Just Burn the Boats Feat: Gary Geiman

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

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Jaden Norvell: 1:08

Hosted by Dr. Dustin Steffey co hosted by Jaden row this is chopping fire the number one business and self development podcast on Apple podcast finds at WWW dot chopping wood fire.com Without further ado, enjoy the Episode

Dustin Steffey: 1:41

Hello and welcome to another episode of chopping wood fire. You're joined with your hosts today Dustin Steffey and

Jaden Norvell: 1:48

Jaden Norvell was up chop nation.

Dustin Steffey: 1:51

What's up Jaden? I mean you take these hiatus as you disappear, got a sense wall after you and then you come back and then you disappearing and just making sure you're good. You're kind of like a flight risk.

Jaden Norvell: 2:03

Like that. I watched his movie. Oh, it's what it's like agent six or whatever, on Netflix. It's new. It's top 10 When we look it up, it's called an underground. No, no. This one going with Sierra six,

Dustin Steffey: 2:19

Jaden. While you're while you're looking that up. I have something important to ask you. Okay, so do we Trump nation here call you coach. Do we call you sir? Do we call you king? Like what do you can congratulations first and foremost for making it on the staffer. CSU big deal. I'm proud of you. I'm sure Trump nation is but I have a debacle now like, do I call you coach? Do I call you sir? Do I bow to you? Like what do you what do you want from me?

Jaden Norvell: 2:51

The day's fire is called the gray man. The gray man's top 10 Right now, the gray man.

Dustin Steffey: 2:59

For all of our listeners, by the way, we're good at multitasking here. So two different conversations going on. So the gray man top 10 on Netflix. Good movie, Jane recommends it You all should watch it. Secondly, he said he can be called whatever. So I heard it. You heard it here. We're good. Thanks. You're welcome, buddy. Tomorrow,

Jaden Norvell: 3:21

man What you got just got cooking fern.

Dustin Steffey: 3:25

You know, I'm just trying to plan our November event which good good preface right now. So in November guys, if you haven't done so already, the week before Thanksgiving, which date wise, because, you know, we suck at dates, so we might as well give them to you now. We are looking at the 19th of November. So November 19 will be when our live event is in Fort Collins. Again, like we said last time, more information to come as it gets planned. Jaden has some fun things and fun ideas. So as soon as we make them come to fruition, they're going to be communicated to you guys. So again, we appreciate our listeners. We love them. Guys like us, and we thank you for everything. So please mark your calendars so you can come see Jaden and I we can shake your hand. Have some fun, tell some jokes. Make fun of Jaden, whatever the case may be. We're here for you. Thanks, Dustin. Appreciate that. Well, buddy, you know, it's always fun and you get a lot of cracks on me outside of here. So my turn.

Jaden Norvell: 4:43

As usual. Guys, please remember to keep donating to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. That's our home charity. You guys have already raised over $2,000 You're killing it. You donate a cff.org backslash donate.

Dustin Steffey: 4:57

And lastly, please if you are alive and you're breathing and you have a computer and you know how technology works. Visit our website at WWW dot choppin with fire that ch o p p i n w i t h f i r e.com for important updates, Episode archives, guest profiles, sponsors Jade in his lovely mug shot, etc. Please, please please, please go to our website for all that information. Also, if you haven't done so already, please join our patreon@www.patreon.com forward slash chop and with fire. Jaden and I are working on that in the next couple of weeks to have more premium content on there of just Jaden and I behind the scenes and other relevant information. Also keep in mind that hoard a portion of the proceeds from Patreon goes to cystic fibrosis

Jaden Norvell: 6:03

dsteff check this out, man. I'm a cash out card. Finally. Put a little Bitcoin on the bottom.

Dustin Steffey: 6:10

Man Look at this guy. He's actually an adult now. Love it for debate still got it. We love you.

Jaden Norvell: 6:22

Debit Card gate. Dude.

Dustin Steffey: 6:25

I'm stoked for you. Now you now you can actually like actually have a carton for once. That being said, dairy is patiently waiting. So let's introduce him and because this is going to be a fun interview today. So we have today Gary Gaiman and I hope I pronounced the last name right if I did not then he's just gonna kill me later. Is an entrepreneur and business owner. He has 30 years of experience in his career that spanned over owning multiple businesses, and developing sales and marketing plans to assist other business owners to grow their business. Right now. He owns and operates DM N A, I will let him go over what that means later, which is a digital marketing and consulting company. With that being said, I'd love to introduce Gary on with us today. Gary, how are you?

Gary Geiman: 7:23

Great Man, you guys. I'm just glad to be here like you got Jaden normal, who's got the biggest smile. And he's a frickin football coach. So like, I feel like I'm supposed to do Up Downs right now. Dustin, you guys just have a lot of fun. So thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this. This should be a blast.

Dustin Steffey: 7:45

Hey, thank you.

Jaden Norvell: 7:47

We need to add that Rick Ross, the rick ross boss sound effects.

Dustin Steffey: 7:52

Yeah, we'll we'll we'll get to that. Gary, tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm sure everybody's curious and kind of want to know a little bit of background before we get into the nitty gritty.

Gary Geiman: 8:04

Sure, sure. Well, you know, compared to you guys, I'm old. So I've been been chasing money for a long time. I grew up very poor, did not have a lot and when I got out of high school, I was like, I'm gonna create something that is gonna I'm going to be proud of and it took me a long time to do that. But I learned sales at an early age. My first sales job was telemarketing. lawncare started in December. I'm in Cincinnati, it snows in December. It's usually not a good career path but got the bug for sales. And basically sales is fueled my entrepreneurial journey I've owned a mortgage brokerage for about 10 years. I and a restaurant a bar list goes on and on of when you have money and you do stupid stuff with it. Like that's what happens. But then I got refocused on actually creating opportunities for other businesses. And that's where DNA which is a license plate for dominate. That's where dominate partners came in. And we are full service marketing agency. We do digital traditional marketing as well, focusing primarily on search, but we do social and all the other stuff. But our primary focus is to help business owners grow their business, to change their life and to impact their communities. And, you know, I have a team of about 12 here. We, we hit that hard every day. Our mission statement is just that to impact business owners to change their life and to change their community and then stay focused on that task by just being intentional with what we do. So I'm a pretty pretty intense individual. Like I don't do anything halfway. If I'm not good at it. I don't do it. If I am good at it, I jump in or die. Ivan had first, like, I'm a big, big boating and water guy and my wife always yells at me because there's to me, there's only one way to get in the water. And that's at first, like, you dive headfirst. And that's the same way that I do life. That's the same way I do business period. Because you have to take risks to be able to get something. And, you know, I think a lot of people have inside of them something that they want to do or share. They just are limited and who they know or what they know. And, you know, we try to run along people and help them impact the things that they don't know or can't do in a way that makes them money, but also makes them a lot makes them have an impact. Well, one thing is

Dustin Steffey: 10:47

for certain we all are on the same page with diving in headfirst. Jaden and I, when we started this adventure back in January, we didn't know what was going to come of it. You had a guy that has his doctorate. And then you have Jaden, who was going after being a coach. And we were we were wanting to give back to people and help them to realize that they have that inner beast like you were saying, and something inside them to chase. And so that's how this came to fruition. So we definitely can agree with you on kind of where you're heading and what what your values and your core being is because we're the same we jump in headfirst. We may have belly flop the first month but we're we're in headfirst right now.

Jaden Norvell: 11:35

Like, it was like you said it, we're intentional about what we do as well. So it wasn't intentional belly flop.

Dustin Steffey: 11:43

It was like that. Oh, what is it when they jump off the high dive and they look like they're gonna belly flop and then out there. That was that was us.

Gary Geiman: 11:52

The ones that belly flop are the best ones to watch, though. I mean, yeah. It's cool when they can like go in and it looks like a belly flop and they dive it's even better when they belly flop because you're like, Oh,

Jaden Norvell: 12:07

the stuff I need to see that I need to see the belly flop, either a belly flop or a belly flop dive in Mexico, and September.

Dustin Steffey: 12:14

That'll be that'll be some fun stuff for us. We'll get a tan all y'all read on my stomach. And we'll go URI. So you you brought up that you help other businesses to turn a profit and to be successful? With that being said, what strategies is does? I'm sure it depends on the business? And it depends on what you're kind of trying to accomplish. But overall, the overarching theme, like what are the main things that you see that businesses fall short on to make a profit to turn a profit over to get customers? Like where are people falling short these days?

Gary Geiman: 12:54

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's many ways this could go, but my expertise is in the sales and marketing space. So I think the, you know, our foundation of how we help others is based on to two things, one being present and being found. So being present is social media awareness, as many people as possible know about you. And we get this and I say we business owners, somebody starting out on things like, Hey, I put it on my social. So everybody knows when I do well, you know, social media, they limit your reach, if you're posting all the time, and, you know, hitting the algorithm, maybe eight to 10% of the people that follow you on social media see it. But we think everybody knows about it, right? So being present means number one streaming from the highest building or mountain top what it is you do all the time. And then being found relates back to search, you know, Google, that type of thing to where when the services you provide or the products you sell are being searched, you want to show up, we work with a lot of local service businesses. In fact, all of our clients are local service. So you don't have to work on being found throughout the whole world. You just have to work on being found in your local market, which is a lot easier. But we, we find business owners typically are in business, one or two reasons. They worked for someone and they were really good at something and they got tired of building that person's dream. So they went and started their own, or they had a life event happen. Like they lost a job or they had a job change and they didn't like so they started a business. And both of those instances and if I had to guess that's probably 80 to 85% of service based businesses. That's how they start. Both of those instances like there's not a lot of training related to sales and marketing. There's not a lot of leadership as a business experience. So it is diving in headfirst. or jumping out of the plane and you know, building a parachute as you go. But the the overreaching theme for business is you have to let people know what it is you do. And you have to let them know constantly and consistently. And that's where the majority of businesses miss, we talk to business owners all the time. Hey, Gary, slow, I'm slow. I don't have business, I don't do this. My first question I'll ask is, how many customers do you have in your customer list? And they'll tell you, you know, 500 1000 2000, whatever. Next question, when was the last time you communicated with our customer base? Well, I mean, I sent him an email once a year, right? That's not enough, right? If you provide a service, and that customer uses your service, there's probably ancillary services that you provide that they're going to need at some point. And if they don't remember you, they're gonna go and find your competitor and give that competitor your money. So communicating, being consistent with communication, both to prospects, customers, and to your market is the biggest fail that I see. And I think is the easiest thing that someone can do without hiring any company to make sure that they are aware social media is the new billboard billboards on highways, like I look at those and still wonder who is calling from that billboard, how many people but Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, Snapchat, all provide awareness that is free to you just take your time, little bit of effort, be creative, be funny, people will want to work with you and do business with you. And any business that you own. If you just get intentional on social media, you can increase your revenue over the next 3060 90 days if you're intentional and consistent.

Dustin Steffey: 16:47

So that pathway that you just described, was the exact trajectory of Jaden and I, as far as when we started the podcast. We, we were surgical with social media, but like you said, on social media, that algorithm limits us to about 10% of our reach. So for Jaden and I just this month, we finally like broke out into what an influencer is right? Which is above a 10k Reach and growing. So we finally just broke that and it it took us what see January to now we'll call it eight months to get that

Jaden Norvell: 17:33

we kind of built like you said, our own parachute. And that's in the in the movie I was talking about earlier, he jumped out of a plane with no parachute, flies down and grabs dude in like, unhooks his parachute and puts it on to him. I just thought I say that. It's, it's a really,

Gary Geiman: 17:50

it's a good movie. That's a good

Dustin Steffey: 17:51

movie. I'd like to think that we had a wingsuit underneath just in case but no. Um, but what I'm trying to say is Gary, what you just said aligns with, I feel like 90% of businesses that start and let's Let's call a spade a spade. Our podcast is a business as well, too. While we are giving back to our community, our followers, our listeners, we're also running a business because at the end of the day, we Jaden and I are influencers. And so our influence impacts multiple people. And we're running a business and with podcasting. I mean, for us it, it's about reach, it's about sponsorships, it's about getting our information out to as many people as possible. And for us, we're blessed because we're a global podcast. So we are globally reaching people. But we're not reaching everyone we want yet, which is where you come in.

Gary Geiman: 18:53

So it's a, it's interesting, like you said a couple of key things there that I want to touch on. First, when you said you know, you're a business, and you absolutely are. But you said you provide value. And that is one of the hardest things sometimes for business owners to understand is actually what the value is that they provide. For instance, if you provide a service, a lot of business owners or companies or salespeople will try to push like the features and benefits and what that service is, but really, you need to be responding to the pain that the customer has. Like for instance, in your podcast, you're filling a need or healing a pain that someone has with the value that you give, which makes people want to listen tune in, weekly, monthly, whatever, you know, whatever schedule that they tune in on, but it's because of that value that you provide. You don't talk about the cool mic that you have, or the headphones that you have or the cool software that you use to put the podcast that talks about the value that you present and business owners get mixed up in the sales process, thinking that features and benefits is what the customer is looking for when really, every customer in the world regardless of product or service listens to the same radio station called What's in it for me, right. And if we fill that, what's in it for you, in a way that answers their problem, fixes the pain gives them a solution, they're gonna buy from you. If we don't, they're gonna buy from someone who does. And so marketing is really important that gets you opportunity. But sales is what's created is what creates the revenue. And if you're bad at sales, you got to do a really, really good job at producing more leads. If you're bad at producing leads, you got to do a really, really good job at converting every single lead that you have. And so understanding what both do and then understanding the process of converting a lead to money, which is what everybody wants to do. puts you in control of that. And the example you gave with your podcast is the exact example everyone needs to follow in their business, understand the value, understand how that value answers a question, solves a problem fixes a pain, and then monetize it. We're

Dustin Steffey: 21:24

falling a little short on the monetize part. I mean, I guess we aren't in the same.

Gary Geiman: 21:29

You're eight months in, you're eight months in, right? Yeah. So you know, you've you've had to build collateral, your value, you've had to build collateral, as you build collateral eyes get on you, people start talking about you get reviews, they refer, you know, hey, check out this podcast, these guys are cool, that kind of thing. So you've built the collateral. Now you get to go back and take from that collateral to start monetizing more. People want to jump that, like, I want to monetize my podcast? Well, you have to create the collateral first, what makes you valuable? And then that value comes the monetization I think you guys are, you do the right thing. You've done the right thing so far. Now it's a matter of you figuring out how to take that collateral and giving you money.

Dustin Steffey: 22:16

Jaden, what questions do you have, buddy? I know I see the wheels turning, I see the smoke coming out the years.

Jaden Norvell: 22:24

I want to do Can you tell us more about like your past and in your what you've learned from all these businesses you've owned, and any advice to our young business owners?

Gary Geiman: 22:34

Yeah, so I'll give you I'll give you a couple of couple of pieces of gold that you can use. Number one, and this is going to affect probably a lot of people because we always want to have a bystander buddy, partner in crime. So going into a partnership is kind of what we do, right? It makes the journey a little less hard, or a little less scary. But here's what I'm gonna say it's going to like, give give people a lot of food for thought there can never ever be an equal partnership that works. Someone has to earn more than the other. Because there has to be someone in control. I've been in multiple partnerships. And that has always been the case. If it's equal. There's issues if there if it isn't equal. Yeah, there's a lot better of a there's a lot better of an outcome that happens. Full disclosure. My story is I went into business with my best friend from high school. So we were buddies since ninth grade. We get out of school, he goes to college, I go do my thing. We meet back up. I'm in the mortgage industry at the time. He's not making a lot of money, got a job out of college, blah, blah, blah. And I decide three years into the mortgage game and I'm gonna open my open up a brokerage. He's like, Hey, I'd love to do that with you. Okay, we get together we talk. And without really understanding what each one is going to do. We'd like we're going to be 5050 Blah, blah, blah. When in reality, it wasn't 5050 I steered the ship. We both gave the same amount of money, but I trained people I got leads, you know, he wrote some checks. Okay, it comes down to Okay, how much time does he have to involve himself? How much time do I have to involve ourselves? Long story short, we ended up suing each other for like two years. Good news is the outcome worked to the point to where we're still friends. I went to his 50th birthday party a couple of weeks ago. We were able to get past that. But in looking back, having an operating agreement, having things in place when you start goes a long way for when you start to hit success and then everything rd wants their piece. So you go into business, make sure especially if you go into business with someone else, make sure there's a clear delineation of leadership and an operating agreement. That's number one. Number two, focus on cash. TAs, TAs, Tas TAs, what does that mean? Well, you're not a business unless you get paid, right. And so I always tell people, you know, it's not a job unless you get paid. It's not a business unless you get paid like focusing on the cash and focus on quick cash. Cash flow will separate the people from the separate the people that are in business, from the people that aren't in business, especially early on. And so you know, you're doing something and it's your only gig. Like, you might have to suffer a little bit. That's why like, you hear entrepreneurs that have hit it hit a big, they talk about, you know, sleeping on couches, and sleeping on floors, and, you know, eating ramen noodles and stuff like that, because they focused on the cash, I always had multiple jobs, because I can't eat ramen, it's impossible as an only staple of your diet, right? So I always had other jobs to help fuel that. But I also got to a point to where and this is number three, like when you're ready to go all in, you got to burn the boats, like you have to burn the ships, there can't be another way back. If you're going to be successful, those that is probably the most scary thing that people get into, I have a couple of customers, they always are at that point of being able to launch and as soon as they get to that point of launch, everything slows down, and he can't understand and I can't I can't get over this revenue home can't get over this revenue home. And every single one of them have primary income somewhere else. And so I explained to them until you get rid of that primary income, you're never gonna get over that hump, because you have that to look back on. Now, does that mean you burn the boat? As soon as you start a business? No, you get to a point. And then you have to say, Okay, where is this trajectory going? And for it to get there? We need somebody leading, running, monitoring the ship, who is that person? If it's you, you got to burn the ships. There's no way back. I, you know, my headfirst analogy, I burned ships quick. I also like to burn bridges. But what I do in that is I don't get myself another way out. There's only one way. And that's to get to where I'm going. And, you know, this is so cliche, but it's true, like, success, and failure isn't a destination, it's a journey. I probably failed in business, you know, hundreds of times. But it was a failure, not the failure. And every failure gives you a lesson to learn. And every success gives you a memory. So like we want, you know, we always chase that memory of success. But we have to understand that failure is what's going to teach us how to get to the next level and burning ships helps you have failures, and it gives you lessons that maybe you weren't thinking about.

Jaden Norvell: 28:15

That's great advice. That's actually our team. mancia is burning the boats. When we do camping, and we tell our players No, once you're on the team, we workouts, there's no going back and you're all in or you're all

Gary Geiman: 28:27

out. Yeah. Yeah. No, the, the personality thing that you develop with someone's character, and that is huge. Like, you get somebody to commit, like, there's no, there's no going back, like, here we are, then they can they're gonna grow as an individual. And at the same time, those people that are a strong character, they're gonna shine, because that's their time to shine. But I mean, I love that about your team, that that's what you guys talk about. And that because that's a life lesson that they'll always have with them, because I'm sure it's something you guys are reinforcing on a consistent basis. So they, they will have that at some time in their life when they know. Let's burn the ships. Let's go.

Dustin Steffey: 29:13

And work. Were a couple of key nuggets that came out of that one, I figured out the name of the episode, Gary, you're going to be proud of me. So more to come on that because I'll surprise you. But um, first and foremost, you address partnerships and how it's never equal. And, you know, I've been through a couple businesses I've gone through business school. I mean, hell, Jaden and I are both college collegiate athletes and Collegiate Scholars, right. And we know projects. They're never even either. That being said Jaden, and I tried to pride ourselves on being equal within our business but you're you're right. There's always something that goes on where the work workload either will fall on Jaden one week, or the workload will fall on me one week, it's always the skills always balanced in that way. So him and I operate under the preface of knowing that one of us is going to get frustrated, we yell at each other sometimes, and then we move forward, because that's just how we are, he's like a brother to me, and vice versa. And so for, for us, we, we have the agreement that we know that things are gonna get tough. But we also know that we can talk to each other, yell at each other, whatever, and kind of move forward from there. So I definitely agree with kind of what you brought up with partnership with having an agreement. Yes. And he normal business knows that you have to have your ducks in a row for when you finally decide to burn the boats. Because once you start getting that success, it's always important to make sure that everyone's protected within that success and getting kind of what they put in as far as work. So those are kind of the couple things that I took from what you had just said, because, I mean, we're living it, JT, and I live it daily. So

Jaden Norvell: 31:19

and we did it, Dustin, Dustin has the majority instances, because when we first started, there was four members of our team. I have my own podcast, and then I joined on the team to make it four members. So there's three. And then Dustin was like, Hey, will you help me with lending it? And I'm like, Yeah, I'll help y'all. And we had to burn some boats, like he said, and, and we experienced that early luckily. And so we've been able to you know, and this is decels baby so he you know, he makes the videos he doesn't he doesn't do majority of work and I have other boats that I'm on right now. But once it gets to that point, a burning the boats for us. We're gonna be good. It's all it's kind of hard to do stuff because he's very successful. So his, his boat is like the Princess Aurora yacht, or cruise vote. So once we, it's gonna take us a while to get there financially. But but we've definitely followed that advice.

Dustin Steffey: 32:17

That's the other thing I wanted to bring up. And I'm sure you will, too, Gary, because you you've been around a long time and you've seen everything. The one thing that I'd like to bring up as an entrepreneur is don't give up, right? Just because it gets tough. Don't Don't give up if you have something truly that is going to give back as a service or product or whatever the case may be. And you're struggling. You're on the right path, because they're I don't see any business where it was easy at all. And the ones that were easy. Well, they're not in business anymore, because they just didn't really go through that struggle, the struggle that like you've gone through guerrier, like Jaden and I are currently going through where we've put in all of our money, all of our resources, everything to make a dream come true. Like, I feel the term is adversity, right. I feel like if your business hasn't overcome any form of adversity, it's not going to be successful.

Gary Geiman: 33:22

Yeah. Well, you both were a collegiate athlete. So you know, and Jaden is going through it right now. Preseason, and that has nothing but adversity and struggle, right. And the people that overcome the adversity and struggle, through the training are the ones that Excel and there's a reason why Tom Brady is in the shape and condition that he's in at the age that he's playing. And he's arguably the best quarterback in the league right now. If the not the top three, right? Because the dude puts in, he does the struggle. Now he creates a struggle. But if you follow every successful athlete at their peak, and I'm talking about the peak athletes, so like in my time, obviously Michael Jordan, and he got Kobe Bryant. Now you have Tom Brady, those are three great examples. What do they all have in common? Tim Grover, who was Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan's trainer, wrote two books winning and relentless, and I recommend if you haven't read them, read them. But he talks about how, Michael when he came back from baseball, and I believe it was 19 it was the playoffs. 1995 and the bulls got bounced because he'd only been back for a quarter of a season. And his conditioning wasn't there. And it was in May. And Tim Grover said to Jordan at the arena. So I'll see you in July. And Michael Jordan said, Nah, mother effer. I'll see you tomorrow. And that's why Jordan was who he was. Kobe Bryant had an injury, and they were rehabbing the injury. And Tim had to keep people at the gym to lock Kobe out because he would leave a four hour workout, go around the block, wait for everybody else to leave and go back to the gym to put up shots. That's right, Black Mamba. Like he was a murderer. You know, Tom Brady.

Jaden Norvell: 35:29

USA is in there in the hotel. And the winning way they all they're all they all go back in practice and Kobes in the lobbies. isin his knee up right now. Okay, we're going to bed goes like night, and they all go up to the rooms. And they wake up like 5am Because it's early training, they go downstairs and Kobe sitting there and ice his knee. And they're like, What are you doing Kobe? Yes, I just got done with our workout, but to go get lifted. And I'll meet you guys at practice. And it says it's just you gotta have drive and people, everybody hears that, Oh, you got to struggle to do this, that. And then when the struggle actually happens, they're surprised. It's going to happen.

Gary Geiman: 36:10

The strop, how you respond to the struggle is going to be how you react to the success, right? So, for instance, you have a business and you're not making a lot of money right now. You have time, you have time if you're not making a lot of money. So what do you do with that time, you got to do something that creates money, money making activities, pick the phone up, send out emails posted on social media, and like, I hear all the time, this doesn't work. That doesn't work. It's because you try one or two times, and you don't hit a home run. So you don't want to do it anymore. I mean, I was in a sales position, I talked about selling lawn care, I had to make 120 calls a day. 120 calls a day, out of those 120. I've talked to four or five people that really wanted to talk to me, the other people either didn't answer the phone, or they would cussed me out for calling them. If I would have given up every time the phone didn't get answered, or every time somebody cursed me out, I would have never made any money knowing that I would have never became become good at the phones at att selling on the phone, I wouldn't have developed a sales process, it would have all been over quick. But every single day, dialing the phone, talking to people doing the process like that is what elite athletes do in their way. And if you want to be elite at owning a business, or elite and your job, you have to do the metrics that gets you to the success. And sometimes they're boring sometimes are hard. Sometimes they stayed you don't want to do I mean, I have things every day I don't want to do but I know if I get those things done, I'm gonna have a better outcome than just letting them sit. We're not doing them. And I think, you know, as you said, like the struggle is what is what everybody goes through. And if you're going through it, you're on the right path. And this is hard for me to say because I don't I do not like to embrace the suck, but embrace the suck, embrace the struggle, because as you do, you're gonna grow. That's why people go to the gym and lift, that struggle is gonna grow. That's why people go and pay for trainings, and workshops and classes so they can get better. And in, in that whole mindset, it's what do you want? Like, do you want something easy? Because like Dustin said, the easy probably won't be around? Or are you willing to go do the things that your competitors aren't willing to do or your friends aren't willing to do? Because you know, it's gonna have a great payoff, you know, Kobe probably would have rather slept. Well, you know what he wanted to be the greatest of all time. I don't think he got there, because Jordan is a little bit ahead of him. But I think he did what was necessary to make himself set apart from his peers.

Dustin Steffey: 38:54

There were a couple of words that I wrote down while everybody was talking. I think the three things that I'm gathering from this right now is you have to have the drive, to continue to keep going and be successful. You have to have some form of grit, to be able to overcome all the adversity, and you have to have resilience. Those are the three things that I wrote down, they all extrapolate to one big overarching theme, which is you need to show up 100% of the time, at your best 100% of the time, the only way to show up at your best 100% of the time is to get the repetitions in the practice, per se, like we were talking about with Kobe and Michael Jordan, to create that success. That's kind of where I'm at with it right now.

Jaden Norvell: 39:43

And the same. I like the workout analogy, because it's just like working out and this is how you guys can use this any part of your life. When you work out, you're tearing your muscles, you're not going to see a difference and next day you're gonna have to keep working out I'm just gonna build him build and build, and then you'll have muscles. And I like that. And it's the same thing with everything you do relationships. If you want something you want to easy girl, you're not putting any effort, then that's what you're gonna get. You know, it's the same thing. It transfers to all sides of life. Do you have any any more marketing tips for us

Gary Geiman: 40:20

two things, I think that all business owners should do related to marketing, you should have a CRM to put prospects in and create automation to connect with them on a consistent basis. And automation could be email, texts, ringless, voicemail mail, like there's multiple ways to touch customers, and realize that prospects and customers are going to respond in different ways. So it's important to be

Jaden Norvell: 40:48

aware of any you have any recommendations because we invest in or at that step right now. And we just didn't know what would go through

Gary Geiman: 40:56

probably one of the last or complex would be like Pipedrive, potentially, it's, it has some simplicity to it in terms of setting it up and managing it that the biggest thing for me in terms of a CRM is using it. So the usability or the ease of use, I would say is what's important when it comes to that. So like Pipedrive, if you have, you know, if you don't need as ease of use, and you can understand complexities a little bit, depending upon, you know, the way you're going go high level would be a better opportunity. But Pipedrive gives you all the integrations that you need to be able to follow up and touch and do those things. So I would, I would recommend Pipedrive and or go high level, but have a CRM, like you always want to start with a CRM as quickly as possible. And I say that, but like I, I use the Google sheet and a notebook, in my businesses for the longest time, especially earlier on before, you know, things became more technical as they are now. So I didn't practice that then. But going back if I had to do over again, I definitely would. That the the second thing related to marketing, or Legion, is to always look for the ways that don't cost you money. But time when you're starting out, like, you know, running ads on social media is sexy. To a bit you know, if you tell your friends, yeah, I'm running ads on on Facebook, tick tock, whatever. That's actually sure. But what can you do to generate revenue without spending money on those ads first, like you should build that foundation first. And you know, Dustin, you had mentioned it, you guys just hit like 10,000 followers, you have a you have a reach of 10,000, it took some work, right? Can you run ads and get there, maybe probably but you have engaged followers, you have people that have found you organically, or maybe you did promote something, but they found you and now they follow. And that is a lot more of a valuable connection than running ads. So before you start spending ad dollars, figure out the ways that you can impact free one of the things that I recommend, every business owner, every entrepreneur getting in the habit of doing is writing. One of the things for me actually just for mental health in general, I try to write 300 words a day, sometimes it's about business. Sometimes it's about something going on in my life. Sometimes it's just about something crazy that came up that I was involved in and I write my thoughts down. I use my notes app just because it's right on my phone, click on the Notes app. And every morning at some time before eight o'clock, I write some thoughts. Now I don't know if I'm always getting 300 words. But that's kind of my focus is to get 300 words. But that goes back to what we were talking about building a skill. Writing is a skill that if you can do it well, you can you can convince people to do a lot of things with your with your writing. And being able to write copy goes a long way and websites, social media posts, I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And, you know, not everybody is a great writer. I'll be honest with you, I used to hate it. But I find it I find it therapeutic as well as the more I flex that muscle the better I get and you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sphere where I speak on stage a lot. I do interviews a lot. And my ability to write allows me to come up with content kind of off the cuff.

Dustin Steffey: 44:44

I just researched the stat because I was curious about entrepreneurship and writing. And about 65% of entrepreneurs that are successful are successful writers is well, so writing is a big deal. I will also, I haven't really talked very much about it. So this will be a surprise for Jaden as well. I am writing a book, or for business because I like to write, I was blessed for some reason to be good at it. And so why not write a book, right? And why not build that, for me, for our business and how we operate. And I know I'm calling our podcasts a business, because it is. It's all about credibility, right. And so the more medians that I can add, to put a notch in your belt per se, the better credibility you have the more of an influence or an impact you are in your community and to your following. So for us, and this podcast, it very much so is about credibility and influence and reach. As far as CRM, I'm not there yet. For our podcasts considering like, it's just a different world, right? And I'm sure Gary, you have a lot of things that you can recommend to us that will help us to be successful within a podcast. But for CRM for us to reach our audience, we already are weekly, by putting out quality episodes by allowing people to learn from experts such as you to be successful, we have a lot of people that listen via leisure. For us we have a lot of people that are business owners that listen, we are very big within crypto in NF t which is the future of a lot of things that people still don't quite understand. But we have those resources we have millionaires that have come on in interviewed with us we have the the the makings of something great. Are we Joe Rogan status? Hell now? Can we get to Joe Rogan status is the question. I'd like to believe yes, we can with our grit and resilience, but it's gonna take like you said, time and energy, practice, flexing muscles, etc.

Gary Geiman: 47:13

That's gonna go a long way did I mean, you talked about how to touch your audience, you guys have weekly episodes, I totally agree with that. But like your book, you know, any type of information, fact sheets, things like that, that you can provide to your audiences, you know, beyond the book, but is like free value that can help you create a list in itself. And that's what every business needs to be thinking about as creating the list because a list is what's going to create the opportunity. And you know, platforms are always gonna be around Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, like, they can boot you off, if they don't like your content, right? You could get screwed on the algorithm, so people aren't seeing it. But if you have a list, if you have a list, you can always communicate. So like in your business, everybody that's listening, the value of your list is what's most important. I have a quick story, and I'll let you get back. But I sold a business in 2018. That was just over five years old. And we never turned a profit in that business. Okay, so somebody valuing the business is going to say, well, this works zero plus your equipment that, you know, has depreciated. So value of your equipment is really what the value of the business is, and oh contraire, my friend, we talked to the individual who reached out to by us, and His concern was my customer list. And at the time, our customer list had about 7000 active customers. And we had about 5000 active prospects. And so we sold our business at what would be considered a two times multiple of the revenue because of the customer list. That was it. There wasn't that like even in the accounting, there wasn't value assigned to any kind of equipment wasn't value assigned to quote unquote, goodwill, there was a value assigned to our customer base. And to, to the owner to owner capacity. That's how they assign the value. So don't think your customer list is valuable. It is in my opinion, the most valuable piece that you have in your business. Is that customer list.

Dustin Steffey: 49:30

Jaden you were you were saying something I did not forget about you?

Jaden Norvell: 49:36

Yes, congratulations on your book man's gonna What's it about?

Dustin Steffey: 49:41

It's about you, buddy. Of course da. No, but in all seriousness, it is going to be a autobiography to start I have multiple ideas because I can't just write one book, man. Gotta gotta write multiples, but for the one that we will be releasing, it's gonna Be on resilience and grit and drive. It's going to be on how, how we arrived here today. And kind of like my rough upbringing, right. And I, I empathize with people that grew up like me, where it was a rough household, it was a rough family. It's no secret that I didn't have the best childhood. And I overcame it all. And so people like, the story about the person that they didn't think would be successful, that actually became successful. That story in America, in my mind is the one story that has never played out, because everybody is always about the little guy. So that's kind of where it's heading. Now. This is where writing is important. Like Gary said, Am I a perfect writer? No, I am not. So there's gonna be other things that like have to go into it before this book can come out like publication and publishing my grammar errors and all that stuff. But once it's released, it's released. That's something that is released in the atmosphere that makes us all better. Right? Yeah,

Jaden Norvell: 51:18

yeah. So guys, just so you guys know, you guys can get this in his new erotic business novel, The Secret secretary, you can email us at taboo fire outlook.com If you want a signed copy,

Dustin Steffey: 51:29

that is awesome. Hey, thanks, Jaden. Thanks, buddy.

Gary Geiman: 51:33

Dustin, you mentioned something really, really good. And that is overcoming your upbringing. As a child, I grew up with a stepfather whose favorite pastime was to beat us and, you know, wasn't alcohol fueled, fueled, in fact, is even worse. It was like he like a religious kind of fanatic kind of person. But we, we took our fair share of abuse physically, mentally, and then we had and then I had people that sexually abused me as a child and that overcoming that mental mentally overcoming that physically overcoming that puts you in a sphere to where you can tell your story and help others see that what they went through, they can overcome as well, I think that's the most important part of that story. Unfortunately, you know, we have, we have a large sect in our country that they get, they get touched by abuse in one way or another, especially as kids and that hampers their ability for growth. And I think hearing someone's story like yours, I talked about mine, stage, social media, you name it, the impact that it brings on people's life is far and above more important than any money that you make. Because everyone has something special inside of them. It's what they do to bring it out to impact others. And, you know, while making money is definitely the reason why I'm in business. My intention is to impact others lives in a positive way. And one of the things I'll say you talked about getting your book out. So we live by four core values here at dominate partners. And our flagship core value is production over perfection. And doesn't mean put out shitty work. What that means is, get it out and do it in a way that, that you're productive. Because speed kills everything else in business, like if you can do do something quicker than someone else, you're going to be in a position to make money or be seen and be found. So I just encourage you like that, once you write will be more than good enough. Don't try to make it perfect. Just get it put it in people's hands. And I believe it'll change people's lives. And I'm looking forward to reading it. I agree.

Dustin Steffey: 53:51

I'm looking forward to getting it out. It was it was a passion project because like I told you earlier I do like writing I do. But I want to impact people. There's a whole reason why Jaden and I started this podcast and I'm very much Pro, giving people the information, tools and resources to be successful. But on the side No, I want people that don't have any hope or dream or anything to be able to chase theirs. And if I can impact one person from any of this, I won, in my opinion, because in my mind, I want to help someone make it where we have

Gary Geiman: 54:35

it's awesome. It's awesome.

Dustin Steffey: 54:37

Gary, for people to get a hold of you what's the best medium to get a hold of you your social media pros? Oh, I'm sure you have everything. Um,

Gary Geiman: 54:47

so my biggest platform on his Facebook you can find me on Facebook. Gary Gaiman, just one word after facebook.com forward slash Instagram same thing. I'm I'm a big real This guy on Instagram not a big post guy because I like the my attention span probably is about the same as rails, you're gonna find a lot of funny stuff on my social not really business stuff because I'm more about having fun. But I do interact and energetic business and I just tried to be just try to have a real light if you're interested in understanding more about what we do get our website which is salvo Now, S A L vo n o w.com. Salvo is a French and German military tournament, shoot all your guns at once. And I believe that's what sales and marketing should be. So that's why our website is Sabo. now.com and find out more about what we do there. If you have questions, feel free to reach out. But I'm like, I'm like exactly what Dustin said, like, I'd rather give somebody tools and resources to be able to do the stuff that we do. The problem is, people don't have the time or they don't have the expertise. So that's why we get hired. So you know, I look at it from a perspective of if I can give you enough information, and you can go be successful, I did my thing, there's gonna be enough money out there for me to make. I just want to impact this world in a way that I somehow leave a positive legacy. And if there's anything that I can answer, or do, I definitely will do it. So you know, feel free to reach out if you have a question or a comment or something like that.

Dustin Steffey: 56:25

In our episode description, just for our listeners, we will have Gary's website in the description link easily available for you guys to click on and do some research for our small medium business owners. If you guys are looking for someone to help you with marketing and pushing past in the next level, please don't hesitate to contact Gary Gary's information will also be on our website under the guest profiles. any links that he provided will be on there for you guys to do your own research. Because as we say, here at chopping wood fire, if you're not doing your own research, then you are not going to be successful. So make sure to do your homework. That being said, Gary chin and I both want to thank you for coming on. I was thank you so much. So thank you.

Gary Geiman: 57:10

Appreciate appreciate you guys. And I'm interested in learning more about your live event in Fort Collins. Like there isn't ever a bad time to go to Colorado so shoot me some info but it was definitely a great time to get to meet you both. Jaden with the million dollar smile, man good luck this year with the college football season. I'll be watching from TV, see if I can see you running up and down the sidelines. You know, coaching them up, getting them in?

Jaden Norvell: 57:41

We open? We're on ABC at 10 We played Michigan. So you'll see me you'll see me this Saturday.

Gary Geiman: 57:47

Dude beat Michigan. I hate Michigan like Yes, sir.

Jaden Norvell: 57:50

Yeah, come on down. We're gonna have it on the weekend. So if you're down here, we might be able to catch a game ticket to the game. Yeah,

Gary Geiman: 57:59

definitely give me the info. I'm more than likely going to show up. So give me an info. I'd love to see you guys. Dustin. Appreciate it. Man. I look forward to read your book and also learn more about you. I feel like I didn't get to hear enough. And then Jane's idea is accomplished, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Well, what the heck, I need to understand this. So I appreciate you guys and I hope to hear more from you and maybe get to that live event as well.

Dustin Steffey: 58:27

That sounds good jazz. Thank you. And yeah, I try not to talk about myself too much because the podcast isn't about me. It's about our listeners. So thank you, Gary. I appreciate it so much.