View
110
Download
0
Category
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
The Entrepreneurs Radio Show http://www.theentrepreneursradioshow.com Tags : entrepreneurship, small business
Citation preview
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 1 of 25
EPISODE #54: JIM KUKRAL
On Episode 54 of “Diamonds in Your Own Backyard: The Entrepreneurs Radio show,” Travis and
Sandra are going to be chatting with Jim Kukral who is an ad designer turned programmer turned
Internet marketer. Jim is one of the great entrepreneurs who has worked on the Internet when it was
just starting. He is also the author of 10 books and the founder of website jimkukral.com.
Jim will be discussing some of the reasons why people are not as successful as they should be. Listen
in as he teaches us how to discover and use passion for success.
Jim Kukral – Avoiding these common mistakes
to grow your business
Travis: Hey, it‟s Travis Lane Jenkins.
Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain.
Travis: Welcome to Episode Number 54 of the Entrepreneurs Radio Show, Sandra.
Sandra: Why, thank you. Radio show designed to help you move the needle in your own business.
Travis: That‟s right. Hey, Sandra, before we get started, I want to remind all of our good friends,
listeners, to be sure and stay with us until the very end, if you can. We‟d like to share a little inspiration
with you, and we‟ll also reveal who we‟re going to connect to within the next episode. Now a quick
reminder: if you enjoy the free podcast that we create for you, we‟d really appreciate it if you‟d go to
diyob.com which stands for what, Sandra?
Sandra: Diamonds in Your Own Backyard.
Travis: That‟s right. Click on the iTunes icon, and then post a comment and rate the show. This would
help us reach, instruct and inspire more great entrepreneurs like yourself with each and every guest
that we bring on the show. All right?
Sandra: Ready. Yes.
Travis: So our guest today is Jim Kukral.
Sandra: Yes.
Travis: Jim is a pretty interesting guy. You we‟re going to say something?
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 2 of 25
Sandra: Yes. Quite an entrepreneur.Author of 10 books.Been around doing Internet things from the
very beginning of the Internet. He is a wealth and a treasure, has tons of resources.
Travis: Yes. Jim is a really fascinating guy. Started out on the Internet or in the online world back when
things just got started, and he talks about a little bit of the evolution on that, along with his list of 13
things that are preventing people from achieving success, which is really a very popular blog post that
he‟d written sometime back, along with several success pointers and tips along the way, right?
Sandra: Right. He is someone that helps people achieve success, and to just hear—it‟s really
refreshing to hear his spin on things of what it takes. He‟s a great guy and great show.
Travis: Yes, lots of great things. So for those of you that just started listening, we‟d like to record the
show first and then come back and do the intro so that we have complete clarity on what the show‟s
going to be about. I think we‟ve given kind of a quick snapshot of what it‟s going to be about. What do
you say we segue into the show?
Sandra: Let‟s do it.
Travis: So without further ado, welcome to the show, Jim.
Jim: Thank you for having me. It‟s my pleasure to be here.
Travis: We‟re super excited. Hey, Jim, before we get into talking about what it is that you teach and
where you‟ve gotten to where you‟re at today, do you mind sharing the backstory on how you got there,
whether it was a straight up trajectory?
Sandra: And who you are?
Travis: Right.
Jim: Yes. How far back do you want me to go? Like when I was eight years old, and I lost a weebles
wobble on the sand dunes?
Travis: Yes.
Sandra: I mean, Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, we discover how people find their passion, so
sometimes it could be those eight-year-old stories that get you started.
Travis: We could start with your birth, if you want to.
Jim: No. I‟m a born and raised Midwest guy from Cleveland, Ohio, and I grew up in a very blue-collar
family. My father was an electrician for General Motors, and my mother was a schoolteacher. Long
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 3 of 25
story short is I still live here in Cleveland, Ohio, and I always will probably live here unless I find a way
to go live on the beach in Cabo some place.
The point I‟m trying to make is that I started from regular beginnings, just like most people, and built my
way up to a career and businesses that I own that allow me to live the lifestyle I want. That‟s the short
story.
The longer story is I got started in the Internet business, which is probably more applicable to what
we‟re discussing today.
Travis: Right.
Jim: I got out of college at the University of Akron. I was sitting in the basement of a company called
Alltel, designing phonebook ads. All of a sudden, this thing called the Internet came out, and my friend
said, “Hey, well, my cousin is starting an Internet company and want to know if you want to apply
because we need a designer.” I was like, “Okay, well, I don‟t know anything about the Internet.” This
was right when the Internet was starting, so I said, “You know what, I‟ll take a shot.” I wanted to get out
of that Yellow Page book-designing ad business.
First day on the job, they handed me a book about how to learn how to do HTML. I took my limited
design skills, and I started to learn how to build webpages. This is back in, I think, „96, „95. So I started
to build webpages, and I started to get good at building websites. I built Ernst & Young‟s first website. I
built Sherwin-Williams‟ first website.
Sandra: Wow.
Jim: Progressive Auto Insurance. Those are all Cleveland companies.
Travis: Their very first website?
Jim: Their very first one.
Travis: Wow.
Jim: Now this is back in the day… I don‟t know, a lot of people--if you remember before HTML had
tables, when all the websites were linear, so it was like you couldn‟t stack it next to each other. You
remember that?
Travis: Yes.
Jim: These are very, very early websites. The long story short from that is I grew my skills hands on
from the very beginning learning how to do this. I turned myself from being a designer into a
programmer and then turned myself from into that to a marketer. That‟s where I really found what I was
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 4 of 25
really good at, which was creating content, creating businesses, creating websites, and marketing them
and putting them out there, and using the extreme power of the Internet to build business.
Travis: Right.
Jim: It‟s just an amazing, amazing tool. Since that time, I‟ve grown my own businesses, bought and
sold a few, and now I just run a few smaller ones, and I spend a lot of my time fishing and spend the
time with my family.
Travis: I love it. I love it. Hey, do you hear that scratching noise?
Jim: There‟s scratching noise?
Travis: Yes. Are you all hearing that scratching noise?
Jim: I stopped moving. Is it me just moving in my chair?
Sandra: It could be.
Travis: I don‟t know. It sounds like somebody‟s sharpening a pencil.
Jim: No, it‟s not me.
Travis: Yes.
Sandra: It‟s very sharp. We could tell.
Travis: Sandra, don‟t be sharpening those pencils over there. So, Jim, when did… I may have missed
it. What year was that that you got handed this book on how to do programming?
Jim: I think it was like „96.
Travis: No. Okay. So back in the very, very beginning.
Jim: Yes. It was really the very beginning of… They started a company called… They called it a New
Media Company. Remember, that‟s what they used to call it .
Travis: Right. So that blows me away. You must have had some technical skills, natural technical
skills, and that‟s how this gravitated to your… That‟s how you took it on. Is that right? Am I picking up
on this right?
Jim: Well, basically, what I had was graphic design skills. I got a degree at the University of Akron in
Public Relations, and I have been doing a lot of computer work and desktop publishing and things like
that. At that point, they needed somebody who had somewhat of an eye who could figure out how to lay
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 5 of 25
things out and do it in the web way, which was totally foreign to me. It‟s such an amazing lesson,
especially when you‟re young, and I guess through your entire life and your career: if somebody asks
you to try something new, you shouldn‟t always just jump and say no. As a matter of fact, you should
always jump and say yes.
Travis: Right.
Jim: I can‟t imagine where my career, my life would be right now if I hadn‟t said, “You know what; I‟m
going to give that a try. It seems like it might be something big.” I guess I was right about the Internet.
I‟d be working in the basement of Alltel still designing phonebook ads. It‟s really not where I want to be
at 41 years old.
Travis: Well, you know what‟s interesting, Jim, is what I perceive your background and training is right
brain, but what you had to learn is complete left brain stuff, isn‟t it?
Jim: Yes. That‟s definitely true, which was a challenge for me as well.
Travis: That makes it extra bold.
Jim: Yes. It is definitely a challenge for me because I‟m not that way. I‟m very much more of a creative
person.
Travis: Or at least you‟re not naturally bent that way, right? You develop those skills and so you‟re kind
of going against the grain.
Jim: Another lesson, right? When they handed me that book, I was like, “What are you talking about? I
don‟t even know what HTML is.” And they were like, “Oh, that‟s the stuff that powers how webpages
work.” And I‟m like, “Okay.” Then he opened the book and its code, and I said this is… I wanted to run
screaming out of there. Instead, I started reading and figured it out, and I was like, “Well, this is actually
kind of cool.” It works out, so again… I mean, everybody, the people listening to the show and they‟re
like, “Oh, man. Things are too hard to do,” you know what, there‟s a reason why people are successful-
-is because they do the things that no one else wants to do. They learn the things that nobody else
wants to do. They take the extra step. That‟s, most of the time, how you create a really successful
business. It‟s doing the things that other people don‟t really want to do.
Travis: Right. You have to do everything yourself initially, right, in a new business?
Jim: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Travis: You know what really impresses me in this is--and I think this is a critical key to success, and
it‟s really a version of what you just said—you‟ve got to learn to befriend things that you hate. There‟s a
lot of things that I really--maybe hate is too strong of a word--but I strongly dislike, but I‟ve learned to
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 6 of 25
view them as signs of getting, accomplishing my goals. To me, what I‟m taking from this, paired with
own life‟s experience and then listening to your story, is you take basically a book filled with stuff that is
designed to wreak havoc with you because you‟re not--that‟s not your natural grain, and you chose to
sit down, dig through all the noise, and overcome it, right?
Jim: Exactly. Like I said, everybody has to figure out that they need to do that. It all comes down to the
pain level. I‟ve been saying this. I write about this in my books, and it‟s the basic genesis for all
business. People have certain amounts of pain, and your job as a business is to take that pain away.
Same way a dentist—I always love to use this as an example—if you get a major, major toothache on a
Saturday morning, you call your dentist, and the dentist says, “I don‟t work on Saturdays or Sundays.
You‟re going to have to wait, and I can‟t get you in for a week.” You say, “Well, I can‟t wait.” The dentist
says, “Well, that‟s a big problem you have there. I‟ll charge you five times my normal rate, and I‟ll come
in and take care of this for you today.” You, as a consumer, make a decision on whether or not--how
big that pain is, literally, in this case of the dentist, right? You decide instantly how much it is worth to
you. Is it worth five grand to you then l have this pain for the next three days, or could you wait a week
with it? We all make that decision in our head. It‟s a very valuable lesson for us in selling our products
or positioning the services that we sell, and they all kind of ties in together.
Travis: Yes. And then finding a pool of clients that are consistently okay with paying you top dollar for
solving that pain, right?
Jim: Well, yes, optimally. That‟s the business you want to be. You want to find a lot of people who have
a high pain level, right?
Travis: Right, right.
Sandra: Right.
Jim: The bigger the pain, the more you can charge.
Travis: Exactly.
Jim: The more you have taken… Seth Godin, I‟m sure as you guys know, wrote the book called “The
Dip,” and the entire premise of the book is if you can get past over the hill and do and learn the things
that nobody else wants to learn how to do, then you’re in that area where you can make a living from it.
I don‟t want to surmise his whole book up into that sentence, but essentially it‟s what it comes down to,
in my opinion: doing the things that other people don‟t want to learn how to do. It‟s just a matter of
learning and trying.
Travis: How long did it take for you to actually go from this position that you told us about to a
successful entrepreneur?
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 7 of 25
Jim: I‟m sure you get the same answer all the time, but I‟ll steal this line from Chris Brogan, who you‟ve
probably interviewed before. He says, “Sixteen-year overnight success story,” right?
Sandra: Yes.
Jim: That company that I first started, where I was building those websites, we grew that company from
4 of us to 60 people. I left, started my own agency. We grew the company from 5 of us to 130 people.
We got dotcom, lost all our clients. Nobody could pay us. That was the moment where I said, “You
know what, I don‟t really think having a big company is for me.” The long story is… The short story was
I‟ve been doing this a long, long time. I‟m the old guy in the Internet business. I‟m only 41 years old, but
I‟ve been doing it since the very beginning, and it‟s taken 16 years to build the brand of myself and to
have all the experience and the knowledge that I have with all of these things.
Now I will tell you that it‟s changed since blogging came out. I started my first blog in 2001. It was a
month before 9/11. I still remember because I can still look back in the archives and see it, and that‟s
how I measure it. Once blogging came out, once social media came out, things became a thousand
times easier to build your plan, to create a business, to get the word out, to do all of those things. It‟s
gone hyper growth since then, but it‟s taken a long time. I always tell people: there is absolutely no
overnight success story. I‟m in the Internet business, and I coach and teach people about how to get
started and build online businesses, and you know as well as I do that most everybody is looking for
that magic button.
Sandra: Right.
Jim: There isn‟t one.
Travis: Yes. You mean I can‟t swallow the red pill and find a new reality and incredible success?
Jim: It‟s such a bummer. It‟s such a bummer because, like I said, I teach people all over the globe on
these topics, and I‟ve built a really good reputation in the industry because I don‟t lie to people, and I
don‟t sell products that say, “Oh, you know you can click this button and make millions of dollars in your
underwear at home overnight without work.” I refuse to do that. Maybe it‟s my upbringing. I don‟t know.
I just refuse to tell people that. The downside of that is that it‟s very tough to tell people the truth.
Politicians will tell you, “You never get re-elected by telling people the truth,” and a lot of salespeople
say, “Well, you never get where you are with your sales goals by telling people the truth.” For me, it‟s
not about making millions of dollars. For me, it‟s about actually helping people get what they need
done.
Travis: I think you can make millions of dollars and still tell them the tough stuff. You‟ve just got to be
willing to take the blows at times. I do assessments for people. I do turnaround work in people‟s
business, and they need to hear the harsh realities on what‟s going on. They need to hear the good
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 8 of 25
stuff. We do a SWOT: strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. They need to hear the tough
stuff because a lot of times they‟re living in a world where everybody wants to tell them what they want
to hear, and it‟s frustrating.
Jim: You absolutely can. I totally agree with you. The point I was trying to make is that you can‟t do it
over… By telling the truth, you don‟t get rich overnight.
Travis: No, no, no. Yes. It‟s not as shiny and as fun and as sexy as the other one is, right?
Jim: Right. The other one, you put up a page, it says, “I will solve all of your problems.”
Travis: “Just click here.”
Jim: “You fork your 95, and click here.”
Travis: Right.
Sandra: Right.
Jim: It‟s much easier to sell that. I have a client right now who helps people stop their pain. He‟s a
chiropractor. For years, he‟s been trying to sell the wrong thing. He‟s been trying to sell wellness. I said
to him, I said, “Your customers don‟t buy wellness. Of course, that‟s really what you‟re selling, but
nobody ever gave you a check for wellness. You know what they buy? They have pain, and they want
you stop it right now.” He‟s like, “You know what, you‟re exactly right.” And that‟s the truth. So he‟s not
lying to anybody by saying that he‟ll help stop the pain, but he‟s selling the wrong thing. People don‟t
buy wellness. I don‟t buy someone to lecture me and tell me that I need to work out and exercise.
Somebody who‟s…
Sandra: No.
Travis: Yes. What‟s the saying? There‟s very little money in prevention.
Jim: Exactly, exactly.
Travis: Because most people don‟t feel they‟re ever going to have that problem, so there‟s no need to
spend money on a solution that, heck, I‟m never going to have, right?
Another thing jumps out at me, and I‟d be interested. I have a suspicion that you‟re going to agree with
me on this, but I want to get it out there. I feel like people are selling their integrity whenever they are
willing to impact the gravity of their word. If I tell you something… I‟ve spent a lifetime building a
reputation, and so if I tell you something, you can bet that it‟s a fact. Now I‟m not perfect, but I never
give opinions or give advice unless it‟s based on what I truly believe. Where there‟s a lot of people that
are willing to sell that temporarily to achieve their goal, right? It‟s almost a form of selling their soul, and
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 9 of 25
maybe that‟s a drastic example, but there‟s so many people that are willing to go on social media and
other platforms and say so many different things that really bring down their level of credibility. Does
that make sense?
Jim: Yes. It‟s a strange time we live in. I‟m a huge fan of the time we live in. It‟s the greatest… I always
say this: it‟s the greatest time in the history of the world to build your brand, to build a business, to get
well known, to do the things that you could do today, raise money online, start a business without the
cost, without the time. It would take you… Before the Internet, before the social media, all this, it could
take you 10, 20, 30 years to build a great client base, to build a reputation. Things you could do
sometimes in 24 hours now.
Travis: Right.
Jim: The opportunity is so immense that along with it come a lot of people who take it the wrong way.
They read a lot from other type of people who say, “Well, here‟s all you need to do to learn how to get
rich quick overnight,” or they just don‟t get it. Maybe some of them are malicious about it, and some just
don‟t understand that they‟re doing something wrong, and they create businesses and products and
things like that that are just not really of high integrity. It‟s just one of those things that come with the
open opportunity. The beautiful thing about it is that, if you‟re a consumer, is that the power of the
Internet makes it easier never to check up on what you‟re looking into. It‟s definitely a double-edge
sword to your point.
Travis: Yes. It‟s a tough time to mature, to grow up on the Internet. Fortunately, I‟m 47, and so I had
time to get a large part of the silliness that I said and did as a young man out before the Internet
broadcasted it everywhere. There‟s so many people, so many young men, young people that do so
many things that hurt themselves, whether it‟s the way they present themselves online, the things they
do, maybe even the things that they‟re selling, maybe it‟s not the things they‟re selling. So it‟s just… It is
a great opportunity. I guess it‟s reinforcing what you‟re saying. This is an incredible opportunity for the
people that are using it right, but I think there‟s an incredible backlash of maybe the majority of people
that are not using it right.
Jim: Yes, I totally agree. Yes.
Travis: Yes. So, Jim, let‟s move it into the direction of bottling up some of the things that you teach and
help other entrepreneurs with to find success, to ramp things up, to find that next level. What do you
feel like the top three or five things people should be doing to find success in business these days?
Jim: Well, obviously, the very first things are: figuring out what you‟re passionate about--I‟m sure you
have the same answer--figure out what you‟re passionate about, and then, hopefully, what you‟re
passionate about, you‟re very knowledgeable about. It usually goes hand in hand. If you‟re passionate
about comic book, you‟re probably pretty knowledgeable about comic books. The problem is… I have
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 10 of 25
this thing I wrote. It‟s called “The 13 Reasons You‟re Not as Successful as You Think You Should Be.”
That‟s one of the most popular blog posts that I‟ve ever done, and it‟s also been published on a whole
bunch of different websites. One of the things I say in there is… A couple of them are: number one, you
feel like you‟re owed something. You‟re owed success just because you showed up. Well, the truth is
that you‟re not. Nobody is owed success. It just doesn‟t happen instantly for everybody. Like I said, it‟s
taken me 16 years to get to the point where I‟m at. You think because you read a story in some
magazine about a guy who sold his app to Apple for 30 million dollars, and you get resentful and you‟re
like, “Why wasn‟t that me? How come I didn‟t get that lucky?” You start having… You start thinking…
Well, the truth is that only happens to about one in every million people. The rest of us, we got to work
for it.
Travis: You‟re right. You got to duke it out. Yes.
Jim: We‟ve got to bust our butts, and we‟ve got to go in every single day with the lunchbox and make it
happen. As soon as you realize that the Internet has lots of opportunity but it‟s not just people just
getting rich overnight by doing nothing, you can change your attitude and start thinking about, “Well,
this really is hard work, but the opportunity is really there.” That‟ll help you out moving forward. I highly
recommend checking out this post I wrote, “The 13 Reasons You‟re Not as Successful as You Are.” I‟m
trying to pull this up here so I can remember a couple of the other ones…
Travis: You‟re going to have to give us the link to that also.
Jim: Yes.
Travis: We‟ll include it in the show notes.
Jim: Yes. I‟ll include the link here. I‟ll just give you a couple more of them here. Number one reason
why you‟re not as successful as you should be: laziness. I basically say here, there‟s no easy way to
put this, but perhaps you‟re just not putting in the work that you need to do because every single
successful person works their butt off to get to where they are. It‟s okay to be lazy, but you just need to
admit it and stop whining about not being rich and successful. This is kind of tough love stuff here.
The one I was really trying to bring up was fear: fear of how you‟re going to look and fear of failure.
There‟s a lot of people who don‟t try because they‟re so afraid that it‟s not going to work, and they‟re
going to fall in their face. As entrepreneur, as we all know, you do not have that gene anymore because
I failed more times than I can possibly tell you on this phone call.
Travis: Right.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 11 of 25
Jim: I can tell you 150 different ideas or projects I‟ve started that failed. A lot of them maybe even
made me look foolish.
Sandra: Wow.
Jim: But I get up, and I wipe it off, and I try the next one, and I follow my passion. You have to be able
to do that. If you can‟t do that, this is not the business for you.
Travis: I‟m glad you mentioned that, and that‟s a big part of… I don‟t want to mess your flow up here.
That‟s a big part of why we created the show--is because I feel success is not portrayed in a true light. I
think a lot of people think we string big successes back to back to back to back, and we actually don‟t.
Jim: Right. No, I mean, that‟s what I‟m trying to say in this article--is that so many people think that it
just happens.
Here‟s another one. This is number seven reason you‟re not as successful as you should be. I call it
“they.” There is no “they.” There‟s no secret group of people that control your success or failure. You‟ve
made that up in your head to make yourself feel better about yourself because the truth is, is that you
and you alone control your success. It‟s easy to blame “them,” though, isn‟t it?
There‟s so many things that stop us, and they‟d stop us in our tracks. Some people just weren‟t made
or born to be entrepreneurs. Some people just can‟t handle it. It‟s just not for everybody, and that‟s
totally, totally fine. My parents were not. My father worked for General Motors for 45 years. My mother
was a schoolteacher for 40 years. They were not entrepreneurs. I didn‟t even really start doing things
on my own until I was close to being 30 years old. It‟s not like I was a lemonade stand kid or one of
those kid—you know, the guys who got stories like that.
I learned that I wanted to do this because it was the closest path to allowing me to get to the lifestyle
that I wanted to live. Something else we can talk about, too, which is getting to that point of living the
life you want to live and not having the lifestyle around the business, instead the other way around of
having the business around your lifestyle, which is where I‟m at now.
Travis: Nice. Keep them coming.
Jim: Okay. Let‟s see. Number nine reason you‟re not as successful as you should be: time-wasting. I
love this. You spend hours and hours every day working at non-working. Think about how much time
you spend on Facebook and Twitter every single day. Doing all…
Travis: All the nonsense.
Jim: Right. All of these things that stop you from really getting things done. I‟m guilty of this as well,
believe me.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 12 of 25
Travis: We all are.
Sandra: We‟re human.
Jim: Yes. We‟re all human. We‟re totally guilty of it, but I have put some type of processes in place that
allow me to stop doing those types of things, like shutting down my browsers and things like that.
Thinking too small is another thing: looking a day or week ahead. Sometimes, really, you need to be
looking much farther than that because if you‟re looking too short, you never get anywhere, and you
never lead. You have to lead if you want to build a lifestyle. You have to lead. You have to take
chances. You see all the same type of themes. If you‟re always following, you‟re never going to get to
that spot where you can control your destiny.
My quote that I… I have a quote that I‟m probably most famous for in my circles, and it goes like this. It
says, “Doers get what they want, and everyone else gets what they get.” If you are going to go out and
try and do and lead, then you have every chance of going out there and creating what you want.
Somebody who‟s always following, somebody who‟s never taking chances, is the person who‟s never
going to get to where they want unless it‟s handed to them. That‟s not me. I don‟t want it handed to me.
I want to take control and build the lifestyle that I want, have the business that I want, because I‟m
going to go out there and give it a shot.
Travis: Yes. You‟re not a victim. You‟re not a victim, right?
Jim: I don‟t see it as victim. I see it as making a choice to deciding what you want in life, okay? So what
I see has happened and this is—I wrote a book about this--what I see has happened is that we have
been taught since birth that the appropriate thing to do is to go to school and get educated hopefully,
and then get a job, and get a job that you don‟t like, and work your whole life paying taxes. It‟s all
very… You mentioned “The Matrix.” It‟s all very “The Matrix.”
Travis: Right.
Jim: What I point out the book, I say, is that I almost some days want to pull my kids out of school
because that‟s what they‟re being taught by the educators, which is: learn these basic things that
everybody knows. Don‟t try anything different. You should know everything that everybody else knows,
and you should just do this, this, this and this for the rest of your life.
Travis: Don‟t think on your own.
Jim: Yes. The truth is that if you want to get what you want, you have to break out of that. Look at all of
the very successful people in your life. Don‟t think about the famous people like Richard Branson,
people like that. I want you to think about all of the people in your life, anyone who‟s listening, and think
about all of the people that you know who are very happy, the people who… They may or may not run
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 13 of 25
their own businesses, or they may own, and, yes, you‟re going to have 1 out of 100 of those people are
going to be super lucky. They were born into their money, or they won the lottery, or something like
that. But the rest of them, if you really start examining their lives, you‟re going to see that they broke out
of that mold and said, “You know what, I don‟t have to do what society and everyone else told me I
have to do.” You‟re going to see a lot of themes. You‟re going to see that they said, “I‟m going to take a
chance. I‟m going to go out and try and have what I want.” When you start really analyzing those
people in your life, and you really look at how they did it, you start to see a model, which is people
deciding what they wanted and then going and making it happen. It‟s something that everybody can do.
Travis: I agree with you 100 percent.
Sandra: My dad used to say, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Jim: Right.
Sandra: Yes, and even… I‟m listening to the book “Outliers” on… I downloaded it and just hearing… I
mean, Travis is ultra-successful, and you are successful. It‟s really refreshing to hear that it‟s not just
some magic formula or some new course I can take. I mean, it‟s working hard, going further than other
people normally do, and not giving up. There‟s something really refreshing about hearing that.
Jim: Yes. Well, that‟s usually not the first reaction, right?
Sandra: No, no, but…
Jim: Because usually the first reaction is the big air gets let out, and I can hear it in their voices.
Sandra: Yes.
Jim: “Oh, man!” When I do that, when I talk about this on stage, when I‟m not doing a webinar phone
call or something, when I talk about this on stage or I‟m training people, you can see the
disappointment in their faces, right?
Sandra: Yes.
Jim: It‟s tough, but when you explain to them the opportunity and you show them how other people
have done it, then they start to believe. You still get a couple of those people who are just ready to walk
out the door. They‟re like, “Wait a minute. I thought I was coming in here just to…”
Sandra: “I paid for this,” yes.
Jim: “…hit a button.”
Travis: Yes. “I come here for Jim to flip my switch, my success switch.”
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 14 of 25
Jim: “Yes, make the money button, Jim.”
Travis: Yes, yes. Well, for years, I had guilt because I was such a terrible student in school. It took me
until in my 40s before I come to realize that the fact that I could never color within the lines is why I‟m a
successful entrepreneur—is, even as a young age, I was willing to go against the grain, stand up,
disagree, and do things that I thought made more sense. That was just me, number one, needing a
stronger teacher to give me guidance, and also that was the young entrepreneur in me realizing that
what I was hearing wasn‟t completely true and that there were some refinements to that, so just
stepping out of line. Now I wish I would have done it better. I wish I would have went about it better, but
it took me many, many years to really recognize that those are the ingredients or some of the
ingredients for success.
Jim: Yes. I try very hard to instill this in my children, who right now are 12 and eight. Again, I was not
an entrepreneur growing up. My parents didn‟t instill that into me. I learned it. I try to teach my kids,
every time they complain about something, I say, “Look, you want to call the shots? You need to be in
charge.” You don‟t want to work at the restaurant. You want to own the restaurant because when you
own the restaurant, you could do whatever the hell you want. You may have to work your butt off to get
there, but you want to go this, you want to change the menu, you want to do this, you got to own the
restaurant. They may decide that that‟s not for them. Again, it‟s not for everybody. There are some
people who… I have lots of friends who look at me like I am completely insane. They love the fact that
they know that their job starts at 8 AM and ends at 5 PM, and their destiny is controlled by other people,
and there‟s this comfort level like a warm blanket, I almost… Sometimes, it would be actually a…
Travis: Like a Snuggie.
Jim: Yes. I actually… Sometimes as entrepreneurs, we all know that sounds really good, doesn‟t it?
Travis: Yes, yes.
Jim: It‟s like, “Man, all I know is I got to show up at 9 and leave at 5, and I only have to think about my
job until I get back the next day. I get three weeks of vacation a year, and my paycheck comes every
two weeks. Boy…” Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, you‟re like, “Man, I wish I had that.” Then you think
about all the alternatives that I can‟t live without, like the freedom.
Travis: Right.
Sandra: Right.
Travis: So where are we at? I think we‟re about at number eight, right?
Jim: Number eight? You‟re talking about my list? I was just kind of jumping around.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 15 of 25
Travis: I know. I know you‟re free styling it right now so…
Jim: Yes. Couple of other ones in here: negativity is such a big one. There are so many negative
people in your life that you probably don‟t realize. I think every person… Social media has really made
people more aware of this faster because people love to come on social media and be so negative.
People, they‟re human beings. We find that negativity is much more fun to talk about than positivity. In
terms of whether or not you‟re not as successful as you should be, sticking around with negative people
is not going to help you get there.
I did this a long time ago. I actually had an epiphany in college at one point when I was hanging out
with a person who I knew was not a good person. I still remember the evening. This person was saying
something bad about… I got so tired of the complaint, I just looked right at his face, “You know what,
you‟re not a good person. I‟m really tired of your negativity, and I don‟t want to be friends with you
anymore.” I walked away, and I never talked to that person again. It was a moment…
Then when social media and the Internet came around, as you start to grow family and start a career,
you realize that you really have to be diligent about that because those people just suck you down into
their level of misery.
It‟s something that I fight with my wife with all the time because we‟re very passionate. She‟s very
passionate. I‟ve learned that when people are too negative--to completely back away from them. She
still wants to engage them. It makes her feel good. To me, I don‟t want to have any part of that because
it just drains things from me.
Sandra: Right.
Travis: My wife watches the “Housewives.”
Jim: Oh, yes.
Travis: The amount of incredible negativity is just unbelievable. The cruel, mean things they say and
they do to each other, and they subject themselves to… It takes a toll on me just watching, just being
present for it. I think that‟s a classic--a great illustration of what you‟re talking about, right?
Jim: Sometimes, you can say that‟s just entertainment, but I‟m with you. I kind of not like to even see
entertainment that‟s negative like that. Again, these are things that are my opinion, things that have
helped me grow my business, helped me get to…
Sandra: Well, great.
Travis: I‟m agreeing with him. I didn‟t find one I disagree with yet.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 16 of 25
Sandra: Jim, what brings you the most passion that you get to share with people, business-wise? What
is it that really gets you excited that you share with others?
Jim: Teaching people in general has really been something that I‟ve learned to love to do. I teach for
the University of San Francisco‟s Internet Marketing Program for the last five years. I teach people all
over the globe. I‟ve had people from Dubai and Australia in my classes. It‟s an amazing experience to
teach people, to learn how to do--start your own business, to be successful using the power of the
Internet. I love teaching and that, really, at the core level, I find a lot of passion in helping people that
way. I guess it goes back to my mom with her teaching experience. It‟s just very satisfactory all the way
down to I coached at my son‟s flag football team and my daughter‟s baseball--softball team. The great
amount of reward you get from helping people and just being a positive influence on those people is
just something that is really passionate that I love to do. That‟s really at the core level of what it is.
Sandra: Wow. You have some great tips that you can give our listeners right now that could maybe
jumpstart them when they‟re done listening to the show, things to look at or things to get started with
that might move the needle for them?
Travis: Yes, we‟ve talked about what not to do. What should they do?
Jim: Well, the first thing is to get started. Like I keep mentioning, there‟s never been a greater time in
the history of the world to get started and build something legitimate, so it‟s time to get off the pity party,
okay? It‟s time to say, “You know what, Jim‟s right, and I‟ve got to give this a shot.” Educate yourself on
some real information and learn how other people have done it. I‟m very much a person who learns by
example. It‟s always better for me when I can see how other people have done it, and I can say, “Oh,
okay. That makes sense.” Read stories, read case studies about how other people have done things,
and get motivated from those. Take the lessons you can, and then just try. It‟s not that much money to
be successful, to have a chance nowadays. You‟re talking about an 8-dollar domain name, 10 dollars a
month for a web host. I love the people who contact me and they‟re like, “Well, Jim, I want to be
successful, but you‟re telling me I need to spend 10 dollars a month on a web host? That‟s
unacceptable.”
Sandra: That‟s funny.
Jim: “Oh, really? Oh, really? How much did you spend on your PS3 system? How much did you spend
on your Netflix account every month? How much do you spend on going out to dinner?” “Well, those
are life necessities.” “Oh, really?”
Travis: How much did you spend on ice cream, just ice cream?
Jim: They don‟t want to have a webhost, right? It‟s not… Unfortunately, those people will never get it
because the reality is, is that they value their entertainment and their life as it is now way more than the
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 17 of 25
opportunity to be successful. If you can get past that, you have a really good chance at living the
lifestyle you want.
The first step is really get over those things and start to build something and do something. Deciding
what life you want is really the second thing, which is… This is something I coach people on and I write
about in my books, business or in the lifestyle books. Most people don‟t try to do anything because they
don‟t think that it‟s possible. They don‟t think they can live a lifestyle business. When I say lifestyle
business, let‟s say you only want to work 20 hours a week. You want to earn this much money per
month. It‟s actually possible to do. It‟s not going to be easy but it‟s possible to do, and there‟s a way to
get there. It may take 16 years, right?
Sandra: Right.
Jim: It‟s not going to happen overnight but if you want to give it a shot, you have an opportunity to do it.
Well, they say, “Jim, well, I‟m passionate about--I want to play video games all day.” Okay. Well, maybe
you can teach other people how to play video games all day. Maybe you can play video games for
somebody and test video games, or you can do a podcast about new video games and make money
with a podcast. What do you want to do with your life? Stop thinking about all the things that you don‟t
want to do and start thinking about the things you do want to do. Stop devaluing what you know a lot
about. It‟s such a big mistake that everyone makes. They go, “Well, Jim, I happen to be probably one of
the top five people in the world who know a lot about Civil War figurines, but nobody wants to know
about that, Jim,” is the second sentence they say. “Nobody cares about that.” Oh really? I could tell you
right now that there‟s probably a couple hundred thousand people who want to know about that, or
maybe even more. Even if you‟re doing something very small that you don‟t think anybody wants to
know about, I guarantee you there are some people other out there in world who either want to know
how you did it or want you teach them how you did it or show you or tell you what you know. Once you
understand, that you can stop devaluing what you know a lot about, and turning that into some type of
business, you can start to build the concept of how I can take the information and knowledge in my
head and turn it to the web and build something successful around it. The rest is all semantics: hosting,
website, PayPal accounts. That‟s stuff you can just learn.
Travis: Yes. Landing pages, SEO, it just goes on and on and on.
Jim: Yes. It does, unfortunately. There‟s a lot of that, too, but like I said, the opportunity is there. It‟s just
that the costs are so low, so low compared to what they used to be to start a business. You don‟t have
to spend 10,000 dollars to do all the stuff to start a business anymore. You can literally start it with 50
dollars in your pocket.
Sandra: Wow.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 18 of 25
Travis: Plus you used to have to… The era that… We‟ve all come from many years ago. You used to
have to start a business and expect not to make any profits for three years, and that‟s not the case
anymore.
Jim: No, absolutely not. You can go today, sign up as an affiliate for a company like Amazon or anyone
who‟s got an affiliate program. You could literally take the link they give you and go on social media and
tell people about the link. If someone clicks the link and buys, you make money.
Travis: Right.
Jim: I mean you can do that in 30 seconds if you really wanted to. I don‟t recommend you do that, but
I‟m just saying the opportunity is there.
Travis: Yes. The maturation cycle of the business model is due to all of the technology that‟s just at
your fingertips, from your home office, right?
Jim: That‟s the way it works out now. The ability to go out there and start these things up... I‟ll give you
an example. When I got started in the business, it was about, what, 70 dollars to register a domain
name.
Sandra: Wow.
Jim: And web hosting, it was dial-up. So if you wanted a web-hosting account, it was not cheap. The
dial-up for… This was before AOL, really. AOL was, what, like 15 bucks a month? But then if you
wanted a web-host account to host your website, you‟re paying 150 dollars a month. You‟re talking
about 8 dollars for a domain name now, and you can literally find hosting for free or a couple of dollars
a month.
Travis: Yes, I used to spend 450 dollars a month to host mine. It was insane.
Jim: Right, it‟s insane. Now the costs are so low, plus the fact that you can have websites made and
logos and graphics… You know one of the reasons I got out of the web-design business was, over 13
years ago, I saw a site come out that‟s called templatemonster.com. I looked at the website and said,
“Wow, they‟re selling a design website on here that, for 45 dollars, a theme that I am charging my
customers 40,000 dollars for.”
Travis: Right.
Sandra: Wow. Yes.
Jim: This is the beginning of the world-is-flat thing where all these people are on the other side of the
world, and they‟ve got some good designers, and they can make money. I said I got to get out of this
business because I can‟t compete, and look where we are now. You have sites like fiverr.com. You‟ve
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 19 of 25
got people who will design a logo for you for 5 dollars. If you find the right one, they‟re actually pretty
good. If you find some junkie ones, you get junkie ones. But for 5 dollars, there‟s not much risk. The
point is, is that the opportunity is just there everywhere. There shouldn‟t be any more complaining about
it‟s too hard to do this anymore. If you really want to do it, the opportunity is there. The costs are
extremely low.
Travis: Right. Well, you paid attention to… You saw the writing on the wall. You saw that what you
were doing was about to be commoditized.
Jim: Yes.
Travis: A lot of people hang on too long because they feel like that‟s all they know. They were getting
1,200 for it, and then 900, and then 800, and then 200, and before long, they can‟t pay their bills. If
you‟re brave enough to see the writing on the walls and make a move, what you did, then of course you
can stay ahead of the trend. Good for you there.
Jim: Yes, I tried. The world is different now. The good news is that, again, for people who are buyers,
it‟s a great time because I help people publish a lot of books now, digital books, and they‟re looking for
editors and cover design artists and people like that. They‟re like, “Jim, I can‟t afford to have my book
edited.” I‟m like, “You know what, there‟s probably about 100,000 really highly qualified people who
could edit your book that are sitting at home right now in their underwear waiting for your e-mail.”
Travis: Right. Right.
Jim:And they are dying to take 300 dollars from you to edit your 50,000-word book, believe me. You‟ll
probably find somebody who will do it for 100.
Travis: Right. Yes. Exactly. I believe the flattening of the world is what has actually prevented our
economy from getting worse. That may sound crazy, but the true wealth in businesses, I feel like, come
from the leading edge of innovation. The further you get away from the leading edge of innovation, I
think the closer you get to your business becoming a commodity. For those of you that that doesn‟t
make sense, if you want to buy a Cadillac, why would you pay 2,000 dollars more for a Cadillac here
when you can go down the street and get it for 2,000 less? It‟s a commodity when you can buy
something at a different place, and it gets to where it‟s driven on price and price alone. I think there‟s
been some pros and cons to that. It makes it very, very easy to ramp up a business right now. What do
you think about that? Have you ever thought of it on that level, that the flattening of the world, being
able to hire someone on the other side of the world to do these things has prevented us from going off
the cliff, or do you have any opinion on that?
Jim: Well, yes. You‟re absolutely right. As a small-business owner, I do employ people on the other
side of the world. Let‟s just be totally honest. I have a guy that I pay monthly, who is in the Philippines,
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 20 of 25
who will charge me about 75 percent less to do the same work that I could‟ve hired somebody here in
the Cleveland area to do. You can look at it two ways. You can say, “Jim, you‟re being not patriotic by
hiring somebody over there,” but my business would not exist. In my example, my business could not
have… I couldn‟t afford to pay someone. They‟d be making more money than me. There‟s just no
possible way I could do that. So it‟s good, and it‟s bad. It‟s helped a lot of people start businesses and
become entrepreneurs, which is good. It‟s also helped a lot of small businesses lose because they lose
to other people who have the ability to take things overseas. The reality is this: that‟s the world we live
in now. Complaining, and I‟m not saying you‟re complaining, I‟m saying the people who complain that
they wish it was back like it was when all the jobs were here is pointless because the world changed.
It‟s not going to be 1950 anymore. The world completely changed. Those jobs are gone, and they‟re
gone forever, which is why I believe that, again, small businesses are the backbone of the American
economy and why we‟re not doing a better job of encouraging entrepreneurship… You get all the
conspiracy there‟s people come in and say, “Well, Jim, the world needs ditch diggers, too,” from
“Caddyshack.”They‟re saying that, “We need to keep people in their cocoons and their jobs and doing
all this stuff because there‟s only so much room for the people who really want to own and be
successful and all this stuff.” I think that‟s a bunch of crap.
Travis: Right, right.
Jim: But I do think that there are people who would like it to stay that way.
Travis: Yes, yes. I‟ve had a big disagreement, even argument, with my uncle over that because he
feels like it‟s anti-American to move jobs overseas. I‟ve tried to explain to him that a lot of these
businesses wouldn‟t survive. Just like you said, they wouldn‟t be around if that didn‟t happen. The
existence of some business is an uplift on our economy rather no business at all. Yes, there‟s a lot of
people who have firm beliefs on both sides of that argument there. We could go really deep on that. We
probably better stop there.
Listen, Sandra, do you mind--I know that I‟m dominating but we‟re getting close on time--do you mind if
we transition our wonderful guest, Jim, here to the lightning round?
Sandra:No, I don‟t mind at all.
Travis: Are you ready, Jim?
Sandra: Jim, somewhere in your answer, if you could just touch on people having a book and writing a
book because I know your passion is about helping people get their words out there.
Jim: We could‟ve done a whole show on that. It‟s definitely like blogging where it was 12, 15 years ago.
That‟s where we are with book publishing now. No more gatekeepers.
Travis: Yes, maybe we‟ll come back and do another show on that.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 21 of 25
Jim: Yes. I‟d love to.
Sandra: And we‟ll give your resources and your websites and a list of your books and things so people
can follow up more because I know you‟re valuable. You‟ve got lots of valuable resources, so I want to
share those. Okay, hit it, Travis, with the lightning.
Travis: Yes, ma‟am. Jim, what‟s one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you‟ve recently
discovered, if any, that you‟d recommend to other business owners, and why?
Jim: Well, I‟ll give you two. Number one is: if you‟re not on WordPress yet, then you need to be in
terms of building a website, the simple, fastest way to create a real powerful online business and
content-generation machine, which is what you need to be successful on the Internet today. Create a
lot of content and the ability to create a website that does more than just be an online brochure. So
Wordpress, if you‟re not using it yet, you should be using it. You can build amazing businesses with
that.
The one that I really love the most is one called timetrade.com. And if you haven‟t used timetrade.com,
it‟s really become a killer application for me, and basically what it does is--I think it‟s 25 dollars a year—
and what it does is it allows people to schedule appointments with me online, on their own, and puts it
on my calendar. I‟m a consultant, so if you‟re in any kind of business where people want to consult or
schedule an appointment with you, they click a button on your website, they go and they find dates on
your calendar, they select the date, they confirm it. It sends an email to them confirming it. It sends an
email to me and adds it on my calendar. It says, “Jim, you should call Travis on this date, and here‟s
what Travis wants to talk about,” and then I call Travis on that date. It‟s an amazing, amazing
application that really makes you look big time, and your costumers really love it.
Travis: Cool. Cool.
Jim: Great for leads.
Travis: What book or program made an impact on you related to business that you‟d recommend?
Jim: If you‟re at all involved in the business of putting websites together and just understanding how
content works, how people read, how people flow, how people use the Internet, then you need to read
a book called “Don‟t Make me Think” by Steve Krug, which is K-R-U-G. This book is probably 13 years
old. I read it every year. It‟s still applicable today, and it‟s basically a book that teaches you about all the
basic common principles of how people really use content--how people scan. They don‟t read. It‟s not a
boring usability book by any means, but it‟s almost like my bible for everything that‟s helped me build
successful online businesses for the last 13 years. It‟s just a really great book, “Don‟t Make Me Think”.
Travis: I‟ve never heard of that. I think…
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 22 of 25
Jim: Such a great book. Because the truth is you can‟t make people think. They don‟t want to think.
They don‟t want to think. They don‟t want to think. They just want what they want as fast as they can
get it. And I could do a whole show on that, too.
Travis: They want a switch, Jim. They want a switch. Flip a switch.
Jim: That‟s right.
Travis: What famous quote would best summarize your belief or your attitude in business?
Jim: I have to go with the old cliché one. I‟m sure you‟ve heard of this one a million times, but it‟s the
Wayne Gretzky quote: “You miss 1,000 percent of the shots you don’t take.” It‟s such a cliché quote. It‟s
very similar to my, “Doers get what they want. Everyone gets what they get.” The truth is, is that, if you
don‟t try, you‟re not going to get anywhere. If you don‟t just get over it, get past the fear, get past all that
stuff, you have absolutely zero chance. If you are extremely happy with the way that your life is right
now, then continue not taking any chance. But if you have any attempt to want to make something
different and do something better or different, then you have to take a chance. There‟s just no way
around it.
Travis: Yes, I agree with you. I really like that quote. How do people connect with you?
Jim: Just go to jimkukral.com. That‟s J-I-M-K-U-K-R-A-L dot com. Now what you‟re going to see…
Here‟s what I‟m asking you to do. Go to that website. The very first thing you‟re going to see is a
minute-and-a-half video. I‟m asking anyone who‟s listening to take a minute and a half of your time and
go and watch the video. In the video, I will show you exactly what I do for a living. The reason I‟m
presenting it to you this way is because I‟m only asking for a minute and half of your time. I‟m not trying
to sell you anything on the video. I‟m just showing you how I sell myself. If you are at all interested in
how you explain what your business does or what you do, then you should look at how I do it because
I‟ve got lots of positive feedback from how I prepared this video because in a minute and a half, I‟ll
show you who I am and what my main businesses are and what I do. Then you can decide if there‟s
some specific way that I can help you. This has helped a lot of people get clarity. They‟re like, “Jim, you
explained that so well.” That‟s one of the biggest problems I see with people who are trying to build a
business. They just can‟t explain what they do quick enough and fast enough. Video is a great way to
do it. So watch that video at jimkukral.com.
Travis: You‟ve hooked me. I‟m going to have to watch the video.
Jim: All right. See? The hook‟s in you. I did my job.
Sandra: I already have. You have 10 books, and you have tons of five-star reviews. I can tell you‟re
just a real giver, and you make a difference in quite a few lives, so I‟m really grateful to have met you.
Awesome.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 23 of 25
Travis: On top of being a genius.
Sandra: Yes.
Jim: Oh, yes. My wife would not say I‟m a genius, and I am by far… I‟d give you how much of a genius
I am. I can‟t do my 12-year-old daughter‟s math homework. It‟s impossible. It‟s like literally looking at
Arabic to me. I have no idea what it is.
Travis: Right.
Sandra: That‟s all right. There‟s other people who can do that, and you follow your passions, right?
Isn‟t that… What were you saying?
Jim: Right.
Travis: If you‟re anything like me, you scratch your head and you‟re like, “Why are we doing this? Why
are you even learning this math?”
Jim: Don‟t get me started on that. You‟re exactly right.
Travis: Right, right. All right. Hey, Jim, can you hang out for a minute?
Jim: I can. Thank you so much for having me on.
End of Interview
Travis: Cool. Man, enjoyed it completely. Listen, I want to remind you that you can find all the links to
the books and resources that we mentioned in the show in the show notes. There‟s a section when you
go to diyob.com, which stands for diamondsinyourownbackyard.com, and basically you‟ll scroll down to
this episode, Jim‟s episode, and you‟ll see there‟s links and everything that will take you straight to him.
Also, while you‟re there, enter your name, and we‟ll send you the “2013 Business Owner's Guide to a
Profitable Million-Dollar Business.” It‟s a candid, behind-the-scenes look at what you need to know to
grow your business to incredible levels of success. What I tell you in this guide it is critical to your
success and no one‟s really talking about many of these issues, either because it‟s not in their interest
financially or they just don‟t know what they don‟t know. In the guide, we‟ll cover the five things that you
should know before hiring anyone to handle your marketing, six marketing misconceptions that are
costing you a fortune, the five skills that will determine the success of your business over the next 18
months, and lots more information for taking your business to that next level. It‟s all free just for
becoming part of the Authentic Entrepreneur Nation.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 24 of 25
On the next show, we‟re going to connect you with another brilliant entrepreneur, Andrew McCauley.
Andrew is a blast, and we‟ll go deep on what many people are missing when it comes to growing their
business, and he has an interesting unique take on some of the things that Jim talked about from his
own experience as well. Sandra?
Sandra: I just want to thank our listeners. Thank you, Jim, for being here. Just a little challenge for you:
think about your passions. Think about what lights you up. Think about your business. Think about what
step you could take further than you‟ve gone before and to know that that really is the access to having
those dreams fulfilled and the business you want. Let‟s each one of us make a commitment this week
to just go a little bit further and know that what we want is possible.
Travis: Exactly. Be bold. Push that button. Take that chance. Take some action, right?
Before I close today, I want to remind you, that whether you know it or not, no matter where you‟re at as
an entrepreneur, and we talked about it today on the show also, you‟re an inspiration to those around
you to go after their dreams, too. I want to encourage you to keep it up.
Our quote for closing the show today comes from Helen Keller, and the quote reads, “Optimism is the
faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. Sandra, say good-bye.
Sandra: This is Sandra, saying good-bye. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Jim. Thank you to our listeners.
Have a nice day.
Travis: Yes. Thanks again, Jim. To your incredible success, we‟ll see you guys in the next episode.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 25 of 25
How We Can Help You
We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called
gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly
why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at
a fraction of its normal cost.
Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive
deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!
We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats within your business.
This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons
are.
As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the
middle of a daily management.
And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.
This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or
an army of 150, the problem is still the same.
Travis Lane Jenkins
Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist
Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show
“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"
Recommended