The Freedom Formula Podcast: Achieving Financial, Location and Time Freedom

On this episode, Neel sits down with Weh'yee Barkon of Internally, a firm that helps connect organizations with talented people in Africa. Neel and Weh'yee discuss: - the lack of opportunities available to well-educated, multi-lingual workers in Africa - the consumer education necessary to overcome the bad "brand image" of the continent - the absolute bargains to be had for workers (a full-time 40-hour/week worker can cost $500-$1000 USD a month!) Even though he was born and raised in the US, Weh'yee's parents were from Liberia and he feels called back to Africa to make a difference. He's currently based in Dakar, Senegal.

In this episode Neel and Johnny share three books that they enjoyed reading in 2022. — They both show love for Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers, which they've mentioned multiple times on the pod this year. — Johnny mentions his tendency to reread books, one of which is Scaling Up. — Neel mentioned Prisoners of Geography, a book that's helped him see the world a bit differently on his travels. You'll also hear both Neel and Johnny reflect on Russell Brunson's Trilogy of books and the funnel-hacking that his way of thinking inspires. Enjoy the episode

Neel recently moved a lot of stuff into Notion. One of those things was an ongoing list he keeps of business ideas. In this episode he shares a few of them and why he thinks they might be good bets, including: — Drone window cleaning — Full service mancave setup — Snowbird homewatch services — Hoarder/crime scene/meth house cleanup (seriously!) Believe it or not, there's even a real estate play in those hoarder/meth home examples.

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss in detail what it's been like for Johnny to scale Home Services Academy. They chat about: — The importance of marketing and sales being in sync, particularly in the early days of the business. — How appointment setters can help drive a greater show rate for prospecting calls (Johnny also shares his pay rate). — How Johnny and his team learned by doing when it came to qualifying leads. Johnny also shares how his dramatic growth over peers who have been in the industry much longer than he has is a good reminder of not getting complacent and being willing to learn by doing when getting started (instead of getting paralysis analysis). Enjoy the episode!

Some years ago Neel met Itamar Marani, a former Israeli Special Forces soldier, who in the course of conversations shared risk analysis and mitigation tactics he had been taught.  This includes looking at the magnitude, immediacy, and probability of an event happening, as well as mitigating tactics that can be used to deal with that event, like: — distance — barriers — deterrence — countermeasures Neel walks through these using a hypothetical "man has a knife and wants to hurt you" scenario and then goes on to share a real-life case study, which was how he and MaidThis reacted to the threat of new legislation in Los Angeles which threatened Airbnbs, which at that time represented 80% of that market's business for the company. You'll see how the template for defending yourself from dangers in real life applies equally as well to dangers in business.

It's a bit of a switch up this week, as I get interviewed by Chase Warrington of the About Abroad pod. For those who get my newsletter or listen to the pod regularly, this episode will be a great summary of the last few months and what I do at MaidThis Franchise, but also serves as a great conversation between Chase and me, covering: — Some of the most important lessons travel can give you. — Sustainable remote work and creating community (something Chase works on every day). — When the "nomadic life" may start and end. Enjoy the episode!

In this episode Neel shares his experience of hiring and working with dozens of remote team members since 2013. He shares: — Which platforms you can use to find remote talent (Upwork, Dynamite Jobs, We Work Remotely) — What countries he's had great experiences with (South Africa, Honduras) — Which countries have talent "on sale" because of inflation (Venezuela, Argentina) — Why all great hires start with solid job descriptions (learn more here) Enjoy the episode!

In this episode Neel and Johnny answer the question: "Should everyone go into entrepreneurship?" (Short answer: No.) Entrepreneurship has been so glamorized lately that it's made to seem that everyone can and should be an entrepreneur. Neel and Johnny offer some thoughts on why that's a bad idea: People with low risk tolerance won't do well — every day involves some kind of risk in entrepreneurship. People who have a 9-5 for a very long time (though a franchise might be a good fit in that case) Those who can't deal with constant setbacks will struggle — some weeks and months it feels like everything is going wrong. Both Neel and Johnny advocate for everyone having a side hustle as a de-risking strategy, however, and even give a few quick side hustle ideas to get the ideas flowing. Enjoy the episode!

In this episode Neel sits down with Jon Matzner to talk about his journey to small business ownership and eventually a type of franchising Jon calls "affiliating." Jon bought a garage upgrade business and grew it really quickly but when he looked at the franchising landscape he didn't like what he saw and didn't want to create a scenario where franchisees had to come to him with "may I" requests all the time. So, instead he created lots of resources and allowed others to leverage his knowledge to create their own versions of his business. He just sold the business the week before sitting down with Neel. They also discuss some of the exciting projects up ahead with one of Jon's partners, Codie Sanchez, and Jon's passion for offshoring and the lives that get changed by working with offshore teams. Enjoy the episode!

In the experimental episode (literally recorded on the road), Neil discusses the differences between being a business builder and a business investor. Neel has long tried to do both, but has recently realized that means he's only doing half as well in each field. He thinks it makes more sense for him to pick one and make the other more passive. Since it's rare to find someone who can excel in both building and investing, it makes more sense for people to pick, and either is good, but it probably makes sense to lean into what you enjoy.