September 22, 2024 • 42 mins
Ever wondered how to build a business empire without losing your mind (or your family time)?
Join us as Neil Twa, CEO and Co-Founder of Voltage Holdings, shares his epic journey from a corporate suit at IBM to a digital dynamo in the e-commerce world. Over the past 17 years, he’s launched five personal brands, raked in tens of millions, and mentored over 1,000 businesses. Talk about a hustle! As the co-author of Almost-Automated Income with FBA, Neil’s got the secret sauce for turning Amazon FBA into a money-making machine—almost on autopilot. And did we mention his “As Seen on TV” strategy? Yup, it’s Shark-approved and helps brands predict what customers want before they even know it.
He’s got five game-changing breakthroughs up his sleeve to transform any FBA business into a brand powerhouse. Want to know how to grow your biz and still have time for family dinners? Neil’s got you covered. Tune in for some seriously fun, no-nonsense advice from a guy who’s mastered the art of business and family balance!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi everyone, welcome to the Juggling Entrepreneurship
Podcast, and today we have anawesome guest called Neil Twa.
So Neil Twa is the CEO andfounder of Voltage Holdings, a
company specializing inlaunching, consulting, selling
and acquiring brands with afocus on the e-commerce channels
, such as Amazon, fbla andmultichannel.
We have an incredible guest whois a true master of scaling
(00:27):
businesses on Amazon.
With over a decade ofexperience in building
multi-million dollar Amazonbusinesses, he helped countless
entrepreneurs unlock the secretsof success in the e-commerce
space.
He's also a parent and anamazing entrepreneur, so today
we are going to hear his storyon this episode.
(00:47):
So welcome, neil.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Welcome.
Thanks for having me Appreciateit.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So let's, I gave a higher level overview about you,
but do you want to add anything?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, we'll go.
We can go a little bit deeper.
Just for the context here, I ama father of four daughters
whose ages are 11 to 16.
We have them all in four and ahalf years, so for the better
part of a decade my wife and Ididn't sleep.
We're actually getting somegood sleep now, which is awesome
, as they are all now a littleolder and the youngest is 11.
So it's a little easier to kindof manage life and do life a
(01:24):
little differently.
We travel as a family unitanywhere we travel.
Really, I don't go to things bymyself.
I take them out to two events ayear in which we are part of a
group called the Wealth WithoutWall Street and Apex Coaching
Group that partnered withVoltage to provide e-commerce
opportunities to theirindividuals.
And those are the only livegroups I go to each year and
(01:45):
take my 16-year-old daughter tothe last live group with us to
help her with herentrepreneurial journey, because
she has published her own firstbook as a novel.
She spent writing the last yearand she turned 16 in June and
we had it published right as herbirthday went out.
So she's working on herpublishing empire as a part of
what we do.
(02:05):
We homeschool our girls on 50acres here in the Ozark
Mountains of Missouri.
So we balance the work, thelife, the homeschooling and the
adventures together as a family.
They're currently at theirhomeschool co-op theater event
today where they're starting anew play in three months, and so
they are starting today on thatjourney.
This is the third one they'vedone now with their homeschool
(02:25):
co-op as part of their adventure, so it should be pretty fun to
watch that come out.
So we just, you know we balancethings between myself and my
wife.
I really like to joke that sheowns the company Twaner Prizes,
which owns Voltage and the otherassets, and I'm just a worker
for it.
So if anything happens to me,it all gets transferred to her.
But in terms of life andbusiness, we've spent the last
(02:46):
17 years doing that together.
We got married in 2007.
I left my corporate career andfired the man in 2007, went out
on my own into new businessventures etc.
By the time we got married thatsame year, in March, and I left
IBM in June and we found out bySeptember we were pregnant with
our first daughter all in thatsame year.
So starting the business,starting the family, starting a
(03:07):
new adventure was just all partof the package.
Don't necessarily recommend allnew couples who are newly
married do that because it putsa lot of stress on the finances
and family.
But if you've got the majorpillars of faith, family,
finances and the goal of freedomin mind, you know you're
normally can be prettyunstoppable if you don't give up
Uh.
(03:28):
And so we worked through thatuh and through the challenges
and opportunities that have beencreated as a family, you know,
decided that we would homeschoolour kids after that process and
just kept going and neverstopped uh with that and that's
just led us to a life now that Ifeel more blessed than stressed
to be a part of.
And we are just a great familyunit and do what we do on the
(03:49):
home and business fronts to kindof, you know, team up and
combine the activities of theoperations and control of our
family, our life and everythingelse, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Couldn't see it any other way so just to correct me
if I'm wrong, but you're notonly juggling your own business
and family, but also jugglingthe roadmap of making your kids
the next generationentrepreneurs.
And you are an author ofyourself and you have a family
of author the next generation,your daughter.
(04:20):
So tell us a little bit aboutyour books and your authorship
journey before we hop into yourdigital marketing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I told my daughter about a year and a half ago
that I was going to publish thisbook and that we were in the
process of doing it.
And as we compiled it andworked with the 15 different
individuals who came on mypodcast and we pulled that
information together and wrotethe 15 chapters in that book.
As each of them was guest, wewent through that process.
She got to see that In part oflearning the business of
(04:48):
e-commerce and writing andcopywriting of the listings and
products, she discovered she hadmore of a personal affinity
towards the writing thananything else and so that kind
of sparked her interest inwriting and putting her creative
thoughts onto paper.
And then you know, in the waywe structure our home and kids
get up, we got animals, we gotchores, we live on a homestead,
so that has to be taken care of.
(05:08):
Daily, monthly and nightly,every day it has to be taken
care of.
But when they get through theirschooling and criteria that
they do with mom in the kitchenand they get through each of
their activities, things they'resupposed to be doing, studies,
et cetera if they're freed up bynoon, one or two o'clock in the
(05:29):
afternoon, depending upon whichstudies take, how long or
whatever, they're free to dowhatever they want with the rest
of their time.
And with that she set off tostart writing and during her
free time for an entire year shefocused.
I published my book in Januaryof 2024.
And with that it kind of ledher to realize it was possible
I'd help her with her marketing,and so we finished the final
components of it.
I got her an editor and awriting mentor to take her raw
(05:50):
talent and just make sure thatthis wasn't a bad American Idol
experience and throwing mydaughter on a stage where she
squeaks and no one was willingto tell her the truth and she
sounds like fingernails on achalkboard.
I wasn't going to do that toher, so I got her a mentor and
an editor on a chalkboard.
I wasn't going to do that toher, so I got her a mentor and
an editor and they said, hey,this is actually great, it's raw
talent, let's keep going.
And so that was encouraging.
(06:12):
If it wasn't her bent, I didn'twant to take her down that
direction.
If it wasn't going to be a good, you know, focus of her time
and in balance with theirstudies.
It's a great learning andentrepreneurial journey.
But she ended up.
We got it done and publishedand ready to go and launched it
in June, right ahead of herbirthday.
So she got her book out,because I got my book out and
that was part of the leaderthing there was to do it
together and to see that itcould occur, so that she could
walk that path too.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, kudos to the next generation of Twas.
I guess Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I find those.
Next, my second daughter hasbeen really engaged in video and
editing and she's been workingon looking at creating some
shorts and video and promos forthe business and for products we
have and she's getting strongerand better at that and we're
going to figure out how to turnher into a little self-employed
media expert, where she's beenreally enjoying making the
videos and combining thephotographs and the images and
(07:00):
using AI voices and techniqueswith CapCut and other things to
create those videos and there'sa little creative spark in her
energy and we're going to seewhere that goes next.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So one at a time, right?
Yes, definitely.
And the way I see it, you arebuilding your own team within
your house, pretty much Betweenthe writing and everything.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yep, I'm kind of building up a team of who can
get involved in the business.
Right now they're just washingwindows and cleaning dishes, but
as it comes along, theopportunities for them to grow
and learn into the business, asthey become, you know, capable
and trained, are obviously there.
To learn how to build that upand the strengths that they find
most interesting to them and,and yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, I honestly think there is one point for
sure we want to discuss, basedon your experience of raising
kids and the next generation ofentrepreneurs.
It's not every parent does it,but it's very unique.
What you're doing is torecognize the talent Each person
is different.
Each person is different.
Each kid is different.
Each kid have their owninterests, their own skillset,
(08:10):
their own talent and torecognize it as a parent, to
nourish it, to support it and tohelp in whatever way we can in
terms of providing the resources, for example, providing the
mentors for writing a book.
It's very unique, right?
Does that mindset come to youBecause you went through that
(08:34):
entrepreneurship journey?
How did your mindset transformwhen you quit the job from IBM
to start your own journey, whatactually triggered it and how
your mindset changed during thecourse of time?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well, yeah, I lovingly refer to that change as
burning the boats and not thebridges.
I believe that phrase wasborrowed from somewhere else I
don't remember exactly who saidit, but but in essence I
understood something in somehistorical context.
Let's go back for just a sec.
I had a you know dad who workedfor 28 and 29 years in the same
job, same mechanics.
(09:09):
He didn't graduate from highschool, he actually went to the
Navy and two tours of Vietnamand was just a tough, a tough
guy and, you know, was a strongman, leader, not particularly in
the finance world or businessworld, but he was ethics
integrity strong.
He was hard work strong he was,you know, suck it up buttercup,
do the job, you know noslackers and let's get out there
(09:32):
and put the work in.
And that's kind of how helearned to do things and he
taught that, you that, and builtthat work ethic into me.
The challenge with that workethic was well, he didn't have
certain opportunities.
Through his work and effort Iwas given the opportunity to do
things in business that Icouldn't have done through the
family and relationships thathelped extol that.
(09:53):
One person in particular myuncle, all of my uncles, were
individual self-employedcontractors in the construction
world.
I never really realized thatuntil later in life because
that's not how I saw them, butbecause of who they are.
I kind of saw the way theyacted about business and the way
they thought about doing jobsand working in that field and
taking care of their ownbusiness.
But one of my uncles inparticular was very good at
(10:15):
building boats and he actuallybuilt a boat company out of San
Diego and as I watched that boatcompany grow and go and get
bigger and by the time I was 16and 17, it was a full-fledged
business I really got to see theidea and the conversation and
it started to change towards theentrepreneurial and the
business and the developmentside.
And he was gracious enough tolet me pick his brain and have
(10:36):
conversations with him and gotintroduced to people and my
brand kind of started to expandand expand and he always
suggested do your own business,get a franchise, do something,
take that opportunity.
And because of where I'd comefrom and my mind hadn't fully
changed yet, I realized I neededopportunities where they
currently were and that's when Ipersonally went to college but
I dropped out because I justdidn't see where that was going
(10:58):
to take me and at the time theinternet was coming online, I
said, well, that's something Ireally want to do.
And academia was not caught upbecause we were literally just
installing computers into labsfor the first time and the
corporations were catching upsomewhat because they were just
deploying a lot more capital.
So I got into the workforce andit actually led me to being on
one of the first teams thatlaunched the first mobile phone
(11:19):
at Sprint in Kansas City intothe market.
That's how old I am.
A lot has changed very fast.
I'm not terribly old, but lotshave changed in the last 30
years.
And then from there, thatopportunity and putting in the
hard work and learning thephrase it's who you know that
gets you there and what you knowthat keeps you there.
I've made good friends with apartner from IBM who had come to
(11:42):
be on a project with Sprint inKansas City where I was at that
time, got to be friends with himand that opened the doors of
opportunities to talk with theseindividuals who had come from a
different location.
They'd flown in, they had, youknow, graduate degrees from Yale
and Stanford and Harvard andthey were, you know, these guys
doing this business and I wasnowhere near that level of
knowledge and skillset yet.
(12:02):
But they were gracious enoughto drag me along and I just
listened and I learned andgleaned and made friends.
And by the time I got throughthe you know opportunities that
had presented itself in Sprint,they said, hey, why don't you
come check out one of theseopportunities in IBM?
And I said, sure, absolutely.
And I went to Armonk, new Yorkand did the 15-minute interview.
That took me longer to getthere than to do the interview
(12:24):
and they offered me a job and Iwent to work for IBM.
So by the time I got throughthat, in 2007, they were
transitioning my division into anew location.
We were doing knowledgemanagement infrastructure and
knowledge gathering usingartificial intelligence and
machine language learning andthings that were way more
advanced than we even see yetright now in the marketplace.
(12:44):
So AI is just tip of theiceberg from what I can see.
And I realized that I kind ofreached the pinnacle of
technology career.
If I just kept going it'd beanother job, another job,
another job.
And I was actually sittingaround one of the end groups.
We had like a group dinner atthe end of the project and I was
kind of towards the lastproject before I left IBM and we
had this group dinner and I'msitting around looking at these
individuals and I think the kindof scales just fell off my eyes
(13:05):
for a second.
I looked around and saweverybody kind of pragmatically
realizing that was going to beme in 20 and 30 years if I
didn't change.
And not that they were badpeople, it was just the life.
And they were in a conversationabout you know how they're
looking forward to see theirkids and they were going to get
home and I didn't have a familyand kids at that point, so I
really didn't have thatconnectivity.
But in a moment of grace I wasable to see something that you
know where my future life couldhave gone and I I basically
(13:28):
rejected it, not because it wasbad for them, but because it was
bad for me, and I just said Idon't want to be that person.
I don't want to be here in 20years talking about how I miss
my kid's birthday, how I can'twait to get home to see them,
can't wait to get there becauseI'm missing all this stuff.
I'm like I just don't want tobe that person.
I didn't have kids yet.
I just didn't want that to bemy outcome.
And so IBM was like well, hey,guess what?
(13:51):
You know, we're movingArgentina.
And they said well, you getearly retirement.
So by the time I got married inMarch of 2007, I was, quote
unquote, retired with earlyretirement from IBM, and that
set my career off.
So, it was a series ofcircumstances that I could have
rejected, not looked at, notwanted the risk.
I could have gone on andreapplied for more jobs.
I could have tried to like hangon to that whole thing, but in
(14:12):
actuality I knew my time hadcome.
My instigation really for allof that was that the uncle who
had kind of led my mind, openedmy mind and given me
opportunities to really thinkvery differently about life and
business, he died in anultralight aircraft accident in
2005.
Two years later, by the timeIBM and I was looking at parting
, I said I can't stay here, likethat's going to be one of the
major catalysts.
I look at where all these guysare.
(14:32):
I look at the you know mentor Ihad had, who's no longer there,
and I look at where I'm goingand I'm like I just better get
out now.
I better run for it and neverlook back.
So I fought tooth and nail tostay in my own business for the
last 17 years and in time as thesaying goes, 17 years to an
overnight success I finallyreached a place in business
(14:54):
where I am stable.
We've got great business, we'vegot our opportunities.
We've got our opportunities,we've got multiple streams of
income and revenue and I'vebasically been able to put my
family and purpose above profitin those businesses and been
able to keep them as the focusof everything I've done and
stayed around them their entirelives.
I've flown maybe three times inthe last 17 years and been away
(15:17):
from them for maybe less than ahandful of times.
Otherwise I've been with themevery day of their life and I
wouldn't change that for theworld.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I think most of the people don't really understand
how much effort, how much time,how much bravery and persistence
it requires to keep ourselvesgoing, especially at the
starting stages of setting upyour own business.
Right, yeah, yeah, they onlylook at the final product but
(15:49):
they don't look at that sweepand the leap and the effort and
the rugging, and I think youspecifically mentioned it very
clearly, saying like I fought tothe nail to survive in a
starting.
You know we made compromises.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We sold our house we had built so we could keep the
dream going.
We, you know, eventually gotleveraged in too much uh of an
opportunity that didn't see theforesight to get out of and had
to go through a bankruptcy todeal with that nonsense.
And so that was just part ofthe struggle of staying in the
fight and not going back to theold ways, you know, just because
(16:27):
it felt comfortable or maybe itfelt more safe or whatever the
case may be.
We just set out to keep goingforward and there was no going
back.
That was where the boatsgetting burned was just not an
option.
I didn't burn the bridges.
In fact I made some contractrelationships with IBM later on
as a subcontractor and had quitea few management consultants
working with me under my brandthat was staffing backwards into
(16:48):
IBM projects later on.
So you know, don't burn thebridges but just keep walking
forward.
Even in through the difficultthings.
Just keep going, Literally.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, and I think you also mentioned a very great
point what people are looking interms of lesson learned through
the podcast and through yourinspiring story, for example in
this one is keep going and howmuch of effort it takes, how it
(17:22):
all started for the voltagedigital marketing and I know you
struggled at the starting times, but what triggered that idea
of digital marketing when it wasreally new in the market?
Right, it's a risky call atthat time.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, Well, as I was learning to become more of a
business owner and less of aself-employed, because
originally, you know, I tradedmy time for money at a job for
W2.
Then I got some contractarrangements where I was the
lead consultant, and so then Iwas just trading more money for
time still.
And then I realized, you know,as I got a mentor who kept
(18:03):
reminding me, sales fixeseverything.
You need to be focused on thesales and growth of the business
, not just the operations, andyou, you know, booking your time
.
You need to get other peopleinvolved in the business.
He really pushed me for that,and so I started to hire more
consultants and then I spentmore time in the marketing and
development, and an aspect ofthat was getting more online
marketing.
With online marketing came, youknow, less social networks.
(18:25):
When I was doing that, in the2008 to 2012 time, there just
wasn't that much social media.
It was relatively new.
We didn't have the paid trafficsystems and mechanisms
everybody takes for grantedtoday, like Facebook traffic and
YouTube traffic and buyingmedia that you can get fingertip
access to.
Literally anybody anywhere cando that now.
So when we were doing marketing, it was a little bit more
(18:47):
guerrilla.
And then there was aspects ofthe online marketing to some
degree, due to websites andother things, but we just simply
didn't have the power of thesocial media engine that's there
today.
So I learned to buy media.
I learned to buy media fromthird party providers that had
sold traffic onto airwaves forcell phones.
Because I had a background incell phone and mobile marketing,
(19:09):
it was a natural expectationthat if I knew mobile, knew the
systems and I knew how to getadvertising in front of them, I
should try that out and see if Ican't get more clients.
Turns out, what I got was awhole lot more affiliate sales.
So I actually got intoaffiliate marketing and driving
a lot of traffic and leadgeneration for other people's
products and actually got reallygood at it.
(19:30):
By the time I was doing morethan a thousand dollars in
profit per day on my affiliatemarketing.
I figured it out and so whatthat became was in around 2010
and 12, as that was growing andI was looking for new ways to
expand that, I realized I needto own the offer.
I wasn't.
You know the affiliate thing isdifficult because once you get
it running, if someone changesthe offer, it stops working.
(19:51):
You just there's a time lifecycle that goes very quickly If
you can't keep it or you can'town the offer.
And so I'm like, well, I needto own the back end of the offer
, I need to own what I'mactually driving leads for, and
it's just a natural progressionof the business evolution.
As you stay in there, you startto realize I need to do these
things.
You may want to set off andimmediately do them all, but I
(20:15):
guarantee you you got to stepyour stones to it first because
you just can't bite that wholething.
So as I was growing and doingthat and learning the marketing
and then being successful in themarketing, it was like, okay, I
need to own something.
So it became the idea of owningphysical products, where I
could take capital and put itinto a physical product and run
the legion and connect thosedots.
So these systems andinfrastructure just wasn't
caught up with me yet.
If you did that, you needed awarehouse, you needed people,
(20:37):
you needed to pack and shipthose products.
And I'm like, dang, I don'twant to create a whole
infrastructure of people.
That's pretty costly.
And then someone introduced meto Amazon FBA and said, hey look
, they built this you knowmarketplace for books.
And now they've evolved it intophysical products and they've
acquired this logistics companythat they've rebranded, called
FBA or fulfilled by Amazon, toship those products and deliver
(21:00):
them to customers.
And I'm like, well, that'sreally cool.
What does that mean to me?
And so he gave me.
The explanation was like look,you could be the direct
marketing guy.
If you just get the productsand Amazon can deliver the
products, you just send theproducts or you can even ship
them yourselves.
And I said, well, it's likeeBay, I don't want anything to
do with it, because I knew abouteBay.
And he's like no, it's not eBay, it's got to be private label.
(21:21):
You can flip products, but itshould be your own products.
And I thought, okay, well,that's pretty clever.
And so I got started on it andI did flip a few products just
to see how the whole thingworked.
And I thought, oh my gosh, thiswas actually pretty easy.
No one's doing this.
Yet I actually took a littlecourse and realized they weren't
teaching me anything I didn'talready know in business, but it
just kind of helped amplifywhat I thought was possible.
(21:45):
And when I was about to go askfor a refund from the course, I
had a mutual friend connect mewith my current partner who's
named Reed, and we had aconversation in one hour.
We realized that we were goingto be doing business together
and that first hour led torealizing, you know, he was a
different brain than mine.
He was the logistics andoperations and management and
real estate and doing deals andmortgage brokering and he had a
(22:07):
lot of financial and backgroundaround numbers and building
businesses to scale with thefinancial side, but he didn't
know the marketing side.
Well, I knew the marketinglogistics, I knew the narrative,
I knew how to build a brand,and so we're like, hey, we're
two halves of the same coin.
Maybe we should get togetherand kind of figure this out.
Two brains are better than one,right.
And so we started launchingphysical products and we just
(22:28):
found out we had a really greataptitude.
As long as I focused on productand development, he focused on
logistics and supply chain andthese kinds of things.
We could move relatively quick,got our first seven figure
brand and physical productsaround 2014 on Amazon.
From there it was learningsystems and operations and
controls and replication of thatand building that engine into
eight figures and then buildingmultiple brands and eight
(22:49):
figures teaching others.
This was just a naturalbyproduct of hey, what are you
doing?
We want to know.
We actually helped a lot ofpeople in that original course
who couldn't get success, andwhen they saw us having success
at the very beginning stages ofAmazon FBA, they were like, hey,
teach us how to do this.
And so we, we just did a lot ofone-on-one work and they were
like, okay, we need to do it ingroups because we can't handle
(23:10):
you all.
And so then we just kind ofturned back into what we were
originally managementconsultants.
So it kind of went back to themanagement consulting world.
Didn't really want to do thecourse world but, long story
short, we did a course for abouttwo years and it did okay.
But then we kind of ended thatand said that's enough of that,
we want to just do our ownbusiness.
And it has evolved since thenas we continue to mature systems
(23:33):
and we've got our own software,our processes, our
methodologies and pipelines forbuilding products into our
brands.
And then just assisting andmanaging others in a consultant
format led to the realizationthat we could get bigger if we
went and became an aggregator.
So in 2019, the holding sideopened a portfolio division that
was intended to take all thatoperational knowledge and skills
(23:54):
and SOPs and acquire brandsinto it, which is an aggregator.
So we raised about $50 millionfrom two home offices and had
that going to the books andgetting very close to closing
that by November 2021, we hadn'ttaken the funds yet.
But by November 2021, werealized that they were buying
at like 40% above market shareand at that point too many were
(24:18):
buying with just too much dumbmoney and it was too dangerous
to get involved.
So we pulled the plug, didn'ttake the money and that just
evolved into relationships uponrelationships and all the time
we'd spent to do that.
And that led us to moremanagement consulting of
existing brands or people whowere like hey, well, if you're
not going to buy a company withme, will you teach me how to
build one, or teach me how tobuy one?
And that's where the evolutionof Voltage kind of came from was
(24:41):
a management consultancyspecifically around growth,
acquisition and merging of thesecompanies, launching new brands
and taking them to exit.
And so we've kind of evolvedpast the incubator sorry,
aggregator and now we werereally more like an incubator as
we help clients grow and buildexisting brands or we take them
out with new brands in theprocess or we look to acquire
(25:02):
companies, bring them within theportfolio and manage them
ourselves.
Which is one of the thingswe're very adamantly working on
right now is getting five newbrands in the company by 2025.
We've partnered with a companycalled Patriot Growth Capital.
It's a PE firm owned, manned byveterans, run by veterans.
When we grow these businessesin, we've got two right now that
(25:24):
we're very seriously looking atan LOI letter intent to
purchase them they're both doingbetween 10 and 20 million a
year in sales and we look tograb them up and pull them into
the business if it makes senseand the numbers all work and
they tell us everything thatthey're telling us turns out to
be true as we go through thatprocess the due diligence, yeah,
(26:02):
and then exit those businesseswith them later or bring them in
as operational controls andgive veterans an opportunity to
have a business, a model,provide for their family, maybe
even own companies later on.
So it's mission-based now, notjust aggregators for profit,
which was the wrong way to do it.
So I'm quite happy that wedidn't go that route and I'm
quite disappointed to see howthe aggregator market has blown
(26:23):
up with all the corruption,challenges and problems and just
overspending of money.
But the multi-channel andbeyond Amazon is a requirement,
as everyone is.
You know maybe listening tothis that might have a channel
or have considered that youalways want to have multiple
channels.
We won't acquire companies thatdon't have multiple channels or
a very clear and quick path toan additional channel as part of
(26:44):
the acquisition process.
So it must be, you know, on FBA, it must be on Shopify or
TikTok or have an omnipresenceor a website strategy, or we'll
move it into one of those placesand expand that out as we
acquire it as part of ourstrategy, but an omnichannel is
very important.
That's a long-winded answer toyour question.
I'm sorry, but that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
No, I think it's a kind of you have beautifully put
down the roadmap of how theidea of your startup evolved
during the years and thetransformation of your
organization, which is veryimportant for people to know,
right, so you start-.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
It's transformative.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah.
So you start with an idea, butyou adapt to the market, you
adapt to the demands, youreassess your skills and what
your team can do and you keep oneither acquiring new skills,
acquiring new operations, or youexpand what your organization
vision was compared to as yougrow through through that
(27:48):
branding.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's now moving me out of hey, it's neil and he
does amazon or he does shopifyor tiktok shopster, e-com or
whatever, um, to its voltage andthe brand is now moving forward
ahead of me.
I'm now able to kind of stepback, uh, more into the ceo role
and I and I have a team'srelations and other people that
are coming forward that are apart of that and are leading the
(28:11):
brand strategy as well as theconversation and voltage, first
in the branding and so, as anynormal evolution at this point
is to pull me out of the primaryspot of it was Neil and his
company to its voltage and oh,by the way, there's Neil and all
the other team inside of it,and that's one of the strategies
of the next steps.
It was Neil and his company toits voltage and oh, by the way,
there's Neil and all the otherteam inside of it, and that's
one of the strategies of youknow, the next steps which are
evolving very quickly this yearand into next year, which are
(28:33):
pulling me back intoconversations more like this and
out of the day.
You know, operations are out ofthe visibility and only brand
visibility of the language andwhat we're saying and the
narrative of what Voltage has inour business model and our
brand.
That's all coming out of ourclients and our people and our
operators and just the brandthat's starting to lead itself,
(28:55):
as opposed to just being anoperator and a brand, if that
makes any sense.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah.
So let me go back, neil as aperson, as a husband, as a
parent, as an entrepreneur, asan executor of a multimillion
dollar company, and let's talkabout the multi-dimensional Neil
.
One more dimension an author.
So what did trigger you towrite the book?
(29:24):
And please give us, as we wrapup this podcast, five or four
things about your book.
What it makes very unique?
Does it contain the lessonsthat you have learned over the
years, how we can help people tostart their own new dimension
of life?
New dimension of life?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Well, I mean, the authorship was just an evolution
of a story, a narrative and anexecutable framework that we
actually use inside of Voltage,called our Greenlight 5x5
Product Launch Playbook.
So the Product Launch Playbookthat we've used to build
eight-figure brands is aparticular strategy that in some
ways goes against the narrativeI hear online continuously with
(30:05):
the Hopium Guru lottery mindsetand really focuses on the
business, the fundamentals, thefoundation of an e-commerce
brand, the profitability of thatbrand and then its ability to
get growth and scale through theright and correct brand
narrative.
How do we present the productsand you know omni-channel the
products and present this, thevalue statement of the brand and
(30:25):
the products that deliver tothe emotional connectivity of
the people who buy it so they'llcome back and buy more, which
means we're not just flippingproducts, we're actually
building an experience and anunexpected outcome from the
products and we develop intothese brands.
So, as the authorship kind ofgoes along with that strategy it
was brought to my attention Icould write a book just in the
(30:46):
format of set down, write a book, figure out the chapters and go
.
Or, since I have all this timeand built it into my podcast and
I have all these wonderfulguests who have to meet this
certain requirement to get on mypodcast of how much business
they've done and how connectedthey are and who they are.
I said, well, why don't we justbolt it into the podcast and
(31:06):
make the book part of thepodcast as well as the podcast
part of the book?
And that outcome was we had 15different podcast guests and
their expertise all ties aroundthe different areas of our
strategy and how we implementour green light, from the
fundamentals of productselection and research to the
numbers of profitability, thecompetition and metrics and
(31:28):
analytics of a data-drivendecision model, and how we tie
that into the brainability ofthe product, as we are trying to
capture demand that's alreadyexisting and how much more we
can capture of that through thetraffic that's existing on
Amazon as one place to incubatethe brand from a starting block
and finding out.
Can we test it, can we validateit, can we see the demand and
(31:49):
can we capture that demand andhow much can we capture over,
you know, one, two, three, fouryears and then move that into
different you know channels ofopportunity creation or demand
creation channels like socialcommerce channels, tiktok, et
cetera, and then you know, beable to take that brand into a
saleable asset position andbuild it out what we call the
platinum principle, which istaking all that in mind from the
(32:11):
very beginning and structuringit.
Like you would structure ahouse with a good foundation,
good walls and a good roof.
How do we build this all into awonderful, saleable asset that
somebody would want to trip overthemselves to buy?
And so that process then gotlaid out in the steps and the
strategy that is outlined inthat book.
You can get books on Amazontactics, but really, when it
(32:31):
gets down to that, there's noparticular growth hack or
specific tactic that is going toimprove your business from five
to eight figures.
It is process, strategy,execution and repetition of
what's good and removal of whatis bad.
Okay, so systems and processesthat turn you into a seven and
eight figure business and thatbased on the knowledge and
(32:51):
expertise of those individualsis what's laid out in that book
and kind of a question andanswer format, chapter by
chapter.
I had the expressed what's theright way to say it?
Humility.
What's the right way to say it?
Humility.
My good friend wrote theforeword, kevin Harrington, who
(33:16):
is the, as seen on TV for one ofthe first shark tanks.
He's the guy sold $6 billion inphysical products and I was.
He was gracious enough toaccept the invite to write the
foreword for the book based onwhat we'd put into it, and so
honored to have him as a part ofthat, as the book has gone out
and just more strategy aroundwhat it takes to build a, you
know, a large e-com company.
He knows one or two thingsabout that, um, and we wrote
that part into the book as well.
(33:37):
So it's a real study.
It's got case studies in thereof our successful clients and
how they develop their brandsand products, as well as, as
well as real subject matterexpertise in the areas of
finance and research and brandand development and many other
things as well, and that waslaunched in January 2024.
It's getting good reviews.
It's continuing to go greatLove the book being where it's
(33:58):
at and doing what it's doing,which is just continuing the
message.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And Neil, thank you for offering some free copies to
the audience of the podcast andaudience.
We will send all the relatedinformation attached to this
podcast recording so that youcan claim and get the amazing
knowledge which is filtered outfrom a lot of self-made
(34:22):
millionaires.
So again, neil, thank you foroffering that.
It's very sweet of you and yourteam, absolutely yeah.
So we are going to wrap up thispodcast with four things.
What we usually do is watchyour suggestion, based on your
experience in life, to teenagers, to kids who want to create
(34:48):
their own pathway as anentrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So I taught an entrepreneurial course in our
homeschool co-op and had, youknow, a bunch of children show
up to that.
Here's the one thing I wouldactually challenge either the
children or the parents who arelistening to this who have
children that might want to go.
From my own personal, you knowexperience from a moment of
humility with you.
If you're not willing to pourinto your children and figure
(35:13):
out what it is they're mostinterested in and then spend
time with them, focused time onhelping them determine what that
is and helping them actuallyexecute it, it's going to be
harder for them to navigate iton their own.
There's a lot more on theonline and social media and
other things that can trip themup and cause confusion or just
be from a safety and securityperspective.
So I would challenge theparents first to get involved in
(35:35):
finding out what it is thatchild is interested in and how
they could how you could helpthem.
Maybe make that an opportunityto dig into what it is they're
most interested in and see ifthere's not ways for them to
turn it into a little sidehustle.
Mine back in the day, becausethere was no internet, was
mowing the neighbor's lawns andmy parents helped me.
You know, go in and make someflyers, and I got a little side
hustle.
You know pushing a lawnmower.
(35:56):
You know, go in and make someflyers and I got a little side
hustle.
You know pushing a lawnmower.
So you know there's a lot ofways for kids to do that
nowadays.
Even just you know getting apower washer and renting it and
going out and helping peoplepower wash their driveways as a
little side hustle right, oreven down into AI based stuff.
Or making little videos forshorts for people to help them
out with their time, and takingtheir podcast and cutting it
into two or three videos.
There's a need for that.
Find a need and fill it Fromthe kid's perspective.
(36:17):
Find something that you love,that you tackle, that you think
is fun and enjoyable and youwould love to do all the time
and then figure out how to turnit into something that people
are willing to pay you for.
First thing you can do is givesomething away for free.
Give it away for free and thensay, hey, if you like it, I'll
cost you X amount to do it nexttime.
(36:39):
If it's a monthly fee orsomething, hey, I'll give you
the first month free.
I'm going to give you fivevideos.
If you love the videos, thenyou pay for the next five.
What do you think and givebefore you get and you can build
up an opportunity to start alittle side hustle?
Get on Fiverr and Upwork.
It's great places to justshowcase your work, especially
(37:01):
if you're younger and parentsyou got to help them do that,
because usually they need to beover 18 or you'll have to help
them sign up and do itthemselves, but just pour into
them.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Your suggestion for people who are new parents right
and they want to createbusiness of their own or side
hustle of their own.
What are those key qualities orkey characteristics that they
need to build to make thathappen?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I always challenge the folks who think about
creating a business to nevertreat it like a side hustle or a
hobby business, even thoughthey might do it on the side
while they're doing somethingelse.
If you really wanted to replacethe income and create
opportunity, maybe, as you'redoing it in the evenings or
weekends, the goal there is tolook at it, making a full
business, run at it so that ithas a replacement opportunity to
(37:53):
your job.
If you think about it in biggerterms, you're actually giving
yourself the opportunity and thepermission to go bigger,
whereas if you think about it asjust a side hustle or a few
extra hours or a few extradollars, you're actually going
to limit and create scarcity inthe opportunity.
So I challenge you to thinkbigger, think more abundantly.
Think, if I do it on the side,like Adam, who's a full-time
pharmacist, I can turn that intoa full-time job later on so I
(38:16):
can get back to my wife andchildren.
And that's been 40, 60 hours aweek in a pharmacy because he's
actually done that andsuccessfully launched his
products.
He's now moving to his fullproduct launch and with that
opportunity, in three and six,nine months from now, he has an
ability to replace his income togive him a position of taking
the business and moving it intohis primary life and moving away
(38:36):
from the pharmacy.
And so he's very, you know,turned that into a real, true
mindset, goal of purpose overprofit.
The purpose getting home andbeing more time with his kids,
and the profit being a byproductthat allows it as a tool to
help him do that, the same waythat a car gets him to the
pharmacy job.
He sees it as a tool.
Now it's not just a side hustleor a hobby business, he sees it
(38:56):
like a real business.
So I would encourage anybodywho wants to do a business to
not go in at a fear, to not goin at a scarcity or limiting
beliefs.
Go in all or nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
All or nothing, and profit and comfort, all that
purpose.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Purpose will lead you to profit, even if it takes you
longer than you expect to getthere.
Purpose should lead over profitand profit will come.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Awesome, okay.
Do you, on the voltage todigital marketing, provide any
learning services or anycoaching, for you know the
people who are the audience, whoare interested to learn more
about digital marketing.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
We will.
As we are an incubator forexisting brands, we will also
take on new individuals whomight want to become a CEO
operator and learn how to createa real business, like I
mentioned Adam did a minute ago,and work with us under 12 month
engagement as a management andconsulting role.
Where we come in, we help you.
You know you're 100% owner ofyour business, but we're going
to consult with you, incubateyou into our process as business
(40:04):
building the framework ofsetting the company up correctly
, what products to sell, thesoftware and technology and
methodologies to test thoseproducts out and begin them
selling and get them to aspecific goal of 100K in net
profits in 12 to 16 months.
All right, so we set someperformance and consulting goals
to do that.
For those who are interested,you might be already in a wealth
(40:25):
without Wall Street mindset.
You might be a high W-2 earner.
You and your wife or asignificant other are making
more than $150,000 a year andyou're like okay, we already
looked at rentals and short-termrentals.
We looked at real estate dealsand we looked at these other
deals or vending machines, andwe looked at parking lots and
mobile homes and we looked atthese other things, and e-com is
maybe something that you'veconsidered along the way.
Those individuals typicallyunderstand the value of an
(40:48):
investment.
They understand the value of avirtual and a physical play
which is online and a physicalprivate label product, and
they're looking to build a realbusiness, and those typically
resonate with us.
Maybe you're even considering afranchise, but aren't sure they
want to work with 14-year-oldsbehind the counter at Cold Stone
or something or Flip Burgersthemselves.
(41:09):
Ecom doesn't require you tohave to do that.
You don't have to haveforward-facing customers.
You don't have to touch theinventory if you don't want to,
and there's giant warehouses andmachines, like Amazon's system,
that will deliver it to yourcustomers.
So you don't have to, becauseyou can live on the country on a
Starlink internet, in themiddle of 50 acres and live your
dream at your farm and yourhomestead and do the business
(41:32):
too.
So if that sounds of anyinterest to you, then you can
check out what we're doing andsee if that's something that
fits for you.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Definitely Um uh, the voltage ritual company uh
website and related informationwould be uh attached along with
this podcast, uh publishing uhinformation so you guys can find
different ways to get motivatedand learn more uh from Neil Twa
Uh, he's a brand by himself andthanks again, neil 12, for
(42:00):
coming in and offering threecopies of your book and
providing your amazing knowledgethat you have filtered out in
30 minutes, that you havelearned in 30 years.
So I would say thank you somuch.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I appreciate that thank, Thank.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
you guys have a great day ahead.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Juggling Entrepreneurship
Podcast, and today we have anawesome guest called Neil Twa.
So Neil Twa is the CEO andfounder of Voltage Holdings, a
company specializing inlaunching, consulting, selling
and acquiring brands with afocus on the e-commerce channels
, such as Amazon, fbla andmultichannel.
We have an incredible guest whois a true master of scaling
(00:27):
businesses on Amazon.
With over a decade ofexperience in building
multi-million dollar Amazonbusinesses, he helped countless
entrepreneurs unlock the secretsof success in the e-commerce
space.
He's also a parent and anamazing entrepreneur, so today
we are going to hear his storyon this episode.
(00:47):
So welcome, neil.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Welcome.
Thanks for having me Appreciateit.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So let's, I gave a higher level overview about you,
but do you want to add anything?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, we'll go.
We can go a little bit deeper.
Just for the context here, I ama father of four daughters
whose ages are 11 to 16.
We have them all in four and ahalf years, so for the better
part of a decade my wife and Ididn't sleep.
We're actually getting somegood sleep now, which is awesome
, as they are all now a littleolder and the youngest is 11.
So it's a little easier to kindof manage life and do life a
(01:24):
little differently.
We travel as a family unitanywhere we travel.
Really, I don't go to things bymyself.
I take them out to two events ayear in which we are part of a
group called the Wealth WithoutWall Street and Apex Coaching
Group that partnered withVoltage to provide e-commerce
opportunities to theirindividuals.
And those are the only livegroups I go to each year and
(01:45):
take my 16-year-old daughter tothe last live group with us to
help her with herentrepreneurial journey, because
she has published her own firstbook as a novel.
She spent writing the last yearand she turned 16 in June and
we had it published right as herbirthday went out.
So she's working on herpublishing empire as a part of
what we do.
(02:05):
We homeschool our girls on 50acres here in the Ozark
Mountains of Missouri.
So we balance the work, thelife, the homeschooling and the
adventures together as a family.
They're currently at theirhomeschool co-op theater event
today where they're starting anew play in three months, and so
they are starting today on thatjourney.
This is the third one they'vedone now with their homeschool
(02:25):
co-op as part of their adventure, so it should be pretty fun to
watch that come out.
So we just, you know we balancethings between myself and my
wife.
I really like to joke that sheowns the company Twaner Prizes,
which owns Voltage and the otherassets, and I'm just a worker
for it.
So if anything happens to me,it all gets transferred to her.
But in terms of life andbusiness, we've spent the last
(02:46):
17 years doing that together.
We got married in 2007.
I left my corporate career andfired the man in 2007, went out
on my own into new businessventures etc.
By the time we got married thatsame year, in March, and I left
IBM in June and we found out bySeptember we were pregnant with
our first daughter all in thatsame year.
So starting the business,starting the family, starting a
(03:07):
new adventure was just all partof the package.
Don't necessarily recommend allnew couples who are newly
married do that because it putsa lot of stress on the finances
and family.
But if you've got the majorpillars of faith, family,
finances and the goal of freedomin mind, you know you're
normally can be prettyunstoppable if you don't give up
Uh.
(03:28):
And so we worked through thatuh and through the challenges
and opportunities that have beencreated as a family, you know,
decided that we would homeschoolour kids after that process and
just kept going and neverstopped uh with that and that's
just led us to a life now that Ifeel more blessed than stressed
to be a part of.
And we are just a great familyunit and do what we do on the
(03:49):
home and business fronts to kindof, you know, team up and
combine the activities of theoperations and control of our
family, our life and everythingelse, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Couldn't see it any other way so just to correct me
if I'm wrong, but you're notonly juggling your own business
and family, but also jugglingthe roadmap of making your kids
the next generationentrepreneurs.
And you are an author ofyourself and you have a family
of author the next generation,your daughter.
(04:20):
So tell us a little bit aboutyour books and your authorship
journey before we hop into yourdigital marketing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I told my daughter about a year and a half ago
that I was going to publish thisbook and that we were in the
process of doing it.
And as we compiled it andworked with the 15 different
individuals who came on mypodcast and we pulled that
information together and wrotethe 15 chapters in that book.
As each of them was guest, wewent through that process.
She got to see that In part oflearning the business of
(04:48):
e-commerce and writing andcopywriting of the listings and
products, she discovered she hadmore of a personal affinity
towards the writing thananything else and so that kind
of sparked her interest inwriting and putting her creative
thoughts onto paper.
And then you know, in the waywe structure our home and kids
get up, we got animals, we gotchores, we live on a homestead,
so that has to be taken care of.
(05:08):
Daily, monthly and nightly,every day it has to be taken
care of.
But when they get through theirschooling and criteria that
they do with mom in the kitchenand they get through each of
their activities, things they'resupposed to be doing, studies,
et cetera if they're freed up bynoon, one or two o'clock in the
(05:29):
afternoon, depending upon whichstudies take, how long or
whatever, they're free to dowhatever they want with the rest
of their time.
And with that she set off tostart writing and during her
free time for an entire year shefocused.
I published my book in Januaryof 2024.
And with that it kind of ledher to realize it was possible
I'd help her with her marketing,and so we finished the final
components of it.
I got her an editor and awriting mentor to take her raw
(05:50):
talent and just make sure thatthis wasn't a bad American Idol
experience and throwing mydaughter on a stage where she
squeaks and no one was willingto tell her the truth and she
sounds like fingernails on achalkboard.
I wasn't going to do that toher, so I got her a mentor and
an editor on a chalkboard.
I wasn't going to do that toher, so I got her a mentor and
an editor and they said, hey,this is actually great, it's raw
talent, let's keep going.
And so that was encouraging.
(06:12):
If it wasn't her bent, I didn'twant to take her down that
direction.
If it wasn't going to be a good, you know, focus of her time
and in balance with theirstudies.
It's a great learning andentrepreneurial journey.
But she ended up.
We got it done and publishedand ready to go and launched it
in June, right ahead of herbirthday.
So she got her book out,because I got my book out and
that was part of the leaderthing there was to do it
together and to see that itcould occur, so that she could
walk that path too.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, kudos to the next generation of Twas.
I guess Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I find those.
Next, my second daughter hasbeen really engaged in video and
editing and she's been workingon looking at creating some
shorts and video and promos forthe business and for products we
have and she's getting strongerand better at that and we're
going to figure out how to turnher into a little self-employed
media expert, where she's beenreally enjoying making the
videos and combining thephotographs and the images and
(07:00):
using AI voices and techniqueswith CapCut and other things to
create those videos and there'sa little creative spark in her
energy and we're going to seewhere that goes next.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So one at a time, right?
Yes, definitely.
And the way I see it, you arebuilding your own team within
your house, pretty much Betweenthe writing and everything.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yep, I'm kind of building up a team of who can
get involved in the business.
Right now they're just washingwindows and cleaning dishes, but
as it comes along, theopportunities for them to grow
and learn into the business, asthey become, you know, capable
and trained, are obviously there.
To learn how to build that upand the strengths that they find
most interesting to them and,and yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, I honestly think there is one point for
sure we want to discuss, basedon your experience of raising
kids and the next generation ofentrepreneurs.
It's not every parent does it,but it's very unique.
What you're doing is torecognize the talent Each person
is different.
Each person is different.
Each kid is different.
Each kid have their owninterests, their own skillset,
(08:10):
their own talent and torecognize it as a parent, to
nourish it, to support it and tohelp in whatever way we can in
terms of providing the resources, for example, providing the
mentors for writing a book.
It's very unique, right?
Does that mindset come to youBecause you went through that
(08:34):
entrepreneurship journey?
How did your mindset transformwhen you quit the job from IBM
to start your own journey, whatactually triggered it and how
your mindset changed during thecourse of time?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well, yeah, I lovingly refer to that change as
burning the boats and not thebridges.
I believe that phrase wasborrowed from somewhere else I
don't remember exactly who saidit, but but in essence I
understood something in somehistorical context.
Let's go back for just a sec.
I had a you know dad who workedfor 28 and 29 years in the same
job, same mechanics.
(09:09):
He didn't graduate from highschool, he actually went to the
Navy and two tours of Vietnamand was just a tough, a tough
guy and, you know, was a strongman, leader, not particularly in
the finance world or businessworld, but he was ethics
integrity strong.
He was hard work strong he was,you know, suck it up buttercup,
do the job, you know noslackers and let's get out there
(09:32):
and put the work in.
And that's kind of how helearned to do things and he
taught that, you that, and builtthat work ethic into me.
The challenge with that workethic was well, he didn't have
certain opportunities.
Through his work and effort Iwas given the opportunity to do
things in business that Icouldn't have done through the
family and relationships thathelped extol that.
(09:53):
One person in particular myuncle, all of my uncles, were
individual self-employedcontractors in the construction
world.
I never really realized thatuntil later in life because
that's not how I saw them, butbecause of who they are.
I kind of saw the way theyacted about business and the way
they thought about doing jobsand working in that field and
taking care of their ownbusiness.
But one of my uncles inparticular was very good at
(10:15):
building boats and he actuallybuilt a boat company out of San
Diego and as I watched that boatcompany grow and go and get
bigger and by the time I was 16and 17, it was a full-fledged
business I really got to see theidea and the conversation and
it started to change towards theentrepreneurial and the
business and the developmentside.
And he was gracious enough tolet me pick his brain and have
(10:36):
conversations with him and gotintroduced to people and my
brand kind of started to expandand expand and he always
suggested do your own business,get a franchise, do something,
take that opportunity.
And because of where I'd comefrom and my mind hadn't fully
changed yet, I realized I neededopportunities where they
currently were and that's when Ipersonally went to college but
I dropped out because I justdidn't see where that was going
(10:58):
to take me and at the time theinternet was coming online, I
said, well, that's something Ireally want to do.
And academia was not caught upbecause we were literally just
installing computers into labsfor the first time and the
corporations were catching upsomewhat because they were just
deploying a lot more capital.
So I got into the workforce andit actually led me to being on
one of the first teams thatlaunched the first mobile phone
(11:19):
at Sprint in Kansas City intothe market.
That's how old I am.
A lot has changed very fast.
I'm not terribly old, but lotshave changed in the last 30
years.
And then from there, thatopportunity and putting in the
hard work and learning thephrase it's who you know that
gets you there and what you knowthat keeps you there.
I've made good friends with apartner from IBM who had come to
(11:42):
be on a project with Sprint inKansas City where I was at that
time, got to be friends with himand that opened the doors of
opportunities to talk with theseindividuals who had come from a
different location.
They'd flown in, they had, youknow, graduate degrees from Yale
and Stanford and Harvard andthey were, you know, these guys
doing this business and I wasnowhere near that level of
knowledge and skillset yet.
(12:02):
But they were gracious enoughto drag me along and I just
listened and I learned andgleaned and made friends.
And by the time I got throughthe you know opportunities that
had presented itself in Sprint,they said, hey, why don't you
come check out one of theseopportunities in IBM?
And I said, sure, absolutely.
And I went to Armonk, new Yorkand did the 15-minute interview.
That took me longer to getthere than to do the interview
(12:24):
and they offered me a job and Iwent to work for IBM.
So by the time I got throughthat, in 2007, they were
transitioning my division into anew location.
We were doing knowledgemanagement infrastructure and
knowledge gathering usingartificial intelligence and
machine language learning andthings that were way more
advanced than we even see yetright now in the marketplace.
(12:44):
So AI is just tip of theiceberg from what I can see.
And I realized that I kind ofreached the pinnacle of
technology career.
If I just kept going it'd beanother job, another job,
another job.
And I was actually sittingaround one of the end groups.
We had like a group dinner atthe end of the project and I was
kind of towards the lastproject before I left IBM and we
had this group dinner and I'msitting around looking at these
individuals and I think the kindof scales just fell off my eyes
(13:05):
for a second.
I looked around and saweverybody kind of pragmatically
realizing that was going to beme in 20 and 30 years if I
didn't change.
And not that they were badpeople, it was just the life.
And they were in a conversationabout you know how they're
looking forward to see theirkids and they were going to get
home and I didn't have a familyand kids at that point, so I
really didn't have thatconnectivity.
But in a moment of grace I wasable to see something that you
know where my future life couldhave gone and I I basically
(13:28):
rejected it, not because it wasbad for them, but because it was
bad for me, and I just said Idon't want to be that person.
I don't want to be here in 20years talking about how I miss
my kid's birthday, how I can'twait to get home to see them,
can't wait to get there becauseI'm missing all this stuff.
I'm like I just don't want tobe that person.
I didn't have kids yet.
I just didn't want that to bemy outcome.
And so IBM was like well, hey,guess what?
(13:51):
You know, we're movingArgentina.
And they said well, you getearly retirement.
So by the time I got married inMarch of 2007, I was, quote
unquote, retired with earlyretirement from IBM, and that
set my career off.
So, it was a series ofcircumstances that I could have
rejected, not looked at, notwanted the risk.
I could have gone on andreapplied for more jobs.
I could have tried to like hangon to that whole thing, but in
(14:12):
actuality I knew my time hadcome.
My instigation really for allof that was that the uncle who
had kind of led my mind, openedmy mind and given me
opportunities to really thinkvery differently about life and
business, he died in anultralight aircraft accident in
2005.
Two years later, by the timeIBM and I was looking at parting
, I said I can't stay here, likethat's going to be one of the
major catalysts.
I look at where all these guysare.
(14:32):
I look at the you know mentor Ihad had, who's no longer there,
and I look at where I'm goingand I'm like I just better get
out now.
I better run for it and neverlook back.
So I fought tooth and nail tostay in my own business for the
last 17 years and in time as thesaying goes, 17 years to an
overnight success I finallyreached a place in business
(14:54):
where I am stable.
We've got great business, we'vegot our opportunities.
We've got our opportunities,we've got multiple streams of
income and revenue and I'vebasically been able to put my
family and purpose above profitin those businesses and been
able to keep them as the focusof everything I've done and
stayed around them their entirelives.
I've flown maybe three times inthe last 17 years and been away
(15:17):
from them for maybe less than ahandful of times.
Otherwise I've been with themevery day of their life and I
wouldn't change that for theworld.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I think most of the people don't really understand
how much effort, how much time,how much bravery and persistence
it requires to keep ourselvesgoing, especially at the
starting stages of setting upyour own business.
Right, yeah, yeah, they onlylook at the final product but
(15:49):
they don't look at that sweepand the leap and the effort and
the rugging, and I think youspecifically mentioned it very
clearly, saying like I fought tothe nail to survive in a
starting.
You know we made compromises.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We sold our house we had built so we could keep the
dream going.
We, you know, eventually gotleveraged in too much uh of an
opportunity that didn't see theforesight to get out of and had
to go through a bankruptcy todeal with that nonsense.
And so that was just part ofthe struggle of staying in the
fight and not going back to theold ways, you know, just because
(16:27):
it felt comfortable or maybe itfelt more safe or whatever the
case may be.
We just set out to keep goingforward and there was no going
back.
That was where the boatsgetting burned was just not an
option.
I didn't burn the bridges.
In fact I made some contractrelationships with IBM later on
as a subcontractor and had quitea few management consultants
working with me under my brandthat was staffing backwards into
(16:48):
IBM projects later on.
So you know, don't burn thebridges but just keep walking
forward.
Even in through the difficultthings.
Just keep going, Literally.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, and I think you also mentioned a very great
point what people are looking interms of lesson learned through
the podcast and through yourinspiring story, for example in
this one is keep going and howmuch of effort it takes, how it
(17:22):
all started for the voltagedigital marketing and I know you
struggled at the starting times, but what triggered that idea
of digital marketing when it wasreally new in the market?
Right, it's a risky call atthat time.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah, Well, as I was learning to become more of a
business owner and less of aself-employed, because
originally, you know, I tradedmy time for money at a job for
W2.
Then I got some contractarrangements where I was the
lead consultant, and so then Iwas just trading more money for
time still.
And then I realized, you know,as I got a mentor who kept
(18:03):
reminding me, sales fixeseverything.
You need to be focused on thesales and growth of the business
, not just the operations, andyou, you know, booking your time
.
You need to get other peopleinvolved in the business.
He really pushed me for that,and so I started to hire more
consultants and then I spentmore time in the marketing and
development, and an aspect ofthat was getting more online
marketing.
With online marketing came, youknow, less social networks.
(18:25):
When I was doing that, in the2008 to 2012 time, there just
wasn't that much social media.
It was relatively new.
We didn't have the paid trafficsystems and mechanisms
everybody takes for grantedtoday, like Facebook traffic and
YouTube traffic and buyingmedia that you can get fingertip
access to.
Literally anybody anywhere cando that now.
So when we were doing marketing, it was a little bit more
(18:47):
guerrilla.
And then there was aspects ofthe online marketing to some
degree, due to websites andother things, but we just simply
didn't have the power of thesocial media engine that's there
today.
So I learned to buy media.
I learned to buy media fromthird party providers that had
sold traffic onto airwaves forcell phones.
Because I had a background incell phone and mobile marketing,
(19:09):
it was a natural expectationthat if I knew mobile, knew the
systems and I knew how to getadvertising in front of them, I
should try that out and see if Ican't get more clients.
Turns out, what I got was awhole lot more affiliate sales.
So I actually got intoaffiliate marketing and driving
a lot of traffic and leadgeneration for other people's
products and actually got reallygood at it.
(19:30):
By the time I was doing morethan a thousand dollars in
profit per day on my affiliatemarketing.
I figured it out and so whatthat became was in around 2010
and 12, as that was growing andI was looking for new ways to
expand that, I realized I needto own the offer.
I wasn't.
You know the affiliate thing isdifficult because once you get
it running, if someone changesthe offer, it stops working.
(19:51):
You just there's a time lifecycle that goes very quickly If
you can't keep it or you can'town the offer.
And so I'm like, well, I needto own the back end of the offer
, I need to own what I'mactually driving leads for, and
it's just a natural progressionof the business evolution.
As you stay in there, you startto realize I need to do these
things.
You may want to set off andimmediately do them all, but I
(20:15):
guarantee you you got to stepyour stones to it first because
you just can't bite that wholething.
So as I was growing and doingthat and learning the marketing
and then being successful in themarketing, it was like, okay, I
need to own something.
So it became the idea of owningphysical products, where I
could take capital and put itinto a physical product and run
the legion and connect thosedots.
So these systems andinfrastructure just wasn't
caught up with me yet.
If you did that, you needed awarehouse, you needed people,
(20:37):
you needed to pack and shipthose products.
And I'm like, dang, I don'twant to create a whole
infrastructure of people.
That's pretty costly.
And then someone introduced meto Amazon FBA and said, hey look
, they built this you knowmarketplace for books.
And now they've evolved it intophysical products and they've
acquired this logistics companythat they've rebranded, called
FBA or fulfilled by Amazon, toship those products and deliver
(21:00):
them to customers.
And I'm like, well, that'sreally cool.
What does that mean to me?
And so he gave me.
The explanation was like look,you could be the direct
marketing guy.
If you just get the productsand Amazon can deliver the
products, you just send theproducts or you can even ship
them yourselves.
And I said, well, it's likeeBay, I don't want anything to
do with it, because I knew abouteBay.
And he's like no, it's not eBay, it's got to be private label.
(21:21):
You can flip products, but itshould be your own products.
And I thought, okay, well,that's pretty clever.
And so I got started on it andI did flip a few products just
to see how the whole thingworked.
And I thought, oh my gosh, thiswas actually pretty easy.
No one's doing this.
Yet I actually took a littlecourse and realized they weren't
teaching me anything I didn'talready know in business, but it
just kind of helped amplifywhat I thought was possible.
(21:45):
And when I was about to go askfor a refund from the course, I
had a mutual friend connect mewith my current partner who's
named Reed, and we had aconversation in one hour.
We realized that we were goingto be doing business together
and that first hour led torealizing, you know, he was a
different brain than mine.
He was the logistics andoperations and management and
real estate and doing deals andmortgage brokering and he had a
(22:07):
lot of financial and backgroundaround numbers and building
businesses to scale with thefinancial side, but he didn't
know the marketing side.
Well, I knew the marketinglogistics, I knew the narrative,
I knew how to build a brand,and so we're like, hey, we're
two halves of the same coin.
Maybe we should get togetherand kind of figure this out.
Two brains are better than one,right.
And so we started launchingphysical products and we just
(22:28):
found out we had a really greataptitude.
As long as I focused on productand development, he focused on
logistics and supply chain andthese kinds of things.
We could move relatively quick,got our first seven figure
brand and physical productsaround 2014 on Amazon.
From there it was learningsystems and operations and
controls and replication of thatand building that engine into
eight figures and then buildingmultiple brands and eight
(22:49):
figures teaching others.
This was just a naturalbyproduct of hey, what are you
doing?
We want to know.
We actually helped a lot ofpeople in that original course
who couldn't get success, andwhen they saw us having success
at the very beginning stages ofAmazon FBA, they were like, hey,
teach us how to do this.
And so we, we just did a lot ofone-on-one work and they were
like, okay, we need to do it ingroups because we can't handle
(23:10):
you all.
And so then we just kind ofturned back into what we were
originally managementconsultants.
So it kind of went back to themanagement consulting world.
Didn't really want to do thecourse world but, long story
short, we did a course for abouttwo years and it did okay.
But then we kind of ended thatand said that's enough of that,
we want to just do our ownbusiness.
And it has evolved since thenas we continue to mature systems
(23:33):
and we've got our own software,our processes, our
methodologies and pipelines forbuilding products into our
brands.
And then just assisting andmanaging others in a consultant
format led to the realizationthat we could get bigger if we
went and became an aggregator.
So in 2019, the holding sideopened a portfolio division that
was intended to take all thatoperational knowledge and skills
(23:54):
and SOPs and acquire brandsinto it, which is an aggregator.
So we raised about $50 millionfrom two home offices and had
that going to the books andgetting very close to closing
that by November 2021, we hadn'ttaken the funds yet.
But by November 2021, werealized that they were buying
at like 40% above market shareand at that point too many were
(24:18):
buying with just too much dumbmoney and it was too dangerous
to get involved.
So we pulled the plug, didn'ttake the money and that just
evolved into relationships uponrelationships and all the time
we'd spent to do that.
And that led us to moremanagement consulting of
existing brands or people whowere like hey, well, if you're
not going to buy a company withme, will you teach me how to
build one, or teach me how tobuy one?
And that's where the evolutionof Voltage kind of came from was
(24:41):
a management consultancyspecifically around growth,
acquisition and merging of thesecompanies, launching new brands
and taking them to exit.
And so we've kind of evolvedpast the incubator sorry,
aggregator and now we werereally more like an incubator as
we help clients grow and buildexisting brands or we take them
out with new brands in theprocess or we look to acquire
(25:02):
companies, bring them within theportfolio and manage them
ourselves.
Which is one of the thingswe're very adamantly working on
right now is getting five newbrands in the company by 2025.
We've partnered with a companycalled Patriot Growth Capital.
It's a PE firm owned, manned byveterans, run by veterans.
When we grow these businessesin, we've got two right now that
(25:24):
we're very seriously looking atan LOI letter intent to
purchase them they're both doingbetween 10 and 20 million a
year in sales and we look tograb them up and pull them into
the business if it makes senseand the numbers all work and
they tell us everything thatthey're telling us turns out to
be true as we go through thatprocess the due diligence, yeah,
(26:02):
and then exit those businesseswith them later or bring them in
as operational controls andgive veterans an opportunity to
have a business, a model,provide for their family, maybe
even own companies later on.
So it's mission-based now, notjust aggregators for profit,
which was the wrong way to do it.
So I'm quite happy that wedidn't go that route and I'm
quite disappointed to see howthe aggregator market has blown
(26:23):
up with all the corruption,challenges and problems and just
overspending of money.
But the multi-channel andbeyond Amazon is a requirement,
as everyone is.
You know maybe listening tothis that might have a channel
or have considered that youalways want to have multiple
channels.
We won't acquire companies thatdon't have multiple channels or
a very clear and quick path toan additional channel as part of
(26:44):
the acquisition process.
So it must be, you know, on FBA, it must be on Shopify or
TikTok or have an omnipresenceor a website strategy, or we'll
move it into one of those placesand expand that out as we
acquire it as part of ourstrategy, but an omnichannel is
very important.
That's a long-winded answer toyour question.
I'm sorry, but that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
No, I think it's a kind of you have beautifully put
down the roadmap of how theidea of your startup evolved
during the years and thetransformation of your
organization, which is veryimportant for people to know,
right, so you start-.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
It's transformative.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah.
So you start with an idea, butyou adapt to the market, you
adapt to the demands, youreassess your skills and what
your team can do and you keep oneither acquiring new skills,
acquiring new operations, or youexpand what your organization
vision was compared to as yougrow through through that
(27:48):
branding.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's now moving me out of hey, it's neil and he
does amazon or he does shopifyor tiktok shopster, e-com or
whatever, um, to its voltage andthe brand is now moving forward
ahead of me.
I'm now able to kind of stepback, uh, more into the ceo role
and I and I have a team'srelations and other people that
are coming forward that are apart of that and are leading the
(28:11):
brand strategy as well as theconversation and voltage, first
in the branding and so, as anynormal evolution at this point
is to pull me out of the primaryspot of it was Neil and his
company to its voltage and oh,by the way, there's Neil and all
the other team inside of it,and that's one of the strategies
of the next steps.
It was Neil and his company toits voltage and oh, by the way,
there's Neil and all the otherteam inside of it, and that's
one of the strategies of youknow, the next steps which are
evolving very quickly this yearand into next year, which are
(28:33):
pulling me back intoconversations more like this and
out of the day.
You know, operations are out ofthe visibility and only brand
visibility of the language andwhat we're saying and the
narrative of what Voltage has inour business model and our
brand.
That's all coming out of ourclients and our people and our
operators and just the brandthat's starting to lead itself,
(28:55):
as opposed to just being anoperator and a brand, if that
makes any sense.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah.
So let me go back, neil as aperson, as a husband, as a
parent, as an entrepreneur, asan executor of a multimillion
dollar company, and let's talkabout the multi-dimensional Neil
.
One more dimension an author.
So what did trigger you towrite the book?
(29:24):
And please give us, as we wrapup this podcast, five or four
things about your book.
What it makes very unique?
Does it contain the lessonsthat you have learned over the
years, how we can help people tostart their own new dimension
of life?
New dimension of life?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Well, I mean, the authorship was just an evolution
of a story, a narrative and anexecutable framework that we
actually use inside of Voltage,called our Greenlight 5x5
Product Launch Playbook.
So the Product Launch Playbookthat we've used to build
eight-figure brands is aparticular strategy that in some
ways goes against the narrativeI hear online continuously with
(30:05):
the Hopium Guru lottery mindsetand really focuses on the
business, the fundamentals, thefoundation of an e-commerce
brand, the profitability of thatbrand and then its ability to
get growth and scale through theright and correct brand
narrative.
How do we present the productsand you know omni-channel the
products and present this, thevalue statement of the brand and
(30:25):
the products that deliver tothe emotional connectivity of
the people who buy it so they'llcome back and buy more, which
means we're not just flippingproducts, we're actually
building an experience and anunexpected outcome from the
products and we develop intothese brands.
So, as the authorship kind ofgoes along with that strategy it
was brought to my attention Icould write a book just in the
(30:46):
format of set down, write a book, figure out the chapters and go
.
Or, since I have all this timeand built it into my podcast and
I have all these wonderfulguests who have to meet this
certain requirement to get on mypodcast of how much business
they've done and how connectedthey are and who they are.
I said, well, why don't we justbolt it into the podcast and
(31:06):
make the book part of thepodcast as well as the podcast
part of the book?
And that outcome was we had 15different podcast guests and
their expertise all ties aroundthe different areas of our
strategy and how we implementour green light, from the
fundamentals of productselection and research to the
numbers of profitability, thecompetition and metrics and
(31:28):
analytics of a data-drivendecision model, and how we tie
that into the brainability ofthe product, as we are trying to
capture demand that's alreadyexisting and how much more we
can capture of that through thetraffic that's existing on
Amazon as one place to incubatethe brand from a starting block
and finding out.
Can we test it, can we validateit, can we see the demand and
(31:49):
can we capture that demand andhow much can we capture over,
you know, one, two, three, fouryears and then move that into
different you know channels ofopportunity creation or demand
creation channels like socialcommerce channels, tiktok, et
cetera, and then you know, beable to take that brand into a
saleable asset position andbuild it out what we call the
platinum principle, which istaking all that in mind from the
(32:11):
very beginning and structuringit.
Like you would structure ahouse with a good foundation,
good walls and a good roof.
How do we build this all into awonderful, saleable asset that
somebody would want to trip overthemselves to buy?
And so that process then gotlaid out in the steps and the
strategy that is outlined inthat book.
You can get books on Amazontactics, but really, when it
(32:31):
gets down to that, there's noparticular growth hack or
specific tactic that is going toimprove your business from five
to eight figures.
It is process, strategy,execution and repetition of
what's good and removal of whatis bad.
Okay, so systems and processesthat turn you into a seven and
eight figure business and thatbased on the knowledge and
(32:51):
expertise of those individualsis what's laid out in that book
and kind of a question andanswer format, chapter by
chapter.
I had the expressed what's theright way to say it?
Humility.
What's the right way to say it?
Humility.
My good friend wrote theforeword, kevin Harrington, who
(33:16):
is the, as seen on TV for one ofthe first shark tanks.
He's the guy sold $6 billion inphysical products and I was.
He was gracious enough toaccept the invite to write the
foreword for the book based onwhat we'd put into it, and so
honored to have him as a part ofthat, as the book has gone out
and just more strategy aroundwhat it takes to build a, you
know, a large e-com company.
He knows one or two thingsabout that, um, and we wrote
that part into the book as well.
(33:37):
So it's a real study.
It's got case studies in thereof our successful clients and
how they develop their brandsand products, as well as, as
well as real subject matterexpertise in the areas of
finance and research and brandand development and many other
things as well, and that waslaunched in January 2024.
It's getting good reviews.
It's continuing to go greatLove the book being where it's
(33:58):
at and doing what it's doing,which is just continuing the
message.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And Neil, thank you for offering some free copies to
the audience of the podcast andaudience.
We will send all the relatedinformation attached to this
podcast recording so that youcan claim and get the amazing
knowledge which is filtered outfrom a lot of self-made
(34:22):
millionaires.
So again, neil, thank you foroffering that.
It's very sweet of you and yourteam, absolutely yeah.
So we are going to wrap up thispodcast with four things.
What we usually do is watchyour suggestion, based on your
experience in life, to teenagers, to kids who want to create
(34:48):
their own pathway as anentrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So I taught an entrepreneurial course in our
homeschool co-op and had, youknow, a bunch of children show
up to that.
Here's the one thing I wouldactually challenge either the
children or the parents who arelistening to this who have
children that might want to go.
From my own personal, you knowexperience from a moment of
humility with you.
If you're not willing to pourinto your children and figure
(35:13):
out what it is they're mostinterested in and then spend
time with them, focused time onhelping them determine what that
is and helping them actuallyexecute it, it's going to be
harder for them to navigate iton their own.
There's a lot more on theonline and social media and
other things that can trip themup and cause confusion or just
be from a safety and securityperspective.
So I would challenge theparents first to get involved in
(35:35):
finding out what it is thatchild is interested in and how
they could how you could helpthem.
Maybe make that an opportunityto dig into what it is they're
most interested in and see ifthere's not ways for them to
turn it into a little sidehustle.
Mine back in the day, becausethere was no internet, was
mowing the neighbor's lawns andmy parents helped me.
You know, go in and make someflyers, and I got a little side
hustle.
You know pushing a lawnmower.
(35:56):
You know, go in and make someflyers and I got a little side
hustle.
You know pushing a lawnmower.
So you know there's a lot ofways for kids to do that
nowadays.
Even just you know getting apower washer and renting it and
going out and helping peoplepower wash their driveways as a
little side hustle right, oreven down into AI based stuff.
Or making little videos forshorts for people to help them
out with their time, and takingtheir podcast and cutting it
into two or three videos.
There's a need for that.
Find a need and fill it Fromthe kid's perspective.
(36:17):
Find something that you love,that you tackle, that you think
is fun and enjoyable and youwould love to do all the time
and then figure out how to turnit into something that people
are willing to pay you for.
First thing you can do is givesomething away for free.
Give it away for free and thensay, hey, if you like it, I'll
cost you X amount to do it nexttime.
(36:39):
If it's a monthly fee orsomething, hey, I'll give you
the first month free.
I'm going to give you fivevideos.
If you love the videos, thenyou pay for the next five.
What do you think and givebefore you get and you can build
up an opportunity to start alittle side hustle?
Get on Fiverr and Upwork.
It's great places to justshowcase your work, especially
(37:01):
if you're younger and parentsyou got to help them do that,
because usually they need to beover 18 or you'll have to help
them sign up and do itthemselves, but just pour into
them.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Your suggestion for people who are new parents right
and they want to createbusiness of their own or side
hustle of their own.
What are those key qualities orkey characteristics that they
need to build to make thathappen?
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I always challenge the folks who think about
creating a business to nevertreat it like a side hustle or a
hobby business, even thoughthey might do it on the side
while they're doing somethingelse.
If you really wanted to replacethe income and create
opportunity, maybe, as you'redoing it in the evenings or
weekends, the goal there is tolook at it, making a full
business, run at it so that ithas a replacement opportunity to
(37:53):
your job.
If you think about it in biggerterms, you're actually giving
yourself the opportunity and thepermission to go bigger,
whereas if you think about it asjust a side hustle or a few
extra hours or a few extradollars, you're actually going
to limit and create scarcity inthe opportunity.
So I challenge you to thinkbigger, think more abundantly.
Think, if I do it on the side,like Adam, who's a full-time
pharmacist, I can turn that intoa full-time job later on so I
(38:16):
can get back to my wife andchildren.
And that's been 40, 60 hours aweek in a pharmacy because he's
actually done that andsuccessfully launched his
products.
He's now moving to his fullproduct launch and with that
opportunity, in three and six,nine months from now, he has an
ability to replace his income togive him a position of taking
the business and moving it intohis primary life and moving away
(38:36):
from the pharmacy.
And so he's very, you know,turned that into a real, true
mindset, goal of purpose overprofit.
The purpose getting home andbeing more time with his kids,
and the profit being a byproductthat allows it as a tool to
help him do that, the same waythat a car gets him to the
pharmacy job.
He sees it as a tool.
Now it's not just a side hustleor a hobby business, he sees it
(38:56):
like a real business.
So I would encourage anybodywho wants to do a business to
not go in at a fear, to not goin at a scarcity or limiting
beliefs.
Go in all or nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
All or nothing, and profit and comfort, all that
purpose.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Purpose will lead you to profit, even if it takes you
longer than you expect to getthere.
Purpose should lead over profitand profit will come.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Awesome, okay.
Do you, on the voltage todigital marketing, provide any
learning services or anycoaching, for you know the
people who are the audience, whoare interested to learn more
about digital marketing.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
We will.
As we are an incubator forexisting brands, we will also
take on new individuals whomight want to become a CEO
operator and learn how to createa real business, like I
mentioned Adam did a minute ago,and work with us under 12 month
engagement as a management andconsulting role.
Where we come in, we help you.
You know you're 100% owner ofyour business, but we're going
to consult with you, incubateyou into our process as business
(40:04):
building the framework ofsetting the company up correctly
, what products to sell, thesoftware and technology and
methodologies to test thoseproducts out and begin them
selling and get them to aspecific goal of 100K in net
profits in 12 to 16 months.
All right, so we set someperformance and consulting goals
to do that.
For those who are interested,you might be already in a wealth
(40:25):
without Wall Street mindset.
You might be a high W-2 earner.
You and your wife or asignificant other are making
more than $150,000 a year andyou're like okay, we already
looked at rentals and short-termrentals.
We looked at real estate dealsand we looked at these other
deals or vending machines, andwe looked at parking lots and
mobile homes and we looked atthese other things, and e-com is
maybe something that you'veconsidered along the way.
Those individuals typicallyunderstand the value of an
(40:48):
investment.
They understand the value of avirtual and a physical play
which is online and a physicalprivate label product, and
they're looking to build a realbusiness, and those typically
resonate with us.
Maybe you're even considering afranchise, but aren't sure they
want to work with 14-year-oldsbehind the counter at Cold Stone
or something or Flip Burgersthemselves.
(41:09):
Ecom doesn't require you tohave to do that.
You don't have to haveforward-facing customers.
You don't have to touch theinventory if you don't want to,
and there's giant warehouses andmachines, like Amazon's system,
that will deliver it to yourcustomers.
So you don't have to, becauseyou can live on the country on a
Starlink internet, in themiddle of 50 acres and live your
dream at your farm and yourhomestead and do the business
(41:32):
too.
So if that sounds of anyinterest to you, then you can
check out what we're doing andsee if that's something that
fits for you.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Definitely Um uh, the voltage ritual company uh
website and related informationwould be uh attached along with
this podcast, uh publishing uhinformation so you guys can find
different ways to get motivatedand learn more uh from Neil Twa
Uh, he's a brand by himself andthanks again, neil 12, for
(42:00):
coming in and offering threecopies of your book and
providing your amazing knowledgethat you have filtered out in
30 minutes, that you havelearned in 30 years.
So I would say thank you somuch.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I appreciate that thank, Thank.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
you guys have a great day ahead.
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