Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 542 - Jay Jones - 3 Biggest Things Holding Most Businesses Back

[00:00:12] Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for Black entrepreneurs.

[00:00:19] I'm your host Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire Black entrepreneurs to launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses.

[00:00:32] Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide Black community by building and supporting Black owned businesses.

[00:00:41] If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint.

[00:00:50] Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ.

[00:00:56] Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, episode number 542.

[00:01:07] I'm your host Jay Jones and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you.

[00:01:14] Today's show topic is 3 Biggest Things Holding Most Businesses Back.

[00:01:19] The 3 Biggest Things Holding Most Businesses Back.

[00:01:24] Now, if your business is falling short of your expectations, if you're not making money, if you're about to go out of business, or if you're not even working at maximum efficiency, today's show is for you.

[00:01:39] Make sure you spread the word and share this episode with any of your network that are entrepreneurs because I'm going to guarantee you that you have at least one of these three issues that are holding your business.

[00:01:53] Now, before we get to today's show content, let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family.

[00:02:01] First and foremost, I want to welcome all first time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint.

[00:02:06] Welcome to the BEB family.

[00:02:09] Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast and I'm going to share all my social media contact information and resource links such as the link to the new revised website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:02:22] Guys, make sure you go to the website, hit the Learn tab and get all your free entrepreneur resources to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ.

[00:02:33] When you hit the Learn tab, it's a drop down and we have all types of content about scaling your business, marketing, mindset, how to grow your business.

[00:02:43] It's all about launch, build and grow.

[00:02:46] That's what our tagline is.

[00:02:48] And that's what the website is here to do.

[00:02:50] Make sure you get your free resources and content on the website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:02:58] All right, let's get ready for today's show content.

[00:03:02] Today, we're going to talk about the three biggest things holding most businesses back.

[00:03:06] And as I just said, I guarantee you at least one of these issues is in your business and you probably don't even realize it.

[00:03:15] In addition to giving you these three biggest things holding your business back, I'm going to give you ways how to solve those problems so your business can work at maximum efficiency.

[00:03:26] So we all start our businesses, guys, to give us the income and the lifestyle that we want to live.

[00:03:33] If you're in business, you're doing it because you want to change your income and your lifestyle.

[00:03:39] But what happens when we have problems achieving those goals?

[00:03:43] So on today's show, I'm going to discuss, dissect and solve for the three most common reasons that are holding most of your businesses back.

[00:03:52] And as I mentioned, I guarantee you're going to have at least one of these.

[00:03:55] And many of you may have two or even three of these problems.

[00:04:00] Now, let's talk about problem number one that may be holding you back.

[00:04:05] And that's doing something just for the money, doing something just for the money.

[00:04:11] Now, I'm not against getting that bag, right?

[00:04:13] And sometimes you do have to go after low hanging fruit, even though that may not be your business objective in the long run.

[00:04:20] But doing something just for the money.

[00:04:23] So stop chasing money and create a business that's more aligned with your purpose and your passions.

[00:04:30] OK, so I did an episode, Pinpoint and Monetize Your Genius.

[00:04:34] I have a workshop.

[00:04:35] If you go to the website, blackentrepreneurblueprint.com, it's one of our most popular and successful workshops titled Pinpoint and Monetize Your Genius.

[00:04:46] Your genius is the intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:04:51] The problem is most people do not know how to monetize it.

[00:04:55] And that's where the problem comes in, where you're doing something just for the money.

[00:05:00] The reason that you want to do something that's within your genius or you want to monetize your genius is because it's more aligned with what you are and who you are, your passion and your purposes.

[00:05:12] So it's like swimming with the current, not swimming against the current.

[00:05:18] Now, let me give you guys a couple of real life examples.

[00:05:21] The first example I'm going to give you is somebody who's doing exactly what I'm talking about, doing something just for the money.

[00:05:27] The next example I'm going to give you is somebody that has an amazing passion and a talent and a genius, and they're not taking advantage of it to build their own business.

[00:05:38] And then I'm going to give you guys the answers or how to solve this problem.

[00:05:43] OK, now, the first example is one of my good friends.

[00:05:47] We were on the phone yesterday and he's always been in love with with cars, automobiles.

[00:05:54] He buys Porsches.

[00:05:55] He's rehabbing a Porsche now.

[00:05:57] And that's really his thing.

[00:05:59] He's doing it for fun.

[00:06:00] But he called me up and said, hey, man, you know, things aren't going great at my job.

[00:06:05] I'm thinking about getting back into the mortgage business.

[00:06:08] Now, this is one of my business partners that came in after me and my other buddy started the mortgage business.

[00:06:15] He was the last one in and I'm telling him, I'm like, dude, if you don't want to do this, I said, it's really it's hard to get in.

[00:06:26] Number one, you have to get somebody to sponsor you.

[00:06:28] You have to pass the test.

[00:06:30] You have to spend money to get licensed.

[00:06:33] And I said, if this is something you're doing just for the money, then you have much better options.

[00:06:39] Yeah, you can make a lot of money in the mortgage business.

[00:06:43] You know, I've done this is my second mortgage business that I've owned.

[00:06:47] I've owned a multimillion dollar mortgage business that crashed after the 2008 crash.

[00:06:52] And I got out of the business for about 10 years and I got back into business.

[00:06:58] You know, I have my own new boutique mortgage company right now that's going very well.

[00:07:02] And, you know, we talk about our business opportunities and things of that nature.

[00:07:07] And he understands that I'm making, you know, very good money with this boutique mortgage company that I've created.

[00:07:13] And now he's like thinking about the money instead of thinking about what his passion is, what his purpose is, what his genius is.

[00:07:21] And now he's about to embark on something that he doesn't even want to do.

[00:07:26] Now, I did an episode about a year or two ago about climbing the wrong mountain.

[00:07:32] If you're going to struggle and bust your ass to be successful, why don't you climb the mountain where you want the treasure that's on the top of it?

[00:07:41] Does it make sense to try to build a business or try to chase that paper and then create a business that you don't even like?

[00:07:49] Or if you're smart, you're going to find your genius, which is the intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:07:55] And you're going to learn how to monetize that.

[00:07:58] So he's doing mistake number one, guys, doing something just for the money.

[00:08:03] And I guarantee you that when you do this, when you come into hard times, when they're roadblocks in front of you, you're not going to fight through them.

[00:08:13] If it's something that you really love to do.

[00:08:16] And that's the difference.

[00:08:17] The perseverance you have when you're doing something that you are aligned to do is going to be totally different than when you're doing something just for chasing the paper.

[00:08:28] Because every time you come into a roadblock that you think is too hard, what are you going to do?

[00:08:33] You're going to quit and you're going to go find another paper chase.

[00:08:37] That's going to get too hard.

[00:08:39] You're going to quit that and then you're going to keep on that hamster wheel.

[00:08:43] So I'm trying to explain to them, do something not for the money, but something that you have a passion about or that there's a purpose behind it.

[00:08:52] And you have to learn how to monetize that intersection.

[00:08:55] So that's example number one of somebody just chasing the money.

[00:08:59] Now here's example number two of somebody that knows what their passion and purpose and what their genius is and has the monetization sitting right in front of them, but it didn't quite click or doesn't quite click.

[00:09:13] And so when you talk about working in your genius or pinpointing and monetizing your genius,

[00:09:19] that means you're doing something that you normally will do and you're not going outside of yourself too far to do something just for the money.

[00:09:30] So I have a very good friend for years who's been an amazing cook.

[00:09:35] He cooks like gourmet dinners on the weekend.

[00:09:38] He cooks usually every night when he gets home from work.

[00:09:41] He loves it.

[00:09:42] He enjoys it.

[00:09:43] He's great at it.

[00:09:44] And I told him years ago, I said, bro, you do this, you know, with nobody watching.

[00:09:50] I said, all you need to start doing, man, is taking videos of you preparing your meals.

[00:09:57] You know, this is what I'm cooking tonight.

[00:09:59] These are the ingredients.

[00:10:01] This is how I put it together.

[00:10:02] And then after you're done, then you go ahead and show what the plate looks like, what the meal looks like.

[00:10:08] And you can talk about all types of, you know, your spices, your seasoning.

[00:10:13] And he's real.

[00:10:14] He's real particular about the seasonings and the spices and the mixes that he uses.

[00:10:19] And I said, dude, you can create a YouTube channel doing exactly what you normally do.

[00:10:26] Just start to film it.

[00:10:27] And you don't have to film every night that you're cooking, but put out one or two videos a week, you know,

[00:10:34] and then and you got kids that can do this for you, that can edit it for you.

[00:10:38] And then you start selling your spices, your seasonings, your recipes or whatever.

[00:10:43] But he's not going out of his way to do something just for the money.

[00:10:48] This is something that he does on a daily basis.

[00:10:51] And that's what I mean when I talk about swimming with the current versus against the current.

[00:10:57] You're not changing your whole process or things that you do on a daily basis.

[00:11:03] This is something that you normally do, something you like to do.

[00:11:07] And something you're good at.

[00:11:09] So when you break down, pinpoint, monetize your genius is really very simple.

[00:11:14] Do something that you love.

[00:11:16] Do something that you're good at and do something that people will pay you for.

[00:11:22] Okay.

[00:11:23] And your genius is the intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:11:27] So you see, you have two sides of the coin here.

[00:11:30] You have somebody that's doing something just for money.

[00:11:33] And then you have somebody that's doing something they love, but they just don't know how to monetize

[00:11:39] it or don't care to monetize it.

[00:11:41] Now let's talk about how do you do this?

[00:11:44] How do you create a situation where you're doing something that you love and you're getting

[00:11:51] paid for it?

[00:11:52] And that's pinpoint and monetize your genius.

[00:11:55] Make sure you go to the website, blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:11:59] And if you're interested, click on the pinpoint monetize your genius program.

[00:12:05] And I'm telling you, it's a life altering program because now you're doing something

[00:12:10] that you were aligned and designed to do.

[00:12:13] And you're learning how to make money.

[00:12:15] Remember, it's the intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:12:19] Now you could be passionate about something, but you might not have the talent in it.

[00:12:24] For example, I like to sing.

[00:12:27] I'm passionate about, you know, singing, right?

[00:12:29] But I can't sing.

[00:12:30] So nobody's going to pay me to be a recording artist.

[00:12:33] I can carry a little bit of tune, but you know, I'm pretty good in the shower and all

[00:12:38] that, but nobody is going to pay me for that.

[00:12:41] So it has to be something that it's the intersection of something that you're passionate in and a

[00:12:47] talent that you have.

[00:12:48] So for example, if you are a great baker and you make Christmas cookies every Christmas and

[00:12:56] people are raving about these cookies.

[00:12:59] All right.

[00:12:59] You're passionate about baking.

[00:13:01] You're talented, you know, by making these, these great cookies.

[00:13:05] And how can you monetize it?

[00:13:07] It's pretty simple.

[00:13:08] You start going to work or whatever you put cookies in the tin and you start selling them.

[00:13:13] Then you take it from there.

[00:13:15] You take it to online.

[00:13:16] And that's how you monetize your genius.

[00:13:20] The intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:13:23] If you want the A to Z actual application and implementation of learning how to monetize

[00:13:31] your genius.

[00:13:32] Once again, go to blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:13:35] Hit on the, on the top of the page.

[00:13:37] There'll be a program, of course, pinpoint and monetize your genius.

[00:13:42] And what we're talking about today, guys, is the three biggest things holding most businesses

[00:13:47] back.

[00:13:48] Number one, doing something just for the money.

[00:13:52] And like I said, I get it.

[00:13:54] If you're getting a, you know, a quick money grab, a low hanging fruit.

[00:13:57] But if you're looking for successful, sustainable businesses, you're going to do something that

[00:14:03] you're more aligned with.

[00:14:05] So that's number one.

[00:14:07] Number two, this is big guys.

[00:14:09] Not getting proof of concept of your business idea.

[00:14:14] Not getting proof of concept for your business idea.

[00:14:19] I've seen so many people guys.

[00:14:21] So many people have these great, well, they think they're great hair brained ideas and

[00:14:29] they're exhausting all their resources without getting proof of concept.

[00:14:33] I'm going to do this.

[00:14:34] I'm going to do that.

[00:14:35] I'm going to do this.

[00:14:35] And I, I'm going to give you some real life examples.

[00:14:38] And then I'm going to give you the solution, how to get proof of concept for your business

[00:14:44] ideas.

[00:14:45] So, um, you need to test guys, test, test, test, and test again.

[00:14:51] As an entrepreneur, you need to think of yourself as a mad scientist.

[00:14:55] You have to figure out what works and what doesn't work without spending or blowing all

[00:15:02] your resources.

[00:15:03] And I know we get super excited when we come out with a new business idea, a new product,

[00:15:08] a new service or whatever.

[00:15:09] We think everybody is going to want it or need it, right?

[00:15:13] But that's not the case.

[00:15:14] So you need to be able to test your proof of concept.

[00:15:19] Now, people will tell you to do focus groups.

[00:15:22] That's great.

[00:15:23] Do focus groups, do beta groups, ask your family and friends.

[00:15:27] But I'm going to tell you the true test.

[00:15:30] If you, if you have a concept, a product or service that makes sense is when people

[00:15:36] actually go in their pockets and spend money for that concept.

[00:15:41] All right.

[00:15:42] Or that, that business concept or that product or service.

[00:15:46] So if you have a physical product, you're selling and I've done this and I talked about

[00:15:51] this and I might as well say it again, cause I keep remembering everybody hasn't listened

[00:15:56] to every episode.

[00:15:57] I used to have a supplement.

[00:15:59] It was a new tropic that would help you, uh, be more attentive if you're studying or if

[00:16:05] you're trying to learn things.

[00:16:06] So what I did was before I went and had a thousand bottles sitting in my basement, I went to the

[00:16:14] man, one of them, a manufacturer.

[00:16:16] I looked at one of their products.

[00:16:18] I sampled the products.

[00:16:19] I gave the samples to about four or five of my friends.

[00:16:22] We tried the products for about two to three weeks to see if it, if it really worked.

[00:16:27] Cause you always want to make sure if you're selling something that it works.

[00:16:30] And we thought it made us super attentive and we were more being able to be more locked

[00:16:35] in on our work and focusing a lot better.

[00:16:38] So you've seen, uh, the product called like focus factor.

[00:16:42] It was something similar to that.

[00:16:44] It's a new tropic.

[00:16:45] Okay.

[00:16:45] So now I go to the manufacturer, I get the pricing and I said, what's the price?

[00:16:53] And they were like, uh, four or $5 a bottle for 30 pills, which was good for the month.

[00:16:58] And, uh, I said, okay, um, let me get, uh, five samples of that.

[00:17:04] And I said, this is the label that I want to put on, on, on the, on the product.

[00:17:08] How long will it take you when I get orders to put a label on and ship those products to

[00:17:14] me so I can ship to my customers?

[00:17:16] And they were like, oh, you know, we can do it within two to three days.

[00:17:19] You'll have it.

[00:17:20] I said, okay, great.

[00:17:21] So now what I do is I actually get a, uh, an image rendered.

[00:17:26] I don't even have that real physical bottle with the label on.

[00:17:30] I get an artist rendition of the bottle.

[00:17:33] I put it on a landing page and I drive traffic through Facebook to the landing page for the

[00:17:41] product.

[00:17:42] The product sells for 29 95, uh, per month for a subscription.

[00:17:47] And it costs me $4.

[00:17:49] So my thing is I drove traffic and I said, if I get 20 to 25 people that, uh, subscribe

[00:17:57] or buy this product in my subscription, they're going to pay 29 95 a month.

[00:18:02] Then guess what?

[00:18:04] I'm going to fulfill those orders and I'll call the manufacturer.

[00:18:09] Hey, send me a hundred bottles or whatever, because I've tested people have actually gone

[00:18:14] onto the landing page and purchased.

[00:18:17] Now I sold over 25 bottles within the first three days.

[00:18:22] So I said, okay, this is something that makes sense.

[00:18:26] People are buying it.

[00:18:26] Now the test part was if I didn't get 20 or 25 people in the, in the first couple of days,

[00:18:33] I was going to refund the money and it was just going to be an L on my part, but it really

[00:18:39] and truly wouldn't be an L.

[00:18:40] It would be a test and that test didn't work.

[00:18:43] So instead of buying a hundred bottles up front that I'm sitting, probably going to be sitting

[00:18:48] in my basement.

[00:18:49] Now I buy when people actually order and there's a proof of concept.

[00:18:55] And the expectation I sent was, uh, set was when you order the first bottle, it's going

[00:19:00] to take about seven days to get to you because we're, you know, we're, we're being heavily

[00:19:06] inundated with orders.

[00:19:07] So that's the way I played it.

[00:19:09] It's going to take about seven days.

[00:19:11] After that, you'll get your bottle, you know, on the first of the month or whatever your 30

[00:19:16] day anniversary is from here on out.

[00:19:18] But that's how you test guys without losing all your money.

[00:19:23] You don't buy a thousand razor blades like my other buddy did.

[00:19:27] You see a lot of times when your friends or relatives see that you have success with e-commerce,

[00:19:33] they're going to try to, you know, pick your brain, which is fine.

[00:19:37] And you want to help them out and they're going to try to mimic what you did without

[00:19:41] actually understanding the ins and outs.

[00:19:43] And so he wanted to partner with me, uh, with this new, uh, razor blade company, a razor

[00:19:49] company.

[00:19:50] It would be a black owned razor company.

[00:19:52] This is before, um, I forgot the name of the company, but it was before all of this,

[00:19:57] but they were disposable razors.

[00:19:59] And so we tested out a couple of different brands and we were like, okay, they're pretty

[00:20:04] good.

[00:20:05] And I told him, I said, before we go and make an order, I said, we have to go and test

[00:20:11] it to see if people are going to buy it.

[00:20:13] And he was like, nah, man, we got to go.

[00:20:15] You know, if we buy 5,000, we'll get them for, you know, 12 cent a piece or whatever they

[00:20:21] were.

[00:20:21] And I'm like, yeah, that's cool, bro.

[00:20:23] We will worry about the profitability after we get the proof of concept.

[00:20:27] I said, we need to order about 50 or a hundred at first, even though they're going to cost

[00:20:32] us two, three, $4, whatever it was.

[00:20:35] So we can see that this thing can work.

[00:20:39] He didn't want to listen.

[00:20:40] And I said, well, okay, you go ahead and do that on your own.

[00:20:44] I said, I'm not going to be a part of it because I know better when I know better.

[00:20:47] I do better.

[00:20:48] Right.

[00:20:49] And what happened was he's got, he ordered like 5,000 razor blades.

[00:20:53] The razors are nice, but guess what?

[00:20:56] He didn't know how to market them.

[00:20:57] He didn't know how to move them and they're still sitting in his basement or garage right

[00:21:02] now.

[00:21:02] And this is years ago.

[00:21:04] So once again, get proof of concept.

[00:21:07] Okay.

[00:21:08] That's what you want to do before you go all out and start, you know, buying in bulk or

[00:21:13] whatever.

[00:21:14] Now, if you're selling a service guys, that's even easier.

[00:21:17] So say you are a, uh, you're starting a, um, carpet cleaning business, right?

[00:21:23] So now you run traffic to a landing page and you have an offer, maybe a discount, you know,

[00:21:30] get two rooms, one room free or whatever.

[00:21:32] And now if somebody was like, okay, yeah, here's the prepayment, whatever you charge for the

[00:21:38] room, that's proof of concept.

[00:21:40] You can do that before you go out and buy all of your carpet cleaning equipment.

[00:21:44] Right?

[00:21:45] So that's something else that you want to learn.

[00:21:48] So you, you, you can have dummy ads out there to see if you have proof of concept and then

[00:21:54] you can actually refund the ads.

[00:21:57] I'll give you one last example on getting proof of concept.

[00:22:00] Now this was years ago before the internet was, was really out in, in, in popping.

[00:22:05] I had, uh, an idea to create a home improvement magazine that would be mailed to a fluent homes

[00:22:12] within specific geographic areas.

[00:22:15] So I knew that I couldn't do all the sales work because it was just too much.

[00:22:22] So what I did to see if I could get proof of concept to get sales representatives to sell

[00:22:28] the magazine, I started running a help wanted ads and it was for advertising sales executives

[00:22:35] commission, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:22:38] Selling, you know, to home improvement ads into a magazine.

[00:22:43] You know, this is your contractors, your HVAC people, lawn, garden, granite, marble, you know,

[00:22:50] all of that bathroom refinishes, all of that type of stuff.

[00:22:54] And so I actually ran an ad on Indeed.

[00:22:57] I think I ran it on and I also ran it in a paper back then actually was on Indeed.

[00:23:02] And, um, and I got people that responded and I actually interviewed them.

[00:23:08] And then I actually went through the hiring process and I went and I said, if you're interested

[00:23:15] after the interview, um, I'm going to be starting on X date or whatever.

[00:23:19] I need you to call me between, uh, two and three o'clock on Tuesday of next week.

[00:23:27] So what I'm doing is I'm letting people raise their hand.

[00:23:30] I'm not, I'm not chasing people.

[00:23:32] Right.

[00:23:32] So, and I learned that a long time ago.

[00:23:34] Say, Hey, if you're, if you're really interested, you look like you're a great fit.

[00:23:39] If you want to start, then call me, you know, Tuesday between two and 3 PM and we can get

[00:23:45] you started now, actually people actually called me and we're ready to start.

[00:23:52] So I hired, I think five or six people to actually start the magazine because what I

[00:23:58] needed first was the sales.

[00:24:00] I had a prototype of the magazine, but I needed to make sure that I could find people to sell

[00:24:05] it.

[00:24:05] Now, if I couldn't find anybody that was going to be able to be a salesperson, guess what?

[00:24:11] I was going to scrap the idea.

[00:24:12] So not getting proof of concept for your business idea.

[00:24:17] Guys, the way you do this is once again, those examples I just gave, you can run dummy ads.

[00:24:24] You can actually run a product ads, service ads to find out if somebody is going to spend

[00:24:31] for your product or service.

[00:24:32] And if they, if you don't get enough proof of concept, refund the money.

[00:24:38] Okay.

[00:24:38] But if you do, if it's like, okay, this makes sense, then you go ahead and fulfill whatever

[00:24:43] that product or service is.

[00:24:45] So what we're talking about guys is the three biggest things holding most businesses back.

[00:24:50] Number one, doing something just for money.

[00:24:53] Number two, not getting proof of concept for your business idea.

[00:24:58] Now, before I give number three guys, I just want to share my contact information and resource

[00:25:03] links real quick.

[00:25:04] I'm going to keep it super simple.

[00:25:06] Everything that I'm going to talk about is on the website, blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:25:11] I talked about the website.

[00:25:13] Make sure you guys go there for your free resources.

[00:25:15] If you're serious about pinpointing and monetizing your genius, go to the website, hit on pinpoint

[00:25:22] and monetize your genius.

[00:25:24] And I guarantee you and promise you, this is the best program hands down about how to monetize

[00:25:31] the intersection between your passion and your talent.

[00:25:34] Pinpoint and monetize your genius.

[00:25:36] Click on that and learn more about the program.

[00:25:39] Also, if you want to connect with me guys, anything long, hit me on my email, jjones at

[00:25:46] blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:25:48] Facebook, blackentrepreneurblueprint.

[00:25:50] Instagram, I got two IG accounts, jjonesforreal, J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S, the number four, R-E-A-L.

[00:25:59] Second one is blackentrepreneurblueprint.

[00:26:01] Twitter or X is jjones001, J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S-001.

[00:26:09] LinkedIn, make sure you connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:26:11] Go there, hit jjonesblackentrepreneurblueprint.

[00:26:15] Connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:26:16] LinkedIn, YouTube guys, make sure you go and subscribe to the YouTube channel.

[00:26:21] Go to YouTube, hit Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, hit that subscribe button.

[00:26:24] We have additional content on YouTube that we do not have on the show.

[00:26:30] And for all you first time listeners, the show drops every Monday morning, 5 a.m.

[00:26:36] Eastern Standard Time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube.

[00:26:40] So wherever you're listening to this or watching this, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you'll be alerted when the episodes drop.

[00:26:49] So this is episode 542, been rocking for over 10 years.

[00:26:53] Like I said, every Monday morning, 5 a.m.

[00:26:57] Eastern Time, you're going to get new heat with Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint.

[00:27:02] So that's the way to connect with me.

[00:27:05] Make sure you check out the website.

[00:27:07] And if you're serious about changing your life, go to Pinpoint and Monetize Your Genius, which is on the front page of the website.

[00:27:15] Now let's get back to number three.

[00:27:17] And we're talking about the three biggest things holding most businesses back.

[00:27:21] Number one, doing something just for money.

[00:27:24] Number two, not getting proof of concept for your business ideas.

[00:27:28] And number three, not having a specific target audience and not being able to market to them cost effectively.

[00:27:37] Not having a specific target audience and not being able to market to them cost effectively.

[00:27:43] And when I say cost effectively, guys, you don't want to spend more on your marketing than you're going to make on selling your product or service.

[00:27:51] Right.

[00:27:51] That doesn't work.

[00:27:52] That's hustling backwards.

[00:27:53] All right.

[00:27:54] So the first thing, though, you can identify a way to get in front of your target audience.

[00:27:59] And it's maybe because your market has no intersection of two or more audience characteristics.

[00:28:06] And I'm going to explain that or or there's no easy way to target your market in a cost effective manner.

[00:28:13] And we're going to talk about that, too.

[00:28:14] So when I talk about an intersection, right, characteristics of your target market that has an intersection.

[00:28:23] I was doing a coaching call.

[00:28:25] And this is a real life example.

[00:28:27] I was doing a coaching call with a couple of friends of mine that are getting to the e-commerce space.

[00:28:34] And they were telling me they were like, yeah, we're going to do sell this, this.

[00:28:37] And they had a hodgepodge of stuff.

[00:28:40] And I said, number one, why are you selling that?

[00:28:42] Who's your target market?

[00:28:43] And it was just things that weren't interconnected.

[00:28:46] And so I said, when you don't have a target market, that means you don't have an audience.

[00:28:52] Right.

[00:28:52] If you're selling everybody, that means you're selling to nobody.

[00:28:55] So I said, number one, you have to define or refine what you're selling and who your target audience is.

[00:29:03] So when you sell something that is not solving a problem, like T-shirts, hoodies, or things of that nature.

[00:29:11] I said, many times you need to be able to find a direct correlation with your market.

[00:29:17] So I gave an example of a hoodie that I used to sell every year until the trademark got jammed up and I wasn't able to sell it anymore.

[00:29:27] But it's a Philadelphia Eagles targeted hoodie.

[00:29:31] And it said 700 level alumni.

[00:29:35] Now the 700 level was at Veterans Stadium, the Eagles old stadium.

[00:29:39] And when I had season tickets, that was known all over the Philly area.

[00:29:43] Oh, you're in the 700 level.

[00:29:45] That was the rowdiest level up there.

[00:29:47] They were the cheap seats up top.

[00:29:49] And we got a reputation in Philly as Philly fans.

[00:29:52] And so people that are in the area that are Eagles fans, when you say 700 level, they know exactly what you're talking about.

[00:30:00] Somebody got the copyright, I'm sorry, the trademark to it.

[00:30:04] And I wasn't able to sell it the last couple of years.

[00:30:07] And what I was able to do was such an easy target.

[00:30:12] So now I can go into Facebook and look for Philadelphia Eagles fans.

[00:30:16] I can go into Philadelphia Eagles Facebook groups and I can market and advertise that hoodie.

[00:30:23] Right.

[00:30:24] Very simple targeting.

[00:30:25] I have a specific audience and I was able to get in front of them in a cost effective manner.

[00:30:32] Many of you don't have a very specific audience and you're not able to get into in front of them in a cost effective manner.

[00:30:40] Because you're not, you might not be honed in enough.

[00:30:44] And let me give you an example.

[00:30:45] So there is an example I was telling the young ladies that I'm coaching.

[00:30:51] And I said, look, if you're selling t-shirts, here's a great example.

[00:30:55] And I showed them a t-shirt that somebody created from North Carolina A&T University.

[00:31:02] And this is what it says.

[00:31:03] No woman is perfect.

[00:31:05] But if you've graduated from North Carolina A&T, you're pretty close.

[00:31:09] And I said, those are two specific characteristics that you can intersect to hyper target your market.

[00:31:17] So you have North Carolina A&T graduates that are women.

[00:31:21] So now you can find North Carolina A&T groups.

[00:31:25] Right.

[00:31:26] You can target that.

[00:31:27] You can target HBCUs or whatever.

[00:31:29] And you can target women.

[00:31:31] That's an intersection.

[00:31:33] So now you can hyper target.

[00:31:35] You can hyper target your message.

[00:31:37] And you can hyper target your market.

[00:31:39] And so that's when I talk about, you know, having a specific target audience and not being able to market to them cost effectively.

[00:31:47] When you have such a broad audience, it's going to cost you more to get in front of that audience versus if you have a hyper targeted market.

[00:31:56] OK, so if you're looking to target men over 40 years old, you can go into Facebook and these other platforms and you can target men over 40.

[00:32:07] Now, if you want to be super hyper targeted even more.

[00:32:12] So you have men, which is one characteristic age over 40.

[00:32:16] Just say you want men over 40 that want to gain muscle.

[00:32:21] That's even more hyper targeted.

[00:32:23] And the more hyper targeted you are, the more you can hyper target your message.

[00:32:28] If I'm talking to men, that's one thing.

[00:32:32] So if I say men that want to gain muscle, yeah, that's that's that's super large.

[00:32:37] Or if I say men over 40 that want to gain muscle, I can speak directly to that as you age.

[00:32:44] You're not your testosterone may not be at the same level.

[00:32:47] You're not be able to to exercise as long because of your age.

[00:32:52] These are some of the things that I could target in in my messaging.

[00:32:56] So the more hyper targeted you are and the ability, the more ability you have to speak that language, which is going to convert your audience into customers.

[00:33:06] OK, so you have to understand that.

[00:33:09] So you want to ask yourself these three questions, right?

[00:33:14] Number one, who is my ideal target audience?

[00:33:17] Number two, where do they hang out and how can I get in front of them?

[00:33:21] Am I able to get in front of them through Facebook groups?

[00:33:25] Quora.

[00:33:25] So if you know you're in a conversation on Quora or if you start a conversation on Quora, can you get ads that can focus on that specific target market?

[00:33:35] And the third question you want to ask yourself, is there an easy way to target them by two or more intersections?

[00:33:42] Like I just said, you know, men over 40, women college graduates of North Carolina A&T.

[00:33:49] This allows you to hyper target your market.

[00:33:52] So sometimes, guys, you have to work in reverse.

[00:33:55] So instead of saying this is the product I want to create, maybe you want to find markets that you can hyper target and then provide them with a product or service that makes sense.

[00:34:09] You're working the problem backwards.

[00:34:11] So if you know, wow, there's a way I can get in touch with Philadelphia Eagles fans.

[00:34:16] Maybe I can have a product or service for them.

[00:34:19] Guess what?

[00:34:20] You ahead of the game right now because they're easy ways to target them.

[00:34:24] But let me tell you guys the best way to be able to create your own audience.

[00:34:32] And that's building your database.

[00:34:33] One of the biggest issues I see, especially with product people, people that are selling products, is they're going to focus so much on the product.

[00:34:42] Yeah, I got to get the product right.

[00:34:43] Bah, bah, bah.

[00:34:44] Just like my buddy with the razor blades.

[00:34:46] But when the product comes out, you don't have anybody to sell it to.

[00:34:51] You're like, great.

[00:34:52] My product is here as, you know, a new prototype, bah, bah, bah.

[00:34:55] You start scratching your head and you're like, well, damn, who do I sell it to?

[00:34:59] So if you're smart, you'll do this before your product drops or, you know, concurrent to getting ready to drop while you're working on your product.

[00:35:09] So you want to build your database.

[00:35:11] You want to create a lead magnet or something to build it up coming soon.

[00:35:17] You know, so if you're selling a weight loss supplement or a muscle building supplement for men over 40, you're going to create a lead magnet.

[00:35:26] Hey, are you over 40?

[00:35:28] You know, losing energy, not in shape like you used to be.

[00:35:34] Sign up for this free, you know, whatever.

[00:35:36] Coming soon supplement that can possibly help you out.

[00:35:40] I'm just making this up on the fly.

[00:35:41] Whatever.

[00:35:42] But you're building your database up.

[00:35:44] So now once the product does come out in a month, six months, whatever it is, you have somebody or an audience that you can send the information to.

[00:35:54] It's just like when people preorder a book.

[00:35:57] Right.

[00:35:58] Book is coming out soon.

[00:35:59] So we're doing a prelaunch, you know, get on the waiting list, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:36:04] When the book drops, now you're selling thousands of copies versus 10 copies because you built up that database.

[00:36:12] That's something that needs to be done in advance and worst case scenario concurrently.

[00:36:19] But you want to have it in advance.

[00:36:21] I've used this example before.

[00:36:23] And I talked about another one of my buddies who wanted to start a wine podcast.

[00:36:28] He never did it.

[00:36:29] I know he's super busy at work with his other business.

[00:36:32] But I was telling him, I said, before I started a wine podcast, this is what I would tell you to do.

[00:36:38] I said, I would create a newsletter first for people that are learning about wine.

[00:36:43] And the podcast was his journey learning about wine.

[00:36:46] And he does this thing called a wine down every weekend.

[00:36:50] He talks about wine or, you know, he'll go and sample wine and he'll put it on Instagram and stuff like that.

[00:36:56] But not super consistent.

[00:36:58] And I said, if you want to start a podcast where you can monetize, you can go and, you know, people will fly you out to Napa to interview the, you know, the sommelier of, you know, one of these vineyards or whatever.

[00:37:12] And you can start monetizing because that's a very great audience to have.

[00:37:16] I said, I was starting a weekly newsletter.

[00:37:19] And instead of doing the podcast, maybe talk about a couple of specific wines.

[00:37:25] You would talk about how to learn how to pick out good wines.

[00:37:29] What are some great vineyards to visit or whatever?

[00:37:31] And you build up that audience.

[00:37:33] And if you're not comfortable doing a podcast right away, keep building up that audience.

[00:37:38] So now this newsletter would be gaining traction and say you're at the point six months in that you have 15,000 subscribers.

[00:37:47] So now guess what?

[00:37:49] Hey, I have the whatever it is wine podcast that you guys can listen and watch the podcast.

[00:37:56] So instead of being like me, when I started and I dropped my first episode 10 plus years ago, I think the first month or first couple of months is only 137 people that listened to my episodes.

[00:38:09] And they were like two or three episodes combined.

[00:38:12] And I'm like, damn, I was basically talking into a vacuum.

[00:38:17] But because of the consistency, I never missed a week in 10 plus years.

[00:38:22] And the, you know, I guess people enjoy what I'm talking about.

[00:38:26] I've been able to pick up and we do tens of thousands of downloads every episode.

[00:38:32] OK, and that's the beauty of it.

[00:38:35] Over 50, 60, 70,000, sometimes 100,000 per episode.

[00:38:40] So that's the beauty of consistency.

[00:38:42] But if I had to do it again, I would have built up a newsletter, free newsletter for black entrepreneurs.

[00:38:49] And I would have got that rocking with the same type of content.

[00:38:53] Then I would have came out and dropped the podcast where I'm not dropping the podcast to open air.

[00:38:59] I'm dropping it to a database of people who have an interest in what I'm talking about.

[00:39:04] And that's one of the biggest things, guys.

[00:39:07] When you come out, you have to identify your audience and then you have to be able to get in front of that audience.

[00:39:14] And once again, this is all about arbitrage.

[00:39:16] So when you run advertising, you got to make sure you make more than you spend.

[00:39:21] If you're spending $100 to sell a $70 product, one product, guess what?

[00:39:28] You ain't going to be able to keep that up too much longer, right?

[00:39:31] It's diminishing returns.

[00:39:34] You can't do that.

[00:39:35] So if you want to be successful, sustainable over the long haul, you need to build your database.

[00:39:43] You need to build your audience.

[00:39:45] And then when you offer products or services, just like this podcast, I talked about pinpoint monetize your genius.

[00:39:53] It doesn't cost me anything to talk about that.

[00:39:57] One of the best solutions I've created for entrepreneurs because I have an audience.

[00:40:02] I built it over 10 plus years, over 542 episodes.

[00:40:08] And so when you have an audience, it's easy to convert and make money.

[00:40:14] You give your audience what they want and what they need as opposed to creating a product or service and then try to figure out, well, damn, who am I going to sell this to?

[00:40:23] My buddy with the razor blades, he knew who his audience was, but guess what?

[00:40:28] He wasn't able to really attract them.

[00:40:31] All right.

[00:40:31] So you need to do something to build that up.

[00:40:34] And I was trying to explain that to him.

[00:40:36] Then build up your audience, your database before the product drops.

[00:40:41] Get them excited about it.

[00:40:42] Black owned, uh, you know, razor blade company and all of that good stuff.

[00:40:48] And coming soon, coming soon, get on the waiting list.

[00:40:52] And then when the product hits, bam, now you're able to sell super quickly.

[00:40:57] And that's the difference guys of being able to understand who your target audience is and how to effectively and efficiently market to them without losing your ass.

[00:41:08] Right?

[00:41:09] Cause I'm telling you, it's all about the arbitrage when you own your audience.

[00:41:14] And I talked about this with, with my coaching students is paid, earned and owned media.

[00:41:20] When you pay paid media is when you pay to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, X, or wherever native advertising that's paid.

[00:41:29] That's an arbitrage.

[00:41:31] You, you want to pay, but you hope you get back more than you spent.

[00:41:35] Right?

[00:41:35] Earned media is when somebody picks you up and runs a story on you for free.

[00:41:41] So say black enterprise likes what you're doing.

[00:41:44] They run a story on you.

[00:41:46] That's, that's priceless earned media, but you can't control earned media.

[00:41:50] You're hoping somebody is going to pick you up and run a story for you.

[00:41:54] That's free, but you don't control it.

[00:41:56] Owned media is something you control your newsletter, your podcast, your database.

[00:42:03] Remember guys, Amazon, all they do is they own customers.

[00:42:07] The products that they sell are not all theirs.

[00:42:11] Most of them, 95% of the products on Amazon, even though Amazon is having their own brands.

[00:42:17] Now is other people selling what you're paying for.

[00:42:20] When you sell on Amazon is their database.

[00:42:22] They'll tell you right now, these are our customers in order for you to get in front of them.

[00:42:28] We're going to charge you about 15, 20, even 30%, depending upon if you're a fulfillment by Amazon.

[00:42:36] When you sell something on Amazon, guess what?

[00:42:39] If you're a seller, you don't get that, that buyer's direct email address.

[00:42:44] It's encrypted.

[00:42:45] So you can't even build your own database from Amazon because they understand and recognize the biggest asset to your business is your database.

[00:42:56] So you can communicate with that customer that bought something through your back office in Amazon.

[00:43:03] It's encrypted.

[00:43:04] So you can, you know, back and forth, but you don't know what their email address is.

[00:43:10] So all Prime Day is, guys, is when Amazon decides to send out emails to all of their database.

[00:43:17] Hey, we got a great sale.

[00:43:19] Now, just imagine I'm going off track a little bit, but I want y'all to understand about target marketing and being able to connect with your audience and having a specific target audience.

[00:43:30] So when, if you want to create your own Prime Days, guess what?

[00:43:34] If you're a, you know, whatever you're selling, you can have a discount day.

[00:43:39] You got 25,000 people on your email list.

[00:43:43] Guess what?

[00:43:44] You're doing a blast.

[00:43:45] Hey, flash sale today and tomorrow, 30% off, blah, blah, blah.

[00:43:50] Guess what?

[00:43:50] You're going to be able to generate revenues at your beck and call.

[00:43:55] You can turn the faucet on at any time.

[00:43:58] So recognize and understand that.

[00:44:00] I don't want to go too much off on a tangent because, you know, that that's a whole nother, another podcast, totally separate podcast.

[00:44:08] So today we talked about, guys, the three biggest things holding most businesses back.

[00:44:13] Number one, doing something just for the money.

[00:44:17] Number two, not getting proof of concept for your business ideas.

[00:44:20] And number three, not having a specific target audience and not being able to market to them cost effectively.

[00:44:28] And the way that you solve that is you build your own audience.

[00:44:32] It's called owned media.

[00:44:34] And I'm not talking about on Facebook, Instagram, X or whatever, LinkedIn, because you can get shut down.

[00:44:42] There's so many businesses that built their business solely on a social media platform.

[00:44:48] And then they get kicked off and they ass out.

[00:44:51] So you don't own that media.

[00:44:53] You borrow that.

[00:44:54] You want to leverage social media to build and bring people on your database.

[00:44:59] And that's email.

[00:45:01] This email is not dead, family.

[00:45:02] I'm telling you right now, it's not dead.

[00:45:05] All of your major companies email and text marketing, but email more so.

[00:45:11] Right.

[00:45:11] So don't sleep on that.

[00:45:14] Make sure you build your database.

[00:45:16] Owned media is the key.

[00:45:19] Now, I say this each and every week, family, because it's true.

[00:45:22] We get more and more downloads because of you, the BEB family.

[00:45:26] I appreciate you guys so much.

[00:45:27] Please continue to spread the word about the podcast, the website.

[00:45:31] Go to blackentrepreneurblueprint.com right now, guys.

[00:45:35] Get your free resources to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ.

[00:45:40] Remember, it's not about me.

[00:45:42] It's not about you.

[00:45:43] It's about us.

[00:45:44] It's about building an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses.

[00:45:52] Love you guys.

[00:45:53] See you same time next week.

[00:45:55] Peace.

[00:45:55] Peace.