We'll start from there, but dude, I'm so happy you're here. This is awesome. I'm excited to be here
I need to figure out how to like rearrange our screen
So I'm not looking off in the wrong direction as I'm see looking at you
I'm looking like away from the camera. Yours is all set up perfectly all good. I'm alright
Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there
Hey, what's up everybody welcome in to vision pros live
I'm your host Jackson Calame the founder of first-class business and I am so excited to have Jared Lohman today
I can't wait to bring him on stage
I will say that we are a pain client of the Kajabi platform and
Jared is the leader of success for clients
He also runs their podcast which is also really cool to have him come on to our show because of that
I got to meet him at the Kajabi live event and to put that in perspective they have over
60,000 pain clients. That's a lot of people to be leading success over you don't get that position
without some tremendous background in hospitality and taking care of people and that ring true as I got to know him at the event
Now also one thing they're super proud about is that their customers have driven more than five billion dollars in gross
monthly volume of revenue through the Kajabi platform. How do they do that? Well, it's a it's a
Platform to host your courses and also host your content in our case
We prefer to call our materials content and activities but we hosted on there for our customers to be able to go through and
In our case what's interesting about that five billion mark is in our case
Most of our clients don't pay us through the Kajabi platform and so therefore their number of five billion
Excludes a lot of the revenues that a lot of our businesses
Run through other means so it's absolutely impressive. They've got a phenomenal company without further ado Jared
Thank you so much for joining us in the show today
I'm so excited to have you excited to be here. Thanks for having me Jackson. Yeah, man. Absolutely
So I would love to know I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a banner up here on the screen in 15 seconds
What's your personal vision? Oh personal, you know, my personal vision aligns so closely to
the vision of Kajabi maybe of yesteryear a little bit
But essentially that was we wanted to ensure that anyone who has a business idea
Can bring that to life without the barriers of technology getting in the way of that
So it doesn't matter if it's you me your grandma if like my favorite
We can go to this more detail because I'm already over 15 seconds
But like my favorite stories are like grandmas who know how to sew and they make a million dollar business on the platform
Like that is wow incredibly cool
So it's breaking down those technology barriers to entrepreneurship. I should have just I love that
I love that and I got to see a lot of that at the event
You know the people who came to the event were just so warm and inviting and excited
Because a lot of them already knew about the Kajabi culture
I mean what it means and you got to see so many people who've won one
Success from so many different backgrounds of life from teachers to dog trainers
You know to artists with incredibly
Out there art I will say um and and I you know that have TED talks because of how how interesting their art is so
Let's dive into a little bit more of a different question then what's your vision for your clients?
Beyond the grandma's who you know are now now millionaires thanks to the platform
Sure, so specifically within
For our customer base I want to ensure that their experience on the platform every inch of their business
They have no matter what whether it's with our brand our people or our product is an absolutely
Stellar experience no matter where they touch us now that doesn't necessarily represent my immediate purview as you mentioned like I oversee our success support
training teams
But I feel that is it is my responsibility to ensure
That even if you're just signing into the platform whether I control that area or not it is my duty to ensure that all of our customers
Feedback is brought into the conversations to ensure that their experience is ultimately a very very positive one
Hey, man, well that sounds like you embody your role well and you know speaking for CEO of Kajabi at this point like
Who wouldn't want to have somebody looking after brand?
You know with with that type of mindset and reality I will say to your
Y'all support staff when I was at the event I had a good
I had a good session with one of the gentlemen. I wish I remember his name looks like a super good looking version of Harry Potter
And also like Tom from a blacklist that helps but
Anyway, yeah, which is Dan which is Dan might have been it was it was a common name
I do remember that but he so I drug him through my business model
right for a good 10 15 minutes and
You know never once did he express he needed to be somewhere else never once did he derail
He was very focused on listening intently to what it was. I'm building which is quite unique
For most others and we've we ended up going through a full 30 minute session
and I had to run he had to run too, but
The depth to which he was really focused on was
I think it was a very good point but
The depth to which he was willing to hear me out and listen and strive to find support for very complex business details
Astounded me. I felt like I was talking to an entrepreneur
Not somebody who was supposed to be part of a customer service representative team
So yeah, how do you guys how do you guys about attracting talent like that?
If you if you know about it, and then what do you guys do to?
To attract talent within within the walls of kajabi or the virtual walls of kajabi if you will sure well
I was first I was going to say that that's very intentional, you know as a
product that primarily caters to a
Very entrepreneurial customer base now, of course our customers refer to themselves as different things some people identify as an entrepreneur
Some people identify as a business owner some people identify as a creator
Some people identify as other things that we probably haven't figured out as well
The the commonality there is we need that entrepreneurial mindset
Amongst the people that you're you're working with when you when you chat with someone about your business
We need to have people there
that
Understand and have some desire or maybe some experience
Running their own business
so we very very specifically actually target people who have had some type of entrepreneurial venture in their past or
Just you you know, you you've meet other entrepreneurs like you know it when you see one
Um, there is just that spirit that drive that grit
Um regardless of their history that makes those type of people incredible fits for these type of roles
And so it is very intentional that we're putting people in place to have those conversations because no you cannot have a conversation
With someone about your business who is maybe a just the typical corporate support person
Um, like you you're just not going to get that same level of service
Wow, that's brilliant. Um, that's so rare too because a lot of uh, a lot of people
I've been in a lot of job training platforms specifically with my church
Um, and they hey, there's ala we'll talk about all and yes, I may definitely showcase
Um, you know different pages of kajabi allow people to just kind of explore with us visually while we talk
But in those those job environments where we're doing job trainings and helping people find work
Um, one of the things that is talked about is how entrepreneurs it's not necessarily the best thing to have on your resume
Um, because you you get presented as a threat to the culture that exists
Um, but you guys have specifically harbored a place for that and uh, that's that's really neat to hear
Um, you can attract really high quality overlooked. Um
employees team members, uh by going that route so um on that same token and note then um
with
With the business model that I see at kajabi you guys have a very open win-win-win mentality
I saw people there who?
um
Almost seem like competitors to what you're doing. Um, you know building within your infrastructure
Um, yeah building building things that were very similar to kajabi and yet you guys embraced
Uh embrace them. Um, you know, I have no fear of promoting them. You guys are cross promoting people that are
simultaneously competing against you in some ways, uh like
I'm trying to remember the gentleman's name great guy courses.ai
Um, he built
I think it is what what john yes
Thank you for that. Um, so uh, how how do you guys?
um build a culture
That is so open to working with others
Yeah, you you know I
For anyone in the customer world like I think that's another element
That's inherent if you want to if you want to be in a role
That serves other people like there is naturally a collaborative spirit like that that just exists in your
It's it's yeah, it's in your blood
In your blood now, I think collectively as a business like our focus has always been
Customers first like for years every business has their core values as you know, and for years upon years ever since I started
um
The number one core value was our kajabi hero
And so like if you want to collaborate with your customers like that's bound to bleed out into other areas now
I won't I don't want to set the wrong wrong perspective here
It's not like we don't care about the competition like we of course want our want the customers to come to us
But we want to add value and give them good reason to come for us. This is not about necessarily
Winning a battle against someone else
Less than it is us providing a service that people actually want to be a part of and we believe a big part of that
Is the customer experience they have when they choose the platform?
Awesome. I love that. So as we continue today, um, there's different questions that will come up
Uh, who should be listening jared?
Why should I listen to you and what are we going to get out of today's show?
Who should listen? Um
Anyone who cares about their customers?
I would say um, what should be everyone if you don't like and just shut off the computer and find a different
Career job. I don't know where to send you
Amen
So anyone who cares about their customers
Why should they listen to me because I think I've had the unique opportunity
And I and I call this an opportunity
because
I I think I
I what I what I have done at kajabi over the last several years
Really would not have been possible without the company having such a again like that number one core value is customer focus like
like the company
They're the ethos of kajabi is customer first
And so I have had the opportunity to build something that is truly reflective of what a
Customer first mentality is across a number of different areas now just quickly shout this one out like
That does not mean that we are perfect in every way shape or form. There are still problems. There are still
Operational inefficiencies lots we need to work on that's the beauty
I think of any businesses and then especially entrepreneurship is it's a never-ending journey no matter how we're doing it
No matter how far you make it. There is another
Another level that you're trying to hit like a good example of this is anyone who monitors CSAT
That's the standard industry metric for customer satisfaction with support interactions. We've been recently hitting 99
Which is
Absolutely astounding like it's considered good to be in the 70s to 80s
It's considered great to be in the 80s to 90s and now it's just like but we still have like for us
This is not even representing the end. This is representing representing the beginning of where we plan to take things
Love it. I love it. And that's also again something that I I saw very much at the conference that we went to
Super super well hosted conference. So anybody who's looking for customer service inside anybody who's
You know looking for a learning management system tool as well. This is a great opportunity to see behind the scenes
SaaS companies are popping up left and right
So i'm going to put an extra plug in for you guys because the ability to create a competitor to kajabi is easier than it's ever been before
Right. So you got learning management systems. You got serums popping up
I mean, there's thousands of software programs popping up per year as a business owner
When i'm looking at my providers and and here I was
I'll even tell you about my path. I have go high level go high level has a membership platform. I need go high level
I like it. It's it's it's a fine program. There's a lot of great things for me and my customers
I also use kajabi and then this system called new zendler comes out new zendler
Has quite the offer and they've got quite the the price point right now
because they're trying to get into a market that
You know is is not saturated but there's plenty of great providers like kajabi they compete against so I was lamenting
That I couldn't switch my system over to new zendler. I was like man
We invested so much thinking money and time and building out our learning management software
Getting it already and there's you know, the grass often looks greener somewhere else the price point already looked greener
And so I was I told my team we're eventually going to switch
But then I went to the conference
I went to the conference and I got to see behind the scenes of this amazing culture
and as an entrepreneur, I know that
Amazing cultures mean this tool is going to last the test of time
It has more likelihood of of lasting and building and adding new things to it. It's going to be very hard
For any of these companies for new zendler anybody else to keep up with the rate of growth that kajabi is is projected towards achieving
And so I share all that openly because you guys should evaluate your tools
Those who are listening you should evaluate the systems that are out there
But as you evaluate don't just consider the features the features are easy to develop
Right, they're going to be developing new features every single month releasing new things at every single one of these companies
Which one has a cultural environment where they appreciate their people
Appreciate their clients and are proactively looking at what's needed in order to help people win
I see kajabi crushing everybody in the market
Um at that particular experience and that's what has me most excited as a customer client for you guys
What are your thoughts on that? What do you what what else can you contribute to that mindset jared?
Well, yeah, I just I would just layer on top of that that I think a big
portion of the culture that you just
Illustrated is that the customers are a part of the culture and
Our customer base is such an such such an inclusive community first of all
Like I you would think that you know in the business world
You think of the shrewd businessman is not going to want to share any of their secrets and they're all going to want to
Separate off into their hiding places and all make their their massive fortunes on their own
That is not the case in the kajabi culture the kajabi customer culture
Like this is one of the most inclusive
collaborative
communities of people that I think you will ever meet
Um, and like that really is what makes up like the the collective kajabi culture because kajabi
Obviously wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for our customers and that rings completely true when we speak about the culture
In terms of what you have experienced as well
Absolutely, um one of the facilities that that I was really impressed with was the ceo a hot con
Um, you know, I I had a couple of times to interact with him over the course of the week
There's over a thousand people how many people were present?
At kajabi
Yeah close to that. Um right around there. I don't remember the exact number but it was a lot
It's pretty close. So yeah, it wasn't quite there. That's a lot of people to make time for
Right. And so as uh, you know, we pass each other the first time in the hallway during vip day
It's the first day he's getting things ramped up. I'm sure there's uh,
There's still things that need to be brought forward and you know, he takes the time to stop say hi to me gives me a hug
Um, you know and uh just welcomes me like an old friend
And we had three other occasions like that throughout the week where he just made time to to talk to me about some
Requests that I might have one of the things I was talking about was running transactions as large as 150 000 through the platform itself
Um, you know and our our desires to attract clients where we actually bring that type of our revenue in
Um and making sure that the payment systems
Function accordingly with those levels of transactions and naturally that of course is a good thing
Naturally that of course, you know, I got his attention with that too and and he's like yeah
Just email me. Um, you know about the idea and we can do some tests with you on the back end to make sure it's all
Going to work properly. Um
It didn't matter if I had said 150 000 or if I had said 150 dollars
I could tell that his response was going to be the same genuine nature
So what has it been like to work with him and how did you guys meet the first time?
You met a hod
Yeah, so I was actually on the hiring committee for a hod. I've been around for a little longer than him
And he joined us as our cfo
um of all people
when our
Previous founders transitioned out he took on the interim role for about a year eventually
Transitioned to the more permanent role when we brought on our president. Um shawn kim who you may all may have also met at the conference
um, and so
Yeah, I
think
One of the things that I appreciate about a hod is a hod takes on a very objective
Mindset to about anything that you can put put in front of him
there have been
like as you can imagine like customer service as much as I
I love our customers. We get a lot of customers who are also angry about things. Um, sure
I've been you know, exactly like we all have had an angry customer
Um, but what do they tend to do and they're really angry. They don't reach out to me
They go and look for the highest ranking person they can possibly find
Ceo at kajabi.com legal, you know, they start emailing whoever they can possibly find
You know, there are probably messages that that guy has got uh on linkedin to where like if you were not objective
You probably would have said
Oh, like I probably wouldn't still be working here today
But like his approach to
you know situations like this I think has allowed the company to
Thrive in a time of you know, undoubtedly some instability now like we went through a wave of like heavy heavy growth
mostly
Mostly driven by the pandemic because that brought everyone indoors everyone consuming content
Um, you know at scales that we've never before seen it brought a level of awareness to the platform and technologies that are
Congrued to the platform like I had a conversation with my grandma and she knew what zoom was and I just never expected that to happen
Um, so it just brought this wave wave of growth. But now as we navigate this new environment
Um, you know, thankfully we are positioned to thrive
In this environment because of our strong customer base and I think that's uh, just going back to answer your original question is I think I appreciate
The the objectivity that odd brings to the table
That's awesome. Um staying balanced, you know, if you're listening to this and objectivity is new to you the process of
Uh, I would say in a hod's case being able and willing to access your emotions
Um when the occasion is correct, but also your ability to channel
those and and uh
And logically process worst case scenarios best case scenarios how to respond in the moment
Um, you know, you you can't run a company at that level without as successfully without having that type of objectivity
And then allowing uh, you know team members as well to go live on somebody else's podcast
Um, you know and and know that there's positive and negative repercussions that can come out of that, you know
Jared you're in a position where we just passed covid economics
Um, you know and and the challenge of managing that you guys had super growth at the same time
Um, I was reading an article
a few articles was studying
different podcasting uh
Livestream platforms and clubhouse. Um, right and should I be dedicating any time to clubhouse what happened with facebook's live?
Oh, they shut it down. Um, you know and twitter's got its broadcasting platform
Getting to the point of clubhouse
Uh last year laid off, uh, I think more than 100 people
um, you know, and they did so with the mindset of
you know really focusing in on
on the people who could contribute most to the future of
platform streamlining the process in order to figure out how they were going to
Compete in the market now that people aren't dedicating as much time to listening into podcasts
Um, it was it was just fascinating to read about because that's not an easy decision to make um, you know as a as a ceo
Um, you know, you're gonna hurt feelings
Um, you know people are going to have their reactions to those scenarios
Um, and you guys again, I see you guys leveraging mediums of growth that showcase
You are willing to look at things objectively
Um, maybe you can't speak to this, um, but i'm gonna ask are you guys?
Uh headed towards ipo sooner than later
Sure
I mean, I wish I could answer that
But the reality of this is is I don't know that
I'll jump back to ahad if ahad were here and he were to respond to this question
I'll give you his exact spiel and that's that like the ipo is
An event on the larger timeline the overall of the overall journey that we are on
Like I think a lot of people look at an ipo as the end or like this is our moment we celebrate
But really that's just a it's it's one milestone
Of many hopefully great milestones that lead up to that
What I can say is that no matter where we where we go in the future
Like my goal is to ensure that we sustain the same level of customer focus that got us to where we are today
Um, and ipo whatever whatever that may whatever that may look like in the future. Um, like yeah
I think that will be a yet another as I mentioned earlier like a new challenge to figure out how to
do some of the things that we are doing today as a
publicly owned company as opposed to a privately owned company where we have a lot of control
over
How we spend our dollars and where we invest our dollars like what I can tell you today is like the customer experience team
Represents almost 50 of the human capital within the company
So like if that says anything about how we're investing like I don't know how that would fly
Then that's from a pure headcount standpoint
so
um, like yeah, I
Kind of going off track here an initial question this the truth that truthful answer is I honestly don't know. Um, sure, but
I love it. Maybe you kind of revealed some insight into
You know, there's always internal pressure in a startup people do look at that like the like the finish line
Um, so to speak and like oh man, we got we got to hit this or
You know, and it's kind of a closing of the chapter opening the next book
Um, but from my side i'm not actually any else company
I think a lot of us are wondering like when do we buy stock? Um,
You know as soon as there's an opportunity to I would say
Right, right. Give us the insider access when it happens. So uh, all right. Well next thing for you. Um
You've been an entrepreneur. Um, you know what that's like
You may even have your side ventures or um other roles going on that i'm not aware of but what powerful lesson
Can other visionaries learn from your experience and journey jared?
Oh, I mean
I don't know like where where most of your audience sits on the entrepreneurial journey
Um, I will say that's this well, let me just give you that so some of them are
Um, probably in the entrepreneur stage and moving into it
Some of them are probably in the newer stages our core audience
Are people who have three to five years of business ownership experience?
And five to ten years already in their expertise
Um, and so they've they've been around the block. They've seen some things and uh, they're definitely looking for
uh deeper levels of wisdom
So i'm going to start with your your entrepreneur, um audience here because
I think that the one of the most compelling things so I I started my own podcasting journey as you mentioned
Um about two years ago
And my main focus was I wanted to interview
We only interview our customers or kajabi heroes as we refer to them
Um, and I wanted to interview our heroes who were maybe early on in the entrepreneurial
Journey because I felt that that would be so much more accessible for someone else who's considering potentially taking that leap into entrepreneurship
You know, we've we've heard the millionaire overnight stories
There's plenty of youtube ads that show up with whatever we're watching that, you know purports to have the magic bullet to success
Um, I wanted to dig in and get like real actionable relatable insights
And after recording over a hundred episodes
I thought for certain I would have something like
More wise sounding than what i'm going to say to you right now
But the reality of it is the wisdom is in the simplicity of this and that's that in order to be successful if you are in that
Entrepreneurial stage is to start doing something today. It doesn't matter what it is
I've heard wonderful ideas everything from just writing an outline of what you plan to do on paper
to um
like starting uh, like starting to make a sales probably one of the best things you can possibly do in one of my own personal recommendations
Um, but if you don't take that first step and actually start doing something like
Throw the entrepreneurial journey out the window. You'll be stuck in analysis analysis paralysis for the rest of your life
I've been there too and I can speak to that
quite well
Yeah on the other end of the spectrum
Like I think that there there continues to always be a search for that silver bullet or what it takes to get to the next level
And similarly like I think one of the unique perspectives that we get at kajabi is because we do have the 60 000 customers who range from
You know first dollar through you know millions upon millions of dollars
We get to kind of see and have a viewpoint on what?
lots of different people of different success levels are doing and the
My answer to that is actually going to be somewhat similar and it's actually some advice that a business friend
Gave me many years ago and I walked out of his office completely unimpressed
I was like I
I was frustrated because I wanted there and I was like this this person owned
It was the largest independently owned restaurant association in washington state. I thought oh gosh
Guy's gonna have the answers like tons of restaurants very very wealthy
I'm like, I I can't wait for what i'm going to get and I I was young kid at the time and so
So like what can you tell me? I want to be successful
And his answer was you just keep plugging along you just keep going like that was all it was is i'm just like what?
Yeah, heck like why did you give me that and I was disappointed but
Over the years like there's a lot of people that are like
I just want to say that over the years like the reality is so true that
Like most of the people that ultimately make it to whatever that milestone is six figures seven figures eight figures and beyond
It's because they stuck with it. It's because they overcame whatever struggle that they hit and they kept doing it
They just kept going
So that's really for later on in the journey whether it's again whether it's five six seven eight figures nine figures and more
Yeah, I think that's huge. You know, the consistency factor, Brennan Burchard mentioned it at the
event. He talked about being in motion, right? And how you just, you want to respect that
law of physics. He didn't go that route, but you know, an object in motion stays in motion.
Alex Hermosy, as well, is big on that. You know, you just, you got to keep getting out
there. And he says, you know, the way I 10xed my growth was 10xing my output of distribution.
Go figure. He spent $20,000 more a month on how much content he was producing. And that
led to that 10x factor. So, you know, I think it's, I think it's, it's hard to hear as an
entrepreneur, but it's also important to internalize and accept that if you're going to grow strength,
you have to put in the work, you know, in the gym, so to speak, the mental gym, the
mindset gym, the leadership gym, etc. In order for that to pay off. So thank you.
Yeah, that's a really great parallel. Like it really is diet and exercise. That's entrepreneurship
too. Like, there's no pill you're going to take that's going to make you a millionaire
overnight. In fact, I would also reason to state, and I'll make a fairly definitive statement
here, none of the overnight success stories, like our truly overnight success stories,
they come with probably a decade of work that ultimately led up to that perceived overnight
success story. So it's diet and exercise. Like that, that is really the key.
That's right. So let's say we'll take a little exploration of some of the things that we've
been building out in Kajabi. You know, so this is, you know, those of you who are listening
in, you're going to want to, you're going to want to watch on YouTube or on one of our
other channels this video coming, you know, as it comes out, but we've got our portal
that we use for our client launch called power launch onboarding portal. We've got a passion
challenge built out in this as well for people who aren't necessarily entrepreneurial, but
they want to figure out what their passions are and decide how to pursue that in their
life for more fulfillment. I may have clicked on the power launch portal itself. This is
organized into eight different categories. And you'll notice as you see the screen, there's
lots of design elements that we put in to make this very much our own. It's got the
structure that's familiar for courses, but it's got a very branded presence of what first
class business represents. I may feel free to click on any one of those categories and
you'll be able to see that we've got the modules as they're called broken down into what we
call activities on the back end. They're called lessons. We don't, we don't believe in the
whole course concept as an online manner for building an educational platform. Courses
are an element of an educational Institute, but an Institute and Academy or university
also requires that people belong and they also have attention, you know, from somebody
to help them progress through the process. So we build with more of an Academy mindset
as you go through our specific course, again, just highlighting some of the advantages to
using Kajabi for our onboarding. We click on any one of those modules that you'd like
to, I may, and you'll see that we have not only the activity that's listed in there,
but also a video associated with most of them. Sometimes we skip the video. The goal is
not to waste people's time. It's to give people educational instruction, to help them in the
process of digesting more nuanced information about what it is they're reading. And I can
kind of dive in more depth or any team member who shot those videos as well can go into
a little bit more depth on explaining, okay, the purpose of this isn't just what you read
on this, this page, but we also want you to get these hidden nuggets out of it too. That
would just take too long to read if we were to write it in a book format. We've also got
progress reports built into this, thanks to Kajabi. And so our progress reports, I would
say this is probably one of our most genius inventions that I don't see people utilizing
on the market is it's not only the ability to kind of give somebody a quiz, but it's
our way of tracking, of letting our customers create a gratitude journal for what they go
through and also assess where they're at in the process. So it actually protects our company
as well, because as people go through this and say, hey, yes, I did complete this form,
here it is, I did complete this too, they then do a quick loom video to assess who are
they, what are they up to, who do they help, and then showcase what service to provide,
where were you before this started? We also ask them how they enjoy the process of going
through with us, but as they express where they're at and they express what they've learned
through the process, they've 100% given us the receipt of gratitude that they did actually
get a whole lot out of this process. That prevents chargebacks, and it also saves entrepreneurs
from themselves. As entrepreneurs, I'll be the first to raise my hand. There are times
when we go at our team members and we say, why didn't you do that? Or we say, what have
you done for us in the last three to four months? I used to be that leader who would
take people for granted and not look, and then all of a sudden, I've ruined a relationship,
and I've got a whole scope of work in front of me that this person did a whole lot more
than I gave them credit for. Kajabi does an excellent job of providing a system that allows
us to have those recorded banks, and then the cool thing is we can take those same videos,
and thanks to modern technology like Opus, we can extract certain information and create
sizzle reels on behalf of our clients. Usually they go through two to three of those, Jared,
they come back to me and they go, hey, Jackson, is anybody going to see these videos? I'm
like, I hope so. That's up to you. They're like, well, should I record these videos like
a professional? I always say, well, you tell me, do we practice like we play? Oh, yeah,
we do. I'm like, there you go. The cool thing is, catch the vision, guys. If we're capturing
20, 30, 40 videos where we're asking you different little ways of telling your hero story, who
are you, what do you do, what's your mission, what's your purpose, what's your vision for
others, imagine how powerful of a sizzle reel and a hero story we'll be able to put together
by the time you finish, and they always come to you, I'm like, oh my gosh, I get it, I'm
ready to go. We wouldn't have been able to do that and envision that process without
Kajabi, so I want to be able to say thank you to you, Jared, as well as to the company
for helping us create that.
Oh, I love that. We actually, too, use Kajabi internally. One of my first interactions with
the company when I started was I was actually put into a course called Kajabi Foundations,
which previously there used to be a version of that that was publicly consumable, but
all employees went through and actually used the platform to learn about the platform to
create their own product or service or online business on the platform during the first
few weeks of your employment with the company. It kind of speaks to some of what we spoke
about earlier, too, like everyone who's in the company gets it, so yes.
Oh, so smart. That is a massive investment and undertaking by the company on personal
development and professional development, and that's why companies win. We do the same
thing at First Class Business for the portal, the Power Launch Portal. All of our new employees
have to go through and watch those, and so sometimes entrepreneurs will ask me, like,
wow, how did you find such amazing people? And I'm like, well, number one, we definitely
have our ability to attract amazing people, and two, when you're referencing how they're
able to do their job, we spend hours and hours per day making sure that people are trained
up and we provide systems to also help them versus hiring a virtual assistant, giving
them a script and saying, go work. I don't want to get to know you. I don't want to talk
to you. You should know how to do this already. That approach just doesn't work very well.
All right. I'll get off my soapbox a little bit. Jared, at the end of the day, why do
you care about all this? This customer service stuff and helping people?
Boy, you know, man, we're bringing up the hardball questions now. You know, there's something
deeply rooted inside of me personally, probably on a level that, you know, hasn't necessarily
served me the best throughout my entire life, but I can't not care, and I think it really,
like, most recently is rooted in, in particular, my own entrepreneurial journey. Like, I spent
the first over a decade of my career, plus the decade before that of childhood, starting
businesses from the age of, you know, just a few years old. And so, like, I care because
it is me. I care because I want others to have that same level of experience. I care
because I believe that what we are doing is empowering people to live lifestyles of freedom,
to live lifestyles that meet their individual needs, whether that be financial, financially
driven, time driven, whatever those factors are, that is ultimately what we enable. And
so, like, it's hard not to care very deeply when you have such personal, like, when you
ask the first question, what is my vision? It's like, my vision actually pretty much
aligns with what the company's trying to do. Like, I actually want to see more people become
successful entrepreneurs. Like, I have nothing against the day job. In fact, I now have a
day job, so it's kind of hard for me to bash it. But probably the only reason I can survive
in this world is because I'm, the way I see this is like, and the reason why I even looked
into this and pursued it was like, it was a way for me to do what I was doing on a much,
on a much smaller scale, on a significant level and with a platform that I never could
have achieved on my own.
Good. Thank you for all that. I want to give a special shout out to somebody that introduced
us. I believe it was Josh Long. Am I correct?
I believe so. Yes.
Okay. I'm going to write him a message. We're live with Jared on StreamYard right now. And,
you know, Josh has a book called Bottleneck Breakthrough, and it's about how to find and
fix your number one business challenge, unlock sustainable revenue growth or sustainable growth
fast. I said sustainable revenue growth, because that's my tagline. And so here's somebody
was that, again, I could look at as a competitor, who could look at me as a competitor. And
we met through Facebook super fast. And instantly he was, I asked him, are you going to the
Kajabi event by chance? And I knew 99% chance he wasn't, but he's like, no, but my buddy
Jared is and Jared runs customer success over there. Let me introduce you. And he sent us
a three way text message right away. And I was like, wow, like what a, what an amazing
guy. What an awesome opportunity. How do you and Josh know each other?
Yeah. Well, ironically enough, Josh actually also introduced me to Kajabi. So, so Josh
and I met, I want to say maybe a decade ago or so in like a mastermind put on by a mutual
friend. And I think we just kind of connected and hit it off eventually. So I live in Hawaii.
We didn't bring that up at any point in this, this conversation, but eventually I kind of,
I guess, wore down Josh and he ended up hauling his whole family over here, moved it. He lived
in my house for a little bit before eventually finding his own place. And yeah, I think like
just our mindsets, like there's definitely an element to where, you know, if I'm salt,
Josh is pepper. And if Josh is pepper unsalted, but like, I think that also like, it really
has allowed us to click in ways that, you know, you wouldn't expect. So that's, that's
my decade journey with Josh.
Dude, that's awesome. Well, Jared, any final thoughts of wisdom you'd like to share, invitations
for Kajabi that are coming up, coming out, or just relevant for the audience, feel free
to do so now and also let us know where we can connect with you further.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I would love for anyone who's interested in learning more about
the platform or learning in particular more about the success stories from our heroes
who are relatable to hopefully the situation that you're in, just check out the podcast
that I host. It's called the Online Business Edge podcast. It's on all of the platforms
that you're used to. We also have some episodes available on YouTube. What I love about this
is it's really truly living our number one core value as a customer, as a customer first
company by showcasing their stories. Like I'm not here to sell you on the product. I'm
not here to sell you on like why we're better, why our customer experience is better, even
though I think it is like the reality of this is that you should hear this through the lens
of our customers and come to that conclusion yourself. And when you're ready, of course,
I'd love to hear from you. Would love to have you on as a guest on our podcast. So that's
all I got for him, I think.
Awesome. I'd be happy to. And anybody else who's using Kajabi, don't hesitate to reach
out to Jared and get ready to tell your story. So thanks so much for being here, man. Vision
Pros. Y'all have an excellent rest of your week. Thanks for always tuning in and listening.
Feel free to subscribe to our channel. And also, if you want to give us a review, you
know, short, honest, that's the most powerful review that we can get. If you have feedback
for us, let us know what you'd like us to do to improve as well. And if you have guests
that you would love to see interviewed on the show, because you'd like to hear their
hero stories and what they're up to, don't hesitate to share a link with them and say,
you should apply to be on Vision Pros Live. We'll talk to you soon. Everybody have a great
week. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros
Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll
invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us a great week.