September 10, 2025 • 30 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Jason VanDevere
What happens when the family business is your “golden ticket”—but not your dream? In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Jason VanDevere, entrepreneur, creator of the Goal Crazy planner, real estate investor, and author of Dream Driven.
Jason shares how he walked away from a fourth-generation car dealership legacy to build something of his own: a business that helps people clarify goals, make plans, and execute daily. From designing a paper planner in a digital-first world, to building a subscription model, to publishing his new book, Jason’s story proves that cutting the tie to expectation can open the door to true ownership—of your career, your time, and your life.
About Jason VanDevere
Jason VanDevere is the founder of Goal Crazy, a 90-day planner designed to help people set meaningful goals, make daily progress, and hold themselves accountable. What began as a side project has grown into workshops, courses, coaching programs, and now his new book, Dream Driven, which guides aspiring entrepreneurs in finding the right business idea, validating it, and launching it with confidence. Alongside his business, Jason has built a portfolio of rental properties and, most importantly, a life centered on his wife and three young children.
In this episode, Thomas and Jason discuss:
- Cutting ties with the family business
Jason explains how he stepped away from his family’s dealerships despite success, expectations, and his last name on the building. - The journey to creating Goal Crazy
From six months of interviews with entrepreneurs to seven brutal focus groups, Jason describes how persistence turned an idea into a viable product. - Why paper still wins
Jason breaks down why a physical planner beats digital apps for focus, clarity, and productivity. - Stacking assets: planner, coaching, book
How one simple product turned into a system of revenue streams and positioned Jason as a thought leader. - Designing a life you want
Building a business that supports a 30–35 hour workweek, time with family, and long-term wealth through real estate.
Key Takeaways
- Dreams give goals meaning
Without a dream, goals lack direction and purpose. - Clarity beats complexity
A simple written plan executed daily drives better results than juggling multiple apps. - Ship, then sharpen
Painful feedback is the key to creating a product people actually use. - Build assets that stack
A product can open the door to coaching, courses, and a book—each fueling the next. - Define success on your terms
Jason measures success by supporting his family and raising his kids—not by titles or legacy.
Connect with Jason VanDevere
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvandevere/
🌐 Goal Crazy (90-Day Planner): https://goalcrazy.com
Connect with Thomas Helfrich
🐦 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 Instantly Relevant: https://instantlyrelevant.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast.
Hello, I'm your host, thomasHelfrich, on a mission here to
help you cut the tie to whateverit is holding you back from
success.
You gotta gotta define yoursuccess yourself, otherwise you
are chasing someone else's dream.
Now join today with JasonVanderveer.
Jason, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm doing great.
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I appreciate that.
That's always a good start whensomeone's excited.
I really don't want to be herewith my agent.
Take a moment, introduceyourself, where you're from,
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, so Jason VanVeer.
Let's see, I'm married, threekids.
I'm from Akron, ohio.
I guess my career here in ashort timeframe.
My family owns car dealershipsin Akron Ohio.
So if you ever come here you'llsee our last name VanVeer all
over Akron Vanderveer, Kia,cadillac, they got five
dealerships.
So growing up I was on thistrajectory to take over the
(00:48):
family business and become a cardealer and after several years
of working there I turned downthe opportunity.
I started a business sellingplanners I designed called Goal
Crazy Random but business that Iwas excited about and had no
clue what was going to happennext.
But it started turning intoworkshops and courses, coaching
programs.
I have a podcast on my own, Ihave a book that just came out
(01:11):
called Dream Driven that helpsaspiring entrepreneurs launch
their own business, and on theside I've been getting rental
properties from up to 34apartments.
Hopefully I can keep growingthat, but that's my highlight
reel, I would say.
Other than that I spent a lotof time struggling.
Uh, you know, there's goodtimes, bad times.
Uh, yes, that's a little bitabout me.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I mean that's.
I love that.
You took your own path withthat and you got a lot going on
there, so I want to dive intoyour journey.
Uh, how are you currentlydefining success?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To be able to support my family with the lifestyle
that we want.
I work maybe 30, 35 hours aweek, and as long as I can
support my wife and our kidswith the lifestyle we want,
that's the biggest thing.
That's a success to me.
I truly believe raising my kidswill be the greatest thing I
ever do with my life, sohopefully I can do a good job of
that.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's challenging.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's going to test.
It is challenging.
We have a three-year-old, atwo-year-old and an
eight-month-old, so challenging.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Nails it on the head 11 years from now, I'm going to
check in with you how yourstatement's going.
I could just survive theseteenage years.
We're going to be just fine.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Enjoy it.
The ages three to seven areprobably the most golden.
I will tell you Okay, no, no,it's bad, I'm going to leave it
there.
It's good, but those are likepure gold.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You're a walking legend in those moments, because
they don't know anything else.
Yeah, tell me a little aboutyour journey.
You alluded to it.
You know, maybe do it incontext of a big tie,
metaphorically got to cut.
You talked about it with notbeing in the family business.
If that's a good one for you,I'd love to hear that impact and
how that all went down.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I was terrified to cut that tie.
It was like just assumed Iwould go into the family
business.
My dad had me on this programwhere I work in each department
for about a year so I couldlearn the whole business and my
last name is on the building.
It seemed like a hard thing toleave.
My great grandpa was a cardealer and me and my dad are
(03:09):
similar.
He's great at it.
I was doing really well at it,but it just didn't light up a
fire inside of me like he hadand I thought about it for a
while.
I was terrified to bring it upto him.
He was extremely supportive, Ithink, completely shocked that I
wouldn't want to go into thecar business Our family.
I think this has been a bigblessing to us.
(03:30):
But it was like if you wantedto go into the family business,
you had this opportunity, but ifyou didn't, it wasn't like you
were given money Like some otherpeople who come from a family
business.
It's like you can takeadvantage of this opportunity or
you don't have to, butnothing's going to be given to
you, and so it was a bigopportunity to cut.
Now my dad and my uncle arepartners in the business and my
uncle has some kids that plan tostay in the business, so it
(03:53):
wasn't like I was going to letthe family legacy die when I
left, which also did help withmaking the decision.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I was going to ask that If you have siblings,
there's someone else who's goingto carry that, but the truth is
it's a brand and a name.
At some point, right, it'sestablished enough where you
could sell it, and this is theVannevar deal that a guy named
Bob owns.
Now, yeah, you have to stay inthe business.
So now when I buy a car, I'mgoing to come to you first and
(04:20):
you're going to we're going touse you as a chat.
We're going to connect you tochoose whatever chat guy you're
talking to.
Um did when you went throughthat though, like, uh, talk
about how you approached it,because I think I know like
there's a lot of there's a lotof listeners who are faced with
that, that they are expected todo something that might not be a
family business.
It might be like I went tocollege for this.
I had to do that.
(04:41):
It's the same type of thingthat you have an expectation
coming from a parent who now hasto have a plan B because that
was their plan.
How did you approach going toyour dad with it?
Walk me through that a bit.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah.
So I feel like I had done.
He could see that I was doingwell at the dealership and he
could respect that I had startedgetting rental properties.
I had four apartments by thatpoint, one property, four unit
building.
So there was something to kindof prove like I could be
successful to myself and maybeto him.
But I was going to leave tolaunch this planner business
(05:17):
which at the time I didn't knowwhat it was going to be called.
I had no design of a plannerdesign.
I had no clue how I was goingto buy them, sell them, import
them, any of that stuff.
So it sounded like a crazy ideato him and it sounded like a
crazy idea to me.
But in a way, because I had thefamily business, it's like I
have a killer plan B careeroption, Like I could go out and
(05:39):
fake it, but there's most peoplelike, yeah, but you got to go
get a job there.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
You're like, yeah, but you got to go get a job
there.
You're like, all right, youknow what I tried me a culpa,
I'm back.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, it would be really embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's a starting point , right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, like, but I could call my dad this afternoon
and he would take me back Imean, 99% chance of that and I
could be continuing this path ofbecoming a car dealer like I
was.
So it was like, look, I'm justgoing to go after this dream of
mine, I'm going to give iteverything I have, and I can
always come back here, which Iwouldn't want to do.
(06:10):
But I think even you brought upmost people don't have this
maybe benefit or this grade of agolden ticket to fall back on
too, but most people can go geta job.
It's going to be hard.
They might not be able to havea job as quickly as I would be
able to, but it's not like ifyou fail on your business
there's nowhere to go from there.
You do have other opportunitiesand the skill sets that I've
(06:32):
learned from running my ownbusiness.
If I ever needed to go getanother job, I feel like it'd be
so much easier Now, even if Iwanted to go somewhere outside
of my family business, because Ihave something very tangible I
can show of the quality of workI can do.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I will tell you, at some point you become an
hireable.
I will say People, he's afounder, he's 49.
No, you get a doubt.
Plus experience, though thosehours.
Okay okay, you know, who knows,maybe you made the best
decision because car dealershipsmay go the way of Kmart at some
(07:08):
point.
It might be like, hey, listen,it's all internet-based.
You drop it off, the modelmight change oh yeah, I think
it's ripe to change.
I don't know what it'll looklike, but people should change
one respect it, because I thinkit's still.
You need a place to get service, which is what make like 99% of
their money on right theservice and warranties and
(07:29):
things like that and financing.
But it's like I might beoverspeak, but it's a lot of it.
Yeah, but if you're like youknow, when you buy a car
randomly online, I buy a carlike once every 15 years, right?
So it's what I'm saying.
(07:50):
I think that I think the modelchanges.
All right, let's go back to you.
So the planner uh, you gottawalk me through that one,
because even now, I'm like how,how do you, how do you think of
have something as simple as thatworking?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah Well.
So now launching a planner islike a trendy thing, like lots
of authors are doing it, butback when I was doing it,
everyone was into apps.
Everyone was like this is adumb idea.
Why are you launching a paperproduct?
That industry is dying.
So it was nice I got in when Idid, because now the market has
actually grown.
But my route to do it was I quitmy job.
(08:27):
I spent over six months justinterviewing successful
entrepreneurs and I would sayhaving a family with a business
helped me make connections withpeople.
But I wanted to figure out howare they setting their goals,
tracking their goals, holdingthemselves accountable, and I
came up with this layout.
And then I launched or I didsix or seven seven focus groups
where I took groups of peoplethrough this design and they
(08:49):
would try it out.
And that was a really painfulprocess, like I the first one.
It was supposed to take an hour.
I gave this design out thinkinglike everyone's gonna love it.
Somebody recommended I do afocus group and I was just going
to check the box and do it.
But we were there for threehours.
We didn't even get through thedesign.
People were like this doesn'tmake sense.
(09:09):
This is too much writing.
I'm confused.
This is repetitive, just badfeedback.
One after another.
But after so many of those, Icould keep taking these pieces
of feedback and making it betterand better until the last
couple.
It just worked like peopleloved it.
They were trying it out,they're getting results, and
that gave me the confidence tosay this is something I'm ready
to get behind.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's somewhat of a lead magnet or tip of spear for
you because it goes intocoaching.
You said book workshops.
Talk to me on the business endof that.
Like I just I'm making a poorassumption here, but I'm
assuming your whole idea is I'mgoing to billions just selling
this you had to tell me how thatworks with a bigger picture of
business or how maybe involvedMaybe you just don't like that
Just tell me something bigger,which I think is like I'm trying
(09:50):
to get my head around it.
Still I see it as a loss leaderto something else.
But like tell me, tell me howyou leverage that or what the
original model was and how youmorphed it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Original sell planners.
Like I had no concept that thiscould be opening up backend
products.
Uh, I thought that I wouldstart selling these planners
online and make tens ofthousands of dollars a month
just by doing close to nothingand like.
The greatest thing was thatthat didn't happen, because I
actually needed to learn tolearn to sell and learn to run a
business.
But I thought that's what wasgoing to happen and I thought
I'm going to make my money here.
I love this product.
I'm going to invest it intoreal estate and something next
(10:29):
would present itself.
But I sold them.
It was really hard for thefirst couple of years.
It took me probably about twoyears to get to the point where
it was consistently turningprofits off my planner sales and
then, a little bit after that,people have been asking me for
more help.
They wanted coaching.
I was afraid to coach peoplebecause it was like I don't
(10:51):
really know what else I can givethem.
I already put everything Ithought I knew into this planner
.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
You're learning.
That's what coaching is.
By the way, people, when youbuy a class, you've already got
all the information free.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like like you're like, hey,
you make it make sense, thoughYou're the key that opens the
final door.
Yeah, and it's so interestingbecause, like now that I'm
writing a book and when you buybooks like I'll buy a book, I
love it I reach out to theauthor for coaching and they
just tell you how to do what'sin the book.
Right, but I know that's what'sgoing to happen and I didn't
(11:22):
realize that's how the coachingwould work.
People loved my planner.
They were getting results, butby having the personal
accountability to help themimplement it, I was able to help
them get much, much greaterresults.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It's all in the execution, and from
entrepreneurship to I won't sayjob, because sometimes you can
really check out of a job andget paid.
Actually, often, most people dothat Most.
Maybe, I'm projecting, I'mdefinitely projecting to some
degree, but the idea, though, is, if you really want something
to work, you got to do thedetails and the work.
And I give an example throughsport.
(11:53):
My son's like he's inpickleball, he's like 13.
He's like oh, I've alreadylearned all this stuff.
I was like then you should makeit razor sharp, work on a spin,
do something, make it fun.
And he's like all right.
I'm like, if you don't take thework to take the extra work to
do it, it doesn't actually everwork.
And you just keep buying moreprograms, looking for that.
So you got the planner.
(12:15):
Yeah, I think that's right.
What does the planner do?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
ask me that question one more time, sorry that's
right.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So high level?
Or or just pointed like theone-liner when someone's gonna
buy it.
Why does someone buy theplanner?
What problem did solve?
What does it do for them?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
yeah, it's gonna help them clarify their goals, it's
gonna help make a plan toaccomplish them and it'll hold
them accountable to do it, and Ican talk about how each of
those three things happen.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But it's like a data we like.
Every page is the same kind ofthing and you just work it.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
For the most part, it starts with what I call your
life crash course, which is alittle bit of a life audit.
You look at where you're atright now, grade yourself in the
different areas of your life,you create a vision of where you
want to be long-term goals,short-term goals and after you
do that, you'll break down theseplans and then you have your
daily planner pages that youfill out every single day.
There's planner and journalingall in this one structure.
(13:04):
And then this accountabilitypart is you create it's like a
daily scorecard where you planout what your ideal day would
look like, like what are thesuccessful habits I should have
every day that would make it myideal day, and you grade
yourself against that everysingle night.
And it's a super powerfulaccountability tool just to make
(13:25):
sure you're taking the actionsyou need to.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You do, you tie any social media with them, like hey
, post here, keep it connected,kind of thing.
You bring community to it.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I have.
I've got a Facebook group,maybe like 700 people in there,
instagram, I think.
Probably something I've droppedthe ball on is social media.
I don't like social media.
I don't believe in it.
Is it something I'm going tohave to overcome?
So I have a VA who runs thesethings for me, but I can't say I
can speak too much on it, otherthan I avoid going on there at
(13:56):
all costs.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
My company is instantly relevant.
I built it because that problemyou described is it's a
necessary thing for today'smodern sales presence and I have
my time to run everything Likethat's what we do.
I get it because manyentrepreneurs are like that.
You shouldn't ignore it, right?
It's like, oh, I don't like it.
I don't ignore it because it'sgoing to consume you at some
point if you don't right.
(14:18):
I'm curious.
You have a very defined user,though, who wants to write like
I could see the benefit of that,but I'm also somebody who drops
notes on my phone more oftenthan I do anything else.
Uh, tell me about that dilemmaof is it like a you're saying
hey, listen, put it by your bed,make it the last thing you do,
or the first?
Do you have a pattern with that?
(14:39):
Because I I see that being likea hard not a hard sell, but
something I just want to do so.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
my target customers are people who want to journal.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Most people do want to journal and they just don't.
But they don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I wouldn't know how to define that for somebody like
you, write things down.
Yeah, so this is the beauty oflike when I was launching this
people who want to write in apaper planner.
It's a niche market, right Likelaunching an app much larger
target audience but you canbuild this really passionate
following of people who want towrite and you can create raving
fans.
And I'm sure you can do thatwith an app too.
But it was like people if theyconnect with it, they love it.
(15:17):
They love it and they can shareit with other people.
So I'm not there necessarily totry and tell them they should
be journaling or writing.
I'm going after the people whoalready want to be writing their
goals down and I think likemore and more people are
starting to reach out now to mewho they've used productivity
apps on their phone in the past.
(15:37):
But it's like your phone tryingto use it for productivity.
It's like you open your phoneup and there's probably six
notifications waiting for yourattention.
Versus I've got this writtenplanner, nobody else is going to
put something in this otherthan me.
Versus your phone has access tothe entire world for somebody
to tap into your attention.
So I find actually more peoplenow are like I'm trying to get
(15:58):
away from the technology.
Now they have eight differentproductivity apps that they're
trying to use in some blendedweb of a way and it's like Nope,
you can just do this in one way.
You don't need to have ahundred items to try and do in a
day.
You physically can't do that.
Anyways, if you have thephysical space of your planner,
if there's a physical barrier ofhow much stuff can you actually
do in your day?
(16:18):
Uh, if you can't put it all inthere, you can't do it in your
day.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I love that.
It's amazing.
Sometimes I'll do this I'll goto a coffee shop just to change
locations instead of being in myhome studio here, and I will
take a planner I book with me.
Usually I got to make surethere's nothing written in it,
like at least in the front, andI'll.
That'll be enough for me to goto use GPT or some other AI to
(16:43):
go build what I need to go do.
But it's because betweenwriting a few words you're
thinking of a lot of steps andthen, when you go back into use
technology to accelerate it, I'malready clear on what I want to
do.
But I cause I have the five orsix, seven, eight keywords and
should just do that, like justwrite, do things, how it helps
you clarify to accelerate otherthings, and that I agree with
(17:04):
you.
It's a.
It's a lost art and I can'tread my handwriting, so I gotta
be careful there.
That's a long story.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I run into that sometimes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Talk about your business bit.
So you still have to make tensof thousands to go, you know.
Put you what makes the mostmoney now.
Do the planners make the money?
Does the coaching?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Is it the?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
real estate.
I mean the real estate.
Ultimately it'd be better, butlike from the planning coaching
book speaker.
How does that distribute?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah.
So as I've gone further in mybusiness, like at first, the
only thing I had to sell was aplanner, right.
But as I started offeringcourses and then coaching, the
planner has this beauty of youcan build subscribers.
It's a 90 day planner.
It's undated.
You can build the subscriptionbase so it creates passive
income which I like doing every90 days basically.
(17:50):
Yep, you need to do one every 90days.
So most of the time peopledon't normally subscribe
necessarily on their first one,but if they're going to go by a
second, they click the subscribeand they get the subscription,
which is awesome.
But the coaching I would iswhere I've made most of my money
from this business now, and Imean most recently, like when I
signed on with this publisher towrite the book the past year
(18:11):
and a half, I dropped all mycoaching clients and it was like
I need to focus on writing thisbook, because if I have
coaching clients, I stopped allmy ads for my goal crazy
business.
Maybe this was in a year fromnow.
I'll tell you this was the worstdecision I ever made, but it
was like I can only I have alimited amount of focus.
I only want to work so manyhours.
I'm putting everything I needto in this book and at that
point I was so grateful that,rather than going out and buying
(18:34):
fancy things, for the past fiveyears I was buying rental
properties because it's likeI've got a wife.
She takes care of our kids, shedoesn't have a job and we can
still live off of the income.
She works way harder than I do.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's the hardest job on the planet, the most
thankless.
They're like they have kidsthemselves and that point.
You're like I have dementia.
I don't know who you are.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, yep, she works really hard, but it was like I
was able to take some time offand, between our rental
properties and my subscribersfor my planners, I can get by
very comfortably until my bookcomes out and I can start
everything again.
So I would encourage that forother entrepreneurs.
Just like, as your incomeincreases, put some aside, just
a little bit aside, or a lot ofit aside.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's funny because part of what you're describing I
have a high interest in andI've bent the show a little bit
for selfish reason because it'smy show.
I do that.
But the truth is, I think it'sreally important for people to
understand this For our ideas ofCut the Tie.
I wrote a book and then, duringediting, I'm like I got annoyed
editing it.
I'm like it's too effing long.
I'm like enough, I've trashedit, literally.
Ghost writers are like what areyou doing?
I was like it doesn.
(19:36):
I agree with you.
You have to have some kind ofexecution plan that's
non-digital, and I have aFacebook community.
I got to be honest with you.
I don't like digitalcommunities.
They feel kind of hollow.
I would be much better sure tohave hey, let's go meet 10
(19:59):
people and you know, hang on,because I really feel it.
I feel it's hollow, I have itthere because people like it.
I would drop it in a minuteonce I figure out like why I do
or don't need it.
But the truth is, I think whatyou've described is what people
need and you have, you'restarting to put components in
place that puts, eventually, youon stage talking about
something or a TEDx or somethingelse, right?
So you're, you're, you're,you're stacking it, and I don't
(20:21):
want people to take it away thatyou have a very nice stacking
method of hey, I can write abook about this are the posture.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, I'm going to add something here, because when
I started this I love,completely agree with everything
you shared, but I didn't knowwhat was going to happen after I
launched this planner.
I think, like what's may haveslowed me down for a while of
starting a business is like Ididn't know the whole picture,
but like it was so clear on whatI wanted to do first.
Like I want to launch a plannerthat was just I had a fire
inside of me, random, but like Iwanted to do that.
But once you did it, the nextthing just starts presenting
(20:56):
itself, and I would say,actually to the extreme, where
maybe you've heard this quotefrom Hubert Packard.
He said most businesses die ofindigestion rather than
starvation.
And it's like once you launchyour business, there are so many
opportunities that presentthemselves.
It's like you have this buffetof options you can choose from.
And then it starts to stack upand you got to be strategic of
how you want to stack thesethings.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So you have.
So the key to that andsometimes this is like a little
deeper conversation is focus.
Don't seem ADHD For your ADHDs.
Get medicated.
Start doing therapy or you'llnever get there.
You'll be doing all those atthe same time and personal
experience I'll tell you I'llmedicated they don't work.
So you got focus.
And I think the other piece isyou're incorporating some ideas
from like Dan Sullivan, like 10XZ's or 2X, not Grant Cardone.
(21:37):
So if the idea is focus on onething and 10X it and then focus
on the next thing to 10X thatRental properties, you're 10Xing
those.
You're doing those by takinghey, I'll take, you know, 50% of
that money and put it towardsthis and live off this.
And that's smart, um, and andthere are pieces of your life
(21:58):
you have to have an order tomake that happen.
To be very clear, it is a dream, otherwise you can't.
They'll have what you probablyare given.
Um, do you have any mentors inyour life?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, big fan of mentors.
I mean ranging from free onesto paid coaches but one of the
best pieces of advice a mentorgave me when I wanted to start
my first business was he waslike Jason look, the shortest
distance between two points is astraight line, right?
So if you want to start abusiness, easiest way to do it
is find someone who's alreadystarted a business like the one
you want to start and just askthem how they did it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
There it is.
Listen if you didn't hear itit's a whole podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's free consulting.
Oh, as a podcast guest, I loveit.
That's what I'm doing.
I'm tracking down the people atthe next level.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
This is the best part , though you get to talk about
you, I get to learn and no oneelse listens.
I win.
It's great, that's true.
Where do you sell your plannerinitially?
And I ask this question morebroadly because people will come
up with products I've alwaysI'm a services guy I look at it
going too many choices, I can'tdo any of it, so I won't do
anything.
Where did you focus on theplanner by?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Amazon.
At first it was.
Amazon was the name of the game.
I don't know if that was 100%the right strategy.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But getting ranked tons of reviews, it was like I
just need that for.
Did you do that all organic ordid you did you?
Did you?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
did you be active and say, hey, please review, please
review, or did you just let ithappen in the background I
created so when somebody buys myplanner and this is a neat
thing you have with the physicalproduct is there's a little
flyer in there that says I'llhave sequences that follow up
with them asking to leave areview.
So that happened.
But I would say, like all thosesales, they weren't completely
(23:35):
organically and most of them,especially like the first, like
10, maybe even 20,000, I was soaggressive with ads that I
wasn't even making money.
I just needed to get it ranked.
I needed to get a customer base.
I needed to get subscribers ourbase, I needed to get
subscribers.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that's where.
That's where now, if you did itagain, you're like, hey, I'd
have the drips for the book orthis group activity or these
funnels in place, cause then theinvestment in ads is like you
had it, you had the list, butthen you're like I have a plan
to make money.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Take that negative 10,000 and make it a positive
100K or behind it.
So yeah, and I would add, likeif I were going to be launching
this business again and now thisis my psychology with the book
is paid.
Ads was the easiest thing toimplement, not the easiest to
turn profitable, but it was likeyou could just turn them on and
ads are going to run and saleswill come, whether they're
profitable or not.
But the influencer marketing ordoing like guest posting, kind
of like coming on this podcast.
(24:25):
It was crazy how that was whatreally moved the needle forward
and my budget for that was likeslim to none and it's still just
brought me so many sales.
It's built relationships, likenow that I'm launching a book,
I've got dozens of people I canreach out to who are fans of my
work, who can support me, and Ithink if I would have taken a
(24:46):
good portion of the effort I puttowards paid advertising and
put that towards this, it couldhave gone a lot further.
Sorry to say 100%.
Looking back, but that's myapproach going forward now.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
There's a balance, I think, with it where your ads
it's also like you look at itmore tight, like, hey, I'll run
this experience.
You control numbers better.
Typically, people run ads.
Initially they just let it goand they hope, hope, spray and
pray and they don't do enough.
on the strategy right On thepodcast side or appearances, I
agree with you.
You know there's differentvariances in cost of firms and
there's also things like podmatch.
(25:18):
They're not sponsoring this butI would tell you, for 300 bucks
a year or so, whatever it is,it's not much.
Or you can get on a ton ofshows of your choice if you just
work it and it's very easy andthere's a bunch of those.
I agree with you that usingsomeone else's audience as a
multiplier it's smarter and it'smore fun.
And for us we're building itwhere I don't go on any shows on
time but next year that wholeswitch is.
(25:39):
This year has been all about400 shows and guests and
bringing on the building, theinternal network, so I can reach
back out to you and be like hey, six months, tell me what you
did.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
How'd the book go?
Because once you're on the showyou get a repeat Unless you
suck.
You have to suck.
Try my best not to, unless youreally suck.
Yeah, but like on the both endof that, when I'm going on other
people's shows or they'recoming online, you're creating
these connections with neatpeople.
Like you're doing something.
You're doing cool stuff oryou're doing stuff similar to me
, like there's many people I'vegone on their show, where
they've come on mine, where nowwe host a workshop together or
we swap email lists or weconnect in some other way that
(26:18):
it helps both of us out.
I'm learning, they're learning.
It's not just like you'rerunning these ads and the second
you turn it off it's gone.
It's like, no, I'm building alittle bit more of an asset
there.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
That actually interesting.
Uh, I haven't done thecollaborations.
Uh, a lot of people don't thinkthat way.
It's good, I will follow withyou on that, because what you do
and from the to make it happenthere, becomes like things
downstream that you describe youhate doing, what everyone does,
which is like social mediacontent and stuff like that.
That's where we come in and saythis is how you do yourself
quickly or there's a cheap wayto outsource it, right, right,
like we give that advice and Ilove those kinds of
(26:51):
collaborations where thatenables what you're trying to
help people go do, becausethere's always an execution
piece that people fall apart on.
It's too much, it's overwhelming, I don't want to do it, it's
not a core piece and they justgive up and then it becomes a
void or a hole in their business, right, and so I like that.
That's beautiful.
Listen, just conscious of time.
(27:12):
We had a completely differentkind of show tonight, today,
because I think what you'redoing and building is a really
cool example of step-by-stepbusiness.
I really wanted to feature thatpiece because I think learning
from like, hey, I did this, Idid this, I had this opportunity
, I said no to it that is allhard stuff to do, to stay
focused, to say no to somethingthat was a guaranteed golden
ticket.
I love that, so thank you foryourself, for showing that
courage and going to do it.
(27:33):
If there was, though, aquestion I should ask you today,
though I didn't what would havebeen the question?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I think like the golden thread that's been able
to make that all happen is I hada dream inside of me and I
think lots of times people stopdreaming, like they just don't
have dreams for life.
And when you don't have dreamsfor your life, you can't have
meaningful goals.
In my opinion, you can havegoals without dreams, but
they're not aiming towardsanything else.
But when you have a dream, yourgoals have meaning.
(28:00):
Uh, cause we don't havemeaningful goals, I'll tell
people you end up in what I callsurvival mode.
You're just working to survive,but, like when you can have
this dream, it's going to fillyou with a fire to overcome
challenges.
Like if I didn't have, my desireto make this happen was so much
greater than the challenge ofleaving the dealership or
struggling through the hardtimes in my business.
So I'd say, like if there wasone piece of advice people need
(28:20):
to leave with, is you got tofigure out what do you want to
do with your life, because onceyou can get clarity on that,
it's going to light a fireinside of you and even though
I've had some really hard times,it's been fun.
This is what I've chosen to do.
I can't get mad when I run intostruggles as an entrepreneur.
It's like, yes, I signed up tobe an entrepreneur.
This is hard.
If you want to do somethingepic with your life, you got to
(28:42):
do what's hard.
You don't do that by doingwhat's easy.
So last piece of advice I wouldgive is figure out what you
want to do with your life andfind what's going to spark that
fire inside of you.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Listen, it is the core principle of we've named
this show a few things.
That plaque on the wall theresays never been promoted.
I literally one day changed itto cut the tags.
That was what I was tellingpeople to do.
That's what the brand was.
I was like, well, never beenpromoted, it's about me.
So I you changed it.
You're like, hey, my goal wasto help someone cut the tie, not
talk about me, not ever bepromoted.
And so you have thesereflection moments and you have
to take action and you're spoton If you don't own that success
(29:15):
that's one of the second titlesof our name was cut the tie,
own the, own your success.
If you don't own it, someoneelse will.
And it does feel hollow whenyou get there.
This is why people, when theyget the job, buy the house, get
the car, and they're like, likestill unhappy because you got
all the stuff that you thoughteveryone else thought you needed
not what you wanted actually.
(29:36):
And so spot on.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Listen up.
Who should get ahold of you?
How do you want them to do that?
Yeah, First thing I would sayif you're wanting to start a
business, check out my bookDream Driven.
It'll help you find thatperfect business idea that'll
light the fire inside of you,validate it's a winner and
launch it.
If you want, you can learnabout me and my planner and the
other thing I'm doing for mybusiness at goalcrazycom.
Really, this is targeted forpeople who want to start a
business or have a business.
That's who my planner book arefor.
(29:58):
Yeah, let's start there.
Check out my book, Dream Driven.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Thanks, Jason Vandermeer.
Thank you for the support.
Get out there, cut the tie, ownyour success.
Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast.
Hello, I'm your host, thomasHelfrich, on a mission here to
help you cut the tie to whateverit is holding you back from
success.
You gotta gotta define yoursuccess yourself, otherwise you
are chasing someone else's dream.
Now join today with JasonVanderveer.
Jason, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm doing great.
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I appreciate that.
That's always a good start whensomeone's excited.
I really don't want to be herewith my agent.
Take a moment, introduceyourself, where you're from,
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, so Jason VanVeer.
Let's see, I'm married, threekids.
I'm from Akron, ohio.
I guess my career here in ashort timeframe.
My family owns car dealershipsin Akron Ohio.
So if you ever come here you'llsee our last name VanVeer all
over Akron Vanderveer, Kia,cadillac, they got five
dealerships.
So growing up I was on thistrajectory to take over the
(00:48):
family business and become a cardealer and after several years
of working there I turned downthe opportunity.
I started a business sellingplanners I designed called Goal
Crazy Random but business that Iwas excited about and had no
clue what was going to happennext.
But it started turning intoworkshops and courses, coaching
programs.
I have a podcast on my own, Ihave a book that just came out
(01:11):
called Dream Driven that helpsaspiring entrepreneurs launch
their own business, and on theside I've been getting rental
properties from up to 34apartments.
Hopefully I can keep growingthat, but that's my highlight
reel, I would say.
Other than that I spent a lotof time struggling.
Uh, you know, there's goodtimes, bad times.
Uh, yes, that's a little bitabout me.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I mean that's.
I love that.
You took your own path withthat and you got a lot going on
there, so I want to dive intoyour journey.
Uh, how are you currentlydefining success?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
To be able to support my family with the lifestyle
that we want.
I work maybe 30, 35 hours aweek, and as long as I can
support my wife and our kidswith the lifestyle we want,
that's the biggest thing.
That's a success to me.
I truly believe raising my kidswill be the greatest thing I
ever do with my life, sohopefully I can do a good job of
that.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's challenging.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's going to test.
It is challenging.
We have a three-year-old, atwo-year-old and an
eight-month-old, so challenging.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Nails it on the head 11 years from now, I'm going to
check in with you how yourstatement's going.
I could just survive theseteenage years.
We're going to be just fine.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Enjoy it.
The ages three to seven areprobably the most golden.
I will tell you Okay, no, no,it's bad, I'm going to leave it
there.
It's good, but those are likepure gold.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You're a walking legend in those moments, because
they don't know anything else.
Yeah, tell me a little aboutyour journey.
You alluded to it.
You know, maybe do it incontext of a big tie,
metaphorically got to cut.
You talked about it with notbeing in the family business.
If that's a good one for you,I'd love to hear that impact and
how that all went down.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I was terrified to cut that tie.
It was like just assumed Iwould go into the family
business.
My dad had me on this programwhere I work in each department
for about a year so I couldlearn the whole business and my
last name is on the building.
It seemed like a hard thing toleave.
My great grandpa was a cardealer and me and my dad are
(03:09):
similar.
He's great at it.
I was doing really well at it,but it just didn't light up a
fire inside of me like he hadand I thought about it for a
while.
I was terrified to bring it upto him.
He was extremely supportive, Ithink, completely shocked that I
wouldn't want to go into thecar business Our family.
I think this has been a bigblessing to us.
(03:30):
But it was like if you wantedto go into the family business,
you had this opportunity, but ifyou didn't, it wasn't like you
were given money Like some otherpeople who come from a family
business.
It's like you can takeadvantage of this opportunity or
you don't have to, butnothing's going to be given to
you, and so it was a bigopportunity to cut.
Now my dad and my uncle arepartners in the business and my
uncle has some kids that plan tostay in the business, so it
(03:53):
wasn't like I was going to letthe family legacy die when I
left, which also did help withmaking the decision.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I was going to ask that If you have siblings,
there's someone else who's goingto carry that, but the truth is
it's a brand and a name.
At some point, right, it'sestablished enough where you
could sell it, and this is theVannevar deal that a guy named
Bob owns.
Now, yeah, you have to stay inthe business.
So now when I buy a car, I'mgoing to come to you first and
(04:20):
you're going to we're going touse you as a chat.
We're going to connect you tochoose whatever chat guy you're
talking to.
Um did when you went throughthat though, like, uh, talk
about how you approached it,because I think I know like
there's a lot of there's a lotof listeners who are faced with
that, that they are expected todo something that might not be a
family business.
It might be like I went tocollege for this.
I had to do that.
(04:41):
It's the same type of thingthat you have an expectation
coming from a parent who now hasto have a plan B because that
was their plan.
How did you approach going toyour dad with it?
Walk me through that a bit.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah.
So I feel like I had done.
He could see that I was doingwell at the dealership and he
could respect that I had startedgetting rental properties.
I had four apartments by thatpoint, one property, four unit
building.
So there was something to kindof prove like I could be
successful to myself and maybeto him.
But I was going to leave tolaunch this planner business
(05:17):
which at the time I didn't knowwhat it was going to be called.
I had no design of a plannerdesign.
I had no clue how I was goingto buy them, sell them, import
them, any of that stuff.
So it sounded like a crazy ideato him and it sounded like a
crazy idea to me.
But in a way, because I had thefamily business, it's like I
have a killer plan B careeroption, Like I could go out and
(05:39):
fake it, but there's most peoplelike, yeah, but you got to go
get a job there.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
You're like, yeah, but you got to go get a job
there.
You're like, all right, youknow what I tried me a culpa,
I'm back.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, it would be really embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's a starting point , right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, like, but I could call my dad this afternoon
and he would take me back Imean, 99% chance of that and I
could be continuing this path ofbecoming a car dealer like I
was.
So it was like, look, I'm justgoing to go after this dream of
mine, I'm going to give iteverything I have, and I can
always come back here, which Iwouldn't want to do.
(06:10):
But I think even you brought upmost people don't have this
maybe benefit or this grade of agolden ticket to fall back on
too, but most people can go geta job.
It's going to be hard.
They might not be able to havea job as quickly as I would be
able to, but it's not like ifyou fail on your business
there's nowhere to go from there.
You do have other opportunitiesand the skill sets that I've
(06:32):
learned from running my ownbusiness.
If I ever needed to go getanother job, I feel like it'd be
so much easier Now, even if Iwanted to go somewhere outside
of my family business, because Ihave something very tangible I
can show of the quality of workI can do.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I will tell you, at some point you become an
hireable.
I will say People, he's afounder, he's 49.
No, you get a doubt.
Plus experience, though thosehours.
Okay okay, you know, who knows,maybe you made the best
decision because car dealershipsmay go the way of Kmart at some
(07:08):
point.
It might be like, hey, listen,it's all internet-based.
You drop it off, the modelmight change oh yeah, I think
it's ripe to change.
I don't know what it'll looklike, but people should change
one respect it, because I thinkit's still.
You need a place to get service, which is what make like 99% of
their money on right theservice and warranties and
(07:29):
things like that and financing.
But it's like I might beoverspeak, but it's a lot of it.
Yeah, but if you're like youknow, when you buy a car
randomly online, I buy a carlike once every 15 years, right?
So it's what I'm saying.
(07:50):
I think that I think the modelchanges.
All right, let's go back to you.
So the planner uh, you gottawalk me through that one,
because even now, I'm like how,how do you, how do you think of
have something as simple as thatworking?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah Well.
So now launching a planner islike a trendy thing, like lots
of authors are doing it, butback when I was doing it,
everyone was into apps.
Everyone was like this is adumb idea.
Why are you launching a paperproduct?
That industry is dying.
So it was nice I got in when Idid, because now the market has
actually grown.
But my route to do it was I quitmy job.
(08:27):
I spent over six months justinterviewing successful
entrepreneurs and I would sayhaving a family with a business
helped me make connections withpeople.
But I wanted to figure out howare they setting their goals,
tracking their goals, holdingthemselves accountable, and I
came up with this layout.
And then I launched or I didsix or seven seven focus groups
where I took groups of peoplethrough this design and they
(08:49):
would try it out.
And that was a really painfulprocess, like I the first one.
It was supposed to take an hour.
I gave this design out thinkinglike everyone's gonna love it.
Somebody recommended I do afocus group and I was just going
to check the box and do it.
But we were there for threehours.
We didn't even get through thedesign.
People were like this doesn'tmake sense.
(09:09):
This is too much writing.
I'm confused.
This is repetitive, just badfeedback.
One after another.
But after so many of those, Icould keep taking these pieces
of feedback and making it betterand better until the last
couple.
It just worked like peopleloved it.
They were trying it out,they're getting results, and
that gave me the confidence tosay this is something I'm ready
to get behind.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's somewhat of a lead magnet or tip of spear for
you because it goes intocoaching.
You said book workshops.
Talk to me on the business endof that.
Like I just I'm making a poorassumption here, but I'm
assuming your whole idea is I'mgoing to billions just selling
this you had to tell me how thatworks with a bigger picture of
business or how maybe involvedMaybe you just don't like that
Just tell me something bigger,which I think is like I'm trying
(09:50):
to get my head around it.
Still I see it as a loss leaderto something else.
But like tell me, tell me howyou leverage that or what the
original model was and how youmorphed it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Original sell planners.
Like I had no concept that thiscould be opening up backend
products.
Uh, I thought that I wouldstart selling these planners
online and make tens ofthousands of dollars a month
just by doing close to nothingand like.
The greatest thing was thatthat didn't happen, because I
actually needed to learn tolearn to sell and learn to run a
business.
But I thought that's what wasgoing to happen and I thought
I'm going to make my money here.
I love this product.
I'm going to invest it intoreal estate and something next
(10:29):
would present itself.
But I sold them.
It was really hard for thefirst couple of years.
It took me probably about twoyears to get to the point where
it was consistently turningprofits off my planner sales and
then, a little bit after that,people have been asking me for
more help.
They wanted coaching.
I was afraid to coach peoplebecause it was like I don't
(10:51):
really know what else I can givethem.
I already put everything Ithought I knew into this planner
.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
You're learning.
That's what coaching is.
By the way, people, when youbuy a class, you've already got
all the information free.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like like you're like, hey,
you make it make sense, thoughYou're the key that opens the
final door.
Yeah, and it's so interestingbecause, like now that I'm
writing a book and when you buybooks like I'll buy a book, I
love it I reach out to theauthor for coaching and they
just tell you how to do what'sin the book.
Right, but I know that's what'sgoing to happen and I didn't
(11:22):
realize that's how the coachingwould work.
People loved my planner.
They were getting results, butby having the personal
accountability to help themimplement it, I was able to help
them get much, much greaterresults.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It's all in the execution, and from
entrepreneurship to I won't sayjob, because sometimes you can
really check out of a job andget paid.
Actually, often, most people dothat Most.
Maybe, I'm projecting, I'mdefinitely projecting to some
degree, but the idea, though, is, if you really want something
to work, you got to do thedetails and the work.
And I give an example throughsport.
(11:53):
My son's like he's inpickleball, he's like 13.
He's like oh, I've alreadylearned all this stuff.
I was like then you should makeit razor sharp, work on a spin,
do something, make it fun.
And he's like all right.
I'm like, if you don't take thework to take the extra work to
do it, it doesn't actually everwork.
And you just keep buying moreprograms, looking for that.
So you got the planner.
(12:15):
Yeah, I think that's right.
What does the planner do?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
ask me that question one more time, sorry that's
right.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So high level?
Or or just pointed like theone-liner when someone's gonna
buy it.
Why does someone buy theplanner?
What problem did solve?
What does it do for them?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
yeah, it's gonna help them clarify their goals, it's
gonna help make a plan toaccomplish them and it'll hold
them accountable to do it, and Ican talk about how each of
those three things happen.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But it's like a data we like.
Every page is the same kind ofthing and you just work it.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
For the most part, it starts with what I call your
life crash course, which is alittle bit of a life audit.
You look at where you're atright now, grade yourself in the
different areas of your life,you create a vision of where you
want to be long-term goals,short-term goals and after you
do that, you'll break down theseplans and then you have your
daily planner pages that youfill out every single day.
There's planner and journalingall in this one structure.
(13:04):
And then this accountabilitypart is you create it's like a
daily scorecard where you planout what your ideal day would
look like, like what are thesuccessful habits I should have
every day that would make it myideal day, and you grade
yourself against that everysingle night.
And it's a super powerfulaccountability tool just to make
(13:25):
sure you're taking the actionsyou need to.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You do, you tie any social media with them, like hey
, post here, keep it connected,kind of thing.
You bring community to it.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I have.
I've got a Facebook group,maybe like 700 people in there,
instagram, I think.
Probably something I've droppedthe ball on is social media.
I don't like social media.
I don't believe in it.
Is it something I'm going tohave to overcome?
So I have a VA who runs thesethings for me, but I can't say I
can speak too much on it, otherthan I avoid going on there at
(13:56):
all costs.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
My company is instantly relevant.
I built it because that problemyou described is it's a
necessary thing for today'smodern sales presence and I have
my time to run everything Likethat's what we do.
I get it because manyentrepreneurs are like that.
You shouldn't ignore it, right?
It's like, oh, I don't like it.
I don't ignore it because it'sgoing to consume you at some
point if you don't right.
(14:18):
I'm curious.
You have a very defined user,though, who wants to write like
I could see the benefit of that,but I'm also somebody who drops
notes on my phone more oftenthan I do anything else.
Uh, tell me about that dilemmaof is it like a you're saying
hey, listen, put it by your bed,make it the last thing you do,
or the first?
Do you have a pattern with that?
(14:39):
Because I I see that being likea hard not a hard sell, but
something I just want to do so.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
my target customers are people who want to journal.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Most people do want to journal and they just don't.
But they don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I wouldn't know how to define that for somebody like
you, write things down.
Yeah, so this is the beauty oflike when I was launching this
people who want to write in apaper planner.
It's a niche market, right Likelaunching an app much larger
target audience but you canbuild this really passionate
following of people who want towrite and you can create raving
fans.
And I'm sure you can do thatwith an app too.
But it was like people if theyconnect with it, they love it.
(15:17):
They love it and they can shareit with other people.
So I'm not there necessarily totry and tell them they should
be journaling or writing.
I'm going after the people whoalready want to be writing their
goals down and I think likemore and more people are
starting to reach out now to mewho they've used productivity
apps on their phone in the past.
(15:37):
But it's like your phone tryingto use it for productivity.
It's like you open your phoneup and there's probably six
notifications waiting for yourattention.
Versus I've got this writtenplanner, nobody else is going to
put something in this otherthan me.
Versus your phone has access tothe entire world for somebody
to tap into your attention.
So I find actually more peoplenow are like I'm trying to get
(15:58):
away from the technology.
Now they have eight differentproductivity apps that they're
trying to use in some blendedweb of a way and it's like Nope,
you can just do this in one way.
You don't need to have ahundred items to try and do in a
day.
You physically can't do that.
Anyways, if you have thephysical space of your planner,
if there's a physical barrier ofhow much stuff can you actually
do in your day?
(16:18):
Uh, if you can't put it all inthere, you can't do it in your
day.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I love that.
It's amazing.
Sometimes I'll do this I'll goto a coffee shop just to change
locations instead of being in myhome studio here, and I will
take a planner I book with me.
Usually I got to make surethere's nothing written in it,
like at least in the front, andI'll.
That'll be enough for me to goto use GPT or some other AI to
(16:43):
go build what I need to go do.
But it's because betweenwriting a few words you're
thinking of a lot of steps andthen, when you go back into use
technology to accelerate it, I'malready clear on what I want to
do.
But I cause I have the five orsix, seven, eight keywords and
should just do that, like justwrite, do things, how it helps
you clarify to accelerate otherthings, and that I agree with
(17:04):
you.
It's a.
It's a lost art and I can'tread my handwriting, so I gotta
be careful there.
That's a long story.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I run into that sometimes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Talk about your business bit.
So you still have to make tensof thousands to go, you know.
Put you what makes the mostmoney now.
Do the planners make the money?
Does the coaching?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Is it the?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
real estate.
I mean the real estate.
Ultimately it'd be better, butlike from the planning coaching
book speaker.
How does that distribute?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah.
So as I've gone further in mybusiness, like at first, the
only thing I had to sell was aplanner, right.
But as I started offeringcourses and then coaching, the
planner has this beauty of youcan build subscribers.
It's a 90 day planner.
It's undated.
You can build the subscriptionbase so it creates passive
income which I like doing every90 days basically.
(17:50):
Yep, you need to do one every 90days.
So most of the time peopledon't normally subscribe
necessarily on their first one,but if they're going to go by a
second, they click the subscribeand they get the subscription,
which is awesome.
But the coaching I would iswhere I've made most of my money
from this business now, and Imean most recently, like when I
signed on with this publisher towrite the book the past year
(18:11):
and a half, I dropped all mycoaching clients and it was like
I need to focus on writing thisbook, because if I have
coaching clients, I stopped allmy ads for my goal crazy
business.
Maybe this was in a year fromnow.
I'll tell you this was the worstdecision I ever made, but it
was like I can only I have alimited amount of focus.
I only want to work so manyhours.
I'm putting everything I needto in this book and at that
point I was so grateful that,rather than going out and buying
(18:34):
fancy things, for the past fiveyears I was buying rental
properties because it's likeI've got a wife.
She takes care of our kids, shedoesn't have a job and we can
still live off of the income.
She works way harder than I do.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's the hardest job on the planet, the most
thankless.
They're like they have kidsthemselves and that point.
You're like I have dementia.
I don't know who you are.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, yep, she works really hard, but it was like I
was able to take some time offand, between our rental
properties and my subscribersfor my planners, I can get by
very comfortably until my bookcomes out and I can start
everything again.
So I would encourage that forother entrepreneurs.
Just like, as your incomeincreases, put some aside, just
a little bit aside, or a lot ofit aside.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's funny because part of what you're describing I
have a high interest in andI've bent the show a little bit
for selfish reason because it'smy show.
I do that.
But the truth is, I think it'sreally important for people to
understand this For our ideas ofCut the Tie.
I wrote a book and then, duringediting, I'm like I got annoyed
editing it.
I'm like it's too effing long.
I'm like enough, I've trashedit, literally.
Ghost writers are like what areyou doing?
I was like it doesn.
(19:36):
I agree with you.
You have to have some kind ofexecution plan that's
non-digital, and I have aFacebook community.
I got to be honest with you.
I don't like digitalcommunities.
They feel kind of hollow.
I would be much better sure tohave hey, let's go meet 10
(19:59):
people and you know, hang on,because I really feel it.
I feel it's hollow, I have itthere because people like it.
I would drop it in a minuteonce I figure out like why I do
or don't need it.
But the truth is, I think whatyou've described is what people
need and you have, you'restarting to put components in
place that puts, eventually, youon stage talking about
something or a TEDx or somethingelse, right?
So you're, you're, you're,you're stacking it, and I don't
(20:21):
want people to take it away thatyou have a very nice stacking
method of hey, I can write abook about this are the posture.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, I'm going to add something here, because when
I started this I love,completely agree with everything
you shared, but I didn't knowwhat was going to happen after I
launched this planner.
I think, like what's may haveslowed me down for a while of
starting a business is like Ididn't know the whole picture,
but like it was so clear on whatI wanted to do first.
Like I want to launch a plannerthat was just I had a fire
inside of me, random, but like Iwanted to do that.
But once you did it, the nextthing just starts presenting
(20:56):
itself, and I would say,actually to the extreme, where
maybe you've heard this quotefrom Hubert Packard.
He said most businesses die ofindigestion rather than
starvation.
And it's like once you launchyour business, there are so many
opportunities that presentthemselves.
It's like you have this buffetof options you can choose from.
And then it starts to stack upand you got to be strategic of
how you want to stack thesethings.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So you have.
So the key to that andsometimes this is like a little
deeper conversation is focus.
Don't seem ADHD For your ADHDs.
Get medicated.
Start doing therapy or you'llnever get there.
You'll be doing all those atthe same time and personal
experience I'll tell you I'llmedicated they don't work.
So you got focus.
And I think the other piece isyou're incorporating some ideas
from like Dan Sullivan, like 10XZ's or 2X, not Grant Cardone.
(21:37):
So if the idea is focus on onething and 10X it and then focus
on the next thing to 10X thatRental properties, you're 10Xing
those.
You're doing those by takinghey, I'll take, you know, 50% of
that money and put it towardsthis and live off this.
And that's smart, um, and andthere are pieces of your life
(21:58):
you have to have an order tomake that happen.
To be very clear, it is a dream, otherwise you can't.
They'll have what you probablyare given.
Um, do you have any mentors inyour life?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, big fan of mentors.
I mean ranging from free onesto paid coaches but one of the
best pieces of advice a mentorgave me when I wanted to start
my first business was he waslike Jason look, the shortest
distance between two points is astraight line, right?
So if you want to start abusiness, easiest way to do it
is find someone who's alreadystarted a business like the one
you want to start and just askthem how they did it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
There it is.
Listen if you didn't hear itit's a whole podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's free consulting.
Oh, as a podcast guest, I loveit.
That's what I'm doing.
I'm tracking down the people atthe next level.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
This is the best part , though you get to talk about
you, I get to learn and no oneelse listens.
I win.
It's great, that's true.
Where do you sell your plannerinitially?
And I ask this question morebroadly because people will come
up with products I've alwaysI'm a services guy I look at it
going too many choices, I can'tdo any of it, so I won't do
anything.
Where did you focus on theplanner by?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Amazon.
At first it was.
Amazon was the name of the game.
I don't know if that was 100%the right strategy.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But getting ranked tons of reviews, it was like I
just need that for.
Did you do that all organic ordid you did you?
Did you?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
did you be active and say, hey, please review, please
review, or did you just let ithappen in the background I
created so when somebody buys myplanner and this is a neat
thing you have with the physicalproduct is there's a little
flyer in there that says I'llhave sequences that follow up
with them asking to leave areview.
So that happened.
But I would say, like all thosesales, they weren't completely
(23:35):
organically and most of them,especially like the first, like
10, maybe even 20,000, I was soaggressive with ads that I
wasn't even making money.
I just needed to get it ranked.
I needed to get a customer base.
I needed to get subscribers ourbase, I needed to get
subscribers.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that's where.
That's where now, if you did itagain, you're like, hey, I'd
have the drips for the book orthis group activity or these
funnels in place, cause then theinvestment in ads is like you
had it, you had the list, butthen you're like I have a plan
to make money.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Take that negative 10,000 and make it a positive
100K or behind it.
So yeah, and I would add, likeif I were going to be launching
this business again and now thisis my psychology with the book
is paid.
Ads was the easiest thing toimplement, not the easiest to
turn profitable, but it was likeyou could just turn them on and
ads are going to run and saleswill come, whether they're
profitable or not.
But the influencer marketing ordoing like guest posting, kind
of like coming on this podcast.
(24:25):
It was crazy how that was whatreally moved the needle forward
and my budget for that was likeslim to none and it's still just
brought me so many sales.
It's built relationships, likenow that I'm launching a book,
I've got dozens of people I canreach out to who are fans of my
work, who can support me, and Ithink if I would have taken a
(24:46):
good portion of the effort I puttowards paid advertising and
put that towards this, it couldhave gone a lot further.
Sorry to say 100%.
Looking back, but that's myapproach going forward now.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
There's a balance, I think, with it where your ads
it's also like you look at itmore tight, like, hey, I'll run
this experience.
You control numbers better.
Typically, people run ads.
Initially they just let it goand they hope, hope, spray and
pray and they don't do enough.
on the strategy right On thepodcast side or appearances, I
agree with you.
You know there's differentvariances in cost of firms and
there's also things like podmatch.
(25:18):
They're not sponsoring this butI would tell you, for 300 bucks
a year or so, whatever it is,it's not much.
Or you can get on a ton ofshows of your choice if you just
work it and it's very easy andthere's a bunch of those.
I agree with you that usingsomeone else's audience as a
multiplier it's smarter and it'smore fun.
And for us we're building itwhere I don't go on any shows on
time but next year that wholeswitch is.
(25:39):
This year has been all about400 shows and guests and
bringing on the building, theinternal network, so I can reach
back out to you and be like hey, six months, tell me what you
did.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
How'd the book go?
Because once you're on the showyou get a repeat Unless you
suck.
You have to suck.
Try my best not to, unless youreally suck.
Yeah, but like on the both endof that, when I'm going on other
people's shows or they'recoming online, you're creating
these connections with neatpeople.
Like you're doing something.
You're doing cool stuff oryou're doing stuff similar to me
, like there's many people I'vegone on their show, where
they've come on mine, where nowwe host a workshop together or
we swap email lists or weconnect in some other way that
(26:18):
it helps both of us out.
I'm learning, they're learning.
It's not just like you'rerunning these ads and the second
you turn it off it's gone.
It's like, no, I'm building alittle bit more of an asset
there.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
That actually interesting.
Uh, I haven't done thecollaborations.
Uh, a lot of people don't thinkthat way.
It's good, I will follow withyou on that, because what you do
and from the to make it happenthere, becomes like things
downstream that you describe youhate doing, what everyone does,
which is like social mediacontent and stuff like that.
That's where we come in and saythis is how you do yourself
quickly or there's a cheap wayto outsource it, right, right,
like we give that advice and Ilove those kinds of
(26:51):
collaborations where thatenables what you're trying to
help people go do, becausethere's always an execution
piece that people fall apart on.
It's too much, it's overwhelming, I don't want to do it, it's
not a core piece and they justgive up and then it becomes a
void or a hole in their business, right, and so I like that.
That's beautiful.
Listen, just conscious of time.
(27:12):
We had a completely differentkind of show tonight, today,
because I think what you'redoing and building is a really
cool example of step-by-stepbusiness.
I really wanted to feature thatpiece because I think learning
from like, hey, I did this, Idid this, I had this opportunity
, I said no to it that is allhard stuff to do, to stay
focused, to say no to somethingthat was a guaranteed golden
ticket.
I love that, so thank you foryourself, for showing that
courage and going to do it.
(27:33):
If there was, though, aquestion I should ask you today,
though I didn't what would havebeen the question?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I think like the golden thread that's been able
to make that all happen is I hada dream inside of me and I
think lots of times people stopdreaming, like they just don't
have dreams for life.
And when you don't have dreamsfor your life, you can't have
meaningful goals.
In my opinion, you can havegoals without dreams, but
they're not aiming towardsanything else.
But when you have a dream, yourgoals have meaning.
(28:00):
Uh, cause we don't havemeaningful goals, I'll tell
people you end up in what I callsurvival mode.
You're just working to survive,but, like when you can have
this dream, it's going to fillyou with a fire to overcome
challenges.
Like if I didn't have, my desireto make this happen was so much
greater than the challenge ofleaving the dealership or
struggling through the hardtimes in my business.
So I'd say, like if there wasone piece of advice people need
(28:20):
to leave with, is you got tofigure out what do you want to
do with your life, because onceyou can get clarity on that,
it's going to light a fireinside of you and even though
I've had some really hard times,it's been fun.
This is what I've chosen to do.
I can't get mad when I run intostruggles as an entrepreneur.
It's like, yes, I signed up tobe an entrepreneur.
This is hard.
If you want to do somethingepic with your life, you got to
(28:42):
do what's hard.
You don't do that by doingwhat's easy.
So last piece of advice I wouldgive is figure out what you
want to do with your life andfind what's going to spark that
fire inside of you.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Listen, it is the core principle of we've named
this show a few things.
That plaque on the wall theresays never been promoted.
I literally one day changed itto cut the tags.
That was what I was tellingpeople to do.
That's what the brand was.
I was like, well, never beenpromoted, it's about me.
So I you changed it.
You're like, hey, my goal wasto help someone cut the tie, not
talk about me, not ever bepromoted.
And so you have thesereflection moments and you have
to take action and you're spoton If you don't own that success
(29:15):
that's one of the second titlesof our name was cut the tie,
own the, own your success.
If you don't own it, someoneelse will.
And it does feel hollow whenyou get there.
This is why people, when theyget the job, buy the house, get
the car, and they're like, likestill unhappy because you got
all the stuff that you thoughteveryone else thought you needed
not what you wanted actually.
(29:36):
And so spot on.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Listen up.
Who should get ahold of you?
How do you want them to do that?
Yeah, First thing I would sayif you're wanting to start a
business, check out my bookDream Driven.
It'll help you find thatperfect business idea that'll
light the fire inside of you,validate it's a winner and
launch it.
If you want, you can learnabout me and my planner and the
other thing I'm doing for mybusiness at goalcrazycom.
Really, this is targeted forpeople who want to start a
business or have a business.
That's who my planner book arefor.
(29:58):
Yeah, let's start there.
Check out my book, Dream Driven.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Thanks, Jason Vandermeer.
Thank you for the support.
Get out there, cut the tie, ownyour success.
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