Building a Business by Design - An In-depth Interview with James Wedmore

- What's up, everybody?

Pat here with my good friend James Wedmore

from jameswedmore.com, somebody who I'm

really excited to chat with today.

You know, this has been a long time coming.

I've always wanted you to come in the podcast,

which you should still come on the podcast if you can.

- Okay.

- But we're here on the video channel

because James is doing some amazing things.

He also has a YouTube channel

that you should follow as well.

But thanks for being here, James.

- I'm really excited, man.

Thanks for having me.

- How did you get started with what you do?

- I started 10 years ago because I was a bartender.

And now 10 years ago seems so long.

It's like lifetimes ago on the internet.

But I was a bartender and I hated bartending,

so I decided to create, I had this idea

I'm gonna create an online bartending school.

That was the beginning of everything for me.

- [Pat] Oh, no way.

- [James] Was how do I teach what I know in bartending

and put it into this, I had this whole vision

of this online school and people could learn from home.

That actually was because I felt like,

I went to an actual bartending school.

I paid 800 bucks in person, and I was like,

that was such a ripoff, it was such a waste of money.

What if I could make a more inexpensive version

that people could learn from the comfort of their home.

This was 2007.

- Yep.

- And that started it all for me.

That started a journey of like,

online business, the internet, social media,

learning how to market, how to sell, how to scale,

all of that stuff.

So that's how I got started.

- So was it a blog, or what kind of resource did you create

to get that going?

- So I created, so all I did was I

made every mistake that you could possibly make.

I spent the first three months creating

a 222-page book with all the recipe ingredients,

everything I had learned, a DVD, CD-ROM,

like, video swipe files, all of that stuff.

And I was like, okay, I got it, it's done.

Now what?

And I was like, oh, you gotta learn how to sell.

You gotta learn how to market.

You gotta learn how to put content out there,

build an email list.

So that took another whole journey,

but actually the first sale that I made was from YouTube.

So April 18th, 2008, I get an email in my inbox

saying new order was placed.

First I thought, I was broke at the time.

I was living at my parents'.

At first I thought I had bought something

and I didn't have the money, and I was like,

"No, ahh, oh gosh!"

And then I look closer because, you know,

your first sale, you don't even know,

you've never seen one before,

and I look and it's someone from like San Antonio, Texas

has just purchased, and at the bottom,

it says, how did you hear about us?

And they wrote, "A YouTube video."

- Right.

- And a few months earlier I was messing around

with YouTube, making some videos,

putting them up there, and that's how they found me.

That's how they, and the thing was 200 bucks.

Plus $20 shipping.

So like that was huge.

That was it for me.

I was like, if I can do this once, I can do this again.

What else?

And that was it.

- How many months or weeks was that

before you made your first sale?

- So November of 2007, right around Thanksgiving

was when I had the idea.

I was bartending at the time and I hated it.

It actually was like listed as like,

considered like the 10 worst jobs to have in America,

because it's so grueling.

You have this illusion that it's this glory,

like Tom Cruise cocktail days

where you're just flipping bottles,

and then you realize that half the night

is you just cleaning and dealing with drunk customers.

So I hated it, and I had a college degree,

and you know, you had all these like aspirations,

and then you're just like,

this is what I'm doing with my life?

And I wanted more.

So I was living at my parents' and I just had the idea

in November, I was like, I'm gonna get paid more

to teach others how to bartend than actually bartending.

That was November of 2007.

By April 18, 2008, the first sale.

So that was a long time.

And I was like, I went to work.

Like I was working six to 10 hours minimum day,

just creating the product, creating the content,

trying to get it out there.

- That's awesome.

Did you know I used to bartend?

- I didn't know that.

- I did used to bartend.

- No way.

- At a Macaroni Grill.

- Yes.

Okay, so I bartended at the worst place

you could bartend at, which was On the Border, which is...

- Like a chain restaurant.

- Yeah, exactly.

I think they're owned by the same company, actually.

- They might be.

I usually leave out where I bartend, because...

- Oh yeah, me too.

- Okay, so we've opened up the doors here.

- Yeah, yeah.

So On the Border, for those people

who don't know that restaurant,

it's the same company that owns Chili's

so it's like the Mexican food version of Chili's.

So basically I was a bartender, but all I was doing

was pouring premade frozen margaritas and beer.

- Yes, we had the Bellinis.

- Yeah, and they're premade, right?

It's like, oh yeah, wow, you make a mean margarita.

It's like, yeah, thank you.

That's my job.

- Okay, so bartending and then

you made your first sale in April.

I love that you remember the first sale that you made, too.

I remember mine as well.

- Yep.

- Where did you go from there?

How did you start, like, you're known now

for Business By Design.

- Yeah.

- And you help these amazing entrepreneurs now

make millions of dollars.

How did you go from bartending to now what you do?

- I think that's the biggest theme

that I've seen in my life,

is like you give someone enough time,

and just keep moving forward, like,

you're gonna have an evolution,

and for me, it was several, what I call the leapfrog effect,

is that like one thing you're doing,

like where you are right now,

is the lesson you need to learn

in order to prepare you for the next thing.

And so in doing all the bartending stuff,

I was learning about all this video stuff.

And then I started going to

marketing events and conferences,

and people, this is 2008, and they're seeing

video on the internet, and that was a big deal back then.

YouTube was only like three or four years old at the time.

So like, what, how are you doing this,

and it looks good, and it's cool.

And I had a film background, and so I just started

asking people, like, well would you like to

learn more about this?

And I actually remember seeing at an event,

a woman is sitting next tome,

and I'll never forget this.

She was actually sitting on this side.

And she was trying so hard, bless her heart,

just to upload a video to YouTube.

And I said, "Can I help?"

And I just like br-dr-dr-dr-dr and I was like,

"Oh, let's add this, I'm going to change this."

And she was just like, blown away, just amazed,

and I just had the foresight to ask.

I said, "Was that valuable?

"Did that help you?"

She's like, "Are you kidding?

"That was incredible."

I said, "Is that something you would have paid for?"

Without a doubt.

And then a few months, maybe a month or two later,

I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, Lewis Howes,

and he's like, "Dude, we should do something together.

"We should create something."

And I was like, "Great, let's do something around YouTube."

And we launched that, we launched Video Traffic Academy

in August, September of 2011.

- That's right, I remember that product.

- It did over $400,000 in sales in 30 days

at a $97 price point.

It's gone on to do millions of dollars since then.

And it all started with this conversation.

I mean, it started with all kinds of things,

but having an experience of someone who's got value,

and like, "Oh, that was amazing, thank you."

And so many times we take for granted what we know

and our own value, and when I experience

someone going, "This is incredible."

I was like, oh, well maybe other people

will think it's incredible.

And that led the whole thing.

And then that launched a career

of being the video marketing guy in the industry.

And then there was another iteration, another evolution.

So I'm fast-forwarding through a lot of time,

but the biggest thing for me was that

I would have students and customers

and we would want to serve them,

we'd want to help them, we'd want to teach them,

and the transformation, the end result,

was like, I made a video.

And for me, I wanted so much more for them

than just to say, "I have a finished video."

I want to impact them on a deeper level.

So that's when we started the latest iteration,

which is my podcast, Mind Your Business,

and our training, Business By Design.

And so that is just like about solving

bigger problems for them.

Like how to actually grow a business

and do it the right way.

- I love it.

So mind your business podcast.

We'll leave links to that and James's channel

and everything else in the show notes.

But I really wanted to talk to you

for the rest of this conversation about

higher level masterminds.

So you've been helping a lot of people.

- Yeah.

- And you've been doing it through courses and trainings,

but recently, I don't know if you even know this,

but I keep hearing your name from

many of your mastermind students.

- I just pay them to say...

- Okay, well then that's the trick.

But no, they are getting so much value

out of the higher level coaching programs that you do,

and I'd love to know how these are structured,

how do you make their experience so great,

even though they're paying you now

tens of thousands of dollars?

- A lot of money, yeah.

- It's not cheap to work with James in that capacity.

But every person that I've spoken to

that's been a part of James's group

has said it's been worth many times over what they've paid.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So I hope that feels good.

Because I know why you do business is to...

- It does.

In fact, that's the first thing that I did

was started a mastermind, after all the video stuff,

because I was like, I want to help more.

And so I started with 12 people.

And those 12 people today,

one person had barely hit 100,000 that year.

18 months later, they've got a seven-figure business.

I mean like people's 10X their business

in two years or less in there.

And I'd love to give myself credit,

but the more humble, the more I like push away the better,

is it just continues to get better.

And let me explain that.

So it really for me started with the,

this concept and idea I heard a long time ago

that 90% of our success is environment.

In fact, there was a study done in the late 70s

that's always fascinated me,

and I forget the woman's name,

I think it was like Susanne Langer,

you can Google this, but the short version of this

is that she took senior citizens,

people in their 70s and 80s,

people that were really frail, they had to use a walker,

and she put them in a compound.

That's not the right word to use,

but she created an environment for them

that modeled and mimicked the time,

the era in which they were at their peak in their lives.

The music of like the 50s.

You know, they worse the clothes

that they wore in their 20s, the furniture, everything.

And she observed their behavior

and the transformations that they had

in a seven day period, or seven to 10 day period,

and they looked, they felt, the moved 20 years younger.

- Wow.

- They measured, their brain activity was like,

their IQ tests were higher,

like everything had changed,

and she attributed it to their environment.

When people start to say,

I feel old, I look old, I'm out of date,

like their body, their world reflects that.

And so I started with a simple premise of,

what if we could create an environment

that would allow for nothing but for people to thrive

and be the best, biggest version of themselves

at all times for 12 months, for 365 days?

And that's what it is.

I mean, it is.

It's not me, I don't have some secret answer,

I don't have like, there's a missing ingredient

that no one's telling you.

Where I come from is if we create that environment,

the reason you're not where you want to be

is because you're playing small in some area.

And the reason we're playing small

is because there's either a doubt,

a fear, or a belief, or a story that we're telling ourselves

about why it's not the right timing,

why I can't do it, what will happen if I do,

what will happen if I don't,

all of this stuff that distorts the way

that we see the world, the way we see ourselves,

and one of the big things I say

is that how you see business

and how you see your business will determine

what is actually possible for you.

So if you're afraid of failure,

if you're afraid of rejection,

if you don't like selling,

if you don't want a refund, all that type of stuff

that we say and worry about and resist against

actually determines and affects

how we show up day in and day out.

And so when we start to remove that

and give someone this opportunity to just like

play full out, awesome, incredible stuff happens.

So that's like the general overview,

and that's really big picture, and real conceptual.

- Right, right.

- We can ground that a bit more.

But that's the premise, that's the idea.

And so that last quote that we always start with

is this idea of, what got you here won't get you there.

That where you are right now in this moment,

whether it's results in business,

it's your current circumstances,

it's who you were being, the actions you took,

how you experienced like your lens and view of the world,

got you to this point in time.

And the reason people stay stuck

is because they're using the same strategies

that got them here to try and get somewhere else.

So they just apply more or faster or longer or harder.

And I look at the transformation that I've had,

and we look at the bartending days.

What I didn't tell you in that story

is that I got addicted to Adderall,

and I don't know if you're familiar with Adderall.

- I don't know that.

- It's a legal form of speed, basically.

And I would pop 20 to 40 milligrams in the morning,

7:00, 8:00 a.m., have maybe like a

six-inch Subway sandwich for lunch,

and work until 2:00 a.m., and I'm not

working a fraction of that hard today,

yet making exponentially more revenue.

I wasn't making any money at the time.

And so something had to change.

And the same strategy I was doing then

is not what I'm doing today.

But that's not how most people approach

that next level in their life or that business.

They're just trying to apply more effort.

If I jam the peg into the square hole,

or the square peg into the round hole even harder

and go faster and go longer,

maybe then I'll finally make it, I'll reach that next level.

And I just tell people that's backwards.

That's not working.

- So it sounds like what you're doing

in these coaching programs is

not necessarily giving people

tips and strategies or content.

In a sentence, what is it really that you're giving them?

- (laughs) Nothing.

Nothing.

- So why are people paying you?

- Yeah, yeah.

It's the opposite of, it's for most people

that go through those higher level programs,

so they're already, the first thing to understand

is to even be in that room,

they're already at a certain level of success.

And so what it is is to get them from that first level,

you know, new level, new devil,

for everybody it's different.

Starting a business has its own challenges.

Scaling that business has its own challenges.

Getting your life back while you scale

has its own challenges.

But the common theme there is

it's not about giving, it's not about

here's what you're not doing

that we need to add on.

It's the exact opposite.

It's about letting go.

So the analogy that I use is

if we're in a car, and you're gonna use your car

as a vehicle to go from point A to point B,

what we've been trained is that if

well, if I put the pedal down faster,

I'll get there quicker.

If we use more of that RPM, the engine will move faster,

we'll go up the hill quicker, we'll get there,

we'll get the results that we want.

And so what I'm doing is not encouraging people to faster,

or spend more effort or energy or gas,

but to actually realize that while we're moving

we still have our foot on the brake.

And we have our foot on the brake in a lot of ways.

Like the fear, the doubt, the worry,

the trying to play it safe,

the trying to avoid risks and all of that.

And we're all doing that.

We're all doing that in certain ways.

And so when we can start to let up the brake,

stop getting in our own way,

stop self-sabotage, then moving where you want to go,

you can get there just a heck of a lot faster.

- Yeah.

- It's still really intangible and conceptual,

but I mean that's the easiest way I can describe it.

- When you started this coaching program,

I'm imagining some people out there

have thought about, are contemplating creating

higher level mastermind programs

where you only need to serve a small number of people,

but really give them a lot.

And as already you can tell,

it's not about giving them more information,

but perhaps asking the right questions.

- Right.

- Or being there for support or holding them accountable

and those kinds of things.

I can imagine a lot of people considering that,

but then going, you know,

I can't charge that much money,

and who am I to even do that?

How do you help people break through,

like did you, when you first did it,

did you ever question, like, what am I doing here?

Like, am I worth that much money,

or can I even charge that amount?

- Well, I came from, I've been a part of masterminds

ever since I started.

Well, actually after that first year,

after making that first sale, I joined a mastermind.

So I've seen the value firsthand.

I've seen how powerfully transformative it can be.

Because if you're working one-on-one with someone,

what happens is you as the coach or the teacher

has a certain way in which you think is the right way,

and the student has a certain way

that thinks it's the right way.

And oftentimes it becomes a you versus them scenario.

And it's like, look, if I say no, no, do this Pat,

this is gonna be better, this is,

I suggest, I recommend this.

And in the back of your mind, you're like,

no, I don't agree.

Then you're just gonna keep doing it

the way you've been doing it.

But in this mastermind format,

it becomes you against like 20 other people.

And if those 20 other people all want the best for you,

and they all want you to do this,

but you don't want to, like good luck

fighting 20 people, you know?

- Right, right.

- And so there is just this power

of this collectiveness, where it isn't me.

Like there is very little coaching from me.

It's me creating an environment

and putting the right people in the room,

and getting the heck out of the way.

And so I never had resistance to pricing.

We raised the price.

It was $20,000 when I started,

and now it's up to $35,000 for a year.

Because the way I look at it is

if you're in a room with multiple

six and seven figure earners,

and you're in that room with those people for a year,

what do you think that's gonna do,

not just in the next 12 months,

but for the rest of your business career?

And I know that that's valuable,

because I myself pay considerable,

I paid $37,000 a year for a mastermind.

And it's amazing what it's done

to push me to another level.

Because there's all these essential things

that go into it from like the accountability.

That's huge.

But just like, wanting to come to that next mastermind

or that next retreat and show everyone,

like, here's what I did, here's what I accomplished,

here's how I can help you.

And everyone's just supporting each other.

And it's pretty awesome.

So it's great.

- How many times do you meet every year?

- So we do four times a year.

- Okay.

- We do four, and it's about two and a half days.

Everyone flies in, we do like an evening session.

It's two full, intense days.

We do things like, one of my favorite things is Hot Seats.

So you know, it's one person sitting

literally in a hot seat, asking their question.

And then you have everyone else in the room

that's giving their perspective,

their opinions, their ideas.

And then I'm, it's rarely me.

I'm just sitting there making sure that it's guided.

So like here's a great example,

is if we have someone on the hot seat,

and they have a question,

and you're a member of the mastermind,

it's actually far more value to you

if I don't answer the question,

and I let you say, oh, you know what,

this worked for me, or here's an idea,

or blah blah blah, because now there's an experience

of another member giving value,

and you going wow, I just helped this person

go make a ton more money,

and then you know, like that value exchange happens

between you guys.

It's not the James show.

And they know that.

So I'm like, especially as the year goes on,

I pull back further and further.

If there's something, I'm like, wait, hold on, hold on.

So I'll give you two examples.

I'll give you a positive example

and I'll give you a bad example.

I encourage people to do things like dream way bigger.

Like even how far, how big we're dreaming now

and the goals that we have is limited to

what we think is possible.

- Right.

- And so we tend to play small even in that arena.

So I remember the first year there was something

where I asked people to share just like

what would the finished version

of your dream business look like?

How much revenue would it generate?

Stuff like that.

And people were sharing big numbers, and it was awesome.

And one person got up there and said something

to the effect of like, "Well, I don't want to

"be unrealistic, I want something that's not

"pie in the sky type numbers."

- Right, achievable.

- And I had to like shut that down,

because like, that's not what we're doing here.

We're dreaming bigger, because if you would have

talked to the kid popping Adderall 10 years ago

and say, "Hey, by the way, one day you're gonna have

"a multi, seven figure, multimillion dollar business."

I'd be like, "No, that's not possible."

So I'm always encouraging people to do that.

And then if I see someone who's trying to

resist that or go against that,

that's where I have to step in.

But here's an example of how powerful

even just a hot seat conversation can be.

So we had an individual, and she had created a product

and she had launched it, and it had done really well.

And she gets on her hot seat to ask the question,

she goes, "What should I do next?

"What should I launch next?"

And half the room started answering that question.

Like, oh, what's the other products you have,

what else, have you surveyed them?

Like all the things that you would think

would be really good advice and suggestions.

And I stopped for a moment, and I said, "Hold on.

"Let's go back to this other product."

And she shared a lot of the numbers,

like I teach my students how to actually

look at your numbers, interpret the data,

because actually most people do not know

how to interpret their numbers properly

and so they make the wrong meaning and interpretation

based on what's happened.

Something that actually did really well,

they're like, "This tanked, this sucked."

- Yeah, yeah.

- So I was like, "Your numbers look amazing.

"You've got a home run offer right here.

"Why go and create something else?

"Relaunch this one."

And she did, and she took it to,

it was like a $150,000 launch or something.

She took it to seven figures in

the next six or seven months.

Now it's a multi-seven figure, just that one product.

And she could have, she almost went off

and just focused her time and energy

on another product and another product

and another product and spread herself too thin.

And that's one thing I notice too,

is that people reinforce the wrong types

of actions and behaviors, and credit the wrong actions

for their success.

So she thought that her success

had come from creating a product,

so she goes great, I'll just create another product.

And then I'll create another one,

and I'll create another one.

And I said, no, that's not coming from

creating the product.

It's coming from having a great offer

that your audience actually wants.

So we gotta get that offer in front of more people,

and just repeat that.

And I'm a big fan of less is more,

so that's a great example of

a lot of people are just trying to

do all the things, fill their to do lists

and show everyone how busy they are,

and here's somebody that took one product

to a million dollars in seven months.

And that's, I'm a big fan of less is more.

- Well, thank you for giving us insight

on some of your students

and kind of what has helped them the most.

I think really what the theme

of these mastermind type things are

is that, you know, you might have heard this quote before

from Jim Rohn, that's,

"You're the average of the five people

"you spend most of your time with."

- Yep.

- So you are creating an environment, like you said,

where like-minded people can come together

to learn from each other and up their average, essentially.

- Yes, absolutely.

- And that's the value you're providing.

- And a lot of people now at this point,

if you're not already asking,

are saying, well, how do you find a mastermind?

And the first thing I say is

I think the mastermind has to find you.

There are two types of masterminds,

and the first is one that is like a paid mastermind

that someone's facilitating.

And the other one is a peer-based,

and this is, it's like a catch-22,

because it's something that I think everyone

if you're watching this video,

just the fact that you're watching it

means that you already know that you need one

or you know that it's important.

It's been important in my life.

And the tricky thing is what makes a mastermind great,

first and foremost, is the quality of people in the room.

And so if you're just starting out, if you're new,

I mean, hey, if you can get in a room

with people that are like at a much higher level,

that's amazing, but we never want to be

the smartest person in the room.

If you are, you're in the wrong room.

But what I've seen happen as a trap for people

is they're like, hey, we're all just starting out,

let's join a mastermind.

And that can be tricky, because then they kind of

stay stuck at that level together.

Because it's like, we're all supporting each other

but we all don't know what we're doing (laughs)

and it's great to have that support system,

but then when we give each other type of advice,

it just kind of keeps us where we are.

So it can be really tricky, but keep your eyes open.

If you start connecting with people,

someone in a Facebook group or someone at a live event,

and just like, hey, can we follow up,

can we maybe start something?

And look, you might outgrow it in a month,

you might be with a group of people.

Because I know you've done peer-based as well

where you just stay connected with people.

- Right, and those are great

if you connect with the right people.

- Yes.

- And you do push each other.

I will say I've also paid for high level masterminds,

and I'm a part of some as well.

There is something to be said

for having skin in the game and having put down some money.

- Yes, totally.

- Like, you will do the work because you're paying for it.

- Yes, absolutely.

You take it seriously.

So I have one that I'm paying,

and like I said, it's a lot of money,

and then I have a peer-based,

and it's only three of us,

and like we take it extremely seriously.

There's no messing around there.

Because it is, it's vital.

I think it's essential.

- Cool, James, hey, thank you so much

for coming on and sharing a little bit of

kind of what's going on in there and in your business,

I appreciate that.

- (laughs) Yeah.

- Always fascinated with your work,

and not just the video quality that

he always comes out with.

You gotta check out his YouTube channel.

He's got some amazing things there,

and also at jameswedmore.com,

you can get involved with other things

there at his website, but just thank you for coming on.

- Of course.

- I appreciate it, man.

Happy to introduce you to my audience.

- My pleasure, yeah.

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