439 | Your Untapped Lead Source To Make Millions

Feb 26

[00:00:00] Michael Tucker: Adding value, I feel like it's tossed around a lot. And a lot of people are using that word. Oh, I want to add value. But are you truly adding value? For you all listening right now is your skill set. You're probably charging not enough. You're probably undervaluing yourself. I didn't listen to my mentor. I lost 20, 000.

But I said, okay, I'm going to commit to this no matter what and see it through. And we did.

[00:00:20] Chaz Wolfe: What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolf gathering the King's Podcast. Coming back to you again today with another king on the stage. My brother Michael Tucker here this morning. How are you?

[00:00:31] Michael Tucker: Man, I am amazing. It is a little cold and chilly here in Kentucky, but dude, I'm blessed to be here with you. I'm ready to pour out some value.

[00:00:37] Chaz Wolfe: It's good stuff, man. You say cold? Uh, I think the whole United States is cold. Um, but you know it. For Kentucky, Kansas City, I'm not necessarily used to 10 or 12 inches being of snow being stuck on the ground. Are you guys dealing with snow over there?

[00:00:53] Michael Tucker: Yeah, we got about six or eight inches, about zero degrees this morning. So, but you know, I, I'm ready to bring the heat, man. I'm ready to bring the heat. And let's, uh, let's, let's have a good conversation though.

[00:01:04] Chaz Wolfe: Just melt it all away right here, right now. Okay. So Michael, tell us what kind of business that you got. My man.

[00:01:09] Michael Tucker: Yeah, so I am the owner, um, and CEO of the Funnel Pros. And so what we do is we just simply help online entrepreneurs spread their message, spread their mission through virtual events. So we have a done for you virtual event agency where we, people come to us and we just help them run their events to reach more people and make more impact.

And the fun part about it's, they make more income as well.

[00:01:31] Chaz Wolfe: I love that obviously with us, uh, you know, gathering the kings being a, a, uh, peer-to-peer mastermind groups or group. We have run multiple virtual events, so I think this is gonna be a great conversation. Um, I love what you do. Um, I've, I've been in and up. Up and down your information. I'm sure we'll put all that in the show notes as well.

But, uh, you, you genuinely have helped, uh, uh, quite a few entrepreneurs really hit some major targets with their events. So I'm, I'm excited for this. Um, talk to me first, like, you're a young guy, you've had a lot of success pretty early in life. You know, there would be young people who maybe just cashed the check and, and sail away, but you're still building.

Tell me why.

[00:02:11] Michael Tucker: Yeah, I would say one of the main answers to that is because we have a team, right? And then when you build something. Great. Um, a lot of times there's great people attached to it, not most times all the time. Like, if you build something great, there's gonna be great people in the, the process that are there helping you.

And so for me, one, what we're doing, and you guys are gonna hear in just a few minutes, we're helping hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people a year through our business. So like, we're making a lot of impacts, but then we have a great team and they're, they're great at what they do. So just in keep empowering them, letting them step into their greatness is, uh, one of the, one of the main reasons we keep trucking on man.

[00:02:47] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, for you as a young guy, 'cause I'm sure we've got, um, you know, young listeners here today and they're, you know, maybe a couple years into business. Um, and, and maybe they're not thinking quite as big as that. How, how can they, you know, kind of keep at it, especially if they haven't maybe seen the level of success that you've seen so early.

[00:03:06] Michael Tucker: Man, that's a good question. And I don't know, are you cool with me sharing my story on here? Because I think my story will resonate with those younger peers more than anything.

[00:03:16] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah.

[00:03:17] Michael Tucker: Okay, I love it. So actually I started out, and the question you asked would've resonated really hard with me about five years ago.

I just gotten out of college, I just got married and if you know anything about college kids, most of them don't have a lot of money. I, and, and then on top of that I just got married and so I was working as a part-time, restaurant server and a part-time youth minister. And you know, ministers, they don't often make a lot of money either.

So, um, you know, I just kind of. Scrapping anywhere I could to grab a dollar. Um, and, you know, I was looking for something 'cause I was always entrepreneurial minded, maybe like a lot of your audience. I said, man, God, there's gotta be something out there for me. And so I searched and I searched and I searched.

I tried everything, man. I'm not gonna lie. I tried stock trading, Amazon drop shipping. I was one of those that had what they call it, shiny object syndrome. Any ad that popped up, I was clicking on it. I was making that cost per lead cheap for these business owners. And, but, but you know what it was. It was the last venture that I got into, which was real estate.

One of my friends, uh, reached out to me and he said, Michael, I see you trying a little bit of everything. He's like, how about I teach you real estate? And I said, dude, I got no money. How in the world I. Are you gonna take a restaurant server, a part-time youth minister and help him get into real estate? I said, real estate's for old people.

I'm gonna be frank, this is what I told him. I said, real estate's for old people, people that got money, that's not me. And he said, let me show you. And so what we did is we bartered services, and this is how I broke into the virtual event industry, was he coached me in real estate. I helped him grow his business, but it was once I jumped into real estate.

And this, this story is not about real estate, but it's about the fact that I stuck to something long enough to get good at it. And real estate was one of the first things that worked for me. And it was simply because I worked it right? So many times. Other industries I jumped into, I got in for three, four months and never found results.

And I said, well, that didn't work. Maybe some of you all listening right now are in the same situation. You tried something, oh, that didn't work. Question is, how long did you work it?

[00:05:17] Chaz Wolfe: That's

[00:05:17] Michael Tucker: I, I'm not gonna say the role of 10,000 hours is perfect, but I like the theory of it. If you spend enough time doing something, you're gonna master it.

And so for real estate, that was the first thing. And that for me, 'cause you were talking about for the young entrepreneurs or young peers here listening, I would say. To first to think that big, you just gotta stick to something. You gotta find something that you're gonna commit to. And so for me, real estate was that first thing.

And, um, I ended up losing $20,000. I didn't even have any money, but I made, I didn't listen to my coach. So point number one here is listen to your mentor. Listen to cha listen to the, the, the brothers here, but. I didn't listen to my mentor. I lost $20,000, but that was the first, I said, okay, I'm gonna commit to this no matter what and see it through.

And we did. And then from there we ended up getting really good at digital marketing in a process. But for young listeners here, just pick something. And yes, you're gonna have to bounce around and try new things 'cause you're young. But once you commit to something, there's something about that. And I'm sure you've experienced the same thing.

[00:06:19] Chaz Wolfe: Oh yeah. Yeah. I love the persistence. Um, you know, it's, it's cliche, right? We, we hear about persistence or sticking to something, but when you're 22, 25, even 27, 8, 9, um, it's tough to think I'm gonna do this for 10 years. And, uh, I think that when I look back at my history, it wasn't really until 10 years, I kinda like picked up my head and was like, oh, oh, snap.

I've been like doing some stuff. Um, and, and it really was like head down focused. And so I, I aligned with everything that you just said there. What I loved, I loved the segue there because it was like I stuck with something, but that thing wasn't actually what you're doing today. And so it's like the sticktuitiveness wasn't necessarily.

The thing, you know, the real estate piece, it was to learn a skillset that was good in real estate, but it's also good in all these other things, which is now what you've leveraged to help other entrepreneurs. And so that's really what the Sticktuitiveness has been about for you. Talk about that for a second.

'cause it's more about the skillset.

[00:07:21] Michael Tucker: Yeah, a hundred percent. And so with real estate, you have to get good at marketing anyway. But like I told you, I didn't have much money. So at the time, David, which was my real estate mentor, I had no cash. So I just bartered these services with him. And so I learned, I was learning a new skill. I. Like you said, which is important.

So I was learning in jumping, learning in marketing automation systems. And so I was learning this real estate 'cause I stuck to it. But at the same time, I to stick to real estate because to stay with him being my mentor, I had to keep working in the back end of his business. So I wasn't making any money, I was working for free, but I was learning this valuable skill set of real estate.

But at the same time, I was learning this valuable skill of business building and marketing and automations and systems. And so what happened was. We ended up building his, uh, which this is gonna be a really good segue. We ended up growing his real estate education company to 750,000 in 10 months. And he had no list, no, no audience.

It was crazy how he did it. And then that was like light bulb for me. It was like, wow. Real estate was a perfect segue to this other skill that I've been building. And so, um, you're gonna acquire a lot of skills as you're building businesses. And what I tell people is double down on what works. Right. And so for me, what worked for my life, I was like, man, I'm actually pretty decent at this marketing stuff.

I'm pretty decent at this sales stuff, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna dive into that. I still do a little real estate. I'm like, I'm gonna focus on that. And so, so many people, I think, and this is kind of an an off tangent here, but a lot of people here, and this is a good example, you need to have multiple streams of income.

You need to have x multiple ways to market your business. But what happens is a lot of people get spread too thin. They never can really hone in on what's working. And so for me, um, I just chose, and I know this is kind of reiterating what I said earlier, but with the marketing and, and that part of the business, I said, wow, this is crazy.

This is, this is working, so let's double down on it. And so, word got out what we are doing. And when you get good at your craft, when you get good at your craft, people here. People will see you whether they comment on your post or not, whether they like your post or not. If you get good at your craft, they will notice you.

And that's what happened. I got good at running virtual events and doing these things and eventually people were asking, Hey, David, who helps you with your marketing? Hey. And so it, it grew into what is now a full-blown agency, just because I got good at one skillset.

[00:09:43] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I, I just love the bottom to the top story there. I just commend you for all your success on that. You know, even in, uh, you know, my most recent endeavor, which is gathering the Kings, it's two years old. I've, I've had multiple companies before that, but before the podcast, before the group, I was a successful business owner, but I.

Nobody else really knew that. Nobody knew my story. I wasn't, I'm not, I wasn't known, and I really don't wanna be the guy. That's kind of why I started a peer group, not a guru peer or, uh, group coaching. Um, that's, you know, quote unquote a mastermind. I, I think a mastermind is actually, uh, a, a bunch of equals.

And so, uh, I didn't really wanna be the guy. So how do you build a online business without being the guy? It's like, well, you just put your head down, do the thing that, you know, that brings value. And then over the course of time I have, I have people that contact me now or that have listened to the show or that have seen us on social media or watch our cool event videos and they're like, yeah man, I've been following you for like a year.

I'm ready to be a king. And I'm like, what in the world? Like a year ago? I'm like, can I just find anybody? You know?

[00:10:45] Michael Tucker: Right.

[00:10:46] Chaz Wolfe: Um, and so just to, just to give a little encouragement to the listener. That everything that Michael's given to you is, is real. Whether it's the first business or the 12th,

[00:10:55] Michael Tucker: Yeah. And that's the sim. Like if we talk about marketing, which I don't know if you want to get too deep in that, but that's simply what marketing is, is just getting your message out. In front of as many people as possible. And I say as many people, as many of your target audience as possible, as many times as possible.

So getting your message out in front of as many of your target leads, customers as much as possible. And so that's what you are doing right as you're doing these podcasts, you're doing these, um, I'm just making this up. The event promos, you're doing all these things and you're, whether you know it or not, 'cause this, this is part of.

Your mission, but it's also part of your marketing. And so just by you showing up every day and recording this podcast, just by you showing up and speaking at an event or maybe just putting out that email, you are marketing 'cause you're getting in front of your potential audience. So, um, I think it goes hand in hand.

[00:11:45] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Well, and, and we can tie a nice little bow on all this and, and put the principle of the sticktoitiveness or persistence that you kind of started this conversation off with. If you start something like you got good at the marketing, but if you hadn't have stuck with it long enough to realize like, oh. Ding. You know, um, I could do this for other people, this would be amazing. I can create an agency outta this. 'cause it was originally a, a skillset that you learned, that turned into an idea that turned into an actual business. So I think it's a great story. Okay, so inside of the business, because you've had, again, like this trajectory of what?

Uh, seemingly on the outside, I was like, wow. Success. Like, boom. I know that it didn't happen just like that overnight. So I wanna start with something that happened. That wasn't good. A bad decision. Just like, oh, listener, stay far away from this thing. I've already made the mistake for both of us, which is, or you know, what is that?

[00:12:36] Michael Tucker: Yeah, great. There's many, like a lot of entrepreneurs that are in there. I'm sure I could pull out a, a hat, you know, just something outta the hat and just read some off. But you know, for me, I think one of the biggest mistakes, and it sounds so simple. Sounds so simple. The biggest mistakes early on was trying to do everything myself.

And I'm gonna be honest, as an entrepreneur, I still struggle with this a little bit. 'cause I'm a, I'm one of those that are very driven, my personality type. I like having my hands in everything. And so I do struggle with that and it's good to be aware of that. But for me, when I first started out, I was doing everything in my agency myself.

So technically it wasn't an agency, but I was doing everything. And that led to burnout quick. Um, that led to a lot of late nights that I shouldn't have taken. Um, now there, you know, you hear people talking about the grind, the hustle. Yeah, I get it. But when you got a family, uh, you also have to consider them.

And so that's the season. I'm still, you know, there's still times I had to work through that, but for me, I would've hired earlier just because you can, you can grow a lot faster. When you hire faster. And so for me, um, I know we didn't make our first hire until like a year in, but I would've probably done it within a couple months.

A few months with my journey knowing where, like looking back, I had the, the money to do so I had the, um, the work for them. So why didn't I do it? I don't know. I was bullheaded, I didn't think I needed help, but that's what I would've done. So if you're here and you have tons of work on your plate and you're on the edge of burnout and you're just like, man, I'm tired of doing everything myself.

Ask yourself. What can I gain by hiring out my weaknesses? What can I gain by hiring out the things I don't need to be doing? 'cause more, more than likely, the things you're doing are not money making activities for your business. Now, you may be doing some money making activities. You may be making sales calls, popping in, doing strategy calls with people, whatever that may look like.

But I'm sure there's some things that you are doing that you don't need to be doing. So maybe take an inventory and that's what I had to do is say, okay. What am I doing that I shouldn't be? And some of them were responding to emails, onboarding new clients, doing all these things. That took up 10 hours a week when I'm like, Hey, I could pay a virtual assistant or I could pay somebody else to do this.

So I know that was basic, but for me it was, it was pretty profound if I would've took, took the bull by the horns earlier.

[00:14:59] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. And I also appreciate the, the, a couple layers down that you went there with. I had the money, I had the work for them. You know, probably the bullheadedness there was just like kinda the first time you'd come into some money and it was just like, I kind of like having the money. Um,

[00:15:14] Michael Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you go from, sorry, I wanna just chime in. When you go from making 1500, $2,000 a month and then you're making. You know, six figures a year. It's like, oh, this is nice. I could get used to this. You know, and like that was within pretty, that was pretty fast too, that, you know, that that wasn't like anything like, oh, that was two or three years in.

That was, so, yeah, I, that definitely would say that was a cause to it as well.

[00:15:36] Chaz Wolfe: Sure. What about the guy who, who is at the opposite, right? Like whether they're new in business or two or three years in and he's thinking, I don't have the money I need to hire, but I'm, I'm, he feels maybe he does or doesn't, I don't know, but he feels as if like, there's not enough resource there. There's a scarcity.

What, what would you say to that guy about hiring?

[00:15:55] Michael Tucker: Yeah, I think there's, there's two angles here. The first angle is ask yourself, is that an excuse? Because I'm not saying it is, but a lot of times we, we allocate money to certain things and a lot of times it's just restructuring your business or your budget to actually, I. Be able to attain that. Now, not saying that's the case for everybody, but I do wanna say for some, I have encountered people doing, coming to me.

They're like, I don't have the money for X, Y, Z, and then, then you lay out their whole finances. They're like, well, I, number one, a lot of people don't even know what their finances are, and that was another big mistake, is not getting that set up sooner, knowing like the transparency or P and ls, all that, having an actual business. That was one mistake. But so for those out there that are bluffing saying you don't have the resources, look at your budget, lay out everything. Take some, yes, it's gonna take some time. I hate bookkeeping. I hate accounting. See if you can actually move some things around and listen, even if you have to be, I'm not gonna say you need to be in the the red every month, but for me, this is my preference.

And so you may not agree with this, but I'm saying like, if, if I'm gonna have to come out just a little bit of pocket and if I'm gonna be. If, but this is an, like, I look at it as an investment. Like it's, it's probably gonna be worth it if, if you truly are getting burnout, you have the trajectory for growth.

So for me, I looked at it like this, the demand is high enough. I know I'm gonna continue to grow. I'm gonna con like just based off of the next six to 12 months the way we're going, I'm not going backwards, I'm going forward. So for me, at the time, I technically. that being said, I should have hired way sooner.

And so for you just ask are you planning out your finances for the future? And a lot of people don't do that either. And so I think this is a whole nother conversation we can get into. But sitting down and just looking at your projections for your income as well can be great. 'cause if, if you don't know where your next next dollar is coming from, you may have to bootstrap it for a bit.

I'm not gonna lie. Like that would be my preference. My preference if you don't know your income for the next 30, 60, 90 days. And like I can tell you right now for the next five to six months, what our income's gonna be. But if you don't know that, you may have to bootstrap it until you can get into the, into the green and know what your, your projections are.

So I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for, but for me, that would be number one. Lay out everything. Lay out your finances, your budget, see what you can move around and make that happen. And if you absolutely can't wiggle around any, any money to make this happen and you don't know your projected income moving forward, I would just say bootstrap it until you can.

And it's gonna be hard, but. Try to do this at the very start, and, and this is why I tell people, go ahead and prepare as if you were going to build a team though. Start building the SOPs. Start building the handbooks, start laying out everything so when the time does come, everything's already laid out.

You have all the structures built, and now it's just passing the baton.

[00:18:45] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. You've given a lot of gold in that conversation. So I think the, the takeaway there really is, you know, if you're not paying attention to your finances, how could you make a financial decision of no. I'm not saying that should be Yes and neither is Michael. Um, but, but you gotta know, uh, in order to be able to make the decision.

So I think, I think the knowing piece, the financial piece, I mean, I've got, I've got several members inside of gathering the kings who do millions of dollars a year who are like, I really don't even wanna look at the p and l 'cause it makes me nervous.

[00:19:18] Michael Tucker: Yeah. Well dude, it was so funny you're saying that 'cause I have a guy, I have a guy that does eight figures and what happens is as you grow, there's a lot of slippage they call it. Right? And you're familiar with that. There's a, there's a lot of slippage. This guy, he reached out, he works with a lot of contractors so he doesn't have a lot of in-house team.

And so this is something just for all business owners to be aware of. He reached out to me 'cause I'm kind of, at one time I was his right, right hand guy doing a lot of marketing for him and. He started messaging me, Hey, I'm getting charged for this, this software, I'm paying like a thousand dollars a month.

Is anybody using it? I'm like, I don't, I'm not, we weren't using it when we were working with you. And so like, come to find out, he had like five to $10,000 a month in services he wasn't even using, but it was because he didn't take the precautions and the time upfront to do that. So that's, that's six figures a year.

That's 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars a year expenses that he was paying. And he wasn't, just because he didn't take the precautions there. So there's a lot of slippage that can happen. I don't want you guys to do that. So I understand what you're saying.

[00:20:18] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, the, the knowing piece there, I, I was just, it was like a month ago, I was talking to one of our members and he, he's got a, just a giant business, but, um, he's like, you know, we were digging into some numbers. I'm like, oh, here we go. He is like, look man. You know, we have, we have a classification for like, when we need to buy things for job sites.

You know, maybe we need a ShopVac, maybe we need this, maybe we need that. He's like, but, but what we didn't have that, I just recognized it was a way for those items to be returned. And so I. You know, it's like whoever bought it, we used it for that project. They do pretty big projects and then it like, I don't know where it went, like where did that shop back go specifically?

And he's like, so just to kind of add all this up, he's like, we're talking about roughly $600,000 a year of stuff that we keep buying over and over and over again because it's quote unquote miscellaneous. And he wasn't, you know, he didn't have his pulse on it.

[00:21:11] Michael Tucker: Yeah, he could literally hire one person, one person to be over that specifically and he would make his money back. Right. So, but for you have, have you had any experience, 'cause I wanna talk about just continuing the, the conversation, if you're cool with it on the hiring, the, like, the basics of building a business.

What have you struggled with? I wanna know what, what, what has not worked for you?

[00:21:31] Chaz Wolfe: you're, you're one of few here, 450 episodes in, you're one of the, the, the few that have tried to turn this thing around on me, but I appreciate it. Thank you. Um, yeah, no, in all seriousness, uh, I've hired a bunch of people, probably a couple thousand even before I was a business owner. Um, and so the, the biggest issues that I've come.

Is just putting people in the wrong seat, um, trying to help them do something that they're not designed to do. And so, uh, trying to take a, uh, a not social person and make 'em a salesperson. You know, or trying to take a non-technical person and make 'em, uh, a backend, never talk to anybody. They work in a closet on a computer and, and basically both examples, they slowly die.

Um, 'cause they're not doing what they're made to do. And you can call it, put 'em in the right seat, on the right, on the bus. You can call it, you know, figuring out what they, what brings 'em fulfillment and joy. Like, there's lots of different ways to maybe slice that pie. We use a couple of different, uh, tools inside of gathering the Kings a personality assessment as well as a productivity assessment to be able to help not only just our clients but us like.

Is this person in the right seat doing what they know how to do that they're good at, as well as what brings 'em fulfillment and joy. And so I think it has to be a mixture of both. And that's just what I've leaned into for, for years now. But early on, and I still make mistakes now, but early on I was just hiring for the sake of hiring.

Like I've never been afraid to hire. Uh, I've always been maybe a little bit more on the risky side and building teams and stuff like that, but sometimes when you're hiring quickly or for lots of different businesses all at once, like I have. Uh, it's a little bit of a spray effect and you know, you a lot of slippage, you wanna talk about slippage.

It's like you, you just, it's just like a revolving door because, you know, there's not things in place and people think it's kind of chaotic and you know, as an entrepreneur you're just kind of running and you enjoy the chaos. And most people that work for businesses don't enjoy the chaos. You know?

[00:23:16] Michael Tucker: I'm glad you said that and something we're working on. And we'll end this, this conversation piece on hiring. 'cause I don't want the whole thing to be all about that. But, um, what we've been kind of dwelling on is. Because I think a lot of times when, whenever people are first starting to hire, they're looking at budgets, they're looking at, okay, how can I find somebody who's good at what they do, but at a reasonable price?

Um, but for us and our agency, like the conversation recently, 'cause I'm gonna be honest, that's been the, that's been my mindset for too long. And now it's like, Hey, how can we go straight for hiring A players? Because we know that's gonna take our agencies to the next level. That's, that's like people are gonna have a different experience when they work with us.

When we hire a player, so like just going straight for, hey, who's the best that we can bring in? Yes, there's gonna be a premium to that, but let's just build a, a team of A players all the way around. I think people would say, oh yeah, that's duh. But if you've been like a beginning business owner, you know what I'm talking about, you, you kind of go at it kind of, all right, like, how much can I afford?

And you know, you're just trying to pull, pull there. But if you have the resources. Just go like, go find those A players, it's gonna be worth it. And so that's what we've been focusing on. But yeah, I'll, I'll conclude the hiring talk on that.

[00:25:18] Chaz Wolfe: No, that's good. I actually, I'll, I'm gonna add one thing I'm gonna tell you about a book to the listeners as well, but I just read, uh, Mike Markowitz's book called All In Mike Mitz also wrote, uh, profit First. He was just on the show a couple weeks ago, um, or last week, whatever it was.

But, um, we talked about his new book called All In, which is a leadership book, and he has this principle that everybody is an A player. Now he's not. Saying, go hire anybody. But what he is saying is that A players are made by a leaders. And so

[00:25:46] Michael Tucker: That's dope.

[00:25:47] Chaz Wolfe: can go find a players. There are people out there who have already been groomed and who already have a skillset that you can put them in place.

However, the misnomer when it comes to A players is that you find one and then you just give it to 'em and then they do it for you. And it's like that doesn't always happen either. Um, if you're not an A leader, then. Then that a player, even if they're still maybe new and they're becoming an A player, they're not gonna stick around anyway.

It, it, it more falls on that person who's a, a good leader, which it sounds like you guys are, if you're thinking about these things in that, in that particular

[00:26:16] Michael Tucker: No, that makes sense. And I'm actually, I was reading a book a while back that talked about this, um, as well, and I'm pulling it up on Audible as we speak. The Hard Thing About Hard Things, um, by Ben Har Horowitz, I think it, he say his last name.

But he talked about that and, you know, he was building software companies and he talked about how his companies, he realized they weren't spending enough money. Time and attention training. And they had a lot of, you know, slippage with their employees, a lot of, uh, you know, people coming in and out. And so what he realized was, um, exactly what you said, just to put the cherry on top.

Training your employees and non expenses an investment equipping your people with, with your time, with your resources is only gonna help you. So ask yourself right now, if you have a team, how am I equipping them? How am I becoming that a plus leader that we're talking about here? And, uh, what can I do this week, starting this week, not next month, not next year, to better my staff.

Like, and just take that, their skills to the next level because it does take effort. And so that was one thing. Uh, if you guys wanna pick up the book, it's, it's a little different. I don't know, have you read that book that I mentioned?

[00:27:24] Chaz Wolfe: I haven't, no.

[00:27:25] Michael Tucker: No. Pick it up. It's a little different. It's, for me it was, uh, the author is very like, I don't know, aggressive and so I kind of liked it.

But the hard thing about hard things.

[00:27:35] Chaz Wolfe: I don't know how you could have a book called Hard Things but Hard Things and not be kind of

[00:27:39] Michael Tucker: Yeah, well, you know, most, most authors are pretty, like, I, I'm not gonna say saw, but they're pretty like, but he, he's real raw. There is some language in it, but it's, it's good when it comes to business building,

[00:27:50] Chaz Wolfe: That's awesome. That's awesome. Uh, okay, so let's flip the coin here. Uh, we've talked, uh, long and hard about bad decision making around hiring. What's been something that's just like catapulted the business, something that you would just do over and over and over. Maybe it's even something that you guys do for your clients.

[00:28:02] Michael Tucker: A hundred percent man. Well, there's two here, but they go hand in hand. Number one is just using virtual stages to grow your, your impact. That's number one. You said you run virtual events, but for us, that's been like the key marketing, uh, marketing strategy that we've used for tons of entrepreneurs. And then with that is using other people's audiences to fuel that virtual event.

And so when we put those two together, a virtual event that is. Really build out well. Plus you, you pull in other people's audiences and use that as leverage, man, it's crazy. And that's how we helped David, who was my real estate coach when we first started. You guys heard me say he didn't have any lists.

He didn't have any ad uh, he didn't have a ad budget, he didn't have a big social media following. I think he only had like four or five people, four, 500 people on Facebook. But it was because we. Leverage other people's audiences. And so we, we dialed in our message. We built a virtual event that was really good.

It wasn't good at first, but we built it out to where it was really good. And then we went and partnered with people who had the audiences we needed and just served other people's audiences. And because we served other people's audience as well, we got paid in like high level view. We got paid in. We made a lot of money and so those are the two things that have worked well, and I know that was pretty quick there, but those two things I think for anybody can be great.

[00:29:29] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah. I think even for the person that's listening right now, that, uh, you know, I as a contractor, right, and they're local to their area and they're building a project. Maybe they're not gonna use virtual stages, but the idea of using someone else's network to be able to grow your influence, that's what I'm hearing you say.

The principle is, am I right on that?

[00:29:49] Michael Tucker: Yeah. And even for those people, I mean, a virtual stage may not be a webinar or masterclass, right. But a. You know, even for local, like a, um, a contractor per se, a po a local podcast. 'cause there are people that do podcasting in your area. It could be, um, leveraging other people's, uh, Facebook pages.

Facebook groups, you know, those are virtual stages. Like I. You getting up in front of people and being able to share your story and your message, your mission, um, in the digital world can be, can mean and lead to multiple things. Um, but yeah, so I mean, but definitely the opportunity if you're like, Hey, I don't know if that would work for me, but I think definitely the ability to leverage other people's audiences.

So a contractor may be able to partner up. I'm just making this up with uh, um, someone that's a real estate agent, right? Um, or they may be able to partner up with. Um, insurance companies, you know, there's different ways you can get in front of other people. Um, and so you just have to ask who has my potential customers?

And so for us, when we first started out, David, he taught real estate. So we said, okay, who has his potential customers? And we went through his network and, uh, some people call them champions. We said, who? Who likes us? Who knows us? That has our. Customers. And so there was one guy, he was uh, he was a finance kind of guru coach, and he actually, I think he had an advisory, uh, company, but, so he's helped people like get their money under wraps, how to get their money, their budget under control.

And so for us, the next best thing after you budget your money is what you go invest your money, right? If you are horrible with your money. You get your money under, uh, control first with a budget, and then you learn how to invest it. And so we go, oh, this guy would be amazing. And so we reached out, we created a win win win scenario.

And what I mean is a win for us. We created a win for him and a win for his audience. And so, um, you have to have all three. You can't just have a win-win a win for each of you. You have to genuinely have a win for the audience that you're trying to reach. And so for us, it was that amazingly built virtual event.

And so we went to him and we pitched this idea, Hey, we have this virtual event. We've ran it one or two times ourselves. It's really awesome. People are loving it. Let's, we would love to teach your audience. And then at the end, we're gonna present a service. That service people could take it. They're not, it's no hard feelings.

We're just here to add value If they do, how about we split profits? And the guy said, yes. We came into his audience. We ran this event. We ran this promotion. We added value. We taught them about the topic of real estate, and then we went out there and made an o offer for a service. But this can work, like I said, for anybody.

For example, I work with a lot of like a, uh, life insurance agents. Life insurance agents can go and speak to other people's audiences or be on podcast or run their own webinars or master classes. Teach on the importance of life insurance. At the end, offer your services, right? Educate them on why they need to, to work with you and then offer their services.

And so that's what we did over and over. Just rinse and repeat. And it's, it seems simple because it's, it's just you, you get really good at presenting your message and you go present it to more or other people's audiences, to more people. And we, we've done that so far with him. We still do it today. We've done it at least 20 to 30 times.

And it's, that was over the past four years and he's made well over seven figures just doing that, leveraging other people's audiences. So he's, he does it a few times a year, nothing too crazy. And yeah, he just focuses and we focus on building really deep relationships, and I think that's the key That's.

[00:33:31] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Let's, let's. Unpack that, just that last little piece there, that was like a huge nugget right at the end. We focus on relationships in a world that seemingly is, you know, social media driven, comment only, super surface, don't actually can't reach out and touch anybody, even through a virtual event.

You said we focus on building relationships. How is that even possible?

[00:33:51] Michael Tucker: Yeah. Whenever it comes to finding partners and leveraging other people's audiences, I think it comes down to asking what is a value of the other person on the other line. So like what? When I come in here and I say, okay, for the Gathering the Kings podcast, their host, what is valuable to them? Well, one, I know that you guys are probably wanting more people, more business owners in your mastermind, in your peer-to-peer group, right?

So I could say, okay, how can I bring more people into that? For them, that's gonna be a value to them. It may be that they want more podcast guests. Okay, awesome. How can I refer podcast guests to them? So I need to figure out what these partners or what the people that, um, I want to eventually. Build a relationship with and leverage their audience.

I need to figure out what's a value to them. And sometimes that's easy to, to, uh, know, maybe because they're asking for it on social media, maybe because they, you've heard it say that, uh, they, you've heard them say it in the past, but sometimes you have to ask 'em, Hey, like, how can I help you? What, what can I do to add value to you?

And so for us, um, that's what we do. We just simply start out by saying, to build a relationship with these people, we want to connect with. Let's just focus on adding value of some sort and adding value. I feel like it's tossed around a lot, and a lot of people are using that word, oh, I'm gonna add value, but are you truly adding value?

And so adding value means you stripping yourself of any, any, I don't even know what you wanna call it, stripping away any, um, motives that would move you forward in putting the other person in place instead saying, I wanna move them forward. And so. For, for the partner side of things, that's what we do.

But then on the same time, at the other end, for your potential audience that you're gonna be speaking to, you know, we'll often do the same thing. Okay, let's do some research. Let's ask our partners what do they, what do they need? What do they want? What do they desire? What's their end destination, right, that they desire to be at?

And just, it takes some time thinking. It takes some time dwelling on it. But when you can figure that out, then you can. Build products, you can build, um, services to truly help them. And so it just, I think it starts with taking a, um, a survey or taking note of exactly what everybody needs and then filling the gap.

[00:36:06] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I think that you're spot on. Um, the value. Piece is thrown around a whole bunch. How can, I don't know, um, someone who's just hearing this for the first time, this idea of adding value, how can they, I I, I mean, you kinda just gave a few on-ramps, you know, survey asking, just directly paying attention is what I heard you say.

Doing some research and just saying, Hey, what, what, what is common sense here? What, how could I, how could I help this person? What would you say? Like, how much. Positioning here is curiosity versus self, like how I wanna move forward. 'cause obviously we wanna move our businesses forward. That's what's driven us to the place of, let me find strategic partners.

But at some point in there, curiosity has to reign or my ability to want their thing more than my thing, which is what you were just saying. Where in that process, for somebody whose new's never done this, when does that switch happen? Where I become more interested in helping them get what they want.

[00:37:03] Michael Tucker: You know, that's a great question and I think, and I may be wrong by saying this, but I would say for everybody in every relationship, it's gonna be a little different. But I could be completely wrong, um, because. What your audience, I'm just throwing this out there, what your audience may need and what you may need and the type of relationship and the value I'm gonna add to you, like that that switch maybe flipped a certain, a certain time.

[00:37:30] Chaz Wolfe: Sure.

[00:37:30] Michael Tucker: It may be earlier, maybe later. Right. And so I can't give like a a for sure answer to that. I would say this. Don't, and this may sound bad. Don't, don't worry about that. And I know that's, that's, you were just asking a question, but for me, I would just say, um, I'm really, sometimes there's stuff in my head and I got so much words.

I'm trying to put it out in a way that makes sense. 'cause it's like, makes sense in my head, but I'm like, how do I, how do I portray this in a way that actually makes sense to the audience without like sounding, um, sounding super high level. But let me just say this 'cause I'll, I'll summarize it by. By this, this message here whenever it comes to, you know, this whole process of building relationships when it comes to building these partnerships, adding value, everything we just stated, you need to, you need to always have a sense of curiosity with you.

And I think that's in everything we do. And I actually just wrote an article yesterday that. Kind of is on the same note of this. And whenever it comes to marketing, so many people and, and whenever it comes to social media as well, so many people get sucked into social media and they just consume, consume, consume.

And this may be a good example or not, but what if you came to social media with a sense of curiosity and you just use social media as a tool that. To gain market research. And so I'm saying this, for example, you hop on TikTok, don't, don't hop on TikTok just to watch funny videos from um, random people or to watch the most viral thing.

How about we actually see what makes these videos go viral? What about we actually look at these, these pieces of content, these means and say, okay, what causes these people to share this? Hey, how can I use this spin of this viral video to actually make my business get seen more? Right? And so I think there's, um.

Long story short, there's just a, a new mindset that has to be taken up whenever it comes to this stuff. And, um, one, like I said, just put yourself aside, but at the same time, make sure that you're always, always having some sort of curiosity. Uh, yes, you're in it for your own gain. I get that you are in this process.

You're, you're trying to add value, trying to build these relationships for the growth of your business. Sometimes you just have to push that aside because serving for me comes first. And I do know that those who serve the most often win the most. Um, now I'm not saying you have to do everything for free, but I'm saying from the, from this perspective, from this conversation, it's okay to serve.

It's okay to give out sometimes energy, some resources to make sure those in your care win and those that you wanna reach win, um, because it's gonna pay off in the long run.

[00:40:17] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, I think that you're spot on. That's a great answer. The, the time horizon. Uh, hormo talks about this quite a bit, uh, as far as making decisions that are based on a longer time horizon, and that's, in essence what you've broken down is I'm gonna make this decision to add value or to. When we say add value, what we mean is I'm gonna focus on the thing that is what they want, that brings them the result that they're looking for.

And naturally then my belief then is I'll get what I want. Maybe it's with this person, maybe it's with the next, next person. I don't know. Um, we can use this podcast as an example, 450 episodes or so. Two years in, that's a lot of work. And I just kept doing it knowing that I'm gonna meet the right people and I'm gonna shake some hands.

There's gonna be some strategic partners, there's gonna be some people who are interested in what we're doing. There's gonna be, uh, like one of, one of the, one of the guys who, uh, was on my show about a year and a half ago, I'm, I'm about to use his plane to fly from one city to another. Uh, and it's like, how, how would I have ever known this guy if I didn't?

Reach out, have him on the show, shake my hand, add value to him by respecting him through a process, telling his story, doing all the legwork for him. So I think that you've done an amazing job of, of communicating that. Um, I wanna, I want to switch gears here a second. You mentioned earlier that. You know, really entrepreneurship for you on top of then having a family early on was a challenge.

And, and I think that you're, you're right on. And so I wanna, I wanna go down that lane for a quick second here. For me, I see, uh, the word obsession as the answer really to everything, like passion, obsession, all in, whatever you wanna call it. And because I don't believe balance is a thing. Like, I can't, I can't, I'm not gonna balance my wife and my kids.

Like I'm not gonna balance my wife and my business. I'm just gonna go all in on all of it all the time. And some people are, they kinda struggle with that. But how have you done that? That's, that's what I heard you saying is that you were doing it all. Although there's maybe seasons and there's maybe some strategy in that.

How have you done that?

[00:42:11] Michael Tucker: Yeah, great question. And so I had to, I had to sit down with another friend and mentor. Um, she's awesome. And one day I was at a mastermind event and I was sitting down with her on the back patio. It was a, um, a summer, summer day, sunshine of this back patio. We sat down and I, I shared my heart with her. I was like, Hey, like you've been in, you've been in real estate, you've been in business.

You know, you guys had an awesome marriage. I can just see it like every time you guys are together, it is just, everything is is great from what it seems. And so she shared with me and she said, Michael, too many people try separating their business in their marriage as if they're two separate things. But she said, what I've done, I.

I found ways to include my family in my business, find ways to include my family in my real estate journey or business journey, whatever that was. And so for me that was a light switch. It's like, man, I have been doing that. I've been, work is here, family is here. Which in a sense it is, but how can I find a way to include my wife, my kids, into what I'm doing?

And that may not be that they're gonna come to work with me every day. How can I share with them the wins I'm having? How can I share with them the, maybe the losses that I'm having and so they can support me? How can I, uh, share my goals with them business goals so that she can keep me accountable?

Right. And so for me, that was a big light bulb moment, was just like, okay. And it's still, like I said, it's still something I work on every day, but how can I. Include them in instead of keeping them separate. And so maybe for some of you out there, that's just what you need to do is find ways to include your spouse, your significant other, um, into what you're doing.

Yeah. And I really, I'm the same way, man. It's, it's, you're never gonna find balance. So with that being said, how can I go all in on, on all and then, but just include them in with what I'm doing? And so that's for me, kind of what I'm working on right now, and that's what I've been working on in the past is just keeping them included.

[00:44:07] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah, I think that you're gonna be working on it, and if you ever stopped working on it, I'd be concerned,

[00:44:13] Michael Tucker: A hundred percent. So, I mean, but it's easier said than done, but uh, I think you guys get the gist of it.

[00:44:19] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, that's good stuff. Um, I wanna wrap up with this last question here. Uh, Michael, I wanna know if you had the opportunity to roll back the clock. You're already a young guy, so I don't know how young we'll go here, but you're talking to the younger Michael. You tap him on the shoulder and you whisper in his ear. What do you tell him?

[00:44:35] Michael Tucker: Hmm. I, I knew the exact thought when that, when you asked that. And it's, don't let other people place your value on you. Don't let other people place a value on you, and don't forget, and don't lose sight of how valuable your skillset is. Let me, let me mention this. When I first started out, I was helping people make, just so you guys are aware, we've helped people make up to four to $5 million per event.

Okay?

[00:45:02] Chaz Wolfe: Wow.

[00:45:02] Michael Tucker: Net net profit per event. Whenever I first started, I was only charging $1,500 through $2,000. And not saying I, I wanted to be greedy because we added a lot of value to those people and helped make impact so many lives. I. But I stayed there too long, and now looking back, I would've been like, Michael, your service, your skillset, something you've mastered is way more valuable than that.

And so for you all listening right now is your skillset, you're probably charging not enough. You're probably undervaluing yourself. Not saying you are, but for me, I was. And so I would go back and say, Michael, value yourself a little bit more. Have confidence in yourself. Have the courage that you talk about.

Chaz, like have that courage to go out and, and, uh, be premium. Be premium. That's what I would say.

[00:45:54] Chaz Wolfe: That's awesome. There's, there is courage, uh, in, in a premium ask. Um, and I think that even for the guy listening right now, oral, who's just recently started even, um, it's tough because you, you're just trying to make ends meet all the way to the guy who's listening, who's doing hundreds of millions of dollars that has never changed his or hasn't changed his price in 10 years.

It's like, no, look, what is the end result? Not what's the hourly wage? What's the end result of the value? That you're bringing. And I think that's, it's more of a delivery based, uh, you know, value model. And I think that that to the world is continuing to move towards that. That's why you see more performance plans for employees.

It's like, look, if you bring value, then you, then you, then you get value in return. If you don't, you don't. 'cause that's how it works when you're a business owner. That's for sure.

[00:46:42] Michael Tucker: Yeah,

[00:46:43] Chaz Wolfe: Um, okay. Michael, you've been incredible here today. How can the listener find you? One, if they're an online entrepreneur and they wanna run a virtual event and freaking crush it and have your team come in and maybe make a six or seven figure day for them, how can they find you?

Or if they're just an entrepreneur, they wanna talk, shop or marketing, uh, get some, get some ideas from you. How can they find you?

[00:47:03] Michael Tucker: Yeah, man. I mean, listen, I'm just here to build relationships. Um, I, I have nothing out there right now that you can go and buy for me, so just go to the funnel pros.com. You can set up a call with me. Literally me, not anybody else on my team. Go to the funnel pros.com and uh, we would sit down 15 minutes, just have some virtual coffee and, and shoot the bull and see how we can help you guys win.

Um, from there, if you're like, Hey, this isn't the virtual events, it may not be for me, but I still would love to connect. I'm on Instagram, go to official Michael Tucker, I'm there. Um, that's probably one of the best ways to connect with me 'cause I'm active most on there.

[00:47:37] Chaz Wolfe: Love it man. We'll put all that in the show notes as well. Uh, blessings to you and your team and your family as you're integrating everything, as you continue your success, all the millions of people that you're helping, uh, through all of your events. Thanks for being here, brother. We appreciate it.

[00:47:49] Michael Tucker: Yeah. Thanks man. Peace. Blessings.

Host Chaz Wolfe welcomes Michael Tucker, a visionary entrepreneur who transformed his passion for virtual events into a thriving empire. As owner and CEO of The Funnel Pros, Michael has orchestrated some of the most lucrative virtual events in the industry, boasting a record gross of $4 million for a single event. At the young age of 26, his ambition and strategic prowess have helped countless business owners amplify their impact and income through meticulously crafted virtual stages. Dive into a riveting discussion where Michael Tucker unravels the art of mastering virtual events to skyrocket business growth. This episode peels back the layers on crucial topics like the pitfalls of a solo entrepreneurial journey, the transformative power of virtual stages, and the nuanced strategies behind adding real value to your business. Michael's journey from bartering his skills in real estate to hosting multi-million dollar events exemplifies the potent blend of persistence, innovation, and mastery of self. Whether you're an established business mogul or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is a treasure trove of insights on leadership, virtual engagement, and turning your vision into reality. Tune in to discover how to harness the potential of virtual platforms and elevate your entrepreneurial journey to new heights.

Michael Tucker:

Website: https://www.thefunnelpros.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funnelpros/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theofficialmichaeltucker/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialmichaeltucker/

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