September 7, 2023 • 31 mins
Philip F. Smith is a serial entrepreneur who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs scale their businesses and achieve 7-figure salaries. He has most notably partnered with Shark Tank’s Kevin Harrington to teach other people how to make more money in less time. Phil started his first Internet Service Provider company at just 23 years old, taking his first step out of a difficult upbringing haunted by the death of his parents.
Today, Phil is a one-employee company (solopreneur) that works from home and has generated over $20M in revenue since 2015. Phil has been a 5- time INC 5000 honoree of the fastest growing private companies in the US. He has built and sold 4 companies since his career began in 1998.
Learn more at https://philipfsmith.com/
Today, Phil is a one-employee company (solopreneur) that works from home and has generated over $20M in revenue since 2015. Phil has been a 5- time INC 5000 honoree of the fastest growing private companies in the US. He has built and sold 4 companies since his career began in 1998.
Learn more at https://philipfsmith.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Just Minding My Business Radio, where we are moving at the speed
(00:05):
of God, learning what we didn'tknow we didn't know. I'm your host,
Iida Crawford, and I'm your cohost Rutaskins. So grab a pen
and paper and get ready for informationthat you can use. Welcome to Just
Minding My Business Media LC. Weappreciate you stopping by and I am so
(00:31):
happy to bring to you today.Phil Smith, who has been a serial
entrepreneur for over twenty years. He'ssold over three companies and for three years
in a row, he's made Inkfive thousand lists of the fastest growing private
company in the country. Phil hasalways had a heart for helping businesses big
(00:54):
and small, solve problems and makemoney in new and interesting ways. He
has consulted for large companies like IBM, Intel, AT and T, and
HP and continues to work with smalland local businesses as well. Phil has
helped businesses generate over five billion intotal revenue, and it's partnered with Kevin
(01:19):
Harrington, an original shark on thehit TV show Shark Tank. Thank you
Phil for joining us. We trulyappreciate you. Oh, thank you for
having me. This is great,So twenty years. That is a long
time. So how did you endup in this in this arena? It's
(01:45):
crazy, you know. I sawmy first business in nineteen ninety eight,
so obviously it's been over twenty yearsnow, and you know, at the
time, I was in college,and you know, I realized over the
last twenty five years now that businessis mainly about timing. Just got to
be in a right place at theright time. And of course, you
(02:07):
know, a lot of times wecan't control that, right. But I
was offered to start up a webhosting business back then, and I just
took advantage of it. So,yes, you got to be in the
right place at the right time,but you also have to take advantage of
opportunities that present themselves to you.So, just to make a long story
short, I started that business innineteen ninety eight, through a lot of
struggles and figuring things out and notreally having a lot of people around me
(02:30):
to push me in the right directionor mentor me or whatever. Me and
my partners figured it out and weended up selling that business in two thousand
and five. It's a long sevenyears, but I learned a lot.
I learned to never quit. Ilearned that if you just keep pushing forward,
you know you'll figure it out.Even if you have to pivot and
go into a different direction, that'sokay. Failing's okay, just fail quick
(02:53):
and move on. Don't let itlinger where you put yourself into bankruptcy.
I've seen companies do that over theyears. But to go from there,
what happened was after five in twothousand and six, I decided that I
wanted to work from home. Andthis is, you know, way before
obviously the craziness that we're dealing withtoday with what's going on, But we
(03:15):
had about two hundred employees at thetime in the web hosting company, and
I just never wanted to deal withanother employee again. So I tell myself,
I just want to go home andjust make as much money as I
can and I'll just figure it out. And I had that mindset. And
that's another thing I've learned is thatyou need the right mindset to become an
(03:35):
entrepreneur and understand what it takes tobe successful. So once I got into
two thousand and six, I startup at consulting business helping companies. That's
when I worked with the IBM andHP and tel etc. I did very,
very large deals, and I endedup selling that company and getting acquired
in two ten with a guy namedJim Estell. Jim Estell was one of
(03:59):
the first investors in BlackBerry, whichis also called research in Motion back in
a day, which clearly isn't doinganything today. But he made it about
half a billion dollars off that oneinvestment, and he also took his own
business from zero to two billion insales and sold his own company. So
this guy was an absolute beast.And what I've also learned over the years
(04:23):
is put yourself in a right roomwith the right people, because when you
do that, it accelerates your careerand accelerates whatever you're doing a lot faster.
So he acquired me two ten.We end up selling that business again
in two twelve, and after thatI went back home. I didn't go
to an office for two years becauseI knew that was the right thing to
(04:43):
do, to work with those guys, because you got to hang out with
the people with the money if youwant money, right. So after that,
I got into the lead generation businessin twenty fourteen, and that's what
I've been doing ever since, andit's been going really good since then?
Wow, wow, I remember theBlackBerry. I remember when it came out.
I had a BlackBerry that was theoffice boom. Yes, there's more
(05:11):
corporate, more business use. Yes, absolutely so. Lead generation. Okay,
that is like the top thing thatmost entrepreneurs need to get a grip
one, the lack of a betterword, because the most important thing for
a business. Yes, absolutely so. How do businesses really launch a good
(05:39):
lead generation effort? Yeah? So, the biggest mistake I see people or
companies make is that they don't reallytake control of their entire funnel. And
what I mean by that is,you have the part where you drive traffic
to your website, right or whateveryou're promoting. Then you want to obviously
generate those leads or whatever you're promoting. And then of course you have the
(06:01):
long term marketing strategy, your emailmarketing, your SMS marketing, whatever phone
call sales you're doing, right,whatever the sales process is for that business.
What I've seen is that the averagecompany will concentrate let's just say,
running Facebook ads or Google ads orYouTube average or just any type of advertising
to their website, but they're notconcentrate on conversion optimization not concentrate on monetizing
(06:25):
their data. They're not monetoring,they're not concentrating on the long term strategies
with their email and SMS. Iseen companies that say, oh, yeah,
I sent a couple of emails,we try to sell them. If
it doesn't work, we kind ofmove on. But they don't realize that
you should be nurturing that lead formonths, even years, because you just
never know what's going to happen downthe road. We actually hate to throw
(06:46):
our own events, and I've hadpeople when I first started doing this stuff
really kind of like after six ohseven o eight and I started billing and
following back then. I've had peopleshow up in my events just in the
last couple years and say, I'vebeen following you since two thousand and eight.
Now, that's a long sales cycle, but it shows that you just
got to keep building, building building, and keep you know, nurturing those
(07:09):
leads because you just never know what'sgoing to happen. Absolutely, And I
noticed that you're one main main forsolopreneurs. That's a lot of effort for
one person. So how do youaccomplish, you know, keeping in a
consistent nurturing format in your business.If you're just one person, it's all
(07:36):
about using technology automation as much aspossible, and that that's the thing with
me is I got really really goodat just automating as much as possible.
And I've also do a lot ofselling online to the masses. So of
course I'm one person. I can'tsit on the phone all day long myself,
(07:57):
so I've gotten really good at learninghow to basically sell things through videos,
through webinars, through whatever, andgetting them to pay me for my
services by that are actually talking tosomebody now listen. Of course, So
I am a one employee company,but of course I have people that help
me do things. I can't doeverything. For a while, I did
do everything by myself, but Igot to the point where I'm like,
(08:18):
okay, I do need to nowget some help. So I have consultants
and people that obviously provide certain servicesthat help me out. I even did
hire a third party sales organization backin twenty eighteen, and I'm literally right
now in the process of getting ridof them and building another team quote unquote
(08:39):
in house. Well i'll have morecontrol over them, but it's actually still
being ran by another company, butit's just somebody that I have a really
really good relationship with and they aredoing things my way essentially. But that's
basically my going forward. I amhaving more control over things instead of spread
it out too much, because youlose control, and once you lose control,
(09:01):
then it really screws up. SoI've learned the hard way with a
lot of things myself. But Istill, you know, it's funny with
the one employee concept. I havea book coming out called The eight Figure
Solopreneurs. I got into inc Magazine, the actual physical magazine, about making
the ink five thousand. This yearshould actually be the fifth year. Now
(09:22):
that I that I make that list, I'll find out and probably a month
or two. And it's almost beenlike its own marketing side to me personally,
like oh, this guy still wantemployee company, and look what he's
done. So now I'm like,oh crap, I can't get any employees.
Now, screw out my marketing.So but yeah, so it's it's
funny, so but it really islike I just don't want to deal the
(09:45):
reason why I personal don't want todo employees, And it's a really bad
thing to say, but I feellike when you deal with employees and people
with an employee mindset. And ofcourse this isn't a blanket statement on everybody,
but when I look at it,it's like, are you just dealing
with somebody that most likely just wantsto make as much money as possible and
work the least amount as possible.Because I know a lot of those people,
(10:05):
and a lot of them actually I'mfriends with, and I think I
think for myself. If one ofmy friends, I go, wow,
you're I can't imagine the god that'smanaging you because it's a large company.
But I'm like, your manager musthate you, because I would hate you
because he's one of those people justgets out of work every day. But
so but when you work with consultants, guess what you can get rid of
them at any point in time.There's nothing that you know. They can't
(10:28):
go anywhere and complain. There's noyou know, unemployment. You know what
I means, just hey, you'reyour own business. I use the services,
I don't need them anymore. Butit's been it's been interesting on how
this one employee thing is kind oftaking its own It's like its own animal.
Now with a lot of people thatknow who I am and what I
do. Yes, yes, yes, And I can understand the employee mentality
(10:50):
is totally different than a consultant mentestbecause they are an entrepreneur at the end
of the day. That consultant absolutelyand they are motivated to do the best
because they're representing their company, theirown company, right. So yes,
yes, Wow. So let's talka little bit about some ways of monetizing
(11:13):
your leads that can increase your profit. Yeah. So, one thing I
will say the lead generation business.I started learning in twenty fourteen, and
when I first started, I wasjust generating leads off facebooks. I was
running Facebook ads, generating leads foreighteen dollars. They were specifically business loan
(11:35):
leads, and I was selling themfor sixty That's how I actually kind of
entered the industry. And like wesaid before, it is all about timing.
I just happened to be running Facebookads at the right time because they
were very cheap at the time andthey were very valuable. If I started
literally a year later, I wouldnever have been profitable because literally, at
the end of twenty fifteen, oneyear later, that eighteen dollars lead was
(11:58):
now seventy dollars, but because Ihad a year head start, I was
generating for eighteen selling for sixty.Time goes on I see the eighteen was
twenty twenty two, twenty five,Like every month that just kept going up.
So what I started trying to figureout. I'm like, well,
what else can I do with theseleads? I need to figure out another
way to monetize them. And thenI started selling them off to a credit
repair company, a business credit monitoringcompany, and I started just finding other
(12:22):
companies that can monetize these leads,and then that's just skyrocket in my profit
margin. So I realized this.I'm like, wow, this is actually
like its own marketing strategy. Theaverage company doesn't do this. I mean,
if you actually go to Amazon dotcom, you will see they have
linkouts to other sites, best byWalmart. They will actually all do it.
They all monetize their leads as manydifferent ways possible. Amazon's a great
(12:46):
It's a great example of a companythat takes one lead and has like ten
different services to sell that lead.So it's the same concept. They're just
not all my services, right,So I would generate that lead and just
give them five different things to potentiallybuy or be interested in, and that
those companies would pay me for thatlead. So that concept. I spoke
(13:09):
at a war Room Masterminding event aboutfour years ago, and I didn't really
know. It was one of thefirst times I ever spoke at an event
like this. Warroom Mastermind. It'snot around anymore, the partners split up,
but you had a general release amillion dollars a year to be in
it. So you're dealing with reallike not real entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs obviously more
(13:31):
successful, about two hundred and fiftyof them. And I didn't know what
to talk about. And everyone talksabout Facebook, marketing, Google and whatever
in social media. I wanted totalk about something different, so I talked
about the concept of monetizing your existingdata or customer base into other services,
even if it's a service that's notyours. I just explained that about twenty
minutes and I'm getting off the stageand I see this guy, Michael Perella,
(13:52):
who owned I Love Kickboxing at thetime, which was a franchise.
I'm not sure if it's still around, but what happened was he just starts.
He's a big guy. You can'tmiss him. Right, So he's
walking. It gets up first guythat got up walking walking walking, and
I just see him a corner eyeand I'm just assumed he's walking out,
but he just keeps getting closer andcloser and closer to me. But he's
(14:13):
like a bull, you know.He's like boom boom, boom boom,
and I'm like, did I saysomething? This guy gonna punch me in
the face. Because he's not oneof those guys that he could just walk
up to and feel comfortable. You'relike, I think he's gonna kick my
butt. So he just walks upto me and goes Bill Michael Perella,
Man, that was amazing. Wegot to talk. I generated about ninety
thousand leads a month and I nevereven thought about this, and I was
blown away. I was like,are you kidding me right now? So
(14:35):
then all of a sudden, abouttwenty people throughout that entire event came up
to me, you know, separately, and like, hey, Phil,
we need to talk me to talk, and I was like, wow,
this is really cool. One ofthe guys that heard me speak at that
event. And this is going backto I think like nineteen twenty nineteen.
Literally a couple of months ago,I was in San Diego and I saw
this guy, Brad, and we'reat the bar and he goes, hey,
(14:56):
man, remember when you spoke atwar Room and you talked about my
seizing data. I'm like, yeah, goes Man. It always stuck with
me. I finally started doing itlast year and it literally has added seven
figures in revenue to my business.I'm like, dude, that's amazing.
So you're paying the bartab right.So basically a lot of business owners just
(15:18):
don't realize it. It's such aneasy concept, but just nobody really a
lot and I say nobody, butmost companies just don't even think about it.
It's not even on their radar.And the multiple people on over the
years that I've said that to havecome back to me over time. Another
guy in San Diego at as aconference. I gave him that advice.
A year later at the same conference, I ran into him. He goes
(15:41):
Man, your advice is amazing.I'm like, what are you talking about?
He goes I started monetizing my leads. I've ever changed everything. So
it's that that's just a simple concepts. You just got to figure it out
what works for you know that specificbusiness. Wow, And that is something
that most people entrepreneurs do not thinkabout. They basically want to market their
stuff to their lead, but notnecessarily shan it with somebody else that might
(16:07):
be a better fit, right.You know. It's funny like I run
one campaign for one of my servicesthat I sell and we only convert,
you know, anywhere between two andthree percent. Some of these ninety seven
leads out of a hundred do notbuy anything for me? So why not
just promote something else to that ortry to sell that lead off to somebody
(16:30):
else? Like what what's the whydo nothing? It's not like it's cheap.
I mean these leads cost me seventeendollars apiece, you know what I
mean. So that's ninety seven timesseventeen dollars, right, I mean that's
what I'm wasting, you know,quote unquote wasting. But might as well
try to do something with them?Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. Now, if
people want to reach out to you, how they do? So my main
(16:53):
site is the easiest way. JustPhilip f as in Frank Smith dot com.
That's it. You know, it'sbeen a I don't really do a
lot of organic marketing. I don'treally have a huge following. I've never
been good at that because I justdo paid marketing. It's way easier to
just pay for to pay for advertisingand generally leads. But yeah, my
site's the easiest way. Oh okay, okay, now do you train?
(17:19):
Just says that, yeah, Ihave some services where we have you know,
essentially it's like an educational type business, which I really kind of hate
using that word, like courses andgurus and whatever, but we we actually
provide real services where we h whatI have. Basically, what I've done
(17:40):
is I partnered with a lot ofcompanies that provide services to the people that
come through me. And that's justthe smartest way for me to do it,
because I don't want to do itright. So so I went and
got the best the breed for certainthings like I don't have a sales floor
to do business loans or mortgages oryou know, do lead generally and stuff
like that. So I've literally beenspending the last nine years building up all
(18:04):
these partners that would come into myworld and say, listen, I'll go
out and sell these services, butI need you to actually provide them.
There's certain things of course that Ipersonally do. I run Masterminds and we
do a lot of stuff. ButI do the things that I like to
do, and I let other peopledo to things I don't like to do,
but they're actually good at it,and I've been That's one thing I've
(18:26):
been really good at. And Ilearned this and then mid two thousands when
I did do those large deals atIBM and AT and T, is that
I'm really good at bringing people togetherand knowing what's everyone's good at and kind
of forming this community that we've builtcurrently in the lead generation business. But
I literally I've actually worked with peoplethat I've taught to gen business. And
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obviously, listen, I don't takeit. I don't take credit for other
people's success. Sure, if youwant to give me a little credit for
just showing in the right direction,but everybody has to build their own business
us together, put the work in. But I've had people that teld me
that I've changed your life, thathave reached seven figures a month in revenue.
I mean, it's crazy, butit's definitely really, really, really
(19:11):
rewarding. When you hear that andsee it, it's great. And obviously
we just keep pushing forward, getthe information out there and let people do
what they want with it. Yes, and it's a it's a smart way
to do it, you know,because you're right, most of us have
a database of leads and maybe afourth has really bought anything from us exactly.
(19:41):
So I mean, it really doesmake sense and it's definitely something for
entrepreneurs to think about. Absolutely.And I mean, now that you're talking
about it, you got my lightbulbs were on, because I've got a
big, pretty big mailing list,and you know, not all of them
(20:02):
by anything from me, exactly.I gave great story. So I'm walking
out of a hotel in Chicago andI've been trying to get in touch with
this company that they were a lender. They're a business loan lender, and
I've been trying to get in touchwith them for the best six months.
And I saw that the guy Anthonywas calling me, and I was so
excited. I knew he was callingme a place in order, so I
pick up the phone. Simple fivehundred dollars, first order, five hundred
(20:26):
dollars. He bought what's what's calledan aged lead, so you have leads
at a real time like it justcomes in today and then you have leads
at are a month old, sixmonths old, the year old, whatever.
So he was interested in the ageleads at the time, and I
was selling them for a dollar apiece, so five hundred leads five hundred dollars,
and I was like, yes,because I knew they'd be successful and
I knew they were big, sothey'd buy a lot and literally five hundred
(20:51):
lead order turned into another five hundredlead or turned into two thousand leads to
five thousand, you know, etc. And then he just called me up
another day and he goes, allright, man, and everything's really working
out well, Like what can wedo here? And he goes, how
many leads you have and Mike aboutfour hundred thousand. He goes, I'll
take them all, but I'll doit over the next six months, and
literally over the next six months togade me over four hundred thousand dollars.
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And then they started buying real timeleads for me. So overall that was
over you know, at least ahalf a million dollars in business just from
this one company. But the majorityof it was just data sitting on my
computer. I mean, like that'sall it was doing, and that was
worth four hundred thousand dollars to thiscompany, and they made a killing somethingly
didn't make any money, you know, And that age data has made me
(21:37):
a ton of money over the years. And that's why people just don't realize
how valuable that stuff is, youknow, as long as you find the
right company that can monetize it.Yes, and I put plenty of leads
in my career, career of entrepreneurship. I've bought plenty of leads over time.
And you know, so I've youknow, the buying leads is a
(22:03):
big business, you know, Soyes, because I've I mean, I've
done it myself. So how didyou end up with Kevin Harrington? So
when I started getting into the quoteunquote course business in twenty seventeen, and
this is exactly how I started goingback to exactly everything we're talking about.
So I'm generating all these business ownleads at the time, sometimes you know,
(22:26):
a thousand a day. I thinkthe most every day of the day
was about thirteen hundred. So I'mcollecting all these leads getting into the end
of twenty seventeen and I go tomyself, it's actually July July of seventeen,
I decided to pull the trigger andI go to myself, I'm going
to sell a course, but I'mgoing to sell a course to my existing
lead flow. These are all peopleeither want to start a business or have
(22:49):
a business. And what I realizedis that the average business owner that came
to me wasn't really a business owner. They were really a startup or they
want to start a business. AndI started realizing if they don't really care
what they do, they just wantto do something. So all I did
was I created a service designed formy existing leads. I already had these
half a million leads that were sittingaround at the time or whatever amount it
(23:12):
was at the time. And whathappened was I started just I created a
course on how to start a businessbecoming a business loan broker. So and
the reason why I did that becausethat's exactly who I was selling my leads
to. So I said, youknow how you found me. You found
me because you're looking for a businessloan. This is what we do,
(23:33):
and you can make money doing thesame exact thing. So I created a
course and literally within a few monthsand made about two hundred and fifty to
three hundred thousand dollars just by sellinga thousand dollars course to all these people.
And that's how the business got offthe ground and got started. This
is now going to the end ofseventeen and then I'm like, Okay,
well this is actually starting to work. But who's Phil Smith? Nobody knows
who I am, So why don'tI try to team up with somebody that's
(23:56):
larger than me? So what doI do? I just think about Shark
Tank. I hit up everybody youknow that was ever on the show,
David John, Barbara Corkran, andKevin Harrington get back to me. I
end up paying nine thousand dollars tobe interviewed by Kevin Harrington in January twenty
eighteen. But the reason why Idid it was because I'd be in the
(24:17):
same room as him and I wantedto pitch him. Now because of me
selling my business to that investment fundJemesto back in twenty ten, I learned
how the investment world works. Butwhat I actually did was I went to
Kevin. I said, hey,Kevin, listen, I'm generating two million
a year in revenue all but Idon't want any money from you. I
(24:37):
actually want to just pay you touse your name and to work with you.
And he looked at me. Hegoes, okay, so, you
know, because these guys are soused to people asking for money, I'm
like, I want to give youmoney. So that was my pitch.
I'm like, let me just changeit up a little bit. And he
goes, you know what, Okay, let's talk. You know, here's
so and so talked to this guy, Mark Tim and then that started the
(25:00):
conversation. That was January of eighteen. We didn't close a deal until September
of eighteen, but it happened.And that's how it all, you know,
Damon John again, I talked tothem. I talked to Barbara.
It just didn't make sense for Barbarabecause she was so in real estate.
And then the Damon John think itkind of just started up and then kind
of just fizzled out, mainly becauseKevin's son, Brian, actually lives like
(25:23):
twenty minutes for me, and Ijust felt like, okay, this,
I can make this work. Youknow, he's right down a road that
makes more sense. And I becamefriends with him, like we go like
golf, we travel whatever. Soit's really it's kind of what it turned
into now over the last god goingon in five years now, and uh,
and it's it's been really cool.But and of course now we do
(25:44):
a lot of other things together,so we you know, they have other
services I make money with. Iguess service they make money with. We've
done other businesses together. We beforeCOVID, we were doing a lot of
events, like two hundred person events, kind of like pitch events to help
people raise money. So we've donea lot of cool stuff over the years.
But again having that type of stuff, like it's a pay to play
model, right, so that's whatit learns. I'm part of Damon John's
(26:07):
Rise Nation Mastermind right now. That'sfifty thousand dollars a year, but I
get to hang out with Damon forsix days a year, which sounds crazy
spent that much money, but theamount of access that you have, and
also the other people in that roomthat are also willing to pay that money,
I want to meet them. Yeah. And now because actually I was
there, what happened was Damon cameout with a book well this right,
(26:30):
and at the first event in SanDiego, he goes, hey, anybody
buys two hundred of my books.I'll come to your office, I'll have
dinner with you, one on one. We'll hang out whatever you need for
me. So what did I do? I guess what? I bought the
books, right. My friend actuallyhas a nonprofit that helps kids not get
abducted. So I donated the booksto him. And I'm going to do
dinner with Damon actually in Vegas ina few weeks, just to hang out
(26:55):
with it for two hours, youknow. So that's what you need to
do, right. You need toput yourself in the right room with the
right people. Yes, yes,that people that can get you to where
you're trying to get to or bringother people to you. Because money attracts
money. Yep. It's all aboutwho you know. It's all about networking.
Actually, Damon said it in onevideo I saw her goes networking is
(27:15):
the fastest way to grow a business. Yes, yes it is, Yes
it is. And you want tobe able to walk into a room and
people know who you are exactly.Yeah. Yeah, nobody nobody knew who
I was. Quick story on that, right. So I'm in San Diego
at a conference. Me and thisguy I was with were sitting at a
(27:37):
table in the restaurant at the Marriottin the harbor of San Diego, the
Mary Marquis, and nobody talks tous because why would they. Right,
We're there for about an hour.Kevin shows up with his son and it's
like three or four other guys.They sat at the table with us,
and all of a sudden, withina minute, there's like twenty people surrounding
us. Now everybody wants to knowmy name. You hey, what's going?
(28:02):
Like? How'd you get at thistable? I'm like, I'm at
the cool kids table now, youknow so. But that's really what it's
all about. And then through Kevinwhat, I started dropping his name everywhere.
I would go to celebrity golf outingsand you'll obviously there'll be celebrities there,
and I walk around like, hey, man, this I work with
Kevin Harrington. We're looking to maybedo something with some celebrities. You're interested,
uh, you know, of courseI'd always mentioned Shark Tank and whatever,
(28:23):
and they just be giving me theirphone number, like, you know,
call me directly, called me directly. Yeah. I literally have like
so many celebrities numbers, direct numbersjust because of dropping Kevin's name, and
it helps me open doors and obviouslyand just it's it's crazy. But of
course now it's also opened up meas as a target of someone to talk
(28:44):
to from just random people. Hey, Phil, I see your partner with
Kevin. Blah blah blah blah blah. You know. So I'm like,
all right, how do I makemoney off this? And that's actually what
happened was back in twenty nineteen,I was at an event with Kevin.
It was his you know, hewas speaking, and I watched how everybody
reacted to him, as about threehundred and fifty people there, and he
got off the stage and everybody wanteda piece. So on that drive home
(29:08):
is when I said that, I'mlike, guys, why don't you do
your own events? Yeah, it'snot something we thought about it whatever about
So I'm like, what if Idid it for you and I got all
the butts in its seats, I'mlike, listen, if you want to
do it, go ahead. Sowe did our first event in October,
like lial like three months later Octoberin Vegas at the Bellagio with our first
event together that was more like thisevent, like a pitch event to help
(29:33):
businesses, and it was started cranking. We did that one, then we
did Orlando three months later January oftwenty and then we started doing more in
New York and then all of asudden, COVID hit and that whole thing
plummeted, obviously, but we juststarted kind of getting back into the swing
of things with that, So we'llsee where it goes. I actually have
(29:55):
an event in three weeks in Vegasmyself, but I do an event about
every the month myself without Kevin.He's attached to it, but he's not
physically there. Okay, okay,wow, while phil this has been really
really amazing. You have dropped somereally really good nuggets for us, and
(30:18):
you know, and I know peopleespecially entrepreneurs who have all these leads that
arm buy from you. Now youhave another way to monetize them. Absolutely
So again, how do people connectwith fear Yep, it's got to Philip
F. Smith dot com. Easiestway you can see what we do.
(30:41):
Just fill out the form and we'llget back to you. That's it,
absolutely well. I will definitely begoing jumping over to your website and I'm
looking forward to more collaborations as well. Going forward because people need to hear
things more than one time times beforethey have their a high moment. So
(31:03):
we are definitely wanting you back onthe show and to talk more about lead
generation. So thank you so somuch, no, thank you, appreciate
it absolutely, thank you for tuningin to Just Minding My Business Radio.
I'm your host, Heyda Crawford,and I'm your co host, we pacting.
(31:26):
We hope you enjoyed the show andappreciate you stopping by. Many blessings
to you and yours
Welcome to Just Minding My Business Radio, where we are moving at the speed
(00:05):
of God, learning what we didn'tknow we didn't know. I'm your host,
Iida Crawford, and I'm your cohost Rutaskins. So grab a pen
and paper and get ready for informationthat you can use. Welcome to Just
Minding My Business Media LC. Weappreciate you stopping by and I am so
(00:31):
happy to bring to you today.Phil Smith, who has been a serial
entrepreneur for over twenty years. He'ssold over three companies and for three years
in a row, he's made Inkfive thousand lists of the fastest growing private
company in the country. Phil hasalways had a heart for helping businesses big
(00:54):
and small, solve problems and makemoney in new and interesting ways. He
has consulted for large companies like IBM, Intel, AT and T, and
HP and continues to work with smalland local businesses as well. Phil has
helped businesses generate over five billion intotal revenue, and it's partnered with Kevin
(01:19):
Harrington, an original shark on thehit TV show Shark Tank. Thank you
Phil for joining us. We trulyappreciate you. Oh, thank you for
having me. This is great,So twenty years. That is a long
time. So how did you endup in this in this arena? It's
(01:45):
crazy, you know. I sawmy first business in nineteen ninety eight,
so obviously it's been over twenty yearsnow, and you know, at the
time, I was in college,and you know, I realized over the
last twenty five years now that businessis mainly about timing. Just got to
be in a right place at theright time. And of course, you
(02:07):
know, a lot of times wecan't control that, right. But I
was offered to start up a webhosting business back then, and I just
took advantage of it. So,yes, you got to be in the
right place at the right time,but you also have to take advantage of
opportunities that present themselves to you.So, just to make a long story
short, I started that business innineteen ninety eight, through a lot of
struggles and figuring things out and notreally having a lot of people around me
(02:30):
to push me in the right directionor mentor me or whatever. Me and
my partners figured it out and weended up selling that business in two thousand
and five. It's a long sevenyears, but I learned a lot.
I learned to never quit. Ilearned that if you just keep pushing forward,
you know you'll figure it out.Even if you have to pivot and
go into a different direction, that'sokay. Failing's okay, just fail quick
(02:53):
and move on. Don't let itlinger where you put yourself into bankruptcy.
I've seen companies do that over theyears. But to go from there,
what happened was after five in twothousand and six, I decided that I
wanted to work from home. Andthis is, you know, way before
obviously the craziness that we're dealing withtoday with what's going on, But we
(03:15):
had about two hundred employees at thetime in the web hosting company, and
I just never wanted to deal withanother employee again. So I tell myself,
I just want to go home andjust make as much money as I
can and I'll just figure it out. And I had that mindset. And
that's another thing I've learned is thatyou need the right mindset to become an
(03:35):
entrepreneur and understand what it takes tobe successful. So once I got into
two thousand and six, I startup at consulting business helping companies. That's
when I worked with the IBM andHP and tel etc. I did very,
very large deals, and I endedup selling that company and getting acquired
in two ten with a guy namedJim Estell. Jim Estell was one of
(03:59):
the first investors in BlackBerry, whichis also called research in Motion back in
a day, which clearly isn't doinganything today. But he made it about
half a billion dollars off that oneinvestment, and he also took his own
business from zero to two billion insales and sold his own company. So
this guy was an absolute beast.And what I've also learned over the years
(04:23):
is put yourself in a right roomwith the right people, because when you
do that, it accelerates your careerand accelerates whatever you're doing a lot faster.
So he acquired me two ten.We end up selling that business again
in two twelve, and after thatI went back home. I didn't go
to an office for two years becauseI knew that was the right thing to
(04:43):
do, to work with those guys, because you got to hang out with
the people with the money if youwant money, right. So after that,
I got into the lead generation businessin twenty fourteen, and that's what
I've been doing ever since, andit's been going really good since then?
Wow, wow, I remember theBlackBerry. I remember when it came out.
I had a BlackBerry that was theoffice boom. Yes, there's more
(05:11):
corporate, more business use. Yes, absolutely so. Lead generation. Okay,
that is like the top thing thatmost entrepreneurs need to get a grip
one, the lack of a betterword, because the most important thing for
a business. Yes, absolutely so. How do businesses really launch a good
(05:39):
lead generation effort? Yeah? So, the biggest mistake I see people or
companies make is that they don't reallytake control of their entire funnel. And
what I mean by that is,you have the part where you drive traffic
to your website, right or whateveryou're promoting. Then you want to obviously
generate those leads or whatever you're promoting. And then of course you have the
(06:01):
long term marketing strategy, your emailmarketing, your SMS marketing, whatever phone
call sales you're doing, right,whatever the sales process is for that business.
What I've seen is that the averagecompany will concentrate let's just say,
running Facebook ads or Google ads orYouTube average or just any type of advertising
to their website, but they're notconcentrate on conversion optimization not concentrate on monetizing
(06:25):
their data. They're not monetoring,they're not concentrating on the long term strategies
with their email and SMS. Iseen companies that say, oh, yeah,
I sent a couple of emails,we try to sell them. If
it doesn't work, we kind ofmove on. But they don't realize that
you should be nurturing that lead formonths, even years, because you just
never know what's going to happen downthe road. We actually hate to throw
(06:46):
our own events, and I've hadpeople when I first started doing this stuff
really kind of like after six ohseven o eight and I started billing and
following back then. I've had peopleshow up in my events just in the
last couple years and say, I'vebeen following you since two thousand and eight.
Now, that's a long sales cycle, but it shows that you just
got to keep building, building building, and keep you know, nurturing those
(07:09):
leads because you just never know what'sgoing to happen. Absolutely, And I
noticed that you're one main main forsolopreneurs. That's a lot of effort for
one person. So how do youaccomplish, you know, keeping in a
consistent nurturing format in your business.If you're just one person, it's all
(07:36):
about using technology automation as much aspossible, and that that's the thing with
me is I got really really goodat just automating as much as possible.
And I've also do a lot ofselling online to the masses. So of
course I'm one person. I can'tsit on the phone all day long myself,
(07:57):
so I've gotten really good at learninghow to basically sell things through videos,
through webinars, through whatever, andgetting them to pay me for my
services by that are actually talking tosomebody now listen. Of course, So
I am a one employee company,but of course I have people that help
me do things. I can't doeverything. For a while, I did
do everything by myself, but Igot to the point where I'm like,
(08:18):
okay, I do need to nowget some help. So I have consultants
and people that obviously provide certain servicesthat help me out. I even did
hire a third party sales organization backin twenty eighteen, and I'm literally right
now in the process of getting ridof them and building another team quote unquote
(08:39):
in house. Well i'll have morecontrol over them, but it's actually still
being ran by another company, butit's just somebody that I have a really
really good relationship with and they aredoing things my way essentially. But that's
basically my going forward. I amhaving more control over things instead of spread
it out too much, because youlose control, and once you lose control,
(09:01):
then it really screws up. SoI've learned the hard way with a
lot of things myself. But Istill, you know, it's funny with
the one employee concept. I havea book coming out called The eight Figure
Solopreneurs. I got into inc Magazine, the actual physical magazine, about making
the ink five thousand. This yearshould actually be the fifth year. Now
(09:22):
that I that I make that list, I'll find out and probably a month
or two. And it's almost beenlike its own marketing side to me personally,
like oh, this guy still wantemployee company, and look what he's
done. So now I'm like,oh crap, I can't get any employees.
Now, screw out my marketing.So but yeah, so it's it's
funny, so but it really islike I just don't want to deal the
(09:45):
reason why I personal don't want todo employees, And it's a really bad
thing to say, but I feellike when you deal with employees and people
with an employee mindset. And ofcourse this isn't a blanket statement on everybody,
but when I look at it,it's like, are you just dealing
with somebody that most likely just wantsto make as much money as possible and
work the least amount as possible.Because I know a lot of those people,
(10:05):
and a lot of them actually I'mfriends with, and I think I
think for myself. If one ofmy friends, I go, wow,
you're I can't imagine the god that'smanaging you because it's a large company.
But I'm like, your manager musthate you, because I would hate you
because he's one of those people justgets out of work every day. But
so but when you work with consultants, guess what you can get rid of
them at any point in time.There's nothing that you know. They can't
(10:28):
go anywhere and complain. There's noyou know, unemployment. You know what
I means, just hey, you'reyour own business. I use the services,
I don't need them anymore. Butit's been it's been interesting on how
this one employee thing is kind oftaking its own It's like its own animal.
Now with a lot of people thatknow who I am and what I
do. Yes, yes, yes, And I can understand the employee mentality
(10:50):
is totally different than a consultant mentestbecause they are an entrepreneur at the end
of the day. That consultant absolutelyand they are motivated to do the best
because they're representing their company, theirown company, right. So yes,
yes, Wow. So let's talka little bit about some ways of monetizing
(11:13):
your leads that can increase your profit. Yeah. So, one thing I
will say the lead generation business.I started learning in twenty fourteen, and
when I first started, I wasjust generating leads off facebooks. I was
running Facebook ads, generating leads foreighteen dollars. They were specifically business loan
(11:35):
leads, and I was selling themfor sixty That's how I actually kind of
entered the industry. And like wesaid before, it is all about timing.
I just happened to be running Facebookads at the right time because they
were very cheap at the time andthey were very valuable. If I started
literally a year later, I wouldnever have been profitable because literally, at
the end of twenty fifteen, oneyear later, that eighteen dollars lead was
(11:58):
now seventy dollars, but because Ihad a year head start, I was
generating for eighteen selling for sixty.Time goes on I see the eighteen was
twenty twenty two, twenty five,Like every month that just kept going up.
So what I started trying to figureout. I'm like, well,
what else can I do with theseleads? I need to figure out another
way to monetize them. And thenI started selling them off to a credit
repair company, a business credit monitoringcompany, and I started just finding other
(12:22):
companies that can monetize these leads,and then that's just skyrocket in my profit
margin. So I realized this.I'm like, wow, this is actually
like its own marketing strategy. Theaverage company doesn't do this. I mean,
if you actually go to Amazon dotcom, you will see they have
linkouts to other sites, best byWalmart. They will actually all do it.
They all monetize their leads as manydifferent ways possible. Amazon's a great
(12:46):
It's a great example of a companythat takes one lead and has like ten
different services to sell that lead.So it's the same concept. They're just
not all my services, right,So I would generate that lead and just
give them five different things to potentiallybuy or be interested in, and that
those companies would pay me for thatlead. So that concept. I spoke
(13:09):
at a war Room Masterminding event aboutfour years ago, and I didn't really
know. It was one of thefirst times I ever spoke at an event
like this. Warroom Mastermind. It'snot around anymore, the partners split up,
but you had a general release amillion dollars a year to be in
it. So you're dealing with reallike not real entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs obviously more
(13:31):
successful, about two hundred and fiftyof them. And I didn't know what
to talk about. And everyone talksabout Facebook, marketing, Google and whatever
in social media. I wanted totalk about something different, so I talked
about the concept of monetizing your existingdata or customer base into other services,
even if it's a service that's notyours. I just explained that about twenty
minutes and I'm getting off the stageand I see this guy, Michael Perella,
(13:52):
who owned I Love Kickboxing at thetime, which was a franchise.
I'm not sure if it's still around, but what happened was he just starts.
He's a big guy. You can'tmiss him. Right, So he's
walking. It gets up first guythat got up walking walking walking, and
I just see him a corner eyeand I'm just assumed he's walking out,
but he just keeps getting closer andcloser and closer to me. But he's
(14:13):
like a bull, you know.He's like boom boom, boom boom,
and I'm like, did I saysomething? This guy gonna punch me in
the face. Because he's not oneof those guys that he could just walk
up to and feel comfortable. You'relike, I think he's gonna kick my
butt. So he just walks upto me and goes Bill Michael Perella,
Man, that was amazing. Wegot to talk. I generated about ninety
thousand leads a month and I nevereven thought about this, and I was
blown away. I was like,are you kidding me right now? So
(14:35):
then all of a sudden, abouttwenty people throughout that entire event came up
to me, you know, separately, and like, hey, Phil,
we need to talk me to talk, and I was like, wow,
this is really cool. One ofthe guys that heard me speak at that
event. And this is going backto I think like nineteen twenty nineteen.
Literally a couple of months ago,I was in San Diego and I saw
this guy, Brad, and we'reat the bar and he goes, hey,
(14:56):
man, remember when you spoke atwar Room and you talked about my
seizing data. I'm like, yeah, goes Man. It always stuck with
me. I finally started doing itlast year and it literally has added seven
figures in revenue to my business.I'm like, dude, that's amazing.
So you're paying the bartab right.So basically a lot of business owners just
(15:18):
don't realize it. It's such aneasy concept, but just nobody really a
lot and I say nobody, butmost companies just don't even think about it.
It's not even on their radar.And the multiple people on over the
years that I've said that to havecome back to me over time. Another
guy in San Diego at as aconference. I gave him that advice.
A year later at the same conference, I ran into him. He goes
(15:41):
Man, your advice is amazing.I'm like, what are you talking about?
He goes I started monetizing my leads. I've ever changed everything. So
it's that that's just a simple concepts. You just got to figure it out
what works for you know that specificbusiness. Wow, And that is something
that most people entrepreneurs do not thinkabout. They basically want to market their
stuff to their lead, but notnecessarily shan it with somebody else that might
(16:07):
be a better fit, right.You know. It's funny like I run
one campaign for one of my servicesthat I sell and we only convert,
you know, anywhere between two andthree percent. Some of these ninety seven
leads out of a hundred do notbuy anything for me? So why not
just promote something else to that ortry to sell that lead off to somebody
(16:30):
else? Like what what's the whydo nothing? It's not like it's cheap.
I mean these leads cost me seventeendollars apiece, you know what I
mean. So that's ninety seven timesseventeen dollars, right, I mean that's
what I'm wasting, you know,quote unquote wasting. But might as well
try to do something with them?Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. Now, if
people want to reach out to you, how they do? So my main
(16:53):
site is the easiest way. JustPhilip f as in Frank Smith dot com.
That's it. You know, it'sbeen a I don't really do a
lot of organic marketing. I don'treally have a huge following. I've never
been good at that because I justdo paid marketing. It's way easier to
just pay for to pay for advertisingand generally leads. But yeah, my
site's the easiest way. Oh okay, okay, now do you train?
(17:19):
Just says that, yeah, Ihave some services where we have you know,
essentially it's like an educational type business, which I really kind of hate
using that word, like courses andgurus and whatever, but we we actually
provide real services where we h whatI have. Basically, what I've done
(17:40):
is I partnered with a lot ofcompanies that provide services to the people that
come through me. And that's justthe smartest way for me to do it,
because I don't want to do itright. So so I went and
got the best the breed for certainthings like I don't have a sales floor
to do business loans or mortgages oryou know, do lead generally and stuff
like that. So I've literally beenspending the last nine years building up all
(18:04):
these partners that would come into myworld and say, listen, I'll go
out and sell these services, butI need you to actually provide them.
There's certain things of course that Ipersonally do. I run Masterminds and we
do a lot of stuff. ButI do the things that I like to
do, and I let other peopledo to things I don't like to do,
but they're actually good at it,and I've been That's one thing I've
(18:26):
been really good at. And Ilearned this and then mid two thousands when
I did do those large deals atIBM and AT and T, is that
I'm really good at bringing people togetherand knowing what's everyone's good at and kind
of forming this community that we've builtcurrently in the lead generation business. But
I literally I've actually worked with peoplethat I've taught to gen business. And
(18:49):
obviously, listen, I don't takeit. I don't take credit for other
people's success. Sure, if youwant to give me a little credit for
just showing in the right direction,but everybody has to build their own business
us together, put the work in. But I've had people that teld me
that I've changed your life, thathave reached seven figures a month in revenue.
I mean, it's crazy, butit's definitely really, really, really
(19:11):
rewarding. When you hear that andsee it, it's great. And obviously
we just keep pushing forward, getthe information out there and let people do
what they want with it. Yes, and it's a it's a smart way
to do it, you know,because you're right, most of us have
a database of leads and maybe afourth has really bought anything from us exactly.
(19:41):
So I mean, it really doesmake sense and it's definitely something for
entrepreneurs to think about. Absolutely.And I mean, now that you're talking
about it, you got my lightbulbs were on, because I've got a
big, pretty big mailing list,and you know, not all of them
(20:02):
by anything from me, exactly.I gave great story. So I'm walking
out of a hotel in Chicago andI've been trying to get in touch with
this company that they were a lender. They're a business loan lender, and
I've been trying to get in touchwith them for the best six months.
And I saw that the guy Anthonywas calling me, and I was so
excited. I knew he was callingme a place in order, so I
pick up the phone. Simple fivehundred dollars, first order, five hundred
(20:26):
dollars. He bought what's what's calledan aged lead, so you have leads
at a real time like it justcomes in today and then you have leads
at are a month old, sixmonths old, the year old, whatever.
So he was interested in the ageleads at the time, and I
was selling them for a dollar apiece, so five hundred leads five hundred dollars,
and I was like, yes,because I knew they'd be successful and
I knew they were big, sothey'd buy a lot and literally five hundred
(20:51):
lead order turned into another five hundredlead or turned into two thousand leads to
five thousand, you know, etc. And then he just called me up
another day and he goes, allright, man, and everything's really working
out well, Like what can wedo here? And he goes, how
many leads you have and Mike aboutfour hundred thousand. He goes, I'll
take them all, but I'll doit over the next six months, and
literally over the next six months togade me over four hundred thousand dollars.
(21:14):
And then they started buying real timeleads for me. So overall that was
over you know, at least ahalf a million dollars in business just from
this one company. But the majorityof it was just data sitting on my
computer. I mean, like that'sall it was doing, and that was
worth four hundred thousand dollars to thiscompany, and they made a killing somethingly
didn't make any money, you know, And that age data has made me
(21:37):
a ton of money over the years. And that's why people just don't realize
how valuable that stuff is, youknow, as long as you find the
right company that can monetize it.Yes, and I put plenty of leads
in my career, career of entrepreneurship. I've bought plenty of leads over time.
And you know, so I've youknow, the buying leads is a
(22:03):
big business, you know, Soyes, because I've I mean, I've
done it myself. So how didyou end up with Kevin Harrington? So
when I started getting into the quoteunquote course business in twenty seventeen, and
this is exactly how I started goingback to exactly everything we're talking about.
So I'm generating all these business ownleads at the time, sometimes you know,
(22:26):
a thousand a day. I thinkthe most every day of the day
was about thirteen hundred. So I'mcollecting all these leads getting into the end
of twenty seventeen and I go tomyself, it's actually July July of seventeen,
I decided to pull the trigger andI go to myself, I'm going
to sell a course, but I'mgoing to sell a course to my existing
lead flow. These are all peopleeither want to start a business or have
(22:49):
a business. And what I realizedis that the average business owner that came
to me wasn't really a business owner. They were really a startup or they
want to start a business. AndI started realizing if they don't really care
what they do, they just wantto do something. So all I did
was I created a service designed formy existing leads. I already had these
half a million leads that were sittingaround at the time or whatever amount it
(23:12):
was at the time. And whathappened was I started just I created a
course on how to start a businessbecoming a business loan broker. So and
the reason why I did that becausethat's exactly who I was selling my leads
to. So I said, youknow how you found me. You found
me because you're looking for a businessloan. This is what we do,
(23:33):
and you can make money doing thesame exact thing. So I created a
course and literally within a few monthsand made about two hundred and fifty to
three hundred thousand dollars just by sellinga thousand dollars course to all these people.
And that's how the business got offthe ground and got started. This
is now going to the end ofseventeen and then I'm like, Okay,
well this is actually starting to work. But who's Phil Smith? Nobody knows
who I am, So why don'tI try to team up with somebody that's
(23:56):
larger than me? So what doI do? I just think about Shark
Tank. I hit up everybody youknow that was ever on the show,
David John, Barbara Corkran, andKevin Harrington get back to me. I
end up paying nine thousand dollars tobe interviewed by Kevin Harrington in January twenty
eighteen. But the reason why Idid it was because I'd be in the
(24:17):
same room as him and I wantedto pitch him. Now because of me
selling my business to that investment fundJemesto back in twenty ten, I learned
how the investment world works. Butwhat I actually did was I went to
Kevin. I said, hey,Kevin, listen, I'm generating two million
a year in revenue all but Idon't want any money from you. I
(24:37):
actually want to just pay you touse your name and to work with you.
And he looked at me. Hegoes, okay, so, you
know, because these guys are soused to people asking for money, I'm
like, I want to give youmoney. So that was my pitch.
I'm like, let me just changeit up a little bit. And he
goes, you know what, Okay, let's talk. You know, here's
so and so talked to this guy, Mark Tim and then that started the
(25:00):
conversation. That was January of eighteen. We didn't close a deal until September
of eighteen, but it happened.And that's how it all, you know,
Damon John again, I talked tothem. I talked to Barbara.
It just didn't make sense for Barbarabecause she was so in real estate.
And then the Damon John think itkind of just started up and then kind
of just fizzled out, mainly becauseKevin's son, Brian, actually lives like
(25:23):
twenty minutes for me, and Ijust felt like, okay, this,
I can make this work. Youknow, he's right down a road that
makes more sense. And I becamefriends with him, like we go like
golf, we travel whatever. Soit's really it's kind of what it turned
into now over the last god goingon in five years now, and uh,
and it's it's been really cool.But and of course now we do
(25:44):
a lot of other things together,so we you know, they have other
services I make money with. Iguess service they make money with. We've
done other businesses together. We beforeCOVID, we were doing a lot of
events, like two hundred person events, kind of like pitch events to help
people raise money. So we've donea lot of cool stuff over the years.
But again having that type of stuff, like it's a pay to play
model, right, so that's whatit learns. I'm part of Damon John's
(26:07):
Rise Nation Mastermind right now. That'sfifty thousand dollars a year, but I
get to hang out with Damon forsix days a year, which sounds crazy
spent that much money, but theamount of access that you have, and
also the other people in that roomthat are also willing to pay that money,
I want to meet them. Yeah. And now because actually I was
there, what happened was Damon cameout with a book well this right,
(26:30):
and at the first event in SanDiego, he goes, hey, anybody
buys two hundred of my books.I'll come to your office, I'll have
dinner with you, one on one. We'll hang out whatever you need for
me. So what did I do? I guess what? I bought the
books, right. My friend actuallyhas a nonprofit that helps kids not get
abducted. So I donated the booksto him. And I'm going to do
dinner with Damon actually in Vegas ina few weeks, just to hang out
(26:55):
with it for two hours, youknow. So that's what you need to
do, right. You need toput yourself in the right room with the
right people. Yes, yes,that people that can get you to where
you're trying to get to or bringother people to you. Because money attracts
money. Yep. It's all aboutwho you know. It's all about networking.
Actually, Damon said it in onevideo I saw her goes networking is
(27:15):
the fastest way to grow a business. Yes, yes it is, Yes
it is. And you want tobe able to walk into a room and
people know who you are exactly.Yeah. Yeah, nobody nobody knew who
I was. Quick story on that, right. So I'm in San Diego
at a conference. Me and thisguy I was with were sitting at a
(27:37):
table in the restaurant at the Marriottin the harbor of San Diego, the
Mary Marquis, and nobody talks tous because why would they. Right,
We're there for about an hour.Kevin shows up with his son and it's
like three or four other guys.They sat at the table with us,
and all of a sudden, withina minute, there's like twenty people surrounding
us. Now everybody wants to knowmy name. You hey, what's going?
(28:02):
Like? How'd you get at thistable? I'm like, I'm at
the cool kids table now, youknow so. But that's really what it's
all about. And then through Kevinwhat, I started dropping his name everywhere.
I would go to celebrity golf outingsand you'll obviously there'll be celebrities there,
and I walk around like, hey, man, this I work with
Kevin Harrington. We're looking to maybedo something with some celebrities. You're interested,
uh, you know, of courseI'd always mentioned Shark Tank and whatever,
(28:23):
and they just be giving me theirphone number, like, you know,
call me directly, called me directly. Yeah. I literally have like
so many celebrities numbers, direct numbersjust because of dropping Kevin's name, and
it helps me open doors and obviouslyand just it's it's crazy. But of
course now it's also opened up meas as a target of someone to talk
(28:44):
to from just random people. Hey, Phil, I see your partner with
Kevin. Blah blah blah blah blah. You know. So I'm like,
all right, how do I makemoney off this? And that's actually what
happened was back in twenty nineteen,I was at an event with Kevin.
It was his you know, hewas speaking, and I watched how everybody
reacted to him, as about threehundred and fifty people there, and he
got off the stage and everybody wanteda piece. So on that drive home
(29:08):
is when I said that, I'mlike, guys, why don't you do
your own events? Yeah, it'snot something we thought about it whatever about
So I'm like, what if Idid it for you and I got all
the butts in its seats, I'mlike, listen, if you want to
do it, go ahead. Sowe did our first event in October,
like lial like three months later Octoberin Vegas at the Bellagio with our first
event together that was more like thisevent, like a pitch event to help
(29:33):
businesses, and it was started cranking. We did that one, then we
did Orlando three months later January oftwenty and then we started doing more in
New York and then all of asudden, COVID hit and that whole thing
plummeted, obviously, but we juststarted kind of getting back into the swing
of things with that, So we'llsee where it goes. I actually have
(29:55):
an event in three weeks in Vegasmyself, but I do an event about
every the month myself without Kevin.He's attached to it, but he's not
physically there. Okay, okay,wow, while phil this has been really
really amazing. You have dropped somereally really good nuggets for us, and
(30:18):
you know, and I know peopleespecially entrepreneurs who have all these leads that
arm buy from you. Now youhave another way to monetize them. Absolutely
So again, how do people connectwith fear Yep, it's got to Philip
F. Smith dot com. Easiestway you can see what we do.
(30:41):
Just fill out the form and we'llget back to you. That's it,
absolutely well. I will definitely begoing jumping over to your website and I'm
looking forward to more collaborations as well. Going forward because people need to hear
things more than one time times beforethey have their a high moment. So
(31:03):
we are definitely wanting you back onthe show and to talk more about lead
generation. So thank you so somuch, no, thank you, appreciate
it absolutely, thank you for tuningin to Just Minding My Business Radio.
I'm your host, Heyda Crawford,and I'm your co host, we pacting.
(31:26):
We hope you enjoyed the show andappreciate you stopping by. Many blessings
to you and yours
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