The Best of Right About Now: World class Business Advice for Entrepreneurs

If you get category right, once people see something, they can't unsee it. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and caching checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to read about now. We're always talking about what's now. We're talking about business. We're talking about marketing. We're talking about life. What's the balance between, you know, when you think about category design and category development? At a high level, the companies that really break through, the companies that change the future, the companies that are worth the most going forward. They really get three things right at the same time. We call it prosecute the magic triangle. And what that means is they get company design, business model, culture, distribution, all of those things. They get product design. So do we have a truly breakthrough product that solves a unique problem in a completely differentiated way? And they get category design rights. So product, company, and category. And if you get all three of those right at the right moment in time, that's how you get Airbnb. That's how you get zoom. That's how you get, you know, pick your breakthrough company. And, you know, based on our research, based on our experience, based on my experience of doing this for over 30 years, it really is equal parts of those three. The one addition, I'd say they're right. And is of those three, there's one that is a single point of failure. And that's category. Because if there's no market, there's no marketing that you can get a, you can build a legendary product, you can build a legendary company, business model. But if you don't have a category, there is nobody that's going to buy it. So that's kind of problem one. Problem number two is if you look at most new, whether it's a startup or an innovative new product that is trying to pioneer an innovative new category from an existing company, the same dynamics are true. If you get category right, once people see something, they can't unsee it. How do you filter? You know, like, I always find this fascinating, like, I'm the same way, like I breathe in a lot of this stuff. I'm looking, observing. Like you said, you've, you've got a lot of touch points for like talking with people, building relationships. What becomes, is it a natural instinct for, or do you test it? Like, how do you know how to filter what to try yourself or what, what you then enact or, or use when there's so much stuff out there? Well, again, I think if you just focus on telling the truth and being the truth, the truth resonates higher frequency than anything else. So it's like, I keep it real. I just tell you the truth. I don't beat around the bush. I don't use big words to try and prove that I'm smart. You know, I just talk. So like, you know, I think, I think with that simplicity comes, you know, better information. I think, I think, like, you know, clarity in a world of chaos is gold, right? So like, I just need the light. Like someone just bring me the light so I can see, I bring the light. I know you have the 10X platform. I know you got seven of these and five of these and four of those. But like, have you boiled it down like for both yourself and maybe others? Like what, what that success formula truly is? Yeah, well, you know, I did some of that on another cup of billionaire, right? Well, one is show up, say yes to it. You've got to show up. Like, if you don't show up, you can't get lucky. You can't get lucky. Nothing good happens. Nobody's going to come to your home, your sofa, your bedroom and give you anything. It's just not going to happen. Like, you have to show up. And then once you show up, you got to show up, right? Like, you got to be available for whatever you're doing, even if you don't want to do it. So I do stuff every day. I show up for stuff every day. I'm like, I kind of want to do this. But I show up and then I act like I want to do it, right? So you got to show up and then you got to be willing to change your mind about it because something super cool might come out of the deal. So number one, you got to show up. Number two, and while you're showing up, you've got to drop your bad attitude. Like, if you're negative bad attitude, stuff's going wrong, you lost your mom, you got COVID, whatever the hell happened. But nobody needs to know about that. You got to show up and be 100%. Number two, I would tell everybody, like, I'm always looking for 10x target. Always, I wake up every day, never satisfy where I'm at because I'm always looking for the 10x. I'm looking for, I got 4,000 or 12,000 units. I'm going to get 120,000. 120,000 units, bro. I'll be like, I can run for president of the United States. Like, I'd be a major player on planter if I could get there. I don't know if I can get there. Today, I probably doubt that I can get there. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't like, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I don't know that I have enough time. I don't have enough money. But it's cool to think about it. It's the end of the day. The substance is what matters. The expertise. And then, and we're talking about like one to one information sharing, but even as a brand, you know, you've got to stand for more than just a feature set of your product. It's got to be, you know, stickier than that. And that takes time. You build brand over time and hope for sales every night. And so it's um, I'll give you this. I learned this. I did this. I'm a, I'm a byproduct of it. That which you build fast will crumble even faster and that which takes a long time to build will last you a lifetime. So a brand will take you a long time to build, but it'll feed you forever. It just, and I'm a, I'm standing before you today. How many people in our internet marketing circle have made it 20 plus years? It's, I can count on probably two hands. I mean, I mean, I mean it, really, right? And every single one of them has a strong brand. But at the same time, learn as a company, we built it as a rocket ship. You know, there was no slow and steady 10% a month increase optimized and, you know, do the CRO work and do the split testing and focus on one funnel and pain stakingly obsessed over every part of your product delivery process. That didn't me. I didn't do that. We were, you know, and look how fast it crumble. Look, look how, look how weak the foundation ended up being. Even though it was doing 40 million, it was super profitable. It was about to sell. What I'm doing today, what I'm doing now, you know, we're, for, for our software company, it's taking us anywhere from three to six months to close contracts with big enterprise companies. But those companies are closing a contract after giving two to three week demo periods. They're reviewing it. They're having meetings with their C levels. They're fully buying in or saying no, but when the, when the ones that were buying in, they're going to be with us for years and they're going to pay big fees. So, albeit it's really hard right now in the early stages, but come talk to me in three years when we've got a ridiculous MRR and I'm able to start every month knowing that we're not only covered, but in profit, and that all I have to do day and night is obsess about that product. It's a great life. So, what most marketers, unfortunately, Ryan are not trained towards and it's been kind of my, my, my thing now, I call it change, change the timeline. And, and that is flip it over. So many of us want to make the million in 30 days and now me today, any opportunity that can make me a million in 30 days, I almost always know it's the wrong opportunity. I'd rather make it over the course of a year, but then know that next year it'll make me 1.3, 1.4 and the year after that, it'll make me 2. And then I want that because I know that whatever that is, it's going to grow much, much stronger, much better. So, brand is the exact same way. You can't get brand in 30 days. You just can't. It is amazing sometimes. You know, I've worked with a lot of companies. Good, bad, nugly, over the years in marketing. And it's real hard to take. You can't make bad companies good. It's really difficult. You can make the good companies great, but it's really difficult to make that. And I do think, you know, there's a lot of truth to be had and a lot of mirror to be looking in, you know, to really determining if your product service or what you do differentiates and stands out and can be made to be again, possible. It seems like there's a lot of people that, you know, do things that a lot of other people do and they just assume that like, I mean, success will be guaranteed, but it just doesn't happen that way. Yeah. Now, that's why it's important early on. Like, I think it's tough because a lot of times people give up too early. So, it is really, really tough to say, you know, if it's not working, you got to tweak this. But I guess you should always be tweaking, but too many people, I would say it's a bigger error is to give up early. So, you can't do that. But it's like, at the beginning, you have to be smart and you got to look at your product and, you know, have some way to measure your competitive advantage over, you know, what the market is offering. I guess I'd say like that. Like, think deeper about your competitive advantage and even use things. I mean, there's all kinds of online tools. You can use SurveyMonkey. You can use your friends. You can use LinkedIn. There's ways where you can vet that, but often what happens is as, you know, you're growing your business, you kind of naturally do that. You know what I mean? The good leaders are naturally, like, you're probably not even thinking about it, but you're learning. You're like, oh, okay, I got the sale here. What copy did I use or what pitch was I using? Oh, okay, this is what they wanted. I thought they wanted this, but they actually wanted this, right? And you're sort of iterating along the way. But if you can do that without making an accidental, like from the beginning, if you could do your basic market research and this is basic branding, right? So, it's like, what is your position in the market? Okay. And can you create some sort of emotional connection? Now, not every product, a lot of people think, well, like with us, with fridges, how are we going to do that? You know, but you can do it. You can, you can come up with fun ways to create some emotional connection because a brand is a feeling that somebody has about you. That's literally what it is. So, how do you make more people feel a certain way about you? You know, you've got to believe to achieve. It's really fucking easy to be a hater and to not believe and to doubt and to critique. It brings me back to that statement. It might sound cliche, but we all hear, you know, no one who's getting shit done at a higher level than you is sitting around, you know, talking shit about you or where you are or how you do it. You know, because they're too busy believing in what they're doing themselves. And optimism, belief, I put all that into the same thing. I think it's just, they've got a vision. They got to believe in something, you know, like whether it's investing in something, whether it's doing their own thing, whether it's taking it forward. Like, if you're a believer, you just, you ain't got time for the bullshit. You always say to make this understandable for people. I put this ad on Twitter a few times X. I never met a wildly successful pessimist. And people will say, oh, what about short sellers? I was like, that person's optimistic. They're going to go, they won't have to miss anybody. They're like, they're going to grence the grain. And they're willing to risk everything with unlimited downside because they believe that they're right. That's pretty optimistic. pessimism is somebody who thinks to deck a stack against them. The system is rigged. All that crap, like, please, like some of that may be true from time to time. But at the end of the day, we all have the power to change our circumstances. And the reason, I love why we're drilling down on this. I'll talk about this in this book. This one phrase to always anchor me to what I believe in and what I'm doing. Opportunity arrives before the tipping point of evidence, right? And that's a simple way of saying, like lightning and thunder, you know, you always see the flash of light first. That's the opportunity. It travels, light travels many times faster than speed of sound. And evidence is thunder. It's unmistakable but everybody hears it. And so if you want to be wildly successful, you first have to be an optimist or else you won't even believe you saw that light, right? You'd be like, I as in my head, you know, and then the ability to act on it is the thing that sets winners apart and backs your point about belief. It's why burn the boats is so important because the time to burn the boats is when the opportunity arrives before the tipping point of evidence. When you burn the boats, when everybody knows about it, it's like, well, it's, you know, it's too late. You know, that being said, if you're an innovative and dynamic and optimistic person, when you think it's too late, it's still okay. I have like a mentor, you know, I'll say I'm a mentor, you know, but I do have one mentor since Christopher Lockhead. He said, he who owns the problem becomes the solution. So you blame the problem. He who owns the problem becomes the solution. So you don't have to, you know, we can talk about brand and all your features all day, but you got to talk about the customer's problem and own the problem so that you become the solution because that's big. Yeah. So that's really big, bro. Yeah, because I mean, then they like people, I think a lot of people struggle with selling products and they do that because of the thing that you just said, right? They're out here trying to sell their products. They don't understand that people don't care about their products. Like listen to me right now, guys, everybody listen to no one cares about your product. No one cares about your service either, right? You think anyone comes to us and they care about Facebook ads or they care about like our logo and what are. No one cares at all. The only thing they care about is can you help me get more customers? Yes or no? Can you help me streamline my business and automate it more? So I'm not pulling my hair out every single day, right? Can you help me with those problems? And so like it's all the whole thing about sell the whole not the drill and the too many people are out here selling the drill, selling the drill and the wonder why no one's buying their stuff. Well, they don't want the drill. The only thing they care about is the whole that the drill produces. So understand that that is and then and sell that instead and everyone will change. Stop worrying about yourself and how cool you are and how you look and how amazing this product is and all the little trinkets that it has and all that stuff and start focusing on why these people actually want that product and add that to your messaging. You got to tie them in emotionally. It's funny. We both recently bought new homes and I was dead set on a price, right? I told my wife I was like, yeah, we're not going above this price for the house. I don't care what this lady says when we go in here, I am not spending more than this, right? And I told her that I get in there and she's trying to get me to do an add on and add some brick to the front and get a lake view. And I would like literally before I can go in there, I'm like, I'm not doing this, babe. I'm telling you right now. No, right? And she comes in and she's like, well, you know, it's going to look so nice on the lake when you can watch your kids just play on the lake and you know, it's going to be all nice and breezy. And then when you walk up to the front of the house, it has such a homey vibe. She literally didn't even talk about the feature of just having the lake view. She talked about the emotions that I would have by acquiring that thing and guess what I did? I bought it. I went above my price just because she got me emotionally tied to the product or to to to the product and service, right? So yeah, it's true. So be careful. Like by the way, this stuff, be careful like who you share this insight with, right? You start sharing this insight on how to sell with your wife or with your husband. Like they're going to start selling you more stuff. Happy wife. Happy life. I think Steven. Yeah, that's right. I know that one. What about like and I know there's more risk because I have friends that that are literally knee deep in this, you know, buying existing business. You got all the baby boomers kind of ready to sell and you got a lot of these businesses that are cashflow positive. Yeah. So I have some friends that are very heavy in that side of buying, you know, businesses that are already proven. Right. Well, not like capital raising for ideas of business, you know, like of, okay, maybe it's within an existing industry, but sort of like the theory of the idea of the business, but you don't necessarily have a million customers built in day one, you know, like or even a thousand or a hundred. Right. Talk to me about that evaluation. And do you counsel that side of capital raising? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, in my book, I talk about, you know, the different types of investors. When you're raising money, you have to look at kind of the avatar and where you are in the growth curve, you know, you start up, are you a more mature business? Are you kind of on a trajectory? We have been around a couple of years and have a track record, prior performance. And so when you look at a true startup, you know, somebody that's got this idea that's really unfounded or unproven, you know, you're primarily looking for venture capital firms. They invest in startups or, you know, maybe you're looking for what we call an angel investor. That's typically a very wealthy person that may have been a business owner that sold their business, you know, and now there were, I don't know, you know, 10, 20, 50 million dollars. They're willing to take those types of risks because they know if they could hit a home run, you know, obviously the return on investment is going to be substantial. But when you look at the different types of investors, you know, family offices, private equity, venture capital, each one of these different groups likes to focus on different things. Private equity firm likes to buy traditionally existing cash flowing businesses. They come in, they put in some capital, they make some management tweaks, they scale the business, then they ends it. The venture capital firm now is okay, we're going to invest in five companies. Realistically, we're going to lose money on one. We're probably going to get singles and doubles on the other three. And then that one, boom, is the home run that makes up for the others. And that's just the investment model. And so it depends when you're a business owner and you're going out there trying to race capital that the first thing you do is you might identify the type of investor that you want to be focusing your efforts on because if you're out there, you know, for example, with a startup and you're talking to investors over here that like to invest in more season, more established businesses, chances are you're not going to be very successful because your message is not related to that audience. As a leader of a company and doing the market that you did and having the growth that you had, when you reflect on the both the success and what you learned, are there like, are there like light bulbs that kind of key points or things that come to mind? Yeah, for sure. So we ended up selling in 2001. Okay, and for me, you know, personally, that was a big thing, you know, because it's like if you sell, you've created something that is proven value and then private equity is coming in and buying. And then I stayed on for a while and then I was, and then I, and then, you know, I've got a great new CEO running it now. And so I'm able to take time and reflect on it. And, and I would say that there are definitely a couple of things like the first one is when you can afford it like as a business leader or as a business owner is getting the best people in and getting some skin in the game for the best people. Okay, and then creating a vision and letting them know what that final outcome looks like. So for example, you know, early on, I probably would have been, I was more tight, you know, because I'm thinking, okay, if I, you know, how much should I share? And then, at later on, is I, you know, kind of learned the right way to lead. And there's a lot to it that I learned, but I'm just simplifying it here. It's like, when you get good people and you say, hey, let's, let's sell in three years. And if, and if we do, this is what it looks like for you, like, they're gonna just run through walls. Like, there's a huge, because everybody's motivated by money, okay? It's like, you, sure, you want people who are just going to always do the right thing, but you got to show them that this is what it's going to look like for you. And they're going to work their asses off and get there if there's a big payday for them. And they're going to do things that you could never do on your own. So that was a big one that I learned, you know, as far as like getting the right people, I realized early on that can be hard. Like if companies don't have enough scale, like they can't hire in, you know, that CFO for 250 or 300 or they can't hire the CEO, but, you know, you can still prioritize getting the best people over saving a few dollars. This is how I would say for most companies. And then just another quick one is just focusing on margins, you know, too many companies are, they're churning, they're churning revenue, they're churning top line, they're, they're, they're building in lots of expenses into their business system. Okay, and they're saying one day, you know, one day I'll get scale, one day I'm going to get leverage. And that does work for some companies. Okay, and especially people who've already done it, they're really smart and they come at it round two and they really know how to get to that point. But for a lot of people that doesn't, it doesn't work. It's like, make, it's like before you go build like a 10 or 20 million dollar company and then try to figure out how to make money, like make money from day one because the the thing is that can actually, basically what it's telling you is your brand is not valuable enough to the market. Like if you're not profitable when you're a couple million dollars at the transaction level, you know, there's a good chance that as your 10, 15, 20, you still may not be that profitable because the market's telling you like, this is all we're going to pay for your brand, you know, and so you want to figure that out early on. What do I need to do with my product or service? How do I add more value? How do I, you know, stretch these margins? And so that's, that's a huge one, you know, right now you do CEO coaching and that's a, that's like one of my main focuses is like, what are your margins? Okay, what are, how can we get creative and really think about your product and big focus on the product? Money doesn't solve everything, but it's your helps. And you know, my friend Bradley talks about this a lot. And I've been on his show, he's been on mine and like, he's, he does a podcast called dropping bombs. And, but he talks about this, you know, and he's, he's done very well. And he just, he's just honest about it. He's like, no, I didn't solve everything. I'm not happy every day just because I have money. He's like, but damn, I'd rather have it than not. And he's like, he kind of uses the same analogy to use. And he's like, sometimes I just want something nice, you know, I don't want to get my wife. It's like, for sure, it's sometimes is really, you know, pretty simple, but it is not just because he's trying to show off either. He's way past the, oh, I got to show my Rolex or something, you know, like, it's not that. It's just, hey, wants to take a nice trip and he doesn't have to think about it for, you know, 14 months and put it on layaway. For sure, 100%. I think for anyone to say that, you know, wealth is not part of the equation, the motivation equation. I think you're kind of lying to yourself because of course it is because wealth comes freedom and that's what we're all after at the end of the day. So to say that money doesn't matter to you, it's probably just you lying to others and you lying to yourself because at the end of the day, the finances equal the freedom and the freedom is really what's most important. Bingo. There you have it right there. That's why I tell people, I mean, you know, if time for money and money were time, we'd all have the same amount. Hell yeah. I mean, but you know, and it's important to lean into those wise and, you know, but I think for the most part, you know, when it comes to, you know, success in any endeavor, you know, success kind of comes down to two things. It comes down to having a plan and it comes down to stick into that plan, right? And I'd say most people don't even make a plan. They just kind of let life push them around and then they die and that's it. So I think for, you know, most people never even make that plan that really inspires them. But then for a lot of people that make that plan, they don't stick to it. So I think if you can do both of those things on a daily basis, put a calendar together that really inspires you. That's taken steps towards your goals. You're the goals that really mean something to you and then doing your best to actually execute on everything in that calendar day by day, you can strengthen that muscle and become the type of person that makes a commitment and keeps it to themselves. But it's a day by day progress, you know, to day by day process for a lot of us. I know it is for myself. You know, I know sometimes I love making plans. I love getting at my little pencil right now and all the cool shit I'm going to do tomorrow. And then sometimes I struggle to execute. But I just remind myself, it's a muscle. You know, it's almost like you're at the gym, you know, and you're going for some hypertrophy on your chest. You're just trying to bench a little bit more every week. And I just try and ask a little bit more for myself every week as far as work ethic goes. And if I don't have a great day, I have some grace with myself. But get out there tomorrow, make an ambitious plan, and then do your best to execute on that plan. But I guess the big aha is, you know, here's a simple one that that I like that tends to resonate. If you want to sell Bibles, there's got to be Christians. And so what most people do is they shout, look how great my Bible is legends spread the religion. And in the HBR research that I mentioned, we discovered this incredible thing. 76% of the total value created as measured by market cap evaluation goes to the company that dominates the category. And so the aha here is categories make the brand Google has a legendary brand because they dominate a category called search when they take that legendary brand and they slap it on a category that they're not designing a K a social networking. They have their ass handed to them in this case by Facebook. And so most companies believe they can win by screaming their brand. Look at us. Look at us. Aren't we awesome? Aren't we awesome? Brands are about us. Categories are about customers. And so legends actually market their category. And in so doing, there's this other interesting thing that happens. Prospects, customers, consumers, the only company they've ever seen market the category is the category queen. So when you're the one evangelizing the category, the market people in the market assume you're the leader because that's what leaders do. Non-leaders that is to say followers compare themselves to others. Take the Pepsi challenge. Pepsi tastes better than coke, right? And when they do that, they're telling the market category coax the leader. And so the only companies that consumers ever see attacking and comparing themselves are by definition not the leaders, not the category queens and kings. And so if you want to be perceived as the company that's designing and dominating the market category, evangelize the category. How did you embrace social media? When did that light switch? Pun intended, I guess. It went on about four or five years ago. Brightly, it went on a little bit maybe four or five years before that. Like right when it was coming out, I was like, hey, this is interesting. And man, there's sure there's a lot of people here, but I didn't put two and two together until I saw other people leveraging social media to get quite the notoriety. And with attention comes opportunity. So I wanted more opportunities. So what better way than to get attention? And social media is the new television man. Like dude, literally, I was walking through the airport the other day just getting back from a keynote. I landed in Vegas. I'm walking through someone rolls up. They're like, dude, Bradley, dude, I listen to your podcast. I'm like, oh, thanks, man. He said, hey, can I take your picture? Boom, I take a picture. I start walking off. Someone walks up. Bradley, the real Bradley. Dude, I watch you on TV. And I said, what? I said, I watch you on TV all the time. I said, I'm not on TV, bro. He said, oh, I mean like Instagram. And I'm like, dude, that guy said TV because that is TV now it is. So once I realized that, you know, I'm glad I did what I did. But you know, if anybody wants to build a personal brand in my opinion, you got to think about just content flow. I put content flow into certain categories. Number one is is the source of your content. Where's the source of your content coming from? Like for example, this podcast is a source. You know, coaching somebody is a source working in your office with interacting with people is a source. You know, the things that happen to you on a daily basis, keynote speeches are sources. So you just figure out what your sources are. Then the sources lead to the creative. Someone has to chop up, drop edit, you know, hashtag, et cetera. That's your creative. Then you got to figure out what your outlets are. Okay. Well, my outlets are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and used to be TikTok. But for some reason, they banned my damn account when I reached to half a million in a month and a half. Those are your outlets. And then you have frequency, right? How often are you doing that? And then you have what I call boost, which means how much money are you investing into it? A lot of times people just post, but they're not investing any money to be seen. Folks, that's the key is if you literally paid whatever it took to get everybody that logged into Facebook every day to see your face for a month, you'd be famous. You may not be liked by everybody, but you'd be famous and you'd have a ton of opportunity coming your way. So if you're taking notes, the source, the creative, the outlet, the frequency, and the boost, you figure those out, you're going to build yourself a big-ass personal brand. How much do you think it plays into like now that you've embraced it the last four to five years? Like if you put a percentage on it and you've got data on your ads and things like that, but what percentage would you put your success right now towards all of those channels? Well, whenever I do the boost part and advertise, right now for every dollar I put in, I end up with $9 back, according to statistics, which is why I'm starting to put a whole lot more dollars in. So if you see me now, wait, you'll see me a lot more here pretty soon, but that's when I'm just advertising. But just the personal brand is a measurable. I get deals all the time because people follow me. They like me. They trust me. They hear me talking about something that has nothing to do with light speed. And they sign up for light speed because of who I am and what I said and what I think and what I believe and who I'm connected with. And they see that on social media. They see me hanging out with big wigs. They see me on my podcast. They see me with employees. And again, it's social media, not anti social media. You ever see these people with the private accounts? Yeah, I don't understand. Why are you on social media with the private accounts? Like, dude, that's the equivalent of flipping someone off when they say, how you doing? Hey guys, you know, to find us, Ryan is right.com. You'll find highlight clips all of the episodes and our YouTube links. And of course, where to find our guests and information on everything that they're up to, we appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. I'm right about now. Listen, our watchful episode to write about now on the web. Put a Ryan is right.com or follow a line up for the social media platforms. Some things are hard to commit to, like learning how to surf. Or saving for a family vacation. But one commitment that's easy, switching to Fio's home internet with a five year price lock guarantee. That means five great summers of fast, reliable internet at the same low price. All with the Fio's one gig internet plan. Plus no hidden fees or equipment charges. Call 1-833 Verizon to switch today. Price guarantee applies to basemently rate only for new and existing my home customers. This is the story of the one. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the HVAC is humming, and his facility shines. With Granger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces, plus 24-7 customer support, his venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just.py. Granger for the ones who get it done.