Episode #157 – Ryan Stewman On No More Excuses! Take An Elevator To The Penthouse By Demonstrating Your Skills

David Allan: Hey, everybody, I’m David Allan We’re back with another edition of the podcast and today I have a very special guest someone I’ve had on my previous podcast Takeover Tuesday. He’s one of my favorite entrepreneurs and he’s the “Hardcore Closer”, Ryan Stewman How are you?

Ryan Stewman: I am awesome. I am. I’m glad to be back. I didn’t realize that this was a different podcast than the one that we were on together before – YouTube deal though right. Like it was maybe on YouTube you’re promoting it.

David Allan: That’s right. That’s right. So previously it was myself and Carlos Redlich who were doing it and we had you on….

Ryan Stewman: I’m sorry to interrupt. No it’s really crazy. I did not realize that that was where I met Carlos. I actually just hired Carlos a couple of weeks ago. So that’s that’s hilarious. I had no idea that this was where he came from. I remember that obviously because we spoke like he I guess he didn’t really talk that much.

Well that’s, Carlos – listen get to workspn, so I can get my copy.

David Allan: Now you’ve been busy in a year that’s intervened. You continue to build your empire. You have a new book out. I have not read this latest book. It’s called “Fuck Your Excuses”. And I just wanted to touch on I was reading sort of a couple of the reviews. Since I haven’t read the actual book and this review sort of jumped out at me and it said…” this book reminds me of a quote that kept me going while I was pledging my frat an undergrad. Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness. And those who shall use them shall not amount to anything”… which is a great review for your book.

Ryan Stewman: No great. I had better be as and let me see just the difference between the difference between a college education to me and I’m like fuck your excuses for thinking less energy. Like others it’s like straight out of the movies or something.

David Allan: So we talk a bit about your latest I know you’re fresh off a GKIC event that you just told me off the air and you have this new book that just came out last month. Maybe talk about what that’s about.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah well so the book it’s I haven’t even promoted it that hard yet that’s how busy I’ve been. That said I had like more stuff going out than I can keep up with sometimes.

And that’s a good thing because I finished things a lot of entrepreneurs I think they don’t finish things they get three quarters of the way through and they get like a 100 things going and they can never really launch one of them and I’m kind of the opposite. You don’t get 100 things and then I’ve got to figure out where the hell I’m going to launch all of that again. So I like the book and one of them that just kind of can honestly and I did a it all started the the way the book came about was I did a program two years ago and it was it was called the killer mentality right. It was just this whole mindset training and you know just how to make it through the bullshit doesn’t have anything to do with sales which is usually my forte it really doesn’t have anything to do with business either

has to do with relationships and and sometimes cutting ties and just the things that most people would give up on IN THE BOOKS. Pretty heavy shit managed to be the longest book that I’ve ever written and in the course it was. I mean if there was hundreds of people that took the course that the book is based on and those people still in most of them had bought multiple programs for me they still swear it’s the best course I’ve ever done. But we don’t even sell it to the public it was like a one time I wanted to record this stuff and not turn it into a book type of thing. It was kind of let them listen in as we basically wrote the book you know what I mean. Yeah.

And and so anyway it’s it’s something different.

So like if you think you’re going through a bad life right now and you know your audience being copywriter shell might read this book and go holy Trashmen this guy needs serious help but hey dude it’s just it’s like the pope from the heart you know. And the thing is that you know I’ve gone through a lot of experiences a lot of downsides in my life a lot of rough times. And I have every really every use of the book about why I should fold over just right now in the last 24 hours. I’m you know I found that I’ve been audited by the Texas Workforce Commission which is just part of doing business right. Right. Got a little I got tax in the city to where I got a record a few extra things on a on a permit that I got a lot of my flip houses. I got some legal issues that I’m trying to take care of with

the with some stuff and it’s like one thing after another that’s going on you know what if I hadn’t gone through all the stuff that up gone through in the past the things that I’m facing today would cause me to fold. And so that book is like you know basically like it says Fuck your excuses have pretty much overcome anything and especially upper limits because you know those of us that come from the bottom. Every time we get to the top it’s uncomfortable for us and we really feel like we belong at the bottom. This is way too late. First through that stay up there.

That’s a great point. I think you know this is often brought up in these kind of situations certainly to be smaller more money more problems kind of thing. And is that one of the things you’ve seen from working with other entrepreneurs it holds them back. They start to fold under the pressure of the success of their.

Yeah it’s like I say like I’m from the south maybe got rednecks down here right. We’re going to get a hold of the 64 Camaro. He’ll put a Harley carbonyl put some Crigger wheels on it.

So exhausted put a 454 drop an aftermarket transition transmission a hearse shifter a different steering wheel in there air switch out the A C for like and just do all these things put race in seats and everything else. Gets to a point where they’ve tinkered with this car so much that it’s so fast that when they step on the gas it twists the back of the chassis off the damn car is useless anyway and a bunch of. They tend to do that with their business instead of getting it to a point where it’s fast as hell it’s sort of an 11 second quarter miles that’s all you ever need and just let it keep your staying. They keep thinking well how can we get it to do eight. Well if you you know what I mean is that person to that that next level.

But they pushed to a point they tinker with it to where it breaks it. And then what happens is that’s oftentimes when entrepreneurs get excited because they’re like oh I’ve got something to start messing with again. You know what I mean in the next scene of the rednecks out there with the damned flame thrower and a blow torch trying to weld the chassis back on a car at 3:00 in the morning all of his buddies looking at the back of the garage kind of talk about who’s going to look out for the cops the next hour.

What the whole damn biker gangs taking over your neighborhood you got from NASCAR in your front yard. She put it up to this early guys.

So you’re advocating once you get to a certain level what seems to be what you do looking on from afar is that you seem to drive up a certain income stream up to a certain level kind of put it on autopilot and you great another one.

Yes. Well what I damn sure don’t do is is what I do is I’d double down on what we already have going once I get something up and going instead of tweaking it I’ll just scale it. All right.

So like hey if we know we’re going to convert it to 70 percent instead of me tweaking it and being like what if we get 9 percent and then the damn thing break in. I can’t even get back to 7 percent. That’s where we’re at. No we just put more ad money and we double down on the business and so you know last year I thought well you know this year the raise taxes were four times the amount of income that I earned from the previous year. Why is 400 percent increase. And so because of that I’ve been able to double down in my business I’ve been able to scale it without breaking it. You know we’ve had to make. We’ve had to make some moves we had to break some of it in November because we were on a single product deals like we write a product we launch it. We

sell the product. We make money from it. The next month we’ve got Sarno and so now we’re we’re focused more on the residual side of things because we create so much content it just makes more sense for everybody anyway. So we had to we had to switch over but now we’re to a point where we got a few hundred people on our membership site at you know 300 bucks a month which is which is nice and then we’ve got a good size of personal coaching thing and then now we’re slowly bringing back one off products. But just like basically lead magnets like or lead magnets versus income streams right.

Yeah I remember reading your first book when we did the last interview the I don’t know if the second book was even out yet the first one that I read was kick ass take names e-mails and phone numbers and I believe you give that book away now free on your on your Web site.

But that book I tell you for people listening this is should go get a book immediately and opt in for science because that book alone is actually is extremely powerful because it sort of lays out exactly how you started just talking other people you know on social media.

Yeah. You know it was actually my very first vote me and kick ass. We still sell a bunch of liver it with a name like that how can you resist.

Exactly. Got that.

That’s a copywriter That’s probably my favorite just because it’s got that panache name to it. Now for people out here who I mean we primarily have for you know business owners and a bunch of freelance copywriters. And one of the things a consummate counter of course are closing deals with people.

And of course that has a lot of mind set angles to it as well as what we’re talking about right now. So maybe talk a bit about that.

But when it comes to closing deals because sales is like your forte the sort of way we get it we get in our own way when we’re trying to close these deals.

Well you know I was just if the day can be copywriting or super conference which is full of a bunch copywriters and I think one of the things that you know.

Well let me ask you this first.

What are you saying that more pertaining to copywriting as selling the product or copywriting as selling your services as a company selling your services as a copywriter was what I was referring to. Got it. Well so you know one of the things that I’ll tell you how I came about hiring Carlos I mean that would make sense right.

Yeah. That whole process. One of the main things that this saw that he did the the some of the copy for Chris record when he did the tech Dimmick stuff and I know that that went off really well and Chris is obviously a more likable character than I am. So a lot friendlier and everything else so that that plays into it. But I noticed that he did that and I would read his Facebook posts on a regular is I can tell that when he would when he would pitches product I could tell that he had some sort of a seamless of a writing skill behind him. And the thing that that over the years I’ve hired a lot of

copywriters and from guys like Ben Central has written a letter for me and then now Carlos which I haven’t seen his wife yet. So we’re we’ve been going over last couple of weeks a few things but I’ve hired some real big guys to do copywriting. And it’s always been based on their actual the way that they post on Facebook or I’ve been settles case the way that he sent me e-mails. That was the reason why I hired them because they practice what they preach. You know there’s when you can get your haircut you ever go get your hair cut. The person that cuts your hair their hair looks like shit and it’s kind of uncomfortable right. But if you especially like the ladies like when they see another chick and her

hair is like really good and her hair looks exactly like how they would want their hair they’re like hey you know what. That’s who I’m going to hit up to be my hairdresser. And I think as a copywriter oftentimes you’re that person with shitty hair that’s cutting hair and even though you might be the best hair color in the world you’re not really cutting your own hair. Just kind of let it be all dirty and everything else and so people just assume that’s what’s your work’s going to be like too. Well that’s not true. And you know I think that you know copywriters really do need to have their their email auto responder set up like their Facebook post you know things that they can do that not necessarily like a sales pace but so that we can see their style and everything because that plays a big role in it too. I believe it’s like Jurf is

Carlos. That’s it is you going to be able to match my voice. But I mean like some of these people they write copy they there’s no way they can match my voice. They just don’t talk like me or they’re not Alfas so it takes different voices. And so that’s important is when people see the things that you’re writing and not just your portfolio sales pages but your posts and your emails and everything else because usually that’s what comes along with it. Right you write a sales page and a few emails and some other snaps usually like a package deal. Like I said also my best my best thing would be like hey demonstrate the results of events showing people how bad ass you are just it right. Period.

Right. So that’s good. And now I know and personally because I’m friends with Carlos that is one of his strategies and he’s actually today this morning.

His episode of this email marketing podcast meant live. So if people are listening to this which will be several weeks ago when this goes live they go back to Carlos’s episode where he talks about exactly what Ryan sort of fell into which reading is reading his posts.

Ain’t that some shit. That’s hilarious. Mansi and like we haven’t discussed this I mean Carlos and I are obviously we get along we’re friends and stuff but we haven’t discussed any of that.

So I had nucleus on here and I had no clue that if he was doing that intentionally but it worked. There you have it ladies.

Yeah. So we go back and was not episode and steal some secrets now when it comes to the face to face to face discussion I go through this a lot. And I’m a bit of a I sort of went to the john Carlton school a little bit when it comes to negotiation. I guess I’m a little bit of a big guy. I just kind of I know what I want.

I know what I’m worth I sort of just go for it. I know you’re like that too Ryan from reading your books and talking here.

So maybe the people out there who aren’t as confident because they’re new you know they there are many great ad copy about they’re just not good at selling themselves to people either face to face over Skype or wherever it ends up being.

What are some of the ways that people should be you know looking to close deals like when if they had never sold face to face you know which I would highly recommend someone being a copywriter of course. But you know what are some of the skills and tactics perhaps I people love those for how they get these deals closed.

Well the key we have now and maybe a preacher or your mother or your sister or some money that’s been a mentor in your life. Totally got two ears and one mouth and a and they might ask to talk less. But if you’re going to talk less than a silly word that means you have to get somebody else to talk fill of that dead air because we hate that air it makes us uncomfortable.

It’s like blank spaces on a page it makes you know a writer and culture. And so the key is to ask questions and so you know one of the most powerful questions is what made you decide to reach out. And most copywriters are like hey what’s your budget and everything else. Like we can get to that later. First we’ve got to extract what they want from this copy. Are they using it to attract customers to convert leads. Are they using it to make sales or are they using it to build bonding and trust are they going to put it attached to it. SL What is the. Who is the person they’re going to do it for. Like we have to answer all the ask all these questions so that when the time comes right in the copywriter asked for the business the person is like hey you know what. They understand

this. And you know what. I agree that they’re charging the right amount of money because this person actually gets it even if it’s more than usual. You know I’ve been subtle rushed rewriter cheaper than that guy out there. And the fact was he understood exactly what was coming from was able to capture my voice and asked me despite my patience a million questions. When I first saw to him so and I think that’s key and you know I’ve got a friend Dexter Abrahams is his name on Facebook. And you know same thing with him. We’ve gone through copyright stuff.

His whole thing it’s like it’s four hours of interview that you have to go through with somebody that’s very important because I can attest this is like a mountain of questions I like to ask people to. Because you really got to get into the heart of why people would want whatever it is you’re selling. And perhaps for people with established businesses of a very important thing is like who’s already who are already your customers. Who are these people. I know you have you have big leagues membership sites and so forth and you have a ton of products now that you’ve developed over the years.

When you first got into doing the products did you do your own copywriting or did you go out and find somebody who’d been the only person that I’ve hired for a sales letter ever until Carlos now. Right. I got on the same product.

By the way it just needed to be a little little updated because it was a few years ago I don’t think you can hire pinned any. I don’t think you can hire me when I hire them.

I just did an event with them or something I think right.

Yeah I did. I had to do that and exchange that was part of it.

But so I have hired a few guys over the years to write e-mail follow ups sequences and stuff but for the most part all this time I’ve written it myself and all the content you see all the blog posts everything else that’s all. You know it’s races came up that’s all me.

But recently as I’ve learned but I’ve always been a control freak and I felt like I wanted to master the ship before I passed it on. And and so now fill in my and I don’t mean mastery is like I’m a master copywriter but I like I get it.

Done well with it. I’ve made millions of dollars with this. I could pass on a on without my ego getting in the way. I hope.

Now I think I think I think I heard Dan Kennedy say this one time that actually his best customers for his copywriting services were Pete were copywriters were people who were capable of writing it but just either you know chose to delegate for the reasons you’re outlining here or because they thought Dan could do it maybe even just a little bit better but faster perhaps. You know for reasons he’s trusted not to reach like hey this guy can write as good as I can he’s hired you know.

That’s right. So that’s a that’s a very important thing to sort of have in the front of mind.

Now when you see people selling cars and just in general not necessarily cop when you face to face selling I know you were in the mortgage industry previously and so forth and people you run a massive Facebook group of sales professionals. What are some things you see with people making mistakes just what their sales approach.

You know there’s a couple of things there’s the people that you know there’s always like the buy my shit guy.

And by that I mean there’s always like that one dude like send you a link or is like since you’re an example I remember that there was a dude that forever would come in hit me up and he would be like hey I was on your sales page and you know I know that if you did this you probably increase your conversions like do like my ego’s in the way that shit like you went to my sales over here telling me my shit ain’t right man that’s unacceptable right there could have been totally I think a lot of copywriters do that and this dude could have been way better than me. But there’s a way about approaching it. You know because a lot of especially us were content creators whether you’re a copywriter or someone like me that’s really more of a blogger than anything else in a video

person man that’s like shit that’s our art. That’s like telling Jay-Z that his song sucks. You know what it means to you when I say hey dude if we can did a remix this song would be live like that would be a better way of positioning that. You know what I mean. And so a lot of copywriters let that get in the way. The other thing is giving too much. Now I can’t remember the fellow’s name Lawton Chiles Right right. And in the copyright business writ stream the nice guy. And when I first got in this business line offered to help me do a lot of the Hey man I really like your stuff. And I wasn’t used to that yet so I blew him off because he was offered way too much free stuff and like this guy’s going

to want my first born kid boy.

And I ended up and I still don’t know the guy that well but I end up like you know like disconnected from on Facebook and stuff at the time.

This was years ago but I’d still remember this because I thought man this dude cutes rewrite my pages and given that to me I can’t use them because he’s going to want something he’s going to hit me like that’s 10 percent of your gross for the commercial. I did not realize he was you know now that I think about he’s probably just a really nice guy but at the time he was overly nice. He’s like do this is to sick people don’t do this shit kind of shit. You know what I mean. So the kind of walk that fine line it that’s why I think that the Mets and I was talking about you say Carlos does is really good because you’re just demonstrating in front of everybody you’re not giving away your copy you’re not rewriting people’s stuff. You’re not judging their stuff. You’re just proving that you’re on your game

about your own business.

Yeah I think that’s one of the most powerful ways because then also and you’re good at this as well because of your content.

You do the same thing your content goes out you have a podcast you blog constantly You’ve got Facebook posts and so forth and that draws people to you. They know just what like what happened with you and Carlos. You read his posts essays on his game and then you contact them instead of having to go out and prospect and or you know lots of people are so afraid of having to go out and they’re afraid of the positioning angles. That puts him in for having to knock on doors or you know virtual doors even. And so just creating that content and to demonstrate it is such a powerful thing because it’s just people towards you.

You write in my business somebody can read a blog post and they can make a decision like hey man this guy knows the stuff I want to see what else he’s up to or you know whatever.

It’s all right. I already knew this right. That’s like the decision that they’re going to make and I’m demonstrating what I’m talking about upfront. It’s not like they show up and I’m like I think this dude might be able to help me make funnels and sales and stuff like that but I’m not sure they know that when they show up in my stuff up front they know I got skills.

Now when you first started you created your first product whatever that was I’m sure you told me in a second but it’s this is another thing that Carlos when he you know his episode he talks about this how he’s built a GQ no business model Facebook group you know by working in that business that has helped him with his clients to for the copywriting because people see him demonstrating because he’s running his own business. That’s another powerful way to go about it. Now for you when you first you know were to get a transition from actually doing sales to the online world product creator and so forth what was that like.

Well you know like most Internet marketers to go on that journey and figure out what the hell I wanted to do and I didn’t have a lot of money so it’s easier for me to buy a digital program or a book and read it and do the stuff myself than it was to you know hire somebody else.

I didn’t have that money when I got started. Right the excess money to hire somebody like Carlos or Ben so that that came up later on down the road for me.

So you know but I do believe that you know practicing the stuff in your own business is huge.

Like he said he has a side business you can that he needs built up and you know in my business I have side business. I have an alarm business. And I have several other businesses on side as well that I operate like hopefully being in real estate business and stuff like that that people can see that I get to flex my skills skills and every day so that you know again there’s they see that we run the same thing across our sales training programs as we do our loan program and everything else real estate at all. It all works concurrently. I think that makes things Schroen too because there’s a lot of people out there that just say that if your mindset coach or personal development coach this I’m not about to talk to you or

there’s like a lot of good money coaches out there you know like you know so many like business consultants marketing consultants that they take they have no credentials and they just like they’re out there telling people to do all this and haven’t done it themselves and I think that the people that stand out the most are the people that do things and that’s why I have five books and eight hundred blog posts and all this other stuff is free even if I had never done nothing in my entire life at this point with five books and eight hundred blog posts I’ve done something I completed a bunch of stuff right.

Well right. You know you’ve given you’ve given a lot of content just on his very short podcast you’re awesome as usually are funny and very informative and very inspiring.

There are a lot of people I know that inspire if people want to connect with you and avail themselves of your books and your courses and so forth.

What’s the best way that people can connect to things sign up at hardcore Kloser dot com. That’s my blog man. I blog three to five times a week on there we put our podcast we put out notes like everything on that list.

That’s the place to go and like you said you get a copy of kick ass take names and email address and phone number you get that book in in PTF form. If but just for signing up there on the blog if you if you’re into reading right if you look at books you want to read about sales you can go to elevator to the top dot com and you can get my my book that’s a free shipping offer it’s a seven if I have to buy the book mail it send it out the little gift in a package you can just sign up their elevator to the top dot com will actually send you out a paperback copy of my book on sales. When I talked about where I arranged all the blog posts and everything else. But definitely not looking for sales book definitely get signed up in hardcore Kloser dot com because that’s my main

list. That’s where I send all the emails out all the latest stuff. And we did a lot of cool stuff and giveaways like that so people love it.

So he called me critique and shit damn a good speech writer.

That’s great. That’s great. I want to really thank you for coming on and making time for our audience. Ryan you always deliver.

Yeah I’m I’m glad to be back. So I appreciate that you know there’s only a few podcasts that are host or whatever and it’s a different format but there’s only a few that I’ve done the second time I really enjoyed the last I’m so glad this worked out again.

Awesome brother you take care. And for everybody listening of course we’ll be back with another episode of the pod cast next week with somebody hopefully half as hilarious. And for most of us Ryan