I was doing my job my regular day-to-day job I was just stuck and burnt out trying to figure out like what do I do next how do I grow my business 2019 I saw my business Forex $7.5 million in sales Topline from just putting myself out there with today's department is the community department and I would say one of the biggest voices in my entrepreneurial Journey he's been able to build a multiple seven fig business and I have with me Neil dingra I did this coaching and this other business as a passion proct you know it wasn't even my main thing and then as it grew it just kind of like started to blow up teaching on the Internet is the best way to help people and then all of a sudden all this cool stuff starts happening to you because you're helping other people I wish I would have started what I'm doing now sooner I was in the business for 15 years before I started posting video 15 years of no social presence no internet presence and then just decided to start what was kind of like your first marketing strategy or content marketing strategy like at a bare minimum you're like okay that I can do so all I did was welcome to the department where we have conversations with people who are killing it in their Department today's department is the community Department I have the luxury uh I I would say the the favor to call this person a friend and I would say one of the biggest voices in my entrepreneurial Journey especially in this last year as I've stepped out and um you know offered myself as a coach and consultant to other people people and I have with me Neil dingra who is a content creator a loan officer who actually educates other people in real estate on how to Market themsel and get themsel in front of people but ultimately I've loved seeing Neil build his community these raving fans legit that I've just wanted to essentially give him money and he's been able to build a multiple seven fig business never really selling hard never really acting thirsty and honestly I just appreciate your friendship and I'm so excited that you're on the department welcome Neil dingra thank you bro and it's dope to be on the podcast that's blowing up right now yeah this is cool like you don't give yourself enough credit for how you launched this podcast that was huge bro thanks dude I appreciate it and you've always been just the one uh one I've always known that like when when I thought about it's time to start a podcast there's there was like 10 names and you were to one of those top 10 names so this is honestly um a conversation I've been dying to get recorded captured because seeing what you've done even from when I first met you I think the first time we like met met was May of 20122 yeah at girl with video live um but before that I saw that you were doing stuff you know speaking at um Ryan's event and um and I just want to kind of jump into the journey uh not too far back but kind of like how have you been able to build I would say raving fans you know people that just know who you are not only in your industry but also um just in the digital marketing space yeah when you talk about like people who launch Consulting events courses masterminds all these types of products and you say people are like fans willing to give you money I think it starts with like building Community first but then also them being able to uh trust that you know this is a good person who's going to help me like this is going to work for me so I think like that's the first part that people you know they'll be like why is this person able to sell so much more than this person it's because you come from a place of service it wasn't about the product or sale or the money it was about like really just helping people so that's my first thing is like I did this coaching and this other business as a passion project just side side hustle sort of you know it wasn't even my main thing and then as it grew it just kind of like started to blow up so it was kind of by accident and uh I think like a lot of people will will will get stuck on that like d they're trying to trying to grow and get so many sales that it's like that's the thing preventing you from getting sales you know you want it to be more natural and organic especially like when you start pitching your programs and things it shouldn't be like a struggle so I waited a long time before I did that so just going back kind of like in the recent most I guess applicable history for the for the listeners it would be like okay I was doing my job my regular day-to-day job which is a grind of just trying to help people buy real estate help them with financing loan officer right and then I started to wanted you know get I was just stuck and burnt out in that business trying to figure out like what do I do next how do I grow my business I'm at a ceiling I don't really like the traditional way of doing business how can I grow this so all I did was start putting out videos like cringe videos on internet and start posting on social we all have cringe videos yeah these are just the worst I can't you know it's bad if you can't watch your own video back the whole way like that's when you know it's really bad so uh that's where I was at for like a year just doing that this is 2018 prior to that I didn't even have a account on social so like that was when I first started and then 2019 I saw my business Forex from just putting myself out there with mediocre or some bad videos because of like how few of people take this seriously and and not do it consistently so say your business Forex you mean like your your loans yeah so my main Core Business which is trying to get more clients every day that want financing for mortgages and buying real estate that business Forex and so that was like oh maybe I'm on to something and just kept doing it and kept doing it more and so you I think back to like corosi uh he said this at some point he was like man you should be able to make more money doing the thing than sing how to do the thing so like I did that first and foremost was just doing digital marketing to grow my business content marketing by accident and then got good at it somehow after a couple years as I was doing this I had another big year another big year then the market got really busy and I was able to capture a ton of business a lot of people will tell you too by the way afterwards I noticed this people come up with like excuses to why someone uh is successful so that way they don't have to look at why they're not successful so they'll tell me like yo Neil you did all that business during those years because interest rates were low the real estate market was on fire you make millions of dollars a year because of that and I'm like well why don't you like if it was just about the conditions of the market like why doesn't everybody make millions of dollars when things are good it's because they don't know how to Market themselves they don't have the megaphone like you know what I mean so um I was in a position to be lucky like yes the market was great 21 22 I made a ridiculous amount of money but I was in I was like a good communicator at the time I was doing events I was doing content So like um getting good at these things like gives you more business during those times so uh those years I had a lot of great business and continue to do it even in like a down year like we're in right now we're still relatively busy because of the marketing so along the way people would reach out and be like hey Neil could you jump on a call could you teach us what you're doing could you come speak at our event so just by accident I started to like teach and then from there I was able to launch programs and events I think I think the principle that you that I get from that kind of story is the preparation you know like and you don't know you're preparing a lot of the times because the thing comes when it comes and you said that like we're kind of stepping into a more slower season but this is the opportunity that presents itself to now start getting that those bad videos out of the way if somebody's just now getting into it and prepare yourself for when the market turns around it doesn't matter what honestly what industry you're in um the temperament of what's going right now it's it's almost affording the ability to just start messy start putting out content and and get people knowing all people need to do is know that you do the thing that you say you do yeah and we talk about this like a lot where you might have even second guessed yourself I wish I would have started what I'm doing now sooner MH but I didn't realize it but all those years where like I was doing work and not doing that much money and kind of struggling that led me to where I was at with the content stuff and really getting into it going all in and then that led me to this and led me to education eventually and speaking and so like I think like all those things kind of just are on your journey of like this is how you get there so yeah I wish I would have done content in 2015 instead of 2018 but maybe it wouldn't have even freaking worked because I wasn't all in you know like I wasn't in the right spot so um I don't want people to think like oh you know what dude I'm too old or I waited too long like I was in the business for 15 years before I started posting video right 15 years of no social presence internet presence and then just decided to start learning the business now you could speak the language to the people you're trying to help yeah so like nobody's like counted out from just not doing it yeah no and I love that you know you you were saying how um you built the trust you know like that's why people want to work with people and Trust comes from showing up consistently um I I would wonder like what was kind of like your first marketing strategy or content marketing strategy like at a bare minimum you're like okay that I can do so for the main business for mortgage like I would put out videos that would teach like a concept so what are the problems your clients have how do you solve them what are the struggles they face like how do you overcome those so that was literally the video of like okay make a list of those things each one is a video and then it became like okay how do I make a better video how do you start that video with a good hook that gets people in how do you make it look better right how do you uh show up better then now it's like how do you make it better for this platform so then all the technical stuff comes in but in the beginning it's like is this a topic that people would be interested in and a lot of people think it's boring they think uh a lot of people say no for the audience I noticed they're like yo that nobody's going to be into that some of my stuff that's done the best has been the stuff that's to me would be boring yeah but it was basic like it's information they need so I think most people who have been doing anything for a period of time a long period of time you take for granted what you do like the other person does that once in many years or maybe this is their first time ever doing that thing so if you can educate people on the stuff that you even just do daily it would help so I started doing that and then getting a lot more business from it but just from inbound you know people asking questions and then what I learned along the way is um a lot of times you know people reach out to you they be like yo been watching your videos would love to work with you that's great when it happens I like screenshot it every time but the there's a way bigger group of people who will never ever reach out to you they'll watch all your videos they won't even like them they just watch them like stingy with hitting the heart button like you know how many of us have typed out a comment and erased it because we don't want to look stupid so that's the general public they just don't want to put themselves out there they're not creators so they're watching all your stuff and they'll never reach out until you prompt them so what I learned was how do you get people to raise their hand and so I've talked a lot about this recently is like the best marketers in the world are looking for Signal not sales you know like everyone's looking for said hey let me know when you're ready to buy a house I was just looking for the signal of like are you interested it's like you a step right in the middle so there's a journey of like starting from the scratch to buying something most times people are looking for the customer to make that entire Journey on their own and you could just be transactional and get the bag at the end what about if you added a step in the middle like a webinar y just to answer your questions like a eBook like DM me and I'll happy to answer or like whatever so once I figured that part out was like okay I've got it now people are reaching out I'm getting a lot of leads from online that's really good I I call it silent engagement yeah it's just cuz I'm even I mean most guys actually don't engage it's like women are very talkative they that girls uh women leave more comments on posts than guys do generally speaking but that's very encouraging for people who feel like they're getting no engagement that the people that do follow you they see your stuff and this is why I think quality is important and that over you you you showing up consistently delivering valuable content you know people it wins them to watch the next one you know every every piece of content you upload you're convincing them to watch the next one and um just showing up consistently is big on that I do love like I feel like we share similar things in the sense that when you started putting yourself out there to build your personal brand you had something paying the bills yeah and that allowed you to not seem desperate that's true yeah that is huge you had leverage I think a lot of people have leverage cuz you actually have a job that you know maybe affords you the ability to use the weekends or you know when you're off hours or during your lunch to create the stuff but if you if you operate from a place of understanding you have the leverage to do so you're being it almost is like you're you're starting out being paid to actually learn yeah and so uh if you ever feel this is kind of interesting but if anybody has ever felt in a rut burnt out good uh stuck like the best way to get out of that is to help somebody else and so like if you serve somebody else all of a sudden you now are starting to grow and you're starting to get some good going for you so what I found out accidentally was teaching on the Internet is the best way to help people and then all of a sudden all this cool stuff starts happening to you because you're helping other people it's crazy so it's like dude how many people are just feeling stuck in a job or stuck in their business and you have so much knowledge to share if you would just put it out there even if it sucks at first you would get so much from that so I think teaching is has been the biggest thing in terms of leading to business opportunity is like helping other people understand something they trust you they want to work with you but asking for the business was the key part like I went through a long period of time where I never did any calls to action because I read Gary ve said somewhere don't ever sell and like you know th how many Jabs you have to throw before you can throw a hook I'm like on my 97th jab is it okay if I throw a hook right now so what I found out was like if you can make it about serving people even when you do do ask for business you get so many leads so all these people who you talked about silent engagement those people when you give them an offer will reach out especially if it's free so like hey I'm hosting a free webinar on Thursday to answer your questions and to go over some great opportunities I see in the market people will show up y like but they've been watching your video and then they'll come on there like I love your content I'm like why haven't you hit the heart button I've never seen you in a comment ever and you say you love my content so they've been there the whole time that's really good I love that so you said g is one of those voices who would you say like early on you like whose model did you see and you're like dude I feel like I can do that so I like Gary V's standpoint of like he was saying content content content like put it out there um I I was lucky enough to like uh he was at an event in 2019 speaking and I got a podcast with him there so he like sat down with me it was supposed to be 15 minutes we end up doing an hour podcast it's on my YouTube channel now uh and he just kind of went deep on like all the things I could be doing and I asked him like Hey I'm in this kind of boring industry what should I do and he gave me a ton of ideas for like broadening the appeal of my content so like how do you take boring topics and give them broad appeal you know if you're in a niche like how do you get more people outside of that Niche to watch the videos and so for me that was Financial Fitness like ways to save money make money um or you know avoid mistakes and things like that everybody's interested in that so I just started learning that from him and then also guys when I was coming up there's this dude uh who help be as a coach later Billy Jean but he was all on the other side all sales so like I was like on this side all marketing this is all ads and sales and then I found my sweet spot in the middle that's cool and like you built your education coaching Consulting business like not with no paid ads yeah so we've done uh it's been this will be three years as of January so coming up beginning of 2024 will be my third year of doing it and I think we've done 75 million in sales Top Line without one without one single ad dude so it's all organic I can only imagine what happen when we start doing ads but um and I will have to at some point like we have to start doing it because you only have so much reach organically Mass Market yeah but uh it's been cool to see like you don't have to like if you build an audience first you could launch your product fully organic no ads that's literally what I did and we made I think 110k on the first launch yeah and you gave me so much game just on a 10minute phone call right before I was about to tea off yeah yeah and uh you you were just like hey how's it going I was like dude it's going I guess some people are interested and you're like hey start using the word founder people want to be a part of something new and something I've learned over time getting to know you um is that you're very intentional with word choice and I know we always talk about the art of communication and all these things like um like I I know I think the question I have is how have you discovered even just being growing in your communication cuz people dude when you get on a stage people do what you say yeah and and what's crazy is you know everybody loves that you're a you backwards hat speaking at a professional business event super chill like you know the I know when you're excited but a lot of people wouldn't know when you're excited yeah it's kind of weird like uh I'm just more laid-back whatever dry sense of humor so a lot of things people like everybody says to themselves I have these kind of defects like or you know what I have like me personally I'm an introvert I'm a nerd I have add all these things are actually my greatest strength right like if you think about you had to flip adversity to Advantage so everything that you think sucks like people would connect with you if you just would be yourself so something happens I think when you're doing videos you're trying to uh appease the audience you're trying to like be like somebody else you're wondering what are they thinking of me and then something clicks I don't know how long it is into it for me it was like maybe 8 months in or something where now I can just be myself like you know I don't have to like try and be somebody else like I'm comfortable good and then when you're that I think that's when it really connects the audience prior to that I see people go through it you can kind of see where they're at on the path they're like trying to be this person I'm like that's not you eventually they either quit or they become authentic one of the two cuz the audience Snips you out eventually it just doesn't work you can only pretend for so long so um once I was started being myself then I was like got super comfortable just you know speaking more and talking and teaching more just as myself I don't have to be super energetic loud jump around like I could just be me and then what I found out was um with speaking in particular I used to just get super dry mouth and super nervous like and I couldn't uh I couldn't communicate properly because I was so like just the nerves would get to me and what I found out is nobody's like stuck with that issue it's just reps so it's like literally the I hate Fitness analogies because everyone does them but it's literally just like you go to the gym in the beginning you can't push any way you do it more and now you can do more like you get stronger right so this is literally the same thing I found with videos and and speaking and communication more reps you just get super comfortable with it and then now it just clicks yeah and you texted me last week you spoke at an event in Detroit yeah like 400 people prior to that you spoke in an event and you're like me that dude that that event wasn't that good based on like the you know response um and then we you just came into the studio and you started talking about what what was different about that can you talk through kind of yeah different when people uh when you do a lot more speaking first of all like communication from stage webinar whatever that's led to the most growth for me you know a lot of our customers have come from webinars and events and I just want I do want to say you don't have to speak on stages no you can create your own stages correct I.E webinars yes or inperson workshops whatever my own event cuz like I couldn't get enough speaking I'm like you know I'm going to do my own one and it's a great way to accelerate yeah like dude and the event is literally like the best event in the it was in the beginning though but like yeah it is now but like how you how you do that is like dude you are trying to be you if you host events it just grows your your brand so much quicker because you're the host of the party you meet speakers right you connect with them like you build actual connections with people you can leverage that like people love it when you put on a great event because it impacts so many lives and then also just even if you just hosted the event and barely spoke at it but you were just the host yeah you would still get a ton of brand recognition for that so I would encourage people uh Dan fleshman told me this years ago he's like d just do micro events so I would do like 20 30 people event and then it started growing then 70 people then 100 and so on and so forth now we do a thousand but in the beginning it was just like how do I get 15 people to show up here and what are we going to teach them MH and then that's how it got going but yeah for speaking it took me like a couple years to get comfortable with it it wasn't bad but it just wasn't great and so um as you're growing I found out the the best way to get past that phase is just to give a ton of value in your talk like tactical things because a lot of times people try and become like an inspirational speaker very few people can do that effectively like you can't get up and be Ed myet and make people cry and get inspired like if you're new it's going to be difficult but what you can do is if you give really good tactics that makes up for all the cuz they're like oh dude you're dropping I got to write this down like this is going to help me get business cool so people love that that's how I got through it then as you get going now you figure out oh if I tweak this more people pay attention they take action like now they it's more impactful for them they actually feel it so here's what I found out um if you can start a talk with a bold beginning people it just goes so much better so if you start weak you're kind of screwed so we've all had this time where we were called on to speak in a group hey they welcome you up and you don't quite know what to say to start you know what you're going to be doing maybe you have some slides but you don't know that first line or two if you don't that just screws up your whole thing because now you're starting off an easy maybe something something weird that's what happens to me sometimes is I'm not as prepared for that first walk out so uh when I've done that gray the talk goes way better when you do when you mess that up you're you're handicapped like you've lost half the room sometimes because they just people are very quick to judge you it's like um when a real pops up in your feed you're like am I going to watch this or keep scrolling I think they do the same thing on some level with speakers 100 they just like they size you up like this dude's I should pay attention or I'm just going to start looking at my phone or mentally check out yeah so uh that was the first thing I learned second thing was start with a Al so first thing start with a bold beginning number two was like uh teach people uh let them know what's going to happen before you start teaching so give them like a road map so in today's talk I'm going to be going over like one two and three I'm going to show you guys this thing and it's going to do this for you and make sure they understand how important it is I think it's good that you say what the benefit it will be if you listen to this yes the benefit will be this it kind of gives people another reason to listen yeah so it's like a bold beginning a bold beginning could be a oneliner it could be a story you know if you're good you can get good at storytelling that's amazing like I noticed um Irwin who's really good at this he was just on your podcast like he spoke at our event I've seen him speak a few times he starts with an amazing story every talk like you know that's the beginning he doesn't in himself first word out of his mouth is like setting up the story Y and then it captures you in and it always comes back around to his talk so like obviously you don't want to tell a story that's completely unrelated you want to be able to close that Circle yeah so starting with the story or bold beginning then letting people know what you're going to be teaching them today and how it benefits them so that they pay attention um I do this a lot I don't know if you noticed I'll ask for call back from the audience like would that be interesting to you guys are you with me is this helping you guys and just try and get interaction because if you look at the learning pyramid lecture learning from a lecture is the hardest place to learn it's where people uh have the most trouble that's why we hate school you know it's just sitting getting lecture is probably the worst environment to learn isn't that crazy because it's like the environment gets the blame but it really goes down to the yeah but it the format gets to blame but the it really if if when the teacher is charismatic or when the teacher is good at teach you that's your favorite class it's still a lecture so that's why it really like it just really shows the power of communication 100% so that's the deck is stacked against you because the format is tough It's not like the demonstration learning together learning by doing those are way higher up on the learning pyramid but the worst part of the pyramid is like sitting in a lecture okay so deck stacked against you how do you make it good so then like you're grabbing people's attention you're telling them what's going to happen and then throughout the talk if you have story personal stories and you definitely have to do this by the end I found is you have to have tap into some emotion so like what's the struggle you're helping people overcome you know like maybe you overcame it and you could talk about that but talk about some sort of struggle so that the audience gets emotional so one of the things I talk about in my talks is like hey before we even get into this I want to show you my proudest uh my biggest achievement in life and I show a picture of my family and every time I I get a little emotional about it because I'm like you know this is why I do what I do and so I've had a period in my career where I wasn't putting my family first and I got kind of lost in chasing money and success and I almost lost my family and so like I talk about that people start crying in the audience because they're in that moment right now and you Sav them and it's like hey so I know this talk is about marketing but if you haven't been putting your family first and you haven't got this priority down like fix that first because I could give you all the tactics we could do all this crushing business you're just not going to be able to do anything if your home life is is not good so fix that first and then do this cool and then all of a sudden people are like oh my God right tapped in and that's a true St I'm not doing this as a tactic I'm just like being real and honest dude I like to say use human nature to your advantage yes this like we are moved by emotion and even if it's a funny story but like why be why make it difficult and just go against the grain no people want to be moved you're a good person you put your family first talk about it now for example if I was terrible family dude and I was like you know I'm about to get divor I wouldn't say that like it's got to be real but you got so I talk about that next thing is when I was going through it I was like man there's been times when I was so burnt out in this business and I would lose business to somebody else and it' be pissed me off because that person was less qualified than me um you know this person was you know this and I was like I wasn't getting the respect I thought I deserved but I figured out you know the it's not about what you know it's about who knows you like how are you known and that's when things changed for me so that's another moment for somebody in the audience of like yeah you know like I'm in that moment right now and so you want to like talk about your journey and maybe tap into that emotion because that's what's you're you're speaking to the former you you're trying to help the former you if you've if you've had a transformation so I would say like my biggest asset in marketing has been my own personal transformation like I'm I but I have made and I can help you do the same and then people see that and so into tion was one thing and then so when you do this U and everybody's comfortable in the room if you start really well they're just comfortable to laugh at your jokes to ask questions you've asked for interaction throughout the talk it's just a way more comfortable room so they make your talk becomes super memorable yeah people remember you and then if you are going to offer something at the end of your talk like a chance to join your program or buy something from your product um they're just way more likely to take action and and work with you so that's the part like I had done this talk went really well it's no coincidence that I had a really high closing rate at the end a lot of people joined my program like because the talk was good you know dude it's everything about that is just it's the principles apply in so many different sectors and you know uh I I was taught that you're when you're the one teaching it's your job to essentially teach people what it's like to learn from you yeah so like you know when I teach you know you do talk back you know like some people it's oneway communication and um it's it's just some insight but you know no one no one's teaching you how to learn yeah so when you become the person on stage like number one the stage provider provides its level of there's already a level of perceived Prestige I guess you could say but when you let people know that when when I talk you know you talk back not not in a mean way but just like do you guys want to level up in life say yes you know you're you're you're you're teaching them how to learn from you which is building their kind of like trust too like because it's like dang I like the way this I like the way I learn when this guy is teaching yeah but just taking being in it it really comes down to intentionality and again using human nature um like telling people to take down the notes you know like when you say like hey when you write it down it sticks with you and and even tell them what to write down and tell them what to respond this is something you should screenshot yeah raise your hand if you've ever done this and you raise your hand and people raise their hand right and then um this is I would definitely write this one down or screenshot it and then people do it you know and then they start to like you start to get in this kind of like connection with the audience and so uh this is easier live it's tougher on Zoom I noticed like people so on Zoom the way I do it on webinar is like let me know in the chat if this is helping you guys let me know in the chat yep um and in the beginning making sure you get people talking in the chat in the zoom so like where you guys all from drop it in the chat um you know and getting people so some somebody told me this recently I had a webinar on uh that I did on zoom and we had like 800 people there and one of the guys he always comes to all my webinars even though like some of the stuff is like repeated he's always there I'm like bro why do you coming he's like I come for the chat and he's in the chat there was people like making jokes talking and that's the vibe you want like if you ever been on a one where nobody says anything all the screens are off the camera's off the Chat is dead that webinar is dead yeah like nobody's I mean people may be passively listening but they're probably doing something else it's funny how you say that there's like a phrase you know in the church it's called a quiet church is a dead Church yes and it's kind of like the same concept same thing bro like you know I was I got to check out your guys church here in Vegas people are always talking back the dudes around me are like they're saying something even it's not it's not rude to say something right and they're cheering and they're laughing and they're crying and like that's that's that's when you know like in the right room right so that can be done virtually as well that's really good it's important on on Zoom dude so many gems like so you're putting out content at what point did you feel did you start doing like one-on-one calls and you realize that like people are asking the same question I need to put together a program like how did you formulate what I was like I got to come up with my offer like what is it going to be and so uh I was I again you said you reached out to people in your network that's what I did I was like man I'm really good at this I'm not good at this business I don't know anything about it uh so I connected with Billy Jean who is good at that right and he was like let's come up with a program that you could offer your audience where you could help them with content and so we called my first offer was Neil's content day and and we would bring 10 people into my office and we had my I would bring all my media team in so video photo speech coach um you know all the consultant all the stuff that would help someone get through this and we just made like a micr version of kind of what I did what I went through and get them through this whole process and so I would bring 10 people in and so I was shocked like when you first did that how did you know how much to charge and like what did you like I don't know it's just usually the first time out the gate like how did you justify what the price point was yeah I was like how am I going to do this um what am I going to charge is anybody going to buy it you know like you're wondering am I even good enough to do this but like I said if you've gone from A to B you can show people and so I was like like legit what did you charge for it this time around so so I I asked Billy I was like what should it be charged he's like 5K sounds good okay and I was thinking that's a lot of money to ask somebody for 5K are you kidding me um but he's like no Neil look at this here's the deliverables how much would it cost you to get these deliverables I'm like you could probably spend you know several thousand dollars well what if an expert walked you through it okay that's worth something too Neil what if uh the person telling you is someone who's actually like in the space that you're in and can tell you exactly how to do it would that be worth something to you like yeah then he's tell me how many times vendors did you go through before you got it right a lot how much money did you waste how much time did you waste a lot shout out to Billy 5K is cheap yeah you just made it from expensive to cheap cool dude it's cheap yeah like cuz I had you know how many times you hire the wrong guy and it's a waste right like you know how many times somebody give you advice that works in e-commerce but doesn't work in real estate like what if it was exactly what you needed and we would save you time and money and by the way it's going to be fun and you're going to meet some cool people so there's all this like icing on the cake now I'm like okay I got you this is cheap like cool I'm G to make the offer so I put the offer out on Instagram organically on like Instagram stories and sold it in like two three days 10 people $50,000 in a few days on Instagram stories and I was the worst at pitching I felt so uncomfortable but what I found out is uh you've provided enough value people see that you're doing the thing that they want they're waiting for the opportunity they're waiting for the opportunity to work with you y they're just waiting for it so uh that was great and then I got to continue doing that over and over now when I say 50,000 doesn't mean you net 50,000 but still that's the gross probably you know uh it could be 40% of that could be Profit just depending on how you structure it um and you know I didn't care about necessary like you said I had my main business so I didn't care that this business was going to make a lot of money I just wanted to get it going yep so I started doing that then after a while there was a ton of people who I noticed the way we would do this is people would reach out we decide if they're a good fit like I would do a call with them and I personally did all the calls so I talked to way more than 10 people because a lot of people wasn't a good fit I talked to each person and then if it was a good fit both them and for us we would go forward and they would pay I talked to a ton of people who didn't want to travel out to to the studio so like it was always in the back of mind I'm talking to all these people who don't want to come out what if there was a program where we taught online so I was like I like courses but the thing I don't like about courses is they become old like the information becomes outdated and what if you need some advice along the way so courses are commoditized once you buy the information it just drops in value and there's so many free courses there so much free information that like it's on its own of course I don't think is that valuable um there are certain ones that are but for the most part it's very tough yeah so I was like what can what is not commoditized what is not uh just another course coach course plus coaching y so what if I add in calls what if there's a community aspect to it and you're part of a community where you can get uh meet people and do business together so I made a a program online Neil's content accelerator which is like a course plus coaching plus Community calls and then also as part of that uh the course updates so we provide like new scripts and new content because the uh social as you know social is always changing right like what we're teaching now is totally different than six months ago right so anyways like that program ended up blowing up and we have thousands of students now so cool and I'll put a link to it down in the description or in the show notes but yeah you um it's called forward it's the brand that you like landed on yeah like what made you land on calling it forward so I was literally just sitting uh with Trevor at the office one day and I was like I'm gonna put on a event like so I've been doing micro classes for people in real estate mortgage and then I was like I'm going to do an actual bigger event where I'm going to hire speakers come in and we're going to do it like kind of uh get a 100 people it's going to be amazing so what are we going to call it like it can't just be Neil's event like it's got to be something so I started to look at like you know um what am I trying to do with people and kind of one of the one of the ideas was I really want to move people forward like they're stuck I want to move them forward just simple and turns out I was looking at domains on GoDaddy and forward event ev.com was available fire.com like normally it's not available like so I just typed it in and just bought it right then that domain so then um that was like the basis forward event forward Mastermind forward content whatever like so that's just the main brand yeah and uh ended up getting a trademark for some of it some of it I'm still in the pending process of getting but like yeah I just accidentally bought the domain and then that just became the brand dude I love that I love that you just how much people are waiting for their logo or waiting for the perfect name and you just called things as they were now it's Neil's content day bro just come through like it's Neil's content accelerator if you're trying to get the domain design the logo build the site do all the you're just putting off the thing right so what I found is like uh new entrepreneurs and this wasn't like my first rodeo because i' had been in business but new entrepreneurs are focused on all these things the website the domain the design everything being dialed in the social content everything seasoned Entre rurs are focused on one thing getting customers like that's all I wanted it was like if I can get 10 people to come this is a real program yeah there was no website bro like it was a janky onepage like free god daddy site it's embarrassing like I didn't even have a CRM for this like so I think it's just a what is it avoidance of the thing you're just kicking the can down the road like subconsciously you're just delaying what you should be doing yeah and nobody cares about the website because you don't have any traffic you know what I mean like it's same thing like with content you start putting out videos they suck good news nobody watches it so you're good bro like you don't have to worry like oh what are they gonna say nobody saw it so you're good dude love it and um so you've been doing this program it's kind of like the I would say your your core offer is now this you know NCA yeah so we did NCA which is like content group online I was doing the content workshops I started to do less of those because of how much Labor's involved and the cost can quickly get out of control with the person events so you don't really make as much but I love the impact of in person so getting those people in the room but once you pay for feeding everybody and hotels and staff and all that like the margin goes down so it's not the most profitable business but I noticed I've made lifelong connections with people in person so I love doing that online just scales like so that's where money's at obviously if you want to scale a business you got to do it online so I have both those offerings I don't do the iners one as much then um I decided to do the event we did the first one in 2021 uh we had 100 or 75 people it was like a kind of exclusive because during Co you couldn't do big events so my buddy Brad Lee uh who I met through social he offered a program one day on social on his Instagram and I just bought it so then I became his friend by just paying them 10 grand basically like a lot of people ask how do you connect with you know uh big people big entrepreneurs or influencers just by their program dude so good it's it's like the easiest thing they just pay them right and it's not that they only talk to people who pay them it's they're just busy and they talk to their customers right if you're a customer or supporter of their programs even if it's a lower ticket you probably can get them on the phone or get them to talk to you right so buy their stuff anyways I bought stuff he becomes a friend of mine and then he has this training facility in here in Vegas so I got to host my first event there CU you couldn't host events so we did it kind of illegal underground whatever uh so we did the event there and then the next year I'm like I'm going to go big how big well we're going to like get a big venue and try and sell you know a thousand tickets or whatever it was I think 700 tickets to this event and so we ended up moving doing it at Resorts World for 2022 and uh it was really difficult that's crazy that was your second time yeah that was the second me and Heather went yeah and that did not feel like a second Year's Event yeah so that I just l l luckily had a network of people who had been doing events and I just asked them for help that's good like just reach out to people ask and most entrepreneurs are willing to help you like in my experience a lot of people in my network have been willing to help yep because then it becomes like a mutual thing you can help each other yeah so uh a guy in my network Cole Hatter who how do I meet him I bought his Mastermind right how do I meet this person I met him in a mastermind that I paid like all these people I ended up paying for proximity or access and then not just going and being passive like connecting with people while I'm there like go talk to people go do this so anyways he had been doing events for years I ask hey can you jump on a call with me I'm thinking about doing a 700 person event could you jump on a call and just like you said earlier like I was able to give you some some valuable information in 10 minutes on that call we were on the phone 30 minutes he probably saved me a lot of money and headache cuz he's like do this don't do this do this do this and I was like oh dang I was going to go totally different direction I'm glad I talked to you he's like yeah bro reach out you know if you need help so then I learned how to do the event and so uh I didn't do it perfect but definitely was able to like do it and avoid a lot of mistakes he connected me with like event planners and things like that so we did did that first event um the hardest part for me though is like I thought if you just sign up all these big speakers people will just come and so you build it they will come I find out nobody comes like people don't travel to events you have to like give them a reason good and uh unless you're a big influencer so I had a relatively like small audience I would post about it a few people would buy tickets so I'm like holy I've just paid out Gary money to Gary ve all these big speakers and uh and what were you like all in on 2022 so what happens is uh you have a budget it gets blown you know it's like remodeling your home you should just double whatever you think it's going to cost at least so I was like I'm going to spend 200 Grand it ended up costing me half a million dollars okay after all a said and done because every Bill comes in more you know and if you want to feed people it's ridiculous like just the hotels you know how it is so getting the venue the AV team you know AV can cost you 50 to 100K if you want to do it correctly so all these costs just keep Rising I'm on the hook for all this so I'm like I'm writing the checks but I've only sold like $70,000 in tickets yeah and those are the first biggest supporters like your true fans like whatever that was for me they say you have a thousand true fans apparently I didn't cuz they weren't willing to buy the ticket so I was like dude they weren't buying the tickets all of a sudden um I flipped the script and uh Pan actually taught me this so I again I reached out to P how did I meet pan I bought a coaching call with him like he was offering at the time a couple thousands you could like do a coaching call he was you know doing better on YouTube than me and like all these things I was like let me just meet this dude yeah and the thing I said he's like what are you working on right now I'm trying to launch an event he's like how are you closing tickets he's like I send them to this page he's like stop doing that you're wasting your time nobody's buying get them in your DMs like ask them to DM you and then now you can follow up and so what he told me and what my mentors told me is like people kick the can down the road with buying a ticket to an event it's not that they don't want to go it's just that why should I get the ticket now yeah the event is 3 months from now yeah but for you you're in a position because you're like I need to sell tickets now to pay yeah because I need to like make this thing real I can't wait till the end it's too risky so what happens is people kick the can down the road and then they don't go they it's not that they don't want to go so you got to move them to action so how do you do that you know he's like well get them to DM you uh get them on the phone and actually close the sales and then also you should be hitting up people and personally inviting them so I would reach out to you on Instagram hey Omar would love to have you at this event so what I did was for the like two Monon period I just sent DMS every day like I I couldn't sleep without getting more people to get tickets so I just got became obsessed with filling that room I must have sent thousands of personal DMS not like spamming like some Mass many Chat thing I actually sent voice memos hey John hey Susan like hey would really love to be there there uh really love you be there there's actually your friend so and so is going to be there too and I think you should be there because of this and uh let me know if you're interested and I can hook you up and then I would they would let me know they're interested and then I would close yeah so don't just send them a link and hope that they buy like ask them invite them ask them if they're interested if they say yes then close the sale so I did this over and over and over I love it and it and it's like it's not hard work but it is work it's work like you you still you still have to put it in but when it was like and then when it's all said and done it looked like you just put it out there and it filled up like no dude you were freaking going in yeah 100% so I spent I didn't run ads because when I ran the ad to it nobody would buy the ticket you would just get traffic so you get a bunch of optins but not much sales so uh I figured out that you got to like actually close the loop there are people who would just buy off off a post but um if you if you if that's not enough to fill your event you got to just go outbound and then start getting PE conversations going so I did that uh a lot for 2022 next the following year uh 2023 which just happened in this past July we did a thousand people and uh it was still difficult to sell because events are just hard you know it's not easy but it was a lot easier because I finally have brand so like you know everyone's like you just wait till you have the power of brand I'm like I don't know what that means because I haven't seen it yet yeah 21 first one 22 and then all the content all the posting everything finally 23 people are like oh I recognize forward it's like that they put on good events yeah I've seen that before and it's associated with quality so like what's the feeling your brand evokes in the person now that makes sales so much easier so when I would post about it more people would buy I did I did a lot of outbound but I didn't have to do as much so I'm hoping like that continues next year maybe a little bit less pain yeah and just continue that's so good branding makes uh what did you just say something easier selling yeah or anything branding makes selling easier because they just have a feeling about you I don't have to prove myself yeah your event is good like I don't have to tell you why it's going to be good you just know it's good I think what's crazy though is like as a guy who's like been churched and I've put on conferences and like really like really cool awesome events dude you understand uh you understand like room atmosphere Vibes kind of going back to what you talked about with emotion because that stuff all moves people like where did you learn all this stuff dude so I was uh going to events that are all bad so you know not bad meaning like the speaking of the content was bad but just those things but you noticed it I think some people like go to a bad event and they're like bro that was the greatest event of all time that's the problem I noticed like I'm like why is it quiet it's just awkward there's no music you know how much it cost to put music on not much um why is it bright light in here like right now like there's no vibe in the room um why is there's the transitions are just janky and so there's just little things that like catch your eye and I had the benefit of like other people who put on events telling me hey make sure you do this and once you see it now you can't unsee it you know so I would learn these things I'm like okay I don't want to be embarrassed like I want to do it right and then I also noticed that um the audience's ability to receive the information have a memorable experience and create a transformation is is based on how they feel if you can like do a few things to make them feel better much more likely for them to remember what they learned there and possi take action on it so my whole goal with the event is like to change someone's life right I don't I'm not doing the event for the heck of it like I'm trying to make an impact good and so if I'm going to make an impact we just going be you said earlier be intentional how do you want people to feel okay well you can do things to make them feel better y like how do you welcome them like what are we doing so uh it's as simple as like I have a small team but like meeting together and letting them know like hey people flew across the country to be with us today like they spent time and money and uh their lives could be changed sounds cheesy but it's true they tell me afterwards every time and so I can't do this alone you guys are part of the journey for them you don't understand how every smile counts every interaction counts because they feel better you ever have like one bad interaction with a staff member ruins your whole experience y That's it like somebody was rude to you at the check-in counter like it just sucks like so everybody's on board with this experience like the client experience is so important so uh we started doing that and then uh do brief afterwards asking like where could we get better what worked what didn't work so then the next one's better and just so on and so forth yeah dude so cool and I just I love how you honestly attract really good people like just the people that work for you the your contractor you know help that you have they're they're always just so aligned with kind of like who you are and just an observation I've had literally even when you're not not in the room and people are talking about you whether it's to me or I hear about it or what this guy is doing it dude it's that you like genuinely care about people and you genuinely care about the results you genuinely care about seeing them win and like it's so felt like arguably dude you have one of the best like when it comes to like brand and what people feel in regards to when they think about Neil dingra it's so it's so connected to that and I I don't know like where did that I mean I know you've been an entrepreneur for a while and maybe you understand that aspect or that tactical like thing to make customers you know actually win but like I don't know even more so I feel like there's a little bit more depth there like yeah I think it's like um what did somebody tell me your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room so like that's really cool to hear people say good things about you when you're not there because that's that's the game it's like people talking about your programs product service event everything your business and speaking about it that way that's your brand and so um obviously like everybody wants that but do they really care so I can't like coach you up on how to care about people you know either you do you don't but um like I did notice that you know people that I've connected with the most had that quality about them you know what I mean so I always wanted to do that with other people and then what I found it it sounds cheesy again but when somebody would um let me know how something I did impacted their life that was uh high sense the Fulfillment so you know I've made money doing transactions M and that gets it's cool like money is important whatever but it doesn't give you like fulfillment you know and it feels dumb saying that because there's people who are like dude I need money but it you'll find a point where it doesn't really change like maybe it changes when you get to like freaking $50 million or tens of millions but like if you make 100 Grand or you make 300 Grand or you make a million like it doesn't really like you wake up the next day you have to take your kid to school you got to like do the work it's not like you're on a private jet and you're just chilling so it's it's almost like the money is important but it's not like it becomes less important to you from a fulfillment standpoint so it's got to be something bigger and so I had this feeling I don't know if you've had this as well uh where I was meant to do something more than what I'm doing y so I'm doing a job I'm meant for more than this I'm feeling like punching the keys and getting people's deals done dude there's got to be something else man this is like it just burnt out it's just transaction so uh when I started teaching people and then they would give me that hey dude your video really helped me I was like that was like a that uh feeling becomes addictive yeah and so now you just want to help more people right and so uh I found out what got me super fired up about business making the experience better launching new programs and products is the feedback that you get from the customer and the client they're like that's just like you can't buy that you know what I mean so I got addicted to doing that and then it makes you want to get even more like dude how many more people can I impact yeah how much more videos how many more events can we do no and I I think there's like so much alignment there that's like you know how do you know you're in your purpose like you you you feel fulfilled you know and I I would even say god-given purpose is that there's actual provision connected to it too because God wouldn't want you to do a thing and like make zero and not be able to provide for your family no he's you know he would provide but it reminds me of like a scripture in Ecclesiastes it's in like the back of the Bible but it says God has woven uh eternity in our hearts yeah that like where our makeup there is a void that is we spend our entire lives trying to fill and that's why people go to the wrong things and they think the money will fill it or the the substance or even even the relationships like you know but like that void could truly only be filled if you are doing the thing God's called you to do and um and I don't know it's it's just yeah it's just cool cuz like even Pablo who like is your video guy we have a lot of conversations we have a lot of things in common and even his journey is kind of very similar to like my come up um but he he just yeah talks you know so highly of you and all the things that you got you guys are doing it's it's just really cool and I honestly dude you're you're literally like a year and a half two years ahead of me in regards to me figuring out what the freak I'm even doing yeah you know and um and it's cool to see that it's not that far off you know like you meet people who are 10 20 years ahead and realize like they're just I mean they're you put them on the pedestal but they're just people had courage to like go after it sure you know and some of them aren't even that bright yeah you know like they just have courage and they don't worry about what are people going to say and all these kinds of things they just do sometimes like less intelligence is actually better because you're not like second guessing yourself right so uh yeah I think like it's cool to see when you're just being yourself really helping people people around you notice that and then that becomes your ability to attract more quality people 100 because they're telling other people like dude you should work with this person and then when you need somebody new you can just ask and somebody in the network knows somebody and then they're talking great things so it's like a two-way street there like U recruiting and building a team I'm just early on that still but I found that like the better things you're doing more people want to be a part of it like people don't just want a job they want to be a part of something yep and so we have like staff will cry at the event and really Buy in and I was thinking this the other day I was like how is it that you can get people to work like you know during these big events that'll be like 12-hour days and they'll do it day after day after day and still be at the night thing excited and laughing and having fun and like if it was a regular job you'd be burnt out so early on like you wouldn't be able to do that you just can't put in that work why is it that you know when you're in uh video games like kids Gamers can stay up for two days without food like they eat a bag of Doritos bro and they'll be up for two days straight playing games like if you were in a lecture or something you'd fall asleep like you can't do that so it's like the energy they're getting from this whole thing is uh so important and the feeling that they have by helping other people so like tapping more people into that is been the key for me that's what I want to lean into yeah dude it's freaking fire like just to speak on it since we're here and you talk about you know the money doesn't fulfill uh bro you got a Lambo yeah is that uh is it hype or is it actually it's dope man it's pretty I love it so I got that in 2020 so I've always like liked nice cars I had like a G wagon or a freaking um Model X Tesla and just like always had nice cars but what I notic like I wanted to get an exotic car right but I thought what are people going to say you know like if you buy a Lambo or Ferrari or something like they're going to think you're who the do you think you are bro like you driving around in this so I was like didn't want to pull the trigger and my wife was actually telling me she's like Neil you work really hard if you want it just buy it I was like shout out to Whitney yeah there you go like all right fine like I got the green light and so during Co unintended yeah that's right so that during Co um car prices initially dropped a little bit so like the dealmaker and me was like dude I found a a Urus and uh I didn't get a loan like somebody the other day asked what's the payment on a Urus I'm like I don't know here's the title like I just bought it I don't know maybe it's a couple Grand I don't know but uh I just ended up um sending you know making a deal it's $2,000 car what's cool what I also learned about this is you know Lamborghinis can cost up to $400 $500,000 if you bought a two or $300,000 one nobody like you still get treated as if you bought the $500,000 one you know what I mean like they think it could be 400 Grand really it was two I think they're 300 now but so there's there's this moment bro where I was like I I uh agreed to buy it they sent me the paperwork and then I start to wire the money $200,000 for a vehicle but you just paid it for it yeah in full and so I was like I was sitting there with the instruction of the page and you just have to enter and I was like dude should I really send this money to buy a Lambo it's so like am I going to be that guy like it's so dumb but I really wanted it and I knew it was a dope car so I just like finally said enter send it it go now then the card comes and uh I've loved it ever since like I've had it for three years what's cool about it is it also has made me a ton of money because what's happened is it's just a conversation starter it's not fair but people treat you better you pull up in a Lambo people just treat you better they think you could be worth way more than you are I don't know why they think that cuz I could just be leasing it right so I don't think it's fair but I'll tell you what like so many people give me the time of day because of that right so I've leveraged it for sure no and I think there's the principle number one that like a lot of people think people are blowing their money on this stuff but like your car has a appreciated in value yeah like similar to you know the watch game people think that buying up watches is like this you know terrible way of investing your money but there's so many you know cool benefits from not only doing you know getting something that you worked hard for that part of it um getting something that either you know maintains its value or grows in its value but also yeah just helps you get treated better like you can have a golf membership and when you say you have a golf membership people think something about you but you could suck at golf yeah and it's not about being fake um I think it's just again human nature perception is reality so like the perceived value of a person who drives a Lamborghini you could be a POS like I'm not but like you could be but so what happens is it's up to you to blow that but if you already get a leg up on other things so you get uh the imitation people treat you better I remember pulling up to the club house where we live at in my community a guy I was trying to do business with for the past decade who always blew me off he came up and just started talking to me I'm like bro I've been trying to get a hold of you man you want to talk to me now so it like flips the script on everybody so uh that's an investment the other part is like I um I don't know like I if somebody was like dude I'm gonna I can't really afford it but I'm just going to like take it like take a leap of faith and do it I still would tell him like go for it you know because also putting some pressure on your shoulders makes you work harder so I could be in that position but for me I could have bought you know multiple in cash so to me it wasn't like a bad financial decision cuz I could afford it so I just bought it it's made me well more than what uh I paid for it and then also it's um it's gone up in value by accident I think like a lot of exotic things have appreciated over time because they're just rare right so it's to me it's like a place to park money yeah it's not really like a waste of money so good and I I mean it's kind of like why I'm trying to get on like the health tip because it's it you don't have to open up your mouth you just if you look like you're put together and that you take care of your it's immediate disp this guy this person's disciplined um this person cares about their health not then there just a small percentage of people when you start thinking this way that even what you teach in video department is like people treat you better if your videos look better right like what is the why do we spend so much time making it look good and and sound good because you get bigger impact so it's important for sure yeah dude thank thank you so much for hopping on the department yeah the lambo of podcast there the lambo of podcast hey that's that's pretty fire dude the Urus um and uh yeah and the equity's going up oh the other thing I should say for people is like dude I bought rentals and all these things before I bought that car like I didn't start with that like I had Investments and stuff like that so I think like get your priori straight if you don't own other Investments your first investment maybe shouldn't be freaking Lambo yeah know that's really good start with some I would I mean I guess I would ask ask you like you've made a lot of money in the in a very short amount of time what are you doing with those profits um to invest like yeah so I my game is like real estate so I bought we have a bunch of rental properties that's kind of like my retirement plan is just you know have all these properties and uh rents come in on them and that rent you can never outlive and it doesn't matter what's going on with the economy like people always need a place to live so you have quality real estate to me that just helps you sleep better at night and then other things like you know and you know um even right now because interest rates are high like treasury bonds we talked about like what do you do with just money that's just sitting around like put it into liquid things that pay you that don't have risk you know so just park some money there uh I don't really buy a bunch of we don't need but like we have a nice house you know like things that have an impact that helps my family things like that but Mo my biggest investment is is real estate for sure we own a bunch of property that's really good and then as far as like a mistake have you made a a big Financial mistake ever in your life yeah like uh thinking short term so one of the things I fell into and and uh maybe people can relate to this is like trying to get a quick return you know like long-term investing is where it's at like it's almost boring but that's where you need to do like you should take your risks in business not with the money you worked so hard for in business and now you put it into something that could go to zero you know so I learned um about investing and I got I learned about all these um Trading short-term trading opportunities like stocks and options but not to hold for longterm but just like get a quick profit and go quickly turns into gambling essentially you know because you're trying to get that quick return and so I ended up losing like hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that was like you know just dumb yeah so it just taught me like hey where do I want to put my time like not in that you know I should put my time and risk in business then when you make money take the risk off like put into just something for the long term all gamble on the event like I don't need to be gambling with the money I made you know from freaking working all day you know what I mean like let's do something else so uh there's time for risk and not so that's what I learned from that whole thing dude so good if you want to check out NCA Neil's content accelerator check out the link in the show notes do it appreciate you I appreciate your friendship and even all the things you have spoken into my entrepreneurial journey and I'm just excited for our future 100% thanks for having me bro
