Bootstrapping with Randy Davis

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Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart here, and today we've got a fantastic guest. Super lucky to have grabbed some time with Randy Davis. He's the author of the Bootstrap Billionaire. Randy, how you doing?

Randy Davis: I'm doing great, thank you. Thanks, Stuart.

Stuart: Fantastic. So this was a, like I said, a great opportunity. We've been emailing a little bit offline, and then Randy's been talking closely with Betsy. I was going through the process. So we've just got to the end of getting Randy's book created. I thought this was a great opportunity because Randy's very established in what he does. Got some great ideas for how to use the book, had a good experience going through the process, so I really wanted to jump on a call and share with everyone what that journey looked like, what brought you to writing in the first place. And then, as I mentioned before, we'll run through the ideas we've got for using it. But let's start with. Do you want to give everyone listening a background on yourself and kind of quick overview of the Randy Davis story?

Randy Davis: Sure. You know, I started out to be. Well, I guess I turned out to be an entrepreneur that's kind of a serial entrepreneur. That was never my intent. I started a company back during my college days, and the first business went bankrupt because of confusing abdication with. Instead of delegation. And then I built another business. And, you know, it's like, yeah, I look back on it and I could tell you that it wasn't my fault, but the reality was it was it was my fault. And so as a result that bankruptcy, I found myself without a place to live, went through a divorce. You know, just. It's all the pressures that come in with it. And so then I just lived. Lived in a small car for quite some time until I could get back on my feet again, build another company and. And then build another company. And with where we're at today, I have built and sold 18 different businesses. I'm now starting number 19. And usually what happens is I build a really great company that somebody wants to buy, I don't want to sell it, and then they. They keep after me. The price, yeah, the price kind of increases. It's like, okay, well, I'd be foolish not to sell because everyone's gonna be well taken care of, you know, the constituents and the clients and the staff. And so that's. That's what I've done. And then I sold my last business, and that was probably the most successful exit that I had. So as it should be since, you know, you learn from each one and you build from it and decided, what, what do I want to do next? And in the meantime, I found myself helping a lot of other entrepreneurs build businesses. I'd find they could scale to a certain level and then they couldn't really get past that level. And it wasn't just about the ceiling of complexity. It was, they didn't have a business set up that could scale. They didn't have the business set up to where they could exit with the highest valuations. And so I started seeing a need there. And that's what really brought me to writing this book. So I tried to figure out, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? Because I had a pretty great life up to this point. What can I do to make contribution to society? And I thought, come up to different ideas. I want, I want to work on transforming the nursing home industry. I want to transform the financial services industry. I want to do this. But I would, I would get excited for two weeks and then it would kind of wane. And what I found, I found there was a void there. And that void was I was not helping and interacting with other business owners that wanted to build something and had a great ambitions and, and on those little side hustles I had in the past where I helped business owners, I really, really love doing that. So then I thought, well, wouldn't it be neat if I could start over again, knowing what I know now? What if I could take the assets I've acquired and have them sequestered where I cannot have access to them? What if I would take relationships that I built and not reach out to those relationships? What if I started over without using any assets, without using any form of relationships with. The only thing I had was the knowledge and experience I acquired. Could I do that and go from zero to build a company to over a billion dollars in less than seven years, working 30 hours a week, taking 12 weeks vacation and having a great life in the process? And I thought. And so I started thinking about that and I started getting more excited, became more sustainable, worked out, you know, preliminary strategies to do it, and that's what I decided to do. So I have something that's called the bootstrap billionaire project. And that's just, that's testing Randy to see if he could get from A to Z under the guidelines that I just mentioned. Then in the meantime, I started working with ambitious business owners. And I thought the bootstrap billionaire could be a metaphor for business Owners that are maybe doing seven figure and they want to go to eight or nine or some are wanting to go to 10 and they want to do something that makes a difference in other people's lives and they want to have freedom in their own life and never worry about money again and be able to kind of have that dream life. And so that's where the book comes in. The Bootstrap Billionaire how to build an eight figure or nine figure business you can sell for 100 million or more. Because I found a lot of people selling businesses, but they ended up with the short end of the stick after the business was sold, you know, and, and I want to try to correct that now.

Stuart: We were talking just before we started recording about the benefits of hindsight, particularly around writing the book. But the business approach that you've had, the experience, that question of what would you do if you lost everything today apart from the knowledge and experience you've got. And I think so often is the case where you arrive at a situation where you might be either needing to sell or have an office so you're in a position to sell. But without starting with that in mind, if it's something you haven't necessarily spent much time thinking about, I can imagine it's far, far too easy with all of the complexities of that process of ending up with the short end of the stick. So the, the kind of, the knowledge, the framework, the, the questions that are in the book, the pointers that are given to people is really helpful to guide someone in the right direction in a direction that they haven't necessarily thought about before. Was that the, you mentioned the businesses that had sold and then more recently working with other entrepreneurs, business owners that are in a similar situation. Was that intentional? Do you go and look for those guys or did they just come to you because of your experience and unknown within the, within the industry?

Randy Davis: Yeah, initially I wanted to test, you know, I, you know, I'm from the school of thought of like, try to come up with the idea and make it the best you can and then get it out in the marketplace kind of minimum viable product, not to sacrifice quality, but just to find out if there's truly a desire that people want it. And yet the other part, if I was going to be working with them individually, when I'm saying individually, in a really small, intimate group, it needed to have the kind of price point that would allow for that because I was going to take the proceeds from that money to as seed capital to build this enterprise that's going to be over a billion dollars. So, so other words, the investment to be part of it was going to be significant. So I had to have individuals that had the, the desire, the ambition, the resourcefulness, you know, to be in alignment to where they could get a high ROI out of that, you know, right away, kind of that easy win for them. And so with that in mind, I was looking for individuals that had been in business for at least three years that they had a seven figure business or higher and their goal was to build a nine figure business and they really, really wanted to do that. And so then what would happen is we would have an hour conversation on the phone to see if it was a good mutual fit, if it was a good mutual fit, then they would enroll in a three day workshop that was really an intense workshop and that was giving them a test drive of what they could expect from the program. And then if we both agreed, then the next step was they entered the high end program. And I call that the elite 30 mentor program because it's not a mastermind, it's a true mentorship program with elements of mastermind. And there's also some personal one on one interaction that I do with them as well. So yeah, they, you know, they, they, they, it wasn't someone just starting a company without any experience in the company of building a business. You know, we want someone that, you know, it's kind of bruised their knees and you know, had, had, you know, a lot of them, you know, growth requires cash. So a lot of the, the businesses were really, you know, they're all successful. I mean the thing I hear from the people in the group is that they are totally impressed with the quality of people in the program. And for e, for every one person that we invited into the program, we being very polite and kind, we, we did not accept 8. That was kind of the ratio. So you know, we, we would turn away eight when we accepted one. And, and then what I, what I do for the, the 8 is I have some other ways to help them just so I feel like I'm not being some jerk or something, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, turning people away and not giving them any place else to go.

Randy Davis: Yeah, I didn't, I didn't like to do that but I, but I had to do it because we have a small group, you know, the people you hang out with, it's going to elevate the group plus then the knowledge. And we needed people that were fast implementers that would take action, that they didn't sit around waiting on osmosis.

Stuart: You know, and you say a lot of the time it seems like turning people away. We talk about this when we talk about kind of single target markets and in the book context, knowing which group of people that you're, you're targeting. And it's not that there's anything wrong with the other groups, it's just they're not an ideal fit for this particular process or this particular book in that case. So having somewhere else for them to go, or knowing that you might get to that group of people later, being better with an offer that's better suited to them or knowing that they'll be in a better place either from, as you say, there's an investment requirement, there's a time requirement and experience requirement. So knowing that it's not best suited them. I think just jumping back to books, the subject to people that are listening in, it's not a case of excluding other people. It's a case of targeting or refining the offer for the group that it's best suited for.

Randy Davis: Yes, that's correct. Because they're great people. And actually what I ended up doing, because it was so distasteful to me to have to tell someone that they couldn't do it, I repositioned that. What we'll do is we will find which path is best serving for you. Because it's the number one thing for me is value creation for them. You know, I want them to have a tremendous multiple. Right. So, so I flipped it from them feeling rejected to let's, I'm offering two programs. Let's find which one's the best fit for you that's going to make the biggest difference in your life. And by that then I could, you know, if someone's, you know, they're doing a six figure, seven figure, eight figure business, but they're not really ready for that Elite 30 group. Then we have the three day workshops that we facilitate for them so they don't feel like they're being rejected. They feel like they're getting the best path that's most fitting for them.

Stuart: We do the same over this side. On the coaching side of the business, we've got the three day events that Dean runs, which are a great introduction and kind of that nice middle layer above. Just listening to some of the podcasts that we've got out there, which are obviously no cost, or we've got some introductory programs like email Mastery or Breakthrough Blueprint. The three day event is then that great for a group, a small group of people who have a certain amount to invest and Come with a certain ideas, but then above and beyond that there's the one on one stuff that we do which is more commitment, both financial and time based. And that really works best for people who have either been around the group for a long time anyway. So there's a commonality of language or who have been through the three day event. So there's that baseline because if we bring people straight in at the higher level then you can spend, I mean not waste so much of their time, but take so much of their time which effectively they're paying for. Just trying to get to that baseline, that commonality of language which I think for us is quite a big difference. We see it on the book side of the business as well. We talk quite a lot about the single target market and then educate and motivate people towards making the decision. And that step by step it does actually work better if, if people have got an understanding of the breakthrough DNA, the eight profit activators, because there's that commonality of language. Again, not saying that it doesn't work for people who don't come in through that route, but there's definitely, you get to the kind of the 202 level a lot quicker than, than stepping through, stay by stage. By stage.

Randy Davis: Yes, yes, that's a great, great approach.

Stuart: The book then is addressing that group of people who've got the interest in the title of the Bootstrap Billionaire draws attention, raises, gets people to raise their hand. Was it a particular group of people that you were looking at attracting with the book? Was it people who knew you already were in that world already or people who didn't get to know you and this was their first introduction?

Randy Davis: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. Because I, because of the nature of launching myself on this project called Bootstrap Billionaire, I could not go, I could not work with people that I knew already. I had to start with brand new fresh relationships that did not know me. And I wasn't quite certain which group of people I wanted to target. You know, I do see the value in targeting and so since I wasn't really clear on targeting what I did, I went out and I picked up some, some speaking engagements with, with different masterminds and then I looked to see which ones I got the most traction from in terms of interest. So, so the way that would work this, I would give a presentation to some masterminds and then I would offer the three day, I would, you know, talk about the Elite 30 program and the reason I was going after Individuals that want to build a figure, nine figure, ten figure businesses. There's a lot of companies out there serving people of going from 600,000 to you know, seven figures or six figures, seven figures. And then some people kind of broach into the low ends of eight. But there's, there's this group out there that, that they're at a point where they could go higher but they don't know how. And I found that was kind of my, my sweet spot of really adding value in the marketplace. So I started, I positioned myself to speak with masterminds and then out of those masterminds find the individuals, you know, I mean any of them that raise their hand, they were interested in building a nine figure business. And, and then I had them come through the workshop. So the other thing that I did on that was that. With the individual, what I found was if I look at the, at the, the makeup of my group right now, about 50% of it, well, actually closer to 70% of it is individuals that's doing some form of E commerce. Then the other percentage is individuals that are doing some service based business. It might be like retired Navy SEAL that retired from the seals and now they're starting a fitness company. It might be someone that was. And if we look at sectors, I would say that probably 80% of the people in mine are they have some type of a health or fitness business. And then the other percentage they're dealing with, they're dealing with kind of survival preparedness and then consulting, you know, like in doing a digital agency or something. I have a few people doing digital agencies. So that, that's kind of what I have with this group here. And it just seemed, and because it's growing primarily from referrals, you know, for that, for that reason it's seems like I'm getting more and more E commerce individuals into the program.

Stuart: And that is that you touched on towards the end there. A lot of it was referral based business. So there's a kind of industry grouping from those referrals. I guess prior to that. Was that, do you think that it just resonates with that group of people or was that a kind of a factor of how you reached out? Because I'm conscious that as you were saying for the Bootstrap Billionaire project, the aim of that was to create the business not using existing resources, but just existing knowledge. So it's not like you had a big footprint in that area. These are people who you're who didn't previously know you. So the, the, the Gateway into that group. Is it kind of more of a coincidence and it's organically developed in that, that way or can you attribute it to something else particular?

Randy Davis: No, no, I, I would say that you're accurate on that because again, it was, it was something where I wasn't certain what group of business owners would have interest in this, this project as far as like to market to that group. And so what my different groups and see, you know who would resonate with, I mean I have doctors in there, chiropractors. And so that's, that's the part that's falling over, under, under the health space. But the reason it grew was just because of introductions. I mean I started out with just a small, small core and 100% of the businesses that has come in and grown has been purely from introductions. And it's unsolicited. I mean I'll have them call me up and say, hey can I, I have this guy I think would really be good. Can I set you guys up and you have conversations, see if they're fit for the program. Now what I'm planning on doing, the bootstrap billionaire project though is we have to have a larger number of individuals than what I have. This piece that I'm working on is providing the cash flow to do the seed capital to grow without raising outside capital. The billionaire project. And what we're going to do is create a program where we'll have 350,000 Main street type mom and pop businesses that comes through our program that does not have aspirations to build a nine or ten figure company. They have aspirations of building seven and eight figure companies. But what we're bringing to bear is something that I haven't found anyone out there. And I've been told by our existing mentees that what we're offering, there's no one out there showing them how to manage for profit and showing them how to manage for cash flow to deal with growth and how to hire their employees. And, and so for that reason we'll be able to help a broader spectrum. And our goal is to have 350,000 coaching clients within five years. And that, that's part of where this book's going to be coming in now.

Stuart: Yeah. And identifying the difference, narrowing down, starting from a place of this potentially could help anyone within the certain constraints that you knew about going into it. But dialing that in over time to say just as we were talking about before with excluding or not excluding people, it's not that as these groups, these natural groups start to form inside it there's just commonality of language and commonality of experience, and people can more easily see themselves in the examples provided by others. So again, it's not that any people are being excluded. It's just that as you're trying to reach out to people, and this is where the book does a great job, backed up by the examples and the support and material. But as you're reaching out to people, there's just opportunities to then group people together in like categories so that the things that you put in front of them are more likely to resonate than less likely to resonate. It's not either share something with them or not share something with them. It's just putting in front of them the thing that is most likely to encourage people to take the next step or educate them on a particular point because they're seeing more commonality in the thing that they're looking at.

Randy Davis: Absolutely, yeah. It's like if I would have a workshop to teach people how to speak Spanish versus the workshop to teach them how to speak Mandarin, you know, to co. Mingle, that you're doing a disservice to both. But in both cases the language is valuable. Right. So that's kind of. That's what we're looking at.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. That's such a great example because it's so clearly obvious that someone wouldn't think of commingling languages. But in so many other cases, I think Susan and Betsy, as they're talking to the guys that come on board to begin with, there's quite a lot of. In certain circumstances, there's some resistance because they do see it scarcity. They want to include as many people as possible. But that's a great way of putting it if you're. It's not that you're excluding people, it's just that for this particular job of the job of work, of this particular thing, we're trying to go for the most. The thing that's going to get the most bang for the buck, the thing that's going to attract the most people, the most relevant people and just really get that dialed in. So, yeah, breaking this mental model, mental model of exclusion or separating people away into positioning it as the most effective thing that can be done at the moment and then other things can be done afterwards.

Randy Davis: Yes.

Stuart: So let's talk about how you're thinking about using it. So as I mentioned at the start, we've just finished the book now, getting it out there to people, we're saying it's written for the group of people who are interested in that eight to nine figure business. It's not aiming at or it's clear on the group of people that it is aiming for. But in terms of how that's getting out there, do you have any ideas going into the project of how you intend to get in front of people? So you mentioned speaking engagement. So is this going to be a physical thing at more events or the referrals, the word of mouth referrals that you get into? Is this more of a referral strategy approach?

Randy Davis: Yeah. What we're hoping to use the book for will be as a lead generation tool to attract people to webinars. And the other thing I, in addition to some other traditional marketing channels, I'm still a firm believer because of the other businesses that I've built in the past of having kind of a boots on the ground sales team. And so what we're using the book for, for that group will be when they go into different businesses and you know, offer to give that book free to the business owner and have a way to kind of open the door to get in and start a conversation. And then from there we'll target a certain geographic area. And initially I'm doing this, but I have some other individuals that I'm hiring that will from the National Speakers association that likes to, you know, they want to speak as a profession. And so I've hired them to where we'll go into certain geographic areas. So we might target say Tennessee, a certain area around Nashville. And then we'll have our boots on the ground team going in with the book, the hardcover book, to build interest to attract people to a free evening seminar. And then from that seminar we will offer the multi day weekend workshop, that

Stuart: orchestrated approach that builds on a small low commitment start through to the next step. And the next step. And the next step is such a fantastic way of thinking about it. I was talking on one of the shows a couple of weeks ago about this idea of thinking about the, that minimum again. I mean it's, it's a riff off someone else's, but I was calling it internally the minimum viable commitment. This small step to take them to the next stage. Not kind of jumping too far in advance. It's not, you're not trying to sell the, the high end program. The, the, the small group program specifically from the book is the introduction to the next step. So having that orchestra of getting people to raise their hand, getting a copy of the book, lead them onto material that they can download. So on the, the next steps in the book lead through to the checklists that you've got. All of these things that help people improve their knowledge, evidence for themselves that they're in the right place, reassure them of what the next simple step is and lead them in that direction is such a better approach than just trying to. A lot of times I think people think of writing a book as an answer to too many questions. It's the thing that they're creating that will solve ultimate problems, rather than it being a great step in the process to move people towards that decision to actively do some work with you. One of the early podcasts that we did was with Lisa Sasevich a couple of years ago now and they were doing the the same thing, using the book as the. As the cookie as the introductory piece. And then the follow up sequence that Lisa had was to lead people to their speak to sell webinar and then the webinar led to the event. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes as well. So that's a great, great comparator to what you're doing in that. In that respect. I think the physical book where you talk about the physical sales team, so much of what you hear about in the engagement that people have is online and digital and email. The physical element of it is often overlooked. But any scenario that you've got where you're physically able to get in front of people, I think having that as a cost effective way to enhance the relationship a little bit more. I can remember how this is. I'm dating myself now. This is going back maybe 15, 20 years, maybe. A friend I was working with, her dissertation at university, was on text messaging as gift giving. So it was the psychological gift giving element of texting someone. So this is back in the day before text messages were too overwhelming and email was too overwhelming. But the psychological component of giving someone something and I think the book is the same thing. I mean, a lot of the information that's included in everything that we write is available elsewhere, but there's still something physically compelling about handing something to someone that differentiates from the crowd and sets that relationship up in a slightly different way.

Randy Davis: I totally agree, totally agree.

Stuart: The guys that you were talking about, who are the sales teams that are going to be out there connecting with the people. The lead path you've got from those guys through to the organization is that more of a one on one relationship that people are going to be building with a small group of individuals. So the example that you gave of the initial group that's in there, that was that seemed to be a very personal connection and a close relationship you had with them. The guys that are out there at the kind of sales teams level. Is that similar working with a small group of people or are they going to be engaged to work with a larger group and they're looking to bring people into this 350,000 member tier?

Randy Davis: Yeah, what we would do is on the, when we go in for like the first free two and a half hour evening event or weekend event that's free from the book, that will. These smaller groups that we will then drive into a hub if they, if they get involved in the three, three day workshop. And then the three day workshop will have approximately 100 people in that particular event. You know, we don't really want to move to the 300 attendees because at that point, you know, we, it is a workshop to where they, you know, we'll have facilitators there to help and work with them. But to get, get the price point down lower, you know, we have to be working with that. So you know, it might be something where, you know, in, in Nashville you might have 50 people show up for that evening or weekend event, the free win or there might be 25 people. And we found that we have a higher closing ratio if we keep the numbers at about 30 or less. Yeah, so, so that, so it's going to be kind of a hybrid approach

Stuart: and develop as it goes along. I guess as well the starting hypothesis of how it will work will kind of shake out in the real world. I think the point that you were making there and again jumping back to books, this is what we try and encourage people to as much as possible is the practical nature of everything you're doing. So I think you're careful not to just call it a mentor type program. It's more of the workshop and the hands on leading people through with specific action steps rather than the, rather than just the motivational side of talking about it with like minded people. Similarly with books and your book, particularly the call to Actions towards the end have the checklists in there and there's a lot of practical examples being in a situation where you can, if they had nothing else, the thing that they've got in front of them at the moment, whether it's the book or guide or report or they're at the event, if they had nothing else, they get value from that individual thing. I think that's a much more successful way of thinking about things. So jumping back to the books, a much more successful way of thinking about a book if someone had nothing else apart from that book, that asset, there was absolute value from it rather than the other approach which we see sometimes of people not wanting to give too much away, they want to keep something back and, and almost have it as an extended, like a super long form sales letter where people are talking about the potential and what things could happen, but not actually given any nuts and bolts techniques or, or tactics, a way of people to kind of progress at that stage. I think that's what I really like about the approach that you've got. It's, the overall picture is supported because it's, it's moving people in the direction that we want to move them. But each individual step of the process is valuable in its own right. I don't know if you've had that feedback or you've, you've, if that was intentional but, but that really comes through in, in what we've got.

Randy Davis: Yeah, Yep, sounds great. Yeah, you know, it's worked out and you know, and we, we've tested this enough with, you know, like I did the risk reversal on the, on the workshop and I would tell people initially, you know, just, just make a deposit and then show up to the workshop and if it doesn't, you know, deliver on the promises that's been made you in turn that are actionable, you know, value creation promises, then let us know and we will refund twice the tuition to join plus reimburse you all your travel. But what we're doing is we're giving them double your money back kind of thing. And we haven't had anyone take us up on that. So in matter of fact we have, we have a high, high ratio. People sign up for the program as a result.

Stuart: Right. And that confidence that we talk about in the eight profit activators, the, that breakthrough DNA structure that as you're converting people or making the offer to convert people into customers. So going from the before unit to the drawing unit of making that mafia style offer of making it as easy as possible for people to get started removing those resistance points, it's, it definitely oils the wheels through the process and helps people make that decision without feeling too much, too much concern outside of what they're actually are they going to get value from the thing?

Randy Davis: Right.

Stuart: I always say to people as we start this, we'll kind of, we'll go for half an hour unconscious of people's time and the generosity of coming on the call here to share the story. And then 35 minutes in, I look up and the clock kind of wound on A lot. One thing I wanted to touch on before we wrapped up was we've talked about why you're writing the book and the groups of people that it's engaging with. Hopefully as you're listening to this, you've got some ideas and bridging across into your own subject. As far as the process went, were there any particular pain points or points that were more straightforward? I know a lot of people listening haven't pull the plug and, and jumped on board yet in part because they're, they've got some concerns, but is there anything you can do? I always just want to be able to shake people and say, listen, just do it. But yeah,

Randy Davis: well, I think that's a good approach. Shake him and tell them to do it. Because the funny thing is I've had some of the better known authors out there in the business world probably for 15, 20 years. They kept saying, randy, you need to write a book. You need to get this out of your head and on the paper. And it just. I said, I will someday. You know, it wasn't part of my plan. And so I would say one thing that was, you know, I did something where I kind of like, it was unintentional at the time, but looking back, hindsight 20 20, you know that old adage about burning a ship where you can't retreat? I kind of put myself in that position accidentally and all of a sudden, like, wow, I have to get this book done by this date. And I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do that right now with everything else. And so I had a gentleman that I have a mentor call with every other week. And he had worked with your company. He said, randy, you ought to take a look at 90 minute book. He said, I think they could solve your problem. Because he knew I was like, totally stressed, like, how am I going to do this? But I over. I was already over committed, you know, and so I contacted your company and I mean, I had just the most crazy deadline that anyone, to the point that I even felt guilty contacting your company with the deadline looming. And so I spoke to Betsy and it's like she says, yeah, it is tight. Yes, it would be better if. But you know what? We're gonna make this happen. And I go, well, I don't want to cause problems yet. We're gonna make this happen. And. And it's been that way all the way through. I mean, your team, you have such a great system set up and process that this thing runs through. And every person I Work with. It was like they had a can do attitude. They had had an attitude of wanting to do the absolute best they wanted better than. And so the only, only cog or problem with the process was me. And, and what was great is you have such a great team that they could take my incompetencies, they could take my ridiculous timeframes that I set out, that I backed myself into that corner and they made it all happen. And you know, hopefully not everybody's like me, so. Because that would not be fair to your team to have to deal with a lot of people like me. But, you know, the bottom line is I got myself into a mess, your team got me out of the mess. And they did it in the most first class way that you could imagine. I mean, above and beyond. And so I, you know, the reality is I like said I've been resisting for 15 to 20 years now. You know, it's kind of like when you remodel a home or build a new home or whatever, you can look at it and say, well, if I had to over again, I tweak this or tweak that. That's all my own stuff. That, man, I just, I just love it. Because what I do know is I would not have the book done and I would have some companies mad at me for not having that book done if it wasn't for your team, you know, so, so it was great. So if anybody's sitting on the fence and procrastinating like I did, because now what's happening is I thought, wow, now that I know that process and how you guys are doing it, I could hire you to build another book and it could be, you know, something where I actually have a better timeline to pull it off instead of, you know, doing the crazy stuff that I did. And I'm already seeing ways to leverage that. It's just like, yeah, you probably have a lot more books inside of you that you want to get out there for different markets and targets and stuff. But the bottom line is they can, they cannot go wrong by working with your team. And I'm not saying that because we're on this call, because if I didn't, I just wouldn't be saying it. And it's just like my life is awesome right now and it's because your team really helped me create a product that I could be proud of.

Stuart: Well, like we were saying just before as we, as we started the call, just before we started recording, it's, it's a reflection of, of, of you particularly and, and the people that come through the process that we're able to move so quickly because people are responsive and it can do attitude on that side as well, really, really helps it move through. I think the key thing that if I could shake people and get it in there is that the first one's always the biggest step, the biggest unknown and things seem like more of a challenge than they turn out to be. But getting that first one done and dusted, not that everyone needs to write 10, but exactly. You said the majority of people then have for the books that spring to mind. And knowing that we can make the process straightforward and help people get what's in the head down onto the page just really means that there's more knowledge and information out there. And if we can share people's stories and experience and the expertise that they've had, which means that customers and potential customers reading it are going to get a better experience because they've got knowledge and understanding that they wouldn't have otherwise. Just as quick and easy as we can make the process to get that information out there. I think it's a win, win for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I think

Randy Davis: when you made a comment about, you know, to most people it looks more daunting and that than it, than it has to be when you, when you're looking at your first book. And I know that I felt that, but I think something that has to be said there is that it could be that overwhelming and that daunting if they try to do it alone. Because to accomplish what I was able to do with the book, the book and getting it done, if, if it was left to my own device, it probably would be a two year project and it would have been a sloppier product at the end. And so it's really a painless, you know, it truly is painless for the very first one because this is my first one of doing it with your team. Your team makes it painless, they make it seamless, they make it effortless. I mean, yes, you have to apply yourself, you have to be responsive, you have to do some thinking. But they really take all the really hard stuff that you have to do and you know, and they have a process and a system to do it for you. You know, each, each person I worked with on your team, you know, there's several that keep working and they're just, they're incredible. Each one is a master in their own area.

Stuart: I think we're just passing 500 or so books now. So I was talking to Glenn. He's One of our designers the other day and he was saying that he was talking about someone else's books out there that he'd seen and was talking about their expertise. I was saying, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. How many have you done personally? And he's been around for the longest, so the number was over 200 something, I think. Who else out there has done 200 book covers out of the whole population of designers? Don't undersell yourself. You're one of the leading book cover designers out there because of this wealth of expertise that just you've got. So it's funny that even the team don't necessarily take that step back sometimes to think about just how much work they've done. And I think we're four years in now. Yeah, almost five years in. God. But yeah, it's, it's easy to forget. And, and then now we're falling into the trap sometimes of forgetting exactly the same as we say to other authors, don't forget how much the basic information, how much stuff seems run of the mill to you, but to people out there, potential customers who are desperate in this information gathering phase, how much those basic things are still very valuable to them because they haven't been through that experience yet. So we, we're conscious of not falling into the same trap. And the stuff that we do day in, day out seems straightforward, but it's, it's daunting and not a unique ability and a pain in the neck for some other people. So. And the more we can facilitate that, the, the better. Yeah.

Randy Davis: So if they hire your, hire your team, it's going to be easy for the first book and then the second one, if they choose to do it, it's just going to be no brainer.

Stuart: Yeah, hopefully easier and easier and quicker and quicker. We should, we've got, we're just finishing another one at the moment and, and I think I've maybe got a call scheduled in a couple of weeks, but they're on book five or six now and the last one, the most recent one has, I mean you, it barely touched the sides on the process. It really flew through because everyone was. This isn't the first time for either the author or for the team working with them particularly. So yeah, definitely. Some of them you really see Fly through. Fantastic. Okay. I'm super conscious of your time. I really could talk a lot more about this, but conscious of letting you go before I do. Where's a good place for people as they're listening to hear more about the Bootstrap Billionaire project. And you Is there anyone that people, anywhere that people can listening to tripping over my words. It must be time to go. Is there anywhere that as people are listening they can go to find out more about what you guys are doing?

Randy Davis: Sure. And you know, I need to preface it by saying I've spent my entire life up to this point flying under the radar, trying to be private. So I'm just now stepping out into the digital. I mean I intentionally did not have a website by design because I just, I wanted to be private. So the best way for them to reach out right now. And I'm saying it because it's still working for me progress the website, but it's just randydavis IO so www.randydavis.IO I'll have free resources on there, but just I'm going to be building off of that. I'll have the podcast of information I'm sharing. I kind of share the behind the scenes trials and tribulations of the Bootstrap Billionaire project that I'm working on. And the main thing is we wanted to just help people that come there. So that'd be a great place for them to start out. Just www.randydavis.IO.

Stuart: fantastic. Well, I'll be sure to put a note of that, a link in that, in the show notes as well. So as always, head over to 90minutebooks.com podcast and Randy's episode will be the latest one there. And let me audibly shake you if I can't visibly physically shake you and just say get started. So head over to the site and follow the get started links and we can get your book out there. Randy, been an absolute pleasure. I know this isn't going to be the last time we speak. I'm looking forward to checking in the weeks and months ahead to come and see how the book's turning out and how the project is turning out as well. So again, many thanks for your time. I know people listening to this will have got a lot out of both your story and your experience. So again, thank you and looking forward to speaking to you in the future.

Randy Davis: I am as well. Thank you, Stuart. Thanks to your team. You're all fantastic and I hope everyone listening, if they're sitting on the fence like I did, they get off the fence and they give you guys a call. So, so I look forward to meeting you in the future. I know we're going to touch base and that's excited and thanks for having me on the call today.

Stuart: Fantastic. That's great. Okay, thanks everyone. We will catch you in the next one.