In a candid discussion, Alex from Rosie delves into the harsh reality that a lack of success often stems from not being skilled enough yet, emphasizing that mastery and profitability come with experience. He illustrates this through a conversation with a struggling real estate agency owner, advising that to excel, one must deeply understand and replicate the successful strategies of others. Alex underscores the value of learning from both successes and failures, highlighting that there are no shortcuts to the extensive practice required to build a solid foundation for success. He encourages entrepreneurs to observe, replicate, and then iterate on proven methods, sharing his own and others' experiences of grinding through a "rocky cutscene" period before achieving mastery and explosive growth. Alex's passionate plea is for entrepreneurs to put in the time and effort to develop their skills and contribute value, rather than seeking quick hacks or shortcuts.
"The reason you're not making money is because you're not that good. And that's okay."
This quote emphasizes that lack of success in making money is often due to a lack of skill, which is normal for those new to a business.
"And so is it reasonable to believe that you're going to have a top 1% income only having been in a game where other people have been doing it for 20 years who are in the top 1%? Probably not, right?"
Alex from Rosie points out that it's unrealistic for someone new to the industry to immediately earn as much as the top 1% who have decades of experience.
"So the next piece is understanding the depth of the value and the skills that are required to be successful."
This quote underscores the importance of recognizing the depth of knowledge and skills necessary to achieve success in any business.
"So the easiest way to do that is look around and see if there are other people in the industry that are doing what you're doing and if they are succeeding."
Alex from Rosie suggests that one can determine the viability of their business by observing the success of others in the same industry.
"Eskimos... have seven different words for snow, all right? It's because of the different types of snow."
The analogy with Eskimos' understanding of snow is used to illustrate the depth of knowledge required to excel in a particular area.
"That's because of him and not you."
Alex from Rosie points out that the success of a particular client may be more due to the client's own actions rather than the quality of the service provided.
"It's the depth of the understanding. It's looking at the sky and saying, oh, it's white, it's snowing."
This quote highlights the difference between a superficial understanding of a concept and a deep, nuanced understanding that experts possess.
"There's only free offers and non free offers, I'd be like, no, there's 19 types of ways to monetize the word free."
Alex from Rosie uses the example of monetizing the concept of "free" to illustrate that an expert's understanding goes beyond the surface level to recognize many different approaches within a single concept.
"Fly out to the guy who's doing 250,000 a month off of your leads and soak up everything. How many times does he call? In what intervals? What's the first thing he says on the phone? What's the intonation? How does he follow up right after the phone call?"
This quote emphasizes the importance of learning from a successful individual by closely observing their methods and strategies in order to improve one's own performance.
"If you knew more about how to make real estate agents money, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Because you'd be making them money, right?"
The quote underscores the direct correlation between understanding how to provide value to clients and achieving financial success in business.
"The only way to have that level of certainty, because if someone says to him, these leads are crap, right, for example, he could look back at them and say, no, they're not. You're doing it wrong."
The speaker highlights that having firsthand experience allows you to confidently refute false claims about your product or service.
"I did 33 turnarounds for two years, right? Two years I spent in motel rooms. Everyone forgets about that stuff."
This quote illustrates the speaker's commitment to mastering their craft, which involved significant personal sacrifice and effort.
"If you can't learn from other people's failures, then it means that you are literally going to have to make every single mistake yourself, which is possibly the stupidest thing you can do."
The speaker advises that learning from others' mistakes is smarter and more efficient than making all the mistakes yourself.
"The only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the word so we can help more entrepreneurs make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have better experiences for their employees and customers."
This quote is a request from the speaker to the audience to share the podcast, emphasizing the importance of disseminating valuable information for the betterment of others.
"Who do you think has more perspective about snow? This is your first winter. I've been living in Alaska for the last 20 years."
This quote underlines the value of experience in forming a credible perspective. Alex is asserting that his two decades in Alaska afford him a deeper understanding of snow compared to someone in their first winter there.
"Every single successful entrepreneur has a rocky cutscene. They have a two year, four year, six year period of time where no one talks about it, and they did the same thing over and over and over again."
The quote captures the essence of the entrepreneurial journey, highlighting the long periods of unnoticed, repetitive work that lay the groundwork for eventual success.
"He started picking up the phone, and every day he do hundreds of dials, hundreds of dials to these lists that were just plowing through that no one was talking to."
This quote illustrates the entrepreneur's commitment to his craft and the repetitive nature of the work that led to his proficiency in sales.
"Sales consults in person. It's a lot. So it's like when we talk about sales stuff, the nuances are evident."
The quote reflects on Alex's extensive experience in sales consultations, suggesting that the sheer volume of his interactions has allowed him to grasp the subtleties of the field.
"But the foundation is the piece that no one can take from you, no one can take my experiences from it and the skills that were shaped from that."
This quote emphasizes the enduring value of the foundational skills and experiences that one accumulates over time, which form the bedrock of future success.
Once you can do it as well as them or better than them, then you've earned the right to iterate on someone else's system.
The quote emphasizes the importance of reaching a level of proficiency that matches or surpasses the original before attempting to make changes or improvements.
Now you're not going to work for free for me. I get two dms a day. Like, hey, man, I'll work for free if I can just spend time with you. No, you have no value to provide to me. Don't ask.
This quote underscores the speaker's perspective that simply offering to work for free isn't enough; one must bring value to the table.
When we did the gym turnarounds, I worked the front desk for 33 different gyms. It's a lot of gyms, right? And so I got a feeling for how the floor is laid out, how the lobbies need to be laid out, how you can maximize your sales, how you can have more guys selling in the same space.
The quote illustrates the value of hands-on experience across different environments to gain a comprehensive understanding of business operations.
There's the rocky cutscene period. And if you haven't had that period, you probably won't blow up. So just start putting the time in now to get your rocky cutscene done to have the skill that you can then apply to the new opportunity that arises.
The quote draws a parallel to the training montage in the Rocky films, emphasizing the necessity of a preparation phase to build skills for future success.
And the marketplace knows that they can delineate between who really has trench knowledge and who is pretending, and that's pretty much it.
This quote highlights the market's ability to recognize real expertise, which is gained through experience and genuine understanding.