Jule Kim: We're so stuck in our own business and we're focusing on our skills and what we can give and what we can do for the other people. Like we forget that, hey, before you can even get to that stage of showing off all the wonderful things you can do, it's like you first have to establish that. initial trust and trust is going to look different in different channels.
Chris Do: What is up everybody? On today's episode with Jule, we're going to talk about all the mistakes that you make in the sales process to create a dumpster fire way of killing all of your sales. Hi Jule.
Jule Kim: Hi Chris.
Chris Do: I'm excited to talk to you today.
Jule Kim: Oh, yeah.
Chris Do: Yeah, I am. And thank you for like bringing up all the energy that you have remaining in your body to do this with me. Let's make the most of it.
Jule Kim: I'm here, you're here. Let's do it.
Chris Do: Let's do it. Now, I believe there was something that we wanted to talk about. And that's all I'm going to say. I'm just going to turn it over to you.
Jule Kim: Okay. So, my memory, if it serves me correctly, you were telling me some hilarious stories of people pitching you their services.
Chris Do: Yes.
Jule Kim: And I know I've actually had one of these experiences way back in the day, but you have a different sort of experience going on. So from what you told me, you have people always coming in at a somewhat high number, and then I think they're thinking to maybe use some of the techniques that you teach. And they're using your techniques on you. So tell me what happens because I thought this was just, Oh man, this is something we all need to hear.
Chris Do: What are we talking about here, everybody? I make videos to teach people how to negotiate with clients. So I'm the teacher and there are a bunch of people watching these videos. There's a couple of natural thoughts you have for yourself. And one that I've had myself, which is, My gosh! If I reveal all my tricks and tips when I talk to an actual client or a prospect, are they going to use my tricks against me? Are they going to say, Chris Do, that's step 3A- 4C, that will not work with us, sir, and they will push me away.
But the funny thing is, this is what's happened, right? So, we're in a very specific point in time when Blind, my service production company, is still running full steam. And The Futur is starting to come. kind of catch a foothold on the market in our audience. So it's this weird overlap where clients also watch the YouTube channel.
And my executive producer at that time, Scott, he's like, Chris, there's some fans of yours that want to get on the call. And it went through the normal channels of a commercial project. I'm like, oh, fans of mine. And at that time we had released a couple of videos on pricing and negotiations. So I was thinking there aren't a lot of videos that they've watched.
It's got to be one of those. So I'm prepared for war. I'm like thinking I have to bring the long sword, the short sword, the dagger, the throwing star, the darts, the knives, the poison tip things. I, I'm ready to go. What's going to happen. We get on the call. Scott introduces us and I can tell like, they're like excited to talk to me.
And this is a new phenomenon for me. This is many years ago. And then Chris, we watch your videos. We're fans. We have this project. I'm like, great. Here we go. Let's do battle here. And then they started talking about stuff and they told us the budget and they told us how much and they convinced themselves that they wanted to work with us.
I hardly said anything on the call. And so then we hang up the phone. Scott and I are looking at each other like dumbfounded. I'm kind of smirking a little bit because I always smirk. He goes, Chris, what just happened? I said, I think our clients play both of our roles for us. So I didn't have to negotiate against them at all.
They negotiate against themselves. And we just said, yes. That was a wild moment, but Jule, I know that's not why we're talking. We're talking about the reaction number two. So that's what happens when clients watch your videos. They actually want to work with you even more and they know there's really no point in like going back and forth because they know your moves.
I have other moves by the way, everybody. So here's where it gets really funny. I have a person reach out. And this happens all the time to me. And I say, well, how much is it going to cost to do this thing? Because I want to get to the money part right away. And it goes all over the spectrum, right? So there's a guy I know.
He's a talented artist and I like his work. And he's been on our show before. And I want him to do some painting of a logo I've already designed. So I'm like, how much is this going to cost? And he's like, uh, and he floats out a really high number. Like, dude, this is too much. I'm sorry, I can't afford this.
And I think this is happening over DMs. And then he responds with, like, let me reduce the scope a little bit, let me change the usage, and he starts, like, doing the things I think I've asked him to do in the video, but he's not doing it exactly the way I've taught him how to do it. And then I respond with, No, that's not gonna work.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry to waste your time. I just can't afford this. So he goes from a very high number to a middle number. He keeps just eroding away. He's like, Chris, I will do this for free. What do you want me to do? And I'm just kind of laughing. I'm not intentionally trying to get him to do it for free.
I don't want that. I just want to do it for a reasonable rate. What I experience is people take the information I put out there and they apply it in all the weird ways that they do. And then what they don't realize is you can't out Jedi Yoda. This is not going to work. I got more tricks in the bag here.
And I haven't taught you how to respond as a client. I've only taught you how to respond as a vendor. Because clearly whenever we do these role plays, whoever's a client doesn't have those same tricks. So it's just battle back and forth. And that was a hilarious experience. And I will work with this young person because I really do like him. There's a price I'm willing to pay, but beyond that, it's just not worth it to me.
Jule Kim: I could feel my soul just kind of cringing, just shriveling up a little bit. It's bringing some of the memories.
Chris Do: That's your illness, by the way. Has nothing to do with this story.
Jule Kim: Just bringing the memories, screaming back.
Chris Do: Yeah. Tell me more about those memories.
Jule Kim: In a second, because you're describing, I think, an experience that many, many creatives have had with you. So, creatives, seize your stuff. I've had with you. Why are you pointing to yourself like you're surprised? Like, we're here for a reason.
Chris Do: I'm innocent. What are you talking about? I'm so innocent of all crimes. You can't prove it, can you?
Jule Kim: Oh my god, innocent, uh huh, sure. I think, I get pitched on the daily, you must get this like times 10,000 because you're so famous now. People see your YouTubes, they see your Instagram, your LinkedIn, you're all over the place. And so, someone reaches out to you, and I think what is happening, like, just from the first off, from what I have heard people tell you, when you said, the person pitches you, and you're like, no, that's too much, I can't afford it, and the first thought in my mind is like, really? Too much? You can't afford it? At the revenue you're making, you can't afford it. I don't believe that. So what would you say?
Chris Do: You mean if they actually said that to me?
Jule Kim: Yeah.
Chris Do: Well, no one's going to say that to me. Let's go back to the example. So I've already designed a logo and I'm not quite sure what this person is charging me for. I just didn't want to paint it. What I wanted to do was to have a hand done look to it. And so I knew this person is very good at analog art and craft. And so when they, I don't remember the exact number. Let's just say five grand, $5,000, everybody. Not a crazy amount of money for a logo. But for somebody to paint a logo I've already designed, now we get into like, huh.
So what's going on in my mind, maybe because I'm a cheap bastard, I don't think so, is I have to break out my paint set and my roller brushes and whatever art tools I have from ArtCenter, and I can paint it myself. I just don't want to do that. So the pain that it's causing me is I don't want to go reach into the drawer and do the work myself.
And there is a finite cost to that. I'm thinking if I had done it, it would probably take me two hours tops, set up, clean up, and the whole bit. I'm not asking for the design of the logo, which I know is going to be costly. Now, I do want to say this though. I have commissioned lots of artists who I've paid $2,500 to as a 50 percent deposit just because I wanted to see what they would do and I didn't like what they did.
So I just stopped. So it's not that I won't spend the money, but I have to look at compared to what? Compared to me painting, I'm capable of painting. I've already designed the logo. So I just want someone else to do it so I don't have to break out the paints. So that's kind of like when I say I can't afford it.
It's like, I can't afford to pay you that much money to do something like this. Here's the weird part. Because I believe there's a lot of people who'll do it for a couple hundred bucks. And I go buy a Louis bag. What am I doing here? That's when I say I can't afford it. Like, do I want to pay you to do this thing? Probably not. I'm not experiencing big enough paint. So does that make sense when I say I can't afford it? No, you're still shaking your head. Go ahead.
Jule Kim: Yeah, I think what you've just demonstrated is the classic, you can't trust what the client is saying is their objection. Because to you that I can't afford it doesn't actually mean you can't afford it.
Chris Do: Mmm, good point.
Jule Kim: It's got all this other stuff in there.
Chris Do: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're, you're right. Maybe I didn't say I can't afford it. Maybe I said this is way more than I thought it was going to be.
Jule Kim: Oh, I see. Now you're that moving target. You start changing your story.
Chris Do: I've turned into a whole client overnight. Boom. Right before your eyes. No, I just said like, this is like not worth it to me. That's all. Or something like that. I don't want to say it in a mean spirited way. I'm not berating. I'm not saying you're not worth it. It's just, it's not worth it to me. I don't want to spend that kind of money. Now I do want to try this though. If you were to say, I'm trying to get into roleplay mode. Go ahead, say your part, and then I'll respond.
Jule Kim: My part being, like, I'm the logo person?
Chris Do: Like, what do you mean you can't?
Jule Kim: Oh, okay, okay.
Chris Do: Do it in the tone that you might realistically say it.
Jule Kim: If I were to realistically come across a client like this, I would be saying it like, interesting. So based on the revenue ballpark that I know you're generating, you're telling me you can't afford this? Could you tell me more about this?
Chris Do: Yeah. And I would realistically say to you, I generate a lot of money. That is true. But relative to what the problem I'm asking to solve, I'm not going to pay a dime more than this. Just because I make a lot of money doesn't mean I'm going to pay $1,000 for a cup of water. So it's relative to the pain.
Jule Kim: I think this is the key right here. It's the pain. So I know if it were me, I would probably be trying to dig into, so then what is the thing? You're talking about a logo here, but what is really the pain?
And I know earlier you were talking about, well, I don't want to have to go through the hassle of breaking out my paints and all this and do the work, the two hours. So I would be looking into that and it's not like I'm going to try and change your mind, but I would be exploring into that area. But from what you're describing with most of the people, like 99. 9 percent of the people who are pitching themselves to you, I don't think they're even doing that part, right?
Chris Do: Well, here's what it usually sounds like. hey, Chris, big fan. By the way, what are you doing for email marketing? Hey, Chris, big fan. Could use more social engagement. Hey, Chris, big fan. Your videos aren't that good. I can make better videos for you. Want to hire me? Hey Chris, big fan. I want to give you a free piece of work. Do you want to do a collab? And they'll all end up exactly with the exact same response from me, which is delete, block, and report. That's it.
Jule Kim: Okay, but those are the, let's call them the top of the funnel, sort of they got no game. These are the cold outreach.
Chris Do: The gameless.
Jule Kim: Yeah, they've established no relationship with you. They've put no effort. Sometimes they don't even say, hey, Chris, it's like, hey, friend, you know, it's just like a copy paste, like just stupid.
Chris Do: I always like to respond to people who call me, bro. We don't know each other like that.
Jule Kim: Oh my God. I'm just sitting here like next hundred people to cold pitch you. I want to know how many of these people have actually like listened to this episode when it comes out. Like I'm dying to know what changes.
Chris Do: Jule, here's the one I love the most. This is one of my favorites. Hey, do you offer coaching services? Because I think you can make a lot of money if you're a coach. Block, delete, report, junk.
Jule Kim: Oh my God, I get that one all the time.
Chris Do: I was like, you know what? That's a good idea. I never thought about being a coach. This is a revolutionary business model, friend. Where have you been all my life? How about you just do a quick Google search or click on a link? Make the minimal amount of effort, people.
Jule Kim: Yeah.
Chris Do: It's disgusting.
Jule Kim: It's like the fact that they took the effort to message you, but apparently did not click into your profile and just read like the three lines in your bio. It's, it's just amazing, right? Okay, but we're not really talking about those people. So those are the people, they don't even get past
Chris Do: Hello, they can't get past hello, yep.
Jule Kim: The, the outer gate, they get nothing from you. We're talking about the people where they've actually managed to land on your radar in some way. They happen to actually ask about something that you might need. And so then you actually respond.
So there is some level of conversation happening. But then they reached a point where you're going back and forth on, well, here's the price they pitched you. And then you've hit this point of, well, I'm sorry, that's just not worth it to me. What do they do at that point?
Chris Do: Well, generally speaking, people who pitch me don't go anywhere at all. The only ones that work on me are, we have rapport, there's some kind of acquaintance, familiarity, and they actually offer to help me with something that they know I need help with, and they're willing to do it for nothing. Because I can't say no to nothing. They've made an irresistible offer. I'm like, okay.
And believe it or not, even when you try to give your services away for free, people will refuse you because like, I don't want to manage you, I don't want to give you access to my accounts or anything like that. Free work is still not free. So your offer is really poorly designed. But these days it's harder and harder for people to do that with me because I have plenty of people help me with stuff so I'm like, I don't need another person to volunteer and I don't want the obligation, the reciprocity that inherently is going to come because I know what you want at the end of this.
And it's not to do free work. But in the past. I've had multiple occasions, and I'll take you back to like the late 90s, early 2000s, when a guy who, who was a, like the, the brother of someone that was one of our clients who said, hey, my, my kid brother is looking to break into the field, would you mind just taking a look at his portfolio and give him feedback and obligations?
So when this young man showed up in my office, he showed me his work and I was okay. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. And he literally said, Okay. Chris, I admire your work. I love everything you've done. My sister talks about you all the time. And look, I just want to be around you and the people who make the stuff that you do.
I'm willing to come in here and literally clean your house, scrub your toilets, just so I can be around you and what we're doing here. So, well, it's not going to come down to that. Let me, let me just think about this a little bit. And his dedication, his willingness, and he goes, I'm not kidding. I will do this work because I just need to get a start.
And this is a person who's really confident in what they can do, and they want to learn. And I'm a sucker for people who have a good work ethic, who are humble, and are willing to do anything, who are willing to just say, you know what? There's cool things happening around here. There's greatness that's coming out of these walls, and I just want to be within the vicinity. I want to be in the room where it happens, everybody. So I'm like, all right, I'll give you a shot. He wound up working with us for years.
Jule Kim: Wow. Okay. So if you help teach us, me included here, the us, your audience, and you listen to this, like it's a story about somebody else, like, what would you say is going on? Like, what did you just share with us?
Chris Do: Oh, you want me to break down the meta stuff?
Jule Kim: Yeah.
Chris Do: Okay. So here's what's going on. First of all, there is an introduction, there's a warm introduction, it's not a cold person off the street. This usually works with an introduction because somebody has a vouch for your character.
Because if it comes in cold, it's going to seem like psycho stalker, I'm going to be unsafe, right? We just don't know. Because there's a level of aggression and willingness to do work that you're like, borderline psychotic here. We kind of have to be careful where we go with this. Because it came from a client's family member, because it came from a professor at a university who spoke highly of this person and they don't send me randos like just to waste my time because they also know if they send me randos the next time they have somebody good, I'm not going to take that call. They've burned their goodwill with me, right?
Where I call them, I'm like, yeah, you remember that kid you sent over? That person was a disaster. Thanks, but no thanks. Don't do that again, you know? So you have to realize when somebody vouches for you, there's a giant responsibility that you have on behalf of the person who vouched for you that you eff it up, you eff up all their future relationships and the relationship they may have.
Don't do that. Don't ask for people to make recommendations for you and not show up 1,000 percent because you've done yourself a disservice and that person. So when that person comes in, and I have to sense if they're genuine Jule. If it's lip service, because people have done this with me as well. They all say something like, I'll do anything.
And it's happened, and I bring them into the company. I'm like, hey, can you do that? Well, uh, yeah, I just didn't think you were going to ask me to do that. But that's literally what you said you were going to do. Are they sincere? Are they genuine? And are they fully understanding of who I am, what we do, and their skill set doesn't match?
Because if it doesn't, then it's not going to work for us. So those are three critical things, right? Let me quickly recap. A warm introduction, so I know you're not a psycho. So Number two, are you genuine and authentic? Number three, is there an overlap between what we do and what you want to do and have a skill and passion for that this is going to lead to success?
Now, I'll give you an example where it did not work. And it's a sad story. It's a real story. One of my good friends from art school, somebody who we, we collaborated on projects together, we traveled to Canada together. We spent a lot of time together and one day he had some kind of mental breakdown and he was working on feature films as a concept artist for some of the biggest productions in the world, blockbuster films, and he decided, I don't want to work for the man anymore.
So he had something snap in his brain. I don't know what happened to him, but he decided he doesn't want to work and he's going to suffer the consequences. So he let all of his savings dwindle down to nothing to a point in which he was actually homeless living on the street. Not figuratively in a car or bouncing from couch to couch, but literally homeless on the street.
And so when I ran into him and he's like, hey, Chris, do you have any work for me? And I've worked with him before. I've given him freelance work and he's done a great job. I said, you want to do paintings? What do you want to do? He goes, no, no, no. I don't do any art related thing. I feel like I'm an art prostitute.
I don't want to do that anymore. I'm like, so what do you want to do then? I'll just do menial tasks. Like janitorial level work. I was like, oh, this was soul crushing for me. Here's the guy who's super talented, a guy I cared about, who had risen to the top of the top, working on just amazing things and for whatever reason, had a nervous breakdown and wasn't all mentally there.
So I'm like, really? Yeah, I guess I could use you. Here's what I pay people to do this kind of work. Let's say it's 200 bucks a day. It's not a lot of money and you could do that work. And he goes, okay, great. I'm so grateful. And by the way, can you give me an advance? I'm like, oh, so I give him an advance. We agreed to do two weeks worth of work and we'll see how it goes.
And so then I asked him to do something very menial. I said, hey, you know, books and I have a lot of art books and they're organized in a weird way because somebody who doesn't understand what's in the books is organized them by shape or by color or something. I was like, I need to know where these types of books are.
Can you go through that? And he kind of gave me a little hesitation and he goes, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I think I could do that. So he disappears. A day later, I'm thinking, we should make progress. I come over there and he's not done any of it. I'm like, hey, what's going on? He goes, yeah, I just don't know if I'm well suited to do that.
I'm like, okay, that's strike one. Like, so you don't want to do art. You don't want to do menial labor. Can you help me move some stuff? Like, yeah, I'm not really into that. That's when I'm like, okay, it's my friend. I'm going to pay him for two weeks and we're done. So at the end of the two weeks, I gave him his money.
And I said, okay, that's it. He's like, what do you mean? I said, you know, this is not a welfare state. I just can't pay you to sit around and do nothing. So unfortunately, that relationship started to shrivel away. And it's so sad because I don't know where he is today. And I don't think he's doing well. I had to tell him, you know, I think I'm enabling you to think a certain way by giving you money.
And I can't support that. I really care about you. I would give you cash all the time if I knew it was being used for good things. And he had broken, his mind had broken in ways that I didn't know what had happened to him. So there are two examples there. Someone who says I'll do anything and does it. Someone who says I'll do anything but doesn't do it and is just deluding themselves. And it's like, it wasn't, his skills weren't aligned to organizing books, but that's the job I had.
Jule Kim: Jeez, man, that's, that's a really hard story to hear. So, I don't think any of us like to see the people we know suffering. And then it's even worse when you extend an opportunity because you're trying to help them and they don't actually meet you at that level. They've probably not come out of whatever it is that they're actually suffering from. And so like you said, it is, it is more in the direction of potentially enabling them.
And so there is a difference though, you know, there are these people who I don't think are in the majority of the people. So, on the one hand, they're the people who, you know, They're not doing the work. They were never meant to do the work. Or maybe they had some ego come into the picture and they're like, no, no, like I'm not, I'm not doing that.
That's not really what I meant when I said I'll do anything. On the other end, you have people like your friend who was probably not in the right headspace or the right space, the right place period to actually work with you, but you wanted to help him. I do believe that the majority of the people that we're talking about today are the ones who would love to work with you.
They would love to work with you, they would love to help you, and they probably do have skills that you could put to use. But there's something happening in this conversation with you where they're just dropping the ball. They are not able to help you make the connection so that you're like, yes, I'm going to do it at this price.
Or even at any price, because what you're describing is this process that does not make sense to me. Even though I'm going to admit like just up front, like I've gone down that same path with you too, like three years ago. I know. So, so don't be thinking
Chris Do: we'll talk about that a little bit, but okay. We'll tease the audience. Stay tuned and to hear what Jules is actually talking about.
Jule Kim: Yeah. But me three years ago, I was a different person. So looking back, I can see that that whole path that you just described where they throw out a very high number. Then they come down to somewhere in the middle and you're like, no, I'm sorry.
I still don't see this as being worth it. And then they're, they reach this point. All right. All right. I'll, I'll just do it for free. There's something strange and twisty happening there. So what's happening?
Chris Do: I think they watch too many of our videos and don't understand how this actually works. And this is where, because you watch it on the internet, doesn't mean you can apply it. We're not all neurosurgeons because we watch ER, you know? It's just like, we're not doctors. And we're not ghost hunters if we watch X Files. We're just not. And so we have to distinguish between learning and applying and adjusting. And I'm a big advocate for coaching. Advisors for mentors, because you hear an idea, you apply it, and it'll go wrong, and the assumption is it didn't work.
No, no, it works, it's just your application of it didn't work. So this is where you need a real person like, tell me how you said that again, and why did you say that relative to this? Because I call it monkey robot brain, where robot does exactly what they're saying and monkey just throws bananas and doesn't know what to do.
And they swing between monkey or robot. And every time they do that, I'm like, this is not what I'm talking about. So robot follows the script so tightly, they don't understand context and nuance. Kind of like AI actually. When you ask AI to do something like, and it just gives you something. Yeah, that's not what I asked for.
But because there was no context, it just did what you literally said. And it didn't have the interpretive skills to do that. And in this moment here, I think this person is like, great, Chris has a lot of money. He's successful. He's going to pay top dollar. And this is what I want to make off this. Not, Chris is also an artist and a designer.
What is his pain point relative to this thing and why does he want to do it? And this person, God bless him, I really like him, went through this round, three rounds of this, and this I probably didn't tell you before, Jule, where they said, I said, this needs to be a work for hire. And if you don't know what work for hire means, it means I own it.
I have to own it, otherwise it's no good for me. And then he said, well, what if we do five years usage? I'm like, work for hire. Three years usage? Work for hire. One year usage? Like, you're wasting my time, man. You're wasting my time. You don't listen well, okay? What people don't understand is, for 20 plus years, working in the commercial space, although they paid us a lot of money, everything that we produced for them was work for hire. It has to be. It's a stipulation because if you do something for Microsoft, they can't be going back to you later on and saying, hey, uh, yeah, how much is it to use it for Europe? They're not going to do that. They assume paying you paid you and they own the work product. So he had a hard time listening to that because I don't know what was in his mind, his heart.
It's like, I'm not even asking you, what are you owning? It's my logo. I just had you paint it. Imagine if a guy went to paint your logo on a van. He says, well, I own the logo, right? I'm like, no, no, no. You just painted it on the van. I need you just to paint the logo on a piece of paper. What is there that you want to try to own?
So I was just getting the, like, you know, two ships at the night. Like we don't, we're not speaking the same language. And this is a really frustrating thing that buyers of art have to deal with. That the people that are selling the art are not sophisticated business people. God bless you. He's not good at business.
You don't understand basic business principles. So I know he's a terrific artist and I really like him. I will work with them. But you know what, to be honest, I wasn't even sure if I needed this thing. I was just like, I just asked the guy and give him some money and hopefully it works. And oftentimes I pay people for art I never even use. Logos I don't even use because I had like a little brain fire. I just wanted somebody to make it and I have folders of stuff I paid for that I never use. So they're missing a little bit of that context.
Jule Kim: Well, I think that was a really nice way of you saying that a little context. I mean, it kind of sounds like quite a bit because I don't think people actually look at you in the full picture of you. Like you said, Chris is also an artist and a designer. The space you're at today with The Futur with appearing on all these podcasts and on Instagram, doing your keynotes, I think most of us actually see you more as a business person now. You know, you're the owner of this multi million dollar company.
And there's something which, if I think about it, also doesn't make sense because it's not like you just suddenly abandoned all your prior history, you know, like you've won Emmys, like you've made these amazing commercials, you've done these ads, you've done so much creative work, and yet the way that people are approaching you today is as if you have none of that history.
But the other thing that you just said like a million times is you needed this to be worked for hire, and the person wasn't listening. And I think the one question that you asked that I believe a lot of people listening to this, like if I didn't point it out, they would just gloss over. It's when you said, what is it that you're trying to own?
And when I see people at this stage, they're not listening because not only is it like really all about themselves, but they're trying to protect themselves, their psyche, their ego, their identity as an artist, they don't want to be taken advantage of. And it's, it's a strange conflict because of course, like I'm not saying anybody should be taken advantage of, but if you're so in the mode of protection that you cannot even listen to the words coming out of the other person's mouth, then there's an issue.
Okay, so you have this person and I think this is maybe not the best example because it's something that you didn't even know whether you wanted. Plus the product is something that's actually your ownership because you already created the logo. You just needed the person to paint it. Now, you had another scenario that you explained to me.
It was something you actually did want, and it was the YouTuber, right, like the YouTuber, and I forget what they offered you to even like start the conversation, but you had something very specific you wanted, and again, they did not listen. So what happened there?
Chris Do: I have to be careful about sharing all these stories because they all listen to the channel. I'm like, what? Guys, gals, I'm sorry. I'm going to keep it anonymous, but I know you'll know it's you when I'm doing this. So hopefully we'll just chalk this up as a learning lesson. Okay. I love you all. And I'm going to work with you. It just, it didn't work for me in a moment. I just want to say that. Okay. Full disclosure. I can go back to being a jerk. So there's a person who spends time advising, coaching people on YouTube. And then they asked me, I want to help you. I'm like, okay. What are your priorities, Chris? I say, well, my priorities are pretty straightforward. And everyone who's on our content team knows what my priorities are.
And I tell them all the time. Number one priority, I want to grow our subscribers or followers. However you want to, I want to increase our subscribers. Number two, I want to increase watch time. So if they were watching five minutes as an average, I wanted to go to seven minutes to nine minutes, 12 minutes, 22 minutes. I want to increase watch time because it's telling me more people are seeing it and they're watching for a longer period of time. That's what matters to me. And instead of third priority, and it's the lowest of the priorities is to make money on AdSense revenue. This person's like, yes, I got you. Okay.
So remember subscribers, watch time, and then add revenue. He goes, Chris, well, I've been thinking about it. I have lots of tips and tricks and I think we can easily increase the revenue for your channel. And I was like, dumbfounded. I'm like, like, I'm gonna speak like my kids. Bruh, did you hear me? And I would repeat it. I'm interested in subscribers, watch time, and then AdSense in terms of revenue.
And they would talk, talk, talk, talk, and they would come right back. There are four or five things we could do easily to help you make one and a half X, two X in terms of money. Here's the problem, Jule. I know that most people are concerned about money, but I'm not most people. And this is going right into monkey robot brain.
The robot says, people care about making money. Go into your script and sell him the fact that you're selling money. The YouTube channel has never made a significant amount of money relative to our operating capital and what we need. It's not a priority for me. It's the third priority. So they weren't listening. So I nodded, I smiled and I said, thanks. And one day when that's important to us, I'll reach out to you. So I think that's the example you're talking about, yes?
Jule Kim: Yes, and again, another example of someone I think was maybe a little bit wrapped up in their skills and what they could deliver and I see this, you know, I see this with my clients all the time is as soon as they are presented with something that a client wants that isn't actually their strongest skill set. It's almost like they didn't even hear you. They just default to where, and they're pushing their strongest skill set at you, because that's where they feel most confident.
Chris Do: They try to bend whatever you're saying back to their main talking points. So it's like a river and it has many estuaries, like are those what we call the side little rivers? I don't know what the technical term is. Somebody's going to correct me. And then they want to dig a ditch and bring that path of water back into the main river. And I don't get that every time they do, like, I don't think you're hearing me. And I want to say this to all my creative service providers out there.
I don't care if you're a plumber, tile person, or make roof repairs or car repairs. When you say something that is not what I'm saying, I have great concern that this is how the whole relationship is going to be. That you're somewhat tone deaf and you don't understand the words. Like, we might as well be speaking two different languages.
I'm speaking Vietnamese and you're speaking Japanese and it just, it's not the same. It doesn't even sound the same. So I'm like, gosh, I might've gone for this thing had you addressed what I wanted. I can't imagine how it's going to be like to work with you. And this happens across a lot of creative people I talk to.
Like when we say, hey, this direction isn't working, or here are my goals and priorities and be mindful of these objections. And they just, bulldoze right ahead and they just give me exactly what they're going to give me. I'm like, gosh, this is terrible. And this is when I start to realize this, Jule, and I take this for granted.
The 20 plus years that I spent in the creative service space, making commercials and music videos, I thought it was just naturally obvious to everybody to be a good listener, to be able to build rapport, to be able to play back what you heard, and to make sure the other person feels seen and heard. But apparently, based on all the creative interactions I've been having, they're terrible.
They're terrible at this. And this is kind of why, I guess, so many creative people suffer. Because, like, I don't know why the client didn't pick me. I don't know why they ghosted on me. Maybe it's because you have too much wax in the ear hole there. You're not hearing what they're saying, so they don't have confidence in you. That's the problem, especially when they spend a lot of money. This is where they get much, much pickier.
Jule Kim: I know from a personal experience or like lots of these personal experiences, every time someone ignores what I've said and they go talk about something else, the first thing that pops into my mind is, oh my god, like, they don't get me.
They don't get me and this is a waste of my time. And so the urge to flee just arises and it just gets stronger and stronger the more they demonstrate that they're really not listening. Because, you know, I have this, this whole like reaction of like, why am I here? Like, why are we here? And I don't want to be mean, you know, like most of us, we're not out here to be mean or to be harsh with people.
And then when they get to the point of trying to make the sale, what do we do? Most people are probably going to do some version of, you know what? I have to go think about it. Or I don't know, let me go think about it. And it's sort of like a no. Sometimes you get the wobbly, like, I don't know, maybe, which is like the worst place to be in.
And some people, I think the smaller majority of the people will just be like, no, in the, like, right there in the moment. Most people don't have the guts to just say no to your face. And when the creatives or anybody out there says, I don't know why these people are saying no, I don't know why I didn't get it, it's like, there's some investigation to be had.
And it's not just they're not listening, they didn't explore, so they're not listening, which then causes them to not explore. So I think even with your YouTuber person, sometimes this tactic of where all the side rivers or the side little streams do lead back to their one ditch, it can work if you demonstrate why the ad revenue can still, like their strategy with ad revenue could still get you the subscribers and the increased average watch time. If you can demonstrate that, like it could potentially maybe have landed with you. Again, it's like if you're not exploring why, because you said subscribers, it's like, okay, so why is that important?
And I think if we're talking about the low hanging fruit, the easiest things that you could change today and like how you talk to your clients, this would be it. You're not asking enough questions. And then you just keep pushing your stuff at them because your ego is on the line. You're trying to convince them. You're trying to change their minds. You're trying to make them see that you are worth it.
Chris Do: Just so that people don't think it's about these two people I know, because I know they're going to listen and say, Oh, Chris, Oh my God, you think I'm a jerk and you're a jerk. Blah, blah, blah. I'm going to tell you a couple other versions of this so that this is not me isolating a few of my friends, okay? You know people who sell Instagram verification, like, I can get you verified. They also have the same thing. And by the way, Mogul Press, if anybody's watching this, please turn off all your robots. I will never work with you or any of your people, okay? So Mogul Press, permanently banned from me.
Because clearly you're employing a robot army of somebody that just doesn't care. This is the world's worst PR. Okay, back to our previously scheduled program. So people reach out and say, hey, Chris, I can get you verified. And they try to show me all these things that they can do. I'm like, verification is important to me. Get me verified. Then, well, you need to pay us upfront. I'm like, no, I'm good for it, man. I will pay you. And we can do this dance. I'm like, I will pay you. I promise I'll pay you. You can screen capture this. I have a reputation to maintain. It's not even a lot of money. Like sometimes I only want a thousand bucks or 800 bucks or it's not a lot.
But I'm not paying anybody anything because I know most of them are scams or they're not qualified to do this. So if I was them, This is the thing that you have to realize, folks. Every single person you sell to is a different person than the previous person you spoke to. And if they knew anything about me, I'm a person of integrity, I have real businesses that I'm running, and I'm a person who, if you were to damage my reputation by calling me a fraud, and saying like, he promised me money, and he didn't do it, and here's all the proof, It would ruin my reputation, something I care about way more than a thousand dollars.
But these people constantly, they just insist, no, I can't do it, I can't do it, which is fair if that's what they want to do. But to me, they just didn't get their money because I would have given it to them. But they didn't understand from a Point of view of a buyer, these are fly by night sketchy operations.
I said, you know what? Every person that is not your name has said the exact same things to me and how do I know any of them are real? I just can't trust any of you. So everybody has a friend that works at Facebook or Meta or Instagram. How come I'm the only guy who doesn't have a friend that works at Meta, it seems like.
Y'all are claiming that you can just do this. And it's like, I don't believe you. So if you can do it, do it. If you don't, don't. That's it. Here's another one that bothers me, Jule. Somebody reaches out and said, hey, Chris, you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? I'm like, no, don't sell me because I wouldn't sell you.
I said, don't sell me, I'll block you. He goes, yes. Okay, so when it comes to this, what is your pain point? I'm like, he's like, I want to do a little research. Okay, cool. And he keeps asking me more and more questions. I know a sales script when I see one. So three or four questions in, I'm like, are you going to pitch me and sell me?
Because I feel like this is what you're doing. He goes, no, no, no, no. And he's like acting offended. I said, well, what is the point of you asking me all these questions then? Where is this going? And I don't have this kind of time. So he stopped messaging me. Because he was called out. I know he was going to sell me.
And he was fishing for a problem that he could solve. And I told him at the very beginning, do not ask me a question as a fake question. So in order to scumbaggery, the person was like, hey Chris, let's collab. That's one level of deception. The other person promises not to sell me. And then tries to sell me later on.
That's two levels of deception now. When they insist I'm not going to sell you. I already know you're going to sell me. You've effed up this relationship. I'm going to delete and block you. That's it.
Jule Kim: I think what you've shared here is the perspective that most business owners forget. They forget about client's perspective. Especially the pieces where you just said, how do I know this is real? I don't believe you and this is something we just don't think about like we're so stuck in our own business and we're focusing on our skills and what we can give and what we can do for the other people like we forget that, hey, before you can even get to that stage of showing off all the wonderful things you can do, it's like you first have to establish that initial trust and trust is going to look different in different channels. So sometimes with this verification thing, you may have somebody like this, where the person is a little bit like, well, prove it, show me you can actually do what you say you can do before you're demanding me to fork over my money.
And then in other modes, it's, it's going to look different and I think we forget that it's, it's really about meeting that person where they're at so that they can establish trust with you instead of you trying to force your stuff on them. And just like you said, you know, we're not out here to shame anybody.
Like I see this happening with a bunch of my clients all the time too. I'll look at their DMs and when they tell me that something didn't go through and they want to blame it on the fact that their prices, they've recently raised their prices. And I'm like, I promise you it's almost never about like a higher price.
I just showed you my text message today, right? With my own client. So I'm not going to post this anywhere, but I sent Chris a screenshot of a text message I got from one of my current clients right now. And I knew that she had interviewed other coaches. And I asked her, hey, what made you choose to work with me?
And she said, it was a combination of my vibe, a similar background. She just liked me, you know, she didn't think too hard on it. But then she throws in this other last bit, which was, yeah, I went with you, even though you cost more than twice as much as the other coach. And I was like, it is never about price, like almost never.
Chris Do: There's one part to your story that you didn't share, Jule, you mind if I share it?
Jule Kim: Okay.
Chris Do: Hopefully I won't betray anything. The first message that you sent to me was the best part, which is, hey, I found out about you through the podcast that you're on, and it was really neat that you were exploring different careers.
And I just enjoyed hearing that journey. And there's several things I want to take away from that, at least how I'm interpreting it. Which is, for me, if I was just a random listener, I'm like, you know what? Jule didn't just wake up one day and say, I'm going to be a life coach or an executive coach because that's trendy right now.
Jule had viable businesses that she deliberately walked away from assured money. Cash and bank probably. Accountants like, what did you do again? And chose to do this thing. Chose a harder path because it was more in her, like life purpose and her calling to do something. And I think people admire that.
The second thing I want to peel away from this is that we often don't talk about our meanderings through life. Cause we're like, oh, I'm a failure. I've changed careers. I've done X, Y, and Z. And we deprive people of finding out about our story. And you never know what's going to connect with people.
We don't tell stories to try to connect with people, we tell stories to connect with ourselves to be true to who we are. That creates a filter for you to attract the right kinds of people. So the people who are turned off by Jule, the person who's exploring multiple careers and different path points, and they're not the right person for you.
They're going to listen to this. And I'm like, no, no, I want laser beam focus from day one. Birth, coach, you know, college, coach, post college, coach, coach, coach, coach, coach. I came from a line of 14 coaches. I'm the fifth generation coach. You know, it's like, if that's what you want, Jule's not the person for you, but maybe you yourself have gone through different things in your life.
And finally found your calling, your story resonates. And so we keep telling folks, stop hiding your story, stop hiding yourself, step into the light and see what happens. And I love to refer to you now because you have multiple examples of how being just you, being comfortable in your own skin, has led to you building the unbreakable bond, that emotional connection with your audience and then your clients. And it's beautiful to hear time and time again. Please never stop sending me those stories.
Jule Kim: Well, everybody, you heard it. You heard him say, never stop sending him those stories. And it's not just me. It's all of you. Because what I like to do is I'll message Chris and be like, Oh my God, you won't believe the things somebody just told me today.
And that last podcast episode we did where somehow I, I don't know how you surfaced it out of me, but the fact that I used to be a gamer, like that one thing in of itself is what helps somebody decide that they wanted to work with me because they also worked at a gaming company. And it was just wild because it's not like I was sitting here thinking, oh, I'm ashamed of this background.
And I will never, you know, share about this. I think mostly I was just thinking, you know what, no one's going to care about that. I'm a coach now, like, who's going to care about that? Clearly proven wrong here. So it's like, you never know, like, what someone is going to relate to you. And it's that relatability that then starts to build that bridge of trust.
You know, we're talking about trust. Can you do what you say you can do? But that's the outcome part. That's like the rational piece that we want proof. The emotional side of us that is looking for safety and trust, to know that we're not going to be scanned by somebody, that's the part that looks for some shared similarity.
Something that says, you understand me, and therefore that means you can help me better than all these other people out there. There's this other piece of creatives not quite grasping what you teach, and then twisting what you teach. So one, there's the part where they don't quite fully do your sales teaching methods, which you've seen this even in me, where, what was it? That book, the Phil Jones book.
Chris Do: Exactly What to Say.
Jule Kim: Yes, Exactly What to Say. The book is literally called Exactly What to Say. And what do I do? I don't want to say exactly what he's telling you to say.
Chris Do: Yes.
Jule Kim: Okay, so there's the people like that, which I firmly believe is probably 90 percent of the people because there's something twisty going on in our heads. We hear or we see sales and we're like, ick, I don't want to be salesy. So let me change this language to something that fits me. And, of course, your mindset is what?
Chris Do: I don't think he's even about sales. And you described it as twisted. I'm like, there is something that isn't firing on all cylinders for whatever reason. I'm going to call it a couple of things. Those that know better can tell me the neuroscience or the cultural significance of what I'm saying in terms of like, I didn't get it right. Let's first call it the independent spirit of the American West Frontier pioneer. Let's just call it that. Americans are known as the people who buck tradition, status quo, and they broke away as revolutionaries to form 13 colonies in these United States of America from the British colonial empire, the world's like mightiest power at that point, to do our independent thing and to go westward and explore this country and eminent domain, everything else, right?
There's that American spirit, and so part of that American spirit makes us really interesting weirdos that we try new businesses, we do things that no other people on the Earth do, and it's like, we invent things, and it's cool, and America generates lots of weird, crazy, cool ideas, some of them are total hot dumpster messes, but some of them are brilliant and world changing, if you think about the technology you use, the hardware, the software, the social platforms, many of them, chances are, are invented by Americans.
Okay, cool. That's the best part. The downside to this is that we don't want to follow rules. You don't own me. You can't control me. And we have that kind of mentality. And so it makes it really difficult to teach people because we, before they can even learn the thing, they want to change the thing. I'll give you a classic example right now.
In real time I was running this program called the Brand Lab, and there's a gentleman, his name is Tim Francis, credit to Tim. Tim's like, you know, I wanna share something on how I changed the structure of the way I speak. And it, it helped me convert from 0.3%, not even 1%, one third of 1% to 10%, which is a ginormous, it's like a 3000% increase in conversions.
He goes, my mentor told me to do this thing. And he's like, it's a very simple framework, ordinary, extraordinary, why, and three things. He said, just remember that ordinary, extraordinary, why, and three things. So he goes, you need to tell people something that makes you super relatable because people are on stage, people on webinars.
Already have an aura of like, they're special, they're different than us. And so no matter what you say, I won't accept it because I think your life story is so different than mine. I don't have the skill sets, I don't have the charm, I don't have the intelligence or the book smart, the silver spoon, whatever it is that they think you have, you have to dispel that right away.
And he says, you could do this in one or two sentences. And his example was, I failed at three businesses, had to move back in with my mom, had no money in my bank account. Super relatable. That's how he's ordinary, but he said, you can't stay there. You have to go to the extraordinary because then they're like, well, you're just a loser like us.
Why are we taking advice from you? That's when he says, and then I discovered this thing and then allowed me to run a business that's doing 10 million and answer less than five emails a week. And, and I have all this free time. I work less than, and it's something we all want. We all want that. Then he's like, then you tell them your why.
And he tells the story of the why. And he says, here are three things that you need to know in order for you to have your own thrilling pursuit of excellence. Number one, it's mindset. Number two, it's letting go. Number three, it's like some systems or something like that. So it's like this beautiful thing.
So I'm doing my best on every webinar that I do to literally follow his exact same process. And one of my buddies was listening in. He's like, Chris, I don't think you should tell your ordinary story. I think everybody knows that. I'm like, yo, you don't understand how to play this game. You cannot try to apply a person's teachings and change it before you even do it.
Because you won't know did it not work because you're an idiot or did it not work because the framework didn't work or your delivery. We try to do it exactly the way we're taught. And that's how I learned. And I see this happening all the time. I'll tell people do this. This and then that. No, do that and then this other thing.
No, no, no, no. Do one, two, and three. You're saying four, twelve, and fourteen. No, no, no, no. They just want to make it their own thing so fast. And that's why I had to produce this video called "shoevalry" which is first, to protect the idea, the shoe part, which is your master teaches you something, try your best to emulate it exactly as you were taught.
Don't improvise, don't try and twist it and put your own spin on it. Just do it exactly as you were taught. And this type of thinking and training has kept the human species alive for thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands of years, because we learned a craft from our master and we're able to build upon it. And only after we master the original teaching that then we start to combine other teachings and then finally we make our own. That's the ry part of shoevalry.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Chris Do: Want to make the most of the opportunities coming your way this year? I'd like to invite you to join me inside The Futur Pro Membership, your ace in the hole for 2024. With expert guidance and a supportive community, The Futur Pro Membership was created as your ultimate business lifeline. And we have years of testimonials from members to prove it. Check it out at thefutur.com/pro.
The Futur: And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
Jule Kim: So I'll admit I had never heard this concept until you mentioned it. First time I ever heard it was three years ago. You weren't sharing it. You were more complaining about people constantly kind of changing things before they even tried it at least even once.
I heard you say this on a clubhouse stage, but in terms of where you say people are so in a rush, like the American spirit, especially of trying to make your own, I think there's some of that. But I also think when I look at my clients and I see the same sort of tendencies coming out. Yeah. It's a lack of trust.
It's like it's a lack of trust in the process that I've shared with them or any technique. And they are so afraid it's not going to work that they won't even try. And I'm like, that's the lunacy right there. It doesn't even make sense. Just like you said, if you don't at least try it once exactly the way that you were taught, how can you say for sure whether it works or doesn't?
But you're already like trying to make changes and you know, yes, I'm guilty of that. Okay. So, but the reason why I was saying it's, it especially gets twisty, like in our mental headspace with sales, anytime there's anything sales related coming into our brains, it's not just a lack of trust. It's also a discomfort in a shift in our identity, which I think is what's happening.
And so that fear of being seen as salesy, Okay. Like when I was trying so hard to reword one of the suggestions in the book, Exactly What to Say, and it was because of that I was like, it feels so unnatural. And what did you say? You were like, well, hey. Hey, dummy. It's like, if you don't even try it, how's it ever going to feel natural? Like, of course, it's going to feel unnatural. You didn't say dummy. That was, that was me.
Chris Do: I implied it. I'm just kidding.
Jule Kim: Let the audience draw their own conclusions. But seriously, you know, there is that whole natural, unnatural factor, which I think is really what's shooting us in the foot here. Every time we turn a new corner, we turn the page and we are venturing into the unknown. Everything is going to feel unnatural. And so why would you veer off and just do things on your own instead of the thing you're actually paying for? That coach or that program? It's like, here is your path to safety. All you have to do is follow it. But most of us don't. We just kind of leap off the bridge here and there.
Chris Do: I'm so confused by this, Jule. So you all will spend hard earned money. To hire a coach, to enroll in a program, to attend a workshop, to go to a keynote, and then immediately discount everything that you're told and say, I don't want to be talked like that, talked to like that. I don't want to apply these techniques this way.
So you go back to doing things exactly the way you had done before. I don't understand that if you are committed to doing things your own way and figuring it out on your own, save your money. Just save your money, and at least save your time. Why make the effort and energy to travel somewhere, stay in a hotel, give up two or three days to yourself, only to then discount everything?
I don't get it. I was playing tennis and my wife said, hey, we booked some time with the tennis coach and we love him. And maybe he can help you play a little bit better. I'm like, cool. What does he tell me to do? He's like, he watches me play for half a second. He goes, oh, you're holding the racket incorrectly.
I'm like, I am? I held the racket in my hand the way I thought you're supposed to hold it because it was most comfortable. He's like, no, you turn it this way. You're holding it like 90 degrees wrong. I'm like, oh my God. This is why I suck at tennis. And as unnatural it is for me to hold it this way, I went and hit the ball.
I'm like, oh my God, it sounds different. It feels different. I'm just gonna do it just like this. It feels totally different. Number two, for a period of time, I saw a family therapist, and she would tell me exactly what to say to my wife, to my children, and I'm a freaking good student. I say it verbatim.
Situation happens, and my wife turns to me. So suspiciously, she's like, You've been seeing Joan again, haven't you? I'm like, um, yes, why? I thought I was gonna get a pat on the back, like, you're working on a relationship. Good for you, Do. No, I can tell, cause those words don't sound like you. I'm like, babe, what do you want me to do?
The master, Joan, told me what to do. I'm doing exactly what she told me to do. Is it working? She goes, yes, but it doesn't sound like you. It's not supposed to. I'm supposed to improve my communication. So if it sounds like me, I didn't learn anything. So I try my best to do as exactly as I'm instructed.
Jule, I have this fantasy and I'm somewhat reluctant to say, but you know me, I'm going to put my foot in my mouth. Because it's borderline cultish. Maybe it's full on cult. I would love to have a group of students who have already pledged their undying commitment to doing exactly what I tell them, so that I can help them.
But instead what they do is they just fight. And I tell them this, how to do something, and they're like, well, I don't want to be taught this way. I'm like, oh my god, so you don't know what to do, you don't have the result that you want, and you're paying me to then tell you how to tell you what to do? I don't get it, because only one of us can drive.
Do you want to drive or do you want me to drive? Because if you want me to drive, you can't tell me to turn my signal on or watch my distance or, hey, don't go one mile per hour above 60 miles per hour. Like, I don't get that part, but people do that to me all the time. And I reluctantly take their money, but I'm like, gosh, you could do so much.
If you could just get out of your way, and I coach and advise people all the time, if you just do this, you'll be really successful. Wow, I don't want to do that. That destroys my identity. I'm like, that identity that you don't even like? You're working so hard to protect that? Okay, that's up to you. So they like to argue because they don't want to be told what to do. But when you're hiring someone to tell you what to do, I don't get it.
Jule Kim: That's tough. It's, it's one of the first things that I was taught as a coach, you know, as a life coach is, I think it might have literally been the first human rule that we were taught is people do not like to be told what to do, which is why the style of coaching I do is so effective because it's not just, hey, you, you do this.
It's more a series of questioning, That will then let them break open that shell, that protective barrier that they've built around themselves to then allow themselves to do what I suggest, but that's really tough. It's like, because what I'm hearing is you saying that you essentially want them to a bunch of students that are just like you. People who are just going to do exactly.
Chris Do: I'm preferable, yes. A bunch of asian guys, all of them.
Jule Kim: Asian guys who are like, I will do anything.
Chris Do: Anything, bro.
Jule Kim: I will do anything to be in your vicinity.
Chris Do: Shifu, tell us what to do. Yes, I will. You know, when I went to see my therapist, I said to her right away, I said, you know, I work really well with direct, clear feedback.
Literally tell me what to do, because I don't want to talk about theory. I just want you to tell me what it is I need to do. And I will do exactly what you say. And she looked at me like, this is weird. And so I tell people, I love therapy. I love everything about it. Now, how long did you go on, like, 10 sessions?
I only had 10. I didn't have anything else to do. I had no more problems. She solved all the problems I could bring to her. And I think there must be some world record for this because people are in therapy for years. I'm like, what's changed? They're like, nothing. I'm like, exactly. I've hired one of our mutual friends to coach me on something right now.
And I'm thinking, just tell me what to do. I don't really need all the rationale. And just tell me, monkey jump, monkey will jump. Say this monkey, stop doing that monkey, monkey will stop. Because I want to be a master by the time we're done. And I would do exactly as prescribed. And so there are different flavors, I suppose.
So please, everybody, if you want to do it through a long question base, don't tell me what to do thing, hire Jule Kim, please just hire her, be done with it. And if you want amazing, fast results, like a ninja, but you're like, master, tell us, tell me what to do. I'll do exactly as prescribed. I will be your master and you will see, you will grow so fast.
Now, I always tell people, there's, I think, four or so students in my life, people I've coached, that I wish the other 400 would behave just like them. So I realize it's an anomaly. There's almost always guys. There are almost always military, law enforcement, something in there about them that they're just really good with rules.
And they just do exactly what you say, and then they just grow so fast. I'll tell a person, change his position, he's like, it's already done. I'm like, what do you mean? While we're talking, I changed it. I'm like, what? Maybe not that fast. And he's like, and he calls me up the next week. He's like, oh my God, everything in my life is so much easier.
Why have I not been doing this before? I'm like, this is what I'm here for. I'm here for this. And so those people grow their business so fast. I'm like, okay, I guess we're done. We don't need each other. Let me know when the next big problem comes up. And then there are people who are constantly coming back, asking me the same question over and over again.
Jule Kim: I don't know, those people, if they have that theme of law enforcement or militaries, like they've already had that beat down. They've already been shown and taught how to put their faith in something else other than themselves. And I think that's really like what you're describing.
Chris Do: Now, there are some cool things about the military. There's some horrific things about the military. I'm not here to like enforce or validate or vouch for the military and some of the atrocities that have happened in the, name of the military, right? And it might, but I think what the military has done is they have a program so strong that you can take previous criminals and delinquents and put them into a program and you can make them like contributing member society, obviously not always, but it's like this acceptance of, you know what?
I don't know. Tell me what to do. I'll do exactly what it is. And they find the reward in that really fast. I mean, if you think about the military, what do they do? They strip away all of your personal identity. Shave your head. You're like private 44472, whatever it is. You're known by a number. You don't even have a name.
You have no identity. So they strip away all of your ego. And this is extreme guys. Just keep in mind. This is very extreme. And if you're in the military, first of all, I salute you, but I may not be getting all this information right. Okay, they strip you of this. You all wear the exact same clothes. There's no differentiation.
And everything has its place. There's a belt, there's a tie, every button, every crease. You keep your locker specific way, you make your bed, you wake up at this hour, you go to sleep at this hour, you eat in the air. There's so many rules. And you hold yourself upright, and you salute when you salute, and you do everything that you're told.
But what happens is they have a physical, a mental, and sometimes a spiritual transformation. That some of these people who weren't raised in ideal situations, who come from broken families, are able to pull themselves together and say, I can do anything I set my mind to do. And then later on, some of them wind up becoming high ranking officials, or they go into the private sector and they do really well.
They start companies, they run divisions, and they have that kind of military discipline. And that, my word is my bond. And honor, loyalty, friendship, all those things are very important to them. And those are the admirable parts. I'm kind of cleaving the conversation here because everything else might be horrible, but that's the part I admire.
Jule Kim: No, I see it. You know, one of my favorite TV shows, I don't think you've ever seen it, but if you have Paramount Plus, Seal Team 6. It's describing a lot of what you're talking about here. And it is, it's that transformation, but it's at the end of the day, you know, these are a group of people where they are taught a system and they are swiftly punished for any deviation outside of that system.
Because they are not allowed to stray from the path, they also reap the rewards. They immediately see the results or very quickly. And so that's what I think is really special about the military or systems like the military is you have no other choice. You have to stay on the program and when you do, you see everything like you get to reap the rewards and that's what keeps people motivated.
But when you leave it to yourself, which is most people, you know, most of our clients are students unless they're able to give up that sense of control. And I think that's the scariest part, but control is illusory from the get go. Like you really don't have control over most things in your life except what you think, what you feel and what you do.
And everything else is, it's a dance, right? You're trying to adapt. But like you said, when you sign up for the coach or you sign up for the program and you don't listen, like, what are you doing? That's why one of the criteria I have in, somebody asked me, can you tell me how to find a suitable life coach?
And I kind of go through like the basic, what I call the basic bullshit. Like, first, know what your problem is that you want solved. But really like the third and fourth things are, You have to understand, like, do you know how you need to be talked to in a way that you will listen? Because if you will not listen, if there's any chance that you're not going to listen, don't bother. You might as well set your money on fire. And that's what I said in the video.
Chris Do: That's good advice, by the way. I'm going to make a pitch right now. If you're listening to this and you're part of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple Plus TV, Paramount Plus, or Disney Plus, wherever you have the ability to green light a show, I would love to be one part of a social experiment and I don't have to own anything, I don't really care, but where you take a control group and then you take a different group and you allow the group to work with me and say, you've fully committed to doing everything that Chris wants you to do.
And then you give the other group, whatever, traditional, new age, any, I don't really care. But I'm willing to bet the people who commit to doing what it is I tell them to do will do exactly that before they even talk to me, we will achieve more. They will have greater transformation. They'll have a greater sense of confidence and pride and the work product will be better.
And I'm willing to risk public humiliation and professional embarrassment to say, if they were willing to do that, we can achieve so much by whatever metric the show wants to do. So that's my pitch there. Anybody who's listening to this, if you want to help green light this project, I'd like to be a part of it.
Give me six people, give me my Seal Team 6, let them, I don't care what shape or size, their background, if they're 100 percent committed, if I say pick up the hot object, walk on fire, let's go, and they're willing to do it, I would never subject them to anything like that, but I think they would be able to do so much.
Jule Kim: I would watch that show and I can personally attest to the fact that every time I listen to you and I just do what you say, it always turns out well, like no question. I don't think I can even really think of a single time where something you told me turned out poorly for me. There's something there. It's like, stop thinking so hard. Stop the overthinking. Stop the questioning and the doubt. It's like, what do you have to lose at this point? Most of us, right? Like, what do you have to lose? Like, why are you holding so tightly onto this thing of like, what if it doesn't work? And I'm like, well, what if it does? What if it does? So much to gain.
Chris Do: Well, I know what to do. I'm gonna tell a little personal story about something that's happening in real time right now. And then I want to end the episode on you telling your story about our. work relationship, okay? So we've teased people long enough. I'll tell you something right now.
There's a young man who's working with me. He's one part of our video content team. His name is Rodrigo Tasca, and he's a really good guy. Brazilian, and he's out here in my studio, and I'm not used to an adult man being around me. like this for a long time because since pandemic, I just work by myself in isolation.
And I'm seeing a lot of the way he thinks, the patterns of questions he asks, what he's looking for and what he's not looking for. I understand his skill set, his motivations and where he needs to be guided. And I've been doing a series of conversations with him. I said, in appreciation for you here, helping me do whatever it is that I need done.
I want to coach you and I'm going to take you on as a protege, but you do need to do what it is I tell you to do. He's like, I'm all for it, boss. Let's do it. And we're talking about lots of things. And he went from, I'm never moving to California to like 65%, I'm moving to California, but just in a few short days at the beginning of the conversation, it's like, uh, I don't know.
There's so many headaches, my life, my roots, everything's in Miami. I want to stay there too. Like he's talking now in the. present or future tense. I'll be in California. I'm getting used to this weather. Okay. So he's already taking on the ideas. I said, here's how you need to think about business and your personal relationships.
And I told him something. I know a little bit about you. You've never gotten full monk mode. He goes, what is monk mode? No sex, no alcohol, no nothing. Just focus on developing yourself. He goes, Chris, that's all, how long does this gotta go for? I'm like, as long as we say it's gotta go for. Until you are transformed.
It's like, think about Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Volume 2. And I'm Pai Mei. We're gonna go up these steps. And you know what he's doing with me right now? We're going to the gym. And he's in okay shape, but he's not in great shape. He goes, Chris, can do we skip today? I'm like, we never skip. Like, what's your reps right there.
We said 25, you don't do 23. You don't do 28. You do exactly 25. He's already getting stronger, Jule. New habits are developing. And the last little piece, which is a fun little piece he's going out on, you know, cause he knows I have so many coaching calls today. He's like, I'm going to go out with my sister.
I'm cool. Cool. And he said, and he's like, Chris, how do I look? How do I make this look better? I'm like, what? Show me all the components of your wardrobe right now. There's not much to work with here, Jule. And he goes, Chris, I didn't bring my whole luggage. You know, I didn't bring my entire wardrobe. I said, you know what?
Go upstairs. I'm gonna grab a few pieces that I have, and we're gonna do a little style makeover. So he comes upstairs, and his sister and my wife are talking in the kitchen. I said, put this shirt on. Try this. Untuck that. Put this belt on. And I said, go look in the mirror now. He walks in the mirror. He's like, he's uncomfortable with himself, Jule.
He's like, this is so much. I'm like, we haven't even started. You think this is too much? Because I feel like I'm trying too hard. I said, maybe you're just trying not enough. So we, we call lady, ladies come by and his sister's standing there and my wife's standing there and they kind of support him in like, I'm trying to do too much with them.
I said, just go all the way. He goes, no, I'm not comfortable with this. Let me go remind myself what I look like. So he takes all this stuff off. He puts all his old clothes back on. He stands in front of the mirror and he goes, I feel so much more comfortable. I said, do you want progress or do you want comfort?
Because progress doesn't exist in the realm of comfort. He goes, well, maybe I'll just do a few things that you're saying. Drigo, how many times am I going to loan you my clothes? How many times have I loaned anybody my clothes? That would be zero. So today is your day. You want to walk through that door, you do what you want.
I'm not here to tell you, but live on the edge. You know what? I'm not telling you to wear a pink skirt or nothing. I'm just like, just do what I tell you to do. So after some contemplation, he does mostly of what I tell him to do. And he goes, I'm just gonna go with it. To go and tell me later on in the day how you feel.
But we're just talking about clothes, Jule. It's not like I'm telling him to wear a cowboy hat with some crazy, like, Texan necklace or any I'm not telling him to do that. Just go out there. See how you feel. Reserve judgment. And I'm telling you right now, I already know the outcome of this story. I'm waiting for him to come back to the studio later tonight.
Jule Kim: Dang man, I'm like, I've seen pictures of Drigo, like he is a fine looking man. Like it's hard for me to even conceive of him wanting style advice or needing style. Like he's the kind of guy who could wear a sack and look good. But the fact that he put on all his old clothes first and it's like this feels comfortable and it kind of, reminded me of what I told you with when I was struggling, like not wanting to say what like Phil Jones is saying you should say, we come back to this subconscious of it doesn't feel like me. And I think that's the problem. It doesn't feel like me. And then that keeps us from venturing into the delicious unknowns where progress lies.
Chris Do: I do want to say this, though, when somebody says distance and feel like me, there's an identity that you associate with. with whatever you're doing. But if we stripped you down to just being naked or in your underwear, are you still you?
And you would say, yes, of course I'm still me. I put a fur coat on you. You're still you. I'm still me. I shave off all your hair. Are you still you? Yes, of course. I'm still me. So what is somebody saying to me that wearing these clothes is not me? That is just you being attached to an identity and using that as leverage to say, I don't want to change.
It's the same argument that I had with one of my other friends, Mo. I said, Mo, you come in with like sloppy pants and a t shirt and you don't look like a professional. When you talk to someone who is used to talking to people who look a certain way, dress a certain way, they're going to exclude you. For better or for worse, they're going to exclude you because they're going to prejudge you.
He goes, Chris, I'm not willing to let go of my identity. I'm like, okay, well, you stick to that identity. See where that gets you. And I tested him. I said, and, and I've told this story before. If you go to a Japanese home, do you take off your shoes? He goes, of course. I said, when you're in the Japanese subway, do you turn off your cell phone?
Do you remain quiet and respectful of others? He's like, of course. Why would you do that? Because it's respect, bro. I see. So when you go to a person's place of business. You're saying, I don't respect you. I don't respect your rules and your customs and your protocols. Is that what you're saying? He goes, no, no, no. I said, but that is what you're saying. Your need to express yourself is greater than your need to show respect to other people. He didn't have a response for me after that, Jule.
Jule Kim: I feel like that would be most people though, most people have a hard time responding to some of the things you're saying. I mean, you do have a way with logic, but also the ideas that you communicate. Sometimes these are the first time that we've ever heard these things. So, of course, we can't respond. It's like we got to take some time and go away and think about it. That thing you said about fur coat, is it still you? Shave your head, is it still you? And the clinging to the identity as the reason to not do the things that we could be doing.
I think that really hit hard for me, probably for everybody listening as well. It's like there's the safety in our identity, but I think we tend to think of our identity as something that's set. When in reality, your identity is a fluid, entity is always shifting and you have the power. You have the choice.
You can choose to change your identity at any moment, but what you're describing with some of these scenarios, and you know, I've experienced this too. It's like every time you catch yourself thinking, oh, but that doesn't feel like me. So you got to check yourself because at the end of the day, like what you're describing is, well, here's where you are. And then here's where you want to get to. And you're really telling me that it's your identity that's keeping you from getting there. It's like, what do you want more?
Chris Do: Yeah, and I don't think it's your identity, it's your attachment to some idea of your identity. And you raised a really good point, and I'm so glad that you're saying this, that our own identities are so fluid to begin with, and not even talking about like over weeks, months, or years, like in a day.
Let's take, for example, when I talk to my wife, I don't talk to her like I'm talking to someone I'm coaching if I want to stay married, and I don't talk to my children like I talk to my wife, and I don't talk to my team like I talk to my children, sometimes I do, like if I'm in church or if I'm somewhere else, I change fluidly throughout the day, this is all of me, what am I doing, I'm adjusting so I meet the person where they're at, I'm using a language that makes them feel safe and that we can bond and connect as two intellectuals, whether it's me and my child, or me and my wife, I'm doing this because this is how we socialize, and I'll say this to everybody, Well, you're changing yourself to be accepted?
No, I'm changing myself so that I can act with grace. And so I create safe space for others. And you might say, well, what's the difference? Is it half of one or the other? Well, I think it's all the world of difference. Now, Jule, all truth being told, if I'm not on camera, if I'm not filming content, I'm not going to shave.
I may not wash my face. And I would probably be sitting in like really baggy pants and like, I am wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants right now, but I'm just saying, I don't care, but I'm going to show up. And so to Mo and to all these other people, like my identity, I'm not, I'm not changing. Well, why don't you show up in your boxer shorts, unshaven, don't brush your teeth and go to your meetings this way.
If that's so important to you, you're already doing it today. You put on the clean pair of pants, you wash your hair, you wash your face and your hands, you might've put on some deodorant. Why? Cause you're sending signals to people. I respect you. I want to honor the commitments. I want to show you that I'm not threatening, or I want to show you that I'm professional or meticulous about the things that I do.
So you're signaling all the time. For that reason, we don't show up to interviews in a dirty, greasy t shirt and unwashed jeans and flip flops, because we're saying, I don't give an F. Now, that might be how you dress the rest of the time you work there, but you don't want to do that on the first impression, because you're trying to win them over on the character of who you are versus their biases against how they perceive you.
So you meet them more than halfway, unless you're the power person, which says, I will not conform. I have more power than you. You bend to me. And you may not realize this, but inadvertently you're signaling to them, that's how this relationship is going to work.
Jule Kim: Well, I know we've been on both sides of that equation right there. Sometimes we fall prey to our own hubris or pride and we act like the person in the position of power, even when we're not. And so when I sometimes review my past behavior through my lens today, and I'm like, oh, God, what was I doing? But no, it's, I think what you just said here is it ties back into everything that we first started the conversation with, right?
Because you're talking about meeting people where they're at so we can bond and ultimately like that's the goal. We're not even saying to make a sale. Sometimes the correct choice is to not work with you and that's okay. But at least if you can bond on that level and you show and you move with grace and you show them the respect that they deserve, you clear all the bullshit out of the way. And then you guys can get to, get to work. You guys can have a real conversation. You can make a clear decision. I think that's the really important bit here.
Chris Do: Okay, without further ado, Jule, please share your story.
Jule Kim: I feel the sweaty armpits.
Chris Do: No, that's your sickness. That has nothing to do with the situation.
Jule Kim: Cygnus, you make me sound like I've got like some disease. Jesus. Thanks. Okay, so I do think my situation was a little bit different because I didn't just pitch myself to you like uninvited. You actually asked me because this is back in the clubhouse days. I had established myself as a the SEO person and you know, I had business, plenty of business and I kept telling you like Chris, are you guys doing this?
And you're like, no, like, what about this? Are you guys doing this? And every time you'd like, no. And eventually you came to me one day and you said, will you help us with our SEO? And I was like, what? I had a freak out, like meltdown moment because I didn't think you would actually ever want to work with me. In my head, I'm imagining you to go hire people like Neil Patel or his business partner, which I think you actually did talk to his business partner, right? Eric.
Chris Do: Yes.
Jule Kim: So in my mind, you're at that level. So you telling me, will you help us? And I was like, well, of course I will. And then I fell into that trap. It's like, Oh F what am I supposed to charge for this? And that's when all the strange things started to happen. I ended up talking to Ben. So spoke to Ben a bit and he was telling me about some of your challenges. And I remember. I had your voice in the back of my head from your videos and your clubhouse calls on how to sell.
So I'm like, okay, I need to approach it from the value based selling model. And you're already laughing. Great popcorn, thanks. So I'm like, okay, value based. So I go away, I get some great data from Ben. He actually hooks me up with a bunch of analytics and stuff. So I go away and I do a lot of work. It's actually quite a lot of legwork on my end.
I start locating keywords that you guys could go after, which could actually convert to your product catalog. I know how much your landing pages convert at, like that rate. So I'm taking a bunch of calculations, like literally, here's where you're at now, which is not even on page one of Google for most of these keywords.
If I can get you to the top three spots and there's literal numbers like calculations, you can attach number one spot on page one of Google for any search term typically gets more than 50 percent of the clicks something crazy like that, like 60 percent of the clicks and then spot two and spot three. They also get quite a bit. But you know, the drop off is very steep. So I remember taking a very conservative estimate. I was like, if I can even get you to spot three, here's the amount of traffic from all the calculations you'd be having now based on your conversion. This is the amount of bump you'd get in revenue.
So I lay it all out there. It's a beautiful chart, spreadsheets, and I show this to Ben and Ben says, great. What I did not anticipate was running into the brick wall, which was you. So Ben ends up telling me, okay, his concern is he believes in the plan, he sees the logic, and I've already taken a very conservative estimate, so spot three, and I've already cut it in half, just to be sure, and then I cut it in half again, so I'm actually only giving you like 25 percent of what I think is the throughput, and I'm saying this is still how much you could increase your revenue just to the products you already have.
Some of your top five products and you say no, you said no. So like Ben's whole concern, like going back to the free work. You said it's never free work because you'll still have to manage things happening. You'll have to manage the person project managed. Yes. So that ended up being Ben's main objection.
He was like, this is great. I see the plan. Who's going to actually manage this and who's going to write all the content. He ends up saying, I want to done for you. I don't want you to tell us what needs to be done. I want you to. Just actually do it for us and I'm like, okay, so I come back and I revise all the estimates like in terms of the work.
Here's how much my charge would go up by. So the final number I arrive at is $15,000. I was like, I will do all of the work laid in this plan for $15,000 and you won't even have to lift a finger. I will manage all of it. Ben ends up telling me, I have to talk to you. I talked to you and what do you do?
Chris Do: What do I do?
Jule Kim: You say no.
Chris Do: How come?
Jule Kim: You told me that it was similar to what you were describing with the other people. You told me that you just didn't see it as worth it.
Chris Do: It's not a priority or something like that, right?
Jule Kim: It was a combination of it's not a priority. You said butts in seats or something. You're like, I'm trying to get more students into the pro group. You're like, I want more people in pro group and I want more people in, um, bootcamp. And so you're like, my priority is butts and seats for those two programs, but you also wanted more sales. And so this is where I was stuck because I was like, but the reason why you're so obsessed with butts and seats for your two programs is because you wanted to hit that $5 million revenue mark that year.
And I was showing you, you could increase your revenue just from product sales in your current catalog by like 50 grand a month. And you didn't see it though. Like you, there was something here. And so I know when I brought this up to you, whenever like a month ago, you were saying there's something like the pain was not enough, right?
So it's like a combination of the unaware. And also, you're not like one of these people who has to make money right now. So you can afford to wait. But then here we are, three years later, you still haven't really taken the steps for SEO.
Chris Do: I haven't. Shame on me.
Jule Kim: Now, here's the other piece too, though. I could tell that you were price anchored. Like you had a number in your mind. And so I just came right out and I asked you and you said 5, 000. And I was like, 5, 000, man, like, That's what I charged my clients at that time to just teach them how to SEO. None of the done for you stuff. And so that's where we kind of sold out. I was like, I don't know what to do here.
Chris Do: You know what? I'll tell you. I think I don't really remember any of this. So this is like a fascinating story to me about a person that kind of sounds a lot like me, but I don't even remember any of this. So I think to tell everybody like what's on my mindset right now is when you approach an uninformed, uneducated buyer stuff, it didn't really matter how good you are.
They're like, well, I don't know, did I need this? I didn't wake up this morning and think I needed this. And so what I try to tell people is find a hungry audience who's starving for your solution. So anybody who is like, God dang it, if we were to just get our SEO and, and our traffic to our page up, we would be just be making hand, money hand over fist.
That wasn't my mindset. I don't remember. So I'm going to make up a story here. I think what was happening in my mind at that point in time is we had tried a bunch of things already and we're just burning money. I'm like, none of this is working. It's a fairy tale. We keep reinventing things. And one person after the other tells me, here's a new idea.
Here's a new idea. And we just keep doing this. I'm like, guys, just be quiet. I'm just going to go meat and potatoes. I know I can sell this thing. I just want to enroll people the way I want. And all these things that you're talking about, has not yielded any real tangible results. Like, time and time again, our Facebook ad person is like, we'll do this, and it doesn't work.
And then this other person says this. And we keep trying one thing after the next. Like, what are we doing, you guys? What are we doing? Now, I know I'm in a unique position because of two things. Number one, we have healthy runways, so we don't even care. We don't run our company the way a normal company runs, which is always looking at the bottom line, top line, and bottom line revenue.
All we care about is do we have enough money to play for the next year. And to make consistent strides towards our goals. And so when new ideas come up or things I'm not thinking about, I'm like, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. All I do is I feel like I'm just writing or checks or signing checks for people's pursuits of things.
I'm like, what has any of it done? And we had another year of doing that. So it's like, this year, it's all like about me owning it and coming to the realization, perhaps landing exactly where we were three years ago. I'm like, we were trying these things and now I see like where it doesn't work and I'm going to tweak it.
And I think that was part of my mindset at that point in time. Because now looking back, I'm like, well, we should have done it. Why didn't we do it? I don't know what happened. Thanks for sharing that story, Jule.
Jule Kim: Oh my God. So after stalling out and I could see and I'm again, I hear your voice in my head of you have to remove risk for the buyer. So I actually, this is why I said that I wasn't that different from the other people you just described on this call, because I then offered to do it for free, like on a contingency basis. So I would do all the work, although I did, I think I did ask for you to actually pay for the writer, so it wasn't coming out of my pocket. But everything else. I offered to do it for free and wait for you to get the results and you still said no.
Chris Do: What a terrible person I am. You know what though? There's a lot of people who are listening to our episode on SEO and now I just point to them. Even though that's not technically something that you'll may do on a case by case scenario, I want to correct the record there. So if people need help with SEO and you've listened to that episode, I misspoke on behalf of Jule there.
Please reach out to her. People love that episode. And now I point to everyone's like, you know what your problem is. You need to listen to this episode right now and then talk to me after you listen to this. I don't wanna hear another word from your mouth hole until you listen to this episode. And then after you listen to the episode, I know what's going to happen.
They won't apply it, so I don't have to talk to them. I already know it. That's why I have no follow up calls with them. Because otherwise they're like, I did it and it worked. I mean, there's only two options. I did it and it worked. Or I didn't do it and I'm ashamed to talk to you again. Either one's fine for me.
Jule Kim: I have seen those examples in my clients. Yes. Thank you. It was actually really gratifying getting to talk about this with you after three years or something, because I now realize some of the things that I should have done differently. So I had geared my entire proposal to Ben when what's the number one mistake you talk to the decision maker.
You don't talk to the person who isn't. Now I know Ben was like fully in support of this. But again, the other piece like number two that I failed to recognize in the moment was the position you were in. So I thought you were in a much more urgent position for wanting to generate revenue. And of course you were, you wanted revenue, but in your mind, I had not proven the case for SEO to get you there.
And I failed to press on the pain. So you have been stuck in this constant churn of butts and seats of you having to output effort and energy consistently to get revenue. And if you don't go do stuff, and you only just leave it to your team. You take your hand off of the, you know, the steering wheel, you don't totally get the results you want.
And so I failed to recognize that I could have demonstrated that SEO could have closed that gap for you. So one of the best selling points I ever did for myself when I was still doing SEO as a primary business was teaching people on Instagram about SEO and then showing them, you don't even have to do any of this social nonsense if you don't want to, if you do SEO.
It's that ability to step back, step back from the thing you don't really like doing, and just let this thing sort of build momentum over time, and you know this, like, now I'm like, oh my gosh, there were so many missed opportunities I could have had, because you do YouTube. So you actually get it. You do YouTube and you see how some of the content you make, it continues to generate traffic.
Like even the video that we made on content and SEO I check back every now and then. I'm like, huh, still getting views. I'm, I'm surprised because I keep forgetting that YouTube is not like Instagram. So YouTube being a search engine, and that's the beauty of SEO work on any search engine. So Pinterest, your website, YouTube, any search engine, you have that potential to keep generating traffic without doing anything.
You put out something good and it just keeps going. And that's the beauty. You don't have to keep churning and grinding every single day like you would on Instagram.
Chris Do: 100 percent right. And that episode is going to keep going, and five years from now we'll look back and I'm like, it's still going, it's still going, and it has yet to

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