What is your why?
So my why is,
so on a very personal level, the why is where it started.
So the why started,
for those of you who are listening in or watching,
is I am as of this recording 66 years old.
So I have been in the corporate world and always in sales.
Did a few other things while I was in there,
but always sales was part of it, the majority of it.
And this became my area of expertise.
And sales is all about helping people.
And I've done that throughout my entire career
and life outside with community service
and things like that.
So I wanted to continue on doing that when I retired.
So what am I gonna do to keep myself feeling busy,
but feeling fulfilled and everything else?
So I started, been there consulting services,
which was completely undefined.
It was just, I did it and I started just going out
and seeing what I could do to help people.
And then when it focused it on sales,
sales coaching particularly,
with the request of a couple of businesses.
And at the very end of 2023,
it automatically became a business.
I had clients before I was ready for them.
I didn't have a business structure set up,
but anything.
And so, but the goal was when I started
was to enjoy myself.
So to just get up and enjoy myself,
helping other people and do what I love to do
without having all the corporate pressure
that I carried every single day for over four decades.
And the, when it turned into a business,
which it really is now,
I got all kinds of things going on in the business
and all kinds of different legs, if you will.
But my number one goal and priority for myself
is my why is to continue to do this
and really enjoy myself every day.
And I work a lot of hours.
I get up at four o'clock in the morning,
start exercising, then jump right into it.
And I go to, too tired to stop because I want to.
And I'd be there and then join it.
So that's my ultimate why was to do that.
But now it's also to build a ongoing recurring income
that will sustain itself beyond the time I'm working
where I'll still have revenue streams coming in
to support my wife and my family, my grandchildren,
and my business partners.
So, you know, have things that'll go on
when I'm completely done and just want a vacation
with my wife and do whatever we're gonna do
when she retires, that this business will be going on.
And there'll be all kinds of products and services
that'll help people by themselves
without having to me be part of all of it.
But I could still never see myself not getting out
and doing speaking engagements and workshops
and things like that.
Yeah.
So how did I do?
You did well.
Thank you.
I want to ask though, you love building sales.
You love building those.
I don't know what your schedule is
but you do exactly from four a.m. up till you can go.
I'm assuming you enjoy that so much
that you don't want to do anything else.
Outside of my hobbies, that's true.
So what I've done in order to keep doing this,
I've had to invest in getting other people to help me.
So you could get so involved in working
on all the things you need to do
to keep your business going,
that you're not doing the part that you love to do.
And by the way, for me, there's no middle of the road.
I either love that part or I hate it.
And I could tell you that I don't enjoy the admin part.
I don't enjoy all those other things.
So I have an assistant that does
all my operational type things with the marketing piece,
getting the newsletters, the blogs, my presentations,
does all that work.
I provide the content and all the postings
and everything else,
that's all handled by one another person.
I have a person that's even more local to me
that's with me during the daytime,
during the operating hours,
who could help me with the scheduling.
I had to turn all my scheduling over to her
because she'll be stricter than I am and make sure.
And then she also reviews my emails
and she takes out all the emails
that I should never have to see,
that they're spam, they're junk,
there's just no value there for me.
So she pulls all that stuff out and it's amazing.
And a little bit eerie to open up a mailbox
that's always full of unread emails
and see no unread emails there
because she leaves the ones for me, like from you,
those will always be in there and I'll see them.
Or she'll respond back to you,
the old Phil's not available,
but I'm giving him your message, he's got it,
and you'll know, you'll get a response.
So that all that stuff, which took up so much time.
Yeah.
You could do that all day long.
I have, some people have a hard time letting go.
For me, I can't get rid of it fast enough.
So, it's just like, you got it, you got it, you got it.
And I trust everybody until,
unless there's a reason not to trust them.
But I didn't hire them not to trust them at some point.
So you get good people and they do great.
And then I have a bookkeeper to handle the books
and a lawyer when I need a lawyer for good reasons,
contract development, things like that.
And I just stay away from all that stuff.
So you gotta make the financial investment
in order to give yourself the time
so you can get out there and talk with the people
you wanna talk with, who you are.
The reason I love doing this is because
the more time I have with those people,
I'm totally excited and enthused.
And that's what I talk about with my wife
at the end of the day.
It's not how much money was made or all this other stuff.
It's about how these people,
what they're saying about the coaching
or what they're saying about the book.
It's just great.
Yeah, it's awesome.
I wanna dive deeper into what you just mentioned.
You can't get away from the things
you don't wanna do fast enough.
This kind of mentality is very rare to see
in the entrepreneurial world
because people consider themselves as entrepreneurs,
but essentially they are solo entrepreneurs
trying to be entrepreneurs,
but they don't have the way to do it.
They don't have the way to take something
they want to build, they have a trade, they know.
And if they get all around with a lot of stuff.
So how did you do it?
Well,
I recognize that I'm not 30 years old.
So, and I'm not gonna,
I'm in really good health and I feel really, really good,
in good shape.
And so, I plan on going a long time,
but it's not like building a career
over the next 20 or 30 years.
So I escalated, accelerated is a better word.
I accelerated everything from the norm.
So, when people say, Phil, these things take a long time,
we gotta give them time to develop.
I said, well, no, I'm gonna figure out
what it's gonna take to get the pot to boil faster,
but the correct way without skipping.
You can't skip things.
So the way I did it was as soon as I realized something,
I've got good coaches around me, I hired coaches,
so I could learn from them, from successful entrepreneurs.
I listened to books and the audio books
and read the books from successful people
that are very good at this
and very well respected worldwide.
And I take what they're doing seriously
and I implement as much of it as I can, as fast as I can.
And that's how I do it,
because I recognize when something's not working
and something's usually not working,
it could be for a multitude of reasons.
Some stuff that I've done and invested in just were fails,
but it was a learning experience.
And I just then sit around and mope about it.
I just learned from it and moved on
and went to the next place and it got better
because I didn't make the same mistake.
And so that's how I did it,
but it was with the help of a lot of people around me
and the resources that are out there
if you take advantage of them,
but staying really focused on what it is
and recognizing when something's not working
to do something about it, because it's not gonna fix itself.
Yeah.
Phil, what did you have to give up
to get the expertise of other people?
What did I have to give up?
I, well, it takes time and money.
So I've, because of where I started in my, at this point,
is I've been able to self-fund.
So I've been funding this out of my own savings
and everything else.
And it's been a pretty substantial investment
because quality coaching and people around,
they don't come, you know, if you invest a dollar,
you get a dollar's worth of help.
If you invest 20, 30, $40,000 at a time,
you get that level of help.
And so there was a financial investment.
The other thing that was sacrificed is time.
And time is something you just can't get back.
So you can't make more time.
So you have to utilize it better.
But in order to do this, it's an investment in time.
And investment was that, you know,
when I'm listening to this stuff,
I try and do as much as I can while I'm doing other things,
like working out, walking, driving,
to absorb as much information.
I can't have those kinds of meetings
where I don't have to take notes necessarily.
So, yeah, because I don't have the ability to.
And so the time was really time and cash investment was big.
But I didn't have to get into credit debt, you know,
where you're now, now you're getting things going
and you're there.
So money's not cheap right now as of this recording.
So, you know, so when money gets really cheap,
I'll use other people's money.
If I need it.
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.
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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.