Episode 1 - Let the Journey Begin with Andrew Lees and Clint McPherson

Show Transcript

Andrew Lees:
Hey guys, this is Andrew Lees and I'm here with Clint McPherson and we are That Entrepreneur Life.

Clint McPherson:
That's what's up.

From idea to launch and beyond. Andrew came up with that tagline and I'm digging it man. Yeah, for sure.

Andrew Lees:
It's simple but there's a lot to it even with that simplicity. So, we're trying to talk about what it's like to be an entrepreneur, daily life of that. But at some point, you're going to get bored with that. So what we really want, the most important thing is we want to talk to people who are interested in taking action. Maybe you've got a business idea, maybe you've already started a business, but what we want to do is talk to you about how you can efficiently start a business, grow a business and what are the things you can actually do. We don't want to just inspire, we want to inspire you to do things for sure, but we also want to give you the guidance and give you those tasks to do along the way. We're going to be interviewing some cool people hopefully in the near future.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
And, we've got a few people kind of lined up. And so some episodes it'll just be the two of us, and some of the episodes we'll bring in some awesome people who can teach us about their entrepreneurial journey and at the same time teach you.

Clint McPherson:
And add value, right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
That's what this is all about.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
So, just to piggyback on what Andrew just said, I mean adding value is what we're all about. We show that to our clients on a daily basis in our own endeavors that we currently are pursuing, and I think just the adding value portion is what he and I talked about a little bit offline just a few minutes ago. But adding value, man, is where it's all about, right? Then over time once you put yourself as that subject matter expert or you position yourself as that authority, the money comes, right?

Andrew Lees:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes.

Clint McPherson:
I really think once people start seeing that you're really about that life, right? That entrepreneurial life like we are, that's why I think that episode or the title of our podcast is just legit and it really hits home because it's going to fit into any possible angle we take on this podcast, right? From interviewing the people that we bring on, the successful entrepreneurs, or even some of the local entrepreneurs that are out there grinding, guys, it's not always easy, right?

Andrew Lees:
No.

Clint McPherson:
There is a struggle that comes along with it at the beginning. But once you learn and once you grind that out and you learn... And that's what we're going to do too, lessons learned right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
What we struggle with-

Andrew Lees:
What we face.

Clint McPherson:
What we failed at.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. There are always mistakes. I don't care what level you're at. If you're running a $1 billion company, you're making mistakes. And it's a matter of learning from those mistakes and figuring out how to be more efficient.

And that's the thing, as we progress in business we're getting more and more efficient. We're learning things. We're learning from our mistakes and working on improving those things and learning from other entrepreneurs too. Because there's a lot of information out there, some of it's good, some of it's really bad.

Clint McPherson:
Yes.

Andrew Lees:
It'll lead you down these rabbit holes that Clint and I have both gone down where you're lucky to only have wasted your time.

Clint McPherson:
Yes.

Andrew Lees:
Sometimes you're wasting time and money and still, you come out of it not really knowing, not being necessarily any better for it, but hopefully, at the very least you're always learning because there's always something to be learned from every success and every failure. And that's an underlying principle I think of being an entrepreneur, is you're going to fail. You're going to fail a lot.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
But it's a matter of pressing on and continuing.

Clint McPherson:
Right.

Andrew Lees:
Because if you throw in the towel, it's pretty easy to throw in the towel, but if you're committed to it, if you have a really strong purpose and why you want to be in business for yourself and you're committed to being successful and adding value, then you will be. You might have to pivot your business a few times. You might have to drop one business and start up a new one, and there's no shame in that, but if you're committed to being an entrepreneur, you stick with it.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah. And it's good to also know when to cut the cord, right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
When to actually pick up and move on instead of-

Andrew Lees:
Yeah, it's tough. Right

Clint McPherson:
Go dig in deeper and deeper down that hole because when you start something, obviously nobody wants to fail. But like you said, it's how do you fail and continue to move forward.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
You continue to look at yourself at the end of the day just because you fail at something right? It doesn't mean you've failed at that end goal. Right? It's just you fail at that moment in time.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
Get your ass back up and continue to move forward. And that's, as entrepreneurs, we're already crazy in the head, right? We're already stepping out of the comfort zone.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
We're already doing things that other people are scared to do.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
Right? We've already picked up our stuff and out of the corporate world, I came, or out of the military, the same thing, right?

It's one of those things is picking up your stuff, knowing how to move forward, knowing how to get an education along the way, knowing who to listen to.

Andrew Lees:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Clint McPherson:
And like you said, about all of this crap and clutter that gets in your way and you go down the rabbit hole, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
And then we find ourselves lucky to like again, no lucky that we're ... Maybe it's just time that you lost. But again that's time you can't get back.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
So it's really learning how to focus, and again, just because you failed, move forward. Right? And that's, that's what it's been about for me, for the last several years. It just continues to move forward no matter what. You're going to face adversity, how do you face that adversity?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
But step out of your comfort zone, which we'll have an episode all on that. The same thing with what you mentioned earlier, adding value, we're going to have an episode for that. We're also going to bring individuals on that we know, individuals we have networked with and we're going to be networking with hopefully at Podfest 2020 coming up shortly, and with Adam Bird at Heroes Media Group, Mike Penny at 5 Paragraph, and a whole bunch of these other entrepreneurs that are local to us and that we know that we can just get some key nuggets out of. I think that's going to be fun.

Andrew Lees:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Yeah because every journey is different? There's no set path to being an entrepreneur, to being a business owner. I guess more and more there is some formal education about it, and about how to be an entrepreneur, and how to start a business, or what's the roadmap to success. But there is no one roadmap, and I think the journey is not linear for sure. And so, you're going to take some sideways steps and some backward steps and but hopefully-

Clint McPherson:
Some somersaults.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But some somersaults that you may very well not be getting, it may not be getting that exciting in a typical work environment.

So, yeah we're going to take you through that journey, through our journeys and let's kick it off with our background and just give you some idea of where we came from and what led us to start businesses. So, Clint, I'll ask you first, what led you to this point?

Clint McPherson:
That's good. And we had this conversation a little bit earlier just getting our preparation, but the cool thing with this and how I became an entrepreneur, right? I was already not normal, to begin with, right? Going into the military doing my own thing, but I've always been on a sports team of some type, right? My love at the time was college. I went all the way and played through college in baseball. Growing and doing that and learning the discipline and stuff to be good at it, right? Always gave me that drive to be better.

Fast forward, join the military and saw in the military I was an officer. Right? So, skip the line there, went from enlisted to an officer, but when you look at it, it was a journey of seeing all of the toxic leadership that I encountered during the whole that process. Right? I'm not saying there was, I had some awesome leaders, don't get me wrong. I mean there are some great guys in the military, but always having that passion of saying, "I'm going to be better than that guy. No matter what happens." Right? "I'm not going to lead like him because I know he's not leading the right way."

And so, when that happened, and just backtrack a little bit on that. I was a marketing manager before locally, got the pink slip, right? I'm not afraid to say that, but it wasn't a pink slip that I caused. Right? That's because of the economy. 2008-ish timeframe.

Andrew Lees:
It was out of your control.

Clint McPherson:
Out of my control. Right? I was the new guy, the low guy on the totem pole and boom, next thing you know it's like me going to my locker and finding I have a pink slip. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
Crushing. Because I'm thinking like, "Oh I landed this gig, I'm going to kill it." Right? And again, no fault of my own, but getting that pink slip, knowing how easily you can lose something. Right?

And then the same way when I go into the military getting injured, and having that 20 year plan initially to see it out as a career, going through several surgeries, getting injured in Afghanistan, and having several surgeries from that and having a recovery each time. I didn't think that it was just conducive to my lifestyle anymore. Right? I love the military. I wouldn't trade that experience I had for anything in the world, outside maybe if you told me you were going to take my family away, maybe I would have traded it then. But outside of that man, the experience I had and the journey I had along the way, it was meant to be right?

So I went down that path, but it wasn't meant to be the 20-year mark that I thought initially. But seeing that toxic leadership transferred over into getting out and looking at it from like, "Okay, what am I going to do now?" I was a digital market... I was not a digital marketer, I was a traditional marketer when I had a marketing management job in Raleigh. And then I was like, "What am I going to now?"

Okay. I went down the athletic, sports administration, or sports management side of things hated that at NC State. Decided that was not the way I wanted to go. If I was going to grind, it was going to be grinding on my own terms, and again saw bad leadership in that area. And then looking out, it's like, "I cannot work for anybody else." Right? "I have to be the guy that makes that decision."

And so having that little bit of entrepreneurial spirit just at the time, it wasn't just a little, now that I'm in it I can say that basically you like translate it over to why I'm doing what I'm doing today because I'm not going to be that that garbage leader, whether I have individuals under me or not, I'm going to be successful because I am successful, not because I had to go against what my leader said because it was a dumb idea. Right?

So, that's my path and that's how I got here. How I chose the digital marketing space? At the time it was one of those things that are hot right now, and then my having the business administration degree on top of the marketing management degree, even though it was not a degree, but time. I served that position for almost a year. I had a background in marketing so it wasn't something that just came out of the blue, but it just seemed like a natural transition and it was a lot more natural. Right? Because we all have-

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Something we had experience with.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly. We all have a cell phone, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yep.

Clint McPherson:
I'm always on Facebook or doing something initially.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
So it was just natural for me.

Andrew Lees:
We're all being marketed to. If you can just take a step back and figure out how to reverse engineer that, that's it right there.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
And sometimes it's, I deal with some marketing myself, although I have an engineering background, which I can get into, really whenever I try and over complicate it, and I'm sure you've had that experience. You try to over complicate marketing, and try and think a little bit too hard about it, and really dial in the perfect formula, or the perfect this or that it, maybe it works, but also maybe it's just complete overkill because at the end of the day there are things that, like we're being marketed to all the time, all of us are, and we all know what works to get our attention, to really get our attention. And really think about the times that you've been entertained, you've been interested in watching something, listening to something, and then ultimately purchasing something. What are the times that you're taking out your wallet and you're happy to do it because you want something that maybe you've seen over the course of a year and you finally decided to buy it, but it was not rocket science of how that company, got their product in front of you?

Clint McPherson:
Right?

Andrew Lees:
They were just there providing value and they're providing some product or service that you found valuable and that you were okay with spending money on it. So, yeah, I think it's important to simplify and just reverse engineer what works for you. And that's a good start.

Clint McPherson:
Oh yeah, and you hit the nail on the head when you're talking about like a lot of us can really... We're trying for that perfect formula, right? And we all think we could get there, but as I learned, as I've gone on this journey, you got to put it out there, right? No matter if it's perfect or not, you just, whether it's creating content, whether it's just doing something, creating a post, we're always trying to find that perfect recipe, that perfect formula. We're always trying to dial in everything to a T. But again, not everything works the same for everybody. What works for one client or what works for one customer might not work for the other. The niches are different. People's trying to captivate the individual's attention might be different as far as their target audience. So dialing in that perfect formula, that never happens right? But we all find ourselves wasting time trying to dial it in.

Andrew Lees:
Exactly. Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
So with that said, man, tell us how you got started on your side, brother.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah, so I think I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit from when I was a kid. I really think I always knew that I wanted to start a business. I didn't know what kind of business, and I wanted to work with products. I did know that. So, I wasn't exactly sure what kind of product I wanted to develop. But that's where my entrepreneurial journey began. I was kind of like a kid inventor and I actually wrote a little book when I was, I don't know, probably like 11 or 12.

Clint McPherson:
That's dope.

Andrew Lees:
Maybe even younger, about inventing. I think it was called Inventing From A Kid's Perspective.

Clint McPherson:
A little Einstein over here.

Andrew Lees:
I don't know, if you read it it's not that super complicated, but hey, there's some pretty good... I think there are some pretty simple, maybe some pretty true principles in there. I know some of the things that I put in there, I read it, I actually read it recently and I'm like, "Yeah that was-"

Clint McPherson:
Some nuggets in there.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah, there's some good nuggets and did some cover art in Microsoft Paint on Windows '95.

Clint McPherson:
That's even better man.

Andrew Lees:
Exactly. Yeah. It's pretty sweet.

But, so I think right around then is when that journey started for me, I'd always be sketching out different ideas for products, and some of them were pretty wild from like super compact helicopters, too little things that could help clean the kitchen table after dinner.

Clint McPherson:
Nice.

Andrew Lees:
Because I was just tired of wiping the table off. As simple as that is that was one of my chores.

Andrew Lees:
And so, I coupled that with this interest in science, interest in physics, and math, and engineering from a kind of a young age. My grandfather was an engineer so that's where I was like, "All right I have this interest in tearing things apart and putting it back together and inventing things. How do I..." I knew from a young age that I'd probably go to college, that that might be a good idea.

So, I was trying to figure out what can I do in college? What kind of formal education can I get that would wrap that all up or give me at least a good foundation to be more of an inventor and more of a successful product developer and mentor.

So, I decided to get a degree in mechanical engineering. And so I went to Lehigh University up in Pennsylvania and I studied mechanical engineering.

Then I kind of thought, "Hey, maybe I'll work on aircraft." And always wanted to fly fighter jets, but I didn't want to necessarily go into the-

Clint McPherson:
Who doesn't?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. What young boy doesn't want to fly around super fast? But being in the military wasn't necessarily something that appealed to me. So, I thought, "All right, well maybe I can design aircraft. I can design jets and spacecraft and all that stuff." And that was cool and I still have some kind of an interest in and things like that in aerospace.

But I got out of college, I worked for a big company, which I didn't work for an aerospace company right out of college, but aerospace companies are typically pretty big companies and I worked for a company that made power plants. It was a huge company and I realized right away that that was just not for me. Working for somebody, I kind of always knew that I wanted to do my own thing. That was the end game. But I realized that as much as I loved aerospace, I probably wasn't going to be, unless I turn into Elon Musk, which would be great, maybe like Richard Branson or something, who are kind of both idols of mine, but I thought that it was more realistic than I have some kind of business focus and I didn't try and go through... I could've been in the aerospace industry for like 30, 40 years and not really had as much of an impact as I wanted to have in the world. I might be working on this small component of the spacecraft and like that just didn't appeal to me.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah. I like the angle you're taking because the whole time you're speaking man I'm finding all of this very interesting, right? Because guys, me and Andrew, we've known each other for a little while now, but we've never really had this deep of a discussion together. So, learning this side of it was pretty awesome, but all that was going through my mind while you're talking through this, "This dude's Elon Musk." Right? Just in a different form, right? Cooler, Elon Musk is a cool guy, right? Definitely one of my idols too, and somebody that I wish I can emulate some of the things and some of the successes he's had, but at the end of the day, he's a weird cat. I watched him on Joe Rogan.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
He's definitely a different man. So, his brain works a lot differently than a lot of people in this world. Probably like 99.9% of people it works differently than. Do you know what I'm saying? This guy's just, he's just different and that's not bad.

Andrew Lees:
For sure.

Clint McPherson:
Right? That's awesome. Because he is who he is. That's why Tesla is where it's at. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Exactly.

Clint McPherson:
So yeah, man, sorry to interrupt on that, but I just wanted to throw that in while I was thinking about it, man.

Andrew Lees:
No, you're right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you definitely have to have... I think to be an entrepreneur, you've got to be different. You got to think differently because, I mean, the path to being an entrepreneur is not this standard paved path that most people go down. If you want that you're going to go to college, you're going to get a degree in business, or accounting, or finance, or engineering.

I did that. But, you're going to get a job and do that job, and you're good at it, and you have this level of comfort, which we're going to talk about comfort zones.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
And the danger of staying in your comfort zone and really where the magic happens, where the success happens is stepping out of your comfort zone, but that'll probably be a whole other episode.

Clint McPherson:
Without a doubt. I mean, we're going to go down the rabbit hole on that for sure.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. So, it kind of came full circle after college and after I had that job experience where I realized that I wanted to start developing products.

So, I worked for a company up in Philadelphia where we were developing products and we were doing mechanical engineering consulting for companies mainly in that tri-State area up there.

But I still had the hunger, had the desire to start my own thing. So while I was there I started a business called Grass Racks, and that is I surf, I snowboard, and a skateboard so I've got a lot of boards, bikes, and equipment that I didn't really know where to put, so I thought...

It really started from I had a surfboard, snowboard and I wanted to put them up on my wall and display them in a cool way in my apartment. Not in a garage or not in a basement or anything. So more of a display thing than storage.

And that's where we're Grass Racks came about. I couldn't find anything that really met my needs in the market. Everything was kind of junky and meant to be put in the garage and more storage type things. So, I stumbled on bamboo as a really great material, started making some prototypes, and just started kind of grinding away at that over the years.

And I started that about seven, eight years ago.

Clint McPherson:
Nice.

Andrew Lees:
And man, the struggle along the way, in the beginning, it was very real. I had no idea what I was doing, and I'm still learning things.

Clint McPherson:
Every day.

Andrew Lees:
There's still a ton to learn.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
But I think that's where it really clicked for me. That's where my entrepreneurial journey started.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
And then after that, I started Stoke Ventures, which is my consulting company, my product development, engineering, consultant company. And so, with that business, I wanted to help other entrepreneurs start to develop their products and help get them to market.

So, that's how I got here and how I started building businesses and it's been an exciting journey, but definitely, as we talked about a little earlier ago, it's not linear.

Clint McPherson:
Right.

Andrew Lees:
You have no idea what is going to provide you with value, what's going to take you to that next level, or-

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
What's going to help your business.

Clint McPherson:
There's no streamlined approach, right? Like whenever you're in the traditional form of out there, you're employed, or you go to college for this specific job or whatever, you're groomed to do this. It's a more linear approach, right? Because you're going through a systematic approach to be an accountant, to be whatever you're going to be. Right? And there's not much of, "Okay, you can change along the way obviously, but you spent all these years doing whatever and now you're not going to do it." It kind of leaves you lost.

As an entrepreneur when you do this is like you were just saying, it's not linear man, because we can jump around and do so many different things and we can take just the market changes from time to time, the same way with McPherson Marketing Group, right? My digital marketing agency, where I'm able to just shift at any point in time in what I do, right?

Because-

Andrew Lees:
What kind of clients that you take on.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
What type of businesses that you're working with. Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly. I don't have to pigeonhole myself and just focus on accounting as an accountant, right? I'm able to branch out and do all forms of digital marketing and serve my clients in so many different facets and so many different ways. It just helps out. And also if I don't want to do this, I'm able to podcast like this or do something else. Invest or start another business, right?

Same way with you, right? Grass Racks, where you're entrepreneurial as far as your entrepreneurship journey actually started and whenever you embark on that journey, but it led you to where you are today with Stoke Ventures. You're still doing Grass Racks, you're successful, but again, as you said, failures along the way, lessons learned, and that's really why we're here, man. To talk about all that, to talk about our journey, but to also talk about lessons learned, what not to do, things that we know work.

But again, just because we might give you a checklist or say, "Hey, this works for us." It doesn't mean that works for you because it comes into your determination, your motivation, how you go about getting those steps. If you skip from one to 10, you didn't do it in order. Different things man, play into it. Different points in time, where you're at. And again, it's not easy. For the last three and a half years or whatever, for me and my business, I've been successful and been able to say, "Hey, I've beat the statistic of, me being a new business and failing."

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Most fail.

Clint McPherson:
I've already passed that, right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
So I've got past that year mark, or whatever it is, that year and a half, I forgot exactly what the statistic is, but most small businesses fail. I haven't failed yet in this, but that doesn't mean strategies that have been placed in my business haven't failed, but I've had to just wiggle out of it and step back and analyze the situation.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
And actually just take it in the direction it needed to go and not being oblivious that fact, because me having a Type A personality, if I want to do something a certain way, that's typically the way I want to do it, and so that can get-

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. I understand that.

Clint McPherson:
That can get in your own way sometimes, right? Because you're like, "I'm not going to fail no matter what." But it's not working. So you're failing. So how about plan B needs to be initiated, even if you have one right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Got to address, you've got to adapt.

Clint McPherson:
You have to adjust fire, the same way... I use the adjust fire because I was in the military, but you got to learn how to adjust course, right? And make sure, "Okay, this is definitely not the path that you've even though I've thought everything through, things change." I learned that on the battlefield. You come up with a plan, that plan when things happen, things go down not as expected, you have to change or you're not going to survive, one. But, it's just the angle that you need to take. You've got to be able to adjust.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. So can you see why people, why businesses, why a lot of businesses fail? I mean going through it, can you... What would be the number one thing that you think businesses do wrong and lead them to failure?

Clint McPherson:
Well, I mean, and I think we talked about this, one of the main things is not really having the full-blown strategy in place, which ties into the go-to-market strategy that you incorporate in your own business.

I think just thinking everything through before you act, because what I see a lot of small businesses do now because that's what my passion is and that's what I work with. I see a lot of them just, they get an idea, they have a budget, but not a budget enough to really say "This is a business budget." But enough budget to get a door open somewhere.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
But they don't think it all through, right? Whether they have to hire employees, whether they have a marketing budget to invest in marketing for the business they just opened. A lot of them just open their doors and they're like, "I'm here." Without any strategy or any buildup of saying, "Hey, this is coming soon." Type stuff.

Andrew Lees:
Right. There's no hype.

Clint McPherson:
So, I really think the lack of hype that they try to generate for the business and not having a strategy in place outside of saying, "I'm starting a business." It is really where the downfall comes.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. I agree with that. And I think not being able to pivot and not being able to adjust and continuously learn what's working and what's not working. See what frustrates people, talk to your customers, really find out what they want, and if you're always just striving, you're always working as hard as you can to give your customers what they're looking for, then I think it's a lot harder to fail.

Clint McPherson:
Without a doubt.

Andrew Lees:
That doesn't mean that, like with Grass Racks, we get people who will email us and say, "Hey can you make a rack that holds two golf clubs, a baseball bat, and a tennis racket?" And we're like, "You're the first person, maybe the only person who's ever going to ask us to make something that specific."

Clint McPherson:
It's like, "Sure we can make that."

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
"But unless it's in demand or if it's just people want that, we're just not doing it outside of you." Right?

Andrew Lees:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, that kind of stuff. So, there's a limit to how much you can provide for your customers. It has to be efficient. You can't be chasing all of these different custom projects all over the place.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
And that's one of the things we learned about over the last few years with that business is stick with something standard as much as you can, but keep improving on that.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
If there are ways, if the majority of people having a problem with some feature, you probably need to change that feature.

Clint McPherson:
Right.

Andrew Lees:
So, you just learn you're not going to be able to please everybody and you can't try to do that, but you do have to please enough people that you're providing a ton of value for a lot of people.

Clint McPherson:
Well, your product or service needs is to solve a solution or have a solution to somebody's problem, right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
You've got to think that through. Just because you wrote a book, just because you designed this product, is it a product that's going to satisfy? And just because you thought it was cool and that you are in demand for it doesn't mean the market's in demand for it. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
You can be an inventor, and I know from knowing people that invented things, their mind is always going. So, they're always trying to invent the next thing, but there are so many failures along the way, and not saying that it's not cool, right? But they thought it was going to be cool in the market, but the market is not in demand for that. Right?

And because it really didn't solve, it solves a problem for him, the inventor because it was like, "I'm having this problem, I'm going to make this. Maybe everybody has this problem." It's cool when you strike gold, but it's not always the case. Right?

And so, you're just really thinking that through, having a strategy in place, but making sure what product or service you are offering, whether it's local or on a global scale, that it solves a problem or that it's in demand. Right? Have surveys in place. If you have an idea, it's really great to like put things out there and get feedback for it before you go full force into this thing. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
Just make sure that it's the right decision.

I mean, again, we all make bad decisions. I haven't been, it hasn't been so rainbows and butterflies and all that stuff in my digital marketing journey, but you got to be able to continuously educate yourself and find time for that, but also know what's in demand and know where you can succeed.

I think just stepping back from everything, looking at it from the whole picture perspective, instead of saying, "Okay, well I have this cell phone, everybody's going to want this specific cell phone."

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
Apple has that. So if you come up with a cell phone, that cell phone better be damn good. Right? It better have something on Samsung or Apple. If you don't have anything on them, you better not even get in that game. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Your product or service has to differentiate itself. There has to be a reason why people are choosing your company over another. There's plenty of Me To kind of products and services out there, and that works to a point, but make it obvious. If you can make it obvious to somebody that they need to go with you, that they need to do business with you, or it's just kind of like a no brainer, then it's just going to make everything so much easier.

And that doesn't mean that... Like I've heard people say, "Oh my product or service it markets itself." Nothing markets itself. I mean, yes you can, it can help. If it is cool enough where you can bake in things like growth hacks that will help people want to share your product.

I mean, growth hacking is done a lot in software as a service, in-app development, and stuff. But basically there are features in there that the nature of the app, the nature of the product make it so that you have to share it, or you really, really want to share it.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
I mean Instagram just is an example of that. Dropbox did that. They give you free memory if you shared it with people.

Clint McPherson:
Yep.

Andrew Lees:
Easy, and their growth went through the roof. So, there are things you can do that even with physical products that make it very sharable. But at the end of the day, nobody's ever just going to put a product out there and it's just going to catch fire to where next thing you know the whole world knows about. It just doesn't happen. You have to be ready to talk to people about it, get the word out through a comprehensive marketing strategy and-

Clint McPherson:
Definitely.

Andrew Lees:
And grow it, otherwise, there'd be a lot of trillion-dollar companies out there, man.

Clint McPherson:
It's all about trying to generate that excitement behind it. Right? I think really if you could generate the excitement, or at least have that unique selling point, like you said, how to differentiate yourself from your competitors. That's huge. Having that unique selling point, a unique angle that maybe your competitors haven't thought about, and really approaching it that way. Set yourself apart from them so it can help you get that leg up.

I mean guys, entrepreneurship is fun. It's real. And we're about that life.

Andrew Lees:
Entrepreneur Life.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly. On a daily basis. Andrew and I talk from time to time and just update each other on what's going on, and it's just cool to see when you surround yourself with like-minded people that want to be successful, it's awesome. Right? You want to do that.

And another hack cut the clutter out and surround yourself around people that want you to succeed. Everybody says, "Yeah, do this or that." But I heard a lot of times along my... Once I decided to be an entrepreneur, "Don't do that. Go get a regular job. You're going to not be successful." Or whatever. "What?" Like, "No." That stuff had to be... I had to cut certain things and people out of my life that I might still love today, they're my family members and stuff, but look, people are telling you not to do something it's because they're scared to do it, or they're scared that you won't succeed.

But if you know in your heart, like me, I know whatever I do I'm going to be successful in, no matter... If I do it, I do it. Right? I don't just half-ass things.

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
I go for it, right? I knew when I told my wife, this is what I wanted to do, or this was what I was actually going to do. And she looked at me like, "What?" I was like, "Yeah, let's make this happen." And again, here I am three and a half years later and I'm still kicking, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yep. Yeah. And growing and doing better than ever.

Clint McPherson:
Right.

Andrew Lees:
So, yeah. And I think if you want to get better if you want to get to a certain point, figure out who's already there and talk to them. if you're trying to start a restaurant business and you talked to somebody who's been very successful building restaurants and starting restaurants and they've got some ideas for you, they're probably pretty good. Those are the people that you want to talk to, those people that you want to get that... If they have been there, done that-

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
And they're giving you some real positive feedback and the positive feedback can come in the form of negativity, by the way. It can be, "Oh man, don't do that." Or "You know what? I'd love for you to start a restaurant, but you may be successful at that, but I would not go about it that way." At least talk to the people who have some solid experience with that, and then that feedback is going to be really valuable.

But yeah, I mean sometimes when it's something scary when people are feeling fearful of something and they're just not sure, most people really don't know too much about starting a business.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
That's one of the reasons we're here is we're trying to help-

Clint McPherson:
Exactly.

Andrew Lees:
People understand that more.

Clint McPherson:
I think that would be cool to walk people through even more when we deep dive in our journey and like what we did because I'm pretty sure we took two different approaches to it. Not saying, I know we're in two different niches, but at the same time what did you... Again, this can be for another episode, but the steps you took to do it. Right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
Did you go through Inc File and get them to do all the work for you like I did to get your LLC or whatever business or corporation that you... I mean, because I was like, "Look, the path of least resistance for me is to have somebody else do this so I don't screw it up." Right?

Andrew Lees:
Right.

Clint McPherson:
Because I was like, all of these things I see along the process, I'm like, "Nope, I'm outsourcing this." Which is what I'm going to be ultimately doing right now in my business for a lot of things, but I'm outsourcing this task so I don't screw up and have to repay the money, missing a form, or don't put this in and now I have to repay because I got denied or something. So just things like that. Those will be good episodes too to help people listen to them.

Andrew Lees:
Absolutely. So yeah, we can do a whole episode on when to outsource, when to do it yourself, and, I mean, you can do most things yourself, but there are at least a few key things that you really want to have somebody else do.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah.

Andrew Lees:
And at the end of the day, being a success... There are a few different kinds of businesses, there's like a lifestyle business where you start and you really just want to have it support you, but you're not necessarily trying to grow it. You're not trying to scale it. You're not trying to build it into something in anything beyond just taking care of yourself. That's fine. If you want to a surf school in San Diego and you want to give surf lessons all day. You're good at surfing and you want to be on the beach, boom lifestyle business. That's amazing. I love surfing. I think a little too big for that, not to put anyone down that is doing that.

Clint McPherson:
That does that.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah, for sure, because they're providing some really good value and it sounds like an awesome job-

Clint McPherson:
But when you're like the next Elon Musk or somebody you can't do that, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
You can't surf all day, even though you might want to.

Andrew Lees:
Yeah, exactly.

So, you got to figure that out too, is what kind of business do you want? Do you want to just have some freedom? Do you just want to basically start a business that creates a good job for yourself? Or do you want to scale something that gets attention globally?

Clint McPherson:
Right.

Andrew Lees:
And it's not about the attention, it's about-

Clint McPherson:
Large scale.

Andrew Lees:
Right. Is there something that, do you have a business idea that you really want to scale? And for me, I mean, one thing that, interests me in building a big company ultimately is providing employment opportunities for people, and they don't have to necessarily be, kind of getting ahead of myself here, but they don't necessarily have to be full-time employees of my business, but they can benefit from it because they're doing work even on a consulting basis.

Even with Grass Racks, we have a manufacturing partner, we actually have a few of them, and they all benefit. We're basically creating employment opportunities for people through that, which is pretty cool, and something that besides the success of the business I'm excited about that.

Clint McPherson:
For sure.

Andrew Lees:
That's a cool byproduct of it.

So, anyway. Yeah, you can start a smaller business that supports you or you can want to build something that you can really scale.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah, definitely. And I think one of those things that you said earlier is like finding that person that you can talk to or surrounding yourself with somebody that's in the niche that you're going after, right? Finding that mentor. People that you could surround yourself and learn from. People that have been successful. I think that right there is another episode we can do, but just that was going through my mind the whole time you were saying that. I was like, "Yeah, the mentor thing, you have to have your mentors." I'm not saying you can't be mentored through a book, or a YouTube video, or something, but you have to find those people that whether it's in that specific niche that you are focused in, I wouldn't waste your time outside with other people not within your niche, but I mean obviously books.

We learned a ton of value through reading and educating ourselves and continue to educate yourself because you can learn a whole bunch of strategies and ways to automate and things from people that have done it. It might not be in your niche, but it's very helpful for you.

But I'm saying when you find that mentor and needs to be somebody that has been successful on what you're going after, right? Because as a digital marketer, it doesn't make sense for me to go after the biggest real estate agent in the world to be my mentor because I'm not slinging houses around, right? Or buildings, or skyscrapers, whatever it is. It's just, that's not me so I wouldn't surround myself with that. So just finding that right person or the right group of people.

And again, even though we don't work in the same niche, we're entrepreneurs that we can relate to the struggle because you said earlier, the struggle is real, and it definitely is real, but it's-

Andrew Lees:
Sleepless nights.

Clint McPherson:
Exactly. How do you move forward though, right? That's all. That's why we wanted to record this episode so you know that you can hear straight from our hearts and where we're trying to take this thing and really we have everybody that listens to this thing, we have your best interest at heart, right? We're going to continuously try to add value as we talked about earlier. We're going to challenge you from time to time to step outside of your comfort zone and just get that confidence in yourself because again, the confidence goes a long way, right? You might not know 100% what the hell you were doing when you start out, because none of us do that, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. Nobody knows. Yeah.

Clint McPherson:
If you want, you can have the entrepreneurial spirit, but until you start a business you do not know how to start a business outside of looking at a damn checklist or researching it on the internet.

Just because these are these steps doesn't mean your journey through what I experienced was the same, right? And it might be a lot more challenging to get certain things up depending on what business you set up. So, it's just we're going to continuously challenge you to move forward, try to motivate you in some ways just by listening to us talk about our struggles, our successes, and bring in people that can add value to you on a normal basis, right?

Andrew Lees:
Yeah. We hope you come with us on this journey and it's going to be fun. We're talking about a lot of cool business things, and try and bring in some really good real-world examples and hear from other entrepreneurs and what their stories are, what their challenges have been, and so it's going to be pretty exciting.

Clint McPherson:
Yeah, definitely. Guys, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to us and continue to tune in. We're going to be pushing stuff across. We're going to get this podcast up and running. Hosting probably is going to come through Hero's Media Group with Adam Bird and his crew. We'll be establishing a Facebook page, obviously a YouTube channel. Hopefully, you can hear us on all the podcasting platforms here soon as we get this thing moving forward.