Capitalism.com with Ryan Daniel Moran

This is a short clip from a recent event when an attendee asked what to do with your time once you’ve achieved a certain level of success.   Ryan touches on the feeling he’s chasing, more so than a passion, it’s a goal of family, tribe and community.

Ryan sits for an interview on the Outsourcing and Scaling Show with Nathan Hirsh he shares his thoughts on “Amazon businesses” and tips on how to break from that and into a real business.   Also, did you ever wonder what Capitalism.com’s structure is like, how Ryan structures his schedule and what he’s learned about building company culture? Tune-in for a peek behind the curtain!   Key takeaways [2:35] Nathan takes a minute to introduce Ryan “Delicious Leftovers” Moran to his podcast and asks him to share a little bit about how he was as a child: try to remember how you used to have fun.   First ventures and umpiring lessons [5:16] Ryan doesn’t consider ever having had a first “serious adult” venture. It was really more of an accumulation of all of his smaller endeavours, driven by the goal of becoming a real estate investor. Both Nathan and Ryan used to umpire, they talk about the kinds of lessons they learned and skills they developed.   “An Amazon business” [8:15] The tools have changed drastically, from the time Ryan was coding dreamweaver on a dial up modem. But with more resources and ease of opportunity, there are now more players competing, so the game has become about quality — both in product and customer experience.   Most people are short sighted though and will start thinking that they run an Amazon business. No one ever says “I have a Walmart business” or an “affiliate business” but people do say I have an “Amazon business” the reality is that Amazon is a customer acquisition strategy, not a business.   People who win are the ones who do digital marketing, who focus on people.   Where to start [11:48] Ryan’s advice for people who want to start marketing starts with a mindset change: an AMazon business doesn’t exist, you need to start building your own asset. 1. Budget your profits — the cheque you get from Amazon is not your money, it’s the company’s money. 2. Invest in customer experience. 3. Build an audience — either build it yourself or create a long term partnership with an influencer. 4. Try your hand at search engine optimization, no one is doing it: you’ll have an edge.   People [15:04] Making money is about people, it’s about who you surround yourself with, and it’s about your emotional intelligence. You have to learn how to succeed through others.   Ryan shares what he hates to do that is critical to moving forward in building your business: job descriptions… What is required to move you forward? It’s always the right time to hire when you know what you’re hiring for.   The opposite never ends well, Ryan has failed that way many times and he shares a few.   Structures, meeting and company culture [22:53] Ryan shares a bit about how he structures his businesses: who’s in charge of what… He also touches on the traits he looks for in his teammates and colleagues, how he runs meetings and what kind of culture he is trying to develop at Capitalism.com.   Two things Ryan learned through personal experience: if your culture sucks, something about you sucks, and people need more guidance and feedback than he thought from the get go.   Scheduling [30:13] Ryan touches on which parts of his schedule he protects and which are more flexible, his current objectives and focuses as well as what he chooses to do weather it’s morning or evening.   Owning the Cleveland Indians [31:37] When Ryan was 12, he wanted to be the General Manager of a Baseball team but he also realised that if you are the general manager, someone has to hire you — you are not in control. The owner is in control.   Nathan and Ryan nerd out on Baseball.   Capitalism.com and CapCon [34:39] Ryan shares what the purpose of Capitalism.com is and explains how the Capitalism Conference was born, what its goal is and what’s in the cards for the future.   Thanks for listening!

Jason Franciosa — long time follower of Capitalism.Com as well as Co-Founder and CEO of Element 26 — joins the show to ask Ryan some questions on how to go from $50k a month to the $100k a month mark.   Tune in to hear Ryan’s tips on not skipping steps when planning ahead, how best to communicate with customers, better ways to build audiences and finding the magic-making team member.

Corrupt politicians? Economic hardship? Income inequality? Compared to who!? When!?   In North-America, primary needs are met and more often than not, wildly exceeded. We have lost most of our bases of comparison and so the ability to evaluate our relative situation. Ryan shares his fears around us forgetting how good we have it and what we could lose as a result.

Are you in the low 7 figures, and a bit stuck? You might’ve become an Amazon channel manager. Ryan explains how to get off the hamster wheel and build up and past 7 figures.   Key takeaways The three parts of business are pretty straightforward: 1. Sales channel, 2. Product and 3. Audience. Uniting these three aspects is the key to propelling your brand past 7 figures. Here’s how.   BUSINESS PART 1 [6:13] Sales channel — where are your sales coming from? For most of the world, the answer is not Amazon…   You are a channel manager. On a hamster wheel. [9:52] Somewhere in the low seven figures lives the hamster wheel in which you can’t grow as fast as you used to and you can’t do all of the work alone. That’s when you know you’re an Amazon channel manager. It’s humbling.   Tip: Don’t fall into the trap of then becoming a — let’s say — Shopify channel manager on top of an Amazon one…   Getting out of the wheel will suck [13:04] There was a time, when you just started your business when you sucked at it. But you got better. Now you’re good, the only thing that threatens you is if Amazon makes a change… So you protect your investment and you enter defense mode.   The only way out of defense mode is to hire better people who do specific things better than you.   Tip: After 180 days if a new hiree is not out-earning you, they may be the wrong person for the job.   Now you can focus less on working in and more on working on your company...   BUSINESS PART 2 [15:25] Products! No one got big, got rich or got famous selling the same product as everybody else. This is the unhappy place where we’re trying to outreview our competitors, over analyse our keywords and wage price wars.   Risky business [24:52] If you’re over a million, it’s time to take some risks on products: create a product people actually want, not what everyone else is white labelling from Alibaba.   More risk = more reward.   So, your sales channel is optimized and you have a unique product in the marketplace: you are ready to jump off the hamster wheel and into the big league.   BUSINESS PART 3 [26:38] Audience! Ryan’s favorite audience builder is currently search engine optimization — what’s old is new again — in fact all of his companies were built on search engine optimisation and email.   The hero’s journey [31:35] Whatever you sell, you should always remember that it’s about the people who buy your product and how it helps them in their journey: people don’t care about you or your business, they care about themselves. They are the hero. They are Luke Skywalker.   You are not the hero, neither is your business. You are Yoda, you serve the hero.   Tip: Add an email insert into your packaging, start turning sales into CUSTOMERS.   There is a huge difference between a sale and a customer, and the latter is where real value is built…   Ryan’s closing tip 1 [42:21] You are at a million or up and can’t pinpoint what your business’ purpose is — aside from more sales — you are in trouble. Figure out who you are.   Ryan’s closing tip 2 [47:09] Where is you time and focus going? Outsource all outsourceable tasks and spearhead new initiatives — stop being the operator of all things and start being the leader of all things.   Thanks for listening!

Former pitcher for the Cleveland Indians Nick Hagadone joins the podcast today — a dream comes true today for Ryan and a great learning opportunity for listeners to find out what tips Ryan had for the ex-MLB star to maximise his businesses returns.   Are you looking for some pointers on how to how to craft a launch plan? What about things you should do to get daily sales? Sit-in on this star-struck interview.

During Seller Con in Las Vegas Ryan got mobbed backstage by digital marketers with bunches of questions. Today’s episode delivers some seriously unfiltered Ryan.   Watch your ears though, there is some colorful language on top of some interesting pointers and a few blunt, blunt answers!

Get ready for today’s episode, it’s finally part 2 of black man vs. White man!   Follow Ryan “Debate” Moran and Billy Gene into a multitude of controversial rabbit holes and hear what Billy had to say that may have changed Ryan’s mind on some subjects.   Key takeaways   Trump or Obama? [5:43] Billy and Ryan set the tone for this dialogue by going over drunken items from the last black man vs. white man debate — are people more divided than during the civil war? Are things better or worse for minorities? — and open up this year’s conversation with a personal story from Billy.   Putting other things first [:] Ryan points out that his choice to support Trump, or not, would be driven by his upbringing and his choice of peers.   Billy rebutts that as a black man, it’s hard to put other things — upbringing, peers, etc. — before race since so much of his experience of the world has been dictated by it.   One racist thing [13:35] Ryan asks if there is one thing about Trump that stands out as racist.   The tagline! Billy offers that Make American Great Again refers to a time past, but which? Maybe the one when people of color were segregated against and women overlooked — what about that could you possibly like as a black man. What the f**k does great again mean?   Representation [18:26] Billy notes that perception is key, and that we understand ourselves in the context of what we see, i.e. when he watches a 1920’s film, he understands that he was the milkman. So building pride and making certain that strong black representation exist in every area of life is important to him, he’s plated his Lambo “I’m black” — even if some white people take it personal!   Ryan concedes a point!   The opposite of racism? [21:40] Ryan asserts that he avoids making assumptions based on race and gender while Billy claims — as an advertiser — to be all about assumptions.   Billy thinks forcing hard conversations may be the one positive thing to stem from the Trump movement.   Privilege [24:38] Billy offers that privilege is the innate leg up that a white man may not realise he has in comparison to a black man. He also offers up the main opposing views of both sides which tend to generate disconnect: 1. Don’t say you came from nothing because you don’t know what nothing is. 2. Don’t villainize me for being born with what I was born with. The true leg up is having people like you, in your surroundings that were successful, that’s when you believe it’s possible.   The controversial voice of privilege [29:10] Ryan agrees, but counters that privilege is less of a factor in success than ever before. Billy acquiesces but adds the following caveat: it isn’t gone and people are still not equal.   Empathy [31:33] In a “black man or white man succeeding” scenario, Ryan says he would bet on the person coming at a disadvantage. Billy immediately counters that this may be because Ryan doesn’t really truly know what disadvantage is. And that is privilege, with a little bit of lack of empathy sprinkled in.   Billy shares his personal story of privilege and luck which took root in his parent’s fight against disadvantage.   The key to moving forward with this whole debacle is empathy: for people who are privileged to be cognizant and humble about it and for the people who had none not to villainize.   Responsibility [36:40] Both Ryan and Billy agree that people who have privilege also have a responsibility to make other people’s lives better, whether or not that privilege was given to them or if they worked hard for it. And people without have a responsibility to themselves.   But people with too much privilege or too long of a history of privilege tend to get soft…   Is Billy stumped?   Soft, soft privilege [40:00] Ryan argues that socialist government policies like raising welfare, social safety nets and etc. play a role in softening the masses. Billy offers a personal caveat.   What is the role of government? [45:40] Ryan and Billy discuss the role of government: should governments force the “benevolent responsibility” of successful people? Should there be a fee for becoming successful? And once a program is successful, should it not be cancelled?   Ryan offers that Federal Government should only exist to protect our borders, freedoms, rights and constitution and State Government should decide everything else.   Abortion [48:35] Ryan is of the mind that State Governement should decide their own abortion laws — even if he thinks Alabama’s law is whack. The philosophical question that underpins the abortion debate revolves around when a fetus deserves equal protection under the law.   Billy debates whether men should even vote on it.   Marriage [54:33] Billy asks about the white entrepreneur’s recent obsession with open couples. Ryan isn’t even certain what he thinks about marriage but he does think that the recent spike in non-traditional narratives in the entrepreneurial community is driven by loneliness.   Entrepreneurship [1:00:40] Both Billy and Ryan believe that people have come to mistake entrepreneurship and freedom and it has created a fad around becoming an entrepreneur.   Instagram has created this idea that you can have the house, the car, the plane, the travel, the company and it’s a mistake.   Freedom and money are not mutually exclusive.   Looking for a rabbit hole [1:04:58] Ryan and Billy shop for another rabbit hole to tumble into, they go from universal basic income to the next election to what freedom means.   Freedom [1:07:05] Defining what freedom means to you is usually a journey that starts with setting a goal. Humans are easily bored, so finding the problem you want to spend some blood sweat and tears fixing is key and once it’s fixed, it changes!   It always changes and it’s very personal, Ryan and Billy find a very real human common ground.   Rapid fire [1:10:40] Ryan asks Billy business questions: 1. Fear of loss? Losing will make the win look different. 2. Fear of change? Embrace change with grace is a core brand value. 3. Driver for scale? Simplification.   Billy shares the peace he found with letting go of Billygeneismarketing’s reins — and the difficulties of letting the team make mistakes — having it become an asset that permits branching out into new ventures.   Ryan shares how trippy this is for him since Billy is describing the exact path he’s been on for the past 2 years.   Million dollar studio [1:17:12] The financial driver behind Billy’s business growth as well as his awesome studio and team was … *drumroll* … Ads! More specifically ads to video sales, that is the model.   Final controversy [1:19:00] Billy offers up the last piece of discussion: traditional therapy and medications. The typical person who commits suicide is the white male. Billy offers up that the “get bigger problems” might explain why minorities have have a different perspective and much lower suicide rates.   Ryan adds the “get soft and purposeless” as an aggravating factor to white male suicide rates. Two things make our lives feel fulfilled and happy: 1. Meaning 2. Community   Affluent people tend to lose both, especially if you don’t do most of what Billy and Ryan have discussed in the last hour: redefine your goals and focus on social responsibility.   Ryan goes full circle and pick the disadvantaged person again because they will be less derailed by adversity than the one who had it made.   Race again [1:28:20] Billy uses a sports metaphor to illustrate that the idea that “we’ve come so far, let’s double down” is a hard pill to swallow.   Also, if you want the women’s soccer team to get a raise, watch the damn games.   Closing out [1:31:15] Having these types of conversations helps contextualize everyone’s perspective, there is white privilege, there is black privilege.   But for people in the U.S. to have these dialogues, they need to be out of the “needs” category — you can’t worry about other people’s problems if you’re not sure how you’re going to eat.   In the meantime, Billy and Ryan share a hilariously awkward handshake.   Thanks for listening!

Marianna’s interest in blogging began in 2014 and eventually led her to start The Collective Mill a resource that helps women launch their own blog.   After her email list grew from 500 to 17 000 on it’s own, she is looking for guidance from Ryan on how to monetize her website with her course. His advice is not what she thought, listen in to what Ryan thinks her next moves really should be.

Ryan used to laugh at his roommate for doing this, but after one session, he was hooked. 7 years later into that process, he interviews a practitioner of the work in Network Chiropractic, Dr. Cliff Inkles. What is this woo-woo weirdness? Ryan, C-Money and Dr. Cliff talk through the process of Network Chiropractic.