market, it's a billion dollar business. And he said, that's why I have $5 billion businesses today. And then he started to laugh at me and he said, maybe you should try that next time. It works. So again, I think what we're talking about here is it all comes back to focus and the discipline required to stay focused, particularly when things are working. No doubt. So where can people, I mean, where can people buy your book? Where do we want to send them? I want them to follow you on social media. I want them to follow you everywhere. So let's talk about how did people get into Scott Duffy's world and everyone out there watching this, listening to this, this man is dynamic. I mean, he's talking about sitting down with billion,

multiple billion, you know, Richard Branson, right? I mean, he's always in, whether it's Grant Cardone, Gary Vee,

I mean, the best of the best of people that you, you know, everyone out here is admiring. Scott Duffy literally is eating with them, breaking bread with them, high fiving with them. So this is a man you want to be following a man man you want to be around. But tell, I mean,

where can everyone get your book, dude? Well, so you can find my book all over. You can go to, there we go. You can find my book, you can find my book, Retailers, everyone from Walmart to Target to Barnes and Noble, online you can find us at Amazon it is the breakthrough book so just go in there breakthrough by Scott Duffy you'll find us also go to my website at www.scottduffy.com or you can follow me on social media at Scott Duffy media across all of all of the channels we do some really amazing stuff you were just talking about people right and it's all about people and. And I think that when I was a young guy, I used to think that the key to being successful was really simple. It was all about outworking, out hustling everybody else. But what I learned as I got older was that's so not the case

because there are so many people out there that work just as hard, that hustle as hard that recognize there's 24 hours a day they'll spend every dollar working in fact there's probably people out there that are hungrier than you are in fact if you i was just speaking over in la this college and and i told these students i said you know i shared if you think that the person that you're competing with is the person sitting right next to you, you have got it all wrong. The person that you're competing with is the person who's halfway across the world, who's watching on television or the internet for the first time and seeing what you have. And they want that. The thing that you call your worst day is the thing they dream of, that they meditate on every single day. That is your competition. So it's all about, what I've

learned is it's all about people you know, what I've learned is it's all about people. Who are the people that we surround ourselves with? And the simplest way to look at this is this. If you were to make a list of the five people that you spend the most time with and next to each one of their names, write down what they earn. So five people, what you think they earn, add it all up, divide by those five people. That is exactly what you earn. It's crazy. You do that in a room of a thousand people, plus or minus 5%.

That number's right on target. And you can apply that lesson to every single area of your life. Fit people hang out with fit people. Bad people hang out with bad people. Unhappy people hang out with unhappy people. So what we need to do is be really fricking badass intentional about knowing what we want, finding people out there that are getting the results that we want, and then putting ourselves in those networks. And so, you know, if you want to grow your business, if you want to scale your business, um, yeah, check out scottduffy.com,

follow me on social media. And, um, and, and, you know, I would like to introduce you to the people that I hang out with that can help you to build your business. No doubt. I love it. I love it, man. Um, you're an incredible example of an, a successful entrepreneur, a successful person, obviously charismatic. It's been great to have you on, man. Is there anything you want to leave those entrepreneurs? I have a lot of entrepreneurs that follow me on the podcast, the signs of flipping my social media, uh, the Justin Colby.

I mean, there's just, this will be everywhere, right? It'll be on the Justin Colby, YouTube, the Justin Colby, Instagram.

What can you talk to give one last point to these entrepreneurs out there that you'd like to send a message to? I think that, um, I, I'm going to talk to something that came up this morning with somebody that I work with. And it's really all about the human side of entrepreneurship. Okay. You know, I think, I think that that side is 50% of what makes us successful, if not more.

Like it's easy to teach management and strategy and sales and all that kind of stuff. But really what's most important for us entrepreneurs is keeping our head on straight. Yeah. Right? Staying focused. And so I would say two things. One I would say is, I think that our brain is like Google. So whenever something happens to us, we are constantly asking ourselves two questions. What does this mean and what do I do? And in our Google brain, what happens is if something doesn't work or it doesn't work for a few days in a row, or if we're not making the sales or whatever's going on, we start to ask ourselves these really disempowering questions, right, to take us into a loop. Why do I suck? Why can't I sell?

Why won't anybody buy from me? Whatever it is. And here's the thing. Your brain is just like Google. If you type, why do I suck into Google, You get 6.7 million results in a second. Your brain does the same thing. It does the exact same thing. So what's really powerful is learning really how to recondition ourselves to ask a better question. Because at those times, if we ask ourselves, what can I learn from this experience? What can I take away from

this experience? What am I grateful for in this moment? What happens is we get 6.7 million reasons to support us in the direction of where we want to go. And we all go through it. Sometimes as entrepreneurs, it's really easy to feel like you're all alone. Like you're the only person that's experiencing this thing, right? Can I share one final story? Just say that you're not and we're all in this together because it's all about the personal shit so i've never told this story so i was gonna i was gonna share this on an upcoming show okay i've never told this story to to a group before so so i i made tons of millions of dollars in technology and i was my partner with richard prance the market crashes and everything goes upside down happens Happens overnight, happens to everybody, right? It happens to people.

So I don't know what to do, right? I'm going through this period. I'm like in the fetal position, curled up like in a little ball, just like, what do I do for like six months? And I get a call, right? And I get a call. And the call was from somebody that I knew in Los Angeles. He said, Scott, he said, I hear that you're on the call was from somebody that I knew in Los Angeles. He said, Scott, he said, I hear that you're on the market right now and you want to go run a company. I want you to run my business. And I said, cool. I said, what is it? He said, don't worry about what it is. He said, come and meet me for lunch and I'm going to share it with you. So I go, cool. So I get to his office. He's in Pasadena. I get to his office and he in Pasadena get to his office and he said I go so what is your business and he said well I have a research lab that I just bought and we do we do medical we do like

testing of stuff I said that's great I said so you want me to run that he goes I've been thinking about it since our call and I don't want you to run it anymore I said you don't I said what do you want me to do he said I want you to be a sales. I said, you don't? I said, what do you want me to do? He said, I want you to be a salesperson. I said, you want to be a salesperson? I said, okay, I could probably provide more value than just selling. I said, but what is it that you want me to sell? And he said this, pee.

I said, what do you mean? He said, the lab I just bought takes urine from doctor's offices and we process the urine and we give the results back to the doctor so he said i want you to be my top p salesman in southern california so here's the thing so i went from this one job that was just amazing this whole thing to everything changed over there and being in this experience in my mind could have raced in a million different directions.

Yeah. But where it went immediately was how can I use the way I feel right now to propel me forward? And was exactly the motivation I needed to turn things around. That's awesome. And so we all go through this crazy shit and whether it's selling pee or who knows what you're going through as an entrepreneur, here's the thing. We're all in this thing together, right? We all rise up together. Okay. And I'm here to tell you, it is your time. It is your turn. You can have more, be more, do more than you ever thought possible. So why wait?

Launch. Let's go. I love that. You went from top P salesman to the man we're talking to today. I love it. I love it, brother. I really appreciate the time you've given me the science flipping audience, the Justin Colby audience, man, you are, uh, you've been great to be on. I'm sure we're going to keep, keep having you on, keep sharing your wisdom, brother in the book. Everyone needs to go get this book, man. Everybody. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. I'm glad we made it work today oh put forth the effort you'll get there that's right all right guys that's it for us we're out of here peace