Announcer:

Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them than game changers. They are today. Now here's Tony DUrso.

Tony:

Welcome. I'm your host, Tony DUrso. I interview some of the most successful people in the world and I thank you for joining us. In just a moment, we have an elite entrepreneur join us who provides insights and guidance you can use to move along your vision path. This show is dedicated to helping you turn your vision into reality, and we are the number one show on www.voiceamerica.com. Also, check us out on Apple at www.tonydurso.com/apple, and please leave a five-star review. The show is free to you and a nice review helps support us and you get my eternal thanks. That's priceless. And just one moment before we go, start building your better portfolio today. Get started at www.fundrise.com/durso to have your first 90 days of advisory fees waived, and if you're in charge of hiring, boost your job post and get the best people - fast. For a limited time, get $75 credit at www.indeed.com/durso. And last but not least, get 20% off Grammarly® Premium when you sign up at www.grammarly.com/durso.. I use it and I love it. More details just ahead on these sponsors with a lot more info about them and some cool stories, so please stay tuned. Today's show is about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. Let's see what we can learn today. At the end of this interview, I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over. So stay tuned for that. Super entrepreneur and CEO of 123Employee, Daven Michaels made a career of living the American Dream. Starting his entrepreneurial career at age 15, he never looked back. He has been a bestselling music and television producer, author, speaker and successful entrepreneur. Here we go. Hi Daven. Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. It is so great to have you on with us once again.

Daven:

Yes, it's great to be back, Tony. Thanks so much for having me.

Tony:

Daven, you are such an elite entrepreneur. You've done so much, which we've covered in other shows, and while I really want to talk about right now starting a successful lifestyle business, find out what you have going. There's a lot I still want to know about it, but before we get into that, let's introduce you to our newer audience members first. We've grown a bit since we've had you on last time. So Daven, let's follow your journey to success. Tell us, how did it all start for you? What's your back story?

Daven:

Yeah, sure. Well, you know, mine is an entrepreneur's story, Tony, and if you're listening out there and you're an entrepreneur, you've probably got one of those stories too. You know, I used to think I was the only one until I started speaking and teaching and making a difference in other entrepreneurs' lives, and I started getting out there and shaking hands and meeting fellow entrepreneurs and realized that every entrepreneur has a story and they're all so fascinating. But for me, mine started when I was 15 years old. I was just a kid and I was an only child and I didn't have any brothers or sisters to shoot me down and tell me I couldn't do it. My parents, they didn't have a rule book and so they encouraged me to do everything. Every dumb, crazy idea that I had, they just said, well, go for it. Give it a shot and so I did. I started my first business at 15 years old and I was designing clothing for music groups, and this was in the early '80s and my bands didn't really have anything going on, and most of them were playing their garage, but an amazing thing happened. MTV came on the air and changed the face of music and changed my life, and I was working with these bands that had nothing going on and within about 90 days, most of my bands had record deals, and within about a year they were selling millions of albums. I rode that wave, and it was really incredible, especially at such a young age. We were working with these bands that had nothing going on and all of a sudden, they were playing small venues. It was like 600 and then 1000, and then a couple thousand, then 10,000 and then 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, stadiums, and this all happened probably over the course of about a year. I mean, it was just unbelievable, and I found myself working with some of the biggest bands of the '80s and '90s, and it was just a wild ride and traveling with them and it was incredible. So that was my first business. From there, I had a telemarketing venture. I eventually sold that; exited to a public company. That moment in time changed my life. Most of my businesses were in entertainment and communications. For many years, I was the biggest electronic music event producer in the US. That was pretty interesting. From there, I became a recording artist and that was pretty easy to do because I could throw my own concerts. I'd have 15, 20,000 people at my own concerts. From there I became a producer. Had a really good run, produced some very big bands, and I would still be in that business today, but Napster came out, and there were 50 million people downloading free music, and I kind of saw the writing on the wall. I bounced out of that, and I started producing television at the very early years of reality television, but I didn't really have any hits there, and that's just because I wasn't there very long. Then my outsourcing business took off and that's the business I'm in today. I own a company called 123Employee where the premier outsourcing centers in the Philippines. We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of employees on three continents, and we work with entrepreneurs all over the planet, and some of the biggest thought leaders all over the world and we do all the busy stuff - that's B.S. - in their business, and that's everything - internet marketing, social media, telemarketing, back office tasks, inbound/ outbound voice - all the busy stuff in their business so they can focus on the income generating activities in their business and the things that really juice them and excite them. Our mission at 123Employee is to rescue lifestyle-starved entrepreneurs, give them their time back and their lives back, and we love doing that. That really kind of came from sort of a place of my need that I eventually realized that all entrepreneurs really wanted, and so we began teaching entrepreneurs about that and then helping them make that a reality. I'll sort of give you an example, Tony. Entrepreneurs are the only people I know that will work 80 hours a week for themselves, so they don't have to work 40 hours a week for someone else, and when you really think about that, it's kind of preposterous. I've been self-employed...

Tony:

Daven, I'm going to interrupt you. I seldom interrupt, but I have to. I'm compelled. We call that fun.

Daven:

Yeah, totally, exactly, and so you said earlier when you first introduced me that I'm an elite entrepreneur. Well, an elite entrepreneur is just somebody that is old and I am. I've been around for a long time. I've been self-employed for nearly 40 years. I don't tell people that, cause it just makes me sound old, but what's interesting is that, you know, I had a pretty good run and right around the time I hit 20-plus years in business, I hit a point where it was like... it was a little more than 20 years where I didn't really have to keep going. I could have said, okay. I could coast. So at that point I said, you know what? I'm no longer going to have my business define who I am. I'm no longer going to have a life that my business dictates for me. I'm going to have a life that I design, and I sat down and decided to design my own life. I wanted to have a life that I ran on my own terms. I wanted to have a business that didn't define my life. So today, I have a brick and mortar business. I have hundreds and hundreds of employees. I have three centers and a fourth one that we're opening right now, but I run that brick and mortar business from a cell phone or laptop from some of the most exotic places on the planet. As a matter of fact, as we're speaking right now, I'm coming to you from the island of Puerto Rico, which is where I spend the vast majority of my time actually. We live in Puerto Rico, but I'm traveling all the time and I show entrepreneurs how to do this, and we actually don't just show them. We actually do it for them too. That’s a byproduct of what we do here at 123Employee. So it's a lot of fun, it's gratifying, but we don't just walk the walk. We talk the talk. As a matter of fact, we tell people that we're not really the gurus; we're the do-rus. So it's a lot of fun.

Tony:

Absolutely! Amazing, Daven. We’re going to talk a little bit later about 123 Employee, because there's some questions I have and I want my audience to know about it, but you've done so much as we've just mentioned. It's a whirlwind of success that you've gone into. I want to focus a little bit more on your vision. What started 123Employee? Why did you do it? What was this vision that you were trying to accomplish?

Daven:

You know, Tony, the reality is there was no vision in the creation of 123Employee. I would love to say that there was. There was a lot of vision in a lot of the things I did, but there was no vision of the creation of 123Employee. I think the vision came later; I'll explain. I have the privilege of speaking on stages all over the world. I love doing it, and again I meet entrepreneurs and I'm a really inquisitive person. I love people. It's definitely a trait I got from my dad. He loved people too, and they loved him right back, and so if I hang out with you, I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I always ask people a lot of questions, so I always ask entrepreneurs about their path and their story, and quite often I hear how entrepreneurs just kind of fall into an opportunity, and that's really what happened with 123 Employee. We call it 123 Employee because it all started with one employee. His name was Carl and Carl was our use case for 123. He was kind of the proof that it could actually work. So what happened was I was in the music business, and I had a friend, his name was Ian, and he was a prolific producer and he had a publishing deal in Asia, and he was really buried in it. It was a big project and he asked me to come in with him on it, and I did and that put me on that side of the world. So I was in South-East Asia several times a year, and as a matter of fact, in one of my books, Outsource Smart, which became a New York Times bestseller, if you read the inscription, I dedicated the book to Ian who gave me the keys to the kingdom because he really opened up that part of the world to me. I never would have known how to do business in Southeast Asia if it wasn't for Ian. I opened up a small shop of employees to do some work for me in a business that I had, and we had about 10 employees, and then I came up with this idea of, hey, maybe we could offer this as a service. It was so long ago, the infrastructure wasn't there, it was an incredibly bumpy road and we failed a few times. And then Carl came along, and with Carl, we were able to make it happen. We went from 10 employees to 30 employees, and again, just bumpy, bumpy, bumpy, and then eventually we hit it and then we really, really grew. And what's interesting is that Carl ... it's a beautiful story. So what happened was I paid Carl small performance bonuses based on his production. For me, it wasn't a ton of money, but for Carl, it was a small fortune. Carl was able to put himself through school. He was able to put his sister through school. He sent money home every month to his mom. Carl graduated; his sister graduated. It took Carl couple years to get his visa, and today Carl is a physical therapist in Chicago and we're still very good friends. And I have to tell you, I shudder to think what would have happened had I not really worked it through with Carl to make it happen because I kind of saved Carl's life. I really made him a superstar and changed his life, but he changed mine right back. And what really happened was today, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of businesses that thrive because of what happened with Carl, and thousands and thousands of people in the Philippines that have food on their table every single night because of Carl.

Tony:

That's quite a story, and I definitely want to get more into this. I just wanted to let the audience know we're talking about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels, and to find out a little bit more about that. It's a very long URL so we made it easy for you. You can find out more about Daven at www.tonydurso.com/3day. Now that's the number 3 and the letters DAY. So that's www.tonydurso.com/3day. This is the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We've heard for years that it's important to have a diversified portfolio - stocks, bonds, mutual funds, that kind of thing. But if you've ever looked at a breakdown of the most successful portfolios, you'll typically see a diversified set of real estate. So why isn't it one of the first asset classes you consider when you're looking to diversify? Simple! It hasn't been available to investors like you and me until now, thanks to Fundrise®. They make it easy for all investors to diversify by building you a portfolio of institutional-quality real estate investments. So whether you're just starting to invest in real estate or looking to add more, our friends at Fundrise® have you covered. Here's how - Fundrise® is an investing platform that makes investing in high quality, high potential real estate as easy as investing in your favorite stock or mutual fund. Whether you're looking to add stable cash flow via dividends or prefer long-term growth through appreciation, Fundrise® has you covered. To date, Fundrise® manages more than $1 billion in assets for over 130,000 investors, and since 2014, the Fundrise® platform has averaged 8.7 to 12.4% annual returns, and investors have earned more than $79 million in dividends alone. That's a billion dollars and over 130,000 investors in just six years. That IS amazing! Fundrise's team of real estate professionals carefully vets and actively manages all of their real estate projects. And with their easy to use website, you can track your portfolio's performance and watch as properties across the country are acquired, improved and operated via asset updates. And are you ready, guys? You can track your investment in real time. Yeah, real time! You can watch each asset evolve over time and accredited and non-accredited investors are welcome. Come one, come all! Check this out. Start building your better portfolio today. Get started at www.fundrise.com/durso to have your first 90 days of advisory fees waived. That's www.fundrise.com/durso to have your first 90 days of advisory fees waived. www.fundrise.com/durso. All right, guys, this is an incredible opportunity. Jump on this while it's available. Check it out, sign up and tell me how much you love it. Announcer: You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Daven has helped thousands of small business owners transform their businesses by showing them how to play ball with the big corporations and beat them at their own game. All right. And now back to the chat with Daven. Daven, let's get a little bit more into your vision path. You've created this monster, if I could say that or behemoth with 123 Employee. I would like to know what do you think - because you helped so many entrepreneurs - what do you believe is the most important aspect of business?

Daven:

Wow. The most important aspects of business? Actually, I don't even have to think about that one. It's lead generation. It's marketing. Again, I explained it a little earlier that I have the privilege of speaking all over the world, and that's really where I do all my market research is meeting entrepreneurs all over the globe, and very few people have that privilege. It really is a privilege being able to shake hands, meet entrepreneurs, get the feedback directly from them, and I'm always amazed at how many people start a business and never think about lead generation. They never think about marketing. They never think about generating traffic. It's an afterthought, and I can't believe that. I mean, anytime I think about any type of project or business or venture, the first thing I think about is the lead generation. How are we going to market this? How are we going to generate traffic? What are the resources going to be? How are we going to generate the traffic? Is going to be online, is it going to be offline? Is it going to be multi-channel? What's it going to cost? How are we going to scale it? What's it going to cost when we scale? Is it scalable? And of course, the list goes on and on. The key to any business is marketing and not only is it key, but what's great about marketing is that if you can get the marketing dialed in, if you have a ton of leads coming through the door, if your bank accounts are overflowing with money, then you can certainly buy yourself out of any challenge that you may face in your business. So it allows you to screw it up over and over again and buy yourself out of any challenge that you may have. So you can eventually figure it out, because in business, you're going to have screw ups Earlier, Tony you were saying how I've had all this success. Well, yeah. When you look back on it 20 years later and smooth it out, it's wonderful. You have all these successes, but inside the creases are all the failures.

Tony:

There's a lot of trial and error to it. Absolutely. I don't know anybody that has been successful from the first thing that they've ever tried in their life.

Daven:

Exactly right. Yeah. The key is to persevere. You have to be tenacious and then you get the privilege of looking back and seeing how great it turned out. Right. So the key is if you dial in the lead gen, then it allows you to be able to make mistakes and work through it. So marketing is the key to all business, in my opinion.

Tony:

It's absolutely correct. You know, my roots are in marketing. I've written a couple books on sales and marketing and fortuitously, I was able to market my own podcast, which has made it the very large show that it is now. And I'm just very, very grateful that I've learned that because you can have the best book, you could have the best anything, and if nobody knows about it, what happens? So you have to let people know. That's very, very cool on that. Daven, I want to get a little bit more into now starting the successful lifestyle business. We have a large entrepreneur audience. We have career minded people. We have corporate executives in the audience. Not everybody has something that is successful right now. We have some entrepreneurs. As we just mentioned, it's trial and error, trial and error sometimes. We have people maybe it's not working for them. They want something, and you've got something really amazing that you've put together based on all your experience. I'd love for you to tell us, and this is coming up in a couple of weeks. So, can you share some information about this with us now?

Daven:

Yeah, Tony, I'd love to. From time to time, we do some pretty cool and exciting give back projects. We love to do it. We do a lot of this in the Philippines, but we also do a lot of cool stuff like this in the US as well and right now we're doing something very cool in the states. So besides 123 Employee which is my primary business, I also have some software companies and my partner in a software company, Chad Nicely and I, we have decided that we want to empower 10,000 new entrepreneurs in new businesses here in the US, and we are doing it through our process that we have actually been doing with many entrepreneurs now for the last couple of years, and it's our three day masterclass. You alluded to it a little earlier when you actually shared that link - www.tonydurso.com/3day. So on September 28th my partner, Chad Nicely and I will be doing a three day live masterclass. Now, when I say three day, it actually takes place in the evening so they're not all day long, but I'll explain it to you. Chad and I have been friends for many years, and then we started a partnership quite a while back. Chad is amazing at creating software. We are both lead generation experts, and we both agree that the lifeblood of all business is lead generation, and that has been our success in business for both of us over the last many decades. And again, he's a speaker, I'm a speaker. We are always amazed at how many entrepreneurs come up with these great ideas and they die on the vine because they don't have a good lead generation source or a way of marketing their business. And so we just decided, look, you know, these are unprecedented times right now. Literally right now, it's like we're living in a sci-fi movie. You couldn't write this script if you tried. Well, I guess people have actually, but it's just unbelievable. I mean, if you told us that we would be living in this fantasy right now six months back, we wouldn't have believed you and we just want to help. And so we're going to do this three-day masterclass. If you've ever attended a webinar before or a training, you learn some great stuff and that's awesome. It's always great to learn. I feel like if I'm not learning, I'm dying, but I know that pretty much everything that I've ever learned in my life, I've learned from doing. You need to learn stuff in a classroom, what have you, but really everything that I've learned, I've learned from doing. Everything entrepreneurial I've learned from doing. And so Chad and I have created this masterclass method and we've been using it for years with our students. And now we're making available to the public for a very special event, September 28th and Tony because you're a sponsor, all of you that are listening to us right now are going to be able to attend for free. You can come to the three-day masterclass, September 28th. Chad and I will be live. There will be over 10,000 people on the masterclass and on the masterclass, we will literally walk you through generating leads online. We will walk you through attracting clients - literally - clients online you will attract. If it's your first-time attracting clients online, you will attract your first client online. If you already know how to generate traffic online, we will show you how to break the ice with clients online in a way that you've never done before. And by the end of the three days, you will have an online business. So if you currently do not have an online business, by the end of the three days, you will have an online business. It's a big, bold promise, but that's what will happen at the end of three days. It's pretty intense. It's experiential. We roll up our sleeves. We're going to give you time to do it. It's pretty awesome. And it can all start for you right now. So that link again is www.tonydurso.com/3day, and you'll find this is very different than anything you've ever registered for before. And I'll explain. So if you've registered for a webinar before, normally you kind of register and then you get some emails and then you show up when it's time to be on that webinar. You'll find that when you register for this, it will take you into our membership, and in the membership, we're going to put you through some very short lessons to prep you for this masterclass, because remember, it's a big, bold promise. We're going to show you how to generate leads and start a business. We only have three evenings to do it so we need to prep you and get you warmed up in advance. So do the work. It's not hard, but time is limited and we have a lot of work to do. This is pretty awesome. We normally charge people a lot of money to do this, but because Tony is sponsoring this, you can actually come for free. So once again, www.tonydurso.com/3day.

Tony:

Thank you on that, Daven and I would like to say to our entrepreneurial audience here, and to those with a career, if you have a business, if you think you're doing everything great, and if everything great is going, and you're making all the money that you need, and you don't even need anymore, which is great. There are people like that. Still, take a look at expanding your business and take a look at what are something else happens. We didn't expect this year at all. We were all blindsided by it. Things can happen. So I say, you have to grow, because if you don't grow, unfortunately you can shrink. This gives you a chance to build your home-based business and believe it or not, it's foolproof. You have two elite entrepreneurs who have put this together, and I will say it again - it is completely free. There's no charge to join this and learn all this and get this information and learn marketing and tech, and how to put it all together. As Daven says, it's a special way. I don't even know what it is, but I know enough of what these gentlemen have done that I am extremely impressed. And I said, Daven, we have to tell our audience. We have people out there not doing so well. They need this. So I am so glad that there's this opportunity and if you go to www.tonydurso.com/3day. It's on September 28. You'll get your free access, and do you know there's going to be 10,000 people attending this?

Daven:

Actually, I think there's going to be more. Also, when you register, you're going to get some free gifts worth quite a bit of money, but also this is going to be pretty neat. You won't even believe this, but I'll explain to you how we make it possible. So all of our graduates, everyone that goes through the three days will also get as a graduation present, you'll get a three day, four night vacation stay in the hotel of your choice. There's like, I don't know, thousands of hotels to choose from. Now you may be thinking, what? How do I get that? It's valued at I believe $800, but I'll explain how it's done. It's pretty interesting. We work with a company that gets remnant hotel space and the hotels - and these are like name brand hotels all over the world - and the hotels know when they have a lower occupancy, and so they give us the extra hotel rooms. They know that when you check into the hotel, they give the rooms away, but they know that you'll end up spending money at the restaurants and so on and so forth, so we give you those rooms for free. So you'll get that as a graduation present when you go through the 3 day.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We were all blindsided by 2020. Businesses like yours are adapting as fast as they can, including how you hire. If you're in charge of hiring during this traumatic change, Indeed® is here to help. www.Indeed.com/durso is the number one job site in the world, because Indeed® gets you the best people - fast. Unlike other sites, Indeed® gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring. You only pay for what you need. You can pause your account at any time, and there are no long-term contracts. Plus, Indeed® provides powerful tools to make your search that much easier, like sponsored jobs which are shown to be three and a half times more likely to result in a hire. With 73% of online job seekers visiting Indeed® each month, Indeed® is going to get you the important hire you need, just like they have for over 3 million businesses. That's a lot. And right now, Indeed® is offering our listeners a free $75 credit to boost your job post, which means more quality candidates will see it fast. Try Indeed® out with a free $75 credit at www.indeed.com/durso. This is their best offer available anywhere. Go right now to www.indeed.com/durso. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through September 30. Once again, that's www.indeed.com/durso. All right, guys, check it out, sign up and tell me how much you love it. Announcer: You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Daven operates several active newsletters with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and is a regular guest on televisions shows globally. He reaches over 1,000,000 fans every month. And now back to the chat with Daven. Daven, you know, we can, it's conceivable, this is a show for entrepreneurs and so forth, but there may be some people that do not have a business right now. They have a day job. They have a career. Perhaps you could tell us about it a way to hack what they're doing. In other words, add to their life and do something else and have this online business. Can you explain and tell us about why you believe it's important for someone to have a business right now?

Daven:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you've gone through the last several months, your job could be in jeopardy. You may have lost your job, but either way, you know, if you've had a job and you've gone through the last several months, you certainly know that no matter what you want to be in control of your destiny and the future. And the only way to be in control of your destiny is to have your own business, and you have a choice. You can have your own business, or maybe you like your job, but it might not be a bad idea to have a side hustle. Maybe you just don't want to have your own business, but you know what? It's important to be educated. It's important to know what's out there. It's important to expose yourself to different technologies and ways of thinking. So no matter what, what we're going to teach you on the masterclass will certainly expand your mind. So you definitely want to show up no matter what, and hey, pick up your vacation too, but it's great for everybody so you definitely want to show up on the masterclass. It's going to be awesome.

Tony:

Can you give us a rundown, a little bit of some of the key skills that we can expect to learn on this free three-day masterclass that starts on September 28th?

Daven:

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. So first of all, we'll be doing everything inside LinkedIn®. LinkedIn® is really social media for business people. As you know, I speak on stages all over the world and I always ask entrepreneurs these two questions. So I always ask entrepreneurs, how many of you are on LinkedIn®? And everybody raises their hand. And then I always ask entrepreneurs, how many of you feel like you're underutilizing LinkedIn®? And everybody raises their hand once again. So we're going to be doing this inside LinkedIn®, so the odds are pretty good if you're a business person, you have a LinkedIn® account. I know Tony, you have a LinkedIn® account. And so one of the exercises we'll be doing prior to the masterclass is we're going to do a little bit of a rewrite of your LinkedIn® profile, because most people write their LinkedIn® profile like a resume. If you're looking for a job, that's fine, but if you're looking to get more business, not so good. So we're going to go ahead and do a little work on your LinkedIn® profile. I won't do that prior to the masterclass but we're going to be generating leads for you inside LinkedIn®. That's going to be our focus.

Also, we develop software, so we're going to actually be using our software to generate leads. We're actually going to give you our software to use during the masterclass, which is pretty awesome. So you get a chance to use that as well. We're also going to take a look at your SSI score. A lot of people don't know what SSI scores are. Matter of fact, I'll quiz you a little bit, Tony. Tony, do you know what a SSI score is?

Tony:

No. I was going to say, what is that? Because I use LinkedIn® a little. I've used it for years. It's not quite something I think for podcasting, but no, I don't know what the SSI is.

Daven:

Yeah. First of all, let me tell you what the SSI is. SSI is kind of your report card on LinkedIn®. LinkedIn® gives you a score and that's your SSI, and it's basically how good a networker you are, how connected you are on LinkedIn®, how effective you are on LinkedIn®. How well people know you on LinkedIn®, et cetera? And it's a great score. It's very organic. It works really well. It's an exceptional indicator of how good you are on LinkedIn®. My guess Tony is that your SSI is probably pretty high. So we're going to take a look at your SSI. We're going to see where you're at, and then what happens actually on the masterclass is your SSI will go up on the masterclass. You'll actually see that you're making progress during the masterclass. So we do a lot of fun things during the masterclass. In addition to that you're going to end up joining our private Facebook group on the masterclass, so you'll end up making a lot of great connections and resources. I don't want to give away too much, but it's a lot of fun. It's interactive. You're actually going to be doing, not just learning and you'll be creating a lot of great things and making a lot happen. It's really a lot of fun.

Tony:

I love it. And I just want my audience to know I am going to be attending this because I can't wait to improve because you have to keep expanding. And I'm just truly like, "I don't want to wait until September 28th".

Daven:

I don't want to either, but I really appreciate you guys putting this together. It is really quite something.

Tony:

You're welcome. And one thing I want to talk about is some people again, don't have a business, but you make it easy. Let's say somebody starts a business. I'm not trying to sell anybody on anything to start a business or not, but when you start a business, Daven, you talk about people outsourcing to improve that business and I want to circle back now to the outsourcing and what you do. What would we outsource and why when we start our business or we want our business to grow?

Daven:

Yeah, absolutely. So I always start with lead gen, but let me back it up for a second. People always ask me Daven, where do I start? I want to outsource. Where do I start? And I find that a lot of time entrepreneurs are not always the best outsourcers. They're great at big vision, but not necessarily so great at process, and there's a lot of exercises that I do with entrepreneurs to really get them good at outsourcing. That's something that we do a lot with entrepreneurs all day long at 123Employee. But just as a kind of quick exercise to get you thinking in the right direction, I always tell entrepreneurs this. Well, first of all, back up for one second, and that is most people out there when they talk about outsourcing, they always tell you, get the busy stuff off your plate. That's what outsourcing is all about, to take all the things that are taking up your time and outsource it. I do agree with that, of course, but that's not exactly my methodology. Outsourcing is generally pretty inexpensive because you're outsourcing to another country, so it's less expensive, which is great. But at the end of the day, if you're outsourcing, it's still a liability on your balance sheet, right? It's still going to cost you some money. So I always recommend taking a slightly different approach. So Tony, as I'm sure you'd agree, there's about a thousand tasks you can do every day in your business, but probably only a small handful that create immediate bottom line results in your business, and those are what I call IGAs or income generating activities. So I always recommend to entrepreneurs to maybe grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle, and on the left hand side, maybe make a list of those IGAs. These are the income generating activities, the activities that create immediate bottom line results in your business. So make a list of those, the actual activities that move the needle in your business, and then maybe circle all those tasks that you feel could be outsourced or delegated to someone else. Now there's also going to be some things on that list that you don't circle. Those are either things that you just feel are so complex or specialized that they can't be outsourced. Now take a step back and say, well, what if I had 30 days to do a brain dump? Could I then outsource or delegate those and circle those? Now, there's also going to be some things that you just really enjoy doing. You don't want to outsource those and that's fine. You don't circle those. So I suggest to start there. I think that you want to outsource those IGAs because if you do that, you're now basically reversing that liability because now you are taking that virtual assistant and their income generating and so now, they're not really a liability anymore, and you can scale that. You can maybe hire two or three or four more people, and now they're generating revenue for you. Then as a secondary, you go to all the other tasks that you would now add to the right hand side, and now start outsourcing that stuff because at the end of the day, your time is money, so if you can now start getting all the busy stuff off of your plate, well, that's great too, because now you have more time for the big picture, more time to strategize and scale and that's great. But at the end of the day, I suggest starting with the things that make you money and then start outsourcing of the things that save you time.

Tony:

Anyone that's had any experience with outsourcing and hiring people through Freelancer, Fiverr and other companies, and I'm telling you from experience, one of the things you get is it's not that there's a lack of person understanding the language, but it's a lack of comprehension. Like they understand English, but there's the follow through. Let me just give you a case in point. I hired a person. The person was responding to some of my messages that I got, accepting people to be interviewed on my show that I haven't even checked and couldn't understand what I was saying, and this went on for months and I finally just politely ended off.

Daven:

So that is a really good question and a good case study too. So there's a lot of different things that we need to unwind out of that, so let's address it. So, first of all, when you outsource, there are two types of outsourcing you can do in this type of space, which is BPO - business process outsourcing. We can use freelancers, which is what you did, and we can use a managed facility, which is like what 123Employee is. The upside to freelancers is sometimes you pay a little less and you can find specialized help, and the upside to a managed facility is I believe much greater. You have accountability, you have supervision, you can use the credit card. You have redundancy. You don't have to worry about the power. You don't have to worry about the acts of God. You don't have to worry about the internet going out or the telephone or any of that stuff. We have people all the time that come to us. They were working with a freelancer. Maybe it was going well for a while, and then that person disappears or the house got flooded, or the internet was no longer stable or the power had issues, or so on and so forth, or there was no accountability. So I happen to be very partial to using a managed facility. I happen to own a managed facility, but after so many years, I just have to tell you, you really want to use a managed facility. Gets rid of a lot of those problems.

Tony:

This is the Tony Durso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. I'm sure everyone has the stories of a time that a typo or a grammar mistake made a big difference in something. This is usually a dinner table topic. Our language is full of homonyms, for example. That means a word that has the same spelling or pronunciation, but a completely different meaning such as here, hear, or hair. HERE, HEAR, HAIR - you get it. We're inundated with words that sound alike, with words that have different meanings, not to mention spelling mistakes. Now, whether you're communicating with your team online or working on a project, Grammarly® is the digital writing tool you can always rely on to get your message across clearly and effectively. And Grammarly® works across multiple platforms, including Gmail, Google docs, and Slack. There's more to writing well than catching spelling mistakes. Grammarly® can help you write confidently, no matter where you are. It's the digital writing assistant that helps more than 20 million people put their best words forward. Yeah. I said more than 20 million people, and are you ready? Signing up for a Grammarly® account is free. Yes, really! It's free. It gives you real time spelling and grammar checks as you write it works where you work so you can communicate with clarity and confidence on every platform. I love it. I use it all the time. Do you want deeper insights on your writing? Grammarly® Premium gives you advanced feedback on tone, word, choice, punctuation, and more. I use Grammarly® Premium every day. I don't even think about it. It's locked and loaded so that when I, for example, I write a social media post. I can just type like a blur and then go back and click on any correct word suggestion or punctuation that Grammarly® Premium gives me from time to time. It really is so cool. It's second nature to me to use Grammarly® Premium on an automatic basis. It's there when I need it. When I write something like a passage, an introduction, or even on my next book, I adjust the settings for my audience. Some of the settings are, is this a general post or do I need to sound like an expert? I usually choose to make the post sound knowledgeable by default. Then there's a setting for formality. Do you want to make the writing informal, neutral or formal? And then there is a domain setting. Do you want your writing to read academic, business, general, more casual or some other choices too? And there is a tone setting. There are several choices for that such as you can act confident, joyful, optimistic, respectful, and other choices. Finally, there's a setting for intent. Are you trying to inform, describe, tell a story or convince? These are great settings. I love how easy it is to use Grammarly® Premium. Again, I have it programmed on my browser as a plugin, and it's there whenever I type anything, including social media posts. It's also there whenever I want to upload any writing or type something new. It's that easy to use. And I know you'll love it too. By getting Grammarly® premium, you can harness the power of Grammarly® on every platform, whether desktop editor, browser plugin, and mobile apps. I know I said some of that already, and you can improve your writing on all of your favorite sites and apps - Outlook, Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn®, and more. Don't just say it, guys. Make a statement with clear, flawless text that's sure to impress. And here you go, just for you. Get 20% off Grammarly® Premium when you sign up at www.grammarly.com/durso. That's 20% off Grammarly® premium at www.grammarly.com/durso. GRAMMARLY.com/durso. Grammarly.com/durso. All right, guys, check it out, sign up and tell me how much you love it. Announcer: You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Daven has shared this stage with such notables as Bill Clinton, Mark Victor Hansen, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Dean Graziosi, and many others. And now back to the chat with Daven

Daven:

Also, over the years, I've learned that there are a lot of aspects to the approach when it comes to outsourcing, and there are a few. Number one: having the right person for the project. Number two: being a great boss and number three: having the right process. And if you have those or a marriage of those three, you will never have a problem outsourcing. And so in that situation, it could have been any one of those three issues, all of those three issues, two of the three, one of the three, you see what I'm saying here? So in that scenario, it could have been that he just didn't get it. It could have been that he was the wrong (or he or she) was the wrong person for the job. Could have been that you fell short as the boss. Could have been that you needed a system. Could have been that you should have put the system together. Could have been that you're not a systems guy and there should have been a systems guy. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Tony:

I totally see it, and I see right away that having a little structure there, because you have a supervisor, you have a boss. You can go to somebody. When you go to Freelancer or Fiverr, it's just the person, that's it. You either like them, or they don't understand or whatever, but in your scenario at your company, which is what I really love, the system, there's a hierarchy and it's still very inexpensive, but you can go to someone to explain and go over and correct or adjust. Plus, your company has helped so many entrepreneurs you already understand and have a lot of these processes already in place, as opposed to somebody brand new that sounds really good, but you've never tried before.

Daven:

Yeah, and let me go a little bit deeper here too, because I can really relate to this. I too have a podcast and you were right about the point where they're not you and they can't speak as you. But all day long, my team overseas is speaking to people all over the world as me through multi channels all day long., and we have people come in and out because we have people come and go. It happens. And the way it's done is through systems. So, Aaron on our team, he's a US citizen. He's one of my best friends. We've been friends for 20 years. He's been an employee of mine for about nine years. He knows me inside and out. He knows how I talk. He knows how I joke. He knows my sense of humor and therefore he writes all of the scripts. He writes all the scripts for our teams in the Philippines and he puts all the systems together. They're driven through a system called Monday, and so when people reach out to me through texts, through email, through Facebook, Twitter, they actually like Oh, Daven. I just read your article on XYZ. Oh, Hey, thanks so much. They crack a joke. Our team in the Philippines cracks one right back at them. It's all in my voice, but it's not me.

Tony:

I am very impressed that you have it to that science. That is absolutely amazing. Wow.

Daven:

Yeah, exactly. It is wow, and it took a long time to get there, but it's all systems and yeah, you're right. They can't answer as me. There's no way they could do it. But with that system in place, they're doing it all day long.

Tony:

Daven, where do we find 123Employee? What's the URL for that?

Daven:

www.123Employee.com

Tony:

There you go. www.123Employee.com. I highly recommend you check it out because I know that you've made authors and helped authors get on successful lists, and you've helped really propel them for any authors as well with the lead generation, which you've just done so much. You've cracked the code on it.

Daven:

Yeah. I mean, it took us over a decade, but it wasn't like an overnight thing, but yeah, people often ask me, how are you so successful? Well, I focus on one company, one thing for a long, long time and eventually you get it right. So yeah, exactly.

Tony:

Daven, what are you looking to accomplish in the next few years?

Daven:

You know, what's funny, Tony? My goal over the next few years, as crazy as it sounds and people ask me what's your goal for the next few years? My goal is to slow down. I want to slow down. I don't even know if I can do it. I really don't. It's funny, we have some new partnerships that we've created which are brand new. So that certainly no indication of slowing down, but I've told my girlfriend that I promised her I'm going to slow down a bit, try to take more time off. And it's funny because I love what I do. I'm traveling all the time and yeah, I am traveling and speaking, but I take more and more time off. Like anytime we're in another country speaking, we take time off. I'm very intentional with that. I feel like my life is like half vacation and half work, even though I work really hard and I play really hard, but I want to take more time off and I want to actually slow down. Believe it or not, I kind of want to semi-retire in a way. I know that sounds weird for an overachiever, but I've literally been working like crazy. I'm on a mission since I was 15 years old and I really don't know who I am when I'm not that person, and I'm kind of curious to know who I am when I'm not that person. I know that sounds weird and not what you would expect me to say, but my goal is to slow down a little bit.

Tony:

Do you know, Devin I've interviewed well over 500 A-list elite entrepreneurs and so forth, I've never heard that. And as you're saying that, I'm thinking that's where we all want to be. We want it to be so successful that as it grows, we can enjoy our life because it's so rarely spoken of, that we just want to enjoy our life. And I think that's absolutely amazing.

Daven:

Thanks. I appreciate that. I feel bad about it. I'm feeling guilty about it, but I just want to slow down a little bit, you know, and just enjoy my life.

Tony:

You know, part of being successful is personal habits and having a routine that you think is very important. Any particular routines personally that you believe contribute to your success?

Daven:

You know, the one thing I've never been able to substitute is I feel like you have to do the work. I mean, I believe in working smarter as opposed to harder, but I just have not been able to find a substitute for putting in the time. It's just time equals success. At least that's what I found. The four-hour workweek certainly doesn't work for me, but I've certainly figured out a way to leverage. I am the most leveraged person you will ever meet in your life, so I guess leverage is one of the keys for me for sure, so leverage, leverage, leverage. I do not spend time on minutia at all, and if we're hanging out, if you're spending time with me, I guarantee you I want to be with you because today I only work on what I'm wildly passionate about.

Tony:

What I'd like to see perhaps is maybe recap some of the key elements of the master class you're having a September 28, as well as perhaps tell us about some of the resources that we may get there as well.

Daven:

The three-day masterclass takes place September 28th, 29th and 30th. It happens at 5:00 PM. PST 8:00 PM EST. You can register at www.tonydurso.com/3day.. You can attend as our guests. You can bring a guest as well because Tony has so graciously sponsored. When you graduate, yes, you're going to get a free vacation. You can get all the details and see how we do it inside the membership. Plus, you're going to get all kinds of bonuses and rewards. We gamified the whole thing. We're giving away a ton of actual real prizes, cash and some camera kits and studio lighting, all kinds of cool stuff just because it's a give back. We're going to empower 10,000 people to start their new businesses. If you don't have a business, you can have one by the end of the three-day masterclass. If you've never generated leads online or clients online, you're going to do it. It's experiential. We don't leave anybody behind. You will see it happen in real time. If you currently are generating leads online, we're going to show you an unbelievable way to break the ice with your prospects, so that will dramatically increase your conversions. It's pretty awesome. You've never experienced anything like this before, unless you've been to one of our masterclasses before. But if you have, you have never been on one with 10,000. I mean, I'm excited to do this. We've never had 10,000 on a masterclass. We've never done anything this big before. So, we're excited to bring the heat as well. And Tony, it'll be fun to have you and your tribe there too, and we look forward to meeting all of you live on the masterclass. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Tony:

I can't wait. I am so looking forward to doing it because I already know the value, and that's why I've helped sponsor this to bring this to the audience. People need this in this time. They need it more than ever this year. We talked about starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels. It's a long URL; made it very easy for you. It's www.tonydurso.com/3day. That's the number 3, the letters DAY. You're going to see that all over my social media come the week before September 28th to remind you. I want to see you all there. This is going to help you all. Daven, thank you for putting this together and taking the time to bring this to us. It's such great information. I am thrilled.

Daven:

Yeah. I'm pumped, Tony and thanks so much for having me back and let's do it again soon.

Tony:

Hey, fellow entrepreneurs, thanks for hanging out with me while I featured an elite entrepreneur who took his vision to reality. I hope this was this inspiring for you as it was for me to do this interview. I learned so much about starting a successful lifestyle business. Some great ideas, and we're going to chat about that in a second. The insights are so valuable. How did you like to starting a successful lifestyle business with Daven Michaels? As an only child, he didn't have any siblings to tell him he couldn't do it. I'm jealous. Well, kind of, and he had supportive parents who told him to try it on every idea he had, no matter how dumb. Do you have supportive parents? Do you have siblings that are encouraging or supportive? This is very key I believe to a lot of our success. As a result, Daven started his own business when he was 15, designing clothing for music groups in the early '80s. And when MTV then came on the scene, Daven's groups started selling millions of albums and he rode that wave. And from there, it was traveling in concerts to tens of thousands of fans. Some wave, huh? You know, growing up something like that was every child's dream, and Daven lived it. Pretty amazing for his first business, but it was not all sweetness and light here. He had to work. He had his failures, he had to push through, but the thing is, he had the support. Very important for those of you that understand the mastermind group and how that works. It's an area of support to help you move through all the barriers and the little hurdles that you may run into in moving your idea to a business, and in growing your business to being sustaining and to going from sustaining to profitable, and so on and so forth. And that's why I want you to attend the three-day mastermind training that we're giving so that you get all that support to take whatever you have and move it to the next level. And it gets better for Daven. His second business, a telemarketing firm got sold and became a public company. And for years, he was the biggest electronic music event producer in the US. From there, he became a recording artist and played his own concerts to 15 to 20,000 people. I know it sounds all perfect and beautiful and wonderful, but the troubles he had, the hassles and what he had to go through. Those barriers, it's a whole other thing, which you have to push through and that's why we want you to attend this mastermind training, to really get that from someone who's made it so much. And it just went nonstop for Daven with big success after big success. And again, we're only looking at the highlights here because any failures along the way was training for the future business victories. When you run into a failure, it's training for the next victory. This string of successes, despite bumpy roads continued to his outsourcing business, which he does today, working with some of the biggest thought leaders all over the world. Successful self-employed for nearly 40 years, that's quite a statement, and now Daven has hit a major point where he decided to not let his business define who he is. He no longer wanted a life that his business dictates for him, and then he designed his own life of what he wanted to have. Where are you on this curve? Does your business tell you what to do? Does it control your life? I suggest you listen to this interview again and start working on your own life design of what you really want to do and have. For Devan, I see him as having a deep, underlying vision for success as he launched successful business one after another. That deep, underlying vision kicked in once he had 10 employees and then wondered about doing the same for other entrepreneurs, and 123 Employee was born. Everyone has opportunities come at them, guys. They are there. In fact, there are people making literal millions and billions during the current worldwide situation right now. Yes, really. So get on some fresh eyes and look around you and jump in on our free mastermind at www.tonydurso.com/3day. That's the number 3 and the letters DAY. www.tonydurso.com/3day, all designed to help you get to the next level and beyond. And of course, it's nice to have a three-day, four-night hotel, vacation stay all over the world. I like that too. There's so much more I got out of this interview. What did you get? I'd love to know how you use this information to help you in your business or career. All right, guys, now grab hold of your vision. Decide you're either going to start something great or take it to the next level. You have to decide first. It always starts with a decision and you can get my Vision Map to help you along the process. The eBook is at www.tonydurso.com. You can pick up the audio version and the training class too. Highly recommended! I created my empire in just a few years. That's all it took. I had the Vision Map as my guide. You can do it too. Let's help you move on your journey to success. And once again, check us out at www.tonydurso.com/apple. And if you like what you hear, how about a nice five-star review? I would love that. Thanks, and remember: just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds and join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso Show. Announcer: We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of the Tony DUrso Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern time, 2:00 PM. Pacific time on the Voice America Influencers channel.