EFP 107: Yep, You’re a Wantrepreneur (Here’s How to Fix That)

If you’ve ever found yourself doing things like making lots of plans but not getting it done, looking for approval for your idea, or complaining about how easy things were in the “good old days”… you might be a wantrepreneur!

Talking’s easy, but how many people actually walk the walk?

6 Different Types of Wantrepreneurs & Transitioning Into Actual Entrepreneurship

Today, Joe and I talk about six different types of wantrepreneurs and discuss solutions to transition into actual entrepreneurship.

Be honest with yourself. Are you a wantreprenreur? Give this episode a listen.

Check Out This Week’s Episode Here:

 Direct Download – Right Click, Save As

Topics Discussed This Week Include:

• Working backwards from what success would be and planning action steps.
• Dreamers who don’t ever get things done.
• Validation and permission seekers.
• Romanticizing entrepreneurship without acknowledging realism.
• Holding onto ideas that doesn’t do much good.
• Comparing the present to the past and missing opportunities.

Mentions:

• 10 Differences Between Real Entrepreneurs and ‘Wantrepreneurs’
• Featured Listing: Beauty & Cosmetics Bundle Affiliate Sites Making $2.65K/Month
• Empire Flippers’ Marketplace
• Contact Marketplace Manager Mike
• Abroaders Travel Hacking
• Dan Andrews’ TropicalMBA
• TMBA 256: Making Sense of Awards Points and Business Class Upgrades
• VWO Empire Flippers Case Study
• Dom’s HumanProofDesigns.com
• Empire Flippers Twitter
• Leave an Empire Flippers Podcast iTunes Review

Spread The Love:

“It’s cool to dream big but you have to take action.” – Justin

“It’s your failures that will make you successful.” – Joe

“Stop going with the flow, get used to being uncomfortable.” – Justin

Do you fit into any of the wantrepreneur profiles? What’s holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur? Leave a message on SpeakPipe or share your story in the comments.

 

Justin:                   Welcome to the Empire podcast, episode 107.

If you’ve ever found yourself doing things like making lots of plans but not getting them done, looking for approval for your idea, or complaining about easy things where in the good old days, you might be a wantrepreneur. We got you covered. This episode covers seven signs of wantrepreneurship, and how to turn it around. You can find this episode at empireflippers.com/wantrepreneur.

Alright, let’s do this.

Speaker 2:           Ha!

Speaker 3:           Welcome to the Empire Flippers podcast. Are you sick and tired of gurus who have plenty of ideas, but are short on substance? Worried that E-book you bought for $17.95 won’t bring you the personal and financial freedom you long for? Hey, you’re not alone! Join thousands of others in their pursuit of niche profits, without the bullshit, straight from your hosts, Justin and Joe from Empire Flippers.

Justin:                   To hell with Empire Flippers, Joe. I got a new plan, brotha. We’re gonna take the best pieces of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and we’re gonna make ’em better.

Joe:                        Oh my God, I want to punch you right now.

Justin:                   Yeah buddy. Well, here’s the best part: I came up with this awesome idea, you’re gonna go and outsource this shit for me, you’re gonna make it happen, we’re gonna partner on this deal. How’s that sound, man? Is this rock or what?

Joe:                        Nope.

Justin:                   Fired up, buddy? Fired up? We’re gonna make Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, it’s gonna be … We’re gonna have a blast. Now I have this awesome idea, go do it, Joe, and we’re gonna make billions of dollars.

No. Not gonna happen, man.

This is probably an aggressive example of, you know, some wantrepreneurs, this is some of the things they come up with. But, I mean, we do hear things like this, and, you know, sometimes we roll our eyes or, you know, just like, “Oh, God man. Poor guy. No, we gotta … No.” I mean, but you don’t want to crush their dreams either. It is cool to dream big, right? But you have to take action. So, sometimes these guys are saying things like this, and then, you know, two months later they’re, “Well, it’s not Facebook. I dumped that idea, now it’s just Instagram and Twitter.” Like, okay man, all right.

Joe:                        Yeah, I think the key thing is act first. Acting first allows you to have something to talk about, but if you don’t act at all, and then you talk, that’s when you’re gonna run into problems.

Justin:                   So talking to lots of entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs, today we’re gonna look at some of the signs and basically how to get past them. And you might notice some of these signs in you. To be perfectly honest and clear, Joe and I have been guilty of a few of these in the past too.

Joe:                        Have we ever.

Justin:                   And it probably … We’ll probably be guilty of it again, but we’re actively battling against these, and I think we’ve gotten a lot better. So we’ll talk about that in a bit. Let’s talk about a wantrepreneur really quick. I mean, this is someone who, you know, thinks, dreams, aspires to be an entrepreneur, but they actually never make it happen.

Joe:                        Or … Or just always has excuses, right?

Justin:                   Yeah, always has excuses. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of profiles we’re actually gonna cover.

Joe:                        We have cute little names for them, too.

Justin:                   We have cute little names for them. When I was researching this, I actually came across some great quotes from neckshark.com, on wantrepreneurship from Zimbala. So I thought it’s be interesting to include those as well. I think the real problem with wantrepreneurship is that it’s, you know, starting a cycle of failed dreams, right? So, people have these amazing things they want to do, and they’re gonna get this done, and they keep failing at it over and over and over again, and … And, you know, that could just … I think you can hurt your self-worth, when you’re … You have these dreams, and you aspire to them, and you never actually do it, then almost any goal seems, I think, a bit unattainable.

Joe:                        Yeah, hurting your reputation, self-worth, I think those are the ones that really stick out to me as particularly bad for the wantrepreneur.

Justin:                   There’s something too, about not sticking to your word, and I think in business, like, your word’s really important, right? And you gotta be really careful with that and protect that, and as a wantrepreneur, you’re constantly kind of breaking your word, right? And maybe just to yourself, or to others, but I think that becomes problematic too, and you want to be … Maybe it’s just some old-school business guy in me, but, you know, my word is oak, right? And, you know, it should be as oak as possible, and I think a wantrepreneur could work on that as well.

Anyway, we’re gonna cover some of these. But before we get into this episode, we’ve got Hot Money’s featured website listing of the week. What you got buddy?

Joe:                        We got a package this week. It’s a beauty and cosmetics bundle affiliate sites making 2.65k a month. A little bit more than two and a half grand. There … Like I said, in the beauty and cosmetics niche, really nice sites, almost completely passive, they use individual affiliate programs. They use a bunch of individual affiliate programs. So the previous owners, who we actually know and personally met, you hung out with them in Chiang Mai-

Justin:                   I’m going to actually, I haven’t met them, no.

Joe:                        Oh, you didn’t [crosstalk 00:04:47]?

Justin:                   No, we just talked online a bit, but …

Joe:                        Okay.

Justin:                   Really cool, love ’em.

Joe:                        But we will see them in Chiang Mai when we do the workshop. I talked to one of the owners on the phone for quite a while during the vetting process, and she walked me through all the numbers. They really have everything laid out in intricate detail, and you know how much I love that from a seller, ’cause it makes it so much easier for buyers to follow what’s going on. But they’ve done a great thing in terms of optimizing the revenue, and going above and beyond Amazon and Assents, which they still use on some of the sites. But going in and finding individual affiliate programs, and they’re gonna get a better RPM in general for the traffic that they have.

Justin:                   Yeah, they’re actually pretty well known entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, not wantrepreneurs. But they’re well known entrepreneurs and we’ve got like a bunch of mutual friends. These sites were created in 2012. They make just over 3000 dollars a month, with about 450 dollars a month in expenses, so … Yeah, really excited to see someone pick this up, I think it’s a really good purchase, and glad to share that as our feature listing of the week.

Joe:                        Yeah, and we’ve used revenue expenses and net profit have been averaged over a seven month period, so I think we have some good data here for people to make a long-term decision on a passive bundle of a couple of sites.

Justin:                   All right man, enough about that. Let’s head into the heart of this week’s episode.

Speaker 3:           This is the Empire Flippers podcast.

Justin:                   So we’ve got seven signs of being a wantrepreneur. The first one we’re gonna talk about is the Planning Guy, Joe. And this is a guy that has a bunch of irons in the fire, you know, they’re hustling, they’re doing this, doing that, they always say they’re busy. You know, they’ve got a ton of things going on. Oftentimes though, they’re actually putting up a front, right? They say they’re working, but they’re really just scrambling. And sometimes I think they’re actually … they’re faking it. Right, so they know that they’re not actually getting some real work done. Other times, they actually think that they are, right? So they’re focused on planning this out, and planning that out, they’ve got SOPs for processes they don’t even have implemented.

Joe:                        Yeah. I think the key here is they’re scrambling, they’re just not scrambling on work, right? It’s scrambling to investigate the work that they’re going to do in the future.

Justin:                   Yeah, see … yeah. These are the guys that are totally not focused, and they never actually complete the projects that they start, or their businesses, and they’ve got a ton of excuses for why it didn’t happen.

Joe:                        Oh, and that’s the worst one, right? They just never complete it.

Justin:                   So, yeah-

Joe:                        It’s every, every week is a new idea.

Justin:                   Two months later, you know, they’re working on something else, they completely forget about what it was, and if you bring it up, oh my God, “Blah blah blah blah blah. But this new thing though is awesome.” And I think this is worse than shiny object syndrome. I think shiny object syndrome is when you’re actually working and building on a business, and you take detours, right? You get detoured from the main objective. But I think this is much worse, ’cause this is like basically just bouncing around from major projects that are totally unrelated. So the-

Joe:                        I agree with you there, though. It’s definitely a lot worse than that. Because at least with shiny new object syndrome, you like, you play around with a new gadget or you investigate the new piece of software-

Justin:                   It’s distracting, but it’s not-

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   … Ruining your business. It’s like you don’t have a business. You just have to bring it back, right?

Got a great quote here, from Walt Disney. It says, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Joe:                        And that guy got a lot of stuff done, so.

Justin:                   He did get a lot of stuff done. I think the problem for the Planning Guy, is potentially regret, right? So the Planning Guy, ten years down the road, is never gonna know what could have been. What he could have done with all the plans, had he stuck to something and actually completed it, had he actually shipped.

Joe:                        Yeah, no entrepreneur’s gonna take this person seriously because of that, right? I mean, it’s gonna be really hard for him to connect with other entrepreneurs, with thought leaders in his industry, because he just never completes anything.

Justin:                   Joe, do you want to do business with a guy … A guy comes to you, he’s got this plan. And you know him to be the guy that always has plans, and like, you know, has an idea, and then-

Joe:                        No way.

Justin:                   … Three months later, quits it? No way, right?

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   I don’t have [crosstalk 00:08:46] for that guy.

Joe:                        And that’s probably the worst thing, is ’cause once that reputation is damaged like that, I’m not sure how you recover.

Justin:                   To be fair, so let me … It sounds like I’m beating up on the Planning Guy. I’ve been the Planning Guy in the past, and this has been me, so I’ve done things like this, maybe not to the extent that we’re laying it out. Not quite that bad, but … Yeah, so I mean I’ve done some of this too. I think, you know, what I found is solutions. One of the things to do, is first off, just no more 30% finished projects, 50% finished projects, 80% … You gotta get it done. You gotta take it all the way.

The next thing you can do, is just stop telling other people what you’re up to, right? Stop sharing it with everyone. I forget who talked about it, it was Derek Sivers, and we talked about, you know, stop telling people what you’re doing. Because you get some kind of … There’s like some psychological benefit you get by saying you’re gonna work on it. And then you can kind of breathe a sigh of relief and say, “Okay. Now that’s good. Now let’s move on to the next thing.”

Joe:                        Yeah, I love this tip. This is probably my favorite one here, as a possible solution. Because really, if you’ve damaged your reputation this way, it’s probably the only way to recover, is that, you go into that stealth mode, you get done what you can get done, and you can’t talk about it until it’s done, then finally people will see you in a new light.

Justin:                   Yeah, stealth mode, you got a reason not to tell people, right? I mean, look, you know, it’s hush hush, or whatever, they might think you’re a little odd, but really, it’s just a trick you’re playing with yourself to fix that problem. One thing we do, is we … When we do our quarterly strategy sessions because I think we’re a little behind … We’re doing one tomorrow, it’s just-

Joe:                        Gotta do it. Gotta do it.

Justin:                   So … But what we do is we work backwards from what we believe success would look like to us. So we take, you know, we take this, you know, this crazy three year plan, and we say, “Oh, this would be awesome. Now how do we get there?” So what does that look like in the second year? What does in look like over the next eighteen months, twelve months, and then we break it down quarterly to actual … Like an action plan that we can follow to hopefully get us there. Now that changes, it does deviate a bit, but we’ve still got the goal is pretty close, they’re pretty similar. It’s just the path that changes a little bit, right, to get there.

Another thing I think that you can do if you’re the Planning Guy, and you find yourself in this position, is just get something done every single day. Do something that’s working towards your goal, and make sure that you actually finish those projects.

Joe:                        This is one of my overriding principles. I still go by this. Just get something done every single day. I mean, this is how you stop procrastinating, is you just make a little to-do list every night, and as long as you’ve checked off one thing, you should be moving a little bit forward towards that goal.

Justin:                   All right, the second person we’re gonna talk about is the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Guy. And this is not the person that’s just taking too much time on Instagram, or Twitter. This is the guy that says, “I’m gonna build, you know, the best parts of Facebook. I’m gonna mix that in with Instagram, and it’s gonna be kinda like Twitter, and it’s gonna be social, it’s gonna be all this, all that.” And they don’t actually ever do anything with it.

Joe:                        Yeah, it’s funny, ’cause we used to see these guys in the outsourcing game all the time, right? They would call us up and say, “I have this great idea! You should do this, you should do that. But I don’t have any money for … to implement it-”

Justin:                   Yeah.

Joe:                        “… And I want you guys to do it for me.”

Justin:                   Yes. These guys like to talk big. I think the problem is that they’re focused on, you know, the money. Right, they’re looking at the money. “Oh, these billion dollar companies, I want a piece of that.” Or they want to be famous, maybe, they’re like, “Oh, I want to be Mark Zuckerberg. I want to be that guy. I want to have that control, that power, that fame.” But they’re not actually focusing on like, solving a real problem, right? I mean, they’re not fixing anything.

The quote for this one is, and I like this one, “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions, your passions choose you.” From Jeff Bezos from Amazon. And I like that because the people that create Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, they are deeply believing in it, right? It’s not like they just kind of want to build this kind of mixture of blah blah blah. No. They have this like, deep passion where they’re absolutely gonna get this done.

The problem for this Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Guy is that others are gonna think you’re a dreamer, right? You’re pie in the sky, head in the clouds, you never actually bring in deals or business, you just don’t get shit done.

Joe:                        Yeah, I see him and the Planning Guy having really bad meetings together.

Justin:                   Oh my God, right? Not good.

Joe:                        Yeah. Yeah, the Idea Guy and the Planning Guy, they sit there and they get all this stuff worked out, and they just never get anything implemented.

Justin:                   So the solution, I think, is to start looking at your batting average and ignoring your slugging percentage. So, you want to start swinging for the singles. You know, this person is like just swinging for the fences every time and striking out. Right? Get a couple singles, doubles under your belt.

Joe:                        Yeah, I-

Justin:                   Take a walk, man, whatever.

Joe:                        Our international listeners are probably so confused by our baseball analogy.

Justin:                   Baseball, yes.

But basically, you know, we want you to get a couple of small wins under your belt, and get a track record of success. So they don’t have to be major, but once you’ve proven that you’re the kind of guy that can get things done, and get these little wins, you’re gonna start, you know … Say, when you start swinging for the fences, when you start going for these bigger wins, [inaudible 00:13:58] “Okay. This guy might be legit. I mean, he actually got these things done, got a couple of wins. I think he might be on to something.”

Joe:                        Yeah, and I think he can use those lesson learned, and when getting the small wins in, when you’re swinging for the fences.

Justin:                   Yeah-

Joe:                        So that’s really gonna be very helpful. And all the connections you’ve earned, and all the reputation you’ve built up. So-

Justin:                   If you’re in a start-up world, I mean, once you’ve got a couple of wins, it’ll be easier to get funding, it’s easier to find partners-

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   … You’re gonna be taken seriously … And so, let me just add this caveat too. The next Facebook guy, the guy [inaudible 00:14:29] to create the next company like Facebook, probably isn’t gonna listen to our advice here anyway. They’re gonna go do it anyway, they’re gonna go build something just ridiculously amazing in the next four, ten, twenty years. They’re not gonna care what we’re saying. But if this, and all of this person, struck a chord with you, and you’re like, “Ooh, yeah, I do that a little bit.” Yeah, we’re probably talking to you. Joe’s laughing at me, but it’s true, right?

Joe:                        I’m just thinking about the next guy pining away, listening to this podcast going, “Screw those guys!”

Justin:                   “You son of a bitch! Done. Not listening to this podcast anymore, you jerks.”

The third guy I want to talk about is the Approval Guy. So this is the person that wants to ask friends or family for validation, right? They’re going, you know, over dinner, they’re getting on the phone, “What do you think? Do you think this business idea has legs? Do you think I could-” And they’d rather just ask people, than actually get started doing anything. And they’re looking for permission from friends, from their mother, from their, you know, auntie, to see if they’re gonna give them permission so they can finally move forward.

Joe:                        Yeah, I think it’s a little more than just approval: it’s advice. They think that everyone older than them, or even a little bit more successful for them, is gonna have this dream advice for them, and going to be able to make their business instantly successful. What the approval guy doesn’t understand is that it’s your failures that are gonna make you successful. It’s all those attempts at starting to build, and failing, and using that experience, and using those connections, and using everything you’ve built before, to build this success.

Justin:                   I have this theory, and I think I mentioned this before, but it’s a lot easier for your friends or family if you’re planning on going on this wild, hare-brained idea of being an entrepreneur, and taking this path, or whatever. It’s a lot easier for friends, before you’ve done anything, to say, “Oh, I don’t think you should do it.” Right? To kind of go against making this wild change, because I’m legitimately worried for you, right? Because it is a wild change, and things may go south, or things may be crazy or whatever, and it’s the unknown. So it’s easier for them to tell you to stick to the known path, because what’s the downside? It’s not like you’re gonna be pining away for the next few years, “Oh, I should’ve done it.” You probably won’t. You’ll just kind of move on and do something else. And then they can be safe. But if they tell you, they give you advice, “Hey. You absolutely should go do that,” and it fails, they don’t want you blaming them.

Joe:                        Yeah, well, and I have to say, the 9-5 guy is probably never gonna say, “Go out and do it.” Not because of the reasoning that you’ve come up with, which is great reasoning-

Justin:                   Yeah yeah yeah.

Joe:                        … But just because he doesn’t want to be next to the successful dreamer. He doesn’t want to know, “Oh yeah, I knew the Facebook starter guy, but I didn’t quit my 9-5 and go join him.”

Justin:                   Aww, that sucks! Yeah, that’s an interesting cocktail party conversation. “Yeah, I didn’t do it. I should have.” Right, and feeling pretty bad about it.

Mark Cuban had something really interesting to say about this. He said, “What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.”

And I think the problem with the Approval Guy is that he’s setting himself up either to be discouraged by asking his friends and family, or he’s setting himself up for some false validation. Right? So he thinks, “Oh, because Aunt Grace and Uncle Larry said I should do it …” That’s validated, that’s a good business idea because they said, “Oh Johnny, I think you should do it, that’s a great idea.” And that’s not validating your idea.

Joe:                        So what are some solutions to this?

Justin:                   So, one of the things you can do is talk to potential customers, and not friends and family. So talk to the people that are actually using your product and service, and getting feedback from them on what they’re currently using, what they like about it, what they don’t like about it. And then you can start to develop a product or service that meets and beats what they’re currently using.

Joe:                        Yeah, I especially think this is very true in the B to B marketplace. Where you’re gonna have high ticket, high value items. Your grandmother’s gonna know nothing about like, SAS software you’re trying to sell a start-up, so …

Justin:                   Yeah, not helpful. So let’s just say for example though, that your potential customers are your friends and family. The product is for … Your perfect customer is your grandmother, right? What I think we can do is re-frame your question, so instead of asking your grandmother, “Should I start this business?”, ask your grandmother, “What are you currently using for this product? What kind of bath soap are you currently using. What do you like about it, what do you not?” I don’t know, you want to be in the soap manufacturing, whatever [crosstalk 00:18:59].

Joe:                        We got Grandma, and-

Justin:                   And bath soap! Uhhh … Sorry, buddy. But yeah, I mean, you start asking her about the product, what she likes, what she doesn’t like. And then you can start to make changes to it … I can’t get it out of my head now either. Jeez. The other thing you can do, if you find yourself as the Approval Guy, is just start breaking some rules, right? So, I read this … It was like the Four Hour Work Week or whatever, he was talking about like, walk around at a mall and just lay on the ground for like sixty seconds and then stand up. I mean, I think if you … Let’s say that you find yourself like you’re regularly seeking approval, and you kind of want to go with the flow. Stop going with the flow! Like, just test it out, like get used to being kind of uncomfortable.

Joe:                        You know, I’m just glad I don’t have this problem. ‘Cause I don’t want to be going to the mall, laying down and breaking rules, crazy [crosstalk 00:19:50]-

Justin:                   I think maybe you do need it, man [crosstalk 00:19:52]. No, no, I get ya. But yeah, I mean, I think that if you are constantly seeking approval, and you’re wanting to kind of go with the flow, maybe stop going with the flow. Swim upstream a little bit.

So the fourth guy I want to talk about is the Lazy Guy. Right, I think this actually relates to some of our lifestyle design friends. So these are the guys that want short work hours, they want the passive income, the magical unicorn, the work on the beach, right? And they have this romanticized version of entrepreneurship that doesn’t really include a whole lot of work. So they’re okay, like, you know, “I’ll do my two hours,” or “I read … No, I didn’t actually read the Four Hour Work Week or what is was about, I just read the title and that appeals to me.”

Joe:                        I think in my early twenties, I might have been a little guilty of this. Maybe not so much with entrepreneurship, but just regular work. I mean, I really wanted to get the most out of the company with putting the least amount of hours in.

Justin:                   Yeah, and you know, that sounds ideal, but I think that’s just not the way it’s gonna work.

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   With start-ups, when you’re getting a business started. Rob, the founder of Etsy, actually said, “The last 10% it takes to launch something, takes as much energy as the first 90%.”

Joe:                        Rob, we are finding that out with our launch right now. Oh my God.

Justin:                   Yeah, yeah. I mean, getting it shipped, right, the very little … The end, ’cause you’re wrapping up all these small pieces, and so I think the Lazy Guy, and I’m not saying he’s necessarily lazy, I kind of like what he’s looking for, but you gotta be willing to put it in, man. Especially when you’re getting toward the end of the projects, you gotta fight through that shit.

The problem with the Lazy Guy is that he’s never gonna know his potential unless he puts his head down and really knocks it out of the park. I mean, unless he gets all the way through it, and like really puts the work in, he’s not gonna know what he was capable of. Again, I think it’s a bit of regret here.

Joe:                        Yeah, I think I was very guilty of that. Like I was saying earlier, that’s one of the things that I turned around in my personal life, was just saying, “I’m just gonna go balls to the wall when I do things, like I’m gonna do the boxing, I’m gonna lose the weight, I’m gonna [inaudible 00:21:56] my own business, I’ve got a … I’m gonna just try to do it all in or not do it [crosstalk 00:22:00].”

Justin:                   And see what happens.

Joe:                        Yeah, because-

Justin:                   And see what happens.

Joe:                        … Because if you do it lackadaisical like, you get what you … You get out what you put in, and it’s not very much.

Justin:                   So our solution to this … One of the first things you can do is to re-frame your expectations, right? I think you can do this through talking to successful entrepreneurs, right? Stop reading blogs that are selling the dreams, they’re selling this amazing lifestyle, you know … Stop reading that. Stop with the junk, and talk to people in your space, around your space, that are entrepreneurs, that are where you want to be, and over a couple of beers, ask them what it’s really like, what their days are like, what they worked on now, and both back when they were getting started.

Joe:                        Yeah, I really see a lot of young people with expectations that are way too large. Especially when they come into the entrepreneurial space. And maybe those expectations were set years ago by people getting huge stock options, or buyouts, or big bonuses from their companies … Whatever it was, but I’m just amazed when people sit down and they tell me, “I have a company that sells coffee cups, and I want to make six digits a year.” I’m like, there’s just no way. It’s just not gonna happen. So our-

Justin:                   Our second option is a little silly, but you know, go ahead and put yourself in an office, or maybe even a coffee shop, with a view of the beach. Don’t actually sit on the beach, you got a nice little view, you’re close enough. You can go outside and take a dip, come back to your laptop and knock it out.

Joe:                        It’s silly, but I think it’s … Look, human beings need structure, and I think, especially if you know you are the Lazy Guy, putting some structure on your life, not just in your workplace, but in your schedule, in your daily schedule, weekly schedule, monthly schedule, that’s a really good thing. You’ll get a lot more work done.

Justin:                   I think there are actual entrepreneurs that kind of fit the Lazy Guy archetype too, and they’re actually, you know, somewhat successful, but they could be so much more so if they really knocked it out and put their head down, right?

So the fifth guy I want to talk about is the Idea Guy. And I forget where it was, Joe, but at some point you actually like were telling someone, or you were talking about me, “Justin’s the idea guy.” And I cringed. I was like, “I’m the idea guy? What?” No dude, don’t make me the idea guy. But the Idea Guy, the description of this is this is the person that wants to use his idea, and wants everyone else to do the implementation. Right, so he totally over-values his idea. “This idea’s gonna change the world!” Right? And always worried that someone else is gonna steal it, and trying to find the right partner in this, spend all this time, “I want you to sign an NDA, I want you to …” You know, all this stuff about his idea, trying to find the right partner for implementation, it’s ridiculous.

Joe:                        Yeah, the stealing thing is the funniest thing to me. I’m just always amazed at how people believe that their idea is going to change the world. I mean, you look at it, and you’re like, “You know that’s been done like twelve times before? And failed every time. So how are you gonna do it differently?” You know, that’s always the interesting thing that I bring to the Idea Guy.

Justin:                   You know, Derek Sivers says, “Ideas are just a multiple of execution,” but before he said that, Thomas Edison said, “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”

Joe:                        Yeah. And people use Thomas Edison’s ideas every day, so …

Justin:                   The problem with the Idea Guy is that holding onto ideas just doesn’t do much good, so … If they’re never actually implementing, or if they’re never actually doing it themselves, it’s sitting on the shelf and collecting dust. And even if their idea was amazing, which … Like, saying ideas have no value I think is weak-sauce. That’s why I like the idea that it’s a multiplier. But if it’s sitting on the shelf, it is weak-sauce.

One of the issues for the Idea Guy is that he’ll never grow or learn anything if he’s never putting something out there that could be criticized. Right, so until the Idea Guy actually starts implementing his idea, and like puts it in front of customers? He’s gonna have no opportunity for learning, he’s gonna have no opportunity for iteration, and like finding out whether the market really accepts his idea. So he’s gonna have the idea so built up in his head that it’s never … The actual implementation is never gonna match reality.

Joe:                        Yeah, I think this is especially true with websites. You gotta get it out there in front of people and visitors, see what they do, see what use it, what they fail on, what they succeed on, and then change and adapt to people that are actually using your product or service.

Justin:                   I love the solution for the Idea Guy. So the solution here is to switch roles, right? Don’t be the Idea Guy, force yourself to be the Implementation Guy. And actually build out someone else’s idea.

Joe:                        That’s gonna be tough for the Idea Guy.

Justin:                   It’s tough, but I mean, you need to, I think, particularly with this. You need to learn implementation and you’re gonna see, I think if you’re looking at this carefully, you’re gonna see the problems with the other guy on the other side or whatever, with the idea. And like that … You know, you’re gonna figure out that implementing can be really difficult. Really hard.

Joe:                        Yeah, I could even see the Idea Guy getting a job. And possibly learning …

Justin:                   Apprenticeship role, an internship role, absolutely.

Joe:                        Yeah. And really learning stuff from the ground up, so that he can take his ideas and start sifting through the ones that are just garbage because they could never be implemented.

Justin:                   So the sixth sign is the Busy Guy. Right, and this one hurts my soul. I feel bad for this person, but this is the guy who where life gets in the way. Right, “I have to wait until my kids are in elementary school. I have to wait until our wedding’s over. I gotta wait wait wait. I can’t do it because of this, and I’ve got all these other responsibilities. I’ve got all these expenses. I can’t quit my job and start a new business.”

Joe:                        You call this guy the Busy Guy, I call this the Excuse Guy.

Justin:                   Well, he’s the Too Busy Guy, or, “I’m too busy to actually do this.” And there’s lots of blame on outside circumstances, and that’s a real pet peeve of mine, are the people that just don’t take responsibility. They blame it on the weather, or their wife, or their kids, or whatever they blame it on, and they take no responsibility. That’s … Like, I think there are some fundamental problems, and like mindset that have to be fixed before this person can even do anything.

Joe:                        Yeah, I think you and I both don’t get very along … Don’t get along well with the Busy Guy. We have, just an issue with it because we’ve realized that it’s just … You have to make priorities in your life, and you have to make things come first. And your business comes first.

Justin:                   All right buddy, talk about a busy guy. Here’s a busy guy. Elon Musk, who is the Iron Man of our generation. Like, actual Iron Man.

Joe:                        He’s going into space.

Justin:                   That’s it! Done! You win! You’re going to space. He had a quote, It says, “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” So I think that, if it were that important to you, you would just do it already. You wouldn’t wait for the kids to go to elementary school, you wouldn’t wait for this, that, or the other, or the weather to change. You would just start knocking it out because you believe in it so deeply and know that it needs to be out there, it’s so important.

Now the problem for the Busy Guy is that either he’s letting excuses plan his life script, kind of just like, “Oh, well I can’t really do what I want to do,” and that’s kind of sad, right? Because they’re letting other things kind of step in and they’re not taking charge. Or the other thing is, is that they … He doesn’t really want to do it. Right, he doesn’t really want to do it, and he’s just saying that to sound cool, to hold hope in a dream. Try to make it sound like he has dreams, when he really doesn’t. I mean-

Joe:                        I think the latter there is probably the majority of people.

Justin:                   I hope not. I hope you’re wrong about that.

Joe:                        But it’s always the cynical guy, the optimist here.

Justin:                   I don’t know. I don’t know. I hope that’s not true man, that hurts me. I think the solution is to review your priorities. Like, how badly do you really want it? Can you adjust things to make it work? And then, ultimately ask the question, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Joe:                        This is a great question. This is a great question. I try to make sure I ask this about stuff all the time. Really, what’s the worst that can happen?

Justin:                   We’ve had some bad stuff … We had a like completely, miserably failed business. Like, failed to the point where like, Oh my God, we were broke, we had to get jobs …

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   We were screwed. And it wasn’t that bad. It sucked. It sucked, but it wasn’t that bad. Life went on, we picked ourselves back up. So, yeah, you know, I think people build up these kind of fears about what might happen so big in their heads that it’s not even reality.

Joe:                        Yeah, I just think it … I think it’s great to go through those failures early in life, ’cause you just know you can pick yourself up and move along.

Justin:                   I wish we’d done it earlier, speaking of which.

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   I mean, we were … I was mid twenties? Maybe like heading into late twenties, and it would’ve been nice to do that. Looking back now, it would’ve been nice to do that a little earlier, probably.

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   Speaking of which, up comes number seven. The Back in the Day Guy. So, this is the guy, it could be the thirty-something that’s reliving like, his past high school football glories. It could be the guy who says, “If I could go back five years, I would do this, that, and the other.” And he would do all these amazing things, and build all these amazing companies. You know, because ten years ago, fifteen years ago, things were so much easier.

Joe:                        Yeah, this is the guy who peaked too early, right? He had the company where he got stock options in his early twenties, and he did pretty well, but since then, he’s really just … Everything he’s tried has been a failure, and he’s always pining away on his past.

Justin:                   Yeah, or saying like, you know, “It would’ve been so much easier to do that,” or “I could have done that,” kind of stuff, and it just comes across as a bit whiny.

So here’s a great quote for you, Joe. “Real entrepreneurs can’t stop thinking about their company. Wannabes can’t stop thinking about other people’s success.”

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   So they’re always worried about the success of others, whereas real entrepreneurs are just like, they’re in the shower thinking about, “Hmmm, I wonder what I can do for my business today.”

Joe:                        Because real entrepreneurs are too busy to think about other people’s success.

Justin:                   Yes, yes!

Joe:                        You’re too busy to think and get jealous of other people-

Justin:                   Or even implement someone else’s ideas-

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   … You’re like, “Oh, sounds cool. Hope they do it. That’s be awesome. Okay, now back to this.” Right? ‘Cause I’m focused on my company, ’cause I got so many opportunities in my own business.

Joe:                        Yeah, I mean this is the kind of thing where sites come along, and we say, “We should buy that site,” but we just don’t have the time. We don’t have the time to set it up and take care of it [crosstalk 00:32:10]-

Justin:                   Or just have the right focus.

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   [inaudible 00:32:12] Our focus for our business. I hope someone else does it and just owns it. I think the pain for the Back in the Day Guy is that … Well, one of the things, he’s missing the fact that it’s obvious now, and it wasn’t so obvious back then. So he’s thinking, “Oh yeah, I could’ve done that,” or “I could’ve done this,” but Facebook wasn’t so interesting at the time that Facebook came out. “Yeah, I got MySpace man, what are you talking about?”

Joe:                        Yeah, I remember that.

Justin:                   I actually said that. I think I said something like that. Like, “Ahh, Facebook, huh [crosstalk 00:32:39] I have MySpace.”

Joe:                        Yeah, isn’t this just another MySpace thing?

Justin:                   It’s good, yeah.

Joe:                        I didn’t have MySpace, so why would I want Facebook?

Justin:                   So here’s the real question, like how man opportunities is the Back in the Day Guy missing out on today worrying about what could have been five, ten, fifteen years ago?

I remember there was an article, or saw a video or something that talked about all the amazing things ten years from now. We’re gonna be like, “Oh my God, if I could go back to 2014, and I could’ve done this, that, and the other.” Well, there’s someone doing that right now. There’s some twenty year old, thirty year old, fifty year old is building out something amazing, and ten years from now we’re gonna go, “Oh my God, if I could’ve just thought of that.”

Joe:                        Sex bots.

Justin:                   Sex bots, buddy. All right man, so let’s talk about some of the solutions for this. I mean, one of the things you can do is become forward thinking. All right, so start thinking about sex bots. Start thinking about things that are coming out in the future. Look at future technology, like where are we going? Right, what are we gonna be working on and how can you be on the leading edge? How can you not miss out on some major things that are gonna be coming out in the next five, ten years? Obviously, predicting the future is not the easiest thing to do. One way to do this, I think, and it might be kind of interesting, I don’t know if this is an exact solution, but it’s worth trying I think, is scanning like, tech articles let’s say, and looking at connections between two different emerging technologies. Right, how could those things be implemented? How could they be brought together? And then writing it down, put it in Evernote or something, and start writing down your ideas for blending technology.

Joe:                        Yeah, this at least starts to get you in the mindset of that forward thinking. I’m not sure, like he said, it’s a great solution, but at least it changes your mindset. You stop pining back to the day when you caught the winning touchdown in senior year. And you start thinking about what’s the next sort of technology around the bend.

Justin:                   Yeah, as long as putting all these ideas in Evernote doesn’t turn you into the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Guy. ‘Cause then we got more problems. Then we’re going back to number two [crosstalk 00:34:34].

Joe:                        Right. Yeah.

Justin:                   All right man.

Joe:                        Or the Idea Guy.

Justin:                   Yeah. All right buddy, let’s move into news and updates.

Speaker 3:           You’re listening to the Empire Flippers podcast, with Justin and Joe.

Justin:                   All right man, so first update. We got a little bit of bad news, man. Our redesign launch was delayed once again. So we delayed it two weeks. It was supposed to come out this last Monday, we’ve now delayed it again probably another two weeks, maybe longer. I’m not saying anything, man. I’m not saying anything, I’m done talking about it. Not now. Right now, we can talk about it.

Joe:                        I’m not committing to a date either. It happens when it happens. But I’ll tell ya, it’s 90% there. It’s all about the next 10%, so I just want to make it perfect.

Justin:                   God, it just sucks man. It sucks. Oh my God. Designers and developers battling … Oh my God.

Joe:                        Yeah.

Justin:                   Fun stuff, though. I mean, good learning experience for us. The good thing is, is that both the designers and developers are committed to making it awesome. And so I know everyone’s coming from a good place, it’s just, there’s always tension there man, there’s always tension.

Second thing is, we’ve got Mike, he’s been out here for a bit now, and he’s our new Marketplace manager. We’re actually gonna put a link in the show notes. If you’d like to speak to him directly about buying or selling websites, if you have questions for him about any of the listings, you can access him right away. You can set up an appointment and give him a call. We want to help get him up to speed, so if you guys have questions, we can start getting him kind of involved a bit more, and like, start researching some of the listings and get you the answers to your questions you’re asking.

Joe:                        Yeah, I’ve done a bunch of calls with Mike already, so, with both buyers and sellers, so if you have any questions about our business, please set up a call with Mike and talk to him.

Justin:                   So if you’re a fan of the show, just give him a call anyway, man. Set up an appointment with Mike, and keep him on his toes. Make sure he’s earned his keep over there.

Joe:                        Yeah, let’s fill up his calendar, real quick.

Justin:                   All right, last thing, man. I talked about it last week, I’m talking about it again, ’cause this is my new hobby. I’m all over this, dude. I’m a travel hacker. A newbie. So, here’s the deal, man. Here’s the deal. So we signed up with abroaders.com. I signed up for a whole bunch of credit cards, and I was filling out the couple dozen award points, and I was deep diving this thing, and it’s confusing the shit out of me, man. It’s so … There’s just a lot to it. And it does feel, I think Dan Andrews, Tropical MBA mentioned it, it feels like clipping coupons. It does feel a little bit like clipping coupons, and I’m not a coupon clipper. So I don’t know what I’m doing. I was like, “Look, I’m leaving it in their capable hands.” I moved over to abroaders.com and here’s the thing.

So we signed up for an account with them, I listened to a few of their podcasts, it kind of like, helped guide me on where we should be going. Eric was nice enough to get on a call for onboarding. I had a thirty minute call with him, kind of laid out my scenario, made it nice and neat for him. Within an hour of getting off the phone, he had booked both you and I business class-first class tickets from Asia to the U.S., and saved a little over a thousand dollars off what we were gonna have to pay ourselves. So we paid, like five hundred bucks to sign up for the service for six months, and he already saved us a thousand bucks. So that’s ROI, baby, I got two to one on my money on this.

Joe:                        I have to say, better you than me [crosstalk 00:37:49]. So the service is great, I definitely, I’ve listened to the podcast with Dan Andrews over there and Eric. I think it’s a great service, definitely recommend it if you’re into travel hacking. But I have to say, I still don’t know if I would go through the process to save five hundred dollars. I would just pay the five hundred dollars.

Justin:                   I’m gonna use my American Advance card to buy points, and then I’m gonna get points discounted, I’m gonna use it on this other airline, dude, I’m all over, it’s gonna be fun.

Joe:                        Yeah-

Speaker 5:           Fun!

Joe:                        … And you’re gonna book my travel for me now too, you’re gonna be like my little travel secretary.

Justin:                   I do. Oh my God. Travel, just travel sexetary. Awesome. Awesome. No sex, buddy.

All right, we’ve got the next section. The Listener Shouts, also known as the indulgent ego-boosting social proof segment. First up we’ve got a five star iTunes review. It says, “Love to win” from Darren Bugman. “I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I love to win. So listening to Joe Hot Money Magnotti, and of course Justin, I know that with the information I hear I can’t lose. Keep it up, Empire Flippers, so I can make some of that hot money as well.”

Joe just got back from Macau, he made a little bit of hot money.

Joe:                        Yeah, I did well at gambling, but I can tell you, Macau is no Vegas.

Justin:                   Yeah man, you were saying that. Just not doing it for you, huh?

Joe:                        I really appreciate the review here, Darren. Thank you so much. But man, stay in Vegas, don’t go to Macau.

Justin:                   We’ll actually be in Vegas towards the end of October. Really hope we get a chance to meet up with Darren.

We got a couple of Twitter mentions. Matt Ward, from matt@mattb&b, said, “What about local team for parts of the year? One month together, five months apart or something.” This is speaking to remote v.s. local teams. I think that could work. I mean if you bring your team together, you know, once for a month over a six month period, then you can really knock some things out, kind of build a bond, and maybe even do something cool at the end of the month. SO you put your heads down for twenty-five days and take five days off. I think that would be pretty beneficial. I think that would help the team-

Joe:                        Yeah, I mean-

Justin:                   It’s an interesting idea, actually.

Joe:                        Damien at Lynchpin is doing stuff like this.

Justin:                   Yeah.

Joe:                        It definitely could work. I still believe that a … Some sort of local team has its benefits, but …

Justin:                   Daniel Commocho says, “Justin, how often do you list new sites on average? They go too fast.” Thanks buddy. I appreciate it. We list sites every Monday, so it’s about, maybe like 5 … no, 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM or so, East Coast Time, they generally go up, and yeah. So a lot of them do sell out pretty quickly, especially if they’re under fifteen thousand or so, a lot of people snatch ’em up quickly. But, some of the larger sites are there. If you want to get on it, Monday morning East Coast Time is the way to go.

Zendesk got a couple of reviews. We got two positive ones. John said, well, he had detailed questions about keyword research, and he had some follow-up questions about our vetting process. He’s like, “Great service! Very informative, and loved the detailed reply. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. John.”

Joshua had a positive review. He was a depositor that passed on the site that he looked at, and he says, “the form was very prompt, courteous, and helpful. While the site I was looking at proved to be too poor quality to meet my needs, my deposit was refunded easily and quickly, and I was directed to Mike, if I wanted help finding something more suitable. Very positive experience all around, just disappointed with the listed site.” I’m disappointed for you Joshua, wish it would’ve worked out for ya. It’s too bad that it didn’t. We’re looking forward to doing business with you in the future.

Joe:                        Yeah Josh, thanks for the comment, and I think the thing to take from there is, we do refund our deposits.

Justin:                   We were worried about that, man. We were worried about [crosstalk 00:41:20]-

Joe:                        … Always worried about it.

Justin:                   Internet man, you can’t give money … deposits to people on the internet.

Joe:                        But you take those deposits to the Philippines and you go to Macau-

Justin:                   Well dude, let me deal with it. Well, you do get to Macau. I don’t know man, how much deposit or money do you spend by your Macau at the tables?

You know, I gotta be honest with you, Joe. Seriously. Like, if you just came across us, right, would you pay this deposit to some random dudes? Right? Like, I don’t know, I mean-

Joe:                        Especially if you had sand castles, and your sight didn’t re-size correctly when I changed the window, [crosstalk 00:41:49] and it’s kinda goofy … Yeah, I probably would stay away.

Justin:                   Yeah, I know, you’re a pretty cynical dude, you probably wouldn’t do it.

Joe:                        I might. I might take a stab, it depends. I don’t know, if I followed along for a bit, and listened to our podcast and got to know us a bit, I think I probably would, but …

Justin:                   Yeah, so we got a couple of blog mentions. We got a [inaudible 00:42:06] done over a virtual website optimizer on buttons and CTR rates. They did a nice write up talking about-

Joe:                        Cool.

Justin:                   … How we’re able to improve our conversions. There was a nice mention over from Dominic over at Human Proof Designs. He actually survived his first year in business, and kind of like laid out some of the trials and tribulations he’s been through, some of the learning lessons he had. And I’ll link to both of those in the show notes if you want to check it out.

That’s it for episode 107 of the Empire Podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. We’ll be back next week with another show. You can find the show notes for this episode and more at empireflippers.com/wantrepreneur. And make sure to follow us on Twitter @empireflippers. See you next week.

Joe:                        Bye bye, everybody!

Speaker 3:           You’ve been listening to the Empire Flippers podcast, with Justin and Joe. Be sure to hit up empireflippers.com for more! That’s empireflippers.com. Thanks for listening.