All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live. With
Jackson Callum, I'm your show host. We'll be
doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there. Yeah. So, Evan, before I lead
anything or lead the witness, what questions
do you have for me? What, uh, what things you
know about our show? Uh, what would help you
help our audience best? Yeah, that's a great
question. Um, I like to say I would have some
curated questions for you, but I, you know, I
feel like, you know, I see that you guys have
done almost 2000 episodes. So I'm sure you're
a great Sherpa and guide through this process.
So I'm I'm willing to just to be transparent
and open. And let's just go on the ride and see,
see where it takes us. You know? Awesome. I,
uh, I appreciate that. It is not easy to be a
sherpa in this market. That is, so if you're
okay with it, I'll kind of talk about that. Yeah,
absolutely. Um, most, most of our generation
as well as our target demographic is highly addicted
and unaware of their addiction to the Get Rich
Quick program. And they'll say everything but
that, right? It's free. It's cheap. We can do
this fast. We'll be efficient. This launch is
going to be guaranteed. It's all just a shadow
or rendition. uh smoke and mirrors of get rich
quick and um the challenge of the podcasting
industry and i love it i'm in it obviously i
know i want to go to help and lead in it um but
it is the challenge of amateurs having access
to professional tools um is that there's a lot
of people pleasing that takes place to get people
on shows um and there's a lot of talk about vanity
metrics and things that don't actually drive
success um and so again most people don't come
in with your Your nature very few like one out
of a hundred will come in and say Yeah, no, I
did exactly what you said very responsible very
professional you've you've been around the block,
you know I'm not I'm preaching to the choir.
I'm pretty sure but You know Alex in Filippo.
Do you know who that is of pod match? Yeah, really
good friends and I'm inspired by his leadership
because he's more charismatic and more kind than
I am and and I'm more of the I'm so tired of
seeing entrepreneurs fail that I speak our truths.
And so a little background, I was a failing entrepreneur
as well, really more of a watcher, but are trying
to do the integrator role and hide behind the
scenes on a few launches. Even though I knew
I needed to focus on my purpose, which is my
vision is to bridge the economic gap to North
America, South America, rest of world. But that
was a very difficult vision to want to step into.
There's a lot of personal. changes I had to make
to be qualified for it. And in the process, my
first startup was invested in by Paul Buckeye,
the mentor of Gmail, Matt Cuss, the search director
of Google. I was just a hired hand helping with
the growth process, shadowing the co -founder,
shadowing the main founder. And then I went on
to launch Restaurant Connect as a junior co -founder.
bled out for three years, eventually made it
to 36 ,000 recurring monthly revenues. We competed
against an open table, created reservation and
diner managements and event planning software
that really made a big impact in terms of hospitality
and worked with J .D .B. Marriott's QI and Gophers,
or Master Sherman Augusta, almost sold my soul
to the industry. It was a difficult experience,
but we raised $100 ,000 on the Baylor Angel Network.
We raised $10 million at the Burst Company with
Paul Buckeye and Matt Cutts. Um, then my buddy
Jake called me asked me to help build video power
marketing. Um, video power .com is, uh, was put
on stage by Ryan Dice called the YouTube ad experts
of the world. Um, after founder of YouTube asked
Jake to represent YouTube ads before it launched,
um, their producer, Travis Chambers produced
the number one YouTube ad of the decade with
Kelby Bryant, Lena Messi on Turkish airlines.
Uh, I came in having built companies the hard
way. He had a viral company that was crushing
it with two interns. And he's the Jackson most
critical person I've ever met. I need your advice.
And I was like, that's the worst compliment I've
ever received. But I knew he's so loving. Jake
Larson is one of the best leaders I've ever met
in my life. And so I helped him triple revenues
over 18 months. um stabilize the operations create
infrastructure all the boring things that nobody
wants to do and i told the team i said guys look
jake needs to be playing golf weather executives
he needs to be speaking on stages at conference
and on podcasts and he needs to be playing the
piano the jazz piano at those conferences everybody
falls in love with jake all of those three things
drive more deals if jake's doing anything operational
we're losing Let's get him in his zone of genius.
And so that's pretty much what we did. And our
clients were John Lee Dumas, entrepreneur, Dan
Martell of SaaS Academy, Lewis Howes School of
Greatness, Dr. Eric Berg, when he had 160 ,000
subscribers, he's now got 14 million. Billie
Jean Marketing, Michael Hyatt, T. Harbecker,
Even Pagan, all these guys came on. Dan Martell
and John were there when I joined first. I remember
watching John Lee Dumas and Russell Brunson in
a web jigs like, watch this, Jackson, you'd understand
this stuff. And I took so many notes. I was like,
holy crap, funnels, digital marketing. I knew
nothing about all that stuff, viral ads. And
I thought ads were the devil. And that was just
me as a small business owner broke as hell not
wanting to invest. But I was a road warrior.
We're winning through referrals, not just hiding
from the fact that you can't attract the market.
So I learned these very hard but interesting
lessons. And we did the Kickstarter launch for
John Lee Dumas's first book, his Freedom Journal.
And I watched him in two weeks make half a million
dollars and on a journal launch. What like this
is different than the world of business I had
been involved in. So I share all that told him
and allude to the reality that I do know the
questions that podcast guests should have the
humility to want to ask and want to know about
how do we distribute. And I agree with Alex or
Mosi. It's a 10 year process. And I just do your
best every day. to improve upon what you're doing
and in 10 years measure the results once you
actually have data. But until then, stop overthinking
the data, stop trying to shortcut it, put in
the principles, put in the work, make it happen.
And so these conversations to me, Evan, these
are the ones that are the most important ones
because these are the ones where you and I get
to explore like, OK, well, what did Johnny Dumas
do? What did Lewis Howes do? How do we implement
that? How do we make sure this episode becomes
one of the ones that that crushes it and really
helps open the door for entrepreneurs because
or do we focus on the entrepreneurs? Do we focus
on helping them have a mindset shift? A little
bit longer play. The payoff is less immediate.
But is it what's right for us to do for the mass
market? I don't know. But you have a huge vision
of helping these entrepreneurs. I can 100 percent
agree with you. Nobody knows how to sell their
company. Most of them don't know what a P &L
is. And they're not going to just trust the guy
with long hair. No, that's not it. It's a collaboration
of sorts. Every single time I interview somebody
like yourself, it's a new opportunity to explore
and find, is this the guy who can help me scale
this message to the masses? Is this the guy who
can help when our clients are looking at how
do they get on the track path? And I've met so
many. uh people jumping into the baby boomer
economics of flipping and selling businesses
and stuff that um it's kind of like rei it's
like you can sell the real estate investment
licenses and coke machines these days i think
because everybody's an rei genius and everybody's
now an ai genius as well um you know but it's
all right how do we how do we find the real lebron
james the real luca the real john is like that
that's that's what we're looking for so yeah
thoughts questions observations yeah i mean you
know in all transparency i'm still on that journey
myself like you said 10 years is kind of that
uh the benchmark and it's it's tough man like
you know i i was sitting in a remote job just
kind of consuming all the hormosi content all
the diary of the ceo the video department just
all this stuff like oh i can do that they make
it look so easy and crisp and you get into it
and you're like what the hell is this? This is
not what I signed up for. Like you said, I bought
into the, Oh yeah, this is the dream. It's easy.
Go financial freedom. It's out there, man. All
you gotta do is out there and work hard and seize
it. And it's, it's, it's tough. And you know,
honestly, I'm kind of on this like decision tree
in my own life where, you know, I haven't, I
haven't gotten out of the red yet with my startup
and it's been over two years and my wife's like,
dude, you need to, you need to get a job. And
so it's like, well, do I go all in on job and
part time business now? Like what's, you know,
so, you know, I've learned a lot and I think
I agree. I've learned more from the failures
than I have the successes. And I think we kind
of glorify these gladiators in the arena and
these kind of these mountaintop wins. But like,
you know, what's what the CEO Apple does is not
necessarily digestible or realistically applicable
to what we're doing on this small scale of trying
to get these things going because you know like
my greatest success is just calling 400 people
over two days is picking up the phone call calling
people you know like like that's hey guys here's
a YouTube video of me calling 400 people this
is exciting right you guys want to see this like
this is gonna go viral check it out like no one
wants to see that crap no one wants to you know
no one wants to Know that that's what it takes
to get people on your platform and and to get
let me bother you a little bit on that Evan Let
me bother you a little bit on that. I do Yeah
Martin does and so you're you're you're right
that it feels like nobody does because in the
market any product doesn't matter if the shoe
or if it's a you know, super luxury home the
the market only ever has two to 5 % that are
ready. And if you're not pre -qualified for those,
and that's not for pre -qualified audience, for
luxury homes, it's even smaller, right? So the
amount of times we have to face no, you and I,
and what we do, we're both high ticket in what
we're doing. And so the amount of times that
we have to face no, eventually psychologically
says nobody wants us. But in reality - The sample
size is too small. So I'm glad you said that,
the 400, because again, no, it's, the entrepreneurs
like myself have been in the game for more than
five years. You know, I've been in it for 17
now, I think 15, somewhere in there. But the
reality is like, no, we're sick of hearing all
the hype on stage. I get it. The hype's necessary
to attract the masses to come in. But when I
go into a networking event and I'm talking to
people, I'll say, hey, my name is Jackson. I'm
the founder of First Class Business. We help
business owners achieve sustainable revenue growth.
And almost everybody in the room goes like this.
It starts to fall asleep, but there's a couple
of heads that go like this. They shoot up and
I know that those are the people I want to talk
to. All right, they're the ones who've been through
the ringer. They're the ones who are sick of
all the get rich crap. They're the ones who know
that sustainability is sexy as hell. Right. They
want to know what hard work has to be done in
order to make it happen, because they're not
they're not. They might have come in for the
reason of it looks easy, it looks fun, American
dream, simple. But they've stuck with it because
they know that they're really after generational
impact, they're after legacy. They're after making
sure their family's taken care of, that they'll
even stay, that they create that life that has
been so elusive for them and for others. And
they might on the surface. Act like or feel like
the hype draws them in but when I heard Glenn
Moore shower speak and have it to warrior conference
years ago the guys best speaker I've ever heard
he's a he's a very famous actor that does small
roles Star Trek and and transformers things like
that, but you would know him if you saw him anyway,
he uh You guys got on stage and talked all about
virality And hype and momentum and energy and
getting people going and I'm sitting there going
through divorce Like I can't do this and as much
as I wanted to it's like this. I can't do this
No, this is I would be so inauthentic and fake
and not willing to do that and Glenmore shower
gets on stage and without shaming them and the
most graceful and best leadership light possible
I mean, it was just so beautiful how he Ultimately
said, you know hype virality Adrenaline these
things that that don't bring substance and value
to our life um you know can be replaced with
authentic celebration and gratitude we can always
be grateful for what we have we can always focus
on counting the victories no matter how small
they seem and he just did this amazing job of
getting people excited but i got excited i was
like holy crap i can do that That I can feel
and I can value. So while your message again
may not be valued by the masses, Evan, your work
is needed. I just want you to know that your
work is seriously needed. And if you and your
wife can weather the storms, the price that we
have to pay to get to that mountaintop, there's
a lot of prices that have to be paid. Then your
subject could lead to generational wealth. That's
just unimaginable because of the amount of opportunity
that exists. And as Alex Hermosy said, you know,
it's that grants them offer. You don't know whether
they're going to get three points out of it or
three trillion points out of that home run. But
you've got the you've got a lot of. It's like
you coming on and the way you position yourself,
I feel like I'm talking to Dan Martell. I feel
like I'm talking Alex. I feel like I'm talking
to, I haven't talked to Alex before, that's not
fair, but I've talked to Dan. John Lee Dumas,
right? You've got a lot of the characteristics
and traits that say that you're no different
than Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas or any of these
legendary speakers who have been able to pull
it off and make it happen. So I hope you stick
with it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can't fail if
you don't quit, right? Maybe. And success is
just one more failure that failed, right? Yeah,
for sure. So there are opportunities there. And
your digital assets, I'm sure you're probably
optimizing them as much as anybody else and working
on what you can do for that. They don't represent
the quality that you are as a consultant, but
you as a consultant, that's why your phone calls
are going to work so well. It's because you know
how to talk to people. You know how to listen.
Um, and so I, I need people like that for the
entrepreneurs. I work with a first -class business.
We were constantly preparing them for passive
growth. Some of them are newer and they won't
need you for several years. Um, others are later
stage, um, and they're the growth processes.
And, um, most of those want to talk to you before
they want to talk to me. So there's, there's
lots of opportunities that exist with those.
All those people who've been on our show in the
past as well, almost every single one of them.
at some point need what you do and I don't, I
don't do what you do. Um, so stay close. Yeah.
Other questions, more observations, questions.
Um, it's been a good mastermind. Um, I love it.
No, it's good. And I appreciate your encouragement.
It's, um, yeah, it's good to, it's refreshing
to know that there are others out there and yeah,
hopefully, hopefully I can add value to what
you're doing. you know, everything. So yeah,
I know, like I said, I think those failures are
really the building blocks of success. And a
lot of people don't realize that that's the price
you pay for success. And that's what it takes.
So yeah, for sure. OK, so what would I guess
what would the best outcome look like? You know,
pragmatically speaking, from being on the show,
you know, we get an episode out, we're going
to talk about your vision once we do all be Reading
a little bit about your intro to to get things
going. I'll talk about the sponsors We'll use
the full 30 minutes next time to just dive in
and we'll we'll manually book that too That way
you and I can do that whenever we want to But
what would be the best outcome in your opinion?
Yeah, I mean naively maybe I'm thinking that
Maybe I need to have higher goals and expectations
of these things I've done, you know 1015 podcast
and part of me thinks I need to do a hundred
before I become like an expert speaker or something,
you know start getting some momentum and so maybe
I need to set my my sights to the moon and then
you know, at least I'll hit the stars kind of
thing, you know, but Honestly, it's just a good
conversation and it's just about adding value.
Like you said if I can help somebody if I can
you know the problem is is if I if I I feel like
if I'm too fixated on like the outcome then um
I'm not giving the process the the time that
it needs and so honestly it's I think it's to
educate the audience about this problem they
can understand what's happening uh they can understand
how to avoid You know this calamity that I'm
seeing with with business owners, you know deaths
and divorces and just you know Asset things going
wrong and you know anything that can help them
kind of see that this is something that they
should prepare for Once they start seeing success,
you know, maybe not it's not in the forefront
of the mind But it's something that think about
five percent of the time and start planning Because
I feel like there's a generational it's kind
of like a generational wealth But if you think
about it back a little bit though, yeah. Yeah,
let's do that. I love that We're gonna talk about
that on the show itself, but I want to circle
back to what you said because I think part of
what you said Gravitates towards answering the
way you think a podcast host wants to hear Yeah
versus your your real thought and so let me me
harmonize what you said Because I love what you
said you downplayed the outcome, but we never
defined what that outcome, like what a great
outcome looks like. I think there was an underlying
assumption of some outcome like, you know, make
a bunch of money on this to have a bunch of people
sign up. But you then downplayed the process
that you are virtuously following, which I love.
And so you talked about how you want to get on
the 100 podcasts before momentum. perhaps and
how you've had this thought process too of like
the process itself is the value. So I would say,
I would redefine and say, that's a beautiful
outcome. It's like, if you're not prepared to
be on stage, what are you doing on Oprah or Jimmy
Kimmel? And if you go on Oprah tomorrow and a
hundred thousand people call your phone lines,
who's going to answer? And that's going to make
me And that's going to make Oprah look bad, which
is why she'll never put you on stage, which is
why you don't want to be on Ted right now. You
go on. I don't want to be on Ted right now. I
go on Ted right now. I'm going to end up at one
of the bottom rungs of views permanently. And
that's going to permanently destroy my reputation.
Even everybody's going to take a job. You know,
you did really well. Like, it's OK. Oh, your
book launch. You've only got three reviews on
Amazon. You know, we're not going to. tell you
how awful that looks and how much we know you
failed on that launch. But it's obvious you're
not leading the world. Right. There are little
things like that that happen along the way. And
the ones who shortcut or minimize the value of
that process you're talking about. They're never
going to make it past the C list. They can't.
They already blew it. And so it'll be very hard
for them to recover after certain moves. So thank
you for ultimately outlining that. as a potential
outcome. I think it's wise to think bigger. Goals
wise, like sure, of course, aim for the stars,
hit the moon. I totally get that value that too.
Personally, I don't believe in honoring my expectations.
I like the quote from Shakespeare. Expectations
are the root of all heartache. I suffered enough.
In my past, by expecting too much of my wife
or expecting too much of people who worked for
me, I realized that I was creating an environment
that was extremely toxic. My expectation is the
synonym of entitlement. Yeah. And that puts me
in a position to not be grateful for what transpires.
So I would. But I love the goals aspect of goals,
getting momentum, learning and building humbly
while you've got certainty around your own expertise.
Again, you have the listening skills to be great
at what you do. And I can't find a guy or a gal
who can walk with me through merger and acquisition
opportunities because the egos are just too big
or they're inconsistent or they're unreliable.
So we look for five virtues, Evan. I'll give
them to you so you know that they are. Love is
our foundation. It's big. I'm always looking
for guests who are dedicated to figuring out
how to love better. Patience. You've been very
patient today. Thank you for that. Persistent.
You have a brand. You've been at this for several
years. You didn't get your communication skills
by skipping out on persistence or patience. The
last two are people who are consistent and who
are reliable. And that's hard. That takes some
time to measure. But it helps when we have systems
for appointments and time passes before people
come on. We use this podcast very much like a
combine. Like the NFL and the NBA, they have
processes or Harvard and becoming a doctor. You've
got to study for the seven years. There's wisdom
in letting things flow and cultivate. But I would
be very excited to have you on the show. I'm
very, very excited to have you in my network
and see what possibilities and opportunities
exist. Would you like to come back and do a show?
Do an episode? Yeah. Yeah, I think it would be
great. We'd love to. OK. What does your timeline
look like? What would be the ideal time frame?
Are you going to do something as soon as next
week or would you prefer to wait? Yeah, let me
see what my schedule. Next week. Yeah, I'm pretty
open and flexible. So I don't have a lot of appointments
scheduled I've got eight thousand numbers to
call so I'm about hundred of eight thousand so
that's kind of the that's kind of the Thing I'm
working on so eight thousand phone calls, but
I can you know, obviously podcast in between
those So how about next week same time does that
work? Yeah, that will that works. Perfect. Okay,
excellent I will put that on then next week,
same time. And we do invite guests that are that
are great to come back. So we'll still have a
shorter episode, but we'll be ready to just dive
in and record. The episode will be produced within
four to six weeks. It gets launched on RSS. But
as I mentioned, then I'd love to have you come
back and dive deeper. The markets, typically
they get to know you first. and they get to like
you, and they begin to trust. All right, so we
try to create a three -step sequence to dive
a little bit deeper. And then, of course, the
more you promote the interview for your own audience,
the more likely people who already know, like,
and trust you value what we're talking about.
And I will never try to steamroll you or ask
you something that puts you in a bind, but I
will try to ask you questions that... our buyer's
objections. You know, things that are like, well,
if I'm in that scenario, then how does it work?
And we can have a real authentic conversation
about what the market really looks like, what
things you're seeing that I'm not perhaps. I'll
add some color commentary, but I think it would
be a very, very valuable series of conversations.
Yeah. Yeah, me too. I'd be excited to be part
of it. So. Cool, man. Well, it's been a pleasure.
I'll let you run. I'm going to run a Zoom call
and. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I will
see you next week. All right. Thank you. You
too. Take care. Bye. 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 your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.